Powersat (The Grand Tour) (45 page)

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Authors: Ben Bova

BOOK: Powersat (The Grand Tour)
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“T
he French call it entrecôte,” al-Bashir was saying as he pulled up a chair for April. “Much better than the grilled steak you get in Texas.”
April sat at the wheeled cart and stared at the dinner laid out before her. Steak with some sort of sauce on it. Vegetables. A salad in a separate little plate. The silverware looked like solid silver. She picked up a fork. Yes, it was heavy.
“You must be famished,” al-Bashir said as he sat on the opposite side of the table. “Dig in, as you Americans say.”
April nibbled at the salad, sliced a piece of steak and tried to eat it. She had no appetite whatever.
Al-Bashir put down his knife and fork and looked across the table at her. “I understand,” he said softly. “This is all very strange to you, even a little frightening.”
April said nothing. She couldn’t look at him. She stared down at the table setting in front of her.
Getting to his feet, al-Bashir came around the cart and grasped her by the arm. “You’ve got to face the facts, April. There’s no life for you in America anymore. Your life is here, with me.”
“I want to go home.”
“Forget about America. Forget about Dan Randolph. His corporation will be destroyed and him along with it.”
She turned her face away from him.
His grip on her arm tightened and he pulled her to her feet. “Come to bed with me, April. You’ll enjoy it, I promise you.”
With one swift move she grabbed the steak knife from beside her plate and rammed it into al-Bashir’s soft belly. He grunted, his eyes went wide.
“How did you enjoy that, wiseass?” April snarled at him.
Al-Bashir tried to speak, but his knees gave way and he sank to the carpet, the silver knife sunk into his gut all the way up to the hilt. Blood was seeping. He tried to say something but all that came out of his mouth was a strangled little squeak.
They’ll kill me, April told herself. They’ll beat the hell out of me and gang-rape me and kill me. But at least I got him. She looked down at al-Bashir. His hands were twitching, trying to grasp the hilt of the knife.
“You’ve destroyed Dan? Well, I’ve destroyed you. How’s it feel?”
Bending over the prostrate, staring al-Bashir, April yanked the knife out of him. He screamed and blood spurted from the wound.
Holding the bloody knife, April waited for the Asian woman to return. I’ll slit the bitch’s throat, she told herself. I’ll kill as many of them as I can.
But nothing happened. No one rapped at the door. No one tried to enter. Al-Bashir was groaning, still breathing shallowly, but his eyes were closed. A growing pool of blood stained the carpet around his body.
She heard a car door slam. Going to the open French windows, she saw several men loading electronic equipment into a van. One of them looked up and pointed. For an instant April thought he was pointing at her but then she heard a roar like a rocket engine and the world exploded in a flash of fire.
 
 
B
ack on the
Truman
, the skipper stared at the satellite imagery. The hilltop villa was obliterated: nothing left standing except a few blackened stones. Even the cars and vans were only twisted wreckage now.
The steel hatch opened and the flight operations officer stepped in and saluted. The skipper dumped the satellite image and returned his salute.
“Scotty’s back. Picture-perfect trap.”
The skipper nodded. “Tell him ‘well done’ for me. And then neither of you is to say a word about this again. Ever. To anyone.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
I
t was a week later: a balmy, sunny Sunday afternoon. The Astro complex was quiet. Most of the staff were home enjoying the weekend. A skeleton crew stood by the launchpad, where the spaceplane had been mated with a fresh booster, ready for another flight to the powersat if necessary.
Nacho Chavez sat glumly in front of Dan’s desk. Beside him, Kelly Eamons looked on the verge of tears.
“It was my fault,” she said to Dan. “I encouraged her to play up to al-Bashir.”
“You warned her it was dangerous,” Chavez said. “You planted the tracker on her.”
“A lot of good it did.”
Dan could barely believe what they’d told him. “April’s dead? She was killed in the bombing of that villa?”
“With al-Bashir and almost a dozen others,” Chavez said.
“And al-Bashir was behind it all?”
“All of it. The crash of your spaceplane, the murders of Dr. Tenny and that technician, Larsen.”
“And they used my powersat to try to assassinate the president.”
Chavez nodded. Then he said, “None of this leaves this
room, Mr. Randolph. We’re depending on your discretion.”
“We thought you’d want to know about April,” said Eamons.
Dan felt stunned. April got herself mixed up in this cloak-and-dagger stuff? he kept repeating in his mind. And she’s dead? Killed. He couldn’t get himself to believe it. He expected her to pop through his office doorway any minute. But she’s dead. They killed her.
“Why in the ever-loving, blue-eyed world would she get herself involved so deep—?”
“For you,” Eamons replied. “She did it for you. I think she was in love with you.”
Dan grunted as if he’d been punched in the gut. He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. His breath caught in his throat.
“She was a very wonderful woman,” Eamons went on. “More wonderful than you know.”
Dan’s head sank halfway down to his chest. “Jesus,” he mumbled. “Sweet Jesus Christ Almighty.”
“We’re getting a good deal of information out of this Williamson guy,” Chavez said, trying to sound brighter. “He’s being very cooperative.”
So what? Dan wanted to say. Instead, he heard himself ask, “And the French? How do they feel about us bombing one of their villas?”
Chavez put on an innocent expression. “Who bombed one of their villas? The terrorists blew each other up.”
“The French are going along with that?”
“We’ve allowed them to participate in Williamson’s interrogation. I’m sure we’ll make other concessions to them, as well.”
Dan shook his head wearily. “I suppose I could offer them electricity at a cut rate.”
“The powersat is back in operation?”
“Since yesterday. Delivering ten gigawatts to White Sands, day and night. I’m getting bids for the electricity from six different power utilities in the States, and another one in Canada.”
They chatted for a few minutes more, never mentioning April again. Then Chavez got to his feet and Eamons followed suit.
“We’ve got to get back to Houston,” Chavez said.
“I can fly you.”
The FBI agent shook his head. “We’ll drive. Officially, we haven’t been here. This is all on our own time.”
“I’m really sorry about April,” Eamons said, her voice trembling.
“Yeah,” said Dan, his own voice faltering. “Me, too.”
And then there was nothing left to say. Dan shook hands with the two agents and went out to the catwalk with them. He watched them walk slowly down the metal stairs, their footsteps echoing in the empty hangar, and walk out to where Chavez’s car sat parked in the nearly empty lot.
Chavez drove away, and the hangar grew very quiet. Won’t be for long, Dan said to himself. We’ll start building two new spaceplanes in a few weeks. And laying out plans for the next power satellite.
He walked back into his office and booted up his computer to look at his appointments for the coming week.
“Testimony to Senate science subcommittee,” he read from the screen. I wonder if Jane will be there? he asked himself.
“S
o you’re telling this subcommittee that your power satellite is not dangerous?” Senator Quill asked sharply.
Seated at the green baize-covered witness table, Dan said crisply, “That’s right, Senator. A power satellite is no more dangerous than any other electrical power station, if it’s operated properly.”
“But terrorists turned it into a death ray!” snapped an angry-faced white-haired senator several seats down from Quill. “Nearly a thousand people were killed!”
Dan had expected that. “Senator,” he replied patiently, “how do you prevent terrorists from blowing up a nuclear power station?”
The senator’s white brows knit. “Why, you have guards and such.”
“Right,” said Dan. “You protect the facility. And that’s what we’re going to have to do with power satellites. Protect them. Guard them. They are very valuable assets, and just because they’re in space instead of on the ground doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be protected—or can’t be.”
“Protected how?” Quill asked, anxious to retake control of the hearing.
Dan started his prepared little lecture on building failsafes into the satellite controls and having crews standing by with spaceplanes ready to fly out to a powersat in case of any emergency. As he spoke, though, he wondered where Jane was and why she hadn’t attended this hearing.
 
 
B
y day’s end Dan felt bone tired and ready to fly back to Texas. The Senate subcommittee hearing had gone favorably, he thought. Quill had even broached the idea of proposing to the Department of Defense that the air force take on the task of protecting American assets in orbit.
Dan ate dinner with his new Washington-based public relations staff, who congratulated him on his testimony before the subcommittee. Then he rode out to Reagan National Airport in a hired limousine. The Astro corporate jet was parked outside the general aviation terminal. As he ducked out of the limo Dan saw that a dank, chilly fog was rolling in from the Potomac. He heard the thundering roar of a commercial jetliner taking off. The fog won’t keep us grounded, he thought, with relief. I’ll be home by midnight.
And then his heart flipped as he saw Jane walking toward him from the terminal building. She was wearing a fitted
suit—modest, yet it showed her figure to good advantage. Light color; it was hard to make out the shade in the dim, foggy evening light.
“You’re leaving without saying good-bye?” she asked, trying to smile.
“I was hoping we could get together while I was in Washington,” he said, “but then I figured it wasn’t going to work.”
“You’re going back to Texas.”
“And you’re going to the White House.”
She hesitated a heartbeat, then stepped closer to him, so close he could feel the warmth of her, smell the delicate scent of her perfume.
“Dan,” she breathed, “maybe I should go to Texas with you.”
His jaw dropped open.
“I could give it up, the whole thing, all of it,” Jane said.
“Leave Scanwell? Leave Washington?”
She didn’t reply. He saw tears welling in her eyes.
“You can’t do that, Jane,” he heard himself say. “You’d hate yourself in the morning.”
“Be serious—”
“I am. You’d hate
me
, sooner or later. If Scanwell doesn’t win the election, you’d be miserable.”
“But what about us?”
Now he fell silent for a long, agonizing moment. At last, “It just won’t work, Jane. There’s too much between us.”
“Your satellite.”
“Your career. Scanwell. The White House.”
“My God, Dan … I wish it wasn’t like this.”
“But it is.”
She leaned her head on his shoulder and he slipped his arms around her waist. Dan’s mind was racing, trying to find a way, thinking of what would happen if …
He lifted her chin and looked into her misty green eyes. “I love you, Jane. I always will.”
“And I love you, Dan.”
She kissed him lightly on the lips. He let his arms slide away from their embrace. They stood face to face, almost touching, silent and miserable.
“Well,” he said, “good luck. After you get elected, invite me to the White House.”
“The Lincoln Bedroom,” she said, trying to smile.
Dan realized there were no more words in him. He walked past her to the plane that was waiting for him. It was the most difficult thing he had ever done.
S
everal weeks later, Dan sat alone at his desk in the evening shadows and watched Morgan Scanwell make his acceptance speech at the convention.
“ … and more than mere energy independence, the United States will become the supplier of energy to the world, energy to raise the living standards of the poor: clean, renewable energy to build new industries, new cities …”
His phone called out, “Mr. Yamagata on line one, boss.”
Dan frowned at the synthesized voice’s interruption, but he realized that it must be lunchtime in Tokyo. Despite himself, he grinned at the thought of Saito delaying a meal just to talk to him. So he muted the TV and shrank the scene from the convention to a small box at the bottom corner of the screen.
Saito Yamagata’s round face beamed a big smile at him. “Congratulations, Daniel, my friend. You have a president that will be very helpful to you.”
“He’s not elected yet,” Dan said.
“He will be. My experts assure me that Scanwell will beat the incumbent by a comfortable margin.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“We should discuss a strategic partnership between my corporation and yours,” Yamagata said.
Dan felt his brows hike. “Scanwell’s preaching energy independence, Sai. He wants us to stand by ourselves.”
Yamagata’s smile didn’t falter one millimeter. “What he says now to get elected and what he finds as realities once he’s in the White House are two very different things.”
“Meaning?”
“The Japanese ambassador and his technical aides are already discussing cooperation between Japan and the United States in building power satellites. Surely the global energy market is big enough for us both.”
Dan nodded, thinking, Sai’s no fool. “I get it,” he said to Yamagata. “If Scanwell partners the U.S. with Japan it’ll cut the legs out from under OPEC and the guys who fund terrorists.”
Yamagata made a polite shrug. “It might help Scanwell to overcome the pressures from Garrison and the oil industry, as well.”
“You know that double-damned Garrison cut off Tricontinental’s loans to me as soon as we got the powersat working again.”
“I’m not surprised. Garrison has no interest in helping any form of energy that competes with oil.”
“Maybe.”
“Don’t you worry about him, Daniel. I predict a very bright future for us.”
“Us?”
“Astro and Yamagata. An alliance beneficial to both corporations and to both nations.”
Dan saw in the corner of the screen that Scanwell had finished his acceptance speech. Jane came up beside him and he put an arm around her. Husband and wife.
That’s it, he thought. The whole world knows about them now. It’s over. You’ll never have her. You had your chance and you threw it away. Beau Geste, that’s who the hell I am. A double-damned idiot.
Yamagata was saying, “You’re going to become a very wealthy man, Daniel. An extremely wealthy man.”
“Yeah,” said Dan sourly. “I guess so.”
And he thought about Hannah, Joe Tenny, Pete Larsen, April. Is it worth the cost? Nearly a thousand killed by the terrorists. Is anything worth all those lives?
His eyes strayed from the images on the screen to the models on his desk: the powersat and the spaceplane. We’re going to change the world, Dan told himself. We’ve paid the price, and now we’re going to start bringing the world energy from space.
I’ll get filthy rich, just like Garrison. And Jane’s going to be president of the United States one day. Big fucking deal.
He said good-bye to the still-smiling Yamagata and shut down his screen. Sliding out from behind his heavy dark desk, Dan went out to the catwalk, still half-expecting to see April as he passed her desk. He climbed the metal stairs and stepped out onto the hangar’s roof. The sun had set more than an hour ago, but the sky was still aflame with deep reds and violets. A fresh breeze was blowing in from the gulf, carrying the rich scent of pines and the salty tang of the sea.
Turning toward the southwestern horizon, Dan saw a single bright star gleaming against the growing darkness. The power satellite. The future. With a sardonic smile twisting his lips he stared at it and promised himself he’d build a whole constellation of them.
He heard Yamagata’s voice in his head:
You’re going to become a very wealthy man, Daniel. An extremely wealthy man.
Maybe so, he thought. But the real job is to make the world wealthier. That’s what’s important.
His bitterness ebbed a little. Not a bad goal for a man to have, he told himself. Saving the world.

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