Space in His Heart (34 page)

The
sailboat seemed miles away, though she guessed the long river dock
to be only seventy or eighty feet. Her bare feet hardly touched the
planks as she bolted to the
Tailwind
.

She slipped
onto the deck of the boat and dropped flat on her stomach, gasping
for air and shaking. Her arm still hurt where Bill had twisted it
and the look in his eyes burned in her memory. She heard a pelican
splash. The mast rigging clanged as her weight swayed the boat. She
silently swore and managed to calm her breathing.

She tried to
listen over the thumping beat of her heart. Had he seen her?

She heard
nothing. She stayed absolutely still, her face and body smashed
against the fiberglass bottom of the boat, the brackish smell of
river water and fish permeating her nostrils.

She
inched her face around to breathe, expecting to see Bill jump at
her any second. Instead, she saw a brilliant, glimmering star in
the sky. Somewhere, limping along in his spacecraft, was
the
man she loved and needed as
much as the very air that she breathed. How she longed for him to
save her. But first, he had to save himself.

She had to stay
alive. She had to be there when Deke landed that shuttle. She
squeezed the cushion and stared at a single star in the night sky.
They needed to stay alive. Both of them. They had so much to live
for.

That was her
mantra as she waited. So much to live for. Deke and Jessica. Love.
Family. Children. Home. A life filled with the exhilaration that
comes with knowing you are doing something that really matters.
Together. Jessica and Deke. She would not, could not, live without
him. She had to convince him they were meant to be together. They
were both wrong about what they thought they wanted. They wanted
each other. She would convince him.

They had so
much to live for. They had each other.

* * *

The flight
director spoke calmly to Deke. “We’re not recommending the bailout,
Commander. But the final decision is yours.”

“Roger,
Houston. We’re talking about it.”

Deke looked
back at his crew. Two mission specialists, one pilot, and a doctor.
On the middeck below, one very sick cosmonaut. All suited in
matching pressure suits and prepared to do what he decided. He held
all of their lives in his hands.

And his
own.

“
You can
bring this thing in on manual even if we lose that computer.” Kurt
finally said to him. They all knew that had never been done before,
except in a sim. And, whoa, that had been ugly
.

But he had no
choice. Petrenko would surely die in a bailout.

“
We’re
going to attempt a landing, with or without the computer.” Deke
said to all of them. “I don’t think we have a shot at
surviving
a
bailout and
it’ll kill Micah.”

They nodded and
silently moved to their various positions. No one questioned the
decision.

Before
Deke announced his plans to Houston, he imagined what he could say
to Jessica. What he
would
say.
Because, damn it all, he was going to land this bird and finding
her would be the first thing he did when his feet hit Mother
Earth.

“
Houston,
go ahead and get your media circus on runway thirty-three.” He
smiled. She’d get
that
message.
She’d be there. “We’re coming in.”

* * *

How long had
she been hiding, Jessica wondered. Twenty minutes? An hour? She
hadn’t moved, hadn’t dared give Bill any clue that she had hidden
in the boat. Her fingers burned where she clutched the cushion.
Slowly, she relaxed them and tried to inch the vinyl pillow to a
different spot under her head. As she did, something under it
clunked.

She bit
her lip and froze at the sound. Then, in the moonlight, metal
flashed. A key. On a floatation device. He’d hidden a key. She
could motor away to safety!
Bless you, Deke Stockard
. He’d saved her after all.

Did she dare
start the engine? In the dark, she felt under the helm for the
ignition she remembered seeing when she’d been in the boat with
Deke.

The lines
. She
had to untie the boat from the pilings of the dock. Slowly, she
lifted her head like a periscope and peered over the edge of the
boat toward the darkened pathway, looking for a flash of the white
shirt Bill wore.
Farther
down, much closer to her house, she thought she saw
something move in the shadows.
Did he actually think she’d
return while he was there, or was he just waiting for her to give
away her hiding place?

She
climbed out
on
to the
dock, her quivering fingers seizing the ropes that Deke had, of
course, tightened securely. She untwisted the knot, feeling the
rope slide free. The stern line was tighter and sweat dripped
between her shoulder blades as she struggled with it. Her nail bent
backward and she gasped, then heard the creak of the
gate.

The rope
released and she grabbed the side of the boat and fell back toward
the helm. There was a pedal and a throttle and she remembered Deke
had used both to motor them around.

Holding her
breath, she felt along the side near the helm for the rubber ring
of the ignition. Damn, she’d been so busy watching Deke that she
hadn’t paid any attention to what he’d done to start the motor. She
found the circular opening and slipped the key in.

The
footsteps sounded closer. Slamming her foot on
to
the pedal and moving the throttle stick at
the same time, the diesel engine started with a cough, then
died.

Oh God. She
twisted the key again and stole a look at the dock. He’d found her.
He was jogging toward her, the knife blade reflecting the meager
moonlight.

The engine
turned over and she put all her weight on the floor pedal and
screeched the throttle. The boat moved away from the dock. Slowly,
inching, not nearly fast enough.

She heard Bill
grunt as he leaped from the dock and grabbed hold of the side of
the boat.

She threw the
throttle down harder and the engine sputtered as it gathered
strength. She willed the boat to move.

She turned to
see Bill hanging on and she reached over and banged his hands
against the fiberglass as he struggled to gain a hold.

“
Get off,
you bastard!” she screamed and pounded as the
Tailwind
inched
farther
into the river.

She slammed his
fingers and tried to bend them up, but he pulled his body up to a
half stand and was about to fling himself into the boat when
Jessica lifted her right leg and kicked him as hard as she
could.

With a
gasp, he fell into the river and the knife flew into the air,
splashing at the same instant he did. The boat picked up a little
speed and each second it took her farther into the channel and away
from
Bill, who was sputtering and flailing
toward the boat.

Into the
black night she motored, breathing only when she was sure he
couldn’t catch her. She had no idea where she was headed, but she
had to figure out how to get out of the water and up to Kennedy.
If
Endeavour
really
had started its journey home, she had to be there when he
landed.

About a
mile from Deke’s dock, she picked up the handset of the radio and
started pressing buttons
;
a reassuring static told her it worked. Of course it
worked. Everything worked. This was
Deke’s
boat. She dropped her head back and stared up at the star.
Somewhere up there, she had a guardian angel. Now who was looking
out for him?

* * *

Deke glanced at
Kurt as they harnessed themselves in and did a verbal situation
status check with the rest of the crew. Everyone was ready.

“Start deorbit
burn in five seconds,” he instructed Kurt.

The pilot
executed the deorbit burn sequence easily. The orbiter jerked in
response and Deke could see the protective tiles on the nose in
front of him
beginning
to glow.

Deke guided the
stick to the proper nose-first attitude as they braced to hit the
atmosphere. His gaze moved from screen to screen, every cell in his
body concentrating on the sequence of events. The blackness of
space began to lighten, shock waves of air rolled and exploded as
the spacecraft vibrated and groaned.

“Deorbit burn
complete, Houston,” Deke reported.

“
Roger,
Endeavour
. You
can start your S turns, Commander.”

Outside the
window of the cockpit, the skin of the shuttle now burned bright
red with the heat of reentry. With more effort, Deke pulled the
stick and the orbiter shuddered through the first of a series of
wide curves that would lower the speed. The pressure dropped, his
flight suit weighing down on him, his visor vibrating on his
helmet. He peered at each computer screen, willing them to
function.

“Houston, our
altitude is seventy-five thousand feet.” He kept his voice steady
regardless of the violent shaking of the orbiter. “We’re descending
at one six three per second. We are one hundred and forty-five
nautical miles from Kennedy. Over.”

“Roger,
Endeavour. Ground track and nav are go.”

Deke took the
stick and held it as steady as he could.

Another alarm
screamed. “The rudder readout is dead,” Kurt shouted over the
racket. “We lost the computer.”

For the
first time, Deke knew his chances of getting home were next to
nothing.
You
can never be a hundred percent sure.

Chapter
Twenty-seven

Jessica
could see the lights of the Coast Guard ship coming toward her. God
bless the radio. She’d finally reached someone and help was
bouncing
in her direction
over the waves of the Banana River.

The Coast
Guard speedboat zipped next to the
Tailwind
and an official-looking young man climbed onto her
little ship.

“Did you radio
for help, ma’am?” he asked.

“Yes, please.
Can someone please take this boat and get it docked somewhere safe
and get me to the Cape? It’s an emergency. I have to get to the
space center immediately.” She heard the alarm in her own
voice.

“Don’t you want
to stay with your boat, ma’am? Then someone could probably get you
up to Kennedy.”

“No, no. Have
you heard anything about the shuttle?” she demanded, ignoring his
suggestion. “Are they okay?”

The man looked
at her questioningly. “They were having some trouble a few hours
ago. Haven’t heard the double sonic boom. You always hear that
right before it lands safely.”

“
Please,”
she grabbed his arm and didn’t care if she looked like a lunatic.
“I need to get to the landing facility. My… my… my future husband
i
s
on that
shuttle.”

He must have a
soft spot for lunatics. They helped her transfer into the speedboat
and cut through the waves toward a Coast Guard station. A captain
hustled her into a waiting van with a driver and kindly let her use
a cell phone during the half-hour trip up to the Cape.

Before
she could get any information on
Endeavour
, she knew she had to get someone after Bill
Dugan. She’d alerted the Coast Guard and they promised to get the
police to search the area around her house. She managed to reach
Tony at home. This time, he didn’t defend the culprit. In fact, he
admitted that he had no idea Bill had even gone to the
Cape.

“Now, Jessica, about your job in
Emerging—”

“I’m quitting, Tony.”

Stone silence met the announcement she hadn’t
even realized she was going to make until the words were out. And,
damn, they sounded good.

“Is this about Carla? Because I’m having
second thoughts about her as GM and I think you’d be perfect for
the job. The folks at Dash have uncovered some, let’s just call it,
‘creative’ accounting issues and—”

“I don’t care about Carla, Tony. She’s your
problem. And I don’t really want to be general manager.”

“What are you going to do?”

Stay with Deke. Marry him. Have babies and
laughter and love for the rest of her life. “I’m thinking about
working in Public Affairs at the Cape,” she said. “I think Stuey
will hire me.”

“Stuey?”

The van driver turned on the radio and she
heard the only word that mattered to her.

Endeavour
.

“I gotta go, Tony.”

They’d reached
the guard gate at the runway field. But her heart suddenly dropped
again when the driver turned and asked for her ID.

“
An
ID
?” She gasped.
“I don’t even have shoes, for crying out loud.”

“Ma’am, we
can’t let you anywhere near the landing site without proper
ID.”

From memory,
she dialed Stuart’s cell phone.

When he
answered, she thought life itself had just been given back to
her.

“Stuart, where
are they? What’s happening?”

“They’re coming
in with no computer on a manual land.” Stuart’s usually calm voice
had an eerie tone of panic in it. “You better get out here.”

“Please, Stu. I
don’t have my ID. I’m at the south guard gate at the landing
facility.”

“Put the guard
on the phone.”