“On the contrary,” Uri said. “I honestly thought James was joking when he showed it to me. He recognised it immediately as a long-wave radio receiver. It’s nothing more than two strands of wire suspended between some trees and another strand diagonally joining the two. I thought it was the remains of an old fence or something.”
“That’s it?” Nathan said, surprised.
“That’s it,” James said. “Long-wave frequencies have some peculiar characteristics. The receiving antenna is very simple. It just needs to be pointed in the right direction.”
“So, what now?” Nathan asked.
“We send in the military to remove any remaining mines,” Uri said. “They’ll have to make their way by foot from the same point we parked the Toyota. They have mine detectors and know what they’re doing. They’ll need some advance notice though, so I’ll arrange for them to leave the day after tomorrow.”
“Do you have to run that by LaForgue first?” James asked.
“No,” Uri answered. “Although she can make my life difficult, I don’t report to her. My direct boss is the commander here at Dreamland.”
“So, what exactly is her story?” Emily asked. “You said she worked with you developing hydrogen-slush propulsion.”
“And in the process, blew herself up,” Uri said. “Although, through no fault of her own. It had taken many months of painful surgery and skin grafts to make her look reasonably presentable again.”
Emily had no idea what Trish LaForgue looked like, but she could imagine.
“Another disorder she has is acute shingles,” Uri continued. “Almost covers her entire body. As you know, there’s no reasonable long-term cure. Wearing even the loosest clothing is quite painful. Poor woman. The only part of her skin that doesn’t hurt is where she has psoriasis.”
James was beginning to feel a little sorry for her. No wonder she had such a thick attitude. “I guess she leads a very lonely life.”
“No. She’s married,” Uri said.
That got James’s attention. He couldn’t imagine waking up every morning to some unfortunate who looked like that. He didn’t say anything.
“A lot of her gruff manner is largely a façade,” Uri said. “Have you heard of Major John LaForgue?”
“That’s her husband?”
“Yes.”
“If I recall,” James said. “Major LaForgue set an altitude record in the failed F-14A. Something went wrong, and the aircraft plummeted out of the sky.”
“At one hundred and twenty thousand feet, it went into an uncontrolled dive,” Uri said. “Major LaForgue ejected just a few seconds before the F-14A exploded. He was showered with bits of metal. His flight suit did a lot to protect him, but the same cannot be said for his helmet visor. He was left permanently blind.”
“Poor guy,” Emily said.
“So, how did Trish LaForgue end up as Director of the OS?” James asked.
“The security agencies waste a lot of time and tax dollars concealing data from each other, but the backstabbing between departments is even worse,” Uri said. “Joseph Müller, the current director of the NSA exposed some very sensitive dirt about how the OS was being administered. Out of embarrassment, the top echelon all resigned. Müller assumed that he was next in line for the senior-most position; one he’s been after for years.”
“I take it that he didn’t get it,” James said.
“No,” Uri said. “When the internal vacancy was posted, Trish, not wanting anything more to do with research and development, took a chance and applied. She has an impeccable track record managing projects, cutting through the bullshit and getting to the facts. She’s extremely smart. LaForgue was the perfect candidate to oversee all the agencies. She also has an incredible knack for seeing through lies.”
“That, I can believe,” James said.
Uri went on, “The National Security Council decided it was time the OS was administered by someone committed to getting things done; someone removed from the years of internal politics that have been corrupting the agencies. She got the job.”
“That must have pissed Müller off,” Nathan said.
“He’s still pissed,” Uri replied. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he spends all his time trying to dig up something on LaForgue. He’s going to have a tough time of it.”
“Why do people do it?” Emily asked, shaking her head. “Spending all day either stabbing each other in the back or covering their asses?”
“Among the security departments, it’s become a national sport,” Nathan said, cynically.
That brought a smile to everyone’s face.
“It does seem to be a cesspool of politics and power games,” Uri said. “But they do more good than harm when it comes to protecting the freedoms people take for granted.”
“They’d do even better if they didn’t have such a high turnover of directors and deputy directors,” Emily remarked.
“We’ll need to contact LaForgue,” James said. He turned to Uri. “Regardless of what you’ve just told us, I still don’t entirely trust her. What are we going say?”
“Tell her the truth,” Uri suggested. “That we haven’t found the site yet.”
Chapter Thirty
At the end of the following day, Emily was no closer to uncovering anything that made sense. “Damn,” she said, looking up from her monitor in frustration.
“Not getting anywhere?” Nathan asked. He was busy verifying the formulas in the document, applying values that he thought would be applicable to reactionless drives.
“I’m only on the first illustration, and with several layers, there are hundreds of possible combinations.” Each layer was a digital version of a plastic transparency, each with only a small part of what made up the whole when stacked on top of each other. Like transparencies, the stacking order didn’t matter, it was the combination. She couldn’t even match up two individual images where a single straight line from one continued on another. Which images to include and which to discard, Emily had no idea.
“Thing is,” she said. “I don’t really know what I’m looking for. It’s like doing a complex jigsaw puzzle without knowing what the completed picture looks like. The only obvious layer seems to be the top one.”
“And that isn’t it?”
“Definitely not,” she said.
Nathan rolled his chair closer to Emily’s screen. “What makes you so sure?”
“Blended in with the other layers, it’s meaningless. Each image in the document is like that. A psychedelic montage that looks like it was painted by someone on a heroine trip. On its own, I know for sure that this layer can be safely discarded.”
“You certain?”
Smiling, Emily said, “See for yourself.” She concealed all but the top layer.
“Oh, I see what you mean,” Nathan said, laughing. “I guess Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ doesn’t exactly lend itself to providing a solution on inertial engines.”
“Maybe he’s not screaming at all, but surprised at this radical technology.”
They laughed.
“Anyway, you’re wrong about the artist,” Emily said. “It’s not Munch.”
“Yes, it is,” he argued. “I know my artists.”
“Your level of artistic knowledge only goes as far as the surrealism of Salvador Dali,” she said, egging him on.
Nathan had brought four of Dali’s paintings from his condo and hung them in the living room of their new home. They were nice enough, but totally Nathan’s taste, not hers. She didn’t object though. She loved everything about him, why would she want him to change.
They had enjoyed many memorable meals together in SkyTech’s lunchroom, discussing a variety of interesting topics. Lately, however, it was more like intellectual sparring.