“Traveler. Adam Traveler.”
“You know your violins, Traveler. Play us something.”
“Ah, it has been a long time. And I haven’t practiced.” Actually, Solo hadn’t played the violin in ten years, but he wasn’t going to admit it. “I once played professionally,” he did say, “and they say muscle memory can be a great thing.”
“Play something,” Muriel urged. “Anything.”
Solo inspected the violin carefully, then the bow. He quickly tuned the violin, tightening the strings and plucking them until he was satisfied.
Fortunately, he reflected, the suspension on the pickup was more stable than one would expect.
He played a few chords to ensure the violin was in tune, then without ado began.
The music filled the cab of the truck and mesmerized the small audience. Stephens pulled the truck over to the first wide place on the road he saw and stopped. He turned off the engine and closed his eyes.
When Solo had finished and put the instrument on his lap and was again inspecting the bow, Stephens said, “Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, Third Movement.”
“Yes.”
“I have never in my life heard the artificial harmonics played better. Or Tchaikovsky, for that matter.”
“This,” Solo said, gesturing to the violin, “is a quality instrument. I once played an instrument much like this, a Stainer, for several years. It is a rare privilege to touch one again. To have it in my hands. To play it.”
“When? With what orchestra?” Muriel pressed.
“Ah, it was long ago. When I was very young.” Solo flipped his fingers dismissively. “Drive on,” he said to Abe. “As I told you, I am a traveler.”
4
When Egg saw the story on Fox News about the Atlantic Queen’s stolen saucer being in orbit, he mentioned it to Rip and Charley, igniting a freewheeling discussion.
“In orbit?” Rip asked, incredulous.
“Since the day before yesterday. Apparently it’s still up there.”
“Could Solo be an alien,” Charley asked, “waiting for a mother ship?”
Egg shrugged. “Anything’s possible,” he murmured.
Rip said thoughtfully, “We know the saucer’s computer is also an autopilot. What if Solo programmed it to take the saucer into space so it wouldn’t be found or confiscated here on earth?”
“You mean he might not even be in it?” Charley suggested.
“I thought about sending the Sahara saucer into space,” Rip admitted, “to keep the feds and Roger Hedrick from laying hands upon it. Put it up there for a year or two, then have it programmed to come down in a secret place.”
“You have a devious streak I didn’t know about,” Egg said appreciatively. “Why didn’t you do it?”
“Because I didn’t know if the saucer could pick up my brain waves while in orbit, so I would have to meet it at the rendezvous point, or else.”
“Could Solo have done that?” Charley asked Egg.
“Of course.”
“Who is Adam Solo?” Charley asked rhetorically.
“Better question,” Rip responded, “what is Adam Solo?”
The news that the stolen saucer was probably in orbit caused a sensation in the media, but when there was no follow-up, the story went onto the back burner. The Roswell saucer, if that was what it was, was up there circling the earth, but until it came down, the media had column inches and broadcast minutes to fill. Try as they might, enterprising reporters and producers could find nothing on Adam Solo, so he became the Mystery Man. Yet even that angle soon lost its zip. Crime, earthquakes, terrorism, financial shenanigans, sports and politics resumed their normal place in the newspapers and airwaves of the planet.
The FBI report on the interview with Harrison Douglas caused the president more discomfort. World Pharmaceuticals salvaging a flying saucer from the floor of the Atlantic “on speculation”? Douglas used those words to the agents. Obviously, the company was after information that might be in the saucer’s computer database — information about drugs.
What secrets could there be? the president wondered, then forgot about the question as he went on dealing with the usual political theater, obstreperous congressmen and senators, and big meetings about serious hot important things that filled his waking moments, all day, every day.
Other people noted the presence of Harrison Douglas and World Pharmaceuticals in the latest saucer crisis and, adding them together, got the same answer that Johnny Murkowsky had. One of them was a fellow named Glenn Beck, a gadfly with a syndicated radio talk show.
“Drugs from an alien civilization, developed after hundreds of thousands of years of research and investment, could be a huge windfall for World Pharmaceuticals, if the company could get the drugs approved by the government,” Beck intoned. “Perhaps the drug information in the Roswell saucer’s computer could cure the common cold, cure cancer…” Here Beck paused dramatically — he was very good at dramatic pauses. “And,” he continued, “prevent or cure obesity, prevent aging … How about a skinny pill, or a pill to keep you young? Would you take such a drug? If so, how much would you pay to get it?”
After another little pause, because he was a trained broadcaster, Beck added, almost as an afterthought, “Of course, the government had the Roswell saucer under lock and key at Area Fifty-one, a top-secret base in Nevada, since 1947, and apparently did not investigate the database. Or did they? Would they tell us?”
So it was that Glenn Beck lit the fuse and tiptoed away, out of our story.
The stolen saucer went right back onto Page One.
The air force denied mining secrets from the Roswell saucer’s computer, but no one believed them. Members of Congress demanded an investigation. The AARP filed a Freedom of Information request. Packs of hungry trial lawyers began running ads on television and radio, searching for diseased plaintiffs for lawsuits against the government. The old and the fat also felt better now that they might be victims; class-action lawsuits were filed by the dozens all over the nation.
Watching the frenzy on television, the president asked, “Who is Adam Solo?”
The FBI soon found that nothing was happening on the Cantrell farm in Missouri, except the Cantrells went to the grocery store occasionally. Either Egg or Rip drove Egg’s old pickup and came with a list. Once Charley Pine went to the beauty shop for a haircut and ’do. Rip dropped her off, went to the grocery store, and picked her up after she was beautified.
The St. Louis FBI office was up to its eyeballs investigating the usual bank robberies and corrupt politicians, plus a local Yemeni illegal immigrant who wanted to commit an act of jihad that would earn him a ticket to paradise, and two financial advisers who had been running little Ponzi schemes, enriching themselves at the expense of dentists and car dealers who wanted at least a ten percent return on their investments. The special agent in charge of the FBI office was never told that the Cantrell farm surveillance had been ordered by the White House, but even if she had been, the Cantrell surveillance didn’t have a case number, and no Justice Department attorney was breathing down her neck about it. So, after reading reports about grocery store and beauty shop visits, she assigned her agents elsewhere.
Consequently, two weeks after the Roswell saucer was stolen from the deck of Atlantic Queen, no one was watching when Adam Solo walked up to the gate of the Cantrell farm, climbed over and, with his backpack slung over one shoulder, continued on along the well-worn gravel road toward the house. He was wearing jeans and a set of leather hiking boots, a sweater and, atop the sweater, a jacket.