“Out-of-this-world thriller...sure to quicken the heartbeat!”

– NEW YORK POST

“Creates a believable scenario in which the race to the Moon still has secrets to bare...FREEFALL blends fact and fiction to convey to the reader a thought-provoking premise of what might actually be true.”

– WILLIAM FOSTER, SHUTTLE GROUND CONTROL OFFICER

The next race to the Moon has begun.

Not to make new discoveries, but to bury old secrets.

THE PLACE  The International Space Station.  Docked to it, the Space Shuttle Constitution.  Crewed by ten astronauts trained to recover the $100-million cargo aboard the first privately launched lunar sample return mission.

THE EVENT  Sabotage.  The containers from the Moon hold more than rocks and moondust, and there are those who are willing to kill to keep that knowledge from the world.

So begins the riveting new novel of conspiracy and suspense by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, New York Times bestselling authors of Icefire and Quicksilver. 

The time is just a few years from now, as NASA sets its sights on America’s return to the moon.  But when shocking evidence returned from the lunar surface threatens to expose the darkest secret of America’s first lunar landing, a deadly second space race begins, pitting the newest branch of the American military against unsuspected enemies – foreign and domestic – on the ground, in orbit, and beyond.  And in the center of the action, fighting the military, NASA, and each other to uncover the truth at any cost, are Navy SEAL Captain Mitch Webber and environmental activist Cory Rey – the heroes of Icefire reunited with Air Force Major Wilhemina Bailey for their most critical mission yet.

Praised as unique storytellers who effortlessly blend compelling characters and relentless action with cutting-edge technology and international intrigue, now the Reeves-Stevenses expand their vision to include the breathtaking scope of space exploration, from today’s space station and shuttle orbiters, to the next generation of vehicles and equipment that will take us back to the Moon.

Weaving together the desperate struggles of astronauts trapped aboard the crippled space station, with the deadly hidden history of the space race of the 1960s, and the ruthless political and corporate conflicts driving the inevitable next race to the Moon, FREEFALL is a riveting new novel that will once again leave the reader guessing where fact ends and fiction begins.

EXCERPT

Shiourie smiled at Bailey. “So, tell me Major, what do you know about Roswell today?”

Hubert laughed as his wife shook her head.  “Same as any day, Sunny.  Nothing.”

Professor Shiourie shared her joke with Webber and Cory.  “I am always asking Wilhemina that.  And she is always answering, ‘Nothing.’  But someday, when she says, ‘I cannot talk about it,’ that is the day I will know that the topic has come up at her work.”

She turned to Webber.  “Have you ever seen a UFO?”

“Nothing I couldn’t explain,” Webber said.  He saw Bailey suppress a smile.

Shiourie pursed her lips as if she had caught him in a lie.  “Very well, Navy pilot, what is it you know about Roswell?”

“It’s in New Mexico.”  

“No, no,” Shiourie said.  She glanced at her watch again, keeping track of the time.  “The crashed alien spacecraft.  The retrieval of alien life-forms.  The source of the laser and fiberoptics and even Velcro – all from reverse-engineered alien technology.”

“Other than knowing Velcro was inspired by thistles,” Webber said, “I don’t know anything about Roswell.”

“Pity.  The Navy was involved,” Shiourie said.

“In recovering aliens and UFOs?” Cory asked. 

“Oh, that is not what I was saying, Doctor.  You have to pay close attention.  I said, the Navy was involved in Roswell.  The UFO crash story, that is just that – a story.”

Webber noted the nod of agreement Bailey’s husband gave his friend.  “So... which camp are you in?  Believer, or nonbeliever?”

The professor regarded him with pity.  “Precision in language is a lost art.  Are there UFOs?  That is, objects that fly that are unidentifiable?  Of course.  Does it follow that a UFO is therefore an alien craft? Absolutely not.  Did a UFO crash at Roswell on or about July 7, 1947?  Without question.  Was it an alien spacecraft?  Alas, no.  It was exactly what the Air Force said it was in those two preposterous reports they published in the nineties.” 

“Then why call them preposterous if you think they’re accurate?” Cory asked.

“Because,” Shiourie said, “those reports still attempted to cover up the true events of Roswell.”

“And those events are?”

“Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Silver Blaze.  What was the curious incident that Sherlock Holmes identified as the clue that solved the crime?”  Shiourie’s smile was knowing.

Cory only had herself to blame, Webber thought.  This obviously was the price of the after-hours favor called in by Bailey’s husband.  But did he have to pay it, too? Surely the professor would have to get back to whatever test she was running on the bone sliver soon.

No one could remember the story.

“The night of the murder, the stable dog didn’t bark,”  Shiourie said triumphantly. “That told Sherlock the horse thief was known to the dog.  Therefore, the absence of evidence was evidence of the crime.”

Bailey and her husband had both been quiet for some time. Because, Webber thought, they’ve heard all this junk before. Cory’s fresh meat.

“I don’t see the connection,” Cory said.  “No dogs barked at Roswell?”

Shiourie clapped her hands together in pleasure. “That is it, exactly!  There was the official Army Air Corps press release about the capture of a flying disk!  Reporters and curiosity seekers came from all over.  The switchboard overloaded with calls from as far away as England and France.  And in the meantime, a top-secret balloon experiment had fallen into a farmer’s field and the Army needed to hush it up.  Why?   To keep any foreign agents in the area from finding out what the purpose of the experiment was.  So . . . public confusion.  A classified cover-up.  And yet?  Even with all that going on, the official base records for the Roswell Army Airfield show nothing unusual going on, nothing during that entire period.  No personnel recalled or dispatched to handle the balloon retrieval.  Not even to provide extra security for the base.  Now how can that be possible unless... the official records have been purged, altered, or outright replaced.  Which therefore indicates, very strongly, something unusual did go on.”

“Is there a point to this, Professor?” Webber asked. 

But Shiourie took his question seriously.  “There is,” she said.  “The modern folklore of crashed saucer stories was created from an astounding convergence of coincidence.”

“And that coincidence was?”

“Three,” Shiourie said. “There were three coincidences.  The first was the crash of a Project Mogul balloon train.  The balloon carried a sophisticated microphone system developed by the Army.  They were hoping it would hear the acoustic effects of the Soviets’ atmospheric atomic-bomb tests.  The second was the Army’s flying-disk press release.  Someone was hoping it would divert attention from the crashed balloon.  It didn’t.  The third was what really happened at Roswell in that last week of June, 1947.”

Shiourie paused. “Wilhemina, I am not crossing the line into official government secrets?”

Bailey waved her hands. “You’re on your own here, Sunny.  I’ve never heard anything official, so I can’t comment.”

All Webber wanted was for the conversation to end, so naturally Cory prolonged it.  “Okay, I’ll go for it,” she said.  “What really did happen at Roswell?”

“Oh, it was very tragic, Doctor.  Roswell Army Airfield was the home base for the 509th Bomb Group.  The first and, at the time, the only bomber group armed with atomic weapons.”  Shiourie glanced over at Webber.  “That was why there were foreign agents in the vicinity, and why the Army was so serious about hiding the nature of the Mogul balloon project.  But it was the atomic bombs that led to tragedy.  The military establishment knew they were the future of warfare, and a bitter political fight was being waged between the Army and Navy as to which branch would take control of them.

“The fight followed two strategies, as these fights often do.  The Army and the Navy each described their own strengths.  To prove they were the better service to control the bomb.  And they also stopped at nothing to describe the other’s shortcomings.”

All trace of Shiourie’s previous light bantering was gone.  “On the night of June 27, a team of Navy commandos, what used to be called, ‘Naked Warriors,’ the forerunners of today’s SEALs – ” The physics professor stopped for a moment as Cory pointed a finger at Webber.

“A pilot and a SEAL,” Shiourie said.  “Most unusual, but then you will find this doubly interesting, Captain.  The Navy commandos were on a tactical assessment mission.  To test the Army’s security arrangements at the airfield.  A training exercise, planned ahead of time in Washington.  But no one told the soldiers at Roswell.

“All twelve Navy commandos were killed that night, along with twenty soldiers.  Another eight wounded.  Some of the commandos managed to get a bomber started and rolled it to the end of the runway.  Soldiers tore it to pieces with 50-caliber, Jeep-mounted machine guns.  A wing fuel tank exploded.  An atomic bomb casing cracked when the bomber’s wheels collapsed.  Can you imagine?”

Webber understood he was representing the Navy in this room, so he did his best not to be rude.  “I know training missions sometimes go awry, Professor.  But a defensive exercise like the one you’re describing would never reach the operational stage.  Not without the commander of the base knowing about it.”

“Oh, I think he did know about it,” Shiourie said.  “And he chose not to acknowledge it.  And his plan to humiliate the Navy commandos went very badly out of control.  American soldiers killing American sailors.  An atomic bomb damaged, a bomber lost, because of interservice rivalry and incompetence.  What would the American people think?  Even worse, what would the Soviets think about America’s ability to control her atomic weapons?  Can you think of a better reason for a cover-up?  To alter base records?  A better explanation for why six months of historically important communications logs between the Pentagon and Roswell Air Field were destroyed?  A better reason why so many people in Roswell remember that something happened at the base around then, yet don’t know the details?

“And five days later,” Shiourie continued, “when the burned and mutilated bodies of the soldiers and sailors were flown out under cover of darkness... when men in radiation suits had recovered the cracked bomb, and the damaged bomber was cut up and shipped out so its fate would never be reflected in the records... just by coincidence, the balloon crashed, the press release came out, the attention of the world focused on Roswell for all the wrong reasons... and a legend was born.”

“If you know all this,” Webber asked, “why doesn’t everyone?”

“It is not exciting, is it?” Shiourie said with a little shrug.  “No little green men.  No fantastic flying machines.  Just thirty-two innocent young men whose lives were wasted by the incompetence and arrogance of the old men who commanded them.  But the old men weren’t stupid.  The evidence disappeared.  The Navy and Army each got an atomic bomb program.  And now, sixty years later, there’s no one left, no one to remember, and no one to care.”