Red Horizon: The Truth of Discovery (Discovery Series Book 2) Page 16

  How she had managed to intercept him from the store to his chauffeured car was part of what troubled Vlad. She seemed to know exactly where he would be and at what time. Only a handful of people would know that he decided to go into town at the last minute this morning. Fortunately for him, his driver shoed her away, politely but firmly.

  “What was that about?” he had asked.

  “Who knows? The babushka is crazy,” his driver had said, quickly opening and then shutting the door to Vlad’s car, tucking his boss in quickly and securely and whisking him away from the dregs of their local town in a fine ride.

  His BMW was a hypocrisy in today’s climate, but it was a holdover from the Russians only days before the second revolution. It seemed the bureaucracy worked slowly, and Vlad wondered how long he’d get to keep his car. He held on tightly as his driver drove faster than usual and was taking turns at a high rate of speed.

  What was it she kept saying? I deserve a vacation? No, wait. She had said your crew deserves a vacation. Or did she say both? It didn’t matter. The old lady was crazy, and Vlad tried to put it out of his mind just as quickly. He had work to do, and he sensed that the Americans, or the Chinese, would launch first, and soon. At least he’d arrive back on base in record time.

  He knew they would have to move fast to keep up. Not with his current trip, but with the mission to Mars.

  *****

  Irina had nearly fainted before gathering her wits about her when she had last spoken to Natasha, the old lady who had revealed herself as Irina’s handler. She had wanted to smack her for making such a flippant remark about her death. It turned out that the old lady meant that the plan was to fake Irina’s death while smuggling her out of the country. How they would do that was anyone’s idea. Irina didn’t think it was possible with dental records and today’s technology, not to mention the more robust attention to detail that the newly reformulated KGB performed nowadays in pursuit of their duties.

  Still, she was scared and didn’t want to pass on the information that Vladimir had given to her. He had to be joking, she had thought to herself, even wasting two days before deciding to pass it along for a bonus payment. Not that money meant as much anymore. She had yet to spend a single ruble, but she wanted out, and that had not changed even after half a decade.

  She had been more careful in slipping into Vlad’s computer, using the new devices that Natasha had given her to cover her tracks. She had information given to her beforehand to alert Natasha when Vlad went to town. That rarely happened, but she usually did as she was told, so this morning, when he suddenly decided to head there, she sent out a coded text message.

  At first, she only sent a text every third time that Vlad went off base. Then it was every other time. A week ago she was told to send one the next time he left. If anyone was monitoring her phone, not every trip he took would trigger a message.

  The messages weren’t very sophisticated either. She had three numbers and three contacts. One was her landlord, the second, her hair stylist, and the third was her mother, who lived in Irkutsk, far away. She rotated them at random and had last used her mother, so now she could use either one of the other two. She chose her landlord and picked a message she hadn’t used before. I think I left my front door unlocked. Could you check it for me, please?

  She sent the message, and ten minutes later, she got her reply. Door checked, was already locked. Have a good day at work. Svetlana. Svetlana was the actual name of her landlord, though she never texted her normally, only through this specific number.

  Irina was excited to learn that if her news was accurate, then all three of them, her, Vlad, and Natasha, would be extracted from this hell hole and she could start a new life with a new identity in Western Europe if she wanted to. Recently she was thinking with the last couple of harsh winters that the Caribbean was looking more and more inviting to her selective eye. She was looking forward to perhaps visiting, so when the phone rang, she answered it. “Allo?”

  She listened intently before finishing. “Yes, I understand. Thank you for the message.” She hung up the phone and started to shake. She would soon find out if her life would change for the better or the worse.

  *****

  The day had been a long one, and Vlad was about ready to call it when he received a page from security, which seemed odd in the late afternoon. Most of the staff had left for the day, and Vlad walked to a phone on the wall in the hallway where he was at, picking it up and dialing zero twice.

  “Vladmir Berdenko,” he said calmly.

  “Director Berdenko,” the man said. “We have a call from Moscow for you. It’s urgent.”

  “Can you patch it to me here?”

  “I’m showing you in corridor three. I’m instructed to ask you to take it in your office,” the man said.

  “All right,” Vlad said. “I’ll dial you from there.”

  “Thank you, sir,” the man said, hanging up.

  Damn, Vlad thought to himself. It would be a long walk back over to the front offices from where he was. He hoped it wasn’t too important. He had spent most of the day in the lower-level complex where his flight team and engineers had their offices. He wasn’t planning on returning to his office for the evening, but this changed all that.

  Vlad walked without stopping until he reached the lift, and then he took it up to his office, noticing that Irina had clocked out for the day. Her chair was vacant, and her purse was gone from its usual spot where it hung from a hook on the wall, along with her jacket during colder weather. He opened his door and moved around the desk to sit in his chair, picking up the phone and dialing double zero again.

  “Yeah, Vlad here again,” he said informally, fully expecting to hear the voice of the officer on the other end of the line.

  He heard shuffling sounds, followed by a new voice. “Director Berdenko?”

  “Yes, who is this?” Vlad asked.

  “This is Colonel Ivanov, KGB. I have a call for you from Director Crandon from the US. Will you take it?”

  Vlad thought for a moment and then realized who it was. “Ah, Richard Crandon, their new director of NASA.”

  It was a statement, not a question, but the colonel answered it anyway. “Yes, the NASA space director. Do you know why he is calling?”

  “Well, ah, no, not really,” Vlad said, almost stammering on the words, as he wasn’t expecting such a question. Quickly gaining control, he asked his own. “Don’t you know?”

  “We don’t,” the colonel said. “Do you require a translator?”

  “I don’t think so,” Vlad said. “My English is rusty, but I should be able to understand him.”

  “Pavel Poronezh will be assigned to you. I’m patching him through now. Standby,” the colonel said anyway.

  There was a click and then a pause and then another click. “Hello, Vladimir?”

  Before Vlad could answer in English, the voice of Pavel came over the line in Russian, translating the obvious. Vlad answered in Russian. “I’m here. Is this Richard Crandon?”

  “Yes.” The translation came through. “I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time. I know it’s getting late there.”

  “Well, by my calculations, it’s early where you’re at. So what do I owe the pleasure of this call to?” Vlad said.

  There was a slight pause as the translator spoke quickly in both languages. “I just wanted to take a moment after all these years to wish you and your crew the best of luck on your mission to Mars. We all know how hard both our countries have worked to make this a possibility, and so, as the newly appointed NASA director, I wanted to reach out to you and wish you the best in your effort.”

  “That is most thoughtful of you, Richard. It has been long since we last spoke, and we do appreciate your call considering the circumstances,” Vlad said.

  “Yes, too long,” Richard said. “I also want to thank you personally for the assist your crew of the Gordust gave to our crew of the Apollo. It was a very nice gesture on your part, and despit
e our respective governments’ differing political views, I am most thankful for the assistance.”

  Vlad thought that perhaps this wasn’t the Richard Crandon he knew. They both had to know that the call was being recorded and taped, and thanking him for the assist four years ago was a bit tardy in his own mind. Still, it was a nice touch, and Vlad didn’t want to ruin it. “Thank you. We were happy to assist. Let us hope it won’t come to that again.”

  What the man said next sent a chill up Vlad’s spine. “Great, I hope so too. In the meantime, I’m sure both you and your crew have worked hard and will soon deserve a vacation. I hope that you can find a good place to enjoy it. Good luck to you, Vladimir, and let’s stay in touch, shall we?”

  Vlad paused for a moment, the words of the crazy old lady coming back to him. He quickly shook it off and responded, “Thank you, Richard. Good luck to you and your crew, though with a ship such as the Red Horizon, I’m sure you won’t need luck.”

  “Good-bye, Vladimir.”

  “Do Cvidaniya,” Vlad said, listening as the connection cut off, and he hung the phone up, leaning back in his chair and taking a deep breath.

  “Damn,” he said out loud, not caring who heard.

  Chapter 17

  Trigger

  People’s Republic Space Command

  Beijing, China

  In the near future, Year 4, Day 62

  Hun had just arrived home, walking through his door, when his cell phone rang. He took the call as his wife watched from the other end of the hallway. “You’re sure?” he said into the phone. “I’ll be right there.”

  His wife smiled at him, and he nodded to her, picking up his keys that he had set down seconds earlier from the small table by the entryway. She smiled back, nodded, turning and walking back into the kitchen. Hun walked back to his car, jumped inside, and drove straight to their command center at quickly as he dared.

  He went through the usual security protocols, but they were quicker this time, as the guards were expecting him. He parked in his usual spot and tried not to run, walking quickly through the main doors, past the lobby and down a main corridor till he reached the command center floor, nodding at yet another guard who had an Uzi-like machine gun standing watch.

  He entered the large room and went straight to his console, where he punched a button to bring his screens alive. In the meantime, he looked up at the main screen and saw the projected flight path of the American ship. Chon walked over and greeted him. “You got back quickly.”

  “You never left?” Hun asked.

  “I had some last-minute calculations to triple check before I sent them up the line. Don’t want to make a mistake with the general’s staff watching so closely.”

  “You don’t want to make a mistake period,” Hun corrected him. “Where’s Lin?”

  “She’s on her way in. I got the same call. It’s the American ship. It made a small burn, giving it a slight altitude adjustment that sent off the launch alarm,” Chon said. “Oh, Chang will be here in five minutes as well.”

  “Good, the current staff should be up to the task as long as we have our senior team on duty,” Hun said, referring to the fact that the evening space command staff were of lesser experience and seniority, taking their eight-hour shift when the day shift went home. The overnight shift was even less experienced, so they would lean heavily on their senior command staff to make decisions and issue orders . . . when the military didn’t intervene.

  “We have no estimate yet, but if they go on today, it will be soon. Otherwise their orbit will bring them around and away from our estimated exit vector for them,” Chon said.

  Hun punched a few keys and brought up his data on the American flight path as of that time. He then overlaid the previous one. “Has the general been contacted?”

  “He’s been notified the same as us,” Chon said.

  Hun nodded and then walked over to Captain Fan Zhou, who was still at his desk. “Have you notified General Wang that the Americans are preparing to leave Earth orbit?”

  Fan Zhou looked up from his console and nodded. “He has been sent a page and responded in the affirmative. How do you know they will leave?”

  “Their flight profile is imminent for departure,” Hun explained.

  “We are all imminent for departure,” the captain said.

  “I mean as in they will be firing their rockets within the next fifteen minutes,” Hun said.

  Zhou looked at the man and flicked his screen off. He didn’t want him to see what he was observing. “How can you be so sure?” It was almost an accusation as much as it was a question.

  “Because I have an advanced degree in orbital mechanics,” Hun said, trying hard not to say anything too provocative, but not wanting to waste time. “Get him on the phone; we need his authorization to begin our mission.”

  “He will grant it when he gets here,” the colonel said, holding his ground.

  Hun could hardly believe he was losing his patience, something he was admired for having by his team members and those in the military. “Look, Colonel Zhou, unless you want to be the primary reason why we arrive at Mars dead last, then I suggest you at least get the general on the phone. Our ships are all in low Earth orbit, and we need to prepare a boost first before we make our burn out of this gravity well. Do you understand?”

  Zhou wouldn’t understand orbital mechanics, but he did understand dead last. He paused for a moment, but then Lin came into the room, and a flight technician practically yelled across the room, full of excitement. “Change in vector on Horizon. Glory Three confirms primary rocket burn from infrared.”

  Glory Three referred to one of several spy satellites that were keeping track of the Russians and the Americans. Lin ignored her boss and ran to the console where the flight technician had made the call. Lin looked over her shoulder and then up at a side screen and punched the tech’s keyboard without asking for permission. Looking over at the group, as Chon had joined his boss by the military officer, she said, “Confirmed. The Americans are leaving.”

  Hun looked at the colonel, whose face went slightly pale, and without a word, he picked up his phone and punched in four numbers. Hun ran back to his console and brought up the radar screen as well as the infrared data from the spy satellite. There was no mistaking the heat signature from the massive array of rocket motors firing the huge ship out and away from its high geosynchronous Earth orbit.

  The room came alive as Hun gave the order to have all mission critical staff go to immediate readiness alert. The actual order to execute their own burns had to come directly from the general. In the meantime, Hun ordered all staff to their stations. Some of the systems weren’t manned twenty-four-seven, and those staff were on one-hour standby. Soon the room would triple its current working population.

  “What did I miss?” Chang asked, walking over to Hun’s console as he arrived, looking a bit out of breath.

  “The Horizon is leaving,” Hun said.

  “What, without us?” Chang joked, giving a wink to Lin as he moved to his console.

  Everyone moved to their consoles and radio. Phone and face-to-face communications gave the room a low humming sound of activity that Hun approved of. Much better than the crypt-like silence of simply waiting.

  “Can we confirm burn cut-off?” Hun asked.

  “We can,” Lin said, yelling back across the room and ignoring their radio headsets. Indeed, Hun had not even put his on in the excitement. “They are still on burn.”

  Hun frowned. “What’s the time on burn?”

  “I’m showing five minutes, thirty-three seconds,” Lin said.

  “Confirmed,” Chon said.

  “Fine, thank you, Lin,” Hun said, trying to sit in his chair and finding the task difficult. He finally sat on its edge and watched the radar track, as it was giving the best real-time information.

  “Director Lee,” Colonel Zhou called out from behind him. “General Wang on line one.”

  Of course it was line one.
That was reserved for emergencies, and the general always used that line. Hun picked the phone up. “Hun Lee here.”

  “What’s going on?” Wang didn’t bother to identify himself. “I’m being told the Americans have left orbit.”

  “Yes, sir, they fired their rockets about six minutes ago,” Hun said.

  “Good,” the general said. “We were scheduled to go around the same time.”

  “Fairly close,” Hun said.

  “So then they have to arrive around the same time as we do,” he said, a tinge of triumph in his voice.

  “Not necessarily,” Hun corrected the man.

  “You told me that a ship can leave later and arrive earlier; is that not true?” Wang asked.

  “Yes, it can, but I also told you a ship can leave earlier and arrive earlier,” Hun said, thinking it wasn’t such a great idea to have called the general, though they would need his approval to boost. Hun tried to shift gears. “Sir, will you authorize our immediate departure?”

  “Yes,” the general said, and Hun sighed audibly. “I sent the authorization code to Colonel Zhou. He’ll enter it in the main computer, and you can execute immediately.”

  “Good, I’ll see to it. Do you want us to inform you when we have initiated launch?” Hun asked.

  “No,” the general said. “I’ll be there in less than ten minutes. See you then.”

  The line went dead, and Hun hung up, looking back to see Zhou nodding as he entered the code. Hun saw the launch procedures on one of his secondary screens go from a locked red state to full green. They could launch now when ready.

  “Lin,” Hun said from across the room, “have the crews prepare for pre-orbital burn before we give a go. Let’s use our preplanned scenario three for the move. Just be sure to update for their exit angle.”