“Yes.”

“It’s hard to see a difference.”

“I’ve forwarded the entire package to you. Look at them on your computer.”

She brought them up on the display. Studied a pair. Moved to the next ones. “Has anybody else seen these? An expert of some sort?”

“Mandy Edwards.”

She was nodding. “And she thinks the official pictures—”

“—are doctored. Yes.”

She looked at more pictures. Wiped the back of her hand against her lips. “Okay,” she said finally. “Maybe you’re onto something. I don’t know. If you’re right, it’s been kept quiet for a half century, and I can’t see that anyone’s been harmed by it. Can we just let it go?”

Jerry suddenly felt tired. “You know, I lied out there today.”

“In what way?”

“Tonya Brant asked me point-blank whether I had any reason to believe the government was hiding something. I told her no. Nada. No way.”

“Jerry—”

“I don’t like lying. Especially to television cameras.”

“Jerry, for God’s sake, you’ve been in politics. You helped George make it to the state house. Helped him get to the Oval Office.”

“That’s politics, Mary. People expect you to shade the truth. It’s part of the game. This isn’t the same thing at all.”

“Jerry, I wish we could just walk away from this.”

“When I went in there this morning, I already knew about these.” He picked up the folder. “But I wanted to save my job, so I just flat out lied.”

“Jerry, this is all a misunderstanding of some sort. It’s just a crater. For God’s sake, what do you think they were trying to hide? What do you think they could possibly have been trying to hide?”

“I told you I don’t know, Mary.”

“All right, when you find out, let me know. Then we’ll see whether we want to go further.”

“No,” he said.

“Jerry, I’m not asking you.”

“I’m part of the cover-up now, Mary.” She sat staring at him. “You’ll have my resignation by the end of the day.”

13

Barbara teared up and told him she wanted him to stay. Vanessa, who might have been looking at an opportunity to step in and take over, nevertheless seemed genuinely unhappy. The fifth floor was filled with friends, people he routinely ate lunch with, partied with, played bridge with. He’d enjoyed working with them because they were true believers. Most of his career had been spent in places where it was just a job and everybody understood that. Even when he was working on George’s Ohio campaign, surrounded almost exclusively by volunteers, the level of enthusiasm had been different. Not that it had been at a lower level, but it had been aimed, not at putting a man everyone admired into the state house, but rather at winning a game, at being smarter than the other side.

He took time to stroll through the area, saying good-bye to everybody. They all wished him luck. Some said he was making a mistake and should reconsider; others thought he was making a smart move, getting off a sinking ship. When he’d finished, he returned to his office and began getting his personal gear together. His sweater. Some notes. His pens. He was taking the photos down off the walls when Mary came by and made a second appeal. “You don’t really want to do this,” she said. “Take twenty-four hours and think about it. Call me tomorrow and let me know. I’m sure we can work something out.”

God knew he wanted to stay. To be here when NASA became what everybody had thought it would become. But he no longer believed it.

“Mary,” he said, “this isn’t politics. We’re supposed to be a science-first organization. That’s what brought me here, and it’s the position I’ve taken since my first day. I don’t cover up, I don’t mislead, and it would be doing the organization a serious disservice to start now.

“Something strange happened fifty years ago. I don’t know what it was, or even what it might have been. But whatever it’s about, unless someone can give me a good reason to back off, something better than keeping my job, then I won’t be part of what we’re doing now. Of lying about it.”

He handed her the resignation. Fifteen minutes later, he drove past the security gate onto the Kennedy Parkway, thinking how he’d never go back.

—

In an age of instant communications, a guy with the right kind of reputation didn’t have to wait long for job offers to come in. In fact, they were stacked up at his website when he got up next morning. Half the corporations on the planet seemed to need someone to become the face of their operations. He received invitations from Bolingbroke Furniture, “Relax with the Elite”; from Kia and Ford; from Coca-Cola; and from Amnesty International. Harvard offered him a teaching position. The United Nations wanted him to join the Committee for the Elimination of Hunger (CEH). MSNBC invited him to join the band of commentators on The Morning Show. The State Department offered him a post as an assistant secretary. He had no experience whatever in foreign policy. So that might have meant somebody was hoping to keep him quiet.

The NFL needed a spokesman. They’d gone through a series of scandals, and they wanted someone, they said, with a reputation for integrity. He wondered whether they weren’t just looking for somebody to distract the reporters.

Most of the positions would have brought in considerably more money than he’d been making with NASA. But he just couldn’t get excited about moving cars or soft drinks. Or covering for the NFL’s wayward millionaires. The State Department, he suspected, would find a way to send him to Outer Mongolia. Amnesty International sounded good, but the money was minimal.

Josephine Bracken called him as he was getting ready to go out to breakfast. She was with CUES, the Committee to Upgrade Energy Systems. It was another nonprofit. “We need you, Jerry,” she said. Josephine had been an activist for twenty years. “We can’t offer you the kind of money NASA was paying you, but look at the cause you’d be supporting. If we don’t succeed in getting our message out, in getting rid of fossil fuels, the climate will deteriorate to the point there will be massive disasters. It’s just a matter of time. There’s no way we can continue to pour poison into the atmosphere before we get a major reaction.”

“I’d like to help, Jo,” he said, “but if you want the truth, I think people are tired of listening to warnings about the climate. Yes, it’s going downhill. But it’s been a slow process, and the deniers won’t give up until the catastrophe hits. The fact is, nobody cares anymore. Most people don’t even think about it. The problem’s gone invisible.”

“That’s why we need you, Jerry. We need someone to help stir things up.”

“Jo, I’m going to have to pass. I hate to say this, but working with your organization would just be a shortcut to a heart attack. I’ve had enough of lost causes.”

She sighed. “Okay, Jerry. I hope you’ll change your mind. If you do, give me a call, okay?”

—

He felt guilty about that. But he was convinced there’d be no serious effort to deal with the problem until the Atlantic rolled in over downtown Manhattan. He just didn’t need any more frustration in his life. Better to go back into politics. Real politics, that is, the kind where you just find a way to beat the other side and put your guy in office. It was the sort of work he could live with. And, to tell the truth, that he enjoyed.

Jim Tilghman was up for reelection this year. He was running for his second term in the Senate. And he was a decent guy. Someone he could support with a clear conscience. The word was that he was unhappy with the way his campaign was being run. That meant a reorganization would be coming.