Hardly anyone paid any attention to him, they were all swilling champagne, laughing, pounding each other on the back. Even Niles Muhamed, normally as grim as the angel of death, was shaking up bottles of champagne and spraying them on whoever happened to be in range of the cold, white geyser.
“Give it up, chief,” said Lynn Van Buren, her inevitable dark pantsuit stained with Muhamed’s champagne spray. “They’ve earned an afternoon of fun.”
Frowning with helplessness, Dan said, “I don’t want them hung over tomorrow.”
“They’ll be okay. Let them let off steam. They’ll get a good night’s sleep.”
Van Buren drifted off into the crowd and Dan slowly realized that he was alone. Joe Tenny wasn’t there to share this moment with him. Claude Passeau had gone back to New Orleans. Even April was nowhere in sight.
I wish Jane could’ve been here, he said to himself. She’ll come down tomorrow but Scanwell will be with her. And six hundred other VIPs and news people. Vickie Lee, most probably. Wonder if she’ll stay the night.
Feeling suddenly unbearably sad, drained, disappointed like a man who had spent his last ounce of energy to reach a mountain peak only to find that it wasn’t worth the struggle, Dan walked slowly toward the stairs leading up to his office and his apartment. Then he stopped. No sense going up there with all this noise going on down here.
There’s no place for me to go, he realized. No place at all. He began to drift through the crowd, looking for April. She’s going to have a lot to do tomorrow, with all the news media coming in. Better make sure she doesn’t get too much champagne into her.
Off in the farthermost corner of the hangar, away from the whooping, sloshing crowd, al-Bashir was speaking quietly, intently, to April. One hand holding a plastic cup of California champagne, he leaned against the metal wall of the hangar with his other hand, neatly pinning April against the wall.
“France?” April asked. “You mean Paris?”
“Marseille, actually,” he said smoothly. “On the Mediterranean. We can go to Paris afterward, if you like.”
April looked surprised, almost alarmed. But she murmured, “I’ve never been to France.”
“Marseille is not far from the Riviera,” al-Bashir said. “They make the world’s best bouillabaisse there.”
“I’ve heard of that. It’s like a sort of fish stew, isn’t it?”
“With certain exotic ingredients added.”
“Like saffron?”
Al-Bashir smiled. “You’ll love it.”
“But there’s so much to do here,” April said, her eyes evading his.
“We can leave tomorrow afternoon, after the turn-on ceremony. Surely Dan owes you a few days’ vacation.”
“I really don’t think I could…” Her voice faded away.
Al-Bashir put his arm down and stood up straight, almost at attention. “You will have your own hotel suite, I promise you. You’ll be perfectly safe.”
A slight smile touched her lips. “Can I trust you?”
“Of course,” he lied.
As soon as she got to her apartment that evening, her head buzzing from the champagne, April phoned Kelly Eamons in Houston. No answer. She left messages on both Kelly’s office line and her cell phone.
Saturday evening, April thought. She’s probably out on a date.
April fell asleep as she sat in her living room recliner watching a detective show on television. It always worked out so neatly on TV: they caught the murderer in one hour flat, even taking time-outs for commercials.
The phone rang and she instantly snapped awake.
“Hi, April. It’s me, Kelly.”
Holding the cordless phone as she got up from the recliner, April said, “Let me put you on the computer, okay?”
“Sure.”
It took a few moments for April to boot up her desktop machine and get Kelly’s freckle-faced image on her screen. Once she did, she told the FBI agent about al-Bashir’s invitation.
“To Marseille?” Eamons echoed. “That’s a major narcotics port.”
“Narcotics? Do you think… ?”
Eamons’s brows knit “There’s nothing linking him to drugs. Nothing linking him to much of anything, outside of his connection with that bozo Roberto.”
“He seems nice enough,”April said half-heartedly.
“I don’t like the idea of you being alone with him. In France, yet.”
April tried to make light of it. “What’s he going to do, kidnap me and carry me off to his harem?”
“He has a harem, you know. In the city of Tunis.”
“Really?”
Frowning, Eamons said, “We’ve checked with the CIA about him. He seems to be nothing more than a big-time international businessman. A billionaire.”
“But you think he might be linked to the murders here at Astro.”
“It’s only a straw,” Eamons admitted. “But it’s the only straw we’ve got.”
“Maybe if I go with him we can learn more,” April suggested.
“Maybe if you go with him you could get hurt. Badly.”
April replied, “He doesn’t want to hurt me. He just wants to go to bed with me.”
“And what do you want?”
Without an eyeblink’s hesitation, April said, “I want to find out who killed Joe Tenny. And Pete Larsen.”
“And that test pilot.”
Nodding, April said, “And what they’re planning next.”
“That’s damned dangerous, April.”
“But he doesn’t know I’m working with you. He just thinks I’m an available woman.”
Eamons’s scowl deepened. “He wants to fly off to Marseille tomorrow afternoon?”
“After we turn on the powersat, yes.”
“We’ll have to act fast, then.”
“And do what?”
“I’ve got to round up a medical team and get them down there tonight,” said Eamons.
“A medical team?”
“You’re going to get an implant.”
“I’m on the pill,” April blurted.
Eamons shook her head. “Not for contraception, silly. This implant is a microtracker. We’ve got to know exactly where you are every second you’re with him.”
Gathering Forces
Sunday. dawned cloudy and gray. Not a good omen, Dan thought, looking out his window as he got dressed. Shirt and tie this morning, he told himself. You’ve got to look like the successful, prosperous captain of industry.
April was at her desk, on the phone, when he entered his office. But she looked drawn, tired, as if she hadn’t slept all night. Nervous? Dan wondered. Well, she’s had an awful lot to do these past couple of weeks, and today’s going to be the busiest day of her life.
Once he had booted up his computer he saw that Mitch O’Connell’s name was at the top of his to-call list. Dan clicked on the name and the phone made the connection.
“There’s about a hundred and fifty of ’em picketing out by the main gate,” the security chief said, his heavy-jawed face grim.
“Are they making any trouble?” Dan asked.
“Not yet. But wait till the VIPs start showing up.”
Dan thought swiftly. Jane and Scanwell were flying in, as were many of the other invited guests. They’d come right in to the airstrip, bypassing the perimeter gate. But the news people would be coming in their vans and they’re the ones the pickets want to impress. Soon as they see the TV vans they’ll start harassing the limos trying to get through the main gate.
“Send a set of cars to the ferry dock,” he said to O’Connell, “and have the drivers guide the arriving guests down to the secondary road. Let ’em in through the back gate.”
O’Connell said worriedly, “That way they’ll be driving right past the launchpad.”
“That’s okay. Fine, in fact. Give ’em something to gawk at before they park at the control center. The TV crews’ll love it.”