The three of them went back up on Sparrow’s wing, and Alan got into the cockpit. He remained there for half an hour. Sparrow’s aft section levered shut, and soon after that there was a brief whine from the craft. Alan got out of the cockpit, and closed the canopy. He stood on the wing, and made a call on his cell phone. He talked to someone for several minutes before hanging up, and then turned to his companions. They listened intently as he talked, and then they all climbed off the wing.
Alan walked to the table to retrieve the box he’d taken out of Sparrow. Behind him the other two men disappeared from view, their images rippling, fading, then gone from the feet up.
Alan picked up the box, again held it well out from his body, and marched to the door leading eventually to the nearby portal bay. He punched in a code to open the door, went through it, and closed the door behind him.
And Sparrow’s bay was quiet again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
BRIEFINGS
Arthur Evans splashed cold water on his face and wiped it dry with a towel. He combed his hair and put the comb in a glass on the shelf in front of the mirror, studied himself, and decided the long, daily walks were doing some good.
The door opened, and Len was standing there. “Gilbert Norton is here, Mister President. He’s waiting for you in the office.”
“Thanks, Len. I want you there, too. Take some notes for me.”
“Yes, Mister President.” Len opened the door wider, and stepped to one side. Arthur clapped him on the shoulder as he walked past. He liked Len: quiet, unassuming manner, a good-looking kid, and sharp as a tack.
It was only a few steps, and he opened a door leading to the oval office. Gil had been sitting in a chair near the big, mahogany desk, and stood.
“Morning, Gil. Good to see you again.” Arthur shook his hand. “You know my aid. He’ll be taking some notes so I’ll remember what I’m supposed to do.”
“Hi Len,” said Gil; Len smiled faintly, and sat down on a leather couch.
“I appreciate your time, Mister President.”
Arthur sat down behind his desk, and then Gil sat down. “Sounds like things have really been heating up,” said The President.
“We’re getting close. The flight test is the end of the week. They’ll be going for a hundred thousand feet and what Eric Price is calling hyper-flight. I don’t know what that means, and Eric claims he doesn’t either. He just expects Sparrow to achieve extreme speed.”
“That man has been quite a surprise,” said Arthur. “We sent him there to find and eliminate a saboteur, and instead he’s become a chief scientist for the project. How did that happen?”
“I don’t know, and neither does Eric. The insights come to him in bursts. He thinks he’s been somehow programmed with hypnosis or even telepathy. A woman he’s been seeing could be involved, but we’ve checked her out and she seems totally clean. There has been an attempt on Eric’s life, but we feel he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Johnson was his prime contact at the base, and was trying to tell him something; Johnson’s assassin was still there when Eric arrived; we figured he tried to kill two for the price of one.”
“And the killer is still on the loose.”
“He is, but we’re not aware of any new sabotage. The project has been moving ahead quickly. We’ve been checking out one suspicious individual who is bribing personnel for information on the project, but we can’t find anything on him, even a birth record. The man claims to represent corporate interests. Quite frankly, Mister President, I think Eric Price knows more about him, but is holding back. And I think his explanation for his scientific accomplishments is a bit convenient. His knowledge could only have come from our foreign associates, but if Eric has made contact with them he’s not telling me about it.”
“Are you telling me he’s unreliable? Do you want to recall him?”
“Not at all, Mister President. He’s doing his job. I’ve always had a policy of giving field agents free hand in day-to-day operations. If Eric isn’t telling me something, he has his reasons. And his achievements in moving Shooting Star ahead have been outstanding.”
“Success of the project is what this is all about, Gil. If the man has your trust, he has mine. Is there anything else I should know about?”
“No, Mister President. That’s all I have for now. I’ll call after the test flight. That’ll be early Saturday or Sunday morning.”
Arthur stood up, and Gil stood with him. Arthur walked around the desk and shook hands with his old friend again.
“I’m encouraged, Gil. Things were stumbling along until we got your man in there. I’m amazed at how much he stirred up in such a short time. But it’s hard for me to find the words to express how important this project is to me, and to humanity, for that matter. If what we’ve been promised is true, we can go to the stars. The perspective of the entire human race could be changed overnight. This belongs to all of earth’s people, Gil, not just one nation.”
“I agree,” said Gil, “and I think your attitude is the reason they brought Shooting Star to us in the first place, and not one of the other western countries.”
Arthur squeezed Gil’s hand again. “And I don’t intend to betray that trust, old friend,” he said. You think you understand, but you don’t, he thought.
“Anything I can do, call me.” Arthur took Gil by the elbow, led him to the door. “Say hi to Jean for me.”
“She misses the quiet dinners we used to have,” said Gil.
“We’ll have them again, after I survive this second term.”
The door closed, and Gil was gone. Len sat on the couch, an empty note pad on his lap. He looked expectant. Arthur’s expression was suddenly serious. “Okay, let’s get our Mister Brown in here and find out what’s really going on.”
Len left the office. Arthur returned to his desk, sat down, and riffled some pages of a folder without seeing them. He checked his appointment calendar and made a few doodles on a notepad.
There was a soft knocking on the door, and it opened. Len leaned inside and said,” Mister Brown is here, Mister President.”
“Send him in, Len, and please wait outside.”
A tall man came into the room. The dark blue business suit he wore had been carefully tailored for him. Eye-candy for my receptionist, thought Arthur. At the doorway, the man bowed, and clicked his heels together as the door closed behind him.
Arthur stood. “Vasyl, it’s good to see you again. I’ve just been hearing good things about our project. Please, sit down.”
Vasyl sat. “There have been problems, but we’re gradually working through them.”
“I’ve been particularly interested in the progress made by an operative of ours named Eric Price,” said Arthur.
Vasyl smiled. “Yes, he has created quite a stir.”
“How so? I’ve read the man’s file. No doubt he’s a fine scientist, in addition to his more violent skills, but I find it hard to explain the breakthroughs he’s achieved in such a short time. Surely you’ve been feeding him information you couldn’t trust other people with.”
“We have, sir.”
“But why? There were others you could trust, like Johnson. The lack of information transfer has slowed progress to a crawl until now.”
“Johnson was murdered, sir, because we gave him key information directly and by ordinary means, and he was unable to keep it to himself. We didn’t want the same thing to happen again. Price has been advised subliminally and with key words or visual patterns to bring information to a conscious level when needed.”
“But why Price?”
Vasyl smiled. “Because he’s one of us.”