Limply, she hugged him back and added, "what about breakfast?"
He cringed not knowing how to respond nor how long he'd be gone, but finally he answered her. "Put things away. When I get back, we'll all go out for brunch. I promise." His voice was as hollow as his promise and Alice knew it, too.
Then he left.
CHAPTER 28
Pat drove toward the Senate office building and the further he drove the angrier he got. His anger was partly directed at Radcliff for having interrupted his Sunday morning, but the other part was directed at himself for having treated Alice the way he had over the past few weeks. When he finally reached the parking lot he was steaming. He shut off his car, got out, slammed his car door and after a brisk walk up the stairs, was standing face to face with the Senator.
"What's so God damned important you had to call me up here on Sunday?" he asked indignantly. "I've been putting in nearly sixty to seventy hours a week since the hearings, and you know today's my only day off!"
Radcliff didn't need to be clairvoyant to see that Pat was peeved. He stepped back a step as Pat approached him. He hadn't expected such an outburst from the normally calm Huxley. In all the years he had known him, he'd never known him to raise his voice--not that Pat never got mad. He did, but never to the point of shouting. This time was different. Pat was infuriated and Radcliff wasn't quite sure how to deal with him given what he had to say. He did know one thing, though, it didn't matter how he told him, the results would still be the same and add fuel to an already raging fire.
Radcliff turned away and mumbled something to himself under his breath. He then turned back around to Pat who was now standing directly in front of him, jaws clinched, waiting for an answer.
"Well," Pat said impatiently. "I'm waiting! What have you got to tell me now that couldn't have waited?" He then folded his arms and glared at the Senator
"Sit down, Pat!" Radcliff ordered. "Now!"
Pat was stunned by his sharpness, but held his ground.
"I said sit down, Pat. And I mean it!" Radcliff repeated sternly. It was a battle of wills now, a battle which Pat easily won.
"All right! Suit yourself you stubborn son of a bitch," Radcliff admonished and then pulled a chair from out in front of his desk and sat down himself. As soon as he was seated he began speaking while Pat stood in front of him.
"Pat, the reason I called you here is to tell you the bad news. If I had thought it could wait, I would have let it. But there's something regarding the project you should know."
Pat didn't understand. "What could be bad about Lassiter being eliminated? I thought you two didn't get along. Personally, I'm glad he's out of the way. He was a loose cannon. I didn't trust him." Radcliff corrected him. "It's not about Lassiter."
Pat wrinkled his brow in disbelief. He was sure it would be. "What then?" He asked, his anger subsiding slightly.
"Pat, you'd really better sit down," Radcliff tried coaxing him again. This time he was successful. Something in the way he asked made Pat feel what he was about to hear should be heard sitting down.
"All right, seated. Shoot!"
Radcliff reached over to his in basket and pulled out a purple file with the words "Eyes Only" printed on it in red. Pat immediately recognized it as an Intel packet. He watched as Radcliff broke the seal and then reached out as he handed the package to him.
"What's this?" he asked wedging his index finger in the corner of the envelope and ripping it along the top.
Radcliff waited in silence until Pat got the file completely open and saw him looking at the picture of Kamarov, boarding a Pan Am 747. Then he answered. "It's about the Soviet."
Annoyed, Pat replied. "Yeah, I can see that. What about him?"
"He's on his way over to the states."
"I know that, but he won't be here until Christmas eve."
"Not true," Radcliff said woefully. "He's on his way now and will
arrive tonight."
Pat blanched. "Tonight? How do you know that?"
"One of Walker's men intercepted another communique which said so, and we got that picture verifying it two hours ago at Heathrow. They moved the trip up and he lands tonight in Las Vegas . Don't ask me why. I don't know that, but I suspect it has something to do with Lassiter." He was lying. He knew damn well from the agent's report the Soviet KGB had uncovered their plot. He just didn't want to tell Pat that. It would give him away and link him with Lassiter's death. }sides, there wasn't a whole lot they could do about it. They simply had no time.
"So what are you going to do?" Pat asked, his voice hollow.
"Don't worry, Pat. I've already taken care of it. Or at least, I've done all that I could given the circumstances. Walker is going to handle security for the visit and we're going to have to take him, that's all. We can't let him carry out his plan to visit the missile fields. If we did, SIGMA ONE would be finished when the Soviets announced that they caused the unauthorized launch. The committee would see that they beat us and that we've failed. With all that power concentrated in the Soviet's hands we would have no other choice but to unilaterally disarm. There wouldn't be any stopping them."
"What can I do?" Pat said sheepishly. The full impact of the change in events hadn't sunk in yet, but he knew that if the kidnapping failed, the picture the senator painted would likely come to pass and then they would be powerless to stop it.
Radcliff moved forward in his chair and then replied. "There's not a whole lot you or I can do now. Not about Kamarov anyway. Walker has to take care of that end. It's going to be tight, but I think we've got a chance, even with the compressed timelines. The State Department's still in the dark about the visit. When the announcement is made to them sometime in the next few hours, they'll be scrambling to get security set up themselves, and they will be forced to go with whoever they can dig up who isn't on leave. Naturally, that's where we step in. Our men will offer their support, and even though they don't like quick changes or support outside their own agency, under the conditions, they'll be forced to go along. Besides, they'll have other problems they'll view as more pressing."
Pat interjected, "like what?"
"They'll have to work the media in to cover the visit. Remember, it was their idea to get him over here in the first place to provide support for their nuclear arms reduction initiatives to coincide with the recent changes in the Soviet East bloc countries. If they don't get the media coverage of the visit, they'll have nothing, and trying to get reprogramming now with such short notice will be a bitch. That's what they'll be involved with. They won't balk at a little help from the CIA to handle the security end of things. I'm sure of it. "
"And with Walker working for you and in charge of security, the kidnapping will be a snap, right?" Pat marveled at the simplicity of the plan and admired the elder statesman's ingenuity.
"That's correct. We'll take him within a day or two after he gets to Las Vegas."
Pat slumped in his chair. He knew all along that the Soviet would have to be taken, but the fact that it would occur so soon made him realize the seriousness of the situation. He still didn't see the direct link to his work, though. "So what does all this mean to me?"
Radcliff leaned forward again and then spoke very softly. "When we kidnap Kamarov, we're not even going to try to deprogram him. Walker has been ordered to kill him and make it look like an unnamed terrorist group was responsible. I thought I owed it to you to tell you."
This was all too strange to Pat. First Radcliff tells him the Soviet is coming over early, which means if security isn't fixed, then Kamarov could launch the missile. If he did that...he didn't even like to think of the implications. But security was fixed. Or so Radcliff seemed to think. But why kidnap him and then kill him? It didn't make sense. He had to ask. Even if the Soviet had discovered how to thought program, which he apparently had, if the tapes and pictures were any proof, why kill him? Pat was no longer jealous of the Soviet and had reversed his earlier feelings on that subject since the hearings. Ev
en if Kamarov had beaten him to SIGMA ONE's ultimate goal and even if he wasn't going to be deprogrammed, surely they could keep him alive locked up somewhere where the U.S. would be safe from his power. That way Pat could at least have time to interrogate him and potentially help his own country's research. To kill him without giving Pat that chance seemed ludicrous. They couldn't let the Soviet's secret die with him without his getting a chance to find out how they had been successful where his men had not. If he could just get one day with the Soviet, he might be able to find out enough to break the deadlock his scientists had reached--especially if the new Mr. Grayson proved to be half as powerful as Amanda had alluded to him being.
His mind then flitted to the description of the demonstration Amanda had said she had seen while out on the West Coast. In that conversation she said she had witnessed a new process (referring, of course to Mr. Grayson) for digitizing pictures and in less than five, maybe ten seconds, Grayson had memorized every detail of her face, disassembled it into 256 gray scales, assigned intensity values to them representing the various shades and hues of her skin, and then digitized the whole data stream of over ten megabytes and produced a replica of her image on the screen.
If Grayson really did this, there was no doubt in Pat's mind he had the talent to reprogram a simple series of guidance commands in a missile computer. The question was, could he do it from a distance? Pat had to know the answer to that and had after Amanda's call, devised a special experiment to get that answer.
His experiment consisted of a series of electromagnetically treated screens each, with varying degrees of opacity. By stacking a number of screen in between Burt and the guidance chip, he could emulate the range squared distance loss which Burt would encounter if his thoughts were transmitted electromagnetically to the computer as he suspected they were. And if Burt could program the computer through the screens, it would be a simple matter of counting the screens to determine just how much range he did have. If it were substantial, they wouldn't need Kamarov, and it wouldn't matter to Pat one way or another if they did kill him.
But what if Mr. Grayson's demonstration to Amanda had been fixed? Then the need to keep the Soviet alive would even be greater. SIGMA ONE was too important to him to risk that. He had to say so.
"Don't kill him!" he demanded and stood up.
Radcliff winced, then replied. "Why? We have to. You know what the Soviet can do. He could start world war three. Besides, killing him is the only way we can keep your precious SIGMA ONE alive."
"Don't be too sure," Pat replied and then described his reasons for feeling as he did, reasons which, of course, depended upon Grayson's help and cooperation.
In the end, Radcliff acquiesced and agreed to do nothing for at least forty eight hours. After that, and if Grayson failed, Radcliff knew he'd still have another day before Kamarov was scheduled to take his trip north over the missile fields. That would allow Walker plenty of time to eliminate him. And once Kamarov was out of the way, there would still be two more weeks before the hearings on SIGMA ONE --ample time to prepare the evidence they'd need. This evidence would show the members Kamarov was not the only Soviet with the power to reprogram missiles. That evidence, of course, would be false. (Their agent's last tape clearly indicated Kamarov was indeed the only Soviet with such power.) But the committee didn't know that, and Radcliff was sure the members out of fear of what would happen if they didn't, would vote to continue funding as a result.
He smiled as he thought of the implication that Kamarov's elimination would have on his political future. What better way to get what he wanted for the NSF than to convince the members that a threat of such terrific magnitude existed where there wasn't any threat at all?
And with SIGMA ONE continued, he could continue his liaison with Ms. Hunt; and Pat, his project, both of which were fine by him. And all this would happen simply because of the Soviet. In a way, Radcliff owed the Soviet a lot. And so did Pat.
After their discussions, Pat began his drive home, back to a very angry daughter and a probably equally irritable wife either of which he would have preferred to face rather than to face the fact that the Soviet was coming over to the U.S. that very night and unless he was able to do something about it, would probably be dead in less than three days. The full implication of the earlier-than-planned visit fell on him like a heavy weight. He had been able to buy nearly forty-eight hours for Kamarov's life, but after that, he would be dead, and his secret buried with him. He had little hope of stopping that and that depressed him. Now all he could do was to hope that the meeting with the Soviet to which Radcliff had agreed would allow him to get the information that would tell him why their research had been successful and his had not. But he wasn't even sure he could do that. It all looked so hopeless.
As he pulled out on Constitution Avenue, all he could think about was Kamarov and the limited amount of time he would have with him before he had to be eliminated. His thoughts then turned to Mr. Grayson again, and with that, the new hope he offered to the project came to mind.
Amanda and Grayson would be arriving in less than three hours, Pat thought as he looked at his watch. Completely forgetting about the promise he had made to his daughter earlier, Pat turned his oar toward the office and accelerated. He had to get to the lab and get it ready. Grayson might be his only chance. They would start testing him as soon as he arrived and during those tests assuming they were successful, they would interview him to find out everything he knew about thought programming.
Maybe if he interviewed the kid before flying out to Vegas for his meeting with the Soviet, Pat could gain some critical insight that had been missing before and in so doing could maximize the information he would receive in the meeting. If Grayson knew how to thought program, that is. He didn't know why, but he felt compelled to know as much about Grayson as he could before meeting Kamarov. Maybe there was some similarity between the two young men. Maybe in that similarity there was some other secret which his people had overlooked. Maybe they had found the answer to controlling the body's release of dopamine after a successful link which had finally been determined as the real reason for O'Shaunnesey's death. He had to know. His scientific curiosity was piqued and he pressed on the accelerator, simultaneously reaching for his car phone to summon his other scientists in to make the lab ready for their visitor. He only had three hours for that, and only twelve hours after that to catch a plane to Nevada. He had to hurry.
CHAPTER 29
Burt and Amanda were the first to get off the plane. Amanda had slept the whole trip and, as a result, had mellowed out considerably. She had become so relaxed, in fact, that when Burt tried to help her with her carry-on luggage, she allowed him to and even thanked him afterwards. He was glad for her unexpected change in attitude. He didn't like there to be hard feelings between them especially since she was the one responsible for him getting the chance to further his research at her organization's expense. Little did he know that her change in attitude had nothing to do with him. She was just glad to be back so that she could see Pat. While she was sleeping, her mind had fulfilled the fantasy she had had while staying at the Madonna Inn and the subsequent sexual release was the reason for her pleasant attitude, not his chivalry.
As the two wearisome transcontinental travelers walked out of the motorized passenger carrier used at Dulles International (not the standard jet way used at other airports....no...our nation’s capital had to be different), the first thing Burt saw was a huge black man dressed in a chauffeur's uniform standing directly in front of them. He was holding a hand-written sign with two names on it: "GRAYSON? YATES", and, as soon as the names registered, Burt tugged on Amanda's arm to get her attention. The chauffeur was obviously there to meet them. A nice touch, Burt thought.
"Hey," Burt said to Amanda, "that guy over there, do you know him?"
Amanda looked up and seeing the sign, got a worried look on her face and answered. "No." As she spoke she slowed her gait slightly. She hadn't ordered a car. Pat ha
d cautioned them to be careful. Was this a trap?"
Before getting all the way to the unexpected greeter, Amanda stepped forward and placed herself in front of Burt, not that she could protect him in case this was a set up, it just seemed the thing to do. She darted her eyes left, then right again to spot any accomplice, but all she saw were scores of non-descript faces of other people there to meet the plane, anyone of whom could spell danger to both Burt and herself.
Two paces away and just out of reach of the man's massive arms that hung off his sides like slabs of meat, she paused, and simultaneously grasped Burt's right arm with her left ready in a moment's notice to dash quickly to the left toward the exit if she needed to. As she moved, the chauffeur followed them with his coal black eyes momentarily, but then shifted his glance to the other passengers who were still unloading from the train. He barely noticed the way the young girl was shying away, and stood there searching the faces of the recent arrivals for his fare, paying little or no attention to Amanda and Burt.
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