“Now I’m scared,” said Nataly. “That man is one of us, and Eric has never mentioned him to me. I’m calling Vasyl.”
She punched in a number on her phone, and waited, then hung up. “Not there. I’ll have to bother Eric.”
Eric had left the office, and she got only the message service. “I suppose he could be on the way here,” she said, and at that instant, the back door of the room was jerked open and John Coulter’s bulk was filling the doorway.
“Like I said, Natasha, you are coming with me,” he growled, and lunged towards her.
“Leni!” she screamed, and leaped backwards.
John Coulter encountered an invisible force in mid-lunge that first snapped his body upright and then slammed him on his back on the floor. Coulter rolled, scrambled to his hands and feet with unusual speed for a large man, and was ready to charge again as Nataly cowered in the corner. And then his eyes widened with sudden surprise and fear.
The air in front of Nataly seemed to shimmer, and then boil, and the figure of a man appeared starting with his head and then down to his feet. He was dressed in black from head to foot, his face covered with a deep purple shield, and he held a short, stubby weapon that he now raised towards Coulter.
“Shit!” snarled Coulter, and with one leap he reached the door and was through it.
“Let him go!” said Nataly. An engine roared behind her shop, and gravel crackled against the wall. The man who’d suddenly appeared now stood at the doorway, looking outside.
“Black Mercedes, 500 Series, and I have the license number.”
“Vasyl didn’t answer when I called.” Nataly choked back a sob, and her eyes were brimming with tears. “Oh thank you, Leni.”
“I have another number for him. I’m not leaving you now. Dry your eyes. I’ll report this to Vasyl. He’ll know what to do.”
“If you hadn’t been here—what did he want with me?”
“You would make a good hostage. Eric would do what he was told. It was anticipated.” Leni smiled. “What just happened only justifies all the lonely hours I’ve spent in this empty room without even something to read.”
Nataly laughed, put her arms around Leni and hugged him. “My protector with the face I never see,” she said.
“And never will,” said Leni. “I think it’s safe to work up front now. I have to make a call, and recharge for cloaking. Expect me to be wandering the store. I’ll try not to bump into anything.”
Nataly heard the soothing tone of Leni’s voice, but knew that inside the man was a coiled spring.
She returned to the front of the store. Marie looked at her strangely, but said nothing. Nataly wanted to call Eric and tell him what had happened, but knew she shouldn’t. He had work coming up that would not be helped by worry.
She didn’t even think about calling Leon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
GROUND TEST
Eric felt excited, but also had a nagging apprehension that had begun the day before. At first he’d thought it a lack of confidence about the ground test, but the procedure was so clear in his mind it was like the test had already been successfully performed. Perhaps it was Nataly he worried about. They’d had lunch once in the past two weeks, and she’d been her usual ethereal and affectionate self, but when he’d called the next day she was suddenly very busy. There were times when he felt the woman was peering into the very core of him. Her gaze would become intense, she would squeeze his hand warmly in hers and, for Eric, everything except Nataly would cease to exist. Maybe she’d finally seen what was really inside him: a merciless killer for political masters, a man who could only live for himself in order to survive.
In two decades he’d never had such intense feelings for a woman, a longing that went far beyond the physical. And there were moments when he felt Nataly returning those feelings with a look, a touch, and a light brush of her lips on his. The thought of it made his eyes moist.
He didn’t want to lose her, even after the mess at the base was finished.
The van bumped hard in the usual place on the usual road and there was the usual decent to the tunnels below high desert buttes. Twenty minutes later Sergeant Alan Nutt, his faithful base companion, accompanied him to Sparrow’s bay. Several people were waiting for them.
Steward was there, and Frank Harris for Systems Analysis, but today it would be Rob Hendricks’ show. As head of Flight Operations it was Rob’s responsibility to write procedure for all ground and flight-testing, but unlike Steward, his ego never got involved in the work. Eric liked him, though Rob didn’t accept the ‘Good Luck’ theory of Eric’s breakthroughs with Sparrow any more than Steward did. He reacted in a different way. He simply assumed that for reasons unknown to him people who knew how to get Sparrow into space were feeding Eric information, and it made common sense to go along with what they said. He’d even said openly he thought trying to find out why Eric was The Chosen One was a waste of time.
Rob had asked Eric to write up the ground test procedure, and Eric complied, with the proviso there could be only one copy, to be kept in Sparrow’s cockpit at all times. Davis had strongly objected to that, but gave in when Rob promised to somehow obtain another copy. He told Eric this, and Eric had seen the logic. If there was an accident, Eric might be killed and the procedure record burned up with him, leaving the rest of them with nothing. The people who’d brought Sparrow to them had demonstrated all too much that they couldn’t be counted on for vital information, at least for the rest of the team. In the end, Eric had allowed one disk copy to be stored in Davis’ safe. If Brown objected to that, he’d have to deal with Davis.
Captain Dillon was inside Sparrow when Eric arrived, and two techs were standing on the wings to look in at him.
“Morning,” said Eric, and Hendricks gave him a look of surprise when he climbed right up onto Sparrow’s wing and nudged a tech aside.
“Aren’t you going to give us a briefing?” called Hendricks.
“You have the procedure, and so do I. Let’s get to it. Morning, Captain; have room for me in there?”
Dillon was already throwing switches, and the ready light on his side of the cockpit was green. “All set, sir. Climb in.”
Eric climbed into the seat next to Dillon, and strapped in. A tech handed his headphone to him, and he put it on. The entire procedure to the limit of their knowledge was on a single sheet of paper on a clipboard, all of it drawn only from Eric’s memory. He put the clipboard in his lap.
The roar of heavy engines was a momentary distraction. Four fire trucks pulled up alongside Sparrow on both sides and targeted the craft with four-foot nozzles prepared to spray foam. When the trucks were in place, both techs saluted and got down from the wings. Dillon touched a lever on his side of the cockpit; the canopy above them levered downwards and locked in place with a snap. The red interior light went on and seemed too dim until Eric’s eyes adapted to it.
“Here we go,” said Eric, and threw five switches in rapid succession. They could hear the whine from Sparrow’s aft section even with the canopy closed. When the sound was steady, Eric threw the final switch on the board, and a single light glowed on a panel by his right knee.
“Should be getting some heat now,” said Eric.
Hendricks responded instantly. “Warming. T at twenty-two and climbing. We’re going to the trucks.”
Eric nodded at Dillon. “Powering up.”
Dillon’s left hand moved a lever forward, and soon they could hear the whine of conventional turbines rising in pitch until there was a thump, then a steady vibration in the cockpit. At that instant, a second light went on by Eric’s right knee.