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By noon, three-quarters of the people on the ship were suffering coldlike symptoms, and, despite precautions, Mark and Linda were included in that group.
CHAPTER 32
THE HIGH DESERT WIND SHRIEKED ACROSS THE AIRFIELD, throwing up towering clouds of dust that threatened to block out the sky. The pilot of the chartered Citation jet came in on the runway fully thirty feet to the left, to account for the cross-wind hammering the fuselage.
The gear came down with a mechanical whine and thump, and flaps were extended. The turbojets roared to keep the aircraft aloft for a few more seconds.
The sole passenger seated in the cabin paid no attention to the weather conditions or the dangerous landing. Since catching a commercial flight from Nice to London, and then on to Dallas, where the leased executive jet was waiting, he sat with his laptop open and his fingers dancing across the keys.
When Eric had come up with his plan to fire the Russian ballistic projectile weapon, it had been the barest outline of an idea. He hadn’t considered the tremendous amount of data he needed to make it work. Orbital speeds, vectors, the rotation of the earth, the mass of the tungsten rods, and a hundred other elements—all had to be factored into his computations.
With his naval background, he was more than confident he could do the mathematics, although he would have liked Murph’s help. Mark had an innate grasp of trigonometry and calculus that would have made this so much easier. But, then, he would have insisted on taking command, and the Chairman would have rightly given him the slot. Mark was simply more qualified to do this than Eric.
Because this broke down to a communications exercise between the satellite and the computer, Hali Kasim would have been the next logical choice. The only problem was that Hali got sick on carnival rides and wouldn’t have been able to do the work.
Eric got tapped to do what only a handful of people had ever done. He would allow himself to get excited about it later, but, for now, he had to work the numbers. He had told Jannike Dahl about needing to do this, embellishing the danger, while not spelling out the reason. And with Mark trapped on the Golden Sky, he had stepped up his pursuit of the beautiful young Norwegian. He was already up to the eighth item on his courtship checklist and almost pushed it to number nine by trying to hold her hand when he explained why he had to leave the ship. He wished he knew what it meant when she had cocked her head and parted her lips just before he left her in the infirmary.
He should have asked Dr. Huxley.
The plane touched down, swaying dangerously on two wheels for a moment before the pilot could kick in the rudder to even her out again. They taxied a long way—the airstrip was over three miles long—and finally came to a massive hangar next to another unmarked executive jet. Above the hangar door was the name of a long-defunct airline. The engines spooled to silence, and the copilot emerged from the cockpit.
“Sorry, Mr. Stone, but we can’t taxi into the hangar in this sandstorm. But, don’t worry. It’s going to die down by tonight.”
Eric had already checked a dozen weather sites on the Internet and knew to the minute when this cold front would move on. By midnight, there wouldn’t even be a breeze.
He closed up his laptop and grabbed his suitcase, an old Navy duffel that had followed
him from Annapolis.
The copilot opened the door and Eric fought his way down the stairs, slitting his eyes against the sand blowing across the tarmac. There was a man near a small door set into the larger hangar door waving him over. Eric jogged the forty feet to the door and ducked through. The stranger immediately closed it. There was a large aircraft in the center of the hangar covered in canvas tarps. Its shape was hard to make out, but it was unlike anything else in the world.
“Damned dust plays havoc on the planes,” the man griped. “You must be Eric Stone. I’m Jack Taggart.”
“It’s an honor to meet you, Colonel.” Eric said with a touch of hero-worship. “I read about you when I was a kid.”
Taggart was in his sixties, with a leathery weather-beaten face and clear blue eyes. He was ruggedly handsome, like an idealized figure of a cowboy, with a firm jaw and a day’s worth of silver stubble. He wore chinos, a flight uniform shirt, and a bomber jacket despite the heat. His handshake was like iron, and his baseball cap had the logo for one of the early Space Shuttle missions. He had been its pilot.
“You ready for the ride of your life?” Taggart asked, leading him to an office in one corner of the hangar. His voice had a West Texas twang.
Eric grinned. “Yes, sir, I am.”
There were two men in the office. Eric recognized one of them right away by his thick muttonchop sideburns. It was legendary aircraft designer Rick Butterfield. The other was a tall, patrician figure with a shock of white hair. He wore a banker’s three-piece suit, with the chain of a Phi Beta Kappa key arcing across his waistcoat. Eric put his age on the high side of seventy.
“Mr. Stone,” he said, extending a hand. “I so rarely get to meet members of Juan’s team.”
“Are you Langston Overholt?” Eric asked with awe.
“I am, my boy, I am. Although you have never, and most likely will never, meet me. Do you understand?”
Eric nodded.
“I really shouldn’t have come at all. This is a private deal between the Corporation and Mr. Butterfield’s company, after all.”
“That I wouldn’t have agreed to if you hadn’t threatened to gum up my certification applications with the FAA and NASA.” Butterfield had a high-pitched voice.
Overholt turned to him. “Rick, it wasn’t a threat, just a friendly reminder that your aircraft hasn’t yet been certified flightworthy, and that a word from me will cut a lot of red tape.”
“You’d better not be yanking my chain.”
