The Alpha Deception (4 page)

In this case, though, it hadn’t been McCracken who had broken things off, it had been Terry Catherine. He hadn’t told her much about himself but it was enough to let her know the commitment might last only until the next phone call. T.C. chose to accept the pain on her own terms. She was just twenty-two then, a kid fresh out of Brown University with the whole world before her. McCracken, three months past thirty, knew what the world was really like. Vietnam had interrupted college for him after just one year and he had never gone back. His life was made for him in what Johnny Wareagle called the hellfire, such events as the Phoenix project and the Tet Offensive.

The emotional hellfire came when T.C. broke things off. He probably would have done so himself before too much longer but understanding the strength it had required for her to do it made him love her more. It was impossible for him to forget her. He wanted her so much more once it was certain that he couldn’t have her.

They hadn’t as much as spoken in the eight-and-a-half years since parting, which was all the more reason to believe that something in T.C.’s life must be desperately wrong for her to seek him out. He tried to tell himself the fire of her youth’s beauty would be long gone, but he was destined to be surprised by her yet again.

Their meeting that night was set for the Plaza Bar in Boston’s Copley Plaza Hotel, not far from Terry Catherine’s Back Bay townhouse. The Plaza Bar was located off the hotel’s lobby, on the right of the main entrance. On most nights it featured the nimble piano work of the famed Dave McKenna, his fingers sliding across ivory in the bar’s back right corner. Blaine entered through the handcarved archway just as the last chords of a McKenna favorite were greeted by applause. The ceilings were high, and the fresh smell of leather couches and low armchairs mingled with cigarette smoke and perfume. He scanned the room for T.C., but she wasn’t at any of the nearby tables. He headed for the far wall, where more tables were secluded behind a Japanese screen. As he approached, she stepped out to meet him.

She was undoubtedly the most beautiful woman in the bar. Her figure had remained tall and lean. She wore only traces of makeup and a dress that highlighted her model’s body. There was nothing pretentious about her appearance. Blaine immediately felt all the old attraction he had tried to forget. She stood there uneasily, her smile slight and nervous, and Blaine knew more was behind the tension than simply their reunion.

He kissed her lightly on the lips, let his squeeze of her hand linger.

“You promised me you’d stay beautiful,” he said through the lump in his throat. “And you have.”

“Still working the old charm, eh McCracken?”

“Some things don’t change, T.C.”

“Been a long time since anyone called me that. I still hate it.”

“Well, Terry Catherine, that’s why I say it.”

“I see time hasn’t mellowed you in the least. As I always used to tell you, if God had meant us to use initials, he wouldn’t have bothered with names in the first place.”

Blaine let go of her hand and together they walked to her table, set back against the wall where there was nothing to disturb their privacy. Through a nearby window they could see people passing on the sidewalk outside.

“I do plenty of things God probably never meant,” he told her when they were seated.

“And I understand one of those colorful escapades,” she followed without missing a beat, “earned you the title of McCrackenballs. I was offended when I heard about it. They could have come to me for a reference.”

“Your memory that good?”

“Some things you don’t forget.”

“That ring I felt on your finger means you forgot one promise you made to yourself.”

She nodded emotionlessly. “An unfortunate misstep. Lasted three years. The divorce was a much happier day than the wedding. I keep the ring as a reminder to avoid similar missteps in the future.”

“Why bother making one?”

She didn’t answer him right away, and that gave Blaine a chance to gaze into her eyes. She really was beautiful, even more so now than eight years ago. The little her face had aged made it seem fuller, less dominated by the high cheekbones she had always been sensitive about. She wore her hair shorter now, shaggy, neither in fashion nor out—just her.

“Because I was scared,” she said finally. “Twenty-seven years old, all dressed up, and nowhere to go. I panicked. Promised myself I’d say yes to the next man who popped the question. Could’ve been worse. It could have been you, McCracken.”

Blaine winked. “Anything but that.”

“Anyway, I’m now determined to die single.”

“But not a virgin.”

“Thanks to you.”

“If I was the first, I’ll eat your mattress cover.”

“You were the first that mattered, the first who wasn’t a juvenile, or who didn’t come ready packaged from my family, or who wasn’t a horny Brown undergrad. It’s the same thing.”

A waitress came and T.C. ordered a glass of wine by name and vintage. McCracken said he’d take the same.

“Red and white,” he noted with a shrug. “All just colors to me.”

“A man in your position really should pay more attention to such things, McCracken.”

“A man in my position shouldn’t be drinking at all. You should see me. I’m really good at swirling the contents of a glass around so no one can tell I’m not drinking it.”

“The wine you just ordered is twenty dollars a glass.”

“I’ll swirl slower.”

She laughed and looked at ease for the first time. “You’re a hard man to keep track of.”

“You found me.”

“I never stopped keeping tabs, you know. I know all about your trouble in England and your subsequent banishment to the office pool in France. Learning of your resurrection was second only to my divorce as the best day ever.”

“But you didn’t call until now.”

The waitress came with their drinks, saving T.C. the trouble of responding right away. She sipped. McCracken swirled.

“I thought it would be much harder to reach you.”

“I make sure it isn’t for people who know me. It’s what I’m doing these days—paying back old debts, settling scores. Makes me feel I’m worth something.”

“Doing favors for friends …”

“Something like that. The freedom’s priceless. I’ve sworn off Washington. But, of course, you’d know that.”

“I heard.”

“How’s Back Bay?”

“Crumbling. Water table rose and the townhouse is sinking. Literally. It’s cost me more in repairs than what my parents paid for it.” She paused. “I found a phone number for you, but no address.”

“Got six of them—apartments. Two don’t even have any furniture, but they’re scattered conveniently all over the country. What I really want is to own a car. You know I’ve never really had my own. Pretty incredible for a man of my advanced years.”

T.C. sipped some of the wine, and the goblet trembled in her hand. Blaine grasped her other one in his.

“What’s wrong, T.C.?”

“I hate asking you for something, after so long I mean.”

“Favors for friends, remember?”

She placed the wine goblet on the table. “It’s my grandfather. He’s … in danger.”

“Cotter Hayes? You’re kidding.”

“Not Cotter Hayes. My grandfather on my mother’s side.” She paused. “Erich Earnst.”

“Hmmmmmm, not your average Boston yankee name.”

“Anything but. German Jewish. World War II specifically. An escapee from Sobibor.”

“If the gossip columnists could hear you now… .”

“It’s one of Boston’s best-kept secrets, I assure you.” Another piano rendition by Dave McKenna ended, and T.C. waited for the applause to die down before continuing. “That Rawley Hayes would consent to marry a woman of Jewish persuasion … well, fortunately the truth never came out. Might have ruined him if it had.” A sad smile crossed her lips. “Truth was, though, that Grandpa Erich was always infinitely more fun and interesting than Grandpa Cotter, especially when I grew old enough to appreciate him and all he’d been through.”

“But now you’re saying he’s in danger.”

“Because
he
says so. And I believe him. It’s all very recent. The police don’t buy it—nothing to go on. I … didn’t know where else to turn.”

McCracken swirled his wine some more. “I need to hear the specifics.”

“There aren’t many, Blaine; that’s the problem. He’s certain he’s being followed. He should know, after all he’s been through.” Her mind strayed. “My mother’s not really Jewish. Grandpa Erich found her wandering the streets of Poland and brought her to America with him and his wife. Never forced their religion on her because they didn’t want her subjected to the persecution they had undergone. But, in addition to bringing my mother over, he also brought along a sack of diamonds the size of a tote bag. His gem parlor is still one of the best in Manhattan. The money made his daughter enough of a somebody for my father to take notice of her.”

“You sound bitter.”

“I hate pretenses; you know that.”

“All too well. And that’s why if you believe your grandfather, I believe you.” The relief on her face was obvious. Her need for the wine seemed to evaporate, and she too, began swirling her glass.

“Trouble is I’m not exactly sure what I can do about it, T.C. This isn’t exactly the kind of work I specialize in.”

“You could talk to him.”

“Which I’m sure you’ve done already. You’re a sensible person. Is there anything he says I can make use of?”

“You’ll ask the right questions. You always do.”

“Except once. Might have saved you the bother of that divorce otherwise.”

She shook her head sadly. “It would have happened anyway, Blaine, probably well before the three years were out, and that day would have been a bad one instead of a good one.”

“In a twisted sense, I suppose that’s a compliment.”

“Not so twisted.”

Blaine put his hand over hers. “Call your grandfather. Tell him I’m coming to talk to him.”

She smiled. “I already did. He’s expecting you tomorrow morning at his gem parlor in the diamond district.”

“You know me too well, T.C.”

“Some things don’t change.”

“Did you also mean to leave us the night?”

She hedged. “The morning was his idea, not mine.”

“Then I suppose—”

“Dinner, Blaine. Some more of this wine probably; I’ll drink while you swirl. That’ll be as far as it goes, but it’ll be plenty far for me because just having you here means enough. I don’t want to spoil it. I want to hold it just the way it is.”

“I love it when you talk dirty.”

Chapter 4

“IS YOUR REPORT READY
, Mr. Sundowner?”

When the scientist answered, his voice was hoarse with fatigue. In the past eighteen hours there had been time only for a quick change of clothes. Once again, the Tomb felt large and devastatingly empty to him. As he spoke, he was distracted by the echo of his own words.

“I’m not sure it will ever be totally complete, sir,” he told the President, “at least not in the foreseeable future. To be honest, I know no more than I did yesterday; I’ve just confirmed my original feelings.”

The other men in the room—Kappel, Stamp, Mercheson, and Lyman Scott himself—stared at him with laymen’s confusion and disdain.

“Then get on with it,” urged the President.

Sundowner didn’t know where to start. Or rather, he did—and that was the problem.

“It all comes down to the symmetry of the destroyed radius. I’ll spare you the explanatory details. Suffice it to say that the town of Hope Valley was destroyed by a hostile action in the form of a particle-beam weapon fired from between ten to twenty thousand feet above the Earth’s surface.”

“
Beam
weapon?” raised Secretary of Defense George Kappel. “You mean like a laser?”

“Not at all. Lasers fire focused beams of
energy.
A particle beam fires
matter,
subatomic particles accelerated to the speed of light. The mass of these particles increases with speed, and the energy produced goes up by the square.”

“In English please, Ryan,” requested the President.

Sundowner sighed. “An ordinary television set is actually a particle-beam generator which utilizes a gun to shoot particles in the form of electrons through two magnets. Presto! You’ve got a picture, the density of which is directly related to the concentration of particles fired from the set’s gun. If it was too dense, the beam would obliterate the screen and everything in front of it. Now picture that on a much larger scale with a gun firing particles other than electrons. On the subatomic level almost anything is possible.”

“As yesterday would seem to attest to,” advanced Secretary of State Edmund Mercheson. “But how could this beam we’re facing leave no trace whatsoever of people’s remains, wood, plants, trees, grass, even rubber and cloth?”

“Organic matter,” Sundowner stated flatly, rotating his stare from one to the other. “The subatomic particles break up organic matter.”

“Speak plainly,” ordered Lyman Scott.

Sundowner swallowed some air hoping the dull fear rising in him would slide down with it. “All life on Earth is based on the carbon atom. The subatomic particles composing the Hope Valley beam have the capacity to destroy the glue which holds that atom together. It breaks down the carbon chains into their basic elements. Separates the oxygen from the hydrogen on a molecular level which reduces organic matter to black carbon dust.”

“The cloud,” realized the President.

Sundowner nodded. “I had my suspicions after viewing the tape the very first time. But I wanted to put off my report until I had time to examine the evidence further—what did survive, as well as what didn’t. Steel, brick, and all other forms of
in
organic matter in the town were themselves unaffected by the beam. Buildings composed of these materials collapsed, but only because the bonds holding the inorganic materials in place were carbon-based.”

Lyman Scott felt his lips trembling and fought to still them. “What exactly would be needed to generate such a beam?”

“Two things, essentially. One, the discovery of a subatomic particle that disrupts the carbon chain. Two, a power source capable of focusing those particles into a beam on the level that wiped out Hope Valley. Without the second discovery, the first is useless in terms of a large-scale weapon.”