Gideon looked at it with a frown until the man withdrew it. “Excuse me for interrupting you during your time off,” Garza said. “But it couldn’t wait.” He continued to smile, remaining unnaturally composed. The man’s whole being seemed to radiate calmness and control. Gideon found it irritating.
“How did you find me?”
“An educated guess. We know this is where you sometimes fish. Also, we fixed a position on you when you last used your cell phone.”
“So you’re Big Brother. What’s this all about?”
“I’m not able to discuss that with you at this time.”
Could this be some blowback from the business with Tucker? But no: that was all over and done with, an unqualified success, the official questions all answered, he and his family’s name cleared. Gideon looked pointedly at his watch. “Cocktail hour is at six in my cabin. I’m sure you know where that is. See you then. I’m busy fishing.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Crew, but, like I said, it can’t wait.”
“It? What’s it?”
“A job.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got a job. Up at Los Alamos. You know — the place where they design all the nice nuclear bombs?”
“Frankly, this job is more exciting and it pays a great deal more. A hundred thousand dollars for a week’s work. A job for which you are uniquely suited, which will benefit our country — and God knows you need the money. All those credit card debts…” Garza shook his head.
“Hey, who doesn’t have maxed-out credit cards? This is the land of the free, right?” Gideon hesitated. That was a lot of money. He needed money — bad. “So what’ll I be doing in this job of yours?”
“Again, I can’t tell you — yet. The helicopter is waiting up top — to take you to the Albuquerque airport, and from there by private jet to your assignment.”
“You came to get me in a chopper? Sink me.” Gideon vaguely remembered hearing the chopper. He’d ignored it; the Jemez Mountains, being remote, were often used for flight training from Kirtland AFB.
“We’re in a hurry.”
“I’ll say. Who do you represent?”
“Can’t tell you that, either.” Another smile and a gesture with his arm, palm extended, toward the pack trail to the top of the mesa. “Shall we?”
“My mother told me never to take chopper rides with strangers.”
“Dr. Crew, I’ll repeat what I said earlier: you will find this job to be interesting, challenging, and remunerative. Won’t you at least come with me to our company headquarters to hear the details?”
“Where?”
“In New York City.”
Gideon stared at him, then shook his head and snorted. A hundred thousand would get him well started on the many plans and ideas he’d been working up for his new life.
“Does it involve any illegality?”
“Absolutely not.”
“What the hell. I haven’t been to the Big Apple in a while. All right, lead the way, Manuel.”
13
Six hours later, the sun was setting over the Hudson River as the limousine pulled into Little West 12th Street, in the old Meatpacking District of Manhattan. The area had changed dramatically from what Gideon remembered during his graduate school days, when he’d come down from Boston for some occasional R&R: the old brick warehouses and covered walkways, with their chains and meat hooks, had been transformed into ultra-hip clothing stores and restaurants, slick high-rise condos and trendy hotels, the streets crowded with people too cool to be real.
The limousine bumped down the refurbished street — bone-jarring nineteenth-century cobblestones re-exposed — and came to a halt at a nondescript building, one of the few unrenovated structures within view.
“We’re here,” said Garza.
They stepped onto the sidewalk. It was much warmer in New York than in New Mexico. Gideon stared suspiciously at the building’s only entrance, a set of metal double doors on a loading dock plastered with old posters and graffiti. The building was large and imposing, some twelve stories tall. Near the top of the façade, he could just make out a painted legend: PRICE & PRICE PORK PACKING INC. Above it, the grimy brickwork gave way to glass and chrome; he wondered if a modern penthouse had been built atop the old structure.
He followed Garza up a set of concrete steps on one side of the dock. As they approached, the loading doors slid open on well-oiled hinges. Gideon followed Garza down a dim corridor to another set of doors, much newer, of stainless steel. Security keypads and a retinal scanner were set into the wall beside them. Garza put his briefcase on the floor and leaned his face into the scanner; the steel doors parted noiselessly.
“Where’s Maxwell Smart?” said Gideon, in full wiseass mode, looking around. Garza looked at him, no smile this time, but did not reply.
Beyond lay a vast, cavernous room, an open shell four stories high, illuminated by seemingly hundreds of halogen lights. Metal catwalks ran around the upper levels. The floor — as big as a football field — was covered with rows of large steel tables. On them rested a confusing welter of disparate items: half-dissected jet engines; highly complex 3-D models of urban areas; a scale model of what appeared to be a nuclear plant undergoing a terrorist attack by airplane. In a near corner was an especially large table, displaying what looked like a large, cutaway section of the seabed, showing its geological strata. Technicians in white coats moved between the tables, making notes on handheld PDAs or conferring in hushed whispers.
“This is corporate headquarters?” Gideon asked, looking around. “Looks more like Industrial Light and Magic.”
“I suppose you could call it magic,” Garza said as he led the way. “Of the manufactured variety.”
Gideon followed him past table after table. On one was a painstaking re-creation of Port au Prince, both before and after the earthquake, tiny flags on the latter marking patterns of devastation. On another table was a huge scale model of a space facility, all tubes and cylinders and solar panels.
“I recognize that,” Gideon said. “It’s the International Space Station.”
Garza nodded. “As it looked before leaving orbit.”
Gideon looked at him. “Leaving orbit?”
“To assume its secondary role.”
“Its what? You must be joking.”
Garza flashed him a mirthless smile. “If I thought you’d take me seriously, I wouldn’t have told you.”
“What in the world do you do here?”
“Engineering and more engineering, that’s all.”
Reaching the far wall, they rode an open-cage elevator up to the fourth-floor catwalk, then passed through a door that led to a maze of white corridors. Ultimately, they reached a low-ceilinged, windowless conference room. It was small and spartan in its lack of decor. A table of exotic, polished wood dominated the space, and there were no paintings or prints on the white walls. Gideon tried to think of a suitable crack, but nothing came immediately to mind. Besides, he realized it would be wasted on Garza, who seemed immune to his rapier-like wit.
At the head of the table sat a man in a wheelchair. He was perhaps the most extraordinary-looking human being Gideon had ever seen. Closely cropped brown hair, shot through with silver, covered a large head. Below a deep brow gleamed a single fierce gray eye which was fixed on him; the other eye was covered with a black silk patch, like a pirate’s. A jagged, livid scar lanced down the right side of the man’s face, starting at his hairline and running through the covered eye, continuing all the way to his jaw and disappearing under the collar of his crisp blue shirt. A black, pin-striped suit completed the sinister picture.
“Dr. Crew,” the figure said, his face breaking into a faint smile that did nothing to soften its hardness. “Thank you for coming all this way. Please sit down.”
Garza remained standing in the background as Gideon took a seat.
“What?” Gideon said, looking around. “No coffee or Fiji water?”
“My name is Eli Glinn,” said the figure, ignoring this. “Welcome to Effective Engineering Solutions, Incorporated.”