"So, now what?" Susan asked when they reached the hotel.
Frank closed his eyes, and then sighed in resignation. "We wait a few days to see what the Brazilians say. If it's 'yes', we'll probably be hopping a puddle-jumper airline or charter to Alcântara to figure out where we can lease some land, and how we can get construction started. That will take a few weeks. If they say no, then it's off to India with the same offer. Then, we'll probably go back to Russia to see about shipping the Burans and all the other junk. For one thing, an absolutely huge crane was built to load the Burans on the AN-225 aircraft.
"Actually, I think there are two of them, one at Ramenskoye and one at Baikonur. But we'll only be shipping one, I think. We'll need one here to unload the cargo pods. The point is that even disassembled, it'll be too big for the roads. We might be able to ship it by rail, but ship it where? Don't worry, we'll have a lot of work and a lot of traveling to do."
She shrugged. "I'm not worried," she said calmly. "Tell me about all these phones and cards and stuff you ordered."
He shrugged. "Secure communications. Something I picked up from newspaper reports of terrorists. Use throwaway cell phones. I think I've improved on it a bit, using throw-away sim cards, but I can't be sure, yet."
She looked exasperated. "There you go again! Who do you think you are, James Bond? I think you're being ridiculous. This is America we're talking about, not Soviet Russia."
"Haven't you noticed that the differences are disappearing? Why does America suddenly need its own KGB? Oh, they call it DHS, but it performs the same function. You should have seen the questioning I got when I crossed the border at Tijuana, not to mention the strip search and car search. All because I'm Frank Weatherly, and I chose to come back into my own country by car instead of by plane. For that matter, how come my personal property can be searched at will without a warrant? Why must you, your baggage, and even your shoes, suddenly be x-rayed before you can go see Aunt Minnie two hundred miles away? How is that different from requiring travel permits? 'Yo' Papuss, Pliss'" he mimicked in broken English.
"Oh, Frank, you're being silly. That's all for our protection. To stop terrorists."
"Really? El Al is the Israeli airline. It seems obvious that they would be a major target for Arab terrorists. But they don't check your shoes, or strip search you, or humiliate grandmothers with 'enhanced' searches. And they are the only airline that has never had a terrorist incident. The only one!"
Susan suddenly looked interested. "Really? How do they do it?"
Frank shrugged. "Ask TSA. They're part of your precious 'homeland tyranny' agency"
She frowned. "Now you sound like one of those right-wing fanatics. You never used to talk like this."
He shook his head. "No, I didn't. I love my country, and I'd die for it, if need be. I joined the Marines to protect it from foreign enemies. Now, to see it slowly destroyed from within makes me furious. The government used to look at the Bill of Rights and say, "What are we permitted to do?" Now they look at it and say, "How can we do what we want to without some court stopping us?"
He held up a hand, as if to stop himself. "Go home, Susan," he said in a quieter tone. "Go home now. After 9/11, the feds grabbed hundreds of Americans of middle-eastern descent. In a lot of cases, families and attorneys were never informed. Some of them were held for a year without charges ever being filed. I don't want you in jail, Susan, and I don't want to be told that you will be released if I surrender. Go home now."
She stared. "You're serious. You really think the whole U.S. government is out to get you! That's called paranoia, Frank."
He shook his head. "They're not out to get me yet. I haven't done anything to attract their attention. But once I do something that might challenge their dominance in space research, they will be."
She shook her head. "You are crazy, Frank. You need help. I should go home!" Her face fell, and tears leaked from her eyes. "But I can't," she wailed. "I think I love you!" She jumped from her chair and ran out the door crying.
Frank sat staring at the door, dumbfounded.
He recovered after a moment, and ran down the hall to Susan's suite. He knocked, but she wouldn't answer the door. Nor, he discovered, would she answer her phone, neither the suite phone nor her cellular.
He found that the suite phone would not record a message; it invited him to leave a message at the front desk.
Frank was getting irritated. His style was to grab onto a problem and attack it like a terrier until a solution revealed itself. Running away was not an action that normally occurred to him.
He was about to leave an angry message on her cell phone, when he realized that he had some thinking to do before he called her.
She had said, "I think I love you." Did that mean she wasn't sure? Or that she was afraid she loved him? Or that she loved him but wished she didn't? Like men for millenia before him, he cursed his lack of understanding of the female mind. Still, they couldn't just leave it at this. Something had to happen.
Well, all right, he thought, What do I want to happen? I've toyed with the idea of a romantic relationship with Susan before. I've always dismissed it because I didn't think it would be fair to add "boss pressure" into the equation, and all the boss/secretary stories I'd heard over the years turned my stomach.
But now, she's removed that obstacle, hasn't she? She said that she thinks she loves me, without any pressure or temptation. So now, it's just a simple question. Do I really, seriously want a romantic relationship with this woman?
He closed his eyes, and could clearly see her face, wearing one of her sunny smiles. And again, with the worried look she got when she thought he was working himself too hard.
He thought about his happy anticipation of their meeting in Chicago, and again in Brasilia; about his near-attempt to take her in his arms at Midway Airport, and his regret that he'd been unable to follow through with it. He thought about how good it had been to see her again both times, and how he'd missed her in Russia and Kazakhstan.
Yes, he decided. This wasn't just lust, or loneliness. Oh, it wasn't the same hot, urgent passion he'd felt when he proposed to Yoli, but then he wasn't twenty any more. What it was, was an intense desire to share the rest of his life with this woman; a mature realization that life without this woman had little meaning for him. After Yoli had died, he'd driven himself, working eighteen-hour days turning a small custom-computer company into a dominant force in the business computer industry. He'd made his billion, and then another, and then the board had turned on him, and fired him, with another billion dollars as a cushion.
After they'd fired him, he'd retreated into himself, now devoting twelve hours a day to his many investments, and finally running off to the Philippines when the notoriety became too much to handle. He suddenly realized that Susan had been his anchor for years, tactfully guiding him to relax, to try to learn to enjoy life again. After the firing, he now realized that losing Susan hurt more than losing his billion-dollar company. That was why he'd paid her a retainer in addition to her company salary, to provide him occasional services. It was, he now realized, a way to maintain contact with her.
Damn! He thought. I loved her even then. How could it have taken me this long to see it?
His mind made up, he again called her cell. Again, she didn't answer, but let it go to messages. At the beep he began, "Susie, running away is not a way of dealing with the problem. You know as well as I do that we need to talk this thing through. Please have dinner with me in my suite. I'll make all the arrangements, and we'll have the privacy to discuss what we have, and where it might be going, and how we're going to get it there. My chariot will arrive outside your door at say, 7:30. And, yes, I think I love you, too."