John Sandford - Saturn Run

“Paranoid fantasy… science fiction.” Crow took a final pull on his beer, put down the bottle, and asked, “Would you be willing to go back under military discipline?”

“You mean reenlist?”

“You’d be reactivated. You’re still technically—very technically—in the reserve.”

“Could I be a major?”

“No, but you could be a captain,” Crow said.

“Would I have to wear a uniform?”

“Actually, we don’t want you to,” Crow said. “The only reason we want you under discipline is so that if… mmm… there were some difficult orders, the consequences would be more severe if you didn’t follow them. Orders from the President. Court-martial, instead of a bunch of surf rats on a jury from Venice Beach.”

“I could—”

“There’s a little more,” Crow interrupted. “We’d want you to stay under cover. Keep your current persona. The rich and flaky vid guy whose father probably bought him a job on the ship. In other words, we wouldn’t want people to know you’re actually Superman, until it’s time to leap over the building.”

“Let me think about that a second,” Sandy said. He thought one second, then brought out his toothy grin. “Okay. I’m in.”

“And you’ll do what we want.” A statement, not a question.

“I’ll tell you what, Crow,” Sandy said, the smile slipping away. “I’ll not only do what you want, I’ll do what you need.”

Jiang, the ambassador from the People’s Republic of China to the United States, grumbled over the morning briefings. Today’s minor crisis involved a glitch in mining and trade negotiations, and he’d probably have to smooth a few ruffled feathers. What the hell was rhenium used for, anyway?

Chen poked his head in the door without knocking: “Boss? Hate to interrupt, but I got a call from my little birdie. He says we need to watch the President’s speech. More than that: he’s sending a messenger with an advance copy. He said you should read it… for your own good.”

“My own good? Your little birdie is presumptuous,” Jiang said. “What else did he say? Is this going to be ugly? Everything seems smooth right now. Haven’t heard anything from home…”

“That’s why I stuck my head in—my contact is very, very close to Santeros. He hinted that we’re getting an advance look because they basically like us, and don’t want you to look bad, back home. You’ll be able to tip them off.”

“It’s already ten o’clock. The announcement said she’s speaking at one o’clock. What good will three hours do us?”

“Better than no hours, if she’s about to drop a bomb.” Chen looked at his watch. “And it’ll be less than three hours—I got the impression that the messenger wasn’t on his way, yet. The messenger, by the way, will arrive in a Secret Service car. I suspect his arrival will be very closely calculated to give you just enough time to tip off the minister, but not enough time to shoot down whatever balloon Santeros is planning to float.”

Jiang pulled on an ear, thinking, then said, “Tell Chong if he takes more than nine seconds to get from the street to my office, I’ll have him hanged in the basement.”

“Boss, that would be cruel. You know how serious…”

Jiang waved him off. “Okay. Tell him he’ll be flogged in the basement.”

A Secret Service agent, in the middle car of a three-car caravan, delivered a sealed package to Chong at 11:45. Chong made it to the ambassador’s door in 7.5 seconds, handed it off to Chen, who stuck his head in again: “Boss, the package is here.”

“They took their time with it,” Jiang said, as Chen crossed the long Oriental carpet to his desk.

Chen handed him the package and asked, “Do you want me to…” He tipped his head toward the door.

“No. I prefer to have a witness,” Jiang said. “Sit down.”

He ripped off the top of the envelope, using the dangling ribbon that protruded from one end.

Chen nodded, and sat. He’d been Jiang’s right-hand man since Jiang had joined the diplomatic service. Jiang wasn’t entirely sure what the slight and shy man had done before joining the corps, but he was well-connected in Beijing and had excellent intuition. Chen seemed to possess certain kinds of information before other people even knew it existed.

Inside the package, Jiang found a thin sheaf of papers, cheap stuff available at any office supply store. There was no identification on the papers, and they’d apparently been produced on a routine office printer.

“This is serious,” Jiang said, before he started reading. “The paper… we could never prove where it came from… who leaked it.”

Chen nodded.

Jiang began skimming: Routine opening salutations, announcing a great new American initiative that would foster international cooperation, with our friends and allies the Chinese…

Allies?

…have decided to accompany them on their Mars mission…

“What the hell?” Jiang blurted, frowning at the papers in his hand. He looked up at Chen: “We need to get to the communications shell right now.”

“What is it, boss?”

“Santeros is sending a mission to Mars… with us.”

“What?”

They were both moving, Jiang a half step ahead of Chen. “You’re sure about your birdie?”

“As sure as you can get with Americans. They do seem to enjoy treachery for its own sake. On the other hand, I can think of no reason at all that they’d ever set us up, you and I, on something like this. No: it’s real.”

Jiang stopped: “I wonder if the sly boys have anything on this?” He was talking about the Chinese intelligence unit headquartered in the embassy.

Chen shook his head: “I would have heard… one way or another. I do know that they’re asking about the speech, but I haven’t heard that they’ve gotten much back.”

Jiang said, “Then if these papers are correct”—he shook them at Chen—“not only will we be first in Beijing, we will stick a poker up Yang’s ass, will we not?”

Yang was the head of the intelligence unit. Chen showed just a sliver of a smile: “I think, yes, we will. Now that you mention it, I suspect my little birdie knows that, too.”

“It’s a worthwhile thing, anytime, for all of us,” Jiang said.

Jiang read more of the speech as they walked to the elevator that went down to the communications unit, buried deep in the soil of Washington, D.C. Some of it he read aloud to Chen, as the smaller man hurried to keep pace:

We all agree that space is the common heritage of humanity, and it is our future and our promise. Any effort to expand the human spirit enhances us all. We also know that space is still a very dangerous place. Anytime we push the frontiers and boundaries outward we are at risk.

Accordingly, after long-term and extensive consultation with members of Congress, the USSA, and other experts in the field, I am making it our highest priority to join China in their venture to send an expedition to Mars. We commend them for the bravery and spirit they’ve shown in initiating this magnificent undertaking, but our experts have concluded that, despite the Chinese’s brilliant planning and engineering, the risks are too great for a single ship, alone. Failure cannot be considered an acceptable option; it would be a loss for us all. So, we will accompany them, in a ship of our own. Two ships, each self-sufficient, accompanying each other on this grand undertaking greatly improve the chances of success.

The Chinese are well along on building their vessel, and we have no desire to delay their mission. Our best people have come up with a plan to meet their timetable. Accordingly, I have ordered the repurposing of U.S. Space Station Three, to convert it for travel to Mars. Its two habitat modules can handle the personnel and life support needs for a long-duration mission, and they will become the core of the new ship. The addition of tanks, engines, and a new command and instrumentation module to turn it into an interplanetary vessel can be accomplished quickly and efficiently.