Dwayne dropped a tip on the table as they stood.
He gave her a winsome smile as they left the table. “Can we have dinner again soon, Maureen?”
She smiled back. “I’m too full to think about it right now.”
“Then I’ll keep asking.”
As they reached the door he gently touched her elbow. “Maureen, I’ve apparently given you a shock. I’m sorry. But when you get back to the office tomorrow, read the correspondence—check the masthead on the Larhaven contract. A. G. Kladis is CEO at Larhaven.”
Allen Kladis, not his father Alexander. She felt a stinging betrayal. Alexander Kladis had won. Why had the older Kladis lied to her so long ago? Why had he told her that Allen was dead?
Allen was alive—alive, and he never came back for her!
Outside, she was grateful to take Dwayne’s arm again and sense his strength as they strolled companionably along the avenue of quaint shops.
“Would you rather skip the show and just take a walk?” he asked quietly.
“Actually, I’m not feeling very well, Dwayne,” she answered honestly. “I think I’d better go home.”
She felt his disappointment as his hand wrapped around hers. Just ahead of them a commotion broke out. Several people ran out into the street, staring up in the sky.
Someone shouted, “Look, there’s been a midair crash.”
Maureen listened for the sound of falling metal. Was it a plane taking off from nearby John Wayne Airport? If so, run for cover! she thought. Don’t just stand there.
But Dwayne Crocker was already propelling her toward the crowd. Overhead a brilliant, blazing light illuminated the sky. The resplendent glow of a rocket missile—dazzling, magnificent
As if awakening a slumbering planet, the missile had split the heavens on soundless wings—mute, echoless as it soared into the clear evening sky. As she watched, it hovered to the left of Venus, shining brighter than the evening star. And then its diaphanous haze cut a course through the clouds, swirling into shimmering vapor trails, churning into eerie streamers.
Dwayne said, “That thing can be seen for a hundred miles.”
She looked up at him. Crocker actually looked like some little kid whose kite had blown higher than his friend’s.
“It just takes minutes to reach an island in the Pacific Ocean,” she said. “Four thousand miles away, quick as a wink.”
“That puts it at a missile range near the Marshall Islands.”
She agreed. Now that he had pinpointed the location to the minute, she felt more inclined toward Dwayne than she had at dinner. In front of them, a young couple craned their necks looking up, a small child clutching their hands.
“What is it, Daddy?” the boy asked.
“It’s a missile, son. Remember, we looked at a book about them the other night. And that’s the planet Venus to the right,” the father said, pointing toward it
What was he? Six? Seven? At unexpected moments like this, Maureen felt a tightness in her chest, an ache that wouldn’t go away, a fresh flood of shame that she had given her own child away. She looked at the father and volunteered, “That splendor in the sky is a firststage separation from the missile. Those blue and orange colors in the sky are vapors that occurred right after the missile was launched and separated.”
As she noticed the boy’s interest wane, she told him, “It’s like painting pictures in the sky.”
“So that’s what they did. Daddy, they spilt their paints.”
Maureen’s heart did flip-flops, as it often did when she thought of her daughter. To the boy’s father she said, “What we’re seeing with our naked eyes is nothing more than burned fuel and water droplets hitting the atmosphere.”
Dwayne rubbed his jaw reflectively. Give it to Dwayne from a mathematical perspective and he would know to the nth degree how much water, how much fuel.
The vapor trails twirled and arced out of control as they moved from the center and spread across the sky. Maureen gripped Dwayne’s arm to steady herself. Something was wrong! How had she stood here for two minutes without realizing what was happening? She hadn’t made the connection. But she did so now. The Fabian missile had misfired.
“Dwayne, that was one of the Fabian missiles. Look at the way it blew apart—at the lights streaming across the sky, like they’re exploding from the center. Out of control.”
“Can’t be, Maureen. The air force agreed to hold off testing any more of the Fabians until the flaws were ironed out.”
But as another burst of streamers spewed from the center, he said, “You may be right”
Of course, I’m right, she thought. And if that was a Fabian launch, I’m in trouble. The misfiring of another missile would set the wires sizzling between her office and the Pentagon. She whispered, “I have to get back to the office.”
“Let me go back with you.”
“No.” She was adamant
As vice-president of Research Operations, her department was responsible for what was happening. And if Eddie McCormick was going to have her head, she didn’t want Dwayne Crocker there to witness it. She turned abruptly and eased her way through the throng, walking hurriedly to her sleek sports car parked beside Dwayne’s. She climbed into her car, the wheels squealing as she raced from the parking lot.
Twenty minutes later, she sat at her desk and dialed the Wallingdale Air Force Base. When she couldn’t get beyond the duty officer, she slammed down the phone and called her friend at the Pentagon. As the phone rang, she glanced out into the evening sky. The lights from the missile had vanished completely. As suddenly as the brightness had erupted into the heavens, it had died away and floated into nothingness, leaving only the evening star surrounded by its unbroken layers of clouds.
Someone on the other end picked up the phone. “Roland Spencer,” he said.
“I was hoping I’d catch you. It’s Maureen Davenport, in California. Roland, they launched that Fabian missile ahead of schedule. What went wrong?” she demanded. “They promised to postpone the launch until we could work out the flaws—”
“I’m sorry. There was a mix-up.”
“Not mine,” she said tartly.
“Ours,” he acknowledged grudgingly. “Look, sweetheart, I’m still your friend. Remember?” He had been her friend since her first visit to the Pentagon. “If I didn’t have a flat top, I’d be pulling out my hair. So I’m tugging at my mustache instead.”
“Not funny,” she said. “McCormick is going to blame me for not getting word to Wallingdale Air Base in time.”
“They knew in time. I’ll vouch for you. So stay calm. I just had a call from the commanding officer at Wallingdale Air Base. He apologized.”
“Apologized? Half of southern California saw their blunder.”
Spencer laughed good-naturedly. He had a throaty chuckle that always made his rimless glasses bob; she pictured them doing so. “The C.O. from Wallingdale said it was a splendid show that could be seen for a hundred-mile radius.”
“So when does Larhaven get wind of it, Roland?”
“Whenever McCormick sends them an e-mail. Hold just a minute. I have a call waiting.”
While she waited, she tried