“Bradley James McLanahan?” Jon Masters exclaimed, rolling his eyes in mock disbelief. “You gave your son, this cute, innocent, tow-headed little boy, the same name as the scourge of the United States Air Force? Shame on you.” He grinned at them both, then asked, “What about your brother? How is he?”
“They say his condition is improving,” Patrick replied, “but of course that was before we sneaked him out of the hospital to go to the memorial service. He was just about unconscious when we got him back there. The doc prescribed bed rest and no visitors, not even family, for twenty-four hours.”
“How bad is he?”
Patrick shrugged. “He’s alive, thank God. He was shot at close range with a nine-millimeter submachine gun on full automatic. The bulletproof vest saved his life, but he’s still in very serious condition. He’s got a cracked sternum, damaged esophagus, and some internal bleeding in his left lung that might require more surgery. A bullet grazed off his left collarbone and lodged in his larynx, so they had to remove it…”
Jon Masters shrugged. “No sweat. We can replace it.”
Patrick blinked. “What?”
“His larynx. We can replace it with an electronic one. A lot better than the ‘buzzers’ they use now. All internal microchip design. A pretty good duplication of human speech-he won’t sound like a dime-store wind-up robot. What else?”
Patrick looked at Wendy with surprise, and continued: “Some broken ribs, his left shoulder’s gone, his left arm might be destroyed, and his right leg was pretty badly injured…”
“We can fix all that too, Patrick,” Jon said confidently. “Sternum, ribs, scapulas, collarbones-easy. Lightweight fibersteel bone, stronger than steel but lighter than natural bone. Won’t set off any X-ray security machines like Brad’s stuff did.”
“Sky Masters builds prosthetic devices too, Jon?” Wendy asked.
“Are you kidding? With Brad Elliott on the staff? That was one of his pet projects,” Jon replied. “In typical Brad Elliott fashion, he buttonholed a bunch of folks on the board and badgered them into giving him a budget-he even got some grant money. He got a bunch of guys in R amp; D experimenting with prosthetic devices, and they’ve made a lot of progress. The arm and leg will be the most exciting. The prosthesis Brad Elliott had for his right leg is like a scurvy pirate’s peg leg compared to the devices we’ve got now…”
“We’re hoping he won’t need any prostheses, Jon,” Patrick said. “The docs can’t say for sure, but they’re hopeful. His leg isn’t that bad-he might get seventy-five percent back. The arm, the shoulder… well, it’s just too early to tell.”
“What I’m trying to say, guys, is don’t worry about Paul,” Jon said. “All he has to do is hold on to his will to live-and when I heard he actually talked you into putting him in a wheelchair and taking him to the church to be with his partner, I thought, This kid wants to live, all right! But I don’t want to hear this ‘seventy-five percent’ crap. Let me help him, and I can make him better than new. Like they said in the TV series, ‘We can rebuild him. We have the technology.’”
“This isn’t a TV series, Jon, and this is not an experiment. He’s my brother, and it’s his life we’re talking about,” Patrick said seriously.
“I know, Patrick,” Masters said. “We’ll let the doctors care for him. He’ll need surgery, rehabilitation, and time. But if he needs anything more, I just want to let you know that our company’s resources are available to help him. I don’t want you to worry.”
Patrick nodded in appreciation, though the anger still seething deep within him was almost palpable. “Thanks, Jon,” he murmured.
They all fell silent, watching the baby sleep. Wendy finally broke the silence: “Tell us, how did the BERP demonstration go?”
Masters lowered his eyes to the floor, then shrugged. “No word yet. I thought it went really well. Awesome, in fact. The technology works perfectly.”
“Still got that glitch with the energy discharge through the material?” Patrick asked.
“Uh… yes, that problem’s still with us,” Jon admitted after a rather lengthy pause. “But good news: Your buddies Hal Briggs and that big scary Marine stopped by.”
“They did? Where are they?”
“They’re out at McClellan. They said something about servicing their aircraft…”
“Yep,” Patrick said. “McClellan does a lot of nondestructive inspection on aircraft, mostly high-value or classified aircraft like the stealth fighter, cruise missiles, stuff like that. Hal Briggs’s Madcap Magician cell uses stealth C-130 cargo planes for infiltration and extraction missions, and only McClellan can do maintenance on the stealth skins.”
“It sounds as if their organization is interested in pursuing some of your ideas for additional applications for BERP.”
“Great,” Patrick said. “But I still agree with you: This technology belongs on the world’s airliners. We can sell it to the government or the military later.” Jon looked a bit uncomfortable, but said nothing.
“Where’s Helen?” Wendy asked. “Is she still meeting with the FAA and the airline reps, or is she back in San Diego?” Jon hesitated again. Patrick and Wendy looked at each other quizzically. “Jon?…”
“She… she resigned,” Masters said sheepishly.
“She what?”
“She resigned. She’s going to take her stock and go form her own company again.”
“What happened? Did you have an argument?”
“No!”
“Then what, for God’s sake?”
“Oh, she was a little upset because I didn’t play kiss-ass with the FAA and didn’t show them the proper amount of subservience,” Masters said, a touch of his childish whininess showing in his voice. But he could see that neither Patrick nor Wendy was buying this, so he added, his voice almost a whisper, “She might have been a little upset at me because I stayed on board the test fuselage during the BERP demo.”
“You what?” Wendy exclaimed. She looked at her husband, but to her surprise, he didn’t seem angry. His expression was more like wonder, like curiosity.
But the baby seemed to register her tension, and started to squawk. She cradled him in her arms. “I don’t believe it!” she said. “Jon, you could have gotten yourself killed. No wonder Helen was upset! And you televised the whole thing for the folks in Washington-my God, do you realize you could have forced them to watch your death if something had gone wrong? No wonder there’s no word from the FAA or the airlines. They probably think we’re all a bunch of crazies or scam artists.”
Wendy glanced at Patrick again. He was wearing his one-thousand-yard stare, the look he got when his mind was far away. “Patrick?”
“I’ll talk to Helen, ask her to stay on,” Patrick said, shaking himself from his abstraction. “Jon, you’ve got to talk to the board and tell them what happened, then convince all the members to talk to Helen. Not only would we be losing our most valuable designer and engineer, but the information she could take with her might cost the company billions.”
Wendy was disappointed in Patrick’s lack of outrage, but she decided to ignore it-he certainly had enough on his mind right now. Besides, Jon seemed genuinely sad and sorry at the prospect of Helen Kaddiri’s leaving the company. It had always seemed to Wendy that Jon took delight in tormenting Helen, but perhaps that was just a facade.