Tom Clancy - Locked On

“How?”

“I’m going to get some makeup to cover that up.”

Junior groaned. “It’s not that bad, Mom.”

“It’s bad enough. You are going to have your picture taken tonight, like it or not, and I am sure you don’t want that image of you going out to the world.”

Senior agreed. “Son, half the newspapers will go to press with a headline about how I smacked you when I learned you voted for Kealty.”

Jack Junior laughed at the thought. He knew there was no point arguing. “Okay. Dad wears makeup every time he goes on TV, I guess it won’t kill me.”

The election returns began coming in during the early evening. The family and some of the key staff sat in the living room of a suite at the Marriott Waterfront, although Ryan Sr. spent much of the evening standing in the kitchen, talking to his kids or his senior staff, preferring to hear reports shouted in from the living room to actually watching all the play-by-play and pontificating himself.

By nine p.m., a tight race turned for the GOP when Ohio and Michigan both went his way. Florida took until nearly ten, but by the close of polling stations on the West Coast, the matter was decided.

John Patriۀok ck Ryan Sr. won with fifty-two percent of the vote, tighter than the margin he’d carried into the last month of the campaign, and most news organizations claimed this had to do with two things: the Kealty administration’s capture of the Emir, and Jack Ryan’s murky association with a man wanted for multiple murders.

It said little for Kealty that Ryan had managed to overcome both of these events to defeat him.

Jack Ryan stood on a stage at the Marriott Waterfront with his wife and children. Balloons fell, music played. When he spoke to the adoring crowd, he thanked his family first and foremost, and the American people for giving him the opportunity to represent them for a second four-year term.

His speech was upbeat, heartfelt, and even funny in places. But soon enough he came around to the two central issues of the election’s home stretch. He called on President Kealty to halt his administration’s pursuit of federal charges against Saif Yasin. Ryan said it would be a waste of resources, as he would order the Emir into military custody as soon as he took office.

He then asked President Kealty to reveal details of the sealed indictment to his transition team. He did not use the phrase “Put up or shut up,” but that was the implication.

The President-elect reiterated his support for Clark and the men and women in the military and intelligence communities.

As soon as they left the stage, Jack Junior called Melanie. He’d seen her once since his return from Dubai. He’d told her he’d been on a business trip to Switzerland, where he’d banged his eye and the bridge of his nose against a tree branch when he and his coworkers tried their hand at snowboarding.

He missed her tonight, and wished she could be with him right now, here amid all the excitement and celebration. But they both knew that if she showed up on the arm of the son of the former and next President of the United States, it would invite a lot of scrutiny. Melanie had not even met Jack Junior’s parents yet, and this hardly seemed like the venue for that.

But Jack found a sofa in one of the suites the Ryan campaign had reserved for the evening, and he sat and chatted with Melanie until the rest of the family was ready to head back home.

The offices of Kosmos Space Flight Corporation in Moscow are on Sergey Makeev Street in Krasnaya Presnya, in a modern steel-and-glass structure that overlooks the eighteenth-century Vagankovo cemetery. Here Georgi Safronov worked long hours, diligently managing his personnel, his corporation’s logistical resources, and his own intellectual faculties, to prepare for the launch of three Dnepr-1 rockets the following month.

Aleksandr Verbov, KSFC’s Director of Launch Operations, was an affable heavyset man. He was a few years older than Georgi, loyal and hardworking. The two men had been friends since the eighties. Normally Verbov dealt with the day-to-day preparations of upcoming space launches without any help from the president of his company in the minutiae of this complicated endeavor. But Georgi had all but seconded Verbov for the much publicized upcoming triple launch. Aleksandr understood that the triple launch was dear to his president’s heart, and he also knew that Safronov was as technically adept as anyone in the company. Georgi had held the director of launch ops job himself once before, when Verbov was a senior engineer.

If Georgi wanted to push the launch button himself on the ހselthree rockets — hell, if he wanted to work on the pad in the snow to mate the Space Head Modules to the launch vehicles in their silos — well, as far as Alex Verbov was concerned, that was his right.

But Alex was growing suspicious about one aspect of his boss’s focus.

The two men met daily in Georgi’s office. Here they had worked together on nearly every facet of the launch since Safronov returned from his vacation. Verbov had commented repeatedly on his boss’s lean physique after three and a half weeks at a dude ranch somewhere in the western United States. Georgi looked fitter, even if his arms and hands were covered with old cuts and bruises. Cattle roping, Georgi had confided in Aleksandr, was incredibly tough work.

Verbov had asked to see a picture of his boss in a Stetson and chaps, but Georgi had demurred.

This day, like every other, they sat at Georgi’s desk and sipped tea. Both men had high-end laptops open, and they worked both together and independently as they dealt with one aspect or another of the upcoming launches.

Alex said, “Georgi Mikhailovich, I have the last of the confirmations that the tracking stations will be online on the required dates. Two southern launches, one northern launch.”

Georgi did not look up from his laptop. “Very good.”

“We also received the updated spacecraft transit electrical link schematic, so we can troubleshoot any problems with the interface of the American satellite.”

“Okay.”

Alex cocked his head to the side. He hesitated for more than half a minute before he said, “I need to ask you a question.”

“What is it?”

“The truth is, Georgi… Well, I am beginning to have some suspicions.”

Georgi Safronov’s eyes left his laptop and locked on the heavy man across the desk. “Suspicions?”

Alex Verbov shuffled in his chair. “It’s just that… you don’t seem as interested in the actual spacecraft and the orbit of the SC as you do the launch itself. Am I correct in this?”

Safronov closed his computer and leaned forward. “Why do you say that?”

“It just seems this way. Is there something bothering you about the launch vehicles for these flights?”

“No, Alex Petrovich. Of course not. What are you getting at?”

“Honestly, my friend, I am somewhat suspicious that you are less than pleased with my recent work. Specifically, regarding the LVs.”

Georgi relaxed slightly. “I am very happy with your work. You are the finest launch director in the business. I am lucky to have you working on the Dnepr system and not the Protons or Soyuz craft.”

“Thank you. But why are you so disinterested in the spaceflight?”

Safronov smiled. “I confess that I know I could leave this all in your hands. I just prefer working on the launch. The technology for this has not changed so much in the past fifteen years. The satellites and communications and tracking systems have been updated since my time in your job. I have not been keeping up with as much of my technical reading as I should. I am afraid I would not do as good a job as you, and my laziness might show in poor results.”