That brought a smile to her lips. Dan felt better for it.
Eight TV trucks were lined up in the parking area, their cameras tracking Scanwell’s approaching jet. Dan turned the other way and saw the booster standing on the launchpad, with the spaceplane sitting atop it. Ready to go, he thought. Just like a Minuteman. I only hope we don’t need it.
The business jet touched down with a screech of tires and rolled to the apron where Dan and the others were waiting. News reporters surged toward the plane. Dan congratulated himself that none of the TV vans had been accosted by the eco-nut demonstrators; his little detour had worked.
The plane’s hatch swung open and Morgan Scanwell appeared at the top of the stairs, tall and rangy, smiling confidently, waving to the crowd—which was mostly news media people. Vicki Lee was among them, Dan saw, representing Aviation Week. He wondered if she planned to stay overnight and, if she did, what he would do about it.
Jane followed Scanwell down the plane’s stairs, looking splendid in a soft green-skirted suit. Regal, Dan thought. That’s the word for her. She should be running for president, he told himself. She’d be much better at it than he would.
Nacho Chavez looked decidedly unhappy, Eamons thought. Not angry, not frightened, just plain unhappy, miserable, like a little boy who got caught doing something naughty.
The regional director, on the other hand, looked outright furious. She sat behind her desk like an enraged gnome, anger radiating from her frowning, hard-eyed face.
A helluva way to spend a Sunday morning, Eamons had to admit
“You implanted a tracking beacon on her body?” the director growled.
“I did it,” Eamons said. “Agent Chavez didn’t know about it until after it was done.”
“You did the procedure yourself?”
“No, Ma’am. I requisitioned the electronic device from logistics and got a local surgeon to do the implantation last night. It’s really a simple procedure.”
“And you expect this office to pay for it?”
Chavez shifted in his chair and said, “For what it’s worth, I agree with Kelly’s initiative.”
“Initiative? Is that what we’re calling this?”
Hunching his heavy shoulders, Chavez pointed out, “The woman voluntarily accepted the implantation.”
“It’s the only way to keep track of her,” Eamons said with some urgency. “The suspect wants to take her out of the country and we need to keep track of her. For her own safety.”
“Out of the country? You mean they’re going to Mexico?”
Eamons shook her head and answered in a lowered voice, “No, Ma’am. France.”
“France!” the director exploded. “They’re going to France?”
“Marseille, apparently. They’re leaving tonight, according to my information.”
“On a private plane,” Chavez chimed in.
“We don’t have jurisdiction!” the director yelled. “What in the hell was going through your brain when you dreamed up all this bullshit?”
Eamons stiffened. “Ma’am, we have reason to believe that this man al-Bashir was involved in the sabotage of the Astro Corporation spacecraft and the murders of three Astro employees.”
“And now he’s going to Marseille,” Chavez added.
“And you’ll have this woman going with him. A civilian!” The director glared at them both. “For Christ’s sake, you could both be accused of promoting prostitution, you know that? If you don’t get her killed first.”
Chavez’s face reddened.
“And you still don’t have any real evidence about this so-called suspect of yours, do you?”
“He’s our man,” Eamons replied stubbornly. “I’m sure of it.”
The director snorted disdainfully. “Marseille,” she growled.
“I could phone her and tell her to cancel the trip,” Eamons said.
“We’ll have to get the satellite spooks to track her,” the director grumbled.
Eamons sat up straighter. “Nacho and I could fly to Marseille,” she suggested.
“Like hell you will,” the director said. “You’ve spent enough of my budget as it is.”
“Why is he going to Marseille?” Chavez wondered aloud.
The director glared at him for a moment, then said quietly, “Latest poop from Washington, the spooks have found some unusual electronic activity just outside Marseille. It was in Friday’s summary from Homeland Defense.”
“Electronic activity?”
“They don’t know what it is. They’re trying to home in on it, but it’s intermittent, comes and goes.”
Eamons said slowly, “Dan Randolph believed that his spaceplane crashed because somebody sent spurious electronic commands to it.”
With a disgusted sigh, the director said, “I’ll have to kick this upstairs to Washington.”
As they left the director’s office, Chavez whispered to Eamons, “Are you sure you want to let this woman fly out to Marseille with al-Bashir?”
“She wants to do it,” Eamons said.
“You could be putting her neck in a noose.”
“That’s why I had her implanted with the tracker.”
“Big help that’s going to be.”
Matagora Island, Texas
Despite the frigid gusts blasting from the air-conditioning shafts that ran along the ceiling, the control center felt hot and stuffy to Dan, with all the VIPs and news people squeezed inside its cinderblock walls. He stood by the closed double doors, pressed next to April, cold sweat trickling down his ribs.
Scanwell was standing on Dan’s other side, his eyes sweeping the quietly intense room. Jane was beside the governor; aside from a completely impersonal handshake and greeting, she had said nothing to Dan.
Lynn Van Buren was on her feet in the midst of the consoles, headset clamped over her short brown hair. The technicians were bent over their keyboards, their backs to the spectators. The big wall screen displayed an animated drawing of the Earth, with Astro headquarters and the receiving station at White Sands identified in big white block letters, and a square representing the power satellite high above. A dotted red line flickered from Matagorda to the satellite.
“Can we get a picture of the satellite out there in space?” Scanwell asked, leaning slightly toward Dan.
Shaking his head, Dan replied, “We don’t have cameras up there. It’s an extra expense we don’t need.”
“But what about NASA, or the Air Force?”
Dan grimaced. “We’re not a government operation, so they’ve steered clear of us. Maybe the news services will turn one of their satellites around for a picture, but their birds are all focused on the ground. We couldn’t even get imagery from them when our first spaceplane crashed.”
Scanwell shook his head. “Seems to me there ought to be some video coverage of your satellite.”
Pointing to the news people, Dan said, “Tell them.” Silently, he added, Maybe once you’re in the White House you can change things that much.
In addition to her normal headset, Van Buren had the tiny microphone of a portable amplifier clipped to her blouse, just beneath her inevitable necklace of pearls. She reached for the power pack tucked in the waistband of her skirt and turned it on. A blood-curdling howl of electronic feedback shrieked through the control center.
“Sorry about that,” Van Buren apologized, fiddling with the power pack. “Can everybody hear me?”
A ragged chorus of assent rippled through the crowd. Some of the onlookers raised their hands like schoolchildren.
“Okay. Fine,” said Van Buren. Pointing to the big clock on the wall, she told them, “We’re in the final countdown now. In two minutes the satellite will start beaming power to the rectenna farm… I mean, the receiving antennas, out at White Sands.”