Space in His Heart (28 page)

Tears burned
her eyes. She gripped the edge of the bench as worry and love
squeezed her heart. Daring, risk-taking, gravity-defying heroes.
Isn’t that what she came to this place to find? Well, she certainly
had.

And in the
process, she’d learned a lot about the definition of success.
Giving your life for progress and mankind. That was success. Not a
well-placed photo op.

She tried to
swallow the lump in her throat but failed. It didn’t matter. She
surely wasn’t the first person to sit on this bench and weep.
Wiping her cheeks, Jessica knew that late tonight when Deke called
her, she would tell him about her conversation with Tony. And she’d
tell him that she found some comfort in the Rocket Garden and that
a tour of a retired orbiter helped her put it all in
perspective.

But, she would
never, ever tell him of her visit to this sacred ground.

* * *

Deke turned the
corporate jet into the clouds above Houston, activated the reverse
thrust, then struggled with the difficult drag that simulated the
dead-stick landing of the orbiter. It pulled and tortured his arm
until he finally saw the runway and landed the trainer.

“
That’s
it for now,
Endeavour
.” The
static words crackled in his headset. “Crew is to report to
building thirty for a briefing.”

Deke frowned at
his pilot, Kurt Muir, when he heard the command. “Roger that, but
we’d like another pass before we hit the remote manipulator,” he
told the training manager through his microphone. “And we have time
for on-orbit procedures in the sim.”

“Negative,
Commander.” The response was eerily definitive. “We got a situation
change on the ISS. Director Casey has called a briefing.”

Deke grabbed
his shoulder harness and threw a knowing glance at Kurt. A
situation change on the space station did not bode well.
Wordlessly, the crew deplaned and jumped on the waiting golf carts
that took them across Johnson Space Center to a meeting with the
man in charge of the entire operation.

A black pit
formed in his stomach when he saw the astronaut standing next to
Casey. Janine Harmon. One of three heart surgeons in the astronaut
corps. It could only mean one thing.

Without any
introductions, Richard Casey confirmed his fears. “Micah Petrenko
has had a pulmonary embolism. He’s not responding to the
anticoagulant.”

No one said a
word as they waited for more information.

“
He is
stable and not in shock,” Casey said. “However, his chest pain is
increasing and he’s coughing blood. He needs surgery to insert a
clot-trapping filter
and
to avoid a potentially fatal myocardial
infarction.”

A heart attack.
Not something to have in zero gravity orbiting around the earth.
Deke studied the surgeon, her expression unreadable.

“How much time
does he have?” one of the crew asked.

“A week is
pushing it, but it’s the best we can do.” Casey leaned back in his
chair and put both hands on the table in front of him. “Obviously,
we’re changing the mission schedule. We need to launch as soon as
possible with the addition of a surgeon on board.” He glanced at
Janine, who caught Deke’s gaze with a terse smile and nodded.

“
As you
know, Janine Harmon has two missions on her bio, including a trip
on
Endeavour
two
years ago. She’ll start emergency training with you today.” Casey’s
tone left no doubt as to the finality of the decision.

“What’s the
launch schedule?” Deke asked.

“
The
shuttle is on the crawler as we speak, on its way to the pad,”
Casey told him. “You’ll all leave for the Cape on Thursday morning.
We’re scoping the trajectory paths and weather radar and expect to
launch Sunday at 5:45 a.m. That way you can dock with the ISS in
less than eight hours. When Janine sees Micah, she’ll make the
decision to perform the surgery under zero gravity on the station
or turn
Endeavour
around
and bring him straight home.”

Six days.
They would launch in six days, eliminating the last month of
inspections. Deke hoped like hell Skip Bowker and company had
solved their problems. Otherwise, there would be eight dead
astronauts and one really sick cosmonaut. But they had no choice.
They
had
to go get
him and
Endeavour
was
all they had to fly.

* * *

On Thursday
morning, Jessica and the Public Affairs staff huddled around a
conference table, adding the finishing touches to the press release
that would surprise the world. They debated the language, the
timing, the quotes, leaving her no opportunity to dwell on the fact
that the T-38s would be landing and Deke would be near her again
within the hour.

He had so
little time between now and Sunday morning. She doubted if they’d
be able to see each other. He had made her promise to stay near her
cell phone so he could at least talk to her before the launch.

“
Jessica,
you have a call on line two. Paul Zimmerman with
Newsweek
.”

She looked up
to meet Stuart’s worried gaze.

“Could there be
a leak?” he asked her. “Is it possible he already knows we’re
launching Sunday?”

She stood to go
to her office. “We’re about to find out.”

Paul didn’t
mention the accelerated launch schedule when she greeted him, but
jumped right into why he called.

“I’ve got
another memo, Jessica. This one looks authentic and current. I’ve
got to have a comment.”

She dropped
into her chair. “What does it say?”

“Do the phrases
‘imminent disaster due to shoddy inspections’ and ‘drastic budget
cuts’ mean anything to you?”

The snide tone
wasn’t lost on her as she tried to absorb the words. “Who wrote it?
Where did it come from?”

“It’s
anonymous. It’s on NASA letterhead with the sender and recipient’s
name blanked out. But it looks official as hell.”

“Who’s your
source?” she demanded.

“
Get
real, Jessica. I’m not going to reveal my source. I want a comment.
I was on to this story two months ago and you put me off with hot
air from that astronaut.
If this bomb
can’t be defused, it becomes a feature to run next
week, before Endeavour launches.”

She bit
her lip. “Then you’ll be too late, Paul. Endeavour’s going up on
Sunday morning. There’s a change in the situation on the
International S
pace
Station
and the shuttle is
taking medical supplies and a heart surgeon up to Micah
Petrenko.”

He
muttered a curse. “You’ve got to get me Colonel Price on this. I
need an official comment for the online story I’m going to
do.”

There had to be
some give and take. “Send me a fax of the memo and I’ll get him for
you.”

In less
than fifteen minutes, Jessica stood in the Colonel’s waiting room
in anticipation of an interview with
Newsweek
. She looked at the copy of the memo again, the
words swimming in front of her. Would they really risk the lives of
eight astronauts for one cosmonaut? Everything she knew about NASA
said no.

She
stared at the oil painting of the shuttle, the achingly beautiful
juxtaposition of a mountain of technology silhouetted against the
peaceful sky. Below it, the words she’d read on her first day
here.
Failure is not an option
.

Not with the
man she loved in the cockpit of that shuttle.

But then,
someone probably loved Micah, too.

When she
handed Colonel Price the fax she’d just received from
Newsweek
, his
gaze moved immediately to the upper left-hand corner and then
scanned the contents. “Get him on the phone.”

Jessica hit the
speaker button and dialed Paul Zimmerman’s number, now etched into
her memory. He picked up on the first ring.

Colonel Price
leaned forward on his chair, eyes blazing like a stallion ready to
charge. “I’m looking at your memo. Whoever is sending you mail is
using stationery that hasn’t been in use at any NASA facility for
over two years.”

Jessica bit
back her surprised gasp and looked at the paper in front of the
Colonel. Of course. She hadn’t even noticed the outdated, stylized
NASA logo in the upper corner. It was subtly different from the
contemporary design currently used. Still, she was sure she’d seen
this one recently. Somewhere.

“Really?” That
was all Paul Zimmerman could manage for a moment. “Where could a
person get their hands on it?”

“Every piece of
stationery that NASA used to have at any facility has been
shredded, recycled and turned into cardboard boxes by now. We’re
efficient like that. Whoever had access to this paper didn’t get it
from a supply cabinet at NASA.”

“However,” the
reporter said thoughtfully, “someone could have it in their drawer,
left over from two years ago.”

“But that, Mr.
Zimmerman, is exactly my point.” Colonel Price looked at Jessica.
“A renegade. A disgruntled ex-employee. But NASA did not issue this
in any official capacity. The memo is a fraud.”

“I see your
point,” Zimmerman agreed. “But the content of it is what I’m
interested in. Is there any truth to it?”

Colonel Price
stared at Jessica just long enough to send alarm snaking down her
spine. “None at all.”

Why couldn’t
she believe him?

“That’s our
official position,” the Colonel continued. “If you use this memo in
any story, please be certain to note that it is anonymous and
printed on stationery that is no longer in use by anyone in any
official capacity. And let your source know that, too. He or she
might want to update their letterhead files.”

As they hung
up, Jessica looked questioningly at the Colonel and the memo. “Who
do you think wrote this?” she asked.

The Colonel
straightened the white sheet on his desk. She couldn’t read his
expression as he studied it. Finally, he looked at her.

“I have my
suspicions but no evidence.”

He wasn’t
going to say and she knew it. “Why? Why
would
someone do this?”

“Possibly to
stop the launch. Possibly to sabotage our image. Possibly to force
us to do a better job at inspections.”

She didn’t like
the last option. Before she could respond, a distant rumble
vibrated the glass in the picture window with a view of Launch Pad
39B. They both looked in the direction of the shuttle and listened
to the whine of a jet engine as it landed.

“The T-38s,”
Colonel Price said. “The crew’s arrived from Houston.”

Jessica felt
the blood drain from her head.

Colonel Price
grabbed the memo, crunched it in his hand with one swift squeeze
and dropped it into a wastebasket under his desk. “This belongs in
here. It’s garbage.”

Another T-38
engine screamed before it shut down to sudden silence. Deke was
here. And in seventy-two hours he’d be on top of that launch pad,
poised to explode into space on the power of sixty tons of ignited
liquid hydrogen.

She gave a
warning look to the man ultimately responsible for Deke’s life or
death. “It better be garbage, Colonel.”

Chapter
Twenty-
t
wo

The final
preparations and medical checks dragged throughout the day. Deke
submitted himself to each test, but by four o’clock he was snapping
and unsnapping his flight suit for each exam with obvious
impatience. He had someone he needed to see. Someone he desperately
needed to talk to before he got on that shuttle.

Skip
Bowker.

They finally
released him from medical and he sat through three more briefings
on the status of landing sites. They wouldn’t be landing anywhere
until his questions were answered. As the last briefing ended, he
left the room with a muttered excuse and headed to the OPF.

But he
was too late. With no shuttle in the sling, the engineers had gone
home and Skip’s office was as dark and empty as the rest. Deke knew
he shouldn’t leave the Cape
and
knew he was under a loose quarantine and expected to check
into crew quarters within the hour. But he had to go with his
hunch. He had to have one more conversation with Bowker.

He stood at
Bowker’s messy desk and closed his eyes to think. Without his car,
he had no way to get to the house in Satellite Beach where Bowker
lived. He grabbed Skip’s phone and dialed a number he knew by
heart.

“I need you,
sweetheart,” he said as she answered her cell phone. “Meet me
outside the OPF, right now, with your car. And don’t tell a soul I
called you. Hurry.”

In minutes,
Jessica pulled into the parking lot and stopped in front of the
wall where he stood. He jumped into the passenger side, smelling
her clean, flowery scent even before his eyes adjusted to the dark
and he saw her. The impact of her slammed at his solar plexus like
a two-by-four. Good God, he’d missed her.

He took her
face in both hands and leaned across the console, kissing her hard.
When they parted, her dark gaze searched his face for answers.

He grinned.
“Hi, honey. I’m home.”

“Stockard.” She
pulled back and put the car in park. “What’s this all about?”

He put his hand
on the steering wheel. “As much as I’d love to sit here and make
out with you, we can’t. I need you to take me to Satellite Beach. I
want to talk to Skip Bowker.”

Without
questioning him, she threw the car back into drive. “Let’s go.”