Chapter 5

“It’s a beautiful day in the Underworld, Pops.” Jack Fast stepped aside to exhibit a color television screen—with reception. “This neighborhood officially has broadband!” He started flipping through sitcoms and home-decorating shows. “I tapped into satellite TV, digital TV, Internet, phone, everything!”

Jack’s mobile phone rang.

“That would be Herbie, yes?” Fastbinder answered it. “Right on time, Senator. We just went on-line.”

“Jacob, you did it! I knew that kid would get to you in time. He’s a sharp one, isn’t he?”

“How’s Cairo, Senator?”

“It’s a hundred degrees and there’s sewage in the streets.”

“How are your feet, Senator?”

Senator Herbert Whiteslaw’s feet were severely burned in an assassination attempt in Washington, D.C., months before. He had done a poor job of taking care of the wounds, and they hadn’t healed well. “Still hurt like hell,” Whiteslaw complained. “I don’t even get full credit for getting them fried. Every politician except me gets big bonus points from an assassination.”

“Unless the attempt was successful,” Fastbinder added.

“Yeah. Just my luck I get bombed the same week the damn Senate building gets bombed!”

“But you were a victim in the Senate attack, as well,” Fastbinder reminded him.

“Yeah, but so what? I was still second fiddle to that right-wing wacko Orville Flicker in the press coverage.”

“He was killed, however.”

“He still got the best press!” The senator was losing his cool. He’d been under a lot of stress in recent months. Fastbinder knew it and truly enjoyed pushing the senator’s hot buttons. “Listen, Fastbinder, you gonna help me do this thing?”

“Not yet.”

“Come on, Jacob, I don’t have time to fart around here! This opportunity only comes around once every four years, you know? And you owe me—I supplied you with some Grade A intelligence. You must have made millions on all that great stuff you stole.”

Senator Whiteslaw, by virtue of his access to Defense Department secrets, had provided Fastbinder and his son with intelligence about some of the U.S.’s top-secret military technology, which the Fastbinders then stole. Fastbinder had indeed made millions, but arms sales were more of a hobby.

“If we’re talking about who owes whom, keep in mind that we lured your secret assassins into the open,” Fastbinder said. “We got you the evidence, but you failed to warn us sufficiently about their capabilities to do us harm. Both of us, my son and myself, nearly died at their hands.”

“And they stole our ’bots,” Jack Fast added.

“Losing Ironhand was like losing a member of my family,” Fastbinder lamented. “Our agreement is null and void, Senator. My son and I never intended to pit ourselves against these insane killers. Now we must wage war against them and strike them down. Until we do, all other matters are secondary.”

Jack Fast nodded encouragingly. His dad was playing the dweeb senator perfectly. Whiteslaw whined and begged and threatened, until finally he allowed that he would be willing to come up with more good intelligence—a lot more.

“We’re not looking for weapons any longer, Senator,” Fastbinder said. “We need people.”

“People? What kind of people?”

‘The smart, well-educated kind.”

“Like, you want to kidnap all the grad students from UC San Francisco?”

“Nothing so simple. We need professionals from many occupations. Engineers, machinists, geologists, electricians, carpenters, city planners.”

“City planners?”

“We will need professionals who are in very specific regions of the United States.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll e-mail you our shopping list,” Jack said, leaning into the phone. “We need healthy folks without fish allergies. They have to be the best in their fields. Get into the DOHS databases.”

“How’m I supposed to get into the Department of Homeland Security?” Whiteslaw demanded. “Not only am I in Egypt, I’m being investigated for high treason! Under the circumstances I bet my security clearance is downgraded.”

“I don’t care how. Get your people working on it,” Fastbinder said.

“Like I still have people. What’s all this for, anyway?”

“Call back when you have good news, Senator.”