Powersat (The Grand Tour)

by Bova, Ben

  At nine P.M. the president of the United States appeared on television from his home in Florida, where he’d been spending the holiday weekend.

  “This is a tragic Fourth of July,” he said, his face ashen, bleak. “The American people will not forget this day. Nor will we stop until the terrorists and their sponsors are rooted out and destroyed. I have ordered the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to meet with me tonight … .”

  Once the president finished his grisly little speech, Dan clicked off the television. The only light in the room came from the window. Down in the streets sirens still wailed like lost demons keening for the dead.

  Beside him, Jane stirred. “No. Turn it back on. I want to see—”

  “We’ve seen it a couple dozen times, Jane. There’s nothing new to show.”

  “We drove over that bridge,”she said, as if just realizing how close they had come to death. “An hour or so later and …”

  “We’d be dead, along with the rest of them.”

  She nodded.

  “But we’re not dead, Jane. We’re alive. And I love you. I’ll protect you. We’ll be all right, I promise.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder and he held her tightly. “It’s all right, Jane. We’re safe. Don’t be afraid.”

  “I know,” she murmured. “I love you, Dan. I don’t ever want to be separated from you.”

  He lifted her chin gently. In the shadows he could see a wisp of terrycloth fiber that clung to her cheek. He brushed it off, then kissed her.

  “Let’s get married,” he said. “Right away. Tonight.”

  Dabbing at her eyes, Jane made a weak smile. “You want to make an honest woman of me?”

  “I want to marry you, Jane Thornton. I want you to come to Japan with me.”

  “You’re going back to Japan? Now?”

  “I’ve got to,” he said. “Yamagata’s demo satellite is almost finished, but there’s still a lot of work to do. And I’m under contract. I’ve got to go back.”

  She said nothing for a moment. Then, “And I’ve got a reelection campaign to start planning for.”

  “But that’s years away, isn’t it?”

  “There are only one hundred senators in the world, Dan. I’m not going to give that up. I can’t.”

  “But—”

  “Dan, it’s my career. My world. Now, with this terror attack, I’ve got to be there.”

  He nodded glumly.

  “You can get out of your contract with the Japanese.”

  “But I don’t want to:”

  “You don’t? Why?”

  “That power satellite is vital. More important now than ever.”

  “With this terrorist attack, and more to come, you think playing in outer space is important?”

  “It’s not playing! Jane, if we can get electrical power from space, we can thumb our noses at the Arabs and their oil.”

  She stared at him as if she couldn’t believe what he was saying. “Dan, that will take years! If ever. We have to fight the terrorists now.”

  “As long as we’re dependent on oil from the Middle East they’ll have us by the short hairs.”

  “And you think going into space is going to help us?”

  “Yes! Generate power from space—”

  “In a hundred years, maybe.”

  “Ten! Five, maybe, if we push it.”

  “Ten years,” Jane said. “My god, Dan, ten years is as good as a century in politics.”

  “If we don’t start now, we’ll never have it!”

  “The costs,” Jane muttered. “Everything NASA does costs so much.”

  “It can be done cheaper.”

  “It will still costs billions, won’t it?”

  Feeling exasperated, trying not to lose his temper, Dan replied, “Give me ten percent of what the oil industry spends on digging dry holes each year, and I’ll put up a full-scale powersat.”

  “It can’t be done,” she said, shaking her head.

  “It can’t be done unless somebody goes out and does it!”

  “And that’s what you want to do? With everything else that’s happening, you want to go play in outer space.”

  He bit back the reply he wanted to make. Instead, he said simply, “I’m going back to Japan. I’ve got to.”

  “For how long?”

  “A year, maybe a little less.”

  “A year.”

  He clutched her by her bare shoulders. “Jane, come with me. Forget this political crap. Come with me and help build the future!”

  Even in the darkened room he could see her eyes blaze. But only for a moment; then she softened. She put her head back on his shoulder, murmuring, “I wish I could, Dan. I really wish I could.”

  “But you won’t.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Will you marry me?”

  “With you in Japan or up in a spaceship someplace?”

  He smiled. Sadly. “It’s only a few hundred miles up, Yamagata’s demo satellite.”

  “My place is in Washington, Dan.”

  “But what about us? You love me, don’t you?”

  Dan could feel his heart thumping beneath his ribs. For many beats Jane was silent At last she said, “We’ll talk about that when you come back from Japan.”

  The room fell silent except for the continuing wailing of sirens.

  AUSTIN, TEXAS

  Dan was on his cell phone with his corporate counsel as the limousine inched past the state capitol in the crowded rush-hour streets. The six flags of Texas hung limply on their poles in the soggy August heat. Len Kinsky, his public relations director, sat beside him in the air-conditioned limo, trying to look as if he weren’t listening.

  “The liability suits are coming in,” the lawyer was saying, his voice like the whine of an annoying mosquito. “It’s going to add up to billions, Dan.”

  “But nobody got hurt,” Dan said, feeling exasperation rising in him as he always did when talking to lawyers. “The wreckage hit one shed, from what I’ve been told. Otherwise it all fell on open land.”

  “Owners are still suing,” the lawyer replied. “Property damage, emotional pain and suffering. One woman’s claiming you caused her to miscarry.”

  “Double-damn it to hell and back,” Dan groused.

  “Insurance won’t cover, either,” the lawyer went on. “The carrier’s canceled all your policies.”

  Dan leaned back against the limo’s plush seat and tried to control his temper. He remembered Mark Twain’s advice: When angry, count to four. When very angry, swear.

  Instead, he said into the phone, “We don’t settle with anybody. Understand? Not a cent. Not until we find out what caused the accident.”

  “Dan, it’s Astro’s responsibility no matter what the cause of the accident was.”

  Dan almost said, Not if the spaceplane was sabotaged. But he held back. “No settlements. None. Not until I tell you. Understand?”

  “It’s foolish, Dan. It’s just going to run up your legal fees.”

  “Better spend it while you can, then,” Randolph said. “Before we declare bankruptcy.”

  He said good-bye to the lawyer and snapped the phone shut.

  “Lawyers,” he grumbled to Kinsky.

  The P.R. director scowled back at him. “Tell me about it. My divorce lawyer just bought himself a Lamborghini.”

  Before Dan could slip the phone back into his jacket pocket, it began playing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” again. Dan huffed and peered at the tiny screen. Joe Tenny.

  “Good news for a change, boss,”Tenny said without preamble. “Divers recovered the nose cap. Fell into Lake Travis, near Johnson City.”

  Randolph saw that the limo was at last pulling into the driveway of the Hyatt Regency. He pressed the phone to his ear harder and tried to keep from saying anything he didn’t want Kinsky to know. “That is good news, Joe. How banged up is it?”

  Tenny caught on immediately. “You’re not alone?”


  “That’s right.”

  “I haven’t seen the piece yet. The Texas authorities are ’coptering it down here. But I saw the dive team’s video. Handheld, kinda shaky, but the thruster assembly’s recognizable, at least.”

  What the hell does that mean? Dan asked himself. Aloud, he said, “I’m going to this party of Governor Scanwell’s now. I’ll call you from my hotel room afterward.”

  “Gotcha,” said Tenny. The phone went dead.

  Dan never felt comfortable in a tuxedo or a dinner jacket, which he was now wearing. At least I blend in with the crowd, he thought as he followed Kinsky across the hotel’s spacious lobby, up one flight of moving stairs to the huge atrium, with tier upon tier of balconies circling around it Dan craned his neck, gawking, for a few seconds. Then Kinsky tugged at his sleeve.

  “Come on, boss. You’re here to meet the governor.”

  Dan followed his public relations director. Len looks relaxed enough in his straitjacket, he thought Then he grinned. He looks like the best-dressed scarecrow in town.

  There was a reception line. The atrium was crowded with women in expensive gowns and sparkling jewelry, men in dinner jackets and bow ties. Randolph spotted a few daring guys who wore no ties, only a diamond stud or a piece of Navajo turquoise at their throats. Conversations buzzed and laughter echoed across the broad atrium. Waiters carried trays of drinks. Dan asked one of the prettier waitresses for a glass of amontillado. From the perplexed look on her face he figured he’d never see her again or his drink at all. But as they edged along the creeping reception line she came back, all smiles, and handed him a tumbler filled with Dry Sack. On the rocks.

  Be grateful for small miracles, Dan told himself as he sipped the drink. Kinsky, he saw, had a martini. You can take the man out of New York, Dan thought, but you can’t take the New York out of the man.

  It wasn’t until he was giving his name to the flunky who was setting up the introductions for the governor that he saw Jane. As the flunky whispered into his pin mike, Dan saw her standing beside Scanwell, tall and straight and beautiful as a princess out of a fairy tale, her copper hair falling to her bare shoulders, her strapless gown of emerald green showing her enticing figure to great advantage.

  Dan’s insides went hollow. It was like being in space, in zero gravity, that feeling of falling, endlessly falling. She’s more beautiful than ever, he thought. The years have been good to her. His eyes followed the graceful curve of her bare shoulder. How many time had he kissed that skin, caressed her flesh, made love to her as if no one else existed in the entire universe?

  “Boss?” Kinsky nudged him gently. Dan saw that the coupIe ahead of them had shaken hands with the governor and it was his turn to step up and meet his host for the evening. And the woman standing beside him.

  Another flunky with a tiny plug in his ear said over the hubbub of the crowd, “Governor, Senator, may I present Mr. Daniel Hamilton Randolph and Mr. Leonard Kinsky. Sirs, allow me to introduce Senator Jane—”

  “Hello Jane,”said Randolph.

  She kept her self-control, except for a moment’s flash in her sea-green eyes. “Hello Dan,” she said, allowing herself a cool smile.

  “You two know each other,” Governor Scanwell said, looking slightly perplexed.

  Dan said, “We’re old friends. At least, we used to be.”

  “Dan and I met years ago,” Jane said to the governor, “when I had just started in politics. Then he took off for outer space.”

  “Outer space?” The governor offered his hand to Randolph. His grip was firm without being overly powerful. He’s had lots of practice, Dan thought. Scanwell looked like a rangy, weather-beaten ranch hand in a monkey suit and cowboy boots. All he lacked was a Texas ten-gallon hat. Then Dan realized the governor was no older than he himself, and his cowboy look must be carefully cultivated.

  “Dan lived in orbit for more than a year,” Jane was saying.

  “Really?”

  “I helped to build the Japanese power satellite,” Dan explained.

  “And now you’ve built one for the United States,” Scanwell said, showing that at least he had been briefed about Dan. “We’ll have to talk about that later on.”

  That was the cue to move away and let the people behind him shake the governor’s hand.

  “Yes,” Dan said. “I’d like to talk to you about that.”

  Another of the governor’s aides ushered Dan and Kinsky away from Scanwell. And Jane.

  “Let’s hit the buffet line and get some appetizers,” Kinsky said, tugging at his collar. “I’m starving. And dinner’s going to be stupid, I bet. No pastrami. No blintzes. Nothing but dumb Texas steaks.”

  “You go. I’m not hungry.”Dan stood in the milling, swirling crowd and let the chatter and laughter and clink of glasses surround him as he kept his eyes riveted on Jane, standing beside Morgan Scanwell. She never looked his way. Not once.

  NEW YORK CITY

  Asim al-Bashir traveled on a Tunisian passport. Tunisia was a moderate Arab nation, not known by Western intelligence to have links with international terrorism. Al-Bashir had actually been born in the city of Tunis, and kept a sumptuous home there, which eased any suspicions that an investigator might have.

  Moreover, al-Bashir was a member of the board of directors of one of the largest oil companies in the world. As a director of Tricontinental Oil Corporation, he had legitimate business in America. The quarterly board meeting was scheduled to take place in Houston within two days.

  His traveling secretary directed an assistant to handle al-Bashir’s considerable luggage while he escorted his employer to the white stretch limousine waiting for them at curbside. Without waiting for the luggage, the limo pulled into JFK’s thrumming, snarling traffic and headed for the Queensboro Bridge and Manhattan.

  With the male secretary sitting up front with the chauffeur, al-Bashir leaned back patiently and watched the dreary traffic speed its growling, fume-spewing way past the gray and dismal houses huddled along the highway. The Americans prized their individual houses and their automobiles, their televisions and other luxuries. All dependent on energy, he thought. Energy from electricity. Energy from oil. America grows fat and prosperous on Arab oil. Most of the other people of the world could only dream about the luxuries Americans take for granted. Dream and be envious. Envy is a powerful emotion, al-Bashir thought. Envy can breed hatred, and hate is the greatest motivator of them all.

  He dozed slightly, but awoke when the limo’s tires suddenly changed the tone of their sound against the paving. They were on the Queensboro Bridge, he saw. He shifted in the seat and looked out to find the United Nations building. There it stood, by the East River. From where he was, al-Bashir could not see the ruins of the Brooklyn Bridge. The Americans were rebuilding it to look exactly as it had before the attack knocked it down.

  My colleagues thought it a glorious day when the bridges were destroyed, al-Bashir remembered. A magnificent day. The faithful around the world celebrated their great victory. The Nine were overjoyed at their success. Al-Bashir had smiled and congratulated them, especially the Egyptian, who had brilliantly directed the complex operation.

  Three bridges destroyed. Nearly five thousand Americans killed, many of them Jews. A day of wild celebration.

  But to what end? he asked himself. The Americans swept into the Middle East in overwhelming force and no one would gainsay them, not even other Moslem nations.

  Terrorism is the tactic of the desperate, the weak against the strong. Like a child throwing a stone through the window of a mansion. Yet it has its uses, al-Bashir conceded. In this long war we can use terrorists, both suicidal fanatics and brilliant planners like the Egyptian. But the war will be won as all wars are eventually won, by economic power. Mao Zedong wrote that power comes out of the barrel of a gun, but one must have the money to buy the guns. We will win this war because we will control the economic power of the oil industry. We must ruthlessly suppress any challenge to that power. Ruthlessly.
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  Two days later al-Bashir was in Houston, sitting at another conference table, much longer and more gleamingly polished than the one in the dilapidated Khartoum hotel. The boardroom of Tricontinental Oil reeked of wealth. Its walls were paneled with redwood. Its long sweeping windows looked out on the city of Houston, far below the lofty level of this skyscraper. The room was air-conditioned to the point where al-Bashir felt chilly. Texans and their air conditioning, he thought. Conspicuous waste of energy. Flaunting their affluence.

  A table laden with drinks and finger foods ran across the back wall. The opposite wall was completely taken up by a new kind of computer screen that the technical people called a “smart wall.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t working properly this day. The board members had to rely on the small screens set into the table at each seat.

  Like the other men around the table al-Bashir wore a conservative Western business suit and tie. Even the women were dressed in tailored blouses and skirted suits.

  But crusty old Wendell T. Garrison, sitting in his powered wheelchair at the head of the table, was in shirtsleeves and a black onyx bolo tie, its silver-tipped strings hanging halfway down his wrinkled shirt front. He looks like an evil djinn, al-Bashir thought: shriveled and wizened, his bald pate speckled with liver spots, the wisps of his remaining hair dead white. But he has great power, enormous power. Just the touch of his fingertips can move nations.

  This is the man I must defeat, al-Bashir told himself. To gain control of Tricontinental Oil, I must overcome Garrison.

  The board meeting had been quite routine. The only real item of contention was over the corporation’s involvement in Iraq, where Tricontinental was rebuilding the Iraqi oil fields under contract to the U.S. government. The profit margin was slim, but Garrison insisted that they renew the contract at the same rate.

  “When the reconstruction is finished and we start pumpin’ oil again,” he said in his grating, rasping voice, “that’s when we up the ante with the feds.”

  One of the women halfway down the table pointed out that Washington had promised to turn the oil fields back to the Iraqi government once the reconstruction was finished.