The Libra Affair (35 page)

“I'm sending it to you as we speak,” he told her. “It'll be in an attachment. When you get it, all you need to do is log on to NASA. I typed my passcode in the body of the email, just cut and paste it in. When you get to the menu, scroll down until you get to the SpaceX, Missions tab. Open it and you'll find my name. Open the file and all you have to do is insert the application after the tenth line. Just count down ten lines and insert it before line eleven. It shouldn't take a minute.”

“You're sure?” Kara asked. “Just copy the contents of the attachment and insert the application at line eleven.”

“Positive. Then save the file and transfer it to Payload Operations Control Center” — POCC — “so they can uplink the program to the Space Station Control Center. It ought to beam right on up without any trouble, Scottie.”

“Okay, Kirk, the email is here.”

“Can you open the attachment?”

“Give me a second.” A moment later, she said, “It opens. It's all here.”

“Great.”

“Okay … ” Kara hummed as her fingers clicked across the keyboard. “Give me a minute to navigate over to NASA.” Once there, she asked, “Now what's that passcode, Kirk?”

“Look inside the body of the email,” he reminded her. “Cut and paste it so you get it right.”

“Right, you said that.” After performing the task, she announced, “All right, Captain Kirk, password entered.” She hummed again as they waited. Then said with a start, “It's not letting me in. That's strange. Are you sure you gave me the correct passcode?”

“Positive.”

Kara read the code aloud to him and he agreed that it was correct. “I don't know what I can do now. I'd like to help you but — ”

“Can you try entering the site through your own passcode?” Ben rubbed his face, then his forehead.

“Yeah, but I don't know how I'll be able to access your experiment. Those programs are highly restricted. The second I try accessing Missions from my passcode, a thousand red flags are going to soar and I'll have twenty feds breaking down my door.”

“There's got to be a way to gain access.”

“I wonder what's stopping me?” she thought aloud.

“I'm guessing it has something to do with me trying to access remotely. I must have screwed everything up and locked myself out.”

“Listen, Ben, if you're locked out, it's going to take nothing less than David Dunn or some top cheese to reactivate you at this point in the game. I can't possibly call him until the morning.”

“I should have called you to begin with. I don't know why it didn't occur to me.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Hey, babe, is everything all right?” Jason asked Kara.

“Hang on, Ben, Jason just walked in.”

Kara spoke to Jason. “It's Ben. He tried accessing NASA from out of the country and he's locked out.”

“And how's that a problem?” Jason asked her.

“He says he needs access to his experiment's computer program.”

“What for?” Jason asked.

“If he doesn't make some adjustments, his experiment's not going to work,” she explained.

“Work or fail while working?” Jason's voice revealed concern.

“I'm not really sure,” she said. “Let me ask him.”

She returned to the phone. “I don't know if you heard all that, but are you saying the experiment won't work at all or that it'll fail
while
it's working?”

“Honestly, Kara, it could go either way,” Ben lied.

She turned to Jason. “He doesn't know.”

“That's a problem,” Jason said. “If that laser gets out of the box and aims at the Space Station by mistake, a lot of folks are toast.”

“My God!” Kara exclaimed. “You're right.”

“It's a good thing we delayed the experiment when we did.”

“No kidding,” she agreed.

“Let me talk to Ben.”

Kara spoke to Ben. “Listen, Jason wants to talk with you.” Then she handed Jason the phone.

“Ben, look, man, are you telling us that if you don't get your experiment reprogrammed we could have a major malfunction?” Jason asked pointblank.

“That's exactly what I'm saying,” Ben lied to him, too. “Look, I'm sorry, it only just occurred to me. But with the experiment delayed, it gives us enough time to make the correction.”

“Or abort,” Jason said adamantly.

“Why take a chance?” Ben pushed. “We could abort, but what if the box opens by mistake? It makes more sense to fix the problem now while we still have time.”

“I see your point,” Jason conceded, “but it makes more sense to abort.”

“I hear you, Jason, really I do, but that's not my worry. Dumb accidents happen all the time, it's human error. Of all agencies, NASA knows this reality far too well, and frankly, I just don't see us leaving this to chance. Not when I can fix it.”

“And you're sure you can do it?”

“It's tight. I've already run the simulations,” Ben lied again.

“And Kara has your application?”

“It ought to be sitting right there in front of you. It's easy. All you have to do is open my Missions file and insert the application after the tenth line of the program, then save and uplink it through POCC.”

“And you would already have done this, except you're overseas and got locked out of the system?”

“That's exactly right.”

“Otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation.”

“Man, I'm sorry to bother you guys with all this,” Ben said sincerely, “but I realized I couldn't leave this hanging a minute longer.”

“I understand. You did the right thing by calling.” Jason thought a moment. “Okay, Johnson, I'll do this for you. God only knows I don't want spilled blood on my hands.”

“You're a lifesaver, Jason. I owe you big, man.”

“We're going downtown. Give us about an hour. Is there a number we can reach you at?”

“Hang on.” Ben covered the phone and looked to Jordan. “He needs this number.”

“Tell him you'll call him back,” Jordan said.

Ben shook his head no; he wasn't buying into that routine again. And this time, Jordan didn't argue.

After disconnecting the call, Ben sat back in his chair, folded his arms across his chest, and said, “Looks like we have some time to kill.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Not really,” Ben replied, then added, “but thanks anyway.”

“How long has it been since you've eaten?” Jordan asked him.

“Couple hours, I don't know exactly,” he said. “I've lost track of time.”

She reached over to touch his leg — it was hard not to touch him when he was so close — but before she actually made contact, she diverted her hand to the tabletop. “You really ought to eat something. I'm worried about you.”

He closed his eyes.

Jordan sat back in her folding chair. “From experience,” she said, “you need to eat when you have a chance … before you get too hungry and — ”

She stopped. She didn't want to say
when food wasn't available or if something far worse happened.

He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Okay,” he said in his charming demeanor, “I'll have a porterhouse steak, baked potato with butter and sour cream, don't forget the chives, oh, and for good measure, throw in a house salad.” Then he rubbed his sides and unfolded his arms.

She wanted to say
give me a week and I'll make you anything under the sun
. But all she could say was, “I'll see what we've got in the kitchen.” Then she rose from her chair and walked toward a box of supplies on the makeshift shelf. “Ah, you're in luck; it's vichyssoise with toasted wheat crunchies.”

“Sounds like a feast.” He crossed his arms and hugged his abdomen again.

She saw that he was in pain. “Let me get you some pain medication first.”

“You know, that'd work for me. It's in that box Sonya left behind.”

Not waiting, she headed toward the car. But when she heard him make a small chuckle — the kind he made when he was amused — she snuck a look back to see what was so funny.

When he caught her eye, he quickly explained, “I've been reduced to traveling with the clothes on my back and a cardboard box.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't want any of this for you,” she replied.

“I'm good,” he said. “I've got a new pillow, a hand-woven blanket — which is a great souvenir by the way — and a box full of medications enough to open up my own drugstore. What else could I need?”

Jordan opened the car door and grabbed the box. She was glad her back was turned to him. That
what else could I need
remark hit her like a sledgehammer. Another place, another time, she would have rained with emotions. She would have admitted he
was
the greatest thing she had going for her. Instead, she swallowed her pride and told herself to let it go.

Until she was slammed with a jolt of guilt: prison, his splenectomy, his heartbreak. They were all her fault because she selfishly crossed the line. She allowed herself to become too involved. He was only supposed to be a blind asset, not the man of her dreams.

She didn't have to jump into his bed. She didn't have to cling to his every word. Or cherish the adoration he lavished on every inch of her, but she did. And now, her heart was telling her she didn't just want him, she needed him.

She could have accomplished this mission by simply befriending the guy or just being another chick on the stick that ordered a drink from the safe distance of a barstool. She wasn't supposed to fall for the guy. It wasn't supposed to go this far, but she was weak and for once in her miserable life, she allowed her heart to get the better of her.

Chou was right; she got too close.

Jordan grabbed a bottle of water and swallowed half the contents, hoping the burn in her throat would disappear along with the heartache she felt, too.

There was nothing she could do; Ben was as good as gone. Despite the fact that he was joking with her as though nothing in the world had changed, she also knew that no amount of begging, crying, or pleading would convince him of how she really felt about him, not after all the lies.

She returned with his pain medication and a fresh bottle of water. “Eat a few crackers after you swallow those pills,” she told him. “It'll keep you from getting a sick stomach.”

“Good idea.”

She opened a can of soup. “Looks like this one is a beef barley. If you throw in a few crackers, it'll add more flavor.”

“Sounds gourmet,” he said. And when he reached for the can, his unruly dark curls fell across his face.

Jordan noticed his curls. How many times had she swirled her fingers through those locks?

“You don't look so sure about this soup,” he said to her, after studying her face.

“No, I'm sorry, I was just thinking about something else. It's not too bad.”

“I have a thing for beef barley.”

She knew that. He didn't seriously think she'd forgotten their first night together. She thought back. It took a few weeks of chatting him up at the bar before he asked her over to his place for dinner. He made beef barley soup with carrots and potatoes. It was great, other than he mistakenly dumped too much black pepper in the pot. She loved spice, enjoyed a little heat, but midway through the soup and a bottle and a half of Chianti later, they were tight, wired, and slaphappy drunk. And after he gave her that one look, was it any wonder they found themselves ripping their clothes off — it was the hottest passion she'd ever known.

That was the night she lost herself, that was the night she became one mind, body, and soul with Ben Johnson. And that night would be etched in her mind forever. Yes, she knew he had a thing for beef barley soup. She did, too.

She slid the package of crackers to him. “Here.”

Just as he started to say, “It's just like old — ”

Her phone rang, interrupting him from saying more.

“It's them,” she said. She put the call on speaker so she could listen in.

“Ben, Jason. Look man, I did everything you asked, I opened the file, inserted your attachment, but when I tried to send the file to POCC, the computer wouldn't accept it.”

“That means it's not getting past a filter,” Ben thought aloud. “What if we open a new file, cut and paste, and go at it that way?”

Jason said, “That's a thought, hang on.” Some minutes later, Jason returned to the line. “I tried creating a new file, but now I'm getting a reading that says we've got a potential virus attack.”

“From what?”

Jason said, “I don't know. Something's not right with your program. It's got to be coming from the attachment I'm trying to merge with the file. I'm guessing your source location is still tagged to the attachment.”

“Yeah. What else could it be?”

“All right,” Jason said. “It looks like you've got a good several thousand lines plus in your attachment.”

“Yeah, that's about right,” Ben agreed.

“I know of only one way to do this.”

Ben said it for them both. “It has to be entered in manually.”

Jason agreed. “I don't see any other unadulterated way to get your application into the system without the filters kicking it out or rejecting it.”

“And you guys are willing to do all that?” Ben sounded close to ecstatic.

“Let me talk to Kara,” Jason said.

It wasn't long before Jason was back on the line. “Okay, here's how it's going to play out. Kara says she'll sit secretary and type in your application. But hear me now, if this doesn't work, I'm going to disable your project. There won't be any waiting until the morning.”

“I hear you,” Ben agreed without argument.