Lee started flicking through it, speed-reading. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Jesus Christ.”
Jack Morgan stood there, clenching and unclenching his fists.
Lee looked to Gershon like he was trembling, and he kept twitching that left arm, as if it was giving him severe pain. “Listen to this. ‘I am definitely not satisfied with the progress and outlook of the program… I could not find a substantive basis for confidence in future performance’… Paper-pushing cocksucker! ‘My people and I have completely lost confidence in the ability of Columbia Aviation as an organization… I seriously question whether there is any sincere intent and determination by Columbia to do this job properly…’ ”
Jack Morgan’s own anger seemed to have dissipated as he studied Lee. “JK, what is it with you and that arm?”
Lee waved both arms in the air. “Screw my arms! Listen to this: ‘I think NASA has to resort to very drastic measures, including the possibility of shifting to a new contractor…’ ”
Morgan, frowning, grabbed Lee’s right elbow. “Listen to me, asshole. You’re coming to my office right now.”
Lee tried to shake loose, but Morgan wouldn’t let go, and with a nod he instructed Gershon to get a hold of the other arm.
Gershon, hesitantly, got hold of Lee’s bony elbow.
So Morgan and Gershon frog-marched JK Lee out of the Clean Room, past goggling technicians, all three of them still in their soft shoes and their hats and white coats.
Lee waved the report around, shouting like some Old Testament prophet. ” ‘For me, it is just unbearable to deal further with a nonperforming contractor who has the government over a barrel when it comes to a multibillion-dollar venture of such national importance’… And screw you, too, Mr. Phil Fucking Stone!”
They reached Morgan’s office, and Morgan pulled up a portable EKG machine.
Lee eyed the machine. “What’s this?”
“Roll up your sleeves, JK.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my heart.” Lee dropped to the floor and, to Gershon’s astonishment, started doing push-ups. “Look at this!” Lee shouted up at Morgan, twisting his head. “If I was having a heart attack, this would kill me.”
Jack Morgan ignored Lee’s antics. He bent down and grabbed Lee by the collar and simply hauled him to his feet. He shoved Lee into a chair and began to strap in the EKG leads.
Lee still had the Stone report. “Look at this! He’s even put on a list of the people who should be fired! Including you and me, Jack! Cocksucker!”
Morgan read the EKG trace. He looked at Lee. “You’re going to the hospital.”
“Bullshit,” Lee snapped. “I’m in the middle of a fucking CARR.” He got up and headed for the door.
Morgan simply blocked the door with his body. He nodded to Gershon. “Get on the phone to Mr. Cane,” he ordered. “Tell him he has to speak to Lee.” And he turned and shouted to an assistant to send for the paramedics.
Uncertain of what he was getting himself into, Gershon picked up the phone.
Lee kept reading the report. “Look at this shit. Missed deadlines. Late drawing releases. Cost overruns. Yeah, yeah. But don’t they understand how complex this thing is? Or what chaos their own people create down here every time they push through another change? Look, you can comb through the paper trail all you want, but you have to look at the fucking hardware. Sure, we’re behind schedule. But this is a joke.” He appealed to Morgan. “It’s a fucking witchhunt, Jack. That’s what it is. A witch-hunt.”
Gershon held the phone out to Lee. “Art Cane wants to talk to you.”
Lee took the phone.
Art Cane ordered him to leave the plant.
A couple of paramedics came running up the corridor. They had a wheelchair with them.
IK Lee looked around, bewildered, still wearing his Clean Room overshoes and plastic hat.
The paramedics got him into the chair, ignoring his vague protests, and rushed him out.
Morgan lit up a cigarette, his hands trembling.
Gershon found he was shaking, too. “Christ,” he said to Morgan. “I didn’t know.”
Morgan pulled off his plastic hat. “Really? Hell, JK’s not the only one who’s nearly killed himself on this fucking program. Haven’t you heard about it? They call it the Ares Syndrome.”
It had been a coronary, all right; it hit Lee soon after the medics got him to the hospital.
When Lee came to himself — a few days later, flat on his back in the hospital — the first thing he did was get a secure phone installed in his room, and he started calling the plant.
He found the place in an uproar.
The final draft of Phil Stone’s tiger team report was, if anything, even more damning than that leaked early summary. And there was a lot of wild talk in the press of NASA going to another contractor for the MEM.
After a point the speculation seemed to feed on itself — Lee had even seen articles about the number of articles that had appeared on the MEM problems. It seemed to Lee that his people were spending more time on rooting through all the press garbage and the gossip from NASA and in-house than they were on building a spacecraft.
Well, as far as Lee was concerned, it was all a lot of bull; there was no way NASA could pull out of Columbia if it wanted to preserve anything like its 1986 Mars landing target. It was just bullying, industrial blackmail.
But Columbia had to respond.
Art Cane, in Lee’s absence, ordered yet another internal audit.
In the days that followed, a high-powered team went right through the whole program, interviewing hundreds of people. They had kept everything confidential; they’d even used rooms which they’d checked were clear of bugs in advance. That was supposed to reassure the employees, but Lee knew that sure as hell it would scare the life out of them.
And the early results of that audit looked like being as hard-hitting as Stone’s.
Lee, lying there helpless, seethed. There’s nothing wrong with the goddamn program. They’re pulling my organization apart for nothing. This is a witch-hunt.
And all of it while Lee was conveniently out of the office. All his people were worried about their own positions, and about the future of Lee himself.
So Lee called up Jack Morgan and told him he wanted out.
Morgan protested, of course. Lee had been in the hospital little more than two weeks.
Morgan came to the hospital, and he brought Jennine, to try to persuade him to stay.
“JK, you’re stuck here for another two weeks at least, maybe a month.”
Lee was furious. His anger at the betrayal by his own body seemed to course through him like nitrogen tetroxide, a volatile substance that was burning him up. He got out of bed and started doing push-ups again. “See?” he gasped. “For Christ’s sake, what is wrong with you people? Can’t you see—”
But Jennine was screaming. She had her hands clasped to her cheeks, so that her face was a thin, moist ribbon, compressed between the palms of her hands.
“Stop it. Stop it, JK.”
They came to a compromise. He was out of there three weeks after the attack.
The deal was that he was supposed to stay at home, working if he really had to, for another couple of weeks at least.
He tried to watch TV. There was some god-awful depressing thing called The Day After, about a nuclear attack on Lawrence, Kansas; everyone said he should watch it.
After the first hour he threw the remote across the room. He’d always hated Jason Robards, anyhow.
After two days he couldn’t stand the isolation anymore, and he got the T-bird out of the garage.
Jennine didn’t try to stop him. She just watched him preparing to go. It made him uncomfortable to look her in the eye, to meet that bruised look there.