McGarvey shrugged, because it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be needed upstairs, not until later when Eve was finished. “No exceptions?”
“No, sir.”
“Not even for the president’s Secret Service detail?” McGarvey asked, and the guard, caught out, was suddenly angry.
“Either surrender your weapon or leave the building.”
Or what? McGarvey wondered irascibly. But it was not worth the effort to find out. Instead he went outside and walked to the end of the block to where a couple of plainclothes cops were leaning against a beat-up Chevy Impala across the street from the outer edges of the crowd, which had grown considerably in the past couple of minutes.
McGarvey pulled out his NNSA identification and held it up for them to see, and when they realized the full import of who he worked for and what it might mean right now, he had their attention.
“I hope you’re not here to tell us something bad,” one cop said nervously.
Schlagel had just said something and the crowd roared its approval.
“No,” McGarvey said. “I thought they had a permit for only a thousand people.”
“Nobody’s counting. What are you doing here?”
“I’m riding shotgun for the woman they’re here to protest,” McGarvey said.
The cop glanced back the way McGarvey had come. “She inside already?”
McGarvey nodded. “If they have a television monitor they’ll know she made it, and it won’t take long for them to figure out she came in through the rear door. Can your people keep the crowd back?”
“Not a chance in hell. It’s a peaceful demonstration and they have a permit. Where’s your car?”
“Around the corner on E Street.”
“When is she coming out?”
“The program ends at seven thirty,” McGarvey said. “I’m assuming she’ll be at the door a few minutes after that.”
“Okay, bring your car up to the door and we’ll make a path for her. It’s the best we can do.”
“Good enough,” McGarvey said. He glanced at his watch. It was coming up on seven, and Schlagel’s mob was about to find out that Eve had gotten past them.
He walked back to the side entrance and pressed the buzzer beside the keypad. The security guard looked up from behind his desk, and shook his head.
“I can’t let you in unless you’re willing to give up your weapon,” the man’s voice came from the speaker grille.
“When Dr. Larsen comes downstairs, some of the crowd will probably be just outside,” McGarvey said. “I’ll be parked on the street, and the police will provide her with an escort. Tell her that it’ll be okay.”
The guard looked a little worried. “Do I need to call for backup in case they try to get inside?”
“No,” McGarvey told the man. “They’re just here to make their point.”
A half-dozen uniformed cops came around the corner just ahead of the first of mob, and hustled to where McGarvey stood waiting. The Fox special had started.
“You McGarvey?” one of them demanded.
McGarvey nodded.
“Bring your car up now.”
McGarvey went to where he’d parked, and drove back to the Fox building and pulled up in front of the door as Schlagel’s pickup truck rounded the corner and slowly eased its way through the growing crowd, the reverend not missing a beat.
“Leave God’s business to God,” Schlagel’s amplified voice boomed.
And the crowd responded, “Amen!”
“First it’s nuclear reactors that will poison the earth for a million years, now this work by a godless woman who proposes to change the very air we breathe! We’re not ready! More work needs to be done before it’s too late. Close nuclear power across the country. And put an immediate stop to Larsen’s God Project.”
“Amen! Amen!” the crowd chanted.
“Now,” Schlagel shouted. “Now, before it’s too late!”
“Amen! Amen!”
Some of the television remote broadcast trucks had managed to make their way closer, even as more people filled the streets, and within minutes McGarvey was parked in the middle of a sea of humanity, the six uniformed cops just holding a path open from the door across the sidewalk to the curb.
By the time Eve showed up, E Street was completely jammed with people, and McGarvey had to push his way around to the passenger side of his SUV and open the door.
“The high priestess of evil is among us!” Schlagel shouted, his amplified voice hammering off the side of the building. He was about thirty feet away and he pointed a biblical finger at her. “God’s word is writ in all things in heaven and on earth! Stop your meddling! Stop your God Project now, before you doom humanity!”
“Amen! Amen!” the crowd was chanting.
Sheltering Eve among them, four of the cops hustled her across the sidewalk as a large blond man in jeans and a Midwest Christian College sweatshirt standing between her and curb suddenly lunged at her, his right arm cocked as if he was getting ready to punch her.
McGarvey stepped forward, brought the man’s arm back, breaking it at the wrist, and slammed a quick jab into the man’s throat just below his Adam’s apple, sending him to his knees.
Before anyone could react, McGarvey hustled Eve into the SUV, made his way back to the driver’s side, and eased his way slowly through the crowd that reluctantly parted.
“I didn’t expect it would be this bad,” Eve said.
“I don’t think the reverend and his people like you,” McGarvey said.
FORTY
Eve picked the 1789 Restaurant on Thirty-sixth Street just off the Georgetown University campus — one of her favorites, she told him. Driving over past Mount Vernon Square and taking K Street, McGarvey could see that she was still shook up. “Would they really have tried to hurt me?” she asked.
“I think some of them would,” McGarvey said. “And I have an idea that the number will grow as long as Schlagel keeps pushing his message.”
“The God Project,” she said in genuine wonder. “It makes no sense. I’m offering them cheap, renewable energy and the possibility of making the weather a little better. And he’s fighting it.”
“They don’t give a damn about your work, most of them probably don’t even understand what you’re doing. They’re just following the reverend.”
“And what about him? He was down at Hutchinson Island making trouble, and now this. What does he want?”
“The White House,” McGarvey said. “He wants to be president, and he thinks that you and Hutchinson Island are causes that will get him there.”
“You can’t be serious,” Eve said. “And he’s actually willing to have his people hurt me?”
In her world, scientists didn’t usually get physical with each other or with their critics. Some of them might shout or bluster, but mostly they’d go to their offices and fire off a critical letter to
“That’s exactly what he wants.”
Eve was trying to understand. “The media would be all over him if something happened to me.”
“He’d be the first one to stand up at your funeral and praise your pioneering spirit, and damn the people who brought you down. He’s coming after you, Eve, and he believes that he’ll come out on top no matter what happens.”
She sat back. “I think I need a drink,” she said. Then she looked at him and smiled. “You’re a pretty good
