“How close are they?”
“We’re not sure,” came the response through Kline’s communicator.
His brow furrowed. The Union had already found him. “What happened to the new encryption procedure?”
“They cracked it faster than anticipated. We put the bounty hunter in play.”
XLS scenarios had been wrong. JFK’s assassination hadn’t prevented lunar exploration as they had hoped. It had only delayed it. That wasn’t enough. Operation Yamato’s success hinged on preventing NASA from studying the moon’s Fra Mauro region.
Kline’s next objective was to convince Henry Ellis that the FBI had found a leak in his department.
“Keep me posted.” Kline terminated the call as Henry’s car eased through the Kennedy Space Center’s front gate. Henry pulled over. Kline strode up to the sedan. “Did you bring them?”
“You shouldn’t be here!” Henry glanced at the guard manning the gate security booth. He whispered, “It’s not that easy.”
“We had a deal.”
“I thought we were supposed to be protecting the mission files, not stealing them! Security is tight. There are procedures. I can’t just walk out the door with classified documents!”
Kline’s black polyester suit stretched as he crossed his arms. “Our intelligence suggests that the mission has been compromised. People could die. We need those reports!”
“It’s impossible–”
“You can’t help them from jail.”
The engineer’s mouth snapped shut. His bets had caught up with him. “Let me talk to Kevin. I’ll see if–”
“No,” said Kline. “No one else can know what we’re doing. We selected you for a reason. You’re clean. Outside the gambling issue, we trust you. We can’t trust anybody else.”
Kline would have balked had the same entreaty been given to him. But 1970 was a different time, and Henry Ellis a different person. It struck a chord. Henry paused.
“All right, I’ll do it. I’ll get them.”
Henry pulled away from the curb.
Kline had a foot in the door, but that wasn’t enough to get him what he needed.
