Chad moved his eyes lazily from one to the other. “You boys forget that I grew up on a farm. Varmint shooting was part of the job description.” He set down the margarita JW had just handed him, and held a hand out for the gun. “Give me that.”
As Chad loaded, JW walked down the porch stairs towards Kaz. He handed him a margarita, and toasted him with his iced tea.
Chad leaned over the railing. “You boys ready down there?”
“All set, Commander!” Kaz called.
Chad yelled, “Pull!” and pivoted, squeezing smoothly on the trigger, shattering the clay pigeon. Five tries, five hits.
He turned with a smirk. “And that, boys, is how it’s done.”
Luke and Michael raised their glasses in defeat as Chad put the shotgun back into its case and settled again into his chair. Kaz called up from below. “Sun’s setting in an hour or so. Anyone up for a beach walk with me and JW?”
Chad waved his hand. “I’m easy here. You boys go right on ahead.”
——
The narrow sandy path led 200 feet through the scrubby palmetto and sea oats before opening to the wide, pale sand of Neptune Beach on the Atlantic coast. The area had been home to a small seaside cottage community in the 1950s, but when the Air Force and NASA had started to expand space operations for Project Apollo, they’d acquired the land and torn down the small store, gas station and all but one of the scattered weatherboard houses. A far-thinking government official had spotted its solid foundations and new construction and decided to spare it from the bulldozers. NASA had christened the cottage the Astronaut Training and Rehabilitation Building to satisfy the fiduciary oversight of the Inspector General, but everyone knew it as the Beach House—a private place for crews to relax in the days leading up to launch. A rare island of no responsibility to counteract the mounting tension and extreme unspoken risk.
Kaz was glad Chad had decided not to come on the walk. He was still a little unsettled by the conversation they’d had on the trip from Houston, and was happy for some time with him out of earshot. As they all stopped to stare out to sea, he asked, as casually as he could, “So how’s everybody getting along?”
Luke and Michael exchanged a glance, and Michael shrugged. “Things are different without Tom,” he said, “but we’re sorting it out.”
Luke added, “Chad flies as well as he shoots.”
Kaz said, “But he’s not Tom, and he had to step in only three weeks before launch. It’s got to be a lot to deal with.”
Luke picked up a sand dollar and skipped it into the waves. “Well, he’s got more of a temper on him than Tom did.”
Michael nodded. “Yeah, he does. Plus, you can take the boy out of Wisconsin . . .”
“Anything Doc and I should know about?”
Michael glanced back at the beach house in the distance. “It’s just that they’ve got their share of rednecks and tobacco chewers out there. Sometimes some of that attitude sneaks through.”
“Chad keeps it in check for the most part,” Luke said, leaning down for another sand dollar. He turned to Kaz. “It’s not a popularity contest. Some of the early astronauts were right assholes to work with, but they knew how to get shit done. Michael and I have thick skins and a job to do.”
Kaz turned to Michael. “Is there anything more than that? It would be good to know before you’re all in space.”
Michael shook his head. After a small silence, he said, “I’d prefer if he didn’t call me ‘boy’ quite so much. But it’s just how he was raised. We’ll get through it.”
Luke nodded. “We’ll do fine.” He looked out at the ocean. “But it sure would have been good to fly with Tom.”
20
Ellington Field, Houston
As was often the case, the accident investigator was an unwelcome man.
When Tom Hoffman had crashed, NASA had immediately appointed an investigation board headed by the Chief of the Astronaut Office, Alan Shepard. The seven-member panel had moved quickly to cordon off and photograph the crash site, gathering and protecting all potential evidence. They were given unfettered access to Hoffman’s Air Force and NASA medical records, as well as the coroner’s report. They seized the maintenance history and daily sign-out log of the crashed helicopter, plus the Ellington Tower flight logs and audiotape of radio communications. The fuel truck had been impounded and sampled so they could check for possible contamination. The Houston Air Traffic Control Center provided radar tracking information of the helicopter’s transponder, giving them exact speed and altitude. They consulted the Ellington Meteorological Office’s record of the weather conditions, including temperature and wind, critical factors in rotary wing flight.