Autopsy (Kay Scarpetta, #25)(51)

We can’t be sure what we’re dealing with wasn’t an overt act of aggression, he explains. A United States spacecraft may have been fired upon deliberately. This happened after Horton had assisted his two crewmates, helping them suit up. He claims they exited the airlock at 11:46 last night, although there’s no record of the hatch being opened.

As Horton’s story goes, he returned to the robotic arm station to help with the installation of a new power supply on the experiment platform. His two crewmates began their spacewalk, and he described hearing the muffled clangs of their tether hooks against the hull as they began moving handrail to handrail.

Then suddenly, the cameras and radios were knocked out, accompanied by a terrible loud banging. It sounded like the hull was struck by an army of hammers hitting all at once.

“Damaging the experiment platform and robotic arm, tearing the solar arrays.” NASA continues describing what Horton supposedly relayed to his Russian hosts.

“Whatever actually happened, we have no way of knowing yet.” The president picks up where NASA leaves off. “Since none of this was recorded, and we’ve lost all contact with the top secret laboratory. But if what we’re being told is true, there were serious injuries to the crewmates out on their spacewalk.”

Just how serious, we don’t know, because Jared Horton bailed on them, claiming there was only so much he could do to help. Fearing for his own life, he was convinced the hull must have been penetrated, and pressurization would be lost, the air leaking out.

“Despicably, he left his two injured colleagues stranded and for dead,” the president says.

“THIRTY-THREE MINUTES OUT,” THE commander of Space Force, General Gunner, takes over.

Moving a remote control close, he explains that help is on the way, a rescue crew has deployed from the International Space Station (ISS), headed to the radio-silent orbiting commercial lab. Recorded videos on the data walls show the ISS shining like polished Tiffany silver against blackness.

Its four solar arrays are lit up molten orange by the sun, the Earth a blue and white marble looming large below. A Sierra Space Dream Chaser departs from one of the docking ports. Gliding away through the ether, it brings to mind a mini Space Shuttle, white with black heatshield protection and integrated wings.

The time stamp on the data walls shows the spaceplane left an hour ago, and we’re shown images of the two ISS astronauts inside the glass cockpit. NASA-trained Chip Ortiz from the U.S. and Anni Girard from France are on their way to the rescue with additional medical supplies, and also body bags.

Harnessed in their carbon fiber seats so they don’t float out of them, they’re wearing white launch-reentry suits and helmets that can be pressurized in an emergency. We watch them going through checklists on computer screens, talking to Johnson Space Center mission controllers.

But what we can’t see at this point is the target destination, and there’s no telling what they might find once they get there. The blacked-out panels in the data walls are a reminder that video is missing because of damaged cameras. Or so we’ve been told.

“In actuality, the top secret orbiter is a combination laboratory and habitat.” General Gunner continues his briefing.

“It’s simply designated on satellite maps as T-Oh-One.” Benton looks at me. “Or what those in the know refer to as TO-One. T-O as in Thor Orbiter, the first of its kind.” He finally tells me what he couldn’t before.

“Thor Laboratories is where Gwen Hainey had been working for the past six weeks.” It’s the director of the Secret Service speaking, and I’m stunned by the mayhem this murdered woman has caused.

We’re informed that in recent hours, the phones have been ringing nonstop. Information has been coming in from people who had contact with her, and the more we learn, the more suspicious she looks.

“Benton?” the director of the Secret Service says to him. “I’ll let you fill in the blanks about what it appears Gwen Hainey was up to.”

“Nothing good,” my husband solemnly says.

He explains that she was in and out of a number of biomedical companies. It was her habit to skip around, to gather what she wanted. Then she’d move on to her next industrial victim. He repeats what Lucy told me about his conversation with Jinx Slater.

“The one thing every company has in common is it works on top secret projects with various governments, most of all ours,” Benton explains to the Situation Room. “Other information we’ve gotten since her name hit the news is equally disturbing.”

It would seem that Gwen already had set her sights on another high-value target. Intuitive Machines in Texas has created the next lunar lander, the first one made in America in more than half a century. It will bring small payloads down to the surface of the moon, and this could include the sorts of biomedical technology experiments that were Gwen’s specialty.

“It would seem she was prepared to steal Intuitive Machines blind like everybody else,” Benton says. “I’m sure you can imagine the proprietary nature of these new lunar technologies, not just to the Russians and Chinese but to any competitor.”

“Well, it won’t happen now, for which we can be hugely grateful,” says the senator from Texas. “Not that I’m glad she was murdered.” But he might be, based on his demeanor.

“Obviously, she knew what she was doing,” says the CIA.