Brown, Dale - Independent 01 (39 page)

           
He pulled
her closer. “This is no sudden conversion or confession, Ann. It’s just a
chance to say what I’ve felt and covered up too long. It’s as unprofessional as
all get-out, but the fact is....”

           
“Same here, Jason.”
And she leaned down and kissed him.
“Action speaks louder than words for the likes of us. Right?”

           
“Damn
right... but I’ve got to know about the station. They didn’t take it out
altogether, did they?”

           
“... It’s
still up there. But—”

           
“Good.
After Matsui and his buddies finish poking at me I’ll get together with Jim Walker
and the others and we’ll draft a plan to get the station going again. We’ll—”
He stopped short, she was looking away from him. “What is it, Ann? Come on,
level with me.”

           
She thought
she’d never get it out.... “Walker and Jefferson and—”

           
“What about
them?”

           
No reply.

           
“We got
them into the lifeboat, Ann. I ejected them myself. They were all right before
the attack....”

           
“There was
an accident.... At least they said it was an accident—”

           
“What the
hell kind of an accident? A malfunction? Did the lifeboat—?”

           
“They’re
dead,
Jason. One of the Russian
spaceplanes shot it down, destroyed it.”

           
He said
nothing.

           
“The
Russian pilot has claimed he thought it was one of our antisatellite missiles.
He said it came out of nowhere, no identification signals, no visible markings.
He said it followed him just before he was going to deorbit, so he fired a
missile at it....
Walker
, Marks and
Jefferson
died right away. Moyer was hurt during the
depressurization. He lived long enough to report the attack and try to make
repairs, but he couldn’t, the damage was too bad and he couldn’t get the others
into rescue balls fast enough and.... Oh, God, Jason, they’re all dead,
everyone,
dead”

           
He took
hold of her by the shoulders and held her close, feeling her body shake as the
tears came. A nurse entered the room, left quickly. He just held her while she
cried. And this was the woman he’d once thought was so cold and unemotional.
Wrong again. Hell, he felt himself close to tears, thinking of those men in the
lifeboat, dying in the frigid, airless void of space.

           
“When were
they retrieved?”

           
She shook
her head.

           
“They’re
still
up there?”

           
“Shuttle
flights have been suspended except for evacuation trips to the industrial space
stations. The Soviets keep saying that the attack on the lifeboat was an
accident, but their general secretary has also said that attacks on
U.S.
military manned and unmanned spacecraft will continue—”

           
Anger was
burning inside him, giving him strength to come to a sitting position in bed.
“They’re just shooting at anything we launch? We can’t let them get away with
it—”

           
“You’re not
going to do anyone any good if you can hardly move, let alone get up and walk
out of the hospital. Let the doctors examine you. I’ll help with your therapy.
Before you know it you’ll be—” “We’ve got to get organized—” He was ignoring
her now—“Start holding planning sessions right here. I’ll need you to set
things up for me. By the time I get out of here—”

           
“Whoa
....” a voice said behind Ann.
“I’ve just arrived, and you’re leaving already?”

           
She turned,
and Saint-Michael looked over her shoulder to find U.S. Space Command head
Martin Stuart coming through the door. Stuart had been appointed administrative
head of Space Command after Saint-Michael had declared a preference for a duty
assignment aboard Armstrong Space Station.

           
“How you feeling, General?
I just got the word that you’re
back with us.”

           
“I’m
feeling fine. Looks like I’ll be checking out of here pretty quickly. Sir, I’d
like to meet with you soon as possible about reactivating Armstrong.”

           
“Jason,
easy,” Stuart said. He looked at Ann without really recognizing her. “What
about this man.... Just woke up from three weeks in a coma and he’s ready to
blast off again—”

           
“I feel
this is urgent, I think
we
—”

           
“Hold
on,
stop a minute. The doctors tell me
you’ve got at least two weeks of rehabilitation here before you’ll be able to
get around the way you used to. After that the procedure is at least a month of
convalescent leave. We can’t even begin your medical reevaluation for duty
until you come back from convalescent leave.”

           
“That can
be moved up, sir. With the situation in the
Persian Gulf
,
I know these things can be signed off in no time. I also know I’ll be able to
pass a flight physical after I get out of here. I guarantee it.”

           
“We can’t
afford to just ‘sign you off,’ Jason. You’re an astronaut, not in undergraduate
pilot training. We’ll go through all the channels to make sure there’s no doubt
in anyone’s mind about your fitness for duty. Then we’ll see about getting you
cleared for flight duty. It may take a few weeks to convene a flight evaluation
board, maybe more. Then we—”

 
         
“So there’s doubt in people’s minds
about my fitness for duty?”

           
“I didn’t
say that.” He looked again at Ann standing in the comer and finally recognized
her. “Did you tell him about the lifeboat, Page?”

           
“Yes, sir.”

           
“That
should have waited for the debriefing. You—”

           
“I think
it’s a disgrace that it hasn’t been retrieved yet,” Saint-Michael interrupted.
“I’d like to know the reason.”

           
Stuart’s
face tightened. “All manned space flights have been postponed until the
Russians’ intentions are made clear. We—”

           
“I know a dozen
shuttle and spaceplane pilots who’ll volunteer to bring those men home.”

           
“That’s
really not relevant—”

           
“What the
hell are we waiting for, General?” Saint-Michael was half-rising out of his
bed. “Are we waiting for the Russians to retrieve the lifeboat for us?’ ”

           
“God
damn
it, Jason....” General Stuart
looked over his shoulder at the closed door, at Ann, then back at
Saint-Michael. “You’ve been through a lot, General. Do yourself a favor and get
some rest.” He fidgeted uneasily with his flight cap, nodded to Ann, and left
the room.

           
When the
door closed behind Stuart, Saint-Michael let his head fall back onto his
pillow. “Nice going, Jas,” he muttered to himself.

           
Ann sat at
the edge of the bed. “This has been tough for everyone, Jason. Most people feel
like you do—that it’s outrageous to have the bodies of thirteen scientists and
technicians stranded in space. They’re calling for a rescue mission and
retaliation if the Russians try to stop them. The Russians are saying that we
won’t rescue anybody but will put nuclear weapons in orbit to force them to
withdraw from the
Persian Gulf
. They’re threatening to
escalate the war in the
Middle East
if we try sending
anything up to the space station.”

           
Saint-Michael
rubbed his temples. “I never felt so damn powerless before. What are the
Russians doing in the Gulf? Have they occupied
Iran
yet?”

           
“Things are
still pretty much the same.
Iran
is divided in two. The Russians control the northern two-thirds of the
Persian
Gulf
. Our rapid deployment force and the navy control the
Strait
of Hormuz
. Each side makes several raids a week trying to get a
toehold in the region but they’re always pushed back. A stalemate....”

           
He shook
his head. “Something’s bound to crack pretty soon.” He reached to pour himself
another cup of water. “Either we both move to neutral corners pretty damn quick
or someone’s going to come out swinging. I just hope we can control the
escalation when it happens. ...”

           
“I haven’t
been given a full intelligence briefing,” Ann said, “but we hear on the news
it’s getting harder and harder for the Russian naval forces to get fuel from
their gulf suppliers. They must be getting pretty desperate for fuel if they—”

           
She stopped
and turned back toward Saint-Michael. He was holding trembling hands tightly
over his face, and he was jerking up from the waist as if he was doing short
situps. His breath came out in low, guttural grunts.

           
“Jason?
Jason”

           
“Ann... oh,
God, I’m starting to feel it again....”

           
She sat
down on the bed beside him, reached out to him and held his trembling body
against hers. He shivered again, she could feel tears on her neck. The last
barrier had been broken. She reached for the nurse’s call button, pressed it,
then wrapped her arms around him as convulsions shook his body.

 
          
THE
U.S.
DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, FIVE DAYS LATER

 
          
Jackson Collins, as the new director
of the KH-14 Block Three digital photo imagery division of the Defense
Intelligence Agency, did not need to schedule an appointment in advance to see
the director, but he had never taken advantage of his new position or his new
privileges —until now. He came into George Sahl’s office first thing Monday
morning with a locked carrying case. Sahl was dictating a letter into his
computer terminal when Collins appeared, set his case down on the director’s
desk and began to fumble with the combination lock’s thumbwheels.

           
“C’mon,
Jackson
,”
Sahl said, hitting the PAUSE button on his voice-recognition computer’s
microphone. “I haven’t even finished my first cup of coffee.”

           
Collins
stopped. With him, even a lack of movement was significant. “Mr. Sahl, you told
me that if I had anything significant from my section to bring it to you
immediately.”

           
Sahl
sighed. “Yes.”

           
“No matter what.”

           
“Yes.”

           
“Did you
mean it, or was that just to make me feel important?”

 
         
Sahl rolled his eyes. “Well, dammit,
let’s see what you got. Move it.”

           
"Yes
sir.” Collins had the locks on the chart case open in a few moments and took
out several digital satellite photos.

           
“Aha. We’re
back to interpreting
scrub
photos again,
Jackson
?”

           
“Marginally
scrub. I've applied the new set of guidelines to these photos and—”

           
‘Those new
guidelines
—your
new set of guidelines,
the ones you forced on my section—haven’t been approved yet.”

           
"They
will be. Never mind that, sir,” Collins went on. “Recognize this location?”

           
“Sure,
What
else would Jackson Collins, boy genius, bring me? Scrub
photos of Nikolai Zhukovsksy Airfield. The same big Condor hangars.”

           
“Except there are now twelve hangars there.
And ten are
occupied.”

           
“By
... ?”

           
Collins
displayed another photo, an enlargement of a thermal imagery photo of the
tarmac just outside one of the hangars. ‘Tire tracks. Aircraft tire tracks,”

           
“I know
you
know why this isn’t conclusive
evidence....” Sahl began.

           
“All right,
tire tracks can be too easily faked. But if you’re moving aircraft, men and
supplies in and out of Tashkent all day, every’ day in support of a major
offensive in the Persian Gulf, I’m betting you don’t have time to doctor ten
major hangars for a satellite overflight.”

           
“Still...

           
"Sir.
I’ve been watching these hangars since before
Feather started. I’ve seen all sorts of aircraft go in and out of these
hangars. I’ve measured the tracks on every one, and in every case my
identification has been confirmed by some other source.”

           
Sahl looked
at Collins. “With any other interpreter I’d say get out of my office until you
have something concrete. But I know better now. I suppose you’ve measured these
tracks, measured the tires and fit them to a particular aircraft?”