Kline positioned Henry’s body in a way that appeared natural. To a casual observer, Henry had fallen asleep at his desk while working late into the night.
Kline slid the mission notes underneath the engineer’s arm, and then set the Neuro Pulse Rewriter, or NPR, on the desk. He attached a pad to both sides of Henry’s head. Two sets of needle-thin tendrils slid out of the pads and snaked into Henry’s ears. The arms of the NPR stimulated a portion of Henry’s temporal lobe, re-writing his memory. He wouldn’t just forget what had happened; he would have entirely new memories.
“How close are you?” Command asked through the communicator.
“Just planted the evidence.”
Kline left the office and drove to Launch Pad 39A. Two security guards spotted his car as it pulled up. They sauntered over. Aimed flashlights at him.
“Sorry, sir, pad’s closed for the night.”
Kline stepped out of the car and pulled a pistol. Two shots. Both guards hit the asphalt. Faces down, unconscious. Kline injected them with the memory erasing serum and moved to the launch site.
He paused. The Saturn V rocket loomed above him like a gigantic bird of prey. Asleep and tranquil now, it would soon roar to life, flinging its cargo into space. To Kline it was archaic, a fascinating relic of man’s early attempts at space travel. But, he didn’t have time to admire history.
“A detailed schematic of the oxygen tanks has been sent to your datapad. Placement of the explosives is critical, even to a centimeter.”
Kline scrolled through the blueprint. A pulsing red light on the display indicated the location of the oxygen tanks on the service module. Two small circles on the schematic revealed the appropriate placement of the nickel-sized explosives.
Sabotage seemed too easy. But the intricate puzzle of deception reached far beyond Apollo 13. Operation Yamato was just beginning.
