Descent from Xanadu (33 page)

“What if they don’t want to do that?”

“They don’t have much choice,” Judd said, half in jest. “You took care of that. The contracts I’ve got with them keep them tied to me body and soul.”

“There isn’t a contract in the world that can force a man to work if he just turns off. What do you plan to do then, sue them?” the lawyer challenged him.

Judd smiled, then looked at the others. “You both plan to quit?”

They were silent.

Judd looked at Paul. “It’ll never happen,” he said. “They’re not just employees, they’re friends.”

Barbara rose from her chair. “I’m sorry, Judd,” she said. “I think what you’re doing is wrong. In a kind of way, unfair. You’re unloading your own responsibilities onto your friends. I, for one, do not like it, and I don’t think your father would have approved of it.”

Judd met her eyes. “My father’s dead. What he thought when he was alive was important. But not now. It is my life and my decisions that matter now.”

She stared at him for a moment, gathered her things, pushed back her chair, and left the room. Judd looked at the others. “Anyone else want to leave?”

There were no answers. He turned to the attorney. “Talk to her,” he said. “I don’t want her to go away mad.”

“Why don’t you tell her yourself?” Paul said. “She’s your mother, not mine.”

He found Barbara seated in the corner of the reception room, a small handkerchief at her eyes. He slipped into the seat beside her. “I’m sorry, Barbara,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

She made an effort to control herself. But she still didn’t speak. For the first time he realized how frail she had become with time. “Barbara,” he said softly, turning her face to him. “I’m really sorry.”

There was hurt mixed with pain in her voice. “I’m really not angry, Judd. I’m really not angry,” she said huskily. “It’s only that I’m just beginning to realize what a fool you are.”

“Because I don’t want this business anymore?”

“Not that at all,” she said. “It’s watching you throw away every chance you have of happiness, just chasing a crazy dream.”

“It’s not a crazy dream,” he said. “I’m getting closer to it each day.”

“And you lose more every day,” she said. “Not just money. Power. All the things you have, all the people who love you.”

He was silent.

She searched his eyes. “You don’t even understand what I’m talking about.”

“I know what I want,” he retorted.

“No, you don’t,” she said softly. “You’ve become completely selfish. Your father was selfish about his business, but he found time inside him to love your mother and you and, in time, to love me. But you have no time inside to feel love for anyone.”

“I am not my father,” he said. “I don’t have to feel as he did.”

“Perhaps you ought to, Judd,” she said softly. “Why don’t you give yourself a chance?”

“Don’t you think I have?” he answered. “But what did I ever receive in return from others? Nothing for myself. What more could I do for them?”

“Did you ever ask of anyone something for your own self?” she asked quietly. “Like Sofia?”

“All I ever meant to her was another experiment, another discovery,” he said.

“You’re wrong,” she said. “Maybe it started that way, but that’s not the way it’s turned out. She loves you.”

He stared at her without speaking.

“If she didn’t love you,” she said, “she wouldn’t have borne your child and kept him from you.” Then her eyes fell away from him, her words hanging in the air.

He forced her eyes to meet his. “Sofia had a son?” he asked harshly.

Barbara didn’t answer.

“
My
son?” he demanded. “Why wasn’t I told?”

“Because she was afraid of you,” she answered. “She didn’t want the child used as a weapon.”

“I don’t believe you,” he said angrily. “If it’s true, where has she hidden him all this time?”

Barbara looked into his eyes. “With me,” she said slowly. “And he
is
your son, Judd, without any doubt. He is very much like you. He even has your eyes. The same cobalt-blue eyes as yours.”

His lips tightened. “It’s not my child,” he said grimly. “It was one of Zabiski’s artificial insemination experiments. And they were all failures. Sawyer told me he managed things so they all miscarried. And we arranged an abortion for Sofia.”

“I know all about that; she told me. She’s also told me that she did not go through with the abortion. Because she was not part of Zabiski’s experiments, Zabiski agreed that she would be the control, that you and Sofia would have a normal impregnation.”

“She lied to me,” Judd said bitterly. “Right up to the moment we met at the airport when she went back to Russia with the old lady. Probably they wanted to keep the child in Russia.”

“But she didn’t,” Barbara said. “How she arranged it, I don’t know. But one day she knocked on my door in San Francisco. The next day she was in a private clinic, having a baby, and five days later she was on her way back to Russia.”

“And what did you do with the baby?” he asked.

She looked into his eyes. “He was your son,” she said evenly. “We did the right thing. We adopted him and we care for him and love him.”

“And you’ve never said anything to me?” he asked bitterly.

“No,” she said. “Would you have cared if we had?”

He was silent.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“Who else knows?” he asked. “Paul, Sawyer?”

“No one else,” she said. “Only Sofia, Jim and I. All the official birth records have been hidden where no one can find them.”

“It won’t change anything,” he said finally, without expression. “As far as I’m concerned he might as well never have been born. I’m still planning my life my own way.”

She rose from the couch and looked down. “I feel very sorry for you, Judd,” she said softly but firmly, then turned and without looking back left him alone in the reception room.

19

“We’re three weeks ahead of schedule,” Sawyer said. “The clone culture refrigerating unit is being loaded aboard the plane right now. I’ll be with it when the plane takes off from Atlanta.”

“I thought you were going to meet me in Boca Raton,” Judd said. “And then we’d go down together.”

“I’d feel better going down with the cultures myself,” Sawyer suggested.

Judd studied him severely. “Okay. I’ve known you long enough. What’s troubling you?”

“That fucking German,” Sawyer answered. “He’s pushing his nose in where it shouldn’t be. All he was supposed to do was complete the nuclear reactor and get the energy plant ready to go. Now I hear he’s throwing his weight around the medical laboratories. He’s asking questions about the cellular therapy refrigeration units.”

“He’s supposed to make sure that we have enough energy to operate it,” Judd offered.

“Yes,” Sawyer countered. “But he’s asking a lot more than just that. He wants to know what the units are for. I just don’t trust him.”

“You’re in charge, Doc,” Judd said. “Just keep in touch with me.”

“I’d feel safer if we had Security go over him again. Maybe there’s something we blew. I still can’t forget those two that made it to the island.”

“Okay,” Judd said. “I’ll have Security take care of it.” He glanced at the window next to his seat. Looking down from thirty thousand feet, he could see nothing but cloud cover. He picked up the telephone next to him and called the flight deck. “What are the weather conditions over the coast around Los Angeles?”

The captain’s voice came through the receiver. “Cloud cover all around the area at about nine thousand feet right now, and they expect denser cover and fog to roll into the coast about ten o’clock. Looks like a pea souper. They anticipate they’ll have to close LAX by midnight.”

“Thank you.” He pressed another button on the telephone again. A voice came on. “Security.”

“This is Mr. Crane,” he said. “I want to speak with the director.” A moment later John’s voice came on. “Do you have the weather report?” he asked.

“We’ve got it,” John answered. “We are just waiting to hear from you. I think we may be able to go tonight.”

“We’ll be touching down at LAX in about forty minutes,” he said.

“We’ll be ready and waiting for you, sir.”

“And pick up Mrs. Evans on the way.”

“Will do, sir.”

“And one other thing,” Judd asked. “Throw another net around Dr. Schoenbrun. We’re not happy over the way he’s acting.”

“We’ll get right on it, sir.”

“Good,” Judd concluded. “See you in half an hour.” He glanced across the table at Sawyer. “What connection are you making to Atlanta?”

Sawyer grinned at him. “I’m now the president of Crane Medical, aren’t I?”

“That’s right,” Judd said.

“Presidents don’t fly commercial,” Sawyer laughed. “CI 2 is waiting for me on the ground.”

Judd laughed. “You’re learning fast. That’s the newest 707 we have.”

Sawyer nodded, still laughing. “I had a good teacher.”

***

The gray clouds began to turn to black as the day was coming to its end. The limousine pulled off the road into the field at the top of the mountain plateau that served as the hang glider launching pad. Judd stepped out of the car. He saw John and a man he did not know come toward him.

“Mr. Crane,” John said. “This is Mark Davidson, the director of the glider and parachute school.”

Davidson was not very tall, but his shoulders were wide and his body stocky and strong. He had a handshake to match. “This looks like the most fun I’ve had since we jumped in ’Nam.”

“I want it to be fun,” Judd said earnestly. “I don’t want this to turn into a war. You understand there’s to be no killing, even in self-defense.”

“There won’t be any, Mr. Crane,” Davidson said. “We know what we have to do. We’ve completed training with our equipment for the job, sir.”

“Good.” Judd glanced at the sky. “What do you think?”

Davidson looked at the sky toward the sea. “We have a good chance. If no wind comes up unexpectedly, we should be able to jump off at twenty-two hundred hours.”

Judd held out a hand with crossed fingers. “That’s for luck.”

“Come into the shack,” Davidson said. “Let me show you how we’ve planned it.”

Judd turned to John. “What’s happened to Mrs. Evans?”

“We have a car picking her up right now, sir,” John replied. “She should be here in about half an hour.”

“Good.” Judd turned to follow Davidson into the operations shack. He paused at the door, turning to see a hang glider head into the wind. Its pilot pointed his feet straight toward the ground, touched down. He bent his knees briefly, then slipping the wings from his arms, he straightened up. Judd looked at Davidson. “Fascinating. Looks like a bird landing.”

“That’s exactly the technique, sir,” Davidson said.

“Like to try it sometime,” Judd said.

“I’d love to take you up,” Davidson said. “Maybe sometime after this operation is over.”

“I don’t mean that kind of sometime,” Judd said. “What about right now?”

Davidson stared at him. “You can’t mean that, sir. You wouldn’t have the time to learn the technique, sir.”

“How much daylight is there left?” Judd asked.

“Maybe an hour and a half.”

“Let’s give it a try,” Judd said.

Davidson looked at John in consternation. John turned to Judd. “I’m responsible for your security,” he said. “My job is to get you into that compound safely. I can’t do that if you’re off flying around the sky like a bird, sir.”

Judd shrugged, turned without a word to walk around the operations shack to a Quonset hangar. Hang gliders stood against the wall, shining black parachute-silk wings spread like giant bats ready to fall at a signal from the ceiling. He looked out toward the bluff’s end where the tracks of the three catapults aimed at the ocean beyond. Near it a group of flyers in black jumpsuits, coffee cups in their hands, sat in a circle. He didn’t speak to them.

John came up beside him. “Sometimes the boss can’t have all the fun, sir. That’s what goes with the responsibilities.”

Judd shrugged, then walked back to Davidson. “As you say, when this is over,” he said ruefully.

“It’ll be an honor, sir. Now let me take you inside and show you how we’ve planned this operation.”

There was a bas-relief map made of papier-mâché covering a large table. Davidson picked up a small pointer. “This hill, the highest on the map, is where we’re standing now. This other hill, lower and next to the ocean, is our objective. Between the two hills we cross the Pacific Coast Highway. The distance between the two hills is four thousand two hundred meters. The height of our launching pad is twenty-six hundred meters, the height of the target is two hundred meters. Once we hit the sky we have to manage an average fall of almost two thousand four hundred meters in that distance. It’s going to be a hard fall. But I have good men and we can do it.”

Judd’s eyes were riveted on the map. “How will they be able to see it from the air if the ground is blacked out by fog?”

“We figured that too,” Davidson said. He laid a large Plexiglas cover over the map. It was opaque and Judd could see nothing through it. Davidson held out goggles to Judd. “Put these on, sir.”

Judd fixed the goggles around his eyes. When he looked down at the covered map, his eyes could make out bright red arrows pointing to the objective.

“Infrared night glasses,” Davidson said. “We’ve painted arrows on the roofs of twenty cars we’ve deployed on the way.”

Judd pulled off the goggles and turned to Davidson. “My congratulations,” he said. “I’d say you’ve thought of everything.”

“Thank you, sir,” Davidson said.

“Except one,” Judd said.

Davidson looked puzzled.

“Who’s leading this operation?” Judd asked.

“I am, sir,” Davidson said. “I’m going off first.”

Judd nodded thoughtfully, then smiled. “Then perhaps you better paint your ass red in case any of your men happen to lose their way.”

Davidson smiled, then laughed suddenly. “They won’t forget my butt,” he said. “I’d fucking fire them if they did.”

***

Judd walked out to the edge of the hill. Dense fog was rolling in fast. It was heavier near the ocean but beginning to crawl across the highway, turning the headlights of the cars into dim pinpricks of light. He looked at his wristwatch. Twenty-one hundred hours. Davidson came up beside him.