On the other side of the Tiber River, the crowds thinned, and Jess led her mother through a maze of alleyways. She stopped halfway down an empty cobbled street, at a huge door, ten feet high in weathered wood. Jess inspected a row of brass buttons and pressed one. “This is it.”
The door buzzed a second later, and Jess pushed against it, heaving it open. Celeste followed. Inside stretched a white marble hallway, dusty, half-illuminated by a flickering fluorescent tube twenty feet above. It ended in a set of stairs next to the tiny black metal cage of the elevator, a discarded baby stroller lying beside it. “Up the stairs, third floor,” Jess said. “Don’t bother with the elevator, the thing’s a death trap.”
They tramped up, the noise of their footfalls echoing off the walls. It felt abandoned, empty, a strange transition from the bursting crowds just blocks away. Two entrances led off each landing, the doors studded sheets of metal with three or four locks each. “An old building,” Jess said. “They like to be safe.”
On the third landing was an open door. Jess went straight in. “Angela, sorry about what happened with Ricardo,” she said right away.
A thirty-something woman in shorts and tank top, with long blond dreadlocks, was stuffing a pile of clothes into a suitcase on a dining table. “Don’t worry, he’s an asshole.” A news channel played silently on a TV in the corner.
“Mom, this is Angela, Ricardo’s sister,” Jess said as Celeste rounded the corner into the apartment.
Celeste took a sharp intake of breath and crinkled her nose. “Ah, I see. Um, pleased to meet you.”
“Don’t worry,” Angela reassured her, “like I said, Ricky’s an ass.” She closed her suitcase and faced Jess. “So you want the keys? I’m going south to my family’s place. Rome is going pazzo. Crazy.” She looked at Celeste. “Maybe you should come? Into the countryside?”
Jess threw her backpack onto the couch. “Think Ricardo would like that?”
“Screw him. He’d handle it.” Angela hoisted her suitcase off the table onto the floor. “You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I need to wait for my dad. He’s in Rome somewhere.”
Angela tossed Jess the keys. “Okay. You can have the place while I’m gone. But you’ll be waiting a long time for your dad.”
Jess caught the keys and narrowed her eyes, frowning. “What? Why?”
Angela strode toward the door and Celeste stood aside. “Because he’s in Germany.”
“Germany? What do you mean? Did he call you?” Jess didn’t know her father even knew Ricardo, never mind his sister, but then her father was resourceful.
Stopping at the door, Angela shook her head and pointed behind Jess. “No, he didn’t call me, but maybe you should call him.”
Jess turned to see what Angela pointed at, and found herself staring at her father’s face. On the TV. Below his face, in block red letters: Dr. Ben Rollins, European Space Operations, Darmstadt. Germany.
13
DARMSTADT, GERMANY
BEN HATED HELICOPTERS. Coming in low and fast, they skimmed the treetops, the town of Darmstadt just visible in the distance. Darmstadt was famous for two things: the heavy element #110, Darmstadium, was named after it, and in 1912 chemists at Merck first synthesized the drug Ecstasy here. Actually, it was famous for three things, Ben thought as the pilot banked sharp right at almost ninety degrees, giving him a view straight down onto the glittering solar-paneled roof of ESOC—Darmstadt was also home to the European Space Operations Command.
The undulating carpet of green forest gave way to a compound of buildings bordered by a train yard on one side, and an intersection of the autobahn highways on the other. A huge white radar dish towered above the trees; a giant mushroom nestled above other smaller dishes and antennae. Snow-capped mountains shimmered on the horizon.
His lunch almost came back up as the helicopter executed another swinging turn to bring it to a stop, hovering in mid-air. Ben burped. Herded into a cavalcade of black limos outside the Grand Hotel in Rome, they had sped off to a small airstrip where they’d been whisked to Frankfurt airport on a ten-seater Learjet—the last few hours were a blur. This helicopter was the final leg of their sprint to Darmstadt, and Ben still had no idea why.
“You okay?” Roger asked as the helicopter sank below the tree line. “You don’t look so good.”
The landing skids settled onto the ground, shaking them, as the whine of the engine and rotors came down a notch. “I am now,” Ben groaned.
Out the window he saw Dr. Müller waving at him with one hand while shielding his eyes from the rotor blast of leaves and dust with the other. He ran toward the helicopter, two guards in black fatigues trailing him. The copilot turned around to open Ben’s door, the engine still whining, the rotors still spinning.
“Ben,” Dr. Müller yelled over the noise, “glad you could make it.” He extended his hand to shake.