Sanjay broke into a grin. “Yes, except that this is a 400 square foot penthouse office with a view of Silicon Valley instead of a shoebox in a basement.”
Life was good indeed. iBalls.com’s partnership with The Pangloss Game Company was flourishing. The iBallZapper! games had been so profitable that they’d even put together a modest investment fund with Archie and his silent partner, Frank Adversego. No investments in ridiculous VC-type business plans, though. They only put their money into pragmatic concepts with proven market appeal and immediate revenue potential.
Investing had turned out to be fun, too, especially when you could get someone else to do all the grunt work. They’d hired a real venture capitalist to do that part – someone who’d been forced out by his own partners after he’d made a laughing stock of their fund.
“So Sanjay, ready to look at business plans?” Chad asked.
“Sure – why not – as long as it’s my turn to tell our former VC, ‘You just don’t get it, do you? I mean, you really, REALLY don’t get investing at all!”
They had a good laugh over that one. And then Sanjay called Josh Peabody in.
* * *
Frank, Sr. wheeled the old Land Rover off the Beltway and began to head west. It would be good to get back to the desert. But of course it had been wonderful to reconnect with his son, too. He wondered whether Frank really would join him during his vacation next year. The West seemed to have gotten under his skin, just as it had his father’s so many years before. He was even talking about getting a Mountain Tamer of his own.
After much hesitation, Frank, Sr. had dropped in on Doreen. She was getting kind of foggy now, but that had made it easier. She only remembered their few good times now, such as they had been – all of the hard edges on her old feelings seemed to have melted away with time and the onset of old age. He doubted he’d visit again, but the sense of closure was welcome after so many years.
And that granddaughter of his was a pistol! He wished he’d had a chance to get to know her as she was growing up, but better late than never. He was looking forward to that.
* * *
Carl felt light-headed. The evening had gone far better than he had dared hope. The restaurant was perfect, and Marla looked ravishing. He’d been on his best behavior all evening, and didn’t think that he’d stuck his foot in his mouth even once. Across the candlelit table, he thought he caught a gleam of real interest in her eyes. Perhaps....
Marla herself was surprised. Carl was being gracious, funny, and sometimes even self-deprecating. She marveled that she could actually find his company enjoyable, now that all of the tensions and events of the last months were behind them. And she had to admit that he was much more handsome now than he had been as a grad student – and even then he had caught her eye. Don’t lose your head, girl, she told herself.
But the cocktails and a bottle of champagne were taking effect. The candlelight and the opportunity to relive and laugh over their shared adventures combined to make it an increasingly magic evening. When at last it was time to go, Carl, ever the perfect gentleman, held her chair, and then her coat. In no time at all, it seemed, they were standing at the door of her apartment in the magical moonlight of a soft, spring evening in Washington, redolent with the scent of cherry blossoms.
Carl looked down into her eyes with an urgent look in his own, and she sensed that he was about to say something. She put a single finger to his lips and uttered a barely audible, “Shhhh!”
“No, don’t say anything at all,” she said softly. She turned and unlocked her door. Then, she turned back, and stepped forward until her body barely touched his. Slowly, she tilted her head back in the soft moonlight as her eyes drifted shut. “There’s something I’ve wanted to give you for so long now,” she whispered.
Carl’s heart leapt into his throat.
And then he was leaping backwards, his hand rising involuntarily to the cheek that Marla had just slapped with all her might.
“What was that for?!” he cried in astonishment.
“That was for the ‘C’ you gave me on my final exam, you bastard!” She slammed the door in his face.
* * *
Frank turned the light on in the limousine and unfolded the letter in his pocket. The gold seal on the Presidential stationary glinted as he held it up to read it once again – a personal letter, signed and hand-delivered to him in the Oval Office by the President himself, expressing his gratitude for the role that Frank had performed in cracking the secrets of the real parties behind The Alexandria Project and averting a nuclear holocaust. It invited him to become a charter member of a new Presidential Cybersecurity Advisory Committee as well.
As he returned the letter to its envelope, he reflected that he could never have imagined an ending such as this while the strange kaleidoscope of events that had taken over his life had been unfolding. Learning (or so he thought) that he was under suspicion; his melodramatic, but successful, escape in the department store; the long bus trip and even longer sojourn in the Solar Avenger, perched high above the desert valley floor in Nevada; the unexpected reunion with his father; the long return and increasing frustration at his inability to penetrate the mystery whose resolution seemed always to be just beyond his grasp. Already, these scenes were beginning to seem unreal and vaporous, like mirages that might shimmer into nothingness with the rising of the sun.
The limousine turned one last corner, and then slowed as the driver began to look for street numbers. And now here he was, once again outside at his down-at-the-heels apartment building, in his run-down neighborhood. Only now it seemed even dingier than ever.
The rain that had begun falling as he was leaving the White House had grown stronger as they drove across the District, and now the very heavens above seemed to have opened. He carefully refolded the letter and returned the envelope to the safety of the breast pocket of the only suit he owned. He certainly wouldn’t want a letter signed by the President to get wet.
Here was the driver now, opening his door and holding an enormous umbrella over his head. Self-consciously, he allowed the driver to walk him to the front door of the building, and stepped inside without catching a drop. How his life had changed! Would it ever be the same again?
And then he was standing before his own front door once again. He paused for a moment with appreciation; it would be good to settle back into his cluttered surroundings. Thankfully, he turned the key, swung open the door and turned on the light.
Instantly, an ear-splitting din erupted. There was Lily, paws planted firmly on the ground, her leash in a heap in front of her. Of course. Mrs. Foomjoy had disappeared the day before the crisis with North Korea had reached its climax, and Marla had rescued a very hungry dog from her apartment just that morning.
Frank tried to step past the dog to get an umbrella, but Lily snarled and would have none of it. Outside the thunder crashed, as Frank sighed and attached the leash. Yes, he still had a plastic bag in his raincoat pocket.
As he stepped out of the apartment and into the rain, Frank smiled a small, ironic smile to himself. He might have a letter of thanks from the President of the United States in his pocket, but he still had to pick up after Lily, one bag at a time.
* * *
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THE LAFAYETTE CAMPAIGN
Prelude
Tap, Tap, Tap
; Endless lines of code scrolling through the text editor…
Here?
No. Farther down
Here? Check the cheat sheet to be sure
Yes
Type the new section of code in now
…Looks good
Now send it to the code compiler
Wait for the next signal to come back
Is that the right address?
Good again… and done
Hard to believe such a small piece of code is about to change the world
* * *
1
Hi Ho Adversego!
A broad, Nevada valley stretched before Frank Adversego – stretched as far as he could see. Something about the vista pricked at his memory. Something about the way the mountains converged in the hazy perspective of the far distance.
Ah – that was it. This was the stretch of road he’d traveled in ghostly moonlight a year ago, facing the uncertainties of the future and wrestling with the demons of his past. Against all odds, the events that followed had laid most of them to rest.
This time his attitude towards the unknowns that lay before him was positive, expectant even. Ahead lay Silverlode, Nevada, with a population of 600 – as isolated an oasis of wandered – off souls as you could find in the lower forty-eight states. It would be a good place to try and write a book. Perhaps it would even be a best seller. Given his recent brush with fame, that wasn’t impossible.
The music on the radio gave way to the news. He turned up the volume.
…brings the Republican field up to five candidates.
That’s a lot this early in the game, isn’t it?
Twelve years ago I would have said yes. But since then, campaign costs have skyrocketed – a candidate who waits too long to declare won’t be able to raise enough cash to make it through the first primaries.
Sad but true. We’ve entered the age of the billion dollar campaign. And the costs keep rising.
He turned the radio off. Heaven help us all, the election cycle was gearing up again, and just like last time, a bunch of improbable candidates had come yammering out of the woodwork. Anyone would think the doors of some political Bedlam had been thrown open, letting a mob of raving lunatics loose onto the primary trail. Incredibly, one after another had risen in the polls, too.
He realized he was driving over 80 miles an hour again, and took his foot off the gas. It was hard not to daydream on endless, straight as arrow roads like this. Braking, he noticed someone standing beside the road up ahead with his thumb extended.
Damn. City boy that he was, Frank was conditioned to regard all hitchhikers as presumptive murderers, hell bent on luring hapless good Samaritans to their doom. But the guy must have seen that he was slowing down, and it might be hours before another car ventured down this deserted stretch of road. Damn again. He really ought to do the right thing and stop. He kept his foot on the brake and the slim young man bent over to pick up his bag. The camper rolled to a stop just beyond him.
Frank looked warily into his side view mirror. The hitchhiker had his back to Frank and was now picking up a bike with a front wheel that suggested a Mobius strip having a bad hair day: bent spokes bristled out at every angle.
Well, he didn’t look too threatening, and it was clear why he was thumbing a ride. That was reassuring. But Frank was still annoyed at the prospect of straining to make small talk for the next few hours. He readily admitted to being a computer geek, and figured he must be at least fifteen years older than the hitchhiker. What the hell could they have in common?
He got out of the camper to help the cyclist strap his bike next to his own on the rack on the back of the camper.
“Here, let me show you how that works.”
The hitchhiker turned around. “Thank you for stopping. It is my lucky day. I have been standing here only one hour.”
Frank stopped in his tracks: he was staring at a short-haired, slim – and very attractive – young woman. And with a French accent to boot.
“Good. I mean, good I came along. Why don’t you go settle in? I’ll take care of your bike.”
He took his time doing that while she climbed into the passenger seat, her bicycle pannier bags slung over one sun-tanned shoulder. Now what?
Once more behind the wheel, he eased the camper into gear. Wondering what to say, he settled for the obvious.
“Where you headed?”
“To Gerlach?”
“Where’s that?”
“It is north of Reno. And you?”
“Silverlode.”
“Ah! So perfect! I can fix much on my bike on my own, but I cannot straighten a wheel rim. And I have not enough extra spokes. But I can have a new wheel sent to me there, I think.”
She gave him a bright smile, and then turned to look out the window.
They drove on in silence, Frank’s hopes for a pleasant spell of daydreaming now dashed. Instead, he was painfully conscious of his young passenger as he drove on, eyes on the road but distracted by the image of her dark, long-lashed, glittering eyes. He also recalled short, black, wind-blown hair, warm, sun-tanned skin, and cheekbones that inspired him to wax metaphorical – cheekbones like… like the vaults of a gothic cathedral! He felt briefly pleased with that, and then foolish. He wondered how old she was.
He kept his now-gloomy eyes on the road. Long divorced and solitary by nature, it had been ages since he had found himself in close proximity to such an exotic creature. He wondered what her story could be, traveling alone in this empty part of the country. Eventually, his curiosity got the better of his awkwardness.
“What’s in Gerlach?”
“The Burning Man festival. Perhaps you have heard of it?”
“Yes, I have.”
Which was true. But he hadn’t heard much. All he knew was that every year tens of thousands of latter-day hippies and countercultural types descended for some unimaginable reason on a sun-blasted salt flat in Nevada to build a temporary, psychedelic city dominated by an enormous, vaguely humanoid statue. A week later, they would torch the statue as the climax of the event, and the city would disappear as quickly as it had materialized out of the shimmering heat of the desert. Frank was even more uncomfortable around flamboyant people than he was around mainstream types. He was about as likely to attend a Burning Man festival as he was a debutante ball.
Silence again. It bothered Frank that he had found this young woman on a deserted road. He had a daughter back east who was only a little younger, and he’d be furious to find her hitchhiking anywhere, let alone in the middle of an almost uninhabited desert. To the extent anyone lived here, Frank was disposed to assume the worst. How strange would you have to be to live in a place like this, anyhow?
It was clearly none of his business, but finally he asked, “Don’t you think it’s dangerous for a young woman to be hitchhiking in such a deserted area?”
“Oh no,” she said, still looking out the window.
No? Clearly, this young French woman didn’t understand America and Americans. “Well, you’re wrong, let me assure you!”
“I think not. But in any case, I do not worry,” she said, fumbling for something in the pannier bags at her feet.
Surprised, Frank stumbled over how to explain something he thought was obvious to an attractive young woman he did not know who was not a native English speaker.
“Well, what would you do if someone picked you up and tried to, tried to, well… force his attentions on you?”
She laughed. “Shoot him!”
Frank turned to her in surprise. Arms crossed, she had a playful smile on her face and a small gun in her hand. The gun was pointed at his head. She waggled its barrel back and forth and silently mouthed the word “Bang!”
He jerked his head back to the road, eyes wide as saucers.
For a minute there was silence again. Then she giggled. “Probably I would not really have to shoot him. But one must be prepared to, no?” She slipped the gun into a pocket and returned to looking out
the window.
Frank decided that he had exhausted his conversational skills as well as his need to know anything more. He wondered how much longer it would take to get to Silverlode.
A half hour later, his passenger abruptly became talkative.
“My name is Josette,” she said. “And what is yours?”
“Frank,” he offered after a pause.
“You are on vacation, yes?”
“Not really. I’m writing a book.” Frank tried to sound nonchalant, the way he imagined a famous author might.
“A book! But that is so interesting.” She looked around the inside of the camper. “This is a very impressive vehicle. If I may ask, what are all those controls?”
This was a topic he could handle. “Electronics mostly, all satellite based and with service available anywhere: telephone, GPS, Internet, seven bands of radio, you name it.”
“I see. With so many instruments, I suppose you must have a generator, too?”
He shook his head, feeling a bit smug. “No. The top of the camper is covered with solar panels. I could run everything day and night, and never run the batteries all the way down. At least not in a place like this.”
“Ah! Very good thinking.” She pulled an ultra-light laptop out of her pannier bags. “So I may perhaps use my computer to check my email, yes?”
“Yes, with a password. Would you like it?”
“Would you mind?”
He paused; he wasn’t used to sharing a password with anyone. But his router was set to prevent anyone but him from archiving a password, and good luck to her if she could remember his.
“Not at all. N!t2T3f$a5G ^m7T.”
The Alexandria Project: A Tale of Treachery and Technology (Frank Adversego Thrillers Book 1) Page 31