In the Oslett family, certain lessons were learned so young that Drew
almost felt as if he’d been born with that knowledge, and.a profound
understanding of the value of the Oslett name seemed rooted in his
genes. Nothing except a vast fortune was as precious as a good name,
maintained through generations, from a good name sprang as much power as
from tremendous wealth, because politicians and judges found it easier
to accept briefcases full of cash, by way of bribery, when the offerings
came from people whose bloodline had produced senators, secretaries of
state, leaders of industry noted champions of the environment, and
much-lauded patrons of the arts.
His pairing with Clocker was simply a mistake. Eventually he would have
the situation rectified. If the Network bureaucracy was slow to
rearrange assignments, and if their renegade was recovered in a
condition that still allowed him to be handled as before, Oslett would
take Alfie aside and instruct him to terminate Clocker.
The paperback Star Trek novel, spine broken, lay open on Karl Clocker’s
chest, pages down. Careful not to wake the big man, Oslett picked up
the book.
He turned to the first page, not bothering to mark Clocker’s stopping
place, and began to read, thinking that perhaps he would get a clue as
to why so many people were fascinated by the starship Enterprise and its
crew. Within a few paragraphs, the damned author was taking him inside
the mind of Captain Kirk, mental territory that Oslett was willing to
explore only if his alternatives were otherwise limited to the
stultifying minds of all the presidential candidates in the last
election. He skipped ahead a couple of chapters, dipped in, found
himself in Spock’s prissily rational mind, skipped more pages and
discovered he was in the mind of
“Bones” McCoy.
Annoyed, he closed Journey to the Rectum of the Universe, or whatever
the hell the book was called, and slapped Clocker’s chest with it to
wake him.
The big man sat straight up so suddenly that his porkpie hat popped off
and landed in his lap. Sleepily, he said, “Wha? Wha?”
“We’ll be landing soon.”
“Of course we will,” Clocker said.
“There’s a contact meeting us.”
“Life is contact.”
Oslett was in a foul mood. Chasing a renegade assassin, thinking about
his father, pondering the possible catastrophe represented by Martin
Stillwater, reading several pages of a Star Trek novel, and now being
peppered with more of Clocker’s cryptograms was too much for any man to
bear and still be expected to keep his good humor.
He said, “Either you’ve been drooling in your sleep, or a herd of snails
just crawled over your chin and into your mouth.”
Clocker raised one burly arm and wiped the lower part of his face with
his shirt sleeve.
“This contact,” Oslett said, “might have a lead on Alfie by now.
We have to be sharp, ready to move. Are you fully awake?”
Clocker’s eyes were rheumy. “None of us is ever fully awake.”
“Oh, please, will you cut that half-baked mystical crap? I just don’t
have any patience for that right now.”
Clocker stared at him a long moment and then said, “You’ve got a
turbulent heart, Drew.”
“Wrong. It’s my stomach that’s turbulent from having to listen to this
crap.”
“An inner tempest of blind hostility.”
“Fuck you,” Oslett said.
The pitch of the jet engines changed subtly. A moment later the
stewardess approached to announce that the plane had entered its
approach to the Orange County airport and to ask them to put on their
seatbelts.
According to Oslett’s Rolex, it was 1:52 in the morning, but that was
back in Oklahoma City. As the Lear descended, he reset his watch until
it showed eight minutes to midnight.
By the time they landed, Monday had ticked into Tuesday like a bomb
clock counting down toward detonation.
The advance man–who appeared to be in his late twenties, not much
younger than Drew Oslett–was waiting in the lounge at the
private-aircraft terminal. He told them his name was Jim Lomar, which
it most likely was not.
Oslett told him that their names were Charlie Brown and Dagwood
Bumstead.
The contact didn’t seem to get the joke. He helped them carry their