“You and my ex-wives.” Stoney laughed feebly. “They’ll have to find a way to support themselves now. I’m leaving everything to the Foundation.”
“The Foundation doesn’t need your money.”
“I know you, Crane. I know how you think, how you live. Your life will have to go on beyond tomorrow morning. You’ll have to think of what to do next. The Foundation, at this point, pretty well runs itself. You’ll be at a loss.”
“I’ve thought about that.”
The man set his drink on the floor and reached out for Crane’s good hand. “You’re a wise man, Crane,” he said, “but age also brings its own wisdom. Listen to me: Dedicate your life to something new, something positive. You’re a special human being and have dreams to contribute that no one else has. Don’t lose sight of yourself. Work as hard on the last day of your life as the first. You taught me the value of dedication. I’m giving it back to you now. Remember our three-billion-dollar bet?”
“Remember it? It made all this possible.”
“Well, sometime you’re going to want to take another three-billion-dollar gamble and my old bones will dance with joy in my grave if I am the one who can make it happen.”
“Thank you, Stoney. For everything. You’ve been like a father to me.”
“It’s been my most extreme pleasure to have known you, to have shared your dreams,” the man said, standing, leaning heavily on his Tennessee poplar cane. He started for the door, then stopped and turned back. “Except for that plane you gave away that time.” He shook his head. “Lost a wife over that one. It had been a birthday present.”
“Are you talking about Yvette … the wife who was playing hide the stick with every delivery boy who walked in the front door?”
“Yeah. I guess there was that about her. I find as I get older, I only remember the good things.” He stared at Crane for a long moment, then raised his cane, pointing it. “I’ll see you in hell, boy.”
Crane watched him go, and knew he’d never see Stoney again. Man’s bodily functions moved only toward death, but the mind could continue to enrich itself even as everything else embraced entropy. It was dignity that Stoney exemplified tonight, and Crane hoped he was half the man Harry Whetstone was.
Suddenly, Burt Hill replaced Whetstone in the doorway. “Boss, we gotta talk.”
“All right,” Crane said. He moved over to the radiation monitoring station, a hundred green lights blinking there. “What do you want to talk about?”
“How long would it take to blow this thing?” Hill was pacing, wringing his hands.
“I don’t know … an hour or so to get everything set, then the time to get out, get some distance. Remote trigger, you know.”
“Let’s get everybody out of here and do it now.”
“May I ask why?”
Hill walked closer. His eyes peered wildly at Crane. “Because they’re watching us, is why. They’re just hangin’ back, waiting. Waiting. Waiting for us to let our guard down.”
“Who is?”
“Them!” Hill said loudly. “Can’t you feel them? Their eyes crawling over us?”
“You’re off your medication, aren’t you, Burt?”
“I been off my medication for three years, Doc,” he said loudly. “I’m telling you that if we’re going to blow this thing, let’s get everybody out of here and blow it now!”
Hill had been a strong right arm for ten years, but the strain down here was getting to all of them, Crane decided. He’d hired Burt for his paranoia. Maybe it was time to listen to it. “Okay, let’s do it,” Crane said. “I’ll start moving the party out of here, while you take the service shaft up to ground level. Check around up there. Search the barracks and the other buildings. Tell the G to do a security sweep. When you’re satisfied, get back down here. You and I will set up. We’ll trigger when we get the urge. Fair enough?”
“Now you’re talkin’,” Hill said. “I’m on my way.”
The second Burt left, one of the panel lights went to red with a quiet buzz, Crane bringing up the status report on the screen. Tube #61 in B Corridor was leaking a small amount of radiation, nothing serious, but a good enough excuse to clear the place out.
He found himself liking the idea, anxious now to get on with it, excited, in fact.
Abu Talib stood next to a Joshua tree. Through infrared binocs strapped to his head he watched the G moving around the outer perimeter fence of Crane’s project three miles away. There were forty men with him, tucked in the San Bernadino foothills unseen, waiting for the right moment.
An avalanche of thoughts tumbled through his head. Lanie, her child, Crane, the Foundation—all producing a jumble of conflicting emotions. God, if only it could have been otherwise. Right. Wrong. Love. Hate. Loyalty. Abu Talib had no idea of what these words even meant anymore. The thrust of his life had become simple forward momentum, a ball rolling down an inclined plane.
He pulled off the binoculars and hung them on a Joshua branch. Strange how this desert tree, small and skeletal with clumps of leaves on the ends of the branches, reminded him of immature cotton plants. Or was the comparison farfetched, and he thought of the cotton because he’d much rather be in New Cairo preparing for harvest than here preparing a military action?
They were protected in a small gully, their three trucks, affixed with cattlecatchers, nearly invisible beneath desert camouflage.
Brother Ishmael walked up, handing him a cup of coffee. “Anything?” he asked.
“No,” Talib said. “The guests are still there; the protesters have gone home; the G isn’t alert.”
“Good. Let’s check the aerial view, then do the last briefing.”
They moved back to their men who were dressed in black and had on pulldown masks peeled up now to rest on their foreheads. The desert night was clear and cold with a brilliant full moon; the men, sitting on the ground, huddled together for warmth. A small screen that leaned against one of the Joshuas received its feed from Ishmael’s condor, sweeping lazy circles in the sky over the Imperial Valley Project.
They saw a quiet compound with a parking lot full of cars and helos. Most of the permanent workers lived a few miles away in Niland. When they left tonight, all the cars would go with them. A lone man seemed to be methodically going through the outbuildings and speaking with the guards.
“Who is that?” Ishmael asked.
“His name’s Burt Hill. He’s Crane’s ramrod and security chief. Only doing his job.”
“Good. Allah guides our path tonight.” Ishmael turned to the others. “As soon as the guests leave the party, we move in,” he announced. “Put on your goggles and turn to the G fiber.”
There was a groan from a platoon of men who’d gone through these steps many, many times in the last two weeks. They dutifully put on their goggles, Talib juicing the disk he had copied the day he’d inspected the underground abomination.
A virtual layout of the cavern appeared on the screen. The view moved past the computer room and down the stairs to the main room.
“Remember, there are carts at the bottom of the stairs,” Talib said. “You are to use them. Red Team will take the corridor to the left … see it? That’s A corridor. This was not a structure meant to stand for long, so it’s unstable. Red Team will plant the satchel bombs on all the pillars in that corridor. Blue team will do the same in B corridor. The rest of you will carry three satchels each, everything set to blow in an hour. You’ll drop your satchels down the tubes containing the bombs.”
“And you’re sure that throwing the satchels won’t set off the nukes?” Ishmael asked.
Talib sighed. “You’ve asked that question a dozen times, and I have told you a dozen times that it takes a huge effort to set off a nuclear bomb, Brother. Our little bombs won’t accomplish that. What they will accomplish is radiation leaks. Once we bring the place down, we want it to be so hot in there that no one would or could go back—ever. I’ll get us in and handle the computer room. The truck bomb will take care of the shaft once we’re done. Remember, if we handle this right, nobody gets hurt.”