Powersat

Over Goose Island State Park, Texas

Dan saw the fireball as he flew over the state park.

He had just ducked the Staggerwing below the thickening cloud deck, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to land at the airstrip at the Astro headquarters. He was receiving landing instructions from the airport at Lamar, on the other side of the bay that separated Matagorda Island from the mainland when the hydrogen facility blew up.

“What the hell was that?” yelled the air traffic controller in Dan’s earphones.

The Staggerwing lurched, whether from the explosion’s shock wave or Dan’s startled response he didn’t know. Or care.

“Explosion at my headquarters on Matagorda,” he said into the pin microphone that almost touched his lips. “I’m diverting over there to take a look.”

Dan felt bile inching up his throat. He knew that the only thing on Matagorda that could create a fireball that immense was Astro’s hydrogen facility.

“Christ, not another one,” he groaned. First the spaceplane and now this: I’m ruined. They’ve ruined me.

Circling over the blazing remains, Dan saw that his worst fears had come true. Flickering flames broke the darkness where the hydrogen facility had been. The grass was burning now; a spreading brushfire had already reached beyond the sagging wire fence that surrounded the facility. There’s nothing down there but burning wreckage, he saw. Must’ve broken windows for miles.

Along the road on the other side of the bay from the island Dan saw headlights racing toward the fire. Local firefighters, he thought. Volunteers. They’ll have to get the ferry guy out of bed.

Don’t let anybody be hurt, he prayed to a god he didn’t believe in. Just don’t let anybody be hurt. But as he circled around the burning destruction he thought he saw the twisted remains of a truck or some sort of vehicle.

Tenny? Dan’s heart clutched in his chest at the thought. Joe powered his pickup on that hydrogen. My god, was he caught in the blast?

“Staggerwing oh-nine,” came the voice of the air traffic controller in Dan’s earphones. “Report your position, please.”

That snapped Dan back to reality. I’m circling over hell, he wanted to say. I’ve been damned and put in hell.

Dan tried to phone his office from the airport in Lamar but there was no answer at any of the phone lines. He considered driving to his headquarters, but realized that once the ferry had carried the local firefighters to the island it wouldn’t be running again until morning. So he bunked down at the airport motel and tried to sleep. Tried to.

First thing the next morning Dan flew from Lamar back to the airstrip on Matagorda, his eyes bloodshot and pouchy. The local morning news had a brief item on the explosion at the Astro base. Radio stations in Houston didn’t mention it at all.

Wait till they find out it was a hydrogen blast, Dan thought as he touched the Staggerwing’s wheels to the runway. They’ll come boiling out here from New York and Transylvania to do stories on how dangerous hydrogen is.

He was in a sour mood as he clattered up the stairs to his office. April was already at her desk, her eyes red and puffy.

“Was anybody—” Dan stopped. One look at his assistant’s face told him. “Who was it?”

“Dr. Tenny,” April said, bursting into fresh tears.

“Dead?”

She nodded, sobbing.

“Double-damn it all to hell and back,” Dan muttered as he went past April’s desk and into his own office.

Passeau was already there, in shirtsleeves, standing by the window with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand.

He turned as Dan stepped behind his desk. “Tenny was killed,” Passeau said, his voice flat, resigned. Dan saw that the man looked weary, saggy-eyed, as if he hadn’t slept all night either.

“He was murdered,” Dan said.

Passeau stepped to the fabric-covered chair in front of Dan’s desk and sat in it. He took a cautious sip of the hot coffee. “Last night about ten he called me at the motel.”

Dan leaned forward, rested his forearms on the desktop.

“I was in the bar, such as it is.”

“Joe left a message?”

“He said he knew who had sabotaged the spaceplane. By the time I picked up the message—”

“He was murdered,” Dan repeated.

Passeau nodded.

“He must have tried to get me on the phone, too.” Dan pulled his cell phone from its clip on his belt. Five messages, he saw, all from Tenny. If I’d left the double-damned phone on, he accused himself, Joe would still be alive.

“The county fire marshal is investigating the accident scene,” Passeau said. “You have more investigators sniffing around here than your own working staff.”

Dan took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing pulse. “Claude, I need your help.”

Passeau notched an eyebrow slightly.

“If Joe said he’d figured out who had sabotaged Hannah’s flight, if he was murdered to keep him silent—”

“You need someone to follow his trail.”

“Yes.”

For a long moment Passeau said nothing. Then he shook his head. “I’ve already called the FBI office in Houston.”

Dan closed his eyes briefly. Okay, he told himself, that was inevitable. Maybe we should have called them last week.

To Passeau he said, “We’ve got to do more than sit back and let the feds start poking around, Claude.”

“You can’t expect me to—”

“I’m not asking you to do anything you don’t want to do,” Dan said impatiently. “I’m going to follow Joe’s footsteps. I’d like you to help me figure out the evidence.”

“A consultant?” Passeau almost smiled.

“Unpaid.”

The FAA investigator did smile at that. “And unannounced, please. I don’t want my superiors knowing that I’m doing some freelance work for you.”

“You’ll do it?”

“You realize that following Tenny’s trail could be dangerous for you. They killed him because he was getting too close.”

“Who else do I have?”

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been known to track down criminals now and then.”

Frowning, Dan replied, “By the time I convince the double-damned feds that a crime has been committed, the murderer could be in Timbuktu.”

“True enough, I suppose. Officially the spaceplane’s crash is still regarded as an accident.”

“You know it wasn’t.”

“I believe that it wasn’t an accident, yes. But there isn’t a shred of evidence to back up that belief.”

“Joe said he had evidence.”

“And now he’s dead.”

Dan said slowly, “You know, Claude, you might go over and give the county fire investigator a hand. My guess is that he’s in over his head.”

“I suppose I could talk with him. Unofficially, of course.”

“Of course.”

Passeau pushed himself up from the chair. “Very well. I’m off for an unofficial chat with the fire investigator.”

Dan wished him luck. Once Passeau left the office, Dan booted up his computer and began wondering how he could hold his company together. Hell, he thought, I’m going to have a tough time meeting next week’s payroll.

By the end of the long, wearying day, Dan sat at his desk, shirtsleeves rolled up, desktop buried in paper, computer screen showing numbers that got steadily worse each time he looked at them.

With enormous reluctance he called April. She appeared at his door, dry-eyed now but still looking as sad as a woman who’d lost her firstborn.

“Get Garrison on the phone for me, will you, please?” Dan said.

“In Houston?”

“Right. In Houston.” As she went back to her desk Dan said to himself, You’ve got no choice. You sell a chunk of the company to Garrison or the whole thing goes down the drain.