Page 84 of Into the Fire

The ready room was empty. My name was second from the top on the board beneath Boone’s.

He picked up the rag that lived on the marker tray. He took my name off the board with two strokes and left every other name standing.

“Boone.”

He didn’t stop. He set the rag down and picked up the marker and moved TELLER up a line, closing the gap.

He’d stood in the loft and heard a licensed examiner prove I’d been right about everything. Right about the chute.

Boone’s first act, holding that proof, was to make sure I couldn’t jump.

I stood there and understood Boone’s case. Somebody had opened my bag. We didn’t know who. We didn’t know whether he could reach another rig, and we didn’t know whether he was finished with me. A base manager who left a targeted man on the rotation was a base manager risking writing the report on a dead jumper. Removing me was defensible. It might have been the only responsible decision.

I hated what he’d done anyway.

He capped the marker and put it on the tray. He still didn’t look at me.

I didn’t look at him either. I looked at the board. Eight names in block letters, and below the eighth, an inch of white space.

I’d earned that inch in four weeks. Passed the pack test, ran the tower, and answered every malfunction he could invent.

It didn’t matter. The white space was there again.

Chapter twenty-one

Dante

My name was gone from the board.

Hollis entered first with his clipboard, Shep and Teller behind him. Niebur was still in the loft dictating her preservation list to Marty, and everybody else had nowhere official to be, so they came to the ready room, filling mugs with the bad pot of coffee.

Hollis saw the board before he’d cleared the doorway. Everybody did.

Teller’s name sat one line higher than it had at lunch. He looked at it, looked at me, and then looked down.

“Rotation’s changed,” Boone said, flat, to the room. “Vega’s grounded until the investigation establishes who had access to the loft and whether there’s a continuing threat. Teller’s up a slot. Every rig on this base gets re-inspected before it flies, and nothing flies without my sign-off.”

It sounded like procedure. Maybe it was.

“Put it back,” I said.

Everyone froze. Boone didn’t turn around. “No.”

It wasn’t loud or unkind.

“Boone—”

“My office.” Boone looked at me and then turned toward the door.

Through the window, I watched him cross the gravel, spine straight. I followed him.

Boone closed the office door behind me. He walked around behind the desk. I didn’t sit. He stayed on his feet too.

The lampshade sat straight. The papers were squared, and the rust-colored smear was still on his cuff.

“Disagree with me here,” he said.

I kept my voice level. “The reserve chute worked. I flew it into the worst ground on that field and walked away with bruises. Niebur stood in your loft for four hours today and put it in writing that I packed that main correctly and somebody opened the bag after me. I’m current, I’m cleared, and as of this afternoon I am the only jumper on this base with a federal document saying my rigging was right.”