Nick Carter - Operation Moon Rocket

All ten lines at the NASA Administration Center were busy and he began redialing the numbers without stopping so that the moment a call ended he'd get his chance.

A single image kept flashing through his mind — Major Sollitz, chasing his hat, his left hand reaching awkwardly across his body for it, his right arm held rigidly against his torso. Something had bothered him about that scene out at the Texas City plant yesterday afternoon, but what it was kept eluding him — until he'd stopped thinking about it for a moment. Then it had quietly surfaced into his consciousness.

Sollitz had been right-handed yesterday morning!

His mind raced along the complicated ramifications spreading in all directions from this discovery as his fingers automatically dialed and his ear listened for the ringing sound of a cleared connection.

He sat on the edge of the bed in his room at the Gemini Inn, hardly noticing the neat stack of suitcases that Hank Peterson had delivered from Washington, or the keys to the Lamborghini on the night stand, or the note under them that read, Let me know when you get in. The extension is L-32. Hank.

Sollitz was the missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle. Take him into account and everything else fell neatly into place. Nick remembered the Major's shock when he'd first come walking into his office and quietly he cursed himself. That should have been the tip-off. But he'd been too blinded by the sun — Dr. Sun — to notice anyone else's behavior.

Joy Sun had been surprised, too, but it was she who'd first diagnosed Eglund's condition as Amine poisoning. So her surprise was natural. She simply hadn't expected to see him back so soon.

A line cleared at the Administration Center.

"Red Room," he told them in Glenn Eglund's Kansas drawl. "This is Eagle Four. Give me the Red Room."

The wire hummed and twanged and a man's voice came on. "Security," he said. "Captain Leasor speaking."

"This is Eagle Four, top priority. Is Major Sollitz there?"

"Eagle Four, they've been looking for you. You missed the debriefing at McCoy. Where are you now?"

"Never mind that," said Nick impatiently. "Is Sollitz there?"

"No. He's not."

"Well find him. This is top priority."

"Hold on. I'll check."

Who, besides Sollitz, would have known about Phoenix One? Who, besides the Apollo Security Chief, could have had the run of the Medical Research Section of the Spacecraft Center? Who else knew every phase of the medical program, had an intimate knowledge of its dangers, could be seen anywhere without raising suspicion? Who else had the run of both the Houston and Cape Kennedy facilities?

Sollitz, N3 was now convinced, was the Sol who met with Pat Hammer at the Bali Hai in Palm Beach and plotted the destruction of the Apollo capsule. Sollitz tried to kill Glenn Eglund when the astronaut found out what the Major was up to. Sollitz hadn't been told, however, about Nick's masquerade. Only General McAlester knew about that. So when "Eglund" turned up again, Sollitz had panicked. It was he who had tried to kill him on the moonscape. The giveaway was the right- to left-hand switch, the result of the broken wrist he'd sustained in the struggle over the knife.

Now Nick understood the point of all those questions about his memory. And Eglund's reply that "bits and pieces" were slowly coming back had further panicked the Major. So he'd planted a bomb on a "stand-by" plane, then had manufactured a phony bomb scare enabling him to substitute the alternate aircraft for the original one without having it first checked out by a demolition team.

A crisp voice came on the wire. "Eagle Four, this is General McAlester. Where in hell did you and Dr. Sun disappear to after your plane landed at McCoy? You left a whole gaggle of top security brass cooling their heels there."

"General, I'll explain everything to you in a minute, but first — where's Major Sollitz? It's of the utmost importance that we find him."

"I don't know," said McAlester flatly. "And no one else seems to, either. He arrived at McCoy on the second plane. We know that much. But he disappeared somewhere in the air terminal and hasn't turned up since. Why?"

Nick asked if their conversation was being scrambled. It was. So he told him. "My God," was all the NASA Security Chief could say at the end of it.

"Sollitz isn't the boss," Nick added. "He's been doing the dirty work for someone else. The USSR maybe. Peking. At this point it's anyone's guess."

"But how in hell did he get security clearance? How did he manage to rise as far as he did?"

"I don't know," said Nick. "I hope his records will give us a clue. I'm going to have Peterson radio AXE with a full report and also request an exhaustive background check on Sollitz as well as on Alex Simian of GKI. I want to double check on what Joy Sun told me about him."

"I've just been speaking to Hawk," said McAlester. "He told me Glenn Eglund has finally recovered consciousness at Walter Reed. They hope to question him soon."

"Speaking of Eglund," said Nick. "Could you arrange for the phony one to suffer a relapse? With the Phoenix countdown under way and the astronauts tied to their stations, his cover is turning into a handicap. I've got to be free to move around."

"It can be arranged," said McAlester. He sounded happy about it. "It'll explain why you and Dr. Sun wandered off. Amnesia from hitting your head in the plane. And she went after you to try to bring you back."

Nick said that was fine and hung up. He fell across the bed. He was too tired to even get undressed. He was glad everything was working out so neatly for McAlester. He wished something convenient would happen along his way for a change. It did. He fell asleep.

He was awakened an instant later by the phone. At least it seemed an instant, but it couldn't have been because it was light out. Groggily he reached for the receiver. "Hello?"

"Finally!" exclaimed Candy Sweet. "Where have you been for the last three days? I've been trying to get you."

"Called away," he said vaguely. "What's up?"

"I've found something terrifically important out on Merritt Island," she said excitedly. "Meet me in the lobby in half an hour."

The early morning fog had begun to burn off. Ragged blue holes opened and closed in the grayness. Through them Nick caught brief glimpses of orange grove plantings swinging past like the spokes in a wheel.

Candy was driving. She had insisted that they take her car — a sporty GT model Giulia. She had also insisted that he wait and actually see her discovery. She couldn't — she said — tell him about it.

Still playing it like a little girl, he decided sourly. He glanced over at her. The hip-huggers had been replaced by a white miniskirt which, together with her midriff blouse and white tennis shoes and her fresh-scrubbed blonde prettiness, gave her the look of a high school cheerleader.

She felt him watching her and turned. "Not much farther," she smiled. "It's just north of the Dummitt Grove."

The Space Center's moon port occupied only a small part of Merritt Island. More than seventy thousand acres had been leased back to the farmers who had originally owned the orange groves. The road north from the Bennett Causeway ran through a wilderness of swamp and scrub woods broken up by the Indian River, Seedless Enterprise and Dummitt Groves, all of them dating back to the 1830's.

The road curved now around a small inlet and they passed a bunch of tumbledown shacks on stilts at the water's edge, a combination gas station-grocery store, and a small boatyard with a fishing dock lined with shrimp trawlers. "Enterprise," she said. "It's directly across from Port Canaveral. We're almost there."