Powersat (The Grand Tour)

by Bova, Ben

  As Jane came down the stairs the pilot was standing in the entryway, looking more like a field hand than anything else in his jeans and work shirt. He had flown ground-attack Warthogs in the Middle East, although it took several drinks to get him loose enough to start talking about his “tank plinkin”’ days.

  “Goin’ down to Austin agin?” he asked.

  “No, Zeb. Not this time. I want you to fly me to the Astro Corporation complex on Matagorda Island, first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “You’re goin’ there on a Sunday?”

  “Yes,” Jane said, thinking, Dan’s office will be closed on Sunday. I’ll be able to talk to him without interruptions, without lots of other people in the way.

  Zeb’s brows crinkled. “That’s a private airfield, ain’t it? I’ll need their okay to land there. Might even be closed of a Sunday.”

  “I’ll take care of that part of it, Zeb,” said Jane. “You just pick me up here at seven tomorrow morning.”

  “Seven, right.” He started to leave, then turned back with a shy smile. “Um, maybe I oughtta pack a breakfast?”

  Jane nodded. “That’s a good idea. Grapefruit juice for me, please.”

  The pilot left and Jane headed back upstairs thinking, I’d better not let Morgan know about this. He wouldn’t understand why I’ve got to see Dan. She wondered if she truly understood herself.

  LA MARSA, TUNISIA

  From the rooftop garden of the hotel, Asim al-Bashir could see the ruins of Carthage shimmering in the heat haze. The broad Mediterranean sparkled in the afternoon sunlight; tourists and vacationers frolicked on the narrow beach; expensive yachts and cruise liners dotted the glittering water.

  Sitting under the shade of the leafy trellis with a cool breeze wafting in from the sea, al-Bashir looked out at the ancient ruins from behind his polarized sunglasses. Once Carthage was a mighty power, he thought. Once warships from that harbor dominated the Mediterranean. Then came the Romans, the stolid, unimaginative, implacable Romans. No matter how many times Hannibal defeated them, no matter how many Roman armies were slaughtered, they came back with more, always more men, more armies, more battles until they wore Carthage into the dust. They demolished the city, house by house, temple by temple, stone by stone, until nothing was left standing. Then they sowed salt over the foundations so that nothing would ever grow there again. Destruction more savage and complete than a nuclear bomb would have caused.

  The final humiliation was that the Romans themselves built a new city alongside the devastated site. It was the Roman ruins that al-Bashir stared at now.

  That is the enemy we face, al-Bashir thought. Ruthless, implacable, capable of raising armies against us no matter how many times we batter them.

  We cannot conquer them in battle, he knew. We must conquer them from within. Get them to destroy themselves. Make them use their greed and their power against each other. That is what we will do with their power satellite. That will be the first step in our eventual victory over them.

  He heard footsteps clicking along the tiled walkway that led to this shady trellis. Nervous, quick steps. Turning, he saw the Egyptian walking toward him, short, spare, his white linen suit looking half a size too big for him, a broadbrimmed hat covering his bald pate.

  Al-Bashir rose and nodded perfunctorily. “Salaam, my brother,” he said, taking off his sunglasses.

  The Egyptian removed his dark glasses, too, and sat on the white-painted cast-iron chair beside al-Bashir’s without waiting to be invited.

  “Salaam,” he murmured.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” al-Bashir asked, allowing the irony to show in his tone.

  The Nine met as a whole only rarely, and even meetings between individuals were kept to a minimum. But with Western intelligence agencies’ abilities to eavesdrop on telephone conversations and computer links, some face-to-face meetings were unavoidable.

  “The others grow anxious about your operation with the satellite,” the Egyptian said.

  “I have spoken to most of them. Everything is proceeding well.”

  The Egyptian took off his hat and placed it on the table next to them. “This business of your operative being arrested doesn’t alarm you?”

  Al-Bashir allowed a small smile to curve his lips. “My operative is a chauffeur who was bribing an Astro Corporation employee for information. Nothing more.”

  “We understand he was the one who caused the explosion of their hydrogen facility.”

  “The Americans have no inkling of that.”

  “But if they have him in custody they might get him to talk.”

  With great patience, al-Bashir explained, “He was in custody for merely a few hours. He said nothing. He is now free. American police are very restricted in their methods of interrogation. We have nothing to fear on that score.”

  The Egyptian nodded his round, bald head. Watching him, al-Bashir thought that in another time, another era, this man might have been a royal scribe for one of the pharaohs instead of a planner of terrorist strikes.

  The Egyptian licked his thick lips, then said, “In the meantime, Randolph has flown his rocketplane. The test was a success.”

  “All to the good,” said al-Bashir.

  “You believe so?”

  With a small chuckle, al-Bashir said, “If Randolph had been wise enough to ask my help, I could have been of great assistance to him.”

  The Egyptian looked doubtful.

  “My brother,” said al-Bashir, “we want Randolph to succeed. We need him to finish his power satellite and put it into operation. Only then can we use it for our own purposes.”

  “To kill many Americans,” said the Egyptian.

  “Many. Including, perhaps, their president and many of their Congress.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. And the best part is that they will never realize we have attacked them. They will believe the power satellite malfunctioned. They will want to blow that satellite out of the sky. Certainly they will tear Dan Randolph to pieces with their bare hands.”

  The Egyptian gaped at him in admiration.

  Calmly, al-Bashir added, “It will also destroy the political career of the only presidential candidate who might pose some problems for us in the future.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Morgan Scanwell,” al-Bashir said. “Him we will not kill, however. He will be humiliated, ruined.”

  “And Randolph?”

  “The mobs will tear down his buildings in Texas.” Turning to look back at the ruins of Carthage, he added, “Perhaps they will even sow salt on the site of Astro Manufacturing Corporation.”

  MATAGORDA ISLAND, TEXAS

  Never let a woman leave a toothbrush in your bathroom, Dan reminded himself as he leaned over the gunwale of the ferry and breathed in the fresh salt-tanged air. It’s like allowing the Marines to establish a beachhead on your territory.

  The sun was going down as the last ferry of the day chugged across the bay toward Matagorda Island. Dan had spent the previous night and all this Saturday with Vicki Lee, who had come to do an in-depth interview with him, because of the successful flight test of the spaceplane. “In depth,” Dan muttered to himself, with a grin. Vicki was fun to be with and energetic in bed. But when she suggested she stay overnight at Dan’s apartment instead of returning to the hotel suite she’d rented in Lamar, every alarm bell in Dan’s nervous system started clanging.

  So he drove her all the way back to Lamar in his newly retopped Jaguar. The hotel there wasn’t all that much better than the Astro Motel on the island, but Dan was glad she had decided to stay in Lamar. They spent the night together and most of the warm, humid Saturday languidly poking around the town’s meager shops. They had an early dinner in her room-in bed, actually—and then Dan had kissed Vicki good-bye and headed home. Hope I didn’t screw up the interview, he said to himself as he watched the sun sink into the scrub pines of the island. Aviation Week is the most important source in the industry.
Well, he thought, remembering Vicki’s passionate panting, at least I screwed the interviewer pretty well.

  The hangar was dark and empty by the time he pulled into his parking slot. His apartment was clean and shipshape. Tomasina took advantage of my absence, Dan thought. God, she even stocked the fridge he saw as he took out a cold can of ginger beer. As he sat at his desk and booted up the computer he debated adding a slug of brandy to the spicy, fizzing soda. What do the Aussies call that? The answer came to him as his screen lit up: brandy and dry.

  But as soon as he saw the list of messages waiting for him he forgot about a drink. Jane Thornton’s name was third on the list. He called up her message before any of the others.

  She was at the ranch in Oklahoma, from the looks of it: relaxed denim shirt, reddish-brown hair pinned up off her neck.

  “Dan, I need to talk to you in private. I’ll be flying down from the ranch tomorrow, leaving here at seven. Could you have your airstrip ready for me to land there, please? Don’t call back unless there’s some problem with that. Otherwise, I’ll see you when I land at your complex.”

  That was all. About as warm as a form letter from an insurance company, Dan thought. But so what? Jane’s coming here, on a Sunday. Tomorrow!

  He jumped to his feet and headed for the tiny bathroom. I’d better take a good long shower, Dan told himself.

  Feeling like a teenager waiting for his date to appear, Dan paced along the base of the Astro airstrip’s pocket-sized control tower as he watched Jane’s single-engine plane turn into its final approach, sunlight glinting off its canopy. The guys in the tower had told him the plane was a turboprop TBM 700: fast, pressurized for high-altitude flight, yet with a landing speed low enough to slip into small landing fields.

  Engine yowling, the low-winged plane touched down gently on the concrete strip and then taxied slowly to a stop by the tower. Dan fidgeted impatiently, waiting for the hatch to open and Jane to appear. Don’t be stupid, he warned himself. She’s here on business, nothing else. It’s over between us, as far as she’s concerned.

  But when Jane ducked through the hatch and stepped onto the plane’s wing he forgot all that. She was wearing a flowered Western shirt and snug-fitting jeans. Dan raced over to help her down to the concrete apron.

  “Hi! Good to see you.”

  Jane smiled at him. “You can let go of me now, Dan.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” He took his hands from her waist.

  The pilot squeezed through the hatch and dropped lightly to the ground. Dan tossed him a set of car keys, then pointed to the company van parked by the control tower next to his own Jag.

  “There’s a motel about three miles down the road,” Dan told the pilot, pointing. “They’re expecting you. Whatever you want is on the house.”

  The pilot thanked him and, after getting a nod from Jane, went to the van. Dan escorted Jane to his Jaguar and drove her, with the car’s newly installed top down, to Hangar A.

  “I’ve never been here before,” she said, over the rush of the wind.

  “I know.”

  “It looks very quiet.”

  “Sunday. Day of rest for most of the company.”

  “I see.”

  Glancing at her as they neared the hangar, Dan said, “You ought to come for a launch. Plenty of activity then.”

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about,” Jane said, looking very serious.

  Dan led her into the cool shadows of the empty hangar and up the stairs to his office.

  “No one’s here?” Jane asked as they went along the catwalk to his office.

  “Not a soul.” Niles Muhamed was in Hangar B, Dan knew, getting his team ready to pick up the 02 plane when it arrived on the freighter at Galveston. But from inside his office, the complex looked almost totally deserted.

  “Just you and me, Jane, practically alone on a tropical island.”

  She took the chair in front of his desk. “Semitropical, at best,” she said.

  Dan perched on the edge of the desk in front of her. “That’s what I need, a geography lesson.”

  “Dan, be serious. Please.”

  He didn’t feel serious. He felt like pulling her up from the chair and waltzing across the office with her in his arms. But he said, “Okay. What do you want to talk about?”

  “There’s a rumor floating around Washington that you believe your first spaceplane was sabotaged.”

  So that’s it, Dan thought. Strictly business.

  “I’m positive it was,” he said. “My chief engineer was murdered a few days afterward, and they made it look like an accident.”

  “What proof do you have?”

  “None. Not a damned thing. But one of the reasons I flew the backup bird was to prove that there’s nothing wrong with the spaceplane’s design. She flies fine when nobody messes with her.”

  “That’s pretty thin ice, Dan.”

  “I know. Nobody believes me. I can’t even get the double-damned FBI to take it seriously.”

  “I see,” Jane said. Then she fell silent.

  Dan waited a few moments, wondering what to do next. At last he asked, “Is that all you came down here to talk about?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “What else?”

  “You.”

  “Me?”

  “And Morgan.”

  “Him again,” Dan grumbled.

  “Dan, he’s the only man in America who can make this country energy independent.”

  “And rain makes applesauce.”

  “It’s true!”

  Trying to keep his feelings under control, Dan said, “Jane, Scanwell may be the only candidate who wants to make America energy independent, but—”

  “He needs your help.”

  “I am helping him! I’d appreciate a little help coming my way, too.”

  “We’re working on that. I’ve introduced the bill in the Senate to help raise financing for you.”

  “Jane, I’m tightrope-walking on a shoelace here.”

  Despite herself, she giggled. “You always did have a way with words, Dan.”

  And he grinned back at her. “One of my many talents:”

  More seriously, Jane said, “This test flight of yours has created a lot of enemies. NASA thinks—”

  “I know. They think I’m a loose cannon.”

  “Worse, Dan. They think you’re a threat to their program.”

  “That’s fine by me.”

  “But they’ll oppose you every inch of the way.”

  “So what? I don’t need their help.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “Government regulatory agencies like the FAA are going to need expert advice about your plans to fly your spaceplane again. Who do you think they’ll turn to?”

  Dan knew the answer.

  “And when you approach private investors for funding, who will they ask for an opinion?”

  “The double-damned space agency,” he growled.

  “Exactly.”

  “Well I don’t have to worry about any of that if I let Tricontinental buy into my company. Or Yamagata.”

  “We can’t have that!” she said sharply.

  “‘We’? You mean Scanwell.”

  “Yes. Morgan can’t point to you as part of his energy-independence program if you’re owned by a multinational oil company or a Japanese corporation.”

  “Scanwell won’t be able to point to me at all if I don’t get some funding damned soon. I’ll be underwater.”

  “We’re trying, Dan. But you’ve got to cooperate.”

  “I am cooperating! I’m pushing as hard as I can to get the powersat up and running.”

  “But you can’t thumb your nose at the FAA the way you just did. You can’t turn NASA into an enemy.”

  “Double-damn it to hell and back!” Dan exploded. “That test flight generated more publicity for the idea of energy independence than anything Scanwell’s done! Hell and damnation, I’m even getting nibbles of interest from potential i
nvestors, thanks to that flight.”

  “It’s not the kind of publicity we need,” Jane said. “It makes you look like a hero, I know, but it’s creating more enemies than friends for you.”

  “You mean it’s stealing the spotlight from Scanwell.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean.”

  “He’s making speeches and I’m doing something. Maybe I ought to run for president!”

  Looking up to the ceiling as if seeking divine assistance, Jane said, “Dan you simply don’t understand the way politics works. You have to make friends, not enemies.”

  “I’m not a politician, Jane. I’m just a businessman trying to keep my company from going under.”

  “You can be a great help to Morgan if you’ll just—”

  “I don’t want to help Scanwell or anybody else!” he snapped. “All I want is to get that powersat operating.”

  “And the future of the country?”

  “The country’s future’ll be a lot brighter once we have a power satellite showing that we can bring in gobs of energy from space.”

  “Dan, if you’d only work with Morgan instead of running off on your own tangent.”

  “What good would that do me?” he asked.

  Her head sank and for a moment Dan thought she was crying. But then she looked up at him again, dry-eyed. “We could get him elected president, Dan. He’s a great man. He could be a great president.”

  Anger flared deep inside him, but Dan fought to keep it under control. “Look, I like Morgan Scanwell. I really do. He might make a pretty decent president if he can get himself elected. But that’s his problem, not mine. I’ve got problems of my own, plenty of them.”

  “I know that, Dan, but can’t you see that—”

  “Jane, can’t you see that you’re the only person in the world I care about?”

  Her breath caught in her throat, then she shook her head slowly. “For what it’s worth, Dan, I feel the same way about you.”

  He felt as if he’d been dropped out of an airplane.

  “I wish I didn’t,” Jane went on, softly, almost as if talking to herself. “You’re nothing but trouble for me. But I’ve never stopped loving you. Even when I was furious with you, I knew I loved you.”