THE
Launch

A Jamie Austen Novella

by

TERRY TOLER

The Launch

Published by: BeHoldings Publishing

Copyright ©2021, BeHoldings Publishing
Terry Toler
All Rights Reserved

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without prior written permission.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

For information contact us at terry@terrytoler.com

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For booking information email: booking@terrytoler.com.

First U.S. Edition: May, 2021

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

BOOKS BY TERRY TOLER

Fiction

The Longest Day

The Reformation of Mars

The Great Wall of Ven-Us

Saturn: The Eden Experiment

The Late, Great Planet Jupiter

The Blue Rose

Save The Girls

The Ingenue

Saving Sara

Save The Queen

No Girl Left Behind

  Non-Fiction

How to Make More Than a Million Dollars

The Heart Attacked

Seven Years of Promise

Mission Possible

Marriage Made in Heaven

21 Days to Physical Healing

21 Days to Spiritual Fitness

21 Days to Divine Health

21 Days to a Great Marriage

21 Days to Financial Freedom

21 Days to Sharing Your Faith

21 Days to Mission Possible

7 Days to Emotional Freedom

Uncommon Finances

Uncommon Marriage

Uncommon Health

Suddenly Free

Feeling Free

For more information on these books and other resources visit TerryToler.com.

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Dedicated to the fans of Jamie Austen.

From the Author

This book is Part One of my book, The Longest Day.

Jamie Austen is the daughter of the main character. I loved her so much I had to write The Spy Stories, featuring Jamie as the protagonist.

As they say, the rest is history. I had no idea I’d eventually make a career writing about her.

Enjoy!

⁓Terry Toler

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Part One

The greatest explorer on this earth never takes voyages as long as those of the man, who descends to the depth of his heart.
- Julien Green.

Chapter One

Today was Adam Lang’s last day on earth.

Most people don’t know when their last day will be; Adam had known for more than two years. He stared at himself in the mirror, looking for any sign of emotion. Nothing. His ex-wife, may she rest in peace, said he was dead inside. The Process Communication Model concluded that Adam was a thinker, not a feeler. The more in-depth tests said he “has a penchant for solitude and a low need for affiliation.” His third-grade teacher was ahead of the curve when she wrote on his report card, doesn’t play well with others.

Adam turned his head to see if he had missed any spots shaving. “I need to talk to Jamie,” he said to himself.

Another special report from the television in the other room interrupted his thoughts. The big four networks and all the cable news channels had been talking about him almost nonstop for two straight hours.

Maybe Jamie is watching the news.

If she was, she wouldn’t know he was her father. He wanted nothing more than to tell her, but would she want to know?

A loud knock on the door startled him. “Open up, Lang.”

He found the remote to silence the television.

The banging on the door got louder. Adam didn’t need to look at the clock to know the time. His handler, Rod Grisham, said he’d pick Adam up at eight, and in twelve years, he’d never been one minute early or one minute late. Sarge, as everyone called him, banged harder on the door, not giving Adam a second to answer. If anyone at the hotel was asleep, they weren’t anymore. Sarge didn’t care. He thought if anyone was asleep at eight o’clock in the morning, they were a loser, and someone should wake them up.

“I’m coming, Sarge. Hang on.”

“Are you ready, Lang?”

“I’m not going.”

“You are going. If I have to drag you there myself.”

“You and whose army?” Adam said with caution, and he’d soon know if Sarge was in the mood to joke around.

Sarge stood five feet ten and was two-hundred pounds of solid muscle. If he wanted to drag Adam out of there, he could easily do it. “The three of us. Me, myself, and I are the only army I need to haul you skinny, little, runt out of this room and down to the car.”

“Seriously, Sarge, I’m not going.”

“They thought you might say that. That’s why they sent me.”

“I need to talk to Jamie.”

“That’s ridiculous. It’s too late now.”

“She needs to know that I’m her father.”

“What are you going to say? ‘Hi Jamie. I’m your father. By the way, you’re never going to see me again. Watch the news. They’ll tell you why.’”

“Don’t you think a girl should know who her father is?” Adam asked. He’d never get another chance and had been thinking of Jamie for months now—ever since his ex-wife died and he found out he’d been a father all these years.

Why didn’t Andrea want me to know?

“The poor girl already lost her mother. She doesn’t even know you exist. She already lost you once; do you want her to lose you again?” Sarge grabbed a piece of toast off of the mostly uneaten breakfast tray. “You should eat something. It’s going to be a long day.”

Sarge’s phone rang. He answered it.

Adam said, “Tell her I’m not going to do it.”

“We’re leaving right now,” Sarge told the person on the other end. Most likely Sarah. “Our ETA should be in twenty minutes. Yeah, he’s doing okay. Are you sure you want to put him on television? His face is better suited for radio, don’t you think?”

Adam was not amused. “Tell her I’m not going to do it.”

Sarge ignored him. “We’ll be there.” He hung up the phone and shoved it back into his pocket.

“What did she say?” He couldn’t really do anything if Sarah Reynolds, flight director for NASA, told him to go to the press conference. She was both of their bosses.

“We have to be at Kennedy in thirty minutes. She said to not let you sneak out the back and to keep my eyes on you at all times. She also said she thinks she made a mistake picking you, but it’s too late now. Let’s roll. You have a flight to catch.” He faced Adam squarely. “She also said to make sure you look pretty for the cameras.”

Adam groaned.

“What’s the big deal? You’re ready for it.”

That was true. For the past two weeks, a PR expert had been working with Adam on how to answer questions from the press. They ran through mock sessions and grilled him for forty minutes straight several times a day until he got it right. All the answers were scripted. He only had to memorize them and spit them out at the right time, which he could do in his sleep.

Still, the thought of speaking in front of a crowd terrified him. “If it’s so easy,” he said, “you do it. You know I don’t like attention, and you know I don’t like speaking in front of a crowd.”

“Don’t be such a pansy. There’s not a crowd. Only about a hundred reporters will be in the room. Two hundred million people will be watching, but don’t pay any attention to that. If you get flustered, look over at me and picture me in my underwear. That should get your mind off of the crowd.”

Sarge almost smiled for a change.

“I don’t think me throwing up in front of two hundred million people will help anything.”

“Then pick out a pretty reporter and picture her in her underwear. Whatever works for you. You’re doing this,” he stated. “Let’s go and get this over with.”

Sarge had his marching orders, so he took charge as only he could do. “Here’s the drill. There’s a motorcade waiting in the underground garage. We’ll have a police escort that’ll take us to Kennedy. Senator Robinson will ride with you, and I’ll be in the car behind you. There will be more than two-hundred-thousand people lining the route, so smile and wave. You’re a frigging rock star now. Don’t let it go to your head.”

Sarge walked over and grabbed Adam’s suitcase. As they were about to leave, Sarge stopped and pulled Adam into a bear hug—an act out of character for Sarge. He caught Adam off guard, and it took him a moment to hug him back.

Sarge looked at Adam and said, “I’m going to miss your sorry self.” The only time Sarge had ever touched him other than a handshake was when Adam jokingly challenged him to a wrestling match. That was a mistake. Sarge put him in a bear hug, slammed him to the ground, and choked him out in less than a minute. He wanted to teach Adam a lesson so he held the chokehold longer than he should have.

It worked. Adam never messed with Sarge again.

“If you start crying, I’m not going with you,” Adam said. “You probably want to borrow some money from me, because you know I won’t be able to collect it after today. You’ll miss me for about five minutes, then you’ll be on somebody else’s case, and you’ll have forgotten my name.”

Sarge headed for the door.

I really am going to miss Sarge.

He was going to miss Jamie too. She would miss him as well, if she knew who he was.

Adam resigned himself to the probability he was never going to talk to Jamie. He didn’t even know how to get in touch with her. So, he turned his mind to the monumental task at hand. This was his fifteen minutes of fame he never asked for, but he figured it’ll be easy.

How hard could it be? I answer a few questions. Twenty minutes tops. Then I’m out of there and I can focus on my mission.

He’d always wanted to be an astronaut, and today would be his defining moment… the culmination of years of preparation and training.

The first man to go to the end of the universe.

***

Jamie Austen had been looking for her father for two years. She spent the past two hours of her spring break sitting on the edge of her bed at the Beach Street Resort in Miami Beach, listening intently to them talk about him nonstop on the television.

She googled Cape Canaveral on her phone and discovered she was only four hours away from there. The news said her father’s launch was in six hours. Could she make it in time? And if she did, how would she get past security?

“Would he even talk to me?” she asked aloud. “He doesn’t even know I exist, so of course they wouldn’t let me through.”

Doesn’t a man have a right to know he has a daughter?

She stood and paced the room. “I have to try. I promised.”

Tears welled up in Jamie’s eyes. She remembered sitting on her mother’s deathbed.

“I have something important to tell you,” Mom told her in earnest. “Will you ever be able to forgive me?”

“What, Mom? Of course, I forgive you. What is it?”

The secret she had held deep inside of her for seventeen years came pouring out. More of a confession than anything else. The guilt, the betrayal, the lies. All Jamie’s life, her mother had told her that her father was dead. She now needed to make things right.

“He was a really good man. He was the love of my life. I was jealous of his career and was afraid I’d be left a widow and you without a father. I didn’t think I could take a husband who was an astronaut. What if he died a horrible death in space? I couldn’t stand the thought. I couldn’t put you through it.”

Jamie remembered her mom’s anguish like it was yesterday.

“I never told him about you. He deserved to know. I was wrong. He never even knew I was pregnant.”

So, she had lost him under her own terms, and Jamie had grown up without a father anyway.

Her mother confessed she’d made a horrible mistake. It wasn’t fair to Jamie or her father.

“Please find him. Tell him I’m sorry. I was wrong. Tell him I’ve always loved him.” Her mother gripped her hand. “Jamie, you need to know your father. His name is Adam Lang. You are just like him. With me gone… you’re going to need him.”

Then she died.

Jamie was seventeen back then. She went to live with her aunt and then went to college. Every chance she got; Jamie searched. There was no Adam Lang on social media. How could she know he was locked away in a training program for the last two years? All her calls to NASA were not returned.

She now knew where he was. He was four hours away. This was her last chance. The news said he was about to leave on a mission to the ends of the universe and would never return.

“What am I going to say? ‘Hi Dad. I’m your daughter. I know you’re never going to see me again. Sorry.’”

The words didn’t make sense. They didn’t have to. She had to keep her promise to her dying mother. She had to do it for herself. She needed to talk to him, if only for a minute.

Jamie quickly scribbled a note to her roommate, grabbed her purse and keys, and headed for the lobby. She hadn’t eaten, so she stopped by the gift shop in the lobby. She purchased two bottles of water, a Met RX protein bar, a package of gum, and a tee shirt that said, Life Would Be Boring Without Me. The tee shirt was a present for her dad. Something he could take with him on his trip. Something to remember her by.

As Jamie exited the store, she saw the guy who had been randomly appearing everywhere she went. An employee at the hotel. He was at the beach the day before when she was sunbathing. She caught him gawking at her from a distance. Then in the bar later that night while she and her friends were dancing, he even came up to her and asked if he could buy her a drink. She told him she didn’t drink, which wasn’t a lie, but she wouldn’t have accepted a drink from him anyway. She didn’t trust him to not put something in her drink. He wouldn’t leave her alone and asked her to dance.

She said no a little more rudely and made up an excuse, saying she had a boyfriend and she wasn’t interested. He stormed away like he was offended. The guy gave her the creeps. Now, he was in the lobby. It looked like he was there waiting for her.

It didn’t matter. Soon, she’d be hundreds of miles away.

Jamie quickly walked to the elevator to the parking garage. He started to follow her, but she gave him a nasty, “leave me alone, not interested” kind of look, and he turned away. She breathed a sigh of relief when he didn’t get on the elevator with her.

Oh well. I’m probably just imagining things anyway.

She turned her focus to the task at hand—getting to Cape Canaveral as soon as possible. Jamie pushed the button for level two and thought about what she was going to say if and when she talked to her father for the first time.

She exited the elevator and walked toward her car and sensed movement behind her to her right.

The man from the lobby.

Her instinct was right.

He had been stalking her.

Chapter Two

9:00 a.m. Six hours to launch.

When Courtney Dixon first met Adam, their relationship was strictly professional. Now she was in love with him. How could I have let this happen? NASA had strict rules about dating an astronaut. Technically, they had never dated. But still…

They had just finished their phone call, and she had wished him luck at his press conference. He didn’t seem nervous. Adam was solid as a rock under pressure. That was also the reason NASA chose him for the mission. He never let anyone know what he was feeling, except her. All kinds of thoughts and emotions flooded into her head. After Adam left her house about nine-thirty the night before, she had cried herself to sleep.

Courtney turned on the television in her living room as the press conference was starting. Adam walked out wearing his NASA jacket and looked the part. The crowd gave him a standing ovation. He took a seat in front of a large wall with the universe as the backdrop and a picture of his spacecraft, Chronos 7, flying off into space.

The Administrator of NASA, John Matthews spoke first. Two other men were on the panel. Senator Joe Robinson, the driving force behind getting the funding through Congress, and Jake Laughton, CEO of Boeing, who designed the spacecraft.

Courtney thought back to the first time she met Adam at the employee cafeteria.

“Hello, Adam. My name is Courtney. Do you mind if I join you?”

He looked up from a book he was reading and said, “Sure. Suit yourself.”

Courtney sat down across from him.

“I know you,” Adam said. “You’re a psychologist here at NASA. I hate psychologists. No offense.” One thing about Adam. He didn’t always say how he felt, but he always said what he was thinking.

“No offense taken… I guess. I saw you from across the room, and I wanted to meet you. I’m fascinated by your mission. Yes, I’m one of the space psychologists here at NASA.” She was part of a team of psychologists whose jobs were to evaluate the mental and emotional health of the astronauts to see if they were fit for the rigors of space travel.

Adam was not assigned to her, but he was the talk of the office. He had the highest IQ ever recorded by an astronaut—195—and the lowest score of any astronaut on emotional intelligence.

Fascinating.

“Did they send you here to give me more tests?” he asked. “I hate taking those personality tests.”

“I know. I read your file. And no, they didn’t send me here to talk to you. I’m just curious.”

“Curious about what?”

“Curious as to what would possess a man to leave everything on earth to spend a thousand years alone in space.”

Courtney’s thoughts were interrupted by the first question directed toward Adam.

“Why is the mission called The Longest Day?”

“When you travel at the speed of light,” Adam answered, “your body doesn’t age. Even though I’ll be on the spacecraft for a thousand years, I’ll only age one day. This is literally going to be the longest day of my life.”

The room roared in laughter.

“This question is for Administrator Matthews. Why did you choose Adam for this mission?”

“Adam was one of the most qualified candidates in the history of NASA. He’s highly educated and intelligent. He’s also an extremely hard worker. I can’t tell you how many hours he dedicated to preparing for this mission. He also spent time on the International Space Station, so he has had experience in space. That was critical. He went there twice. We wanted someone who knew what to expect and could adapt well to a weightless environment. Adam has a stellar record. As you can imagine, this is a unique mission. We were looking for a specific personality type, and Adam fit it perfectly. Adam has an incredible amount of courage, and we are extremely proud of him.”

Courtney laughed to herself. The Administrator said Adam had the right personality. He’d passed that part of the evaluation by the skin of his teeth. Adam had been very uncooperative with her colleagues. She remembered asking him about the tests.

“Why do you hate taking the personality tests so much?”

“I think they’re a waste of time. Ability and intelligence are more important than feelings.”

“On one test, you answered every question, ‘None of your business.’”

Adam laughed. “I know. I’m lucky I even got this job. Did you see the results from my Rorschach test?”

“I did. Why did you answer that every ink blot on every card looked like a rabbit?”

“I just thought it would be funny.”

“The interviewer didn’t think it was funny. He wasn’t very kind in his evaluation. We use those tests to determine if someone has the personality to be an astronaut. It could have cost you your position on this mission.”

The psychologist’s recommendations held a lot of weight. Adam was so head and shoulders above everyone else, they let it slide.

Adam just shrugged. He leaned in and whispered, “Do you want to know why I said that each card looked like a rabbit.”

Courtney listened intently.

“Because I’m hare-brained.”

“You’re mocking me.”

“No. I’m not mocking you. I’m sorry. I thought that was funny.”

It was funny. He’s funny, witty, charming… and cute.

Courtney instinctively turned her attention back to the television set. A pretty reporter had stepped to the podium.

“My name is Alicia Cook with USA Today. Commander Lang, how are you feeling knowing that you are leaving everything behind, and you will never be coming back to earth again?”

Courtney chuckled. “He probably just wants to say, ‘I have no feelings. Next question.’”

“I have mixed emotions,” Adam said. “I’m sad to leave all of you good people behind and all my dear friends at NASA, but I’m also excited and extremely honored to have been chosen for this adventure. I just hope that I can make my country and the entire planet proud.”

Another reporter stood. “My name is Bob Michaels, and I’m with the BBC. Where will your mission take you?”

“My destination is Kepler 452b. It’s the farthest known spot in the universe. We know the universe is flat. It takes fourteen-hundred years to get there at the speed of light, but because I’ll be traveling faster than the speed light, I’ll get there in a thousand years. I’m literally going to the edge of the universe as we know it. Kepler is the one planet in the universe that is most like earth. I’m hoping to find life on Kepler.”

Another reporter took her turn. “Olivia York. Washington Post. Can a person survive traveling at the speed of light?”

“I’ll find out in a few hours,” Adam said.

The room got somber.

Adam continued. “Einstein proved in the theory of relativity that man can’t survive traveling at the speed of light. However, we discovered that the universe was expanding faster than the speed of light, and it has a space stream not unlike the jet stream here on earth. When I enter the space stream, I’ll be traveling at the same speed the universe is expanding. The earth is traveling at 67,000 miles an hour right now around the sun. We don’t even notice it. If I’m attached to the stream, our belief is that I won’t notice how fast I am going.”

“How will we know if you survive entrance into the space stream?” the reporter asked.

“You won’t,” Adam answered soberly. “About one hour after launch, I’ll enter the stream and will accelerate to a speed faster than the speed of light. We have no idea if my body can withstand that speed. If I survive, I’ll send back a signal, but I’ll be so far away from earth it’ll take a hundred years to get back here. Everyone in this room will be gone by then.”

Courtney shuddered.

That was the hardest part. Not knowing. Once Adam left, she wouldn't know if he lived or died. Adam assured her he’d done the calculations and would probably survive. Probably? That wasn’t good enough. She’d have to live with not knowing for the rest of her life. She muted the television. She couldn’t listen anymore.

***

Jamie quickened her steps to avoid a confrontation with her stalker. Time was of the essence, and she had to get to her dad before it was too late. She reached into her purse and felt for the can of mace in the bottom, but didn’t think she’d need it, so she took her hand back out.

When she got to her car, she turned and faced him. He looked her up and down. He tried to look confident, like he’d done this before, but Jamie wasn’t buying it. He was an employee of the hotel, and he still wore his name tag.

She chuckled to herself, “Who attacks a woman in broad daylight while wearing a name tag?”

Focus Jay. You don’t have time for this. You must get to Cape Canaveral. Get rid of this joker as soon as possible.

“Fletcher, you don’t want to do this,” she said firmly.

Fletcher had a puzzled look on his face, obviously wondering how she knew his name.

She motioned with her eyes to his chest.

He pulled off the name tag and put it in his left pocket. His right hand was in his right pocket.

He must feel awfully stupid. He is stupid.

“Like I said, Fletcher, you need to turn and walk away while you still can.” Jamie said it nicely, hoping he’d leave.

“And why would I do that?” he asked sarcastically.

“Because if you don’t, you’ll be eating your food through a straw for the next six months.”

Fletcher was obviously holding a weapon in his right pocket, or at least he wanted her to think he was. Jamie hoped it wasn’t a gun because that would complicate things.

Fletcher clumsily pulled it out; it was a knife, and on the second try he got it to open. The knife was in his right hand which meant that he was right-handed, but his weight was shifted slightly on his back, left foot which meant he was totally out of balance. He obviously had no clue what he was doing.

Jamie could easily outrun him, and that’s what she would’ve done, but she didn’t have time. She needed to get into her car and get going. Her self-defense instructor always said flight was better than fight. This time she didn’t have the luxury of flight because every second mattered. Maybe she could talk some sense into him.

She stepped away from the car, trying to seem less threatening but mainly to improve her angle. Geometry and angles were her passion. When in a dangerous situation, angles are paramount. Not that she considered this a dangerous situation. He had a knife, but it was clear he didn’t know how to use it. Nevertheless, anyone with a knife who weighed three hundred pounds had to be taken somewhat seriously.

She wanted to control the situation and defuse it if possible, “Fletcher, you have a choice. You should turn around, walk away, and we’ll forget this ever happened. You’re messing with the wrong girl. I know how to kill you with my bare hands in a hundred different ways.”

Fletcher paused.

“Make the right choice here, Fletcher. You don’t want to do this.” Jamie used his name to make it personal so he would walk away. She then realized knowing his name complicated things. He might have walked away, but she could identify him. She knew his name and where he worked. He was probably thinking she’d turn him in, and he’d lose his job. That changed the dynamics. He probably wasn’t going to walk away; he had to make sure she couldn’t identify him.

Fletcher shifted his weight to the right and then back again to the left—a sign he was thinking about making his move. He wasn’t going to back down.

She had challenged his manhood and he was regaining his courage. Jamie put her purse on top of the car and sat her bag with the water and power bar on the ground. She needed to have her hands free. Taking two steps toward Fletcher, she took him by surprise.

The closer she stood to him the less room he had to swing wildly and perhaps nick her with his knife. The body contained several arteries that could cause one to bleed out even if only slightly nicked, and she wasn’t going to take any chances. Plus, her instructor always said, Always make your first move a surprise. Throw your attacker off guard. Get him off his plan right away.

Fletcher shifted his weight forward, telegraphing he was about to swing the knife toward Jamie’s head. That made him even more unbalanced. He was slower than she imagined. Instead of a swing, he merely waved the knife at her.

Jamie attacked the knife with both hands, simultaneously striking his wrist with her right hand and the back of his hand with her left, knocking the knife out of his hands. The knife slid a good twenty feet away. An experienced fighter might have been ready for what was a common maneuver.

Fletcher barely reacted. He let out a groan and winced from the pain.

She’d hit him harder than she intended, and his wrist probably had some soft tissue damage he’d feel for a while. Jamie could have finished him at that moment, but she didn’t want to hurt him so badly she’d have to call the police then wait for an ambulance and maybe even have to go to the station to make a statement. She didn’t have time for that and had to leave immediately if she was going to make it to the launch in time.

Now that he was disarmed, she took several steps backward hoping he would run away. Unfortunately, she forgot about the bag on the ground. She stepped on the bottled water and fell flat on her back. With nothing to brace her fall, her head hit the pavement. For a moment, everything went black.

Emboldened, Fletcher pounced on top of her and grabbed her arms as he tried to use his superior weight to hold her down.

This is not good.

It didn’t matter how inept this guy was, he weighed close to three hundred pounds, and he could do serious damage quickly if she didn’t get out of the situation immediately.

Fletcher tried to hold her with one arm and hit her with the other.

Instinctively, she blocked most of them, but one clipped her in the ear causing her to see stars. She had to end this soon or she would be in trouble.

She remembered her training. Jamie lifted the right side of her hips causing Fletcher to lean to his right. At the same time, she freed her arm from his grip, grabbed his wrist, and twisted counterclockwise while pulling violently downward, effectively separating his arm from his shoulder socket.

Fletcher cried out in pain.

Jamie placed her right hand under his right arm and jerked his elbow up while moving his wrist down. His arm hyperextended and tore all the cartilage and ligaments in his elbow. The bone in his arm snapped.

Fletcher’s face twisted from fear and pain as he looked at his arm dangling helplessly from his shoulder.

In one fluid motion, Jamie brought her right elbow back toward Fletcher’s head with incredible speed, connecting on Fletcher’s cheekbone, shattering every bone on the right side of his face. She must have miscalculated her point of impact or his head was smaller than she realized because she caught part of his eye socket, breaking it as well.

Fletcher immediately collapsed with a moan.

Jamie pushed him off her and picked herself up off the pavement. She mentally scanned her body to see if anything hurt. The back of her head did, and she reached back and felt blood matting up in her hair. Nothing that would require stitches, but she’d have to stop and clean it, wasting even more time.

She picked up her bag, grabbed her purse, got in the car, and sped out of the garage. As she left, she looked around and didn’t see any security cameras, which was a surprise considering this was a four-star resort.

With no cameras, it would be his word against hers, not that he would be able to talk anytime soon. Anyway, who would believe she attacked him? Florida had a stand your ground law and this was clearly self-defense. She would have to explain why she left the scene, which was problematic, but she would worry about that later. She had to get to Kennedy Space Center so her dad could help her sort it all out. She got her phone out of the purse and dialed 911.

“This is 911. What is your emergency?”

“A man is assaulting a woman on the second floor of the parking garage at the Beach Street hotel. There are injuries, so send an ambulance. When the EMTs arrive, tell them that the man has an orbital fracture and there may be hemorrhaging of the brain. Please hurry!”

“What is your name?”

Jamie hung up.

Chapter Three

9:40 a.m. Five hours, twenty minutes to launch.

The press conference was going longer than had been anticipated. Courtney couldn’t stop crying. Couldn’t stop remembering…

“Do you want to come over to my house for dinner tomorrow night?” she’d asked Adam that day they met.

“Are you asking me on a date?” Adam said.

“No. It’s not a date. I’m not allowed to date my subjects.”

“So, I’m your subject now?”

“That’s not what I mean. It’s strictly professional. I just want to get to know what makes you tick. I’m a psychologist. You are the most interesting subject I have ever come across.”

“You’re right. That doesn’t sound much like a date to me. I don’t know how I feel about being one of your ‘subjects.’”

They’d hit it off immediately. Adam was so easy to talk to, and Courtney’s interest quickly turned from professional to a deep friendship. Somewhere along the line it turned to love. She remembered when.

“I have a date tonight,” he said nonchalantly months later.

“What?” Courtney sat straight up in her chair. “Who do you have a date with?”

Stay cool. Don’t let him see it bothers you. Why am I jealous?

“One of the astronauts set me up on a blind date.”

“Really. Where are you taking her?” She tried not to sound too interested.

“I thought I’d take her to that French restaurant, Amelie.”

“That’s fancy. You must be trying to impress this girl.”

“I don’t even know her. It’s the first date I’ve been on since my divorce. It may be a waste of money. I’m picking her up at six o’clock.”

Her phone rang at seven thirty. It was Adam.

“Adam. Is something wrong? Aren’t you supposed to be on your date?”

“Nothing’s wrong. The date’s over. I just dropped her off at her house. Can I come over?”

“Sure. Are you okay?”

“I’ll tell you everything when I get there.”

Courtney quickly straightened the house and changed out of her pajamas. She tossed an empty container of ice cream in the trash. Ice cream was her comfort food. The date had bothered her more than she was willing to admit to herself. Whatever had happened, the date hadn’t gone well, and she was relieved.

How is Adam feeling? I was the first person he called.

Twenty minutes later, when Adam arrived at her house, he was clearly distressed. She had a glass of iced tea waiting for him. They went out on the back porch and sat on the swing. Adam looked out at the stars. Courtney wasn’t sure if he was thinking about the mission or was still thinking about his date. Either way, she wanted to make him feel comfortable, relaxed, and make him feel like he could open up.

Don’t rush it.

They sat in silence for the first minute or two. Adam obviously wasn’t going to have an easy time sharing.

Curiosity was getting the best of her. Finally, Courtney broke the silence. “Tell me what’s going on, Adam.”

“Do you promise you won’t laugh at me?”

“I promise. What happened?”

“Everything was going okay. We were having a pretty good conversation. She’s a nice girl and kind of pretty. But…” His face grew serious.

“What?” Courtney said. “Just tell me what happened.”

“She put salt on her food,” Adam said with such intensity, he could have been talking about a murder the woman had just committed.

Courtney burst out laughing. His words didn’t match the tone.

“You promised you wouldn’t laugh.”

She bit her lip and tried to compose herself. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you mean, Adam.”

“She put salt on her food without tasting it first.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

Adam explained. “You never do that. How do you know it even needs salt? You don’t make decisions without first getting all the information. You taste the food first and then you know if it needs salt. What if I stirred the oxygen tanks but didn’t stop to see if they needed it? I could blow up the whole spaceship.”

“It’s not life and death, Adam. It’s just salt.”

“You don’t understand. It might be just salt, but she probably does that with every decision. I can’t be with someone like that. She probably makes decisions in every area of her life without first getting the facts.”

Courtney made a mental note not to ever salt her food without tasting it.

Adam was right. It didn’t have to do with salt. It had to do with something deeper. He wasn’t ready to date. Even after all those years.

She turned the volume back up on the press conference. Remembering was getting too hard.

“Toby Collins, New York Times,” a tall, thin reporter, with wire-rim glasses said. “What are you going to miss most about earth?”

She caught the subtle hurt on Adam’s face. No one else in the room would have noticed it except her. She knew Adam better than he knew himself.

“I’m definitely going to miss the food,” Adam said.

The people in the room erupted in laughter.

“Seriously,” he continued. “There are too many things to mention. So many people I love and will miss.” Adam’s tone softened. “I can’t explain it really. Six hours from now, I’m going to miss everything. I know it.”

Courtney muted the television again. She didn’t know which was more painful. Listening or remembering.

Her heart pounded as if someone was ripping it out of her chest. It wasn’t like she hadn’t known this day was coming. She knew it would be hard, but this was excruciating and almost unbearable.

How could he be leaving me forever? How am I going to live without him?

The night before…

Maybe that was making it harder. Making the loss seem greater. The psychologist in her tried to make sense of her own feelings. Why did it have to make sense? Of course, she’d feel this way. Last night was special. She’d never experienced anything like it before. Adam had been vulnerable. She had been willing to give him her heart. They came together at one heartfelt moment. A few minutes in time when two people go inside of each other and become one. Not physically. This was more than that. It was a deeper connection.

Emotional. Spiritual even. Pure love. Not ruined by lustful sex. A love that flowed from the heart.

Words. Looks. Touches. Sharing. Tears…

Adam had told her a secret—something he’d been holding inside. She decided not to hold back either. No longer protect herself from what the next day would bring. She allowed herself to care enough to be devastated.

That’s why she was.

They were sitting together on the couch. Courtney took Adam’s hand and held it.

“I have a daughter,” he blurted out. “Her name is Jamie. She’s nineteen.”

“You have a daughter?” “How come you never told me about her?”

“I didn’t know about her until a couple years ago.”

He’d told Courtney about his ex-wife and that she died, but that was all he told her.

“I hadn’t spoken to Andrea since the divorce.” He started opening up what was obviously a wound. “I came home one day from the university, and there was a note on the kitchen table. It said, ‘Sorry. I can’t do this. I love you.’ That was it. No explanation. No phone calls. I never saw her again. She sent the divorce papers in the mail. I signed them and sent them back.”

“How do you know you have a daughter?”

“I saw her at Andrea’s funeral.”

“You went to the funeral?”

“Yes. I read about her death in the paper. I wouldn’t have even known about it except for the obituary. I stood in the back so no one would see me.”

“Oh Adam, why would you do that?”

He pulled his hand away. “I didn’t know why she left. I didn’t know if her family would be mad that I was there. What if Andrea didn’t want me there?”

“Why would they be mad? You didn’t do anything. She left you.”

Adam stood and started pacing.

“Apparently, I did, or she wouldn’t have left. Anyway, I saw Jamie at the funeral.”

“How do you know she’s your daughter?”

Adam opened the sliding glass door that led out to the back deck, still talking as if he expected her to follow him.

Courtney got up from the couch, flipped on the light, and followed him outside.

“I just know. It was obvious. And I did the math. She looks just like my mother.” Tears welled up in Adam’s eyes. He’d told Courtney his mother and father were killed in a car accident when he was fifteen.

She couldn’t imagine what Adam was going through.

“I thought about reaching out to her. I went to her college a few weeks ago. She came out of the dorm, and I was going to tell her but…”

Everything finally made sense to Courtney. The jokes about feelings. The hard, outer shell. The fear of answering the personality tests honestly. Adam’s problem wasn’t that he had no feelings; he had too many. Too many to bear. He buried them so he wouldn’t have to feel them.

The loss of his parents. The loss of his wife. The loss of his daughter. Now, he was going to lose her…

Courtney wasn’t being a psychologist on purpose. She was trained to spot these things. And she was being his friend. His lover in the sense that she loved him.

Should I tell him how I feel? Is now the right time? Isn’t it obvious? He must already know. Would it make it harder for him? No. Don’t tell him. This is about him. His feelings. His losses. Don’t make them worse.

He paused a moment and swallowed hard, maybe trying to tamp down his emotions. “I have something for you,” he finally said.

“What?”

Adam reached in his back pocket and pulled out an envelope. He handed it to Courtney.

“What is this?” she asked.

“This is everything I owned on earth. I sold it all. It’s not going to do me any good now. I don’t have any family. I want you to have it.”

Courtney opened the envelope and pulled out a cashier’s check made out to her for $253,145.78.

She didn’t know when her mouth fell open, but she suddenly felt the need to close it. “Adam! You should give this to charity. I can’t accept this.”

“I did. I gave half of what I sold to several different charities. I wanted you to have the other half.”

Courtney felt her knees buckle. She tried to speak but couldn’t find any words. That was the wrong response. You have to accept it. This is his last wish on earth. She just threw her arms around his neck.

More losses. Everything Adam had on earth was about to be gone. All his possessions. All his friendships. His daughter. Me.

How was Adam even coping? She’d been thinking about her pain, but his was even deeper. He loves me too. It wasn’t a check. He didn’t give Courtney his money. He gave her his life. Everything he had. In his own awkward way. Giving himself wasn’t an option anymore. For Adam… he was giving her the next best thing. She didn’t want the money; she wanted Adam, and he knew it. He wanted her too.

That wasn’t going to happen. They both knew what tomorrow would bring, and they were trying to say goodbye in the best way possible. It wasn’t quite working. But how could it? These circumstances were too different. No one would know how to say goodbye like this.

She started to pull away, but he held the embrace.

“Maybe you can save it and use it for your daughter someday, if you have one,” Adam said, as tears welled up in his eyes.

“I have something for you too,” Courtney said, trying to lighten the mood. “You’re awfully hard to shop for. What do you get a guy who has his own spacecraft?” She went back inside to the kitchen counter and picked up the wrapped package. Adam followed her back in, and she handed it to him.

Adam opened it.

She watched his reaction to the Bible, looking for anything that might tell her he appreciated it. “Promise me you’ll read it. It’s the best present I can give you.”

“I’ll read it. I’ll put it beside my bed and will look at it every night before I go to sleep.”

It seemed like he meant it.

They’d had many discussions about God and faith. Adam indulged Courtney because he knew how important her faith was, but he never came close to believing. He didn’t believe in heaven or in Jesus. That might be her biggest regret. What if he dies tomorrow having never given his heart to Jesus? I won’t even see him in heaven.

Courtney walked back outside and stood by the porch railing, trying to hide the tears. Maybe distancing herself would make things better. It hadn’t worked for Adam and wouldn’t work for her either. Her heart felt like someone was dying. In a way, he was. At least, the dream was dead. Whatever the dream was. Maybe if he wasn’t going away for good, they could’ve had a future. Maybe…

As it was, she would never see him again and that was that. This was their last moment together. He would have to leave soon.

Adam came up behind her and put his arm around her. “Everything’s going to be alright. I’m sorry I have to leave,” he said tenderly.

Courtney wiped the tears from her eyes. “Oh right. It’s getting late. You’re going to have to go. You have a big day tomorrow.”

Adam turned Courtney so to face him and said, “That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry that I must leave you tomorrow. I don’t want to…”

He looked into her eyes. Was he going to kiss her? He gazed into her eyes for what seemed like a long time. But not nearly long enough. He pulled her closer.

She fell into his chest.

His heart was pounding.

Maybe it was hers. Maybe it was both of theirs beating in unison. Her tears soaked his shirt.

He stroked her hair.

Lord, why did you bring him into my life to take him away forever?

Then he abruptly pulled away from her, said goodbye, and left.

No kiss to remember him by. No words of “I love you.” Though, no words were necessary. They both knew. She had stood on the front porch and watched him drive away. Courtney replayed the whole night repeatedly in her head until she finally fell asleep. The moment was gone. Adam would soon be gone.

She had promised Adam she would go to the launch, but she couldn’t do it. It would be too hard. He would never know, and it was just as well. She needed to distance herself from it. Let herself grieve. She didn’t resent him for leaving her, but he was, and she had a life to live without him.

***

She looked at her watch. The press conference would be wrapping up soon. A mound of tissues was piled on her coffee table.

Courtney stood up from her sofa, stunned. She couldn’t believe what happened on the television screen.

Adam had knocked the microphone off the table, pointed his fist angrily at a reporter, and stormed out of the room.

“What in the world just happened?” Courtney asked aloud.

Chapter Four

9:45 a.m. 5 hours, 15 minutes to launch

Today would be Jad Yusaf’s last day on earth. He’d known for more than eight months. As a mid-level security guard with NASA for more than ten years, he stood at his post outside the NASA armory staring at the spacecraft they were preparing for the launch in a little over five hours.

A launch he was going to make sure never happened.

He was humbled Allah had called him for such a great moment as this. In his morning prayers, he had prayed, “Allah give us a great victory today against the infidels. Give me courage and lead the way to the battle. I give my life today for your glory.”

He ran through his mental checklist one more time after being meticulous in his preparations. Nothing could go wrong now. His last worry had been when the Secret Service searched the armory earlier that morning. They didn’t find his FIM-92 Stinger shoulder missile stored in a box in plain view. While the dogs had taken an interest in the box, they were searching in an armory. Of course, there would be munitions and small arms stored there. That was the beauty of the plan. Everything could be easily explained.

Yusaf imagined what the explosion of 318,000 gallons of liquid oxygen would be like when he launched a missile into the fuel tank of Chronos 7. He and everyone within three miles of the explosion would be incinerated almost immediately as if a small atomic bomb went off. More than 200,000 people were expected to be in the blast radius. He didn’t care. The spirit of Allah had called him to this moment and would reward him in the life to come with seventy-two virgins. The infidels would be brought to their knees, and he would finally avenge his father’s death.

***

Courtney trembled as the DVR rewound. She’d never seen Adam angry before. Why did he storm out of the press conference? What could possibly have set him off to the extent that he would explode so angrily on worldwide television? She pressed stop.

Adam said, “The speed of light travels at 186,000 miles per second, which equates to 671 million miles per hour. To put that in perspective, the average airplane travels 500-600 miles per hour. I will pass Pluto about eight o’clock tonight.”

Courtney had rewound too far.

Administrator Matthews said, “Thank you for being here today. We will take one final question.”

She listened carefully. This must be it.

“My name is Aaron Fleming from the New York Times. My question is for Commander Lang. Is Jamie Austen your daughter? Her mother’s name is Andrea Austen who is your ex-wife. Can you confirm that Jamie is your daughter?”

Courtney gasped.

Adam flung the microphone across the stage and yelled, “This press conference is over!” and then stormed out of the room, shaking his fist at the reporter.

She stared at the television screen trying to process what just happened and all the ramifications. As far as she knew, Sarge was the only other person at NASA who knew about Jamie. NASA wouldn’t have selected Adam if they’d known he had a daughter. One of the requirements of the mission was that the astronaut could not have a family. They didn’t want any potential entanglements that could jeopardize the mission.

What does this mean?

Courtney thought of all the possible scenarios. Administrator Matthews was going to be furious. Would he cancel the mission? What about Adam? How was he feeling at that moment? He’d wanted to tell Jamie, but he wouldn’t have wanted her to find out this way. Was Jamie watching the press conference? It wouldn’t matter. She would hear about it soon enough.

What a disaster. She had to get to Adam. She quickly dialed his number, but it went straight to voicemail. “Call me. I saw the press conference. Don’t do anything rash. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

***

Adam bolted out of the room. Sarge tried to grab him by the arm as he rushed past him, but Adam pushed him aside. He went down the hall and into the conference room where he had stored his belongings.

Sarge followed him into the room and said, “Man, what are you doing?”

Adam paced the length of the room with his phone in his hand. “Not now. Just turn around, walk out the door, and leave me alone. I need time to think.”

“You need to calm down and let’s sort this out.”

“How did that jerk know about Jamie, and why would he mention her name on live television? You know Jamie’s going to hear about it.”

“Don’t you realize you just made it a lot worse?” Sarge retorted.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Adam said angrily.

“It was just one reporter who had a suspicion that she might be your daughter. You just confirmed it was true when you flew out of there like a maniac. Now every reporter knows there’s a story there, and there’s no way they’ll let it drop. You should’ve played it cool and just answered no.”

Sarge was right, but Adam hadn’t prepared for that question. They had practiced for every imaginable question but that one. He didn’t know how to respond at that moment. Who would’ve known a reporter knew about Jamie, much less have the audacity to say her name in front of two-hundred million people?

What did Jamie have to do with the mission anyway?

The door flew open, and Sarah Reynolds, Administrator Matthews, and Senator Robinson and two of his aides walked in.

“Why didn’t you tell us you have a daughter?” John Matthews said in an accusatory tone, his brow furrowed, his lips pulled tightly into a frown.

“I can explain,” Adam said.

“How did you pass the lie detector?”

“I didn’t know about her when I was first being considered for the program. I just learned about her a few months ago. I swear I didn’t know.”

“Why didn’t you tell us when you found out? You didn’t think that was something that we needed to know?” John said.

“She doesn’t know about me. I’ve never met her. I figured it didn’t matter. I thought about talking to her, but I never did.”

“Well, she knows now. And what was that display out there in front of millions of people. You represent all of us here at NASA. You made a fool of yourself and all of us. I thought you had more sense than that.”

“It’s not my fault!” Adam said, his voice raising in decibels. “I thought the questions were screened beforehand. Jamie has nothing to do with the mission. I shouldn’t have been asked about her.”

“How could we know to screen for that question, since you never told us you had a daughter? This is exactly why we don’t want any family ties on this mission.”

Adam stiffened. “I’m sorry, John. But I didn’t know what to do. There was a lot invested in me and this mission. I didn’t want to mess it up. I figured no one would ever know, and she would live her life never knowing who I was. I would have told you if I thought it mattered.”

“Well, obviously it did matter.”

Adam’s phone rang. Courtney. She must have seen the press conference. Everyone saw the press conference. He sent it to voicemail.

“Everyone just calm down,” Sarah said. “This is not helping the situation. What is done is done. What do we do now?”

“We just go ahead with the launch,” John answered. “We’ll put out a press statement—”

“I’m not going,” Adam said. “I have to talk to Jamie.”

“You have to go. We have billions of dollars riding on this,” Senator Robinson chimed in roughly.

“I’m not going until I talk to her,” Adam retorted

“The whole world is watching,” John countered. “We have reporters from over a hundred countries here to watch the launch. I’m sorry about whatever is going on with your daughter, but you have a responsibility to all the people who worked hard for you. This mission is bigger than one person.”

Adam put his head in his hands. “I can’t. I can’t live the next thousand years thinking my daughter hates me. She’s going to think I abandoned her and her mother. I must tell her the truth. She is going to…”

For the first time since his parents died, Adam cried.

The room remained silent for a good minute. John Matthews didn’t get to be the Administrator of NASA without knowing how to take charge of a bad situation. No one saw this coming, but it didn’t matter what the crisis was. NASA had seen a lot worse than this, and everyone was trained to set emotions aside and work the problem. A million things could go wrong that day. Both John and Sarah were capably prepared for any challenge. If anyone could resolve this, it would be John and Sarah.

Sarah sat down next to Adam and put her hand on his shoulder. “What if we could get Jamie on the phone? We can put her on a video screen, and you can talk to her and tell her whatever you need to say. You can tell her everything. Will that work?”

Adam didn’t look up but nodded in agreement. Sarah looked up at John as if asking if they had a solution.

John turned to Senator Robinson, “Is there anything you can do? You can find anybody, right? Can you find Jamie in the next four hours?”

“We actually have more time than that,” Sarah said. “It’s five hours to launch. Once we launch, Adam still has another hour before he enters the stream. Can you find her in six hours?”

“Surely, the CIA can find her,” John answered.

“The CIA can’t,” Senator Robinson added. “They aren’t authorized to work on American soil, but the NSA can. They can find anybody in the world in six hours. Adam, tell me what you know about her. What is her full name? Date of birth if you have it? Do you know where she lives? I guess you don’t have her cell phone number. That would be too easy. The NSA can find her phone, and they can tell where she is at this very moment within a few hundred yards based on the cell phone ping.”

He put his hand to his chin before continuing. “The NSA can get us her number. That is, if it’s on. What young girl doesn’t have her cell phone on all the time? We might even have time to fly her in, and you can meet with her in person.”

Adam perked up. The thought of seeing Jamie in person was something he thought impossible just a few minutes before.

“Her full name is Jamie Ruth Austen. She’s nineteen. I don’t know her birth date. Here’s a picture of her.” Adam showed him a picture of her on his phone.

“Great,” Senator Robinson said. “Send that to my phone.” He gave Adam the number.

“Do you know where she might be right now?” he asked.

“She’s a student at George Mason. She lives in Commonwealth Hall. That’s probably where she is.”

Adam had traveled to George Mason a few months back and sat outside her dorm. He was going to talk to her when she came out in the morning for class. He saw her from a distance but decided not to talk to her. She was laughing and joking with friends, and he figured she was better off not knowing. For whatever reason, her mother didn’t want her to know. Even if he disagreed with that, he had to respect her decision. Now he wished he’d talked to her back then.

Senator Robinson turned to his two aides and said to one of them, “Peter, get on this right away. Contact the school and see if they can find her and get her on the phone. Find out the name of her roommate, friends, boyfriend, anybody that might know her and get their number. Don’t let them claim they can’t give it to you because of privacy. Tell them the President of the United States is making this request, and they had better comply. I’ll speak to the President later. One other thing, I imagine a bunch of the press is already calling the school, so this is probably going to be on their radar already. You may have to convince them you are who you say you are and that you are a priority over the others.”

Senator Robinson turned to his other aide, “Cathy, call Patrick at NSA and tell him to get the Director on the phone immediately. Tell him it is a national emergency. Tell him I want to know everything there is to know about Jamie Austen. I want her phone number and the location of her phone at this very moment. Give him all the information that Adam just gave you. Tell him time is of the essence.”

He continued with urgency in his voice. “Have him look up any credit card charges to see if she’s charged anything in the last twenty-four hours. That may also tell us her current location. Have them pull up all her emails and text messages over the last two days. Pull up her social media accounts. See if she’s posted anything in the last few hours. Send her a private message and give her my number to call. Tell her it’s an emergency. Tell her it’s about her father. I want this girl found, and I want her found right now!”

Adam stood and walked over to the Senator. He reached out and shook his hand. “Senator, I can’t thank you enough. I will be forever grateful.”

“Let’s just hope and pray that we find her in time.”

Adam thought, “I’ll give you some time. If you don’t find her, I’m leaving here. I will find her myself.”

***

10:30 a.m. Four hours and thirty minutes to launch.

Jamie knew all the signs of a concussion. Dizziness, blurred vision, nausea, and severe headache. She had all of those, except nausea, thankfully. She had a severe concussion her senior year in high school when she was the captain of the basketball team, and her head collided with another player of the opposing team. This would be the second in less than a year.

It took her thirty minutes to get out of downtown Miami because her vision was so blurred, she couldn’t read the road signs. She stopped at a pharmacy and purchased a bottle of Tylenol and an energy drink. She also rinsed off the dried blood on the back of her head. She had a pretty good-sized bump. Caffeine wasn’t good for a concussion, but she needed the energy boost because fatigue was another symptom that was going to hit her as soon as the adrenaline wore off from her confrontation with Fletcher.

She downed five Tylenol and the energy drink, and was already feeling better, except that her head was pounding. She was about three hours from Cape Canaveral. The blurred vision was a huge problem and was making it difficult to drive. She was on I-95 which would take her straight to the right exit, but waves of dizziness and double vision kept coming over her, and she had a hard time staying in her lane. She had barely avoided an accident a few miles back when she started having double vision.

Her phone rang. She looked down and tried to focus on the number. It said unknown caller. She pushed a button she thought was answering the phone, but it disconnected. A few seconds later, it rang again.

Jamie pushed the right button this time. “Hello.”

“Is this Jamie Austen?”

“Who is this?” Jamie swerved to get back in her lane.

“This is David Peterson. I’m a reporter with the Herald.”

Jamie hung up the phone. Why is a reporter calling me? Is that the Miami Herald? Does it have something to do with Fletcher? Oh my gosh. Am I in trouble?

Chapter Five

11:00 a.m. Four hours to launch.

Sarge was pacing like a caged tiger all over the room.

“Sarge, can you sit down?” Adam said, as he raised a glass of water to his lips. “You’re making me nervous.” They were in a large conference room closer to the launch site and away from the press.

“Sorry. I pace when I get excited. It helps me to think.”

“What exactly do you have to think about?” Adam asked sarcastically.

“I’m trying to think of a way to make sure you get on that flight. I thought I was done with you.”

“Why don’t you go in my place? Oh yeah. That’s right. They don’t want the whole universe thinking everyone on earth is a complete moron,” Adam retorted.

Sarge glared at Adam as he grinned widely.

“You two sound like brothers,” Courtney said, as she walked through the open door.

“Courtney,” Adam said excitedly.

She walked quickly across the room and threw her arms around him. The others in the room curiously looked their way. He wasn’t supposed to have any undisclosed romantic interests either. Adam hugged her back less enthusiastically. He was thrilled she was there but was afraid to show it.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her.

“I saw the press conference and rushed over. The traffic is a nightmare. Did you get my message?”

He realized he forgot to call her back. “Yes. I saw that you called. Sorry, I didn’t call you back. It’s been a little hectic around here.”

The excitement left Courtney’s face and was replaced with a puzzled look. Adam detected a hint of hurt as the color drained from her face.

Administrator John Matthews walked in. Adam took a slight step away from Courtney. Sarah and three of her aides were in the room on their phones. They got off them as soon as he walked in.

“Adam, the networks are already reporting that Jamie is your daughter. We figured that was coming. Nothing we can do about that. They asked me for a comment, but I didn’t give them one. The press is going crazy with this.”

“Welcome to my world,” Senator Robinson said.

John turned his focus to Adam. “Sarah and I have decided to delay the launch by twenty-two minutes. That is as long as we can push it out.”

With only a couple of times a year when a spacecraft could enter the space stream, Adam knew three-thirty was the latest they could launch and still make the window. After that, they couldn’t launch for another few months.

“That gives you an extra twenty-two minutes to find Jamie.”

Adam nodded. The Administrator held Adam’s gaze as if assessing the mental state of his astronaut.

Adam tried to look composed and determined. He wanted to instill confidence in John that he wasn’t going to let him down. The press conference was obviously a huge embarrassment to John, but he would probably never mention it again. The culture of NASA was to not dwell on mistakes.

Courtney squeezed Adam’s hand.

Adam quickly moved it away.

She gave him a slight scowl.

Adam pretended not to notice. It pained him to do so. Last night was amazing. He was ruining it. John would hit the ceiling if he knew I was in love with Courtney. Am I in love with her?

“Thank you, John,” Adam replied.

“How are you holding up?” he asked.

Adam met his eyes. “I’m good. I’m ready to go. The Senator is helping us look for Jamie. Hopefully, I’ll be talking to her soon.”

Seemingly satisfied, John turned to everyone in the room. “We will be issuing a press statement shortly.”

Sarah pointed at the television and everyone turned and looked. Senator Robinson was nearest to the remote, so he took it and turned up the volume. A NASA spokesperson was speaking.

“While we acknowledge that there are a lot of rumors and speculation circulating in the press right now, some of which are true and some that are not true, Adam asks that you respect his privacy and the privacy of Jamie Austen. Jamie, if you are listening to this or if anyone has any information as to Jamie’s whereabouts, please call the number on the screen. Thank you.”

Senator Robinson muted the television again.

John took a deep breath. “Maybe Jamie is watching. I hope so. Sarah, you need to head on over to Mission Control. Adam, you will stick with the same schedule, just twenty-two minutes later. You will board the spacecraft—a little over two hours from now.” John turned and walked out of the room, not waiting for a response.

Sarah and her aides followed him out.

Adam looked over at Courtney. Her demeanor was considerably colder. I can’t let John see that we are anything more than friends. I’m sorry…

“I should probably go,” she said.

Before Adam could reassure her that he desperately wanted her there, Peter, Senator Robinson’s aide, burst into the room and said, “Jamie is in Florida!”

“Jamie’s here at Cape Canaveral?” Adam said, his pulse rate soaring.

“No. But she’s in Florida. I didn’t have any luck with the school, but I did get in touch with Jamie’s dorm mom.” He stopped to catch his breath. “Jamie and several of her friends went to Miami for spring break. She didn’t know where they were staying but they weren’t supposed to be back until Sunday. So, they may or may not still be there. We think—”

“What about a phone number?” Senator Robinson interrupted. “Did the school give you Jamie’s number?”

Peter shook his head no.

“Her contact number has to be in her file,” the Senator continued in a matter-of-fact tone. “Schools now have everybody’s phone number in one big database so they can text them in case there’s a school shooter, a tornado warning, or some other kind of emergency.”

“I tried,” Peter responded. “They wouldn’t give it to me. Just like you said, they claimed it was a privacy issue.”

The Senator pursed his lips and rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed with his aide.

Peter looked down at some papers in his hand. “I did find her social media page, and I sent her a private message.” His voice got excited again. “The dorm mom did give me the name of her roommate. They went to Florida together. Her name is Rebecca Stevenson. I got her phone number. What do you want to do with it?”

Adam couldn’t contain his excitement. That was a very promising development. “Give me the number. I’ll call it,” Adam said.

Courtney jumped in. “Wait, let me do it. She might be skeptical of a man calling.”

I do love you, Adam finally admitted to himself. What a strange time to feel that.

Peter gave Courtney the number. She pulled out her phone and dialed it and sat down in the center chair of the conference table.

Adam sat next to her.

Courtney put it on speaker.

Rebecca answered on the third ring.

“Rebecca, my name is Courtney Dixon. I’m trying to get in touch with Jamie Austen. I understand she’s with you in Miami on spring break. This is an emergency. Is she with you, and can I talk to her?”

Rebecca paused. “I’m sorry. I’m by the pool. I can’t hear you very well; let me step inside so I can hear you better.”

“Sounds like there’s a party going on behind her,” Courtney said.

Adam nodded without expression. Adam was trained not to let his emotions show. That skill had never served him well as far as Courtney was concerned.

She turned her gaze away from Adam in a businesslike manner.

Rebecca came back on and said, “Who is this?”

“This is Courtney Dixon. We’ve never met, but I’m trying to get in touch with Jamie Austen. This is an emergency. Is Jamie with you?”

“Yes. She is with me. I mean, she’s not, like, with me at this moment. She’s up in the room.”

“Can you go up to the room so I can talk to her?”

“I’m kind of in the middle of something right now. Did you try calling her yourself? We are all, like, going to meet up for dinner later. Can you call back then?”

Courtney’s tone got sterner. “What part of ‘This is an emergency’ do you not understand? This can’t wait until dinner. I must talk to her now. I don’t have her number, or I would have called her directly. This is very important.”

Courtney shifted to the front of her chair and the look on her face was one of pure determination. Adam was glad Courtney was there to handle this conversation.

“Listen to me carefully. Jamie will be extremely upset at you if you don’t go to her room right this second and put her on the phone. Can you do that for me?”

Rebecca made a rude sound. “I guess. Give me a minute. I’ll call you back.”

“No. Don’t call me back. Keep me on the line—”

Rebecca hung up.

Courtney hung up her phone, brushed the hair out of her eyes and straightened her blouse without looking at Adam.

Adam’s excitement turned to nervousness. “What am I going to say? I’ve rehearsed this conversation for months. Now that it’s here, I don’t know what to say.”

“Just say what is on your heart,” she told him. The warmth returned momentarily.

Cathy, Senator Robinson’s other aide bolted into the room and said, “Jamie is at the Beach Street Hotel in Miami. NSA pulled her credit card receipts. She checked into the hotel three days ago. They hacked into the hotel records and confirmed that she is registered in room 425 under her own name.” Cathy seemed pleased with herself.

“We already know that,” the Senator said. “Her roommate is going up to the room as we speak to get Jamie on the phone.”

A disappointed look came over Cathy’s face.

Adam wondered if the Senator noticed or even cared. From Adam’s perspective, the aides were amazing. The Senator didn’t seem satisfied with their efforts.

“Was there anything else?” he said.

“Yes. A 911 call was placed from Jamie’s phone about an hour and thirty minutes ago. The call was a woman’s voice saying that a man was attacking a young woman in the parking garage of the hotel.”

“What?” Adam stood.

“The police arrived and found a man badly beaten with a knife next to him,” Cathy continued. “They transported him by ambulance to the local hospital. We’re checking with the hospital on his condition right now.”

“Did they mention finding a girl at the scene?” Sarge asked.

“No mention of a girl. There was no one else there. Police have no idea who made the call. It definitely came from Jamie’s phone, but it will take them a little longer to figure that out.”

Before anyone had time to process the new information, Courtney’s phone rang. Rebecca’s number appeared. She stepped to the center of the room and put it on speakerphone.

“This is Courtney.”

“I’m in the room and Jamie is not here,” Rebecca said frantically. “I found a note.”

“What does the note say?”

“It says, ‘I have to go. I’ll explain later. Love You. Jay.’”

Courtney looked around the room.

“Rebecca, listen to me very carefully. Do you have any idea where Jamie may have gone?” Courtney said.

“No. I went to the pool, and I wanted Jamie to come, but she said that she, like, had something she wanted to, like, watch on TV. Some kind of a space deal.”

They all looked at each other.

“Jamie knows.” Adam’s heart did a flip flop. He swallowed hard.

“Does Jamie have a car? Could she have left in a car?” Courtney asked.

“Yes. We rented a car at the airport.”

“What kind of car is it? Do you know the make and model?”

“I don’t remember. I think it was a… I’m not sure.”

“Think Rebecca. It’s very important. What kind of car was it?”

“It was one of those cars that the top comes down.”

“A convertible?”

“No. It was bigger than that. It was like a Jeep.”

Adam was frustrated. How did this girl get into George Mason?

Senator Robinson turned to Cathy and whispered, “Have the NSA pull the rental car records and find out the make and model. See if the car has a GPS device. We can track it with that.”

“Rebecca, I need Jamie’s phone number,” Courtney said calmly. “Can you look it up and give it to me?”

Rebecca seemed hesitant. “I don’t know if I should give it to you.”

“Rebecca, this is Senator Joe Robinson. I am the United States Senator from the state of Florida. It’s very important that you give us all the information you can about Jamie. I will be personally responsible for this matter.”

“Is Jamie in trouble?”

“No. She is not in trouble, but her life may be in danger. It’s extremely important that we get in touch with her. What is her cell phone number?” the Senator asked firmly.

Rebecca fumbled with her phone.

“Here it is. Are you ready?”

“Thank you, Rebecca. We are going to try and call Jamie now. Please stay by your phone in case we need to get in contact with you. You did good.”

Courtney hung up the phone and said, “Let’s call Jamie.”

Adam stood up and then sat right back down. Excitement and nervousness, happiness and fear, anticipation and anxiety overwhelmed his senses. Is it possible to feel so many conflicting emotions at one time?

Get a hold of yourself. You are finally going to get to talk to your daughter.

***

Jamie was making good progress. She was about halfway to Cape Canaveral and traffic was light. She powered up her phone and looked at her maps. According to GPS, traffic around the launch site was at a standstill. The news had said that hundreds of thousands of people were coming to the launch, and it looked like they were getting there early. She’d been thinking about a plan to get around the traffic and into the launch site, but she hadn’t come up with anything. Her headache wasn’t any better, but the blurred vision had gone away.

Jamie stared at her phone in amazement. Her notifications said that she had 475 missed phone calls, 1263 texts, and 4573 social media notifications.

How is that possible?

“What is going on?” she said aloud. “They must have discovered Fletcher and more reporters are calling me.” Maybe even the police.

Her phone rang. The caller ID displayed the name Courtney Dixon.

I don’t know any Courtney Dixon. She quickly turned the phone back off.

***

Back at NASA, Courtney disconnected her phone and said, “It rang, but it went to voicemail, which was full.”

Senator Robinson turned to Peter and said, “Have NSA track that phone call and tell me where the phone is?”

“Why is she not answering her phone? I wonder what happened in the parking garage,” Adam said nervously.

Senator Robinson turned back to Cathy. “Also, have NSA go into the 911 system and pull up the 911 call that was made from her phone. I want the actual recording. Have them hack into the 911 log and change the incoming number to a burner phone that cannot be traced. I don’t know what happened in that parking garage. It’s only a matter of time before an investigator looks at those records. I don’t want the local police getting in the way of us finding Jamie.”

Sarge said, “It seems like Jamie was watching the press conference. If she did, she heard her name.”

Adam stiffened. “Maybe she left the hotel and is coming here.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Sarge stated. “She may have been going out to the grocery store for all we know.”

Adam shrugged and walked over to the window. “Whatever happened in the garage, Jamie witnessed it but didn’t hang around long enough for the police to show up. I think she was in a hurry because she was heading up here.”

The Senator held up his hand, silencing the conversation. “Cathy, have them look at the security cameras at the hotel. See if we can see anything in the parking garage.”

Cathy turned and walked out of the room just as Peter walked back in.

“Jamie was in Jupiter, Florida, when we made that call to her,” Peter said.

Adam slapped his hands together. “She’s headed this way. I knew it!”

“Her phone was on at the time,” Peter explained further, “but she turned it off right after the call was made.”

“Why would she do that?” Adam shook with excitement. No one answered him, so he walked over to where Peter stood.

“Peter,” the Senator said with authority. “Get four guys on I-95. Get them Jamie’s picture and have them put it on a flyer and go to all the truck stops, rest stops, and gas stations between Jupiter and Port St. Lucie.”

He strode over to the conference room table and wrote on a notepad. “She’s somewhere between those two towns. I want them to find her.” He looked back up from what he was writing. “Have NSA monitor Jamie’s phone. If she makes another call, I want to know about it and where she is when she makes it. If she even turns on her phone, let me know right away, and we’ll try to call her again. Better yet, get a couple of NSA people in here with computers. I want a direct link to NSA computers from here so we can monitor it in real time.”

“I also sent two guys to her hotel room,” Peter said. “They should be arriving there any minute. I was going to have them search it and see if they could find anything.”

“Good idea,” the Senator said as he adjusted his tie. “Have them stay there with Jamie’s roommate. Her name is Rebecca. Just in case Jamie calls her. Tell them to detain her and don’t let her leave.”

Peter started to leave, but the Senator called to him as he headed out the door, “Tell them not to scare her.”

Sarge put his hand on Adam’s shoulder. Courtney walked over to where Peter and Sarge were standing and whispered, “Must be nice to be a Senator and have that much power.”

Adam nodded in agreement. “I’m glad he’s on our side.”

“God is going to work this together for your good,” Courtney told him. “You’re finally going to get to talk to Jamie.”

Adam didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t believe in God, but it sure made him feel better when Courtney talked about him. The night before, Courtney said she was praying that Adam would somehow get a chance to talk to Jamie before he left. That seemed impossible at the time. Now, he was wondering if Courtney’s prayers were actually working.

How could they work if there is no God?

Chapter Six

11:47 a.m. 3 hours 35 minutes to launch.

Fletcher’s dead.

Jamie tightened her grip on the steering wheel. A wave of fear caused the pain in her head to intensify. She could still feel his weight crushing her. His eyes were seared into her memory. They were brown. On fire and filled with hate.

He was going to kill me.

“You didn’t have to kill him. You could have run away.” Her thoughts looped in her mind like a roller coaster.

“I needed the car and I had to hurry. My dad is leaving.” She looked at the clock on the dashboard. Approximately three hours to launch.

“I’m not going to see my dad anyway. There’s no way I’ll make it in time. They’ll never let me into NASA. What was I thinking?”

I was thinking I had to try.

Jamie felt the back of her head. She cringed as she felt the bump and touching it sent pain pulsating through her whole body.

“You are going to jail.”

She shook her head. “No. He had a knife. He was stalking me. He deserved it.” Every detail came flooding back. His smell, the sweat on his forehead, his shirt drenched, his clammy hands… horrendous breath. Each exhale blew the stench in her face as he pummeled her with punches. Jamie brushed off her shirt and shuddered as if remnants of the monster were still on her.

He was so strong. He said something. What was it?

“I’m going to kill you, bitch.”

The fear assaulted her all over again. “That was it. He said he was going to kill me as he was hitting me. He would have raped me and then killed me.”

I did the right thing. Kill or be killed. I would rather die than let him touch me. I’ll tell that to the jury.

Jamie made a disgusted face. Ewww. “The thought of him kissing me… Touching me.”

“Anyone else would do the same thing. Surely they’ll believe me.”

But I ran… Makes me look guilty.

Jamie tensed. A police car sat along the side of the road a half a mile ahead. She slowed to below the speed limit. They probably know my car by now.

“Just keep your cool. You are a long way from Miami. They aren’t looking for you all the way up here.”

Jamie passed the policeman and resisted the urge to look his way. She kept glancing in the rearview mirror, praying that he would stay there. He did at first.

He’s moving.

He settled in behind her. It was all she could do to not scream.

“He’s running my license plates. Any second now, he’ll know it’s me.”

Should I try to outrun him?

Don’t be stupid. That’ll only make things worse.

Jamie began to cry. “I’m never going to talk to my dad.”

I’m sorry. Mom.

He followed her for more than a mile. Why isn’t he pulling me over?

The policeman pulled into the next lane and passed Jamie. She let out a huge breath. Her chest hurt from holding it in.

“You’re just being paranoid. You don’t even know that Fletcher is dead.”

Her phone had been charging on the center console. She picked it up, turned it on, but didn’t look at the number of notifications. She didn’t want to know.

“I’ll call Rebecca. If the police are looking for me, they would have contacted her by now.” Please be by the pool sunning yourself.

Jamie searched her favorites in the phone contacts. Her hands shook as she placed the call.

“Becca, it’s me, Jamie.”

Rebecca whispered, “Jay, are you okay. I have been worried sick about you.”

Why is she whispering? “I’m okay. I’m on my way—”

“Are you in some kind of trouble?”

Jamie grimaced.

“There are two men in our hotel room asking all kinds of questions. They wanted your cell phone number. I gave it to them. I hope you’re not mad at me.”

Jamie slammed her hand against the steering wheel.

What do I do? What do I say?

A man came on the phone and said, “Jamie, we need to talk to you.”

She hung up.

How did they find me so fast? There must have been cameras in the garage.

“Fletcher is definitely dead. I shouldn’t have hung up. It was self-defense. They could see that on the cameras. Hanging up makes me look guilty of something. I need to turn myself in.”

Jamie’s phone rang. It was Becca. She quickly turned the phone off.

“If I turn myself in, I won’t be able to talk to my dad. I have to see him. I have to talk to him. I promised.” It was the only justification she could think of that they might believe. It’s the truth.

Jamie rolled down the window and started to throw her phone out. She hesitated. “If the phone is off, they can’t track it. I need to keep it. I might need it later.”

She rolled the window back up.

“Pull yourself together.” She pulled down the sun visor and flipped open the mirror. It showed the fear in her eyes. They were bloodshot from crying.

Stop it. Crying isn’t going to help anything.

“I’m less than an hour from Kennedy. I just have to focus and get to my dad.”

Eat something. I’m going to need my strength.

She took the protein bar from her bag and scarfed it down. The bottled water was warm but soothed her parched and dry throat. She drank both. A couple of deep breaths calmed her heartbeat. She quickly unwrapped a piece of gum and stuck in her mouth. It tasted good.

What’s that sound?

An alarm was beeping in her car. A warning light was flashing. She was out of gas.

“Great! That’s just what I need. Run out of gas in the middle of nowhere.”

***

12:01 3 hours and 21 minutes to launch.

Senator Robinson introduced the two men as investigators for the NSA. The NASA holding room had been turned into an electronic war room. Sophisticated computers and equipment were connected by dozens of wires. A satellite phone with a secure line allowed them to speak directly to NSA headquarters. Every effort was being made to find Jamie. Each passing minute created more urgency.

One of the men began speaking. The Senator had mentioned their names, but Adam couldn’t remember what they were. He asked Sarge and learned that one was Brandon and the other was Don.

“Here is what we know,” Brandon said. Of the two, Brandon was clearly the one in charge.

Courtney, Adam, and Sarge sat around the conference table. After introducing the men, Senator Robinson poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down in a lounge chair in the corner of the room. Adam was too nervous to eat or drink anything.

“Jamie was at the Beach Street hotel in Miami watching the press conference according to Rebecca, her roommate,” Brandon continued. “We assume she heard her name mentioned because she left her room less than five minutes after the press conference was over. The security camera from the fourth floor in the hotel confirmed that fact. We see Jamie walking through the lobby two minutes later. Don, pull up the footage.”

Everyone turned and looked at the television screen. An image of a young woman walking through the hotel lobby appeared.

“That’s her!” Adam said excitedly. “That’s Jamie.”

“She’s beautiful,” Courtney said.

Adam nodded in agreement. Jamie was wearing white shorts, a yellow t-shirt, and sneakers. Her shoulder length, blonde hair flowed with her perfectly proportioned, tall, athletic build. She walked confidently and went straight into the gift shop.

“She emerged from the gift shop with a bag in her hand and walked to the parking garage elevator. I want you to focus your attention on the man to the left, behind the trees.” Brandon pointed at the screen.

Adam stood up and walked over to the television for a closer look. “Who is he?”

“He is the man in the hospital. The one who was assaulted. His name is Matt Fletcher. He’s an employee of the hotel.”

“Can you back it up? He is looking right at Jamie.”

“Right. It’s clear from the footage that he’s fixated on her. He starts to follow her into the elevator. But notice that he turns around abruptly and heads for the stairs. He’s clearly acting suspiciously.”

“Do those stairs lead to the parking garage?” Sarge asked.

“They do. We think he followed Jamie into the garage. You can see he’s in a hurry as well. Don, back up the tape again. Look at Jamie’s reaction when she sees him. Notice how she rushes into the elevator, clearly trying to avoid him.” The screen showed Fletcher getting to the elevator just as it was closing and then rushing over to the door to the stairs.

The anxiety caused the muscles in Adam’s shoulders and neck to tighten. His heart did somersaults in his chest. What was he seeing? He’d been in the most nerve-wracking situations imaginable. But they were nothing compared to this.

“What happened in the garage?” Sarge asked.

Brandon shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “This is where things get sketchy. There are no cameras in the garage. We assume Jamie went to the garage to get her car, and Fletcher followed her down there. At that point, there was a confrontation of some sort. Fletcher was badly beaten by someone. A knife was found close to his body, but he didn’t have any stab wounds. It may have been his knife or the attacker’s. We just don’t know. He is in pretty bad shape and is in surgery as we speak. He is expected to live, but someone did a number on him. He won’t be able to tell us anything for a while.”

“Do you think he attacked Jamie? On the 911 call, Jamie said she saw him attacking another woman. She didn’t say he was attacking her.”

“It sure looks like he was following Jamie, but we aren’t sure who he was attacking or who took him down. Apparently, Jamie wasn’t the one who was attacked. According to the 911 call, she just saw the attack.”

“Where is the woman who was attacked?” Sarge asked the obvious unanswered question.

“I couldn’t tell you. I told you things are sketchy. No one has found the woman. Jamie didn’t leave the lobby with anyone else. We don’t see anyone coming or going into the garage from the lobby around that time. Jamie could have been meeting someone in the garage. A man perhaps. He might have been the one who beat up Fletcher.”

“That Fletcher guy looks huge,” Courtney said.

“He weighs well over three hundred pounds. It would take a pretty strong person to beat him up that badly. Especially if the knife was his, and he intended to use it.”

“There had to be another man in the garage,” Sarge said.

Adam responded, “Jamie didn’t mention a second man. She just said that a man was assaulting a woman. Maybe Fletcher came to Jamie’s aide and somebody assaulted him. But why say it was another woman if it was her?”

“My best theory,” Brandon said, “is that Fletcher tried to assault another woman, probably not Jamie, and someone intervened. That someone stopped the attack, and the man and woman left the garage. Based on the size of Fletcher and the extent of his injuries, it had to be another man. Jamie saw the attack and phoned it in.”

“Why didn’t she want to leave her name?” Adam asked.

“I have no idea. It’s all speculation. We just don’t know what happened.”

Adam was a man who didn’t like speculation. He wanted the facts. The facts didn’t make sense.

“Adam, would you recognize Jamie’s voice?” Brandon said.

“I would. I heard her speak at her mom’s funeral.”

“Listen to this 911 call and tell me if it’s Jamie’s voice.” Brandon motioned to Don. Shortly thereafter, a woman’s voice filled the room.

“This is 911. What is your emergency?”

“A man is assaulting a woman on the second floor of the parking garage at the Beach Street hotel. There are injuries, so send an ambulance. When the EMTs arrive, tell them that the man has an orbital fracture, and there may be hemorrhaging of the brain. Please hurry!”

“What is your name?”

The tape ended abruptly with no answer to that question.

Adam had nodded immediately but waited until the end of the recording to speak. “That is definitely Jamie. I recognize her voice.” His voice cracked as he spoke.

“Good. At least we know that she was alive at that point,” Brandon said.

Adam raised his voice in panic. “What do you mean she is alive? Do you have any reason to believe that she’s dead?”

“No. That’s not what I meant. All I’m saying is that Jamie was apparently not the woman who was being assaulted in the parking garage. She saw what happened and called 911, but she was already in her car, so she wasn’t the one attacked.”

Don interrupted Brandon with urgency. “Jamie just placed a call to Rebecca a few minutes ago. We have an agent on the scene. He tried to talk to Jamie, but she hung up as soon as he got on the phone.”

“Why would she do that?” Sarge asked.

Senator Robinson stood and walked over to the look at the computer. “Did Rebecca confirm it was Jamie?”

Don nodded.

“That’s good news. At least we know she is alive. Where was she when the call was made?”

Don typed something into the computer. “The call was made just south of Port St. Lucie. Right here. He pointed to something on the screen.”

“That’s about an hour south of here. Do we have any men near there?”

“Let me check.” Don picked up his phone and dialed a number. After a brief conversation, he hung up the phone and said, “Yes. We have two men right around that area. They've been canvassing gas stations. But they haven’t seen her, and no one else has either.”

The Senator said, “Tell them to keep looking. She’s in the vicinity. Give them the mile marker where the call was made. Hopefully, she has to stop for gas or use the restroom.”

“Did you ever find out the car rental information?” Sarge asked.

“No,” Brandon asked. “We’re having trouble getting into the rental car company’s computers. We can go into them, but we can’t locate her reservation. Rebecca said it was a red Jeep, but we don’t know the license plate number.”

“Is her phone still on?” the Senator asked. “We could try calling her again.”

“She turned it off right after the call.”

“Tell them to be on the lookout for a red Jeep. There couldn’t be too many of them on the road.” Senator Robinson went back and sat down in his chair.

Adam hovered over the conference table. “Is it possible that Jamie was the person who was assaulted?” Adam wondered aloud. “Why is she afraid to answer her phone or talk to anyone? Something happened in that garage that made her afraid. What is it?”

“That’s what we don’t know,” Brandon said.

“What if she was kidnapped? What if Fletcher had a partner in the garage, and he turned on him, beat him up, and grabbed Jamie?” Sarge said.

Adam glared at Sarge. “Why would she call 911 if she’d been kidnapped?” he interjected. “They would’ve just gotten out of there as quickly as possible.”

“And why would she call Rebecca?” Courtney asked. “A kidnapper wouldn’t let her call her roommate.”

“Yeah. That doesn’t make sense,” Sarge said. “I agree. Sorry Adam.”

“Also, why would she be on I-95,” Brandon surmised. “It’s too big a coincidence. She’s clearly heading this way. Why she doesn’t want to talk to anyone is a mystery.”

“What if Jamie was the one who beat up Fletcher?” Adam said, trying to think of all possible scenarios. “Maybe, he attacked her; she beat the heck out of him and didn’t want to wait for the police because she was in a hurry to get here. She called 911 because she knew he was badly hurt.”

“That’s right,” Sarge said excitedly. “How would Jamie know Fletcher had an orbital fracture?”

Adam beamed with pride. “She knew because she was the one who caused it.”

Chapter Seven

11:50 a.m. 3 hours 32 minutes to launch

Jamie drove five miles before she came to an exit with a gas station. She gave a huge sigh of relief, but a shot of adrenaline coursed through her veins as she looked at the clock and remembered that time was still her worst enemy. A quick glance around the parking lot, reassured her that no police cars were there. She did notice a four-door sedan with an NSA license plate that looked somewhat like an unmarked police car, but it didn’t trigger concern. The NSA was a government agency. They didn’t have any reason to be looking for her.

As soon as she stepped out of the car, the dizziness returned like a tidal wave. She grabbed the side of the door to prevent a fall. It took a moment to regain her balance enough to walk. Jamie waited for the dizziness to pass before stumbling over to the fuel dispenser. Because of the blurred vision, she needed several tries to get the credit card in line to go into the slot.

Jamie hesitated. Credit card purchases can be tracked.

The sign on the pump said that fuel had to be prepaid. Cash was acceptable but had to be taken inside. Once inside, the large “restrooms” sign reminded her that her bladder had been screaming at her for more than a half hour. The short break in the restroom from the troubles did her good. She splashed cold water on her face, which invigorated her. Paper towels folded together, wetted with icy cold water, and placed on the sizable bump on the back of her head, brought immediate, if only temporary, relief.

“What a crazy day you have had,” she said to herself in the bathroom mirror. “Let’s hope it’s worth it, and I get to see my dad.” For the first time in hours, her nerves were somewhat calm.

The restrooms were in a narrow hallway off the main counter. As she exited the bathroom, she stopped in her tracks. An unsettling feeling welled up inside. A sixth sense. Something was wrong with the picture, and the concussion was taking her longer to process the visuals in the environment as quickly as normal.

Two men in black suits stood at the counter holding a piece of paper, showing it to the attendant.

Jamie’s heart pounded at a rapid pace. She strained to hear what they were saying.

“Have you seen this girl?” one of the men said, pointing at the picture on the flyer.

The attendant had a heavy accent, but his words were clear. “No. I haven’t seen her. Who is she?”

“Look again. Her name is Jamie Austen. Have you seen this girl?” he said with more emphasis.

Jamie held her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Her head started pounding again as the blood pumped faster through her brain from the elevated heart rate. She shook her head violently from side to side as her vision blurred again. Her hands shook…

Panic. Confusion. Fear…

What do I do…? Who are they? Wait for them to leave. They haven’t seen me.

“I’m going to go take a leak,” one of them said. The men’s restroom was right next to where she stood.

I have to get out of here.

A quick scan of the surroundings showed no exit other than the way she had come in. He was approaching quickly. The hallway was only a few steps from the counter. Too late to go back into the women’s room. She turned her back and hid her face.

He opened the door to the men’s room but paused. “Jamie. Is that you?” he asked.

Her reaction was spontaneous and swift. Instinctive. Without thought of the consequences. A rapid spin. A roundhouse kick connected in his midsection before he could react. The air rushed from his body as he staggered backward and let out a loud grunt.

Jamie rushed out of the hallway and pushed aside the other man in the suit as he ran toward her. She was out the door before anyone knew what was happening.

She fumbled for the keys as one of the men came running out of the station.

“Jamie, wait!” he shouted.

She opened the door, jumped in, and somehow got it locked just as the man reached the passenger door and tried to open it. He banged on the window.

“Please,” he pleaded. “We are with…”

Whatever he was yelling, she wasn’t paying attention.

She sped away, her thoughts racing faster than the Jeep. She was afraid to look back.

“Who were those men? They weren’t policemen. They must be the FBI. Why would the FBI be looking for me?”

I just assaulted an FBI agent.

“I killed Fletcher. Now I’ve assaulted an FBI agent. And I’m resisting arrest.”

What other charges can we add to the list?

For a moment, the fear turned into resolve. “They’re not going to catch me. I won’t let them take me alive.”

“Shut up, Jamie. Don’t be stupid. You’re in a lot of trouble. This isn’t a movie. You aren’t a heroine.”

“I’ve come this far. I can’t give up now. They may catch me, but I’m going to do everything I can to see my dad.”

She raced onto the freeway, this time ignoring the speed limit. She had less than an hour’s drive to Kennedy Space Center, and she still had three hours to get there. More adrenaline as a new revelation hit her. There weren’t three hours left. Dad would be going onto the spacecraft at any time, and she wouldn’t be able to see him. It may already be too late. He may already be on there.

Doesn’t matter. I have come this far. I have to keep going.

Jamie was quickly running out of options. The odds of her making it in time to see her father were dwindling by the minute. It was complicated by an army of law enforcement looking for her and the red Jeep. Ditching the car was an option, but that would waste even more time.

The car began to sputter. “I didn’t get gas!” She pounded the steering wheel.

Jamie barely managed to steer it to the side of the road and out of the traffic as it shut off.

She started to cry but caught herself.

No. I’m not going to cry. Think. What would Dad do?

Thoughts now poured into her head as fast as she could process them. The men would no doubt be on the road after her by now. They could easily call for backup, and the road ahead would have roadblocks looking for her and the Jeep. She needed to get out of the car and as far away from it as possible.

Jamie swallowed hard. This was risky. The more she ran the worst things had become. She could wait in the car and it would be over soon. They would find her in no time.

“Turn yourself in. That’s the best thing you can do. You’re making things worse.” She shook her head. No. I promised my mom and I’m going to keep my promise. I have to try and see my dad. The man at the station wasn’t hurt that badly. I took something off the kick on purpose. I didn’t want to hurt him, I just wanted to slow him down. It just knocked the air out of him.

“Good luck telling that to the authorities.”

“But they never said they were the authorities. They weren’t wearing uniforms. They have to identify themselves, don’t they? I thought he was attacking me like Fletcher did. The other man chased me to the car and tried to open my door. He didn’t show a badge. Doesn’t he have to show a badge?”

“I was scared for my life.”

She closed her eyes. The more intense the thoughts, the greater the intensity of the headache. Rubbing her temples helped if only for a moment. I have to decide.

“Wait for the men. They might take you to your dad.”

No. She couldn’t take that chance. Jamie made her decision. She gathered up what she needed and put everything in the plastic gift-shop bag. To the right were trees, perfect for hiding, but there wasn’t time for that. She got out, locked the Jeep, and started walking as fast as she could on the shoulder.

Get as far away from the car as fast as you can.

She started running. Each stride on the pavement sent shockwaves of pain echoing through her concussed head. Sprinting was her forte on the high school track team. Within three minutes, she was half a mile away.

She stopped running and turned to look. The Jeep was barely visible in the distance but was close enough for her to see a cream-colored, four-door sedan pull off the highway and stop behind the Jeep. Two men in suits, who looked like the same ones at the gas station, got out of the car, split up, and walked to each side of the car, peering in the windows.

A large semi-truck passed by and pulled off onto the shoulder ahead of her. Jamie glanced back. One of the men was looking in her direction. He was barely visible, and she figured he could barely see her as well. She walked to the truck and stood a good distance from the door. The window was down.

“Do you need a ride?” a man asked in a friendly voice.

Jamie glanced back and saw one of the men pointing in her direction.

“Sure.” She stepped up on the cab, opened the door, and hopped inside.”

I hope I haven’t made a huge mistake getting in this truck with a total stranger.

***

12:15 p.m. 3 hours 7 minutes to launch

The conference room at NASA had quieted down considerably. They hadn’t heard anything about Jamie for a while. Courtney was on the phone sitting in the corner of the room. Adam stood and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Sarge asked.

“I’m going to the lady’s room to powder my nose.”

“I have to go with you,” Sarge said. “Sarah told me not to let you out of my sight.”

“Seriously. You’re going to go to the john with me. What are we… girls? I like you but not that much.”

“I have my orders not to let you out of my sight.”

“I’m going to be spending some time in one of the stalls. If you want to keep me in your sights, be my guest.”

Sarge’s eyes widened. “I think I’ll pass. I’m not getting combat pay for this.”

“Good choice. Sit down and take a load off. I’m not going anywhere. I might not be right back, if you know what I mean, but I’ll come back as soon as I’m finished.”

Adam had spent the last thirty minutes considering his options. Jamie obviously knew about him and was trying to get to Cape Canaveral. For whatever reason, she was avoiding her phone. It had to have something to do with what happened in the parking garage. If she thought she was in trouble for leaving the scene, it would probably feel to her like she was on the run. The confrontation with Fletcher had to be self-defense. Why would she attack him? He was the one following her.

He also wasn’t convinced that Jamie would make it in time. He had to get out of this mission. Running away wasn’t an option. Adam was too practical for that. Too many people worked too hard for him to selfishly let them down in that way. Something had to be done to delay the launch. Something that no one would expect he was behind. He went into the men’s room and locked the door behind him, taking out his phone in the process. He pressed a number in his favorites he’d called a thousand times.

A man answered on the first ring. “Brayton.”

“Carl. It’s Adam.”

Carl Brayton was the Operation’s Manager for this mission. He’d been with NASA for thirty-plus years and knew more about the internal workings of the spacecraft than any man alive. If there was a problem, he was the one who knew how to fix it. Adam had spent more than 2,000 hours in the simulator, and Carl had been there for each one.

“How are you doing, brother? You should be getting on the spacecraft soon. How are things working out with your situation?” Carl asked.

“It’s not over yet. That’s why I’m calling. I need a favor, and you’re not going to like it.”

He laughed. “I never like it when someone starts a sentence with ‘I need a favor.’ What do you need?”

“Is it possible for you to cause a glitch in the software right before launch that would postpone it, but no one would know it was anything more than a malfunction?” Adam asked hesitantly.

“I don’t like where this conversation is going.”

“I told you that you wouldn’t like it.”

The phone went silent. Adam was the first to break the silence. “About ten minutes to launch, if I haven’t talked to my daughter, I need for you to create a false warning light. It has to be some kind of problem that can’t be fixed in ten minutes. Something serious enough that Sarah will have to shut down the mission.”

Carl’s tone changed. So did his volume. He lowered his voice, clearly not wanting anyone else to hear his side of the conversation. “Are you crazy? I can’t do that. I would lose my job, my pension. I might even be arrested.”

“You won’t lose your job. No one will know it was you. Can’t you cover your tracks, so it doesn’t look like sabotage? Even if it did, no one would ever suspect you.”

“Adam. A lot is riding on this mission. You've spent months preparing. We’ve worked too hard to throw it all away now.”

“You have a daughter, man. Imagine what it would be like if you had never talked to her before, and you were never going to be able to talk to her again. I have to explain to her what happened.”

“I feel for you, but that’s too much to ask.”

“How would you feel if you were going away forever and didn’t have a chance to say goodbye?”

Carl didn’t respond.

“Come on, Carl,” Adam implored. “It probably won’t even be necessary. We’re looking for Jamie right now, and she’ll probably make it in time. Make the glitch so it will activate only if she doesn’t.”

“Lang, I would do anything for you. You know that. I just can’t do what you’re asking.”

“Promise me you’ll at least think about it,” Adam begged.

“You can still talk to her after the launch. You have an hour.”

“I know. But what if she doesn’t make it in that hour? I have to stop the launch. Once I’m in space, it will be too late. I’ll enter the space stream and be gone forever.”

The phone was silent again.

“What’s the big deal?” Adam said. “So, we’ll launch in six months. We aren’t cancelling the mission, just delaying it. Delays happen all the time.”

“How will I know if you’ve talked to her?” he said with a tone of resignation.

Adam sensed that he might do it. He knew it was a long shot when he first devised the plan, and that question told Adam that Carl was considering it.

“At exactly ten minutes to launch,” Adam answered, hope growing inside him, “I’ll tell Sarah a corny astronaut joke. You know, that banter we have going back and forth. That will be your cue that I haven’t talked to Jamie. If I don’t tell the joke, we’re good for launch. Okay. Will you do that for me?”

“I’m going to regret this, but yeah, I’ll do it. Let me rephrase that. I will think about it.”

“Thanks man. I owe you one.”

Carl laughed nervously, “How am I ever going to collect it from you?”

If this works, I will still be here, and you can collect all you want.

***

Yusaf had been disappointed when he heard on the radio the launch had been delayed by twenty-two minutes. That was nothing unusual. He’d witnessed dozens of launches, and delays were frequent if not expected. A flock of seagulls landed on the rocket and launch pad, and he smiled. “You don’t want to be around here in three hours, little birds.”

He had no doubts about what he was doing. His Sheikh, Abu Mohammad Bashara, preached that forgiveness was a virtue. However, his trainer in Somalia had said that he was a warrior and that forgiveness was a weakness.

His hatred for Americans began thirty-seven years before when his father was killed in a drone strike in Galkayo, Somalia. The Americans had called his father, “collateral damage.” A drone sent a missile that struck the building housing his father’s carpentry business. The target was a group of al-Shabaab rebels who ran into the building to hide from the US attack. His father was killed along with eighteen rebels.

His mother brought him to America as a boy, and they had received asylum. They both became US citizens several years later. He lived most of his life in America. While he believed that most Americans were good people, it was their country’s war against Muslims that had stoked his ire. America had been killing Muslims for more than sixty-plus years. Now was the time for Muslims to strike back. September 11, 2001 had been the last truly successful Muslim attack. That would pale in comparison to this one.

“I will kill more Americans today than they have killed of my people in sixty years. And there is nothing anyone can do about it now.”

Chapter Eight

1:00 p.m. - 2 hours 22 minutes to launch

NASA arranged for a buffet lunch to be brought in for everyone. Senator Robinson left to meet the Vice President and First Lady who had arrived for a reception at one o’clock. Adam was to meet them at one-thirty shortly before entering the spacecraft.

Courtney and Sarge helped themselves to the buffet, although Courtney barely took anything. What she did take was left largely uneaten on her plate.

Adam had been given the opportunity to have anything he wanted brought in by special order. He jokingly called it his “Last Supper.”

Courtney said that wasn’t funny.

Adam ordered two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, and a piece of chocolate pie, with chocolate milk to drink.

“What are you—twelve?” Sarge said jokingly.

“Shut up,” Adam replied. “These are my favorite foods.”

“Not me, man. If I was having my last meal, I’d have a huge porterhouse steak. I’d want French fries… no wait… a large baked potato with everything on it, no… garlic mashed potatoes with cheese on them. Give me all three for my last meal. And a big pile of broccoli, and a lobster tail with dipping sauce. I would also want apple pie with ice cream on it.”

“They’d have to cart you out to the spacecraft,” Adam said, looking at Courtney for any reaction. She didn’t even look up as she pushed her food around her plate without taking a bite.

“What about you, Courtney? What would you want for your last meal?” Sarge asked.

“Can we change the subject?” Courtney said, blinking back tears.

Everyone sat in silence for several minutes.

“I wonder if they’ve heard anything more,” Adam said, finally breaking the silence.

The two NSA men were meeting in a separate room on a conference call. An hour ago, Jamie’s Jeep was found abandoned along I-95 just south of Port St. Lucie, but she was nowhere to be found. They’d heard nothing since. How had she vanished into thin air?

“I guess not, or we would have heard something,” Sarge said.

Where are you Jamie?

Sarge excused himself and left Adam and Courtney alone in the conference room.

“You’re being very quiet,” Adam said as he leaned back in his chair.

“Yeah, well, I’m sorry. I don’t know how I’m supposed to act,” she said curtly.

He didn’t say anything for a moment. What could he say? “I’m glad you’re here,” he blurted out.

“Are you? You don’t act like it,” she said with as much hurt in her voice as anger.

“What do you mean? Of course, I’m glad you came. What’s wrong?”

She hesitated before finally saying, “Last night meant something to me.”

“It meant something to me too.”

“What did it mean to you?” Her anger intensified. “Since we met, you’ve shut me out of that part of your life. Last night, you let me in. Today, you shut me out again. How do you turn it on and off so easily?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know how to relate to you with people from NASA around. John was furious about Jamie. He would’ve hit the ceiling if I had told him about us.”

“There is no us… There never has been. There never will be—”

“What do you want from me? You’ve always known we didn’t have a future. In twenty minutes, I’m saying goodbye to you forever.”

Didn’t she understand he couldn’t allow himself to get close to anyone?

“You don’t think I know that? You don’t think… I cried myself to sleep last night, knowing that I would never see you again. Then the press conference happened, and I rushed over here to be with you. I wanted to help you. You act like this. It’s hard for me.”

“What do you want me to say?” he implored.

“Nothing. Just say nothing. That’s what you always do.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You never say how you feel. You shut down rather than saying what you feel. You’re going away forever. I get that. It’s hard for you too. I know it is. But why can’t you just say that. Don’t you have any feelings for me? You don’t have anything you want to say to me before you’re gone forever?”

“I’ve never been good at sharing my feelings.”

“No! Stop it. I’m not letting you get off that easily. That’s just an excuse. It’s hard for all of us. It’s hard for me right now to tell you how I feel. But I have to do it. If you don’t say what you feel, then everybody thinks you don’t feel anything. If you don’t feel anything for me, fine. Don’t say anything. But I know you have feelings for me. I just don’t know how to handle the silence. The distance is excruciating. I’m just being honest with you. I’ve never felt this way before. I’m sorry. I thought you felt the same way.”

She buried her face in her hands and cried.

Adam stood, walked around the conference table, and sat next to her. The gesture was awkward. She didn’t turn and face him. Her hands were covering her eyes, so he couldn’t hold them. His hand on her shoulder seemed inappropriate for the moment, too impersonal, too superficial, something a friend would do. He was more than a friend. He only had to figure out how to let her know it.

“Never mind. Forget I said anything. I’m talking too much. I’m sorry.” Her words were muffled.

“You need to quit apologizing.” He reached out and put his arm around her. She pulled away, stood, and walked over to the window.

“Why are you doing this? I thought last night was special too. I don’t want our last moments together to be like this,” Adam said.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re right. You are leaving soon. I’m sorry. I know you have a lot on your mind. You don’t need this. You don’t have any feelings. I just have to accept it.”

“You don’t think I have feelings?” Adam said angrily. “You don’t think I’m going to miss you? Do you think this is easy for me?”

“How would I know?” her voice raised with purpose. “You never say how you feel. You just act like everything is okay. Well it’s not okay. I’m going to miss you. I think you’ll miss me too. How would anybody know? You won’t say. I just wish you would say how you really feel about me. Like you did last night when you talked about how you felt about Jamie. You said you were going to miss her. You obviously love her. You never said you were going to miss me. You never said you love… me.”

Walls. His. Adam wanted to break them down; he just didn’t know how.

The large windowpane framed his spacecraft perfectly as it sat majestically like an eagle on the launch pad. This was the best vantage point from all of NASA.

Courtney stood staring at it.

Adam stepped closer to the window but remained a few feet from her. Giving her a little space.

Finally, the words came.

“Do you know why I signed up for the mission two years ago?”

“No.”

“I signed up because I had nothing on earth to live for,” his voice cracked. “Nothing. I hated my life. My wife had left me. All I had was being an astronaut. And I was good at it. But I don’t have to tell you that being an astronaut is a lonely existence.”

Adam took a moment to let that sink in.

“Do you know what most astronauts talk about when they’re in space?” Adam said that more accusingly than he’d meant to.

“No,” she said.

Adam softened his tone. “When they aren’t talking about the mission, they’re talking about all the things they miss on earth. One guy told me that the worst two days of the mission for him were the last two. You want to know why? Because he couldn’t stand the wait. He wanted to get home so badly, the last two days were miserable.”

“I could see that.”

“You know what the worst day was for me?”

“What?”

“The last day.”

“Why? That was the day you came home.”

“Exactly. Unlike all the other guys, I had nothing to come home to. I didn’t want to come back to earth. I dreaded the thought. There was nothing here for me. Most guys couldn’t wait to get home to their families and friends. We would land, and all their families were waiting for them in the welcoming room. Do you know who met me when we landed? Nobody. Everybody else had wives, girlfriends, kids, friends, mothers. Me, I had nobody.”

“I never knew.”

“It’s lonely in space, even being with the other astronauts. When we were in space, guys would talk about how lonely it was being away from their families. When I was up there it wasn’t any different for me than when I was on earth. It felt just as lonely down here as it did up there. I figured that if I was going to be lonely, I might as well be trying to accomplish something.”

Courtney started to speak, but Adam stopped her.

“Let me finish,” he said gently. “The mission gave me something to live for. Something to accomplish. I could make something of my life. I didn’t have any kids. My parents were dead. My grandparents died when I was young. I was an only child, so I have no brothers or sisters. There was nothing on earth keeping me here. I wasn’t dating anyone. I have only been on one date since my divorce, and you know how that turned out.”

Adam choked back the tears. “I thought maybe out there I could find my purpose in life. Now, I don’t know.”

Courtney stepped closer. They still weren’t touching, but the distance between them was receding, emotionally and physically.

Courtney folded her arms in front of her.

Adam reached over and unfolded them. Her fists were clenched. He unclenched them. Tears were streaming down his face. Hers as well. They had nothing to wipe them away, so they ignored them.

“Now I would give anything to not have to go…”

“I think I understand,” Courtney said sweetly.

His floodgates were now open. “Before I had nothing,” he continued. “Now I have you. Maybe I have Jamie. I don’t know.”

He looked out at the spacecraft.

“Two hours from now, that ship is sailing. I have to be on it.” They could see the crowd of people gathering in the distance and over by Mission Control. Reporters had already begun jockeying for the best position in the press area. The grandstands were nearly full.

“All those people are counting on me to get on that spacecraft and give them a show. They don’t care if I’m going to miss you. They don’t care that I have to spend a thousand years alone, never seeing you again. They don’t know or care how hard it’s going to be.”

“I know. I care.”

“Do you want to know why this is so hard?”

“Why?”

This time there was no hesitation. “Because I love you, Courtney. I know that now. I will miss you so much. It’s too painful to even talk about. I can’t even express in words how much I’m going to miss you. I haven’t allowed myself to think about it because the pain would be so unbearable. And there is nothing I can do about it.”

In one moment, a second even, his lips were on hers. He could feel her warmth, her passion, her breath as she relaxed her lips and kissed him back, both giving themselves completely to the moment. Their eyes were open, piercing each other, penetrating deep into each other’s souls.

Passion. Intensity. Electricity. It was pure. Love. As quickly as it happened, it was over.

A second kiss was unnecessary. It would have even taken something away from the first and what would inevitably be the last.

A sense of unexplainable freedom flooded Adam’s consciousness. They were finally free. He was free to go; she was free to let him. They had tried to get there the night before, but they needed the anger to go that deep. Finally, they were at peace with their relationship. At peace with their futures.

Adam wondered if maybe this was how God had planned it.

***

Sarge came through the door and Courtney pulled away. Adam didn’t release his grip, instead he pulled her back toward him. Sarge saw them and started to leave, but Adam motioned for him to stay.

“Sarge, it’s okay. Come here. I have something I want to tell both of you.”

Sarge walked quickly over to them, grabbing a box of tissues off of the table.

They both wiped away the tears, and then Adam took Courtney back in his arms, and she rested her head on his shoulder. Adam pulled Sarge closer with his other arm. Sarge placed one arm around Adam and one around Courtney.

“Promise me something. Both of you. Okay.”

They both nodded.

“Promise you what?” Courtney asked.

“Promise me you’ll find Jamie when I’m gone.”

“We are going to find her in time. She was only an hour away, and that was an hour ago,” Sarge said.

“I know. I’m holding out hope too. But if she doesn’t make it, promise me you’ll find her. Tell her I’m sorry.”

“Tell her that I didn’t know about her. Courtney knows the whole story. Don’t make her mother look bad. Just tell her that I didn’t abandon her. If I had known, I would’ve been there for her. Tell her to forgive me.”

Sarge wiped his eyes.

“Adam, she will forgive you. There’s nothing to forgive you for. You didn’t know,” Courtney said in almost a whisper.

“Just promise me.”

And they did.

***

A couple staffers appeared at the door. They were there to escort Adam to the reception and then to the launch pad. Sarge wrapped his arms around Adam and squeezed tightly.

“Hey, Sarge,” Adam said. “When you get your next round of recruits, say something nice about me to them.”

“I will if I can think of something.”

They all laughed and Sarge laughed the hardest. He turned and walked out the door and motioned for the two staffers to join him.

Courtney said to Adam, “Always know that I love you, and I’m praying for you.”

“We’re taking the term ‘long distance relationship’ to a whole new level,” Adam said.

Courtney laughed. Adam loved her laugh. He tried to etch it in his memory so he could draw on it over the next thousand years.

“I love you too.”

Then he left.

Chapter Nine

2:45 p.m. 37 minutes to launch

Carl Brayton finished embedding the glitch into the software after agonizing for an hour over whether or not he should even do it. Adam’s words resonated with him. What if it was your daughter?

Adam wanted him to sabotage the mission so he could talk to his daughter. Carl admitted to himself that if it was his daughter, he would want someone to do the same thing for him. It felt counterintuitive, though. Most of the time, he built firewalls to prevent glitches. NASA had some of the most elaborate firewalls known to man, and Carl was one of the few people on earth who could maneuver his way around them.

He embedded a minor glitch that would take thirty minutes to fix, which meant if and when the light went on the mission would have to be scrubbed. He wasn’t even sure he would activate it, but he’d have that option.

The glitch could only be activated by a password seventeen characters long. Once the glitch activated at precisely ten minutes to launch, the password had to be entered within one minute. If it wasn’t, the glitch would self-destruct on its own. Under any other circumstances, this would be considered an ingenious plan.

The main concern was that the password had to be entered carefully. If one digit was wrongly entered, the glitch wouldn’t activate the warning light but would create a software problem that could cause the spacecraft to veer out of control after launch. That had caused Carl to reconsider. Is it worth the risk? What if I entered it wrong? I could put Adam’s life in danger.

“It should be all right,” he reassured himself.

Why do I have an eerie feeling that it won’t be?

***

2:52 p.m. 30 minutes to launch

Jamie had never laughed so hard in her life.

“What do two people from Alabama say after they break up?” Bud asked.

“I don’t know. What?” Jamie asked.

“Let’s just be cousins.” Bud roared with laughter.

Jamie tried not to laugh too hard because her head hurt when she did, but she couldn’t help it. Bud’s jokes weren’t that funny, but his delivery was cracking her up. She’d had been leery at first getting into a truck with a total stranger. Bud was as harmless as a fly and a godsend. He had gotten her to within five miles of the exit to Kennedy Space Center, but they were now at a standstill. Traffic was backed up as far as they could see. They had moved less than a mile in the last forty-five minutes.

“This traffic is unbelievable,” Jamie said sorrowfully. Her chances of making it to see her dad before his launch diminished with each second they sat there.

“It must be all the people coming out to watch the launch of that crazy person who’s going off into space for a thousand years,” Bud said.

Jamie fought back tears.

“What’s the matter, sugar?” Bud hadn’t said it improperly. It was said more like a grandfather talking to his granddaughter.

“Bud, I’m sorry.” Jamie took a moment to try to compose herself. “I haven’t been completely honest with you. My name is not Beth, it’s Jamie. That crazy person going into space is my father. I was driving from Miami to the space center so I could talk to him one last time before the launch. My car ran out of gas, and I thought I wasn’t going to make it. Then you came along and offered me a ride. You’ve been so great.”

“Why didn’t you say so? I might have been able to get you there in time.”

Jamie hesitated.

“Because the police are looking for me, and I didn’t want you to get in trouble,” she let spill out.

“Why would the law be looking for you? What did you do?”

“I killed a guy at my hotel.”

“What?” Bud’s eyes widened and his mouth twisted in disbelief.

“He attacked me first. But I hit him really hard with my elbow, and I guess I killed him. They’ve been chasing me all day. I’m sorry, Bud. I should’ve told you.”

“Sounds to me like it was self-defense.” Bud didn’t sound concerned at all.

“I’ve been trying so hard to get to the launch.” Jamie’s voice cracked and she began to cry. “All I wanted to do was talk to my dad one time before he left for a thousand years. Now, I’ll never make it. The launch is at three o’clock. It’s not your fault.”

“The launch is not until three twenty-two.”

Why would he say that? She was sure the news said three.

“It was delayed by twenty-two minutes,” Bud explained. “I heard it on the radio back before I picked you up.”

“Oh… I still don’t think I can get there in time. This traffic isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I could start running, but it would take me an hour to get there. I don’t even know if they would let me in the gate. I don’t know what to do.”

“I do,” Bud said. “Hang on.”

Bud turned the rig sharply to the right and accelerated, driving precariously on the shoulder. Jamie clutched the armrest in fear. Angry motorists honked as they passed by them. There was an exit just ahead but a bridge between them and the exit.

“You can’t go that way,” Jamie yelled. “There’s a bridge there.”

Bud didn’t answer her. His eyes remained squarely on the road, and he wasn’t slowing down.

Right before the bridge, he jerked the truck to the right and down the embankment of the median over to the frontage road. The truck bounced violently, and the left tires tilted slightly.

Good thing Jamie wore her seat belt, or she would’ve hit her head on the ceiling of the truck—the head that was finally feeling better from the concussion.

She could feel the rig sinking in the soft grass in the median, but the big truck powered its way through and onto the service road, tilting slightly on its left wheels again until it finally found its traction on the pavement.

“Where are you going?” Jamie asked anxiously.

“I hauled a big load of stuff to Kennedy Space Center a few months ago,” Bud said. “It was a bunch of parts from somewhere. I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, they have a back entrance.”

Jamie clapped her hands with excitement.

“If I can remember how to get there, I can get you to the gate. I’ll tell them I have a load to drop off. With any luck, they’ll let us in, and I’ll drive you over to the launch building. I know which one it is. When I was there, the guy gave me a tour and told me where everything was.”

“I could kiss you,” Jamie said.

“You could, but I’m a happily married man.” Bud grinned widely as he said it.

Bud drove like a maniac to the back gate. Jamie held on for dear life as Bud sped around each curve. They arrived in less than ten minutes. It was exactly three o’clock. The supply entrance was heavily guarded, and that side of the complex was surrounded by a large twelve-foot fence with barbed wire at the top. The entrance had a guard booth and a strong-arm traffic barrier that raised and lowered, probably by a control in the guardhouse.

The booth was manned by an older security guard with a protruding belly that rolled over his pants that were at least three sizes too small. He had a gun attached to his side. Jamie doubted he’d ever drawn it.

Bud eased the truck up to the entrance and said in his disarmingly friendly voice, “How’s it going, partner? I have a delivery.”

The security guard said, “This entrance is closed until one hour after the launch.”

Jamie’s heart sank.

The guard looked at his watch and said, “The launch is about to go. You can unload about an hour and twenty minutes from now.”

Bud shook his head no and said in a determined voice, “These items are for the after-party for the bigwigs. They were supposed to get here yesterday, but I was delayed. There are going to be some pretty upset people if I don’t get these items in there. I’m not going anywhere near the launch site. I just need to take these over to the dining hall so they can get everything prepared. Go ahead and let me through so that we don’t both get in trouble.”

Jamie had a little bit of hope.

“What is your name and company?”

Bud gave him a name that sounded like he’d just made it up. He confirmed it when he turned and winked at Jamie.

The guard looked down at the clipboard and said, “I don’t see anything about any delivery.”

“Like I said, it was for yesterday. It’s probably not on today’s schedule.”

“My orders are to not let anybody through until after the launch.”

“Is your supervisor here?” Bud said.

“No.”

“Well, go call him. I don’t think he’s going to be very happy about the fact that you aren’t letting us through.”

“Hold tight for a moment.”

The guard turned around and walked into the guardhouse. He picked up the phone and dialed a number. The other guards were watching them closely.

Bud turned to Jamie and said, “Hold on tight. We’re going for a ride.” He gunned the engine and smashed through the security arm, breaking it in half.

Jamie screamed.

The truck moved surprisingly fast for such a big rig, and they were well away from the security gate by the time the armed guards ran after them, waving their hands, yelling at the top of their lungs.

Looking in the side mirror, Jamie saw them raise their guns. She screamed again. “Bud, you had better hurry.”

“Don’t worry, honey. They can’t hurt this truck.”

Bud had already rounded the corner and was out of range and out of sight of the guards. And he was grinning like a mischievous kid.

“Bud, you are in so much trouble.”

***

3:10 p.m. 12 minutes to launch

It had been thirty minutes since the last preparations were made and Adam had been strapped into his seat and the door ominously closed and sealed tight.

The last ten minutes had been boring for Adam. He had nothing to do at that point. The checklist was complete, and he’d spent the last thirty minutes going back and forth between thoughts of Jamie and thoughts of Courtney. The realization had hit him between the eyes, that Jamie wasn’t coming, or if she was, she wasn’t going to make it in time. Carl had to buy him some time.

Adam was snugly strapped into his seat, ready for a launch he hoped wasn’t going to happen.

Sarah came on the radio and said, “Adam, are you done with the checklist?”

“I am. I’ve been done for fifteen minutes.”

Years before, astronauts had a long procedure list they had to go through before launch. Now, everything was done by computer. He only had to concern himself with personal things, such as stowing his private belongings, making sure everything was battened down, and checking the controls. The most important thing to him had been the Bible from Courtney, which he’d carefully stowed near his bed.

“Hey Adam, why did the astronaut stop to eat?” Sarah asked.

The question stopped Adam in his tracks. Sarah didn’t usually start the banter.

“Why?” Adam said.

“Because it was launch time.”

Adam retorted, “Hey Sarah, I’m reading a book about antigravity. It’s impossible to put down.”

Sarah’s laugh came through the com. He was surprised she was joking with him. When it was nearing time for launch, she was usually all business. He was the one who had always initiated the silly jokes. Sarah knew how difficult the day had been and that they hadn’t found Jamie. This must obviously be her way of consoling Adam, knowing how hard it must be for him.

She has no idea.

He felt a twinge of guilt. Sarah had worked so hard to make sure this launch went smoothly. Carl was about to sabotage it, and it was his fault.

It can’t be helped. Sorry.

His thoughts turned back to Courtney and he chuckled to himself as he remembered when she had joined the corny jokes game.

“Hey Adam, what do you call a crazy spaceman?” Courtney had said.

“What?”

“An Astro-nut.”

A few days later, she told another one. “Adam, why did the astronaut see a psychiatrist?” “Why?”

“Because he’s a Luna-tic.”

Adam appreciated Courtney’s corny jokes now more than he had then. He realized looking back, how hard she was trying to get into his world. If only he’d let her in sooner. He’d told her a joke as well.

“How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?

“How many?” Courtney groaned.

“Only one, but the light bulb has to really want to change.”

Courtney laughed, although she later admitted she’d heard that joke a thousand times. That was a fond memory of Courtney. She’d laughed like she’d heard it for the first time. He realized she started falling for him even back then. The signs were evident. He’d started falling for her a long time before as well.

Don’t start crying.

Adam nervously watched the clock. The countdown was coming up on ten minutes to launch.

This had better work. I hope Carl comes through.

***

Adam had seen Carl right before he boarded. Many of the employees who worked closely with Adam stopped by the holding room to say goodbye. Carl didn’t say anything in particular about the glitch, but he nodded reassuringly, leading Adam to believe he was going to help him.

At exactly ten minutes and fifteen seconds to launch, Adam said to Sarah, “Where does an astronaut park his spacecraft?

Sarah didn’t answer. For a moment, he panicked. He’d forgotten Mission Control went through one of their most important launch checklists at exactly ten minutes to launch.

What if she didn’t answer? Would Carl still know to execute the glitch?

“Where does an astronaut park his spacecraft?” Sarah answered, to Adam’s relief.

“At a parking meteor.”

“Good one, Adam. That might be your best one yet.”

Adam looked at the clock. It was exactly ten minutes to launch.

***

Carl heard the cue and went to work. All the higher-ups in NASA were on the same frequency and could hear the conversations between Sarah and Adam. They could even break into the channel in the event of an emergency. The understanding was that Sarah was the only one who would communicate directly with Adam unless there was a real emergency.

With two minutes to go in the countdown, the feed between Adam and Mission Control would go out to the area holding the press and to the viewing room where the family, friends, and dignitaries had gathered. There was a five second delay and someone was standing by with a kill switch if it was necessary. If the astronaut’s life was in danger, no one wanted the world, and especially the family, listening to what could possibly be a horrific situation.

Carl pulled up the link to the software glitch and typed the password, nervously entering the numbers and taking the time to check each one to make sure they were accurate.

Carl had entered ten numbers when Kellie, one of his associates, came to his desk, stood next to him and said, “We’re all going out for drinks afterward. Do you want to come?”

“What?” Carl looked up at her and said coldly, “What do you want?”

“Drinks… Earth to Carl. After Commander Lang is in the space stream, we’re all going out to Fratellos to celebrate. Are you in?”

Carl said rather rudely, “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something?” He immediately regretted the exchange. Kellie was his most valuable employee.

“Sorry…” Kellie said angrily and skulked away.

I’ll have to apologize later.

Carl looked down at the password and panic set in, “What number was I on? I don’t remember.”

He thought he had typed in eleven numbers. “Was it eleven or twelve? Or was it ten? It was definitely eleven.”

He started typing in the rest of the password but stopped

“But what if I’m wrong? I think it was ten and not eleven.”

One wrong number could be deadly to Adam. He had to be sure.

“What do I do?”

He decided to start over and frantically backspaced to the beginning. He looked at the clock and it said 00:09:15. He would have to enter seventeen numbers in fifteen seconds. That was certainly possible, but if he didn’t get it done in time, it would be like getting a number wrong. It wasn’t worth the risk. Carl clicked out of the program and sighed deeply.

I’m sorry Adam. I really am sorry. Please forgive me, buddy.

Chapter Ten

T Minus 00:05:23 seconds to launch

Yusaf walked into the armory and calmly opened the box to the missile. He carefully removed the launch tube from its case, checked one last time, and sat it back down on top of the box. He returned to his post. He still had time.

The large countdown clock to the right of the launch pad read five minutes left until launch. He had his own countdown clock. With one-minute left, he would bring the missile out of the armory. With thirty seconds to launch, he would insert the Battery Coolant Unit, known as a BCU, into the missile launcher. From that point, he would only have forty-five seconds to launch the missile or the coolant would run out. The missile would detonate long before that point.

Yusaf breathed deeply, trying to control his anticipation and enthusiasm. Patience was a key to his ultimate success. Timing was critical. A missile fired now would kill thousands of people in the blast radius. If he waited until the rocket ignited, tens of thousands would die and every building within two miles would be leveled. He looked around. No one was within several hundred yards of him. He was a trusted employee whom no one would ever suspect would be contemplating such an act.

The sequence of events about to unfold played once more in his head for at least the thousandth time.

With twenty seconds left in the countdown, the engines would roar to life. Patience would still be required. The engines wouldn’t fully ignite until six seconds. When the clock struck zero, the fuel thrusters would release all of their power, and a huge fireball would emerge from the launch pad and begin thrusting the spacecraft upward. That was when he would shout his praise to Allah, fire the missile, and death would come to the infidels.

He regretted the secrecy. How much would he love to step in front of the cameras a minute before and announce to the world the greatness of Allah. The crowd would watch in horror if he could publicly aim the missile, shoot it into the spacecraft, and then rain terror down upon the horrified masses. A wishful pipe dream. They couldn’t have any advance warning. Security was everywhere, and if he were seen, even with only a few seconds to firing left, he could still be stopped.

Imagining the great victory brought him an excessive deal of earthly pleasure. Picturing the devastation in his mind would have to be enough. He wouldn’t live to see any of it.

The images were seared into his mind. He had imagined everything. The sights, smells, and sounds, of destruction.

The missile would have a high-pitched squeal as it streaked low across the ground toward the launch pad. Those present would see the flash without time to process what it was. Millions would see it on television, and the replay would loop thousands of times for years to come.

Screaming… He could hear the screams. Pain. He could smell the burning flesh. Tens of thousands, dead. Most burned beyond recognition. He could see their badly charred faces. Those unfortunate enough to survive the blast, would die a slow and agonizing death as first responders would be overwhelmed and unable to care for everyone. He could hear their cries for help.

The buildings would be destroyed. Authorities would search for days for survivors in the chaos. They were unlikely to find any. The Kennedy Space Center complex would soon look like the neighborhoods he grew up in that were destroyed by American bombs.

It would be a war zone. Devastation everywhere. Rubble.

Yusaf pictured with satisfaction dead bodies lying everywhere. Body bags strewn along the vast ocean of concrete. The Vice President of the United States and the First Lady would be dead. Their funerals broadcasted live around the world. He only wished the President would be among the dead, but this was better. Security would have been tighter. Snipers would have been on the roofs to kill him the moment he stepped out of the shadows. Allah decided who would be there and who would die. He would not question Allah’s will and plan.

Fellow Muslims would no doubt be dancing in the streets all around the world. A great victory would be celebrated tonight and tomorrow across the globe. His brothers would praise him as the greatest of all warriors. The day would be memorialized, and the anniversary remembered. Perhaps other fellow warriors would be inspired to inflict more destruction on this date in the future.

Seventy-two virgins awaited him in paradise. He could feel their touch.

He could already feel the satisfaction to come in the brief seconds between the time he fired the missile, to when the fireball would consume everyone including himself.

They won’t even know what hit them.

***

T Minus 00:05:14 to launch

Bud drove the truck up to an intersection with two options. They could turn left or right. He didn’t remember which way to go.

Jamie looked at him and shrugged her shoulders. “Which way?”

“My momma always said, ‘When in doubt, always do right.’”

Bud swung the truck wide so it wouldn’t end up in the ditch and headed right, hoping he’d made the right choice.

In less than a mile, they rounded a curve, and NASA, in all of her glorious splendor, came into view. He’d definitely made the right choice.

Bud pointed at the launch pad. “That’s where your dad is.”

Jamie was in awe. She had no idea it was this large. A sense of pride overwhelmed her as she thought about her dad and the millions of people who were watching him.

Bud pointed to a building off in the distance and said to Jamie, “That’s where you need to go. That’s the Mission Control building. You can even see the sign.”

“I need to go to the launch tower. That’s where my dad will be.”

“No. You can’t go there. Have you ever seen a launch? When it goes off, there will be a lot of smoke and fire. Don’t go anywhere near that area. He’s already in the spacecraft. You can’t get to him there. Go to the control room.”

The road turned to acres of concrete as far as the eye could see. Bud steered the truck toward a large gate. A fence fully enclosing the section separated them from the area with the buildings. No guards were there, but the gate was closed.

Jamie looked in their rearview mirror and saw three cars racing toward them with their lights flashing. They were still a distance away.

She screamed, “Bud, you have to hurry!”

Bud drove the truck right up to the gate, turning the truck sideways. Jamie’s side was out of view of the oncoming cars.

“Go!” he said emphatically. “Now. Run as fast as you can to that building. Can you get over that fence?”

Jamie nodded. She leaned over and kissed Bud on the cheek and said, “I’ll never forget you.”

“Run. They don’t know you are here. Get over the fence and out of sight as quickly as you can so they don’t see you. If they see you, they’ll come after you.”

Jamie jumped out of the cab and bounded over the fence as if it wasn’t there. She sprinted what felt like a hundred plus yards and hid behind a large building. Bud’s truck was quickly surrounded by armed troopers with their guns drawn. For a moment her eyes met Bud’s, and he smiled briefly, obviously relieved she’d made it. He exited the truck with his hands in the air. The last she saw, he was lying face down, spread eagle, with the officers standing over him, their guns pointed at him.

They weren’t looking her way at all.

Jamie took off running without looking back. She could do nothing for Bud now. His efforts would be wasted if she couldn’t get to Mission Control in time. She had to make sure that didn’t happen.

***

T Minus 00:02:14 to launch

Carl hadn’t come through. After Adam cued Carl with the astronaut joke, several anxious minutes had passed, but the alarm never came on. Adam resigned himself to the fact that talking to Jamie wasn’t going to happen. He felt a moment of resentment toward Carl but quickly put it out of his mind. It had been too much to ask of him anyway.

As the countdown hit two minutes, it occurred to him that maybe he could somehow get out of the spacecraft and set off his own alarm. He unbuckled his seat belts, flipped off the camera focused on him in the seat, and looked for a way to escape. The door was airtight shut. It could be opened from the inside, but it took several complicated steps. What would he do if he opened it? The spaceship was twenty stories high.

The countdown clock read exactly one minute to launch. Adam panicked as he realized he had less than thirty seconds to find a way to stop the mission. He looked around for any button that would alert Mission Control there was a problem but couldn’t be traced back to him. No options came immediately to mind.

Thirty seconds later, the auxiliary power units turned on. Adam felt the power of the main engines lighting. Chronos 7 tilted forward for a moment and then rocked back. That was normal and would have been no big deal if Adam had been strapped in. Instead, he was knocked backward onto the floor.

The whole spacecraft rumbled and shook like a volcano getting ready to erupt. The powerful engines roared to life. The sound was so intense Adam could feel the vibrations in his chest. In less than twenty seconds, Adam would feel the full force of 3gs on his body, and he would be violently smashed against the wall and killed instantly. He imagined for a moment what Sarah and all of Mission Control would think when they tried to contact him, and he didn’t answer. They would never know what happened.

Adam’s life flashed before his eyes. The years of training were out the window. Is this how the mission is going to end? Doomed before it ever started. How stupid am I?

“What did you think you were going to do? Jump out of the spacecraft,” he said to himself aloud. This wasn’t a scripted action movie. This was real life, and he had screwed up big time. His emotions had gotten the best of him. His desire to talk to Jamie had put him in grave danger.

Adam fought against the forces of gravity and pent up thrust working against him. He tried to reach something he could use to pull himself up. The radio was too far away to warn Sarah. And the seat belts had no warning light to tell mission control the astronaut wasn’t in his seat. No one ever contemplated a scenario in which someone would be stupid enough to unbuckle his seat restraints right at blast off.

Adam stayed off of his feet and crawled over to the seat. It took all his strength to pull himself up. The countdown reverberated in his ears. He turned with his back to the chair. His only chance was to fall backward as soon as the vehicle began to move and hope the G forces kept him in his seat.

10, 9, 8…

I can’t believe this is how I’m going to die.

***

The giant countdown clock showed the launch was less than two minutes away. Jamie estimated it would take her about two minutes to sprint to the building Bud had pointed at.

About halfway there, she caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye. It was a man stepping out of the shadows of a building. He was holding some type of weapon on his shoulder. Terror came over Jamie as she realized it was a missile. She remembered seeing a report of terrorists shooting shoulder-fired missiles at airplanes. He was pointing it right at her dad’s spacecraft.

He was more than thirty yards away, so she quickened her pace. He fumbled with something on the top of the weapon so she had a few seconds to get to him before he would be ready to fire.

I must stop him.

Her options were limited. She wanted to hit him high with a clothesline maneuver. That was the best way to disable him, but he had the weapon on his shoulder blocking her from hitting him in the head. Hitting him in the body was the best option.

Jamie launched herself like a missile, lowering her body, ducking her head, and hitting him like a linebacker would hit a running back.

They fell to the ground. The missile clanged noisily when it hit the ground and slid harmlessly away. Her head bounced off the concrete, sending pain ricocheting through her entire body. In a flash, he was on top of her. This wasn’t Fletcher. He was strong, experienced. A scream formed in her throat, but his arm pressed into her neck cut off her ability to inhale enough air to let out the even weakest noise.

She tried to roll away, but he wrapped his muscular forearm around her neck from behind. A slight twist of her head kept him from getting a full grip. Her trainer had put her in this same hold many times before with just as strong of a grip. But it wasn’t the same thing. This was real life. The trainer would loosen his grip when she tapped him on the arm letting him know she’d had enough. This man wasn’t going to stop until she was dead. With the blood and oxygen supply cut off from her brain, it would be only a matter of seconds before she would lose consciousness. She had to get out of this on her own.

Jamie kicked his shin with her heel, delivering only a glancing blow. Hard enough only for him to move his legs and wrap them around her waist like scissors. That had been a mistake. Now his legs were like a boa constrictor slowly squeezing the life out of her. Every part of her body screamed in pain and demanded her attention.

She threw her head backward, trying to hit him with the back of her head.

He strengthened the grip, seeming to barely notice. He let out a huge breath as he squeezed harder.

Jamie struggled to catch even the slightest breath. Gasps were all she could muster. Her lungs burned from the lack of air.

She couldn’t hold him off much longer. He was a fighter. A trained killer. A terrorist. She was a nineteen-year-old girl who practiced martial arts in a local gym. This would be over soon.

Elbows Jamie. Hit him with your elbow. You have to get off of the ground.

Jamie had long skinny arms with sharp elbows. They’d always been her best weapons in fighting. Her instructor had drilled in her to use them in a life and death situation.

That time had come.

She’d been pulling on his arm with her right arm to try and hold back the chokehold. It didn’t stop him. She released it and twisted slightly to the left. She then flung her elbow to the right, connecting on his right side just below his shoulder. He grunted from the blow, but it caused him to only squeeze harder. It didn’t faze him at all.

Jamie was going in and out of consciousness. She mustered what was left of her strength and twisted as far to the left as he would allow. She then flung her body back to the right and brought the sharpest part of her elbow into the side of his chest with as much force as she could muster. The sound of a rib cracking let her know that she’d hit her mark.

He loosened his grip as her elbow dug deep into his side.

He released his right arm and reached for his side. His left arm was still firmly around Jamie’s neck, but the blow weakened it enough for her to wiggle free and jump to her feet. Her first instinct was to run, but the missile was still within his reach, and the spacecraft was still on the launch pad.

I have to stop him. He’ll kill us all.

She tried to kick him in the groin, but it glanced off his thigh.

He grabbed the back of Jamie’s leg, almost causing her to lose her balance and fall. He jumped to his feet as she barely kept hers. Before she could react, he slapped her across the face with the back of his hand.

She could taste blood.

He lunged for the missile.

She pushed him from behind.

Enraged, he turned back toward her. Their eyes met, and Jamie could feel the hatred searing from his cold, stone face.

At that exact moment, the earth began shaking violently. The spacecraft roared to life as the engines ignited, sending plumes of smoke cascading from the launch pad.

He turned and looked in that direction.

The words of Jamie’s instructor resonated in her head. Ignore distractions. Use them to your advantage. Jamie needed this opening

He looked at the spacecraft and then at the missile on the ground.

Jamie shouted at the top of her lungs, trying to get his attention.

He turned back toward her. As he did, she balled her hand into a fist, raising the knuckle of her middle finger slightly. She timed it perfectly, bringing her right arm in a roundhouse arc, striking him with her knuckle at a spot slightly below his Adam’s apple. Her knuckle penetrated the soft and vulnerable tissue, successfully crushing his vocal cords and trachea.

A fatal blow.

His face filled with fear. The hands and arms that seconds before were squeezing the life out of her, were raised to his neck as he grasped for air. The only thing that could have saved him would be a doctor skilled in opening a hole in his neck below the damaged trachea and then blowing air through a straw into his lungs.

Jamie swept his legs out from under him, and he fell backward onto the pavement, his head making a cracking sound as it banged off of the concrete.

I hope you have a concussion.

He thrashed around, desperately gasping for a breath that would never come. Gurgling sounds came from the back of his throat.

A concussion won’t matter. He’ll be dead soon.

Not wanting to watch him die, Jamie ran from the scene toward her original destination. She stopped only to watch her father’s spacecraft soar into the atmosphere, leaving behind a trail of smoke and fire. She was in the open, but no one was looking at her. A scan of the crowd confirmed that everyone was looking in the sky. They were all fixated on the glorious spacecraft soaring rapidly into space.

I’m sorry, Dad. I did everything I could to get to you.

The thought occurred to Jamie that maybe God had brought her there to save everyone from the terrorist. Even though she hadn’t arrived in time to see her dad, she had saved thousands of lives. That would have to be satisfaction enough.

I love you, Dad. I got to see your launch. I hope you are okay.

Chapter Eleven

“Chronos 7, Tower. Everything is looking good from here. Over.”

Silence.

Sarah looked up from the launch data numbers she was perusing. Mission Control was making its first contact with Adam since the launch. He did not respond.

“Chronos 7, Tower. Trajectory is good. Thrust is good. Over.”

The silence became deafening.

Sarah looked over at her ground flight commander, who shrugged his shoulders.

“Cut the outside feed for a moment,” Sarah said.

She pushed a button on her computer. “Adam, is everything okay?”

No response.

“Is the video feed still off?” Sarah asked. The astronauts often turned it off before launch. They had complained that the images of them being hit by 3gs during launch was unflattering, and they preferred to have it turned off for the first minute. NASA had finally acquiesced.

“Yes. It’s still off.”

“Anyone seeing any problems?” Sarah asked. From her vantage point, the launch had gone perfectly.

“No. Everything looks good.” That was the consensus around the room.

“Carl, is this a computer software problem?”

He paused before he answered. “I’m not aware of any problem. It could be a number of things, though. Perhaps a malfunction of the headset. It could be something as simple as a low battery.”

“He could’ve passed out from the launch,” one of the associates said.

“That’s highly unlikely,” Sarah explained. “Adam has been through this thousands of times in the simulator without a problem.” Astronauts never passed out from a launch. Because of gravity, blood flows away from the head. A blackout would happen only if the blood flowed rapidly back to the head. That couldn’t happen if the astronaut was in his chair.

“Is it instrumentation?” Sarah asked.

“There’s no way of knowing. We aren’t even seeing a problem here. How do we fix it, if we don’t know what it is?”

“I wish he was connected to a monitor,” Sarah said. In the distant past, NASA monitored the astronaut’s vital signs through the entire flight. The astronauts had complained loudly about that as well. The men and women in the program maintained a high level of fitness. They felt it was unnecessary. Adam would only be in their range for one hour… totally unnecessary in his case.

“I agree. If we could see his vitals, we would know he’s alive.”

Sarah was silent for several seconds before she said, “Of course, he’s alive. The launch went smoothly. Nothing traumatic happened that could’ve threatened his life. The oxygen levels in the cabin are good. From my seat, everything looks perfect. It looks like a very smooth ride.”

“Do you want to abort?” the ground flight commander asked.

“Let’s give it a few more minutes. Execute the roll and prepare for staging. We still have five minutes before we have to make that decision. If we don’t hear from him by then, we’ll have to consider it. In the meantime, keep trying to reach him and leave the outside feed off for now.”

“What’s going on, Adam? Are you okay?” Sarah mumbled under her breath.

Did you turn off your headset so I would abort… so you could talk to Jamie?

***

Jamie ran past the throng of reporters with adrenaline still coursing through her veins. They were snapping pictures at a rapid pace, at the wrong thing. Little did they know the young girl who'd been the focus of their obsession the entire day was running right in front of them. She bounded up the stairs and through a door marked “Authorized Personnel Only.” A security guard was manning a table, but he had turned away from his post and was watching a television screen.

Jamie slipped past him and into the room. A large screen and several smaller TVs were showing live broadcasts of the launch. Several tables of food, drink, and water were in the back of the room. She headed directly to it and quickly downed several glasses of ice-cold water. Blood was coming from a scraped knee and elbow sustained while rolling around on the concrete. A wet napkin got rid of the blood. Her hands were still shaking from the confrontation with the terrorist. A deep breath calmed her slightly.

It felt like everything on her body hurt. Her head. The cuts and scrapes. Her neck was bruised from his arms compressing against it. Her sides ached from where his legs were crushing them from the powerful scissor hold. Thankfully, it didn’t appear any ribs were broken. They were bruised, but it certainly could have been a lot worse.

She ignored the pain and made her way to the back of the viewing area intent on watching her dad’s spacecraft on the large viewing screen.

A security guard walked toward her. Two others started moving toward her from a different direction. Soon she was surrounded by the three of them.

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” one said. “You need a pass.”

Everyone had lanyards with NASA passes in them. A scan of the room confirmed to Jamie that she looked out of place in her shorts, tank top, and sneakers. Most were in dresses, or suits and ties.

“My name is Jamie Austen. I’m the astronaut’s daughter,” she said proudly.

“Right, and I’m the President of the United States.”

Jamie stuck out her hand and said, “Hi, Mr. President, it’s nice to meet you. You look taller on television.”

“So, you’re a wise guy.” He grabbed her by the arm. “Come with me.”

Jamie jerked her arm out of his grasp and said loudly, “Get your hands off of me.”

***

Courtney sat in the front row of the viewing room. Senator Robinson, the Vice President, and the First Lady were sitting next to her. Adam insisted she stay for the launch and sit with the dignitaries. A commotion in the back of the room drew her attention away from the viewing screen.

Courtney threw her hands on her cheeks in amazement. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Jamie was standing in the back of the room having some sort of confrontation with three security guards. It was, without a doubt, the girl in the video at the hotel. She rushed to the back of the room as things were getting more heated.

Courtney flashed her VIP lanyard at the security guards and said, “It’s okay. She’s with me.” That seemed to satisfy them because they turned around and left but not before one of them gave Jamie a stern glare. She gave him one right back.

Courtney held out her hand and said, “Hi Jamie. My name is Courtney. I’m a good friend of your father. We’ve been looking all over for you.”

“You wouldn’t believe what I’ve been through trying to get here.” Tears began to well up in her eyes. “I’m too late. My dad is gone. I wanted to talk to him.”

“Did you see the press conference this morning?” Courtney asked.

“I did,” she said, her shoulders sagging as she spoke.

“That’s what we thought. You heard your name mentioned and left your hotel to come here to meet your dad.”

“They mentioned my name?” Her eyes widened in surprise. “Why would they mention me at the press conference?”

“A reporter asked your dad a question about you. We thought you heard it.”

“I didn’t. I must have left before then. My dad knows about me?”

“He has known about you for a couple years.”

“What? How could he? My mom said she never told him.”

“He was at her funeral.”

Jamie was quiet for a moment, clearly trying to process the new information. “He knew about me but never said anything?”

“He wanted to. He looked for you and desperately wanted to meet you. He’s been searching all day. We all have.” Courtney furrowed her eyebrows. Something Jamie said suddenly registered.

“Wait… If you didn’t hear your name from the press conference, how did you know Adam is your father?”

“My mom told me right before she died. I promised her I would find him. I’ve been looking for him for two whole years.”

Courtney pondered that for a moment. Adam had so many opportunities to talk to Jamie. She knew all along and was even looking for him. Adam was outside Jamie’s dorm room two weeks ago. He could’ve talked to her then. Should have. Oh Adam…

Finally, Courtney said, “We can talk about that later. The main thing is that you’re here. I need to get you over to Mission Control so you can talk to your dad.”

“I can still talk to him?” she asked excitedly.

“Yes. We can connect you by a video hookup and you can talk directly to him. We must hurry though. In less than an hour, he’ll go into the space stream.”

Courtney saw the dignitaries starting to leave, including Senator Robinson. She yelled across the room for the Senator, got his attention, and motioned for him to come to where she was standing.

“Senator Robinson, I’d like you to meet Jamie Austen, Adam’s daughter.”

A huge smile came on his face. He held out his hand and said, “Young lady, you don’t know how happy I am to meet you. You’ve caused me a lot of trouble today, trying to find you.”

Jamie shook his hand, matching his smile. “I’ve never met a Senator before.”

“We have a lot to tell you,” Courtney said.

At that moment, two uniformed police officers walked through the door.

Jamie turned her back to them. “I have a lot to tell you too.”

“There’ll be plenty of time for that. Let’s go talk to your dad,” Courtney said.

***

“Chronos 7, Tower. Do you read me? Over.”

Adam adjusted the volume on his headset.

He heard someone else say, “Sarah, are we going to abort?”

Adam was waiting anxiously for her answer.

“Standby,” Sarah said. “I’m on the phone with Administrator Matthews discussing it right now. Get your procedures ready for an RTLS just in case. We will have a decision shortly.”

An “RTLS” was a Return to Launch Site abort, a procedure put in place to abort a mission that had run into difficulty. It had never been attempted in the history of NASA and certainly wasn’t without risk. An RTLS required what was called a “flip ‘n burn.” An unnatural act of physics. The spacecraft’s trajectory was reversed, fuel burned off, and a burn executed to accelerate Adam back to earth with a shallow reentry. If all things went well, Adam would glide back into Cape Canaveral about twenty-five minutes after takeoff.

He’d barely survived takeoff. The upward thrust of liftoff had thrown him backward into his chair. The 3gs had pinned him to the chair like an elephant sitting on his chest. For the first few moments after launch, Adam was unable to move his arms. Just in time, he was able to get his shoulder harness around his upper body. That was the only thing that saved him. When the rocket pitched, he would have been violently thrown around the spacecraft and killed instantly if he hadn’t been strapped in. As it was, he was pretty banged up but had no serious injuries.

When he heard the tower routinely calling for him, he got the idea not to answer. He calculated that they might consider aborting the mission altogether if they couldn’t reach him. If they did an RTLS abort, he would return to the launch site, and he could continue his search for Jamie. Explaining why he didn’t answer was problematic, but he would deal with that later.

Adam was certain that they would decide to abort. Administrator Matthews was very conservative and almost always erred on the side of caution. While an RTLS had risks, Adam couldn’t imagine that NASA would send an unresponsive astronaut into space with no idea what had happened to him. The decision had to come in the next minute or they would miss the window of opportunity for an RTLS.

They could still decide on what was called an ATO, Abort to Orbit procedure, but Adam was hoping they didn’t choose that option. If they did, he wouldn’t return to Kennedy but would land somewhere off the coast of Africa. That would take several hours. He could never explain why he was without communications for that long. Technicians would discover that there were no mechanical problems. If they found that Adam had sabotaged the mission to that extent, he could be court-martialed and spend many years in jail.

This was the longest minute of Adam’s life.

No answer came over the radio. Instead, the SRBs, Solid Rocket Boosters separated from the main spacecraft, and Chronos 7 was propelled out of earth’s orbit. In a matter of a minute, he went from bright sunshine, to total darkness and sudden weightlessness.

His heart sank as his last hope to return to Kennedy was lost.

Adam reached over and engaged his headset.

“Tower. This is Chronos. I read you. Roger.”

***

Carl Brayton heard the cheers when Adam’s voice resounded over the intercom system. Adam had explained that he could hear the Tower’s communications to him, but for some reason, they couldn’t hear him. When the rocket separation occurred, something unexplainable happened, and they could suddenly hear him.

Carl was not one of the ones celebrating. He was praying ardently the mission would be aborted, and Adam would be returned safely to Kennedy. Carl knew something that no one else knew. Adam’s life was in extreme danger.

After the launch, Carl went into the software to remove the glitch altogether. What he found sent shockwaves of terror through his whole body. The glitch had activated. “How’s that possible?” He hadn’t entered the wrong password. They were deleted before he finished entering them.

What he hadn’t realized was that once he started entering the password, even though he didn’t complete it, the system assumed the same result as entering the wrong password. How could I have been so stupid? Any initiation of the password set the software glitch in motion. Once he started, he had to finish for the glitch not to activate.

It could go off at any time.

If they didn’t choose to abort, a disaster was looming. Carl had designed the glitch to send a false warning light that there was something wrong with the left flap. The warning light would not be a problem if the spacecraft was on the ground. It was a huge problem if the spacecraft was in the air.

At this point, the autopilot was flying the plane. When the warning light comes on, the autopilot wouldn’t be able to tell if the light was real or not. It would assume it was and think it needed to correct the error. The left flap was actually in the correct position

It would then move the left flap from the correct position to the wrong position. That would cause the spacecraft to spin out of control. The autopilot would then try to correct, but its corrections would be based on an incorrect reading on the flap. Any correction would just make matters worse.

Carl could fix it, but it would take about thirty minutes. The problem was that the warning light could come on at any time. It could be up to an hour before it activated, or it could happen right then. He shuddered at the thought and got back to work.

Carl continued to work as fast as he could to fix the software. It would go a lot faster if he had another person to help. He looked across the room and saw Kellie, his associate whom he’d been rude to earlier. Now, he didn’t even remember what she had asked him; he just remembered that he’d yelled at her, and she had been giving him cold looks ever since. He stopped what he was doing and walked over to her desk.

“Kellie, I need your help with something.”

“Go away,” she said coldly.

“Kellie, I’m serious. I found a software glitch that could jeopardize the mission.”

She sat up in her chair.

“I don’t know if it was a hacker or not, but we have to fix it before Commander Lang hits the space stream.”

“What kind of glitch?”

“It will send a warning light that the left flap is out of position even though it’s not.”

She smacked the palm of her hand on her forehead. “That will send the spacecraft tumbling out of control.”

“I know. We have to fix it and fast.”

Kellie might be mad at him, but she was a professional above all else, and personal feelings never came before a mission. She might be suspicious about the glitch, but Carl doubted she could or would even try to prove it was him. Besides, saving Adam’s life was way more important to him. If he lost his job over it, so be it. He wasn’t going to put his career over Adam’s life.

“Where is the glitch?

“It’s in the steering system. At any time, a false warning light could come on indicating a problem with the left flap. I just discovered it by accident. That light will cause the autopilot to go crazy. I’ve been working on getting rid of the glitch altogether, but that’s going to take time, and it could go off at any minute.”

“Just turn off the warning light mechanism between the left flap and the autopilot,” Kellie said. “The warning light might turn on, but if the autopilot doesn’t know about it, it won’t react. That should only take a few minutes. Then we can fix the glitch and get rid of it altogether. We’ll need to reconnect the warning light after the software is fixed. Commander Lang might need it later.”

“Kellie you are a genius. Can you fix that for me right away, and I’ll keep working on fixing the glitch?”

“I’m on it.”

Carl felt better. But not much.

Chapter Twelve

Sarah decided not to tell Adam right away that Jamie was there. It would be ten minutes before she was in the room with the video hookup, and she wanted to get the checklist for the space stream entry completed early so Adam would have plenty of time to talk to her.

“Adam, I want to go ahead and go through our entry procedures now.” The protocol was to go over them twenty minutes before entry.

“Why now? You got somewhere you have to be?” Adam said.

She laughed. “I would like to go home early today.”

“Do you have a hot date? Not very considerate of you to make plans on my launch day,” Adam said.

Going home early was not going to happen. NASA was abuzz about word of a security guard who was killed, and a shoulder fired missile that had been discovered next to his body. Everything was on lock down as they searched the grounds for a potential terrorist who had killed the security guard. Also, details were sketchy, but a truck had crashed through the supply gate shortly before launch and a man was in custody. They weren’t sure if the two incidents were related. Administrator Matthews was dealing with those issues and had decided they shouldn’t tell Adam.

Today was going to be a long day for Sarah. With normal space flights, she would be on the clock for several days until the astronauts got home safely. She had spent many nights on a bed in her office. That wasn’t necessary on this flight. Once Adam was in the space stream, there was nothing more that she could do.

She was so excited to tell Adam about Jamie she couldn’t wait.

“Adam, actually I want to do the procedures because we have a surprise for you.”

“I’m not really in the mood for surprises.” He started to say something else and then stopped mid sentence. “You mean…”

“Yes. That’s the surprise. Jamie is here.”

“She’s there? She’s with you?”

“She’s not with me, but she’s here. She saw the launch. You were right. She was coming to see you all along. They’re getting everything set up now. We’re going to put her on a video feed, and the two of you will have about thirty minutes to talk. I want to get these procedures done now so we don’t have to cut short your time with her.”

They finished the procedures in no time at all.

***

Talking to Jamie was nothing like Adam had envisioned it would be. At first it was awkward. She kept the promise to her mom. He explained things. Then it just flowed easily. Probably better than most conversations between fathers and teenage daughters in college. There was no history, no pretense, not enough time to waste words.

“What are you studying in college?”

“Why did you become an astronaut?”

“Any boyfriends?”

“I never remarried.”

“What do you want to do when you get out of college?”

“Are you excited about what you might find in space?”

The conversation took an uncomfortable turn for Adam when Jamie said, “I think Courtney might be smitten with you.”

She was staring at him, clearly looking for a reaction. Adam turned slightly red.

“I never stopped loving your mother,” he said.

“I know… It’s okay. I like Courtney.”

“She’s been a good friend to me. I hope you two become friends as well.”

“She invited me to stay at her house tonight. She’s so sweet.”

“You should do that. But don’t believe any of the things she says about me. They aren’t true. Well, some of them are… Okay… All of them are.”

“She said she gave you a Bible and you promised to read it.”

“It’s right beside my bed.”

“I’m a Christian too. Promise me you’ll read it.”

“I already promised Courtney.”

“I know, but if you promise both of us, then you’ll definitely have to do it.”

“After we get off the phone, I will put my hand on the Bible and swear.”

“Don’t do that. Put your hand on the Bible and open it.”

“I promise. The two of you are already ganging up on me.”

They had many questions for each other, and they were coming rapid fire. The answers were short, so they could ask more. He was filling the void in her quickly. She was everything, and more, he’d hoped she would be.

“I have an idea,” Jamie said.

“What?” Adam couldn’t stop grinning.

“Maybe I’ll become an astronaut. I’ll come find you in space.”

“That’s a great idea. You can use me as a reference. You already know Sarah and Courtney. They’ll give you a reference as well. Get your degree. Join the program, and we’ll have a family reunion on Kepler in a thousand years.”

“Also, I can make sure you kept your promise to read the Bible. Leave me a trail of breadcrumbs, like Hansel and Gretel, on each planet along the way so I can find you.”

They both laughed heartily. Years of pent up tension disappeared with each passing minute.

A large bang sounded inside the ship. The spacecraft lurched violently to the left and startled Adam.

Jamie screamed as she watched Adam being thrown from side to side.

He was being held in his chair only by his lap restraint.

Spinning… Shaking.

The camera captured every moment of horror.

Adam blacked out.

***

Jamie instinctively reached her hand to the screen, unable to reach him. She screamed louder as Courtney raced into the room. Courtney took one look at the screen and then looked away. She took Jamie in her arms and shielded her from the images of Adam being thrown around like a rag doll. Mercifully, the screen went black.

***

Alarms were going off all over mission control. The video and audio feeds had been turned off so that Adam and Jamie would have privacy. They were quickly turned back on.

“Are these real or false alarms?” Sarah shouted above the din.

No one answered because no one knew.

“Are they real or are they false alarms?” Sarah yelled at the top of her lungs.

Arnold, Sarah’s Assistant Flight Director, said, “Look at the trajectory. Chronos is spinning out of control. It has to be real. We’re going to have to correct this quickly, or Adam is going to tumble off into space.”

Sarah watched in utter disbelief as she saw Adam being thrown from side to side like he was on a roller coaster. The autopilot had stopped the spinning, but it was overcorrecting and causing the craft to serpentine back and forth.

“Adam can you hear me?” Sarah asked. “What happened? What are you seeing?”

Adam sat unconscious in his seat.

“Carl, can you hear me?”

“I’m here, Sarah.”

“Do you know anything about this?”

“We’ve found the problem, and we’re trying to correct it now.”

“How long is that going to take?”

“About three minutes. It’s a false warning light, but the autopilot thinks it’s real. We’re turning off the link between the light and the autopilot. That should fix it momentarily. Kellie is working on that now.”

“I don’t think we have three minutes,” Sarah said. “If this isn’t corrected right away, Chronos is going to be so off course, Adam will never make the window in time. If he misses the entry, we may not be able to get him back. If the shaking continues, the spacecraft could break apart.”

“We’ll fix it as fast as we can.”

Sarah said to Adam, “We’re working on it now. It’s going to take three minutes to fix. Are you okay for three minutes?” She had no idea if he could hear what she was saying, but she wanted to reassure him if she could.

Then she had an idea. “Can’t we just turn the autopilot off?”

“Yes,” Carl answered. “That will stop the problem momentarily, but Adam will have to steer manually. We’ll still have to get it fixed. Adam can’t steer manually twenty-four hours a day for a thousand years.”

“He can’t steer. He blacked out.”

“Turn it off anyway,” Carl advised. “We can steer it from here.”

Sarah said to Arnold, “Turn off the autopilot. Get ready to manually steer.”

A voice boomed on the intercom, “Flight, get ready to fly the plane from here. I’m going to turn off the autopilot. That’ll stop the erratic movements.”

One of the other engineers said, “Sarah, you know there’s a three second delay. Whatever moves we make here will take a few seconds to reach Chronos.”

“I know, but factor that in your movements. It’s better than what we have now. We have to bring the spacecraft under control.”

“Are you ready?” Sarah was amazingly calm as she looked around the room. “Turn off the autopilot now. I hope this works.”

She looked at the screen. The spaceship jolted when the autopilot was first turned off, and for a moment, it leveled off. Then it began to wobble and started to roll.

Sarah yelled, “The spacecraft is rolling! Stop the roll, now!”

The sudden jolt woke Adam. He opened his eyes, and said groggily, “Jamie are you still there?”

“Adam this is Sarah. Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. What happened?”

Flight had stopped the roll momentarily.

“You blacked out for a moment,” Sarah told him. “We’ve switched off the autopilot. We are having a hard time controlling it here. Are you okay to fly the spacecraft?”

It seemed to Sarah like Adam was starting to get his bearings. He looked at his control panel, appearing to be assessing the damage.

“Sarah, the warning light for steering just went off.”

“That’s good. Carl has been working on it. That was causing the problem. There was a software glitch. We’re going to reset the whole system, but we can’t do that until the computer glitch is fixed. I don’t want to turn the autopilot back on until I’m sure it’s fixed. I don’t want you going through that again.”

***

“I’m taking control of the spacecraft now,” Adam told Sarah. “I can fly it.”

Was this whole mess my fault?

He’d told Carl to sabotage the system, and apparently, he had, but it didn’t go as planned. What a disaster this had become. He was lucky his insides weren’t splattered on the side of the wall when he took his seat belts off at launch. Now he was lucky he wasn’t spinning uncontrollably out into space. All of it was for nothing anyway.

Jamie had made it in time. He got to talk to his daughter. If he got this problem solved, he could talk to her again. He had to put that out of his mind because he had work to do. One thing about Adam; he lived in the moment. At that moment, he had a spacecraft to fly. His life and the mission depended on it.

He would have a thousand years to kick himself.

***

Courtney said to Jamie, “What happened?”

Jamie said, “We were talking, and the spacecraft just went crazy. Is my dad going to be okay?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Courtney didn’t want to lie to her. “The best people in the world are working on it right now. Let me get you some water. Let’s stay right here. When they get the problem fixed, I’m sure your dad is going to want to finish your conversation.”

“Please tell me he’s going to be okay,” Jamie implored Courtney as she handed her the glass.

Courtney put her arms around Jamie and held her close. She stroked Jamie’s head. “He’s going to be okay.”

“Do you mind if we say a quick prayer?”

I love this girl. Courtney led them in a prayer, and it seemed like it helped them both to feel better.

A man with a NASA ID tag walked in. “Everything is under control. Commander Lang is okay. There was a problem with the steering. They’re working on it. We’ll reestablish the feed with you as soon as possible. Just stand by, and we’ll turn on the feed as soon as we can.”

They thanked the man and then both thanked God at the same time.

“If my dad wasn’t okay, would they tell us?” Jamie asked.

“Yes. They would. NASA has a policy to always be straightforward with loved ones. That way they can count on getting accurate information.”

Jamie had abruptly turned her head when Courtney said, “loved ones.” I wonder if she knows we’re more than friends.

“I’m so glad you’re here with me,” Jamie said.

Courtney was still shaken. She simply couldn’t let Jamie know it.

***

Adam was able to bring Chronos back under control and was flying it smoothly like a boat on a peaceful lake. He got the go ahead to switch the autopilot back on, which he did gladly.

He clicked on his headset and said, “Sarah, how far off course are we? Are we going to make our window?”

“We’re looking at that now. We’ll enter the corrections here, and all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the ride. Sorry, the ride hasn’t been so good up to now. Are you holding up okay?”

“I’m good. Are we going to be able to get this fixed in time for me to talk to Jamie for a few more minutes?” Adam looked at the clock, and he had about twenty minutes before entry into the space stream.

“That’s the plan. We’re turning it on right now.”

The television screen came back to life. Jamie was looking directly at the screen with anticipation.

“Sorry about that,” he joked. “I dropped the call. I don’t have very good cell phone service up here. I’m calling my telephone company first thing Monday morning.”

“Be prepared to be on hold for a long time,” Jamie said.

“I can be on hold for a thousand years. That might help me pass the time.”

Then Adam unexpectedly saw Courtney’s image on the screen next to Jamie’s. “Hi. Courtney,” he said lovingly.

Courtney said hello then stood to leave the room.

“No.” Jamie grabbed her hand. “Stay with us. It’s okay.”

For fifteen minutes, Adam, Courtney, and Jamie talked nonstop. They could barely catch their breaths. They talked about so many things. Adam thought that it couldn’t have been better if it were scripted. These are the two most important people in the world to me.

Jamie asked if they could all pray together before signing off.

Adam said he would like that.

Jamie prayed, “Father, thank you for my dad. Thank you for letting us have this time together. Be with him on this journey. Keep him safe in your arms. I pray that he will feel your presence with him every day. I pray that he will see Jesus.”

“Thank you. That was a beautiful prayer,” Adam said earnestly, and Courtney nodded in agreement.

“I love you,” were the last words he said and the last words he heard from both ladies. And then the screen went blank.

***

At two minutes to entry, Carl had fixed the glitch; the autopilot was back on; and the course had been corrected. Adam did a quick check of the spacecraft and found nothing wrong other than a few broken things inside the ship. He couldn’t inspect the outside; he would just have to assume that everything was okay. Nothing he could do about it now anyway.

Adam was amazingly calm. He’d spoken to Jamie, and he was at peace. He’d told Courtney he loved her, and he would take her love with him into his future, whatever it may be. Whatever happened in the entry would happen; he was resigned to his fate either way. He would always remember the last look he and Courtney had shared. He would always remember his last moments with Jamie.

Sarah’s voice came on the intercom one last time. “Commander, are you ready for this?”

“No. I think I changed my mind. I’ve decided I don’t want to go. Can you send someone else? Can you make sure I splash down near the Cayman Islands? I need a vacation.”

“Hey Adam, why are there not any women astronauts on the moon?”

“Why Sarah?”

“Because it doesn’t need cleaning yet.”

Adam laughed and said, “I’m glad I didn’t tell that joke. That’s very sexist.”

“Seriously, we’re very proud of you here. Of all my pilots, you’re the best one by far.”

“I’m sure you say that to all your astronauts. Hey Sarah, what do you say to a clumsy astronaut?”

“What Adam?” Sarah said, fighting back the tears.

“Have a good trip.”

“Have a good trip, Adam,” Sarah said.

Ten seconds later, all the screens in Mission Control went blank as they lost contact with Chronos 7 and Adam entered the space stream. An eerie silence permeated the room. No one was cheering. No one was celebrating. No popping champagne corks. Only a somber respect for the moment. They had all done their jobs. They got Adam to the entry point. The rest was up to him.

He was in God’s hands now.

Chapter Thirteen

Courtney and Jamie returned to the NASA conference room, fully satisfied with the conversation with Adam, considering the circumstances. Jamie was starving so she helped herself to the cold sandwiches, chips, dips, and vegetables waiting for them.

Courtney poured herself a soft drink, and they sat down in the luxurious chairs.

Nothing was said as Jamie scarfed down the food and went back for seconds. Courtney couldn’t help but think about Adam, wondering if he survived the entry into the space stream.

“You’re thinking about Dad, aren’t you?” Jamie said, interrupting Courtney’s thoughts.

Courtney nodded.

“You two were very close, weren’t you?”

Courtney looked away and didn’t answer but nodded.

“Do you think he survived the entry?”

“I’m sure of it,” Courtney said emphatically.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because that’s the only way I can think of him. Alive. Happy. Resilient. I can’t picture him any other way. Since I don’t know for sure, I’m just going to trust God and believe that Adam is in his hands.” Courtney said it with such affection she felt herself blushing.

Jamie looked away, clearly thinking.

Courtney noticed that was the same kind of thing her father did when he was suppressing his feelings.

She sensed what Jamie might be thinking and said, “Your father and I were just good friends. Nothing ever happened between us. He loved your mom. I don’t think he ever got over her.”

“She never got over him,” Jamie said as she ran her fingers through her still-mussed hair. “Mom never remarried either. I wonder why neither of them ever married again. Anyway… it’s okay, Courtney. I don’t mind that you and my dad were close. I like you. And my dad likes you as well. I can tell. I think he was in love with you. I’m glad he had someone.”

Jamie saying Adam was in love with her sent chills down Courtney’s spine. She tried to change the subject, turning the conversation back to Adam and her mother. “They were young and just didn’t know how to make things work at the time. If Adam had known about you, he never would have agreed to the divorce. Once he did learn about you, his whole perspective changed. He desperately wanted to know you.”

“The way that happened… I think that really bothered my mom all the way until she died.”

“I’m sorry about your mom.”

Jamie didn’t respond.

Courtney could tell Jamie had her own wounds. She didn’t probe any further.

She changed the subject again. “What happened in Miami?”

“What about Miami?” Jamie looked down, darting her eyes from side to side.

She’s hiding something. As a trained psychologist, Courtney was keenly aware of the signs of deception.

“The parking garage at the hotel. You made a 911 call, something about a woman being attacked.”

Jamie hesitated. Probably calculating how much she should tell Courtney.

“It’s okay. You can talk to me.”

Finally, Jamie blurted out the whole story. The press conference, the note for her roommate, the parking garage, Fletcher. She told in detail how he followed her into the garage and then attacked her. He had a knife, then was on top of her and was going to kill her. She killed him first.

“You didn’t kill him,” Courtney told her. “He’s still alive. He’s in ICU, but he’s going to live.”

“Oh, thank God.” Jamie let out a huge breath, clearly relieved. “I thought he was dead. Policemen and FBI men have been following me ever since I left Miami. They almost caught me, but I managed to escape.”

Jamie explained how she kicked an FBI agent in the stomach, got away from him, and another man chased her and tried to get in her car.

Courtney thought the stories sounded like an action movie.

About that time, Senator Robinson walked in and sat down at the table next to them.

“That man you kicked wasn’t FBI,” he said, obviously having heard the last part of the conversation. “He was one of our men. He was NSA. I sent him there to try and find you.”

Jamie threw her hands in the air. “Oh, for heaven’s sakes! I thought they were looking for me because I killed Fletcher.”

“Fletcher’s not dead. He’s just beaten up pretty badly,” the Senator explained.

“She knows. I told her,” Courtney said.

“The Miami police don’t know it was you in the garage. We changed the records so they couldn’t trace it to you. From what you’re saying, it was self-defense anyway.”

“You mean no one is trying to arrest me?”

“No,” he laughed. “No one is trying to arrest you. But what really happened in the garage? No one can figure it out.”

Jamie quickly told the Senator the story.

Courtney was just as amazed the second time she heard it.

“So, you took down a three-hundred-pound man all by yourself and put him in intensive care,” the Senator said. “Then you managed to beat up one of my trained men and escape another. Plus, you eluded the NSA and all our men who have been looking for you. Remind me not to get on your bad side. If you ever want a career as a spy, let me know, sounds like you would be a good one.”

“By the way,” the Senator added, “How did you get into the space center undetected?”

Jamie’s eyes got as big as saucers.

“What?” Courtney said.

“Bud!” Jamie said, “I forgot about Bud.”

“Who’s Bud?” Courtney asked.

The Senator answered for her. “Bud is a trucker who crashed his rig through the back gate. He’s being interrogated right now. The local police are about to arrest him and haul him to jail.”

Jamie interjected hastily, “They can’t do that. Bud was just helping me. It’s my fault. I’m the one who should be arrested. Bud gave me a ride when my car broke down. You can’t arrest him. Please… He’s the sweetest man I’ve ever met. He went to the back gate, and the guards wouldn’t let us in. That’s why Bud smashed his truck through the gate—so I could see my dad. I hopped the fence and then ran over here.”

Senator Robinson nodded as if finally understood what happened. “That had everyone perplexed. They thought it might be a terrorist attack or something.”

Jamie laughed, “Bud a terrorist? He was in the army. He’s as patriotic as it gets. Bud’s nothing but a good old boy from Alabama.”

“That’s what they thought as well. They’ve been interrogating him over at the local FBI office for several hours. He won’t talk. He won’t tell them why he rammed the gate or what he was doing at Kennedy. They searched his truck, and all they found was a bunch of Chinese products that were scheduled to be delivered tomorrow in Baltimore. They thought he might have a bomb, but they couldn’t even find any weapons in the truck.”

“Is he in a lot of trouble?” Jamie asked nervously.

“He is, or he was.” the Senator explained. “They have all kinds of charges they could bring against him, but they really didn’t know what to do. He doesn’t have a record. He has a nice family and kids. He showed our men pictures of his wife and kids. Like you said, he’s as nice as he can be. But he wouldn’t say why he was at Kennedy, so they couldn’t let him go.”

Senator Robinson pulled out his phone. “Now we know the story. He must like you. He wasn’t going to give you up for anything. They let him make a phone call to his wife. We listened in on the conversation, but he didn’t say anything incriminating. His wife was mad as a pig without food. She was also dumbfounded. Our men questioned her over the phone, and she couldn’t shed any light as to why her husband would crash his truck into the Kennedy Space Center. I’m telling you; this was the most confusing thing our men had ever seen. Nobody ever thought it might be related to you.”

“Is there anything you can do for him?” Courtney asked.

Senator Robinson dialed a number. “Thelma, patch me through to the guys who are interrogating that trucker down at the FBI office at Cape Canaveral. I’ll hold.”

“This is Senator Robinson. I am over at Kennedy in the conference room in Building D. That guy you are questioning, Bud, I want you to bring him over here as soon as possible. Tell the local authorities that we are taking it from here.”

“No, we are not going to press charges against him.” The Senator paused. “I don’t care what the local authorities say. Tell them this is a federal matter. It was on government property, and they have no jurisdiction. Also, when you bring him over here, don’t put any handcuffs on him. I know what happened, and I have sorted all of this out. Also, find out where his truck is. If it hasn’t been towed, then leave it where it is. If it has been towed, tell them not to do anything with it. After you bring Bud here, you will need to take him to get his truck.”

The Senator hung up the phone and looked very seriously at Jamie. “Young lady.”

Jamie skulked back like a kid caught with her hand in the candy jar.

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about a dead security guard and a terrorist attack, would you?”

Courtney looked at Jamie with complete puzzlement on her face. This was the first she had heard about it. Jamie was looking away, fidgeting, tight lipped, and with a sly grin on her face. She looks just like her dad. He had that same look sometimes.

Jamie started talking slowly and then sped up to a pace that was barely understandable.

“It was horrible. After Bud rammed the truck through the gate, these men were chasing us with guns drawn. I jumped over the fence. I was trying to get over to Mission Control so I could find someone to let me talk to my dad.” She paused long enough for a quick breath.

“Then I saw that guy wearing a security guard uniform, and he had a missile on his shoulder. He was pointing it straight at my dad!”

“Slow down for a minute.” Senator Robinson was trying to calm her down.

“Are you saying that the security guard was the one holding the missile?”

“Yes. He was trying to kill my dad. If I hadn’t come along, he would have.”

“That missile would have killed your dad and every one of us,” the Senator said with relief in his voice.

Courtney couldn’t believe the story unfolding before her.

“What happened when you saw him with the missile?” the Senator asked.

Jamie started talking fast again. “I jumped on him. Then he got me in a chokehold. I thought he was going to kill me. I kicked him. I tried to hit him, but he was too strong. I elbowed him in the ribs, and I jumped to my feet. He went for the missile. I pushed him, and he slapped me on the face.” She reached up and touched a mark above her lip. It was still red.

“You must have been petrified,” Courtney said.

“I was. When he turned around, I hit him in the throat. Then I pushed him on the ground and started running over here. I knew he was dead. Did I do something wrong?”

“No, my dear, you saved the United States of America from a great tragedy.”

“Really? I could tell he wanted to kill my dad. I didn’t really think about it. I just reacted.”

Courtney looked at Jamie in amazement.

The Senator picked up a phone and dialed another number. “Cancel the lock down and call off the search. I found out what happened with the security guard. He was the terrorist.”

The Senator nodded his head toward Jamie. “Yes. I know who took him down. She’s sitting right here next to me.” He paused. “Yes. You heard me right. I said she. She is the one who killed him. Proud of her. She’s an American hero. I’m going to see that she gets a medal.”

At that time, Peter and Cathy, the Senator’s aides walked in. He disconnected the call and had immediate instructions for them.

“Peter, find Jamie’s Jeep. Return it to the Miami rental car center. Cathy, get Jamie a car up here and put it on my bill. Book her a suite at the finest hotel in this area.”

“I’m staying with Courtney tonight,” Jamie interrupted.

Courtney nodded enthusiastically.

“Okay. Scratch the hotel. But get her a car. Also, get a NASA physician over here right now to check her out. I want to make sure she doesn’t have any serious injuries. Cathy, give Jamie your cell phone number. I want you to roll the red carpet out for this lady over the next few days. Whatever she wants or needs, you take care of her. Set up a meeting for her at the White House sometime next week.” Turning his focus back to Jamie he said, “I want the President to meet you.”

“I don’t know what to say.” Jamie said bashfully.

Courtney wondered if peanut butter sandwiches and macaroni and cheese were her favorite foods as well.

Courtney smiled at Jamie and felt a great sense of admiration. “She is just like her dad. Courageous. Resilient. Confident. Smart…”

He would be so proud of you right now.

***

Later that night, Courtney and Jamie were sitting on the deck at Courtney’s house. Courtney was having iced tea, Jamie a soda. They were trying to unwind from the most eventful day in either of their lives.

Senator Robinson had managed to make sure Bud was not charged with anything and that he got his truck back. The Senator felt as though Bud had done his country a great service and deserved a medal, not charges. Bud was sworn to secrecy, but they all figured he might tell a few friends in a local watering hole over a few beers. No one would believe him, and no real harm could come of it.

When Jamie saw Bud, she ran across the room and threw her arms around his neck. He was still a little nervous, as the seriousness of what he’d done set in. He was relieved to see Jamie and more relieved when he was told that no charges would be filed, and that he was free to go with their thanks.

Jamie became emotional when she had to say goodbye to him.

Sarah and Administrator Matthews came by a little later and met Jamie, exchanged pleasantries, and wished her well. They spoke highly of her father. Jamie was even more impressed with her dad with each passing moment. They shared some funny stories about Adam and had a few laughs until it was time for everyone to go home.

Jamie called Rebecca and let her know everything was okay. She asked her to gather up her things and bring them back to George Mason. Courtney told Jamie they were going to go clothes shopping tomorrow. Not too early though. They were going to sleep in.

Senator Robinson took care of Jamie’s Jeep that was at the impound lot. He had it picked up and taken back to Miami and turned in. Jamie didn’t know who paid the towing or impound fee or the final charges. No one ever said anything. She figured it would be Senator Robinson.

The NASA doctor confirmed Jamie had a concussion, along with bruised ribs, a sprained wrist, several bumps and scrapes, a swollen knuckle, and several internal bruises. The doctor wanted her to go to the hospital and stay overnight for observation. Jamie insisted that she was fine, confirming to Courtney another way in which she was just like her dad.

Sitting on Courtney’s deck restored peace to her weary soul. A welcomed reprieve to an eventful day. Her home was off the beaten path overlooking a lake. A modest house with three bedrooms, two baths, and a one car garage—typical for a single woman with no kids.

“What are you going to do now that you’re going to be famous?” Courtney said half-jokingly. The news reporters had the full story of Jamie taking down the terrorist.

Jamie laughed. “My dad thinks I should be an astronaut. I told him I would come to Kepler and find him.”

“A lot of people would give you a good reference. It helps that your dad is the most famous person in America. Actually, you might be.” They both chuckled like they were not sure it was a good thing. Fortunately, the press knew nothing about Courtney, so Jamie could hide out at her house without the press hounding her.

“Senator Robinson said I should be a spy. I like the sound of that.”

Courtney started to ask Jamie how she could possibly take down a three-hundred-pound man and a terrorist, but she stopped herself. Why make her relive that all over again? She’s just starting to relax. Instead, she said, “You would make a good one.”

Courtney looked at Jamie and noticed how beautiful she was in person. Jamie had taken a shower and was wearing a pair of Courtney’s pajama bottoms and the T shirt she’d purchased for her dad that read on the front, Life Would Be Boring Without Me.

“Do you think my dad is a Christian?” Jamie asked.

“I don’t think so, but he is searching. I’m praying that he finds God on this journey.”

Jamie shared how she grew up in church. Her mother insisted on taking her almost every Sunday. She was saved at a Vacation Bible School when she was ten-years old.

Courtney related that she was saved at a revival when she was seventeen.

Jamie said that she was considering joining a summer mission’s program for college students. They were going to Haiti, and she might go.

Courtney said she should. They talked for several more hours about God, Adam, boys, and life in general. They really hit it off. Courtney wondered if they would stay in touch; she liked Jamie a lot.

She went inside for a moment, and when she returned, she handed Jamie an envelope.

“What is this?”

“Open it. It’s a gift to you from your father.”

It had the check Adam had given to Courtney the night before around the same spot on the deck.

At first, Jamie didn’t seem to know what she was looking at.

“Your Dad gave it to me last night. He wanted you to have it.”

“It’s made out to you.”

“He told me to find you and give it to you.”

Jamie’s eyes narrowed in disbelief. For a moment, she couldn’t find words to say. “I can’t believe this. This is so much money. I didn’t know how I was going to pay for school next year. Mom didn’t leave me with any money. I’ve been paying for it myself through student loans, but I can pay them off now.”

“That was everything he owned on this earth, and he wanted me to find you and give it to you.”

Jamie fought back tears. “He didn’t even know me, and yet he was thinking of me.”

Courtney nodded yes. “He loved you. Even though he didn’t know you. You were his daughter. That meant something to him.”

“This means so much to me, Dad,” she said looking up at the stars.

Courtney followed her gaze. There were millions of stars radiating in the sky.

“It was nice of God to give us such a clear sky tonight of all nights.”

“Dad, can you see the same stars we’re seeing?” Jamie whispered.

Courtney stood and motioned for Jamie to follow her. They stood at the edge of the deck. “Do you see that big star up in the sky?” Courtney pointed, and Jamie moved closer to look directly at where she was pointing. Millions of stars dotted the night sky, but Jamie shook her head yes anyway.

“I think that’s your Dad’s spaceship right there.”

“I think you’re right!” Jamie said. “That looks like it, doesn’t it?”

They grinned at each other, hugged, and sat back down.

They were both quiet for several minutes. Neither had any more tears left to shed.

Not The End

Free preview of Chapter One of Save The Girls from the international #1 best selling Spy Stories featuring Jamie Austen and Alex Halee.

Bangkok, Thailand

The cell phone alarm went off at the worst possible time. The alarm meant Jamie Austen was more than twenty minutes late. She should’ve already grabbed the package and been long gone from the closet of a storage room she’d been hiding in for the last forty minutes. If someone heard the alarm and came to investigate, she’d have to improvise, and who knows what would happen. She wanted to get in and out without anyone knowing she was ever there.

Without killing anyone.

I can’t believe I forgot to turn off the alarm.

A rookie and possibly deadly mistake.

Jamie listened carefully for anyone who might be coming. The only sound she heard was the rhythmic moaning of the disgusting man in the room next door, having his way with a fifteen-year-old-girl. She also heard the faint and fake moans of the girl pretending he was somehow giving her pleasure which was impossible. There’s no way she felt pleasure from any of these men. Any feelings she might’ve ever had for men was permanently damaged and left her for good several hundred men ago.

The man was the reason Jamie was late.

Why is he taking so long?

What Jamie really wanted to do was walk right into the room and snap his neck, or better yet, kick him between the legs so hard he’d never be able to do what he was doing with anyone again for the rest of his life. But he wasn’t the target. The girl was. She was the package. Jamie hated calling the girls packages. A demeaning and impersonal code name.

Necessary.

If the authorities were listening to their cell phone conversations, which was a possibility, they wouldn’t know who or what package they were talking about.

The girl’s name was Chang Lyn. She’d been sold into the sex trade by her mother when she was only thirteen-years old. She had the misfortune of being born to a poor family in Thailand where parents routinely sold their young girls to the highest bidder. For more than two years, Chang had been forced to service as many as ten men a day, seven days a week. It’d probably been more than a year since she’d had a day off.

More than twenty million women and girls were exploited in sex trafficking worldwide, and Jamie was risking her life for just this one.

The starfish on the beach.

The story goes that a boy was walking along the beach and throwing as many starfish as he could back into the ocean. Someone told him he was wasting his time. He couldn’t possibly make a difference with so many of them stranded on the beach. The boy said he was making a difference for that one.

Jamie understood the deep meaning of that parable. She was risking her life for this one, and the danger was worth it to her. Chang Lyn may only be one in twenty million, but Jamie could make a difference for her.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud moan signifying the man had finished, and it had finally, mercifully, come to an end for Chang. Time to get out of there as quickly as possible. Hopefully the man was thinking the same thing. They usually didn’t hang around long after the deed was finished. Like a robber fleeing the scene of the crime. Take the money and run. In this case, leave the money on the table and run.

Jamie heard the man say to Chang, “You did good.”

“Definitely American,” Jamie said under her breath.

Thousands of American men came to Thailand every year for cheap thrills and the availability of young girls. Sex with minors was illegal in the United States. Illegal in Thailand as well, but the authorities generally looked the other way, as long as they got part of the action.

The American had probably paid about 600 Thai Baht, approximately twenty dollars for the thirty minutes. Brothel girls were the lowest quality of girls in Thailand. The locations were seedy and not well maintained. Better girls were in the gentlemen’s clubs and escort services and could bring as much as 2400-5000 Baht depending on the length of time and quality of the girl. A “gik” were the higher-end girls who were considered mistresses and were available at a man’s beck and call. They demanded the most money. Chang was the bottom of the sex food chain in every way.

That’s why Jamie was there. The giks and other girls, while exploited, had some choice, were treated better, and made some money by selling their bodies. Chang was a sex slave. She’d never see any of the twenty dollars, but her mother would. Her family got a meager check once a month, as did the crooked cops whose pockets were greased once a month as well. Chang got nothing but deplorable room and board… and constant heartache.

Jamie would have to move quickly once the man left the room. Chang would only have fifteen minutes to clean herself up and prepare for the next man. Jamie moved quietly to the door and cracked it enough to see a three-hundred-plus-pound man lumbering down the hall and out the door.

No wonder it took him so long.

Jamie was unable to manage even the slightest grin at her joke.

She waited to see if anyone came back in through the same door. When she was satisfied no one was coming, she slipped into the hallway and into the adjacent room. Chang was lying on the bed in a fetal position, sobbing. Allowing herself a few of the fifteen minutes to let her pain out, so she’d have the strength to do it all over again.

Chang sat up in the bed, startled. Her eyes widened in a look of disbelief as she saw a young, blonde, American girl walking toward her. Jamie put her finger to her lips imploring her to keep silent.

She sat on the side of the bed next to her and said in Thai, “I have come to help you get out of here. We have to hurry.” She didn’t speak the language well and hoped it came out right.

No response. The girl just sat there with a dazed look on her face.

The girl might not go with her. As horrible as her plight was, her family needed the money, and Chang was their major source of income.

Jamie opened her backpack and pulled out some clothes and a pair of sneakers. “Here put these on,” she said with a sense of urgency in her voice.

“I can’t go,” Chang said meekly in English.

“I’m not leaving here without you,” Jamie said strongly, surprised but glad she spoke her language. “Trust me. I can help you.”

“They’ll kill my family,” the girl said with a little more resolve.

A lie.

They always threatened to kill the girl’s family, but they wouldn’t. Harming their supply chain wasn’t good for business. The other parents might not be so quick to sell their girls if they thought there might be potential danger down the road. An idle threat, but the girls didn’t know that, and often refused to leave, or worse, they did leave and returned after a few days. If they came back, they were severely beaten, and some were even killed; made an example of for the other girls.

Very few girls escaped on their own. Where would they go? They had no money and couldn’t go back to their families. The authorities wouldn’t help them. Most just stuck it out until they were so damaged the men didn’t want them anymore and preferred fresher meat. That usually happened around their twenty-fifth birthday. Chang would have ten more years before her nightmare would be over.

I’m not leaving here without her.

“They won’t hurt your family. I promise. You have to trust me. I can help you, and I can help them.”

“I can’t,” Chang said. “My family needs me.” Her eyes were darting back and forth, and she kept looking at the door.

“I can get you out of here,” Jamie said. “I took a great risk to help you. You don’t have to do this.”

Chang laid back down in the bed and curled into a ball. Jamie thought about making her go, which she could easily do, but if Chang screamed and caused a commotion, they’d both be in grave danger.

This wasn’t the first time a girl refused to go and wouldn’t be the last. She needed to cut her losses and get out of there while she still could.

Jamie touched Chang’s hand and squeezed it. A slight consolation but maybe one she’d remember.

She put the clothes and sneakers back into her backpack and went to the door where she cracked it slightly. Convinced the coast was clear, she slipped out the door and down the hall the opposite direction the man had gone. A back entrance opened into a dark alley. Always locked, Jamie had easily picked the lock and entered the building through the same door about forty-five minutes before. She had left it unlocked for a quick getaway.

As she reached for the door, someone placed their hand on her back. Already on edge, Jamie turned around ready to strike.

Chang!

“Can I still go with you?” she whispered.

Jamie gave her a quick hug and said, “Of course you can. Put these clothes on.”

She took everything back out of the backpack. Chang stood there in only a tee-shirt. The clothes would likely fit perfectly. Most of the girls were generally the same size, but Jamie had this process down to a science, including what they would wear to be as inconspicuous as possible on the outside. The pants were black, one-size-fits-all leggings, and the shirt was a black pullover that stretched to fit any sized girl. Chang probably barely weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet. The shoes were slip on and ended up being too big for Chang but would have to do.

They slipped out the door undetected and into the alley. Not out of danger but out of the building. The dark alley was a blessing. Jamie had left a small Honda Phantom TA 200 motor scooter around the back of the building behind a garbage dumpster. She climbed onto the scooter, helped Chang onto the back, and told her to hang on. Jamie didn’t bring helmets. They could slow down a getaway. She waited until the girl was securely on before starting the motor bike. Chang wrapped her arms tightly around Jamie’s waist.

The noise would likely draw attention, and Jamie wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. She prayed it would start. It did. An older model, it had seen better days but at least it worked. She revved the engine and took off. The bike wasn’t very fast but quick enough to get them out of there before anyone could react. The perfect getaway vehicle. Thousands of them were on the road, and it also allowed for maximum maneuverability. Jamie could steer it through a traffic jam, or even drive it on the sidewalk if they really needed to get away from someone chasing them.

She looked in her side mirror and was satisfied no one was following them. She’d already planned out the route and had made several practice runs. Meticulous planning had saved her skin on more than one occasion. One left, then a right, and then two lefts when the road ended. After the last left, she went one mile where a small SUV was parked on the side of the road. They quickly jumped off the scooter, and Jamie rushed Chang into the back of the waiting SUV.

Chang mouthed the words, “Thank you” as Jamie closed the door, banged on the roof signifying all clear to go.

As the SUV sped away, Jamie wished they were all that easy.

SPY STORIES

Save The Girls

The Ingenue

Saving Sara

Save The Queen

The Launch

THE EDEN STORIES

The Longest Day

The Reformation of Mars

The Late, Great Planet Jupiter

The Great Wall of Ven-Us

Saturn: The Eden Experiment