“What is it?” she asked, hoping her tone adequately conveyed her impatience.
“I want you to hear me out. Before you say a word, just listen to me.”
She stole another look at the darkened TV screen and stayed standing. “Okay. Shoot.”
“Except for the work you’ve been doing, Colonel Price is not thrilled with the agency.”
His words caught her attention and she ignored the NASA feed for the first time in hours. “What do you mean?”
“There’s a lot going on behind the scenes you don’t know about,” he said vaguely.
She had no time for games. “Be specific.”
“Well, they’re happy with the Stockard campaign, but overall, R&C is expensive and our results haven’t always been what they’re looking for.”
A tingle of understanding started to spread as she let him continue.
“They’re considering a new agency. I’ve proposed to Price that I open my own shop. NASA would be my first account. At their current budget level, it’s a healthy start. And you must have figured out by now that they like your work, Jess.” He adjusted his glasses and looked up at her. “Come and work for me. Pick your title. We could grow the business together and you could continue to work on this account and any others we get.”
She knew she smelled treason. He hadn’t come down here because of rumors. He’d finally figured out that Colonel Price valued her over him. And that didn’t fit in with his plans.
“Did you tell the Colonel about the stationery in my office?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. But it ought to seal the deal for us. I think your idea of pinning it on Carla is a good one.”
Jessica reared back, surprised. “My idea of pinning it on her? I want to find out the truth.”
The phone rang and she grabbed the cordless on the coffee table before he could react.
“Carla’s clean,” Jo whispered and Jessica’s heart dropped. “The emails haven’t come from a server in Boston.”
“Oh.” She couldn’t hide the disappointment in her voice.
“But we might have found the culprit.”
Jessica waited, silently, staring at Bill.
“The server is in Washington, D.C., Jess. The one that’s used by R&C Washington.”
Jessica swallowed hard, a slow, icy drip of realization sliding through her veins.
Of course… Bill.
She’d been looking at the real political animal all along. It wasn’t Carla Drake who wanted the agency to flounder. It was the man who planned to steal the NASA account. The man who knew enough about the program to write an eloquent memo... maybe even fueled by information he was getting from Skip Bowker. A man who certainly knew how to seed a story with Newsweek... and was in her office with enough time to plant some of the old stationery in her cabinet, just in case someone from her company had to take the blame.
“Really? That’s very interesting. I better go now. Bill Dugan’s here.”
She disconnected, then set the cordless phone on the table, preparing her accusation. “When’s the last time you updated your client stationery files, Bill?”
He slowly rose from the sofa and they stood eye-to-eye.
“Who was that?”
“An employee of mine. The one who just found the server that was used to send the emails to Newsweek.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You can’t prove anything that way.”
“No. But you’re opening your own agency, Bill, and stealing a big account. Your motivation to make R&C look bad is pretty strong. Did you put the extra stationery in my office while I was out of the office so you could pin the memos on me? Or was that just dumb luck?”
He took a step toward her and she jerked away.
“Where did you get all the information?” she demanded. “Did Skip Bowker leak all that to you? So you’d be his puppet with your media contacts? So you’d leak the story about the cosmonaut and the inspection problems?”
He just narrowed his eyes, a thin sheen of sweat forming above his lip. “You’re crazy, Jess.”
She shook her head. “No. No, I’m not. You’ve been sabotaging me all along. To make R&C look bad so you can have the account. And now that you know they like me, you want to use me—”
He lunged at her across the coffee table and she jumped back. Stunned that he would try to hurt her, she froze. “Get out of here. You’re dead in the water, Dugan. Your list of transgressions is a mile long, starting with tampering with government property.”
His face paled. “Don’t be a fool, Jessica. I’ve run the NASA account for years. No one would believe I’d do anything to hurt the business.”
She pointed to the door. “Get the hell out of here.”
The TV flashed to a white screen and crackled. They both turned at the same time.
NASA Coverage Discontinued, a simple banner read.
She glared back at Bill. “Go!” she screamed, her focus dragged to the TV and what this could possibly mean. Grabbing the remote, she stabbed in the number of an all-news channel and looked back at Bill, realizing he’d stepped into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” She used the remote to point to the front door. “Get out of my house.”
His eyes darkened, but he held up one hand in surrender. “I’ll leave the back way,” he said, and she saw him step toward the sliding door to the patio.
“We have word from Johnson Space Center’s Mission Control that a problem on the space shuttle Endeavour has resulted in the loss of one of its onboard computers.” The newscaster yanked her attention and she spun back to the TV.
“Oh my God,” she covered her mouth in horror and stared at the screen, aware of the sound of the sliding door opening, grateful that Bill had left. She’d deal with his lunacy later.
The image switched to a familiar network reporter she’d spoken to many times in the last few months. She punched the volume, desperate for information.
“NASA has not released official word, but the open feed to the shuttle has been closed off to the public and only Mission Control in Houston is in touch with Commander Stockard and his crew at this time.” Her heart froze at the mention of his name. She upped the volume again, as if making it louder could change the news.
“We’ve been given no word on the status of the cosmonaut Micah Petrenko, only that he has exited the Space Station and is under medical surveillance on board Endeavour. NASA has reported that the space shuttle had begun its firing sequence to undock and return to Earth when one of the onboard computers failed.”
Jessica’s throat closed in terror, a white heat suffocating her as the reporter continued, “A landing with only redundant systems functioning is considered an emergency and is unprecedented in well over one hundred shuttle missions. The only other option, should the redundant computer fail, is an in-flight crew escape system that has never been tested except in simulated training exercises.”
It would be torture for both of us.
Yes, Deke, it might be. A moan escaped her lips and her legs threatened to buckle as she listened to the reporter close his story.
“It remains to be seen if Commander Stockard will opt to bail out by parachute at thirty thousand feet tonight or early tomorrow morning.” Bail out by—
The hand clamped on her mouth, making her stumble backward as Bill jerked her other arm behind her. She gasped for air, but only sucked the skin of his hand and he twisted the other arm harder.
“You will not screw this up for me,” he growled in her ear. Then she saw the glint in the hand that covered her mouth. Blindingly close, she could make out the serrated edges of her knife, still wet with tomato juice.
Jessica started to scream, but Bill’s hand strangled her into a mumble.
“Shut up!”
She closed her eyes, blood rushing through her head, barely hearing the phone ringing on the table. He tugged her arm up at a painful angle.
“Poor Jessica,” he whispered and slowly started backing her out of
the room. “Her career shot to hell. Her promotion lost. Her boyfriend in trouble—maybe dying—in space. She must have snapped.”
He cracked her arm in time with the word and her shoulder exploded in agony as he dragged her toward the kitchen.
“I’ll be the one to find your body,” he said quietly, a bit of glee in his voice like he was in a brainstorming session and the ideas were just flowing. “You’ll be in the river. I’ll help them piece together exactly what happened.”
As he forced her from the living room toward the darkened patio, the last thing she saw on the TV screen was a still shot of Deke Stockard standing next to his T-38, a look of amused annoyance captured by the photographer.
* * *
To Deke’s left, Janine Harmon floated up from the middeck, a worried look in her eyes.
He shook his head to indicate he couldn’t talk to her as he listened to Mission Control read the coordinates on the orbital maneuvering system.
“Roger that, Houston,” he responded. “Your OMS coordinates match our redundant system. Ready to fire.”
Deke glanced down at her, then back to one of the nine displays he’d been studying. “We’re still on one backup computer system, Doctor.” The backup had lasted long enough to get them undocked and headed back to earth.
An instruction from Houston crackled in his headset.
“Roger, Houston.” Deke reached forward and set his finger on one of twenty-eight switches on the panel to his right. He knew the correct one by feel.
“Fire thrusters on,” he said. “Fire on five, four, three, two, one.” He pressed a button and the orbiter jerked to the left, its steel frame creaking.
“OMS and thrusters positioned, Houston,” Kurt Muir reported from the seat on Deke’s right.
Momentarily relieved, Deke leaned back from the stick and looked at Janine. “How is he?”
“Bad. Way worse than we were led to believe. He’s not responding to the anticoagulant. How long until we land?”
“We’re not far from the reentry orbit headed to Kennedy and should touch down in less than two hours.” He turned to his co-pilot, now struggling with the new computer readings. “If the redundant computer holds out. If it doesn’t, we land manually or we abort and bail out.”
Janine floated higher, her eyes wide. “I’ve trained on the new escape system. It’s a bear. I’m not sure Micah would survive it.”
Deke resisted the urge to say what he and Kurt both knew. None of them would likely survive it.
“If we abort,” Deke told them, “we’ll go into autopilot glide, then depressurize the cabin to equalize outside pressure and jettison the hatch.” He swallowed hard at the thought. “Starting with you and Micah, we’ll each hook up the parachute harness to the escape pole and jump out. Remember to use the pole for the trajectory to take us below the left wing.”
“At what altitude?” Janine asked softly.
“Thirty thousand feet.”
She paled. “He’ll never make that jump, Commander.”
Deke knew she was right. Petrenko looked closer to death than they’d expected. Deke had met him a few years ago and remembered the vital young Russian with sparkling green eyes and nearly platinum hair. His eyes had no light in them now; his skin was as pale as his blond locks.
“We have forty minutes to make a decision and watch this computer. God willing, we’ll land with it. If not, we can land the old-fashioned way. On a wing and a prayer.”
The three of them shared a look.
“But just in case we decide to abort, suit up now and get everyone in jumping gear,” he instructed.
Silently, Janine floated back down to her patient and Deke and Kurt rose to help each other into the orange pressure suits.
After he was suited, Deke returned to the cockpit and listened to Kurt quietly discussing his calculations of trajectory paths and readings with Houston. Deke peered into the blackness of space soaring past him. He closed his eyes to the stars and let his imagination go where he longed to be.
Jessie. He could see her face and hair, hear her infectious laugh, inhale her flowery scent. The will to survive nearly jolted him.
He didn’t want to die without holding her again. He didn’t want to die without telling her he loved her. He didn’t want to live… without her.
The screech of an alarm broke his reverie. “Auxiliary power unit one is failing, Commander,” Kurt announced. “Wing flap and landing gear moving to aux power two.”
Good God, they blew a fuel cell in an auxiliary unit. “Remove the panel and override it,” Deke barked to Kurt, then into his headset, “Houston, we’re moving wing flap and landing gear to aux power two.”
Forget the wing. Now they’d have to land on just a prayer.
Chapter Twenty-six
Bill kept a hand clamped on Jessica’s mouth and twisted her arm so viciously that flashes sparked behind her eyes, the only light on an otherwise pitch-black evening.
“Don’t make me stab you, Jess,” he warned. “Get in the water and give up. You are about to kill yourself.”
He was a madman. He had no plan. He was insane and would panic any minute.
She could outsmart him. All she needed was… a creative idea.
He jerked her head toward the sky, but from memory of the dozens of mornings she’d jogged this path, she knew exactly where she was. Past the queen palm that she used for leg stretches. She automatically lifted her foot, knowing a rock jutted out on the path. Bill stumbled over it and cursed.
Oh, yes. Her advantage. She knew every inch of this path, even in the dark. Many mornings she’d run before sunrise, to clear her brain and work her body. Every time she made it past the stand of oaks at the half-mile point, she’d start counting the steps until she reached Deke’s dock.
Deke’s dock. If she could escape Bill, she could lose him and hide on the boat. Maybe even sail it away.
Her property ended in a mass of mangrove and pepper trees, a jungle of roots and branches that blocked direct access to the river. He’ll never get through it, she thought.
“One word,” he warned as his grip over her mouth loosened. “One word and this knife goes straight through your back. I’ll weigh you down so you’ll rot at the bottom of that river and they’ll never find you.”
He let go of her mouth and she gasped for air. He twisted her arm with his left hand. With the knife, he whacked at a mangrove branch. Leaves fluttered and he tightened his grip on her and swore in frustration. They took a step into the roots and she felt the cold water lap against her bare feet.
The knife thwacked another branch and Bill pushed her farther into the water, now lapping at her knees. They were trapped in the mangroves and he took another angry swing at a branch, then another. In his determination, she felt the grip on her arm loosen. Ever so slightly. One more swing and he almost let go of her.
As the blade sliced a branch, she tore her arm out of his grip and took off, stones and roots stabbing at her bare feet, the wind whistling in her ears the minute she found her footing and started to move.
“God damn you!” he called with a flutter of leaves and a grunt. She hoped he tripped and got caught on the roots, but didn’t turn to see. With every stride, she stretched her legs farther, willing herself to get to the boat before her enemy caught up with her.
She reached the dock, stealing a look down the path as she struggled with the latch of the wooden gate. She heard a twig snap in the distance, but couldn’t see Bill. She had to take the chance, praying it was dark enough to sneak to the end of the Deke’s dock. The latch slid and Jessica stepped on the wooden boards, hoping they didn’t give her away and remembering to lock the gate behind her so he wouldn’t notice it open when he reached the dock.
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, gas
ping 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.