by Bova, Ben
“What the hell was that?” yelled the air traffic controller in Dan’s earphones.
The Staggerwing lurched, whether from the explosion’s shock wave or Dan’s startled response he didn’t know. Or care.
“Explosion at my headquarters on Matagorda,” he said into the pin microphone that almost touched his lips. “I’m diverting over there to take a look.”
Dan felt bile inching up his throat. He knew that the only thing on Matagorda that could create a fireball that immense was Astro’s hydrogen facility.
“Christ, not another one,” he groaned. First the spaceplane and now this: I’m ruined. They’ve ruined me.
Circling over the blazing remains, Dan saw that his worst fears had come true. Flickering flames broke the darkness where the hydrogen facility had been. The grass was burning now; a spreading brushfire had already reached beyond the sagging wire fence that surrounded the facility. There’s nothing down there but burning wreckage, he saw. Must’ve broken windows for miles.
Along the road on the other side of the bay from the island Dan saw headlights racing toward the fire. Local firefighters, he thought. Volunteers. They’ll have to get the ferry guy out of bed.
Don’t let anybody be hurt, he prayed to a god he didn’t believe in. Just don’t let anybody be hurt. But as he circled around the burning destruction he thought he saw the twisted remains of a truck or some sort of vehicle.
Tenny? Dan’s heart clutched in his chest at the thought. Joe powered his pickup on that hydrogen. My god, was he caught in the blast?
“Staggerwing oh-nine,” came the voice of the air traffic controller in Dan’s earphones. “Report your position, please.”
That snapped Dan back to reality. I’m circling over hell, he wanted to say. I’ve been damned and put in hell.
Dan tried to phone his office from the airport in Lamar but there was no answer at any of the phone lines. He considered driving to his headquarters, but realized that once the ferry had carried the local firefighters to the island it wouldn’t be running again until morning. So he bunked down at the airport motel and tried to sleep. Tried to.
First thing the next morning Dan flew from Lamar back to the airstrip on Matagorda, his eyes bloodshot and pouchy. The local morning news had a brief item on the explosion at the Astro base. Radio stations in Houston didn’t mention it at all.
Wait till they find out it was a hydrogen blast, Dan thought as he touched the Staggerwing’s wheels to the runway. They’ll come boiling out here from New York and Transylvania to do stories on how dangerous hydrogen is.
He was in a sour mood as he clattered up the stairs to his office. April was already at her desk, her eyes red and puffy.
“Was anybody—” Dan stopped. One look at his assistant’s face told him. “Who was it?”
“Dr. Tenny,” April said, bursting into fresh tears.
“Dead?”
She nodded, sobbing.
“Double-damn it all to hell and back,” Dan muttered as he went past April’s desk and into his own office.
Passeau was already there, in shirtsleeves, standing by the window with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand.
He turned as Dan stepped behind his desk. “Tenny was killed,” Passeau said, his voice flat, resigned. Dan saw that the man looked weary, saggy-eyed, as if he hadn’t slept all night either.
“He was murdered,” Dan said.
Passeau stepped to the fabric-covered chair in front of Dan’s desk and sat in it. He took a cautious sip of the hot coffee. “Last night about ten he called me at the motel.”
Dan leaned forward, rested his forearms on the desktop.
“I was in the bar, such as it is.”
“Joe left a message?”
“He said he knew who had sabotaged the spaceplane. By the time I picked up the message—”
“He was murdered,” Dan repeated.
Passeau nodded.
“He must have tried to get me on the phone, too.” Dan pulled his cell phone from its clip on his belt. Five messages, he saw, all from Tenny. If I’d left the double-damned phone on, he accused himself, Joe would still be alive.
“The county fire marshal is investigating the accident scene,” Passeau said. “You have more investigators sniffing around here than your own working staff.”
Dan took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing pulse. “Claude, I need your help.”
Passeau notched an eyebrow slightly.
“If Joe said he’d figured out who had sabotaged Hannah’s flight, if he was murdered to keep him silent—”
“You need someone to follow his trail.”
“Yes.”
For a long moment Passeau said nothing. Then he shook his head. “I’ve already called the FBI office in Houston.”
Dan closed his eyes briefly. Okay, he told himself, that was inevitable. Maybe we should have called them last week.
To Passeau he said, “We’ve got to do more than sit back and let the feds start poking around, Claude.”
“You can’t expect me to—”
“I’m not asking you to do anything you don’t want to do,” Dan said impatiently. “I’m going to follow Joe’s footsteps. I’d like you to help me figure out the evidence.”
“A consultant?” Passeau almost smiled.
“Unpaid.”
The FAA investigator did smile at that. “And unannounced, please. I don’t want my superiors knowing that I’m doing some freelance work for you.”
“You’ll do it?”
“You realize that following Tenny’s trail could be dangerous for you. They killed him because he was getting too close.”
“Who else do I have?”
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been known to track down criminals now and then.”
Frowning, Dan replied, “By the time I convince the double-damned feds that a crime has been committed, the murderer could be in Timbuktu.”
“True enough, I suppose. Officially the spaceplane’s crash is still regarded as an accident.”
“You know it wasn’t.”
“I believe that it wasn’t an accident, yes. But there isn’t a shred of evidence to back up that belief.”
“Joe said he had evidence.”
“And now he’s dead.”
Dan said slowly, “You know, Claude, you might go over and give the county fire investigator a hand. My guess is that he’s in over his head.”
“I suppose I could talk with him. Unofficially, of course.”
“Of course.”
Passeau pushed himself up from the chair. “Very well. I’m off for an unofficial chat with the fire investigator.”
Dan wished him luck. Once Passeau left the office, Dan booted up his computer and began wondering how he could hold his company together. Hell, he thought, I’m going to have a tough time meeting next week’s payroll.
By the end of the long, wearying day, Dan sat at his desk, shirtsleeves rolled up, desktop buried in paper, computer screen showing numbers that got steadily worse each time he looked at them.
With enormous reluctance he called April. She appeared at his door, dry-eyed now but still looking as sad as a woman who’d lost her firstborn.
“Get Garrison on the phone for me, will you, please?” Dan said.
“In Houston?”
“Right. In Houston.” As she went back to her desk Dan said to himself, You’ve got no choice. You sell a chunk of the company to Garrison or the whole thing goes down the drain.
KYOTO, JAPAN
Saito Yamagata sat on his haunches upon the tatami mat before the low table, which was lacquered to such a luster he could see his reflection in it. The five other men around the table were all older than Yamagata, white or gray-haired, some of them balding, one of them with his scalp deliberately shaved in the manner of an old samurai. Each of them wore Western business suits, either dark gray or dark blue.
Delicate cups for tea were set at each place, although there was no servant in the r
oom to pour. This meeting was held under the tightest security.
The industrial might of Japan, Yamagata thought. Representatives of the nation’s five major corporations. Their joint worth was in the trillions of yen. They ran the government, they ran Japan’s major industries, and they ran Yamagata as well.
Saito had no problem with the arrangement. It was all as it should be, he thought. I take the risks of this new enterprise in space. If it fails, it is my fault, not theirs. If it succeeds, they become wealthier and more powerful. If it succeeds, Japan becomes the energy source for the world and the Middle East becomes a backwater once again.
The would-be samurai, kneeling at the head of the table, was saying, “The American effort has met two severe setbacks this month. Their experimental rocket plane crashed during a test flight, and their hydrogen facility exploded, killing their chief engineer.”
“That would be three setbacks, then,” murmured the oldest man at the table.
“Your arithmetic is impeccable,” said the samurai, dipping his head in agreement The others laughed.
The elder looked toward Yamagata, at the foot of the table. “These regrettable accidents will drive your competitor from the field, I suppose.”
Yamagata took in a hissing breath before replying, “Perhaps not The American is tenacious almost to the point of foolhardiness. I know him well.”
“He worked for you several years ago,” said one of the others.
“Yes. I came to like him. I still do.”
“But he is a competitor.”
“True,” said Yamagata, thinking: A valuable competitor. Without Dan Randolph’s mad drive to build an American powersat, these five old men would still be dithering over financing my corporation.
“Can he be eliminated now?”
Yamagata said, “He is in financial need. My information is that he has agreed to sell a small percentage of his company to Tricontinental Oil in order to raise the capital he needs to continue.”
“Garrison?” asked one of the men, clearly shocked at the news.
“Garrison,” replied Yamagata, in a near whisper.
The samurai said, “If Tricontinental gains control of the American power satellite they have the resources to push the project through to completion.”
“And do it at least three years before our own satellite can begin operating.”
“This is unwelcome. Not acceptable,” said the elder.
“The deal with Garrison has not been finalized,” Yamagata told them, “although it is moving swiftly toward completion.”
“Can it be stopped?”
“Is there something we can do to stop it?”
Yamagata waited, head bowed, until they ceased their chatter and all turned to him.
“I believe I have a solution,” he said meekly.
No one spoke, waiting to hear what he had to say.
Yamagata began to explain, “The American powersat is almost completed. What Randolph needs more than anything else is transportation to and from the satellite. That is why he was developing the rocket plane.”
“But it crashed.”
“Just so,” Yamagata said. “That leaves Dan Randolph with the problem of getting people and material to his satellite in the most economical manner possible.”
“He can use NASA shuttles, can’t he?”
Suppressing a smile, Yamagata replied, “The American government does not interact well with private companies. They suspect that any organization which strives to make a profit is somehow crooked and must be dealt with at arm’s length.”
A few chuckles and grins went around the table.
“It would take Randolph many months, perhaps a year or more, before he could work out an agreement with NASA to rent space on their shuttles. That is, assuming that NASA would deal with him at all. In my estimation, NASA simply does not have the capacity to accomplish its own missions and add Randolph’s workload as well.”
“Then NASA is out.”
“It would seem so,” said Yamagata. “That means Randolph must go to one or more of the private launch companies in the United States or Russia.”
“What about the European Space Agency?”
“Their launch capabilities are limited and fully booked,” said Yamagata. “No, Randolph must go to a private company in the States or Russia.” He hesitated a heartbeat, then added, “Or Japan.”
“Ahhh,” said the samurai. “I begin to understand.” Even the elder, normally sour and gruff, allowed himself a slight smile.
“I could propose a strategic partnership with Randolph. Yamagata rockets will provide transportation to and from his satellite. The money he takes from Garrison can go into the development of his spaceplane.”
“And what do we gain from this?”
Yamagata closed his eyes for a moment. At last he said, “We gain a share of the spaceplane. Perhaps a license to build it here in Japan. With such an advanced transportation system we could shave perhaps a full year off the development of our own power satellite. And reduce our costs significantly.”
“But the American spaceplane is a failure. It crashed.”
“It crashed,” Yamagata agreed. “Most new aircraft crash. Most new rockets blow up. But the spaceplane is basically sound. And valuable.”
The five older men rocked back on their haunches. No one broke into applause or even hissed appreciatively, but Yamagata knew he had won the day.
MATAGORDA ISLAND, TEXAS
Following Tenny’s trail wasn’t as simple as Dan had hoped it would be. The engineer kept no notes, no record of his hunt for the traitor among Astro’s staff. Dan ransacked Tenny’s office, spent hours each night poring over his computer files, searched for keywords, clues, hints. He could find nothing. Dan even went to Tenny’s home to ask his widow and teenaged sons, as gently as possible, if he’d discussed the matter with them. Nothing.
At last he tried a different tack. Late at night, alone in his own office, Dan called up the computer’s personnel program and began to search for signs showing that Tenny had hit a particular individual’s file. Now he began to discover too much material. Tenny had delved into dozens of files. Dan sorted the hits by date. Joe had evidently started with the technicians on the launch team, then the flight controllers, and branched out to all sorts of people. Even Niles Muhamed and Dan’s executive assistant, April, were on Tenny’s hit list.
He scrolled through the personnel department’s directory of all the company’s employees. Eight hundred and sixty-four men and women, he saw. Then he corrected himself: No, make that eight hundred and sixty-three; they haven’t taken Joe’s name off yet. Eight hundred and sixty-three people. One of them’s a traitor. Maybe more than one. But who is it? Which of them has sold me out? Which of them is a murderer?
He knew a lot of the employees by first name, knew them well enough to listen to their family troubles, well enough to joke with them. April was always bringing in tidbits about romantic entanglements, who was chasing whom, who was breaking up, who was expecting a baby. Maybe she could help me track down the killer, Dan thought. Then he laughed at the idea. Shows how desperate I am, he told himself. April is terrific with the in-house gossip; a detective she ain’t.
He fell asleep at his desk, waking only when the morning sun lanced through the window that looked out onto the parking lot.
Bleary-eyed, he stumbled along the catwalk from his office to his apartment. Half an hour later, showered, shaved, dressed in a freshly pressed shirt and slacks, he went back to his office. Can’t beat the commute, he said to himself. I never have to worry about the morning rush traffic. A few people were already down on the hangar floor. He didn’t see Passeau among them.
April was at her desk, brushing her silky dark hair. Dan gave her a smile that was almost a grimace. Why can’t she do her hair before she comes in to work? he grumbled to himself. Then he remembered that she drove a baby blue Dodge Sebring convertible that half the guys in the company drooled over. Cool car, but it ma
de a mess of her hairdo.
“Breakfast?” she asked as Dan went into his office.
“Just grapefruit juice,” he said, then added, “And coffee.” Start the day with the two major food groups: vitamin C and caffeine.
Dan sat at his desk and took a deep breath. “Let’s see if you can get through the day without going broke,” he muttered.
He saw that April had already booted up his computer and displayed his morning’s appointments and incoming calls. The insurance carrier, of course. Passeau. Somebody named Neil Heinrich, of Tricontinental Oil; one of Garrison’s flunkies, most likely. Saito Yamagata, calling from Tokyo.
Dan jiggled his computer’s mouse until the screen showed the global map that displayed time zones. Cripes, it’s midnight in Japan, he saw. But he moved the pointer to Yamagata’s name and clicked on it. The phone program automatically dialed the number in Japan. Dan expected to get an answering machine, still he knew it would be good form to return Sai’s call as soon as he received it. Politeness is important to the Japanese.
To his surprise, Yamagata’s round, flat face grinned at him from his screen. “Daniel, you’re at your office early.”
Grinning back, “And you’re at your office late, Sai.”
Yamagata threw his head back and laughed heartily. “Two workaholics, that’s what we are.”
“Maybe,” Dan agreed, thinking that you had to be a workaholic when your company was sinking beneath the waves.
Yamagata’s face grew more serious. “I heard about the accident and your chief engineer’s death. My condolences.”
Dan hesitated, then thought, what the hell; why try to keep it a secret? “It wasn’t an accident, Sai. I don’t think the spaceplane crash was an accident, either. Somebody’s trying to knock me out of business.”
There was always a half second of delay in response when a call was relayed by satellite. Even moving at the speed of light, the message had to travel to the commsat up in synchronous orbit and then back again. This time, though, Yamagata hesitated much longer than the normal time lag before replying.