Passeau pulled in a breath. “Then it’s permanently beyond your reach.”
“Look,” Dan said, hunching even further over the table. “Pete had access to the command codes for the plane’s control systems. And he knew the ground track. He sold that information to somebody. That somebody operated a radio transmitter that sent the command to fire the nose thruster. They knew how to activate the plane’s control system and they knew where and when to do it:”
“But the pilot could have overridden the command.”
“Not during reentry!” Dan whispered urgently. “Every microsecond is crucial at that point in the flight. Hannah had just started the pitch-up maneuver that angles the plane so the heat shield on its underside takes most of the reentry heat. Firing the thruster that pushed the nose down knocked the plane out of control. No pilot could’ve recovered. The plane was doomed.”
“Why didn’t she eject?”
“She probably tried,” Dan said.
“This is all conjecture,” Passeau said.
“If we flew the backup and nothing went wrong, that would prove that the crash was caused by sabotage, wouldn’t it?”
“No, it wouldn’t. There could be—”
“I want to fly the backup.” Dan insisted. Then he added, “Unmanned.”
“Without a pilot?”
Dan said, “Completely automatic. But this time we keep the command codes to ourselves and we don’t tell anybody what the ground track’s going to be.”
“You can’t fly like that, even unmanned,” Passeau objected. “There are other planes in the sky, you know. You’ve got to clear a flight path, get the FAA to allow—”
“That’s your end of the game, Claude. I need a big swath of airspace, wide enough so the murdering sons of bitches won’t know exactly where the plane’s going to be on reentry.”
“That’s impossible. You’re asking the FAA to clear half the continent of North America for you.”
“Just for half an hour, during the reentry phase of the flight. While the bird’s in orbit she’ll be all right.”
“It can’t be done, Dan. I’m sorry, but it can’t be done.”
“You mean you won’t—”
Dan’s cell phone began playing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” He grimaced., plucked the phone from his shirt pocket and flicked it open.
Jane’s face was on the tiny screen. She looked decidedly unhappy.
Before Dan could begin to say hello, she said, “Dan, we need to talk.”
With a glance at Passeau, he asked, “Face-to-face?”
“Yes.”
“I could fly up to Washington for the weekend, I guess.”
“No, not here. At the ranch.”
Dan hesitated and looked at Passeau again. He was making a great show of trying to catch the eye of the barmaid, who was still gesticulating with the bar phone pressed to one ear.
Lowering his voice, Dan asked, “Will Scanwell be there?” Jane said, “No. He’s got to run up to New Hampshire.” Breaking into a smile, Dan said, “I’ll be there Saturday in time for lunch.”
Jane said, “Come alone.” And abruptly cut the connection.
Thornton Ranch, Oklahoma
The Staggerwing was too slow to suit Dan for this trip, and from the way Jane had looked on the phone, he figured that she wanted this meeting between them to be kept as secret as possible. So Dan unlocked his bottom desk drawer and fished out the driver’s license, Social Security card, and credit card for Orville Wilbur, a phony identity he had established years earlier, when credit card companies were hounding him to become their customer. He found it ridiculously easy to establish a false identity. No wonder terrorists can sneak around the country at will, Dan thought. It had started as a lark, but Dan found times when it was convenient to have an alternate persona. Such as now.
That Friday night Dan drove to Corpus Christi. Orville Wilbur registered at a motel near the airport and from the phone in his room purchased an electronic ticket from Southwest Airlines, round trip from Corpus Christi to Oklahoma City on the earliest flight out, with a commuter link to Marietta. When he got there, Orville Wilbur rented an SUV and drove out to the Thornton ranch.
As he drove through the fancy carved wooden gate of the Thornton ranch, well before noon, he saw another van some distance behind him spurting a rooster tail of dust as it followed him along the road that led to the ranch house. Security? Dan wondered. Hope it’s not news media.
Pulling up in front of the low, sprawling house, Dan stepped out into the late morning sunlight. It was hot and dusty, the Sun high in a bright blue sky that had hardly a wisp of a cloud in it. Squinting, Dan saw contrails etching across the blue, people on their way somewhere, six miles above the ground. Then his eye caught the faint, ghostly image of a crescent Moon, just a trace of its lopsided smile visible.
I know, Dan said silently to the Moon. I’m an idiot for coming out here. But what the hell.
His SUV was the only car parked in front of the house. No one seemed to be stirring; the house seemed silent, empty. Dan rapped on the door and waited for someone to answer. Turning, he saw the van that had followed him growling up the gravel driveway. It crunched to a stop in a swirl of gritty dust.
And Jane got out.
She was dressed in jeans with a white blouse tucked into the waist, decorated with a trio of cardinals across its front. Her hair was pinned back, off her neck. Wide leather belt with a silver and turquoise buckle. Well-scuffed cowboy boots.
“You got here before me?” Jane said, surprised.
“I camped overnight,” Dan joked.
She stepped toward him. He wanted to take her in his arms but she walked swiftly past and pulled an electronic key card from her jeans.
“Nobody’s here,” she said as the door clicked open. “I gave the staff the weekend off.” No smile, no warmth, no hint of a suggestion of any kind. Just a statement of fact Jane seemed as cool and businesslike as a stranger. Hell, Dan grumbled to himself, our two vans are parked closer together than her and me.
“Come on in,” she said.
“What’s all the secrecy about?” Dan asked as he stepped into the cool shadows of the entryway.
Heading down the corridor toward the kitchen, Jane said over her shoulder, “I’ve introduced a bill that is clearly intended to help you, Dan. The news people are sniffing around, trying to find a personal link between us.”
“They don’t have to look all that far,” Dan said, following her.
“I’ve made no secret of our past relationship,” she said, flicking on the fluorescent lights set into the kitchen ceiling. “But I can’t afford to be seen with you now.”
“Unless Scanwell’s around,” Dan muttered.
She turned to face him. “That’s right: unless Morgan’s around.”
“Is he your chaperon or your bedmate?”
Jane’s eyes flared angrily, but she quickly regained control of herself. “He’s a candidate for president of the United States, and I’m not going to do anything that might damage his chances.”
Dan grunted. “Spoken like a lawyer.”
“That’s what I am, Dan. A lawyer. You knew that… in the old days.”
There were a million things he wanted to say. Instead, he went to the breakfast bar and perched on one of the stools.
“Are you going to cook lunch for us?”
“I can cook,” she said.
“I can help.”
She seemed to relax a fraction. “All right. Let’s see what’s in the fridge.”
As they pulled eggs and sausages out of the refrigerator, Dan said, “So why’d you ask me up here, Jane?”
“How’s the accident investigation going?” she asked.
“Slow. Too double-damned slow. I’m pushing the FAA honcho to allow us to fly the backup spaceplane—”