Sam waited at the Executive Air Hangar for Anna at the Orange County Airport. It was a better-than-average lobby with tile floors and great furniture, mostly leather. It had a good selection of magazines, but Sam carried plenty of his own. Next to Sam’s chair grew a ficus so perfect that it looked like plastic. Harry sniffed it vigorously; Sam figured some other dog must have peed on it. Harry was just starting to get back to weight, but he’d lost none of his spunk. Island life had not been kind to him. If the people at the oyster farm hadn’t found Harry, he’d have died. They told Nutka about Harry, and it’d been she who figured it all out.
Aside from enjoying his dog again, Sam thought he might pull out a copy of Computer Weekly and see what was going on with the latest processors.
“Sit down, Harry,” he said. “You know she’s usually exactly on time, and we’re a whole ten minutes early.” Sam flipped open the magazine. Harry lay at his feet.
Now that he was back in business, he was thinking over the upgrade to Big Brain that Grogg had been suggesting. Always something better.
It was a balmy warm day for the end of December. Today his cast didn’t itch much. There were six jets on the ramp. A Falcon 50, a couple of G-IVs, some Hawkers, and a Citation X. No doubt Anna had been on the phone to her agent, her mother, her publicist, and the studio all the while having the last-minute pedicure she’d insisted on. Apparently she was planning on spending a lot of time with no shoes on.
He decided to call Paul. “Any word on Gaudet?”
“Still the same. No trace. Canadians are mad as hell. And stumped.”
“Well, he didn’t leave happy.”
“Granted, he isn’t happy.”
“How’s Grady?”
“Haven’t seen much of her. She’s spending a lot of her time with her dad. The rest of it with Clint. Doesn’t seem quite as intent on work as before, but I trust that’ll change after the novelty wears off.”
“If we’re going to pay her a real wage, it will.”
“Give her a little more time; then we’ll work her butt off. In fact, assign her to me.”
Paul had a good laugh at that.
“Did they come out this morning with the final charges against Benoit Moreau?” Sam asked, thinking that he wished he had taken the time to read his e-mail. Anna had wanted to meet him for an early breakfast to celebrate their trip. She started hinting about seriously dating, but he was staying very clear of that idea. Although since they seemed to be seeing each other, he wasn’t sure what it would mean to be seriously dating.
“You didn’t read your e-mail? What were you so busy with this morning?” Paul interrupted his momentary reverie.
“What do you think?”
“When you get around to it you’ll find an e-mail from Typhony. Officially they haven’t charged Benoit. But she’ll be up for murder and everything on down.”
“It’s kind of ironic the way Gaudet left her holding the bag like you wouldn’t believe. She was, after all, the grand manipulator.”
“Same for Chellis and their lead scientist, when they’re fit to stand trial. This morning in your e-mail you’ll find another missive from Typhony. I guess Samir, or whoever it was, really messed with old Jacques Boudreaux. So far they can’t fix him with the bug juice, apparently because he was given Raging Soldier, a version of the vector that they were going to sell to terrorist organizations and third-world dictators. Imagine those out-of-control reactions you’ve seen on video of looters or violent crowds. Raging Soldier is that times ten. No discipline. No thought; just violent hysteria. Right now they’re keeping Jacques toned down with every tranquilizer known to man.”
Sam hadn’t responded, so Paul checked to make sure he was there. “You won’t believe this, but Jacques Boudreaux killed Centaur, a big male macaque that had shared the cage. Killed the damn monkey with a club. Jacques was bit to hell but he got the monkey. I guess Samir pitted Jacques against the monkey. Raging Soldier profile against Soldier profile.”
Sam obliged Paul with a long, low whistle.
“I hate to think what they would have done with this technology.”
“It’s pretty easy,” Sam said. “If you want to destabilize a government you begin by infecting as much of the leadership as you can with Nervous Flyer profile. All it takes is a couple of good inhales and they’ll be scared of their own shadow. If you’re the government, you give a bunch of enlisted men Soldier profile; if you’re the opposition and you have some people you don’t like and you figure they’re expendable, you give them Raging Soldier and make suicide bombers by the hundred. Then you get your rebels to inhale Soldier profile, feed them the hormones, and stage a coup. Hell of a deal.”
“Yep.”
“Do you think Samir Aziz is the one who got Jacques Boudreaux as payback? You were gonna check on what the Malaysians are saying.”
“I guess the Malaysian authorities are looking for a guy named Claude Balford. Head of Chellis’s security team. Their theory is that Gaudet actually ordered Balford to turn Jacques Boudreaux into a nutcase killer. Not to mention locking him in a cage with a crazy monkey. According to their theory Balford would have assumed the order came from Benoit, who would have gotten it from Chellis. Balford denies it, and I, for one, believe him. It was Aziz.”
Sam grunted his agreement. “Where is Aziz?”
“Off in the desert of Quatram with a lifetime supply of blue oil and a mistress by the name of Michelle. He doesn’t take calls.”
“Are you finding me Gaudet?”
“We’re looking. He’s a shadow among shadows.”
“I’m going to find him. First I’m going to Hawaii. On a lighter subject, do one thing more for me. Have somebody pick up the book Where Did He Go? Where Did She Go?
“You’re not gonna read one of those dumb chick books?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a gift for one of Anna’s chick friends, I have to buy something, and that’s what I was told to buy. I don’t know why Anna picked it. She doesn’t normally read that pablum.”
At that moment Anna drove up in her Volvo. Sam signed off and walked out on the ramp to meet her.
She was already giving him a look.
“I’m telling you, the wig looks completely natural.”
“I still wish you had been a better shot.”
They started helping the pilots load the baggage while they waited for the mechanics to fix some fuse in the Falcon 50. Sam worked one-handed keeping his cast clear of the fray.
“I like the damn Hawker Seven-hundred.”
“Well, it won’t fly to Hawaii. And I offered to go commercial.”
“I could see you wanting to kiss in first class.”
“Only if the Enquirer was there. Otherwise I’d go for the water closet.”
“Who needs Hawaii? We’re from LA, for God’s sake.”
“Manhattan.”
“Yeah, well, that’s you.”
She grinned and kissed him on the cheek, and then insisted on a lip-smacker right in front of the pilots.
“You haven’t set me up on this trip, have you? Are there going to be reporters?”
“Are you slipping? You should be monitoring my calls.”
“I knew it. You’ve probably ruined my cover.”
“Sam, relax. A little trip to Hawaii is the least you can do after shooting me.”
“You’ll use anything. Guilt, whatever it takes.”
“You of all people, Sam. All’s fair in love and war. You should know that.” She patted his cheek and stroked his back.
He could feel his engines warming despite himself.
“Well, at least we understand the ground rules.”
“Damn straight. You’re taking me to the Oscars.”
“No way. I said Hawaii.”
