There’s a chuckle. “The foxes aren’t watching Fox?”
“All the news outlets are broadcasting it live by now, and I’ve got a few of our number watching in case he says anything that could help us. Also, I’m ignoring your politically incorrect comment.”
“John, find out some more about Miss Fem-de-Dorothy for me, will you? She worries me.”
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
The chief master sergeant in charge of communications aboard the presidential jet is holding on to the doorjamb as the President looks up from disassembling a ballpoint pen.
“Yes! Jose, come in a sec.”
He does so, standing ramrod straight in an impeccably pressed uniform and smiling as the commander in chief loses control of the parts he’s fiddling with, loosing a small spring which soars past the chief into the passageway.
“Shit!”
“I’ll get it, sir.”
“Spring has sprung, you might say,” the President adds, delighted at the pained reaction.
“I would never say that, sir,” the chief replies, handing over the recaptured spring. “I could get you a few hundred workable pens, Mr. President.”
“Naw. I just wanted to change the innards and keep the shell. I’ve had this one for a very long time.”
“Yes, sir.”
The President scoops the pieces together and slides them into an envelope.
“Okay, I need an update on the coverage of that stranded space passenger’s message.”
“Kip Dawson?”
“You’ve been monitoring, right?”
“I’m piping it live through the plane on Channel Three.”
“And everyone but me knows his name?”
“The coverage is exploding, Mr. President. The cable news outlets were carrying it live, but now all three major networks are on and have it as a crawl across the bottom of the screen. They’ve all got air time to fill. ABC, for instance, put on a panel of people to kind of read between the lines. They’re reporting on Dawson’s background, his life, his marriages, family, and anything else they can bring into it. It’s pretty much the same all over the planet.”
“What’s Mr. Dawson saying?”
There’s an unexpected smile from the chief. “Well, let’s say that any of us who are male went through the same female-chasing phases he’s been recalling in… ah… rather vivid detail.”
“Really? Names, too?”
“ Ohyeah! Names and dates and where they were parked and whether they used a condom. I mean, he writes well for a guy trapped in space who believes he’s dead, but I mean I’m only thirty-six and I can relate to what he’s saying.”
“I’m not following that.”
“Mr. President, this guy sounds like all of us working stiffs. He’s Mr. Everyman, with… with a sometimes unappreciative wife and the programming to be a good husband and father and provider and forget about anything else. I mean, I haven’t read everything he’s said but he’s already won me over.”
“Won you over?”
“Yes, sir. On an ‘I can sure relate to you, bro!’ basis. You know, the ‘been there, felt that,’ thing where you think you’re the only guy in the world who’s ever had those thoughts and, wow, here’s someone else who’s fought the same mountain lion.”
“I gotta read this!”
“Channel Three, sir. Let me…”
The President’s hand is up in a stop gesture as he swivels around and turns on the flat screen TV monitor.
“I might not be able to fix a ballpoint but I can turn on a TV.”
“Yes, sir. Anything else, sir?”
“No, Jose. Thank you very much for the insight.”
“Would you like a printout of everything he’s sent up to now, sir? Because this is live.”
“Live?” The President looks around, catching Jose eyes. “This… I didn’t understand that, I guess. He’s typing and we’re watching?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes. I would very much like that printout.”
From your description,the President thinks, I’ll probably relate to this guy myself.
Jerrod leaves the jetway and scans the overhead signs for the way to baggage claim before recalling that he isn’t carrying more than his roll-on. He starts down the concourse trying to shake off the troubled sleep that carried him here, the takeoff and landing a vague blur and the drinks and peanuts a completely missed experience.
He hasn’t enough cash for a fifty-dollar cab ride, so he’s had to call Big Mike’s house for a pickup, but fortunately Mike himself answered and volunteered to send someone.
He sees large TV monitors broadcasting live coverage from CNN but he pays no attention, knowing that the story of his dad’s plight will be in his face if he does. But there’s a signboard with a newscrawl mounted over the concourse ahead he can’t ignore, and he wonders why it’s stopping so many passengers in their tracks, a logjam of standing people almost blocking the way.
A familiar arrangement of letters catches his attention and he, too, stops, wondering why the name Jerrod Dawson is moving across in front of him.
He turns to a tired-looking man in a business suit next to him who looks less shocked than the others.
“What’s going on? What is that?”
The man barely glances away long enough to discern where the question originated and resumes watching the evolving words.
“That’s a message coming down from that poor guy trapped in space. He’s got an angry young son in the Air Force Academy and he’s talking about how much his son’s rejection and anger have hurt him.”
Jerrod stands stunned and immobile as the man slowly looks back at him.
“Say, you’re from the academy, too, right?”
He can barely nod.
“You know this cadet, Jerrod Dawson?”
The sound of his roll-on slipping from his hand and clattering to the floor behind him doesn’t register, his eyes transfixed on the moving words.
What I wouldn’t give to be able to hug my boy again without the barrier of that anger. What I wouldn’t give to have my little boy back, my firstborn. I’ve prayed myself dry that one day he’d realize that his mother’s accident was not my doing, and that I couldn’t save her, and that I wasn’t rejecting her memory by remarrying. Now, of course, any hope of that grace dies with me in, what, five days.
The businessman next to him is trying again.
“I was asking if you knew his son, Jerrod Dawson? Hey, are you all right?”
Jerrod is sinking to the floor, on his knees, sobbing, and he can’t do anything to stop himself—or hide the name tag that the man is now reading as he turns and leans down to take the distraught young cadet by the shoulders and try to help.
“Oh my God in heaven! You areJerrod Dawson!”
Chapter 25
“I have neither the time nor the patience to deal with this right now,” Diana is saying with fury into her cell phone. “I’m not overdue, my bill is paid, this is the worst possible moment, and I swear if you bother me again, I’ll find a lawyer and sue your ass. Good-bye!”
She snaps the phone closed and rolls her eyes before motioning to the startled young woman standing in the office doorway and holding a pair of shopping bags.
“Is this a bad time?” Deirdre asks.
“Come on in. You get dunning calls from New Delhi much?”
“India?”
“No, Iowa. Of course, India. Where all our call centers and jobs seem to be going. Half the time I can’t understand what they’re saying, and they never have anyone in charge to complain to.”
Deirdre walks into the room tentatively with one eye on the door, as if she’ll need to run back out.