“You can say it in here, Pete.”
“The Jesus Factor. He found a warble, a non-linear blip in the cusp. A loophole in the natural law.”
“Good God, Pete, this is whacked. Now you’re telling me the biggest secret on Earth has an even bigger secret!”
“Bill, you know how science is. Every answer to every question just creates a new set of questions… until you hit the unified field theory. Then you go fishing.”
“So you’re telling me my dad already figured all this out.”
“How is Hank doing?”
“Better than your family. You realize, of course, you’re going to have to stay dead a little longer.”
“I hear that. And it’s better than being dead for real.”
“So where’s the key code?”
“No one knows. Ensiling never told me. But he obviously didn’t tell anyone else either before they killed him.”
Joey spoke up. “So why kill Kosmo?”
“Kasiko!”
“Whatever!”
“He was the last official member of the committee, Sergeant of Arms.”
“What about you?”
“I was an aide, an assistant.”
“A theorizer.”
“Right, I told you that.”
“So you think you’re next?” Joey asked.
“I was two attempts ago, but I eluded them. It was me they were aiming for in Vienna. I was walking next to Ensiling when that woman was shot.”
Joey perked up. “They were shooting at you?”
“I stopped when I caught a glimpse of the new 5g Black pad. Europe gets all the cool stuff first. She walked into my bullet.”
“Peter, you are just a magnet for all this cloak and dagger conspiracy shit, aren’t you?”
“Just spectacularly unlucky there, Billy the Kid.”
Bill pressed a button on his phone and then stood up. The others followed. “Cheryl will take you over to Kronos’ office in the OEOB. I’ll come by later.” He grabbed Peter with one arm and gave him a man-hug. “Glad you’re not a pizza, buddy.”
After Cheryl and Peter left, Bill turned to Joey. “What do you think?”
“I think even a stopped watch is right twice a day.
“Why can’t you just call the Veteran’s Administration?” the petite blonde, standing in line ahead of Janice, demanded out of frustration as the man behind the counter threw up his hands in response to government bureaucracy. She took a deep breath to quell her frustration and asked, “Is there a manager I can speak to?”
“I’ll go get him,” the salesclerk said as he went into the back.
The woman turned around to Janice standing behind her. “Do you believe this? My father lost his leg for this country and getting him a new seat for his wheelchair is a federal case.”
“It’s maddening, I know.”
The sales clerk returned, “The manager is just finishing up something and he will be out here in a minute. In the meantime, may I help you, Miss?”
“Yes, I need three X-ray aprons,” Janice said.
“Any specific make?”
“No, but good ones. In fact, the best!”
“Sure thing, Miss.” The clerk went off to fill the order.
“Are you a radiologist?” The blonde asked.
“Oh, no. They’re for me. I’m pregnant.”
“Congratulations. When are you due?”
“November.”
“Do you know?”
“No. We don’t want to know.”
The man returned with a flat rolling cart holding three cardboard boxes. “Here you go: three Radshield 1050 Protective Aprons. Will that be on account or cash?”
“I don’t have an account. Do you take credit cards?”
“Visa or MasterCard?”
Janice fished her credit card from her wallet.
The blonde noticed her White House ID and name. As the clerk ran Janice’s card she asked, “So what are you going to do with these?”
“I’m going to sleep in one, drive my car in one, and have one at my office.”
“Why?”
“If the bomb goes off within 20 miles of me, I want to protect my baby from the lethal dose of radiation that will spread in the blink of an eye.”
“Wow. I never even thought of that.”
“Me either, but nowadays….”
Just then, the manager came out and introduced himself to the blonde who immediatley started in again about her father’s wheelchair.
Janice signed her credit card slip, handed it back to the clerk, and asked, “Can someone help me to my car with these?”
“Sure thing, Miss.”
Special Air Missions, or SAM, is the President’s airline. Whenever anyone important to the government has to get from point A to B in record time, SAM is called. Run by the Air Force, its fleet ranges from Air Force One (actually any plane the President is on, but most notably one of two Blue and White 747s that becomes the very image of American prestige and power on every Presidential trip), down to little Gulfstream jets with the stars and stripes on the rear of the fuselage. One of those little “skeeters” was parked on the runway, engines idling, awaiting Hiccock when his car pulled up to the ramp at Andrews A.F.B. He walked from the car up the four steps and into the super posh cabin. An Air Force sergeant advised him to fasten his belt; they would be wheels up in 45 seconds. Before the belt went click, the door had been sealed, the chocks removed, and the military version of a corporate jet was rolling down the taxiway, priority number one for takeoff. The pilot, Air Force Major Henry Stemmis, accelerated through the turn onto the runway and in less than half the distance of a regular airliner. The small jet was eating sky in an almost vertical trajectory.
Stemmis greeted his one and only passenger over the P.A. system. “Welcome aboard SAM 611, Professor Hiccock. Direct service to New York’s La Guardia Airport. Our flight time this evening will be 38 minutes. We have landing priority with New York ATC and should be on the ramp three minutes after wheels down. Once we hit our cruise altitude of 41,000 feet, I’ll shut off the seat belt sign and the sergeant will be happy to serve you. I’ll come back on when we start our approach. Thank you for flying Special Air Missions even though, we realize, you didn’t have a choice.”
The g-force Bill experienced was considerable. Maybe he shouldn’t have insisted on a fast trip. Maybe he should have said, “Just get me there sometime in the next few hours.” However, time was critical. Bridgestone and Ross were in New York tracking down the next lead on the trail of the nukes. Bill carried with him some operational orders and background material in a briefcase on flammable paper. Any attempt to fool with the case would cause the insides to combust into ash. Once read and memorized, B amp;R would flash-burn them to keep Operation Stork as tight as tight could be.
Joey, or someone else from Hiccock’s newly formed QuOG, could have made this delivery, but Bill wanted to look into their eyes and know who they were. He had gone out on the biggest political, judicial, and law enforcement limb you could find to give them carte blanche on American soil..
