“Well, yes, but … it was a sandwich buffet.” I put a bite of donut in my mouth to buy myself some time to think. The sugar coated my tongue with gummy sweetness. The doctor had thought that Nathaniel had ingested the radio-opaque substance within three hours of arrival at the hospital and—oh, shit. He hadn’t eaten before he arrived.
He must have been poisoned at our apartment, and the FBI thought so too.
I chewed, scraping it away from the roof of my palate with my tongue. “Was anyone else poisoned?”
“Did you eat anything from the buffet?”
Of course he wasn’t going to answer my questions. “Our housekeeper had left out a sandwich for me. Ham and cheese with mustard, if that helps.”
I had eaten a single bite of that sandwich.
Agent Whitaker jotted something down on his notepad. “Have the team look at the mustard?”
Boone nodded. “I’ll call them.”
Two thoughts went through my head simultaneously. The first was that they didn’t know the vector for the poison yet and were grasping at straws. The second was that Kenneth had said he had given Nathaniel a sandwich. These men were about to start investigating my husband for attempted murder. He hadn’t poisoned Nathaniel, of course, but if the press got hold of it that would dominate the news.
“He also had a martini.” If there was a hell, I was about to go to it because I was going to try to steer them away from my husband to someone else. “Kenneth said that he left Nathaniel with Fernando Morales. He was making a martini for Dr. York, I think?—I’m not sure, of course, I was in the kitchen by that point.”
“What can you tell us about Fernando Morales?”
“He is … an engineer? Or a dance instructor.” I frowned, realizing that I couldn’t remember which one. “One of the husbands is a dance instructor. Wait—that’s Howard Brown, because he always has perfect ballet hands when he gestures and stands with his feet in third position. Right. Mr. Morales is the engineer.”
I was shifting into bubbling socialite mode because I wanted to pull their attention as far away from Kenneth as possible. It would diminish their trust in me for the Icarus project, but that was clearly already doomed.
I smiled at the men. “He’s Florina Morales’s husband and the newest member of the club. He just joined last year when she went up for final training. She’s on the Moon now as a suit tech. I expect you’ll want to know about all the husbands. Mr. Whitney is a naval officer and was on a submarine during the war, but I only remember that because he brags about how being short is an advantage. His wife is Deana Whitney. She’s a Native American astronaut of Cherokee descent. Her little boy loves dinosaurs and she always takes one of his drawings with her to the Moon. Isn’t that delightful? I can’t believe that one of them brought rat poison into our home just to kill Nathaniel York—”
My babbling stopped dead.
“I’m sorry … But are we sure that Nathaniel was the target?” The building blocks of last night rearranged themselves in my head. “What if someone had been trying to kill Kenneth?”
Agent Whitaker didn’t even look up from his notepad. Agent Boone sipped his coffee and set the mug down on the table. “Have there been any threats?”
“He’s the governor of the state. Of course there are threats. He got threats when he was a mayor because of begonias.” I leaned forward in my chair to try to engage them both. “Night before last there were riots outside his fundraiser. And now poison in our home?”
“Those are two very different things.”
My rage shifted. They weren’t even going to entertain the idea. And then a vacuum sucked all the rage away, leaving me cold. “We left his bodyguard with Nathaniel.”
“That was very kind of you.” Agent Boone’s mouth stretched in a rictus of a smile. “We’ve sent men to watch Dr. York’s room, so there’s no need to worry about him.”
I dialed my voice into its most patrician form. “While I’m worried about Nathaniel, I am also concerned that we may have left my husband exposed by focusing on the wrong threat. What are you going to do with regards to Governor Wargin?”
Agent Whitaker stopped scribbling and lifted his head from his notepad. “We’re going to keep doing our job, which involves investigating credible threats and actual crimes.” He drew a line on the page. “You mentioned that Mr. Morales was an engineer. With what department?”
They weren’t going to do anything. The room went red with the heat of my rage. I would murder anyone who touched Kenneth. So help me—I’d been angry about what had happened to Nathaniel, but if Kenneth had been the target there was not a rocket large enough to escape me.
* * *
By the time I finally bailed out from the clutches of Whitaker and Boone, I had squashed so much rage that I was shaking. They didn’t want to talk to me about Icarus and they didn’t want me to worry my pretty little head over Kenneth. But if I was correct, he was on a train right now, sans bodyguard.
I got out of the room and ran for the second floor. I had a choice—elevator, which was slower, or stairs, which hurt my feet. Speed took priority today and I could jog up them in heels and a skirt, even if it cost me. Each step felt like someone was trying to slice off my toes.
There was a phone in one of the briefing rooms. I shouldered the door open and—
Clemons and Halim looked up at me. Clemons lowered his cigar. “Oh, Wargin. Excellent. How did everything go with the FBI?”
“All right.” The phone was sitting on the table next to Halim. “Any update on Dr. York?”
“He’s trying to get someone to bring him things from his office.” Clemons shook his head. “We shut that down. Poisoned! It’s an ugly business.”
“Yes.” I took a step back, trying to think of where the next closest phone was.
Halim held out a hand. “A moment, Nicole … Are you still willing to fill an empty chair in a Sirius sim? Al-Zaman’s wife went into labor early so he had to hop out. It’s the middle seater.”
The middle seat. Copilot.
Clemons raised his eyebrows. “You can’t just throw her in without any orientation.”
“Nicole reads manuals for fun. And this is their first run.”
Moments like this are why I’m certain that there is not a God. Or if there is one, he’s mercurial and cruel. “When?”
“Now, if you’re up for it.” Halim nodded, like he was trying to reassure me.
I’d been in the Sirius simulator, not because I’d ever been assigned but because I wanted to be ready. Just in case. And here was the just-in-case moment. “I need to make a call first. Do I have time?”
“Of course.” Clemons studied me through a cloud of cigar smoke. “But, Halim … She was up all night at the hospital. Even if she knows the manuals, she must be exhausted.”
“I’m fine.” I was rumpled. I had a spot of blood on one cuff. I also had perfect posture and impeccable lipstick, both of which cover a multitude of sins. “I just need to make that call.”
“And she can’t do the simulator in heels.”
Honestly, I could, but this wasn’t the time to shock them with that revelation. “I have a change in my office. Just … phone. Please? I need to—” Some little warning bell went off in the back of my head. If I told Clemons that I was worried about Kenneth and why, he’d never let me sit in the simulator. He’d write me off as being distracted. “Actually, I have a phone in my office. I’ll call from there while I change. I can be at the SVMF in half an hour.”
“What about your chin?”
“Gentlemen. I’m fine. So, here’s the order of operations. I’m going to my office. I will change and make my phone call at the same time. While I’m doing that, Halim will call the SVMF and apprise them of the staff change. By the time I arrive, they should be ready for me.” I gave a swift nod to Halim. “Thank you for the opportunity. I’ll get going so they aren’t kept waiting.”
I fled before they could stop me. I ran back down the stairs, grabbed one of
the ubiquitous campus bikes, hiked my skirt up, and peddled to the astronaut office building. I ran up the stairs to my office and pretended the pain in my feet was a training exercise. I could do that maybe one more time, before limping visibly.
By the time I got to my office, my shirt was stuck to my back with sweat. I kicked my office door shut and grabbed the phone. Sandwiching the receiver between my ear and shoulder, I dialed with one hand and opened my locker with the other.
The phone rang once, and Kenneth’s secretary picked up. “Governor Wargin’s office. How may I help you?”
I kicked off my shoes. “This is Mrs. Wargin. Is the governor in?”
“No, ma’am, not yet. We’re expecting him in on the 10:30 train. His driver has just gone to fetch him, in fact.”
Shit. Did I wait for him or go to the SVMF? “Is Medgar Davis in?”
“Yes. One moment, I’ll transfer you.”
My hands were shaking as I undid the buttons on my skirt. I shucked it off and pulled a pair of trousers out of my locker. I was hopping on one foot with the other partway down a pant leg when his chief of staff picked up.
“Mrs. Wargin, how are you?”
“I think someone might be trying to kill the governor.” I didn’t have time to be gentle. “You know about Dr. York?”
“Yes. The governor called to brief me before he got on the train.” Mr. Davis’s voice was always calm. I adored him.
“There is a possibility that the poison might have been administered at our apartment during the poker party.” I was being an alarmist, but I would rather do that than ignore a possible danger to my husband. “Then there was a riot the night before. I don’t know that there’s a link, but can you take precautions, just in case?”
“Of course, ma’am.”
I peeled my sweaty blood-speckled shirt off. “Thank you. And have him call me when he gets in? Just so I know he’s safe.”
“Absolutely. Is there anything else?”
“That’s it.” I grabbed my clean shirt and the hanger tumbled to the floor. “Thank you!”
As soon as I got off the phone, I pulled on the clean shirt, which stuck to the existing sweat on my torso. Please let me be wrong about someone targeting Kenneth. Please let me be wrong. I shoved on my sneakers and sprinted out the door again.
All the way down the stairs, I was trying to pull my mind away from thoughts of Kenneth’s train derailed or an assassin coming at him with a knife. I needed to switch back to astronaut mind and concentrate on the Sirius. There was nothing I could do about Kenneth that I hadn’t already done.
I ran outside and— “Shit.”
Someone had taken my bike. That’s the trouble with ubiquitous bikes, they are ever present so you can just grab any of them. All right. I’d be sweatier when I got to the SVMF, but I was wearing sneakers and sometimes you just had to suck it up and ignore the pain.
The SVMF was only a half-mile away, and I ran farther than that for training. I set off at a steady jog through the lovely humidity of Kansas. The first steps hurt as my bones shifted and ground against each other, but then they loosened up. By the time I got to the SVMF, my feet felt no worse than being on a ballroom floor and I was soaked with sweat, which would be oh so very pleasant for everyone in the sim with me.
I shoved open the door to the building, figuring that I had time to stop by the bathroom and towel off a little, or at least wipe out my pits. The blessed air-conditioning smacked me in the face with welcome cold air.
And I fainted.
EIGHT
BIG SAVINGS SEEN IN NUCLEAR POWER
AEC Study Calls Atomic Electricity Plants Vital
CHICAGO, March 30, 1963—(UPI)—The director of the Atomic Energy Commission’s division of reactor development said today that peaceful nuclear power can lead to savings in the cost of electricity to American consumers of “between four and five billion a year by the year 2000.” The commission determined that if no supplementary forms of energy were used, the rate of IAC rocket launches and ongoing recovery efforts from the Meteor would cause the nation to exhaust its “readily available, low-cost reserves of fossil fuels in 40 to 60 years.”
I came to moments after I hit the ground. I know this, because people were still running toward me when I sat up. The SVMF circled around me so I didn’t try to stand yet, just waved jauntily from the ground.
Curt was in the lead and slid to his knees in front of me, blue eyes tight with concern. “How do you feel?”
“Like a fool. This is the second time in twenty-four hours you’ve seen me on the floor here.” I sat up and winked at him. “Let’s not make a habit of it, hm?”
Rachel Gutin, one of the new Nav/Comps, jogged up. “Is everything—What happened to your chin?”
“She had a training accident yesterday. The POGO failed.”
“I didn’t hit my head. I just ran over from the office and the cold came as a shock. That’s all.” I got to my knees, moving carefully just in case I fainted again. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting, but I’m fine now.”
“You’re sweating a lot.” Curt followed me as I stood, hands out as if I were going to topple over again.
“I did say that I had run over here. As in actual running.” The room held steady, but Curt was right. Sweat drenched me and my heart was racing faster than it should, even with the run. Because I hadn’t eaten. “I had a long night, which Halim knows about. He sent me anyway, so shall we get on with it?”
Now more people were gathering around. It looked like everyone associated with the sim, trainees, trainers, technicians, had all decided to come and gawk at the lady who had fainted. From the side of the Sirius mockup, where the monitoring stations were, Ana Teresa Almeida Brandão jogged toward me with her medic kit.
Crap. A flight surgeon. Ana Teresa had the power to ground me. She shouted, “Curt! Get her a chair.”
“Honestly, I’m fine.” If I could have a few minutes to compose myself, and maybe grab something from the vending machine, I’d be as good as new.
Ana Teresa glared up at me as if our height difference pissed her off. “Sit down.”
“I’m fi—”
“Sit. If you do not sit, then I will assume that you cannot comprehend basic instructions and that you are unsafe to fly.” She took a step closer. “Now sit. Down.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I sat in the chair that Curt had produced. “But I really am—”
“You could be decapitated and you would still be insisting that you are ‘just fine.’ Please. I am well familiar with the ways of pilots. Do not think me an easy fool.” She produced a pen light from somewhere and shone it in my eyes. “When did you hit your head?”
“It’s not—” I bit my lips before I moved to a full shout. Taking a short breath, I forced a smile. “May I speak to you privately for a moment?”
She glared at me, which honestly she’d never stopped doing. I liked Ana Teresa, but her bedside manner was that of an angry terrier. She turned her glare on the men surrounding us. “Hey! Go! Each monkey on your own branch.”
Watching a half-dozen men slink away as if she were going to bite their balls off was one of the only delights of my day. When they were gone, she said, “If you are going to tell me that you are pregnant—”
A laugh startled out of me. “God, no. Not actually possible.” I held up my hand to stop any questions. “I forgot to eat breakfast. I was up all night with a friend who had to go to the emergency room—which Halim knows about—and I forgot to eat, and then the air-conditioning hit me like a ton of bricks. Let me grab something from the vending machine and that’ll sort me.”
“Sudden exposure to cold should not cause a faint.” She crossed her arms and glared harder at me. “When was the last time you ate?”
I hate this question. “A full meal?” Day before yesterday. “I had part of a sandwich last night. And a donut this morning.”
“And a head injury yesterday.”
“It’s my chin. My brain is not in my ch
in.”
“Whiplash concussion doesn’t need a direct blow to the head.”
I sat forward, resting my elbows on my knees, and focused on her, because if I didn’t, I was going to burst into tears, and I am not a woman who cries. “Please. This is just a sim. They’re letting me sit in the copilot seat. They’ve never let a woman even pretend to fly a Sirius. Please. Please let me do this.”
She pursed her lips, then winced and looked away. “No. I’m sorry.”
“For the love of—”
“No. Because fainting out here I can explain as a temporary concern. A day off, you’ll be fit. But if you faint in there? Then it is that flying the Sirius is too hard for a woman.” Ana Teresa looked back at me and I could see every lick she’d had to take to get through med school. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
She wasn’t wrong. Goddamn it.
* * *
I sat down at my desk with a tray from the cafeteria. Following my usual overreaction, I had filled it with mounds of mashed potatoes, boiled greens, curried lentils, chicken parmesan, and two types of cake. Recognizing a cycle and being able to stop said cycle are not the same thing.
I rubbed my forehead, trying to massage the ache out. It would probably go away once I ate something. I ground the heels of both palms into my eyes. I had been so close to that cockpit. Even if it was just a sim, it had still been the copilot seat in one of the big rockets, and it was my own damn fault that I wasn’t there now.
Letting out a sigh, I lowered my hands. I was over fifty years old and I had fought for the knowledge of how to manage myself. I unlocked the right-hand drawer of my desk and pulled out the pill bottle there. Miltown.
I no longer took it often, but there were days when using something to calm me made more sense than trying to fight through the day on my own. My stomach clenched at the thought of eating. But a pill? Some water? That I could handle. At least we were long past the days of my Miltinis …
It wouldn’t really kick in for another twenty minutes or so, but just exerting some control over myself relaxed me. For my next demonstration of control, I would eat a reasonable amount of food.
The Relentless Moon Page 7
