“Sounds like the same thing.”
“Not at all.”
“Even so, I don’t see how its existence could have remained secret for so long.”
“Not secret, just that you won’t find it on any of the tourist maps. It’s somewhere in the Biminis, though, and the real fun starts once we reach it.”
“How so?”
“Based on what Clive said, we’ve got to figure that the Atragon reserves lie somewhere offshore of the island, within some underwater formation.”
“Atlantis?” Natalya posed hesitantly.
“Not you, too. Please.”
She regarded him closely. “Your strength comes from being able to remain detached. It’s how you have stayed in the game so long.”
“You’ve been doing pretty well yourself. A boat explosion and Vasquez in the same week. You get high marks for survival.”
For a moment the only break in the hotel room’s silence was the rattle of the air-conditioning system. Then Natalya spoke tautly.
“Did you ever think this life wasn’t right for you? Did you ever question your choice?”
“Once,” Blaine replied without hesitation. “It was when I was going out with T.C. She took me into her world and for a time the simplicity of it enchanted me. She was just getting ready to graduate Brown and we went to a party there. That was ’82, ’83 maybe. To make a long story short, I’ve never been more uncomfortable in my life than I was around her friends. Age was part of it, but mostly I realized the real world was as foreign to me as mine would have been to them. I just didn’t belong. I belonged out here. I had come to see the people I dealt with in the field as normal. At least to me. I didn’t fit anywhere else, and I saw that.”
“But it was the woman who broke the relationship off.”
McCracken looked stung. “Is my file that complete?”
“It was in your eyes. And your tone. All this is still about guilt, isn’t it? You think it’s your fault she died, and you’ll do anything to avenge her.”
“That’s the way it started,” Blaine conceded. “But I don’t really give a shit about Raskowski anymore. It all comes back to the world I’ve chosen to exist in. If Raskowski is successful with his death-ray plot, then the door will be opened to more like him. The best way I can avenge T.C. is to stop that from happening.”
“It seems we have both stopped fooling ourselves recently,” Natalya said and proceeded to tell the story of her father. “It was only recently,” she said at the end, “that I realized there will be no freedom for him. I wanted to believe them for so long that I wouldn’t let myself see the truth.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Blaine soothed her. “These men are experts at turning us against ourselves. They find areas of weakness and exploit them. It’s what they do, what they are. The trick is to avoid becoming the very same thing.”
“You should have been a philosopher,” she told him, almost smiling. “Or a poet.”
“Yeah, people have been calling me a lot of names lately. Thing is I’m the same as I always was. It’s their perception of me that’s changed.”
She came closer to him, knelt on the floor, and held his knees. “I like you just fine the way you are.”
“Hmmmmmmmm … should take Wareagle quite a while to get to Washington and reach Sundowner. Think of any ways we can pass the time?”
“Plenty,” she said, closer still.
“I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Captain Midnight couldn’t believe the results of his own tests.
The pinkish stones held a potential as a power source on a level approaching Atragon. It was impossible unless—
He would run more tests, cover every angle in triplicate before he contacted Sundowner. The enormity of this discovery humbled him, so he had to be sure. He could not risk error.
Captain Midnight stole a sip from his canteen and went back to work.
Ryan Sundowner arrived in his office at virtually the same time every morning. Since he was early Tuesday, he was not surprised to find his secretary had not yet arrived. Sundowner unlocked his office door and felt a slight chill as he stepped into its dismal coldness.
He saw the huge figure standing by the window an instant before he flicked on the light switch.
“Who the hell are—” Sundowner stopped when the man’s true size became clear, along with his … appearance. The man was dressed in blue jeans, work shirt, and leather vest. His hair was tied up in a ponytail and his flesh was leathery and dark. An Indian …
“It was important that I come in unannounced,” the stranger told him calmly.
Sundowner stayed near the door, wondering whether he could get out before the giant reached him. “This building’s got the best security of any in the government.”
“The eyes of your guards see only what they are permitted to, Mr. Sundowner,” Johnny Wareagle told him. “They are easily deceived by one who walks with the spirits. But don’t blame them. No harm has been done. I am simply a messenger.”
“Oh?” from Sundowner, moving further from the door, more intrigued now than frightened.
“You have a phone call to make.”
“We’ve got problems, Sundance,” Blaine said by way of greeting.
“So I gathered from your large friend here.”
“Just tell me if the replacement for Ulysses has been launched.”
“No, but how did you—”
“Tell me if I’ve got this reasonably straight. The President gets word from the Soviet General Secretary that a mad, renegade general’s death ray is deployed on board Ulysses. Of course this means the satellite has to be deactivated but not until a replacement can be launched just in case the whole scenario has been a setup for a Soviet sneak attack. Am I close?”
“On the money and I’ve got a feeling you’re not finished yet.”
“Not even close. You guys blew it, Sundance. The death ray’s on board the replacement.”
“My God … Blaine, it’s my fault, I suggested using the replacement.”
“Forget it, Sundance. If you hadn’t, someone else would have — the Fanner Boy probably. You’re only guilty of doing what was expected of you. Predicting responses seems to be Raskowski’s specialty. His first satellite went bonkers after knocking out Hope Valley, and he needed a replacement. We played right into his hands.”
Sundowner steadied himself. “No,” he insisted. “I checked out the replacement satellite myself. No way anything on the scale of a beam weapon was on board.”
“Raskowksi would have expected such precautions. He’d have planned for them.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m telling you that satellite is …”
“What, Sundance? I get nervous when people don’t finish their sentences.”
The scientist still wasn’t talking.
“Sundance?”
“He wouldn’t need to launch a death beam at all, Blaine,” Sundowner said almost too softly to hear. “All he really needs is to get a reflector up there, something non-carbon based like sodium or aluminum. Put it into orbit and fire his death beam from a generator on ground level. The beam would strike the reflector, which could be angled by computer to bounce the beam back to any area in the country. Just pick a target.”
“Could the general have gotten such a reflector on board?”
“A dozen different ways and I would have missed all of them because I wasn’t looking.”
Blaine glanced at Natalya. “And what about the generator gun, could it be placed anywhere in the world?”
“Most definitely not. It would have to be the continental United States or possibly one of the islands, Cuba for instance.”