Nerve Center (31 page)

“Our tape of the simulation showed the aggressor still out of range when you blacked out,” said Carrie.

She had her hands on her hips, her beautiful breasts thrust out. Zen hadn’t realized how beautiful she was until now, for some reason. Shy and reserved, but the kind of woman who would turn into something in bed.

“Jeff, how do you feel?” asked Geraldo, pulling over a small metal chair on wheels. The assistants customarily used the chair while adjusting the connections; its steel gleamed even in the softly lit lab.

“Uh-oh, I’m a prisoner of the Inquisition,” he joked, still looking at Carrie.

“Not an inquisition, Jeffrey,” said Geraldo. “But I do have some questions for you.”

Carrie glanced down at the floor. He thought her face had colored, but he couldn’t be sure—she and Roger beat a hasty retreat, leaving their boss to talk to him alone.

It occurred to Jeff that he could wring Geraldo’s thin white neck with one hand, though he had no desire to do so.

“Jeffrey, I’m frankly concerned about you,” said Geraldo.

“Why? Because I got waxed by a MiG? It’s flying Mack Smith’s game plans. It’s pretty good.”

“It has nothing to do with the MiG,” said the scientist.

He really could wring her neck. It wouldn’t be difficult. “When you’re in Theta, do you have full use of your limbs?” she asked.

She knew. Somehow, the bitch knew.

She wanted to control him. She wanted him to remain crippled. A gimp couldn’t take over like Madrone had.

But that was just a wild theory of Danny’s. He’d taken Jennifer Gleason’s ideas to the ridiculous, paranoid nth degree.

No. It had happened that way. Looking at Geraldo, seeing her cloying, meddling way, Jeff knew it must have happened that way. It was the only explanation.

Of course he’d taken over. With ANTARES Kevin could do anything.

So could Jeff. He could walk. Not today, not tomorrow, but soon.

“Do you use your legs in ANTARES?” Geraldo asked.

“Of course,” he told her. “So what?”

She nodded, then started to move away.

“Hey, Doc—hey! Where are you going?”

She stopped at the door. “Jeffrey, I’m thinking of talking to Colonel Bastian. I’m thinking.”

She stopped.

Jeff realized he had gripped the tires of his wheelchair and started forward, jerking the wires that were still attached to his hand and chest from the machines.

Why am I so angry?

“I think we’re going to put ANTARES on hold,” she said. Her cheeks and lips were pale, but her voice was calm and smooth. “Not just you—the entire program.”

“I’ll fight that.”

“You can go to Colonel Bastian with me. I’ll set up the appointment myself.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Something is happening to you that I don’t understand. I care about you, Jeffrey.”

“Then give me back my legs,” Zen told her.

Her lower lip trembled, but she said nothing as the door behind her opened and she stepped out.

Pei, Brazil
4 March, 2350 local

MINERVA SHIVERED AS SHE SLIPPED FROM THE BED, chilled by a breeze from the balcony door. Naked, she walked to the draped French doors, checking to make sure they were closed and locked. Halfway across the room she felt a premonition of danger and sidestepped to the upholstered chair nearby. She lowered herself stealthily, eyes riveted on the doors as she reached her hand beneath the chair to the pistol holstered there.

Madrone murmured and turned over on the bed, lost in his dreams. He mumbled something, a string of curses, as she rose and walked, still nude, to the doors. She held the Glock against her body, where it couldn’t easily be wrestled away; the small gun’s plastic butt felt warm against the inside of her rib cage. She paused a foot from the doors, breathing as softly as she could, examining the shadows.

Nothing.

But she could not dispel the premonition. Lanzas moved to the side of the drape, pulled it back gently.

Nothing.

The feeling of danger persisted. There was nothing to do but confront it—she pushed the drape away with a flourish, her body tense.

Moonlight washed the narrow terrace with a golden yellow. Otherwise, it was empty.

She slid her fingers across the combination lock to the French doors. Minerva trusted the men stationed there implicitly—many were related to her, and the others had worked for her or her family for at least a decade. But she well knew men were fickle, susceptible to all kinds of temptations. The glass in the doors was bullet-proof, able to turn back concentrated fire from a .50-caliber machine gun. The lair itself nestled onto the side of a rocky slope, with no possible vantage for a gunman for over three miles.

The concrete felt ice cold, but she stood on the terrace anyway.

Nothing.

Quietly, she slid back inside. Madrone remained sleeping on the bed, hands curled in tight fists. She patted him gently, then took her robe from the floor. Wrapping it around herself, her gun still in her hand, she slipped into the narrow hallway from her bedroom. With every step she scanned carefully for any sign of an intruder.

Her caution and fear made her late, though only by a few seconds—the light on her secure phone began to blink as she entered her study.

She let her robe fall open as she picked up the phone, as if her breasts might once again seduce Herule.

Perhaps they did, for his tone was that of a compliant lover, not a fierce and at times tiresome mentor.

“You have done amazingly well,” he told her in Portuguese. The words rolled from his tongue poetically—after having used so much English these past few days with Madrone, Minerva felt they sounded almost haunting.

“Are you ready?” she asked the general.

“The Defense Minister will resign tomorrow. Then, I will be appointed,” said the general.

He had worked more quickly than she had dared hope, but she held her voice flat, as if she had expected even more.

“And?” she said.

“Of course you will be rewarded.”

Minerva felt her body flush with anger. She was the one with the power. She deserved not just nebulous promises but tangible rewards—the head of FAB, a post in Brasilia, even her own portfolio as Defense Minister.

Why did she need him?

She should just destroy them all. She could tell Madrone about the nuclear weapons, have him adapt them to the antitank missiles.

Kevin would do it in an instant, no matter what technical difficulties there might be. He was a genius, and he was in love with her. Most important, he would want to destroy them all.

Herule sensed her anger. “The reward will be ample,” said the general.

Was she being too greedy? Overreaching again? Or simply too ready to destroy?

The American made her that way, with his infectious rage.

The Boeing and its Flighthawks were more powerful than the entire Força Aérea combined. Yesterday, Madrone had demonstrated that the small planes could not be located by the P-95’s attached to the Navy. Technically part of Força Aérea though under a Naval commander, the turboprop planes were equipped with surveillance radars that were the most powerful airborne radars in the Brazilian inventory. The Navy had come to look for her, though it had not dared to overfly her base. Madrone’s Flighthawks had danced around the P-95 before it was turned back by a flight of T-27 Tucanos newly loyal to her cause.

There had been some tense moments. The pilots in the T-27’s thought the Hawkos, as they called them, were going to shoot down the radar plane.

And themselves.

Madrone had toyed with them. Perhaps he had even contemplated eliminating them.

She would have to dispose of him eventually. It was more than a matter of control. He made her reckless, more vicious than she needed or wanted to be. He made her think of using the nuclear bombs against her own people.

He was her dark side. He asked about her lovers, and she thought of killing them all—a needless and empty gesture. Self-defeating. Her last husband had contacts with the Russians that could be used to obtain MiGs—what good would come from killing him?

Joy at the moment his face twisted white certainly. Great joy. But after that?

“Colonel Lanzas?”

“Yes, General,” she said, her voice silky. “I will stay quiet the next few days and await your orders.”

She hung up the phone before he could say anything else—before she could say anything else.

Carefully, she moved back to the bedroom. As she stepped across the threshold, something moved in the darkness. She dropped quickly, pushing down as she did to a firing position, the small Glock in both hands.

“It’s only me, love,” said Madrone, sitting. “Come to bed.”

She placed the gun on the floor and slipped beside him.

“I thought I heard something. It was silly.” She curled herself around his body. Her nipples rose against his warm skin.

“We will have to eliminate all of our enemies,” he said.

“Things are progressing, love,” she reassured him. She ran her fingers along his thighs and downward to the top of his calves, starting back slowly.

“Not just in Brazil,” he said. “I have been thinking. Los Alamos. Glass Mountain. They are stalking us.”

“Los Alamos?”

“Where they first found me. Glass Mountain is the worst. They poisoned me. Remember? Where the tower is.”

“They would not dare to follow you here,” she said, slipping her hand toward his groin.

“They would!” Madrone bolted upright. “They have to be stopped.”

His heart pumped violently; she reached for him, but he pushed her hand back, sliding out of the bed and stomping to the balcony.

“They’re after us,” he snarled. “Don’t you see? They want to destroy me. They’ll destroy you too.”

Madrone flung open the drapes, staring outside.

“Let’s make love,” she said softly.

“I have to crush them before they crush us,” he said, his back still turned. “I have to destroy their tower. Completely.”

“Yes,” she whispered, holding her arms out and willing him back. “We will crush them all,” she said as he came back to her. “You will have your revenge.”

He crawled into bed like a jaguar, silently stalking its prey. She slid her hand down and found him already hard.

“Make love to me,” she said. “And then we will plan how to deal with them.”

“I leave in the morning,” he said.

“In a few days.”

“Now.”

“Be inside me,” she said, pulling him gently toward the bed.

Department of Energy South Texas District 2,
Test Area 6
Joint Services Projects Test Facility (Glass Mountain)
5 March, 1730

ONE THING MACK HAD TO SAY FOR THESE CANDY-ASS Department of Energy test sites—they stocked them with delectable feminine talent.

He and Marine Colonel Robling were being ushered around the surplus base by a young woman who rated a ten on the Mack Smith scale of excellence. Her lips puckered ever so slightly, her neck a dainty, vulnerable white, as she drove the Jimmy with smooth, lithe twists of her head and arms. Her short blond hair jostled as she drove down the mountainside toward the artillery testing range, and her breasts—her breasts were so perfectly shaped that Mack had to rub his mouth with his hand to keep from drooling.

Fortunately, he’d given the front seat of the car to Robling, or he’d have melted into a puddle of water by now.

He’d make a play after dinner. He’d get her talking and then turn on the charm.

Assuming he could contain himself that long. He hadn’t had sex now in three days, since the redhead at Chesterville.

Robling chattered away about how stupid the Army had been laying out the test site. It was his usual BS. Not that he didn’t have a point in a way—there were no defenses here, aside from a few grunts in some Humvees near the perimeters. But the place had been used for artillery and short-range-missile testing, and who the hell would have attacked it?

They’d shut down all active testing here months ago, and according to Blondie the contractors had already completed site reclamation; Glass Mountain would be closed down in thirty days.

Blondie. Jesus, he’d forgotten her name.

“See now, your main building is very vulnerable from here,” said Robling as they stopped atop a ridge. “Give me a Ma Duce and I could pin down a regiment there.”

“Oh,” said the guide. “Ma Duce?”

That’s your cue, Mack realized.

“The colonel means a heavy-caliber machine gun,” said Mack. “He does have a point. But this is a hell of a view.” He released his seat belt—she’d turned around specially to ask him to put it on—and opened the door.

Geographically, the view consisted largely of wasteland, the all-but-shuttered administration building, and the roofs of the vacant bunker facilities dug into the opposite hillside. But Mack had other attractions in mind.

“This hillside presents a strategic possibility,” said Robling as he got out of the truck. “If this facility were used as a base, a surveillance tower could be placed here.”

Mack rolled his eyes. Robling took no notice of Cheryl—the name flashed back—as she got out of the truck and put her hands on two of the most perfect curves in creation. She turned her back, and her firm butt—it had to be very firm—made Mack realize he was having a religious experience.

“It is a beautiful view,” said Cheryl, turning to Mack.

Maybe he wouldn’t have to wait for dinner.

“As far as a tower goes,” she continued, “we just took one down. You can see the concrete pads in the dirt.” She walked toward Mack, nearly brushing him as she passed. “Of course, it was just a light structure used to observe operations on Range F, over there.”

The range was in the valley. Robling jerked around.

“This place radioactive?” said Robling, alarm suddenly in his voice.

Mack tried hard not to roll his eyes. The colonel had asked the same question at some point at every base.

Cheryl smiled indulgently. “Of course not, Colonel. There were never live explosions here. Nuclear material was never even present except in minute amounts. Every precaution was taken.”