“Loud and clear also, Houston. Glad to be talking with you again.” Chad paused, his voice going flat. “As soon as we can, I need to talk privately with the Director of Flight Ops.”
He glanced at Luke’s body, and at the cosmonaut.
“We’ve got some major issues to discuss.”
28
Mission Control, Houston
Kaz pushed the button marked Speaker on the beige telephone on the desk in the Director of Flight Operations observation room. He heard the buzz of the dial tone, and then tapped in the Washington number. He glanced up through the window at the operators at their consoles, and then around at the other men in the room.
The faces were tense. Deke Slayton, a Mercury astronaut and the Flight Ops Director, was seated behind the desk, visibly pained and angry at the loss of another astronaut. Al Shepard was standing, staring at the large screen at the front of Mission Control. The Manned Space-craft Center Director, Chris Kraft, stood next to him, a sheen of sweat on his broad forehead from the sprint he’d made from his office in the headquarters building.
They heard the phone ringing, and a female voice answered.
“National Security Agency, General Phillips’s office.”
“Hi, Jan, Kaz here in Houston, we need to talk to the General right now if possible.”
“He’s in a meeting. Just hold on a minute while I get him.”
The voice of the CAPCOM talking with the Apollo crew came tinnily through a metal speaker on Deke’s desk. They were working on opening the hatch between Pursuit and Bulldog, following the mission timeline as they awaited further instruction.
A sharp click from the speakerphone. “Kaz, Sam Phillips here. What’s up?”
Kaz took a breath, quickly clarified who was in the room with him and then summarized the wild sequence of events that had just transpired in orbit.
Phillips had been the director of the Apollo program during several fatal astronaut plane crashes and the fire that had killed the Apollo 1 crew. He understood what Luke’s death meant to these men.
“Deke, Al, Chris, I am so very sorry to hear this.” They heard him exhale angrily through his nose. “Our intelligence let us down, badly. No one thought Almaz was manned, nor did we know it was armed. As NSA Director the failure is mine, and I am responsible for Captain Hemming’s death. My deepest condolences.”
Brief silence as Phillips thought further.
“We need to maintain the complete news blackout until we decide our path. I’ll call the Joint Chiefs chairman now, and he’s going to want an immediate briefing to the National Security Council and the President.”
Al Shepard spoke. “Sam, we’re working on what to do with Luke’s body, and how the crew should deal with the cosmonaut. The only good news is that our spaceships are healthy, and we’ve got some time to regroup during the three days’ coast to the Moon.” He paused, glancing at Kraft and Slayton. “But we need a whole new plan for what to do when we get there.”
“Yep, I hear you, Al. This will put way more fingers in the pie than anyone wanted. If you don’t mind, I’m gonna need Kaz to keep us up to date and to be the one who passes sensitive direction up to the crew.”
Al and Deke nodded. That made sense to them.
“Kaz, I’ll need you back on the phone in a bit, to give an update at the Security Council meeting with the President.”
“Understood, General. Meanwhile, I have a suggestion for what you might discuss with the Joint Chiefs.”
This was why Phillips had recruited him. “Go ahead,” he said.
“We badly need damage control with the Russians. For now, outside of Mission Control here, no one knows what’s happened. Not even the Soviets, I’d guess, who must still be in the dark about what actually occurred, and specifically about the status of their two cosmonauts. We need to move fast to update them that one of their crew is alive, and to offer them a nuanced apology for the nightmare that happened at Almaz that offers them a potential benefit. Give them an option that they can take uphill to Brezhnev, along with the bad news.”
He paused.
“We have a healthy orbiter and lander, three people alive on their way to the Moon, and the cosmonaut’s and Luke’s spacesuits—the crew confirmed that only the umbilical got damaged and his suit’s okay. Michael Esdale can fly Pursuit around the Moon as planned, and Chad Miller is fully trained to fly Bulldog down to the surface.”
Kaz made eye contact with the three men in the small room with him.
“The cosmonaut should fly in Bulldog with Chad, while Michael orbits in Pursuit. We can help the Soviets put the world’s first woman on the Moon.”