Prepared For Rage

His phone rang. It was Melanie. "What are you doing still at work, Melanie?" he said, checking the clock. "You should have gone home hours ago."

"I thought I should wait until I heard from you," she said, her low contralto a pleasant sound. "In case you needed something."

"Thank you, Melanie," he said, a little touched. "No, there's nothing. Except-"

"Yes, Mr. Chisum?"

"What time is it in London?" He checked the clock again.

"It's five a.m. in London, Mr. Chisum."

"Okay," he said. "Do me a favor, call the Knightsbridge Institute and leave a message for Hugh Rincon when he comes in, will you? Ask him to call my cell phone number."

"As good as done. Anything else?"

"Has the director asked for me today?"

"No, sir. We haven't heard from the director since he went on vacation last Friday."

"Good," Patrick said with satisfaction. "Okay, thanks, Melanie. You can wrap it up now and head for home." He hesitated. "I wish I could tell you to take the morning off, but chances are I'm going to need you at your desk tomorrow. I'm sorry."

"It's quite all right, Mr. Chisum," she said, and he could have sworn he heard a smile in her voice. "This is important stuff. I'm happy to help out."

The warmth in her voice was unmistakable. He stammered some reply and fumbled the phone into its cradle, and sat staring at it for several minutes afterward. It had been so long since he'd experienced even a mild flirtation that he was uncertain as to what was going on here. Rumor had it she was sleeping with Kallendorf. If rumor was correct, she might be coming on to him at Kallendorf's suggestion.

If rumor was incorrect, she might be coming on to him for herself.

He shook himself like a dog coming out of the water. An improbable assumption. Just look at him, the budding potbelly, the dying hairline. It was written down somewhere that you never slept with anyone prettier than you. But he couldn't help feeling wistful. If only it were true.

His evil twin whispered, Even if it isn't true, how far would Melanie be prepared to go to get information out of you?

He immediately condemned his evil twin to silence and returned resolutely to his laptop, stubbornly determined to resolve the mystery that was Isa, and do it before Isa struck again, this time, Patrick was convinced, entirely too close to home.

Isa, who had apprenticed with Zarqawi.

Isa, who blew up a busload of people in Baghdad as a means of presenting a calling card to the Far Enemy.

Isa, who recruited acolytes in Germany and England and moved them across oceans like chess pieces.

Isa, who used the Internet as his front office while totally frustrating the best geeks, nerds, and techies the CIA had in house to trace him.

Isa, who it was reputed never bowed five times a day toward Mecca.

Isa, who seduced young men away from their families and their societies to become suicide bombers and mass murderers in the name of Allah.

Isa, who had almost certainly killed Adam Bayzani and Zahirah Man-sour.

Isa, who wasn't Jordanian or Egyptian, but who might be Afghani, or even Pakistani.

Isa. Where was he, and what was he up to?

20

CAPE CANAVERAL

"How's the weather look?"

They all waited tensely for the answer. The NASA meteorologist, aware that this was his moment in the sun, paged through a sheaf of papers and took his time answering, probably partly because his answer was so prosaic. It wasn't anything they couldn't all have looked up on www.weather .com five minutes before, anyway, and he knew it. "Forecast for midnight is for clear skies and calm winds, continuing through morning. Winds will pick up a little around eleven, but you'll be long gone by then, so no worries."

There was an audible exhalation around the room. "Excellent," Rick said. He looked around at the rest of the crew. "Any concerns? Anyone?" He carefully avoided looking at the Arabian Knight, who put his hand up anyway. "Mike?"

Mike shrugged, the epitome of the cool jet jockey. "Let's light this candle." He spoiled the effect with an enormous grin.

Bill shook his head.

" Laurel?"

Laurel 's brow was creased but then Laurel 's brow was always creased. "Eratosthenes and ARABSAT-8A good to go." No one saw her crossing her fingers behind her back but during launch crossed fingers were a given. "We should be good to go when we get on orbit."

"Kenai?"

"All systems go. Robot arm go." Kenai heard the words coming out of her mouth but they echoed strangely in her ears. This time tomorrow she'd be on orbit. This time tomorrow she'd look out of the flight deck windows and see the Big Blue Marble. This time tomorrow, she would have the right to change the silver shuttle on her collar for gold. "We're ready to rock and roll."

This time tomorrow she would be a bona fide astronaut.

The Arabian Knight still had his hand up. Rick sighed heavily. "Yes,

Jilal?"

"Yes, Commander." The Arabian Knight never addressed them by their names. He had not been invited to. "I had a few more questions about the food. I want be certain that everything is halal-"

Kenai tuned out of the conversation. That evening, she got a phone call from Cal. "I thought you were at sea."

"We're only five miles offshore. I figured I'd see if my cell phone was working. I dialed the number you gave me, and whiz bang, some guy answered and handed me off to you." There was a faint question at the end of his sentence.

"Yeah, that was Mike. Mike Smith. One of the other crew members. We're in crew quarters. You remember, in medical quarantine until we go out to the pad."

"Yeah."

After a moment she said, "So did you call just to hear me breathe?"

He surprised them both when he said, "Yeah. I think I did."

Neither one of them knew what to do with that, so she said, "You've met the parents?"

"They're great people, Kenai."

She smiled. "I know. They seem equally impressed with you. I talked to them before you left the dock." She yawned. "Dad wants to know if I'm sleeping with you."

"Oh," he said uncomfortably. "Yeah. I kinda blew it."

"He told me."

"Sorry," he said.

"I'm not," she said. "Are you?"

For the life of him, he couldn't come up with a respectable answer, probably because he didn't know what it was.

"Never mind," she said. "Let's not go there, at least not now. I've got other things to worry about."

"How's the Arabian Knight?"

"Right now, he's vetting the menu. Making sure everything's halal."

"What's halal?"

"It's Arabic for kosher, I think. Whatever. It keeps him out of our hair. Now if we could just gag him for the rest of the trip when we strap in."

"There have been protests about him."

"Yeah, they told us. Bunch of right-wing Muslims protesting a devout's close contact with secular infidels?"

"Pretty much."

"Do we got trouble in River City?"

"Nah. For one thing, the launch is miles away from anything that looks like access. I suppose they could barricade the gates or something, but what would be the point?"

"And that's not what they want, anyway," she said cynically. "What they want is film at eleven."

"Speaking of which-"

"Oh yeah," she said, and laughed. "I forgot. How many television cameras you got on board?"

"Only one, fortunately, and even that feels like one too many. They restricted it to three pool reporters, one from the Miami Herald, one from NPR, and one from CNN. And they all want to talk to Nick and Doreen."

"How they holding up?"

"Pretty well. That little prep course NASA runs the friends and relatives through must be pretty effective. They both smile right into the camera like it's their new best friend, and they'll talk the ear off of any reporter about how their little girl started reading Robert Heinlein by the time she was in the second grade. Oh, and I didn't know you did bead-work?"