Mars, Inc.: The Billionaire's Club

by Ben Bova

  Back in the steaming streets of Washington, while Franken waved and whistled to attract a cab, Thrasher asked himself, Why would Dave Kahn want to cripple the Mars program? What’s in it for him? Old Jenghis doesn’t do things on a whim. There’s something he’s after. What could it be?

  A bright new-looking taxi pulled over to the curb and the two men ducked in. The air conditioning was a pleasant relief after ten minutes in the sun and humidity.

  “So what are you going to do?” Franken asked.

  “I want to find out why Jenghis did this to me. What’s he after? What does he want?”

  Franken pursed his lips, then asked, “And how are you going to find that out?”

  Thrasher thought it over for a couple of heartbeats. “If I start nosing around his operation he’ll find out about it in ten seconds.”

  “I know a couple of people who might help.”

  Like Ramona Perkins? Thrasher thought. Shaking his head, he replied, “No, that’ll take too long. If he’s trying to stop the program he has to make his move before Mars One breaks orbit and starts on it way to Mars.”

  “In three weeks.”

  Thrasher nodded. “In three weeks. If he’s going to make a move, it’ll be in the next three weeks.”

  Franken studied his shoe tops for a few moments. Then, “So what do you want to do?”

  “Only one thing I can think of, Larry. I’ll have to go to New York and brace him, face to face.”

  Franken grunted. “Good luck,” he muttered.

  9

  NEW YORK CITY

  It wasn’t easy to nail down a date to meet with David Kahn.

  “He’s being evasive,” Linda said. “His people claim he’s got to spend a week in a private hospital, for a detailed physical exam.”

  Thrasher said, “Find out which hospital. Put Frankenstein on the task. Let him earn his keep.”

  Days passed. At last Franken came to Thrasher’s office. “Victoria Clinic,” he announced. “It’s a private facility, very exclusive. Deals with geriatrics.”

  “When does he go in?” Thrasher asked.

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  Turning to Linda, Thrasher said, “I’m going to New York tomorrow morning. I’ll see the sonofabitch before he goes to the hospital.”

  “But how?” she asked. “You can’t just walk into his office.”

  “Can’t I? Watch me.”

  Bluff and bravado can carry you only so far, Thrasher thought as he faced the dragon lady who was David Kahn’s executive assistant.

  He had barged into Kahn’s office suite in the Chrysler building and bullied his way past a small phalanx of assistants, aides, and harried-looking executives. Now he stood in front of the dragon’s desk, thinking, she’ll call security and have me tossed out on my ear if I try to bully her. I’ve got to change my tactics.

  “You can’t see Mr. Kahn today,” said the woman. “His schedule is very full.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Thrasher said, softly, politely. “The thing of it is that we’ve run into a problem that needs his personal attention right away.”

  She shook her head. “You should have called for an appointment.”

  “It’ll only take ten minutes. Maybe less.”

  Still shaking her head, she looked at her desktop screen and offered, “I can fit you in at the end of the month.”

  “By then it’ll be too late,” Thrasher said. He wished he’d brought a hat, so he could hold it in his hands and look properly humble.

  “There’s nothing I can do, Mr. Thrasher. I’m very sorry.”

  Thrasher bit his lip, then said. “I understand. Would it be all right if I just sit here and wait for him to come out of his office? As I said, I’ll only need a few minutes of his time.”

  The dragon looked uncertain. “He won’t be leaving ‘til the end of the day. That’s hours from now.”

  “I’ll wait,” Thrasher said, heading for one of the plush chairs set against the far wall of the office.

  Now comes the moment of truth, he thought as he sat down. Either she calls security to throw me out or she calls Jenghis and tells him I’m here.

  She picked up her phone and spoke into it in a sibilant whisper, her eyes on Thrasher.

  He sat, trying not to show how nervous he felt. She put down the phone. Thrasher held his breath. Nobody from security showed up. She’s told Jenghis I’m here, he realized, and the old bastard is going to make me wait until he’s good and ready to see me.

  More than an hour passed. Thrasher remembered when he’d been a kid and his father brought him to lecture halls on campus because he couldn’t find a sitter to watch him. He had to sit very still and listen to the lectures without making a peep. He saw the students squirming in their chairs, whispering to one another, texting surreptitiously, yawning, even giggling. But he stayed perfectly still, like a stone, like a statue, the whole long time.

  People went into Kahn’s inner office and came out again, eying him as they passed. The dragon’s phone buzzed every few minutes. A delivery boy unloaded a basketful of papers on her desk. Still he waited, like a stone, like a statue.

  He knows I’m here. He’s in there enjoying himself, making me wait. Well, once I see him his enjoyment is going to stop.

  As the second hour passed, Thrasher said to the dragon lady, “I understand Mr. Kahn’s going into a hospital tomorrow.”

  A look of alarm flashed across her face, but she quickly recovered. “It’s just his annual physical. Strictly routine.”

  “Oh,” Thrasher said. “That’s good.”

  Late afternoon sun was slanting through the office windows when a quartet of young men came out of Kahn’s office, talking animatedly among themselves. As they passed Thrasher, the dragon actually smiled and said, “Mr. Kahn will see you now.”

  Surprised, Thrasher got to his feet and made a smile for her. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you very much.”

  As he stepped into Kahn’s palatial office, he saw that old Jenghis looked even worse than the last time he had seen him. His skin pallor was a sickly gray. He looked more wrinkled than ever. In his shirtsleeves, his face was sheened with perspiration, despite the room’s frigid air-conditioning.

  “I can give you ten minutes, Art,” he rasped. “Talk fast.”

  Thrasher sat in one of the chairs in front of Kahn’s desk and crossed his legs. “You paid Vince Egan to sabotage that Delta IV flight three years ago and now you’ve murdered him.”

  Kahn’s flinty expression didn’t change by a millimeter, but Thrasher heard the beeping sound from the medical equipment on the back of his wheelchair suddenly accelerate.

  “If you’re trying to give me a heart attack, it won’t work,” Kahn said.

  “I have enough evidence to send you to jail,” said Thrasher.

  Kahn grunted. “My lawyers can run circles around your lawyers. Or the district attorney, for that matter.”

  “You had Vince Egan murdered.”

  “I did not.” Kahn hesitated, then went on, “Somebody did, but it wasn’t me.”

  10

  CHRYSLER BUILDING

  “Who was it, then?” Thrasher asked.

  Kahn stared at him with red-rimmed eyes for a few silent moments, then rolled his wheelchair back and came around the desk. Thrasher watched as the old man wheeled toward the windows that looked out on Manhattan. The back of the wheelchair was loaded with medical equipment, beeping and blinking away.

  Thrasher got up and went to the windows. He sat on the deep sill, facing Kahn.

  “Why?” he asked. “Why’d you try to sabotage the Mars program? Why was Vince killed?”

  Kahn’s wrinkled, blotched face twisted into what might have been a smile. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with, do you?”

  Thrasher said nothing.

  “You’re just a little pipsqueak, Thrasher. A nobody, a nothing.”

  Leaning forward until his nose practically touched Kahn’s, Thrasher said, in a murderou
sly low voice, “I’m a nobody who can wring your neck, Jenghis. I can kill you just like that.” And he snapped his fingers.

  Kahn rolled his wheelchair back a few inches. “You haven’t got the balls.”

  “Want to find out?” Thrasher got to his feet.

  Kahn looked toward his desk. Thrasher warned, “It’s too far away for you to reach before I can grab you. And once I’ve got my hands around your skinny throat you won’t be able to call for help.”

  The old man was breathing hard. The equipment on the back of his wheelchair beeped faster.

  “What do you want?” Kahn asked.

  “Why’d you blow up that rocket? Why’d you murder Vince Egan?”

  “I told you I didn’t kill him!”

  “You ordered it.”

  “I did not!” Kahn was sweating heavily now, his chest heaving. The phone on his desk buzzed.

  He rolled the wheelchair back to his desk, Thrasher following a pace behind him.

  Kahn jabbed a bony finger at the phone’s keyboard.

  “Mr. Kahn, are you all right?” The dragon lady’s voice. “The medical monitors are blinking an alarm signal.”

  “I got a little excited, that’s all,” he replied. “I’ll be all right.”

  “You’re sure, sir? I can call the medical team. Or security, if you want.”

  Glancing up at Thrasher, Kahn rasped, “No need for that. I’ll be all right.”

  He clicked the phone off. Thrasher plopped into one of the armchairs. His hands were trembling. I came that close to snapping his crappy neck, he realized. I could have killed him.

  Taking a deep breath, Kahn said, “So you want to know who’s doing what to whom, do you?”

  “And why,” Thrasher added.

  “It involves Greg Sampson, of course. And . . . other people.”

  “Sampson.”

  “He wants to break you. He’s carried a grudge against you for more than ten years.”

  “He’s a patient man.”

  “He’s a fool. Letting anger rule his judgment. He thought that blowing up your rocket would ruin your Mars program, or at the least drive Thrasher Digital into bankruptcy.”

  “He came damned close to being right.”

  Kahn made a cackling laugh that grated on Thrasher’s nerves. “He didn’t realize what a prize your company could be. He still doesn’t get it.”

  “You mean the virtual reality technology.”

  With a wheezing nod, Kahn said, “Exactly. The VR technology. It’s going to be worth a fortune. It’s going to make somebody billions. Greg didn’t want you to be that somebody, so he came to me to help him drive you into bankruptcy.”

  “He bought into Tridinamics,” Thrasher said.

  “I told him to do that. I own a good slice of that company, through dummies.”

  “You do?”

  “Together with a couple of partners.”

  “So Greg set up the rocket failure—”

  “With my help.”

  “And bought into Tridinamics, so he could give them the VR technology once Thrasher Digital went down the tubes.”

  “That’s right. But you didn’t go down the tubes. Almost, but not quite. You’re more resourceful than we realized.”

  Thrasher frowned in thought. “So the two of you wanted to give my company’s VR technology to Tridinamics—which you own.”

  “With a couple of partners.”

  “Greg wanted to screw me.”

  “And I wanted to make money from virtual reality.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why Vince Egan was murdered.”

  Kahn spread his hands. “He was a loose end. Once he admitted to you what he’d done, we couldn’t take the chance that you’d go to the authorities and ask for a full-blown investigation.”

  “So you killed Vince.”

  “I didn’t. My Tridinamics partners did.”

  “Your partners?”

  Kahn’s seamed, ravaged face crinkled into a self-satisfied smile. “Do you know where Tridinamics’ main office is?”

  “Las Vegas, isn’t it?” Thrasher’s eyes went wide as he saw what Kahn was telling him. “Jesus Christ! The Mob?”

  Cackling again, Kahn said, “Oh, they’re strictly legitimate nowadays. Gambling and prostitution are legal in Nevada.” Waggling a hand in the air, he added, “But every now and then they have to go back to their old ways.”

  “They killed Vince.”

  “For what it’s worth, I didn’t know about it until after the fact,” Kahn said. With a shake of his head, he mumbled, “I couldn’t control them, even if I’d wanted to. They go their own way.”

  “They killed Vince,” Thrasher repeated.

  “And there’s not a thing you can do about it. If you push them, they’ll kill you.”

  11

  DÉTENTE

  Thrasher said, “I could go to the police.”

  With another grunt, Kahn replied, “Who’ve written off the matter as a suicide. So what would you tell them, that a little bird told you it was murder? These people are professionals, they get away with murder all the time.”

  “Because they’ve bought off the police,” Thrasher muttered.

  “However they do it, they do it. And if I tell them I’m worried about you, they’ll get you, too.”

  Thrasher felt himself smile. “So maybe I should wring your neck after all.”

  Kahn blinked his rheumy eyes. “Don’t bother. I don’t have that much longer to go.”

  Like hell, Thrasher thought. A stubborn old coot like you will hang in there and bury me, Sampson, and lord knows who else.

  “So now that you know what’s what, and who’s who,” Kahn said, “what do you intend to do about it?”

  Thrasher though it over for a few heartbeats.

  “Looks like there’s not much I can do,” he said. Then he added, “If what you’re telling me is the truth.”

  “It’s the truth, absolutely.”

  Very firmly, Thrasher said, “I don’t want any more sabotage. If there is I’ll go public with this whole story, I don’t care what those wiseguys in Vegas do.”

  Kahn held up a placating hand. “There won’t be. I want you to succeed. I want your VR technology to make billions.”

  “But I own the technology,” said Thrasher. “I have the patents—”

  “And I own a company that can market it, much better than your sappy little outfit.”

  “For porno simulations.”

  “For the entire spectrum of entertainment. I told you, the Las Vegas people are mostly legitimate. They have ties to Hollywood, the TV industry . . . this is going to be big, Arthur, very, very big.”

  “And you want in.”

  “There’s plenty of room for us both.”

  I’d be making a deal with the devil, Thrasher thought. Eying Kahn sitting there, perspiring heavily despite the room’s air conditioning, he realized that this particular devil might really be on his last legs. His scheduled visit to the medics is more than a routine checkup. Got to be.

  He heard himself say, “Greg Sampson has half the profits from the VR shows we do during the Mars mission.”

  “Greg’s an oaf. The Mars mission will be great publicity for the VR technology, of course. But the real money will start to come in afterward.”

  “And you want in on it.”

  “Why not? We can help each other. There’ll be plenty to go ‘round.”

  It’ll be like buying insurance for the mission, Thrasher told himself. That’s the important thing, making sure there’s no more sabotage. The money is incidental. Almost.

  “But why are so interested in this?” Thrasher asked. “What’s in it for you?”

  “Money!” Kahn blurted. “What else?”

  “Money? For God’s sake, don’t you have enough?”

  “How much is enough, Artie? How high is up? There’s always more money to be made. Money is power, don’t ever forget that. Power and safety.”

  Thras
her shook his head. The old man’s nuts. A megalomaniac. But it makes sense to do business with him.

  “Okay,” he said, slowly, reluctantly. “Thrasher Digital will license its VR technology to Tridinamics.” Before Kahn could react, he added, “On one condition.”

  “One condition?”

  “You get Sampson out of Tridinamics. Buy him out, push him out, drop him out of an airplane. I don’t want him making profits from the virtual reality business.”

  Kahn’s eyes narrowed, but at last he said, “I can buy him out. He’ll do what I tell him, especially with the Egan murder hanging over him.”

  “You said the police wouldn’t reopen the case.”

  “Not for you. They would for my partners from Las Vegas.”

  “That’s weird,” Thrasher muttered.

  “Politics makes strange bedfellows,” said Kahn.

  Getting to his feet, Thrasher said, “Have your people draw up a licensing agreement and I’ll get my legal eagles to look it over.”

  Kahn leaned back and smiled thinly. “We’re partners, then.” He extended his trembling, fleshless hand over the desk.

  “This isn’t a partnership,” Thrasher said. “It’s more like a détente.” But he reached across the desk and briefly clasped Kahn’s hand. It felt cold, lifeless.

  Once he’d left the old man’s office, Thrasher asked the dragon lady where the men’s room was. He felt an overpowering need to wash his hand.

  12

  LAUNCH PARTY

  The warehouse in Portales was bursting with people. It was late afternoon on the first of July, blistering hot outside, but inside the Mars, Inc. headquarters building the air conditioning was cranked up to maximum and the atmosphere was frothy with anticipation.

  A nine-piece band was playing Latino rhythms, although it was difficult to hear the music over the hubbub of the crowd.

  Thrasher had announced the launch party to everyone even faintly connected to the Mars program, and to all the news media people, too. It was scheduled to run from four p.m. until eight, because the astronauts and scientists had to get a full night’s sleep before launching the next morning to the Mars One spacecraft, waiting for them in orbit.