“The stock options that you’ve negotiated in place of salaries and other compensation have ensured you total control of the company for many years, Dr. Masters,” Hudson said. “Good or bad, you control the company because you control the stock—”
“I’m also the chief designer and engineer,” Jon interjected. “I built this company by taking chances and by developing technologies that work and remain on the cutting edge. I’ve given my life to this company, and I’ve taken nothing but the paper value out. My shareholders are my shareholders because they like that arrangement.”
“That’s not what I hear,” Cheryl Duffield said. “Your shareholders are not happy about this, but there was nothing they could do about it—they either stuck with you or got nothing. But now they’re riding the company with you into the ground.”
“That’s your opinion,” Jon said heatedly.
“It’s a fact,” Cheryl said. “Well, the tables are turned. Refuse this tender offer, and you risk losing all your shareholders, bankrupting your company, and opening yourself up to a lawsuit. Sierra Vistas Partners will be there to pick up the pieces. If you accept our offer, you recoup some of your losses, you gain my daughter’s knowledge and wealth of ideas, and your company survives. No corporate raiders I know will give you a better deal.”
“The stockholders won’t go for it,” Jon said. “The board will never vote to approve it. None of this will stand up in court. You’d be wasting your time.”
“I think we can make an offer attractive enough for most of your shareholders,” Cheryl said. “As far as the courts— well, the last thing you need in this market climate is a lawsuit. It’ll sink your company fast.”
“What’s stopping me from just taking the cash you give me and buying more stock?”
“Your promise not to do so, not to upset the one-third balance,” Hudson replied. “This arrangement is based on trust...
“You have a funny way of showing it, Mrs. Duffield.”
“We feel a one-third split is best for the company—neither of us gains a majority unless our ideas and proposals sufficiently sway the other shareholders to side with one or the other,” Hudson went on. “Once news hits the street that you’ve given up your stock options, the value of the stock will soar.”
“So what’s preventing you from selling your shares and cleaning up?”
“We restrict the stock we own for one year,” Cheryl Duffield replied. “If either of us wants out, we have to promise to offer it to the other shareholders first, at a prenegotiated price. But that’s not what we’re doing this for. We certainly don’t need the money, and we’re not stock speculators. We’re building a future for ourselves and Kelsey by building a partnership with you and Helen and the other talented folks you have here.”
“We’ll work together, Jon,” Kelsey said. “It’s more fun that way.”
“Fun? You think any of this is fun? Do you have any idea what we do around here, little girl?”
“I’m Kelsey,” she said, smiling at him. “We’ll make things, Jon and Helen. We’ll make things other people have never dreamed of. Fantastic, unbelievable, wonderful things. We’ll make people happy and make people’s lives better.”
“Are you for real?” Helen Masters asked. “Do you have any idea what you’re getting yourself into?”
Kelsey Duffield walked over between Jon and Helen and took their hands into hers. “We’re friends now, right?” she asked. “We’re going to be together and build things so incredible, no one will believe it. Right?”
Neil Hudson opened his briefcase and extracted several documents—including a check. “Value of your stock at its thirty-nine-week average price per share—exceedingly generous given the current stock price. You agree to sell the seven percent back to the company at the same price, you give up your stock options, and you agree to make Sierra Vistas Partners your partner. Dr. Duffield comes on board as co-chief operating officer and co-chief engineer, sharing responsibilities and privileges equally with Jon Masters. Dr. Helen Masters stays on as president for one year, at which time there will be elections for officers.”
Jon took the check, looked at all the zeroes typed on it, then looked at the Duffields. “I... I have to think about it.”
“Please, Jon?” Kelsey asked. “It’ll be fun. I promise.” Jon hesitated, looking at Helen, then staring at nothing. Kelsey smiled and said in a low voice, almost a whisper, “I’ll tell you about the laser field, Jon. When I tell you, you’ll be so mad.”
“Mad? Why?”
“Because you already know how it works.”
“What did you say?” Jon asked. “Know how what works? How can I know how it works if I’ve never even heard of it before!”
“You already know how it works, I’ll bet,” Kelsey said. “You just don’t believe it. You keep on saying ‘no’ because you don’t believe it could be so simple. I’ll tell you, Jon, and then we’ll build it, and then we’ll build other things you’ve already thought about but don’t believe either. It’ll be fun.”
Jon sat back in his chair, visibly deflated. That was the last word he had expected to hear this morning: the word “fun.” He wanted so badly to tell this little superbrained girl that he had already lost a friend, may have lost another close friend, and several more friends were in serious danger. He wanted to tell her that what happened to the company didn’t matter—it was what his company was trying to do for the people of the United States and the world that was important. But she was here, with her mother and CPA and her father’s SumaTek money, ready to create alternate universes inside lasers and other such fantasy gadgets. He wanted to tell her to just go away and let the adults get back to work.
But then Jon’s brain registered the feel of the check between his fingers, and he thought of all those zeroes on it. He couldn’t do a thing if he went bankrupt or if this cute little savant walked off with his company. Paul would still be gone, Wendy would still be missing, and the others would still be in trouble—except then they wouldn’t have any of Sky Masters’s technology to help them.
“I need to tell you something,” Jon said slowly. “I need to verify your security clearance, so I can’t tell you everything, but I can tell you this: Your security clearance is not going to prepare you for what you’ll learn. We do a lot of very interesting things here, but it’s not what I would call ‘fun.’ In fact, I’d say most of it is downright horrifying.”
“My daughter doesn’t design talking dolls and little robot voice-controlled dogs and dream about a life filled with roses and sunshine,” Cheryl said. She reached over and stroked Kelsey’s hair and shoulders, smiling warmly at her. “She designs laser weapons and dreams about stopping enemy airplanes with force fields. No one ever told her what to do, what to focus on. She just did it.
“My husband and I brought her up like any other young girl—at least, we tried to. We dressed her in pink dresses and little black shoes and put ribbons in her hair. We read Dr. Seuss and Goodnight Moon and Harry Potter books to her.
“But by the time she was one year old, at the same time other kids were just starting to walk, she was reading the Wall Street Journal and Aviation Week & Space Technology. The first book she read wasn’t Nancy Drew or Power-puff Girls at six years old—it was Drexler’s Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery; Manufacturing, and Computation at thirteen months. The year after that, she was one of the contributors to Drexler’s updated edition.”
Cheryl paused, her eyes adopting a far-off look as if she was replaying all the many moments, pleasant and otherwise, in her memory. “We knew we couldn’t treat her like an ordinary child,” she went on. “By age six she was discussing weapons, theories, devices, and formulas that were making advisers to presidents sweat and four-star generals lick their lips. She’s been asked to teach nanotechnology at Cornell’s Duffield Hall, the engineering research facility my husband built—a nine-year-old professor of nanoengineering, teaching at her father’s school. Do you think she’d be scared to lear
n how many persons a plasma-yield war-head can kill, or that one of your NIRTSats can direct a two-thousand-pound bomb to hit its target within six inches? She’s already figured out how to build supercomputers the size of an amoeba and turn the Moon into a photonic energy source that will supply the entire Earth with energy for a millennium. She talks to herself about the energy requirements for teleportation while she plays with Barbie dolls. At first I was worried about her being taken seriously—now I’m worried about her talents going to waste or, worse, falling into the wrong hands.”
Cheryl looked up at Jon, then at Helen, and asked in a quiet voice, “Do you have children?” They shook their heads. “All you want for them is the best,” she went on. “You would give your own life to save theirs, sacrifice your own happiness to ensure their happiness. But what do you do if what your child is doing, the thing that makes her the happiest, might upset—or even destroy—your world? Do you let her have that experience?”
Her voice lowered almost to a whisper. “Sometimes when she’d fall off her bike or trip on the stairs or come down with a fever, I’d pray that the accident or illness would turn her back into a normal child,” she said sadly. “But, of course, it never did—in fact, I think it made her even more intelligent, as if the bacteria or viruses were millions of new brains talking to her, telling her more and more of the secrets of the universe.
“But you were a child genius too, Dr. Masters,” she said to Jon. “You understand what Kelsey’s going through. You had parents that encouraged you to think beyond your age, beyond the levels where others thought you should be. We chose you because you’ve gone through what Kelsey is just starting to experience. I think it was hard for you, breaking down all the institutional and bigotry barriers, but you did it. You can be much more than a partner to Kelsey—you can be a mentor, a guide. No one else in the United States can do that for her. Only you.”
Cheryl Duffield looked up at the Masterses, and the steel returned to her eyes and voice. “She knows all about what you do, what you build, and whom you build them for,” she said. “She wants to help you build the next two generations of weapon systems, far better than you or I or anyone yet bom can imagine. Her father and I said we’d help her do that, because in a way, that’s what parents do for their kids. It’s not ballet or baseball, but parents are supposed to help their kids follow their dreams. Right?”
Jon looked at Kelsey. To his immense shock, while her mother was talking, Kelsey had been writing out a long mathematical formula on a sheet of notepaper. When she noticed Jon was looking at her, she held up the piece of paper for him. For about the third or fourth time in that meeting, Jon’s mouth dropped open.
“It’s not finished,” Kelsey said, smiling.
“I... don’t... believe ... it.. .” Jon breathed, his eyes flitting across the symbols and numbers. He pointed to one section, and his eyes narrowed, then widened, then nearly bugged out. “I... you . .. this ...”
Kelsey handed it over to Jon, and he accepted it as if she had just handed him a thirty-pound bar of solid gold. “We’ll finish it together, okay, Dr. Masters?” she said, her eyes twinkling.
“Jon. Call me Jon,” he said, smiling, his voice cracking with the sheer enormity of what he had just witnessed. Jon looked at the piece of paper, then at Kelsey, then at her mother. “Do you realize what this is?”
“Of course. It’s the future,” Cheryl said matter-of-factly, almost in a whisper. She looked down at the conference table, then added, “God help us.”
ON THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA,
TEN MILES NORTHWEST OF
MERSA MATRUH, EGYPT
THAT SAME TIME
The crew of the Egyptian warship El Arish, an American- built Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided missile frigate, treated the rescued members of the S.S. Catherine the Great as any other shipwreck survivors, offering them water, blankets, strong hot tea, and ful—pita sandwiches stuffed with fava and black beans fried together with meat, eggs, and onions. They were kept in the helicopter hangar on the aft end of the ship, out of sight of most of the rest of the crew. Several of the Night Stalkers received medical treatment for bums and shrapnel wounds by the Egyptian ship’s corpsman.
David Luger acted as the spokesman for the team when approached by the captain of the frigate, Commander Raouf Farouk, while Patrick, Hal, and Chris stayed away from the Egyptians in the center of the helicopter hangar, surrounded by commandos. “We are grateful to you for helping us, Captain,” David said as the captain approached. “You have saved our lives.”
“Afwan. You are welcome,” Farouk said. He looked at the men carefully. “And your name?”
“I’m Merlin.”
“Your full name, rank, and nationality?”
“Just Merlin,” Luger replied. “No rank or title. We are all Americans.”
“Keeping that information secret is an insult for those of us who have just saved your lives,” Farouk admonished him. “Now, I order you to tell me your real name and rank, or I will throw you in my brig.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I will not,” David replied. “I will tell you that we are crew members of the S.S. Catherine the Great, a salvage vessel based in Klaipeda, Lithuania. I’m sorry, but our ownership papers and letters of transit were lost in the attack.”
“I understand,” Farouk said. There was no doubt in Farouk’s mind that these were soldiers—they looked, acted, and even moved like fighting men. And they were not sailors, either. “The bastardly Libyans think they own the Mediterranean. I am told you do not carry passports, either.”
“Sorry, sir. They went down with our ship as well.” That was true, but the passports that went down with the ship were all fakes. “We are all American merchantmen. As I told your first officer, if you allow me to call the American embassy in Cairo, they can help verify our identities.”
“This is a military matter now, and we have specific procedures to follow to verify your identities,” Farouk said, obviously angry at Luger’s lack of cooperation. “You will be placed in custody at our home base of Mersa Matruh and questioned. You will be treated fairly, I assure you, but since you were obviously involved in some military conflict with the Libyans, we can take no chances.” He motioned to the three men surrounded by the commandos. All three put their heads down while Egyptian intelligence officers snapped pictures of them and the other commandos. “And then there is the question of those three gentlemen. Unless they are spacemen from Mars and an oxygen atmosphere is poisonous to them, they must remove their equipment immediately.”
“The devices they are wearing are life-support equipment,” Luger lied. He turned toward the three, and they all took off their helmets with a gentle hissing sound. Photo strobes flashed despite their efforts to hide their faces. “They are under some distress if they take their helmets off. May they please put them back on, Captain?”
“My ship’s doctor will examine the men with their outfits off,” the captain said. “If they are in distress, they will be airlifted to the appropriate medical facility in Egypt for treatment—all the way to Cairo if necessary. They will be well treated, I assure you. But since that outfit is unknown to me, it will be removed, examined, and placed in secure storage at Mersa Matruh until we can ascertain that it is safe and no threat to us.”
Luger nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll tell them that right now. It will take a few moments to remove their outfits.” Luger bowed slightly to the captain, then went over to McLanahan, Briggs, and Wohl. “Bad news, guys,” he said. “The captain wants you to ditch the armor. He’s going to have his doc examine you; then he’s going to place us all into custody at Mersa Matruh.”
“We can’t wait until we dock before we do something, sir,” Chris Wohl said in a low voice. Although they were all civilians now, retirees, Chris Wohl would never even consider calling McLanahan, Luger, or Briggs anything else but “sir,” although he might put a definite sneer in his voice if he disagreed with their orders—as he did now. “Mersa Matruh is a combined-forces
base—they have close to fifty thousand troops stationed there from all three services.”
“We’re not supposed to be fighting the Egyptians,” David Luger said. “Once we contact the American embassy, we’ll be let go. But if we get into a shit storm with the Egyptians, they’re just as likely to kill us.”
“Our embassy has no idea why we’re here,” Patrick said. “No real passports, no visas—and the President already tried once to have us all arrested. We can’t go running to the embassy for help.”
“I’m forced to agree with the master sergeant, Muck,” Hal Briggs said. “They’ll treat us like captured terrorists. Our cover will be blown wide open.”
Patrick thought for a moment longer; then: “Sarge, how many sailors on this ship?”
“About two hundred total. The U.S. Navy doesn’t usually carry Marines on little frigates, but the Egyptians do. Usually two marine platoons max, thirty or forty men— those will be the best-trained counterforces. We’ve seen one platoon in here already, but only a dozen of them armed.”
Luger tensed up as he saw movement nearby—the captain was getting tired of waiting and was getting his men together to start taking them into custody. The commandos surrounding the three leaders were trying to look casual and relaxed, but they could sense their tension. “Looks like the captain’s coming over here. Time’s up.”
“How do you want to play it, sir?” Wohl asked Patrick. Patrick got to his feet, turned away from the oncoming Egyptian captain, and hefted his helmet. “Let’s take this boat,” he said, and he quickly slipped his helmet into place.
“Hoo-rah,” Wohl said tonelessly as he and Briggs got to their feet. “Good decision, sir.”
“An iznukum!” Farouk shouted when he saw Patrick put on the helmet. “Minfadlukum!” But when he saw Briggs and Wohl also put their helmets on, he knew things were turning ugly. “Waif!”' He motioned to his marine guards. “Ihataris! Waif!”
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