Daylight is streaming into the room as Alastair wakes up seconds before his alarm clock corks off. He reaches for the clock to silence it in time, liking that he can pull off being the last to bed and the first up, when he’s startled by the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Heavy footsteps.
Dad!
The events of the preceding night are slow to return, but in a sudden rush he remembers all of it and the e-mail from ABC in Sydney, and fear looms with his father’s footfalls. He can hear a television on somewhere in the house.
The door opens and Dad walks in, pulling the curtains open.
“Alastair, wake up!”
“I’m awake, Dad. What’s happening?”
His father’s hands are on his hips but he looks more puzzled than mad.
“I’ve been watching the news, son, and there’s something on now you’re going to want to hear. I know I’m on you all the time for being on the computer so much, but, well, get on a robe and come downstairs.”
Alastair is already in motion, sliding from beneath the covers and grabbing for his robe. “What is it?”
“There’s the most amazing message coming down through the Internet from a guy stranded in orbit on a private American spacecraft, and they wouldn’t have found it if some hacker right out here in Western Australia hadn’t broken into someone’s computer.”
“R-really?”
“Yes. He’s a bit of a hero and they’re looking for him. They think he may be a student. He may also get a twist in his knickers for the hacking, but overall he’s got a thank-you coming. Come on down and see this. Could be someone you know.”
Chapter 24
A stunning young woman with shoulder-length, blond hair has been watching him for the past ten minutes. Jerrod Dawson assumes it’s his uniform, because he certainly isn’t exuding anything but gloom.
She can’t be more than twenty-five, he figures, with a modest, tight-fitting suede skirt and an achingly feminine, well-filled frilly white blouse set off by calf-length high heel boots. Normally, he would be falling in lust. After all, the women at the academy are untouchable. His opportunities for any intimate female companionship these days are severely limited.
But the copy of USA Todayin his lap with the headline about his father’s perilous situation has numbed and deflated all that’s normal, leaving him awash with guilt as he waits for his Houston-bound flight to board and tries to keep unbidden tears from showing.
Why he’s even going to Houston isn’t clear, and even as they were granting the emergency leave orders and helping arrange a military fare, he felt reluctant about going there at all, except to see his sister and two half-sisters. The thought of Sharon in the role of his mother is infuriating. He can barely be civil to her. While he likes Sharon’s father, Big Mike, he can’t believe he is actually, voluntarily, going to put himself in Sharon’s presence again—and in Houston, to boot! He couldn’t believe it when he found out Sharon had left his father and run back to her daddy in Houston.
And, of course, there’s the small matter of Sharon never liking him. He loathes her for what she’s done to his father, roping him into having two more children. As if they hadn’t already been a family.
Not that he doesn’t blame his dad, too.
The cute blonde is smiling at him now, making eye contact, the sort of thing that would thrill to him no end if he wasn’t so completely torn up. She’s on her feet and moving toward him like a beautiful wave, a whiff of expensive perfume preceding her as she leans toward him. He knows an encyclopedia of pickup lines, but nothing comes to mind, and he actually wishes she’d go away.
“Hi! Are you from the Air Force Academy?”
“Yes, ma’am.” His response is flat.
“My brother is a senior this year. Maybe you know him? Bob Reinertsen?”
He does, but he’s not going to admit it. Reinertsen is a pompous ass who ragged on him terribly in his doolie year—the label for the freshman hell-in-residence period at Doolittle Hall.
“No, ma’am. I don’t believe I recognize the name.”
“Really?” She slides into the seat next to him. “Bobby’s a cadet colonel. Oh, well. Where are you headed?”
Oh, I don’t know, babe… how about Houston, since that’s where our flight is going?
He’s shocked that he has no desire whatsoever to take this golden opportunity. Sex suddenly seems cheap compared to the responsibilities he’ll now have to shoulder. Especially if his dad doesn’t make it.
“I’m going to my… folks’ house. I’ve got a family emergency.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“And… I’m sorry to be rude. I really am. But… I’d just like some time alone, if you don’t mind.”
She gets to her feet, patting his arm. “Well, if you need to talk to a sympathetic ear, I’ll be around.”
The one I need to talk to is three hundred ten miles above the planet and stuck there.
He fights back tears again and resumes the struggle to hide them.
“Ever hear of someone named Dorothy Sheehan?”
Griggs Hopewell’s voice is too recognizable for John Kent to need even a cursory introduction, and the calls between the two of them have been accelerating during the day.
“Should I, Griggs? Who is she?”
“Well, she’s from headquarters, as far as I can tell. But I’m wondering just exactly what she’s been sent down here to do.”
“I don’t recognize the name, but is she causing problems?”
“Twice today I’ve had safety stops declared out of the blue by people who would normally never pull the emergency brake, and she’s the only new kid in town.”
“I’m not following. Are you connecting dots between her and headquarters safety concerns, or are you just being your usual paranoid self?”
“John, you, better than anyone, know they really are out to get me. I’m a principled, purposeful paranoid.”
“You also ramble a lot, Griggs. So answer my question, please.”
“I’m just suspicious of who she is and what she’s doing here.”
“What’s her security clearance?”
“Total. She can go sit in the cockpit and honk the horn if she wants.”
“Shouldn’t be hard to find out who she works for.”
“I already checked. She’s a low-level safety compliance officer under Dick Whitehead in D.C. A long way down the food chain from our esteemed admini-shredder.”
“So, aside from that, any other show stoppers yet?”
“I love the confidence inherent in your use of the word ‘yet,’ John. No. So far as we know at this moment we will be able to get our bird off the pad in three days. We’ll set the launch window formally in a few hours. You should already have all the parameters.”
“Yes, I do. And our guys should already be there.”
“Your three T-38s arrived in the dark of night some two hours ago. No, my only big worry, John, is that someone’s waiting in the weeds to pull a safety stop at the very last second, and we’ll lose it. The window is very tight, and the long range on the weather is not encouraging.”
“By the way, Griggs, you are aware of what’s happening with that live transmission from the ASA craft?”
“Haven’t seen it but I’m aware of it. The passenger’s the only one left, correct?”
“Yes. Bill’s gone.”
“Instantly, I hope.”
“I’m sure.”
“What’s the guy up there talking about?”
“Personal stuff. He doesn’t know anyone is, ah, watching, or reading, or whatever. But it’s a real weeper and it’s leaching away manpower here. Every woman in the place is glued to CNN.”