“You’ll be pretty busy then, I take it,” Craig said, not knowing quite what he was fishing for.
“And you’ll be off on another high-tech case before long, I suppose,” Paige said.
“I suppose,” Craig answered, then looked down at his pint glass picking, it up and running his fingers nervously along the bottom.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday. I’m still going swimming,” Paige said. “I wouldn’t give that up.”
Craig looked up at her. He let his smile grow. “Should I bring my suit?”
She laughed. “Maybe you won’t be quite so formal this time.”
“I’ll try not to,” he said. “But it’s difficult for us FBI types you know.”
She raised her glass, and he raised his. They clinked their mugs together. When the band started playing again, they couldn’t hear their words. Craig slid his hand across the table and held her hand; they sat looking at each other across the table.
AUTHORS’ NOTE
Although the majority of this novel occurs at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, we have taken certain liberties in describing the people, events, and circumstances of that facility. The Virtual Reality lab, T Program, Building 433, and the Laser Implosion Fusion Facility do not exist, and the characters live only in the authors’ imaginations. While we have attempted to depict the Plutonium Facility accurately, we have altered certain details and aspects as the story required. The toxicology and hazards of HF are similar to how we have described them here, with some minor modifications.
The views expressed herein are totally those of the authors and are not to be construed as those of the U.S. Government, the Department of Energy, the University of California, the Department of Defense, the FBI, or the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
DEDICATION
To GORGIANA ALONZO, who helped me make sense of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and its intricacies (KJA)
To MARVE ALME and CLIFF RHOADES for steering me to LLNL (DB)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We relied on the help and advice of many people for the writing of virtual Detrcution. Some of those who contributed greatly (and in no particular order): our editor Ginjer Buchanan, our agent Richard Curtis, the crew in B Division (Bob, Jim, Chris, TT), A Division (Marv and Len), and LASNEX (Dave, George, Menoj, Judy, and Alex), Walter Scott, Rod Hyde, Warren White, James S. Johnson, Walter Jon Williams for his marvelous book Days of Atonement, John Stith, Lil Mitchell, Avis Minger, Dan’l Danehy-Oakes, Lori Ann White, Michael C. Berch, Claire Bell, M. Coleman Easton, Dan marcus, Michael Meltzer, and — of course — Rebecca Moesta Anderson and Cindy Beason.