The Second Ship (19 page)

Chapter 39

Vice President George Gordon crawled out of bed quietly, pausing to stare down at his wife's naked body sprawled across the bed. The slight smile that lifted the corners of Harriet's sleeping lips showed a deep satisfaction that, until just a few weeks ago, he had never expected to see again.

He glanced at the clock. 3:02 a.m. He felt new, strong, young. He felt more alive now than he had since his early twenties.

Passing out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, he stared across the sink at his reflection in the mirror. How good it felt to see that old vigor back in his eyes, to feel the muscles beneath his skin. It was like being back at the Naval Academy once more, getting psyched up for the Army-Navy game that weekend. He could almost hear his fellow midshipmen raising their voices, cheering their team on toward the coming victory.

Looking back now on the last several weeks, George Gordon thanked his lucky stars. Better yet, his intuition. Something had pulled him to Los Alamos to check on Dr. Stephenson’s progress. Something had made him pressure the deputy director into showing him more. And Dr. Stephenson had responded.

Once he had learned about the second alien technology, the old Gordon recklessness had taken over, leading him to insist that Stephenson inject him with the gray fluid. In hindsight, it had been madness, a madness borne of desperation at his deteriorating heart, at the loss of the vitality that made him who he was. Thank God for that madness.

Reaching into the medicine cabinet, Vice President Gordon retrieved a pair of tweezers. Setting them on the vanity, he moved across to the cabinet atop which a small picture frame stood, a recent image of he and his wife at the inaugural ball. Moving the picture onto the vanity and retrieving the tweezers, he began carefully plucking hairs from his high forehead, removing the new growth to match his preexisting receding hairline. It would never do to let the press discover such an obvious difference in his body, at least not yet.

Throwing on his robe, George grabbed his cell phone and moved out into the hallway, heading for his office. As he dialed, a thin smile twitched his lips. One of the pleasures of power was the ability to wake your chief of staff in the middle of the night, just because you felt like it.

The phone rang three times before Gordon’s chief of staff picked up, his voice still thick with sleep when he answered. “Hello? Carl Palmer.”

“Carl, this is George.”

On the other end of the line, the vice president’s chief of staff cleared his throat. “Yes? What can I do for you, Mr. Vice President?”

George Gordon’s grin widened. Now he knew that the man was struggling to wakefulness, having used the formal salutation that he normally dispensed with in dealings with his boss.

“Carl, I need you to look up something for me real quick. When am I scheduled for my next physical examination over at Walter Reed?”

“Just a second, I’ll check.” The phone clattered as Carl set down his receiver. A minute later, he returned. “I have you down for an appointment on February fourteenth.”

“Valentine’s Day? Those doctors over there are getting a little funny with their heart jokes, don’t you think?”

“It could be a coincidence.”

“Uh-huh. Carl, you don’t believe that for a second, and neither do I. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I want you to cancel it. With all that’s going on in the world right now, I don’t want to be out of the loop, even for a day.”

“Sir, do you really think that’s wise?” A note of concern sounded in Palmer's voice.

“Carl, I feel fine. Once things settle down, they can prod me to their hearts’ content. For right now, though, make the call.”

“Okay. I’ll do it this morning. Anything else, sir?”

“No. I think I’ve bothered you enough for one night. Go back to sleep, Carl.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Good night, sir.”

“Good night, Carl.”

As he clicked off his phone, the vice president leaned back in his chair, hearing the creak of soft leather as he settled all the way into it. You just couldn’t beat the feel of Italian leather.

Chapter 40

The sunlight streaming through the dirty attic window spotlighted a small cloud of dust specks that floated above the secure SATCOM link. That link to the NSA provided fax, voice, and data, all digitally encrypted. The attic provided a discrete office, exactly the type Jack wanted, complete with pull-down steps from the second-floor hallway below. It was why he had chosen to rent this house.

“Janet, what have you got for me?”

“Just what you’ve been looking for, Jacky boy.” Janet Price walked across the small attic space and dropped a small stack of papers on Jack’s desk. “Hot off the fax. The profile of our mole is on top since I knew you were hot for it,” she continued. “Next are the security clearance background investigations of every person assigned to the Rho Project.”

Jack leafed through the stack.

“Hmm. Heavy-duty mathematician. Real shocker there. Excellent computer programmer but inexperienced with top-level security systems. Good language skills but nonnative Russian speaker. Blah, blah, blah…” Jack tossed the top couple of pages in the shredder pile. “Exactly what we already thought. Why do they pay those folks?”

Jack continued through the rest of the background reports on Rho Project personnel. Now this was more like it. After several minutes, he looked across the small room to where Janet sat patiently awaiting his response.

“So let’s run through what we know and what we suspect. We know this person is a math wizard and really, really good with computers. We suspect they haven’t had much secure network experience. That last rules out a Special Forces or spy type.”

“Unless they’re trying to look amateurish.”

“No. That doesn’t feel right. This person's no spy.”

“So he or she is a scientist.”

“Yes. Number one or two in his class, Cal Tech type, doctorate by twenty-five, flat-out genius.”

“That describes about half the people on the project. Hell, Jack, a third of the physicists and mathematicians in Los Alamos fit that profile.”

“That’s okay. We can narrow it down. It has to be someone on the project, but we can eliminate the technicians. They don’t have the math background.”

Janet crossed her legs, leaning farther back in the chair. “So that’s our in.”

“You’ve got it. We don’t want to go after anyone who could be our man. He’d get suspicious. We want to start with someone on the project who we know can’t be the mole, but who has access.”

Jack shuffled the papers, finally pulling two sets.

“This one is perfect. A technician with a reputation for being able to build anything. Everyone uses him to build specialized equipment.”

Janet reached over to take the papers from Jack’s outstretched hand. “Gilbert McFarland? Looks boring enough. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“We did that last night.” Jack winked at her.

“Play your cards right and it might not be a one-time occurrence.” Janet’s wicked smile seemed to heat the room.

Jack shook off the thought. That would have to wait. “Did you notice that the McFarlands are regular churchgoers?”

“Lutherans. Sounds like we’re going to get a little religion, Mr. Johnson.”

“We could use it, Mrs. Johnson. By the way, how’d it go down at the school today?”

“No problems. I met with Principal Zumwalt. I told him we had just moved here and that I wanted to apply for a teaching job next year. He seemed impressed with my application and certifications and said I’d start getting substitute calls right away. It’s cold and flu season.”

“Good. We want you hopping around the classrooms. And anything let slip in front of a high school kid is guaranteed to slip further. Besides, we only need to spot little oddities.”

“How about you, Jack? How’d your day go?”

“As expected. I made the rounds of all the local government offices. Introduced myself as Jack Johnson, field agent for the Environmental Protection Agency.”

Janet’s throaty laugh once again elevated his blood pressure. “That must’ve made you quite popular.”

“I don’t need to be popular. Just expected to be out snooping around the area.”

“Did you get in touch with Harry?”

“Just talked to him over lunch.”

“How’s the telephone line repair business?”

“He seems to have found a home over at the phone company. He gets the fun outdoor work.”

“Too bad we’re staying away from him. I’d take him a hot chocolate and some soup. Poor boy.”

Jack stood and walked over to the hatch leading down from the attic. “I’ve got to run a couple of quick errands. In the meantime, pull up everything you can on Mr. McFarland. Before church comes around this Sunday, I want to know everything about his inner circle: wife, kids, everyone.”

As he climbed down the stairs, Jack could already hear the click of Janet’s fingertips on the computer keyboard. The McFarlands were about to acquire some special new friends.

Chapter 41

If there was one thing Heather didn’t feel like doing today, it was going to Ms. Gorsky’s history class. After the incident in the hallway, Heather’s level of self-consciousness around the woman was epic. While their PDAs had been returned the next day, Ms. Gorsky still stared at Heather at times during class, the barest hint of a malevolent grin distorting her jowls.

As Heather neared the classroom, Mark intercepted her in the hallway.

“Did you hear the news?”

“What news?” Heather asked, angling through the mass of students toward the doorway to the classroom.

“Ms. Gorsky’s out sick. The flu bug got her.”

“What a shame. Who’s the sub?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care. I figure it’s a day of freedom no matter who it is.”

“You’ve got that right,” Heather said, sliding between two girls blocking the doorway.

As she pulled out her book, notebook, and pencil and slid into her seat, a sudden hush fell upon the room. Heather half expected to look up and see the Pope himself—white gown, pointy hat, and all.

The woman bore no resemblance whatsoever to the Pope, although all the boys in the room appeared to have suddenly found religion.

“Hello, class. I am Mrs. Johnson,” said the dark-haired woman in the dark skirt and blouse. She peered over dark glasses positioned well forward on her perfect nose. As Mrs. Johnson stood in the doorway, Heather wasn’t sure why all the dark adjectives were suddenly popping into her mind. After all, the skirt was navy blue, not black, and the blouse was a red, tending toward scarlet, that bled down into navy blue lace that perfectly matched the skirt. Her hair, pulled back into a tight bun, would have looked prudish on most women, but on Mrs. Johnson it merely looked aggressive.

As the substitute made her way across the front of the room toward the teacher’s desk, Heather had a brief déjà vu moment. Mrs. Johnson moved like one of the dancers in the musical Cats. And the way the boys followed the woman’s movements reminded Heather of an audience at the US Open Tennis Tournament. If this kept up for the entire class, all the guys would have whiplash.

Glancing across the classroom, Heather spotted Jennifer staring around in wide-eyed wonderment. She had also noticed that the herd of normally babbling males in the room had become as enthralled as kittens watching a dangling strand of yarn. It suddenly struck Heather: another sexy female named Johnson. Christ. What was it about that name?

“Please close your books and take out a single blank piece of paper and a pencil. Ms. Gorsky has left instructions for a pop quiz.”

A low groan arose from the group as the spell broke.

As the lengthy quiz progressed, Mrs. Johnson moved among the desks, glancing down at each student’s work, once again causing the male members of the classroom to lose all semblance of concentration. Heather had no doubt the quiz would set some sort of record in gender-gap performance. From what she observed out of the corner of her eye, it would be a miracle if any of the guys scored above 50 percent.

By the end of the class, Heather’s impression of Mrs. Johnson had improved significantly. Heather had to hand it to her; the woman was a consummate professional. Mrs. Johnson collected the test papers and moved through the scheduled work with such comfort, self-confidence, and skill that Heather wished Ms. Gorsky could be out permanently.

Well, come to think of it, she had wished for that long before Mrs. Johnson’s arrival. Her reflections were interrupted by the sound of the bell and the subsequent jumble of movement and noise that accompanied the hourly student migration pattern.

As Heather opened her locker, Mark stepped up beside her.

“Have you got an oxygen tank in there? I think I need some.”

“You and about fifteen other guys.”

Suddenly Mark straightened, a more serious look settling on his chiseled features as Mrs. Johnson walked past.

“What are you looking at, basketball puke?” Doug Brindal’s grinning face came nose to nose with Mark’s. “Haven’t you already learned not to chase after women out of your league?”

The snarl that twitched at the corner of Mark’s lips barely registered in Heather’s brain before he moved, lightning fast. Mark grabbed a fistful of Doug’s shirt, just below the throat, and slammed him back hard into the locker. Doug dangled in Mark’s grip, his feet barely touching the floor.

Heather lunged forward, grabbing Mark’s arm, trying to pull it free, but the corded muscles felt like rolled steel.

“Mark! Stop it. Please!” Heather begged as several students swung their gaze toward the commotion.

Mark glanced down at her, sanity leaching rapidly back into his face as he loosened his grasp on Doug.

The senior stepped forward, giving Mark a hard shove in the chest that somehow failed to move him. Pushing his way through the onlookers, Doug yelled back, “You’d better watch your back, Smythe. I will be.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Heather pulled Mark into the crowd and down the hall toward their next class. As Jennifer joined them, Heather leaned over to her friend and whispered, “Someone please call the testosterone police.”