Her laughter was nervous and dry. “Stop flattering yourself.”
He managed to chuckle, and her hand briefly squeezed his arm before it returned to the railing. Franc glanced to his left, saw the dirigible’s shadow gliding closer to the mooring mast. “Hang on… any second now…”
The airship drifted back, forward, back again. The ground crew fought the wind as they hauled the behemoth toward the iron tripod. The two ground shadows converged, became as one.
Franc clung to the railing, felt it dig into his palms. Okay, okay… when is it going to happen?
A sudden, hard jolt ran through the ship.
He grabbed Lea’s shoulders, turned her toward the door heading to the gangway. “Okay, let’s go!” he snapped. “Move, move…!”
Lea took a step, then stopped. He slammed into her back.
“Wait a minute…” she whispered.
“Move!” He shoved at her. “We don’t have…!”
Then he stopped, and listened.
The deck was stable. It wasn’t tilting beneath their feet.
No screams. No shouting. The chairs and tables remained where they were.
Passengers gaped at them with baffled amusement. Edward Douglas chuckled and turned to say something behind his hand to his wife. Moritz Feibusch gave him a look of sympathy. Irene Doehner enjoyed a brief moment of teenage condescension. Colonel Erdmann sneered at him.
Then one of the stewards strolled down the promenade, announcing that the Hindenberg had arrived and that all passengers were to make way to gangway stairs. Please do not forget your baggage. Please proceed directly to American customs.
Franc looked down at Lea. Her face was pale; she trembled against him.
“What went wrong?” she whispered.
Friday, January 16, 1998: 8:12 A.M.
Murphy didn’t hear the phone when it rang; he was in the bathroom, using a styptic pen on the cuts his razor had made against his chin and neck. Lately he been keeping the razor beneath a little glass pyramid that his wife had given him for Christmas, but it wasn’t preserving the blade’s sharpness the way its brochure claimed it would. Either that, or the brutal hangover he suffered this morning had made him sloppy while shaving.
At any rate, he wasn’t aware that someone was calling for him until Donna knocked on the door. Office, she mouthed silently as she extended the cordless to him, and Murphy winced. He was already running late, thanks to the blinding headache he’d awoken with; there must be some eight o’clock meeting he had forgotten, and someone at OPS had phoned to find out what was keeping him. Donna hadn’t been pleased when he’d come home drunk in a cab, and the prospect of having to give him a lift to the office wasn’t helping her forgive him. She gave him another withering look as he took the phone, then went back to watching the morning horoscope on TV.
“This is Zack.” He tucked the phone under his chin as he reached for the deodorant stick.
“Zack, it’s Roger Ordmann…”
The phone almost fell into the sink. Roger Ordmann was the agency’s Chief Administrator. Murphy had spoken with him exactly three times during his tenure at OPS; the first time was when he had been hired, the other two during social occasions. Roger Ordmann was the man the president called when Mary Lincoln’s ghost was seen roaming the second floor of the White House.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Ordmann. Sorry I’m running late, but the car battery died this morning. My wife’s about ready to bring me in, though, so…”
“That’s okay, Dr. Murphy. Perfectly understandable. We have a small problem here that we need to discuss.”
The bathroom tiles suddenly felt much colder beneath his bare feet. Oh, God, it’s something to do with last night. Harry got in a fight at the bar and was taken downtown. Or Kent cracked up his car while trying to drive home. The police got involved and his name came out. “A problem, sir?”
“Are you on a secure line?”
A moment of puzzlement. What was Ordmann asking? Then he remembered that he was on a cordless phone. “Umm… no, sir. Do you want me to…?”
“Please.”
“Just a moment, sir…” Murphy fumbled with the phone until he found the Hold button, then he stalked across the house to the little office next to the den. Donna barely glanced up as he shut the door behind him; the TV volume was up, which meant that she shouldn’t be able to hear what he was saying. The forecaster was explaining why this was a good day for Capricorns to renew old friendships, particularly with Scorpios…
Murphy sat down at the desk, picked up the hardwired phone, switched off the cordless. “I’m here, sir. Sorry to…”
“Is this a secure line?”
What was this? “I’m on another extension, yes sir, if that’s what you’re asking. I was in the bathroom, speaking on a cordless. Just got out of the…” Realizing that he was starting to babble, Murphy stopped himself. “Yes, sir, it’s secure.”
A pause, then: “There’s been a wreck.”
Oh, Jesus! One of the guys did try to drive home drunk! Kent or Harry—probably Harry, he had been the most inebriated—climbed behind the wheel, and then he…
Then Murphy remembered with whom he was speaking, and why it might be so important that he’d want to have a phone conversation on a hne that couldn’t be casually monitored, and what this particular phrase signified in a different context.
“Yes sir, I understand.” His mind was already racing. “Where did it happen?”
“Tennessee. Approximately sixty miles east of Nashville. About an hour and a half ago.”
“I see…” Murphy glanced around the office, trying to spot his road atlas, before he remembered where he had seen it last: in Steven’s room, where he had taken it for a homework assignment. Forget it. “Has anyone… I mean, has anyone found the car?”
“We’ve located the vehicle, but no one’s looked inside yet. An ambulance is being sent to check it out. Can you be ready to go in ten minutes?”
Something cold raced up his back. “Ten…? Mr. Ordmann, I haven’t even left the…”
“We’ve sent a car to pick you up. A plane’s waiting at Dulles, and we’ve got the rest of the team assembled. You’ll be briefed on the way. Can you be ready in ten minutes?”
Murphy was in his robe. His suit was still on the hanger and could probably use a pass with a lint brush; he hadn’t even picked out a tie. But an old Adidas gym bag in his closet had some clean clothes left over from last fall’s hunting trip, and it would only take a moment for him to pack up his laptop. “I’ll be ready.”
“Very good. You’ve got the ball, Dr. Murphy. Don’t drop it.”
“I won’t, sir,” he said, managing for the moment to sound much more confident than he felt. “We’ll be in touch.”
“Good karma,” Ordmann said, then he hung up.
Murphy gently placed the receiver in its cradle, sat back in his chair, and let out his breath. Sometime during the night, a light snow had fallen on Arlington. Through the office window, he could see where it had frosted Donna’s backyard garden and laid a white skein over the swingset Steve no longer used. It looked cold and lonely out there. He wondered if it was any warmer in Tennessee.
He sighed, then stood up and went to tell Donna that he was going away on a business trip.
Thursday, May 5, 1937:8:00 P.M.
Thirty-five minutes after the Hindenberg docked at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, an explosion in one of the aft gas cells destroyed the airship.
No one was aboard when the fire ripped through the dirigible. All the passengers and crewmembers had disembarked by then, and even the ground crew managed to dash to safety before the burning airship hit the ground, taking out the mooring mast with it. A newsreel cameraman managed to catch the conflagration on film; it was later remarked how fortunate it had been that the Hindenberg hadn’t exploded while still in the air, or otherwise an untold number of lives might have been lost.