Craig Kreident #1: Virtual Destruction (37 page)

“There, there, Mr. Hopkins,” the woman said.
 
“I’ll have someone come right over to pray with you.
 
We’ll
all
pray for you. Y ou’ve got the best doctors in the area and Stevie’s fate is in God’s hands now.

“Oh, and we’ll send a message directly to our director, Mr. Unteling.
 
You know he’s originally from Livermore, and he always takes a special interest in problems from his hometown.
 
We’ll do what we can, I promise.
 
We’ll have someone over at Valley Memorial to be with you soon.
 
Everything will turn out right, if that’s the way God intends.”

“Thanks,” Duane said as he hung up.

The doctor came out a half an hour later, five minutes after a quiet young man from the Coalition for Family Values showed up.
 
The doctor’s face wore a shadowed scowl.
 
He marched directly over to Duane like a quarterback heading for the goal posts.

“It’s not good, Mr. Hopkins,” the doctor said without preamble, without an attempt at a kind bedside manner.
 
His pink bald head glistened with perspiration, and he squinted through his gold wire-rimmed glasses.

“Your boy is very weak and not responding well.
 
We’ve already drained his lungs, but I’m afraid there’s been a lot of damage.
 
We have him on a respirator right now.
 
It’s as if he’s not even fighting, though.
 
He’s very frightened.”

Duane had an image in his mind of what exactly had been going on behind those gray swinging doors: Stevie hooked up to bleeping machines and gasping tubes . . . the doctors plunging long needles like silver spears between the ridges of Stevie’s ribs, drawing out pinkish yellow fluid from his lung tissue.

“I’m scared, too,” Duane said in a small voice.

The doctor’s expression softened just a little.
 
“Why don’t you go in and sit with him?
 
Maybe that’ll help.”

“I’ll wait for you,” said the quiet young man from the Coalition for Family Values.

Duane hurried in the wake of the emergency room doctor as they passed through the swinging doors.
 
The doors made a hollow, final
thump
behind them.

#

Hours later, the life-support machines made squealing, alarming sounds that seemed to scare the spirit out of Stevie’s frail body.
 
Duane shouted for the doctors, for the nurses, but they did not arrive until it was already too late.

He held Stevie’s scrawny, bony body as it shuddered in its last convulsions, jerking in time with Duane’s own sobs.

Stevie died at 2:48 AM.

CHAPTER 39

Thursday

Lyons Brewery

Dublin, California

As Paige spun the corner into the strip mall parking lot during the Thursday late-dinner rush, Craig gripped the door of the forest-green MG.
 
He made no comment about her driving, since he had no particular desire to walk home.

He scoped the shopping center, spotting a waffle palace and a Japanese restaurant, but Paige drove past them to the back of the mall.
 
“Where are we going?” he finally asked, afraid of her answer.

“One of my favorite places,” she answered, then came to a sudden stop in front of a small storefront with a large, colorful scrolled sign over the door.
 
LYONS BREWERY.

Though it was a Thursday night and just past the supper hour, dozens of cars already filled the spaces.
 
The thumping strains of loud jazz music reverberated through the walls.

He squinted at the sign.
 
“Paige, I’ve got a lot of work to do tonight.
 
I thought we were going to talk about the case, not go out on a date.”

She raised her eyebrows, but he couldn’t tell if she was amused or angry.
 
“A date?
 
Don’t get ahead of yourself, buddy.
 
Come on, this’ll be a great place to talk.”

He followed her through the glass door.
 
A posterboard sign taped above the handle pleaded “Save the Ales!”

Paige had changed into a pair of jeans that complimented her figure and a mint-green blouse that rippled slowly as she walked.
 
Inside, the band had already started a new song, played through amplifiers that must have been designed for a large stadium rather than a small bar.

“I won’t be able to hear what you’re saying!” he said, leaning closer and raising his voice.

“Neither will anybody else.”

He looked smug.
 
“Then this
is
a date.”

She led him to one of the tables, sturdy monstrosities made of dark wood and marred from years of hard use.
 
The place had been outfitted like an old British pub, with colorful foreign flags draped in streamers across the ceiling.

The bar itself was long and crowded, as two bartenders hustled to fill a constant babble of orders.
 
The wall bristled with a dizzying array of tap spigots from dozens of microbreweries.
 
Hanging above the bar, a green slateboard listed four columns of beers Craig had never heard of.

“What kind do you like?” Paige asked.

Craig felt at a loss.
 
“Heineken,” he said after a moment’s hesitation.

Paige looked at him in distaste.
 
“Oh, please!”
 
Craig looked up and noticed a ceiling fan draped with Yuppie neckties that had been tied into nooses, strangling bottles of popular beers—Coors, Budweiser, Corona, Heineken.
 
“Try something special, Craig. They’ve got everything here.”

“Okay,” he said, overloaded with choices chalked on the green slateboard.
 
“How about something dark?
 
Do they have any dark beers?”

Paige laughed.
 
“Let me get you one.
 
Go sit down at a table.”
 
She approached the bar like a combat commander trying to take a hill.

Moments later she returned with two pints, a rich amber beer for herself and a thick black substance that looked as if it had been brewed in the tar pits.
 
He blinked in amazement as she handed it to him.
 
He raised his voice, looking down at the beer.
 
“Did you bring me a spoon?”

She laughed.
 
“St. Stans Dark Altbier.
 
Guaranteed to be the
chewiest
beer you’ll ever have in your life.”

He took a sip and grimaced because that was what she seemed to expect him to do.
 
But as he rolled the rich, chocolatey-tasting beer around in his mouth, Craig realized how delicious it was.
 
“What are you having?” he asked.

She took a sip and closed her eyes before answering.
 
“Best beer in the world.
 
Red Nectar Ale.”
 
He hadn’t heard of it, but he nodded in agreement.

She sat down across from him, propped her elbows on the scarred wooden table, and leaned closer.
 
“Let’s brainstorm, Kay-O?”
 
Her change of subject jarred him.
 
“That’s what we came here for.
 
This isn’t a date, after all.”

“Right,” he said, unconvinced.

“What about Diana Unteling?” she asked, plowing ahead. “Sounds like she’s got plenty of skeletons in her closet.”

Craig took a small sip of his beer.
 
“You’re really getting into this, Miss Detective.”

Paige ignored him and persisted.
 
“Do you really believe she killed Michaelson?”

“She could have gotten the HF from any chemical supply place,” Craig pointed out.
 
“She didn’t need access to the plutonium building.”

“That’s beside the point,” Paige said.

Craig nodded slowly.
 
“I know.
 
All right, I keep coming back to Gary Lesserec and those telephone calls of his.
 
If he’s working overtime for Nintendo or something, it’s none of my business.
 
At least not as part of this investigation.
 
What has it got to do with the murder?
 
There has to be some kind of connection.
 
I don’t believe in coincidences.”

Paige took a long, long drink of her beer, and Craig sipped his again, rolling it around in his mouth.
 
“Think about what Lesserec does.
 
What he does
best
.”

“Virtual reality stuff,” Craig said.

“And if you were him, think how tempting it would be to sell what you know, the systems you’ve developed, the classified information for a real VR system, more real
than
real.
 
Toy and game companies would be in line ten deep to get their hands on your patents.
 
Just imagine, say, Disneyland mass-producing virtual reality chambers like the one in T Program.”

Craig took a big swallow of his thick beer just as the band ceased playing.
 
The silence rang in his ears.
 
He thought of amusement parks, arcades with chambers equivalent to the one Michaelson and Lesserec had developed.
 
Three-dimensional,
tactile
virtual reality chambers that required no suits, no goggles, just people standing in a room and experiencing the ultimate adventure.
 
Like the Holodeck on
Star Trek
.

“But the Livermore VR chamber might have killed a man,” Craig said.
 
“What if it’s too real?”

Paige stared at him, and he felt swallowed up in those incredibly blue eyes.
 
“You sure you want to be the guinea pig in the explosives demonstration tomorrow?” she asked.
 
“I’m worried about you.”

“I’m worried, too,” he said.
 
“I’m not stupid.
 
But I think that’s the only way we’re going to catch Lesserec in his games.
 
It’s a risk I have to take.”

Paige set her empty pint glass down on the table.
 
“Drink up, Craig.
 
I need another one.”

He took a too-large swallow, feeling the dark beer burn as it went down.
 
He looked up and stared at the beer bottles swinging on their necktie nooses.

Craig suddenly knew, without a doubt, that he was going to have a hangover when he arrived for the big demonstration in the morning.

CHAPTER 40

Friday

Building 433—T Program

Virtual Reality Chamber

“It’s the same philosophy that made NASA so successful during the Apollo days,” said Gary Lesserec, looking down at Craig like a mad doctor about to perform brain surgery on an unanesthetized patient.

Tightening a buckle, he made sure Craig was securely strapped to his motion simulator seat in the VR chamber.
 
“NASA practiced everything so much, ran over so many contingencies, that
nothing
came as a surprise.”
 
He snorted.
 
“Too bad the space program lost their good luck.
 
Seems they got politics now.”

Craig nodded, but paid little attention, facing away from the redhead.
 
The red-padded chair in the VR chamber stood among a row of others, but Craig would be the only one in here during the high-explosive dress rehearsal.
 
Now that he was buckled in, the only way to get away from Lesserec’s bad breath would be to unstrap and leave.

Paige Mitchell stood at the doorway, arms folded.
 
She watched like a den mother, but she said nothing to Craig.

Lesserec said, “Ready to ride the first nuclear test in nearly a decade?”

Craig turned in his padded seat and looked quizzical.
 
“I thought this was a high explosive test.”

“Right—that’s what I meant,” said Lesserec, almost too quickly.
 
He patted Craig on the shoulder.
 
“Five hundred
tons
of HE, or a kiloton of nuclear yield equivalent.”
 
Lesserec gave a supercilious grin.
 
“The factor of two difference is due to the percentage of explosive energy that goes into blast and shock versus the radiation yield for a real nuke.”

He made a dismissive gesture.
 
“You wouldn’t understand the difference, but you don’t need to.
 
This dress rehearsal will simulate nearly every aspect of the real thing.
 
That’s why it’s so critical that everything goes right.
 
We’re recording it all.
 
In fact this is going to be our
real
test. The demonstration for the foreign nationals is just show and tell.”