Space in His Heart

by Roxanne St Claire

  Jessica bit back her surprised gasp and looked at the paper in front of the Colonel. Of course. She hadn’t even noticed the outdated, stylized NASA logo in the upper corner. It was subtly different from the contemporary design currently used. Still, she was sure she’d seen this one recently. Somewhere.

  “Really?” That was all Paul Zimmerman could manage for a moment. “Where could a person get their hands on it?”

  “Every piece of stationery that NASA used to have at any facility has been shredded, recycled and turned into cardboard boxes by now. We’re efficient like that. Whoever had access to this paper didn’t get it from a supply cabinet at NASA.”

  “However,” the reporter said thoughtfully, “someone could have it in their drawer, left over from two years ago.”

  “But that, Mr. Zimmerman, is exactly my point.” Colonel Price looked at Jessica. “A renegade. A disgruntled ex-employee. But NASA did not issue this in any official capacity. The memo is a fraud.”

  “I see your point,” Zimmerman agreed. “But the content of it is what I’m interested in. Is there any truth to it?”

  Colonel Price stared at Jessica just long enough to send alarm snaking down her spine. “None at all.”

  Why couldn’t she believe him?

  “That’s our official position,” the Colonel continued. “If you use this memo in any story, please be certain to note that it is anonymous and printed on stationery that is no longer in use by anyone in any official capacity. And let your source know that, too. He or she might want to update their letterhead files.”

  As they hung up, Jessica looked questioningly at the Colonel and the memo. “Who do you think wrote this?” she asked.

  The Colonel straightened the white sheet on his desk. She couldn’t read his expression as he studied it. Finally, he looked at her.

  “I have my suspicions but no evidence.”

  He wasn’t going to say and she knew it. “Why? Why would someone do this?”

  “Possibly to stop the launch. Possibly to sabotage our image. Possibly to force us to do a better job at inspections.”

  She didn’t like the last option. Before she could respond, a distant rumble vibrated the glass in the picture window with a view of Launch Pad 39B. They both looked in the direction of the shuttle and listened to the whine of a jet engine as it landed.

  “The T-38s,” Colonel Price said. “The crew’s arrived from Houston.”

  Jessica felt the blood drain from her head.

  Colonel Price grabbed the memo, crunched it in his hand with one swift squeeze and dropped it into a wastebasket under his desk. “This belongs in here. It’s garbage.”

  Another T-38 engine screamed before it shut down to sudden silence. Deke was here. And in seventy-two hours he’d be on top of that launch pad, poised to explode into space on the power of sixty tons of ignited liquid hydrogen.

  She gave a warning look to the man ultimately responsible for Deke’s life or death. “It better be garbage, Colonel.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The final preparations and medical checks dragged throughout the day. Deke submitted himself to each test, but by four o’clock he was snapping and unsnapping his flight suit for each exam with obvious impatience. He had someone he needed to see. Someone he desperately needed to talk to before he got on that shuttle.

  Skip Bowker.

  They finally released him from medical and he sat through three more briefings on the status of landing sites. They wouldn’t be landing anywhere until his questions were answered. As the last briefing ended, he left the room with a muttered excuse and headed to the OPF.

  But he was too late. With no shuttle in the sling, the engineers had gone home and Skip’s office was as dark and empty as the rest. Deke knew he shouldn’t leave the Cape and knew he was under a loose quarantine and expected to check into crew quarters within the hour. But he had to go with his hunch. He had to have one more conversation with Bowker.

  He stood at Bowker’s messy desk and closed his eyes to think. Without his car, he had no way to get to the house in Satellite Beach where Bowker lived. He grabbed Skip’s phone and dialed a number he knew by heart.

  “I need you, sweetheart,” he said as she answered her cell phone. “Meet me outside the OPF, right now, with your car. And don’t tell a soul I called you. Hurry.”

  In minutes, Jessica pulled into the parking lot and stopped in front of the wall where he stood. He jumped into the passenger side, smelling her clean, flowery scent even before his eyes adjusted to the dark and he saw her. The impact of her slammed at his solar plexus like a two-by-four. Good God, he’d missed her.

  He took her face in both hands and leaned across the console, kissing her hard. When they parted, her dark gaze searched his face for answers.

  He grinned. “Hi, honey. I’m home.”

  “Stockard.” She pulled back and put the car in park. “What’s this all about?”

  He put his hand on the steering wheel. “As much as I’d love to sit here and make out with you, we can’t. I need you to take me to Satellite Beach. I want to talk to Skip Bowker.”

  Without questioning him, she threw the car back into drive. “Let’s go.”

  They didn’t say much on the way down A1A, but her sidelong glances nearly steamed the windows. He admired her driving skill as she adroitly passed slower cars like rocks in a stream, as though she sensed his urgency. In the dark, he watched her skirt ride up her thighs every time she hit the gas. To her credit, she didn’t push him. But he owed her an explanation.

  “I won’t bore you with the technical details, Jess, but over the last week, I had a chance to see some blueprints of shuttle upgrades they’re discussing at Johnson. It made me realize something I’d overlooked all along. It might have caused the hydrogen leak. I just need Skip to confirm that he fixed it.”

  “What is it?”

  He closed his eyes, visualizing the paperwork he’d seen. “There are pins—tiny plugs that can be found near the coolant tubes of the engine. One of them could have ruptured a tube and caused the hydrogen leak.”

  “What about the wiring? I saw a memo today that said faulty wiring caused a short circuit on Columbia.”

  He peered at her. “What memo?”

  “Another one of those anonymous things to Newsweek. Colonel Price pointed out to the reporter that it was printed on stationery that was long out of date.”

  As Jessica recounted the interview Price had done earlier that day, a sickening feeling deepened in Deke’s gut.

  She looked at him as she finished the story with a frown. “Colonel Price thinks one possibility is someone who wants to force NASA to do a better job on inspections,” she said. “Maybe someone who works for Skip?”

  He shook his head and pointed to the right turn on Ocean Boulevard after they passed Patrick Air Force Base. Maybe Skip himself. Not that he was that cunning. “I don’t know. But Skip can help us shed some light on this.”

  He found the side street from memory.

  “I think it’s one of these little bungalows,” he said, peering into the night. “I was here once, years ago. After Skip’s wife died.”

  “I didn’t know he lost his wife.” She tapped the brakes at a stop sign. “How sad.”

  “Yeah, he’s never been the same since. Once the Apollo program ended and they shipped him from Houston to the Cape, I don’t think he ever got excited about space again. When his wife passed away, he sort of rolled up into himself.”

  “Couldn’t you just call him and ask him about the plug or pin?”

  “I want to see his face. I want to read him.” He saw the dilapidated Toyota in a driveway. “Here it is.”

  She pulled in behind the Toyota, her headlights reflecting on the picture window in the front of the house. They got out of the car and studied the bungalow, unlit and unwelcoming. He took her hand before they stepped off the gravel driveway onto the walk.

  “You can wait in the car, Jess. This’ll just take a minute.
”

  She rubbed her arms and shook her head. “Doesn’t look like he’s home. But if he is, I want to hear what he has to say. I want to read him, too.”

  An explosion cracked in the night and they both jerked at the sound. The unmistakable echo of a gunshot.

  “What the hell—” Deke grabbed her shoulders and pushed her toward the car. “Get in. Just get in and don’t move. Don’t even think about it.”

  He sprinted up the walk and flung open the screen door, bile rising in his throat. He knew the single gunshot hadn’t been directed toward them. He knew who’d taken the bullet.

  He shook the knob furiously, then slammed his booted foot into the wood. It sprang open and the acrid smell of gun smoke assaulted him.

  “Bowker!” he yelled into the silence. “Bowker!”

  He fumbled at the light switch on the wall, flipping two that did nothing, then a third. The room brightened as a floor lamp came on, shedding a soft golden glow over the shabby furniture. Instinct made him turn to the darkened dining room.

  Skip lay slumped over the table, the blood from his mouth dripping into a wet pool around his head, a gun still in his hand.

  * * *

  It didn’t take long for NASA officials to outnumber police, Deke noticed as he leaned against the refrigerator of Skip’s dingy kitchen. When Colonel Price showed up, Deke nearly choked.

  Mostly, Deke was relieved he’d convinced Jessica to go home with Stuart, one of the first people they called. And that hadn’t been easy. She’d wanted to stay. She’d clung to him, shaking, until the police had arrived and the first few NASA higher-ups. But he had to get her out of there before they brought the body out.

  She only agreed when he promised, gave her his Boy Scout, Navy, and astronaut word of honor that he would come to her house when this was finished. He knew he’d keep that promise. And not just to take her car home. He had to hold her one more time before he went back to the Cape. Before he went on that launch pad.

  Colonel Price looked up from the kitchen table, grief etched on his weathered face. “I had no idea he had so much hate in him,” Price said, referring to the suicide note they’d been discussing. “He was a hero. The heart and soul of Apollo.”

  “The space race with the Russians never ended for him,” Deke mused. “There was nothing more irksome to him than a joint Russia-US space program.”

  “From that note, I take it he knew what caused the leak but kept it to himself, thinking we’d delay the launch.” Colonel Price stood. “I don’t think we can take the chance of launching Endeavour. Skip will win this one. Petrenko will probably die.”

  A hot fury shot through Deke. “Colonel, we’ve had enough redundant inspections and enough extremely intelligent people—with no axes to grind—check every other aspect of the shuttle. He says it right there.” Deke pointed to the note. “It’s a plug. I know what he means.”

  “We have to get the shuttle down from the pad for a complete re-inspection.”

  Deke shook his head. “A man is dying. Let me get out there with the best engineers in tow. We can still get into the main engines with the shuttle on the pad. I just need to see the coolant tubes and check every single pin. We can fix that problem.”

  Colonel Price narrowed his gaze. “I don’t think so, Deke. It might not just be the hydrogen leak that Skip mentions in this letter. We don’t know for sure about anything else. What if he knew something about the wiring and kept that to himself? Another short circuit that knocks out a computer and maybe its backup? We can’t be sure that won’t happen again.”

  “I can handle a manual landing, if necessary, and that would be the worst that faulty wiring would cause.”

  Colonel Price looked warily at him. “No one’s ever attempted a manual landing under those conditions.”

  “We’ve practiced it for weeks. I can do it in my sleep. We have to at least look at the plugs. We have to make a good-faith effort to try and get Petrenko.”

  Colonel Price’s gaze shifted to the dining room, where police and CSI were still taking pictures and collecting evidence of what no one doubted was a suicide. “Go out with a team at daybreak and look at the mains. Then we’ll decide.”

  Deke knew that was no small victory. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Now get back to crew quarters. They’ve grilled you enough here.”

  Deke nodded. “I will, sir. I have one quick stop before I go.”

  The Colonel started to disagree, then closed his mouth. “Yes, I imagine you do.”

  Driving Jess’s car, Deke visualized the coolant tubes, ruptured by a pin he’d started to suspect could loosen from the vibrations of the launch. If it hit a tube at exactly the right spot, the internal pressure could cause the leak. So there’d be no break in the tube before the launch. Bowker knew it and figured they’d never launch with the hydrogen leak unsolved.

  Could it be fixed? They had to try. They could not let that man die knowing they hadn’t tried everything to save him.

  He took a deep breath to clear his head, but it only filled his senses with the floral scent that lingered in her car. He recognized the soap from the time he’d taken a shower at Jessie’s house. Lavender or some equally feminine thing. It hit him harder than if she’d been there to touch. He pressed the accelerator, longing to get to her. She waited like a refuge, a safe harbor. He grew hard at the thought of burying himself in her, his stomach twisting with desire and anticipation.

  His throat closed at the sight of her standing in her doorway. She still wore the short skirt she’d had on for work, her blouse untucked and loose. She looked a little terrified, but as he approached, the worried look on her face dissolved into a smile.

  “I really didn’t think you’d come.” She stepped onto the patio to greet him.

  Silently, he folded her into his arms, inhaling the fragrance in real-time, feeling her silky hair against his mouth. He could die on Sunday, but he’d never felt more alive than at that moment. Nothing else mattered.

  “What happened?” she asked quietly. “What did the note say?”

  “He wanted to delay the launch and he thought he could do it by not revealing the cause of the leak. He didn’t want the Commies to win.”

  Jessica took a step back, her mouth opening. “Commies? The Russians? They haven’t been Commies for a while.”

  He ran his fingers through her thick hair, wanting to forget Skip and his ancient prejudices, wanting to get lost in the woman in his arms instead. “He’s an old Apollo guy, Jess. You know how competitive we were with Russia then. He was taking it out on Petrenko. Remember, he’s the nephew of a diplomat. An ex-Communist-turned-democrat diplomat.”

  “So, why did he kill himself?”

  “If Endeavour blows, he’d have the blood of the crew on his hands. No longer a legend. A villain.”

  She paled at the words and he felt her fingertips tense on his shoulders. “What will happen to Petrenko?”

  “We’re going to try and fix the shuttle and go get him.”

  “Try?”

  He closed his eyes so he didn’t have to see the look in hers. He didn’t want to go there. He wanted to forget Skip Bowker and Micah Petrenko. He wanted her to make it go away. An incredible need to hold her, kiss her… love her… rocked him.

  “Not now, Jessie. Please.” He buried his face in her hair, then searched for her mouth. She welcomed his kiss, and he eased her back into the house, her tongue igniting him. With one hand, he reached back and slammed the door closed behind them; with the other he explored her body, reacquainting himself with every lovely inch.

  The feel of her sent gallons of blood to the lower half of his body, shaking him with intensity. Skip’s bloody face flashed in his mind, and he squeezed his eyes closed, eliminating anything but the feel and smell and taste of this woman he needed so much.

  “Come inside,” she murmured, moving toward the living room. “Talk to me.”

  “No.” His fingers seized the buttons of her blouse, fumbling, t
hen tearing. “We’ve talked for three goddamn weeks. I need you. Now.”

  He reached down to the hem of her skirt, tugging it up, running his hands along the silky skin of her thigh. He pulled the material over her hips and cupped the satiny front of her underpants in his hand.

  She cried out, a startled and eager sound, giving in immediately. She pressed her warm, wet mound into his palm and let out a sexy moan as she slid down the entryway wall. He followed her, one of his hands popping buttons, the other finding his way into her hot flesh. She moaned in response, her fingers dug into his scalp, and she pulled him harder against her.

  Kneeling on the floor, he dropped his mouth on the curve of her breast, unhooking the front of her bra. He suckled a hardened nipple, pulling the peak between his teeth, wanting to taste her, to absolutely consume her.

  “Here, on the floor?” she asked in husky, unsteady voice.

  “Here.” He licked the dark circle, his tongue rounding the pebbled nub. “Now.” His fingers probed the moist flesh between her legs.

  He couldn’t stop. His craving for her shut down every rational thought but the sensations that spiraled through him. Words choked him and he crushed her mouth with a kiss, unable to speak. They fell back on the hard tile floor. Her fingers tugged at the zipper of his flight suit. She yanked it off his shoulders with as much force as he felt driving him. He sat up to free himself from the suit.

  Reality set in. “I don’t have a—”

  She yanked him down toward her. “I don’t care. You’ve been through every medical check known to man.”

  “What if you—”

  She covered his mouth with hers. “Just don’t stop. Don’t stop.” She nipped at his lips and pressed against him, igniting him into granite-like hardness. “Go back to here. And now.” She reached down and circled his flesh with her hands. “Right here. Right now.”

  He pulled the crotch of her silk panties aside. He couldn’t wait for them to come off. They murmured in each other’s ears, erotic pleas, senseless commands—all drowned out by the blood rushing through his brain.