Back to the Moon by Homer Hickam Page A

They’d kept to themselves, working, it seemed, night and day. Cecil could see the lights on at the old airport far into the night. Then Jack had taken a big chance, telling Cecil, an officer of the court, about what he and his people had decided to do to meet the terms of their contract with Isaac Perlman and the January Group. Jack must have known it was entirely possible that Cecil would run straight to the FBI. He hadn’t, of course, but he had certainly thought about it. Never in his wildest dreams would he have thought his friend and the hardworking, good people of MEC, including his wife, might be involved in such a scheme. It had taken a lot of quiet walks along the beach road, and arguments with himself, and long discussions with Terri, before Cecil made up his mind to help. After a while he wasn’t certain why he had joined the project except that Jack was his friend, and obviously determined to do the thing, no matter what it took, and also because Cecil wanted to keep the MEC people, including the mother of his children, out of prison.
    From that moment Cecil had kept himself strictly above the details of what MEC was doing. He worked only on matters of law involving the legitimate contract involved. Although Cecil knew it could be argued otherwise, he had not, to his knowledge, broken any law—just followed it to its arcane letter. Cecil had once discounted classmates who argued there are times when principle and purpose must be above the law, no matter how moral the law itself. Now he finally understood why that was so.
    Cecil had also arranged for Jack to sell the patent for his sling pump, saw to the division of the money to the thirty employees. Jack took nothing for himself. MEC was out of business, perhaps forever.
    The strange thing was when you came right down to it, all this effort was for dirt. Cecil pondered that as he walked up the old wooden steps that led to his office. It seemed to him there was always something else Jack was after, something that he kept from everyone.
    Cecil looked through the stack in his in-box and then went to his desk and had a slow cup of coffee and watched cable news. As he knew they would, the announcements concerning the shuttle finally came on. The correspondent, a frowning woman with a puffy blond hairdo blowing in the Cape Canaveral breeze, reported that
Columbia
had gotten off but there were irregularities still unknown. “If you only knew the half of it,” Cecil said to the television set. He put down his coffee cup and picked up the phone. It was time to get the plan going.
    He dialed the Department of Transportation number he had memorized. A woman answered, explained that the officer Cecil asked for was on vacation (as Cecil well knew), and asked if she could be of assistance. Cecil identified himself. “I called to tell you,” he said, following the script he had rehearsed a dozen times, “that I have received word from my client that, pursuant to the clause in paragraph four dot five dot one of contract Alpha one dot two dot two four three five, the company known as MEC is notifying the Department of Transportation as required in said contract that it is initiating its physical study of the capabilities of the Space Transportation System in a modified mode, utilizing the orbiter
Columbia
and having provided experts in the field of pilotage, navigation, and engine design for safety purposes as according to OSHA regulation four seven nine dot two dot three dot—”
    â€œWait a minute,” the contract officer interrupted, exasperated. “I’m not familiar with this agreement.” Cecil heard the click of fingernails on a computer keyboard. “Okay, here it is. Now would you mind telling me what you just said, only in English this time, okay?”
    Cecil cleared his throat. “The clause I just cited requires MEC to notify the Department of Transportation that it has invoked the clause in their contract