Solstice

'You want me here?' the big man asked.

'I can handle this, Dave,' she replied, in a voice that sounded somewhat strange. It had lost its harshness, the edge of anxiety he'd come to know.

He watched the giant shape disappear out the door and said, 'You get your own bulldog with this job too?'

'Dave's quite a guy. Saved my life. And a lot more besides. Took me a while to realize how much.'

He felt uncomfortable with the way she was looking at him. 'Hey, I know. We don't look the same now that we're not postage-stamp pictures on some damn computer monitor.'

She nodded. He was right. He looked stronger, fitter than she had expected. She extended a long-fingered hand. 'Straight to the point, Michael. I imagine I should have expected no less of you.'

'I guess not.'

'Do you want a drink?' she said, looking at the cabinet in the corner. Bright, smart eyes, watching him all the time. Women like this could be hard to be around after a while.

'No thanks.'

'I'm going to have a Scotch. It's after six and it's been a long day. Are you sure you won't join me?'

He shook his head. 'Thanks, but no. I'm taking a break right now. I did some drinking on credit before. I got a couple of free years before I have to go back and do it all again.'

'Ah.' An expression he recognized, and it typified this woman: quiet, polite, noncommittal, standing back, taking a good look before leaping in. Not the Lieberman style at all.

She walked over to the drinks cabinet and poured herself a sizeable glass of Glenfiddich, then dropped a couple of ice cubes into it. 'You may need it.'

'Really? No, I don't think so.' He joined her back at the table, trying to convince himself this wasn't some kind of contest. 'You summoned me.'

'Did it sound like that?'

'Yes. Exactly like that.'

'I'm sorry. I was curious to see you. Didn't you have the same feelings?'

'I've a lot on my mind, Helen. Finding work. Rebuilding some kind of career beyond freelance academic assignments. I learned my lesson there. That life is too damn dangerous for me.'

'I gather Sara's fine.'

'You checked?' They never really got out of your life. He should have known that.

'Yes. I went to see her. Didn't she tell you?'

'No.'

'She seems to be making a good recovery. In a while she'll be back to normal.'

' "Normal",' he repeated. 'Now, there's a word.'

'She also understands our position.'

'I guess that's why she never mentioned your visit.' He tried to mask his disappointment, and knew he should have expected no more. When you got down to it, this was the CIA.

'Michael…'

'Let me guess. Now it's my turn too.'

'It's important for us to make sure we have control over what is and isn't known about Sundog. A lot's in the public domain already.'

'A lot?' he asked, wide-eyed. 'I have been looking, you know. It's all just crazy conspiracy theories. X-Files stuff. No one's close to what really happened.'

'I know. We originated a lot of what you call "X-Files stuff". It suits us.'

'Nice job. Nice business.'

'No,' she said quietly. 'It's not nice. Some things aren't nice at all. But they are necessary. They have to be done. You thought that too, didn't you?'

Lieberman shuffled in his chair. He guessed he knew this moment had to come. 'Meaning?'

'Meaning thanks to you we don't have that thing in the sky any more. Whatever you did with those solar panels made sure of that. The government is several billion dollars the poorer. You mind telling me how?'

He shifted on the chair and tried to smile. 'It's dangerous playing with fire, you know. Turn this mirror a few points too far, open up those delicate little panels, and' — he snapped his fingers — 'kaboom.'

She let out a thin laugh. 'An expensive kaboom.'

'I made it, Helen. It was mine to unmake. If you like, I can try and pay it back in instalments. Once I get a job.'

She took a sip from the glass. 'You scared the life out of me. I wondered what the hell you were doing.'

'Thinking. Remembering.'

'Thank God someone was. They can build it again, you know. All those pieces in space don't mean a thing. It will be bigger, it will be better, and it won't have some secret little password you and Charley dreamed up all those years ago. Why the hell did she use that?'

He could still remember Half Moon Bay. And how that old, old story popped into his head over a beer on a bright, burning day in Mallorca. 'Because it was appropriate. Deep down the old Charley was still there. I know you don't like that idea, but it's true.'

No, he told himself, she doesn't like that idea at all. 'We were lucky, Michael, damn lucky.'

Luck. An odd word under the circumstances. He wasn't sure he believed in the concept of luck at all any more. 'They will build it again someday, I know. We don't learn. It's our big failing. You know what makes me hate this most of all? There's a part of me says Charley was right. This is a big, screwed-up world, and we're the ones who are screwing it up. And maybe it won't end, ever. Maybe we just carry on with this agony for as long as we hold the keys to this place.'

'That part of you is mistaken.'

'Really? You know, it seems like years ago that I looked at you and pointed out that it was maybe some similar syzygy that wound up wiping out the dinosaurs. Do you ever get to wondering whether maybe we just replaced one set of dinosaurs with another or something?'

He looked at her glass. It was almost empty. 'You're in danger of drinking too much.'

'I'm over twenty-one.' One more sip before she said what she had to say. 'I'm sorry we couldn't have got the medics there sooner, Michael. They had all sorts of problems to contend with.'

'Yeah, I know.' Mo's dying face still came to him sometimes, but he couldn't blame anyone except Charley for that. He ranted and he raved on the dry, dead ground, screaming at the sky, staring into the golden nothingness as if he could pull something out of it that would make Mo Sinclair live again. But he'd known all along that this was futile, some dim, dark ceremony he had to endure. 'It wouldn't have made any difference. There was nothing any of us could do.'

'She was a hell of a brave woman.'

He didn't want to talk about this. There was nothing useful to say.

'And the girl? Annie? I know you brought her back here.'

'You do keep tabs, don't you?' he grumbled. 'She's in good hands. A nice local babysitter for the evening.'

There was a noise from behind him. 'Wrong there,' said a big, booming voice.

He turned and saw Tim Clarke standing, smiling, by the connecting door to the adjoining room. Behind, in what looked like an enormous suite, was a bunch of busy people mingling around PCs and fax machines.

He looked at the President and said, 'Excuse me?'

'Hell.' Clarke beamed, walked over, took Lieberman by the hand, pumping his arm up and down vigorously. 'Come here.' They walked over to the adjoining suite. In the corner of the next room, head bent to a PC, Annie was watching a small black kid play some kind of adventure game. 'She's just having some fun with Benny,' the President said. 'It's good for him. A kid doesn't get much fun in the White House, particularly an only child. And good for her too.'

'Isn't that kidnapping or something?' Lieberman asked quietly. There was something here he didn't like. Clarke was looking him up and down. The man, in the flesh, seemed more intense, more human than he did on the box.

'I thought it might make sense for you two to have a chat afterwards. On the way home.'

'So why am I really here, Mr President?'