Tyrone nodded, but Howard wasn’t sure how much his words had helped. Ty was in a spot where words could only do so much. He had to work through this on his own. His dad could be there for him, to answer some of the tough questions, and to point him in the right direction, but it was up to Ty to get through this.
John knew he would, though. He was a good kid, with a good heart, and a good head on his shoulders. And besides, everything Howard had just told him was the truth. He had done the right thing, the only thing.
“Thanks, Dad,” Ty said. He picked up his sandwich and took a huge bite. “I love you.”
At least, that’s what it sounded like he said. It was hard to tell around that mouthful of sandwich.
Howard smiled. “I love you, too,” he said. “And I am very, very proud of you, Ty.”
Michaels and Toni were in bed, the baby sleeping between them. Alex had his right hand resting on Little Alex’s chest, rising and falling slightly with his son’s breathing. His left hand rested on the pillow, holding Toni’s hand tenderly.
“Guru will be back tomorrow,” she said.
“That’s good.”
“What time are you leaving?”
“John wants to take off around six thirty.”
“You be careful,” she said, giving his hand a small squeeze.
Alex smiled. “Ames is a lawyer, not a Navy SEAL.”
Toni shook her head. “He has guns. He belongs to a gun club.”
“I’ll be careful,” Alex said.
They lay quietly for a moment. “So, what do you think about Colorado?” Alex asked.
“Colorado?”
He nodded. “I got offered a job as head of corporate computer security for Aspen International, remember? Twice the money, half the work, complete with a car, expense account, and country-club membership.”
She hesitated. “Maybe I was a little upset before,” she said.
Alex shook his head. “No, hon, you were a lot upset. And you had a right to be. You weren’t wrong. It’s time to move on.”
Another long pause. “We’ll have to get a house big enough for Guru, and for when Susie comes to visit.”
Alex smiled. “They have big houses out there. I bet we could find one.”
Toni looked at him, her eyes holding his steadily for a long moment. “Are you sure about this, Alex?”
“I have never been more sure about anything, Toni. Well, except that marrying you was a good idea.”
That got a big smile from her.
He loved to make her smile.
39
Ames arose at dawn, showered, dressed, made himself a cup of coffee, and then hiked to the emergency escape hatch past the garbage dump. Once there, he climbed the three flights of stairs up to the surface. The door, a hydraulically operated vaultlike monster, was designed to keep out the riffraff fleeing atomic attack. Disc-shaped, it was slightly larger in diameter than a manhole cover, two feet thick, and hinged like a jeweler’s loupe. It pivoted on a massive, tempered pin as big around as a large man’s arm. It was camouflaged on the surface by a flat stretch of sand on a motorized frame that raised up on command. When the sand frame was in place, the entrance was virtually invisible. And even if you knew it was there, opening it would be a major chore without the proper keys, codes, and commands.
Ames used the periscope hidden in a creosote bush to check and make sure nobody was around. When he was certain that everything was clear, he pushed the door control button. It took thirty seconds for the sand frame to rise high enough for the door to pivot open.
He climbed up and out, standing under the sand frame, which now stood some seven feet above the ground.
This was the best time of day if you wanted to go outside here in the summer. It was as cool as it was going to get this time of year, and only the jackrabbits and birds were stirring. There were no other humans for as far as he could see, though a distant jet contrail arrowed across the pale, cloudless sky, too far away for him to hear the craft that created it.
Quiet, peaceful, and all his…
He spent ten minutes or so breathing the fresh air, glad to be out of the confines of the bomb shelter, laying his plans for the coming days and weeks. Satisfied, he went back inside, shut the door and lowered the frame, and headed back along the echoing tile corridor toward the kitchen. He had in mind salmon hash and eggs for breakfast this morning, and maybe a mimosa to wash in down.
He grinned. Wonder what the poor folks are doing this morning.
The Net Force jet was nearly there by the time dawn broke locally, pacing the sun from the east. They would have all day to get set, plenty of time.
Michaels, surprisingly, had fallen asleep on the trip, and awoke as the craft began its descent toward the new Air Force base a couple of hours away from their target. Howard had arranged to borrow some trucks from the Texas National Guard, Net Force technically being a part of the Guard, at least for accounting purposes. In theory, the vehicles should be there when the jet landed.
After they were down and the unloading process under way, John Howard joined Michaels in the back of the mobile operations center, which was essentially a canvas-covered flatbed truck. Despite this, it was air-conditioned, after a fashion.
“For the computers,” Howard said. “The personal tactical units don’t need it, but the bigger ones get goofy once the air temp rises above body heat.”
“Is it going to get that hot here?”
“West Texas in the summer? Oh, yes. It’ll be cooler after dark, but we will have to load and move out in the daylight.”
Alex looked at him. “Do you really think this will work, John?” he asked. “It seems like an awfully big place to assault with only ten men.”
A forklift wheeled past bearing a pair of wooden crates bigger than coffins. There were three more like them still on the jet.
General Howard said, “I think so. The truth is, though, that either we nail it with ten men or we wouldn’t be able to do it with a hundred. Like you said, it’s a big place, and surprise will work better for us than sheer numbers.”
Alex nodded. He’d known that already, of course, but this entire operation was going forward on his say-so alone. He had the final word on go/no go, and he still could cancel it at any time up until they actually entered Ames’s bomb shelter. After that things got a lot dicier.
Ames had plenty to distract him. He had full net capabilities as well as satellite-reception radio and video. He could get five hundred television channels from around the world, and local programming from the radio stations in Addis Ababa, if he wanted. He had a library to rival those in many small towns in hard copy alone, legal tomes, medical books, not to mention thousands of novels, entertainment vids, and musical compositions on DVD and minis, should his net connection somehow go out. He had a gym, a lap pool, a shooting range, a basketball court, and even a six-lane bowling alley. He had food, wine, and a pharmacy deep enough to take care of a hundred people all sick with different diseases.
He had art on his walls, paintings by masters. He had sculptures. He had three of his favorite chairs, and a computer-operated bed of biogel that was the most comfortable in the world.