Gravity: A Novel of Medical Suspense by Tess Gerritsen

Author:Tess Gerritsen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2010-07-20T22:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

At 4,093 feet above sea level, the air at White Sands Missile Proving Grounds was dry and thin. The landing strip traced across an ancient dried-out seabed located in a desert valley formed between the Sacramento and Guadalupe mountain ranges to the east, and the San Andres Mountains to the west. The closest town was Alamogordo, New Mexico. The terrain was stark and arid, and only the hardiest of desert vegetation could survive.

The area had long served as a training base for fighter pilots. It had also seen other uses through the decades. During World War II, it was the site of a German prisoner of war camp. It was also the location of the Trinity site, where the U.S. exploded its first atomic bomb, assembled not far away in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Barbed wire and unmarked government buildings had sprouted up in this desert valley, their functions a mystery even to the residents of nearby Alamogordo.

Through binoculars, Jack could see the landing strip shimmering with heat in the distance. Runway 16/34 was oriented just slightly off due north-south. It was fifteen thousand feet long and three hundred feet wide—large enough to accept the heaviest of jets, even in that rarefied air, which forces long landing and takeoff rolls.

Just west of the touchdown point, Jack and the medical team waited, along with a small convoy of NASA and United Space Alliance vehicles, for Discovery’s arrival. They had stretchers, oxygen, defibrillators, and ACLS kits—everything one could find in a modern ambulance, and more. For landings at Kennedy, there would be over one hundred fifty ground team members prepared to meet the orbiter. Here, on this desert strip, they had barely three dozen, and eight of them were medical personnel. Some of the ground crew were wearing self-contained atmospheric protective suits, to insulate them from any propellant leaks. They would be the first to meet the orbiter and, with atmospheric sensors, would quickly assess the potential for explosions before allowing doctors and nurses to approach.

A distant rumble made Jack lower his binoculars and glance due east. Choppers were approaching, so many of them they looked like an ominous swarm of black wasps.

“What’s this?” said Bloomfeld, also noticing the choppers. Now the rest of the ground crew was staring at the sky, many of them murmuring in bewilderment.

“Could be backup,” said Jack.

The convoy leader, listening on his comm unit, shook his head. “Mission Control says they’re not ours.”

“This airspace should be clear,” said Bloomfeld.

“We’re trying to hail the choppers, but they’re not responding.”

The rumble had crescendoed, and Jack could feel it in his bones now, a deep and constant thrum in his sternum. They were going to invade the orbiter’s airspace. In fifteen minutes, Discovery would drop out of the sky and find those choppers in her flight path. He could hear the convoy leader talking urgently into his headset, could feel panic begin to ripple through the ground crew.

“They’re holding position,” said Bloomfeld.

Jack raised his binoculars. He counted almost a dozen choppers.

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