Blood and Treasure

Blood and Treasure

PROLOGUE


Johnson Space Center

Houston, Texas


Only the dead silence of space replied for the crew.

“Station, Houston,” the tech said. “How do you read?”

A tonal chirp like the one from a tiny bird followed the broken sound waves from the digital speakers throughout Johnson Space Center’s Mission Control. The sound was a carryover from an old technology and was no longer produced by the radios organically; now, the artificial Quindar tone bookended all transmissions. This tone echoed across dozens of blank faces. Again, the radio pinged, but this time it was followed by a thick Japanese accent.

“Station, Scooba. Come in?”

Everyone in Mission Control listened, holding their breath. Still, there was no answer. Then the radio pulsed from Germany. “Station, Munich.”

Then more.

“Station, Montreal. Over.”

“Station, Moscow.”

Korolev, Moscow. The Russian Center for Control of Flight, known by American astronauts as SOUP. Korolev was the sister to Houston for control of the International Space Station (ISS).

“Station, Moscow. We’re transmitting in the blind. If you hear us, we’ve lost link to station and cannot control thruster. Be advised, orbital creep is approaching critical altitude. Station, Moscow. Come in, Station?”

Jordin Devine sat at her desk in Mission Control, perched on the second floor of Building 30 at Johnson Space Center. A tiny cog in the international machine of space exploration. A very tiny cog. Each of the twenty long desks, stacked with computer monitors, handled a different area of the station. Jordin tucked her hair behind an ear and focused on the monitors, so hard her eyes stung. She handled audio and video, and among the important problems growing for the ISS, audio and video took priority for the flight director. He needed to see his astronauts. Hear their voices.

She furiously tapped away at her keyboard, rifling through the endless lines of code.

“Devine?” The flight director said, projecting his voice over the room. The flight director was an astronaut himself and the one responsible for the ISS in orbit. He was known to all by his callsign, Remi.

Jordin spun in her chair. “Sir?”

“Devine, we need something—”

“Yes, sir. Working on it,” Jordin said.

“Well, work faster.” Remi remained stationary, staring at the opposite wall full of giant digital screens streaming the orbit of the ISS around the globe.

The orbital path fell, displayed by a colored line playing in a looped graphic, blinking from green, to white—then red.

Jordin leaned into her keyboard, fingers keeping pace with the dizzying speed of her cast gray eyes. An eagerness preceded the last rap of her hands on the keys.

“I've got a feed…”

“Audio or video?” Remi said.

Jordin clicked her mouse and lifted her gaze to the big screens on the far wall of the control room.

“Both,” she said.

A crackling hum filled Mission Control as the audio came through. Then a live video feed flickered on from inside the Destiny Laboratory and the Unity module (Node 1), connecting the US and Russian Orbital sections. It was muted in dark shades of red and slipped into a black screen at irregular intervals before finally establishing a continuous live stream.

Everyone glued their eyes to the screen. Gasps floated across the room like a dark cloud. The flight director turned away and whispered into his headset. Remi spoke to the “back room,” or executive NASA leadership. It was a one way flurry of information without reply.

Then Jordin stood, covering her mouth with a trembling hand as the video resolution tightened. “Oh my God…”



The International Space Station


The internal lights of the International Space Station flickered and dimmed, twitching a slow death. With every spark from a bundle of split wiring, the station’s lights guttered. The constant, gentle drone of the station was interrupted only by the radio, churning clipped static as the station flew over the horizon, away from the frequency’s reach.

“Station, Moscow?”

“Stat—oscow—”

A single eggshell-colored Extravehicular Mobility Suit glove moved through the Unity module. It wasn’t flying; it was falling. Falling off the edge of the earth as the station executed its orbit at over 17,000 miles per hour. Spinning like a ballerina, the glove impacted a padded wall, sending it twirling on its axis through a swarm of floating orb-like marbles and into the Harmony module—the heart of the ISS.

The burgundy-colored spheres stretched and blobbed. Some clung to one another and formed larger orbs, while others multiplied and stained the glove red.

That’s what blood does in outer space.

The woman hooked her feet under rungs on a wall of the module, holding herself in place among the zero-gravity environment. She took a deep breath and brushed the wet nodules away from her face as if they were flies. Her cheeks were smattered with blood, tissue, and tiny fragments of debris. The circular window only made it worse; without it, she wouldn’t have ever known the station was rotating. But every two seconds, the light reflected off the earth’s surface and flashed over her almond eyes. Strobing a reminder of the station’s motion, hurtling out of control through orbit.

The radio continued to crackle, but the woman continued to ignore it.

“—tation, Mosco—”

She wore an EMU suit, but the helmet and gloves had been removed. Bloody hand prints marked the suit and partially covered the red, white, and green of the Iranian flag on her shoulder. A velcro patch on her chest held a name written in both Farsi and English:

Mojdeh “Moj” Zahedi.

Her eyes locked in on a computer screen as she fought back the flutter in her stomach and the bile rising in the back of her throat. Vertigo. She could throw up at any moment. But there wasn’t time for that now. There was only time to complete her task. She wiped away the beads of sweat that pooled on her skin.

Moj released the Russian Makarov 9mm pistol from her hand, and it gently drifted away before the stiff corpse of a man in a navy blue flight suit bounced off the wall—a bloody orb growing over his body like an inflating balloon. She nudged him along and returned to her work. Fingers jabbing at a breakneck pace, she worked her way through the station’s systems.

LIFE SUPPORT — FAILING.

ACTIVE THERMAL CONTROL SYSTEM — LEAK WARNING. STATION TEMPERATURE CRITICAL.

ORBIT — DEGRADED. ORBITAL DECAY CRITICAL. WARNING. FIRE THRUSTERS.

WARNING.

WARNING…

Moj muttered in Farsi, then Arabic, then Russian, before closing her eyes and slamming a fist into the keyboard. The station shook.

Moj screamed something in Farsi.


Houston

The video feed cut to a black screen.

CONNECTION LOST.

“What?” the flight director said. “What the hell just happened?” He paced the floor of Mission Control. “Get me back that video feed, Devine.”

“Yes, sir. It wasn’t a live feed, like I originally thought. There’s a delay.”

“How long of a delay are we talking here?”

“Maybe an hour, or more?” she guessed.

“I need that feed yesterday.”

Jordin Devine sunk back to her desk, staring at the computer, shaking her head.

“No,” she said.

“Is the station over the horizon?” The flight director said, “Switch to Germany—”

“No,” she said louder. “No, it’s not the feed, it’s—”

“What?”

Jordin clicked her mouse, and the wall of monitors in Mission Control now displayed the orbit of the ISS. A warning tone continued in the background, synced with a flashing red banner across the screen.

“WARNING,” a digital voice repeated. “ORBIT DEGRADED. FIRE THRUSTERS. WARNING. ORBIT DEGRADED. FIRE THRUSTERS.”

“The entire station,” Jordin said. “It—it’s just… gone.”



1

Maputo

Mozambique, Africa

Ethan Cain jolted awake in the darkness.

Sweat soaked his body and the sheets of his bunk. His arms frantically reached out for the wall, and its presence grounded him as his chest settled into a rhythmic breathing pattern.

A glance down at his Garmin Fēnix 7 Solar smartwatch told him it was too early. But it was always too early.

4:32 a.m.

Ethan swung his legs over the side of the twin bunk and his feet found the floor. After a brief exhale, he stood and shook the sleep from his face.

Not bothering to dress, he exited his stateroom and crept down a narrow hall as the boat rocked gently. A lap of dull waves thudded against the fiberglass hull. Ethan crept past several other stateroom doors, still shut.

His employees.

His friends.

His responsibility.

He ascended a short set of teak stairs into an open salon, complete with a galley, living room, and dining area. The far bulkhead held a nautical chart of the eastern coast of Mozambique, fixed to the wall with packing tape. He flicked on a light and the modern interior burned to life. Ethan stood in his shorts studying the charts.

He wore his past on his skin as if it were a wax patina. Starting at his feet, off-color burn scars enveloped his entire body like the rippling bark of an ancient oak tree. They wrapped him in gruesome patterns of crosshatched lines known to plastic surgeons as "fishnet" scars-the result of partial-thickness skin grafts. A lot of them, halting only at the neckline. Only his face had been spared the same trauma. Except for his hands, with pants and a long-sleeved shirt, none were the wiser to his injuries.

But Ethan could never hide them from himself. To him, the fire that caused them was always burning in him, an eternal flame.

Skin-the largest organ-protects the body from germs and regulates body temperature. Packed full of nerves, it transmits hormonal and electric sensations to the brain, differentiating hot from cold. But without these nerve bundles and glands intact, burn-scarred skin can't regulate temperature in the same way. Like the sensation of warmth flooding a pair of cold feet, pins and needles constantly plagued him. The pain was unrelenting. A living nightmare he could never wake from.

The only solution he'd devised was staying in nearly perpetual motion.

Ethan scanned the map, pulling the cap off a purple marker. His hand brushed past hundreds of tiny boxes laid out in a grid pattern, some with lines hatched across their interior. The grids worked their way offshore like a frustrated game of Tetris. The marker squeaked as Ethan added a few more to the stack.

Through the port window, the eastern horizon glowed indigo. In the middle of it, the waking sun peeked through, offering a hint of pink.

At the steering console, Ethan typed a series of coordinates into the GPS and synced it to the boat's autopilot. He twisted a steel key and depressed a pair of igniter buttons, starting overpowered twin turbo-diesel inboard engines. A heavy chug rumbled the deck to life. The boat crept forward as the navigational touchscreen computer blinked:

AUTOPILOT ACTIVE.

In the same touchscreen, Ethan turned on a hull-mounted side-scan sonar. His rough-textured finger moved through a series of operating modes, landing on one titled SEA FLOOR MAPPING.

He ran the program.

CALIBRATING.

"Early bird gets the worm," he said.

Ethan stepped out into the morning darkness. The churn of the engines gurgled water astern and gently pushed the fifty-two-foot Bluewater 5200 custom monohull yacht at just over one knot. A snail's pace.

At the bow, Ethan pulled up the now slack, salty-wet line that was attached to a fixed-bottom mooring of concrete blocks. Free of its tether, the boat gently turned to port.

Ethan's eyelids fell and he inhaled deeply. A pair of hazel-green eyes flared open before he dove off the starboard bow, slipping smoothly underneath the ocean swells of East Africa. The initial shock of the cold water sent his heart racing-then calm. The water was a solace from the constant plague of his injuries and his mind. Surfacing, Ethan remained close alongside, matching the boat's languid pace as he swam.


Splashes of alternating freestyle strokes and gasps focused Ethan’s thoughts. Rhythmic. Smooth. Almost meditative. No matter how turbulent the surface, the water beneath always remained constant-unwavering. He aimed to be the same.

Suddenly, a harsh spotlight surrounded him, making everything else seem darker. He stopped swimming and treaded in place, shielding his eyes. The boat drifted ahead of him before the engines cut to an idle. A deep, panicked voice projected over the water.

"Man overboard! Man overboard!"

All the boat's lights came on at once. Ethan looked up at a burly oxlike man with dark skin who hurled an orange life ring into the water. It splashed ten feet away from Ethan.

"Grab on, man. I got you! Grab the ring!"

Ethan spat salty water and smirked. "Who are you yelling to, Hank? The only other person on the boat is Mona Lisa, and you know she doesn't wake up before the sun. For anything."

Hank Goodwin's shoulders seemed to relax. Ethan watched the life ring drift farther and farther out of reach.

"Good to know, if I was actually drowning," Ethan said, "you'd at least try and save me."

"Very funny, man." Hank hauled in the rescue line, hand over hand. "You doing your little swim ritual again?"

"I was."

Hank nodded. "Damn, E. You know that shit freaks me out. We're already at high alert on this job enough as it is."

"C'mon, whoever they are, they won't find the artifact before we do. They're just treasure hunters. We've got the scroll."

"Yeah?" Hank said. "And what happens when they find us first?"

Ethan didn't reply. His brand of optimism wasn't a widely shared quality, but he knew better what could happen. The thought of risking his friends' lives hadn't been lost on him.

Far from it.

He also knew that no matter how much he lied to himself, whoever was pursuing them-they were much more than just treasure hunters.

Ethan swam closer and slicked brown wavy hair out of his eyes. He surveyed Hank, who was naked except for a pair of red-white-and-blue superhero-branded boxer shorts.

"Really?" he said under a smirk. "Captain America, huh?"

Hank's face grew long and he pulled the life ring back onto the deck. "You really are nuts, you know that? Trusting a computer to drive the boat-"

"Computers are wrong less than people are."

"Yeah, well, I ain't so convinced yet. Look, if you wanna swim laps with the sharks-you do you . . ." Hank tapped his bulging chest and followed it with a wide grin. "But I'm drivin'."