"Pat---------,
"Yes."
"Thank you for getting me such a nice room in the Madonna Inn."
"You liked it?" He had hoped she would. As he spoke, he clearly pictured the beautiful grass-covered rolling hills surrounding the Inn. In his mind's eye, he could see the long curving driveway leading up to the massive brick and stucco entryway. He could also see Amanda, and he wished she were closer so he could thank her for what she had just done.
"Pat," Amanda said again. "I loved the place."
"I'm glad."
"And you know what?" Her voice was playful and child-like.
"What?"
"I wish you were here to share it with me."
And then she said it! "I love you, Pat!"
Without hesitation he responded. I love you too."
Pat reclined and sank into the chair, a worried smile still on his face. He was no longer suicidal as he had been before Amanda called, but he still felt uneasy--a strange mixture of hopeful anticipation at what Grayson might be able to do, and fear it wouldn't be enough.
At that moment, he heard the front door open and Sarah call his name. He quickly sat up in the chair again. "Gotta’ go now, Amanda. Good luck."
Before she could reply she was disconnected, and although the ending of their conversation was abrupt, she hardly noticed. He had said he loved her too.
Pat immediately got up and his fear for the project's fate was swiftly replaced by his own guilt. He then forced a smile and went into the kitchen to meet his wife.
That night they made love more savagely and passionately than they had in weeks as Pat tried to lose himself in his wife's arms, all the while thinking of Amanda and SIGMA ONE.
CHAPTER 23
Burt sat up suddenly in his bed and stared at the clutter surrounding him. He then noticed the clock read six o'clock. He was somewhat disoriented as are most people when they awaken from such a sound sleep as he was in, so he didn't immediately rouse. Slowly, as he fixed on the big blue digital numbers, the two zeroes changed to a zero and a one and the change startled him and brought him back to consciousness. He rubbed his eyes and then turned his attention toward the pile of wood which lay at the opposite end of the room near the wall and recognized the splintered mass for what it used to be--his chair. He realized then what he had done earlier as he became more and more wide awake. Although normally he would have felt ashamed for letting his anger get the best of him and acting as he did, he felt nothing at this time. He wasn't normal and he hadn't been since he first linked. Since then, all his past inhibitions had been eliminated and replaced instead with a strange sense of power which ebbed and flowed through him like the tide filling and then emptying into a lagoon, and as this power surged through him, it kept him slightly off kilter as a result. When he looked at the wood again, he laughed. Anti-social, destructive behavior meant nothing to him anymore, and this realization pleased him. He finally felt free.
His headache was gone now that he was awake and he could feel the power begin to take hold as he got out of bed. He had little less than an hour to get ready for his date with Amanda and even before finishing his shower, he began to anticipate how her silken body would feel next to his. Thoughts of Debbie never entered his mind.
After drying off, he went over to the stack of clothes on the floor and picked through them to try and find an acceptably unwrinkled shirt and clean pair of pants to wear. He picked up first one and then another, examined each article of clothing and then pitched it aside. None of them suited him. He finally settled on a yellow cotton pullover shirt and a pair of old cutoffs and quickly pulled them on. It was obvious to him as he looked in the mirror, that now, because of his earlier actions, he'd be forced to buy a new suit. The clock read ten minutes after six as he grabbed his keys and ran out to his car. He knew he had to hurry if he was to be on time.
Burt reached his old red Camaro, started it, and even before it was warm, gunned it and burned rubber for nearly forty feet as he sped down the hill from the campus toward 101. At the intersection, he ignored the light and cut his car sharply to the left, oblivious to the traffic stopped on either side. Fortunately, he managed to skinny through the intersection without incident and then headed for the business district to get money for his date and something more suitable to wear.
As he approached another intersection, he saw a local police car come up from behind him, so he cautiously slowed to a stop, uncertain if they had seen his reckless driving. He prayed they hadn't. He didn't have time to be stopped.
The black and white cruiser pulled up next to him, but neither policeman inside seemed the least bit interested. Burt breathed a sigh of relief and then decided he'd have a little fun at the officer's expense. While the policemen sat there waiting for the light to change, Burt deepened his concentration momentarily and linked with the computer-controlled ignition system of the cruiser. With only a minor amount of reprogramming, Burt was able to cause the fuel injection system to stick in the on position the minute the gas pedal was touched. As he waited for the light to change, he smiled to himself as he anticipated what would happen next. Just then, a panel truck entered the intersection as the light turned from green to yellow. Already half-way through, it proceeded to make a left hand turn in front of Burt and the police car. As expected, the moment the light turned green for them, and red for the truck which was crossing their path, the officer took his foot off the brake and gently applied pressure to the gas pedal. That was all it took. Instantaneously the car jumped forward as the pedal sank to the floor, and before the officer could get his foot to the brake pedal, his cruiser broadsided the back wheels of the old panel truck, hitting it with such force it was turned completely around and ended up facing the opposite direction from which it came. The cruiser then continued through the intersection, until it hit a mailbox on the other side of the street. It finally bounced up over the curb and stopped suddenly, steam ejecting from the cracked radiator. The two policemen were shaken but unhurt having been restrained by their seatbelts and were just looking at one another in disbelief as Burt passed in front of them. As he drove past, he smiled and nodded his head. Neither cop returned his greeting.
In five more blocks, Burt reached his destination, the First Interstate Bank, and as he pulled his car next to the curb, he unconsciously reached for his wallet he had thrown into the passenger's seat next to him. Once the car was stopped, he got out, wallet in hand, and approached the insta-teller machine in front of the building, fumbling for his cash withdrawal card as he did. Hurriedly, he pushed the plastic card into the slot at the insta-teller and waited for the security window to open. When it finally raised, he punched in his five digit code and waited while the computer validated his card's authenticity. When it was satisfied, the screen flashed a welcome message along with a noxious advertisement telling the user how great it was to have him as a customer. It then asked him for his request.
Burt stared at the screen and then reached to his forehead and closed his eyes, allowing his concentration to deepen. Once again, the electromagnetic field created by his mind was formed, and in a span of less than twenty seconds, the computer-generated message in front of him was reprogrammed with another, this time of his choosing. Instead of greeting the next customer and displaying the same message it had for Burt, he programmed a little pleasant surprise for whoever chose to use that particular insta-teller after him. As a part of this mischievousness, he also altered his account balance. Now instead of him having one thousand and twenty-eight dollars, when he punched in a request to view his balance to verify his reprogramming was successful, the decimal point indeed had migrated (as it had been told) two place R to the right. Burt smiled as he read the new balance now shown as one hundred and two thousand, eight hundred dollars.
Immediately after this message appeared, the bank computer followed the last instruction given it by Burt when he programmed it. The cash withdrawal window opened and belched out fifty, crisp new twenty dollar bills, after which, he pocketed the
money, turned and got back into his car. As he pulled away and headed toward Mr. John's, a fashionable and very exclusive men's shop where he would put his new-found booty to good use, he stared at the rear-view mirror and watched as another college student like himself approached the window. Turning the corner, he saw the look of surprise on the student's face as he read the message he programmed which read: "You are the 100th person today to use this machine. As a token of First Interstate's appreciation for your patronage you have won 100 twenty dollar bills. Have a good day!" The machine then spit out the money to the student's delight.
Burt narrowly missed a parked car as he completed rounding the corner, his concentration still focused on the student.
Thirty minutes later, now dressed in a three-piece Christian Dior charcoal and gray pin-striped suit and minus four hundred dollars, Burt pulled his car to a stop in front of the Madonna Inn. He then went inside and picked up the house phone and called Amanda.
While he waited, he counted the remaining twenty dollar bills he had and tried to determine just how normal he was feeling. He rolled up his sleeve and took his pulse and then looked at himself in the mirror which hung on the wall next to the house phone. He did this first, to ensure he did indeed have the money he had gotten earlier, (he still found it hard to believe his computer crime worked), and second, because he feared he may have been tempting fate by linking three times in one clay. That fear of having another outburst was also what drove him to pay cash for his clothes rather than to use his overdrawn credit card. Had he done that, he would have had to link with the computer via telephone to raise the card's limit. Although he hadn't had any heart problems or shortness of breath since he left the hospital, Burt had had numerous fits of anger and blackouts which he was sure were directly related to his linking. The last thing he wanted was to have one of these attacks in front of Amanda, so he continued to stare at himself in the mirror to check for any signs of abnormality which might foretell of trouble to be. But as he studied his reflection, he could find no evidence of any changes in his color, no sweating, no rapid pulse. In fact he felt fine. His cheeks were still a healthy pink--not pallid as they had been before at the cafeteria before his first attack.
As he turned to find a chair, Burt saw Amanda coming toward him from across the room. She was dressed in a strapless, floor-length satin evening gown which was nearly skin tight. She had purposefully packed this dress out of anger for the way Pat had treated her and she had planned to get even with him by wearing it and doing the town in Los Angeles when she arrived but because she was so tired that first night, she didn't get that opportunity to wear it. She wore it tonight, not out of trying to get even with Pat, but because she knew it looked good on her, and she wanted to look good for Mr. Grayson, hoping her womanly charms would work to lure him to Washington if all else failed.
Now as she stepped through the lobby, the dress molded itself to her every curve, and the way it did caused more than one man seated there to turn his head and stare as she glided past. The dress was elegant and cut very tight which was also very, very sexy. The neckline too, was rather low but not so low that it was vulgar. The single strand of pearls she wore added just the hint of modesty needed to make her stunning instead of steaming. Had she been a little more well-endowed, worn diamonds instead of pearls and been a brassy blonde instead of the brunette she was, in that dress she would have been steaming. But tonight, she was just stunning.
Burt puffed up his chest with pride as Amanda took his arm and the two left for dinner. Each man in the lobby drooled with envy as they left, each wishing he was in the company of such a lovely creature rather than whom she was with.
When they got outside it was dark and the sliver of a moon could just be seen over the hills. The air was still and brisk and Amanda began to get goose bumps, having forgotten a wrap.
"Here, Amanda, take my coat," Burt said quickly removing his jacket and placing it on her shoulders.
"Thank you, Mr. Grayson."
"Burt. Call me Burt."
"Okay, Burt, thanks. I guess it's a little colder out here on the west coast than I had imagined. Back east I would have never gone outside without some sort of a coat, or shawl or something, but I figured I wouldn't need one out here."
"You've been watching too much TV. Because San Louis Obispo is so close to the coast, it gets chilly at night. It's not the summer volleyball playground you see when they advertise. Most of the commercials are shot down either in LA or down in San Diego. There it's always ten to fifteen degrees warmer."
"I guess you're right. I did have visions of the beach and sun when packed. I forgot about the nights. Thanks again for the coat."
"My pleasure."
They got to his car and he drove toward Morrow Bay where he had made reservations at Chez Crotoun, a very expensive and elegant French restaurant tucked neatly away along the Embarcadero, nestled right next to and overlooking the harbor. Although he should have felt guilty reserving dinner there, a place Debbie had always wanted him to take her to but he had always refused saying it was way out of his price league, he didn't.
As they drove, Amanda studied the lines on Burt's face. In the moonlight, she noticed his strong jawline and his chiseled cheekbones. He was handsome, she thought, and she would enjoy getting to know him better.
Halfway around the world, Dr. Andre Kamarov was successfully finishing his last training session, and the computer screen in the control room displaying the results of the exercise was being watched by six high ranking KGB officials accompanied by Dr. Vladim. As they viewed the video screen in front of them, the simulated minuteman flight computer flashed its guidance commands for all to see. Dr. Vladim, dressed in his white lab coat stood out amongst the military uniforms as he pointed to the screen and explained what they were viewing. When the missile simulator indicated the missile had reached the pitch over point, each man huddled around the console to see what would happen next. When Vladim pointed to the screen and explained the numbers they were viewing indicated the launch azimuth was turning from a Southwesterly to a Northeasterly direction, each of them smiled. In a previous simulation they viewed only moments before, they could see the original program loaded into the computer instructed it to fly Southwest. That established their baseline. Now, the missile was indeed heading Northeast, and that indicated Dr. Kamarov, seated in the next room had indeed accomplished what he had been told to do--reprogram the missile in mid-flight.
In the next room, Dr. Andre Kamarov sat back in his chair and stared at the glass wall which separated him from the control room. He knew the exercise had been successful. In his mind he had seen the parameters of the guidance equations being fed through the CPU of the flight computer change as he directed them to do, and with the changes, he should have been ecstatic, but instead he was angry. He gritted his teeth. Had it not been for the fact that his parents were being held at gunpoint in a province of the Soviet Union hundreds of kilometers away, he wouldn't have been where he was at that very moment. He wouldn't have been forced to do what he had just done. He wouldn't be the pawn in the political games the KGB was playing.
Before his anger could overtake him, Andre reached over to the glass table on his right and grabbed the syringe full of blue liquid. He then quickly rolled up his sleeve and emptied the contents into the vein in his forearm and collapsed back into his chair. As he did, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and then he passed out.
On the other side of the glass wall, Vladim and his KGB cronies toasted straight shots of vodka to their success. No one, not even Vladim, took any notice of Kamarov, now slumped forward in the chair, head hung low. To them, he was just a tool to be used as he sat there and allowed the special fluid the KGB had prepared to rush him into oblivion and counteract the imbalance which had been set up in his brain as a result of such intense concentration.
CHAPTER 24
While Burt and Amanda drove to Morrow Bay, twenty five hundred miles east General Kurt Lassiter turned his '89
Vette off the main road which led to the Dulles International Airport terminal onto a side road which led to the part of the airport where he kept Citabria, He was feeling very self-satisfied as he rounded the corner. He had Radcliff on the run as a result of the strategic moves he had made when he had devised his plan to get Kamarov, and then subsequently to dethrone the senator by divulging the details of his sordid affair with Cherisa Hunt.
Kurt pulled into the parking lot and shut off the engine, and as he got out of his sports car, he looked up into the char, star-studded autumn sky. It was nearly 9:30 and the air was still and cold--perfect flying conditions for a little cruise over our nation’s capital. The city lights would be visible for miles and other air traffic would be easily seen. He liked that. Although the temperature was a chilly forty-two degrees and the upper air probably close to freezing, he smiled. He'd rather have clear and cold conditions where he could see what was coming at him, than to have to fly in clouds, or worse yet, go IFR. He hated flying by instruments, although it was by far safer. To him it was like sitting in a flight simulator, eyes constantly glued to the instrument panel, and like a puppet, constantly having to turn from one heading to the next at the direction of ground-bound air traffic controllers who were under-trained and over-worked.
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