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.I tracked down the people who had access to the command codes and the ground track.Call me on my cell right away.”His message finished, Tenny jumped up from the chair and headed out of the office.As he breezed past April once again, he said, “If Dan calls in, transfer it to my cell phone.Top priority.”“Yes, Dr.Tenny,” April said, in a hushed voice.Tenny always rattled her, and this day was worse than any previous.Nine o‘clock and still no word from Dan, Tenny groused to himself as he paced the catwalk around the hangar.He glanced over the railing at the wreckage sprawled across the hangar’s concrete floor.He had called Dan four times since he’d barged into the boss’s office earlier in the afternoon; all he’d gotten was that shit-brained automatic message.What good is having a friggin’ cell phone if you keep it turned off all the time?All right, Tenny admitted to himself, Dan wouldn’t want the phone bothering him while he’s meeting with Garrison.But he oughtta be flying back by now.He’s probably still got the friggin’ phone off while he’s flying the Staggerwing.Tough enough flying that clunker at night without phone calls interrupting your concentration, he reluctantly acknowledged.I can’t just stand around here waiting! Tenny complained silently.He yanked his own cell phone out of his shirt pocket to make sure it was on and functioning.Okay, he thought as he stuffed it back into his pocket, no sense sitting here with my thumbs up my butt.He started down the steel steps, his boots clattering, echoing in the darkened hangar.At the bottom he stopped and stared out at the wreckage of the spaceplane.Dirty, shit-eating sonsofbitches, he growled inwardly.They did this deliberately.They destroyed the plane and killed Hannah.Deliberately.In cold blood.Must have taken ‘em months to plan it out and get everything set.Friggin’ murderers.Striding toward his shiny black, chrome-trimmed Silverado parked outside the hangar, Tenny pulled the phone out of his pocket again and pecked out the number for the motel where Passeau was staying.An automated answering voice asked him for the name of the guest he was trying to reach.“Passeau,” Tenny snapped.Then he spelled it.The phone beeped four times.Five.“The person you are trying to reach is not answering the phone.If you would like to leave a voice mail message, press one.”Tenny thumbed the keypad.When the automated voice gave him the cue, he said, “Claude, it’s Joe Tenny.I’ve got proof that the bird was sabotaged and I know who did it.Call me as soon as you get this message.”Fuming about people who didn’t answer their goddamned phones, Tenny opened the door to his Silverado and climbed up into the driver’s seat.He turned on the ignition and the engine growled to life.Then he saw the orange warning on the dashboard fuel gauge.Near empty? he asked himself.Couldn’t be; I filled the tank yesterday and I haven’t gone anywhere except from here to home and back.Nettled, worried that the hydrogen tank might be leaking, he put the truck in gear and headed through the night for the hydrogen storage facility on the other end of the airstrip.The Astro base was dark, except for pale lamps spaced along the roadways that connected the various buildings.Glancing out his side window, Tenny saw that the clouds that had been piling up since late afternoon had blotted out the stars.Dan’s gonna have to land at the commercial airport, he thought.It’s gonna be pouring rain here pretty soon.The damn fuel tank shouldn’t be leaking, he fumed as he drove across the base.The hydrogen bonds to the metal chips in the tank, nice and solid.Maybe some of it baked out of the chips, though; the pickup’s been sitting out in the sun all day.Hydrogen gas leaks out the tank’s cap, he knew.Sneaky stuff in its gaseous phase; seeps through almost any kind of seal.He shrugged.No real danger.Hydrogen gas just floats up into the air, doesn’t drip and spread and make puddles like gasoline would.Still, Dan insisted that the hydrogen facility had to be stuck out in the middle of noplace.Worried it might blow up like the old Hindenburg.No matter how I tell him the stuff is safe, he still worries about hydrogen.Him and everybody else.NASA’s been using liquid hydrogen for rocket engines for more’n fifty friggin’ years and people are still scared of the stuff.Shaking his head at human obstinacy, Tenny pulled to a stop at the wire fence that surrounded the hydrogen facility.In the darkness he groped in the glove compartment for the automatic door opener, clicked it once, and the gate rattled open on its metal wheels.He drove in, passed the low building that housed the electrolysis equipment that separated water into hydrogen and oxygen, and pulled up next to the huge spherical hydrogen tank.Bigger than a two-story house, the tank dwarfed Tenny’s Silverado.Both it and the smaller oxygen tank next to it had enormous NO SMOKING signs painted across their curving flanks in Day-Glo red.Tenny climbed down from the truck, grumbling to himself that he would have to check the fuel tank in the morning.Not at the house, though, he decided.I’ll drive back out here and park it in the far corner of the parking lot.Maybe I’ll have to build a carport to protect the truck from the sun.“Who’s there?”Tenny jerked with surprise at the sound of a man’s voice.Then he saw one of the uniformed security guards walking up to him.Big guy.His shirt stretched, too small for his muscular frame.“It’s okay,” he told the rent-a-cop, fishing his ID badge from his shirt pocket.“I work here.”The guard flashed his light on the card, then into Tenny’s face.Tenny squinted, frowned.“Okay, Mr.Tenny.Just doing my job.”“Yeah, fine, but get the light outta my eyes.”“Yessir.” The light winked out.Blinking, waiting for his night vision to return, Tenny stepped around his pickup to find the fuel hose.The big hydrogen tank held liquefied hydrogen, cooled to more than four hundred degrees below zero.To power his truck, Tenny had built a small assembly that tapped liquid hydrogen from the tank, allowed it to warm to a gas, and then pumped the gas into his pickup’s tank.“I didn’t know you guys were patrolling out here,” Tenny said, as he peered at the dimly lit gauges in the darkness.“The boss thought we out to check the facility every shift, since the accident,” said the guard.Overreacting, Tenny thought Scared of hydrogen.Shit, this facility’s as safe as the file cabinets in Dan’s office.He found the fuel hose as his eyes readjusted to the darkness of the cloudy night.As he turned back to his truck, the guard smashed the butt of his pistol into Tenny’s head, knocking him unconscious.He sprawled on the ground, the hose still gripped in his right hand.Swiftly, the guard unlatched the safety valve on the hose.Invisible, odorless hydrogen gas began pouring out of it.The guard could hear the pump chugging behind him.He ran out to the wire fence at the hydrogen facility’s perimeter, dashed through the gate and raced to his own car, parked up the road.Ducking in behind the steering wheel, he popped the glove compartment and pulled out a small flat metal box
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