“Heeeeeeeee-yahhhhhhhhh!” Petersen shouted, one hand struggling to control Pegasus from the shock waves and the other slapping Blaine on the shoulder. “We did it! We fuckin’ did it!”
And Pegasus passed over the California coast.
The expiration of the blue light on the main monitoring board in Houston had sent most of the mission control personnel to their chairs with heads bowed, weeping silent tears. Nathan Jamrock sat stone-faced amid it all. He held the direct line to the President in his hand and wished there was something encouraging he could say.
Then all at once a voice split through the thick silence and tension in the room, seeming to come from heaven or somewhere almost as high.
“Houston, this is Pegasus. Sorry you boys missed all the fun. …”
Petersen said more, but nobody could hear him through all the shouting and screaming.
“The heat shield’s my biggest worry,” Petersen repeated at the close of his report. “We can get all other necessary functions patched up good enough, but we’ve lost a lot of tiles, maybe as many as a third from the nose area.”
Nathan Jamrock swallowed four more Rolaids. The knots in his stomach didn’t loosen. “What about the bottom?” he asked, aware that the heat shield on the shuttle’s underside was the most crucial.
“Tiles ninety-five percent accounted for, but I can’t tell what reentry might do to them after what this tub’s been through.”
“They’ll hold tight, Paul. I glued them myself. But things will get a little hot.”
“We’ll wear our summer clothes, Nate. Oh, and there’s something else. The shifters sustained some real bad damage. Looks like you guys got an excuse for them not working this time around.”
“I’ll take the responsibility.”
“How’s the weather at Edwards?”
“Clear, calm, and sunny by dawn. That’s 6:03.”
“We’ll set down by seven.”
“I’ll have the band waiting.”
“And a bathroom.”
“A slight change of plans, Paul,” Blaine said softly after they had completed seven hours of grueling repairs that included Petersen having to spend some tedious moments on the outside of the craft to realign Pegasus’s navigational beacons.
“Uh-oh …”
“See, Paul, any way you cut it, I’m still a wanted man. There are still too many people working for the guys who put that thing up in space, and I’m a threat to them. Getting a medal from the President would be nice, but staying alive’ll do just fine for now.”
Petersen shrugged. “I guess you know these people pretty well.”
“Too well. Omega’s not over. It won’t be until all the people in positions of control are exposed. They’ll be waiting for me, if not at Edwards, then somewhere else down the road.”
“I understand. What do you want me to do?”
Blaine told him.
Pegasus reentered the atmosphere right on schedule. The loss of so many heat shield tiles forced the cabin temperature up over 110 degrees, uncomfortable but not life-threatening, and most important the underside shield worked magnificently. The retrieval crew on the ground at Edwards Air Force Base in California broke into spontaneous applause when it was announced that the shuttle was on its way.
In Houston Nathan Jamrock had sworn off Rolaids once again and returned to cigars, which seemed to have an infinitely superior effect at settling the stomach. On the main board, the blue blip represent Pegasus came lower and lower. Then came a three-minute radar lapse before ground spotters at Edwards and the surrounding area would make their first visual sightings.
“You see her yet?” he asked his direct link on the scene in California.
“Is she off your screen?”
“What are you talking about?” Jamrock demanded, tossing his cigar aside. “She’s been off my screen for over three minutes now.”
“There’s no sign of her here, sir.”
Another phone rang on Jamrock’s raised terminal. He picked it up and told his man in California to hold on.
“Houston, this is California tracking. We just picked up your returning shuttle on our screen.”
“Where the hell is it?”
“As near as we can tell, making a descent into the Utah salt flats. …”
Jamrock started grasping for some stray Rolaids tablets.
“Thanks for the lift,” McCracken said as he walked down the steps of the space shuttle Pegasus.
“The pleasure was all ours,” Petersen answered from the doorway. “You can fly with us anytime.”
Blaine begged off. “Once is enough for one lifetime.”
“Suit yourself.”
A Land-Rover driven by Johnny Wareagle raced down the barren flats toward the shuttle’s position. Blaine waved to him.
“Sorry I had to make you miss the reception party at Edwards,” he apologized to Petersen.
The captain winked. “I hate parties.”
They smiled at each other and Blaine walked off. The Land-Rover pulled to a stop and he climbed into the passenger seat next to Wareagle.
“The spirits were with you up there, Blainey.”
“They made pretty damn good astronauts, Indian.”
Epilogue
“There’s just one thing I don’t understand about all this,” Sandy Lister said after McCracken had completed his account of the events since he and Wareagle had left Maine. She lay propped up on pillows in a room in the discreet doctor’s office. A hospital had been out of the question under the circumstances, and she was making a fine recovery from her wound here. The damage to her leg would not be permanent. “If Hollins was behind the plot from the start, why’d he agree to let me interview him?”
“Because he didn’t plan to tell you anything some good investigative work couldn’t have told you anyway. And he was afraid that if he turned you down, you might have dug deeper and come up with something about his link to Krayman Industries he couldn’t let be uncovered.”
“Makes sense. So it’s over then.” When Blaine didn’t respond, Sandy’s face grew concerned. “It is over, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think so,” he said finally. “I mean in the minds of Washington it is, and that’s the problem. There are hundreds of people out there, maybe thousands, who owe their positions to Krayman Industries. Sahhan’s troops are still out there, too, along with the mercenaries. And don’t forget the billions of Krayman Chips in place all over the country. So it wouldn’t take much for a smart man in the Krayman hierarchy to pick up right where Hollins and Dolorman left off. With a few modifications, the Omega command could still be given.”
“Are you telling me the government would allow that to happen with everything they know?”
“They don’t know a damn thing. All they have to go on is what I told them from the space shuttle, and I was vague. They can’t move because they’ve got nothing to move on.”
“What about Terrell’s suggestion to get the names of Krayman Industry plants from the computer on Horse Neck Island?”
“Without the specific access codes, we wouldn’t have a chance.”
“Then you’ll have to go in and tell them everything.”
“How far do you think I’d get? Do you think Hollins’s people will simply stop gunning for me? I don’t. The kill order stands. I trust the President well enough, but that’s as far as it goes.”