grounds. Sharansky and the other lieutenant governors argued that the space above the atmosphere over their states was part of the commons and that the federal government could not appropriate the use of space for any purpose, military or otherwise, without the consent of the citizens of those states. Maybe her vote might only slow the process down; Suleema had at least prayed for that. But if she voted against Sharansky, there would be laser weapons in space within her short remaining lifetime, she was sure of it. If the lieutenant governors won their case, numerous powerful interests would be thwarted. Any one of them would want to make sure Judge Suleema Johnson voted their way.
“I’ll come right now, Regina. I’ll be there are soon as I can.”
Suleema hung up. She rubbed her sweating palms against her skirt and then, feeling the urge to throw up, stood and rushed to her small private toilet and knelt over the john. She retched once, but nothing came up. She’d been unable to eat anything for breakfast. Heat flushed over her in waves, and under her arms, perspiration soaked her blouse.
She knelt there for a full minute, then, shaking, she pushed to her feet. She had to make up her mind right now if she was going to call the FBI or the Secret Service or anyone official. “Please, dear God, help me decide.”
Nova sees that there are other people in the small, flying-school plane with her, and every last one is calmly putting on a parachute, getting ready for the drop. But the straps of her harness are crossed, seemingly hopelessly so. And she’s running out of time. Any minute now she’ll have to jump. The jump master keeps demanding that she hurry. She twists the straps one way, then another. Her heart is beating like crazy. Her fingers seem too thick and awkward. She can’t grip the straps correctly, let alone get them untwisted.
But the jump master won’t listen to her protests. The man puts the parachute harness onto Nova and clips it shut. “The straps aren’t done right,” Nova says, her panic now threatening to explode her heart.
He turns around, Nova thinking it’s to help another student, but then a buzzer sounds. The jump door opens, and the other students all rush toward it, shoving Nova along in their hurry, and all of a sudden she’s in the air and falling. Plummeting toward the dark earth she can’t see but knows is below.
She fumbles to find the pull for the ripcord…but…but she doesn’t have one. And if she hits the ground, she will die.
It’s the dream, she says to herself. Wake yourself up! It’s the dream.
She finds the ripcord pull and yanks.
And nothing happens. Her parachute has failed.
It’s the dream! part of her mind protests again.
She’s going to die if she doesn’t wake up.
Breathing hard, her heart racing, Nova pulled herself into consciousness.
She was gripping the armrests of her Varig business class seat so tightly she imagined she might bend them. God.
“Are you all right?” This from the gray-haired woman beside her who had disappeared into a Nora Roberts novel the moment the plane had lifted off from JFK.
“Yes. Fine. I just dozed off.”
This was the single recurring dream of her life, one she’d had so many times when she was in prison that she couldn’t count them. She’d had it less often in her early twenties. In fact, other than once or twice after Ramon Villalobos had loved and left her and right after she’d broken up with Joe, she had been free of the dream.
What had brought it on now? She couldn’t imagine. She didn’t even know why she had had it so often when she was in prison for killing Candido, other than the very obvious fact that in the dream she was in a blind panic. She’d spent many of her days in that monstrous prison cage in a panic.
She had slept very little last night, and the monotonous droning of the Varig’s four big jet engines had caused her to drop off. Whatever the meaning of this terror-inducing, recurring dream, she just wasn’t going to let the damn thing freak her out.
Nova smiled grimly and fetched the BlackBerry from the beautifully designed shoulder bag Marvin had brought this morning. Woven into its dark brown fiber was a pattern of green leaves and vines. The Company knew that she often wore emerald-green, the color of her eyes, and perhaps someone had taken note of that when planning how to design her kit to be tasteful and not stand out.
She’d also purchased two pairs of khaki pants, dark brown sandals, three capped-sleeve tops and a lightweight emerald-green pantsuit should she need something more formal. Woven from fine hemp, the pantsuit would breathe and also wick away the sweat she knew was going to plague her the minute she hit Manaus.
For now, most of the items she’d requested from Smith rested in the bag’s two spacious inner pockets, looking quite innocent. A camera that looked like a pen. A recorder built into her lipstick. The BlackBerry itself. And so on. The brown and dark green camouflage suit and collapsible boots were hidden inside the specially designed lining, along with the broken down Glock, its nonmetallic composition and un-gunlike components assuring that the bag would sail right through any metal or X-ray detectors.
She powered up the BlackBerry and opened up the directory for the files some tech from the Company had downloaded into it. Brazilian terrorists. Brazilian drug runners. Other Brazilian criminal organizations. Kidnap victim profiles.
She had spent most of the night reading about the woman who was supposedly her sister, Linda Stokes, and Linda’s friend, the dance teacher, Annette Coulson. She’d memorized enough details to make her cover story sound convincing to anyone who didn’t know Linda or Annette personally. Now she clicked open the victim folder.
There they all were. The birding guide, Kimball Kiff from the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. The world-class birder, Redmond Obst, who Smith had said was a personal friend of Kiff. Next came Obst’s son, Ronnie, and his son’s friend, Alex Hailey Hill. The boys, being the youngest, would probably have the shortest bios. She’d save them for last. Then there were Otis and Nancy Benning. She already knew a lot about both of the Bennings. They could also wait. Last came the bug expert, Dennis Chu.
She decided to start with the primary victim and clicked open the file on the vice president’s niece, Colette Stone, a woman who may well have watched as her husband was killed and then hacked up. Nova went through all the files, noting ages, professions and possible worth in terms of ransom. She also looked at photos, flashing the pictures on and off numerous times. She needed to recognize these people on sight.
For dinner she chose the vegetarian lasagna with braised mixed vegetables. Varig clearly didn’t stint on their business class food: the pasta, with its hint of basil, was perfectly al dente, and the ricotta cheese on the vegetables melted in her mouth.
Her seatmate, Mrs. Remington, was traveling to visit her daughter, who was pregnant with her first child and married to a Brazilian who’d made a fortune selling gems. Their dinner conversation rotated around gems and kids, Nova thinking wistfully of Star’s children, Maggie, Blake and Bryan, as the closest she was ever going to come to having children. After dinner, for the remaining two hours to Rio, she turned her attention to files on the Brazilian terrorists.
Once off the plane and through customs in Rio, a woman waiting in the receiving area just outside Immigration and Customs held a Cosmos Adventure Travel sign that said, Nora Smith, Nova’s cover name for the op. Cosmos ran a lot of legitimate adventure trips in Brazil. It was also her CIA cover operation.
The contact was a forty-plus stunner, a woman who Nova immediately imagined could still flaunt her body on Ipanema Beach in a topless swimsuit and win the admiration of every man or woman she passed. They’d all say “Ahh!”
“Ms. Smith,” the Brazilian beauty said through a radiant, white smile. “I’m Leila Munoz.”
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