Ben Bova - Able One

Harry blinked at the man who owned the lab, owned the corporation, owned his future. “I’ll do my best, Mr. Anson.”

Gripping Harry’s shoulder tightly enough to make Harry wince, Anson said earnestly, “I know you will, son. That’s why I want you running the test team every step of the way. When the COIL is integrated into that jumbo jet, I want you to run the flight test program. Wherever that plane goes, you go.”

Harry felt his jaw drop open. “Me?”

“Make it work, Harry,” said Anson. “I’m counting on you. We’re all counting on you. The company’s ass is on the line.”

“I’ve never lost my temper without regretting it, Harry told himself as he tossed his garment bag on the motel room’s sagging bed. He cursed himself for being an idiot. You pop off at the wrong time and make a mess of everything.

He unzipped the bag and started pulling his rumpled shirts out of it. The room had a bureau and a wardrobe. One hand filled with the shirts, Harry yanked at the top bureau drawer. It stuck and the shirts spilled out of his hand onto the threadbare carpet.

Harry fought down an urge to kick the shirts all across the room. Instead he sat on the bed and buried his face in his hands.

You and your big mouth, he said to himself. You and your stupid temper. You hold it in and hold it in, and then when you let it go you ruin everything.

When Anson announced that Harry was now head of the laser team, Harry had expected Monk to be disappointed, maybe even angry. Instead Delany looked almost relieved.

“You deserve it, Harry,” he’d said. “Anson knows he can trust you.”

Harry thought that what Monk was really saying was that Anson knew he could make Harry jump through hoops. So what? Harry said to himself. Angel Reyes started calling Harry el jefe; Angel even got his wife to sew the title on some of Harry’s T-shirts and coveralls.

Sylvia took the news calmly enough, except to ask, “Does a raise go with it? You’re going to be putting even more hours into the job, aren’t you? You ought to get a raise.”

Harry didn’t have the nerve to ask Anson, or even Jake Levy, if he should expect an increase in salary.

For nearly three months after the accident Harry had been working at Anson’s test facility out in the Mohave, sweating away feverishly to rebuild the COIL. Victor Anson himself had come out to the desert twice to inspect his team’s progress and urge them to move faster.

Harry stayed at the Desert Stars Motel more than he was home, and when he was home Sylvia complained about his being away. He found that he was happy to leave her in Pasadena and dreaded the long drive back home every weekend. His daughters had become strangers to him: teenagers, with lives of their own and friends and school and endless chatter on their cell phones.

The day they fired up the COIL and burned a hole through the target sheet of aluminum half a mile away Harry could hear the relief and triumph in Mr. Anson’s voice over the telephone.

“You did it, Harry! I knew I could count on you!”

“We did it, Mr. Anson. The team. We did it together.”

“You certainly did. Listen, Harry, give the team a party. Take them to the nearest bar and have a celebration. A blast. On me.”

The bar at the Desert Stars Motel wasn’t much, but Harry and his team trooped in and took over the place. It was a wild night.

And Harry found himself walking one of the young barmaids back to his room. She was really pretty, he thought, with a warm bright smile and he hadn’t had sex with Sylvia since the accident and he’d had more to drink than he should’ve and she seemed perfectly willing and Harry thought, What the hell, why not?

He kept the story from Sylvia for more than a month afterward, tiptoeing around the house when he was home, feeling unable to look her in the eye, ashamed of himself yet happy that a good-looking young woman had willingly gone to bed with him. Harry stayed away from the motel’s bar; he didn’t want any entanglements. Monk kidded him about the night and told him the kid was asking about him. Red-faced, Harry went to his room and stayed there.

It all came out during an argument with Sylvia, of course. He couldn’t even remember how the argument had started, but they were yelling at each other and he blurted out the news that other women found him attractive.

Sylvia stared at him, white-faced with anger. She glanced past Harry toward their daughters’ rooms. Both doors were tightly closed. Vickie and Denise had heard plenty of screaming from their parents; they just shut it out of their presence.

“Women find you attractive?” Sylvia asked, the beginnings of a smirk curling her lips. “You? Mr. Dull? Don’t make me laugh.”

“Yeah, me,” Harry snapped. “You’ve probably forgotten it, but I’m not so dull in bed.”

She huffed. “There’s nothing to forget, Harry. You’re a dud and you always will be.”

“Well, you’re the only one who thinks so!”

“Are you saying you’ve gone to bed with other women?”

“Damned right!”

“That’s what you’ve been doing out at that motel? That’s why you stay out there more than you’re home?”

“I’ve got more going for me out there than here,” Harry snapped.

Sylvia glared at him for a long, long moment. Harry waited for her to burst into tears or start throwing things. Instead she almost smiled as she said, very calmly, “Then you’d better pack your things and get the hell out of here.”

“I will,” Harry said.

“Now. Tonight.”

Harry nodded and walked wordlessly to the guest room, where he’d been sleeping since the accident. He pulled his garment bag out of the closet and began packing.

Now, sitting on the bed in the seedy Ocean View Motel in Santa Monica, Harry saw that Sylvia had baited a trap and he’d walked right into it. His marriage was over. Sylvia’s known it for a long time, he realized. She’s always been smarter than me. It’s been over for years, he said to himself. Over and done with.

Still, he felt empty, alone. He had nothing left. No marriage, no daughters—they wouldn’t even speak to him on the phone. Nothing but work. The job.

They’d start installing the COIL in the plane next week, Harry knew. The flight tests were scheduled to begin before the year’s out.

He got up from the bed and began to pick up the shirts that had fallen to the floor. Make the COIL work. Go with the plane wherever it flies.

It was something, at least. Harry had something. A reason to get up in the morning. A job that needed to be done.

Harry stared at the empty space where the ranging laser’s optical assembly should have been. He heard Victor Anson’s urgent demand. Make it work, Harry. I’m counting on you. We’re all counting on you. The company’s ass is on the line.

He heard the lanky lieutenant’s voice. “You okay up there, Mr. Hartunian?”

“I’m fine,” Harry said, adding silently, But we’re all in real trouble.

With Lieutenant Sharmon helping him, Harry climbed down from the laser mount and closed its access panel. Then he headed for the beam control station downstairs, Monk Delany’s place. The ranging laser is Monk’s responsibility, Harry said to himself. And somebody’s sabotaged it.

Harry clambered down the ladder, brushed past Taki Nakamura, and ducked through the hatch into the beam control compartment.

Monk Delany looked up at him. “What’s the matter, Harry?” Delany had his usual half-quizzical smile on his stubbled face.

“We’ve got a saboteur on board.”