Sex on the Moon Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Ben Mezrich

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Thad Roberts, a fellow in a prestigious NASA programme, had an idea – a romantic, albeit crazy, idea. He wanted to give his girlfriend the moon. Literally.

  Thad convinced his girlfriend and another female accomplice, both NASA interns, to break into an impenetrable laboratory at NASA’s headquarters – past security checkpoints, and electronically locked door with cipher security codes and camera-lined hallways – and help him steal the most precious objects in the world: Apollo moon rocks from every moon landing in history.

  Was Thad Roberts – undeniably gifted, picked for one of the most competitive scientific posts imaginable – really what he seemed?

  And what does one do with an item so valuable that it’s illegal even to own?

  Based on meticulous research into thousands of pages of court records, FBI transcripts and documents, and scores of interviews with the people involved, Mezrich – with his signature high-velocity swagger – has reconstructed the madcap story of genius, love, and duplicity all centred on a heist that reads like a Hollywood thrill ride.

  About the Author

  Ben Mezrich is the New York Times bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House, in addition to nine other books. The major motion picture 21, starring Kevin Spacey, was based on Bringing Down the House. The Oscar-winning film The Social Network was adapted from The Accidental Billionaires. Mezrich lives in Boston with his wife and son.

  ALSO BY BEN MEZRICH

  The Accidental Billionaires

  Rigged

  Breaking Vegas

  Ugly Americans

  Bringing Down the House

  The Carrier

  Skeptic

  Fertile Ground

  Skin (an X-Files book)

  Reaper

  Threshold

  To Asher—this one will always be special, because you came into our world somewhere between Chapter 1 and Chapter 10. And maybe, just maybe, by the time you’re old enough to read this, together we’ll be watching someone take those first steps on Mars …

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Sex on the Moon is a dramatic, narrative account based on multiple interviews, numerous sources, and thousands of pages of court documents. I have tried to keep the chronology and the details of this narrative as close to exact as possible. Thad Roberts was generous with his time in helping me reconstruct this amazing story; thus many of the inferences are from his perspective, and I have done my best to describe these events as true to his individual perceptions as I could, without endorsing them myself. Since this is, at its heart, the story of Thad’s journey, much of it is from his point of view. I am especially grateful for his permission to quote letters he wrote from prison; they are interspersed throughout the book.

  In some instances, details of settings and descriptions have been changed to protect identities; certain names, individuals’ characterizations, physical descriptions, and histories have been altered to protect privacy, in some cases at the character’s own request. I do employ the technique of re-created dialogue: I have based this dialogue on the recollections of the participants I interviewed, but many of these conversations took place ten years ago, and thus some were re-created and compressed.

  I address sources more fully in my acknowledgments, but it is appropriate here to again thank Thad Roberts for his incredible generosity. I would also like to thank Axel Emmermann, Gordon McWhorter, and Matt Emmi for their time, as well as numerous other sources who have asked to remain anonymous.

  PROLOGUE

  It had to be the strangest getaway in history.

  Thad Roberts tried to control his nerves as he stared up through the windshield of the idling four-wheel-drive Jeep. The rain was coming down in violent gray sheets, so fierce and thick he could barely make out the bright red traffic light hanging just a few feet in front of him. He had been sitting there for what seemed like forever; a long stretch of pavement serpentined into the gray mist behind him, winding back past a half-dozen other traffic lights—all of which he’d had to wait through, in exactly the same fashion. Even worse, between the lights he’d had to keep the Jeep at an agonizing five miles per hour—a veritable crawl along the desolate, rain-swept streets of the tightly controlled compound. It was unbelievably hard to drive at five miles per hour, especially when your neurons were going off like fireworks and your heart felt like it was going to blow right through your rib cage. But five miles per hour was the mandatory speed limit of the compound—posted every few yards on signs by the road—and at five miles per hour, once you hit one red light, you were going to hit them all.

  Thad’s fingers whitened against the Jeep’s steering wheel as he watched the red glow, willing it to change to green. He wanted nothing more than to gun the engine, put his foot right through the floor, break the speed limit, and get the hell out of there. But he knew that there were cameras everywhere—that the entire getaway was being filmed and broadcast on more than a dozen security consoles. For this to work, he had to stay calm, obey the rules. He had to appear as if he belonged.

  He took a deep breath, let the red glow from the traffic light splash across his cheeks. Only a few more seconds. He used the opportunity to toss a quick glance toward the passenger seat—which didn’t help at all. Sandra looked even more terrified than he felt. Her face was ivory white, her eyes like saucers. He wanted to say something to calm her down, but he couldn’t think of the words. She was pretty, with blondish-brown hair; even younger than Thad, barely nineteen years old. Maybe not the ideal accomplice for something like this—but she was an electronics specialist, and she had practically begged to be a part of the scheme.

  Thad shifted his eyes toward the center “seat” between them, and almost smiled at the sight of his girlfriend crouched down beneath the dashboard, her lithe body curled up into a tight little ball. Rebecca had jet-black hair, cut short against her alabaster skin, and she was even prettier than Sandra. She had just turned twenty. But as young as she was, she was the only one of the three of them who didn’t look scared. Her blue eyes were positively glowing with excitement. To her, this was beyond thrilling—really, James Bond kind of shit. Looking at her, Thad was infused with adrenaline. They were so damn close.

  And suddenly he was bathed in green as
the light finally changed. Thad touched the gas pedal, and the Jeep jerked forward—then he quickly lifted his foot—making sure the speedometer read exactly 5 mph. The slow-motion getaway continued, the only sounds the rumble of the Jeep’s engine and the crackle of the rain against the windshield.

  A bare few minutes later, they came to the last traffic light—and again, of course, it was red. Even worse, Thad quickly made out the security kiosk just a few yards to the left of the light. He could see at least two uniformed guards inside. Thad held his breath as he slowed the Jeep to a stop at the light; he kept his head facing forward, willing Sandra to do the same. He didn’t want to have to explain why he was at the compound, past midnight on a Saturday. Thad was counting on the fact that neither of the guards would be eager to step out into the rain to interrogate him. Even so, if one of the guards had looked carefully, he might have noticed that the Jeep was sagging in the back. In fact, the vehicle’s rear axle was bent so low that the chassis almost scraped the ground as they idled at the traffic stop.

  The sag of the Jeep was one of the few things that Thad and his two accomplices hadn’t planned. A miscalculation, actually: the safe that Thad and the two girls had hoisted into the back of the Jeep—less than ten minutes ago—weighed much more than Thad had expected, probably close to six hundred pounds. It had taken all three of them and a levered dolly to perform the feat, and even so Thad had strained every muscle in his back and legs getting the damn thing situated properly. Thad was just thankful that the Jeep’s axle hadn’t collapsed under the weight. As it was, he was pretty sure that even a cursory inspection of the vehicle would be enough to blow the whole operation.

  Thankfully, neither of the guards made any move to step out of the kiosk. When the light shifted to green, Thad had to use all of his self-control to barely touch the gas—piloting them forward at the prescribed 5 mph. Almost instantly, the exit gate came into view. They approached, inch by inch—and at the last minute, the gate swung upward, out of the way. And then they were through. Thad slowly accelerated. Ten mph.

  Twenty mph.

  Thirty mph.

  He glanced in the rearview mirror. The compound had receded into the rain.

  He looked at Sandra—and she stared back at him. Rebecca uncurled herself and sat up in the middle of the Jeep, throwing an arm over his shoulder. Then they were all screaming in joy. They had done it. My God, they had truly pulled it off.

  When the celebration had died down, Thad glanced into the rearview mirror again—but this time, he wasn’t looking at the road behind them. He could see the dark bulk of the safe, covered in a plastic tarp they had bought in a hardware store just twenty-four hours ago. The sight of the thing caused his chest to tighten—a mix of anticipation and what could only be described as pure awe.

  In that safe was the most precious substance on Earth. A national treasure—of unimaginable value, something that had never been stolen before—something that could never, in fact, be replaced. Thad wasn’t sure what the contents of the safe were worth—but he did know that if he’d wanted to, he could have just as easily walked off with enough of the stuff to make him the richest man in the world. As it was, he and his accomplices had pulled off one of the biggest heists in U.S. history.

  But to Thad, it hadn’t really been about the monetary value of the contents of the safe. All he’d really wanted to do was keep a promise to the girl sitting next to him, her arm over his shoulder. A simple promise that millions of other men had made to millions of women over the years.

  He had promised to give her the moon.

  The difference was, Thad Roberts was the first man who was actually going to keep that promise.

  * * *

  I may never hold you again, my love, I may never again feel the warmth of your touch, the softness of your voice, the adventure in your eyes, but they will always be a part of me. Eternity lives in every true connection, every moment that opens your eyes to something new and deepens your internal spring. My very being soared beyond the horizon with you, Rebecca. Everything that I am will always carry that echo. I cannot abandon that. I cannot cover my heart. I will always love you. I will always remember you.

  * * *

  1

  Five Years Earlier, February 1997

  There was something vaguely menacing about the folders. Off-white and three-ringed, row upon row, rising up the skyscraper-like corrugated-metal shelving units that obscured all four walls of the cramped, nearly windowless first-floor room. It wasn’t the folders’ color that was the problem, exactly; a shade that couldn’t be found in nature, even in a place as abundantly natural as Salt Lake City, Utah. Nor was it the black block lettering that ran up the spine of each folder, declaring the contents in language a third grader could understand. It was the idea behind the manila metropolis itself. What the folders represented: a literal way station on the search for the meaning of life.

  Maybe not the meaning of life—but certainly its direction. Thad Roberts stood in front of one of the towering shelving units, his hands nervously jammed into the deep pockets of his green, oversized Windbreaker. His windswept, free-form mop of light brown hair cast tangled shadows down across his high cheekbones. He supposed that such a room existed in cities all over the country—maybe all over the world. Probably every university campus had a place like this. No doubt, many were more glamorous than the rectangular, folder-filled box that was the career center of the University of Utah, but the essence of the place was quite probably duplicated all over the globe. A mildly terrifying place where lost souls gathered to seek a future, or at least the sort of future that could be summed up between the covers of a shiny three-ring folder.

  It was barely ten minutes past seven in the evening, but Thad was already swaying in his mud-scuffed Timberland boots as he surveyed the shelves, for what had to be the hundredth time. He had been in the career center two hours already, and by now he was approaching the damn folders almost at random. He’d pulled a half dozen of the folders off the shelves, piling them on one of the small wooden desks that lined the interior of the room behind him: Financial Adviser, Geologist, Air Traffic Controller, Physical Therapist. None of the choices sang to him, and he was truly close to the breaking point. He was fighting the urge to start sweeping the rest of the folders off the shelves with both hands. Close his eyes, make do with whatever landed on top of the pile.

  Roll the dice, get a life.

  He blinked, hard, trying to push the bleariness out of his normally brightly lit, citrine-green eyes. Or maybe it was time to just give up. He’d been at this way too long. And he wasn’t any closer to figuring out what he was going to do with himself.

  At twenty, he was drowning in student debt, even though he hadn’t even fully graduated from the university, leaving early to take on multiple jobs just to survive. That day, he’d been up since four A.M., spending most of the past fifteen hours running around a backwoods construction site, basically a glorified gofer. He had about three hundred dollars in his bank account: the Windbreaker and boots he was wearing were three years old, and the shirt beneath his Windbreaker was held together by multiple assaults with a needle and thread, courtesy of Sonya, his beautiful but equally broke wife. He had no money, and certainly no safety net: he hadn’t spoken to his parents in more than a year, and he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to speak to them ever again. In fact, by their own admission, Thad didn’t really have parents anymore.

  Instead, what he had was in front of him, a skyscraper-high bookshelf lined with three-ring folders.

  He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for. He’d always been a stellar student, acing courses in everything from business to philosophy. While he was growing up, everyone had always told him how smart he was, and though some bad breaks had derailed him, he knew that he had the capability to learn. Wasn’t that supposed to be the most important thing?

  He pushed the hair away from in front of his eyes and turned back toward the very first row of folders. As tired as he fe
lt, he decided he would start over and go through them all again.

  To his surprise, almost immediately one of the labels caught his eye, about five folders in from the beginning of the shelf. It was a folder Thad had paused at when he’d first walked into the career center, but he hadn’t yet pulled it out. He’d discounted it before, because he’d thought it was ridiculous, and probably way out of his reach. But now, a couple of hours later, his inhibitions were dwindling.

  He reached for the folder and reread the block letters.

  ASTRONAUT.

  That there was even a job folder for such a career seemed improbable. Thad had initially skipped over it because he was pretty sure you had to be in the air force to even consider being an astronaut—but at this point, he figured it couldn’t hurt to look. After all, he did love the sky. One of the first things he’d done when he’d arrived at the U of U was to visit the school’s observatory, and he’d dropped by the small hilltop facility a few times since, usually when he needed space to think. Literally.

  He began to leaf through the folder. To his surprise, it was divided into two parts: Pilots and Mission Specialists. The pilots were almost exclusively military, because they were the ones who flew the equipment. But the mission specialists could come from a variety of fields. These were the people who got their feet dirty, who went out into the different environments and conducted experiments. Thad figured that during moon landings, the two guys who walked around hitting golf balls were mission specialists. The guy who stayed behind in the spacecraft was the pilot. Thad wondered how jealous that would make you, going all the way to the moon but never getting to step outside. If Thad were an astronaut, he wanted to be the guy who walked on the moon.

  As he read deeper into the file, he felt his mind snapping into focus. He realized right away that if he really was going to do this—and it was a crazy thought, but still—he’d have to go back to school. He’d have to get a degree in something that NASA would be interested in. Biology, astrophysics, maybe geology. He would also have to gain expertise in a variety of other endeavors. Scuba, because the astronauts trained underwater. Languages, because space was international now, and there would be plenty of exchanges of people and machinery. A pilot’s license—even though he wouldn’t be able to compete with the military kids, he’d need to know how to fly.