wonder why the graveyard-shift roster will permanently
have your name on it."
"You better get going, Captain-master's waiting
for someone to open the door for him," LaFortier
said acidly.
Chandler shook his head in exasperation. "Even
the solid cops turn bitter after a while, I guess," he
said, then turned up the collar on his overcoat and
left.
LaFortier finished his drink with a quick toss.
"At least my ass is out on the street where it belongs
, not sitting in a country club playing footsie
with the mayor," he said half-aloud. To Paul he
said, "Tomorrow evening, be at the South Station
by eight, ready for inspection, and we'll go over a
few things. Thanks for the party, Mr. McLanahan."
LaFortier lumbered off.
"Sheesh, he's a big guy. They make bulletproof
vests big enough for him?" Patrick deadpanned.
"Oh yes," Paul responded. "He looks like a big
blue billboard." He grinned. "Mr. McLanahan," he
mimicked. "Sounds like you're an old fart, bro."
"I am an old fart, bro," Patrick said. "But I can
still kick your ass."
"Have another drink, bro-you'll stay in fantasyland
longer," Paul shot back.
But Wendy's face was serious. "What do you
think about all this going on between the cops and
the chief and the city, Paul?" she asked.
"I don't think about it," Paul replied. "Budget
cuts are a way of fife, but officer safety is never being
compromised. Tensions will always exist, but
the city and the chief always support the troops."
He smiled reassuringly, then put his arms around
Wendy's and Patrick's waists. "It means a lot that
you came up here from San Diego. I know the docs
probably told you not to travel. You're due next
week, aren't you, Wendy?"
"Not for almost three weeks. And unless I was
confined to bed, Paul, we weren't going to miss your
graduation. Besides, the boss flew into town, so we
were able to hop a ride on the corporate jet. We head
back tomorrow afternoon."
"W rked out perfectly then," Paul said. Wendy
gave 'lom a kiss and scooped up more shot glasses
and beer mugs. Paul turned to his brother. "Wendy
looks great, and so do you. San Diego must agree
with you."
"Yep, it's great," Patrick said. "Seventy-two degrees
and mostly sunny every day. We love it."
"We didn't hear much from you for a while there.
It seemed like you dropped off the face of the earth
last spring. Lot going on at work?"
"Yes." Patrick wasn't about to tell his brother
that he had been busy flying secret attack missions
over the Formosa Strait, trying without success to
keep China from devastating Taiwan with nuclear
weapons-or that he and Wendy had ejected from
an experimental B-52 bomber over central China,
were captured, and were part of a prisoner exchange.
"Well, at least can you tell me about this new
company you work for? I remember you were forced
to retire, because you came back here to work the
bar-but then all of a sudden you're gone again, and
the next we know you're in San Diego."
"I, can't really talk about the company too much
either, Paul," Patrick said. "They're involved in a
lot of classified stuff for the military."
"But you're flying again, right?"
Patrick looked puzzled. "Flying? What makes
you think I'm flying again?"
Paul gave his older brother a satisfied grin. Yup,
he had guessed right and he knew it. "I remember
your face, your talk, your entire body language
when you were flying for the Air Force, bro, " he
said. "You were one supercharged dude back then.
You were groovin" I mean, really getting into life!
You look that way now. I know you're all excited
about having a kid and all, but I remember the only
other time you were this-well, hell, alive!-was
when you were flying, dropping bombs from big-ass
bombers or flying some new supersecret plane you
could never talk about.//
"What are you talking about? What's all this
about secret bombers? I never told you
"Don't bother denying it-I know%it's true," Paul
said. "You practically salivate when something
comes on the news about a war in Europe or the
Middle East and the press thinks the Air Force flew
a secret mission. Plus, you cut your hairm-looks
military-regulation length again."
"Mr. Detective here," Patrick laughed. "Just
graduates from the academy and he thinks he's
Columbo. No, I work for Sky Masters, Inc., and
that's all I can say."
"I know you, Patrick," Paul said. "This company
you work for, they're involved in some real hightech
shit, aren't they? I mean, real twenty-firstcentury
Star Wars stuff, right?"
"Paul, I
"You can't talk about it," Paul finished for him.
"I know, I know. Someday, though, I'd -like to know
more about it. I've always been fascinated by all the
stuff you could never tell me about, ever since you
were flying B-52s." Paul hesitated, and Patrick felt
that old telepathic connection again. It sounded
silly, but it was nonetheless true: His brother could
tap his head and find out all he wanted to know
anytime he wanted. That was reassuring, somehow
. . . . .. I know you had something to do with
what happened to that aircraft carrier, and that nuclear
attack on Guam," Paul went on. "I got the
same feeling when I heard those stories about the
conflict in Europe between Russia and Lithuania,
and earlier with China and the Philippines. You
were there both times. You were up to your elbows
in it."
"Someday, maybe I can tell you," Patrick said
with a smile. "Right now, all I can tell you is this:
It's really cosmic."
"Well, be sure to let me know when you invent a
phaser and force field for cops on the beat," Paul
said, clapping his brother warmly on the shoulder
before heading off to make another circuit of the
room. "I'll be first in line to try them out."
N
er touch was light and soothing, loving and caring-but
her hand was warm and moist, and as if
a Klaxon had suddenly gone off, Patrick, was instantly
awake. "Wendy?"
"I love you, sweetheart," she answered.
Patrick pushed himself up and peered at the red
LED numerals of the clock on the nightstand; it
read 5:05 A.m. He turned on his bedside light.
Wendy was sitting upright in bed, her right hand
still touching him, her left hand gently rubbing her
V belly. "Are you okay?" he asked.
111/m fine."
But she obviously wasn't fine. "Are you having
contractions? "
"Oh, yes," she replied, and he heard a twinge in
her voice. If his wife ever used foul language, he
d
ecided, the likelier answer would have been,
"Fucking-A, Sherlock, I'm having contractions!"
"How long?"
"A couple of hours. But no real pattern. Very irregular
. It's probably Braxton-Hicks again."
"Oh. Okay." It was a lame response, but what
else do you say? "Gee, dear, you're in pain, and I'm
really concerned, but it's not that pain, the official
pain, so I'll go back to sleep now"? Braxton-Hicks
contractions, sometimes mistaken for real labor
pains, had been a regular occurrence for Wendy all
during her pregnancy. So things were stirring, but
the action probably wouldn't start for several days.
Right? Wendy wasn't due for another three weeks.
And first babies were more often late than earlyright
?
They had left the party downtown right after
midnight. They were staying in a suite at the Hyatt
Regency Hotel in downtown Sacramento, not far
from the tavern. During the ride back to the hotel,
he sensed that Wendy seemed a bit more uncomfortable
than usual, but that was probably due to
ratigue-her normal bedtime was closer to nine P.m.
They probably never should have come to Sacramento
high-risk pregnancy. Wendy Tork McLanahan, an
electronics and aeronautical engineer first on contract
to the U.S. Air Force and now an executive and
chief designer for a small Arkansas-based high-tech
aerospace firm, had spent most of the past two years
in and out of hospitals after twice ejecting out of
experimental military bombers, the latest just last
June over the People's Republic of China, along
with Patrick and the crews copilot, Nancy Cheshire
. Wendy had just recovered from her injuries from
the ftrst ejection when she was forced to eject from
the second plane.
Thankfully, she did not lose the fetus. After a
brief hospital stay and a few weeks to recuperateand
be debriefed by what seemed like every agency
in the U.S. government except the Department of
Agriculture-Wendy returned to work and kept on
with her duties as vice president in charge of advanced
avionics design at Sky Masters, Inc. until
her maternity leave began two weeks ago.
She was in great shape, the baby was fine, and she
had insisted they could not miss Paul's celebration.
And after all that had happened-over the past two
years, Patrick wanted a family life, a normal life,
more than anything else in the world. He hadn't
done much of the family thing for most of the last
ten years, and he was anxious to get reacquainted
with everyone.
But here they were, four hundred miles away
from home, and the baby was obviously headed
down the chute very soon. Decisions. Good, bad,
who the hell knew? Stop waffling and deal with it
now, Patrick told himself.
"I'm going to call Dr. Linus in San Diego, just in
case, get someone standing by," he told Wendy. Her
nod and her touch told Patrick she really didn't
think it was false labor this time, so he picked UP
the telephone. Time to get moving. "Jon's got the
company jet at Mather demoing that electroreactive
cargo liner technology," Patrick reminded
her. "I think we should try to make it back to San
Diego." Dr. Jon Masters, their boss and president of
Sky Masters, Inc., was at the Aerojet-General rocket
plant east of Sacramento, to demonstrate a new
lightweight technology he developed for protecting
an airliner's cargo compartment from a bomb blast.
"The jet can be fueled up and ready to go in less
than two hours, and we can be at Mather- in thirty
minutes and at the hospital in Coronado in four
hours."
"All right," Wendy responded. "I'll get dressed."
She swung her legs out of bed and headed for the
bathroom, then stopped halfway. "Dear?"
"What, sweetheart?" Patrick replied. He turned.
Wendy was reaching for a towel-and then he saw
the growing bloody puddle on the white tile floor,
and leaped out of bed with a speed and agility he
thought he had lost long ago.
He knew then that they weren't going to make it
back to Coronado.
ROCKET-TESTING FACILITY,
AEROJET-GENERAL CORPORATION,
RANCHO CORDOVA, CALIFORNIA
SEVERAL HOURS LATER
W
hat's the latest on Patrick and Wendy, Helen?"
Jonathan Colin Masters, Ph.D, asked by way of a
voice check. The boyish-looking chief engineer and
president of Sky Masters, Inc. was setting up a small
video camera in front of a first-class seat inside a
Boeing 727 airliner fuselage.
"What? Jon, are you listening to me at all?" his
vice president and chairman of the board of directors
, Dr. Helen Kaddiri, asked through the videoconference
link. Kaddiri was several years older
than Masters, one of the original founders of the
small high-tech aerospace firm that now bore Jon
Masters's name. She tolerated his high-school an-
ties and laid-back style of doing business because
Jon knew how to build systems that the government
wanted, and he knew how to sell them-but
this, Kaddiri thought, was going way too far. Worse,
his life just to sell a product. He was nuts.
"Can you hear me? Is this thing working?"
"I hear you fine, Jon," Kaddiri said.
"I asked, have you heard anything about Wendy
since the message that they were heading to the
hospital?" Masters repeated.
"Jon, pay attention to what I'm saying to you,"
said a frustrated Kaddiri. "We have other ways of
doing this demonstration-"
"Helen, we've been over this a million times,"
Masters interrupted. "I'm doing this. Now, is there
any word from Patrick and Wendy or not?"
Kaddiri closed her eyes, unable to argue any
longer. Nuts-that was the only logical explanation.
Insane. Definition of a death wish, of childlike feelings
of invulnerability.
Kaddiri was conducting the technology demonstration
briefing at a videoconference center at the
Federal Aviation Administration headquarters in
Washington, D.C. Several research directors of the
FAA, along with aerospace-manufacturer and airline
representatives, were outside the conference room
awaiting the start of Masters's remote video demonstration
, beamed via a two-way datalink using Sky
Masters's low-Earth-orbit satellites, called NIRTSats
(for Need It Right This Second satellites), specifically
launched for this demonstration. Jon was
back in California, about to conduct the demonstration
itself. He was literally sitting atop a powder
keg, as both of them knew, and all he could think
about was Patrick and Wendy McLanahan's new arrival.
"Stand b
y one, Jon, " Kaddiri replied with an exasperated
sigh, then turned to her assistant, who
made a phone call and came back with an answer a
few moments later. "Wendy McLanahan was admitted
to Mercy San Juan Hospital in Citrus Heights,
east of Sacramento, this morning around five-thirty.
Everyone's doing fine," Kaddiri responded over the
videolink. "No other word. Happy?"
"She's been in labor since five-thirty?" Masters
asked incredulously.
"She's apparently been in labor since three A.M.,
Jon," Kaddiri corrected him. She could see him
wince at the thought of being in pain for that long.
If Jon were a woman, she decided, he'd get one contraction
and immediately want to reach up inside
and yank the kid out himself. "Everything's going
to be fine. Wendy's a tough girl, and they've got
some -good docs up there."
"Excellent," Masters replied, relieved. "Can't believe
they're going to have a kid. After all they've
been through . . ."
"Jon, pay attention to me for once," Kaddiri said.
"Forget about the McLanahans for a momentthey're
going to be fine. It's you I'm worried about.
This is nothing but a dangerous grandstanding stunt
that is likely to get you killed. I know you don't
care about yourself or your fellow officers, so think
about our company-your company. The company
would suffer a tremendous loss if you were hurt or
killed. Don't do this. Let's put the telemetric mannequin
in place the way we originally planned."
"Helen, you crazy kid, you're really concerned
about me," Masters said as he slipped into the seat,
smiling his maddening, cocky grin. "I'm touched."
"You are touched, Jon-touched in the head!"
Kaddiri retorted, upset that he appeared to be making
fun of her anxiety for him.
Jon Masters was closing in on his fortieth birthday
, but in many ways he really was still a teenager-probably
because he had bypassed most of his
adolescence and teen years and pursued his studies
rather than girls. He was a savant, a boy genius. He
received his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth
College at age thirteen; by age eighteen he had a
Ph.D from,the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
, and by age twenty he held over a hundred patents
as a NASA engineer, doing work for the
National Strategic Defense Initiative Organization