Seen And Not Seen (The Veil Book 1) (4 page)
Read Seen And Not Seen (The Veil Book 1) Online
Authors: William Bowden
Monica Satori gazes over the cityscape at the Pan Am building, Robert’s VTOL having lifted off and sliding away. Her gaze is unwavering and unblinking. Behind her sit the board of Cantor Satori, a group of men and women at various positions around the ringed boardroom table. Among them is Jerome Ellis, wearing his usual gray tunic suit.
All eyes are on the back of Monica’s head. She can feel them boring in. The tension palpable, she turns to face them. Despite the mood her composure remains calm and self-assured. The same cannot be said of the board members, one woman appearing quite ashen.
“We stand to lose everything we have worked for,” the woman says. “If Robert carries on like this, Senator Blake’s committee—”
“We’ve got to cut Cantor loose, before he takes us all down,” seconds Ellis, his voice void of any emotion. “He is out of control.”
Monica nods a reluctant acceptance of the situation. “It seems we have some difficult choices to make. Dr. Ellis and I will set about instigating the appropriate steps. The rest of you proceed accordingly.”
* * *
Lucius is on his hands and knees shuffling sheets of paper about the containment room floor. No pattern beyond the first two sheets has revealed itself, to his manifest vexation.
His eyes come to rest on a particular drawing. He picks it up. A large, shaded dot and more curved lines about it. He tosses it back.
“Maybe there’s no pattern at all,” the slump in his shoulders betrays his sense of defeat.
“The puppets upset her,” says the nurse. “Now what?”
Lucius looks at the child. Apio smiles back.
The VTOL has set down in a private aviation area of Newark Airport, next to a large hangar. A bewildered Landelle follows Robert and Toor as they make their way to a jetliner adorned with the Cantor Satori company logo, a tow truck attached to its front landing gear. At the foot of the boarding stairs Landelle halts Robert as Toor races on up.
“Bob, where the hell are we going?”
“Nevada.”
“What? No, the hearings…” But Robert is already bounding up the steps. An exasperated Landelle follows him as he disappears inside, passing a member of the ground crew. Robert is quick to close and lock the door from the inside.
“Calls to make. Go sit up front with Shaz.” Before Landelle can respond he is off again, heading aft into the aircraft’s stylish interior.
An abandoned Landelle looks about. Nobody in sight. The planes moves with a judder and clunk—Landelle has to steady herself before heading forward past alcoves and seating areas, all empty.
She arrives at the flight deck. Toor is in the pilot’s seat carrying out preflight checks.
“Strap yourself in. Use the jump seat.”
Landelle is completely lost for words. She pulls out the jump seat and dons a set of headphones. Outside the tow truck moves off—they are out of the hangar, poised next to a taxi lane.
“Tower. This is Charlie Sierra One. Requesting permission to taxi.”
Robert places video call from his onboard office. Raymond Fellowes’s somber face appears.
“Need that ticket to ride, Ray.”
Fellowes heaves a resigned sigh.
* * *
The chief tower controller surveys the airfield through a pair of binoculars. It is a hot and busy day with a long queue of planes. One minor hitch early in the morning and now everything was backed up. An assistant controller breaks away from a phone conversation and calls over to him.
“Got Robert Cantor’s plane requesting permission to taxi.”
The chief controller peels himself away from his binoculars to face the team. “What? There’s no slot for his plane today.”
Another tower controller chimes in from his desk, “Pan Am just canceled their Vegas slot. They’re giving it to Cantor. Can they do that?”
As the chief controller processes these bits of information a security officer throws another into the mix, “The F.B.I. just turned up. Got ourselves a situation here.”
All look to a rolling news broadcast on an overhead screen. Cantor’s evasion of the F.B.I. subpoena has been wall-to-wall coverage all morning. For the chief controller it all adds up to one thing.
“Jesus H. Christ.” A moment’s contemplation is sufficient to find the route of least resistance. “OK, let’s get them out of our hair. Clear them for West One. They can take Pan Am’s position.”
“That’s near the front of the queue.”
“Best hurry up and get them out there then,” the chief says.
The instructed controller makes to contact Cantor’s plane, turning first to the rest of his colleagues, “You seen who’s right behind Pan Am?” he says with a grin, “They sure ain’t gonna be happy about this.”
The security officer just stares back at chief controller. The chief just shrugs his shoulders, “The man has the right not to be served.”
The clearance is given.
* * *
Robert freshens up with a well-worn ten minute regime—a quick, wet shave under a shower, fresh shirt, slacks and polished pair of brogues create a smart-casual business look, transforming him from borderline hobo to the man of the moment that he himself has created. Wasting no time on unnecessary preening he heads forward to the flight deck, his stride confident, his demeanor focused. He is full tilt, having risen from the depths of despair, ridden the roller coaster of mania and leveled out. For him this is the calm at the eye of the storm. A chance to achieve.
He enters the flight deck, clambering past Landelle and into the co-pilot’s seat—just as Toor swings the plane around to face the full length of the runway. Donning a headset he hears the tower.
“Charlie Sierra One. You are cleared for take-off.”
Toor applies full thrust.
* * *
The plane levels out above the cloud deck. Robert is settled in and ready to relax, “I’ll take it from here for a bit, Shaz. Set up the conference room.”
Toor extricates herself from the pilot seat to find Landelle raising her eyebrows at her. A knowing grin from Toor, one woman to another; Robert Cantor scrubs up very well indeed.
* * *
Agent Prior, still deluded by possible success, bursts into the control tower, airside security behind him. “You are to stop Cantor’s plane immediately.”
The chief controller takes an instant dislike to the young man, “On whose authority?”
Prior can’t help puffing up, “The Federal Bureau of Investigation,” shoving his warrant forward.
The chief controller takes his time to casually inspect the warrant as an agitated Prior looks on.
“Looks like you’re too late, son.”
* * *
The nurse plays with Apio in the containment room. It’s a puzzle comprising colored bricks that must be arranged in a certain way and Apio has the solution in her sights. As the final brick is pushed into place she giggles with delight, looking to the nurse for praise.
To one side the sheets of paper remain scattered about.
The conference room onboard Robert Cantor’s private airliner is easily large enough to accommodate a generous boardroom table of some length and the dozen or so chairs to go with it. But this space is completely empty—entirely devoid of any object or feature, with windowless smooth walls.
Robert stands poised at one end. The lights dim and he steps forward as hidden holographic projectors create a scene around him.
A hundred miles away Monica Satori stands equally poised in her Manhattan office, the windows heavily shaded. The ghostly projection of Robert’s three-dimensional avatar steps forth. Each stands their ground, their expressions betraying nothing.
“What’s become of you, Bob?”
“Is it true?” he says.
Monica averts her eyes, turning her head away as he comes close to press his question.
“Is—it—true?”
She returns her gaze to lock onto his. “There has been a vote of no confidence in you—”
“Which way did you vote?”
Monica looks desperately into his angry eyes. “Bob, this can’t go on.”
“Hear you lobbied the coalition over Trinity. Didn’t think you cared.”
A tinge of bitter anger on Monica’s face, “It’s my name over the door, too. I’m not going to let Blake destroy this company and if that means keeping that little shop of horrors hidden until it’s done its job then so be it.”
Robert is in a defiant mood, “I’m not going before Blake’s committee to be humiliated, just so he can make a name for himself.” But the defiant demeanor abruptly evaporates. He shifts away from her, uneasy on his feet and a shaky hand to a worried forehead. Monica is visibly taken aback.
A rage flashes onto his face, his finger jabbing toward her, “I’ve had just about enough of this.”
Monica stands her ground to confront him.
“This isn’t about Blake, is it. This is about you.”
“Don’t go there, Monica. Don’t you dare. I swear to God—”
From Robert’s perspective Monica’s avatar aggressively approaches him. Now he stands his ground as she rounds on him.
“It’s Trinity, isn’t it. It’s the lie. It’s why you don’t go there anymore. Why you buried yourself in the Afrika Project.”
“Trinity can run itself—”
“You’re not running from Blake, You’re running from your own demons. To face Blake means facing them. Acknowledging them.”
“No—”
“It’s given Blake the excuse he needs. Traction to his arguments. We stop him, we’re outed. We don’t stop him, he opens Pandora’s box. Either way the world sees. Misguided opinion does the rest. No Trinity, no Afrika—no nothing.”
“That’s not the way I see it. I have the high ground.”
“Not for long you don’t. Either you face him down or your head will be handed to him.”
“The board can go to hell.”
Monica throws her hands up in exasperation. “Then tell me, Bob. Now that you have the world’s attention, just what is it you plan to do?”
“Put on a show.”
From ten thousand feet it is a series of vast hangars nestled at the base of a mountain range, from which a thin shining line projects out across the Nevada desert; at ground level it resembles a Hollywood studio. The Cantor Satori skunkworks is already a hive of activity, with media trucks representing the world over, those just arrived being directed to the endmost hangar. A well-organized and well-executed attention-grabbing event.
The star attraction sits in hangar three. The
Pegasus
space plane. The size of a small airliner, exceptionally sleek in its lines and with far more form than the function requires, it is a childhood fantasy designed to mesmerize a world into forgetting, just for a moment, all its troubles.
The
Pegasus
sits atop a rocket sled, itself atop a raised linear trackway; five kilometers of superconducting magnetic rail disappearing into the distance. With the tracks energized the sled floats on invisible frictionless couplings.
High above, gantries afford the media the best seats in the house as engineers and technicians hasten about their duties on the hangar floor below. All is beamed across the Earth ready for the main event—a spectacular test of the linear accelerator.
Already used to launch materials to the orbital construction site of the Afrika, the linear accelerator is old news. The media need something to fill the gap while everyone waits, so it’s the familiar stock footage of the of the giant ‘sling shot’ in action—stubby cargo craft being slung into space, arriving at the orbital construction site of the skeletal Afrika and being unloaded by robots; simple minded, first-generation machine-based intelligences, unkindly dubbed ‘Embies.’
Not a human being in sight, but before the Afrika is ready it will need human engineers to complete it, the limits of the Embies’ abilities having being reached. The
Pegasus
is how they will get there and after them, the crew.
A means to transit engineers and crew could have been far more mundane—and considerably cheaper. But Robert knew he had to sell the endeavor to a skeptical world somehow and although Congress had balked at the cost, it was still a drop in the ocean compared to what they would end up spending. Senator Blake was having none of it—and why should he? None but a few knew of the real reasons why and he was not one of them.
So Robert had set about making the
Pegasus
a thing of wonder, that an unsuspecting world could be misdirected by sleight of hand into believing it was all worth it. But you can only go so far with toy models and picture books.
While most of the
Pegasus
interior has yet to be fitted out, the flight deck is largely complete. An orange-suited, white-helmeted figure occupies the pilot seat with Sharanjit Toor leaning over him, double checking his flight harness; Robert seems oblivious to her presence, silently gazing out at the track heading away from the
Pegasus
.
“You don’t have to do this,” she says.
“Yeah, I do. Have a little faith, Shaz.”
Robert’s detached demeanor arrests Toor. She shoots a worried glance at a grim-faced Landelle standing at the cabin door.
* * *
Far away in Washington, Justice Garr is one of millions around the globe watching the event as it is broadcast live. A reporter gushes superlatives as scene after scene is presented of the Cantor Satori skunkworks, the gathered media, the engineers and technicians—and of course, the
Pegasus
, now seen up close for the very first time. An engineering marvel.
“Looks like Robert Cantor is back to his old self, folks,” the reporter concludes.
Despite Garr’s desire to keep Robert out of the public eye, and her initial instinct to tear a strip off of him for doing just the opposite, she had to concede the effectiveness of the game play.
“Your move, Senator.”
