by Tom Clancy
He moved his glance to the clock on the table next to him, then returned it to the miniature of San Ginés.
The hour and minute had come.
There was only one thing left for him, one thing before he closed out.
Kuhl slid his hand down to the shopping bag he’d leaned against the foot of his chair and took hold of its handle. Then he rose and went over to the worktable where the church of his diligent fashioning glowed bloodred in the ashes of nightfall.
He stood there looking down at it, appraising its every feature, recalling the intensity of his labor with a sense of powerful and intimate connection. Feeling an investment of self that in some indescribable way connected him, in turn, to the old church on Calle del Arenal, after which his exacting replica had been crafted.
Calle del Arenal, the Street of Sand, ancient cemetery of Jews, their dust and bones razed at the order of an inquisitor tribunal.
Kuhl thought of the lustful dancers at Joy Eslava, gathering in the shadow of the cross like freed birds outside a cage that had held them from flight, as if that near reminder of confinement somehow added fervor to their kinetic mingling.
After a moment, he reached into the shopping bag for the sculptor’s mallet he had purchased at the nearby art-supply shop. The iron head did not weigh much—one and a half pounds, to be precise—but it was quite sufficient to do the job intended for it.
He leaned down, placed the shopping bag on the floor next to the table, and opened its mouth wide. Then he straightened, raised his sculptor’s mallet over the church, and with clenched teeth brought it down hard on the newly completed and attached bell tower.
It took only a single blow of the mallet to drive it down through the model’s splintering roof to its inner core. Three additional blows reduced the entire miniature to crushed and unrecognizable scraps of colored wood.
Kuhl did not pause to regard its shattered remnants, merely cleared them from sight with a broad swipe of his right arm that sent them spilling over the edge of the work table into his shopping bag.
Brushing the last pieces of the obliterated church off the table, he lifted the bag again, carried it to the door of the apartment, gathered up his luggage, and vacated without a backward glance.
Kuhl left the shopping bag in a waste receptacle in an alley behind the building, and could feel the tightness in his jaw starting to relent by the time he hailed a taxi to the airport. His existence in Madrid was indeed closed out; he had been released for a mission that he almost believed himself born to fulfill.
Across the ocean, Big Sur awaited.
“I’m telling you, Gord, no qualifications, this is the juiciest steak I’ve ever eaten,” Dan Parker said, and swallowed a mouthful of his food. He had ordered the prime New York strip with a side of mashed potatoes. “I feel like we haven’t been here together in years.”
“That’s because we haven’t,” Roger Gordian said. He had gotten the filet mignon with baked. “Three years, if you’re counting.”
Parker looked up from his plate with mild wonder. “No kidding? That long?”
Gordian nodded, pressing some sour cream into the potato’s flesh with his fork.
“That long,” he repeated. It was a bit hard to believe. Lunch at the Washington Palm on Nineteenth Street was once a regular monthly appointment for them, but that was before Gordian’s illness. It was also before Dan had lost his congressional seat in Santa Clara County, having succumbed to the political fallout for helping Gordian lobby against indiscriminate dissemination of U.S. encryption tech abroad. This had proven a resoundingly unpopular stance among his constituents in Silicon Valley’s software industry, who, with the exception of UpLink International, had not seemed to care a whit whether the al Qaedas, Hamases, and Cali Cartels of the world had access to products that could thwart the best surveillance efforts of global law enforcement, their rationale having been that the terrorists and drug lords could get their hands on similar encoding programs from foreign countries, or bootlegged copies of U.S. programs regardless of legal obstacles. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em for a buck, Gordian thought, even if they’re planning to flood your borders with heroin or level the foundations of Western civilization.
“A lot’s happened to keep us busy,” he said.
“Truer words have never been voiced.” Parker tipped his head toward the good-humored caricature of Tiger Woods on the wall above their formerly usual corner table. “At least Tiger’s still here with us.”
“That he is. And for my money the kid’s a permanent fixture.”
Parker grinned. The sports and political cartoons mounted everywhere in sight were a tradition at the restaurant harkening back almost a century to the original Palm on Manhattan’s East Side. Before Woods rose to fame on the green, his current spot on the wall had for over a decade been occupied by the caricature of a retired star football player who’d been well-loved by fans young and old until he was accused of a grisly double homicide, one of the victims being his ex-wife and the mother of his children. Then the football player’s picture had come down and been replaced by a drawing of a television sportscaster who was soon to be booted from his job after allegations that he’d taken large bites out of his mistress while dressed in women’s clothing, or something of that nature. Woods had replaced the sportscaster on the wall around 1998, and remained there since, even though the sports commentator had eventually found sufficient sympathy among fans and network executives to be restored to his approximate slot on the airwaves.
Now Parker reached for his martini to wash down another chunk of steak, drank, produced an ahhh of sublime relish, and set his glass down on the white tablecloth.
“Okay, Gord,” he said. “We’ve talked plenty about my chronic political hankerings. How are you these days?”
“Very well,” Gordian said thoughtfully. “Older,” he added with a slight shrug. “And . . .”
His reflective expression deepened but he just shrugged again and cut into his steak.
Parker waited for about thirty seconds, then gave him a vague gesture that meant “What else?”
Gordian studied his friend’s curious face.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you in suspense,” he said. “Couldn’t come up with the exact word. You know how it is with me.”
Parker smiled a little. A brown-haired man of middle age and medium build, wearing a black hopsack blazer, pale blue shirt, and gray flannel trousers, his appearance was unremarkable in almost every respect until you inevitably noticed his eyes. In them was a look Dan had not lost since his days as wing man to Gordian in their hundreds of sorties over Nam, flying F-4 Phantoms through waves of antiaircraft fire as they searched the forested ground for VC entrenchments. It was a look so similar to the look in Gordian’s eyes that people would sometimes mistake the two for brothers.
“Granted, self-expression isn’t your most notable personality trait,” he said. “You want to try taking a stab at it anyway?”
Gordian hesitated, his knife and fork suspended over his plate.
“It’s a kind of feeling. Or my wanting to hold on to a feeling, if that helps at all,” he said. “I don’t think I can explain it any better. But sometimes when I’m getting out of bed on a workday, and my blanket’s tossed off, and I have one foot halfway to the floor, I look over at Ashley, and I’m perfectly content with how things are at that split second. It gives me incredible peace of mind knowing I don’t really have to leave her for UpLink to be okay. More than okay. That everything I’ve built is strong enough to stand, to grow, if I decide to stay right there in that house.” He paused, sipped his drink—mineral water with a lemon twist. “On the other hand, I don’t want to stay put, become complacent. Don’t want to stop. And that’s as essential to the mix as any sense of accomplishment or fulfillment. Wanting to stop and not stop . . . to keep attaining things and at the same time let go. I honestly don’t know the word for the feeling, Dan. It might sound like there’s some contradiction in it, but
I’m not sure. And I want to figure it out, find whatever will let me keep riding it.”
Parker chewed his food quietly a minute, glanced at his martini, and frowned. There was nothing left of it but the rocks. He caught a waiter’s attention, motioned to his glass, and continued eating in silence until his refill arrived.
“The part about not leaving home might have to wait,” he muttered half under his breath, taking a deep sip of the cocktail and swallowing the words with it.
Gordian looked at him. “What was that you said?”
Parker flapped a hand in dismissal.
“Time for that later on,” he said quickly. “Right now, I’ll make you a proposition. After we’re done with business here in the capital, I’ll head back home to Saratoga, think about the word that keeps hiding from you, le mot juste, see if I can draw it out into the open. Meanwhile, you turn that resourceful steel-trap brain of yours to pondering how I can get back to where I belong.”
“Congress.”
Parker shrugged.
“Public service,” he said. “I’m open to broad and innovative suggestions.”
Gordian paused again. Then he reached for his lemon water and held it out across the table.
“Okay, settled,” he said. “Can do.”
They clinked glasses, then sat a moment.
“We should get on to the capital business you mentioned,” Gordian said.
Parker nodded.
“In my opinion, your coming here to make a closing pitch without a whole army of experts was a stroke of inspiration,” he said. “It’s going to make all the difference in the world.”
Gordian smiled. “Dan, we’ve already toasted to our deal—”
“I’m serious,” Parker interrupted. “Sedco’s about oil. It’s no insult to my fellow board members to say that’s what interests them. What they know. They’ve read the UpLink prospectus, the analyses and recommendations prepared by our advisory panel. They don’t need technical lectures on the ins and outs of fiberoptic communications. They don’t even have to appreciate all their properties, advantages, and capabilities. It’s enough for them to understand offshore drilling operations are becoming more computerized practically every day, and that high data transmission from the rigs to our onshore facilities is a necessity. Wiring up our platforms to your African telecom ring isn’t just to our benefit, it’s inevitable.”
“You’re convinced a majority of the board sees it that way?” Gordian said.
“Totally,” Parker said. “The few fence straddlers or outright dissenters might need some help trusting the rest, and maybe themselves. That’s what you’re about, Gord. Inspiring trust and credibility.” He paused. “It’s a very big reason I think your coming here alone was so important.”
Gordian rubbed his chin. “What’s your slant on them? The possible opposing voters?”
“There aren’t many, for one thing. I’m betting Bill Fredericks will need the most persuasion. With him, resistance to progress is a sort of reflexive crusade. He was a Sedco executive when the fossil fuel we sell was still living plants and protozoa—”
“I think it’s made from plants and bacteria . . .”
“Protozoa, bacteria, flying aardvarks, what-the-hell-ever,” Parker said. “Point is, Bill seems to be the only member with a problem getting a basic grasp on lightwave systems . . . which is no shocker to me, having been to his home. Don’t even try bringing up video conferencing to him. His phones have hammer and bell ringers, and I swear to God I saw some with rotary dials. He refuses to use e-mail or even check out the Internet. Mention increased bandwidth, and he thinks it’s got something to do with his wife’s rings and bracelets. Doesn’t see anything wrong with sticking to the marine radio links we’ve been using for decades and probably wonders what the hell’s wrong with using Morse code to contact the mainland.”
Gordian laughed.
“I’ll try to be extra attentive while nursing him along,” he said, and finished his lunch. “Who else?”
“Paul Reidman. He’s savvy. Keen on the corporate security aspect, likes the idea that tapping a data stream carried as pulses of light is a damn hard task, going to be almost impossible when we get to practical photon encoding in the next few years.” Parker sipped his drink. “Reidman can be fiscally myopic, worries about short-term unit costs versus a reasonable investment in the future. But his stinginess cuts both ways. He’s seen the reports showing that postinstallation maintenance of undersea fiber systems is relatively cheap. Average is something like two, three major faults every quarter century, right?”
“Three, according to our preliminary risk assessment,” Gordian said. “We should have an update from Vince Scull soon . . . he flew out to Gabon separately from the rest of the advance team, but should have joined them by now. Also, we’re in the process of contracting a repair fleet for guaranteed rapid deployment.”
“Stress that to Paul. Remind him that Planétaire already had one of those statistical faults back in May, trimmed your odds some,” Parker said. He saw the wry amusement in Gordian’s face. “What’s to laugh at?”
Gordian shrugged a little.
“I was thinking you truly are made for the campaign trail,” he said.
Parker was unabashed. “I’m not trying to exploit anybody’s misfortune. Not gleefully anyway. But it’s the kind of market research that can sway Paul.”
Gordian shrugged again.
“I wasn’t being critical,” he said. “Just making an observation.”
“Good, you know how sensitive I am,” Parker said. He eyed the last morsel of his steak. “While we’re on guarantees, give me UpLink’s capacity timetable.”
“We can promise an initial secure multimedia transfer rate of between one and two terrabytes per second. Phone, video, Internet, or any combination thereof. After a year of upgrades we should be up to four terrabytes. By 2005, we can virtually assure you almost ten. Looking at the startup number, Megan Breen’s favorite example is that it’s equivalent to millions of simultaneous telephone calls, a ten-mile high stack of printed material, and twenty feature films.”
“Every second?”
“Right.”
Parker mouthed a silent wow.
“Make sure to refresh Paul about that, too.” He lifted his fork, then noticed Gordian glancing across the table at his plate. “What is it?”
“If Ash were here, she’d tell you to leave the gristle,” he said.
That elicited a snort from Parker. “To which I’d respond that it’s lean gristle.”
Gordian smiled, watching him eat. “All right. I’ve checked off Fredericks and Reidman for extra hand-holding. Any others?”
“You persuade those guys, you’re in crack-dandy shape.”
“Good,” Gordian said. “Then I’ve only got two more things on my mind.”
“Shoot.”
“I’ve wondered about your being taken to the carpet for a perceived conflict of interest.”
“You mean my urging along the fiber installation?” Parker said, and pushed his cleaned-off plate to the side. “That’d be ridiculous. If anything this is a clear instance of coinciding interests.”
“I know. It’s why I said perceived.”
“Don’t waste another minute thinking about it, Gord. Our friendship’s no secret. And I don’t believe anybody at Sedco would question my integrity.”
Gordian nodded. “All right, next,” he said, “I want you to explain your half intentional slip up. That comment about how my staying home will have to wait.”
Parker cleared his throat.
“I thought I said later on that one—”
“You did.” Gordian looked at him. “I’m saying give it to me now—”
“Gord—”
“Now, Dan. Your conscience is crying out to you, begging to be heard.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely. You wouldn’t have made that blatant fumble unless you wanted me to ask about it.”
Parker s
ighed.
“Okay, you win,” he said. “The fact is that the company president and veep, who, as you know, are huge UpLink supporters, met a few days ago and came up with this idea for an event that would celebrate our new relationship. Working on the supposition the deal gets signed and sealed, needless to say, they put in a conference call about their idea to Hugh Bennett—”
“The chairman of Sedco’s board?”
“Right, King Hughie, the board chairman, who is also prepared to advise we move ahead with the fiberoptic system install. And he was seriously taken with their idea.”
“They want press coverage, photo ops,” Gordian said. “Understandable.”
Parker gave a nod.
“Sedco’s got terrific competition for offshore oil prospecting licenses in West Africa,” he said. “Some of the industry biggies involved in the bidding are Exxon, Chevron, Texaco, Elf Aquitain. There are state-owned companies—Petroleos Brasileiros out of Brazil, as a for-instance—and their subsidiaries. They’ve been leasing huge, contiguous blocks of deepwater acreage all down the equatorial coast from Nigeria to Angola. Some of these sites are what geologists call elephants . . . expected to yield upwards of a billion barrels of petroleum. Two blocks found by Texaco in the Agbami Basin—that’s off Angola—are geared to produce a hundred fifty thousand barrels a day before this year’s over, and might very well double that output when their operations are in full swing. To stay in the game, Sedco needs to raise its stock market profile. A headline-making affiliation with UpLink would accomplish that in a snap. Help us work with the U.S. Department of Energy to secure underwriting loans from OPIC.”