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Lunar Shadow
A New Cold War on the Moon
by Shay Sabbah
Chapter 1: Midnight Signal
The Georgetown townhouse was quiet in the way only a place designed for public life could be when empty of people. The radiators ticked. The grandfather clock in the hall—a wedding gift from a senator who’d since been indicted—measured out the seconds like a metronome for a performance that had ended hours ago. Evelyn Hartley stood at the dark bay window in her dressing gown, a glass of water sweating in her hand, watching the street below for no one in particular.
She hadn’t slept well in months. She’d stopped mentioning it to her husband, who’d stopped asking. The insomnia was a tax, she’d decided, on the privilege of knowing things. And she knew a great deal.
The phone on the marble side table did not ring. It vibrated—a low, angry hum against the stone that she felt through the soles of her bare feet before she heard it. A sound she’d trained herself to answer before the second pulse. The burner phone. The one with the encryption chip that cost more than a used car.
She crossed the room in four strides and pressed it to her ear. No greeting. The voice on the other end was male, clipped, and carrying the tinny echo of a secure relay station somewhere in the Virginia countryside.
“Madam Secretary. We have a problem.”
She closed her eyes. In her experience, the phrase *we have a problem* was almost always preceded by a decision she’d made months ago and