Space in His Heart (8 page)

Bill Dugan didn’t even give her a chance to
say hello. “Man, am I glad I found you. We have a huge problem with
Newsweek
. They’re going with a deadly story about NASA cost
cutting. They have an insider who says money is tight and the
result is dangerous. They claim to have an internal memo, but it’s
not authenticated and their source won’t go on the record.”

“Who’s the reporter?”

“It’s Paul Zimmerman. He covers technology
and space but also does features.”

“Zimmerman? That’s good. I worked with him on
a cover story recently and gave him some scoop
Time
didn’t
have.” She’d also plied him with expensive Merlot on her last trip
to New York and listened to him gripe about his salary. She could
handle this reporter. “What’s he got?”

“He’s got an unnamed source, strictly off the
record, and an internal NASA memo that claims it’s just a matter of
one more launch till we have another
Challenger
on our
hands.”

Her stomach rolled at the thought as she
watched Deke peer into the cockpit. One in four hundred and
thirty-eight. One in a thousand. What kind of man gambles with his
life?

“Who knows about this, Bill? Colonel
Price?”

“The Colonel, a safety engineer named Skip
Bowker, and some of the staff are gathering at Headquarters now. We
need you to get over there, prep them, and get Zimmerman on the
phone. He’s agreed to do one more interview before they
decide.”

“Decide what?” she asked.

“Whether or not to go with the story.
Apparently the editors aren’t sure of the veracity of the
source.”

Jessica looked at her watch. “That means we
have about four hours.
Newsweek
goes to bed at eleven on
Saturday morning. Any story can be cut before that. Has Colonel
Price gone on the record yet?”

“Nope. Zimmerman will talk to him, but he’s
looking for a different angle since the Colonel has done
Time
and
USA Today
already and talked about the
hydrogen leak.”

“A different angle?” Jessica studied Deke as
he fingered the leather on one of the cockpit seats, surely
listening to her end of the conversation. “I have an idea.”

He turned at the tone of her mystery in her
voice, a shadow darkening his eyes. She moved the receiver from her
mouth and narrowed her eyes in a challenge to him. “You like risks,
huh? Are you willing to take one now?”

He scowled at her, but she ignored it and
spoke into the phone. “Bill, I think it’s time we launched our
astronaut.”

“Stockard? Is he ready?”

“He’s ready,” she assured them both, trying
not to let Deke’s blazing expression weaken her resolve. “Who
better to vouch for safety than someone who has to fly the
shuttle?”

Deke shook his head in definitive denial. In
her ear, she heard Bill continuing. “Zimmerman would love an
interview with Stockard. Nobody ever gets the astronauts on this
kind of stuff. He’ll go nuts for those quotes.”

Jessica talked to both of them, looking at
Deke as she responded. “We don’t want quotes. Not if we do our work
right.”

“What’s the use of doing an interview if he
doesn’t go on the record?” Bill asked.

“Our goal is to kill the story, not help it
get published.” She searched Deke’s face for any sign that he would
relent. “No ink is what I’m after,” she said into the phone, a plea
and a promise in her eyes. “Commander Stockard can convince Paul
Zimmerman that there’s no story here.” Then she’d lay a little
groundwork for the puff piece on NASA’s hottest property, the news
she’d spoon-feed America.

“Please,” she said as she snapped the phone
shut and explained to him about the memo. “You can really help on
this and it would be a good introduction to the media for you.”

He crossed his arms. “You’re nuts, you know
that? Astronauts don’t speak on safety. Colonel Price does. I’m not
going to sweet-talk some reporter and tell him there’s no danger.
Who knows where the hell he got his information?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.” She bit back
a sigh of frustration. “Will you at least come to the meeting? You
don’t have to do the interview. Just help us formulate a
response.”

“You don’t need me to do that.” He stepped
toward the hatch they’d just climbed through, inches from her. “I
guess we’re done here.”

Jessica put her hand on his arm to stop him.
“Bad press at this time could really set our campaign back. It will
take even longer to… get rid of me.”

He paused and eyed her warily. “I’ll go, but
I am
not
getting on the phone with the reporter.”

“Of course not,” she agreed quickly.

Unless you’re ordered to
. She knew
exactly what she had to do and how to do it. This was
her
version of flying seventeen thousand miles an hour and, like it or
not, Deke Stockard was about to come along for the ride.

* * *

Jessica’s entire demeanor changed on their
way to the third-floor conference room of the Headquarters
building. She’d been mildly enthusiastic about the tour, but sparks
practically shot out of her as she hustled ahead of him. He did a
mental review of who had the most to gain from the public knowing
about the problems on the shuttle but didn’t dare slow his step and
risk losing pace with this determined fireball.

When they reached the room, a few members of
Colonel Price’s staff and some public affairs people had already
arrived. He took a seat at the far end of the table, leaning back
in the chair and silently cursing the fact that he’d never get to
sail today.

Jessica flew into meet-and-greet mode,
shaking hands and flashing that tantalizing smile at everyone. Skip
Bowker was on her like a fly to honey, too.

“So you’re the PR person who’s going to put
Deke on the map.” Skip shot a smile down the table to Deke.
“Shouldn’t be too hard for you, Miss. He’s born to be famous. Named
after an astronaut.”

“I’ve got that in his bio,” she assured Skip
as she shook his hand. “And it’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Bowker.
I’ve read about your work on Apollo and the shuttle missions.”

Skip furrowed his brows and a twinkle lit his
eyes. “I may be thinning a bit in the hair department and hitting
the big six-five this year, but don’t you want
me
to be on
the cover of
People
?”

She treated him to one of those wind-chime
laughs, then lowered her voice in a conspiratorial whisper. “You
help us get through this and I’m sure we can work out some kind of
feature on you.”

Skip beamed. Oh, brother. The old man was
dead meat with this woman.

“I can help you, Jessica.” Bowker leaned
closer. “This is all a bunch of malarkey, you know. There are no
safety issues. Those shuttles run like Swiss watches. Flawlessly. I
guarantee it and you don’t have to go any further than that,
Miss.”

Deke listened to Skip’s words and clenched
his jaw to stay quiet. He’d better be right.

“We’re going to need your help to prove that
today, Mr. Bowker,” Jessica said.

She had no idea what she was getting into.
But it wasn’t Deke’s job to save her ass. Let Colonel Price do it.
The sooner she screwed up, the sooner the Colonel would send her
packing.

With every person that came into the room,
the sense of crisis heightened. Deke acknowledged Stuart and the
Colonel with a terse nod. Before he could explain that he was only
here to help formulate the safety responses, Jessica took over the
meeting and started grilling the Colonel, leaning forward like a
racehorse that needed to be held back at the starting gate.

An uninvited pang of pure sexual desire
ricocheted through him. Did she have this much passion about
everything
? She wouldn’t be around long enough for him to
find out. One bad
Newsweek
article and surely the powers
that be would yank her from the assignment.

“Colonel Price, I understand you’ve spoken to
this reporter already. Did you allow yourself to be quoted?” she
asked.

“It was strictly off the record. But, these
guys…” He held his hands out to indicate “who knows?”

“Damage control has to start with the facts.”
She looked directly into Price’s eyes, evidently not the least bit
intimidated by his title or position. “Is there any truth that
cost-cutting measures are having an impact on safety, Colonel
Price? I can’t formulate our response until I know.”

Colonel Price stared at her thoughtfully.
“Costs have been cut in a number of areas, but none that would
compromise safety.”

Deke ignored the fingers of concern that
squeezed his gut. The words were true enough. Maybe cost cutting
had nothing to do with the problems they faced on
Endeavour
.
But if a hungry reporter started digging around, the real story
might not be that hard to uncover. Very few people in the room even
knew there
was
another story. Including Jessica Marlowe.

She turned her attention to Skip Bowker.
“You’re the heart and soul of safety at the Cape, Mr. Bowker. What
do you think?”

“Ditto what the Colonel says, ma’am.
Absolutely everything is in order: inspected, re-inspected and
triple-checked—”

Colonel Price held his hand up to interrupt.
“We’re not going to give them confidential technical information,
Miss Marlowe. How can we kill the rumor started by this memo and
stop this reporter from yellow journalism?”

“We can drown him in key messages about
NASA’s unparalleled commitment to safety.” She took out a legal
pad. “Then we’ll confuse and overwhelm him with indisputable,
quantifiable, and non-confidential facts.”

Deke leaned forward, ready to fire facts at
her. Too much too soon could confuse and overwhelm the pretty spin
doctor instead of the reporter. At least he hoped it would.

They shot figures at her, answering her
questions as fast as she could ask them. From the number of times
the shuttles were inspected before a launch to the aggregate years
of experience of inspection teams. Skip Bowker knew most of it, but
he was a little unsure on circuit inspections and rewiring. Deke
filled in the holes with rapid-fire statistics and mechanical terms
that had to bury her.

She wrote furiously, throwing back questions,
forcing them to fine-tune the answers and sending an occasional
dirty look in his direction when he went so fast she couldn’t keep
up. But, he admitted with grudging admiration, that wasn’t very
often. In fifteen minutes she had filled two long, yellow pages
with bullet points.

Colonel Price reached out and spun the pad to
read it. “I can get these across in an interview.”

“With all due respect, Colonel, the real goal
is to kill the story.” She closed her eyes for a moment and shot a
look at Deke. “I have a rather unorthodox suggestion.”

A black ball of anger formed in his gut. He
opened his mouth to argue, but she deftly cut him off, addressing
the Colonel with her practiced, professional voice.

“Perhaps Commander Stockard could do it.
There is no better person on earth to speak about safety than
someone who has to take the risk. And it would be an excellent
introduction to the reporter for… our positive publicity
campaign.”

She tapped a pink fingernail on the page and
turned back to Deke. “You deliver these sound bites, but weave them
into a heartfelt speech about your belief in the program and why
you became an astronaut. You can convince this reporter he doesn’t
have a story.” She looked innocently at the Colonel. “Colonel
Price, well, sir, you don’t have to fly that shuttle. Commander
Stockard speaks for the people who do.”

Colonel Price nodded slowly, his gaze lifting
to Deke. “I think she makes perfect sense.”

The brat. The little she-devil brat. There
was no way he could contradict Price in front of all these people.
“Of course.”

“Here.” Jessica slid the pad down the table
toward him. “Can you read my handwriting?”

Deke clenched his jaw and stared at her. “I
don’t need your notes, Miss Marlowe.”

She paled. Good. At least she
knew
she’d betrayed him. She cleared her throat and pulled a
speakerphone closer to her, tapping an open line.

“I need to present the idea to Zimmerman
before we put you on the line,” she said over the dial tone. “And I
need to remind him of something.”

Paul Zimmerman answered on the first ring.
“Jessica Marlowe. So you’re working on NASA now? You didn’t mention
that when we had dinner last month.”

“A new plum assignment, Paul,” she said with
a pointed look at Deke. “I couldn’t turn it down. We have to get
you to Kennedy for the next launch.”

“Love it. It’ll be a big story when it blows
up.”

She cringed and looked around the table at
the frowns and shaking heads. “It won’t.”

“I’ve got an inside source who says budgets
are cut so deep that faulty wires are the norm, not the exception.
Not what the taxpaying public wants to hear, nor the families of
those poor astronauts, I’d imagine.”

“Sorry. You’ve got bad information. Why don’t
you talk to one of the astronauts?”

“Fat chance. They keep those guys locked up
tight until they want to parade them in their orange suits before a
mission.”

Jessica smiled at Colonel Price. “Not always,
Paul. I can get you one of their best. A former Naval officer
deeply involved in safety prep. He’s piloted
Discovery
and
is scheduled to command
Atlantis
next May. Commander Deke
Stockard. This guy’s great. Honest, smart, and completely
trustworthy.”

Deke shifted uncomfortably at her blatant
promotion of him. The propaganda was one thing. His nagging fear
that the reporter might be closer to the truth than any of them
wanted to admit was even more disturbing.

“I’d love to talk to him. How quickly can I
get him? I have about an hour to finish the story.”