Powersat

Houston, Texas

Special Agent Chavez did not like to be summoned upstairs to the field director’s office. As far as Nacho was concerned, the people upstairs could go their way and play their games any way they wanted, he didn’t care. As long as they left him alone.

But on this Monday morning he and Kelly Eamons rode the elevator up from their own offices to the executive level.

“Look at their carpeting,” Eamons whispered as they walked down the corridor to the director’s suite.

“We’ve got carpeting downstairs,” Chavez whispered back.

“Not this thick.”

The director was new to the job, having been promoted from the Seattle office. She was an African American from Philadelphia, and she had a reputation for being a tough, demanding bureaucrat who worried more about looking good to Washington than anything else. Neither Chavez nor Eamons had met her, except at the formal ceremony when she took over the regional office.

She sure looks tough, Chavez thought as the receptionist ushered them into the director’s office. A little bantamweight sitting behind a big government-issue desk with a pugnacious expression on her dried-up face. Her skin was as dark as the office’s mahogany furniture. The desk was uncluttered, actually bare except for a phone console, a slim display screen, and a wireless mouse sitting on a pad that bore the FBI’s emblem. On the wall behind her, though, he saw photographs of the woman with Philadelphia Eagles football players. Tough, all right, Chavez thought; Eagles fans are killers.

She didn’t get up from her desk chair when Chavez and Eamons came in, merely gestured to the leather-covered armchairs in front of her desk. No offer of coffee or chitchat, either.

“Washington just got a request for information from Langley—”

“The CIA?” Eamons blurted.

The director fixed her with a hard stare. “Worse. Homeland Security. The hotshots want to know what we’re doing with Astro Manufacturing Corporation.”

Eamons glanced at Chavez, who slipped automatically into stiff officialese as he replied, “We’ve been investigating the possibility that a fatal accident and an apparent suicide were actually murders.”

“What jurisdiction do we have?” the director asked.

Chavez unconsciously tugged at his shirt collar. “Um, these incidents might be linked to the crash of an Astro experimental spacecraft,” he replied.

“The spaceplane might have been sabotaged,” Eamons added.

“Sabotaged?” the director snapped. “By who?”

Before Chavez could respond, Eamons said, “Possibly by terrorists”

The director steepled her stubby fingers in front of her face. “That explains the hotshots’ interest.”

Both agents waited for the next question.

“Well, what have you come up with?”

“Not a whole lot,” Chavez said. “We have one lead, a man who allegedly bribed an Astro employee for information about the company’s operations.”

“And?”

“There isn’t enough to hold him. He’s been charged with breaking and entering, and simple assault. He’s out on bail.”

“Should we be surveilling him?”

“He’s all we’ve got to go on, so far,” Chavez admitted. “We were going to check his contacts here in Houston; he’s employed as a chauffeur by a limo service.”

“I checked him out yesterday,” Eamons said.

“Sunday?” The director looked almost startled.

With a cheerful shrug, Eamons said, “The regular dispatcher doesn’t work Sundays and his assistant was more helpful than the regular guy would’ve been. Rodriguez—that’s the suspect’s name, Roberto Rodriguez—he’s been mainly driving executives of Tricontinental Oil.”

“Does Tricontinental have any connection to Astro Corporation?” the director asked.

Chavez said, “We could ask Astro’s CEO, Dan Randolph. He’s the one who came to us in the first place with the story about his plane crash being caused by sabotage.”

Turning again to Eamons, the director said, “Get a list of the Tricontinental people this Rodriguez has been chauffeuring.”

“I’ve already got it,” Eamons said. “I can flash it to your computer from my desk.”

“Do that,” said the director. “Now. I need that list before I can figure out how much to tell Washington.”

Dan had slept only fitfully, dreaming tangled dreams of Jane and Scanwell and some dark faceless lurking monster looming over him. He got up as the sun was rising, miserable and bewildered and totally unsure of what to do about Jane.

Married. She’s married to him. In secret. They don’t want anybody to know. But she told me about it. It can’t be much of a marriage; they’re hardly ever together. But she’s married to him. She has sex with him.

And you have sex with other women, that sardonic voice in his head reminded him. Hell, you were boffing Vicki Lee the night before Jane came down to see you.

That doesn’t mean anything, he insisted. There’s no attachment there, no relationship. But she married Scanwell; they’re husband and wife.

Arguing with himself, Dan dressed and walked down to his office hours before the official opening time. He had barely settled at his desk when April popped her head through his doorway.

“Breakfast?” she asked, as if everything were normal. “Coffee?”

“Where were you Friday?” Dan asked.

“Didn’t you get my phone message?” she said, stepping fully into the office. “I asked Kelly to call you.”

“Kelly?”

“Eamons. The FBI agent.”

Dan shook his head. “What happened?”

She sat before his desk and went through the story about Kinsky and Roberto and the police.

“Len was selling information to this guy?” Dan asked, unable to accept the idea.

April nodded solemnly. “He’s a scary guy, too. Very scary.”

“The cops have him now?”

“He’s out on bail.”

“Great.” Dan studied April’s face for a moment, thinking, If she’s scared, she sure doesn’t look it. “So where is Len now?”

“I don’t know. Probably on a plane going someplace far from here.”

“He’s that scared, huh?”

“He was petrified.”

“What about you? Should we get you some protection?”

April hesitated. “I don’t think Roberto… well, maybe.” She shuddered.

“Okay,” Dan said, with a grimace. “Get O’Connell from security on the phone for me. And I need to talk to Gerry Adair this morning.”

She nodded. “Anything else?”

Dan hesitated a moment, then said, “If Len’s really gone, I’ll need somebody to handle public relations around here.”

“I can call up a few headhunters—”

“Nope. Can’t afford ’em.” Dan pointed a finger at her like a pistol and said, “You can handle P.R.”

“Me?” She looked shocked.

“You. If Len could do it, you can. You’re a lot brighter than he is.”

“But I don’t know anything about it!” April protested.

Spreading his hands, Dan said, “It’s simple. When reporters ask you for information, you give ’em our canned answers. Len has a file full of prerecorded statements. If you get a question that’s not already covered, I’ll help you write a response.”

“But—”

“When we want to issue a news release, you’ve got Len’s files, all his contacts, names, affiliations, phone numbers, e-mail addresses. Nothing to it.”

April looked dubious.

“You can do it, kid. P.R. is based on contacts, and Len built up a pretty good list.”

“There must be more to it than that,” April said.

“Nope,” said Dan. “I’ll even give you a raise. A small one.”

She laughed. “Well, I’ll try. But I don’t know about this.”

“You’ll be fine. Start a whole new career path for you.”

She shook her head warily, but stopped protesting. “All right,” she said slowly. “Is there anything else?”

Dan shook his head. “Not unless you can find me a billion dollars someplace. And figure out how I can keep the wolves from the door.”

“You mean creditors?”

“I was thinking of Tricontinental and Yamagata, but, yeah, we owe a lot of people a lot of money, don’t we?” Despite himself, Dan laughed.

“Speaking of those particular wolves,” April said, rising from her chair, “you have calls waiting since Friday from Mr. Yamagata and Mr. al-Bashir.”

“Terrific,” said Dan.

None the worse for the hours he’d spent at the Calhoun County sheriff’s station, Roberto reported for work at the limo service’s garage Monday morning. His only assignment was to pick up Asim al-Bashir, arriving just before noon at Houston International Airport.

The head dispatcher, a crusty old African American, eyed Roberto suspiciously. Shaking his head, he said, “You must be some kinda special, this A-rab guy pays to have you sittin’ ’round all mornin’ just so’s he can have you drive him in from the airport. He won’t take nobody else.”

Roberto’s only reply was a grunt.

“What you doin’ with that A-rab, make him want you so bad?”

Roberto thought about lifting the shriveled old man off his feet and shaking him like a dried-out gourd, but the dispatcher had the sour courage that comes with age. He knew he was going to die soon, anyway, so he wasn’t afraid of much. Besides, the other drivers hanging around would jump in, and Roberto couldn’t afford to get himself in trouble with the cops again while this B&E rap was hanging over his head in Calhoun County.

With a glimmer of a teasing grin, the dispatcher said, “I hear them A-rabs a bunch of fags. This A-rab romancin’ you, Roberto, my man?”

Roberto snatched the clipboard out of the old man’s hand and snapped it in two, then wordlessly handed the broken pieces back to the stunned dispatcher and walked away.