Devlin's Defiance: Book Two of the Devlin Quatrology (27 page)

Still shaking, both men
nodded.

“
Tell him –
verbatim – that I told you to tell him, 'There's more where
that came from.' Got it?”

They both nodded.

“
Frank, repeat
it.”

“
There's more
where that came from.”

“
Eric.”

“
There's more
where that came from.”

“
Good, good. Now
go – oh, Frank, your throat is okay. You don't have to keep
rubbing it. Go.”

They nearly ran to the
mouth of the alley, Gordy behind them, and he watched them almost
power-walking back the way they'd all come, looking back at Gordy
with wide eyes.

“
Amateurs.”

Gordy sauntered on for
another block, seeing no other tails, then picked up a cab to the
airport and took the next available commercial flight back to
Florida. When he landed in Fort Myers about 4:30, he made a call.

“
I'm back. So
how's it going up nord dere, Ro?”

- 66 -

December
31, 2012
11:38
a.m. local time

Soldeu, Andorra

“
So how's
it going, Doc?” Greg asked. “Your face seems to be
healing up okay.”

“
Yah,
still painful, but the skin and bones are coming along well.”

“
Good.
And on your adaptations?”

“
I am
close, very, very close.”

“
Details?”

“
I have
the range out to about fourteen kilometers and backward to a little
over an hour. I cannot make it go forward, of course.”

“
Of
course.”

“
You do
understand the math?”

“
And the
physics.”

“
You know
you must go beyond Einstein to make it work?”

“
Yes. It
was tricky to build past his theories, but after you showed us your
equations, Julie and I finally worked it out.”

“
She is
quite intelligent.”

“
Yes, she
is, and much more intuitive than I am.”

“
Intuitive?”

“
Uh,
more, uh – ah, more right-brained.”

“
Ah, yes.
Artistic, imaginative, visual, maybe psychic?”

“
Sort of,
yeah; you're in the ballpark.”

“
In the
ballpark?

“
Close,
about right, in the neighborhood.”

“
Ah, in
the near?”

“
Yeah,
like that.”

“
In the
ballpark; okay.”

“
And that
gizmo on the side does it all?”

“
Gizmo?”

“
Device,
the thing there with all the dials and buttons.”

“
Ah;
gizmo, device, gizmo, device Yes, that is what does it.”

“
And it's
powered with thorium?”

“
Correct.
A very delicate balance for the – for the gizmo.”

“
And have
you tested it?”

“
Of
course; six times. That is how I found the maximum ranges.”

“
Can you
demonstrate it now?”

“
Of
course.”

“
Let me
get Julie in here.”

“
Take
your time; it is only imaginary.”

A few moments
later, Greg returned with Julie at his side.

“
Okay,
Doc, give it your best shot.”

“
Best
shot?”

“
Demonstration.”

“
Ah,
okay; best shot, demonstration. Okay. Look in that book, please.”

“
This?
The binder?”

“
Binder,
yah. Pick out any object shown there.”

“
How
about this one, Greg?”

“
Fine.
Okay, Doc, Julie's picked out a coffee cup.”

“
Good.
Now point to any surface in the room.”

“
Julie?”

“
How
about that table over in the far corner there?”

“
Good.”
The doctor looked at his watch and snapped his fingers.
A
coffee cup appeared in the air next to the table Julie had indicated,
fell to the floor, bounced once and settled on its
side.

“
Scheiß!
”
the doctor said. He walked over, picked it up and handed it to
Julie. It was warm to the touch.

“
But you
didn't do anything,” she said, examining the cup.

“
Not
yet,” the doctor replied, “and my aim will be off.”

- 67 -

December
31, 2012
11:13
a.m. local time

In the Gulf of Aden

“
So there I was,
naked as a jaybird, stretched out on the bed, and this fat, hairy
mid-level KGB analyst is prancing around the hotel room in toe shoes
and a tutu, waving his sword around … that's what he called it
… no shirt, no pants, nothing but that damned pink tutu and
those ecru shoes, the straps falling down around his ankles. I was
trying so hard not to laugh, but to just keep looking seductive, that
my tongue was bleeding, literally, from biting it.

“
Then he does a
really bad pirouette, arm flapping over his head, stumbles over to
the desk, grabs his vodka, swigs the last of it down in one gulp,
flings the empty bottle against the mirror, which shatters, and then
he trips over the chair, lands on his face on the floor, throws up,
farts and passes out.

“
If it had been
a larger room, the smell woulda dissipated, but this was Moscow, so
it was overpowering.

“
I waited as
long as I could stand it, then threw on my robe, gave the all-clear
signal and the rest of the team came in, hogtied him and flopped him
into the bathtub. I leaned out the window and took a deep breath,
and even the Russian smog smelled better.

“
When he woke up
in the morning, Richie stayed with him while he cleaned himself up
and got dressed, and then we showed him the tapes we'd made, and he
shit his pants. So before we could pitch him, Richie had to watch
him while he cleaned himself up again.”

“
Poor Richie.”

“
Hey, Richie was
a pro, no problem.

“
Anyhow, after
we turned Tutu-Man, he gave us six years of fairly good intel, not
top-level stuff, but some of it helped Reagan deal with Gorby. He
was caught in '87 and got his nine grams.”

“
Nine grams?”

“
The weight of a
Soviet bullet.”

“
Ah, right; I'd
QH'd that.”

“
But
to this day, I can't bear the smell of borscht or even beets.”

- 68 -

December
31, 2012
11:58
a.m. local time

Soldeu, Andorra

“
Now I
set these dials for the location, but as I said, my aim will be off.
Nothing I can do about that.”

“
Because
it already happened,” Julie said, still holding the cup,
which
had cooled off.

“
Exactly.”

“
But you
got the timing exactly right,” Greg said.

“
Of
course I did. I am Swiss.

“
We are
all set. Are you ready?”

Greg and Julie
glanced at each other and nodded. The doctor pressed a button on the
gizmo, but nothing happened.

“
Ach; I
forgot.” He rustled through a stack of CDs and pulled one
out.
“Coffee cup,” he said, checking the label, and inserted
it into a
slot on the machine. After a momentary
whirring sound, a green light glowed.

“
Ah,
good,” the doctor said and pressed the button again. The
machine surged to life, squeezing a plastic substance from a nozzle
to form a coffee cup exactly like the one in Julie's hand. After
three or four minutes, the cup was complete; the doctor pressed a
second button and the cup disappeared.

“
Voila!”
he said, smiling.

Greg and Julie
looked at him quizzically.

“
Yah, in
some ways I am multilingual.”

- 69 -

December
31, 2012
11:27
a.m. local time

In
the Gulf of Aden

“
I wouldn't worry
about that, Pam. Remember, it's just fiction. Hell, I even changed
your name to Pamela.”

“
But, Jake, even
with that, anybody who has access to the actual records could figure
out who I really am. All they'd have to do is crosscheck female
agents on the PPDs from Clinton to Bush and Bush to Obama, and I was
the only one who was on both of those details. AND you used my
husband's real name.”

“
Robertson, you
mean?”

“
Right. So
that'll tie me back to the Company. You know they'll be coming after
me … and you, too. Hell, maybe even JJ.”

“
But we've all
got new identities, new passports, a new name on the boat, and we're
way out here in the middle of nowhere. Besides, you haven't done
anything wrong.”

“
Well, we have
started on my memoirs, and even though I'm being very careful, some
of those paranoid assholes will believe I'm gonna reveal classified
information.”

“
Well, even if
they believe that, they don't have any evidence, and if they actually
read the book, they'll get over believing that.”

“
You mean this
one, not the first one, right?”

“
Right.”

“
But that first
one ended with the possibility of doing my memoirs, right?”

“
I guess so. But
I've been working so hard on this one that I've QH'd that.”