Jezebel's Ladder (30 page)

She was in her element. After
giving a number of details about which journalists should be primed with which
questions and what should be carefully leaked to whom, Amy concluded with,
“When they ask why the short notice, apologize and explain that you didn’t
expect the prototype to successfully power up so soon. The original timetable
called for another month till the demonstration.”

Everyone in the room appreciated
her art, adding truth to the recipe like a baker adds yeast to make the loaf
rise. This product would have just enough taste and substance that the public
might buy it.

His part of the plan completed,
Wilkes asked, “Now what?”

Joe, the closet philosopher,
answered him like a soldier. “We wait.”

Giving that a moment to sink in, he
continued, “The hardest times in history have been spent waiting in stark
terror. I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis as a kid. You wait, stare at the
ceiling, and promise God anything He wants if you get out of this alive. I did
the same thing in the war, only I had a pack of smokes to keep me company. I
figure one of these has to come along about every generation to teach us
something.”

Wilkes seemed genuinely curious.
“What are we supposed to learn from all this?”

“Next time, bring more matches and
a deck of cards.”

Shortly after Jez landed in Miami, she heard from Quan about
the plan to propel the explosive satellite into space. “With any luck, by sunup
Monday no one will ever know there was a problem.”

“This is great! What do you need
from me?” Jez offered, relieved beyond words. Talos led her across the tarmac
to a baby-blue office with furniture from the 1970s and white venetian blinds.

Quan didn’t hesitate. “We need Cape Kennedy and your ground stations to coordinate with us.”

“I’ve already told the
observatories and even the Red Giant team to be at your disposal until further
notice. NASA is Mr. Talos’s domain.” The air conditioning in the small office
was a necessity, even at this late hour.

“We need politicians with clout to
back this or it’s not going anywhere,” her man in Brazil insisted. “And most of
the important ones have gone into hiding.”

She sat on the desk while Talos
paced. “I’ll do my best. Maybe Benny can find some on the west coast or Dirt
Bag can phone a sultan. These things take time. Anything I can do in the
meantime?”

“How about someone to be our
spokesperson for the cover story when we launch? We have a script outlined.
Come to think of it, we need the press, too. No one’s at work this late on a
Saturday night.”

“Text me the outline. Copy Buddy
and Dirt Bag. I’ll get you one hell of a send-off. Quan, thank you, from all of
us.”

At almost midnight eastern time,
she called her husband. “Hey Babe, I just landed. How are you doing?”

“I spent the first half of the day
catching Trina, and now Daniel won’t leave her…um… side. Dirt Bag has his
undies in a bunch about Claudette, Crusader isn’t answering his phone, I have a
Fed sitting in my living room watching pay-per-view, Tan is now paranoid about
helping motorists at the side of the road, and I have a compulsion to tell
everyone everything I’m thinking! How do you stand it?”

“It helps if you have someone you
trust to talk to before anyone else. You’re my tell-first person; I miss you,”
Jez said. And she did. His presence always had a calming effect on her.
Steeling herself, she said, “I need to ask you for a huge favor.”

“How big?” Benny demanded.

“I’ll wear the femdroid costume for
you,” she tempted. Talos raised an eyebrow. “I need you to call your mom. We’ve
got to have as many big politicians as possible pulling for NASA to help us.”

“To do what?” he asked.

“Read your e-mail,” she said,
dodging the question.

“Is it more important than
Claudette?” he asked.

She swallowed. “More important than
anyone, even me.”

“That big, huh? The boss…” he
started.

“I’m Quarterback. I’ll take care of
him,” she promised.

“How many politicians?” he asked.

“As many as you can swing,” she
said. “I love you, Mr. Hollis.”

“I love you, too, Mrs. Hollis,” he
said before hanging up.

“Make kissy noises, and I’ll throw
up,” Talos rumbled.

“Jealous,” Jez accused. She punched
in her boss’s number.

“That phone is going to melt down
if you use it any more,” said the fixer, shaking his head. “You’re going to get
some kind of mutant brain cancer.”

“Not unless I go to Arkansas again,” she quipped. Jez was spared the need to explain when the billionaire
answered. “We need you to make a press conference happen for us tomorrow.”

“Sunday?” said Fortune, accustomed
to the lack of small talk.

“Read your e-mail about the
international space experiment. Make the spokesperson non-media. I’d suggest
Tom; he gives good face. Benny’s on another project.”

“Yes, he’s trying to finding Claudette
because
you
sent her into the field,” Fortune accused. “She’s an
innocent. How dare you…”

Jez broke in. “She volunteered.
Sedna was carrying a grudge about Una. Now she’ll owe Starlet. It was the
cleanest way.”

“You should have put that animal
out of our misery when you had a chance,” Fortune railed.

“I don’t kill, and I don’t work for
killers. My job tonight is keeping everyone alive. Everyone. Do you understand?
Virus may even be listening, so think hard about who you threaten.”

Fortune paused. “I’m sorry. I…she…”

“You love her. We know. We’ll get
her back. It’s after dark, and your son can find her with his eyes closed,” she
said cryptically. “Tell him to open the safe in my office. The combination is
his birthday. There’s a sealed plastic pouch in there for him with Claudette’s
name on it.”

“You took a DNA sample of my wife?”
the billionaire objected.

“Of everyone involved in the
project,” she admitted. “Even you.”

“That’s…” he began in outrage.

“Just what we need to find her
within the hour. I’d only use something like this for life-or-death
emergencies.”

Fortune calmed. “You’re right. I
should have thought of it myself after her last kidnapping. Why didn’t you tell
anybody?”

“In case I had to go after Crusader
for extracurricular activities.”

“Oh, dear,” Fortune remarked. “Thank
you. The waiting will still be agony.”

“Did you ping the Virus?” she
asked.

“Not yet.”

“He’ll tell you if anything
happened. He may steal for a living and screw sewer rats, but he keeps his
word. He promised Starlet safe passage,” she encouraged. “Now, I need you to
focus on your Quarterback. We’re at third down with ten yards to go. Do you
hear me?”

“Yes.”

“We need people in Washington behind this joint effort. Get everyone you can to pressure NASA into
cooperating.”

“What’s the emergency really
about?”

“Someone named PJ Smith has an idea
that could save everyone. I’m not sure if he’s been infected with the gold bug
or not, but I’m planning to meet him soon.”

“Saving us from what?” Fortune
demanded.

“Someone let a genie out of its
bottle,” she said, avoiding details. “If you’ve got any favors saved for a
rainy day, this is it.”

“Understood,” said the billionaire,
drifting.

“Elias, she’s my best friend. I
want to help her, too. But if you don’t do this, she’ll be one of the first to
die.”

When she hung up, Talos nodded.
“Take no prisoners, fashionista.”

“My call sign is Iron Butterfly,”
she corrected.

“No doubt,” he laughed.

“Who can I put pressure on to make
this rescue a team effort?”

The fixer sighed. “NASA command and
control has been a mess since Challenger. At a high level, they’re unified to
make safety the number-one objective on each mission. The head guy stays at Marshall, in Alabama. He has deputy directors at each launch site: Johnson and Kennedy.
They had operational authority, but funding comes through another channel…”

“And you complain shoes are
boring,” she jibed. “Give me a name.”

“Morton Wilder, in Huntsville. He’s the man in charge, but he’s off grid. We need to find someone who can
authorize a special appropriation through the GAO or maybe an executive order.”

“I need the president?”

“You need the vice president or a
former president to send a message to the president. There’s one in New York City who has a think tank of his own and doesn’t mind a pretty face. He goes
running every morning around six. I’ll get you a flight,” he said,
disappearing.

Tired, Jez activated her
assistants, putting them to work in shifts around the clock until further
notice. Marcie said simply, “You need a real honeymoon.”

“Schedule a Caribbean cruise for
two leaving Florida on Tuesday afternoon.”

Jez pulled every string she could to
get the morning-run meeting. On the line to the bunker, Jez said, “Officially this
is about me sharing third-world economic models with his think tank. I might
not be able to sway him. I need you folks to find another heavy hitter to
convince in case I don’t pull through.”

Amy agreed. “Good plan. So you’re
not going to come visit us?”

“There isn’t enough of me to go
around. I’ve got to fly three hours to New York, recharge my laptop, buy a
complete jogging outfit, and shower by six. Talos will swing by as soon as I’m
on the plane. I’ve got confidence in you. Anyone who can turn a disaster this
big into a landmark science demonstration can get to Cape Kennedy without me.”

“That was PJ,” the former aide said
modestly. “He’s the idea man.”

Jez replied, “I was a magician’s
assistant for years. He’d come up with some brilliant illusion, but I was the
one who had to do all the contortions to make it look effortless. We both know
that an idea man is nothing without a practical woman who gets things done.”
That earned her a laugh. “Seriously, when this is all done, I want to talk to
both of you about a job.”

“So this is all just an elaborate
job interview? Wow, tough crowd,” Amy joked.

The battery on Jez’s phone was
almost dead. After she hung up, Talos gestured for her come over to the glass
door. Thinking nothing of it, she hopped off the desk. Then, dizziness made her
sink to her knees. The large, African-American man rushed in to help her to her
feet. She clutched Tannenbaum’s steel-cased laptop like a teddy bear.

“I’m okay,” she said weakly.

“Really, ‘cause you look two shades
more Caucasian than when you came in here.”

“I just haven’t eaten or slept
today, and it’s probably starting to catch up with me.”

As he walked her out to a brown
four-door he got from the motor pool, he said, “There are no more scheduled
flights tonight. We had to charter one from a commercial airline. Since we have
two hours till take off, there’s plenty of time to get you to the chow hall.”

“Breakfast food,” she requested. He
nodded and pulled up a twenty-four hour diner on his GPS. “And we need to stop
at BoxMart for sneakers and a power cord for the laptop. I can’t meet a former
president in bloody bunny slippers and with no slideshow.”

When the diner came into view, he
complained, “Isn’t this the restaurant chain that wouldn’t serve the black
Secret Service agent? How are they going to treat a black man coming in with a
white girl?”

She snorted. “We’ll tell them
you’re my personal trainer. Leave the waitress to me—there won’t be a problem.”

He ordered coffee and a muffin. She
ordered a Belgian waffle with strawberries, hash browns, and fruit on the side.
When Jez saw the eggs Benedict topped with steak, she ordered a complete second
meal. “Bring my side of chicken noodle soup out with the drinks,” she
requested.

While they waited for their meals,
Jez let her senses expand a bit. Something she had seen while ordering bothered
her. On her phone she typed, “Watch man in red Mustang.” The man in question
wore music headphones.

Talos nodded. He was facing the
window to the parking lot while she watched people in the restaurant.

“What does a walrus have in common
with Tupperware?” she asked.

“What?” he rumbled.

“They both like a tight seal.”

The man in the car laughed. An
Asian man in the booth facing hers had a newspaper on his lap. Jez could tell
the man was listening to her. They were being miked. People were following
them.

Jez excused herself, taking the
laptop with her. “Excuse me; I need to wash my hands.”

The Asian man fell into step behind
her. When she pushed the swinging door open to the ladies’ room, the man
trailing her closed the gap. He was either there to kill her or take the laptop.
She stood at the sink, watching with her extra senses. As he stepped across the
threshold, Jez kicked the door into his face. He landed on his butt in the
hallway. When the angry man pulled a gun, Talos kicked it out of his hand. The
Asian man started to threaten them when Talos snapped his neck with a jerk.
“Time to run,” he said, picking up the assailant’s gun and pulling one of his
own.

She was even dizzier than before
and could barely breathe. The brutality and hate emanating from both men had
been overwhelming. Being connected to a person at death had broken something in
Jez. As Talos dragged her through the restaurant like a mannequin, she
speed-dialed Fortune with the push of a button. She got his answering machine.
Slurring her words, she said, “Smith is now Quarterback. Protect your…”

The moment they got outside,
gunfire erupted. Talos jerked her so hard that her phone clattered to the
sidewalk.

Things were getting fuzzy, her
batteries were running low. Aiming both guns in the direction of the red Mustang,
Talos searched for the sniper.

Her empathic senses told her that
the man behind the black SUV had hostile intent. Without planning, she raised
the laptop to shield the back of Talos’s head. Three shots shattered the
metallic laptop case. The last bullet grazed her hand.

“Fug, that hurts!” she slurred like
a drunk as she dropped what remained of the destroyed laptop. She pulled in her
senses, afraid of what might happen next.

Talos finished the driver of the
Mustang with the efficiency of a lumberjack removing and burning a tick. When
there was no chance of a pulse resuming, Talos checked her for injuries. Her
nose was bleeding more than the fleshy area between her thumb and forefinger.
She had double vision and her right arm was going numb. She tried to reach for
her phone to dial 911, but the arm wouldn’t move. “Stroke?” she muttered.

“Probably just shock, Butterfly.
You did fan-damn-tastic. I would be honored to take you shoe shopping…after we
get you to the hospital.”

People inside had already called
the police and emergency vehicles. Talos would be detained. PJ was in danger.
“Go, protect Quarterback,” she mumbled.

He hesitated. A woman in a nurse’s
outfit ran out.

“Back away, give her room,” the
nurse ordered.

Talos palmed her purse as he got
into his car. He’d find the Jane Doe in an hour or so. Until then, anonymity
was her best defense. Hopefully, all they had wanted was the laptop.