Able One (7 page)

As the weeks turned into months, though, and stretched into years, she became convinced it was more than his work that was separating them.

It was when Harry was hospitalized after the explosion at the test facility that Sylvia realized she didn’t really have any feelings for him anymore. She went to the hospital and it was like she was visiting a stranger. She couldn’t even cry about it. She had married an engineer, a man who couldn’t or wouldn’t show his feelings; maybe he didn’t really have any. She’d thought she loved him. She bore him two daughters. But now it was all gone. Turned to ice. He lay there unconscious on his hospital bed, burned and battered, and she felt like she was looking at a stranger.

When he came home to recuperate Sylvia kept her distance from him. She made up the guest room for him and even after he was completely healed and had gone back to work, she refused to let him into her bed. It was over. Even the girls knew it. They knew their father was a cold, unfeeling man.

When he finally admitted that he’d had an affair with one of the women at his laboratory, Sylvia told him to get out. He acted as if he were numb, as if he’d expected them to break up but couldn’t take the first step himself. He left without an argument, without raising his voice even once, which angered Sylvia even more.

But that was all in the past. Sylvia settled down to the task of raising her teenaged daughters by herself and found that she enjoyed being on her own, with no one to contradict her. She could sit up in bed and read all night if she wanted to.

She was still reasonably attractive, she thought. At least that’s what her friends told her. A little overweight, but men liked
zaftig
women with generous bosoms. Still, she dated very little. It was just too much of a chore, too much of a stupid ritual. She’d been through it all with Harry and found that she didn’t really have any interest in going that route again.

Sylvia took a job at their congresswoman’s local office. It didn’t pay much, but with the child support money that Harry paid every month, they were getting by nicely.

Today she was especially happy. She had a surprise for her daughters. She’d made all the arrangements and everything was set.

At the breakfast table she announced, “No school today.”

Her daughters looked up from their cereal bowls in surprise.

“How come?” asked the elder, Vickie. Harry had insisted on naming her after the founder of Anson Aerospace, as if that had made any difference in his career advancement.

“I got permission from your teachers to keep you out of class today.”

“What’s going on, Mom?” Denise asked.

“We’re flying to San Francisco and staying overnight in a hotel,” Sylvia told them. Beaming, she explained, “Congresswoman McClintock has given me three tickets to the big rodeo at the Cow Palace.”

“Rodeo?” Clear distaste showed on Denise’s fourteen-year-old face.

“Horses and all that smell,” said Vickie.

Her smile even bigger, Sylvia explained, “You don’t understand. The President of the United States is going to officially open the rodeo. He’s giving a speech and we’re going to be sitting in the front row!”

“The President?” Denise looked truly surprised.

But Vickie moaned, “That phony. He said he was going to start a big green-energy program and he hasn’t done a thing.”

“Congress hasn’t voted on his energy program yet,” Sylvia said firmly.

The girls looked at each other. “I guess,” Vickie said with a resigned shrug.

Sylvia told them, “You’ll be the envy of all your friends when you tell them you were right there with the President.”

“I guess,” they said in unison, equally unenthusiastic.

Teenagers, thought Sylvia.

ABL-1: Cockpit

Lieutenant Colonel Karen Christopher came through the cockpit hatch without needing to duck and slid easily into the pilot’s seat. It was still misty gray outside, but visibility was good enough for takeoff. She remembered one of the older jocks telling her that when the 747 was first introduced to the commercial airlines, the FAA had to raise its ceiling limits for takeoffs because the huge plane’s cockpit sat so high above the ground it was sometimes in cloud while the ground was clear enough for smaller planes to take off.

As she pulled the safety harness over her slim shoulders, her copilot, Major Kaufman, squeezed into the cockpit and settled his bulk into the right-hand seat, red-nosed and sniffling.

“That’s some cold you’ve got,” said Colonel Christopher.

“Alaska,” he said. She thought it sounded sullen. Major Kaufman did not like the fact that Karen had been jammed down his throat by headquarters, forcing him to relinquish command of the plane.

He sneezed wetly. That’s right, Colonel Christopher grumbled silently, spread your damned cold to the rest of us.

She pulled her plastic flight helmet over her short-cropped hair and plugged it into the communications console.

“You want me to take her out?” Kaufman asked. Christopher realized that the major knew she had only a half dozen hours of piloting a 747. “I’ll do it,” she said tightly. “I can fly anything that has wings on it, Obie.”

She saw his eyes flash again. He doesn’t like his nickname, she realized. But Kaufman said only, “You’re the boss.”

She said nothing. Stick to business, she told herself. He’ll just have to get used to being in the right-hand seat.

“ABL-1 ready to start engines,” she said into the pin mike that nearly brushed her lips. Out of the corner of her eye she watched Kaufman as he pulled up the takeoff checklist on the control panel’s central display and started scrolling it down the screen.

“ABL-1, you are clear to start engines,” said the flight controller’s clipped voice in her earphones.

Turning to Kaufman, she said, “Spool ‘em up.”

With a bleary nod, the major murmured, “Starting one.”

As the first of the plane’s four turbojet engines whined to life, the flight controller called, “ABL-1, message incoming for you from Andrews.”

Colonel Christopher felt puzzled. “Andrews Air Force Base?”

“Relayed from the Pentagon.”

“Better pipe it to me,” she said.

A series of clicks. Then a mechanical voice started dictating a formal military order. Computer-synthesized audio, Colonel Christopher realized. The voice droned through the date, routing, and classification level: Top Secret.

Then it said, “From: Major General Bradley B. Scheib, deputy commander, MDA. To: Lieutenant Colonel Karen R. Christopher, command pilot, ABL-1.

“A nuclear device apparently launched from North Korea has been exploded in orbit. All commercial satellites have been either knocked out completely or seriously degraded.

“You will proceed to a site to be designated over the Sea of Japan and orbit until further orders. Navigational information is being transmitted in a separate order. You will avoid violating territorial airspace of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and/or the People’s Republic of China. You will attack and destroy any ballistic missiles launched from DPRK. Confirm receipt of this order immediately.”

Christopher looked at Major Kaufman, who sat wide-eyed and suddenly pale.

Swallowing hard, she said into her mike, “Order received and understood. Please confirm to General Scheib.”

“It’s going to take a little time, Colonel,” said the flight controller’s voice. “The commsats are overloaded with traffic.”

“Send the confirmation,” Colonel Christopher said in the hard voice of command she had learned at the Air Force Academy.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Major Kaufman seemed frozen in his seat. “Shoot down any missiles launched from North Korea? Are they crazy?”

“Get on with the engine start,” she snapped. “Maybe they are crazy, but orders are orders.”

As Kaufman punched up the second engine, Christopher unbuckled her safety harness and got to her feet. “I’d better talk to the chief nerd.”

But as she stepped through the hatch and into the area where the navigator and communications stations were, she wasn’t thinking of the chief of the laser crew or of her surly, suddenly frightened copilot, or even of the possibility that her orders meant a war was starting. She was thinking of the last time she had seen Major General Bradley B. Scheib.

“You’re out of uniform, Colonel.”

She smiled at the general. “So are you, sir.”

She was standing nude in the bathroom doorway while he lay on the thoroughly rumpled king-sized bed. The motel was a little on the seedy side, but Karen hadn’t minded that. Over the months since she’d fallen in love with Brad Scheib she’d become accustomed to being furtive. It even added a touch of spice to their relationship. Brad was married; she’d known that from the outset, but she knew how to make him happy and his preppy socialite wife didn’t.

The Air Force brass did not like it when an officer had an affair with a married officer. But there was this handsome hunk of a man, so serious, so troubled when she’d first met him. And now he was smiling and contented. At least, most of the time when they were together. But he wasn’t smiling at the moment.

She went to the bed and snuggled beside him. He wrapped his arms around her. For long moments neither of them spoke a word.

At last he half-whispered, “I’m up for the deputy director post at the MDA.”

Delighted, she asked, “That means a second star, doesn’t it?”

He nodded. Only then did she realize how grave his tone was.

“You want the job, don’t you?” “I sure do.”

“So you’ll be moving to Washington, then. It’s okay. I can get there often enough.”

“I don’t think so, Karen,” he said.

She suddenly understood where he was heading, but she didn’t want to believe it. “What do you mean?”

“There’s going to be an investigation.”

“Of you?”

He shook his head. “Of you. My wife ...” His voice trailed off.

“She ratted you out?” Karen felt anger seething up inside her.

He wouldn’t look into her eyes. “No. She ratted
you
out.”

“What?”

“She got one of her Georgetown friends to tip off the AG that you’re having an affair with a married officer. She didn’t say with who. She’s too devious for that. She expects you to finger me once the AG investigation starts.”

Karen pulled away from him. “The Advocate General’s office is coming after me?”

“They’ll want to know who you’re sleeping with.” His voice was misery personified. “If you tell them, I can say good-bye to the MDA job and the second star.”

“But if I don’t...”

“They can’t do much to you,” he’d said. “A slap on the wrist, that’s all.”

A slap on the wrist, she thought. They bounced me out of the B-2 squadron and gave me this bus driver’s job with a bunch of tech geeks. Some slap on the wrist.

But now this bus she was driving might be heading into a shooting war. Karen almost smiled at the irony of it.

ABL-1: Flight Deck

Colonel Christopher saw that Lieutenant Sharmon and the communications officer were staring at her.

“You heard our orders?” she asked. Sharmon said, “I got the navigation data. Fed it into the flight computer.” He looked uneasy, almost scared.

“Good. We’ll need a couple of refuelings on the way. Must be a ten-, twelve-hour flight.”

Nodding, the navigator said, “Approximately ten hours, Colonel. They’re workin’ out the refueling rendezvous points at Andrews. They’ll send the fixes while we’re in flight.”

The communications officer, red-haired Captain Brick O’Banion, said grimly, “Looks like we’re flying into a war.”

Karen felt her insides clutch. “Looks that way,” she said. Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm herself. “All right. Call the tech chief up here. This isn’t a test flight anymore.”

As the plane’s first engine rumbled to life Delany complained, “Christ, it’s colder inside this bucket than outside.”

Harry agreed. Cold and damp. Not good for my back, he thought as he followed Delany and the rest of the laser team past the color-coded pipes and gleaming stainless steel tankage toward the cramped compartment that was their station during takeoffs and landings. His nose twitched with the faint iron tang of iodine. Like dried blood.

A leak? Harry asked himself, alarmed. That’s all we need; the damned stuff is corrosive enough to damage your eyes and lungs.

“Wally!” he called to Rosenberg, three bodies ahead of him. “You check the tank pressures yet?”

“Last night,” Rosenberg called over his shoulder. “Like I do every night before a mission. We all went over the whole damned system, remember?”

The night before, Harry and the rest of the team had inspected every part of the laser system, from the bulbous turret in the plane’s nose to the COIL fuel tanks in the tail. Every pipe. Every electronics console. Every gauge and switch and display screen. Routine. They’d done it the night before every flight.

“Check ‘em again,” he said.

“Now?” Rosenberg turned around to face Harry, forcing Taki Nakamura to sidle past him in the narrow passageway.

Harry thought, If I make him check the pressures now it’ll delay our takeoff by half an hour or more. The new pilot won’t like that. He can check it while we’re flying out to the test range.

“Once we’re at cruising altitude,” he said.

Rosenberg nodded, muttering, “There’s nothing wrong with the friggin’ tank pressures.”

Yeah, Harry retorted silently. There was nothing wrong with them when the damned rig blew up in the desert, either.

They got to their compartment, sat in the padded seats, and began to strap in. There were twelve seats, six facing six. They had been scavenged from a commercial airliner, but the compartment was so tight that they couldn’t recline; the seat backs were smack against the bulkheads. The safety straps were Air Force issue: not merely a lap belt but a harness that went over the shoulders as well. Diminutive Taki looked like a lost little waif in the gray webbing.

The intercom hummed briefly, then, “Mr. Hartunian, could you come up to the flight deck, please?”

Harry’s brows shot up. “What the hell for?” he wondered aloud.