This mission today was the last shot. It would be his last time in the Strategic Simulations Center. Détente and a weakened Russia wounded the brand of weapons research Parnes and his team worked on so diligently. The ratification of the SALT II Treaty delivered the coup de grâce. The Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty had limited his career and those of his team. Tomorrow he would awake and be without a job, without an office in the E-ring, without a parking spot, budget, and research team. He would have nothing but the severance from his contract. Not that this in itself mattered. He did not have to work another day in his life, or Archimedes’ nine.
Later that day, exactly two-and-a-half years before the building exploded in Westchester County, at a small, melancholy celebration in the Parnes’s home, the twenty-two members of the Nuclear Research Team gathered for the last time.
The TV was on in the den where the last few hangers-on and Parnes settled in for a cognac-and-cigar nightcap. It was the opening of the Democratic National Convention. The televised coverage eventually turned the chatter in the room briefly to the election. The general reaction was ambivalence; the opinion shared around the room was that there was no real choice for president being offered to America. Benyru Macordal, the team’s lead mathematician, pointed out that the two most exciting candidates, the ex-fighter pilot James Mitchell and the wiry freshman senator from Wyoming, were the ones who were gaining popularity. But they had their brief moment in the limelight summarily snuffed out by their respective parties’ political machines.
“Do you think we will ever work on a project again, Professor?” the youngest of the team inquired. Parnes, already lost in thought, fixed his eyes on the flickering images of the convention. Maybe there was a way to leverage a little something he always thought about experimenting with. The interstitial rates would certainly be fast enough, and the architecture would be very simple.
The television report switched to James Mitchell’s campaign manager. The type at the bottom of the screen identified him as former governor Ray Reynolds, but Parnes knew him on sight. Reynolds was the driving force behind Mitchell’s third-party attempt. Yes, Parnes thought, very doable.
And the professor now knew exactly who would be interested in funding this new research.
CHAPTER THREE
It had been two years since the election and nine hours since the horrific blast in Westchester as dawn broke over the nation’s capital. The buffeting rotor noise of the WJLA News Chopper 7 shattered the calm of the new day as it patrolled the beltway, its reporter scanning the roadway for early signs of the inevitable traffic tie-ups. To his right, the sun rose behind the Washington Monument. A quick look over his left shoulder revealed the first rays of early light washing over the front portico of the White House. This was as close as any aircraft had ever dared come since the attack on the Pentagon, the obvious exception being Marine One, the president’s private helicopter. The pilot pushed his steering collective control left, veering away from the White House and its Patriot surface-to-air battery missiles that kill you first and ask questions later.
What the reporter/pilot could not see was the heavy traffic going on inside the mansion. Aides hurriedly passed the bronze busts of former presidents and antique Early American furniture that resided there since America was “early.”
One of the aides, Cheryl Burston, waited at the door of a small office, fingering the edge of a manila folder, not wanting to disturb the conversation between the two men within. One of the individuals was her sixty-year-old boss, Chief of Staff Ray Reynolds. She learned from Ray that a president was able to smile in public because all the burdens of office were carried on the shoulders of his COS. To her, Reynolds’s face seemed cast in stone, the turned-down ends of his mouth arching in the same direction as his bushy eyebrows. She imagined his whole countenance would crack if he were ever to hazard a smile.
Cheryl panned across from him to see — in marked contrast— William Hiccock. At forty-five years of age, he retained the confidence and dynamic persona of the starting quarterback he was in college. He still looks good enough to be on the cereal box. Out of so many bright, young, and even more powerful men around here, why was he the only one able to affect — often only with a nod or a boyish smile — the breathing patterns of most of the female White House staff? Most would say this was because of Hiccock’s easy manner and bedroom eyes. But she recognized something else in him. Even here, outside his habitat, standing on the rocky, uneven terrain of politics, where seasoned professionals often lose their balance, she saw him take and deliver full body blows when fighting for a concept or ideal. Her intuition told her that his position in these battles was purely based on passion and not in any way manipulated to advance his own career or line his pockets. And this was hugely attractive.
Cheryl found any passion to be rare in a place where most men are just doing what it takes to move up. Those overachievers were the ones who presented you with their ego first, second, and always. One might attribute it to her lack of experience, but she could not believe Hiccock ever broadcast a false or manipulative message. He was an enigma: a political appointee, the president’s national science advisor, but without a political bone in his broad-shouldered body.
“So what’s your assessment of the damage to the industry?” she heard Reynolds ask Hiccock, pulling Cheryl out of her daydream.
“It was a design-and-research facility. Manufacturing is split between their Johnson City plant and a few German fabricators.”
“What is the impact?”
“For the immediate future, none, because the chips and integration they were designing was tomorrow. Their current output will not be affected, so it’s only down the road …”
“Shorter sentences, Hiccock!” Reynolds interrupted and then summed up. “No immediate impact. Good. The boss cut the ribbon at that building. It was part of his high-tech initiative.”
Hiccock took a sip of some Starbucks “President’s Blend” coffee and Cheryl saw a chance to break in, coughing for attention.
“Yes?” Reynolds said sharply, softening it with an insincere smile when he realized it was a woman at the door. His face didn’t crack after all.
“The proposed draft of the president’s statement,” she said as she handed the single page to Reynolds.
“It is with great sadness … hmmm …” The chief of staff had a way of mumble reading while he scanned any document, bypassing the fluff but billboarding the factual or meritorious parts. “The incredible loss of more than 600 lives both in the buildings and on the commuter trains which were caught … uh hum … Our prayers and thoughts go out to the families … Yes, this is fine.” He picked up a pen and scratched his initials on it. “Take it up to the residence for him to review.”
Cheryl left and Reynolds resumed his conversation with Hiccock. “So you felt the blast three miles away?”
“It was massive. I went to the scene afterwards but it was too hot to get close.”