Abu Talib felt rage rise in him. He carried the weight of righteousness on his shoulders. He had to do what no one else could: stop the madman before he destroyed the planet.
“I can’t believe you’d actually come here.”
Talib’s head snapped in the direction from which Crane’s voice had come. Crane was flanked by two G, Lanie hung back somewhat, holding her child, her white child. “And I can’t believe you’re actually going to do this,” he said.
Lanie shoved through the G to enter the room. “Hello, children,” she said to the fifth graders, who had stopped playing when they’d heard the exchange between the two men. “I’d like to ask all of you to choose a locker and remove any communication equipment you may be wearing. Turn off your aurals. Remove your pads and put them in the lockers.”
They did as they were told. “Thank you,” Lanie said. “Now please go with the policeman, who will give you a tour of the rocks and gems room.”
The children filed out behind one of the blank-faced security guards. Crane and the other G moved into the processing room to circle the three people.
“So how many people have you killed today, Dan?” Crane asked. “Have we topped the three-thousand mark yet?”
“Leave him alone,” Khadijah said. “We fight a war of liberation. People die in wars.”
“You must be the wife,” Crane said, moving close to her.
“I will ignore all that, Crane, as NOI is not the issue,” Talib said. “I’m here to give you one last chance to come to your senses. Please stop this insanity now. Walk away from it.”
“You know me one hell of a lot better than that,” Crane returned.
“But I do not know you at all, Dr. Crane,” Martin said.
Crane stared at the man’s white robes. “And who might you be?”
“Someone who abhors violence as much as you,” Aziz returned.
“Then you’re associating with a bad crowd.”
Lanie stepped forward with the baby, Talib’s insides tightening up. “Hello, Dan,” she said softly, and he folded his arms to keep his hands from shaking.
“So you’re Lanie,” Khadijah said, stepping between the woman and Abu. “I am Khadijah, the wife of Abu Talib. You have a beautiful son.”
“Thank you,” Lanie said, her eyes still fixed on Talib. “I hear you have a daughter?”
“And a son on the way,” Khadijah said, patting her stomach. “Did your son inherit his father’s insanity?”
“I hope so,” Lanie said coldly, still looking at Talib. “Why can’t you leave us alone, Dan? What have we done to you?”
He broke the eye contact as he felt his resolve crack. “You don’t understand,” he said. “Lanie, this may destroy the planet!”
“Okay,” Crane said. “I want you out.”
Talib had never known Crane to hate anyone, but he could feel it now, pulsing from the man in agonizing waves. The enemy. Talib did not protest Crane’s order.
They returned to processing from the computer room, where a janitor was sweeping just outside. As Talib passed beside the man, a disk was slipped into his jacket pocket.
They reached Processing, and Talib slipped the disk from his pocket, fed it into the slot in his pad and copied it. He coughed to cover the copy completion bleep, then palmed the disk, slipping it into the trashcan by the door as the janitor moved into Processing to sweep.
Crane and the FPF led them back to the elevators, the fifth graders charging down the hall to join them within minutes. As they walked into the massive lift, Crane grabbed Talib by the arm to stare furiously at him. “I don’t know what you’re doing here after all this time,” he said, “but make it the last time. I don’t ever want, or intend, to see your face again.”
“Take your hand off of me,” Talib said, jerking free as the door closed between them.
Crane’s last view of the man was his eyes, bright as lava with hatred. The pipeline of negative emotion worked both ways.
“Crane!” Lanie called, charging down the hall, Charlie happily riding on her back. “Crane!”
She reached him, out of breath, frowning at the closed doors of the elevator. “They’ve gone,” she said.
“Immediately. Of course. Did something happen?”
“We’re missing a disk.”
“Which one?”
“Basic design schematics, blueprints, structural analysis.”
“Show me,” he said, already heading down the hallway. “If they took something, we’ve got time to stop them aboveground.”
They rushed to the computer room, dark and cool, hewn out of bare rock.
“I’d pulled it,” she said, “to check Pany’s alignment problems, then set it right—”
“Here?” Crane said, picking up a small disk from the other side of the keyboard and holding it up for her.
“That’s it!” she said, taking it from him to stick in the disk lockbox. Then she turned and looked hard at him. “I didn’t put it there.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded, Crane staring straight up at the ceiling as if he could see Talib right through solid rock.
Chapter 18
HIDDEN FAULTS
Harry Whetstone’s voice echoed down the cavern as he spoke from the small podium set up in the main cavern to the cadre of associates who’d worked the Project. Crane watched him with a strange sense of calm, of demons conquered.
“We stand this evening at a crossroads of history,” Stoney said, looking frail, looking old. “I never thought that I’d stand inside of a bomb, much less the biggest bomb in the history of the world. I never thought I’d want to see a bomb explode, but in this case I can’t wait. We stand on the brink of mankind’s next step—the taming of our own environment for the good of not only everyone alive, but of everyone yet to be born. And I’m proud to have played a small part in its realization.
“I say a small part because only one person is primary in the achievement of this great goal, a man whose insight and tireless devotion alone has made this gargantuan leap possible—Lewis Crane!”
Cheers and applause broke out from the seventy people present, sounding louder because of the echo. The attendees included the Project laborers, plus the power brokers and supporters who’d given themselves to Crane’s dream—Sumi Chan, Kate Masters, Stoney, Messrs. Tsao and Tang, Burt Hill, and the key personnel from the Foundation.
Crane waved to the crowd, and Whetstone raised a glass of champagne. “To you, Crane!” he called. “You have challenged impossible odds with indomitable courage!”
Everyone drank, Lanie moving up beside him to hug his good arm tightly. “You did it,” she said and kissed him on the cheek. “You really did it.”
“We all did it,” Crane said. “Everyone here has helped make it happen… especially you.”
“You’re the fulcrum, Crane.”
“Are you okay?” he asked. He’d been wondering about her all day. She was there physically, but seemed to be deep in thought, thoughts she wasn’t expressing in words.
“I’m feeling strange,” she said. “This has been a hell of a haul.”
“Yeah,” he returned, hugging her close, drinking in her feel, her smell. “I love you so much.”
“Oh, Crane,” she said, kissing him deeply on the mouth, then smiling up into his eyes, “you’ll never know … never understand the magic you’ve made in my life.”
“Can I ever understand,” he whispered. “I never had a life until I met you. A wife … a family—I never thought these things were possible for me, I—”