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“The screens are clearing. I say again, the screens are clearing. The point of no return is irrelevant now. Don’t abort. I say again, do not abort. Let us get control.”

Fabio exhaled and said, “Roger all, mission control. Valkyrie One standing by.”

They floated through space for another thirty minutes, the space station finally visible in the distance, when mission control came on, saying, “Valkyrie One, Valkyrie One, we have control. I say again, we have control.”

Skyler keyed his mike, saying, “You have all systems up and running? All systems are green?”

“Roger that.”

“Then let’s dock. I can see the space station. We’re almost there.”

“Uhh... this is mission control. We recommend an abort to get you home. I think we’ve had enough adventure on this trip.”

Skyler said, “That’s a complete waste of money and time. We’re within an hour before we dock.”

“Yes, sir. Your call.”

Fabio looked at Skyler, then the other two, stopping on Abigail. She slowly shook her head left and right.

He returned to Skyler, said, “Fuck you, asshole,” and slammed his fist into the abort button.

Chapter72

I walked into the Four Courts Irish pub about five minutes before it opened, right at 4p.m. I saw a scrum of people all working to get the place ready and a man came forward, saying, “We aren’t open yet.”

I said, “You are for me. Get me Bryce.”

He started to say something else, and Bryce came through the kitchen door. A rangy man with salt-and-pepper hair, he was the manager and an Army veteran. He took one look at me and shook his head.

He came forward and told the waiter, “I’ll handle this.” The waiter walked away and he said, “You lost someone.”

“Yeah, we did. And the men involved are coming here today. Sorry.”

He smiled and said, “Don’t be sorry. It’s the least I can do.”

The Four Courts Irish pub was where we held all our memorials. It had a unique place in my heart because a bunch of assassins had tried to kill me inside the place a long time ago. Bryce wasn’t read into our program, but he believed in what we did, even if he didn’t know what that was. We’d shown up one day toasting a fallen soldier, and then we’d kept showing up, until he’d pulled me aside one afternoon. He’d seen us keeping to ourselves, knowing we didn’t want to be disturbed, and had told me if we wanted privacy the next time, the bar was ours. He’d never askedany questions, and being located so close to the CIA, I’m sure he thought that was where we worked, and I didn’t disabuse him of the notion.

All I knew was that when I showed up, he shut down the bar.

He flipped the sign on the door to closed and said, “I’ll be serving the drinks.”

“I appreciate that. I really do.” I’d initially tried to pay to rent the place, but he was having none of it. He didn’t even let us pay for our drinks.

He chuckled and said, “Don’t worry about it. Last year this time we were closed permanently because of COVID. One night is nothing. Rum and Coke?”

I said, “Sure,” and moved to a table. He brought the drink, then ushered the waitstaff out of the bar. I sat in silence for a moment, then the door opened. George Wolffe and Blaine Alexander came in, looked around, then walked to my table.

They took a seat, Blaine saying, “You like cutting it close, but yesterday was damn near a record.”

I laughed and said, “I saw the capsule landed safely.”

“Yeah. A little bit of drama afterwards for the network shows, but everyone’s safe.”

“What happened?”

“The mission commander got out of the capsule and decked the owner, Skyler Fitch. He was waving to the cameras all smiles one second, then sitting on his ass rubbing his face the next. Pretty sure that astronaut won’t be taking up the next flight.”

Wolffe said, “Where’s Jennifer?”