Red Thunder (39 page)

"Okay. Caleb can watch him. He won't need a gun, Betty, Caleb could
take that pathetic loser apart with his bare hands. Give him all the
booze he can drink, pop some pills in it. Dump him in an alley
someplace, later. What's he gonna do? It'll be his word against all of
us."

"That's what we'll do, Travis," she said. "He really burned me up. No way I was going to let the likes of him stop y'all."

"Mom!" I said.

"You know I'd be happier if you didn't go, Manny. But not this way."

I gave her a big hug.

AND SO WE returned to the warehouse, with one more
night and a day to spend inside. 2Loose had erected scaffolds around
the ship and hung tarps around it.

We climbed the ramp and sealed the outer air-lock door, cycled the
lock, entered the ship interior. The Monopoly game was as we'd left it.
Other than our cans of Coke having grown warm, it was as if we'd never
been gone.

TRAVIS DIDN'T THROW us any more emergencies.

"I feel dirty," he told us over the phone. "It's so easy to
humiliate a man, especially when he's down. So easy. I'm not proud of
it."

"That's something," Dak said. "You don't take pleasure in it."

"But I did, when it was happening."

"So did I," Kelly said. "Anyway, it had to be done."

"Jubal wants to know if he can stay with y'all for a while," Travis said.

"What, he has to ask?" Alicia said. "Send him in."

So Jubal joined the Monopoly game for an hour. He seemed unusually
quiet, sweating a lot, very nervous. I hoped it was just opening night
jitters, anticipation. I know I was feeling it. He couldn't be worried
about the trip. Could he?

We slept, we woke up, and we sweated out the last hours until six
P.M., when we swung the door open and came down the ramp. Mom was
there, and Jubal, and Grace, and Salty, and Maria, and Sam. There was a
big flat cake with a little model of the ship standing on it, and the
logo of Red Thunder spelled out in red icing. Maria, who had baked it,
cut it and we all had a piece.

"Where'd you get the model?" I asked.

"Oh, we got ten thousand of 'em," Mom said. "Didn't Kelly tell you?
We're going to merchandise the hell out of this trip." I looked at
Kelly.

"Well, I've got to have something to keep me busy while y'all are gone, okay?"

"Fine with me, Kelly," I said.

Then 2Loose gave us a tour of his masterwork. All the scaffolding
and canvas had come down while we slept, and his masterpiece rose high
in the air before us.

He had rendered the Six Days of Creation, from Genesis.

The first tank depicted the dividing of the light from the darkness,
and I had almost been prophetic. God wasn't in a low-rider, he was
doing a wheelie on a big Harley, and the Light was coming out of one
tailpipe and the Darkness from the other. Shapes loomed in the big
white and black clouds.

Tank two, the creation of the Firmament, which means Heaven, I
think. How would a Cuban/French-Canadian maniac render Heaven? With
lots of gold and lots of blue, and angels partying to boom boxes on
Miami Beach.

On the third day God separated the waters from the dry land. Raging
seas, towering mountains. "Let the Earth bring forth grass, and herb
yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit after his
kind..." He showed all that, and in the foreground was a brightly
colored jungle.

Tank four, the creation of the sun, the moon, and the stars. That
may have been the most gorgeous panel of the six, stars whirling and
exploding, the sun high above all.

Fifth day, creation of animals. Great whales, winged fowl, plus a
lot of animals Noah must have forgotten to bring along on the ark.

And on the sixth day... created He the crew of the
Red Thunder.
That's right, the six of us—2Loose not knowing Kelly wasn't going, not knowing, in fact, that
any
of us
were
going, but one look at the last picture and you knew some vibe from our
crazy little ship had touched his artist's heart and told him the truth.

We were standing together, smiling, wearing our brown leather bomber
jackets. Travis in the back, a hand on Kelly's and Alicia's shoulders,
Jubal in a place of honor down in front of us.

"My goodness," Alicia said. "This is really... something."

"Do y'all like it?" 2Loose asked anxiously.

"You done good, amigo," Travis said, slapping him on the back.

"We got our money's worth," Kelly said.

"What, you paid for this?" Travis asked.

"Shut up, Travis. It was my money, okay?"

Then it came time for somebody to smash a bottle of champagne over her... well, she'd have to sit in a cherry-picker to hit
Red Thunder's
bow, so we settled for one of the landing struts.

Travis handed the bottle to Kelly, who looked surprised. But she took it.

"I christen thee,
Red Thunder
," she said, and choked up.
She cleared her throat. "Bless all who sail in her." She swung the
bottle, hard, and we all applauded.

"And I think that'll be my exit line, my friends," she said. "I
won't be at the launch in the morning. I don't think I could stand it."

My throat was burning as I tried to hold back the tears. No one had
anything to say, but Mom put her arms around Kelly and hugged her
tight. Jubal went to her and hugged her, too. Then Kelly came to me,
and we kissed. Her eyes were full of tears, which she blinked away.

"Come back," she said.

"I will."

And she turned and headed for the door, never looking back, just raising one hand in a small wave as she left.

The three of us were glaring at Travis, and he looked back at us defiantly.

"Okay, I'm the bad guy. What was I to do? You all heard my reasons."

"Nothing, Travis, nothing," Mom said. "You did what you had to do."

I was still far from sure of that. And about 49 percent of me wanted
to run after her, tell her I wasn't going unless she went... but I
didn't think she'd respect me for it. I had to take her at her word,
and she had said
go.

"Now everybody get some sleep," Travis said. "Bright and early
tomorrow morning we lift off. Nothing short of a hurricane's going to
stop us now."

I'd grown so superstitious about the project that I actually checked
the weather report, though it was too early in the year for hurricanes.
Sure enough, none was in sight.

And I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep that night.

But I slept.

"JUBAL WON'T BE going with us," Travis said. I had just taken a bite of a Krispy Kreme, and suddenly I didn't want it.

It was four-thirty A.M. Dak and Alicia and Travis and me were
sitting around a table that was looking very empty without Kelly and
Jubal. The big doors leading out to the dock were open now, for the
first time.
Red Thunder
was hooked to the overhead crane, and the leased barge was tied to the dock.

"Is he sick?" Alicia asked.

"Not really." Travis sighed. "We decided a few weeks ago that he
couldn't go. He didn't want y'all to know. He was afraid you'd not like
him anymore."

"That's ridiculous," I said.

"That's what I told him, too. But you know Jubal. Once he gets an
idea in his head, there's not much chance of convincing him otherwise."

"What's the problem, Travis?" Dak asked.

"Jubal... friends, it was always an iffy proposition, Jubal getting into that thing." He jerked his thumb in the direction of
Red Thunder.
"Jubal doesn't even fly. He's afraid of flying and, worst of all, he
can't stand small, closed spaces. Maybe you never noticed it, but Jubal
doesn't go aboard the ship. Claustrophobia. If it was just
claustrophobia he might have made it. But you add in the other phobia,
it was just impossible. He could barely handle one hour the other
night."

"Where is he now?" I asked.

"That's another thing. The main reason I wanted to take him with us
is that he knows too much. The only place I could be sure of protecting
him would be aboard ship. But that's impossible. Jubal is going
underground, people. Caleb left with Jubal last night. He's taking
him... I don't know where. What I don't know, I can't tell. But even if
I knew I wouldn't tell you.

"Jubal's only hope is for us to get to Mars and back, and I'm afraid
that, after we get back, all of you will have a lawyer as a constant
companion for a few days, or weeks. Until it becomes clear to whoever
might want to arrest us on some national security charge, suspend
habeas corpus...
till it becomes clear they can't get away with it."

WE HAD RAISED
Red Thunder
with the overhead
crane and were inching it along the rails toward the barge when the
rest of the liftoff party arrived, everyone in the know except Caleb
and Jubal. Dak was up in the crane cab, sweating blood as he moved it
at dead slow speed, just as he'd drilled a dozen times with our extra
tank car, which we'd filled with cement to simulate the mass of the
ship.

Everyone gathered outside as Dak swung the ship out over the barge.
Then three of us jumped down to the barge and pulled on the ropes
attached to the landing struts until they were centered on the stress
gauges, where we'd reinforced the deck of the barge. Dak eased it down.
There was a loud creaking sound that nearly gave me a heart attack, but
then she was down and sitting pretty as can be as the sun broke over
the horizon and the first red rays shone on 2Loose's masterpiece.

We were all wearing our bomber jackets, even Mom and Maria and Sam.
Every time I looked at them I thought of Kelly, how she should be here.
I was being swept by an emotional whirlwind, feeling cheated, alone,
abandoned, and about to burst with anticipation because the big day was
finally here.

Dak got the ship perfectly in position, and we detached the hooks.
Dak rolled the crane back into the warehouse and hurried down to ground
level.

Aunt Maria had a video camera, making a record of what could become
an historical moment. Grace was snapping pictures with an old Pentax.

"Where's Seamus the shamus?" Travis asked Salty at one point.

"Sleeping peacefully in a back alley behind a bar," he said. "He'll
wake up in the drunk tank several hours after you've gone, and then he
can tell his story to anybody he wants to. By then, you'll all be
famous."

"Yeah." He looked around. "It's a shame we have to be so quiet about
this," Travis said. "We ought to have brass bands, ticker tape, crowds
of gawkers. They make a bigger fuss than this when a liner leaves Miami
for a four-day cruise."

We were all standing around, awkwardly, wondering how to say good-bye when you're off to Mars.
Mars,
for cryin' out loud.

Dak and I got hugs from Sam and Mom, respectively.

"You come back, now," Mom told me, and gave me a last hug.

We all got together for a posed picture at the foot of the ramp,
then Travis gave the high sign to the captain of the tug we'd hired to
tow the barge out about five miles from shore. Seas were calm, winds
low, a perfect day for a launch. Sam and Salty cast off the lines
holding the barge to the dock... and we were moving.

Our good-bye waves were cut a little short, though, when a plain
white sedan came around the side of the warehouse, going way too fast.
It stopped, and Agents Dallas and Lubbock got out.

"Uh-oh," Dak said. We were maybe two hundred yards from the pier,
heading into Strickland Bay. From there we'd have to weave through
several palmetto islands, go under a four-lane freeway bridge, then
through Spruce Creek, Ponce de Leon Cut, then cross the Halifax River,
go through the inlet and out to the open sea. We figured about an hour
to the inlet, give or take.

But Dallas and Lubbock could change everything.

"I wonder what the hell happened?" Travis said, watching the agents
through his binoculars. "Are they on to us, or do they just have more
questions?"

"Pretty early for a routine interview, isn't it?" Alicia asked.

We all watched as the agents hurried up to our shore party, and we
could see they were pretty pissed about something. They were shouting
at all of them. Dallas—or was it Lubbock?—was standing
almost toe-to-toe with my mother, and Mom didn't retreat an inch. I
found I was gritting my teeth.
You touch my mother, you slimy bastard, and I'll—

Travis's and Dak's cell phones rang almost simultaneously. I could
see Sam and Salty trying to keep their backs to the agents, letting Mom
distract them. Travis picked up and nodded a few times.

"Thanks, Salty," he said. "Don't resist. But if you get a chance,
get your butts out of there. I think they'll be too concerned about us
to pay you much mind. Get back to the motel, all of you." Travis hung
up.

"They may be on to us," he said. "We'll just sit tight and keep moving."

We watched as the agents abandoned their argument with Mom and
hurried back to their car. Our friends and family faded back through
the huge warehouse doors. I saw the street-side door open and all of
them hurried through.

Maybe somebody just made a connection between Travis Broussard,
whose neighbor reported a flying saucer, and Celebration Broussard, in
Everglades City. Sure, but the Gulf Coast from Florida to Southeast
Texas is lousy with Broussards. There were three other Broussard
families, no relation, in Everglades City alone.

But it really didn't matter that morning. The only thing that mattered was, What are they going to do about it?

We found out within fifteen minutes. A Coast Guard helicopter came roaring toward us.

"That tears it," Travis said. "Everybody board ship. Secure all airtight hatches."

We moved quickly, up the ramp, which I stayed behind to close and
seal. The ramp seemed to move slower than it ever had. Then I went up
through the suit room, into the central module, dogging the door behind
me, making sure the green light came on.
This is not a drill!
kept sounding in my ears.
This is not a drill!