by Ben Bova
“We’re slowing down for the landing,” Rutherford said casually.
Thrasher remembered the old pilot’s adage: Flying is the second most exciting thing a man can do; landing is the first most exciting.
Down below Thrasher could see the lights of the city spreading across the landscape. They were still too high to make out individual buildings; it simply looked like a starscape of bright, twinkling lights beneath them.
The rocketplane descended smoothly, flared out, and touched down on the runway with no trouble. Thrasher saw the runway lights flashing past.
As they rolled toward the terminal, Rutherford asked, “How did you like it?”
Thrasher thought it over for a few heartbeats. “You’re going to have to give your passengers a pretty thorough orientation briefing before they fly this skyrocket.”
Rutherford laughed. “Yeah, I guess so. Although the younger set might buy tickets just for the ride.”
Which means I’m an old fart, Thrasher thought. But as he unbuckled his seat harness he realized, what the hell, I’m here in Melbourne in less than an hour.
Then it struck him. I’ve been in space! I’ve seen the curvature of the Earth and flown above the atmosphere. I’m almost an astronaut!
5
SAITO YAMAGATA
Yamagata met Thrasher at the airport and, with his usual bright smile, whisked him by limousine to a posh restaurant in Melbourne’s theater district. The two men were shown to a booth by a fawning maitre d’. They sat facing each other across the crisply creased white tablecloth and gleaming dinnerware. It was nearly one a.m. in Melbourne, yet the restaurant was almost filled with after-theater patrons enjoying a late supper. To Thrasher, it still felt like early afternoon; his stomach was ready for lunch.
As a waiter presented them with outsized menus, Thrasher said, “I really appreciate your taking the time to see me, Sai.”
“To what do I owe this whirlwind visit?” Yamagata asked cheerfully.
“We’ve been investigating the Delta IV accident.”
His smile dimming slightly, Yamagata said, “I thought the investigation was concluded. Your insurance carrier paid up, didn’t they?”
“Yes, they finally did.”
“So?”
“It might not have been an accident.”
Yamagata’s brows knit. “Surely the insurance company looked into that possibility.”
“Not hard enough,” said Thrasher. “Two of the ILS technicians working on the launch received lumps of money.”
“Lumps?”
“Five thousand dollars one week before the launch, and another five thou the week afterward.”
“And you think . . .”
“It sure looks suspicious to me, Sai.”
“Two of my technicians.” Yamagata’s smile was completely gone.
“They worked for ILS. One of them came over here to Australia to work for your company.” Thrasher hesitated, then added, “He’s Japanese.”
Yamagata looked grim. “You believe that this man deliberately sabotaged your launch.”
“I’m not certain. But it’s a possibility that I’ve got to look into.”
“Sabotage.”
“If it was sabotage, whoever paid for it might try to hit us again, Sai.”
“I see.”
“Can you help me? Can you let me talk to the guy? Question him?”
Yamagata’s lips curved into the slimmest hint of a smile. “You are a skilled interrogator, are you?”
“No, but who else is there?”
“Yamagata Corporation has a small but quite efficient security team. Tell me the name of the man you suspect and I will have my people interrogate him.”
Thrasher realized that Saito wanted to keep this affair entirely under his own roof. No outsiders. Not even me.
“Are you sure that’s the way you want to handle this?”
Closing his eyes briefly, Yamagata explained, “We are a family corporation. Our employees are like members of the family. We try to keep our dirty linen out of the sight of strangers.”
And I’m a stranger, Thrasher realized. Not family. Not even Japanese.
Tightly, he said, “All right, if that’s the way you want to handle it.”
“It is.”
“All right.”
Yamagata’s smile widened slightly. “If the man is a traitor, my security people will find out. They are not inconvenienced by the usual laws that criminals use to protect themselves. They’ll find everything there is to know about this man.”
Thrasher nodded. “Okay. Thanks.” And he thought, I wouldn’t want to be that guy. He’s in for a rough time.
Thrasher rode a regular commercial flight back to Los Angeles: fourteen hours in the air. He slept most of the flight, then blearily took another airliner back to Houston. By the time he returned to his office he felt jet lagged, tired, irritable, his stomach bloated and his head thumping.
The instant he stepped into the office, Linda handed him a mug of ginger beer and a pair of aspirins.
But she said, “Sid Ornsteen wants to see you.”
“Just what I need,” Thrasher muttered.
“He says it’s important.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Thrasher shambled toward his inner office as Linda went to her desk to phone Ornsteen.
Plopping into his swivel chair, Thrasher took the aspirins with a gulp of ginger beer, then called up his daily schedule on his desktop screen. As he scanned the schedule, he thought about Yamagata and the technician who might—or might not—be a saboteur.
What about the other guy? he asked himself. He’s still working for ILS, down at the Cape. How can I get to him?
His musings were interrupted by Sidney Ornsteen stepping into his office. Sid looked more worried than usual.
“What’s up, Sid?”
“They’re at it again,” said the company treasurer.
“At what?”
“Somebody’s buying the company’s stock. Nothing big, nothing that would normally stand out.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Sitting tensely in one of the armchairs before Thrasher’s desk, Ornsteen said dolefully, “Whoever’s doing this is going to acquire a majority of the shares, sooner or later.”
“Assuming they continue buying.”
“Oh, they will. I’m sure of that. Whoever’s behind this grab wants to have a majority, maybe for the next board meeting.”
“How do you know it’s one person behind the buying?” Thrasher demanded. “It might just be that people think Thrasher Digital is a good investment.”
Frowning, Ornsteen countered, “With our price-to-earnings figures? Come on, Art, this is a takeover bid, pure and simple.”
“How much has been bought this time?”
“Damned near three percent.”
“That’s not enough—”
Ornsteen held up a skinny singer. “Three percent here, three percent there, pretty soon they’ll have a majority position, Art.”
“That’s assuming that some evil mastermind is behind the buying spree.”
“It isn’t funny, Art. Somebody’s trying to take control of Thrasher Digital.”
With a sigh, Thrasher replied, “You know, Sid, some days I’m almost willing to let them have it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I said almost, didn’t I?”
6
COCOA BEACH
His name was Ulysses Israel. He’d been working for International Launch Services for more than eight years, according to the Melbourne detective agency Thrasher had hired. No hint of illegal activity: he apparently wasn’t a gambler, or a boozer, or a drug user. Nice solid little technician in the middle level of the ILS organization. His only hobby seemed to be a fondness for buying old automobiles, jazzing them up, then selling them to car buffs.
Israel had performed the final inspection of the valve that had failed, just before it was installed in the Delta IV’s up
per-stage rocket engine. His initials were on the inspection certificate.
He made a decent living. No wife or family, but he wasn’t a loner. He played tennis regularly and hung out with a bunch of buddies over the weekends. His hobby didn’t bring in much money; he usually spent more on buying and fixing a car than he got from selling it.
The only blip on his record was the ten thousand dollars that he had deposited in his bank account: five thousand the week before the launch accident, five thousand the week after.
“There’s not enough there to question him,” the head of the detective agency told Thrasher, in the man’s seedy, musty office in Cocoa Beach’s rundown business district.
“I want to meet him,” Thrasher said.
The detective was a big man, but aging badly. He was seriously overweight, balding, and wheezed asthmatically. No Sam Spade, Thrasher thought. Not even Miss Marple. The man was in his shirtsleeves and suspenders as he sat behind his dented metal desk, eying Thrasher wearily.
“I don’t think your seeing him is a good idea, Mr. Thrasher,” he said, his voice heavy, grating like a rusty hinge. “If you come out and accuse him of anything, he could take you to court for libel.”
“You mean slander. Libel’s when you defame somebody in print.”
“Slander, yeah.”
“I still want to meet him. How do I go about that?”
The detective shrugged his massive shoulders. “I can give you his phone number.”
Thrasher nodded. “That’ll be fine.”
“He won’t tell you anything, you know.”
“Maybe not,” Thrasher admitted. But he was thinking: money talks. If ten thousand got him to sabotage the launch, maybe twenty thousand will open his mouth.
Back in his room at the beachside motel that Linda had found for him, Thrasher phoned Ulysses Israel and got his answering machine.
When the machine beeped, Thrasher said, “This is your lucky day, Mr. Israel. I have twenty thousand dollars in cold cash for you, in exchange for a few minutes of conversation. Call me when you get in.”
It was nearly midnight when the phone rang. Thrasher was lying in the motel’s lumpy bed, watching an old private-eye flick on the television screen.
“Sam Israel here,” the voice said.
“I’d like to talk with you, Mr. Israel,” Thrasher said smoothly.
“You said something about twenty thou?”
“That’s right.”
“What’s this all about?”
“You’ll find out when we meet.”
Israel hesitated a heartbeat, then asked, “When and where?”
“Right now’s as good a time as any. I’m at the New Satellite Motel.”
“That dump.”
“It’s a roof over my head.”
“You’ve got the twenty thousand with you?”
“In my room’s safe.”
“In cash?”
“Of course.”
Another hesitation. Then, “What name should I ask for?”
“No names,” Thrasher said. “I’m in room two-fourteen. On the upper tier.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Fine.”
Thrasher hung up, chuckling to himself. He calls himself Sam. Can’t say I blame him. Ulysses Grant went by the name of Sam, so why shouldn’t the money-hungry Mr. Israel?
Then he realized he had just invited a total stranger to come and take twenty thousand dollars from him. He could bring a couple of friends, take the money, and split. Thrasher thought about phoning the detective agency for some protection, but figured there wouldn’t be time for them to get to the motel before Israel arrived.
I hope he’s alone, Thrasher said to himself.
Thrasher tried to watch TV again, but couldn’t concentrate. He flipped from channel to channel, but this late at night there wasn’t much on. The motel’s cable service didn’t include the financial channels.
Then he heard a car door slam. Thrasher jumped to his feet and peered through the window curtain. A sleek fire-engine red Thunderbird convertible sat gleaming in the hotel’s parking lot lights. He could see a tall, lanky figure standing by the car, looking around the parking lot suspiciously. One man. Only one. He hasn’t come to rip me off—not unless he figures he can get the money off me without any help.
Which wouldn’t be too difficult, Thrasher thought, considering his own pitiful martial skills.
The man headed for the stairs and Thrasher heard through the room’s flimsy walls his footsteps scuffing on the metal steps, then coming down the outside terrace toward him. Finally, a thump on his door.
This is crazy! he said to himself. I’m all alone here. Nobody knows what I’m doing, who I’m talking to.
But he swallowed the lump of trepidation in his throat and yanked the door open. Ulysses—Sam—Israel stood framed in the doorway. He was close to six feet tall, Thrasher judged, slender but well muscled. Wearing a dingy tee shirt and jeans. Dark hair and eyes, his face would have been handsome, except for the crooked nose. Looked like it had been broken some years ago. Maybe more than once.
“Sam Israel?” Thrasher asked needlessly.
Stepping into the little room, Israel said, “Yeah. Who the fuck are you?”
“My name’s Arthur Thrasher.”
Israel froze. For an instant Thrasher thought he would turn around and leave the room. Instead, though, he carefully closed the door and went to the room’s only chair, by the chest of drawers that supported the TV.
“The Mars guy,” Israel said as he sat down. His eyes took in the room in a single sweep. Not that much to see, Thrasher realized.
“Right. The Mars guy,” said Thrasher, sitting on the edge of the bed. “That’s me.”
“So what’s this about twenty thou?”
Thrasher said, “You took ten thousand to louse up that Delta IV launch; I figured that for twenty thousand you’d tell me who gave you the money.”
“And go to jail? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No jail. No questions asked. I’ve got a mole in my organization and I need to find out who he is before somebody gets hurt.”
Israel pursed his lips, thinking it over. “You’re crazy. I never did anything.”
“Where’d you get that ten thousand?” Thrasher prompted.
“I sold a car.”
“Really? Would that story hold up against my insurance company’s investigators?”
“Insurance company?”
“They forked over forty million for the accident you caused.”
“You can’t prove anything!”
Thrasher saw beads of perspiration on Israel’s upper lip. “I don’t have to prove anything. I don’t even want to prove anything. All I want to know is who gave you the ten thousand. That’s worth twenty thousand.”
Again Israel hesitated. At last he said, “Let me see the twenty.”
Thrasher thought, once I show him the money he can take it from me and walk out of here. But he knows I’d go straight to the police. Not if I were dead, though. Would he kill me for twenty thousand dollars? Maybe I’ve walked myself into a trap!
“My people back in Houston know I’m meeting you,” he lied. “So does the local Pinkerton office.”
Israel made a disgusted face. “I’m not a thief. I earn what I make.”
Thrasher nodded. “So do I.”
He got up from the bed and went to the closet. Pulling back the accordion-fold door, Thrasher tapped out his code on the little safe and its door hummed briefly, then clicked open. He pulled out an envelope.
“Twenty one-thousand-dollar bills,” he said, pulling the envelope open so Israel could see inside it.
Israel broke into a satisfied grin and reached out his hand.
“Who contacted you?”
“I don’t know his name. He phoned me. No names.”
“How’d you know—”
“He knew about the launch. Knew it from the inside. Technical knowledge. I figure
d he worked for your competition.”
“I don’t have any competition.”
Israel smirked. “That’s what you think.”
“He called you at home?”
“At my apartment, yeah.”
“When? How many times?”
It took half an hour, but Israel at last gave Thrasher a list of four dates and approximate times. “I’ve got his voice on my answering machine,” he added.
“I’d like to have a copy of that.”
Israel nodded. Thrasher handed him the envelope of cash.
Israel got to his feet and stuffed the envelope into the back pocket of his jeans.
“I want that voice recording,” Thrasher said. Taking out his wallet and flicking it open, he pulled out his card. “Send it to me.”
“Yeah. Nice doin’ business with you.”
Staring at the scruffy little list in his hands, Thrasher nodded absently. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”
7
HOUSTON
On the American Airlines flight back to Houston the next morning, Thrasher realized he needed professional help. A set of four phone calls wasn’t much to go on, but it was all he had. Somebody in his organization had talked to Israel four times, and passed money to him. How to find out who?
Linda was waiting for him with a mug of ginger beer and his daily schedule as he entered the office.
“I need to talk to Frankenstein,” Thrasher told her.
She followed him into his inner office. “Larry Franken?”
Nodding as he headed for his desk, Thrasher said, “Yep. This morning.”
“You schedule’s already pretty full. And you’re having lunch with Jessie Margulis at twelve-thirty.”
He grinned at her. “Frankenstein. This morning. And get Saito Yamagata on the phone for me.”
Linda looked dubious.
“Please.”
She made a smile and headed back to her own desk.
The magic word, Thrasher thought. Works every time. Almost.
Lawrence Franken was the head of Thrasher Digital’s minuscule security department. As the man settled himself in one of the chairs in front of Thrasher’s desk, Thrasher thought that if they were at a party with a thousand guests and he asked any one of them to find the cop, they’d go immediately to Frankenstein.