by Ben Bova
She leaned across the table until their noses were almost touching. "Then tell your goddamned client that I've got protection from the United States government. From the highest levels of the government. Do you know what that means?"
His eyes widened with surprise. "Smith . . ." Peterson's voice trailed off into silence. She could see the wheels turning inside his head.
"That's right, buster. Smith can provide all the protection I need. He can get the FBI on you. And your client, whoever the hell he is."
Peterson puffed out his cheeks. "You're a lot more ambitious than I thought. I underestimated you."
Vickie gave him an acid smile.
But he clutched at her wrist. "Let me give you a piece of advice, lady. Don't underestimate the people I'm working for. They're not going to take this lying down."
Vickie pulled free of his grip and slipped out of the booth, leaving her Irish coffee untouched. As she headed out for the parking lot she told herself, Now you've got to make certain that Smith actually will protect you. It's life or death now.
CHAPTER 26
Dan remained at Wright-Patterson for more than a week, digging into every line of programming for the flight simulation. He awoke each morning in his narrow little room at the BOQ, went to the simulations lab, and worked through until dinner. At Dr Appleton's insistence Dan rented a compact car that the Air Force paid for. At the end of the normal working day he drove to one of the seedy restaurants near the base, ate a quick meal, and then returned to the lab and the intricate unfoldings of the computer program.
Each night he phoned Susan, then went to sleep in his narrow bed at the BOQ. Each morning he awoke weary and drenched with perspiration, his dreams winking out like the picture on a TV tube before he could consciously recall them. But he knew that Jace was in those dreams.
Jace and Doc and Martinez and sometimes even Muncrief. And Dorothy. She was there too, he knew. Never Susan.
His only break from work came when he went to the base hospital to see Ralph Martinez. The colonel had survived his stroke, but he was still on the critical list, still in the intensive care ward, still half paralyzed and unable to speak. If Martinez recognized Dan he gave no sign of it. His one good eye burned pain and rage; his right hand constantly clenched and unclenched, the only voluntary movement his body could make.
Dan usually visited the hospital on his way off-base to dinner. He never saw another visitor for the colonel there, until the evening Dorothy came.
She was older, of course, more mature and obviously stricken with grief. But still stunning. She wore a modest knee-length skirt of navy blue and a loose-fitting metallic gold sweater beneath her caramel-brown leather coat. She looked ravishing to Dan.
Dorothy's eyes were rimmed with dark circles. Her face was pale, drawn. But still Dan's knees went watery.
"Hello, Dan," she said, her voice low.
"Hello," he managed.
That was it. Dorothy turned away and hurried down the hospital corridor. Is she running from me? Dan wondered.
Or from the sight of her husband? Then he heard a voice in his head ask, Does she blame me for what's happened to Ralph?
It was then that the full enormity of it struck him. For a solid year after Jace had left for Florida, Dan had been the principal engineer on the F-22 simulation: the chief technical guy, the head honcho. It's my sim, more than anyone's, he realized. More than Doc's, more even than Jace's. If there's anything wrong with it, it's my fault. Nobody else's. Mine.
That night Dan could not sleep. He phoned Dorothy three times, each time getting Martinez's recorded voice. She did not return his calls.
But the next morning he got other calls:
"I ought to fire you!" Kyle Muncrief bellowed into the telephone at him. "The whole place here is falling apart and you're off playing games for the blasted Air Force!"
"This Thursday is Thanksgiving," Susan reminded him. "I expect you to be home with your family."
Even Jace called. "It's gettin' real intense around here. Muncrief expects me to put the stuttering program into the baseball game but I can't get much done without you, pal."
Dan stalled them off, all of them, even Susan. Then Appleton told him firmly, "The lab will be shut down for the holiday weekend, Dan. The entire base will, except for the operational flying units."
"But I haven't gotten anywhere yet," he said.
"Today is Tuesday. Tomorrow I'm putting you on a plane for Orlando. You're going to spend the holiday with your family," Appleton said. "You can come back next Monday if you want to."
They were in Appleton's office, the Doc sitting behind his desk fiddling with his everlasting pipe and Dan standing worriedly at the room's only window staring blindly at the concrete wall of the adjoining building. This isn't the first time Doc's spoken to me like a stern father, he said to himself.
Dan turned to his former boss. "Okay then," he said, his breath feeling weak, fluttery, as if he were on the edge of a high precipice or maybe facing the gang of bullies that had bedeviled him when he was a kid.
Forcing his voice to sound calm and unafraid, Dan said, "In that case I want to fly the simulation tomorrow."
Appleton's mouth dropped open. The pipe fell onto his lap.
"I'll wear the medical sensors. If I get into any trouble You can terminate the run."
Before Appleton could do more than start to shake his head Dan went on, "You know it's the only way to break through this puzzle, Doc. Ralph can't tell us what happened and it's take months to run through every facet of the computer program. I'm not sure the program would give us the answer anyway. You need a guinea pig, I volunteer."
"I can't allow it," Appleton said, retrieving the pipe with one hand and brushing tobacco flakes off his lap with the other.
"We don't have any choice. Somebody's got to get in there and see what the hell happens during the simulation."
"Then I'll get one of the jet jocks"
"No! It's my responsibility. I understand what's supposed to be in the program. I'll be able to tell if anything's out of sync.
"You don't know how to fly the plane."
"Yeah. I thought about that. We can program Ralph's moves into the simulation, can't we? I'll just follow along and watch what happens."
"It's too damned dangerous!" Appleton blurted.
Dan had never heard even the mildest swear-word from his old boss. He grinned because he knew he had won his point.
"I'll get the technicians started on their pre-run checkouts," he said, heading for Appleton's door. The Doc sat at his desk and did not make a move to stop him.
That evening Dan dropped by the base hospital again.
"How's he doing?" he asked the nurse sitting at the center of the monitoring screens, She was a middle-aged black woman, hair going gray, munching on chips form a plastic bag.
By now she knew Dan on sight. She did not look happy. "He had a minor incident this afternoon."
"Incident?"
"Another small stroke. Like the aftershock following a big earthquake. It happens."
"Has it done more damage to him?"
"Sure, but it was real minor. Trouble is, his whole system is getting weaker instead of stronger."
"Isn't there anything you can do?"
She answered Dan's question with a reproachful frown. "It's the lungs," she said. "They get pneumonia 'cause they can't keep the lungs from filling up with fluids."
"Is he going to die?"
The nurse huffed out a great sigh. "I didn't tell you, but yes, he's not going to make it."
"How long?"
"Couple days at most. But I never told you, understand?"
Dan walked out of the hospital like a man in a daze. He got into his rented two-door Chevrolet and drove off the base. That Indian doctor said he wouldn't last the night but he did, Dan argued with himself. Now the nurse says he's not going to make it. What do they know? Ralph's a fighter. But somehow the nurse's flat unemotional prognosis seemed utterly convincin
g. No bullshit, no tears, Ralph was a goner and nothing any of us can do is going to change that.
It was not until he was sparking the car that he realized where he had driven. Dorothy and Ralph lived in a quiet suburban street not far from the base. Dan remembered their house from the occasional barbecues that Colonel Martinez had thrown for the whole simulations lab staff before he had gotten married. Ralph still threw barbecues afterward, but Susan would never accept the Martinez's invitations.
As he got out of the car in the chilly darkness of the November night, he wondered how the brain can pick out memories that had lain unused for so many years.
The moon was a thin ghostly white crescent scudding in and out among silver-edged clouds. Dry brittle leaves scratched along the sidewalk. The night felt more like Halloween than approaching Thanksgiving. Dan half-expected to see kids dressed up as ghosts and pirates and Raggedy Anns making their way door to door. He remembered that in Orlando the parents had sponsored a Halloween party for the kids in the school gymnasium. Very organized, very safe. No danger of razor blades in the apples or candies laced with drugs. No problems with vandalism from teenaged "trick-or-treaters." No spontaneous fun.
At the curving walkway leading to the Martinez's door Dan hesitated. Should I do this? Should I try to barge into her life? She hasn't returned my calls. She hardly said two words to me at the hospital.
But she looked so—hurt. That was it. Dorothy looked as if she were in pain, vulnerable, alone. And it's my fault. I did this to Ralph. Did it to her. Dan knew he could not stay away from her; she needed someone. She needed him.
Feeling shaky inside, he walked up to the front door, found the doorbell button with its tiny light glowing around it, and leaned on it.
No answer. Dan waited, fidgeting nervously, unsure of what to do. The night breeze sighed; dry leaves grated along the street and the bare limbs of the trees groaned. He pressed the doorbell again. Then he stepped back from the door and looked around. Yes, there was a light on. One light, over at the far end of the house. Must be a bedroom. She must be home. Somebody must be here.
But no one was answering. Maybe she's asleep. Maybe I ought to leave her alone. But he knew he couldn't. He pushed the button again and again.
Through the frosted window alongside the door he saw a light go on and then the shadow of a figure moving. He took his finger off the doorbell just as Dorothy pulled the door partially open. A safety chain dangled between them.
"Dan." Her voice was flat, low, dulled as if she had just awakened from a deep sleep.
"How are you?" he asked. But he could see how she was: eves hollow, cheeks gaunt, face wan, hair uncombed. She seemed to be half hiding behind the partially open door, a rumpled floor-length robe hastily belted at her waist.
Dorothy did not answer. She simply stared at Dan, as if trying to get her eyes to focus on him. God, is she on drugs? Dan asked himself. She looks punched out.
"Are you okay?" he said aloud. "I mean, do you need anything? Are you alone, is anybody taking care of you?" The words came out in a rush.
Slowly Dorothy shook her head. "I'm all right, Dan. You don't have to worry. Ralph's taking good care of me."
He wasn't certain he had heard right. "Ralph? Ralph's in the hospital."
"I know. It's all right. Don't worry about me."
"Maybe you should see a doctor."
"Don't . . ." Her voice faded out, as if she had lost her train of thought.
"Are you all alone?"
She smiled weakly. "Not alone. I've got Ralph. I'll never be alone."
And Dan realized that on one of her hands she was wearing a data glove.
Dorothy had been making love with her husband. All through that awful weekend when Ralph had been cut down by the stroke she had stayed in the hospital with him, watching over him sleeplessly, trying to draw the pain out of him by sheer willpower. Hour after hour she stared into his contorted face, prayed for him, breathed for him, felt her heart beating hard enough to keep the both of them alive.
"Don't die, querido," she whispered to her unconscious husband whenever the nurses let her close to his bed. "It doesn't matter how much damage this has done to you, just don't die. I love you. I love you with all my soul."
After thirty-six hours straight the doctors insisted that either she go home and get some rest or they would put her in a room in the hospital. She chose to go home, but she was back at the hospital the next morning. And that afternoon. Ralph lay there, sometimes conscious, most of the time not. Dorothy did not know which was worse, seeing him lying as if dead, or seeing him awake, knowing what had happened to him, in an agony of helpless rage.
The doctors were very stern with her. They prescribed sleeping pills and instructed the nurses to make certain she went home at the end of the day shift. The nurses were more sympathetic but they did insist that Dorothy could not stay all night at her husband's side.
"No sense you running yourself down and getting yourself sick," said the head nurse of the intensive care unit. "You're going to need all your strength over the next few days."
Dorothy nodded and went home and wadded up the prescription and threw it in the kitchen waste basket.
She could not sleep but she would not take their pills. Instead she tried the VR helmet and gloves that Ralph had smuggled home for her several years earlier.
It had started as a joke. He had to go off for two weeks of flying duty in Nevada to keep up his proficiency. It was an annual requirement. Two weeks of flying in real airplanes, practicing real tactics, dogfighting against pilots who were younger each year.
Dorothy had wondered what he was up to when he spent so much money on a used microcomputer. Big as a two-drawer fitting cabinet, it had to be rolled in on a dolly by the kid who drove the delivery truck.
"What's that for?" Dorothy asked her husband when he came home that night. The computer was standing in the middle of their living room.
"It's a surprise." And he went back out to the driveway to tug a big cardboard carton from the hatchback of his TransAm.
"What's going on?" Dorothy asked again while Ralph rugged and pushed the microcomputer into the bedroom, where he had brought the cardboard box. "Something to keep you from getting lonesome while I'm away," he said.
"What is it?"
"Me."
After four sleepless nights following Ralph's stroke Dorothy turned on the computer that still sat in the corner of their bedroom and plugged in the data gloves and helmet. The first time she had done this, the night Ralph had brought the equipment home, she had felt awkward, uncomfortable, nervous.
"This is silly," she had said as he helped her put on the gloves and slid the helmet over her thick dark curls. A fine sensor net of hair-thin wires clung to her torso from shoulders to groin. Otherwise she was naked.
"Maybe. We'll see." He was naked too. And covered with a sensor net.
"I feel like I'm making a porno movie."
"This'll be better than any porn flick," Ralph said. "If this junk works right you can have two of me, one electronic and one real."
It worked, and she could not tell the difference between them.
Now, alone, she sat on the edge of the bed naked except for the gloves and the sensor net. She fastened one of the tiny disk sensors on each nipple, arranged the others on her shoulders, arms, belly, thighs, buttocks, groin. She put on the helmet and lay back on the pillows she had piled up. She pulled down the visor.
And Ralph was there smiling down at her, his body glistening, his hands reaching for her. She felt his hands on her body, and she slid her own hands across his chest, down his taut abdomen, and felt his erect penis hard and warm in her hands. He sucked her nipples, left then right, and she could feel the juices starting to flow within her. From far away a bell rang. It seemed so distant that it might have belonged to another world. She was breathing faster now, her body tingling, Ralph's fingers probing gently into her—but the bell broke into her awareness.
It jarred her
even though Ralph was totally undisturbed by it.
"Damn," she snapped, sitting up and raising the visor of her helmet. Ralph disappeared, she was alone in their bedroom. Lifting the helmet off her head, Dorothy wormed off one glove, then simply yanked the wires out of the other one. The bell was ringing steadily now. Something must have happened to Ralph! They must have tried to phone and gotten the answering machine so they drove all the way out here to tell me—what?
Hastily throwing on a robe she dashed out of the bedroom for the front door to find Dan Santorini standing there looking worried and upset and just as mixed up as the day she had broken off their affair.
"Dan," she said, surprised, relieved that it wasn't someone from the hospital.
"How are you?" he asked.
Before she could reply he said, "Are you okay? I mean, do you need anything? Are you alone, is anybody taking care of you?"
Dorothy shook her head. "I'm all right, Dan. You don't have to worry. Ralph's taking good care of me."
He looked confused. "Ralph? Ralph's in the hospital."
"I know. It's all right. Don't worry about me."
"Maybe you should see a doctor.
"Don't . . ." She stopped. How much should she tell him? How much would he understand?
"Are you all alone?"
She tried to smile. "Not alone. I've got Ralph. I'll never be alone."
He seemed puzzled. Poor Dan, she thought, he always shows his heart on his face.
Suddenly his eyes fastened on her right hand. "That's a data glove!"
Clutching the robe tighter around her, Dorothy said, "Yes, that's right."
"I don't get it."
"It's nothing for you to worry about."
"But—"
"I'm really all right, Dan," said Dorothy. "I'm fine."
She did not look fine to Dan. Anything but. Yet it was clear that she was not going to ask him into her house. And she was wearing a data glove.
"Well, okay then," he said reluctantly. "I just wanted to make sure you're okay."