“Tighter immigration control,” said Senator Tomlinson, “space jobs for Tennessee, more federal assistance for welfare programs—”
Kevin O’Donnell added sourly, “And the secretary of energy’s job for him.”
“That’s what he’s after,” Jake said. “I got the impression we could finesse the first three if we promised him the energy job.”
The three men were sitting in Senator Tomlinson’s office in the Hart building, reviewing Jake’s visit to South Carolina.
O’Donnell muttered, “Oak Ridge is in Tennessee. Nuclear power.”
“And TVA,” the senator added.
“Huntsville, Alabama’s just across the border,” O’Donnell added.
“The Marshall Space Flight Center.”
“It’s a lot to think about,” O’Donnell muttered.
“I’ll talk to Pat about it,” Tomlinson said. “Getting Hackman’s support could be a real boost to us.”
O’Donnell shook his head. “It’s not so much getting his support, Frank. It’s keeping his support out of Sebastian’s hands.”
Suddenly Jake felt like one of the politicians who hammered together the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, redrawing the map of Europe, creating new nations. They ended World War I—and sowed the seeds of World War II.
Jake left the impromptu conference and made his way back to his own office.
His administrative assistant looked up from her computer screen. “Mr. Piazza called again. Twice.”
Jake sighed. Nick Piazza was getting paranoid over the accident to the Astra Super, insisting that it had to be the result of sabotage. In the ten days since the accident he had phoned Jake every day, often more than once a day.
Wearily, Jake plopped down on his desk chair and called through the open office door. “I guess we’d better talk to him, Nancy.”
* * *
Piazza looked calmer, but his boyish face still had a hard edge to it.
“Jake, could you talk to the guys running the FBI?” Before Jake could reply, he went on, “I mean, their guys from the local office here in New Mexico did a perfunctory examination of the wreckage—”
“I thought they called in their experts from Washington,” Jake interrupted.
“Yeah, they did. And the NTSB people looked over the wreckage too.”
“And they found no evidence of sabotage?”
“Not yet. They’re still working on it.”
Jake tried to keep the exasperation out of his voice as he asked, “So what do you want the FBI to do now?”
“Trace the people in the launch crew,” Piazza replied without an instant of hesitation. “One or more of them fucked up my rocket!”
“Nick, rockets do blow up sometimes.”
“Not mine!” Piazza snapped. “We haven’t had a failure in years. This accident is going to raise my insurance rates through the roof, unless we can show that it was sabotage.”
“And how can you show it was sabotage?” Jake asked.
“Get the FBI’s top people down here! Get NASA’s accident investigation people down here. For god’s sake, how can we operate when there’s a saboteur on our team? Maybe a whole squad of terrorists?”
“A terrorist group would’ve taken credit for the explosion. Nobody’s said a word.”
“Not yet.” The expression on Piazza’s face was strained, angry, frustrated. But Jake realized the man was right. How can he launch his rockets if there really is a terrorist on the launch crew? Or more than one terrorist? Nobody’s going to invest billions of dollars just to finance disasters.
“Nick,” Jake heard himself say, “I’ll get the senator to call the FBI’s director. We’ll see what we can do.”
Piazza looked as if he was going to break into tears. “Thanks, Jake. Thanks so much. The future of all our hopes depends on this.”
Nodding, Jake agreed, “I suppose it does.”
* * *
That evening, as Tami was chopping raw fish for their dinner, Jake told her about Piazza’s fears.
Without lifting her eyes from the chopping board, Tami said, “We’ve been getting plenty of calls about the accident.”
“Still?”
“Yes. I thought they’d die away by now, it’s been more than a week. But the calls keep coming in: What progress has the investigation made? Will Astra try to launch another one of their Super birds? Is it safe for people to go up in Astra’s rocket?”
“What do you tell them?”
Tami put down the thick-bladed knife on the wooden work surface next to the kitchen sink and turned to Jake with a shrug. “What can we tell them? The investigation is in progress. Plans for another crewed launch are on hold until the investigation is concluded.”
Jake went to the cabinet where they stored the liquor, muttering, “It’s enough to drive a man to drink.”
“It’s worse than that,” Tami said. “They want the senator to make a statement. They’re starting to interview kooks who claim that space flight is too dangerous for human missions. They’re saying the whole space plan ought to be scrapped.”
“I haven’t heard anything like that!” Jake snapped.
“Not yet,” Tami said. “But it’s coming. I’ve been trying to convince Earl that he ought to be preparing the senator for a grilling at Thursday’s debate, but he’s been shoving the matter under the rug.”
“Holy Christ,” Jake muttered. “This could be real trouble. With the New Hampshire primary next week.”
“And the third debate in two days.”
“We’ve been hoping to get Governor Hackman to throw his support to us,” Jake said. “But this could blow everything clean to hell.”
Tami said, “Earl would rather look the other way. He says we should be positive, not get defensive about the accident.”
Jake reached into the liquor cabinet and pulled out a half-empty bottle of Chardonnay. With a shake of his head he said to Tami, “This isn’t going to be enough.”