Viking (3 page)

“Julie, I can understand how you feel. These kinds of decisions are scary sometimes,
even when you know what you have to do.”

Julie avoided her gaze, fingering the fringe of the afghan in her lap. If she hadn’t
felt so sick at heart she would have laughed.
I can understand how you feel
.
Nobody could understand how she felt! For all the sincerity in her mother’s voice, the
two women were living in different universes.

It was easy to see her mother’s motivation: Get her daughter to divorce the mistake
she’d married so she could put the past behind her and get on with a promising life.
Find someone who could be a father to her two granddaughters, someone who would treat
Julie right and make her happy.

Her mother had known Rafa was guilty from the beginning, and that made all the
difference.

She hadn’t seen Rafa in the delivery room, his low murmurs of reassurance drowned by
squalls from the tiny bundles he was cradling.

She had never seen him read Dr. Seuss or give piggy-back rides or take Julie for
moonlight walks on the beach.

She hadn’t heard Rafa croon softly in Spanish while he rubbed lotion into his
mother’s calloused hands.

The man Julie knew could not possibly be the same person who had stalked and
executed an FBI agent to stem investigations into his shadowy life of crime. Surely
Rafa had simply discovered the victim, as he blurted out that nightmare night when the
police hauled him away. So she had insisted. For months.

But the evidence, in the end, refused to go away. Three eyewitnesses had heard the
gunshots from across the street, had picked Rafa out of a lineup without hesitation.
Threatening phone calls had been made to the woman’s apartment, each from Rafa’s mobile
phone during busy track and cross country meets, when nobody could vouch for the
coach’s minute-by-minute activities. Computer experts had salvaged dozens of deleted
emails from her computer, all sent from Rafa’s account at the university. The gun was
never found, but ballistics identified it as an old Beretta like the one Rafa had kept
in their safe—until he inexplicably “lost” it a week before the arrest.

Julie snapped back into the present. Her mother was still talking.

“...help the girls. They’ll be so much better off when you put this whole thing
behind you.”

“You think so?” Again the bitterness was there.

“It’s surprising how resilient kids can be.”

“Oh, sure, right. I sign some papers and their dad just evaporates like a bad
dream.” She could feel the anger welling up inside her.

“Julie, they need to find a way to heal and have some closure to this whole
business. As long as you’re holding on to Rafa, they’ll keep expecting him to magically
come home some day. You have to show them how to move on.”

“Finalizing the divorce isn’t going to make him go away. I’d be lying to myself to
think so. And teaching the girls denial won’t help anything.”

“Look who’s crying denial! You still believe he’s innocent.”

Julie met her mother’s accusing gaze for a split second, then turned away and
swallowed hard. Unwelcome tears cascaded down her cheeks.
Yes
, she wanted to
say,
I still believe him. I do.

But the words wouldn’t come. And that was what was tearing her up inside. When she
finalized she’d have to admit it.

Her mother moved to comfort her, but Julie pushed roughly away and ran out into the
driving rain and blackness of the storm, her weeping subsumed by the low bass of
thunder.

Night was falling over the Texas cityscape as Mike Satler pushed out the doors of
the monorail, hurried across the platform to an escalator, and rocked from foot to foot
while the stairs clacked down to the streets below.

In a minute he was rounding a corner, bearing sideways through heavy pedestrian
traffic until he reached a glass and granite doorway. Passing through without a pause,
he headed directly for an elevator, hardly aware of the landscaped atrium with its
fountain and potted palm trees.

The research wing was guarded by windowless doors, arranged airlock-fashion at the
mouth of a long hallway. It was a long-memorized routine: tap in this week’s password,
stare at the light as it scanned briefly over his retina, wait for the buzzer.

The rest of the team was there already, arranged in an assortment of postures
ranging from ramrod alertness to casual sprawl. He surveyed the room and waited while
his gaze had its usual quieting effect. When the background buzz disappeared, he
unclasped his attaché case and frowned at the glow of his touchpad’s screen.

“Erisa Explorer touched down twenty-three minutes ago,” he began without preamble.
“They still haven’t contacted us, which is why you’re all twiddling your thumbs. We
don’t know what’s happening yet. They came down in a heavy rain; you know that
complicates things. Our satellite is receiving the automatic signal from the tracking
beacon, and we haven’t had any direct indications of disaster, so for now we hope for
the best. Eccles, where are we with the vike feeds?”

“I’ve got the setup heuristics idling. Soon as they’re transmitting, we should be
able to link you in.”

“Good,” continued Satler. “I’ve already sent out a work schedule rotation to each of
your stations. We begin the minute they uplink; that means you’re going on standby
effective immediately. You all know the drill. I won’t waste time on the regular
procedures right now.”

He paused for effect.

“You are no doubt wondering why this mission was scheduled so suddenly. Several of
you were on vacation, I understand, when we called you in. And most of you were
training for a different planet.”

“The truth is, I can’t get much of an answer about this abrupt shift in priorities.
Scuttlebutt has it that satellite recon found some really spectacular heavy metal
deposits in the southern hemisphere. I guess we’ll find out soon enough. But whatever
the reason, they’re giving this project top priority. Let’s do our best to
succeed.”

He nodded, allowing the group to break up and head for their personal cubbyholes and
the waiting vike equipment.

Beneath his professionalism, a sense of apprehension filled Satler’s mind. It was
not normal to bump a mission so high on the priority list so suddenly. And it
definitely wasn’t kosher to keep him in the dark like this about mission
objectives.

Something was up.

He didn’t for a moment believe his own story about mineral deposits. Probably none
of the other scientists did either. If there was mining to be done in the far south,
why were they landing near the equator? Besides, if a planet was known to contain
valuable resources, usually the first exploratory mission was
slowed down
while
the company fussed about safety mechanisms and just the right scientific expertise.

Hurrying the timetable of exploration meant even less training than normal for the
viking crews, less focused scientists back here on Earth, and poorly researched
conditions on the alien world.

It was like a kamikaze mission for the vikings.

Maybe it already
had been
a kamikaze mission.

What was going on down there? And what could be so important or so unusual about
Erisa Beta II that the planet couldn’t wait an extra few months for human visitors?

* * *

Three hours later, Satler stifled a yawn, pushed back his chair, and rubbed his
eyes. They still were not online. Some of the scientists were beginning to make nasty
comments about upper management, and he didn’t blame them. If there was one thing
Satler hated, it was playing the hurry-up-and-wait game.

He’d been called back from the golf course in Dallas out of the blue. “You’ve been
reassigned to Erisa Beta II. We need you to postpone your vacation and come back right
away,” they had said, as if his summons represented a dire emergency. So he’d hopped
the next shuttle and been at work inside the hour, his mind abuzz. Had one of their
other exobiologists quit? Had there been some momentous discovery? He was the senior
specialist in his field; maybe he was needed in an advisory capacity.

But instead of an immediate assignment, an uplink, or even a much-needed briefing
from the powers above, he’d been stuck twiddling his thumbs and trying to placate the
rest of the scientists. Some reason to skip a vacation!

By now he’d nearly worn out the carpet between his desk and the candy machine in
their break room, and was feeling like he could quote the meager documentation in the
mission profile. There wasn’t anything obviously unusual about Erisa Beta II. It was a
close match for Earth in most respects: lots of animal and plant life, plenty of ocean,
broad climatic variations, thick, oxygen-rich atmosphere.

In fact, if it weren’t for the late hour and the abrupt reassignment, Satler would
have been fairly cheerful. This planet looked like a biological treasure trove, and his
love for exobiology ran deep. He had no family attachments, no serious responsibilities
other than his job, so he was content to live on junk food and catnaps, closeted away
in his office, while the mission played itself out.

But he’d had little sleep the night before, and he’d been on track for the low 80’s
or maybe even high 70’s in the round of golf that was cut short. Already the schedule
for their shift was a mess; who knew how much longer they’d be waiting.

At least his viking looked promising. Mike had spent man-months linked with
out-of-shape drug addicts and poorly-educated criminals—not the most pleasant of
experiences. They tired easily, often misunderstood his directions, and were difficult
to motivate. He’d even had to resort to a neural prod on occasion. He detested the
practice and avoided it more assiduously than many of his fellow scientists—but
sometimes it was the only thing that would convince a recalcitrant viking to
cooperate.

Orosco was the first viking Mike had ever seen whose background included a graduate
degree in anything, and he appeared to be in superb physical condition. Idly he
wondered what sort of experiences would turn a coach and college professor into a
violent criminal, and then into someone desperate enough for viking service.

What was Orosco like?

As if to answer that thought, the comlink readout began to flash on his desktop.
Mike straightened up and pulled a vike headset from a drawer.

Showtime!

Special Agent Biana Oristano tapped her manicured nails on the desktop and frowned
into the screen.

“How should I know what the delay is? These things never come off the way they’re
planned. You know that.” She brushed at a stray lock of hair that hung over her eyes
and leaned back slowly. “Besides, why worry? If the mission is a deep-six, it actually
makes our job easier. That much less to investigate.” Her smile was prim.

“Very funny.” The expression on the weathered face of her boss showed not a trace of
humor. “Uncle Sam’s already sunk a bundle into this little surveillance trick. We’re
gonna go way over budget. So unless you want to get yourself canned, we’ve gotta show
some results.”

Was he actually as worried as he sounded? Oristano shrugged inwardly. Had no guts at
all. How he’d ever risen so high in the bureau hierarchy was a complete mystery.

“Look, Darnel, we’ve been over this a hundred times. You know as well as I do that
in our line of work you’re a fool to count on anything. Sometimes you get lucky,
sometimes you don’t.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not paid to be philosophical. It’d be a whole lot better if we
had something substantive to report.”

“Agreed. But what do you expect me to do? We could bust into their headquarters with
guns blazing, but that wouldn’t accomplish anything. If we’re ever going to find out
what’s going on with this mission, we have to sit back and see what our gamble brings
us.”

Her china doll features curved into a half smile. “Look, why do I even need to say
this? You’ve done plenty of operations bigger than this before. You know the game.
Worst case, we lose our man before anything interesting happens, and we start over on
the next mission. At least we’ve got some minor dirt. More likely you’ll be patting
yourself on the back and shaking hands with the President in a couple weeks. Another
high-profile bust. So relax a little.”

She winked.

He muttered under his breath and glared at her for a second. “Just keep me posted,”
he grunted, and abruptly broke the connection.

Oristano exhaled slowly, her smile gradually melting into disgust. Why’d the
arrogant old coot have to pick this operation to get nervous? That was all she
needed.

Using a fingernail and the reflection of her desktop, she repaired a bit of lipstick
that had strayed from the perfect outline of her lips and glanced at the clock. Six
twenty. Bruce would be idling in the Mercedes outside, fuming like the simpleton he
was.

Well, he could wait a little longer.

From a small leather satchel beneath her desk she retrieved a ghost phone—a piece of
bureau equipment that piggybacked onto nearby broadcasts and allowed snooping and
untraceable transmission—and dialed a number.

“Go ahead.” The masculine voice on the other end was clipped, cool, and quite
clearly unhappy to be disturbed.

“How’s tricks? Got anything new and juicy and underhanded to report?”

“I thought you were supposed to know that sort of thing and hold it over my head to
bleed me dry.”

“I don’t claim to know everything—just enough to make your life a bit more
complicated and expensive. But I’m always one to trade the latest gossip. Why don’t you
give me the official story and I’ll correct you when you bend the truth? I wouldn’t
want you to think I’m irrelevant now that the mission is underway.”

The phone was silent.

“Well?” Oristano finally prodded. When there was no response, her voice became hard
and biting. “You were hoping I didn’t know the mission had begun. Well, sorry to
disappoint you. You’ve had a busy week. You skipped most of the prep work, bribed a safety
inspector to rubber-stamp your project plan without even a glance at the details, and
unlawfully took possession of your proposed claim ahead of schedule. Seventy-two
minutes ago, to be exact. Have you killed off all your vikings yet? That might be
nice—I could raise my premiums for manslaughter.”