“That would be three setbacks, then,” murmured the oldest man at the table.
“Your arithmetic is impeccable,” said the samurai, dipping his head in agreement The others laughed.
The elder looked toward Yamagata, at the foot of the table. “These regrettable accidents will drive your competitor from the field, I suppose.”
Yamagata took in a hissing breath before replying, “Perhaps not The American is tenacious almost to the point of foolhardiness. I know him well.”
“He worked for you several years ago,” said one of the others.
“Yes. I came to like him. I still do.”
“But he is a competitor.”
“True,” said Yamagata, thinking: A valuable competitor. Without Dan Randolph’s mad drive to build an American powersat, these five old men would still be dithering over financing my corporation.
“Can he be eliminated now?”
Yamagata said, “He is in financial need. My information is that he has agreed to sell a small percentage of his company to Tricontinental Oil in order to raise the capital he needs to continue.”
“Garrison?” asked one of the men, clearly shocked at the news.
“Garrison,” replied Yamagata, in a near whisper.
The samurai said, “If Tricontinental gains control of the American power satellite they have the resources to push the project through to completion.”
“And do it at least three years before our own satellite can begin operating.”
“This is unwelcome. Not acceptable,” said the elder.
“The deal with Garrison has not been finalized,” Yamagata told them, “although it is moving swiftly toward completion.”
“Can it be stopped?”
“Is there something we can do to stop it?”
Yamagata waited, head bowed, until they ceased their chatter and all turned to him.
“I believe I have a solution,” he said meekly.
No one spoke, waiting to hear what he had to say.
Yamagata began to explain, “The American powersat is almost completed. What Randolph needs more than anything else is transportation to and from the satellite. That is why he was developing the rocket plane.”
“But it crashed.”
“Just so,” Yamagata said. “That leaves Dan Randolph with the problem of getting people and material to his satellite in the most economical manner possible.”
“He can use NASA shuttles, can’t he?”
Suppressing a smile, Yamagata replied, “The American government does not interact well with private companies. They suspect that any organization which strives to make a profit is somehow crooked and must be dealt with at arm’s length.”
A few chuckles and grins went around the table.
“It would take Randolph many months, perhaps a year or more, before he could work out an agreement with NASA to rent space on their shuttles. That is, assuming that NASA would deal with him at all. In my estimation, NASA simply does not have the capacity to accomplish its own missions and add Randolph’s workload as well.”
“Then NASA is out.”
“It would seem so,” said Yamagata. “That means Randolph must go to one or more of the private launch companies in the United States or Russia.”
“What about the European Space Agency?”
“Their launch capabilities are limited and fully booked,” said Yamagata. “No, Randolph must go to a private company in the States or Russia.” He hesitated a heartbeat, then added, “Or Japan.”
“Ahhh,” said the samurai. “I begin to understand.” Even the elder, normally sour and gruff, allowed himself a slight smile.
“I could propose a strategic partnership with Randolph. Yamagata rockets will provide transportation to and from his satellite. The money he takes from Garrison can go into the development of his spaceplane.”
“And what do we gain from this?”
Yamagata closed his eyes for a moment. At last he said, “We gain a share of the spaceplane. Perhaps a license to build it here in Japan. With such an advanced transportation system we could shave perhaps a full year off the development of our own power satellite. And reduce our costs significantly.”
“But the American spaceplane is a failure. It crashed.”
“It crashed,” Yamagata agreed. “Most new aircraft crash. Most new rockets blow up. But the spaceplane is basically sound. And valuable.”
The five older men rocked back on their haunches. No one broke into applause or even hissed appreciatively, but Yamagata knew he had won the day.
Matagorda Island, Texas
Following Tenny’s trail wasn’t as simple as Dan had hoped it would be. The engineer kept no notes, no record of his hunt for the traitor among Astro’s staff. Dan ransacked Tenny’s office, spent hours each night poring over his computer files, searched for keywords, clues, hints. He could find nothing. Dan even went to Tenny’s home to ask his widow and teenaged sons, as gently as possible, if he’d discussed the matter with them. Nothing.
At last he tried a different tack. Late at night, alone in his own office, Dan called up the computer’s personnel program and began to search for signs showing that Tenny had hit a particular individual’s file. Now he began to discover too much material. Tenny had delved into dozens of files. Dan sorted the hits by date. Joe had evidently started with the technicians on the launch team, then the flight controllers, and branched out to all sorts of people. Even Niles Muhamed and Dan’s executive assistant, April, were on Tenny’s hit list.
He scrolled through the personnel department’s directory of all the company’s employees. Eight hundred and sixty-four men and women, he saw. Then he corrected himself: No, make that eight hundred and sixty-three; they haven’t taken Joe’s name off yet. Eight hundred and sixty-three people. One of them’s a traitor. Maybe more than one. But who is it? Which of them has sold me out? Which of them is a murderer?
He knew a lot of the employees by first name, knew them well enough to listen to their family troubles, well enough to joke with them. April was always bringing in tidbits about romantic entanglements, who was chasing whom, who was breaking up, who was expecting a baby. Maybe she could help me track down the killer, Dan thought. Then he laughed at the idea. Shows how desperate I am, he told himself. April is terrific with the in-house gossip; a detective she ain’t.
He fell asleep at his desk, waking only when the morning sun lanced through the window that looked out onto the parking lot.
Bleary-eyed, he stumbled along the catwalk from his office to his apartment. Half an hour later, showered, shaved, dressed in a freshly pressed shirt and slacks, he went back to his office. Can’t beat the commute, he said to himself. I never have to worry about the morning rush traffic. A few people were already down on the hangar floor. He didn’t see Passeau among them.
April was at her desk, brushing her silky dark hair. Dan gave her a smile that was almost a grimace. Why can’t she do her hair before she comes in to work? he grumbled to himself. Then he remembered that she drove a baby blue Dodge Sebring convertible that half the guys in the company drooled over. Cool car, but it made a mess of her hairdo.
“Breakfast?” she asked as Dan went into his office.
“Just grapefruit juice,” he said, then added, “And coffee.” Start the day with the two major food groups: vitamin C and caffeine.
Dan sat at his desk and took a deep breath. “Let’s see if you can get through the day without going broke,” he muttered.
He saw that April had already booted up his computer and displayed his morning’s appointments and incoming calls. The insurance carrier, of course. Passeau. Somebody named Neil Heinrich, of Tricontinental Oil; one of Garrison’s flunkies, most likely. Saito Yamagata, calling from Tokyo.