Foxworth said, "I hired you to make sure no one even got close to me. I hired you to take care of things. You haven't been doing that very well, have you? I think you should resign."
Healy was done. He'd had enough, working for this arrogant asshole.
"Sir, you have my resignation."
"Good. I'm glad you agree."
Foxworth took out a Walther PPK and shot Healy in the face. The body flew backwards and fell to the floor. Blood sprayed over Mandy's elegant silk dress. Foxworth stepped forward and fired three more rounds into Healy's twitching body. He put the gun back under his jacket and straightened his tie. He turned to Mandy. Her mouth was half open, her face drained of color. Morel didn't dare move.
"Mandy, my dear. I am so sorry about your dress. Tomorrow we'll go to Florence and shop for a new one. Why don't you change and we'll breakfast on the terrace."
She swallowed. "Yes, Malcolm. Right away." She glanced down at Healy's corpse and walked quickly from the room.
Three guards ran into the room, guns drawn. They looked at the body, then at Foxworth. One of the men was broad shouldered and dark faced. Foxworth knew who he was. He knew all the life details of everyone who worked for him.
"Sir, we heard shots. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. Dragonov, you are now chief of security." He gestured at Healy's body. "Take that out of here and get rid of it."
"Yes, sir." Dragonov and the other two picked up the dead weight and hurried from the room.
"Morel. I have a headache. Take care of it."
Soon Foxworth was relaxed and out of pain. He dismissed Morel. He opened the library windows and stepped onto the balcony and looked out toward the river. The day was beautiful, the kind of day travel agents sold and vacationers dreamed of. Birds sang in the trees under brilliant blue sky that had inspired the greatest painters of the Renaissance.
Foxworth took a deep breath of the warm Italian air. After breakfast he would indulge himself with Mandy. She would be insatiable after the morning's events. He was certain violence turned women on.
The drugs coursed through his body. Yes, life was good.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Yuri Malenkov and Anatoly Ogorov contemplated the object recovered from the Yucatan ruins. A frigid blast of wind rattled the windows of Malenkov's laboratory at Irtysh, a warning of approaching winter.
Yuri's voice betrayed his excitement. "This could not have been produced in a pre-technological civilization."
"It's a crystal," Ogorov said. "What is so different about it?"
The crystal was about a foot and a half tall, polished and transparent. It had a flat base and a perfect, tapered point. Yuri concealed his frustration at Ogorov's question.
"I subjected it to electron microscopy and X-ray crystallography. It was shaped by some process I don't understand. There are no tooling marks of any kind. That alone makes it different."
He took the crystal in both hands and placed it on a pedestal in the middle of the room.
"The crystal is impossibly flawless," he said. "It acts to focus and direct energy. I've arranged a demonstration for you. If you look up you'll see a sheet of fire resistant material on the ceiling."
Ogorov looked up.
"Watch this, but stay away from the crystal."
Ogorov stepped back. Yuri took a laser pointer from his shirt pocket, the kind lecturers used everywhere. He aimed and turned it on. The crystal turned deep, blood red. An intense beam of light shot straight upward and struck the asbestos sheet above. It began to glow with heat. Ogorov heard a low humming, a faint resonance through the soles of his shoes.
Yuri switched off the laser. The humming stopped. The asbestos smoldered.
"That was an ordinary pointer, a harmless laser. Imagine what it will do with Tesla's ray. This is what he lacked. An amplifier, a way to increase the power of his device. This solves that problem. With this, we can reach the moon." He looked up, as if he could see the universe through the roof of the building. "We will command space."
"Why did you not think of crystal before?" Ogorov asked.
"I did. But this is not ordinary crystal. I am not even sure it is from this planet."
Ogorov raised his eyebrows. "'You can't be serious."
"There is no crystal on earth anything like it. The arrangement of the atoms is unique."
"Can you make more of these?"
"No. Not with our current technology. There will only be one weapon. We must protect it."
"That is underway. What remains to be done for deployment?"
"The pyramid is complete. I'm moving everything over there. Construction is almost finished on the Tesla machine. I'll need to test the power outputs and make adjustments. I'm adapting our existing missile guidance technology for the aiming device. Once everything is functioning properly and the crystal is mounted, we are ready."
"How long?"
"I think three months. Perhaps two."
"Have it completed in two," Ogorov said. "I have a perfect test in mind."
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Selena was in a rotten mood on her first day of rehab. Feeling had come back to her legs, an agony of pins and needles. She couldn't stand upright without help. She couldn't feel the floor. Her back hurt like hell. She felt like an old woman, a very old woman. It didn't help that she had to be pushed around in a wheelchair.
At least she wouldn't be paralyzed. She would beat it. The doctors were cautiously optimistic. Would she get full use back? Probably, they said. Would her legs be as strong as they had been? Very likely, they said, but we don't know. We can't guarantee it. We'll know better after a few months. It all depends.
Their opinions were about as useful as a first class stateroom on the Titanic.
An orderly brought her into the rehab center and left. A woman in nurse's uniform came over to her. She had silky smooth skin the color of honey. She was attractive and young, cheerful and perky and strong. Selena hated her on the spot.
"Hi, I'm Arlene. I'm going to be your rehab person today."
"Can you just tell me what the specials are?"
Arlene gave her a cool look.
"Never mind," Selena said. "Bad joke."
"Let me ask you something. You want to walk again?"
"What do you mean? Of course I do."
"Then lose the attitude. There's no miracle here. This is going to hurt. You have to get your mind around it. Okay?"
"Yes. Sorry."
"Good. Let's get started."
For an hour Arlene pushed Selena through the exercises. Selena clenched her teeth and took it. At the end, she was exhausted, but sore was better than numb. Aches were better than nothing. Then Arlene wheeled her back to her room.
When she got there, Nick was waiting. He'd brought flowers. Birds of paradise, something green, white baby's breath.
He looked terrible, like he hadn't slept for a week.
"Hey."
"Hey yourself." She hated having him see her like this.
Arlene helped her into bed. "See you tomorrow."
"I'm sorry if I gave you a hard time," Selena said.
"That's okay. I'm used to it. Everyone hates rehab. You did great." She arranged the flowers on the bedside table. "Just take it one day at a time."
As she left she smiled at Nick.
He said, "How are you?"
"Good. I'm good." She paused. "No I'm not. But I will be. Good, I mean."
She'd had time to think, lying in her bed. Time to consider how she'd gotten here. Time to replay the fight in the jungle over and over, the shock of the bullet hitting her, tearing through her body because she wasn't wearing a vest. She didn't want to blame him but she did. It didn't matter what she told herself.
"Selena, I'm sorry."
Suddenly she was angry. "Goddamn it, don't say you're sorry. Sorry doesn't help. You forgot the vests. I stood up. No one's to blame. But don't say you're sorry."