by Fritz Galt
CERN’s director general jumped onto the podium and helped the president to his feet. He straightened the president’s suit and flicked a speck of dust off his shoulder.
The crowd cheered, and Damon smiled wanly. He held up a hand and loosened his tie as the director adjusted the microphone then jumped off the bloody, oozing podium.
Damon looked down briefly at his notes, perhaps to collect his thoughts. The room was silent, charred but intact.
“Some men struggle to understand the world for the noblest of causes,” Damon began. “Others struggle to conquer the world for greed, revenge and bloodlust.” He glanced ever so slightly at the Yugoslav president, then at the man on the floor before him. “I’m glad America didn’t try to compete for high energy’s Holy Grail. We all have something to contribute.”
Mick shuffled his feet. Where the hell was this leading?
“Science solved our need for a collider race. You have found new tools to bend the beam to shorter circumferences and attain higher speeds. Politicians, warlords and governments should look to you when we feel we’re out of choices.”
Ah, Mick remembered the Superconducting Super Collider project that was scrapped in Texas. The president was going to praise CERN.
“In a quest for another Holy Grail, scientists in America are now on the verge of developing a practical superconducting computer chip that will revolutionize computers and electronics in undreamed-of ways.”
Mick couldn’t believe it. The president was going to publicize the top-secret project.
“Just as joint cooperation has superseded international competition in a collider race, so will universal access to this chip create a net gain for us all. A country should not elevate itself by trampling on others. Already too many lives have been lost in quest of this chip.”
“Universal access?” someone shouted with a note of skepticism.
Damon nodded. “That is correct. I pledge this evening that America’s new super chip is property of the universe, for all nations to use and develop as they wish.”
Applause started with the scientists present. The sound of clapping hands was magnified by the circular chamber, and soon everyone was enthusiastically supporting the idea of a new chip.
Mick looked up at his brother.
Alec still dangled, fatigued, from the booth, a jubilant smile on his face.
Damon held up a hand for the crowd to allow him to continue.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, with a radiant expression, as if illuminated by some angel. “As we stand in the center of this monument to science, we also stand at the threshold of a new age for mankind.”
With a triumphant flourish and an increased thunder of applause, he reached in his pocket for a pen and signed the CERN charter.
Chapter 58
The president turned his broad back to the applause as he prepared to leave the complex.
Upon Mick’s instructions to a beefy inspector named Bürgi, the Swiss police led Yashito Konishi away in handcuffs.
The small Japanese man was murmuring something about “striking out.”
Everett strolled over, a confused look on his face. “Who is that guy?”
“The guy who caused all this mess.” Mick looked at the broken, distraught Japanese CEO. “Poor bastard. If he’d had any patience, his company would have gotten the damned chip after all. Instead, he had to go off and hire an assassin.”
“Yeah,” Everett agreed. “But if it weren’t for the plot to kill him, I wonder if the president would ever have given the chip away.”
Mick watched Charles Damon’s proud bearing as he walked away. “Somehow I think it was the president’s intention all along.”
He looked around for Zafina. But she had disappeared into the night.
“Wheels up,” someone shouted as the final dignitary left the hall.
A cork popped and champagne sprayed in the air.
Utensils dug into a buffet table of cuisine representing the new member states and the host nations. There was USDA Grade A roast beef, grilled Yugoslav cevapcici, steamed couscous, sliced Swiss cheese and incredibly rich mousse au chocolat.
Mick strolled over to the podium, where police had cordoned off the body. He stood over the bloody frontal and dorsal halves, one staring at the ceiling and the other facing into the earth.
“So this is Brahim Abbad,” he said. “He isn’t half the man I thought he was.”
Everett looked over his shoulder. “May he rest in pieces.”
Mick felt a set of fingernails dig into his shoulder.
“Howdy, stranger.” It was Natalie. Her voice was cool as she eased him away from the ghastly sight.
Like two particles in an accelerator ring, they had spun in opposite directions around the globe. Now, after they had come full circle, the moment of collision had arrived.
She led him away from the crowd and leaned against the warm, vibrating accumulator tube.
He surveyed the room and reflected on her pivotal role in the past few minutes of mayhem.
“That was some stunt you pulled on stage,” he said. “Brahim almost cauterized you.”
“It distracted him long enough for Alec to get to him.”
“It looked like he wanted to melt you down.”
Her light blue eyes studied him for a long time. He tried to analyze that unfamiliar look. It seemed as if she were trying to open him up and peer inside his soul. For his part, he had never seen her look so lost and hurt.
He decided it wasn’t the right time for recriminations. “How did you recognize him?” he asked lightly. “His disguise was incredible. In fact, I’ve seen him before, and he looked nothing like today.”
“Where have you seen him before?”
His thoughts lingered on the video clip, churning the bitterness in his belly.
“I wouldn’t have recognized him either,” she said when he wouldn’t reply. “Except for one thing that shows the infinite value of human intel.” She stepped away from him and sat atop the accumulator tube.
“What’s that?” he asked, watching her with fear.
“I recognized his awful cologne.”
An involuntary laugh escaped his lips.
“You make a damned good spy,” he said.
She studied him. “I’ll take that as a compliment. But it’s not the job for me.”
She held out a hand, her fingers clenched tight.
“I saved this for you,” she said. Slowly, she opened her hand. She was holding his gold watch.
He took it and turned it over. Reading the inscription brought a troubled frown. While the words told him that her love was eternal, her broken trust would also last forever.
He had to mention her infidelity before they separated. Before he left to bear the tragedy for the rest of his life. “Natalie, I saw you on videotape lying in his bed.”
She looked puzzled for a moment and then brightened. “Oh, yes. That would have been his hotel room.”
“Ah, his hotel room. How many other rooms were there?” He turned away, trying to swallow his despair.
“He’d hidden a camera in his closet,” she explained, apparently her memory of the incident coming back slowly.
Half turned, Mick was suddenly riveted by curiosity. He felt a momentary distrust of his interpretation of the taped event.
Then Natalie’s eyes were filled with a sudden awareness. “Mick. Nothing happened between us. I swear I put him in his place.”
“I saw you together.”
“I turned his camera off. He got drunk. Nothing happened.”
Mick felt a stabbing pain between his eyes. He pinched the bridge of his nose. She could be lying. Equally possible, she could be telling the truth. The image of her luxuriant hair splayed across Brahim’s bare shoulders suddenly jumped. He remembered the large television screen and the silhouette of Trevor in the viewing room, his finger poised over the pause button. “They edited the tape,” he said.
“Mick, I feel ashamed of many
things I’ve done this past week, and we need to clarify some details, but how did I ever lose your love, your respect, or your trust?”
Reflected in a blank computer screen, Mick studied his brawny profile half-turned away from his wife. His hurt pulled him away. His uncertainty held him firm. “You lost it the moment I saw that videotape,” he said with a shrug.
“No, I think I lost it long before that.”
He drew a blank. Had there been some infidelity already brewing within him that had enabled him to distrust her so completely?
“When did I stop loving you?” he asked, bewildered.
“You walked out on me. Don’t tell me you can’t remember.” She slid off the tube and jabbed a finger at his chest. “You left me for that woman.”
What the—
“You weren’t kidnapped,” she continued. “You left me.”
He held his head and squeezed his eyes shut for a while. And he thought he was misinformed. “Just before O’Smythe took me hostage,” he said slowly, “the hotel summoned me to the phone. There was no phone call. Instead there was a car waiting, and a woman pointing a gun at me.”
“I didn’t hear about any gun. I just heard about a woman in a miniskirt.” Her face was contorted with disbelief.
“More like Arnold Schwartzenegger in a miniskirt. Her arms were as thick as a tree trunk. My God, I had no idea what misconceptions you were laboring under.”
Her eyes stared like flat saucers at the floor. Her voice was so low, he could barely hear it above the celebration in the laboratory. “So I didn’t drive you away,” she said.
He saw clearly what a toll his abduction had taken on her. But despite her obvious jealousy, she had resisted temptation. On some level, she had believed in him.
Her lips looked pale. She was close to fainting.
He lifted her gently with his callused fingers and leaned her once more against the vibrating tube. “The morning they took me, you said you had something important to tell me.”
“Oh, that.” Still in a daze, she slowly twisted away from him and tried to tug at something under her dress. Something was caught between the fabric and her abdomen. “Can you reach that?”
She turned so that he could help her.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” He looked at all the people. No one was looking in their direction.
“C’mon, grab it,” she said, and ground her rear against his crotch.
He slipped both hands into the sides of her backless dress. They followed the warm skin around her waist until they reached her navel.
“Keep going,” she said.
Pulled tight against her, he felt her relax under his touch. His fingers found the hard edge of an envelope. He slid it out and handed it to her.
“I’m not so sure I want to read this.” She looked to him for support.
But he wasn’t sure he wanted to give it.
She drew her lips into a tight line and leaned a hip against the accumulator. Then, with slender fingers, she tore the envelope open and took the letter out.
“It’s a doctor’s note,” she said.
She held it up, read it for a second and then suddenly dropped her hand. Her blue eyes focused uncomprehendingly on the distance.
She tried to hand the note to him.
“What is it?” he said.
“It’s positive,” she said in complete shock.
“Positive what? Cancer? Tuberculosis? What?”
“All those lousy days of being sick and feeling hungry. Now it makes perfect sense.”
“What lousy days? What hunger?”
Her eyes began to gleam with a new vitality that caught like wildfire and spread in a smile across her face. He immediately recognized the look. The exuberance was catching.
The same flame had kindled their passion when they first met, over a decade ago. It had burned within him and between them all those nights in so many foreign lands, only to have flickered out in recent years.
“I’ll tell you what hunger,” she said with the exaggerated impertinence that she saved especially for him.
She pressed her radiant face up against his and searched his eyes.
He felt a deep, hot blush. Then he let out a laugh. “Well? What is it?”
Warm, persuasive fingers drew his hands to her belly.
“Mick, it’s finally happening. We’re going to have a baby.”
Obituaries
Robert Theodore Zimmer, Ph.D. dies at 61
Dr. Robert Zimmer was found dead last night in a rented Dupont Circle townhouse in downtown Washington. He apparently died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, although District police are not ruling out foul play.
A former national science advisor to President Charles Damon, Zimmer was sixty-one years old. He left no suicide note and is survived by his sister, Doris Zimmer, of Omaha.
He will be buried with honors at Arlington National Cemetery at 9 a.m. tomorrow.
OBITUARY
Trevor O’Smythe, OBE
Sir Trevor O’Smythe, indicted mastermind behind an assassination attempt on President Charles Damon’s life, succumbed to cancer at his Swiss residence last night, two days before he was due to be extradited to the United States to stand trial.
An arms merchant with ties to many world leaders, he leaves behind an accumulated wealth estimated at over $100 million U.S.
In his last will and testament, he bequeathed his entire estate to cancer research.
He leaves no survivors.
Book Four
Fatal Sting
Each year, the world sees more than 300,000,000 new cases of malaria, resulting in over 1,000,000 deaths.
—World Health Organization
Chapter 1
Long-range American missiles came screaming out of the darkness and slammed with deadly precision into Osama bin Laden’s camp.
The Tomahawks exploded in the air for greater coverage. Fragments of the terrorist university and the blood of her students and instructors splattered all across the mountains.
Seventy meters above the inferno, a young man watched with his hands on his hips. White-hot shock waves burst through the tunnel where he stood.
They wouldn’t get Abu Khan that day. He had unfinished business.
With each impact, clods of dirt fell on his crocheted skullcap and dribbled down the green uniform stretched tight over his shoulders. He was a tall, slender man with weathered skin and energetic movements. Together, his energy and good looks were Allah’s tools.
And then there was his gift.
Like the Moghuls of Persia before him, he and his invisible army would take over the Indian subcontinent.
He glanced down at the glass tank beside his boots. Inside, Anopheles mosquitoes hummed with alarm.
“Relax, little chaps,” he whispered in his lilting Bombay accent. “The Americans created you. They won’t spoil your little home.”
Guided missiles continued to zoom in from the night sky. They flashed like silver meteors past the silhouetted forms of Abu’s men.
His young mujahid brothers cowered against the cave walls. But they needn’t worry. Each blast was a victory.
American finally knew the meaning of fear.
Abu had been teaching his men the finer points of infiltration, exfiltration, weaponry, kidnapping and bombing in order to advance the low-level war between Pakistan and India over Kashmir.
Osama bin Laden’s camp had been an inspiration. Professional overviews on how to hijack airplanes and blow up skyscrapers had given Abu’s youths a taste of the big leagues.
Bin Laden’s men spoke in terms of a larger agenda for Muslims around the world. His camp drew a much larger picture of a resolute and cohesive Islamic world.
The destruction taking place below regained his attention. In a way, it was beautiful, like a mesmerizing Bollywood classic, a creative work of art.
The superpowers had turned out to be paper tigers.
The Soviet Army had retreated at the g
unpoint of the mujahideen. Now America was trembling before the world.
Nobody was invincible.
Suddenly, a powerful concussion sent him staggering backward. He tripped and fell, covered his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. A missile had slammed into the ammunition depot, igniting the night with shrapnel, magazine rounds, mortar shells and burning powder.
As a growing red conflagration billowed from the valley floor, he regained his feet and followed the rising ball of fire with his eyes. It sucked a gust of wind out of the tunnel. He had lost his cap. His dark hair whipped in his face.
Peering through the clouds of dust, he looked about for the breeding tank.
Shards of glass lay scattered around the tunnel. He must have stumbled over it when he fell.
The explosion was sucking a swarm of mosquitoes toward the youths.
Like a dark blanket, hungry females clung to the young men’s skin. In the exaggerated shadows of the dusty tunnel, the silhouettes of the men flailing to get rid of mosquitoes danced against a raging ball of fire.
At his feet lay a broken panel that still bore an orange sticker:
BIOHAZARD
Genetically Volatile Organisms Inside
Centers for Disease Control
Abu’s comrades were being infected by a deadly, experimental form of malaria.
“You are truly Allah’s Right Hand,” he whispered, an idea forming in his mind.
A young fellow staggered up to him brushing mosquitoes off his arms. He fell distraught at Abu’s feet.
“Commander, these are infected mosquitoes,” he screamed. “What will become of me?”
“You are Allah’s jawan,” Abu said calmly. Allah’s foot soldier. “I can put you to good use.”
With the persistent gust of wind at Abu’s back, the mosquitoes released their victims and soared out of the mouth of the cave to their deaths in the searing heat.
“Will I die?” the young man cried, his eyes pleading with him.