Autopsy(Kay Scarpetta #25)(54)

“Privet iz kosmosa. Kak dela?” is the extent of Horton’s message to Gwen, one she never knew about or heard, and now never will.

“He’s saying, ‘Hello from space. How are you?’” Tron translates. “That’s it. And I’m not surprised because he knew as he was leaving the message that it was going to be listened to soon enough. And picked apart, the very thing we’re doing.”

She informs us that Horton placed the call this morning at 2:02 Eastern Standard Time. At that moment, the top secret Thor orbiter was passing almost 300 miles (500 kilometers) over New York City, traveling at a blistering 17,500 miles per hour (approximately 28,000 kilometers per hour or Mach 22).

“As it passed over, the orbiter would have been visible from the ground for three minutes max had the stormy weather permitted,” General Gunner says.

I’m reminded that spacecraft such as satellites aren’t the only things cloaked by a dense overcast. Whatever, whoever passed in and out of Colonial Landing’s front gates last Friday night wasn’t going to be visible from above, either.

“Not everybody realizes how much can be captured on camera from up there,” I add.

“That’s right, Doctor Scarpetta.” General Gunner nods at me. “And Horton would be well aware of details like that and much more, assuming he had anything to do with her murder. By the sounds of it, he was getting unstable.”

It wasn’t the first long-duration flight for his two crewmates. But it was for Horton. He was becoming increasingly isolated and paranoid the longer he was in space.

“Apparently, he would make jokes about escaping on the Soyuz, that if they didn’t treat him right, he’d leave without them,” says the general.

“One of many reasons we don’t want to be dependent on a foreign nation for our transportation,” the senator from Florida says.

“Horton is in Russia and out of our control because it was a Soyuz, not a SpaceX Dragon, docked outside the orbiter. Had it been the latter,” NASA adds, “he would have splashed down in the ocean where we would have intercepted him. He’d be in our medical clinic at Kennedy right now.”

But it’s only been recently that crewed U.S. rocket launches have resumed launching from Kennedy Space Center, thanks to our partnership with SpaceX, the NASA administrator continues, giving us the background. Prior to that we’ve had no way to reach the ISS since the Space Shuttle was mothballed a decade ago.

“But that doesn’t mean the Soyuz isn’t used by the U.S. and our allies, when needed,” General Gunner says. “Thor and other huge commercial companies certainly avail themselves of it. Horton had been in and out of Russia for years getting all sorts of special training, and in mid-September, he and his crewmates launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.”

These days it’s mostly the commercial companies paying the sticker price, not us, NASA’s administrator adds. Thor Laboratories has a steep discount compared to what the U.S. government has been shelling out at some ninety million dollars per seat every time we ferry our astronauts to and from the ISS.

“ON FINAL.” GENERAL GUNNER is riveted to the data walls as the Dream Chaser’s cameras show it closing in on the Thor orbiter. “Slowing the approach, twenty meters out.”

We have a clear view of solar arrays unfurled like bluish-black wings edged in fiery orange, as delicate as gossamer. Bringing to mind a dragonfly, the structure glows and flares in the ever-changing light as the sun rises and sets during each ninety-minute orbit around our planet.

“Pretty strange it’s just sitting there with no apparent damage,” General Gunner says right away.

There are no visible tears in the two solar arrays’ tightly packed cells of photovoltaic material that convert sunlight into electricity. Whatever damage there may be, it’s not obvious, the unresponsive silvery spacecraft about the size of a school bus. I would think that from the perspective of a powerful telescope it could pass for your garden-variety large satellite.

But upon close inspection, one notices the attached experiment platform and small robotic arm. A normal satellite wouldn’t have two docking ports, both empty, and I imagine Horton escaping by himself in the only vehicle. By all accounts he jumped ship, fled, possibly leaving two wounded colleagues to fend for themselves with no means of communicating or returning to Earth.

Such a selfish, cowardly act. His only concern was himself and the trouble that might be in store for him. But someone who steals and spies with impunity doesn’t care about anybody else, can’t possibly suffer from empathy, and I’m beyond disgusted.

“You can see what the cameras are picking up as the crew hand flies the Dream Chaser without the assistance of the disabled orbiting laboratory’s ground control.” General Gunner gives us the blow-by-blow. “We don’t know what’s going on with the remaining two crew members inside,” he reiterates. “Or what may have become of the critically important projects they’ve been working on.”

Billions of dollars in top secret biomedical research and development have been going on for years, unbeknownst to the public, he says.

“Thor’s research and technologies include the three-D printing of human organs and skin,” the vice president says, her keen eyes peering up from her notes. “I don’t need to tell you the implications for the military, for space travel, for the health of world leaders, for humanity overall.”