So he drove her all the way back to Lamar in his newly retopped Jaguar. The hotel there wasn’t all that much better than the Astro Motel on the island, but Dan was glad she had decided to stay in Lamar. They spent the night together and most of the warm, humid Saturday languidly poking around the town’s meager shops. They had an early dinner in her room-in bed, actually—and then Dan had kissed Vicki good-bye and headed home. Hope I didn’t screw up the interview, he said to himself as he watched the sun sink into the scrub pines of the island. Aviation Week is the most important source in the industry. Well, he thought, remembering Vicki’s passionate panting, at least I screwed the interviewer pretty well.
The hangar was dark and empty by the time he pulled into his parking slot. His apartment was clean and shipshape. Tomasina took advantage of my absence, Dan thought. God, she even stocked the fridge he saw as he took out a cold can of ginger beer. As he sat at his desk and booted up the computer he debated adding a slug of brandy to the spicy, fizzing soda. What do the Aussies call that? The answer came to him as his screen lit up: brandy and dry.
But as soon as he saw the list of messages waiting for him he forgot about a drink. Jane Thornton’s name was third on the list. He called up her message before any of the others.
She was at the ranch in Oklahoma, from the looks of it: relaxed denim shirt, reddish-brown hair pinned up off her neck.
“Dan, I need to talk to you in private. I’ll be flying down from the ranch tomorrow, leaving here at seven. Could you have your airstrip ready for me to land there, please? Don’t call back unless there’s some problem with that. Otherwise, I’ll see you when I land at your complex.”
That was all. About as warm as a form letter from an insurance company, Dan thought. But so what? Jane’s coming here, on a Sunday. Tomorrow!
He jumped to his feet and headed for the tiny bathroom. I’d better take a good long shower, Dan told himself.
Feeling like a teenager waiting for his date to appear, Dan paced along the base of the Astro airstrip’s pocket-sized control tower as he watched Jane’s single-engine plane turn into its final approach, sunlight glinting off its canopy. The guys in the tower had told him the plane was a turboprop TBM 700: fast, pressurized for high-altitude flight, yet with a landing speed low enough to slip into small landing fields.
Engine yowling, the low-winged plane touched down gently on the concrete strip and then taxied slowly to a stop by the tower. Dan fidgeted impatiently, waiting for the hatch to open and Jane to appear. Don’t be stupid, he warned himself. She’s here on business, nothing else. It’s over between us, as far as she’s concerned.
But when Jane ducked through the hatch and stepped onto the plane’s wing he forgot all that. She was wearing a flowered Western shirt and snug-fitting jeans. Dan raced over to help her down to the concrete apron.
“Hi! Good to see you.”
Jane smiled at him. “You can let go of me now, Dan.”
“Oh. Yeah.” He took his hands from her waist.
The pilot squeezed through the hatch and dropped lightly to the ground. Dan tossed him a set of car keys, then pointed to the company van parked by the control tower next to his own Jag.
“There’s a motel about three miles down the road,” Dan told the pilot, pointing. “They’re expecting you. Whatever you want is on the house.”
The pilot thanked him and, after getting a nod from Jane, went to the van. Dan escorted Jane to his Jaguar and drove her, with the car’s newly installed top down, to Hangar A.
“I’ve never been here before,” she said, over the rush of the wind.
“I know.”
“It looks very quiet.”
“Sunday. Day of rest for most of the company.”
“I see.”
Glancing at her as they neared the hangar, Dan said, “You ought to come for a launch. Plenty of activity then.”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about,” Jane said, looking very serious.
Dan led her into the cool shadows of the empty hangar and up the stairs to his office.
“No one’s here?” Jane asked as they went along the catwalk to his office.
“Not a soul.” Niles Muhamed was in Hangar B, Dan knew, getting his team ready to pick up the 02 plane when it arrived on the freighter at Galveston. But from inside his office, the complex looked almost totally deserted.
“Just you and me, Jane, practically alone on a tropical island.”
She took the chair in front of his desk. “Semitropical, at best,” she said.
Dan perched on the edge of the desk in front of her. “That’s what I need, a geography lesson.”
“Dan, be serious. Please.”
He didn’t feel serious. He felt like pulling her up from the chair and waltzing across the office with her in his arms. But he said, “Okay. What do you want to talk about?”
“There’s a rumor floating around Washington that you believe your first spaceplane was sabotaged.”
So that’s it, Dan thought. Strictly business.
“I’m positive it was,” he said. “My chief engineer was murdered a few days afterward, and they made it look like an accident.”
“What proof do you have?”
“None. Not a damned thing. But one of the reasons I flew the backup bird was to prove that there’s nothing wrong with the spaceplane’s design. She flies fine when nobody messes with her.”
“That’s pretty thin ice, Dan.”
“I know. Nobody believes me. I can’t even get the double-damned FBI to take it seriously.”
“I see,” Jane said. Then she fell silent.
Dan waited a few moments, wondering what to do next. At last he asked, “Is that all you came down here to talk about?”
“No. Not really.”
“What else?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“And Morgan.”
“Him again,” Dan grumbled.
“Dan, he’s the only man in America who can make this country energy independent.”
“And rain makes applesauce.”
“It’s true!”
Trying to keep his feelings under control, Dan said, “Jane, Scanwell may be the only candidate who wants to make America energy independent, but—”
“He needs your help.”
“I am helping him! I’d appreciate a little help coming my way, too.”
“We’re working on that. I’ve introduced the bill in the Senate to help raise financing for you.”
“Jane, I’m tightrope-walking on a shoelace here.”
Despite herself, she giggled. “You always did have a way with words, Dan.”
And he grinned back at her. “One of my many talents:”
More seriously, Jane said, “This test flight of yours has created a lot of enemies. NASA thinks—”
“I know. They think I’m a loose cannon.”
“Worse, Dan. They think you’re a threat to their program.”
“That’s fine by me.”
“But they’ll oppose you every inch of the way.”
“So what? I don’t need their help.”
“You don’t understand,” she said. “Government regulatory agencies like the FAA are going to need expert advice about your plans to fly your spaceplane again. Who do you think they’ll turn to?”
Dan knew the answer.
“And when you approach private investors for funding, who will they ask for an opinion?”
“The double-damned space agency,” he growled.
“Exactly.”
“Well I don’t have to worry about any of that if I let Tricontinental buy into my company. Or Yamagata.”
“We can’t have that!” she said sharply.
“‘We’? You mean Scanwell.”