“Did you ever wonder how I got that shot?”
“Stock?”
“Nope. I was wandering through Europe, bumming around, trying to find my inner muse. I was in Berlin, at the Tiergarten, their zoo, when I saw that lion on a hot summer day, snoozing. It was like what Paul saw on the road to Damascus -- a blinding vision. I knew the movie I wanted to make, and that shot was so perfect, I had to have it.
“I had my camera with me and so I focused... except that was before the days of inexpensive zoom lenses. It looked more like a kitten. I looked around. The area the lion was in was a small island-thing, with a moat area surrounding it, except the moat was empty -- there wasn’t any water in it. It was maybe fifteen or sixteen feet deep, and I saw a ladder lying on the ground, up against the wall. I jumped down, put that ladder up, climbed into the pen with the lion, walked up to about six feet away and got the shot. About six or eight minutes, before the cops and zookeepers arrived.”
He laughed. “They had a shit fit, but I don’t think that lion woke up, even for that. I slipped the girl I was with my camera and no one seemed to notice or care. At the police station they couldn’t think of anything to charge me with, so they finally took me to the airport and booted me out of the country.
“Would I have done it if the lion was awake and had a lean and hungry look? Probably not. But I do remember the incident clearly, even now. I never once thought about anything except how to get that shot. It was the only thing that mattered to me.
“I can’t look myself in the face in the mornings if I deny my daughter the chance to live like I did. And I make no bones about it -- that wasn’t anywhere near the riskiest thing I’ve done to get a shot.”
Kris nodded, even if his explanation wasn’t exactly what she wanted.
* * *
The evening sped past with Andie and Kris exchanging emails. About nine o’clock, Kris went to see her dad again. He was reading on the couch, her mother sitting next to him, her feet curled up in his lap. Kris was used to her mother’s strangeness and simply ignored her. “Dad, I was wondering if I could get an older, used pickup to run around in this summer, instead of the Mini.”
“Sure, Kris. No problem. If you like, we can go look at some the first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Don’t you have things to do at the studio?” Kris asked, curious.
“It’s Friday,” he told her. “They have a mess of set changes and camera setups to get ready for tomorrow afternoon. The script supe and the set dressers can deal with it.”
Kris nodded and went back to let Andie know that the truck would be available soon. Andie went back to her lists, while Kris spent time on her computer writing up a project plan. Around eleven she emailed it to Andie, who was busy ordering stuff.
Kris fell asleep and for the first time since the accident she remembered the sound of the belt coming undone, even if she hadn’t known what it was at the time. Yeah, you could drown in the bathtub, electrocute yourself with your blow dryer or fall off a step ladder. Or get cut off who knows where, with no way back because the super glue your best friend used wasn’t the best in the world. It was sobering. Yet, when she looked deep inside herself, it wasn’t a deal breaker or even close to it. Something to be wary of, something to take into account -- but wasn’t a good enough reason to quit.
She laughed and got up and turned on her desk lamp and woke her computer up. She made a little note: “Send lots of food and water through in case of need” before she went back to bed. She fell asleep with a smile on her face.
She and her dad were ready to go early. It still seemed a little weird that she was cutting classes, something she’d never done before.
He took her to a used car lot near Hollywood and they looked over their pickup trucks. She didn’t want one of the great huge ones, but at the same time her father suggested that it might be a good idea to have a crew cab so that she could have more than one other person along. So the truck she ended up was larger than she’d envisioned, one that would seat four people inside and could hold a thousand or so pounds in the bed. She really had no idea how much stuff she was going to need to haul for Andie, and she didn’t think it was all that heavy, but she didn’t know for sure.
Her father, unless you knew who he was, wasn’t exactly imposing, and the salesman obviously had never heard of him. The salesman wanted to wait a day to deliver the truck, until the check cleared. Her dad picked up the phone and asked the bank to courier over a certified check. They were still gassing up the truck when the bank messenger arrived. When the sales manager heard who had sent for the check, he at least knew who Oliver Boyle was and made profuse apologies. Her dad just waved a dismissive hand, saying if he was a salesman, he wouldn’t trust anyone he didn’t know for that kind of money either, even if it was a couple of thousand dollars.
She followed him to the studio and he had her pull it into the motor pool there. He talked to one of his people and told him to check out the truck and make sure it was okay. Then he headed for the production company offices.
Kris had realized something, and as soon as they were alone in his car for the short drive to the offices, she asked him. “Why did you get us space at Crenshaw Studios and not here?”
“Well, I don’t have three free sound stages, for one thing. Secondly, do you really want to have me just across the lot?”
Kris nodded. No, not really. He was being surprisingly cooperative, and while he sounded reasonable, she was still not sure why. Three miles wasn’t all that far, not really, but psychologically, it would seem farther.
There was a young man waiting in her father’s outer office. “Ezra Lawson, sir,” the young man told him. “Kurt sent me, saying you might have some work for me.”
“Certainly. Do you want to sit in on this, Kris, or wait for the fullness of time?”
Kris was startled, but nodded. “I’ll sit in, if you don’t mind.” Andie had told her not to show up until noon, which meant she’d probably spent all night working.
They went into her father’s office, and Ezra sat in one of the upholstered chairs, where her father waved Kris into his chair, while he sat down on the front edge of the desk. After the introductions, her father nodded at the young man. “Kurt said you were in the Army, Ezra.”
“Yes, sir. I had six years in, and frankly, I was already thinking of bailing. It just wasn’t my cup of tea. Then I got dinged and the army made the decision for me.”
“Dinged how?” Oliver asked.
“It was a night HALO jump. I was fine, right up until I realized I was coming down on a hillside of straggly pine trees instead of the scattered brush the intel people said to expect. I didn’t want a straggly pine tree up my,” he hesitated, glanced at Kris and said, “backside. So I swerved. Then I was in the rocks.” He shrugged as if that said it all.
He was about thirty, Kris thought, sandy blonde hair, cut short, but not the extreme crew cut a lot of soldiers wore. He was about six feet tall and well built.
Ezra went on. “You understand that I was in special ops and can’t talk about where the jump was or what I was doing?”
“Yes, I do. How is your back?”
“Well,” Ezra said dryly, “I’ve got all the pieces in the right places now. I can go two, three weeks at a time without back spasms. And those are manageable, sir. A muscle relaxer and an Advil. Piece of cake.
“I’m out of formal physical therapy, but I have a raft of exercises to do that aren’t part of my normal regimen. I’m also not supposed to run more than a mile or so at a time, and to keep it down when I do run. I’ve been swimming, instead.”
“Let me be frank, Ezra. My daughter has a friend who is a certified genius. I’m not going to go into detail just now, but she’s found something that’s going to be worth a lot of money and she and Kris are in the process of developing the idea. I know it sounds more like a movie plot, but this is the real thing. The girls stand to gore a lot of oxen. There is no definite threat, but now and then people
can make some unfortunate decisions in the heat of the moment.”
The young man nodded.
“Your task would be to make sure my daughter and her friend are as safe as reasonably possible, given the utter impossibility of protecting someone from a really determined assassin. There are some other issues that involve personal risk as well, but before we get into those, you’ll need to sign the industry standard nondisclosure agreement and the usual waivers.”
“But this isn’t stunt work?”
“No, it’s straight security. I don’t anticipate any problems for some weeks, and as I told Kurt, I’d like to give the girls a chance to get acclimated to the sort of thinking that has to go into keeping secure.”
“I can do that,” Ezra said seriously.
“Your paycheck would be coming from me,” Oliver told him, “but you would be working for the girls. Trust me, don’t try to force them to do what you want unless the bullets are flying or there is a demonstrable risk. Your continued employment would be up to them -- all I’ll be doing is signing your paycheck. Can you work for a pair of young women?”
“I managed well enough with the little old ladies who inhabit the Pentagon. I imagine so,” he said with more than a trace of sarcasm and bitterness.
“Could you teach them to shoot? Maybe a little self defense?” Oliver pressed.
Ezra smiled. “Sir, the best self defense is to shoot the other guy first. I had a hand-to-hand combat instructor who told us on the first day that we were to shoot our enemies as far away as we could. Shoot them, if they got close, with a pistol. Stick them with a bayonet, or hit them with a rifle butt. He laughed and added his kicker: ‘I’m here to teach you how to die like a man if you’ve fucked up so bad you have nothing left but your bare hands.’
“But yes, sir. I can teach them to shoot and give them a few pointers in self defense beyond ‘shoot ‘em!’”
“Kris, any questions?”
“Are you afraid of the dark? Tight places?”
“I spent a lot of time in the ‘Stan -- that’s Afghanistan for you civilians. They’ve been beavering away at the landscape for a couple of thousand years. I’m not one of those crazy cavers, but I’ve been down a tunnel or two.”
“Why do you say ‘crazy?’” Kris asked.
“Miss, tunnels are pitch dark. Yeah, there are a few guys who sneak around in the dark, but you do that and things can still happen. Mostly you go down a tunnel, your flashlight in hand, making you an easy target for anyone hiding in the dark. That’s not counting booby traps and the other things they save up for us.”
He looked at Oliver. “I’ll be frank, sir. Most of my experience did not come from shooting people -- mostly I blew them up. I can shoot and shoot well. I have a general knowledge of security principles, but I’ve never had any formal instruction.”
“You blew people up?” Kris asked, a little horrified.
“Yes, Miss. If I was in my uniform you’d see crossed artillery pieces, showing that I was an artilleryman.”
Kris relaxed a little. It was more understandable, anyway. Shooting someone wasn’t good, but blowing them up... Ick!
Oliver picked up the phone and made two calls, then put it down. “Your truck is ready, Kris. It seems okay, but after a couple of days, bring at back and Bernie will look at it again. Can you gather up Andie and be at Crenshaw at one thirty?”
“Sure, we have a bunch of errands to run this afternoon. I think she’s shooting at being up and running again tomorrow.”
“The girl is a horse,” Oliver said with a laugh.
“Well, she says she can get by on four hours sleep a night. I can’t.”
“I suppose it’s too late to warn her that that could stunt her growth,” Oliver quipped. Kris gave him a finger.
He picked up the phone again and a moment later Kit came in. “Kit? Any news?”
“I’ve talked to a couple of friends who are interested. I haven’t given them salary quotes, but I’m sure we can do better than what they’re making now. A couple of them will be coming in later this afternoon... two are at USC, one at UCLA and one still at Caltech.”
“Get them to sign NDAs, and then talk to them. If they look good, call Andie and arrange a time you can bring them by in the next day or two.”
“No problem.”
He glanced at Kris, and then flicked his eyes to Ezra. Kris nodded. “Ezra, this is the usual NDA. You can sign it now or take it to a lawyer to vet it and bring it back tomorrow, but they will tell you it’s pretty much plain vanilla. Basically you agree not to divulge any details about whatever the projects are that you’ll be working on. Those details range from who is working on the project, anything about its nature and content, including the name... and then there are a million words about sanctions that you might face if you violate terms of the agreement.”
“Kurt said you’ve never screwed anyone that he’s known about. I’ll sign it now.” He signed a copy and kept one for himself. He waved the page, covered with 10 point type, front and back. “The security oaths in the service are a lot shorter and simply list the number of years you’ll get in stir and how many hundreds of thousands of dollars you’ll owe for each offense.”
“Kit, you talk to those technical people. You understand that you can talk in general terms about the project once they sign the NDA, but still not in specifics. That’s for Andie and maybe Kris to decide about how much to tell someone to entice them. You can’t promise employment either; you’re just a first interviewer.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kris, her father and Ezra Lawson went down to his car, a rather plain Camry, but it was large and had leather seats. “Call Andie, would you, Kris, and tell her we’re coming. Tell her that we want to go view the facilities, leaving her place by one pm.”
“Sure,” Kris replied, and checked her watch. It was nearly noon, so the odds were that she wouldn’t be waking Andie up.
“Hey, Andie!”
“Kris! Just the person I want to talk to! Isn’t this cool? Being able to sleep until eleven thirty on a school day? I love it!”
“Well, I think we’re done with school, Andie.”
“No loss! I was curious about Caltech, but not that curious!”
“Are you presentable?”
“That depends on who I’m going to be presented to.”
“We’re coming by in a bit... just tell me when. Dad has someone you need to talk to; he’s a security consultant guy. Then we need to leave about one to go see the facilities Dad has found for us. Kit has some of his Caltech buddies coming in this afternoon for initial talks.”
“Cool. Give me a half hour, okay?”
“Sure, see you then.”
They went to their house and spent a half hour talking in generalities, before loading up to go visit Andie.
Andie was munching a Hot Pockets snack, dressed, more or less, as if she was ready for school. She quizzed Ezra for even longer than Kris and her father had, but not getting much more out of him. Finally, Andie grinned. “So, he’s not going to cost me anything, right?”
“That’s right, Andie,” Oliver told her.
“Good, he’s hired. I am the child of the modern age. Ezra’s answer if he was comfortable with killing people was telling. ‘Not any more.’ I know our country has to do it because I’m not brain dead stupid, but after a while it stops making sense. In my opinion.
“Ezra, you want to see what the fuss is all about? I’ll give you a bonus if you can put the right name on it.”
They trooped into Andie’s bedroom, and once again Ezra laughed at seeing the machine in Andie’s closet. “I don’t have a clue. Tubes, wires, bubbles, gizmos... all too complicated for the likes of me.”
“Well, let me explain this simply. Let’s call it ‘Fusion for Dummies.’”
She explained the Van de Graaff, which Kris couldn’t help but notice had been reassembled. Then Andie explained the fusor design, and while that was back up on its stand, it still had a lot of bro
ken connections. The vacuum pump was simply a mounting on the machine’s base, which, for the first time, Kris noticed was a piece of four by eight, three-quarter inch plywood that was wedged into the open space of the closet.
Andie went on describing the theory of the fusor and finished with, “Any questions?”
“That’s a fusion reactor? In your closet?”
“That’s right.”
“And how close are you to break even?” Ezra asked.
“Nowhere close. Way, way beyond.”
“Christ! You don’t need a bodyguard; you need a company of infantry! Maybe a division!”
“Well, I figure that they’re not going to risk hurting any of us if the horses are out of the barn. It’s my plan to dump this to the Internet if there’s the least sign of anyone interested in hurting us. There is a lot of interest in this sort of work.”
Kris met Andie’s eye and asked basically the same question as her father had asked of her earlier. This time there was the slightest hint of a head shake.
“We’ll talk more about this when we get back from our afternoon appointment,” Andie told them. “Kris said we had to leave about one. It’s about that now.”
Four of them fit comfortably in the Camry, with the two men up front. Andie turned to Kris once they were underway. “I tore apart the compressor last night, to see what sort of shape it was in. It’s a wreck; it could have quit any time. It works by sucking air from one side of the compressor, compressing it and then out the other side, letting it expand. I’ve disconnected the output side, so it just goes into the air, no big.
“However, I forgot I had a lot of boron powder in there, some of it less finely ground than the rest. The coarse stuff has scored the pump cylinder pretty bad. It’s supposed to be using something like Freon or ammonia as a working fluid, not air. I need to figure a way to keep the crap out of the pump.
“Short term, I bought three, but I can only get one in the car at a time. They are a little heavy and pretty bulky.”
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