Gershon walked around the parking lot, working the stiffness out of his legs after his drive out from the city. It was colder than he’d come to expect for California.

The L.A. division of Rockwell was strung out around the southern border of Los Angeles International Airport. Beyond the fence, the airport was a plain of concrete, with aircraft rolling between distant buildings like little painted toys. There was a distant rumble of jets ramping up, and a remote, evocative whiff of kerosene. If he squinted, he could see a line of big airliners stacked up in the sky.

The Rockwell headquarters building was an uncompromising cube of brick, four stories high, without a single window. Ralph Gershon had never seen anything like it; it was like the kind of dumb, baffling modern sculptures that earned their creators thousands of dollars. No natural daylight at all. Christ. He was here for a regular meeting of the MEM Technical Liaison Group, and liaison group meetings were meetings from hell anyway. The thought of spending all day inside that goddamn box of bricks was depressing.

Beyond the clutter of Rockwell buildings, he could see all the way down Imperial Boulevard to Santa Monica Bay. He liked the way the morning light was coming off the water, steely gray and flat.

“Here.”

There was a small, wiry man at his side, with a balding head and rimless glasses and big, ugly freckles; he was holding up a cigarette packet.

“Thanks,” Gershon said. “I don’t.”

“Uh-huh.” The guy took a cigarette himself, tamped it against the box, and lit up. His arms were disproportionately long and bony, and they stuck out of his sleeves. Just behind him in the parking lot, there was a T-bird, gleaming black. “You looked like it was a good moment for a smoke.” He had a broad, bold New York accent. He was maybe fifty, and he looked familiar to Gershon.

“You here for the MEM thing?” Gershon asked.

“Yeah. And you? You from NASA? A pilot, maybe?”

“How do you know?”

The guy tapped his own small paunch. “Because you look fit.”

“I’m the Astronaut Office rep.” Gershon hesitated when he used the word “astronaut.” As he always did. Look at me, the great astronaut. When I haven’t flown anything for NASA except a T-38 trainer. But then that little guy had used the word “pilot.” Maybe he understood.

The stranger stuck out his hand. “My name’s Lee. John K. My friends call me JK.”

The handshake was firm, the palms callused. It wasn’t the grip of a pencil-pusher.

“You from one of the MEM bidders?”

“Nope,” Lee said. “I’m from CA. Columbia Aviation. Tell me you’ve heard of us.”

Gershon grinned.