She could hear him breathing rapidly, as if under great strain. But nothing happened. This was not an attack on her. This was some memory being relived. Her fear diminished.
He took his hands away. He was very close to her, his face just above her. She felt drops on her face, a warm wet liquid like blood. He was sweating!
"That is how it started," he said unsteadily, "one simple killing with these very hands. A crime of passion, they would call it in France, and it would get a nominal jail sentence."
"Where I lived in the States, I faced execution. I ran. But it meant I could never go back. I had to find some place where there was no extradition and they could use my services.
"I drifted and ended up in Libya. And that is where I met up with Oshima. We were both on the run, so we got on well enough at first. She was interested in what I could do and brokered the deal with Luis Barragan. I would get to do what George Bull would not let me do – build a hydrogen-powered supergun. Quintana and Barragan would get a deterrent weapon which would allow them to break away from Mexico without the fear that one day the Mexican Army would turn up and rain on their parade.
"Now, I think there is more to it. The way things are going, I don't think this is being planned as a deterrent at all. I don't know about Barragan, but I think Oshima is going to use it and I think Quintana is involved."
"So stop the work, Edgar," said Kathleen. "Or delay it in some other way they won't understand."
Rheiman stood up and paced the cell without speaking. He was clearly upset. Kathleen thought of saying something, but it seemed better to let whatever it was burn itself out. She had no sense that he was annoyed with her. This was some inner turmoil that only he could deal with.
"God, between Reiko Oshima and Edgar Rheiman she was certainly keeping interesting company. And the smaller fry like Jin Endo sounded like no day at the beach either. Curiously, she was not afraid as she contemplated the situation. She should be in despair, but somehow she was not. A rural Irish upbringing must be a more solid foundation than she had thought.
Rheiman sat down again and leaned toward her. "Kathleen, in the past – when I worked for Bull and on other occasions – I argued and I argued and I argued for my ideas and no one would listen. Here, they are doing more than listening. They are putting up the funds and other resources to make my life's work possible. Every scientist of serious caliber has a dream they want fulfilled, and it rarely happens. Other people don't have the vision. Here, in this godforsaken spot and for the worst of motives, my vision is going to happen. I'm so close I can touch it. I can't stop it now! "
"And when it's done?" said Kathleen/
"Nothing will matter very much," said Rheiman calmly.
Dr. John Jaeger was in the operations room at Lamar's when Fitzduane arrived.
"Dr. Death," said Fitzduane, agreeably, to the Livermore scientist. He regretted the words as soon as they passed his lips.
"I'm sorry, John," he said, "I'm getting a little frayed. That was a cheap shot."
Jaeger had been examining the STR shield. He turned as Fitzduane spoke, and smiled. "Forget it," he said. "I've been called much worse. The Lawrence Livermore Lab tends to provoke strong reactions."
"I know practically nothing about the place," confessed Fitzduane.
"Edward Teller, one of the pioneers of the nuclear program, was behind it," said Jaeger. "He reckoned that Los Alamos was not getting results fast enough and that a little competition would be healthy, competition being the American way and all. It was the early fifties and the Soviet threat was very real, so after some hard bureaucratic infighting, he had his way. The old Livermore Naval Air Station near Berkley, California, was where it all started."
"What do you do these days?" said Fitzduane.
"We're a scientific think tank," said Jaeger, "about eight thousand people strong. Roughly a third work on thermonuclear and other weapons research. The rest of us do all kinds of good stuff."
"Such as?" said Fitzduane.
Jaeger shrugged. "It's a long list," he said. "One example is a ‘radar on a chip’ – a miniature radar which can be used for all kinds of civilian applications from wall-stud finders to sudden infant death syndrome monitors. Another project is a ‘biofilter.’ It uses living microorganisms to clean up polluted groundwater. And so it goes. You must come and see us."
"And your project?" said Fitzduane.
"You'll be hearing more about that when the others come in," said Jaeger. "It's all of a piece with what is going on in Tecuno, but our motives and objectives are different. But the science is similar. Science has no loyalties."
"We have it and they have it," said Fitzduane, "and the human factor makes the difference?"
"We have it and we try and make sure they never get it," said Jaeger.
"But if they do – we take it away," said Fitzduane. "All men – countries – are equal, but some are more equal than others."
"Some we trust and some we don't – for very good reasons," said Jaeger. "There is idealism and there is personal survival. I think you know that, Hugo."
Fitzduane nodded. "Would it were otherwise," he said quietly.
Dan Warner, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Congress of the United States of America's Task Force on Terrorism, raised his right hand and made a gesture to the bartender.
Soon afterward another beer appeared on the table. That made four. Up north, he would have felt the effects. Down here, in Mexico, he had the feeling he was sweating it out faster than he could drink it in.
It was HOT! There was no air-conditioning. It was not that the machine was broken. It did not exist.
Nothing seemed to have changed in the last century, if you ignored the large color TV over one end of the bar and the jukebox. The jukebox, a collector's item beneath the dust, was playing ‘
Down Mexico Way ,’ which had to be half a century old.
"South of the border," Warner hummed, "down Mexico way." He dedummed the rest of the jukebox and punched in the song as a temporary distraction from the endless speeches of Valiente Zarra. The candidate was an inspired speaker, but Warner was suffering from a serious case of overexposure.
There were 756,000 square miles of Mexico, according to Warner's guidebook, and Zarra seemed intent on covering every one. Except Tecuno, of course, where the borders had been quietly sealed, and a few other areas where even Zarra realized he was not welcome. Like Chiapas, where the terrorists had agreed to let him in, but the local landowners had not. But that still left an awful lot of real estate. This was one big country.
Lee Cochrane could be arrogant and was certainly stubborn, but he was also a patriot and a leader with a vision that was not subordinated to the short-termism that tended to pervade politics.
Assigning Warner to Zarra for the duration of the campaign was a typical outcome of that vision. Like it or not, Mexico shared a couple thousand miles of border with Uncle Sam and it was not going to go away. The two countries had to get closer. There was no other practical alternative.
Mexico's proximity also made it a prime haven for terrorists, drug runners, and other groups who did not harbor kindly thoughts toward the U.S. of A. and had not yet been awarded either their green cards or citizenship. The only way -short of direct action – to keep them in line was to have close relations with the movers and shakers in the Mexican government.
Real soon now, the head of that government was going to be Valiente Zarra. The professor was increasing his lead day by day. Even the PRI, experts in every form of election fixing and with a talent for innovation, were going to find it impossible to wish Zarra away. And the Task Force was going to have the ear of the new Presidente and be able to collect on a few favors, not the least of which was dealing with Governor Diego Quintana's power base.