Powersat

Matagorda Island, Texas

Everyone in the blockhouse stood up and cheered when they heard Van Buren’s radio voice announce, “She’s on the runway. Mission completed.”

Everyone except Passeau and his two gray-suited FAA superiors, although Dan thought he saw a trace of a smile on Passeau’s face.

Turning from the blank wall screen toward the three FAA men with a big, satisfied grin, Dan said, “See? No problems.”

Passeau said, “Score one for globalization, I suppose. But how do you propose to get your spaceplane back from Caracas?”

“By boat,” Dan said cheerfully. “I’ve already got a freighter under contract for the job. The bird should be back here in a week, ten days at most.”

The launch crew was shutting down their consoles, heading for the big steel hatch out into the Texas sunshine.

“You think you’ve pulled one over on us, do you?” growled Tweedledum as the technicians filed past him.

With an innocent hike of his brows, Dan replied, “No, not at all. I think I’ve managed to test my bird without breaking any of your regulations.”

“You certainly swivel-hipped your way around the regulations,” accused Tweedledee.

“I proved my theory,” said Dan, much more seriously.

“Your theory?”

“The crash of our oh-one bird wasn’t an accident. It was sabotaged.”

“Sabotaged?”

“By who?”

“I’m hoping the FBI can figure that out,” said Dan, heading for the blockhouse door. “In the meantime, I’m going to apply for permission to resume the flight tests of the spaceplane with a pilot aboard.”

“You won’t get permission, I guarantee it,” Tweedledum snapped, following Dan outside into the warm sunlight.

“There’s nothing wrong with the bird!” Dan insisted. “There’s no flaw in the design and there aren’t any flaws in the manufacturing. The oh-one bird was sabotaged, pure and simple.”

Both Tweedledum and Tweedledee shook their heads in unison, like two metronomes.

Passeau stepped between them. “It’s quite true that we haven’t found any flaws in the design or the construction of the vehicle. Except for the valve in the forward attitude control thruster—”

“Which could only have been popped open by a spurious command signal,” Dan interrupted. “Which is sabotage, nothing else.”

For the first time, the two FAA men looked doubtful. Tweedledee asked his compatriot, “Do you think… ?”

“Hard to prove,” said Tweedledum. “Impossible to prove, more’n likely.”

Dan let it go at that, satisfied that he had at least planted a seed of doubt in their minds. Doubt is the beginning of wisdom, he told himself.

Dan went back to Hangar A while Passeau led his two superiors off to the engineering building. As he entered his outer office, Dan saw with some annoyance that April still wasn’t at her desk. Where the hell is she? he grumbled inwardly. She ought to be on the job, or at least let me know she won’t be in.

When he stepped into his private office, though, he saw another woman sitting in front of his desk, a welcoming smile on her heart-shaped face.

“Remember me?” asked Vicki Lee. “I’m working for Aviation Week now, thanks to you.”

April had spent a sleepless, frightening night. She sat on the sofa in Kinsky’s apartment, watching Roberto the way a trapped animal watches a stalking predator. Every time Roberto looked her way she shuddered inwardly. The man’s eyes were rimmed with red, and April could see the rage that boiled just beneath his surface. He was like a powder keg, a bomb waiting to be triggered; she could feel the danger radiating from every move of his big, muscular body. Kinsky sat on the sofa beside her, petrified, silent, unmoving, while Roberto tried time and again to put through a call on his cell phone, to no avail.

At one point he made a connection, only to frown with baffled frustration and yell into the phone, “Whachoo mean he ain’t available?You make him available, see? You tell him I got a situation here and I wanna know what he wants me to do.”

He listened, his scowl going darker, then shouted, “Hey, slow down. An’ speak English, huh? I can’t unnerstand when you jabber like that.”

Another few moments of listening, then he switched the phone to his other ear and said impatiently, “Well, you tell him to call me and damn quick, too. I got two people here an’ I gotta know what to do with them.”

He flicked the phone off, muttering in Spanish.

Which gave April an idea. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” she said, getting to her feet.

Roberto leered at her. “Okay. I go which you. Give you a hand, huh?”

As coldly as she could, April said, “Certainly not.” And she headed for the bathroom, leaving Kinsky sitting inertly on the sofa.

Roberto followed a pace behind her. Her heart pounding, April closed the door firmly in his grinning face and turned the knob to lock it.

“Okay,” his voice came through the thin door, “I give you some privacy. I’ll wait right here.”

Damn! April thought, pulling her cell phone from her purse. If I try to call Kelly he’ll hear me and break in and stop me. The last thing she wanted was to give this big bruiser an excuse for violence. She knew where that would end.

She flushed the toilet, then ran water in the sink. Letting the faucet run, April pecked out Kelly’s cell phone number and held her breath.

One ring. Two. Come on, April begged silently. Answer the phone, Kelly.

“Eamons here,” Kelly’s voice said.

Almost fainting with relief, April whispered, “Listen, don’t talk.” Then, leaving the phone on but blanking its little display screen, she slipped it back into her purse. She had no way of knowing how much the FBI agent would be able to hear, or how far from Lamar she had already driven. But she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

She turned off the faucet and unlocked the bathroom door. Roberto yanked it open, surprising her so badly that she flinched away and almost tripped over the toilet.

“You wash your hands?” he asked, grinning. “In the res’rants they always tell us to wash our hands.”

April had to squeeze past him to get back into the living room. Kinsky was still sitting as he had been; he hadn’t seemed to move, hadn’t seemed even to breathe.

“Why are you holding us here?” April said, as loudly as she dared. “What do you intend to do with us?”

Roberto shrugged, straining the fabric of his cotton work shirt. “That all depends.”

“Depends on what?” April asked as she sat back on the sofa and placed her purse on her lap.

“Depends on this fregado big shot I’m tryin’ to get on the phone.” He cocked an eye at her. “Also depends on how nice you wanna be to me.”

April ignored that. “What big shot?” she demanded. “Where is he?”

“Overseas someplace. Got a palace. Lots of women. Me, I got none. Only you.” With one hand he pulled an armchair over to within inches of April and sat in it, so close she could smell the musky aftershave lotion he wore.

Don’t give him a reason to do anything! April screamed silently to herself. She thought of screaming aloud for help, but decided that it would only trigger Roberto into violence. Save that for a last resort, she told herself. Play it cool. Keep him cool.

“He won’t talk to you on the phone?”

Roberto made a sour face. “He got more assistants than a hotel manager. They say he’s busy, can’t be disturbed.”

“He must be a very prominent man.”

“He’s a big shot, lemme tell you. I drive him aroun’ when he’s in Houston. Do special jobs for him.”

“Special jobs?”

“Like tonight. I came here to talk to this one.” He pointed to the lifeless-seeming Kinsky. “Di‘n’t espect you’d be here. Makes ever’thing diff’rent.”

April jumped to a conclusion. “You knew Pete Larsen, didn’t you?”

Roberto’s eyes narrowed. “You a cop?”

“No. I’m Dan Randolph’s executive assistant.”

Roberto’s scowl deepened. “Lemme see your purse,” he said, grabbing it from her lap. He rummaged through, tossed the cell phone onto the floor without noticing it was on, flipped open her wallet and yanked out credit cards, driver’s license, photographs.

April sat there, afraid to move, afraid to say anything. Roberto pulled her Astro Corporation identification badge from the purse.

“Looks like a cop’s ID,” he growled.

She realized he couldn’t read. “That says Astro Corporation. See the big A with the rocket trail circling around it?”

He looked unconvinced, but he muttered, “No gun. No pepper spray, even.”

“I’m not a police officer,” April said.

“Maybe,” Roberto replied warily.

A tap on the front door made him whirl around. The door, still slightly ajar because Roberto had broken the lock, swung inward to reveal an overweight middle-aged man in the tan uniform of the county sheriff’s office. He had a heavy black pistol strapped to his hip.

“Pardon me,” he said, stepping into the living room. “We got a phone report of a disturbance in here:”

Roberto rose slowly to his feet, so menacingly that the policeman put his right hand on the butt of his nine-millimeter.

“Disturbance?” Roberto said. “We di’n’t hear no disturbance.”

Kinsky stirred to life, shrieking, “He broke in here! He’s holding us against our will! He’s going to kill us!”

Roberto shot him a murderous glance. “Tha’s a fuckin’lie!”

But the police officer pulled his gun from its holster. “Maybe we’d better go down to the station and see what’s going on here. He dipped his chin slightly to the two-way radio clipped to his epaulette.”Got a disturbance here. Request backup.”

April wanted to cry, she felt so relieved.