“I don’t mind.”
“We will go far away and test it.”
“I’m gonna stay here with Trudy,” Dwayne said. She seemed to be sleeping soundly, her head on her arms on the table. “Don’t forget us now, hear?”
“Stay alert,” Rayford whispered as he rose.
“Don’t worry about me, pardner. You won’t catch me napping. I haven’t had this much fun since the pigs ate my sister.”
Rayford narrowed his eyes at Dwayne.
“I’m joshin’, Rafe. It’s a country expression.”
“Is it true?” Leon wanted to know.
“Sir?” David asked, sitting in Fortunato’s office.
“You haven’t seen the internal audit on your department?”
David fought to keep calm. “I knew they were doing a report, but I didn’t have the sense they had been there long enough to file a report.”
“Well, they have come to some conclusions, and I don’t like them one bit.”
“They didn’t talk to me.”
“When does Internal Auditing ever talk to anybody? They’re supposed to, but they never do. Anyway, you’re not going to like what they found, but I’m still going to ask you to answer for it.”
David was aware of his pulse and tried to regulate his breathing. “I’d be happy to study their findings and respond as thoroughly as I can.”
“They give you high marks. They say it’s not your fault.”
“Fault?”
“For the fiasco, the disaster. They say it’s not because of your leadership, which they find stellar.”
“What are they calling a disaster?”
“Not the morale of your troops, that’s for sure. Or your own work ethic. Seems you put in more hours than anybody but the potentate and me.”
“Well, I don’t know about that . . .”
“Bottom line, Hassid, they’re recommending pulling the plug on the cyber-transmission detection project.”
“Oh, no. I’d like to keep trying.”
“I know it’s been a pet of yours and that you’ve put heart and soul into it. Fact is, it’s not cost efficient.”
“But wouldn’t a little more time be worth it if we did turn up something?”
“You’re not going to turn up anything now, are you, David? Be honest. Internal Audit says you’re no closer than you were the day we installed the equipment, and with the thousands of man-hours and the budget thrown at it, it doesn’t make sense anymore.”
David worked up his most disappointed expression.
“So, I ask you again,” Leon said. “Is it true? Is it more trouble than it’s worth? Should we pull the plug?”
“What will the potentate say?”
“That’s my worry. I’m going to take the tack that we don’t need to know the source location that badly and that the Judah-ites are making fools of us this way. He’ll agree. How about you?”
“Who am I to disagree with the potentate and the supreme commander?”
“Atta boy.”
“Not to mention Internal Audit.”
“There you go. Now I have an idea for the use of those man-hours and computers.”
“Good. I’d hate to see them go to waste.”
“Now that the cockpit crew is back to work and the Phoenix 216 is appropriately outfitted, His Excellency has assigned me a rather ambitious ten-region tour over the next few weeks. In preparation for a gala celebration of reaching the halfway point of the Global Community’s seven-year protection agreement with Israel, he would like me to meet personally with each of the regional potentates, including the new African leader. I would like your staff, the ones who will be freed up by the dissolution of the other project—”
“Excuse me, Commander, but I have a dumb question. . . .”
“The only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked.”
Never heard that one before! David thought. “Well, again, it’s outside my area.”
“Fire away.”
“Wouldn’t it be more cost efficient to just have the ten, ah, potentates come here or meet somewhere else with you?”
“Good thinking, but there are reasons for doing it this way.” Leon had shifted into his patronizing teaching mode. He steepled his fingers and studied them. “His Excellency Nicolae Carpathia is, along with his many other stellar leadership qualities, a diplomat nonpareil. He leads by example. He leads by serving. He leads by listening. He leads by delegating, thus my trip. The potentate knows that each of his ten subpotentates, as it were, needs to keep a sense of his own presence. To keep them loyal, energized, and inspired, he prefers to defer to their own orbits of authority and autonomy. By sending me as his emissary to, how shall we put it, their turf, he is honoring them.
“This gives them the opportunity to roll out the red carpet, to have their subjects see that they are being honored by a visit from the palace. In each international capital I will publicly, officially invite the regional potentate to the Global Gala in September. His subjects will be invited as well and urged to combine their trip to Jerusalem with an additional pilgrimage to New Babylon.”
“Interesting,” David said.
“I thought you’d think so. And this is where you and your people and all those freed-up computers come in. His Excellency has always been a matchless role model to me as a public speaker. You’re well aware of his proficiency in many languages. I can’t hope to match that, though I would like to understand a phrase or two in each major language group I will be addressing. The potentate also, I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, never, and I mean absolutely never, uses a contraction, not even in informal conversation.”
“I’ve had so little personal contact with him. . . .”
“Naturally. But let me tell you his most enormous oratorical gift, and this is besides his unequaled ability to memorize pages of material and make even a lengthy speech appear extemporaneous. It is this: Potentate Carpathia knows the history, even the nuances, of his audience as well as they know it themselves. Have you ever seen the tapes of his first address to the United Nations three years ago?”
“I’m sure everyone has by now.”
“That speech alone, David, virtually sealed his appointment as secretary-general and eventual leader of the new world order. He took that podium as merely a guest speaker, president of a smallish country in the eastern European bloc. The position he ascended to was not even vacant when first he opened his mouth. Yet with brilliance, charm, wit, mastery of his subject, the use of every language of the U.N., and an astounding recitation of the history of that great institution, he had the entire world eating out of his hand. I grant that had we not just suffered the global vanishings that plunged us all into a grieving, terror-filled malaise, perhaps the size of the audience would not have been appropriate for the greatness of the address. But it was as if God ordained it, and His Excellency was the perfect man for the moment.”
Fortunato’s eyes had glazed over. “Ah, it was magical,” he said. “I knew in my soul that if I ever had the privilege to contribute even in a minuscule way to the ideals and objectives of that man, I would pledge my life to him. Have you ever felt that way about someone, David?”
“I believe I can empathize with that devotion, yes sir.”
That seemed to snap Leon from his reverie. “Really,” he said. “May I ask whom?”
“Whom? You mean who I, ah, idolize enough to pledge my life to? Yeah. My Father, actually.”
“That’s beautiful, David. He must be a wonderful man.”
“Oh, he is. He’s, like, God to me.”
“Indeed? What does he do?”
“He’s creative, works with his hands.”
“But his character, that’s what inspires you.”
“More than you’ll ever know. More than I can say.”
“That’s very special. I’d love to meet him someday.”
“Oh, you will,” David said. “I’m certain you’ll meet one day, face-to-face.”
“I’ll look forward to that. But I’ve completely left my train of thought. Let me make my point and then I’ll let you go. Forgive me, but I enjoy bringing along a young loyalist with promise.”
“Think nothing of it.”
“Anyway, I would like your people to use those computers to dig out important facts about each man I am visiting, his region, its history. By knowing as much as I can and being accurate about the details, I honor them. Can you provide me with that, David? Make me look good, which makes His Excellency look good, which is good for the Global Community.”
“I’ll take it as a personal challenge, sir.”
CHAPTER 18
Stars dotted an inky sky when Albie finally skidded to a dusty stop in a deserted plain. He left the old truck’s headlights burning, illuminating a boulder next to a mature tree about a hundred yards away. Albie hopped into the bed of the truck and scampered atop the cab. He peered behind them.
“Let my eyes grow accustomed to the darkness,” he said, “and I’ll be sure we’re alone.” Satisfied, he hopped down the way he had gone up. “I used to be able to drop all the way from the top to the ground. But the ankle . . . remember?”
“The earthquake,” Rayford said.
“Not a high medical priority, all things considered.”
He motioned for Rayford to follow him to the front of the truck, where he squatted before a headlamp and reached into his paper sack. He produced a rectangular block of black metal that looked like a box. It was about ten inches long, five inches wide, and an inch and a half deep.
“Captain Steele, this is ingenious. It costs extra, but I know you will want it. Watch carefully so you can see how easily it is done. Unless you know the trick, you cannot do it. First, get the feel of this in your hands.”
Rayford took the block and was impressed with its weight and density. There were no visible seams, and the block felt solid.
“Open it,” Albie said.
Rayford turned it every which way in the light, looking for a place to get a grip, trip a switch, squeeze a spring, anything. He saw nothing.
“Try,” Albie said.
Rayford gripped the block at both ends and pulled. He pushed to see if the sides had any give. He twisted it and shook it, pressed around the edges. “I’m convinced,” he said, handing it back.
“What does it remind you of?”
“Ballast. Maybe a weight of some kind. An old computer battery?”
“What would you tell a customs agent it is when it shows up black and ugly under the radar?”
“One of the above, I guess. Probably say it’s for the computer I left at my destination last time.”
“That will work, because he will not be able to open it either. Unless he does this, and the odds are he never would.”
Holding the block before him horizontally, Albie put his left thumb in the upper left corner with his left middle finger on the back of the lower left corner. He did the opposite with his right hand, thumb on the lower right corner, middle finger on the back of the upper corner. “I am pushing gently with my thumbs, which forces my fingers to resist. When I feel a most delicate disengagement, I then slide my thumbs along the bottom edge, put my index fingers along the top edge, grip tightly, and pull. See how easily it slides apart.”
Rayford felt as if he were witnessing a magic trick from a foot away without a clue how it was accomplished. Albie had slid the block apart only an inch or so, then quickly snapped it back shut. “The seams seem to disappear because this was fashioned from a solid block of steel. Try it, Captain.”
Rayford placed his thumbs and middle fingers where Albie had. When he pressed slightly with his thumbs and felt the pressure on his fingers, he sensed an ever so slight give. He was reminded of his penny toys as a kid when he tried to make a BB drop into a shallow hole in a piece of cardboard by tilting it this way and that. It worked only when you tilted just so far but not too much.
He grasped the ends of the block as Albie had done, and the unit smoothly slid apart. In his left hand was solid steel in the shape of a large jigsaw puzzle that perfectly aligned with the heavy handgun in his right. Amazing.
“Is it loaded?”
“I was taught there’s no such thing as an unloaded gun. Many people have been killed by guns they were certain were unloaded.”
“Granted. But if I aimed and shot . . .”
“Would a bullet be fired? Yes.”
“Got anything you don’t care about that could be set atop that rock?”
“Just aim at the rock for now. It takes getting used to.”
“I was a fair marksman in the military years ago.”
“Only years? Not decades?”
“Cute. Insulted by my fence.”
“Familiarize yourself with your weapon.”
Rayford set the block on the ground and turned the gun over and over in his hand. Heavy as it was, it had excellent balance and settled easily into his palm. He worried it might be difficult to hold steady due to the weight.
“That mechanism,” Albie said, “is found in no other handgun. Only in high-powered rifles. It does not cock. It is semiautomatic. You have to pull the trigger anew for each shot, but it will fire off a round as quickly as you can release the trigger and trip it again. It is probably the loudest handgun made, and I recommend something in the ear nearest the weapon. For now, just plug your ear with your other hand.”
“I don’t see a safety.”
“There is none. You simply aim and fire. The rationale behind this piece is that you do not separate the block and produce it unless you intend to shoot it. You do not shoot it unless you intend to destroy what you are shooting. If you shoot at that rock enough times, you will destroy it. If you shoot a person in a kill zone from within two hundred feet, you will kill him. If you hit him in a neutral zone from that same distance, your ammunition will sever skin, flesh, fat, tendon, ligament, muscle, and bone and will pass through the body leaving two holes. Provided you are at least ten feet away, the soft hollow-point shell has time to spread out due to the heat of the firing explosion and the centrifugal force caused by the spinning. Rifling grooves etched inside the barrel induce the spin. The projectile then will be roughly an inch and a half in diameter.”
“The bullet spreads into a spinning disk?”
“Exactly. And as I told you on the phone, a man missed by the projectile by two inches from thirty feet away suffered a deep laceration from the air displacement alone. Should you hit someone from between ten feet and two hundred feet, the bullet will leave an exit wound of nearly six inches in diameter, depending on what body part is expelled with it. The thin, jagged, spinning bullet bores through anything in its path, gathers the gore around it like grass in a power-mower blade, and turns itself into a larger object of destruction. During the testing of this weapon a technician was accidentally shot just above the knee from approximately twenty feet away. His leg was effectively amputated, the lower portion attached by a thin ribbon of skin on each side of the knee.”
Rayford shook his head and gazed at the ugliness in his hand. What was he thinking? That he would ever dare carry such a monstrosity, let alone use it? He would be hard pressed to justify this as a defensive weapon.
“Are you trying to talk me into this or out of it?”
Albie shrugged. “I want you satisfied with your purchase. No complaints. I said you could go cheaper. You said you wanted performance. What you do with this is your business, and I wouldn’t even want to make it mine. But I guarantee you, Captain, if you ever have to use it on someone, you won’t have to use it twice.”
“I don’t know,” Rayford said, his haunches aching from crouching. He shifted his weight, picked up the other half of the block, and held it facing the gun to see how they aligned.
“At least try it,” Albie said. “It’s an experience.”
“I’ll bet it is.”
Rayford dropped the block again, stood between the headlights, spread his legs, aimed the gun at the ro
ck, and steadied his shooting hand at the wrist with his other hand.
Albie covered both ears, then interrupted. “You really should put something in that right ear.”
Rayford dug in his pocket for the note Albie had written. He tore a piece from it, moistened it with his tongue, and crumpled it into a small ball. He pushed it into his ear and resumed firing position. “I wish I could cock it just for timing,” he said. “It’s as if the gun’s ready and I’m not.”
“I’m not hearing you,” Albie said, too loudly. “I’m afraid you’ll shoot when I take my hands from my ears.”
The gun was only slightly closer to Rayford’s protected ear. When he squeezed the trigger, the recoil drove him back against the hood of the truck. He slid to where his seat hit the bumper, but there wasn’t enough room to hold him, and he plopped in the dirt. The explosion sounded like a bomb and then like nothing, as he was temporarily deafened and didn’t even hear the echo. Rayford was glad he had not squeezed off another round when he flopped.
Albie looked at him expectantly.
“You’re right,” Rayford said, his ear ringing. “An experience.”
“Look,” Albie said, pointing into the distance.
Rayford squinted. The rock looked none the worse for wear. “Did I hit it?”
“You hit the tree!”
Rayford could hardly believe it. The bullet had hit the trunk about eight feet off the ground, just below the branches. “I need to see this,” he said, struggling to his feet. Albie followed him as he got close enough to see that a gash had been taken out of the tree that left less than half the trunk intact. The weight of the branches finally overtook the gaping hole and the top of the tree came crashing down, bouncing off the rock.
“I’ve heard of tree surgeons,” Albie said. “But . . .”
“How many rounds does it hold?”
“Nine. Want to try again and see if you can hit what you’re aiming at?”
“I’ll have to compensate. It pulls up and to the right.”
“No, it doesn’t.”