The Adamas Blueprint

CHAPTER 25

Erica turned up the truck’s fan, hoping to speed up the evaporation of water from the truck’s upholstery. The first thing she and Kevin had done after leaving the hospital was to head for a self-service car wash and spray the blood out of the interior with a high pressure hose. Even though they had vacuumed up most of the water, and after 18 hours of drying, the seats were still squishy.

Since the car wash, they had been driving toward Ted Ishio’s house in Blacksburg, Virginia, stopping only to gas up the thirsty Chevy pickup. Most of the drive had been spent with one of them driving while the other slept. It was Erica’s turn at the wheel now, and Kevin dozed, his head against a pillow they had bought for the trip. Meals consisted of fast food sandwiches, fries, and soft drinks dispensed from drive-through windows. Erica grew tired of the greasy fare, but like Kevin, she wanted to put as much mileage between them and Texas as they could. The prospect of getting a more balanced meal at Ted and Janice Ishio’s home almost made her drool.

As they crossed the border from Tennessee into Virginia, a sign on I-81 indicated only 105 miles to Roanoke. Kevin had told her earlier that Blacksburg was about 45 minutes southwest of Roanoke. Out of their 16 hour trip, they had about an hour and half to go.

Erica looked at the fuel gauge. The 30-gallon tank was still half full; she’d be able to drive the rest of the way there easily.

She didn’t want to disturb Kevin, who had been unusually silent during the parts of the trip when they’d both been awake. His silence was beginning to worry her because she didn’t know how to gauge his reaction to his father’s death. She had spent more time with him in the last four days than anyone else since her ex, and in that time they had become quite close. Even when they had been hiding out on Sunday, they had laughed a lot, telling jokes to pass the time. Now he was withdrawn, retreating from her contact.

Which made her wonder about something else. Why he hadn’t tried to make a pass at her during one of the motel stays? Lord knows, she’d given him enough opportunity. Maybe she was being too subtle, although in med school she had never been accused of that. She finally decided that he really was just being a gentleman, and that if the situation arose again, she’d have to make her intentions clear.

A semi came up fast behind them, moving into the passing lane. The minivan in front of it wouldn’t yield, and the truck blasted its air horn. Kevin jerked. In one fluid motion, he opened the glove compartment with his left hand and plucked the pistol from its interior with his right. He looked around wild-eyed, ready to shoot.

“What the hell?” he said.

“It’s okay! It’s just a truck. Put that away before you shoot me by mistake.”

He calmed almost immediately, sitting back in his seat. “I was dreaming about Barnett and his friend. They began shooting at us. I had the pistol in my hand, but I couldn’t raise it fast enough to shoot back. It just moved inch by inch. It was taking forever. I was so…frustrated. I didn’t know what else to do. All I could do was look at my damn hand not responding.”

She patted his knee, not knowing what to say.

“I want you to learn how to use this,” Kevin said.

Erica was taken aback. “I couldn’t…”

“Yes, you can. It’s easy. You slide the chamber back like this.” He demonstrated the maneuver, popping a bullet out onto the seat next to him. “There's no safety, so all you have to do is pull the trigger.”

“Will you be careful with that,” Erica said, realizing the gun was now ready to fire. “Just put it away.”

Kevin pushed a button with his thumb and the ammunition clip dropped into his lap. It was the full spare his father had kept in the glove compartment. After removing the round from the chamber and reloading the clip with the two ejected bullets, he inserted the clip into the pistol grip, and put the Glock back in the glove compartment.

“We’ll do it tomorrow,” he said.

“No. I don’t care if I never hold a gun. I’ve seen what they do every day for the past three months in the ER. If you want to keep it for protection, fine. But I’m not touching it.”

“Fine.” He rubbed his eyes. “Where are we?”

“We just crossed the Virginia border. How do you feel?”

“Like my neck has been in a vise. Have you got any aspirin?”

“I think so. In my purse.”

Kevin rummaged around until he found a small bottle of Tylenol. “Close enough,” he said and washed down two tablets with the melted ice from a McDonald’s cup.

“I meant emotionally, how do you feel?”

Kevin said nothing, prompting Erica to wonder if she had done the right thing by prodding him. She was surprised when he finally spoke.

“I feel a lot different than when my mother died. My mother was great. She’s the one who always encouraged me to keep up with school, even when I was depressed about being different than some of the more popular kids. I remember one time when I came home crying because Barney Williams and his buddies beat me up for being a teacher’s pet. She told me that being smart was nothing to be ashamed of, that it was the other kids who should be ashamed for not trying their hardest to do well.

“I remember that because my father was in the room and the next thing he said was ‘Nick, if you don’t stand up for yourself like a real man, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. You’re still a wimp, and wimps don’t get any respect.’ I guess in his own macho way he was just trying to make me stronger, but it made me feel like a loser at the time. The only time I really liked him was when we went hunting together by ourselves. Around my mom or his friends, he always had to act tough, but when we were alone, he was actually kind of a funny guy.” Kevin paused. “If we had only left the LuminOptics parking lot instead of going back for the laser, I might have found out how much he’d really changed. Maybe I should have told him to keep driving instead of turning around.”

“You’re not blaming yourself for that, are you?”

“Maybe I am a little. There’s no reason to, but it’s hard not feel that way. I know we needed the laser, and looking back on it I probably would have done the same thing. It’s just hard to make yourself really believe that. You probably think I’m heartless.”

“For what?”

“For not crying or grieving like a son should.”

“It sounds to me like you are.”

Kevin didn’t answer, instead going silent again. Erica thought she should keep up the conversation, so she brought up something they hadn’t discussed yet.

“What are we going to do with the diamond when it’s finished?” she asked.

“The one we’re going to make at Virginia Tech? I suppose we’ll give it to the authorities.”

“Which authorities? You mean the police? We haven’t had much luck with them so far.”

“You’re right. I hadn’t thought about it. We need someone who will believe us and give us protection. And I don’t think the police are going to believe two poor twentysomethings with a big diamond. They’ll probably lock us up for theft and then try to find out where we got it. Hell, we still don’t even know who’s after us.”

Erica had an idea. “What about the Washington Post? This story is so strange, they might believe it.”

“And by the time the full story comes out, we’ll be dead. They’ll start checking facts and the next thing you know, Barnett and his buddy will be all over us. No, we need someone powerful, someone who has the ability to protect us, and we need the evidence confirmed at the same time.” Suddenly, Kevin’s face lit up brighter than it had been in days. “I’ve got it.”

“What?”

“The Washington Post.”

“You just said that was a bad idea.”

“Right, but we are going to be close to Washington.”

“So?”

“Do you know who Frederick Sutter is?”

“The name’s familiar.”

“You still vote in Kansas, don’t you?”

Erica nodded, completely missing what he was getting at.

“Frederick Sutter is the new congressman for the Fourth District in Texas. I met him at an STU awards banquet about five months ago. Apparently, he’s on the Board of Trustees for the university. I sat next to him and we had a nice conversation. He told me to visit him if I was ever in Washington.”

“You want to tell this story to a congressman?”

“Why not? He seemed honest for a politician. Together, I’m sure we can convince him, and if we do, he’d probably be able to get help from the FBI to protect us.”

Erica furrowed her eyebrows. It seemed like an awfully long shot.

“Erica, we are going to get only one chance at this. Once we go to the authorities, these people are going to know where to find us. Our luck has been crappy so far, and I don’t think it’ll be getting any better.”

She digested what he proposed. After several miles, she said, “There’s only one problem with your plan. If we do get in to see Congressman Sutter, how do we convince him that we’re not holding a big piece of glass? I know I wouldn’t be able to tell a real diamond just by looking at it.”

A smile curled the corner of Kevin’s lip. “You know what else is in Washington?”

“What?”

“The Smithsonian.”

Two hours later, Kevin was carrying the laser through the fifth floor of Jacobson Hall at Virginia Tech with the help of his friend, Ted Ishio. Ted, whose father was Japanese and mother was Irish, had an exotic look strangers found hard to place. He was half a head shorter than Kevin and wore a wind-breaker over a polo-style shirt, the tail of which hung over his jeans.

“I wish I’d thought about getting the cart,” Ted said. “I’m starting to sweat like I was OJ on the witness stand.”

“It’s your fault,” Kevin said, knowing that Ted, who was in great shape, was exaggerating. “I’ve never heard of anybody wearing a jacket in September.”

“I didn’t either when I was in Texas. I’d never been north of Oklahoma until I came here. But they say it’s like this all summer.”

Actually, Kevin had been grateful when they’d stepped out of the truck into the cool mountain air. Blacksburg was nestled about 2000 feet high in the Appalachians of southwest Virginia and was protected from the blistering summer heat by the mountains. When they’d arrived at Ted’s house at 10:00, Kevin and Erica hadn’t been out of the truck since Knoxville, Tennessee, where the temperature had been 95, so they were surprised by the 60 degree evening.

Since Ted and Janice would be leaving early the next morning, Kevin had wanted to start getting the lab set up before they left. At the very least, he had to make sure he had the correct keys for everything and that he knew any idiosyncrasies with the rest of the equipment. Erica, who’d been exhausted from driving, decided to turn in for the night.

“Are you sure you didn’t get the extra heavy model?” Ted asked with exaggerated huffing.

“Oh, quit your whining. You told me it wasn’t far.”

“It’s not.” Ted slowed, pulling a key chain from his pocket. “Here we are.”

They put the package with the laser down, and Ted unlocked a heavy metal door, then opened it and flicked on a light switch. He propped it open with his leg while they picked up the package.

Once inside, Kevin could see why Ted had been so excited about the assistant professor position at Virginia Tech. A huge laboratory, probably 40 feet by 60 feet, housed an impressive array of shiny new equipment. At one end, a row of three Silicon Graphics workstations lined a wall. Normally, the wall and desks would be festooned with all sorts of personal artifacts by the grad students using the lab. Except for a few scattered papers and instruction manuals, the surfaces were empty.

“Nice, huh?” Ted said. “I told you they had only the best stuff here.”

“No students yet?”

“The semester just started this week. All my students are new, and I didn’t want them around the lab until I got back. I wish I wasn’t going, but my paper got accepted at the conference before I ever got the job.”

“Chomping at the bit?”

“That and the fact that Miami is playing here this weekend. Janice wanted to visit her parents while we were in Minneapolis, so we’re staying there until Sunday. Hey, the faculty gets discount season tickets to the football games. Since we won’t be using ours, do you want them? It’s been sold out for months.”

“I think I’ll be too busy. Besides, I’m not sure Erica likes football.”

“I don’t envy you then.”

“About Erica?”

“No, I mean the renovations to the stadium parking lot aren’t done yet. Everybody’s going to have to park in the commuter lots, one of which is right outside this building. By 10:00 Saturday morning, there are going to be 75,000 rabid Miami and Tech fans in this town.”

“Great. Just what we need.”

“Stay in here and you’ll be fine. Now, let’s take a little tour of my new domain.”

After about twenty minutes, Kevin felt more comfortable in the lab. All of the equipment was familiar to him, and he could have the Adamas process set up by the end of the day tomorrow.

Ted handed Kevin a set of keys hanging from a black Harley-Davidson keychain. Ted pointed to the keys as he spoke. “The first one is to my office. I’ll show you where that is in a minute. The next one is to the deadbolt on the lab door. This one is to the cabinets over on the far end. And this one is the key to the building. They lock the front doors around six. The other keys are to rooms you won’t need to get into.”

“Are you sure no one’s going to ask me what I’m doing here?”

“You know what it’s like during the conference. Almost all the professors will be there. The people who are left will just think I’ve got a new student. Say that if anybody asks.”

Ted locked up the lab and led Kevin down the linoleum-lined hall to another beat up wooden door. He opened it to reveal a cramped office sparsely furnished with two bookshelves and the requisite metal desk. Books were still piled in boxes on the floor, and papers overflowed the desk space not occupied by the Macintosh. Kevin bit his lip and nodded his head.

“I know. It’s not exactly what I was hoping for,” said Ted. “But it hasn’t got that homey touch yet. One thing I do have, though, is a view.”

Ted raised the venetian blinds. From directly below the window to about a hundred yards out stretched the commuter lot he had talked about. Past the expansive lot, however, was a splendid mountain vista brightly lit by the full moon and dotted by lights from scattered houses.

“Bet you have fun riding your bike here,” said Kevin, thinking of the unrelenting flatness of Houston. Ted was an avid road cyclist and would routinely bike 75 miles in a weekend.

“You know it. Even after two months, my legs are still killing me from all these hills.”

Ted paused as if he didn’t know how to say something. “You sure you don’t want to go to the police?”

Kevin hadn’t told Ted about the run-in with the police yesterday or the death of his father. He worried that it might make Ted rethink letting Kevin use the lab.

“No. At least not yet. Maybe when we’re done in the lab.”

“How long will you need it?”

“Two days. Maybe a little longer. We’ll be out of here by Sunday night.”

“No problem. Stay as long as you need.” Ted didn’t ask more about why Kevin wanted the lab, but Kevin could tell he was curious.

“Anything else you need?” Ted asked. “I saw you brought a cellular phone and laptop with you, but if you need to use my computer, you’re more than welcome.”

“We won’t be using the cellular phone. Call us paranoid, but it may be traced.”

That brought a raised eyebrow from Ted, but he didn’t pursue it. “You can use ours if you want while we’re gone. I got one of those deals. You know, get the phone free, sign up for two years’ service. Don’t worry about using it. We get 30 minutes a month included.”

“Aren’t you the yuppie?”

“Actually, I was going to tell you in a couple of weeks anyway, but since you’re here, I might as well tell you now. I got it for Janice, so I wouldn’t be worried. She’s pregnant.”

Kevin’s jaw dropped. Then he grabbed Ted’s hand and shook it furiously.

“Congratulations, you stud. I knew you had it in you, but I didn’t know it would be so soon.”

“Don’t mention it to Janice. She wants to wait until she’s past three months.”

“No problem,” said Kevin. “But you have to let me buy you a beer on the way home.” He was too tired to get any work done tonight anyway.

Ted looked at his watch. “I think we can find an open bar at 11:00 in a college town.”