The Tower A Novel (Sanctus)

10





They arrived at the Goddard Space Flight Center a little after ten, just as the storm got about as bad as it was going to get.

Rain gusted into the car as Shepherd cracked a window to flash his pristine ID. The guard handed him two security passes and a

visitor’s map and directed him to one of the smaller executive staff parking lots by Building 29, the huge hangar-like structure

that sat in the middle of the complex. Shepherd hadn’t been here for almost ten years but as he slid the Crown Vic into gear and

hissed through the puddle under the raised barrier, it looked like nothing had changed much at all.

Building 29 rose out of the howling night, a huge white block of a building with two strips of darkened windows on the ground and

first floors and none at all on the other four. Most of the offices and control centres inside Building 29 didn’t need windows,

drawing their views from deep space rather than the Maryland countryside.

Shepherd slowed as he drove past the entrance. There were lights on inside but he couldn’t see anyone. Maybe it was the late

hour, or the weather, or the fact that the Christmas holidays were just around the corner – but the whole place seemed deserted.

He eased the car round the edge of the building and the headlights lit up a figure wearing a rain slicker, the hood pulled right

over his head in a way that made him appear almost monastic. An arm extended from beneath the wet folds and pointed to two empty

parking bays with signs in front of them showing they were reserved for senior project directors. Shepherd drew the car to a halt

and the figure glided over to Franklin’s side of the car, producing a NASA golfing umbrella and popping it open just as Franklin

opened his door.

‘Mike Pierce, Chief of Security,’ a voice rumbled from beneath the hood. He held the umbrella up for Franklin as he got out of

the car and glanced at Shepherd as he did the same. Shepherd saw the eyes take him in, make a quick decision based on seniority

and logistics then turn to usher Franklin away beneath the cover of the umbrella, not bothering to wait for the junior agent. The

van that had followed them all the way from Quantico pulled in next to him, sending a wave of cold water arcing onto the back of

Shepherd’s legs. He locked the car and splashed across the tarmac after the umbrella. He figured if the techs could find

fingerprints on cotton and microscopic traces of DNA in a sterile room, they could probably find their way into a building without

his help.

Stepping through the open service door into the clean, white-walled corridors of Building 29 was like jumping through a time-

portal back to a previous life. Because there were no pictures on the walls and no unnecessary furnishings – to help maintain the

sterile conditions required in the ‘clean rooms’ at the heart of the building – everything looked exactly as it had the last

time Shepherd had set foot here.

‘Mike Pierce.’ The hooded man crushed Shepherd’s hand in a wet grip. ‘We met before?’ The eyes studied him from within the

frame of a too-large face made bigger by the absence of hair. He looked like a weightlifter gone to fat but who still had some

steel at his core and clearly felt a need to prove it whenever he shook another man’s hand.

‘I was here for a few months back in spring ’04,’ Shepherd said, letting go of Pierce’s hand to prompt him to do the same.

Pierce shrugged out of the rain slicker in a shower of water and draped it over a seat by the door. ‘I don’t recall any kind of

Bureau investigation back then.’

‘Don’t be fooled by the lines around the eyes,’ Franklin cut in. ‘Agent Shepherd here is still wet behind the ears as far as

Bureau work goes. He’s just here to help walk me through the tricky science parts.’

‘I worked on Explorer for a while,’ Shepherd explained as a bang behind them announced the arrival of the others heaving various

boxes of gear out of the rain and in through the narrow service door.

‘Looks like the gang’s all here,’ Franklin said. ‘Lead on, Chief Pierce: tell us what you know.’

‘Well pretty much everything is in the report,’ Pierce said, closing the door behind them then swiping a card through a lock to

gain entrance to an inner hallway. ‘At 20.05 this evening the main system network servicing the Hubble Space Telescope was

subjected to a sophisticated cyber attack. Merriweather, the technician who was on duty when it happened, is waiting in the

control centre to go through all the specific details for you.’

‘What about Dr Kinderman?’

‘Still no word. I’ve tried contacting him on all his numbers, sent emails, even got Merriweather to ping him on Twitter and

Facebook. Nothing. His cell phone was found in his office, which appears to have been ransacked.’

‘Anyone else been in there since Kinderman went missing?’

‘Just myself and the technician who found it.’

‘OK, let’s start there.’

Pierce swiped them through another security door and pointed to an office door halfway down the corridor.

Shepherd had been in Kinderman’s office a few times before, once when he had started working here and again on the day he left.

It was something of a tradition at Goddard, being paraded in front of the chief on your way in and out for a chat and a pep talk.

He remembered being struck on both occasions by Kinderman’s extraordinary neatness and precision, a memory that jarred heavily

with the chaotic mess of files and paperwork now covering most of the floor.

Franklin surveyed it all from the door while he pulled on a pair of blue Nitrile gloves he’d produced from his jacket pocket.

Shepherd felt hot blood rising up his neck as he realized he’d left his own back in the car.

Franklin stepped into the office and made his way through snowdrifts of paperwork towards the centre of the room. He stood for a

moment, turning slowly, taking it all in: the neat, uncluttered desk; the crooked photos on the wall of various presidents

standing next to the same neatly-pressed man; the same man shaking hands with the King of Sweden as he received the Nobel Prize

for his work in measuring the rate of universal expansion. In the world of astrophysics Dr Kinderman was the closest thing you

could get to a rock star and Shepherd was finding it very hard to think of him as a suspect.

He felt something soft and cold press against the back of his hand and looked down to discover a pair of fresh gloves held low so

Franklin wouldn’t see them. He smiled his thanks at the PST who had come to his rescue and quickly pulled them on just as

Franklin finished his silent appraisal of the room and looked up. ‘OK boys,’ he said, ‘get to work.’

The two techs swooped into the room, one shaking open various-sized evidence bags, the other scoping every surface with a high-end

camera that took both stills and video. Franklin joined Shepherd and Pierce back in the corridor. ‘Looks like someone left in a

hell of a hurry.’

Pierce nodded. ‘When I first saw it I thought it was a break-in.’

‘You still think so?’

He shook his head. ‘Not when I saw that.’ He pointed to a small book lying open next to the terminal keyboard. It was

photographed and handed out to Franklin. It was a standard appointments diary, a double page to a week, every blank space crammed

with small, precise handwriting. ‘I was trying to find out where Dr Kinderman might be, but as you can see it wasn’t much help.

’

Franklin flicked through the pages until he arrived at the current week where the writing just stopped. The last entry was in

today’s date:

T

end of days

The rest of the diary was blank, as if nothing was going to happen ever again.

Franklin looked up. ‘You said no one has been in this room apart from you and the person who found it like this.’

‘That’s right, just me and Merriweather.’

Franklin handed the diary over to one of the techs for processing. ‘Why don’t we go and say hello to Merriweather.’