Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 10 (60 page)

 
          
Luger
couldn’t argue with that observation. “Fab-enough—but
I'm,
worried about you,” Luger said, “and I want to know when we’re
going back out there to look for Wendy.”

 
          
“As
soon as my son stops crying himself to sleep,” Patrick replied bitterly. Again,
Luger had no reply for that.

 
          
“Been
watching the news?”

 
          
“No.”

 
          
“Susan
Bailey Salaam was elected president of
Egypt
,” Hal Briggs said. “She’s got the Libyans,
Sudanese, Syrians, Lebanese, Iranians, Iraqis, Jordanis, and Saudis cheering
for her like she’s some kind of rock star.”

           
“Good for her.”

 
          
“There’s
talk of another
United
Arab Republic
,”
Luger added. “
Egypt
and
Syria
merged for a few years back in the late fifties and early sixties under
Nasser
—they’re saying that Susan Salaam might be
able to unify the entire Arab world.”

 
          
Now
Patrick’s interest was piqued a bit. “Interesting. So I’ll bet Martindale is
calling because the Central African Petroleum Partnership called....”

 
          
“Exactly—wanting
to know if we’re going to stay on the case,” Briggs said.

 
          
“What’s
going on out there?”

 
          
“Salaam
has brought
Libya
in as a partner in the cartel, for starters,” Luger said.

 
          
“
Libya
? Partnered up with
Egypt
?”

 
          
“Hey,
they’re all huggy and kissy lately,” Briggs said. “
Egypt
is giving out work visas to Libyans and
Sudanese to work in Salimah like crazy—almost ten thousand persons have
migrated to Salimah in just the past few days. There’s already talk of
Sudan
,
Syria
, and
Jordan
joining the oil partnership.”

 
          
“Sounds
like
Egypt
decided to trade jobs for peace,” Patrick observed. “Good move.”

 
          
“And
so far it’s paying off big-time,” Luger said. “Not only are they not fighting,
but they’re praising and cooperating with each other unlike anything anyone’s
ever seen.”

 
          
“So
Egypt
becomes the new center of the Arab world,”
Patrick mused.

 
          
“Makes
sense,” Luger said. “
Egypt
is by far more powerful than any of the
other countries, and they’re more centrally located and strategically
important, with the
Suez
Canal
and the
Salimah oil fields. They have strong ties to the Muslim world, the African
world,
Europe
, and the West all at the same time.”

 
          
“And,
last but not least,
Egypt
has Susan Bailey Salaam—they’re calling her
the reincarnation of Cleopatra,” Hal Briggs added. “She was elected in a landslide
and cheered in eight different African and
Middle East
capitals the night of her election. It’s
pretty amazing to watch. Less than a month ago she had almost gotten herself
blown up and was on the run, being hunted down by assassins—now, she’s not only
president, but being considered the up-and- coming leader of the whole freakin’
Arab world.”

 
          
“And
naturally, the Central African Petroleum Partners are not happy with this
arrangement—right?”

 
          
“You
got it,” Luger said. “
Egypt
is the majority partner, and Salaam has
been allowing more Arab and African workers in to work at Salimah, displacing
the Asians and Europeans.”

 
          
“And
with the price of oil hitting new highs, all those folks are getting mighty
rich,” Briggs added.

 
          
“Speaking
of which.” David Luger held out three envelopes. “Wire-transfer receipts: our
payment from the Central African Petroleum Partners. Paul made you executor of
his estate.”

 
          
Patrick
looked at the receipts in the envelopes, closed his eyes, then dropped them on
a table. “It’s a lot of money,” he said softly. “But was it worth it, guys?” he
asked.

 
          
“It’s
never worth it when you take losses, man,” Briggs said. “But we all
volunteered. We’re all doin’ what we want to be doin’.” He looked carefully at
Patrick; then: “Aren’t we?”

 
          
Patrick
did not
—could
not—answer.

SKY MASTERS INC. TEST
FACILITY,
 
TONOPAH
TEST RANGE
,
NEVADA
 
THE NEXT MORNING

           
Jon Masters found Kelsey Duffield at
a computer workstation in the research library, sound asleep, with a blanket
thrown over her shoulders. Her mother, Cheryl, was asleep in a chair in a comer
of the room, but awoke immediately when Jon entered—and she did not look happy.

 
          
“I’ve
been looking for you guys. Your phones are off,” Jon whispered.

 
          
“Kelsey
has been working all night—she refused to leave,” Cheryl said. “She’s been on
the phone to scientists and laboratories all over the world. I finally had to
shut it off—we had no chance of getting any rest otherwise.” She awakened her
daughter and told her to go to the bathroom. Kelsey walked out, rubbing her
eyes and shuffling along like kids who just woke up do.

 
          
“Poor
kid. She’s a trouper, that’s for sure.”

 
          
“
‘Trouper’? She’s being overworked—and I’d say this verges on abuse,” Cheryl
said angrily. “Keeping her locked up in this place ... spending days on end on
that computer or in the lab. It’s ridiculous. You can’t expect her to keep on
working like this.”

 
          
“Cheryl,
I’m not expecting her to do any of this,” Jon said. “Kelsey is the one who
walked into library and hasn’t come out.”

 
          
“Come
out? How can she? Security officers besiege us every time we turn around. It
wastes almost half a day going in and out of security. Kelsey feels less
intruded upon by just staying here.”

 
          
“Well,
that’s the conclusion most of us come to,” Jon admitted with a sheepish grin.
“It’s almost as if the Air Force designs the security this way to make us work
harder.”

 
          
“It’s
not funny, Dr. Masters.”

 
          
“No
one is forcing her to do this, Cheryl. She’s doing it all on her own.” He
looked at her carefully. “You really are worried, aren’t you?”

 
          
“Of
course I am.”

 
          
“Are
you telling me that Kelsey’s never worked like this before? This is the first
time she’s been so ...”

 
          
“Obsessed?
Single-minded? Manic?” Cheryl exploded. “That’s what I’m saying, Dr. Masters.
Sure, she’s worked hard before—she works hard on everything she’s ever done.
But never like this. I’m really worried about her.”

 
          
“I
don’t have kids, Cheryl, so I’m no expert,” Jon said, “but if I didn’t know
better, I’d say Kelsey is ...”

 
          
“What?”

 
          
“Having
fun,” Jon said. When Cheryl rolled her eyes in disbelief, Jon went on, “No,
really. Putting together inertial confinement chambers and laser generators is
like ... like putting together a dollhouse or a Lego castle is to most kids.”

           
“Jon, you’re wrong. Completely,
absolutely wrong.” But even as she said the words, Jon could see that she
really didn’t believe they were true. “I wish this never happened. I wish
Kelsey was just a normal, everyday kid.”

 
          
“Cheryl,
she
is
just an everyday normal
kid—but with an incredible gift,” Jon said. “I think you see the security and
the weapons and the horror and destruction all this could cause, and you wonder
and worry about how this will affect your daughter.”

 
          
“Of
course I’m worried!”

 
          
“But
have you looked at your daughter lately ... I mean, stepped back and
really
looked at her?” Jon asked. “I
mean, I’ve never had kids, but I’m a kid at heart. And I’ve seen supersmart
kids before. Some of them are really full of themselves. They’ll talk about the
offers they get from universities and big companies and consultants to work for
them; they’ll talk about their stock portfolios and patents and the money
they’re making.”

 
          
He
paused, staring out into space as if reliving some scene in his mind’s eye. “I
know about those kids—because I was one. I am probably
still
one.” He chuckled. “Man, I used to love stuffing one down
some four-star general’s shirt. He thought he knew everything—I couldn’t wait
to blow him away. Every tactic, every procedure, every concept he had, I had a
response or an alternative that he never thought about. I used to cream the big
corporate CEOs daily. They wouldn’t give me the time of day— until I showed
them a design for something they absolutely
had
to have. I was a third of their age and had bank accounts and portfolios bigger
than theirs. I... was ... the greatest.”

 
          
“Kelsey
has done all that stuff too,” he said softly. “She’s built companies, lectured
at Cornell, given presentations in front of the National Science Foundation and
the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories. She has almost as many patents as I have
and she’s a fourth my age. But you know the difference between Kelsey and those
other Generation-X nerds? The other bozos tell you all the stuff about
themselves—myself included. I had to go out and
find
out all the stuff about Kelsey. She doesn’t brag about all her
accomplishments.” He looked at Cheryl and smiled. “Maybe that has as much to do
with you as it does with her?” For the first time in a very long time, Cheryl
Duffield smiled.

 
          
Jon
smiled back, then looked around. “Where did she go?”

 
          
“Bathroom.”

 
          
“That
was a few minutes ago,” Jon said. “Uh-oh. If I know Kelsey, she’s not going to
come back here right away. I know where she is.” Jon was correct: He walked
directly to the AL-52 laser lab and found Kelsey with her laser goggles on,
punching instructions into a computer beside the large mounting racks where the
components of the plasma laser were mounted. Kelsey wore only a pair of socks
on her feet, and her Top Secret ID badge was pinned to the tops of her
underwear peeking over the top of her pants.

 
          
Jon
was simply and unabashedly dumbfounded whenever he walked into this lab. In an
amazingly short period of time, he and Kelsey had managed to build a full-scale
working model of a laser that had been virtually unheard of. The bench that the
laser was mounted to was the same size as the interior of the B-52 aircraft;
the laser waveguides were mounted in an adjacent room, and the power capacitors
and other support equipment were mounted in other rooms as well, networked here
for the tests.