He paused. “It made me mad. I wanted something to blame, needed something. So I dug hard into the details—recreating the accident, reviewing the plane maintenance records, looking at fleet reports for similar events. I developed a few probable theories. But eventually I realized that sometimes there’s no answer. Flying high-performance machines is a dangerous profession, and occasionally it kills people.”
He tipped his head to one side. “The grief is still there. I’ll miss him forever—he should be here now, sharing in this life, a friend to laugh with into old age. It’s unfair. Worse—it’s random.”
He took a mouthful of Chianti, swallowing slowly. “When the next friend died, the hole it caused inside me felt the same, but it seemed a little easier to bear. I’d learned the things I could do in response, and those I couldn’t. When Tom crashed this morning, I felt that same, irretrievable loss, and a wave of anger that maybe I’d missed taking some action that could have prevented it. I feel the need to find out what happened so we don’t repeat it, and the need to take care of his family.”
He turned to look at her. “The wound is just as bad, but it’s like I’ve developed a form of scar tissue so I can deal with it. I’ll miss each of those guys for my whole life. But I’m still here. If it was me who had bought it, I’d expect them to stay focused; stay busy living too.”
Laura raised her wineglass. “Here’s to your friends, Kaz, the good men no longer here with you. Especially Tom.” They touched glasses and drank them empty.
Then Kaz reflexively did another thing that helped him cope with loss: he pulled out his Gretsch archtop acoustic, a guitar he’d bought used in college and had dragged everywhere the Navy sent him.
They sat on the couch in the semi-darkness as he finger-picked his way through several of his favorites, singing softly, Laura joining in where she knew the words. He tried to avoid the sad ones, yet it felt like every song had certain lyrics that were magnified by Tom’s death.
When he finished “Fire and Rain,” James Taylor’s soulful words echoing in the room, he looked at Laura in the half-light, leaned to pull her close and kissed her.
15
Washington, DC
When the 727’s wheels thudded onto the concrete runway at Washington National, Kaz was already tired. It was noon in DC, but it had been a predawn departure from Polly Ranch, and the Eastern flight had been noisy and full, making it impossible for him to catch more sleep. Even his good eye felt gritty.
Now a Checker cab carried him across the 14th Street bridge into south DC, past the Jefferson Memorial and the Navy Yard, and then out into Maryland towards Baltimore. As the cab wound through the forest of the Patuxent Research Refuge, Kaz wondered, not for the first time, why Phillips had called for a face-to-face. The only change to the situation was Tom’s death, three days previously. Adding a new commander to the mix made a big difference for the NASA trainers, but he didn’t think it was something the NSA head should worry about. Unless there was something he didn’t know.
He corrected himself: Sam Phillips was always dealing with things Kaz didn’t know. The man faced a daily onslaught of intelligence from multiple sources and ever-changing advances in technology; the way the SIGINT was gathered could be just as important as the information itself. Then the head of the NSA had to sort the wheat from the chaff, feeding the key information, conclusions and recommendations up the chain to the military, who passed it via the Joint Chiefs to the President and other federal agencies.
Like the CIA.
Kaz squinted out the taxi window at the blur of trees. He’d heard about the CIA’s new bull-in-a-china-shop boss, James Schlesinger. Could that be why he’d been summoned—in response to pressure from Nixon and his man at the CIA to take extra tactical advantage of Apollo 18’s military agenda?
“C’mon in, Kaz!”
General Phillips, smiling warmly, stepped around his desk to greet him and they shook hands. Phillips’s lean, pleasant face matched his tall, spare frame. The chest pocket of his short-sleeved white dress shirt had a notepad and a pen in it. His narrow brown tie, held with a clip, was tied in a neat Windsor knot. Pleated worsted pants were cinched high with a thin brown leather belt that matched his shiny brown shoes. A thoughtful military man in civilian clothing.
Jan appeared, unasked, carrying a tray with two coffees. Kaz thanked her and reached for his, grateful for caffeine. Phillips grabbed the other mug and led him to his small meeting table, where they sat. A green file folder, with TOP SECRET in red letters on its front, was already in the center of the table.