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 room 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.”