Page 110 of The Devil's Ransom

Gordon laughed and said, “Yeah, sure. A paying passenger who happens to own the company that’s doing the launch. At the end of the day, this isn’t like a government thing, like NASA or the military. The astronaut is an employee of Fitch.”

“So what are they going to do?”

“Circle the globe until they’re sure the systems are clean, then attempt to link up with the space station as intended.”

“That is insane. They should spend a month going through those systems before ever attempting to use them again on a live launch.”

“I know, I know. At least I got them to agree to firewall theentire abort procedure. The initiation is tied off from the main systems now so if these idiots proceed with the lunacy, and some latent corruption occurs, we can always initiate.”

“What’s the timeline?”

“Probably going to try to leave orbit in six hours. From there, the docking will take another four.”

“Well, good luck with that.”

He hung up and tapped his lips, wondering if the plan could be salvaged. One thing from the last NSC meeting stuck out to him: one of the men in that room had said that maybe the attack had been compartmented from even the hierarchy within the IRGC. And that gave him an idea. The U.S. government was already primed to blame Iran, and if “they” attacked the systems again, there would be arguments back and forth, but the war would come. After Americans began to die, the country would coalesce around a common enemy.

The key would be to initiate after the Valkyrie left orbit and started on the final trajectory to the space station. At that point, an abort would kill all aboard.

Chapter65

Six hours after we’d single-handedly saved the United States from a ridiculous war, we landed at the FBO on Reagan National Airport, the sun rising slowly over the runway. We’d been going on no sleep for over twenty-four hours, and I was looking forward to a bed and a beer, not necessarily in that order. While it was dawn here, I figured it was past noon where I had just come from, so it was justifiable.

It would have been appropriate to have a marching band and a bunch of civilians waving flags, but all we got were a couple of federal agents to take Branko into custody. I didn’t tell them who we were, and they didn’t ask. All they wanted was Branko.

While the Iranians were being blamed for this latest catastrophe, he was still wanted for a massive number of ransomware attacks in the United States. I’d told George Wolffe about his help, and that would hold sway in his ultimate sentence, but he was still a criminal, and the Department of Justice was making a case against him for all of the Dark Star attacks over the past couple of years.

I appreciated his work helping us and felt a little sorry for him. The Russian Andrei and whoever this Sphinx guy was would escape justice, while the minions would bear the brunt of the punishment. But Branko had still harmed many, many people’s lives here in the States and very well might have been complicit in Carly’s death. If he hadn’t shut down Blaisdell Consulting, maybe we’d have executed that mission a little differently.

Hard to tell, but my sympathy only went so far.

We’d left the plane for the pilots to take care of—they had to work sometimes, too—and drove over to Blaisdell Consulting headquarters in Clarendon, right next to Arlington National Cemetery. Technically, Grolier Recovery Services personnel shouldn’t ever come to the HQ, because if someone was watching the comings and goings at the facility, they might make a connection they shouldn’t, but I figured this was a special occasion, and I wanted to talk to George Wolffe face-to-face.

We entered through the parking garage in the back instead of the official one in the front, ringing the bell outside a glass door leading to a small anteroom about the size of a service elevator, with a steel door beyond. We waited, then heard Marge coming through the speaker mounted in the cement of the garage wall. I looked at the camera, convincing her to let us in, and she did. But she refused to open the second steel door.

The glass door closed shut and locked, leaving us trapped in the anteroom. Marge really took her job seriously. The anteroom was an initial trap for anyone wishing the Taskforce harm. Once in, you weren’t getting out, with the glass of the first door being bulletproof, and the second door being reinforced steel. I looked up at the camera and said, “Come on, Marge. It’s me!”

I got nothing. Two minutes later the steel door opened and I saw Blaine Alexander. I huffed, “This secret spy shit is getting to be a bit much.”

Blaine laughed and said, “She’s just doing her job. She’s convinced that if you don’t have a badge to get in, you’re going to kill everyone inside like that movieThree Days of the Condor.”

We walked upstairs, me saying, “Yeah, well, it gets a little old.”

We entered the Taskforce conference room and took a seat, Blaine saying, “George will be here in just a second. He’s on a call with Alexander Palmer.”

Knuckles and Brett put their arms on the table and cradled their heads, immediately falling asleep like soldiers anywhere. Veep took a seat in a chair against the wall, leaning his head back and doing the same thing. Jennifer and I stayed awake, wanting to know what had happened.

I said, “So everything’s okay now? Billionaire space pirate saved?”

Blaine grinned and said, “Yeah, and it worked out well for us. Nobody knows it was the Taskforce that solved the ransomware problem. They all think it was Iran backing down, which helps us both ways—nobody in the U.S. government is wondering what assets were used to stop the attack, meaning we don’t have to worry about any questions, and Iran might just think twice before attacking us for real because they know we’re serious.”

“Well, I’m glad to be of service, but please tell me that POTUS doesn’t believe that shit about the Iranians. He needs to know that was hogwash.”

“I don’t know what he believes. I’ll leave that up to Wolffe to tell you. In the meantime, while we wait, you can have a front-row seat for your most favorite space tourist heading up to the International Space Station.”

“What? What do you mean? Are you saying they didn’t bring the capsule home?”

“Nope. Esteemed billionaire and international space expert Skyler Fitch overrode everyone at NASA and the commander of the capsule himself to say they were going forward with the mission.”

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