“People have lives,” he replies.
“Of course they do, Benton. But for some of the scientists and doctors, the minute they walk out for the day, their time is their own, and it never used to be that way.”
“‘Used to be’s don’t count anymore,’ to quote Neil Diamond,” my secret agent husband sings badly, trying to make me lighten up.
“Well, you can thank Elvin Reddy for the attitudes I’m confronted with daily. But it doesn’t do any good to complain,” I reply, wishing the inside of Benton’s impeccable SUV didn’t smell like fried chicken.
The empty Styrofoam containers are in white plastic bags with big blue presidential seals, and I’m not keeping our takeout trash as a souvenir. It’s on the floor by my feet because we had no convenient place to toss it on the White House grounds. Public trash receptacles are scarce for security reasons, and I thought it rude to ask Tron to dispose of our takeout detritus.
Especially after she was kind enough to let us stay in our privileged parking spot long enough to wolf down a late lunch, and by then we were ravenous. The Mess Hall’s fried fare included biscuits and creamy coleslaw that hit the spot. I’m well fed and hydrated but feel traces of a headache again after our marathon session in the Situation Room.
Then it was alone time inside the Oval Office, the president and vice president asking all sorts of questions about the poisoned wine from Interpol. Tampering like that could happen anywhere including the White House, royal palaces, law enforcement headquarters, and government residences around the world.
Guests are always arriving with gifts that one is unwise to accept, it would seem. But we have to get food and drink from somewhere. We can’t say no to absolutely everything. There’s just too darn much to worry about these days, the president said as we sat on formal furniture inside the oval-shaped room, everything gold and blue.
There were follow-up questions about the double homicide, the first violent deaths in space as best we know. Benton was asked point-blank if he believed that Jared Horton also was involved in Gwen Hainey’s vicious murder. In the private setting of the Oval Office, Benton countered what the FBI, Homeland Security and others had opined earlier.
He logically explained that he saw no useful purpose Gwen’s homicide might have served, especially as sensational as it was. It was the last thing Horton needed, and one can imagine his shock as he quickly calculated how to use her unexpected murder to his advantage.
One evil act deserves another, and he disabled the cameras and radios unbeknownst to his two defenseless crewmates. He did this before helping them suit up for an outing in the vacuum of space that wasn’t going to happen, and the thought is enraging.
“His overriding fear was that his secret life of spying was about to be uncovered during Gwen’s murder investigation,” Benton told the president, the vice president and those assembled behind closed doors. “He went into a controlled free fall, panicking while keeping his wits about him.”
In short order, Jared Horton eliminated his crewmates, and I’m all but certain he shot them. Believing he could pass it off as a bizarre accident or attack in low-Earth orbit, he cleaned out the lab while he was at it before fleeing to Kazakhstan. As Benton and I are talking about this now, I’m looking out at the distant lights on the shore.
The section of railroad tracks where Gwen was found is close to here, not far from the airport. I remember crouching by her crudely posed body in the rainy darkness, listening to the constant roar of jets taking off and landing. I could hear them but not see their lights in the thick clouds.
“I think Horton came prepared for the unexpected,” Benton explains. “And when he feared his spying gig was up, he murdered his crewmates in cold blood. Then he tried to pass off the story that they were hit with debris, somehow managing to return to the airlock. We now know that never happened.”
There was no spacewalk, explaining why Chip didn’t notice the odor that lingers after being outside on one. The fleeting scent of space clings to the suits for a while, and astronauts describe it differently. Some say it’s a burnt metallic odor. Others are reminded of ozone or something electrical.
CHAPTER 25
NOW WHAT?” I ASK in gridlock traffic halfway across the dark waters of the Potomac River, the slivered moon slipping in and out of clouds. “He just gets a free pass, is granted sanctuary by the Kremlin? I’m so sick and tired of bad guys winning.”
“We have a partnership in space with the Russians, and while everybody has to safeguard their proprietary technologies, we still have to get along,” Benton says. “My guess is that the Kremlin will deny having anything to do with what Horton’s involved in, and they’ll probably hand him over.”