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his elbow. “Better get
goin’, Deke. They’re waiting for you in hair and makeup.”
    Before he could respond, Skip lumbered
through the doors of the Headquarters building, leaving Deke stuck
with muttered curse in his throat and the tattered paperback still
in his hand.
    He turned it over and looked at the cover. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold . Good God. Somebody ought
to break the news to Skip that everybody was on the same side
now.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Four

    Jessica relished the chill of the studio,
rubbing her arms as she watched a skeleton crew set up a camera and
lighting just as her subject sauntered in, precisely on time. An
entirely new set of goose bumps rose on her skin.
    “Hello again, Commander Stockard.” She
intentionally locked her arms together in front of her but gave him
her brightest smile. He nodded and gestured toward a man who’d come
in with him.
    “Miss Marlowe, this is Major Jeff Clark.”
    “Have you come along to offer moral support,
Major?” Jessica asked as they shook hands in greeting.
    He responded with a quick smile that lit his
clear blue eyes. “Please, call me Jeff. I’m happy to provide moral
support if needed, but it seems I’m being recruited as the
B-Team.”
    An uneasy feeling crept through her. The rat
was going to try to arrange his own redundant system . She
shot a challenging glance to Deke. “We haven’t discussed a backup
plan.”
    He spared her a look. “We haven’t discussed any plan.”
    “Commander Stockard.” She didn’t even try to
hide her exasperation. “Please. We really can’t succeed without
your cooperation.”
    “You have my cooperation, Miss Marlowe.”
    “Just Jessica is fine.” How did he know it
was Miss , anyway?
    “I’m here, at your service.” He indicated the
studio with a mocking sweep of his hand. “It seems prudent that we
have another astronaut trained to do… this.”
    “Are you planning to go somewhere, Commander
Stockard?”
    “At some point, I’ll be traveling about a
million miles. In my business, there’s never any guarantee that I
come home from work.”
    The solemn tone in his voice caught her off
guard. She realized that for all the background information she had
gleaned from his profile, she really knew very little about this
man.
    Only the biographical sketch of his
thirty-seven years, which she had just drafted into a short article
for the press kit. His impressive education included “distinguished
graduate” of the U.S. Naval Academy, a master’s in aeronautical
engineering from MIT, and top of his class at the Navy Test Pilot
School. She knew he had been based on an aircraft carrier in the
Gulf War and was decorated several times and that he’d been on one
mission to Mir, the old Russian space station. Other than that, he
remained a mystery.
    “I’m sure NASA prefers that you do come home
from work, Commander,” she finally responded, realizing that she’d
been staring a moment longer than necessary. “Of course I’ll train
you both together. Why don’t we start with a mock interview? Major
Clark, would you like to be victim number one?”
    “Hey, I thought I was backup.” He nudged Deke
and winked at Jessica. “No, you let Harrison Ford here take center
stage.”
    When Deke settled in a chair across from her
and clipped on a mike, Jessica explained she would be interviewing
him as though he were on a morning talk show.
    “Let me set up a hypothetical situation for
you. You’ve been in the news a lot lately and you’ve been vocal in
your support of the International Space Station, Alpha—”
    “I know what it’s called.”
    “And you’ve been spending quite a bit of time
with, oh, Gwyneth Paltrow.”
    He raised an eyebrow and shot the other
astronaut a look.
    Jessica signaled the cameraman to roll tape,
then leaned back and took on the voice and pose of a talk-show
host. “Commander Stockard. You must know there are rumors and
whispers running rampant about NASA’s next