communities.
As soon as they left the stage, Jack Junior called Melanie. He’d seen her once since his return from Dubai. He’d told her he’d been on a business trip to Switzerland, where he’d banged his eye and the bridge of his nose against a tree branch when he and his coworkers tried their hand at snowboarding.
He missed her tonight, and wished she could be with him right now, here amid all the excitement and celebration. But they both knew that if she showed up on the arm of the son of the former and next President of the United States, it would invite a lot of scrutiny. Melanie had not even met Jack Junior’s parents yet, and this hardly seemed like the venue for that.
But Jack found a sofa in one of the suites the Ryan campaign had reserved for the evening, and he sat and chatted with Melanie until the rest of the family was ready to head back home.
59
The offices of Kosmos Space Flight Corporation in Moscow are on Sergey Makeev Street in Krasnaya Presnya, in a modern steel-and-glass structure that overlooks the eighteenth-century Vagankovo cemetery. Here Georgi Safronov worked long hours, diligently managing his personnel, his corporation’s logistical resources, and his own intellectual faculties, to prepare for the launch of three Dnepr-1 rockets the following month.
Aleksandr Verbov, KSFC’s Director of Launch Operations, was an affable heavyset man. He was a few years older than Georgi, loyal and hardworking. The two men had been friends since the eighties. Normally Verbov dealt with the day-to-day preparations of upcoming space launches without any help from the president of his company in the minutiae of this complicated endeavor. But Georgi had all but seconded Verbov for the much publicized upcoming triple launch. Aleksandr understood that the triple launch was dear to his president’s heart, and he also knew that Safronov was as technically adept as anyone in the company. Georgi had held the director of launch ops job himself once before, when Verbov was a senior engineer.
If Georgi wanted to push the launch button himself on the ?selthree rockets — hell, if he wanted to work on the pad in the snow to mate the Space Head Modules to the launch vehicles in their silos — well, as far as Alex Verbov was concerned, that was his right.
But Alex was growing suspicious about one aspect of his boss’s focus.
The two men met daily in Georgi’s office. Here they had worked together on nearly every facet of the launch since Safronov returned from his vacation. Verbov had commented repeatedly on his boss’s lean physique after three and a half weeks at a dude ranch somewhere in the western United States. Georgi looked fitter, even if his arms and hands were covered with old cuts and bruises. Cattle roping, Georgi had confided in Aleksandr, was incredibly tough work.
Verbov had asked to see a picture of his boss in a Stetson and chaps, but Georgi had demurred.
This day, like every other, they sat at Georgi’s desk and sipped tea. Both men had high-end laptops open, and they worked both together and independently as they dealt with one aspect or another of the upcoming launches.
Alex said, “Georgi Mikhailovich, I have the last of the confirmations that the tracking stations will be online on the required dates. Two southern launches, one northern launch.”
Georgi did not look up from his laptop. “Very good.”
“We also received the updated spacecraft transit electrical link schematic, so we can troubleshoot any problems with the interface of the American satellite.”
“Okay.”
Alex cocked his head to the side. He hesitated for more than half a minute before he said, “I need to ask you a question.”
“What is it?”
“The truth is, Georgi… Well, I am beginning to have some suspicions.”
Georgi Safronov’s eyes left his laptop and locked on the heavy man across the desk. “Suspicions?”
Alex Verbov shuffled in his chair. “It’s just that… you don’t seem as interested in the actual spacecraft and the orbit of the SC as you do the launch itself. Am I correct in this?”
Safronov closed his computer and leaned forward. “Why do you say that?”
“It just seems this way. Is there something bothering you about the launch vehicles for these flights?”
“No, Alex Petrovich. Of course not. What are you getting at?”
“Honestly, my friend, I am somewhat suspicious that you are less than pleased with my recent work. Specifically, regarding the LVs.”
Georgi relaxed slightly. “I am very happy with your work. You are the finest launch director in the business. I am lucky to have you working on the Dnepr system and not the Protons or Soyuz craft.”
“Thank you. But why are you so disinterested in the spaceflight?”
Safronov smiled. “I confess that I know I could leave this all in your hands. I just prefer working on the launch. The technology for this has not changed so much in the past fifteen years. The satellites and communications and tracking systems have been updated since my time in your job. I have not been keeping up with as much of my technical reading as I should. I am afraid I would not do as good a job as you, and my laziness might show in poor results.”
Alex breathed a dramatic sigh and?d n followed it with a belly laugh. “I have been so worried, Georgi. Of course you could handle the newer technology! Probably better than me. If you like I could take you through some of the new steps to—”
Alex watched Safronov open his laptop again. In seconds he was back at work. While typing furiously he said, “I will leave that part to you while I do what I do best. Perhaps after the triple launch I will have time for tutoring.”
Verbov nodded. Happy that his suspicions had proved totally unfounded. In seconds he himself was back to work, and he did not think of the matter again.
60
Judith Cochrane watched Saif Yasin get up from his concrete bed and make his way toward the Plexiglas wall. A small writing table and a chair had been placed on his side of the glass, and here his phone sat, along with his notepad and pens. On the table next to his concrete bed a tall stack of American law books and other papers were arranged so that he could help the PCI prepare his defense.
The Justice Department had been loosening the strict rules it had set up for the Emir’s defense. It seemed like every day Judy got an e-mail or a call from someone at DOJ allowing her or her client access to more information, to more contact with the outside world, to more resources, in order for the PCI to put on a respectable defense. As soon as the path was cleared for Yasin to move to a federal cell in Virginia, then Judy would petition the court for even more access to classified material she and Saif would need to prove that he had been captured illegally and should therefore be allowed to go free.
Paul Laska had confided in Judy weeks ago that he’d learned from the CIA that the men who took the Emir off the streets of Riyadh were ex — CIA men, working in no official capacity with the U.S. government. This complicated things for both sides of the federal case, but Judy was doing her best to leverage this information to her advantage. Laska had said that Ryan himself had some association with the criminals who kidnapped her client, so Judy was planning on threatening the new administration, promising to bring this relationship into the light to embarrass the President of the United States.
