There was a volley of rifle shots, a slow litany from a bugler. The ceremony dragged on, poignant and exquisitely painful.

There was a roar that seemed to shake the ground. Michaels looked up into the sky, startled.

Four Air Force T-38s were coming in from the southwest, in a close diamond formation, no more than five hundred feet from the ground. The planes gleamed white against the lead gray sky. As the formation roared overhead, their jets screaming, the wingman veered out of the diamond and climbed vertically, disappearing into the clouds in a couple of seconds.

The other three T-38s carried on toward the north, their afterburners glowing.

Michaels recognized the formation. The missing man. He could see the astronauts at the graveside, the row of them, rookies and veterans alike, all with their heads turned up to the jets.

As the ceremony broke up, Michaels worked his way through the milling, black-coated throng, toward Joe Muldoon.

“Joe, I need to speak to you. I have an assignment for you.”

Muldoon just glared back at him. He towered over Michaels, rigid, intimidating. His muscles were visible under his uniform, his face a scowling mask. Michaels could see a righteous, terrible anger burning in there.

Michaels drew a deep breath. It was that anger he wanted to tap into. “I want you to keep this to yourself for now. I’m transferring Bert Seger. I’m bumping him further up in the Program Office. I’ve found him a job here in Washington.”

“He won’t accept it.”

“Well, he’s going to have to accept it. Hell, man, you saw how he was, in that meeting with Udet. I’ve had to take him out of the line.”

Muldoon shook his head. “Bert worked damned hard. And none of it was his fault—”

“I’m not interested in allocating blame,” Michaels said firmly. “Let them do that up on the Hill. All I’m concerned about is taking the program forward, from here on in to the end zone. And I don’t think Bert Seger is the right man to do that anymore.”

“So who is?”

“You.”

Muldoon looked at him with his mouth open and his eyes round blue disks, a caricature of amazement. “Me? You’re kidding. I’m no manager. I’m the asshole with the big mouth you nearly grounded, remember.”

“Yes, you are an asshole sometimes,” Michaels said testily. “But I trust your judgment, over the things that matter. You’re a moonwalker, for God’s sake. And you handled the Moonlab mission well. That broadcast—”

“That was a stunt.”