“But how can you control the President? After all, he’s the most powerful—”
“The hell he is!” Garrison snapped. “You think he’s powerful? Hah! We’ll lay down the law to him, just like always.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’ll see. Know what they say in Washington? ‘The president proposes, but the Congress disposes.’ And we’ve got Congress. Enough of ’em, anyway. Got ’em right here.” Garrison patted his pants pocket.
“And you believe you can handle Scanwell. the same way?” Al-Bashir felt impressed.
“Presidents come and go,” Garrison said. “Some of our congressmen and senators have been there through five and six administrations.”
“I see,” said al-Bashir with newfound understanding.
“Scanwell and his energy independence.” Garrison chuckled. “We’ll tie him up in knots.”
“That leaves Randolph, then.”
“We’ve gotta keep him from goin’ to Yamagata.”
“He really doesn’t want to sell any of his stock to us,” al-Bashir said. “He’s deathly afraid that once we’re into his company, we’ll take it over completely.”
“That’s the main idea, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but we can’t do it if he won’t sell to us.”
Garrison chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then asked, “What do you recommend?”
For a long moment, al-Bashir remained silent. We both know that what I recommend, he said to himself, is what we will do.
At last he said, “We’ll do as he asks. Extend a loan to him.
“Give in to him?”
“Appear to give in to him,” al-Bashir said, placatingly. “Let him think that he’s won. Loan him what he needs. But only on a monthly basis. Keep him tied to us.”
“On a shoestring,” Garrison muttered.
“While the price of his stock keeps slipping.”
“And we quietly buy it up through third parties, so he doesn’t know we’re taking him over until it’s too late.”
“Exactly,” said al-Bashir.
Garrison laughed his cackling, rasping snicker. “We won’t have to pony up the one-point-five bill. Nowhere near it.”
“Probably not,” al-Bashir agreed.
“By Christ, you’re even sneakier than I am!” Garrison said approvingly.
A win-win situation, al-Bashir congratulated himself as he rode the private elevator to the lobby and the limousine waiting for him at the curb. Garrison believes we will eventually get control of Astro Corporation. Randolph will believe that he’s getting the money he needs to finish the power satellite without selling out his company.
And I will be able to use the satellite to destroy Randolph and the very idea of generating energy from space. And kill many thousands of Americans into the bargain.
Matagora Island, Texas
Claude Passeau had a quizzical look on his face as he walked with Dan along the stacks. Eight solid-propellant rockets lay on their sides in the big warehouse, each of them bigger than a blue whale, all of them painted gleaming white with Astro Corporation’s stylish logo emblazoned along their flanks.
“You seem to have worked some sort of minor miracle,” Passeau said.
Dan shook his head, his eyes focused on the crew of technicians who were carefully slipping a cradle around the farthest of the rockets in preparation for lifting it into a sling and carrying it to the next building. There, it would be stood upright and mated with the smaller upper stage that carried the electronic flight systems.
“Getting Lockheed Martin to build these boosters at such a low price?” Dan replied. “No miracle. Just competitive bidding. And mass production. Instead of asking them for one or two, I ordered a dozen. With an option for six dozen more.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it,” Passeau said.
Dan looked at the smaller man. The FAA administrator looked crisp and cool in a beige summerweight suit.
“Is this silk?” Dan asked, fingering the jacket collar.
“You’re avoiding the issue, Dan.”
“What issue?”
“The change in the weather.”
“Oh?”
With a bemused smile, Passeau said, “The prevailing wind from Washington has changed direction, my friend.”
“Has it?” Dan asked innocently.
“Decidedly. Instead of being furious at you for your unauthorized test flight, my superiors have instructed me to wrap up the crash investigation and give you a clean bill of health.”
That’s Jane’s doing, Dan thought. A U.S. senator can make a bureaucracy jump, especially when the bureaucracy’s budget is coming up on the Senate floor soon. But then he wondered, Has Garrison anything to do with this? He wants to buy me out, but a defunct Astro Corporation wouldn’t be any good to him. Or would it?
Genuinely puzzled, Dan asked, “What does a clean bill of health mean?”
Still smiling, Passeau said, “My final report will not mention the word ‘sabotage.’ That would be too epistemological. I am merely to conclude that the cause of the crash was specific to your oh-one aircraft and not due to any inherent flaw in its design or your operational procedures.”
“That’s what your final report’s going to say?”
“Yes. I thought you’d be pleased to hear it.”
“I am, Claude. Very pleased.” Yet Dan felt no elation, no surge of relief.
“Well, it’s the truth, isn’t it?” Passeau responded, his brows knitting slightly. “Your flight with the oh-two model proved it for everyone to see.”
“How soon will you finish your report? How soon can you take the wraps off and let me get back to normal business instead of going to Venezuela?”
Passeau held up a hand. “These things take a bit of time, you know. I can’t simply tell my people to wrap up their work and go home:”
“Why not?”
“Because government agencies don’t work that way, Dan. It would look terribly suspicious if we suddenly put out a report holding you blameless for the crash. We’d be accused of a whitewash.”
Planting his fists on his hips, Dan said, “But that’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it? You just told me that your final report will give us a clean bill of health.”
“In good time, Dan. In good time. We mustn’t rush it; that would look too…” Passeau fumbled for a word. “Too unseemly,” he finally said.
“Weeks? Months? Years? How long?”
“Oh, less than a year. Much less. A few months, most likely.”
“That’s the best you can do?”
“Under the circumstances, I should think you’d be overjoyed.”
Dan puffed out a sigh. “I am, Claude. I am. Thanks a whole bunch.”
Passeau shook his head and walked away, heading back to his office in the engineering building. Dan looked up at the overhead crane trundling by, then decided to stay in the warehouse and watch the crew wrestling the big booster into its transport sling. It was a lot easier to manhandle a giant firecracker than to fathom the ways of a government bureaucracy.
“You have a dinner invitation,” April told Dan when he returned to his office.”It’s on your screen.”
Sliding into his desk chair, Dan tapped his mouse and saw Asim al-Bashir’s neatly bearded face.
“Dan, I hope you can join me for dinner tomorrow evening, either here in Houston or down at your Matagorda Island. I have news that you will be very glad to hear.”
Everybody’s giving me good news today, Dan said to himself as he clicked on the REPLY icon.
“Mr. al-Bashir, I’ll be happy to have dinner with you tomorrow. Let’s make it in Houston; the restaurants are a lot better there. Let me know where and what time. Thanks.”
The restaurant turned out to be an establishment called Istanbul West. To Dan it looked like some Hollywood mogul’s idea of a Middle Eastern eatery: pointed archways with elaborate filigrees of traceries, waiters in pantaloons and velvet vests, colorful pillows strewn everywhere. At least the tables are normal height, Dan saw as the maitre d’ led him through the big, ornate dining room. Al-Bashir wasn’t there yet. Dan remembered that Arabs had a reputation for being loose about punctuality. He also realized that making your guest wait for you to arrive is part of a power trip. Al-Bashir had been precisely punctual the first time they’d met.