Part One
(Forty-eight hours before launch)
Something was tickling his nose. Instinctively he reached up, but as his sleeping brain stirred awake, all sorts of visions of insects strolling across his face bloomed.
He opened his eyes in a panic, then let out a sigh of relief, because the thing tickling his nose was only a strand of red hair.
The red hair of a young woman sleeping peacefully on his shoulder.
A smile escaped him as he carefully eased himself free so as not to wake her, because his bladder was about to burst.
A few moments later, getting up, he pettily noted the smudges of makeup on the pillow and the sheets.
He knew she wasn't one to overdo her makeup, yet it looked as though she had wept bitterly and for a long time.
The young woman stirred in her sleep, shifted into a better position, and went on dreaming peacefully.
Short red hair, styled in a "helmet" cut with two long strands framing the front.
Full lips, a small, upturned nose in the middle of an oval face.
Well-groomed eyebrows and a scattering of freckles, now visible with no makeup to cover them.
Her eyes — she had a piercing gaze, the color of pure blue, though now they were drowned under a spilled sea of makeup.
Despite that she was still beautiful, stunning.
At twenty-six she looked better than most actresses or the so-called influencers who made their living off their looks.
She was still dressed. Her shirt clung to her body, and her jeans didn't look comfortable either.
She had crossed her bare feet, her well-kept toes curled in her sleep.
She must have slipped into bed the moment she let herself into his apartment.
It didn't matter to him when or where she had been.
That wasn't part of their arrangement. An arrangement they had never actually made.
It had simply happened. He lived alone, and the girl was his neighbor.
As two young singles, they sometimes shared apartments and a bed.
Not as lovers, but as friends who, on certain nights, didn't want to be alone.
Because being alone sometimes meant being lonely, and loneliness opens dark doors in the psyche that neither of them wanted to walk through.
So he had woken with a beautiful girl on his shoulder, one who during the night had quietly crept into his bed rather than cry in the emptiness of her own apartment.
He knew the likely reason for those tears, too.
He sighed with pity and headed for the bathroom.
His bladder was demanding its due, and when the bladder gives an order, you obey.
Relieving himself, he looked out the little window toward the city.
He lived on the slope of Sljeme with a view over town.
Some called this part of the city elite, but that meant nothing to him.
He'd snagged the apartment for a pittance, because the previous tenant, at odds with the law, had needed an urgent change of climate.
He'd heard recently from a mutual acquaintance that the man had ended up on some Caribbean island with no extradition agreement with the European Union.
In any case, a two-room apartment in an elite part of Zagreb was a prize, an opportunity he couldn't pass up.
But even that wasn't all that important. Things simply happened to him. Whether he was born lucky or it was just his fate, in life he had always gotten what he wanted without effort. It always seemed the current turned to his mill.
Squeezing the last drops from his bladder, he turned toward the sink and the mirror.
Hands washed, he squeezed toothpaste onto the brush and noticed that his usually well-kept beard was a little unkempt today.
Maybe from the tears, maybe from sleep — either way, he'd have to tidy it up.
He groomed his beard himself; he didn't trust people with razors.
He couldn't stand the feeling of a stranger holding a sharp instrument near his throat.
And so, brushing his teeth, he sighed, still pettily noting the irregularities in his beard, his eyebrows, his hair. His striking, manly face always drew looks. He had a high forehead with a single line that showed only when he frowned — and he frowned rarely.
Brown hair neatly trimmed into a fashionable cut that stylists adored lent his head a playful look. A perfect nose in front of green eyes. Even, white teeth that flashed whenever he teased with a roguish grin.
He studied himself. Athletically built, with visible but not overdone muscles, his bare torso showed the chiseled, hard flesh of his stomach, betraying that he worked out regularly.
The only unnatural thing about his body was the length of a large scar that ran along the ribs on his right side.
The neat reddish line of the scar had healed very well over the past months, and only an occasional tenderness, along with the pink color of the knitted skin, still betrayed the freshness of the wound.
But even the scar looked good; it only added a note of mystery and hard-won action to his body.
A body he moved with the almost gliding motions of a trained fighter.
He knew he was attractive. To women and men alike. And they were forever approaching him, both of them, even though he made it plain to everyone that he loved only women. He had never so much as troubled himself with thoughts of the same sex, though he moved in such circles.
Remembering that, and hearing a stirring from the bedroom, he finished brushing his teeth, took off his boxers, and stepped under the shower.
He let the warm water spill over his body, refreshing both body and soul.
He adored showering; he loved the feeling of the water droplets striking his body.
He could spend many minutes simply savoring that sensation, sometimes forgetting why he was even under the shower.
He loved many things. From wines that had to be of excellent quality and from a good year, to gourmet dishes prepared by the hand of some famous chef. His days off he spent on trips and outings. In short, he was a young man who enjoyed life. Hedonistically, without baggage or unnecessary company.
Suddenly he sensed a presence in the bathroom. She was standing in front of the toilet, about to sit down.
"Didn't go well?" he asked as he squeezed shampoo from the bottle.
She glanced over, saw only his silhouette behind the screen, waved a hand in denial, and sat down on the toilet.
Rinsing the shampoo from his thick hair, he remembered that the girl didn't like to talk in the morning, especially if her night hadn't gone well.
He'd learn the details anyway, without needless questions.
He finished his shower and, wrapping his nakedness in a towel, walked past the pensive girl and out of the bathroom.
He dressed casually and made the bed. He decided not to change the soiled sheets, because the laundry basket was overflowing and he'd have to make a trip to the laundromat.
Then, whistling something into his beard, he carefully laid his work uniform out on the bed so he could dress as quickly as possible when it was time for work.
There wasn't much furniture in the spacious apartment. He preferred the ascetic expression of pure minimalism. A sofa in front of the television, a small glass table, and that was it. Unlike his generation, he didn't own much technology that would only draw greedy glances.
In the bedroom, to the misfortune of many a girl, he owned only a bed, a small unsightly chair, and a dresser for a handful of suits and work uniforms.
Besides, he used only a few of the rooms, while the rest of the apartment gaped entirely empty and unused.
He liked to wear new clothes and shoes, and the old ones he regularly donated before they could wear out or fade.
He headed for the kitchen, peeked into the little fridge, and, raising his voice so she could hear him under the shower, asked:
"Fried bread?"
"Got anything savory to go with that bread?" the girl called from the bathroom.
He looked into the fridge again and took out a little bundle.
"You know I've got a bit of everything," he replied calmly, unwrapping the bacon.
He took a pan from the kitchen cabinet and, setting it on the stove, switched on the television with the remote that lay on the kitchen counter.
A news channel came up and, cracking eggs, he began to watch with indifference.
A plain, middle-aged anchorwoman was dispensing needless information while clips rolled on the screen behind her.
The crisis was deepening; Russia was rattling its weapons — but when wasn't Russia doing that?
Ever since the annexation of Ukraine and the bloody suppression of the Ukrainian patriots' uprising, Russia had been moving its enormous arsenal into the expanses of Ukraine.
On the other side of the world, China, seeing the West's impotence, had attacked Taiwan and for several months now had been crushing the partisan resistance in the mountains.
The West threatened, sanctioned, sent fleets, but the autocratic regimes did not care.
Both powers threatened to use nuclear missiles to keep NATO on a leash and to justify their human-rights violations.
Now the picture on the screen showed charred bodies, while the headline screamed of a missile strike on a Polish refugee center.
Then, the face of the Russian defense minister and explanations about a tactical strike by special forces against Ukrainian terrorists operating out of the Polish refugee center.
Propaganda, he thought, switching off the television. He finished preparing the meal, and the enticing smell of fried bacon began to spread through the apartment.
He meticulously prepared a few pieces of toast and arranged two portions of food when she appeared, dressed in his T-shirt. He was used to her borrowing his clothes, because he knew she'd return them neatly washed, with that scent of freshness he adored.
"Two pieces of bacon enough?" he asked her.
She nodded and sat down at the kitchen counter, taking the plate and fork.
They ate in silence; from outside came the chirping of birds celebrating the warmth of an early summer day.
The odd siren and the murmur of the city did nothing to spoil the sense of a beautiful day without a single cloud in the sky.
Almost as if one shouldn't work at all, but should spend the day indulging that sense of laziness inherent to all people.