Humanity Unlimited 1: Liberty Station (25 page)

Harry laughed. “Copy that.”

His exterior teams had already secured the gate. They raised the arm and waved him through. He gave them a salute. One of the SUVs rushed ahead to scout traffic while the rest settled in around the big rig.

It was early evening, so traffic wasn’t as light as he wished. Still, that was a good thing. They merged with the cars leaving the industrial area without the slightest ripple.

* * * * *

Nathan watched the helicopter lower the spaceship into the freighter’s hold with more than a hint of unease. If something went wrong, his mother would blame him. He breathed a sigh of relief when the load was down and secure.

The helicopter moved away from the ship and the crew began securing the new cargo. It would take a while to get it to the US, but this ship was one among many on the international shipping lanes. His father wouldn’t find it before they had the spaceship safely to port.

He called his mother as soon as they closed the hatch and started moving.

“Mother, everything went according to plan. We have it.”

“I need you to gather your people and head for France. Someone—hell, probably your damned brother—just stole my new reactor. They blew up the building. Sound familiar?”

Nathan cursed. “I thought you had it secure. Weren’t you moving it early?”

“I was,” she said bitterly. “Tomorrow morning, local time. He got there just before the extra security. The police are tearing up the city, but how much do you want to bet they never find it? Incompetent bastards.”

“And by the time I get there, it’ll be long gone. Where will he take it?”

“How the hell should I know?”

Nathan reviewed what he knew of his father’s holdings. The old bastard had a lot of them in Great Britain. Of course, the reactor would be to its destination by the time he found out where that was.

“I’ll direct my teams to London. If you get any more intelligence before we get there, call me.”

He hung up and called for the helicopter to come back. He’d catch the first commercial flight.

He looked over the spaceship one last time before he headed up to the main deck. No matter how this played out, they’d still won. Let his father have the damned reactor. They could always build another one. This baby would give them so much more.

* * * * *

Jess closely examined the pages she suspected of having Italian. Her fingers itched to pick it up and look at the reverse.

“Come,” Romano said. “Have some more wine.”

He just wouldn’t let it be, the sleazy bastard.

She took up her glass with a smile. “Don’t let yours go to waste, either. We can drink up and have another glass.”

The fat man smiled and took a large drink. When she did the same, he matched her until both glasses were empty. Perfect.

“That was too good to gulp,” she said with a laugh that wasn’t at all fake. “More, please.”

“That was slick,” Sandra said in her ear. “Real slick. Now play him until the drugs take effect. As fat as he is, it probably won’t knock him out for long.”

Romano virtually swaggered over to pour them fresh glasses. “You’re very lucky, you know. Many Americans never get a chance to see how the rest of the world lives. And even when they do, they look down their noses. That’s no way to take in the history and greatness of Europe.”

She raised an eyebrow and sipped her fresh wine. “Really? I suppose that’s true to some degree, though I’m not sure the arrogance is solely ours. So, your grandfather bought those during the Second World War? Not from the Germans, I hope.”

“Of course. Who else was selling stolen art?”

Romano blinked in apparent surprise at his answer. “I mean…no, of course not. Everything was legal and above board. I don’t know what came over me. My sense of humor can be somewhat odd.”

Sandra laughed. “It sounds like the drug makes him more compliant. Let it take hold and we’ll really get him on the record.”

Jess nodded at what he’d said. “I understand. Has this villa been in your family for a long time?”

“In one form or another, my family has owned this property since the Dark Ages. It was originally a monastery. We bought it from the church and tore down the old buildings.”

She asked him about the area for a few minutes as the man became drowsier. Once he seemed fully in the grasp of the drug, she decided to test him.

“What did you put into the wine?”

“A designer concoction that will make you more suggestable and interfere with your memory of the next few hours. It’s completely undetectable.”

Her stomach roiled at the thought of how many women he’d done this to.

“Did you use this on the American woman you married?”

“Of course. The damned condom broke and she got pregnant. I used the drug again to get her to sign a prenuptial agreement. I couldn’t have her taking half my money when I dumped her.”

The bastard. “So you tricked her into signing away her rights? Is that how you got control of your daughter?”

“No.” His eyes were glassy now. “I never anticipated wanting the child, so I didn’t specify her in the agreement. When the harpy sued me for custody, I had some of my men break into her house and take the child. She’s mine. Blood of my blood. I’ll kill the bitch when the time comes to take my girl back.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Jess muttered. It was time to get him to confess to doing this before.

“Have you drugged other women?”

He laughed. “Of course. All the time. Sluts. Deep inside, they want it. Some try to get me arrested or sue me, but there’s never any proof.”

“Has anyone sued you falsely?”

“No. Isn’t that funny? They all told the truth, but no one could prove a single thing. My friends in the judiciary dismissed the cases. I’m a judge, you know.”

“And I hear you’re in the mob, too. What terrible things have you done?”

He began listing a spree of horror. Killings, embezzlement, drugs, and more. He mentioned enough names to implicate plenty of other people. She made sure to ask where they’d buried the bodies and where to find any evidence of the crimes.

“You need to wrap this up,” Sandra said.

Jess agreed. “Mister Romano, you tried to do something terrible thing to me. Give me the pages from the Voynich Manuscript to make up for it. Write out a receipt transferring their ownership to Humanity Unlimited. Make sure it’s legal.”

He wrote out a receipt and signed it.

“You know this is just as sketchy as that prenup he forced his ex-wife to sign,” Sandra said. “It’ll never hold up in court.”

“Then he can sue me for them,” she said firmly. “Maybe the irony will give the bastard a heart attack.”

Jess folded the receipt and put it into her jacket. She gestured toward the case at the end of the room. “I’ll need a briefcase to carry the manuscript pages. Please pack them carefully for me.”

He took a briefcase made of fine Italian leather from a cabinet and lay it on the case beside the manuscript pages. He found some latex gloves and began tugging them on.

Jess made certain she had a good view. “Put them face down, please.”

He complied and she watched the previously unseen pages as they appeared. The back of the one she suspected might have more data was better than she’d hoped. Two columns of script filled it, one in Italian and the other in the strange lettering. If anything was the Rosetta Stone, this was it.

She closed the briefcase and had Romano give her the combination.

“You’ve done very well. Would a second dose of the drug harm a person?”

“Probably not,” he said.

“Good. Make another one.”

She watched him pull a packet out from the desk, empty it into his glass, and fill it with wine.

“Drink up,” she said. “Call your people. Tell them you’re sending me back down and you don’t need to speak with Paolo. Then go to bed. You’ve had a busy day and you want to get a good night’s sleep. I’m not sure if it works this way, but you’ll only remember you had a good time once you wake up.”

Once he’d called for someone to come get her and retired to his bedroom, she spoke aloud. “Sandra, I’m on my way out. I’ll find Paolo and we’ll meet you at the house next door. I think we should make tracks back to Rome. We can cut out the video of the confession and send it to someone trustworthy. The police will come for him before he wakes up.”

“Have I ever mentioned that you’re my hero?” the mercenary asked. “Well, you are. Now get the hell out of there before something goes wrong.”

Jess grabbed the briefcase, corked the wine, and took it, too. It was the least the bastard could do.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Harry worried all the way back to Mexico. He expected to have a military jet of some kind show up to herd the stolen cargo plane to another landing spot as soon as he got close to the spaceport.

Two jets did show up, but they were obviously of Rainforest manufacture. They escorted the plane in without incident. His father stood waiting as he and his men climbed out of the plane and stretched.

“Well done, Harry. Well done. Jess’ flight lands in ten minutes. She’ll be just in time to get the reactor transported to pad three and begin loading. I don’t know if I’ll relax until it’s in space.”

“How long will it take to get it installed once the lifter gets it up there?”

“I believe she said twelve hours, but that seems like too short a timeframe.”

That did seem optimistic. “How about the fuel?”

His father smiled. “Two loads are already in orbit. They tell me that the remainder will take two additional launches. Then we resume personnel and supply missions. We should be able to wrap those sometime tomorrow.”

“So, about the time you get your primary power supply online, you’ll be ready to leave? That sounds like good timing. Mother will figure everything out before too much longer. I wouldn’t put it past her to try and shoot the station down.”

“Wouldn’t that make for some ugly headlines?” His father grimaced. “I can’t believe they managed to steal the crashed spaceship. Dammit. I’m certain they moved it offshore, but I probably won’t be able to figure out which ship it’s on before they get it somewhere. So much technology lost.”

“If you can figure it out, I’ll go get it back.”

His father gave him an odd look. “That might be challenging from orbit. You’re going with Jess, aren’t you?”

Harry felt his eyebrows rise. “What would I do up there? I’m not an astronaut.”

“You don’t want to walk on the surface of Mars?”

“Exactly how are you planning on doing that? I can see visiting asteroids, but without small craft, how do you visit something like Mars?”

“With the increases in efficiency, the reusable lifters will do. A number of them will stay with the ship. Fuel is available in space, too. Phobos, the larger of Mars’ moons, is very much like a D-Class asteroid and probably has water inside. A lot of it.

“Eventually, we can use the high carbon content to create a beanstalk. That’s a long tether that goes out beyond geosynchronous orbit and uses elevators to move people and cargo from the surface to a station in orbit.”

“Are you serious?” Harry asked. “You’ll build a space elevator?”

His father nodded. “Yes. The gravity is much weaker on Mars. That means the carbon nanotube cables would be much shorter and slimmer. A number of scientists and science fiction authors have explored the subject. I intend to explore the reality.”

He shook his head. That sounded almost as impressive as exploring the solar system.

“Back to the subject,” his father said. “You could be one of the first humans to walk the surface of another planet. As one of the owners, perhaps even right behind Jess.”

“You’re not going?”

The older man shook his head regretfully. “Alas, no. I’m far too old for that kind of nonsense. Besides, I have a covert war to fight here on Earth. Once the ship leaves orbit, everyone is going to go mad. Your mother in particular, but also the various governments that see they’ve missed the boat. I foresee a number of attempts to nationalize the company. My work will be to keep that from happening.”

The noise of another plane landing announced Jess’ arrival. Harry considered the offer. Did he want to go? His work on Earth was satisfying, but this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. What could he contribute once they were in space?

Admittedly, going with Jess had its appeal. He’d grown quite fond of her in the last few days.

The airplane taxied up to park beside the cargo plane. A motorized stair positioned itself and the passengers started making their way down. Jess was in the lead with Sandra right behind her.

The blonde engineer came up to him with a huge grin on her face and grabbed him in a tight hug. “We did it! We got the reactor and the papers! That’ll show your mother!”

His indecision vanished as he held her in his arms. He knew his body was making a hasty call, but he was willing to see what happened. He felt a little more alone when she pulled back.

“I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but we didn’t get our way in everything. Nathan stole the buried spaceship.”

Her face fell a little. “Dammit. Well, maybe we can find another one. One in better condition.”

She turned to his father. “Did the fuel make it up?”

“Half of it has. The other half is loading now. It will launch just before the reactor does.”

“Excellent! I need to start moving the reactor. Excuse me.”

The two men watched her run to where they were unloading the cargo container. His father spoke after a moment. “How can any project with her at the helm fail? She’s like a tornado.”

Harry hadn’t agreed with his father so completely in years.

* * * * *

Nathan’s phone woke him. Even at cruising altitude, there was no escaping his mother. All passenger aircraft had satellite links these days. The other first class passengers glared at him, but he ignored them and answered the call.

“Hello, Mother. Have you located your property?”

“The bastard stole my plane. With all the confusion, no one noticed the pilots had disappeared. The French police found them locked up in a hangar at a regional airport.”