Smith was still there, which was a mild surprise. He continued. “The Department of Defense has transferred most of their highly sensitive systems to new locations as a precautionary measure. They have not moved the Full-spectrum Environmental Monitoring Robots, however.”
“Yes, well, the system is designed for the White House. Moving it would be the same things as shutting it down.”
“That’s not a bad idea.”
“Wrong. It’s a defensive system. Smith. It is designed to keep intruders out, even if the intruders are there to take the system itself.”
“Not these intruders. Remember, they have assimilated some of the great achievements in stealth technology we developed ourselves. There has not been time to reconfigure the White House defenses to accommodate those technologies. Also, the intruders will likely be deposited into the White House from the air. The full-spectrum robots don’t cover the airspace over the White House.”
“We’ve got lots of security that does, however.”
“You also have a spy in the highest levels of military security.”
The President forgot his headache. “Say again?”
“A spy.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. But it is the only explanation for the events in recent weeks. The intelligence needed to stage the various threats came from multiple sources. Their only communality came in their being reported to the highest levels of military and intelligence command. Possibly they gleaned some intelligence on CURE through whatever source they have.”
“But I’m the only source of intelligence on CURE,” the President complained. “Are you saying I may be bugged?”
“No, Mr. President. You have never possessed some of the intelligence the thieves have had on security measures around the research sites. It’s someone closer to the research. One of the Joint Chiefs, perhaps.”
“What?”
“It might be the secretary of defense.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“It could even be the secretary of homeland security.”
“Smith, you’re way out in left field. I know those men. I respect those men, even if I disagree with some of their political views. They are loyal Americans.”
“I think one of them is not.” Message delivered, Smith returned to the unresolved issue. “Do you intend to order the dismantling of the Full-spectrum Environmental Monitoring system at the White House?”
“No. I see no need. Is there anything else, Smith?”
“Perhaps it would be best, then, if my enforcement arm performed security watch on the White House, at least until I have another course of investigation.”
“Sure. Fine. Send them on up. They won’t get halfway across the lawn.”
Then the President hung up on Smith. For a change. He frowned at the red phone, then put it away. He had become too defensive, but Smith had stepped over the line.
On the other hand, Smith was usually, annoyingly, right.
Maybe it would be better to have Smith’s muscle on hand, just to keep an eye on things.
The President grabbed his titanium desk phone.
“Sandra? Get me the man in charge of the U.S. atomic clock. No, I’ll hold.”
It took surprisingly little time to find him. “Yes, Mr. President?” answered the secretary of the Navy.
“Ronald, your clock’s slow.”
The head of the U.S. Navy said, “Who told you this, sir?”
“Is it true?”
“Well, yes. I just got the communique myself. There was a malfunction in the processor that coordinates the synchronization. But it is just a few seconds from true.”
“Fix it.”
“We’ll have it right in minutes, Mr. President. My understanding is that the master synchronizing clock—”
“Not another word. General. Just fix it.”
“But how did you know, Mr. President?”
“Guess I just know some folks with a better clock, General,” said the President.
The general chuckled nervously. “With all due respect, sir, there is no better clock. The Navy’s hydrogen maser and cesium chronometers are the most precise…”
But he was talking to himself.
Chapter 28
Jacob Fastbinder III stepped out of the front door carefully, taking the first big step as if his leg was not trustworthy. When he was on solid ground he turned and locked the door behind him. The house was a low concrete structure that was actually half submerged in the desert soil. The concrete walls were three feet thick, the roof almost as thick, designed to keep the structure cool when it had served as a produce distribution plant in the late 1960s. A chiller, which once kept the warehouse refrigerated, was just so much collapsed, corroded wreckage alongside it.
“That’s Fastbinder?” asked the attorney.
“That’s him,” said museum manager Margo.
“That guy looks old. I thought Fastbinder was in his fifties.”
Margo shrugged and chewed her gum. The attorney watched the bent man for another few minutes, then asked, “They have an air-conditioner in that place?”
“Don’t think so. Know what it would take to keep that place cool? It’s big as a mansion!”
The attorney gave her a doubtful look. “I’ll bet it smells like a sewer.”
Margo lost her friendliness. “You’re being unpleasant.”
“Well, I am an attorney.”
“Yuck.” Margo left, no longer feeling obliged to be sociable. Attorneys, after all, weren’t people.
The attorney had no use for these back-road weirdos. He, for one, got no kicks from Route 66, and had not enjoyed his drive on it. Even the Town Car he rented in Tucumcari couldn’t seem to pump out enough air-conditioning to combat the searing heat of New Mexico. The doddering old Fastbinder wasn’t even halfway to the museum yet.
“Holy shit, how long is this gonna take?” he said. There was a gasp of horror and an eight-year-old girl in braces and pigtails pointed a stiff finger in his direction. “Mommy, did you hear what this man said? He said the S-word. Mommy!”
A sweat-drenched pantsuit with a rotund, middle-aged woman inside it came at him fast. He thought she might tackle him. “What kind of a man are you, saying words like that in front of a little girl? Where is your decency? Where is your respect for human beings? It’s sick and disgusting.”
“Mommy, he said a bad word! He said it. I heard him. He said it!” The girl was sobbing and dancing. “I heard it, Mommy!”
‘What happened?” Margo said, arriving to investigate the mayhem. She skewed the suited man with a look. “What did you do to this little girl?”
“He said the S-word!” the girl wailed.
“You did what?”
“Right here in the gift shop!” the girl’s mother whined. “What kind a man does that?”
“He’s no man,” Margo sneered. “He’s an attorney.”
The eight-year-old girl screeched and panicked, thrashing her limbs mindlessly, knocking over a rack of New Mexico State Bird postcards, which in turn toppled a wire stand holding hundreds of New Mexico shot glasses. The girl curled up behind a display of vinyl Indian moccasins wailing, “He’s gonna sue me! Please don’t let him sue me!”
The next thing he knew, the attorney was being manhandled out the front of the museum and gift shop. He didn’t fight it. It was too hot and Margo was too powerful. But he had never been so humiliated in his entire life. He waited in front of his Town Car.
Damn, he hated this son of a bitch Fastbinder. Couldn’t the son of a bitch walk any damn faster?
“Goot evening,” said Jacob Fastbinder III in his pronounced German accent, putting on a crooked, wrinkled smile. “You are zee attorney, ya?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Fastbinder. I’m here on business from the board of directors.”