she'd be scared to learn how many persons a plasma-yield warhead can kill, or that one of your NIRTSats can direct a two-thousand-pound bomb to hit its target within six inches? She's already figured out how to build supercomputers the size of an amoeba and turn the Moon into a photonic energy source that will supply the entire Earth with energy for a millennium. She talks to herself about the energy requirements for teleportation while she plays with Barbie dolls. At first I was worried about her being taken seriously-now I'm worried about her talents going to waste or, worse, falling into the wrong hands.'
Cheryl looked up at Jon, then at Helen, and asked in a quiet voice, 'Do you have children?' They shook their heads. 'All you want for them is the best,' she went on. 'You would give your own life to save theirs, sacrifice your own happiness to ensure their happiness. But what do you do if what your child is doing, the thing that makes her the happiest, might upset-or even destroy-your world? Do you let her have that experience?'
Her voice lowered almost to a whisper. 'Sometimes when she'd fall off her bike or trip on the stairs or come down with a fever, I'd pray that the accident or illness would turn her back into a normal child,' she said sadly. 'But, of course, it never did-in fact, I think it made her even more intelligent, as if the bacteria or viruses were millions of new brains talking to her, telling her more and more of the secrets of the universe.
'But you were a child genius too, Dr. Masters,' she said to Jon. 'You understand what Kelsey's going through. You had parents that encouraged you to think beyond your age, beyond the levels where others thought you should be. We chose you because you've gone through what Kelsey is just starting to experience. I think it was hard for you, breaking down all the institutional and bigotry barriers, but you did it. You can be much more than a partner to Kelsey-you can be a mentor, a guide. No one else in the United States can do that for her. Only you.'
Cheryl Duffield looked up at the Masterses, and the steel returned to her eyes and voice. 'She knows atf about what you do, what you build, and whom you build them for,' she said. 'She wants to help you build the next two generations of weapon systems, far better than you or I or anyone yet born can imagine. Her father and I said we'd help her do that, because in a way, that's what parents do for their kids. It's not ballet or baseball, but parents are supposed to help their kids follow their dreams. Right?'
Jon looked at Kelsey. To his immense shock, while her mother was talking, Kelsey had been writing out a long mathematical formula on a sheet of notepaper. When she noticed Jon was looking at her, she held up the piece of paper for him. For about the third or fourth time in that meeting, Jon's mouth dropped open.
'It's not finished,' Kelsey said, smiling.
'I… don't… believe… it…' Jon breathed, his eyes flitting across the symbols and numbers. He pointed to one section, and his eyes narrowed, then widened, then nearly bugged out. 'I… you… this.. '
Kelsey handed it over to Jon, and he accepted it as if she had just handed him a thirty-pound bar of solid gold. 'We'll finish it together, okay, Dr. Masters?' she said, her eyes twinkling.
'Jon. Call me Jon,' he said, smiling, his voice cracking with the sheer enormity x)f what he had just witnessed. Jon looked at the piece of paper, then at Kelsey, then at her mother. 'Do you realize what this is?'
'Of course. It's the future,' Cheryl said matter-of-factly, almost in a whisper. She looked down at the conference table, then added, 'God help us.'
The crew of the Egyptian warship El Arish, an Americanbuilt Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided missile frigate, treated the rescued members of the S.S. Catherine the
Great as any other shipwreck survivors, offering them water, blankets, strong hot tea, and ful-pita sandwiches stuffed with fava and black beans fried together with meat, eggs, and onions. They were kept in the helicopter hangar on the aft end of the ship, out of sight of most of the rest of the crew. Several of the Night Stalkers received medical treatment for burns and shrapnel wounds by the Egyptian ship's corpsman.
David Luger acted as the spokesman for the team when approached by the captain of the frigate, Commander Raouf Farouk, while Patrick, Hal, and Chris stayed away from the Egyptians in the center of the helicopter hangar, surrounded by commandos. 'We are grateful to you for helping us, Captain,' David said as the captain approached. 'You have saved our lives.'
'Afivan. You are welcome,' Farouk said. He looked at the men carefully. 'And your name?'
'I'm Merlin.'
'Your full name, rank, and nationality?'
'Just Merlin,' Luger replied. 'No rank or title. We are all Americans.'
'Keeping that information secret is an insult for those of us who have just saved your lives,' Farouk admonished him. 'Now, I order you to tell me your real name and rank, or I will throw you in my brig.'
'I'm sorry, sir, I will not,' David replied. 'I will tell you that we are crew members of the S.S. Catherine the Great, a salvage vessel based in Klaipeda, Lithuania. I'm sorry, but our ownership papers and letters of transit were lost in the attack.'
'I understand,' Farouk said. There was no doubt in Farouk's mind that these were soldiers-they looked, acted, and even moved like fighting men. And they were not sailors, either. 'The bastardly Libyans think they own the Mediterranean. I am told you do not carry passports, either.'
'Sorry, sir. They went down with our ship as well.' That was true, but the passports that went down with the ship were all fakes. 'We are all American merchantmen. As I told your first officer, if you allow me to call the American embassy in Cairo, they can help verify our identities.'
'This is a military matter now, and we have specific procedures to follow to verify your identities,' Farouk said, obviously angry at Luger's lack of cooperation. 'You will be placed in custody at our home base of Mersa Matruh and questioned. You will be treated fairly, I assure you, but since you were obviously involved in some military conflict with the Libyans, we can take no chances.' He motioned to the three men surrounded by the commandos. All three put their heads down while Egyptian intelligence officers snapped pictures of them and the other commandos. 'And then there is the question of those three gentlemen. Unless they are spacemen from Mars and an oxygen atmosphere is poisonous to them, they must remove their equipment immediately.'
'The devices they are wearing are life-support equipment,' Luger lied. He turned toward the three, and they all took off their helmets with a gentle hissing sound. Photo strobes flashed despite their efforts to hide their faces. 'They are under some distress if they take their helmets off. May they please put them back on, Captain?'
'My ship's doctor will examine the men with their outfits off,' the captain said. 'If they are in distress, they will be airlifted to the appropriate medical facility in Egypt for treatment-all the way to Cairo if necessary. They will be well treated, I assure you. But since that outfit is unknown to me, it will be removed, examined, and placed in secure storage at Mersa Matruh until we can ascertain that it is safe and no threat to us.'
Luger nodded. 'Yes, sir. I'll tell them that right now. It will take a few moments to remove their outfits.' Luger bowed slightly to the captain, then went over to McLanahan, Briggs, and Wohl. 'Bad news, guys,' he said. 'The captain wants you to ditch the armor. He's going to have his doc examine you; then he's going to place us all into custody at Mersa Matruh.'
'We can't wait until we dock before we do something,
sir,' Chris Wohl said in a low voice. Although they were all civilians now, retirees, Chris Wohl would never even consider calling McLanahan, Luger, or Briggs anything else but 'sir,' although he might put a definite sneer in his voice if he disagreed with their orders-as he did now. 'Mersa Matruh is a combined-forces base-they have close to fifty thousand troops stationed there from all three services.'
'We're not supposed to be fighting the Egyptians,' David Luger said. 'Once we contact the American embassy, we'll be let go. But if we get into a shit storm with the Egyptians, they're just as likely to kill us.'
'Our embassy has no idea why we're here,' Patrick said. 'No real passports, no visas-and the President already tried once to have us all arrested. We can't go running to the embassy for help.'
'I'm forced to agree with the master sergeant, Muck,' Hal Briggs said. 'They'll treat us like captured terrorists. Our cover will be blown wide open.'
Patrick thought for a moment longer; then: 'Sarge, how many sailors on this ship?'
'About two hundred total. The U.S. Navy doesn't usually carry Marines on little frigates, but the Egyptians do. Usually two marine platoons max, thirty or forty menthose will be the best-trained counterforces. We've seen one platoon in here already, but only a dozen of them armed.'
Luger tensed up as he saw movement nearby-the captain was getting tired of waiting and was getting his
