The Last Christmas On Earth

Luke Mac January was leisurely driving along the Seventy-three Road in the direction of Rockland and was more than perplexed, having spent the last year scouring the United States far and wide and doubting that he would find what he was looking for just in that lost place on the edge of northeastern America. In his opinion, a great mystery necessarily needed a great location, and it seemed to him that this place had nothing to do with it. The solution to that mystery he had been seeking for so long, we knew well that at that point, after yet another failure, his desire to give up would have increased even more forcefully than before. But he also knew well that he would never give up and then he would come to hate himself because of his curiosity and his damned sense of duty. An ordinary morning of about a year before, an elderly man, who looked very wealthy, appeared in his dilapidated private investigator's office to ask him to find his young wife who had disappeared many years before. At first, Luke had thought it was a joke and had been staring him uncertain for a few moments, but when he opened his mouth to answer he was interrupted.

"I know what you are thinking, that I'm an old fool and that this is one of the usual boring rickety whims" he had anticipated by looking him straight in the eyes, and Mc January had tightened his lips tilting his head a little to one side.

"This woman left almost twenty years ago," the man continued, "and thanks to my powerful means, I searched for her throughout the continent for years without getting any results. She disappeared in a wink, without leaving the slightest trace and without stealing a single dollar. The only thing that took me away was a precious book from the Potala Palace in Lhasa, which as you know is a sacred city in Tibet."

"What was the book about, if I may ask?" Asked Mc January, slightly intrigued.

"No secret, for the little I know it was a collection of legends concerning some very ancient civilizations. It told about aircraft piloted with the sole force of thought, that flew through the skies and fought epic battles with some destructive weapons that even today we are not able to imagine ...

I have never managed to understand why she took it since it was written in an incomprehensible language. I suppose she only did it to spite me because she knew how I was fond of it ... anyway, speaking of her, after all this time she could be dead or hidden who knows in what remote corner of the world," he had said, and Luke had nodded and raised his eyebrows at up.

"And with all the money I have I could have as many women as I want, young, beautiful and very consenting," he added; at that point Luke had spread his arms, disheartened by his frankness.

"But then why are you here? Do you think that if I had the ability to perform such a miracle I would work in an office like this?"

"The office you have is not important, and I know everything I need about you."

"And that is?"

"For example, those licenses hanging behind you are ... let's say ... not really regular," he replied, and he stiffened in his chair. "Excuse me, but how can you know?" He wanted to ask him, but again the other hadn't even let him have time to start the sentence. "You have no fixed binding and therefore you can go around the world indefinitely and, as far as your professional successes are concerned, let's forget it, the most important aspect is certainly not that. I know you are skeptical, cynical, material and miscreant. And you are stubborn and resolute enough, the classic type capable of spending a whole life behind a case without yielding by an inch, the mastiff that when he sniffs a bone won't let it go even if that means to die."

That intrusion into his private life had irritated Luke, who had been investigated as an investigator does. Moreover, those personal judgments had bothered him deeply because they were extremely close to his person. At that point, he had decided to light a cigarette to conceal his bad mood and had offered one to his interlocutor, who had declined with a wave of his hand.

"What makes you think I will accept this job?" Luke had asked him after a while.

"A lot of reasons."

"For example?"

"For example, those," the old man replied, pointing to a pile of expired bills piled up under a paperweight, and Luke was hating that man because he was touching all his uncovered nerves one after the other.

"But above all these" the man had concluded, scattering under his nose a pile of papers and photographs concerning his wife that he had taken out of a briefcase: they depicted a tall and blond woman with a very particular appearance, in many situations and in so many different places. Luke had examined them for a long time, carefully, holding his breath in disbelief. Then he had shaken his head.

"It's a joke, isn't it?" He had said with a faint smile on his face. In response, the other had placed a Visa Platinum, a blank check and a business card with a highlighted phone number on the desk.

"You do not have a time limit and it will not be required to provide periodic reports, in fact, the less you will provide me, the better it will be because every time the phone rings I will delude myself that you have found her. This card is an unlimited fund to support your expenses and the check is your fee, you just have to write the amount."

"How much time do I have to think about it?" Luke had asked, and for the first time since entering his office, the man had abandoned his stern expression to give him a smile. Then he had taken a pen and a leaf from his desk to write his phone number.

"This is a confidential number for emergencies, in case you will need to tell me something and you can't find me at the other number."

"But why...?"

"That woman hides a secret that is too big" he had simply replied, standing up, then had left the studio discreetly as he had appeared, leaving his briefcase and everything else there. Luke kept nodding alone in front of the photographs for several minutes, scratching his head, then a little bell had rung in his head and reminded him that it was time to get ready for his "Mc January".

The alarm clock had rung several times and each time it had been a lost battle, but in the end, it had won the war and in spite of it James had to get up, still sleepy and cold because of that midnight bath. After a hot shower he went down to the kitchen and found the table set and breakfast ready, coffee was in the cups but there was anyone inside the room. He heard the voices of Eve and Harry and joined them in the living room, found them bent over the miniature that had been repaired and fitted perfectly. They were so focused that they hadn't noticed his presence, she showed the boy some things about the cards accompanying the miniature and whispered, Harry listened, nodded and answered.

"What kind of language you are using?" James asked them angrily after a couple of minutes because he had failed to grasp the meaning of a single word. Meanwhile, he kept wondering at what time they must have got up to be able to complete the miniature.

"Good morning, Dad, Mom is teaching me the ancient Egyptian," Harry explained enthusiastically.

"The ancient Egyptian?" Echoed James doubtfully, looking at Eve.

"Yes, but it was just a game," she said, smiling.

"But it wasn't a game! It also taught me to read hieroglyphics, it wasn't a game," Harry protested.

"Of course, of course," Eve confirmed, looking at James as he placed a hand on the boy's knee to silence him. "Do you have breakfast with us?" She asked James.

"I'm sorry, but I'm too late, I don't even have time to accompany Harry to the Scout Camp."

"Don't worry, honey, I've already called the bus. I'll wait for them to come and get him."

"Are you serious?"

"Sure!"

"Then I run, I'll stop and buy something on the street," he replied, taking the car keys from the glove box on the shelf near the door. "Hi Professor, play nice," he told Harry as he left.

"James, wait!" Eve called him as he closed the door behind him, he stepped back and leaned his head toward her.

"What happened to you tonight?" He asked, startling him. He doubted that she had already discovered everything, including kissing Helen, blushed and ran with his mind to find a justification.

"You seem destroyed ..." Eve added instead, in an accomplice tone, winking at him, and he felt like being reborn.

"If I have to be honest, I didn't sleep a wink ... then you will wait for the bus?" He said after taking a breath.

"Sure dear, bye."

"See you later," said James.

"Of course dear, bye... the world is probably going crazy," James repeated to himself several times as he drove to work.

Cape Canaveral, Florida, local time almost nine in the morning. The stage equipped with seats and microphones, intended to welcome astronauts for greetings and ritual interviews, had been ready for a couple of days. The small stage packed with people had been set up next to the runway so that in the last meters of the landing maneuver the shuttle would slowly pull out until it stops right in front of the spectators. The rescue vehicles, newly polished and arranged in a herringbone formation on the opposite side to the grandstand, awaited the arrival of the Space Shuttle to make the sirens sound like a party. In a small hangar just a few meters from the runway, a buffet had been prepared in honor of the astronauts, understandably fed up with eating just dehydrated single-serving dishes and eager to return tasting real food. For the hundreds of curious people who came to enjoy the show, with their nose stuck to the fence of J.F.K. Space Center, witnessing the return of a Shuttle was always a very exciting event. It was not as interesting as the takeoff, when the shuttle is pointing straight up against the sky to pierce it in a deafening din while everything around seems to collapse, but to see the shuttle landing and come out normal people who had just taken a nice walk in space had anyway its charm. And this time the enthusiasts were driven by one more reason: the official closure of the Shuttle Space Program had taken place with the return of Atlantis on June 20, 2011, and that unscheduled mission a few years later would probably have been really the last one. Although this kind of operation has to be considered pure routine, a certain apprehension has been circulating for some days among the technicians of the Johnson Space Center in Houston; some of them feared that the long period of inactivity had rusted them. They would have finally relaxed at the exact moment in which the astronauts, after spending the last twenty minutes inside the Orbiter to turn off all the systems onboard, would put their feet on the asphalt of the runway. Only then the mission really could have ended satisfactorily. Inside the Control Tower, the ground staff was following with their maximum concentration the returning maneuver of the shuttle in the atmosphere, which represented the most critical moment of the whole mission. The Reaction Control System had fulfilled its duty perfectly: entering the Ionosphere it had given the correct inclination to the Atlantis and immediately afterward there was the awaited and feared Ionization Blackout band. Those twelve minutes of radio silence were always the most terrible because that inability to communicate, even if planned, kept everyone in suspense. Everything was proceeding as planned, but the heat of the moment still reigned supreme, the fronts that dripped sweat due to stress were more than one. After all, the experience of the Columbia a few years before taught that a very small unforeseen event, like a microscopic crack in the outer covering of the shuttle traveling at a speed of twenty-eight thousand kilometers per hour, would have been able to destroy years of work and take away their heroes'life in an instant. The countdown was just finished, a few moments after the Atlantis had left the ionized belt it was framed by the very high-definition cameras installed on the satellite which, through the big screen, showed its images to the public while flying over the Atlantic Ocean like a great white angel.

"Houston ... Houston ... here is Atlantis."

"Atlantis, we are in visual contact and we hear you loud and clear. How's it going?" Said Connor, the communications clerk.

"All according to schedule. The instrumentation on board is fully functional and the control system has just returned my manual command."

"What about fuel?"

"There is enough to make a nice ride."

"Good, but be sure not to delay because in Florida we are waiting for you with open arms. Out."

"Houston, wait ... Lieutenant Garrett has a problem," Major Salas, the shuttle pilot, and commander announced in a serious voice. Hearing those words, the ground Coordinator jumped on his chair. His name was Rupert Lee, but everyone called him simply 'the Chief".

"What kind of problem?" He asked worried as he ran his hand through his reddish curls.

"He claims to be reassured that he will find a couple of roast chickens waiting for him as we land," the Major informed him, and for a moment Lee was tempted to send him to hell for the fright he had given him.

"Tell Lieutenant Garrett that he is getting older, last time he asked me to get him a couple of girls," he replied instead, smiling with a sigh of relief; his collaborators giggled.

"Yeah, I told him exactly the same thing, but he still claims he would be able to have them both in less than four minutes, so we bet a few dollars. You know how it is, Christmas holidays are approaching and some extra money in the wallet to make gifts is always be needed... couldn't you talk to those of J.F.K. to see if we can get those chickens?"

"I don't know, over there it's nine in the morning and the buffet has already been set up ... anyway, it's fine, I promise I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks, boss. Speaking of Christmas, where will you spend it?"

"Well, if aside to roast chickens you don't create other problems, I might even be able to finish all the paperwork in time and go back to Richmond to pass it with my wife and my son."

"Well, then I'll try to do my best with this old grinder. See you later by videoconference when we are on the runway, close."

"Nick, can you think about chickens?" We have little time and you are a true magician in these things, "Lee suggested to one of his assistants.

"All right, Chief," he answered, picking up the phone.

"Even this time America can be proud of us," the Chief declared finally relaxed. He untied the knot of the scarf with stars and stripes that he wore around his neck like a cowboy and used it to dab his cheeks and chin. Then he bent down to look for something under the desk.

"So it's serious!" Exclaimed Truman, the Radar Man, seeing that the Chief had taken from under the table a Moet et Chandon Magnum. Lee began to arrange the crystal flutes on his desk reproducing the shape of the shuttle.

"Every time I sweat like a sauna, tonight I'll have to drink five or six beers to replenish all the mineral salts I've lost," Rupert Lee announced, wiping his neck again with a scarf. "Who's coming to keep me company?"

All those present raised their hands in participation except the Communications Officer, who remained with his eyes glued to the screen as if he had not even heard.

"Hey Connor, what's wrong with you? Have you become teetotaler or deaf?" "Chief ... it would seem that something is not going well."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know," Connor explained, "the video signal comes and goes, it would seem that the shuttle is like ... like fading."

"Fading? What the hell does it mean "the Shuttle is fading"?" Rupert asked running to sit beside him.

"Wait a minute ... here, can you see?" Said Connor clicking on the mouse zooming the image.

"What the hell, you're right!" Rupert admitted. "What is it?" He then asked, putting his hand back into his red curls to scratch his head perplexedly.

"On the spot, I don't know, it could be a defect in the cameras or a magnetic storm or a train of electromagnetic charge that they carried from the ionized belt. In any case, there is something that disturbs the transmission. What do you think about it?"

"I have no idea, you are the expert! Can't you be more precise?"

"I don't know what to say, the monitor has been doing this since Atlantis entered the Triangle area," Connor informed him. "It looked up, lost speed, and then ..."

"Don't say bullshit! Won't you believe those silly superstitions on the Bermuda Triangle?"

"Of course not, Chief, but I would still try to contact them to see if they are okay."

"All right," Rupert said, wiping his neck again with nervous gestures, then he sighed and turned on the microphone.

"Houston to Atlantis ... do you receive us?"

"Strong and clear, Chief ... are there any problems?" Major Salas answered promptly.

"No, no problem, it was just to inform you we are working on those chickens," Rupert Lee lied to not unnecessarily alarm the Shuttle crew. "We look forward to meeting you, make yourself beautiful for being on TV. Out."

The chief closed the call and dedicated a murderous look to Connor because he had made him worry for nothing.

"Houston," the radio croaked right after.

"We are here, what's going on?"

"Boss, what's the weather like?"

"Excellent, why ?"

"Because last time we heard, the weather was a fairy tale here too, but within ten minutes it has changed and now is rapidly darkening. It seems as if a storm was brewing, moreover all the instruments on board have started acting up," explained Major Salas. Rupert's collaborators exchanged odd looks because the last conversation between the Atlantis and the control room had taken place no more than fifteen seconds before and not ten minutes as the commander of the shuttle had just said.

"What is this, another one of your jokes?" Lee growled into the microphone and began to warm up. "We haven't seen such a clean sky for years," he resumed, "and then ..."

"Chief, look at the monitors," Connor interrupted softly.

"What's up?"

"The sky is very clear, but the image of the shuttle is continuing to lose consistency. If you look at it well, now it seems to be wrapped in a green mist ... actually, it would seem that it has been enveloped by some invisible tentacles."

"Connor, do you want to finish saying these bullshit?"

"Chief, here is Atlantis," Major Salas called nervously, "we need help. Here it started to rain badly and the instruments do not ... ggzz ... ffffrrrr we've ... lost ... ggzz ... tion. Oh God! Wha ... ... hell? ... Help !!!" shouted the Major as the image on the monitors became more and more evanescent.

"Enough with jokes! Atlantis, do you understand me? I've said enough with jokes, I've had enough! Salas, answer me! ... Salas! ..." shouted Rupert one last time into the microphone with all the breath he had, then he took off his headphones and threw them away pissed off. He let himself fall back on the chair and stared at the screen in complete disbelief. His Shuttle, an entire Shuttle, had literally vanished before his eyes and he couldn't believe it. A cold silence had fallen in the Control Room, and everyone was wondering what the external relations Officer would have told the crew members' relatives. Rupert roused himself almost instantly, his quick reflexes were one of the aspects of his character that made him a good leader.

"Nick, contact immediately the Crisis Unit and make sure the research starts immediately, within ten minutes I want at least six planes to patrol the area! If the Atlantis has impacted the water the wreckage and the oil and fuel spots will be seen miles away, if the crew has catapulted out and there are survivors we can still save them. David, contact the Navy and ask for the nearest ship to be sent immediately," he ordered. "They can't have disappeared like that, and above all, they can't have gone far. We have their path and their last coordinates, we have to find them at any cost, even if this means moving the entire US army!" He concluded, banging a gritty fist on his desk.

Relatives and journalists, authorities and onlookers, who had managed to crash somehow, had witnessed speechlessness at the slow disappearance of the shuttle from the giant screen that dominated the stage. But above all, thanks to the idea of making the public take part in unclassified conversations between the shuttle and the control tower, they had listened to the last, shocking, desperate request for help from Major Salas. Now they were all looking in the direction of the sector reserved for the authorities, waiting for some explanation. The General, in turn, looked at the External Relations Manager so that he could somehow decide to intervene, because he didn't know what to say. He answered with a vacant look, because he had not the faintest idea what could have happened, immediately after he took the phone to contact Houston. The big screen continued to transmit images of the blue sky for a few moments until someone finally decided to turn it off. Emergency personnel got on the vehicles that left quickly towards the management buildings. A man and a woman, in their seventies, were crying softly, hugging each other. After years of vain promises to their son, that time they had finally overcome the fear of flying and had put up with twelve hundred miles in an airplane to see him getting off the shuttle at least on that last occasion. "Mom, what happened? Mom, why did they turn off the screen?

Why can't we hear dad's voice anymore?" Asked a child. His mom opened her mouth trying to say something but she couldn't, she got up to take her child out of there, but before she could realize what had happened she was taken ill and ruined down from the gallery.

James rushed into the Police Station clutching a paper bag containing two milkshakes and two sandwiches, glanced at the clock above the front door and walked straight to the meeting room.

"Good morning, Mr. Robinson, did you rest well?" Agent Benelli taunted him, seeing him out of breath, as usual, he was in the mood for irony.

"Back off! It's not a good day," James replied seriously, taking a seat; he put the bag on the counter and rubbed his eyes.

"If you had called me I would have brought you breakfast at bed," the other insisted. Without saying a word, James jumped to his feet to face him, because that morning he wasn't exactly in the mood to put up with trouble.

"Hey, don't warm up! I was just joking," said Benelli, getting up in his turn to avoid being caught unprepared.

"Enough now" thundered Helen from behind the desk, "we are full of problems and you two should be ashamed of your childishness!" The two sat down with their heads down and she spoke again. "We have to get busy fast because what happened will leak out from one moment to the next and then the newspapers and TVs will hit us. The tasks remain those assigned yesterday and tonight try to present in this room concrete results in hand or it will be better if you don't show up at all! Now go."

"Do I have to inspect the woods again?" Benelli asked doubtfully, he had absolutely no desire to go again to examine and photograph the absolute nothing. Helen told herself that after what happened the night before, it was better that for the moment no one set foot there.

"No, it would only be wasted time. Today you will join Claretta and you will be looking for someone who can give us some information," she replied. Benelli twisted his mouth, because he thought she was as clumsy as Cindy and would rather work alone.

"Come on, are you all still here?" Helen said to the agents still sitting at their desks. They hurried to leave the room. James was the only one who didn't have a specific task yet and was waiting for an order.

"You come with me!" Said Helen, not at all friendly, he took the bag containing the breakfasts and followed her into her office. Helen closed the door and lowered the curtains, sat on the edge of the desk and turned off the intercom. James placed a glass and a sandwich next to her, then he chose a chair and began to unwrap his sandwich. She pushed the breakfast away and began to peer at him with her arms folded. James noticed her gesture but preferred to pretend nothing happened and sent down a couple of bites because he was hungry.