"Well," said Mark, "I’d planned to meet a colleague in Vegas tomorrow for lunch, perhaps dinner when I get back?"
"That would be fine. I’ll come by to collect you around nineteen hundred hours?"
"Sure," Mark said, knowing that with any luck at all, he would be far, far away by then.
Mark walked to his room and started packing. He knew his plan was risky, and that it could result in his getting burned instead of getting away. He also knew that if he was successful, the money-drop locker key he held in his hand could be the difference in his quality of life there after. He took the only envelope he had, one he’d addressed to Kyle, and crossed out Kyle's name. Then he sealed the key inside and tossed it in his briefcase for safekeeping.
Deciding the Termes project should be halted had given him his first sense of accomplishment since he’d been at the base. Now all that was left was to carry out the second part of his plan.
Mark’s phone alarm woke him at 12:30 in the morning. Time to put the rest of his plan in motion.
He dressed and walked the thirty or so yards to one of the base payphones. It was a cold night and his stiff fingers made it difficult to dial the number on the phone card. The base payphone was located to one side of the cafeteria and dimly lit by street lamps, which made it difficult to see the numbers he had scrawled earlier on a scrap of paper. He had to redial several times. At that time of night traffic was sparse.
Finally, Mark heard the call connect, and then a recording began: "You have reached the office of Senator Max Deason. No one is available to take your call. At the tone, please leave your name, number and a brief message. We will get back to you at our earliest opportunity."
Beep.
Mark had to clear his throat before beginning his message. "I’ll be brief. Tell the Senator I know about him and Termes and ReformCo. Tell him people are at risk of dying, and if he thinks this is going away, he better think again. If he doesn't put an end to the project immediately, my next call is to the press."
Mark hung up the phone and walked back to his room, content that he had at least attempted to strike back. He hoped Senator Deason would bring the hammer down on Hank long enough to allow him to disappear. If he didn’t, well, murderers don’t get to have much claim on compassion.
_________________________
The phone rang for so long the caller almost gave up. After all, it was so early. Finally a soft voice answered. "Hello?"
"Mr. Downs, is it too early? I had instructions to call this number if I had any news…."
"No, it’s fine. What do you have?"
"A call was just placed to the Senator’s office that mentioned Termes. I thought you should know."
"Oh?" William said, suddenly awake. "Tell me more, please…."
Chapter 11 Jack Meets His Match
Jack was exhausted. He should never have scheduled Vegas so close to the Denver show. Tonight’s seminar had been grueling, but he decided to fly to Vegas after the Denver show to decompress, and having his own jet sure helped ease the pains of travel.
As long as he had to be on the road, he’d choose Vegas over Denver any day. Two nights here, do the show and he was done. Three weeks rest was just what this doctor ordered, he thought.
The elevator door opened to his floor in the Palazzio Hotel and Jack began to slowly count out the room numbers until he got to 1416. "Fourteen sixteen," he said reflexively under his breath, too tired to just think it. He made a mental note to check to see if this hotel had a thirteenth floor. "Wouldn’t surprise me if I’m on it now," he thought.
The door lock clicked as he pulled his card from the slot and he pushed the door open, dropping one bag as he entered the room’s narrow hallway. He made his way through the sitting area toward the bedroom. When he rounded the corner, a woman wielding the desk lamp as a weapon confronted him. She began to scream, shouting for him to get out.
At first he was horrified; perhaps he had the wrong room. But how was that possible, his key had opened the door…
"Lady, you must be in my room. 1416? Calm down, please, quit shouting!" Jack said as her shrill voice boiled in his ears. "See lady? Here’s my key!" Jack pleaded. "Lady, please! STOP YELLING FOR GOD'S SAKE!" Jack yelled, covering his ears and trying to top her decibel level.
"SHUT UP!" Jack screamed, finally at the top of his lungs.
His protest had no effect. The woman suddenly was on the phone ordering the front desk to send up Security. An elderly guest paused in the hall in front of the open door to gawk at the spectacle, shake his head scornfully at the goings on in Vegas, then move on down toward the elevator.
Suddenly the woman stopped yelling at Jack, and started yelling at the clerk on the phone. "Mistake, what mistake? …Oh for God’s sake, …Well why do I have to move, this guy’s bags are already packed, make him move roo… $450 a night? What? No, that is not acceptable! …I’ll be right down!"
She slammed the phone down hard and stood facing her intruder, crimson faced and furious. "I don’t know what to say …"
"An apology would be nice," Jack said as he brusquely threw his unwieldy bag on the bed, almost knocking her down.
"Hey, it isn’t my fault the hotel had a mix-up!" the woman said, as she began pulling clothes from the spacious walk-in closet and stuffing them into her bag.
"Didn’t you think something was off when they gave you a suite instead of a room?" Jack shot back testily, "how does anyone not make that connection?"
The woman spun to face her adversary. "I thought they upgraded me, …it happens a lot, you know!"
Jack hadn’t noticed until now, but the woman was gorgeous. He could see where she would get upgraded a lot. Mid-thirties he guessed. Well dressed. Thin, about five-seven, coffee color complexion like Halle Berry, and wow… he thought, "are those violet eyes? Must be contacts," he thought, …that’s it, "nobody has had violet eyes since Liz Taylor."
"I’m sure it does, Miss…?"
"Its Doctor! Dr. Colleen Baker."
"Hello, I’m Jack Colder" he said extending his hand and getting rebuffed. "I’m very sorry for the mix-up, but you… Here let me help you with that." Jack said as he reached over to gather up her papers that were spilling off the large desk by the window.
"Leave those alone!" Dr. Baker said in a stern voice, "I’m finishing up a presentation for my conference tomorrow, and I will not be inconvenienced any more by you or your clumsy attempt at chivalry!"
"All right! Geez, what if I stand over there in the corner until you get your things together… would that be all right?" Jack shot her a look that was returned with one equally hostile.
Colleen rushed about the suite stuffing her papers and her laptop in her briefcase, but when she lifted it by the handle, it opened again spilling the contents on the bed and the floor. Jack stifled a smile and turned away so she did not see.
"Are you sure I can’t give you a …" Jack stopped in mid sentence as Colleen flashed her now darkening violet eyes at him with a look that instantly turned him cold.
He decided to risk holding the door while she struggled out into the hall, trying to balance her briefcase, her garment bag, her purse, a bag of hotel toiletries from the bath, and her carry-on bag on top of her roller bag.
After she was in the hall, Jack let the door close, but couldn’t resist listening to her bumping into the walls as she made her way toward the elevator, then an elevator ding, followed by a muffled crash, and cursing.
Jack fell into bed, reliving the unexpected events of his evening. A smile crossed his face in the now darkened and blissfully quiet room. In his long experience with traveling, he had put up with no hot water, noisy neighbors, screaming kids in the halls, no Internet or cable, soiled sheets and beds, late wake up calls, lost messages, lousy food and light fingered maids… but never had he been accosted in his own room! "And people wonder why folks hate to travel nowadays," he thought to himself, still grinning. Jack turned over onto his side and fell asleep soon after.
T
he next morning Jack showered and dressed, and went down for breakfast. He always made a point of going down for breakfast. Ordering room service just seemed sad and much too reclusive to him. Besides, he liked to go down early to the restaurant. He’d watch the guests wander in and try to guess their stories. It was a game he readily admitted had no winner, but entertaining just the same, and as a bonus, he got to study behavior and motivation for new characters in his next book.
He settled in his favorite spot, a corner in the back with a commanding view of the room from which he could play his game. Today didn’t exactly offer the best contestants, just a few men who Jack guessed were from some Western Wear store owners convention (nobody really wore spurs these days, did they?), some oilmen (suits, boots and bolo ties), a family on vacation with three unresponsive, technology distracted, pimply teenaged children, and his old friend Dr. Colleen Baker, sitting alone, reading her brief preparing for her presentation today.
Jack decided to focus on the family, since it offered the largest group dynamic. He imagined the parents were trying to bring the kids back from some type of Twitter-withdrawal by taking a vacation, but they were unwilling, or perhaps unable, to demand all battery devices be left at home. Jack imagined they had tried abstinence already, only to realize their children’s silent, vacuous stares, or continual vocal expressions of boredom, were worse than their patronizing answers while they texted their friends about God knows what trivia that had befallen them.
The parents were equally distracted. The husband seemed only partially present and was only pulled away from his newspaper to watch the waitress’ ass, as she move around the room. And that was only when his wife wasn’t looking, which was most of the time since she was consumed with gazing in her cosmetic mirror, fretting at what time had done to a formerly pleasant and compassionate face. Too much 'work' and too little joy in her life had left her looking perpetually pinched and consumed by a self-absorption rivaling that of the kids.
The children ate without saying a word, a grunt, a glance, or even a smile. An object lesson in the product of equal parts parental rejection and social networking if he had ever seen it. Jack marveled at how they were able to find their mouths while devoting such unrelenting focus to their assorted screens.
He had been so caught up in analyzing the family, Jack didn’t notice the commotion across the room until Dr. Baker loudly pushed her chair back from the table, stood up, frantically clutched at her throat, and then slumped to the floor.
The waitress that had been the distraction a moment before rushed over to her, which drew the attention of the father, who jumped up to help. Jack too, rose from his chair and swiftly crossed the room to assess the situation.
Dr. Baker was turning blue, lying on her back and gasping for air in shallow, quick breaths, but with no success. Her striking violet eyes flashed without focusing, pleading for help from the growing circle of faces that towered over her.
Jack quickly pushed through the onlookers and sat her up on the floor, knelt behind, and administered the Heimlich procedure. A glob of what looked like cantaloupe flew out with enough velocity to splat against the boot of a gawking oilman several feet away. Colleen began to cough and choke violently.
Someone offered her a glass of water, which she slowly sipped, until gradually, she gathered herself.
Once Colleen had regained her senses, Jack stood and offered her his hand to help her up off the floor.
"Again, Mr. Colder, you have me at a loss for words," she said in a weak voice. "It seems to be a persistent condition of mine in your presence."
"Glad I could help." Jack replied as he helped her to her chair.
She thanked him, admitted she was embarrassed, and assured him nothing like this had ever happened before.
"Glad I could help?" Jack repeated to himself as he walked back to his table.
"Glad I could help?" Jack ran his words through his mind over and over. "I just saved her life for God's sake. Is that all you could come up with Colder?" He knew enough of three languages to not go hungry or get lost in most parts of the world, and that was all he could think of?
As Mark and the others returned to their respective tables, Dr. Baker collected her presentation, paid the check, and left before Jack had a chance to come up with a more clever attempt.
Jack finished his breakfast quietly, lost in thought of what just happened and completely distracted by those violet eyes. He had lost interest in his 'family game' at this point. Nothing much happened anyway, except for the fact that the children were completely oblivious to the fact that a true act of heroism had occurred right there in their midst. Such was the real irony of 'social networking' Jack supposed. He checked his watch and realized he was late for his meeting with Tom.
As Jack passed through the lobby, he checked an agenda monitor listing the events and locations of the day’s conventions, conferences, and bar mitzvahs held in the hotel. He noticed Dr. Baker was the featured speaker at a conference entitled Frontiers in Bioinformatics and Genomics, and he wondered whether he could slip in without credentials. Then he wondered whether he could make any sense of her presentation even if he could gain entrance.
He crossed through the lobby toward the auditorium and down a hallway to a meeting room behind the stage. "Morning Tom, how’d you sleep?" Jack asked cheerfully. "Aren’t you glad we flew in last night? Any chance you’ve reviewed the data from Denver yet?"
"Crappy, you know I hate flying, and Hell no! In that order!" Tom muttered with his usual morning face on. "I just got down here and found this mess!" pointing to a jumble of cables covering a control panel.
Tom Melvin had been the integral part of Jack’s team since they started the 'tour' three years ago. In fact, not counting the guy who actually goes on stage, Tom was the team.
"Jesus, Jack, it’s a good thing we got here early. This equipment won’t do at all. I’ve got to get on the horn and rent what we need locally. I hope it’s available…."
"Relax Tom, this is Vegas… I’m sure we can find what we need," Jack said, trying to be positive.
"Well remember, it’s last minute and in the convention capital of the world, I’m not so sure your usual luck will hold on this one. And by the way, what’s this 'we' crap anyway?"
"So then, do I understand I have the morning off?" Jack asked, ignoring Tom's needling and trying to hide the big smile on his face.
"Take the whole damn day off, Jack, I don’t care, but I don’t see what you’re so happy about… this is a freaking fiasco! Geez this will take a day at least to install the seat pick-ups, and I can’t do that until I know what equipment we can get! It’s a Catch 21 at this point. I’m not sure we can get it ready by tomorrow’s show."
Jack resisted the urge to correct Tom’s reference to Catch 22, deciding it would only make his day worse.
"Tell you what, I’ll go order you some breakfast. You haven’t had breakfast yet have you Tom?"
"Now, just when in the hell would I have had time to do that?" Tom said sarcastically. He turned from the mass of wires to lodge another complaint, but Jack had already gone.
Jack dropped by the concierge stand and placed Tom’s order, and then went up to the convention hall.
"Excuse me," Jack whispered to the official looking man outside the door to the conference room, "has Dr. Baker started her presentation yet?" A discarded name badge he’d found in the trash hung around his neck, and he fingered it to obscure the name. He raised his watch to take the attendant’s attention from his "credentials" and onto his question. "Are they on time?"
"Just starting now sir, if you would just let me check your badge…."
Jack pushed past the man and into the darkened room with a dismissive wave of the badge, and he was in.
He took a seat near the back and endured twenty-five minutes of housekeeping until Dr. Baker was finally introduced to rousing applause. Jack noticed the audience was comprised of mostly older, bespectacled men, a few women, and some college kids. P
robably graduate students taking notes for their professors, he surmised.
Seeing the youthful looking grad students made Jack wonder why it seemed 12-year-old girls were looking older and older these days, while college aged males were looking younger and younger. He didn’t have an answer, and dropped the thought when he saw Colleen preparing to take the stage.
Jack didn’t know what to expect from her performance, having to go on so soon after nearly expiring at breakfast, but he soon became entranced as he watched Colleen take control of the room. She had poise and confidence and walked her audience through the presentation with a style that was fluid and comfortable. She had just a trace of weakness in her voice when she emphasized certain words, causing Jack to recall the image of her, helpless on the floor, just two hours before. She sure wasn’t showing any signs of dying up there now.
"Let’s face it," Colleen said in a take-charge voice, "AIDS research can be dry, and for the most part unrewarding." Several of the men in the audience nodded in agreement. "Particularly since so little progress has been made in changing the risky behavior patterns that has kept new infection rates at stubbornly high levels for ten years now.
The Premise Page 11
