“My god!” gasped Runyan from his seat by the door. “Didn’t he know what he was doing? Why didn’t he stop after the first disaster?”
She looked at him coolly.
“The journals are pretty clinical so his state of mind is only implicit, but I get the feeling that he was totally caught up in the scientific and engineering questions and driven by a powerful megalomania. Apparently, he was so consumed by his quest that he didn’t question the failures in that way, just what had become of them. When the fourth got away from him, he finally thought seriously about the implications of what he had done—and it destroyed him.” She waved a hand toward the quiet figure in the chair by the fireplace.
“But if he’s right about the other three,” said Runyan, “then even if we find some solution to the big one we’re still in danger from the others. Drag on them is going to act more quickly to cause them to settle into the Earth where they’re unreachable. They may take a much longer time to grow to a dangerous size, but it’s still just a matter of time.”
He exchanged a long glance with Isaacs. Isaacs broke it off, gathered up the books he had been reading and stood.
“Well, let’s see if we can get these books to someone who will understand them better than we do.”
Danielson stood up from the desk, and Runyan gathered his long legs under him and shoved himself to his feet.
Maria Latvin appeared in the doorway. She gave Runyan a cool look and then addressed herself to Isaacs.
“I must put Paul down for his rest. Then I would like to talk to you, if I may. Would you please wait in the living room?”
“Certainly,” replied Isaacs. “We have a couple of issues to discuss with you as well.”
They filed out of the room and down the hall as the woman bent to help Krone from the chair.
Isaacs deposited the books he had been holding on the table in the foyer. He walked over next to Runyan who had settled in the chair next to the fireplace. Danielson examined the artifacts on the shelves.
“What next?” Runyan inquired.
“We’ll explain to her that we need the books and that we’ll have to send someone for Krone. Something tells me she’s not going to take that news too well.”
Runyan’s face clouded over. “I don’t believe I fathom that lady. Surely she realizes that we represent some threat to upset her isolated but rather posh applecart here, yet she doesn’t seem at all perturbed.”
“I’m not sure of her role, either,” Isaacs answered. “She does seem to be devoted to Krone. If he returned the consideration, he may have set her up for life, regardless of what happens.”
Runyan smiled an impish grin. “Or maybe Krone’s not as incapacitated as he seems. That’s one good-looking woman there.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Danielson turned, exasperated. “You can see what shape that man is in. Can you imagine what an effort it must be to care for him? All by herself?”
Runyan leaned toward Isaacs and said in a stage whisper, “Touchy feminist.”
“Mr. Isaacs,” Danielson’s voice was cold with fury. “I don’t believe you need me here anymore. I’ll wait in the car.” She paused to pick up the lab books Isaacs had left in the foyer and then swept out the front door.
Runyan gave a half shrug as Isaacs fixed him with a stony stare.
“That was completely unnecessary, Alex. I don’t know what you’ve done to upset her, but I want a lid on it.”
“Hey, it was a little joke.”
“There’s more to it than that. Something’s going on between you.”
“Well, to hell with you,” Runyan scowled. “My personal life is none of your business.”
“It is if it keeps one of my people from performing at top efficiency, or distracts us at all from what we’re doing here.”
“Horse shit,” seethed Runyan. “Don’t tell me I’m not on top of what’s going on.” He stood up and looked down at the slightly shorter man. “You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for me.”
“I know what you’ve contributed, and I’d like to keep you on the team, but if you get in my way, you’re out!”
The two men glared at one another, then Runyan broke off and looked at the carpet, scuffing his toe, then finally back at Isaacs.
“Look,” he said, “this thing is too big for us to lose sight of it fighting over some girl.”
“Girl! She’s a damn fine worker. Let me remind you neither of us would be here if it weren’t for her early work.”
“She’s a bright lady, I know that. She’s also attractive, in case you hadn’t noticed. We got a little friendly out there in Arizona. Didn’t mean anything.”
“I think it did to her.”
They were silent a moment. Then Isaacs spoke.
“We’ve got to get a move on here. The woman’s had plenty of time to put Krone to bed or whatever she was going to do. See if you can find her. I’ll get the two men in the car to start carrying out the books.”
Runyan headed down the hallway. He heard a noise, turned into the study, and was rooted with shock. A huge fire roared in the fireplace. In disbelief, he watched Maria Latvin pick up an object, squirt it with charcoal lighter, and toss it into the fireplace where it ignited with a FOOMPF! and added to the blaze. He looked more carefully and realized that the grate was filled with burning books. The lab books!
“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted, rushing toward her.
The woman swiveled quickly, the fingers of her right hand deftly sweeping up a bone-handled knife as she turned. I wish no one hurt, she thought, but I’m too close to let this one stand in my way. I must get to Paul!
She faced Runyan in a half-crouch, the position they had learned when planning the escape. She felt the rush of irony that she should use this skill to fight her way back in. She spread her feet wide, wielding the weapon in the classic offensive position, point out, not down from her fist like a dagger. Runyan registered her savage, determined look and the wicked tip of the blade. He tried to brake, off balance.
The knife whipped in a deadly arc toward his face. He jerked his head back and threw up his arms for protection, stumbling backwards. He felt his jaw go numb as the blade went by and then a deep agony flashed through his right forearm. He crashed onto the floor. The woman’s knife hand had completed its vicious cycle, instantly ready to strike again. Runyan’s fall on his back, legs sprawled, had taken him just out of reach. He saw her look at his exposed crotch and draw back the knife. Panic seized him. He shuttled backward, crab-like, then flipped onto all fours. He screamed as his right arm gave way, and he fell on his face. He crawled awkwardly with one arm, flailing, splashing blood, then finally got his feet under him and lurched out the door and down the hallway.
Isaacs was on the front step when he heard Runyan shout. He raced into the living room just as Runyan, frightened and bloody, ran from the hall.
“Burning the lab books!” Runyan shouted hoarsely, as he collapsed onto Isaacs who lowered him to the floor. The two CIA agents pounded into the room. Danielson and the pilot followed them, breathing hard, eyes wide.
“The woman! Get her!” Isaacs directed the agents. “And watch out— she’s got some kind of weapon. Pat, see to him, will you?” he said standing, pointing to Runyan’s sprawled form. “You!” he said, fingering the pilot, “come with me.”
He raced down the hallway. At the end of it, the two agents were putting their shoulders to a locked door. Dimly, Isaacs heard the roaring start of a high performance engine.
“A car!” he shouted. “Out the front way. See if you can stop her! If she’s got Krone with her, for god’s sake don’t do anything to harm him.”
Isaacs turned into the study as the agents ran back down the hallway past him. He fought down a sense of dismay at the sight of the hearth full of burning books, then grabbed the fireplace tongs and began to frantically pull them from the grate. The pilot backed into the room watching the two CIA field men disappear into the living room. Then
he turned and stopped transfixed, watching as Isaacs threw book after burning book about the room.
“Get your jacket off!” Isaacs shouted over his shoulder. “Smother those!”
The carpet was starting to smoulder in a dozen places. The young pilot stripped off his jacket and began to extinguish the flames, covering the books with his jacket, kicking them away from areas of smoking carpet.
Isaacs pulled the last book from the grate, a half-consumed block of char. He removed his jacket and methodically worked on the flames nearest him. After a frenetic minute, the last of the flames died. Isaacs, breathing in huge gulps of air, smiled gratefully at the young man. His proud grey-blue jacket was a scorched tatter. He was covered with soot and his hands were red with angry welts. Isaacs felt his own hands begin to puff and sting with burns he had ignored.
“Sorry about your hands, and clothes.”
The young man shrugged.
“Would you make sure these are all out?” Isaacs asked him. “I’ll check the others.”
Isaacs left the soldier gently kicking the books into the hallway, checking for those still smouldering.
Pat Danielson had run over to Alex Runyan and then stopped, weak-kneed. He lay on his back, staring pale faced at the ceiling. His shirt was slashed just below his right elbow and a dark stain spread into the cloth, but it was his neck that held her attention. His beard below the chin line dripped red blood. She paid no attention to the two CIA agents who tore through the room and out the front door. My god, she thought, dropping to her knees, his throat’s been slashed!
Runyan rolled his eyes to her and smiled weakly. “I’ll never look at another woman again.”
Danielson forced herself to look at his neck. With relief, she realized the wound was just along the jaw bone. It was deep, with pink bone showing, but not life threatening.
“She—she nearly cut your throat.”
“I certainly got the impression that was her goal,” Runyan croaked.
“Let me look for something to stop the bleeding,” Danielson said. She ran through the dining room into the kitchen. She slammed through the cabinets until she found a stack of dish towels. She turned to go, then stopped and pulled open drawers until she found a large, sharp kitchen knife. She trotted back to Runyan who was struggling to sit up.
“Lie down, crazy,” she said, pushing him in the chest with the butt of the knife.
Runyan spied the gleaming blade. “You’re going to finish the job,” he groaned. “Make it quick.”
Danielson put the knife and towels down and gave him a pained look. She rolled one of the towels up and aligned it with the cut on his jaw.
“Hold that!” she said sternly, grabbing his good left hand and putting it on the towel. She laid his right arm slowly, gently, straight out from his body. Then she picked up the knife and carefully inserted the tip in the hole in his shirt and slit the gash to the end of the sleeve. She reversed the knife and extended the slash to his upper arm so she could curl the cloth away from the wound. It was also deep, with sliced tendons exposed, bleeding steadily and profusely. She wrapped a towel around the forearm and it promptly turned a bright crimson. She slit another towel in several places with the knife and then tore it into strips. She knotted two strips around the towel on the wound and another just above the elbow as a tourniquet.
She felt Isaacs crouch at her side.
“How is he?”
“Not as bad as he looks, I thought his throat was cut. He’s lost a lot of blood, though.”
“I’ll send the pilot in the van for his chopper. There must be someplace he can set down around here. We’ll get him down to the base hospital at Holloman as soon as possible.”
Isaacs headed quickly for the door. Outside the two agents were jogging back up the driveway.
“Missed her?” Isaacs inquired.
“No way,” one of them replied. “Damn Ferrari, or some such thing. But she didn’t head for the lab; she took off in the opposite direction. Shall we take the van after her?”
“No, we need it to help get medical attention for Runyan. Was Krone in the car?”
“Didn’t get a good look, but yeah, I thought I saw a passenger.”
“Can’t be too hard to find such a car in these parts,” Isaacs observed.
“Nah,” the agent agreed, “it’s bright red and goes two hundred miles an hour. Should be a snap from the air. It’ll be dark soon, though. That could give her an edge.”
“Let’s get on it then,” Isaacs said. “You go with the pilot to the lab. Radio from the helicopter for a search team.”
“Right,” replied the agent, heading for the van.
Inside the house, Runyan had closed his eyes. Pat Danielson looked at his face, nearly as white from shock as the plaster on the adobe walls. Slowly, she reached out and put a comforting hand on the pale forehead.
“Damn you,” she whispered. “Damn you.”
Chapter 18
From his helicopter seat, Robert Isaacs looked down on the lights of the Ellipse, the thrust of the Washington Monument, and the illuminated sheen of the White House. His exhaustion ran so deep that the sight barely stirred him. His hands stung from burns and his belly ached from the cold, greasy, hastily packed box lunch that he had grabbed from the commissary at Holloman Air Force Base and shared with Pat Danielson on the flight back to Andrews. With luck, he thought, the car would be depositing Danielson at her apartment about now. He, on the other hand, had to face the most important meeting of his career with scarcely the energy to hold his head up. There would be shock, a lot of heat, a search for scapegoats. He knew he would be a target if his collusion with the Russians were revealed.
He hoped he didn’t look as bad as he felt. The clean jacket that an aide had picked up from his home and delivered to Andrews helped, but he could see singe marks where the shirt cuffs showed. He looked at his watch as the helicopter settled onto the pad on the White House lawn. 11:37. A helluva time to decide the fate of the nation. He thought he might prefer to change places with Runyan, trussed up in a hospital bed, or the two agents who had gone chasing a Ferrari through the mountains of New Mexico. Isaacs wondered whether they had gotten anything to eat. He steeled himself as the door swung open and climbed down into the rotor’s wash. He supervised the unloading of the precious foot-locker, keeping one of the lab books to show the President and then headed for the nearest door of the White House.
Inside, a White House guard escorted him to the cabinet room. Isaacs thanked the guard, opened the door and stepped inside. Seventeen people were seated around the large table that filled the room. Isaacs nodded to the Vice-President, several cabinet officers, the Chairman of the National Security Council, and various others he knew. He recalled that the Secretary of Defense, smart enough to beat the August heat in the capital, was absent on a tour of European defense installations. Some of the faces displayed excitement at the state of emergency, others, blase and disgruntled at the lateness of the hour, glanced at him long enough to ascertain that he was not The Man and returned to desultory conversations. The President’s chair, halfway along the table, its back to the window, was still empty.
Howard Drefke rose from his seat at the far end of the table in front of the unlit fireplace. Wayne Phillips, who had been seated next to him, also stood as Isaacs walked the length of the room to join them.
“Bob. How are you?” Drefke’s voice was low in the hush of the room, but warm.
“I’m fine.” Isaacs grimaced slightly at the pain of the handshake, but offered his hand as well to Phillips. They sat down, Isaacs taking a spare chair next to Phillips. He placed the scorched lab book carefully on the table. “Sorry to call you back here so suddenly,” Isaacs said to the physicist.
“No problem at all. I’m so happy to be of service.”
“You brought the slides from Gantt?”
“Yes, they’re in the machine.”
Phillips gestured at a projector sitting on the waist high table next to Drefke
in front of the fireplace. Isaacs checked the alignment of the screen at the other end of the room, next to the door through which he had entered. He confirmed that Drefke had brought the satellite photos. All seemed in place.
“I caught one of those commuter flights from La Jolla to Burbank just after you called this morning,” Phillips continued, “and Ellison was ferried over from Arizona. We had several hours in Pasadena to assemble the data and make the slides before my flight east. I’m sorry that Ellison isn’t here to help with the presentation, especially since poor Alex is hurt. His condition is not too serious, they tell me?”
“No, he lost some blood, and he’ll be in a bit of pain for awhile, but he’ll be fine. In any case, you’re the head of Jason, the man the President will want to hear from.”
The door banged open and the President barged through. Isaacs immediately perceived that the individual normally so bluff and hearty on television press conferences was thoroughly steamed. He strode to his chair and sat down so quickly that no one had a chance to stand. There was a momentary bobbing of bodies as several of the people started to rise, thought better of it, and resettled themselves. The President had a piece of paper partially crushed in his tight grip. He slammed it on the table.
“The goddamned Russians have gone berserk! This is the third hot line message from them today. This morning they wiped out the nuclear device that was our protection against their laser. All afternoon they’ve been methodically picking off pieces of space junk, showing what they can do. There are rumors in every major capital that our surveillance system is compromised and that one side or the other is on the verge of a preemptive strike.”
He poked a rigid finger at the paper.
“If we so much as blink we’ll be at war and our NATO allies are panicked to the point where any one of them could push the wrong button.”
He looked around the table. “The Russians are mad, and they are scared, and they are blaming us. I want to know what the hell is going on!”
The President paused and forcibly composed himself. He continued with a quieter but still strained tone. “They seem to think that we have developed and are testing some fantastic new kind of weapon that can be fired through the Earth.”
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