And now …
Without a word Linda walked to him with a smile and pulled Scott into her arms, kissing him deeply. His arms tightened around her, his right hand gently ruffling her hair as they lost themselves in each other for a tiny eternity. When Scott slowly pulled away, a small retinue of scientists in the foyer began clapping, a gesture that would normally have irritated and embarrassed Linda.
Instead, she turned with a broad smile and nodded in their direction. “You shall be meeting without me this evening, gentlemen,” she said.
“Why’s that?” Scott asked with feigned innocence.
“Because we have a lot to talk about and because I’ve got a wood-burning fireplace I can’t wait to try out.”
SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO—MAY 21
Dr. Louis Benedict placed his morning coffee on the side table and sat carefully in his recliner as he picked up the remote to surf through the morning shows. His seventy-third birthday was past by three days, but the retired administrative chief of the Los Alamos facility had hardly noticed. He was determined not to be depressed, even though he was alone, a widower of ten years’ duration from a childless marriage.
He flicked past a familiar image, then returned. It was Pete Cooke, the Wall Street Journal reporter, on Good Morning America, talking about his new book. Louis smiled to himself. He was mentioned in the book, a bestseller called Waltzing Medusa, which was about Rogers Henry and his barely foiled plot to remove Washington from the map and kill Vivian in the process. Pete had sent him a warm thank-you after interviewing him in Santa Fe, and Louis had rushed out to buy the book as soon as it was published. He had quickly found his name inside and was relieved to see that he’d been correctly quoted and portrayed in a way that made him feel good.
Dr. Benedict’s attention returned to the television screen in time to hear Charles Gibson asking Pete about the five people on the ScotAir 727, and how they were doing.
“Jerry, the flight engineer, is divorced now and living near the company headquarters in Colorado. His recovery has been slow. There was extensive damage to his right leg, in particular, but there is hope that he’ll be back flying very soon.” Pete continued with a short discussion on the current activities and whereabouts of the other four who’d been aboard the 727.
“And how about that operations manager in Miami,” Gibson was asking, “who, according to you, purposefully misled Scott McKay into thinking that he and his flight crew were responsible for misloading the cargo that contained the bomb, leaving behind the cargo they were supposed to take?”
“He was fired after he lied to a congressional committee about it,” Pete said, “and he’s now been indicted for that lie.”
“What’s the bottom line of this story, Pete? We barely escaped, as you put it in the title of your book, Waltzing Medusa, and the technology is still unknown. We know it was developed by this lone nuclear scientist, but there’s no known record of how he did it.”
“None,” Pete Cooke replied, “and anyone with a modicum of intelligence would never want it to be built, much less used, again. But, predictably, our government is now gearing up to try to discover how to make this very weapon they originally abandoned, with the lame excuse that we must develop it, just in case someone else develops the technology first.”
The interview ended with a handshake and wishes for success, but Louis Benedict was lost in thought.
He put down his coffee and got to his feet, padding out to the garage, where his file boxes were stored, remembering something in the package Rogers Henry had sent him a long time ago, the one that contained the drawings of the instantaneous nuclear trigger. There had been a computer disk as well, an old eight-inch floppy. It supposedly contained the same plans, and he’d confirmed that at one time, but he realized that he’d never actually read everything on the disk.
Eight-inch drives had all but disappeared in the late eighties, but he still had an old Radio Shack Model II, and he turned it on now and inserted the disk.
As expected, the files contained the same details about the trigger, and he paged through them dutifully before preparing to take the disk out.
But there was something odd. The disk was indicating full, but the files he had seen were less than a third of the capacity. That meant there were machine files—hidden files—not showing up in the main directory.
Louis searched his memory for the right codes, finally remembering enough to call up information not normally displayed, and a huge file popped into view.
He opened it and found page after page of computer codes. The conversion program was buried in another old file box, and it was 11 A.M. before he found it and sat down before the old screen again to key in the appropriate commands.
Suddenly the screen was filled with drawings and diagrams, formulas and figures—and a narrative addressed to him!
“Congratulations, Louis, you’ve cracked the none-too-obscure code. What follows is top secret and known only to me. I have succeeded in principle in finding the theoretical basis for Medusa, and all my notes follow for safekeeping. Please do not copy or print this, but store it carefully. If anything happens to me, you will be the only one who holds the key. Use it wisely, but don’t forget what we went through to get it.”
Louis Benedict exited the program immediately and snapped off the computer, his heart pounding. A major government program had been launched to find precisely what he had in front of him, and if they succeeded, the world would once again be facing a new means of inflicting misery. His hands were shaking as he replaced the disk in its cover and slipped it back in the folder.
The afternoon passed with a leaden pace as he roamed his living room and den, trying to decide what to do. Should he call Pete Cooke? Should he call the Pentagon? Who should know, and when, and how?
By 8 P.M., his normal bedtime, he was still in a quandary, and with a fire burning in his fireplace at midnight, the options finally coalesced into one.
Louis Benedict returned to the darkened garage and retrieved the folder with the disk in it. He moved back to the living room and stood for a second in thought before reaching down to pull back the fireplace screen. With one fluid motion, he tossed the folder into the fire. It landed just short of the nearest flame.
The edges of the folder began to turn brown as Dr. Benedict watched, remembering the years of frustration he’d gone through in trying to keep the Medusa Project alive and give Rogers Henry enough time to find the key. The key was now beginning to smolder before his eyes.
And suddenly that was intolerable.
He quickly reached in and yanked the folder to safety, opening it to verify that the disk had not been damaged. It hadn’t.
Dr. Louis Benedict quietly returned to the garage and placed the folder back into its file box, satisfied with the knowledge that it would stay safe—and unused.
Acknowledgments
High-energy fiction requires a very large, very accomplished team of professionals hand-carrying the author’s words into print, and I’m privileged to have the best.
First, I’m very fortunate to have as my literary agents and dear friends the indomitable George Wieser and the indefatigable Olga Wieser (of the Wieser and Wieser Agency in New York). Quite simply, they make my books possible.
Medusa’s Child took shape at home in Tacoma with the creative assistance of my wife, Bunny Nance, who also provided editorial scrutiny as the chapters moved out of my laptop (yes, I do live with a computer; and no, I don’t write in the cockpit). Medusa reached literary maturity under the accomplished care of my samurai editor and business partner, Patricia Davenport (for some reason I keep buying her red pens with which to slash my copy to shreds).
Finally, in New York—in the offices of my publisher, Doubleday—Medusa’s Child received the expert developmental and editorial skills of my editors Lori Lipsky and Rob Robertson, and the attention and enthusiasm of my publisher Arlene Friedman and editor-in-chief Pat Mulcahy, as well as the extraordinary efforts of our promotion g
uru, Jane Schorn.
And to all these world-class pros, my heartfelt thanks.
Thank you as well to the folks who helped with fact-checking and technical suggestions, such as Dr. Alan Diehl and Air Force F-15 pilot Captain Gary Rhoades, who was last thanked with his name misspelled (this time, Gary, we’re getting it right!). To all those nuclear experts who helped on the Internet and by phone, my specific appreciation, and a note of thanks to Greg and Sue Coe of Seattle, whose early insights into the vulnerability of our computer systems helped spark this work.
Special thanks also to Navy Lt. Commander Elmer Nagma for his above-and-beyond assistance with technical details of Navy life accomplished through E-mail from the middle of some distant ocean (we Air Force guys simply don’t know a lot about carrier life—we prefer our airfields to remain precisely where we left them!).
About the Author
John J. Nance is the author of thirteen novels whose suspenseful storylines and authentic aviation details have led Publishers Weekly to call him the “king of the modern-day aviation thriller.” Two of his novels, Pandora’s Clock and Medusa’s Child, were made into television miniseries. He is well known to television viewers as the aviation analyst for ABC News. As a decorated air force pilot who served in Vietnam and Operation Desert Storm and a veteran commercial airline pilot, he has logged over fourteen thousand hours of flight time and piloted a wide variety of jet, turboprop, and private aircraft. Nance is also a licensed attorney and the author of seven nonfiction books, including On Shaky Ground: America’s Earthquake Alert and Why Hospitals Should Fly, which, in 2009, won the American College of Healthcare Executives James A. Hamilton Award for book of the year. Visit him online at www.johnnanceassociates.com
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1997 by John J. Nance
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2795-3
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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