Dana and Texas watched Maury's custom-built mobile home pull into the forecourt of the BastogneInn amp; ConferenceCenter in Fayetteville with some relief. They had been assigned by Lee Cochrane to keep an eye on the Fitzduane party and had followed them down all the way from Washington. They had not enjoyed the scenery. On the open road they considered that goddamn mobile home too damn vulnerable.
They could not figure out why four sensible adults who all knew they were potential terrorist targets should expose themselves in this way. They had finally come to the correct conclusion that even if you were a target you had to try for some semblance of a normal existence or life would scarcely be worth living. You would be a prisoner. It was the same thinking that had kept the security down to two. Still, however understandable that was, it was tough on your bodyguards.
A vast sign reading ‘The Spec-Forces Show’ was festooned across the front of the hotel. A large sticker in the rear window of a pickup advised: "Special Operations Exhibition – Don't Drink amp; Drive: You Might Spill Your Drink.’ Another simply read: ‘I Don't Brake For Terrorists.’
Dana, who had been driving, glanced across at Texas. "Boys will be boys," she said. "I guess we're in the right place."
Texas rubbed her eyes. Following a vehicle was exhausting. You were not only keeping an eye on it, but you had to both look out for potential trouble and remember your own security. And that meant covering your ass. She had tired eyes and a crick in her neck. A soak in a hot tub was an inviting prospect. It was more likely to be a quick shower. This was a working trip.
"What's the brief?" she said. Dana was the more cerebral of the pair. She handled the paperwork. Texas tried to focus on the action.
"The hotel is an open rectangle," said Dana. "The main block houses reception area, restaurants, and the actual conference center. Two wings at the back house the rooms. Between the wings there is a heated pool."
Texas groaned. "What I wouldn't give!"
"We should be able to work it out," said Dana. "Special security has been drafted in for the run of the exhibition, and the entire hotel is restricted to exhibitors and invited guests for the duration. There is going to be more firepower concentrated here for the next few days than the 82 ^ nd can deploy. If there is one place where our clients should be safe, it is here."
"So what do we do?" said Texas cheerfully. "Soak up a few rays and maybe connect with a paratrooper or two?"
"We keep a general eye on things," said Dana, "but we focus on Kathleen Fitzduane. She's only here to be with Hugo, and I've got a hunch al this high-tech killing hardware will pall. She will want to do a little touring, and where she goes, at least one of us will follow."
"What do you think of Kathleen?"
"Nice lady," said Dana, "and very dishy. More the homemaker than the feminist. A good match for Hugo."
"More is the pity," said Texas.
Dana and Texas looked at each other and grinned. Both fancied Hugo.
"Amen to that," said Dana.
Fitzduane inserted the key in the elevator lock.
They were staying on the fifth floor. Without the special key, the fourth floor was as high as you could go. Well, that was the theory. It was not the social norm to quiz everyone else in the elevator as to their floor entitlement. So, from a security point of view, the special key helped – but not too much.
Out of curiosity, Fitzduane had checked the fire stairs access and that had been thought through. You could get down the stairs but not back up. The security door clicked shut behind you, and that could only be opened from the inside. Unless you had a passkey, which every cleaner was equipped with.
Security, like most things in life, was a compromise. Perimeter security was much tighter. Yo could not get in or out of the hotel without a special pass that bore your photograph and thumb print. Armed guards enforced the edict. It was reasonable. There was a great deal of very dangerous hardware inside.
Kathleen had accompanied Fitzduane for all of the first day of the exhibition. Now she was tired and said little. It had indeed been a busy day. From Fitzduane's point of view, it had been fascinating. As to Kathleen's reaction, he was not so sure. Or maybe he was and did not want to admit it. Kathleen was unhappy; in fact, she was downright disturbed.
She lay back down on the bed without switching on the light. Some light from the general hotel illumination outside percolated through the blinds, but otherwise the room was in darkness. Fitzduane knew the signs. When Kathleen behaved like this she did not want to be held and caressed, and her thoughts brushed aside. She wanted to think and talk the issue out in her own time.
He sat in an armchair beside the window and waited. Sounds floated up from the illuminated pool below.
Kathleen spoke when she was ready. He had no idea how long it took. It was not important. Her hands were loosely clenched in and rested on her eyes. He could smell her perfume from where he sat. Her long legs gleamed in the ambient light in contrast to the prevailing darkness.
"How many booths are there?" she said. "Three hundred, four hundred? And all devoted to the business of killing. Sniper rifles; grenade launchers; anti-tank weapons; laser range finders; radio-detection devices; silencers; night-vision equipment. It is all about the taking of human life, and here we are bringing another small life into the world. I don't understand it. If frightens me. I just can't work it out.
"God knows, I have been on the receiving end of terrorism, but still, I can't make any sense of it. Surely we can find a better way? Is violence the only answer? Are we making a little baby just to have it blasted into oblivion by one of these terrible devices, or maybe it will just be maimed? It is all incomprehensible to me.
"And then, when I meet the people who supply all this lethal equipment, many friends of yours, I find them so nice and charming. They are not horrible warmongers. They are just ordinary people
like you and me. And that is truly terrifying. THESE FRIGHTENING PEOPLE, THESE KILLERS – THEY'RE US! THEY'RE YOU AND ME, HUGO!"
Kathleen's words cut like a knife through Fitzduane. Their real effectiveness stemmed from the fact that these were the very thoughts that he harbored himself.
"I love you, Hugo," continued Kathleen, "but sometimes you make me despair. You're the kindest, gentlest, sweetest man and the most loving father – and yet when I see you with these people talking about the techniques of killing, I feel I have married a monster." She gave a small sad laugh. "I'm in love with a monster. I'm bearing a monster's child. And I have no regrets."
Fitzduane lay down beside her and put his arm around her. They had had this conversation before and he had run out of answers. Fundamentally, there weren't any. Kathleen was right. But in the real world, being right was not enough.
Kathleen snuggled into him. Then she reached out with her hand and caressed him. Soon, none of it mattered.
Don Shanley, manager of Magnavox's Electro-Optical Division, watched with mixed feelings as the six special forces troopers left.
They had been drinking beer and telling war stories for the past three hours, and it had been good fun. But it had been a long day, and now all he really wanted to do was have a shower and put his feet up. Exhibitions were hard on the feet. You were standing working all day, and standing around socializing in the evening, and it just was not the way, in his opinion, feet were designed to be used. They were useful appendages and really should receive more care and consideration.
Shanley stripped and stood under the shower, the pressure turned full up. The water needled into him and he could feel the layers of fatigue being stripped away. It was just as well. It was after eleven, but his day was still not finished. An exhibition meant a sixteen-hour day, sometimes more.
Tomorrow, he had additional work to do. He was starting the day with a demonstration of the MAG-600 for a cadre of the 82 ^ nd Airborne. The good news about that was that he would not lose any time at the stand, because the paratroopers started so goddamn early. The bad news was that he was not going to get much sleep. All equipment, no matter how inherently reliable, had an amazing knack of letting you down at sales demonstrations. Doubtless, it was the gods playing games.
But interestingly, he reflected, they seemed to play them much less often if equipment was checked out thoroughly and methodically in advance. It was doubly important if the devices had been fiddled about with all day on the exhibition stand. It was impressive how much several hundred pairs of untrained hands could fuck up the most soldier-proof of devices.
Laymen thought you designed equipment for performance. That was the easy part. The hard part was making it stand up to the average soldier's activities in the field. That was not so easy. The military had strange habits. They liked mud and rain and sand and grit and extremes of temperature and humidity. They jumped out of airplanes and helicopters and rattled around armored fighting vehicles. People shot at them with sharp pieces of metal and dropped explosives on them.
All of this was not conducive to good electro-optical performance. No, ‘Mil-Spec’ was not just an arbitrary list of standards. The military were really rough on things.
But it was fair enough, Shanley thought, because they were hardest of all on themselves. And that was hard to take.
Shanley looked like everyone's image of the ultimate professional soldier. His bearing was military. His black hair was cropped short. He was fit and lean, with high cheekbones and a firm jaw. His eyes were blue and piercing and laughter lines showed he could take stress. He was deeply tanned. His demeanor was both confident and encouraging. He had a natural air of command. His voice was a pleasure to listen to, both crisp and authoritative and persuasive. Clothes fitted him as if tailored. He was a man's man and a woman's man. Both sexes automatically warmed to him.
Unprompted, enlisted men automatically called him ‘Sir.’ Officers called him ‘Sir’ also, or ‘Mister’ with respect. He had eyeballed Death and he had not blinked. He was ex-Special Forces or some such elite unit. He was ranger and airborne qualified. He was a warrior.
But he had never served. He had come close, but then Lydia had showed up and civilian life had seemed the better option. But he had always wondered.
The irony of Don Shanley was that none of his military traits or mannerisms was affected. All were natural and were innate to the man. Shanley was just ordained by nature to look the part.
It went deeper than mere looks. Shanley also was a crack shot and had a deep understanding of the military art. He knew weapons and tactics and military history, and how the whole terrible business worked, in very considerable detail.
By nature he was conscientious and thorough, and in his value system you should thoroughly understand the needs of your customer. It went with doing the job right.
Shanley was a decent man. Doing the job as well as it could be done was important to him. Work was how he supported his family, and they were everything to him. Lydia and the twins. They were why he did what he did and why he was proud to do it. He also thought it was necessary. The U.S. military were entitled to have the best weapons that money and technology could provide, and he, Donald Shanley, would see that they had them. On that issue he slept easy.
But when he trained men who were about to put their lives on the line, he felt guilty. He felt the need to pay his dues. To serve in a combat unit in defense of his country.
He was an old-fashioned man with simple values. He had a conscience and he cared.
He picked up the phone and called Lydia in New Jersey. This was something he had done virtually every night he had been away since they had gotten married eight years ago. She was asleep, but she responded to his voice with drowsy warmth.
The twins were fine. Sam adored the new pancake recipe. Samantha wanted to play the guitar instead of the piano. The air conditioner had been fixed. All was well with the world. She missed him and loved him.
Shanley replaced the receiver. He had a good job with a fine company, and he had a wife and children he adored. He should be entirely content. And yet something was missing.
He wanted to – needed to – serve.
He swung his legs off the bed and began checking the equipment. Toward the end, he stripped and cleaned the M16A2 and the Barrett. The Magnavox MAG-600, which he was going to demonstrate to the 82 ^ nd tomorrow, was an interesting piece of equipment.
It was a thermal-imager sight, which meant it responded to heat emanations. With it, you could shoot in complete darkness or through smoke or fog at quite considerable ranges. Variations of it could accomplish the same task when fitted to a Stinger antiaircraft missile.
One of the most interesting applications of all was the application of the Magnavox thermal imaging technology to driving. Using a thermal viewer fed through to a miniature TV monitor mounted on or in the dashboard, you could drive without lights in the absolute dead of night. Image intensifiers required some light. Thermal imagers required none at all.
Shanley finished the weapons cleaning and consulted his appointment schedule.
A Colonel Hugo Fitzduane of the Irish Rangers and party were due at 3:00 P.M. for a personal demonstration. They had some particular problems they wanted to resolve that sounded as if they were right up Magnavox's street. They wanted to equip a FAV – a fast-attack vehicle – with full thermal capability and wondered if the equipment could take the pounding.
Don Shanley smiled to himself. The Shanleys had come to America from famine-stricken Ireland in the middle of the nineteenth century. Who would have thought then that Ireland would become independent and thrive and prosper?
He was looking forward to meeting this Colonel Fitzduane.
He looked at his watch. It was after one in the morning. He had given the company an eighteen-hour day. A little personal time did not seem unreasonable.
He put on swim trunks and then slid on a terry-cloth robe and headed for the pool.
The corridors were empty, and when he got outside he could see that most of the rooms were in darkness. For all practical purposes he had the hotel to himself. It was not true, of course, because there was still a night staff on duty, but the illusion was there and he savored it. An exhibition was the unrelenting pressure of people day after day. Well, mostly he liked people, but sometimes he craved some personal space.
Silent in his bare feet, he walked slowly down the path that led through landscaped vegetation to the pool. The vegetation was normally floodlit, but at this late hour the lights had been turned off and only the pool in the center was still illuminated.
The water glowed like the entrance to a magical world. When he dived in, he thought, he would keep on swimming down and the waters would part and mysteries beyond compare would be revealed.
He was just about to leave the darkness to enter the pool area when he saw ripples on the surface of the water. He paused, and seconds later a nearly naked woman emerged from the pool. She did not use the ladder but instead levered herself up effortlessly onto the poolside. Her body was long and lithe and glowed in the soft light.
She was not just fit. She was in perfect condition. Muscles rippled under golden skin, and her figure was showed off to perfection by the minimal black fabric of her costume.
She ran her hands back over her head, squeezing water from her close-cropped blond hair. Her carriage was erect, and something about her posture suggested formal training. If she had been a man, he would have thought military. Ballet? Modeling? No, she had the discipline, but there was too much hard muscle there in the upper body. In this case, functionality ran ahead of appearance.
This woman did not just want to be fit. She needed the strength and stamina.
As he watched, she leaned down casually and picked up a towel. She dried her face, and as she did so she turned quite naturally to face in his direction.
"Come on in," she said. "It really would be a cool idea. Don't be shy. It makes me nervous."
Her hands were outstretched. They were not empty.
Shanley looked down at the front of his robe. The red dot of the laser sight rested neatly on his torso. It was not quite central but sat slightly to the left. The red dot was steady.
Rib cage, heart, lungs, and all kinds of other useful bits he was quite attached to in one burst. It looked like a mini-Uzi. Neat trick, that, with the towel.
He stepped into the light. It seemed like a remarkably good idea.
"Ah, Mr. Magnavox," she said slowly. "I saw you on the stand. You were playing with a Stinger missile. Thermal sights, if I recall."
Shanley nodded. She looked at him carefully as if checking, and then the outstretched arms relaxed. He looked at his torso. The red dot was gone. He could feel his heart pounding.
"You don't seem to need them," he said.
He swam hard for fifteen minutes, notching up the lengths in a fast crawl. He was a strong swimmer. The luminous water was as he had thought. It was another world.
Finally he slowed and turned onto his back to float. Stars glittered in the night sky above him.
She had left earlier. Now she stood there with two glasses in her hands. She was wearing a white djellaba trimmed with gold. The hood was down. She had, he thought, the most beautifully shaped head.
He hauled himself out of the pool, conscious that fit though he was, he was making heavier weather of it than she had. Of course, he was a good ten years older, but still…
"I talked to the kitchen," she said. "Irish coffee. Tastes good after a swim."
He put on his robe and took the hot glass. They sat at a poolside table facing each other. His wedding ring glinted in the light as he drank. She wore none, he noticed.
"My name's Shanley," he said. "Don Shanley."
"I know," she said. "I asked. You looked interesting. Married, but interesting."
Shanley smiled. "I'm still married," he said.
She laughed. "You still look interesting," she said. "That doesn't mean I have to sleep with you – even at a trade show where sex seems to go with the territory. I guess I want to talk. I don't know why. It's just one of those nights. I just don't want it to end."
They talked about everyone and everything until the sky began to lighten and there was no choice but to part. They never touched.
"What's your name?" said Shanley just before he left. And then he added as an afterthought, "And rank?"
"Folks call me Texas," she said. "I made captain before I quit. Airborne."
"It shows, Texas," said Shanley. "Thank you. You're a pleasure to meet."
After he left, Texas sat by the pool for quite some time.