Countdown

by Julie Cannon

  “Ms. Hutchings—”

  “I’m here,” Kenner said. “What do you want?”

  “Ms. Hutchings, is this a secure line?”

  “If you mean is anyone listening over my shoulder, no. But this is my cell phone,” Kenner said as she walked out of the bedroom and closed the door behind her. At least she wasn’t lying to the woman on the phone.

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “Andrea Finley, from NASA in Houston.”

  “Ms. Finley, it’s four in the morning. What do you want?” Kenner repeated. She didn’t mean to be abrupt, but it was the middle of the night.

  “Ms. Hutchings.” The voice on the other end of the line paused so long Kenner thought they’d lost the connection. “We need your assistance.”

  “With what?”

  “We have a situation, and my experts have told me you’d be able to help.”

  Kenner wasn’t very politically astute, but she detected more than a slight hesitation in this woman’s request for her help. What she did know about NASA and the government wasn’t much, but she had heard they rarely looked outside their own, believing they had the solution to everything.

  “What is the problem?”

  “Ms. Hutchings—”

  “Call me Kenner. Ms. Hutchings is my mother, and I’m nothing like her.”

  The woman hesitated, obvious uncomfortable being on a first-name basis. “It’s something I can’t really delve into over the phone.”

  Kenner read between the lines. What she really said was they she was on an unsecured line and something was fucked. “If you’ll tell me where you are, we’ll send a plane for you.”

  “I’m on vacation.”

  “Ms. Hutchings, this isn’t really optional.”

  “Ms. Finley, no offense, but I don’t work for you. I haven’t had a vacation in four years, and I’m not about to cut it short to go to Houston.” Kenner spoke with more than a little distaste when she said the word Houston. Houston compared to the South of France was like cubic zirconium compared to diamonds or Kobe beef to bologna.

  “You’re absolutely right, Ms. Hutchings. You don’t work for me. But we have seven people in serious trouble, and you need to work for them.”

  Chapter Six

  T-minus 10:14:08:22

  “This is horse shit,” Kenner said, back in her hotel room packing her suitcase. “Complete and utter horse shit. I’m supposed to be on vacation, completely out of touch. How in the hell did Rooster even get my cell-phone number?” Kenner asked into the empty room. She preferred talking out loud instead of in her head. Something about saying the words aloud and hearing them gave her an extra perspective on things. She would often pace in her office or stand in front of her whiteboard talking to herself as she unraveled the complexity of whatever problem she was working on at the time. Some days she was so hoarse by the time she got home she soothed her parched throat with a little whiskey and a dab of honey thrown in strictly for medicinal purposes.

  She was still mumbling to herself when she hailed a cab and sat back for the twenty-mile drive to the Marseille Provence Airport. Her connection in New York was several hours long, allowing an unrushed pilgrimage through customs. From there she was catching a flight to Houston. Way too many hours in a plane. She hated flying, but it was the quickest way to get from point A to point B, and she was all about speed and efficiency.

  The flight attendant was particularly attentive, and Kenner knew if she wanted a little time-killing activity in the rear of the plane she could get it. She’d been a member of the mile-high club for several years, and however exciting and dangerous it was, tonight it didn’t appeal to her.

  The marvel of technology enabled her to Google anything and everything during the flight. She typed NASA in the search bar and in zero point three four seconds pulled up over eighty million hits. That was a ridiculous, useless way to try to figure out just what in the hell was so important that only she could fix.

  Scrolling through the hits, she spotted an article in Time magazine on Andrea Finley. Thirty-seven years old, first female flight director, graduated summa cum laude with a Master’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from MIT. “Hmm, a fellow alumni,” Kenner said quietly after reading this information. “I don’t remember seeing anything that good on campus. But then again I graduated several years after Ms. Finley.”

  The photograph of Flight Director Finley was taken by a professional. It captured the blue of her eyes and a calm, confident attitude in the tall, thin blonde. Her arms were casually crossed across her chest, and she was leaning against a desk that could only be described as nondescript. Heaven forbid our tax dollars funded a lavish lifestyle and office décor. On a table behind her sat several models of the space shuttle and other NASA rockets.

  But it was her eyes that kept drawing Kenner’s attention. The directness and confidence reflected in them was simply alluring. It was ridiculous. It was just a picture, not a flesh-and-blood woman standing in front of her. But something about her appealed to Kenner. Even though she was angry her vacation had been cut short, she really wanted to know what Flight Director Finley looked like with her hair messed, preferably from Kenner’s hands running through it.

  Feeling the familiar tingling in her crotch reminded Kenner that she hadn’t had nearly enough sex on this short vacation. But Houston was full of women. She was sure she could find a tall, sun-bronzed goddess whose body she could worship. After all, all work and no play made Kenner a very dull and cranky girl.

  The article went on to talk about Flight Director Finley’s commitment to the space program and how the lives of the men and women on the crew depended on her and her team to launch them into orbit and safely return. She’d been assistant flight director on seven previous flights and didn’t think it was any big deal whatsoever that she was female.

  “My gender has nothing to do with it,” the article said, quoting her. “Did it matter that previous directors like Mitch Roberts was a single dad or that Frank Thomas had a wife and four kids or that Paul Embry was divorced? No, it didn’t, and it doesn’t with me either. What matters is that I’ve been trained to do this job, and I will do it to the best of my ability.” Or the fact that I’m a lesbian, Kenner added in her head.

  Even after only a short phone conversation halfway across the world, Kenner could almost hear the flight director’s voice when she spoke to the reporter. Her Southern drawl was sexy but strong, stern, no-nonsense. Typical for a woman in a man’s field who didn’t want anyone to see her as anything other than one hundred percent professional. Kenner had been around these types of women before—the ones who downplayed the fact that they were female. Some went to such an extreme as to camouflage their natural beauty and grace so that when anyone looked at them they didn’t see a woman but a professional.

  Kenner always wondered what those women were like outside the office, behind the front door. And she wondered how some of them, including Andrea Finley, were behind their bedroom door as well. Kenner had the fortunate luck or skill to get the answer to that question, but something in the determined set of Ms. Finley’s jaw and the direct look in her eyes said “Don’t even begin to try.” That door was closed, locked, and bolted tightly. What a shame, Kenner thought. Even behind the exterior seriousness, Andrea Finley was a damn fine attractive woman.

  Chapter Seven

  T-minus 10:14:38:04

  Andrea slowed her steps as she approached the Flight Operations Director’s office. Her boss, Barry Haven, was a reasonable man when things were going smoothly, but his level of calmness disappeared as the level of stress in the situation increased. Andrea didn’t admire that trait in her boss or in anyone associated with any of these flights. On the contrary, the more difficult the situation was, the calmer the team needed everyone to be, especially their leader.

  She rapped on the open door. “Barry?”

  He motioned her in with a chubby hand. “I hope you have good news for me, because you sure do n
eed it,” he replied gruffly.

  Like everyone involved with dealing with this problem, he’d been here for far too many hours. His constant five o’clock shadow now looked like a full beard, and his eyes were bloodshot. His always impeccably pressed shirt was wrinkled and his tie not in its usual tight Windsor knot around his neck. Three Styrofoam coffee cups littered his desk, and judging by the coffee stain on the side of one of the cups and the dried coffee stain on the folder underneath it, one of them had overflowed the rim hours ago.

  Andrea didn’t bother sitting down; her briefing would be short and to the point. She didn’t bother with idle small talk in the normal course of the day, and in this situation it would have been totally out of place.

  “I reached Kenner Hutchings. She was someplace in the South of France. She won’t be here until early tomorrow morning.”

  “Shit.” Barry shook his head. “I wish I could go to the fucking South of France.” He rubbed his hands over his face, and Andrea could hear the scratching of his beard.

  This wasn’t the first time Andrea had heard her boss curse. He didn’t make it a habit, but when he did, it was at an appropriate time. The first time he’d dropped the f-bomb she was shocked. She’d never heard it in the workplace—at least not in the office. She’d heard it plenty on the construction floor and the flight line, but not by anyone wearing a silk tie. And as much as she wanted to experience the freedom that cussing at a certain situation made her feel, she believed it would only undermine her credibility and refused to do so. She saved those words for the speed bag in the corner of her spare bedroom, turned weight room, and the really big words for the heavy bag that hung in the opposite corner.

  “Did you tell her what we have?”

  “No sir, I didn’t,” Andrea replied formally. “The line wasn’t secure. And it’s not something I really wanted to get into over the phone. That and the fact that she probably wouldn’t have understood half of what I was talking about.” Andrea tried to keep the resentment out of her voice.

  She’d been forced to call Kenner Hutchings, a twenty-six-year-old whiz kid with a PhD in mathematics and aeronautical engineering from her alma mater MIT. From all the accounts that Andrea had read and picked up from her colleagues in their discussions of Kenner’s ability, she also had a cocky attitude that rounded out the package. There would have been no point in explaining what their situation was. She wasn’t a NASA engineer. She didn’t know the space shuttle, or a booster rocket from a landing rover. Trying to discuss the technicalities of the situation would have been pointless and would eat up valuable time. Andrea would have to do all her briefing once Kenner arrived on site.

  “You don’t seem overjoyed that this…what’s his name again?”

  “It’s a she, and her name is Kenner Hutchings.”

  “What kind of name is that, Kenner?”

  “I have no idea, sir. Probably some family heirloom of some kind. If she can solve our problem, I don’t care if she’s sprouting wings and has a halo.”

  Barry looked at her for several moments as if trying to figure out how big her lie was. She wasn’t really lying. If Kenner could solve their problem, this was where she needed to be. It just grated on Andrea that it had to be on her mission. Finally Barry saw whatever it was he was looking for and effectively dismissed her with a terse “Keep me informed.” Andrea followed up with an equally terse “Yes sir,” before she turned and closed the door behind her.

  The scene that greeted her in the control room wasn’t what she’d expected. Four people were crowded into the Medical work area that normally held one. All four heads were bent, and two of the men kept checking and rechecking the readouts in front of them. This was not good.

  “What is it?” she asked Suzanne, the assistant flight director on this shift.

  “Albert has a fever.”

  Great, Andrea thought. Just what they needed, a problem with the shuttle commander.

  “What does Medical say? And don’t tell me he has a fever,” she said, looking over to the doctor currently manning the console that monitored everything going on, in and out of the crew’s bodies.

  “His temperature is one hundred and three. He’s complaining of body aches and nausea.”

  Unbelievable. They’d rocketed seven human beings into space to walk on the moon. They had the latest, most sophisticated technology in the world, and the man in charge had the flu. Unless they solved the problem facing them, it wouldn’t matter if the pilot of the four-hundred-fifty-million-dollar shuttle was too sick to fly.

  Chapter Eight

  T-minus 08:13:27:52

  “Jesus, you’d think I was trying to get into Fort Knox or the White House or something,” Kenner mumbled under her breath as she exited the visitors building. She’d been photographed, fingerprinted, and searched so thoroughly she’d commented to the security officer that maybe she should have dinner first next time. Nobody had laughed.

  The same serious, burly man that had picked her up at the airport led the way through a set of impressively secure double doors. She felt like she was going into a prison instead of entering the control center of NASA. The intense security was a complete contrast to the all-American, apple-pie reputation of the space agency. I guess if the shuttle or one of the rockets fell into the wrong hands it could be very, very ugly. Let’s hope I’m not around if that ever happens, she thought, and shook the image from her head.

  Kenner was able to keep track of the number of right and left turns they made, and even though she had no idea where they were going, she knew she could find her way out of this maze blindfolded. This building hadn’t looked this big when they drove up to it. Finally they stopped in front of yet another card-access door, but this one was guarded by a lean, mean, fighting machine wearing a U.S. Air Force uniform.

  The man looked at Kenner, her badge, then back at her. He checked something on his clipboard—and what was it with that old brown clipboard? Hadn’t any of these guys ever heard of the iPad? The guard nodded, Kenner swiped her badge, and the green door opened.

  *

  Christ, another hall, this one painted blue. She wondered if this color code was to distinguish one from another, some sort of psychological calming effect, or maybe a team-building event and the blue team had painted this one. They stopped in front of a wooden door polished to a high gloss with the words Conference Room A embossed in gold letters stenciled at just about eye level. Her guide knocked twice on the door, opened it, and motioned for Kenner to enter. When she did, he closed the door behind her, leaving her in a room with nineteen men, eight women, and no introductions.

  All conversation in the room stopped, and every set of eyes turned her way. She was obviously odd man out in the room and at least twenty years younger than the youngest person sitting around the table. But this sort of shit didn’t intimidate Kenner in the least. She knew she was smart, very smart as a matter of fact, and she wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t qualified to help with whatever the hell was going on.

  “Good morning,” she said. “I’m Kenner Hutchings.” No one at the table gave any indication of acknowledging her introduction or introducing themselves, so she started with the man to her immediate left. She stuck out her hand and said, “And you are?”

  “Jack Stevens, Booster.”

  “Nice to meet you, Jack.”

  “Rob Jazinski, Medical,” the next man said.

  “Paul Cooler, Guidance.”

  The introductions continued around the room, and Kenner wondered if that was the way everyone introduced themselves around here. If so, what would she say…Kenner Hutchings, technical consultant? Problem solver? Lifesaver? Introductions finished, she poured herself a cup of coffee from the large silver urn on the side table. Between running her vacation full speed, sampling the local highlights, and flying halfway around the world, she desperately needed the caffeine, and lots of it.

  Kenner didn’t require a lot of sleep. When she was a child, most nights she’d stayed up later tha
n her parents. They would insist she go to bed and Kenner had complied, but once tucked in she would turn on her flashlight, pull the covers over her head, and read, draw, or write stories in a blue, battered wire-bound notebook. Whether it was her natural body makeup or that she rarely operated at anything other than full speed, she knew her limits and she was there. A cup or three of good strong coffee would fuel her for whatever she had to face today.

  The seats at both ends of the rectangle table were empty, as well as the seat next to Jack Stevens, the first man she’d introduced herself to. Not being shy in the least, she sat down on the end, leaned back in the chair, crossed her legs, and waited for whatever or whoever was going to start this meeting.

  She found it interesting that these people worked together, yet there was no small talk or chatter around the table. Obviously something serious was going on; otherwise, she wouldn’t be here, but they weren’t even talking about that. That was odd, she thought, unless they didn’t know why she was there. Not two minutes later the door opened again, and every head turned with a look of expectation on each face when Flight Director Andrea Finley walked in.

  *

  The photo from the NASA website didn’t do justice to the sheer power and professional magnetism that Andrea exuded when she walked into the room. Kenner was taken aback at that combination and, no matter how hard she tried to disguise it, the sheer sensuality of the woman. She was tall, Kenner guessed probably close to six feet, thinner than she appeared in her photo, with a sense of fatigue on her smooth face. Because of the way Kenner’s brain worked, she observed and retained every single detail of every single thing. She’d learned how to shut this ability off; otherwise she’d go nuts.

  Director Finley didn’t slouch or try to compensate for her height in any way as she walked into the room and set her portfolio down at the head of the table. She made a quick glance around the room, and her eyes stopped on Kenner. Kenner’s pulse raced when their eyes met, and she found it slightly hard to breathe. Feeling uncomfortable, she rose from her chair and walked toward the flight director with her hand outstretched.