Cade agreed. “In that case I’ll go,” he said. “This isn’t really your affair. I got us into it.” Luke shrugged and nodded in a way that said it was fine by him.
Julia, however, was perturbed when they updated her on their thoughts. “Why risk getting mixed up with CounterAction people directly?” she objected. “If you’re seen or identified with them, it could start trouble that will never go away. We’ve had the ISS here already. You know what’s going on all over the country. We don’t need to get mixed up in all that.”
It seemed a strange turn of attitude after the things Cade had heard. “Because she’s an old friend, remember?” he replied. “Look, I’m not planning on getting mixed up with anybody. All I’m doing is taking her as far as a hotel lobby. I don’t even need to wait there with her—just close enough to see she gets picked up. That’s it. Then I’m on my way back.”
Eventually, Julia relented, but she still didn’t seem happy about it.
Accordingly, Cade and Rebecca made their preparations the evening before the appointed day. Lou Zinner’s jet appeared at the John Wayne/Orange County airport early the next morning as arranged, and they took off on time. En route, the plane was challenged by two Air Force jets that radioed for identification and a mission statement. Fortunately, the pilot had filed a flight plan, stated as serving the private business needs of a Nevada-registered VIP. The plane landed at Hartsfield International Airport, Atlanta, a little over four hours after leaving California.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
FRANK PACELLI HAD WORKED night shift stocking supermarket shelves, sold kitchen ware, and part-timed at a gas station to pay his way through college, and emerged with a degree in chemistry and metallurgical engineering. He had worked first with a couple of mining corporations in Minnesota and Colorado, later at a smelting and rolling plant in Korea, done well, and come back to a position as process designer with a company in Minneapolis. Then the Hyadeans began flooding the world markets with bulk minerals extracted from places like Bolivia by methods no Terran industry could compete with; the company folded, and now Frank drove a taxicab. He got pretty mad when he heard about some of the dealings that went on in Washington and the kind of money some people were reputed to make out of them. But with three children of high-school age to think about, he couldn’t afford to risk getting directly involved in the more militant protest organizations that everyone pretended not to know about. But sympathizing with them was another thing. Much passed his eyes that he didn’t see, came to his ears that he didn’t hear, and he helped the cause when he could.
He turned off Peachtree Street into the motor lobby of the Metro hotel at the time he had been given, and slowed to scan the few figures outside the main entrance. The pudgy woman in the light blue coat and yellow hat, holding a city guide prominently in one hand had to be the person he was to meet. She had a suitcase and a large traveling bag beside her and seemed to be waiting, looking around anxiously. Pacelli eased the cab forward, steering in toward the curb in front of her.
Then it struck him that a tallish man in a gray jacket, standing a few yards away by the doors, was watching her. The conviction solidified when the man’s head turned to follow the cab as it closed in. An alarm sounding in his head, Pacelli shifted his foot back to the gas pedal and sped up again, passing the woman just as she was beginning to step forward. He caught a glimpse of her mouth dropping open before he turned away to leave again through the lobby’s exit way. He stopped in a parking strip halfway around the block and pressed the “redial” button of his phone to call the number already entered.
“Yes?” The voice that had given him his instructions answered.
“This is Collector. The party’s there, a woman. But there’s a guy there too, who looks like he’s watching her. It didn’t feel right, so I thought I’d better check.”