“One small detail,” said Morgan. “We couldn’t build the thing, even if we won.”

“Why not?”

“Because our specialty is airframes and avionics. That’s what makes us a good subcontractor. If you’re bidding for a complete spacecraft, for Christ’s sake, you’re looking at everything: the tanks, the engines, the navigation and flight and guidance stuff, the heat shields, the life support—”

Lee had been waiting for that. “We’re okay on life support. We’ve got you.”

“Bullshit, JK,” Morgan said. “If you think I’m going to hang my hide out for you in front of Art Cane over a goddamn harebrained stunt like this, you’ve got another thing coming.” He stood, picked up the RFP, and threw it at Lee’s wastebasket. “If you’ve got any sense, you’ll leave it there.”

“Yeah. I will. Thanks, Jack.”

When Morgan had gone, Lee settled back in his big swivel chair, propped up his heels more comfortably on his desk, and lit up a cigarette. The big gunmetal desk was a JK trademark; it was a gift from the crew he’d worked with on the old B-70 project, and it had followed him ever since.

He thought about Jack Morgan.

Morgan had been an Air Force flight physician during the Korean War, and he’d gotten into aerospace medicine by accident. After the war, working for Rockwell — North American as it was then — he’d been on hand when a pilot had been forced to bail out of an experimental F-100, a supersonic jet. The air at that speed was like a wall. Morgan had been on the team of surgeons who had helped to pull the pilot through. It was only the third time in history a pilot had left an airplane traveling faster than sound. So Morgan became, de facto, a leader in the new field of aerospace medicine.

Since then Morgan had become one of Lee’s most trusted confidants — translate that as drinking partner — and he’d come along for the ride when Lee had busted out of Rockwell, back in 1967, disillusioned by the firing of Stormy Storms.

Lee valued Morgan’s advice. That didn’t mean he often took it, though.

After a quarter of an hour he leaned forward and pressed his intercom. “Bella, I want you to set me up some meetings.”

“Yes, sir, JK.”

He got out of his chair and dug the RFP out of the trash.

Three days later JK Lee bustled into the office of his boss, Arthur Cane, with four of his top people. Including Jack Morgan. They had armfuls of charts and graphs, all making up a hastily assembled presentation called: “Why We Should Bid For The MEM.”

Cane sat behind his big walnut desk, with his heavy English stone-cased fountain pen resting on top of the pile of paperwork before him.