by Fritz Galt
He felt a pressure building involuntarily within him. It hurt, yet at the same time it gave pleasure. The evening had taken another radical swing out of his control.
Her warm lips dragged over the tensed muscles of his chest. He closed his eyes and tried to relax.
Like fingertips rapping against their window, rain sprayed in sheets upon the panes of glass.
There was nothing between him and his wife but a thin layer of cold air. Then the heat of her body pressed down upon him.
He reached up and guided her determined assault.
It was midnight on the rainy streets of Geneva as a darkly clad man stood hunched inside a telephone booth and dialed a coded number.
“So what did you find out?” a mechanically disguised voice answered at once.
“Another false lead,” the man said in a strong Irish brogue.
“Too bad.”
“Of course you were right,” the man said, rolling his r’s. “The corpse wasn’t Alec Pierce. It was some nobody from the laboratory.”
“What a relief,” the voice replied in its distant, machinelike way.
“I can’t believe the woman called you directly from the hospital,” the man said, and glanced warily down the street. It was empty.
“Miracles do happen.”
“I got there half an hour after you called me.”
“How did you leave it with the coroner?”
He shifted his weight and changed to the accent of a Chicago gangster. “You know a guy can’t just pass in and out of a morgue undetected.”
“What did you do?”
“I had to rub out da doc.”
“You mean the coroner? You killed him?”
“You got it, Sweetheart.”
The mechanical voice hesitated, then said, “Wasn’t that a bit extreme?”
“It’s what I do.”
“I won’t tolerate such tactics,” the voice said, a trace of vexation transmitting through the mechanical distortion. “This is a business matter. I don’t want the Americans in CERN, but I equally don’t want bodies all over the place.”
“Forgive-a me, monsignore,” the man’s voice rumbled with a Neapolitan accent. “You hire me to do a-job. I us-a my own a-meth-.”
“You will stop the killing at once.”
The man paused as a loud clap of thunder rolled across the sky. “I’m a-sorry, monsignore. I can’t a-lis- to thees.”
Then he spread his feet apart and transformed his voice into a full-throated John Wayne.
“I was hired for my expertise, Pilgrim, and you can’t dictate how I get the job done.”
“Then the job’s over. The contract is canceled.”
“I won’t stop, partner, until the Americans are destroyed. This job ain’t over ’til it’s over.”
“Do you hear me? It’s over.”
The man slouched against the side of the telephone booth. “I am no longer taking orders from you, sahib,” he said, switching to the singsong voice of a Calcutta taxi driver. Rain pounded hard against the glass. “I will no longer be taking your calls either. But don’t go off the deep end. I will do the needful. I will be keeping my end of the bargain. I will keep you in the know. I will get the job done. And you will be proud of my good self.”
“Bloody hell.”
The man set the receiver back in its cradle, turned up his collar and dodged out into the downpour.
Chapter 5
“We have a problem,” the fax began.
Robert Zimmer, former national science advisor to the President of the United States, stared at the alert sent by a secret scientific group with the cryptic name of SATO.
He shook his head and muttered, “We’ve had problems from the start.”
As the fax scrolled onto the carpet of his home in Arlington, Virginia, he mixed his Sunday afternoon cocktail, with ice. Washington summers were to be endured, not enjoyed.
Half a year ago, the problems had begun in earnest. He had had a premonition the fateful day that changed his life for the worse, if not ruined it forever.
It was a bitter cold January day when he had sat in the Oval Office watching his boss carefully.
President Charles Damon had finished reading the final draft of the Budget and slammed it on his desk.
That had started it all. It meant bad news for Robert. Bad for the nation. And bad for the world.
He remembered his doomed thoughts distinctly…
Oh sure, Congress would include every provision that the president wanted but the one that mattered most—the Superconducting Super Collider, known as the SSC.
He had run a hand through his trim, dark hair. He had been a prominent educator and a fiery advocate in Washington for scientific research. Putting his academic background together with his skills at persuasion, he had made the best Scientific Advisor that any president could hope for.
But trying to maintain funding for the SSC, an enormous particle accelerator laboratory, had been a bear, particularly because he was hamstrung by the Pentagon. He had to justify the hugely expensive project solely on scientific grounds, avoiding the real reason behind building the giant complex. He couldn’t tell them about the super chip.
His gaze had landed on a small calculator that lay beside the Budget on the president’s desk.
It hurt to think about the super chip. It would render modern calculators and computers useless, relics of the dark ages of war and pestilence.
Out the window of the Oval Office, he remembered seeing the Washington Monument and the National Mall. How many times he had strolled down that Mall to Capitol Hill. How often his meetings there had failed to persuade the members of Congress, who had looked at him as if he were a raving lunatic. His career in Washington was in jeopardy.
He had glared at the thick Budget. So full of ideas on how to spend trillions of dollars. So shortsighted.
Without the SSC laboratory, the U.S. would have no super chip and never lead the world into a new era of peace and prosperity. It was as simple as that.
It was then that he scrutinized the graying president, an icon of American statesmanship, and realized that the jig was up. It was too late to change Congress’ mind. The president had expended all his political capital on that one issue. Robert’s role was over.
President Charles Damon had looked at him with sad, weary eyes that told him everything. It was time to give up and sign the damned bill.
“Bob, the Super Collider is dead,” Damon had said, and removed the end of his fountain pen. “Start filling in the hole.”
Still staring at the fax on the floor, Robert took a swig of his bourbon and flopped back in his office chair. It had been incredible.
Two billion dollars had already been spent. Fourteen miles of tunnel already dug in Texas.
It had been his baby from the start. Now he had to bury it.
“Do you realize what we’re talking about here?” he had pleaded.
The arguments were still fresh in his memory.
“Superconductivity combined with super miniaturization.”
“I know full well,” Damon had retorted.
“We’re talking about room-temperature superconductivity, on the desktop with no coolant. The chip will calculate at the speed of light and run on D batteries,” he had continued, undeterred. “Blended together with miniaturization at the subatomic level. Don’t you see what this means? America will smash through the ‘Wall,’ the absolute limit of miniaturization defined by the width of a single ray of light. We can go as small as you can imagine and cram as many circuits onto the chip as we want. Period.”
He had looked for a sign of hope. But the figure with the erect posture and far-seeing eyes, trusted by the majority of voters, remained unresponsive.
He had pressed on. “Room-temperature superconductors would put the common home PC on an equal footing with military supercomputers. They would be able to calculate or process signals instantaneously, without the need for liquid helium cooling units. No matter ho
w difficult the problem or complex the information, their electrons would speed along with no resistance. Anybody could be an Einstein: businessmen, inventors, doctors, military.”
“I know all that. Hell, it scares the living bejeezus out of me,” Damon had said. “But we can’t tell that to Congress. They’ll leak it, and every last terrorist and rogue regime in the world will do whatever they can to get their hands on the technology.”
At last Robert had tried to rein himself in. In the long run, who would buy a scientist’s argument in a town where every issue took on a political dimension?
“I’ve taken a lot of heat over this one,” Damon had said. “It’s been near political suicide. In the process, I’ve seriously damaged the credibility of this institution.”
His eyes had traveled around the recessed lights that formed a halo over the Oval Office.
“I can’t hold out any longer.”
“If you’d only tell ’em why,” Robert had made his final plea.
At that point, Vic Padesco, the president’s national security advisor and a former general, started to raise an objection.
Damon silenced him by holding up a finger. “With all the leaks in Congress, that would further jeopardize our national security. Either we keep it under wraps or we don’t do it at all.”
“So it’ll end up as a little project in Texas that Congress killed, despite the fact that the nation desperately needed it. And you can’t tell ’em why.”
“That’s what it amounts to,” Damon had said.
Robert watched more fax paper spill onto the floor and continued to reflect on that fateful January day. The day that all the problems began.
He had told the president his vision of the future. “If America doesn’t manufacture the chip, someone else will.”
“How’s that?” Damon had growled.
“If you let the SSC project fizzle and die, some other country, most likely a member of CERN, the biggest particle accelerator to date, will unravel the secret to the detriment of us all.”
Robert had tried to stare down the president, who was nervously twirling the pen between his fingers.
“Sooner or later, we’re dead,” he had continued in his most ominous tone. “America will lose its edge, for better or for worse.”
“For worse, naturally,” Vic had said. “Economic and military superiority are the linchpins of our national security. We give up one of those, and the whole world loses.”
Then Charles Damon leaned toward his phone and pushed a button. “Send in the photographer.”
A man came in the room with a camera and positioned himself before the president’s desk.
Robert remembered shielding his eyes. He didn’t want to appear in the picture.
“Look smart,” Damon had said. “Stand behind me.”
The president’s hand didn’t hesitate as he applied his signature to the Budget.
He had looked up and smiled at the White House photographer, the only press he would allow to document the event.
The photographer then snapped the group photo, and left.
When the door had clicked shut, Damon’s shoulders sagged. “We’ll just have to take the other route.”
“Okay,” Vic said. “It’s Plan B.”
That’s when his whole world really began sliding downhill.
The ball was completely out of his court. From there on out, it would be in the Pentagon and Langley’s hands.
“You’ve got everything in place?” Damon had asked.
“Nearly.” Vic handed him a second piece of paper. It was a simple memo. “Sign here.”
Damon scanned the page, his back straight, his concentration intense.
Even then, Robert already knew how it read. It was one short paragraph, but its implications were enormous.
The directive, based on a general finding by the president’s legal advisor, established a new, secretive body within the U.S. Government. Its name would be SATO, standing for Scientific and Technological Organization. It would be a small, ad hoc group with a broad mandate, but a singular purpose.
It would also undermine whatever authority Robert had left.
The broad mandate was to oversee and advise the Chief Executive on scientific and technological matters that affected national security.
SATO’s unwritten mission was to infiltrate CERN, the underground particle accelerator beneath the French-Swiss border, and perform secret experiments that would launch America into absolute supremacy of the world.
Forever.
“You realize that this will set agents loose all over Europe?” Robert had reminded the president.
“The hell it will,” Damon fired back. “This will be a small organization. Only a handful of people in the know.”
“That’s how we’ve got it planned out, sir,” Vic said. “Only the best, handpicked personnel in a compartmentalized chain of command—”
“That’s enough,” Damon cut him off. “I don’t need to know how they do it.”
“The agents will have broad authority to carry out this mission,” Vic had reminded the president. “Without oversight.”
“This grants them that,” Damon admitted, jabbing a finger at the directive. “You can’t oversee everything, Bob.”
“Then God help them,” Robert had said, feeling his knees nearly buckle under him. He was glad to be no part of it.
Not only had plans for the largest scientific machine been scrapped by the bill. He was watching what was left of his empire being pulled out from under him.
Charles Damon finished applying his signature and pushed the memo toward Vic Padesco.
Then came the killer.
Turning to Robert, Damon had said in a conciliatory tone, “Maybe we can find a role for you in the new organization.”
And damn it all. He had accepted.
Chapter 6
Mick smiled with delight watching the arc of Natalie’s hips as she shimmied into her blue jeans, her narrow waist writhing under her camisole. As her slim figure danced in a pool of morning sunlight, she shook her tangle of hair out of her face.
Because she had a naturally milky complexion, pastels weren’t her best color. But that morning, she looked flushed and radiant in the peach-colored top.
She seemed unaware of her audience as she arched her back away from the mirror and tucked her hair behind her ears.
“Mick?” she called.
“Yo.”
She hesitated.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Remember my doctor’s visit last week? To the Women’s Clinic?”
“Yup.”
He vaguely remembered that she had taken an hour off from work. For the past year, they had tried unsuccessfully to conceive a child, and he had come to associate the clinic with bad news. He figured that she would have told him if she had a positive result, or even a diagnosis of the problem.
When she had returned from the clinic without a word, he had felt mild relief. They wouldn’t have to talk about it.
Perhaps on the warm, sunny morning after having made love, she felt that they could finally discuss the matter.
“I have something important to show you,” she said softly.
Suddenly, he was jarred by a knock at the door.
“Telephone for you, Monsieur Pierce,” a woman called from the hallway.
“Hold that thought,” he told Natalie. “I’ll bet it’s Alec calling from the grave.”
A conflicted look crossed her face, but eventually she nodded, temporarily releasing him.
He gave her a wink. “I’ll be right back.”
For no particular reason, he checked that their room key, the only one they had, was tucked safely in the rear pocket of his jeans.
Then he rushed downstairs two steps at a time.
Natalie fingered the slim white envelope from the Women’s Clinic, but refrained from opening it. She would only read the test results with her husband beside her. The news meant nothing without him.
He was the rock from which she could take flight. And the soft landing when her wings failed her.
No journey began without him. No experience was valid without his being there. She smiled at the disheveled bed sheets. Their lovemaking the previous night had been some experience.
Mick was sure taking his time on the phone.
She tossed the envelope onto the bed and stepped into the hallway. On the landing, she pressed her fingertips against the thin banister and looked down to the foyer.
The old black telephone sat neatly by the hotel registry, the receiver in its place.
She gripped the carpet of the spiral staircase with her bare toes as she descended. The long, painful pull of a charley horse started up the insides of her thighs. It had been a remarkable night. Was there such a thing as too much reckless abandon?
Outside, a car was receding out of the narrow cul-de-sac. From the overworked whine of its engine, it seemed to be backing up at full speed.
When she reached the ground floor, she peered into the restaurant. Vacationing couples ate breakfast. Glasses clinked obliviously. A sink drained in the kitchen.
But where was Mick?
Natalie stepped onto the sunny, circular terrace, the tiles radiating warmth underfoot.
“Mick?” she called.
One patron sat alone. A young woman with short blonde hair, she sat reading a newspaper in the sunshine. Her hand reached out for a tiny demitasse of espresso.
Natalie glanced up and down the quiet side street. No one was walking there, or even along the waterfront promenade.
She returned inside, took the telephone off its hook and listened. There was just a dial tone.
“Natalie,” a female voice called from outside.
She nearly dropped the phone.
She stepped back onto the terrace. The blonde was calling her by name.
Last night’s storm had left a clear sky and cool air. Natalie folded her arms for warmth and approached the young woman.
With dainty fingers, the stranger lowered her newspaper slightly and stared at her through a pair of large sunglasses.