Powersat (The Grand Tour) (5 page)

Authors: Ben Bova

BOOK: Powersat (The Grand Tour)

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“Yeah. And with a little luck maybe a terrorist will blow him up.”

“So much the better!”

Dan shook his head warily. “The politicians have backed away from us, Len. You know that God knows I’ve tried to get political support in Washington. They’re just not interested.”

“That’s because you’re too goddamned independent for them. And NASA sees you as competition. Nobody in Washington is going to back a new private venture against an existing government agency.”

“But we’re not competition …”

“As you say it, boss: And rain makes applesauce.”

Randolph stared at his P.R. director. “Did you know that that phrase came from NASA’s first director of public relations? He used it in a children’s book he wrote.”

Kinsky shrugged carelessly. “Boss, you should meet the governor.”

“I already did, once. Didn’t I?”

“At the rollout ceremony for the spaceplane, yeah; he was here for that.”

“So what do I do now? Go to the governor with my hat in my hand and ask him for a handout?”

“No! You get him to invite you to Austin. And when you
get there, you tell him how you can help him get into the White House.”

Despite his doubts, Dan smiled. “Okay. How do I get him to invite me to Austin?”

“Leave that to me, boss. That’s what I get paid for.”

KHARTOUM, SUDAN

T
he Sun was setting over the dusty, picked-bare hills. Standing alone at the window of the now-empty conference room, Asim al-Bashir watched the molten red ball sinking slowly, slowly into the parched and dying earth, turning the cloudless hot sky into a bowl of burnished copper, sending long purple shadows across the decaying old stone fortress, the ancient mosque of the city’s central square, the modern office and apartment blocks that were already crumbling gradually into disrepair.

After three days of sometimes bitter discussion, the others of The Nine had left the hotel to go their separate ways. They had listened to al-Bashir’s plan, incredulous at first, but with slowly increasing understanding. None of them were enthusiastic about it, but at last they had reluctantly given their approval. The power satellite would be used for their purposes, and the Americans would not even realize they had been attacked. But this attack would kill thousands, tens of thousands, and it would humble the arrogant Americans mercilessly. They will turn on themselves after this, al-Bashir thought, rending each other in an eruption of accusations and recriminations. They will do our work for us.

And the very idea of a power satellite will be damned forever. Al-Bashir smiled to himself as he saw a future in which
the West became even more dependent on oil from the lands of Islam. Oil is power, he told himself. Nothing must be allowed to challenge that power.

The cry of a muezzin came wailing faintly from the loudspeakers in the distant mosque’s minaret:

“Come to prayer. Come to salvation. Allah is most great. There is no god but Allah.”

Al-Bashir turned, ready to go back to his hotel room upstairs. He had no intention of taking a chance on being seen outside the hotel, especially at the hour of prayer, when a man in an expensive Western business suit was something to stare at.

He was startled to see the Sudanese who had hosted the meeting of The Nine standing in the doorway of the conference room, silently watching him.

“Will you pray with me, my brother?” The Sudanese’s voice was surprisingly soft and gentle for such a stoutly built man. In his white djellaba and turban he looked like a mountain of snow, except for his deeply black face. They think of themselves as Arabs, al-Bashir thought, and lord it over their neighbors in the south of the country who have not surrendered to Allah.

“I will be honored to pray with you, my brother,” said al-Bashir. Prayer was not foremost in his thinking, but he agreed to the Sudanese’s simple request out of respect for the greatness of Islam, where men of all races were equals. Neither wealth nor poverty, neither family nor the color of a man’s skin nor the land of one’s birth should stand between those who have accepted the faith.

The Sudanese led him down a corridor of the hotel to a small private office, which he unlocked with an old-fashioned metal key. He went to a filing cabinet and withdrew two prayer rugs from its bottom drawer. The rug he handed al-Bashir looked threadbare, almost fragile.

“My grandfather’s,” the Sudanese murmured. “It was all he had left after the rebels took his village. They raped all the women and slaughtered all the younger men.”

Civil war, al-Bashir knew. Sudan had been torn apart by
civil war for two generations and more. North against south. Moslems against the nomadic pagan tribes who camped in their tents atop billions of dollars worth of oil deposits. It was the oil that counted, al-Bashir knew. In the end, all wars are fought over wealth, even civil wars.

After their prayers, the Sudanese carefully rolled up the rugs and placed them back in the filing cabinet drawer from which he had taken them.

“Tell me, my brother,” he said softly, looking away from al-Bashir, toward the blank and silent computer screen on the desk, “this thing with the power satellite—it will kill many?”

Al-Bashir nodded. “Many thousands. Tens of thousands, perhaps even more.”

“But the Americans will not know that we of the faith have done this to them? They will believe it was an accident?”

“Yes. An accident that will cripple their efforts to steal energy from space.”

“Which will make them more dependent on oil from the lands of Islam?”

“Indeed so. If all goes as I believe it will, we will be in a position to demand a return of the oil fields the Americans now control. We will drive them out of the Persian Gulf region altogether.”

“But it will kill many thousands? Truly?”

“Truly,” said al-Bashir.

The Sudanese appeared to think about that for a few silent moments. At last he said, “It is good, then. Hurt them. Hurt them as we have been hurt. Let them suffer as we have suffered. Let them know the pain and blood that have made my life into an endless hell. May God’s will be done.”

“Indeed, brother,” said al-Bashir. And he thought, Keep the Americans dependent on our oil. That is our power over them. As long as they need our oil they must bend to our will. But we must be subtle. We must be as silent as the snake. And as deadly.

THORNTON RANCH, LOVE COUNTY, OKLAHOMA

F
rom her bedroom window in the sprawling old ranch house, Jane Thornton could see the Red River winding through the wheat fields and, off in the distance, the greener pastures where cattle still grazed. Texas lay on the other side of the river, but here along its northern bank stretched the family ranch, as it had for generations.

Easterners thought of Oklahoma as oil country, even now, a quarter century after most of the oil had been pumped out of the ground. All through the oil boom of the twentieth century the Thornton family had tended its acres, growing wheat and beef, the staples that people needed no matter who was getting filthy rich from oil. Now, with the oil just about gone, the wheat and cattle remained to feed the hungry—at a price that kept the Thorntons in luxury and provided the money to send a Thornton to the U.S. Senate.

Jane’s father had been a senator and had groomed his eldest son to take his seat when the time came. But Junior had killed himself, his wife, and both children in the crash of his private plane. Dad saw to it that his blood alcohol level was never revealed to the public, but neither money nor influence could heal the pain and shock of the tragedy. Then Dad died in office from a massive stroke, and the governor that he had maneuvered into office in Oklahoma City appointed Jane to fill out his unexpired term.

She had met a headstrong young engineer named Dan Randolph and fallen into a whirlwind of romance with him, but then he’d run off to Japan to follow his own wild dreams and Jane had gone to Washington.

Jane found that she enjoyed being a United States senator. She enjoyed the power of belonging to that exclusive little
club of one hundred men and women. Quickly she latched onto Senator Bob Quill, the “silver fox” who chaired the Senate Finance Committee. He became her mentor, and there were even occasional rumors that they were having an affair, rumors that never got far because the standard wisdom on Capitol Hill was that Quill was the straightest arrow in the quiver, and Jane Thornton was the Ice Queen, beautiful but cold and aloof.

Both those characterizations were very far off the mark, although Jane and Quill kept their relationship strictly nonsexual. Jane had a lover, but no one knew it. She went to great lengths to make certain that no one—not even her closest staff aides—knew about her love life.

Dan Randolph had popped into her life again briefly, disastrously. They had parted for good, she thought, on the Day of the Bridges.

She turned from the window and began to dress for dinner: denim skirt and short-sleeved white blouse. Ranch casual. No need to be fancy. She didn’t have to impress anyone—that would be Scanwell’s objective, not hers.

She was tugging on her slingbacks when she saw Scanwell’s car coming down the long driveway from the main road from Marietta. Right on time, she thought, smiling. How like the man.

When she got downstairs, Denny O’Brien was already in the entry hall introducing himself to Scanwell. The governor had come to this meeting alone, flying his own plane from Austin and then driving a Thornton car from the airport outside Marietta. He looked tired, Jane thought; he could use a weekend of rest.

“The senator’s told me a lot about you, Governor,” O’Brien was saying. He had to look up; Scanwell towered over him.

The governor of Texas looked like the Hollywood image of a cowboy: tall, rangy, with a craggy yet handsome face and sky-blue eyes that twinkled boyishly when he smiled. He was wearing whipcord slacks and a suede sports jacket. And well-worn tan boots.

Jane had to smile at the contrast between pudgy, globular O‘Brien and the lean, lanky Morgan Scanwell. He had been a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation when Jane had first met him, but he had quit the FBI in disgust over the political infighting with the Homeland Security Department that had hamstrung the Bureau. Guided by the philosophy, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” Morgan Scanwell had entered politics, swiftly rising from a councilman in suburban Houston to governor of Texas—with the advice and substantial financial help from the Thornton family in neighboring Oklahoma.

Jane guided them to the bar off to one side of the spacious living room. The butler served drinks as they made themselves comfortable, Jane in her favorite wing chair, where she could tuck her feet up-off the carpeted floor, Scanwell in the big, plush sofa, O’Brien in the armchair facing him. Morgan’s drinking bourbon and water, Jane noticed. He must be edgy.

“So, Governor,” O’Brien said, sipping at his tonic and lime juice, “Jane tells me you’re thinking about running for president.”

Scanwell smiled, glanced at Jane, then replied, “I’m thinking about it.”

“Think you can win?”

“I wouldn’t contemplate running if I didn’t think I could win.”Jane thought that Scanwell’s voice, normally a pleasant light baritone, sounded just a little high, tense.

“Really? Sometimes people toss their hats in the ring just to get the party to pay attention to them.”

Scanwell’s smile tightened. “Mr. O’Brien, I—”

“Denny. Call me Denny.”

“All right, Denny.” Scanwell took a breath. “I wouldn’t put my people through the stress and labor of a campaign merely to feed my own ego.” Before O’Brien could object, he continued, “Or to make some political points within the party. I’m not in this to win concessions from the party. I’m in it to become president of the United States.”

O’Brien sank back in his chair, then took a long sip of his drink. Stalling for time while he thinks, Jane realized.

“Okay, then,” O’Brien said at last. “What do you have to offer that none of the other potential candidates have?”

Jane relaxed and picked up her vodka martini. It’s all right, she thought. Morgan’s passed the first test. Denny’s impressed.

MATAGORDA ISLAND, TEXAS

“S
o what’ve you come up with?” Randolph asked.

Tenny scowled at him. “Hey, it’s only been a few days, boss. These things take time.”

“Time is the one thing I don’t have, Joe. I need an answer fast.”

Dan was sitting on the edge of his chair, toying nervously with the sleek silver-painted model of the spaceplane that he kept on his desk alongside the square, flat replica of the power satellite. When he realized what he was doing he put the model down as if it was a hot coal.

Seated backward on one of the conference table chairs, his beefy arms across its back with his chin resting on them, Tenny said, “It’s gotta be the attitude thruster. Damn thing misfired and pitched the nose down.”

“You’re sure?”

“Hell no! But it’s gotta be that. Nothing else makes sense. Telemetry shows everything going fine, everything nominal until the goddamn nose pitches down. At that point in the reentry it was the worst thing that could happen. Absolutely the worst.”

“The telemetry shows that the thruster fired?”

“The friggin’ telemetry doesn’t show shit!” Tenny snapped, waving his arms angrily. “At that point it goes blooey. Just turns into fuckin’ hash. Not worth a thimbleful of piss.”

Randolph leaned back in his chair. He had seen Tenny in many different moods, but never had the engineer been so crude.

“We need to find the thruster in the wreckage,” Tenny said, more calmly. “So far we haven’t recovered the nose section.”

“So what makes you think—”

“It hadda be the thruster. Just at the wrong goddamn instant. Talk about Murphy’s Law! If the thruster had fired a coupla seconds earlier, or even later, Hannah could’ve compensated, got the bird back under control. But it hadda go right then, right at that fuckin’ microsecond. Put the bird into a dive that nobody could recover from. Heat load, aerodynamic load, goddamn structure broke up.”

“And the telemetry went out?” Randolph asked again.

“Yeah. Just went into hash, like it was being jammed or something.”

“Jammed? You mean, like somebody was jamming the frequency?”

“Yep. Just like that.” Tenny sunk his chin back onto his hairy forearms.

“Deliberately jamming?”

Tenny’s brows went up. “Deliberately?”

Randolph nodded.

“Jesus Q. Christ,” Tenny muttered. “You think somebody did it on purpose?”

“You tell me.”

The engineer sat up straighter. “If it was deliberate …”

“Sabotage,” said Randolph. “Murder.”

“Whoever did it would have to know our telemetry codes.”

“Could that be done?”

“The thruster’s controlled by the flight computer. You’d have to know the whole friggin’ computer code, then override it and put in a new command to fire the thruster at that point in time.”

“Maybe it wasn’t jamming,” Randolph suggested. “Maybe it was the new command, sent in from an outside source and strong enough to override the existing program.”

Tenny looked as if he had just discovered ants crawling over his body. “They’d have to know the whole computer program, all the codes, the time sequence … everything.”

“That means it’s somebody on the inside. Somebody here.”

Shaking his head hard enough to pop vertebrae, Tenny replied, “Naw. It couldn’t be. We know everybody here. We’ve worked with ’em for years, Dan. None of them would do it, kill Hannah. It couldn’t be!”

Randolph felt a wave of anger rising in him. Somebody here, somebody who’s worked for me for years, deliberately sabotaged the spaceplane. Deliberately killed Hannah. Some sonofabitch that I’ve trusted.

“They wouldn’t have to know that the plane was going to crash,” he said slowly. “They’d just be selling information to make some extra bucks.”

“Corporate espionage,” Tenny growled.

Keeping his voice calm, flat, Dan asked the engineer, “Can you come up with a better explanation?”

Tenny swung a leg over the chair he’d been sitting on and got to his feet. “When I do, I’ll let you know.”

He started for the door. Dan saw that both his hands were balled into fists.

“Joe.”

Tenny stopped and turned back toward Randolph.

“Keep this between you and me. If we do have a rat in with us, I don’t want him to know that we suspect anything.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“Nobody else, Joe. Not even Lynn. And especially not Passeau. Just you and me.”

“That’s gonna slow things down, if I have to do all the checking myself.”

“Nobody else.”