Chapter 8

The city of Hong Kong was still mostly in shadow, but Kowloon shone brightly with the rising sun as the Land Cruiser, in caravan with the sleek black Mercedes, headed north, then west toward Lantau Island. The Mercedes, occupied by Sun and Jun, continued on into the airport as the Land Cruiser headed once again for the Po Lin monastery beneath the big Buddha.

The drive was slightly less hectic this time, and the monks were courteous as they led their visitors to the small guest hut where Stella Duras lay convalescing, her leg encased in fresh plaster.

"Your employers didn't want to foot the bill for your medical expenses?" Darren asked, by way of greeting.

A wry smile turned her otherwise unremarkable face into a thing of beauty. "That's the problem with freelancing. I have to carry my own medical. I have Blue Cross, but these Buddhist guys won't let me pay for anything. They say that you people have provided enough to more than cover the food and the cost of putting on the cast. The doctor they brought in said that I was lucky. Whoever set the bones," here, she paused to arch an eyebrow in Darren's direction, "did a good job, so all he had to do was immobilize my leg."

"No hard feelings, then?" Darren continued.

Stella shrugged, "Comes with the territory. If I carried a grudge against everyone who caused me a little pain, I'd never have time to take on work for my clients. Which reminds me - you guys find that hacker already, or did you come back for more information?"

"Yes and yes," Darren replied. "We're more interested now in your employers."

"If it's any consolation, they're not my employers anymore," she sighed, "Came up here after I phoned them yesterday - it's amazing how good the cellular service is here - paid me a fraction of what they owed me, and told me they wouldn't need me anymore. Now, that kind of thing I hold a grudge about. Broken leg or not, you don't let a client get away with stiffing you in this business, or everybody tries to do it."

"I got the impression you were telling the truth when you said you thought the people you dealt with were with the Chinese government," Darren continued, nodding his understanding of her situation, "but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed you had more information about them than you gave me. Care to share?"

"Why not?" Stella shrugged. "The guy who gave me the down payment for my services was definitely ROC, but the suit with him seemed less official and was much better dressed. It was like he wanted to make sure the government guy didn't screw things up. When the ROC guy took the cash from his wallet to pay me - you don't take checks or plastic in this line of work, you know - a business card fell out. I thought that was odd, since he had a pocket in the billfold for business cards, but this one looked like it was tucked in with the money. I picked it up and handed it back to him. Couldn't read the Chinese characters on it, but the logo was in English. It was from CNOOCO - the Chinese National Offshore Oil Company."

That makes sense, Mei thought. CNOOCO has been trying, by various means, to either sabotage Hastings industries or get access to their technology for years. Steve has foiled their legal and business maneuvers quite handily, while Gemini Security has fended off several attempts that were most likely funded by them to get the technology illegally.

Yeah, Darren affirmed, mostly for Liam's benefit, since he already knew what the girls knew, they invested heavily in foreign oil during the second Bush administration, and when Hastings came out with his fusion power plants, it kinda pulled the rug out from under them as well as the US and other oil conglomerates, not to mention the OPEC nations. But if they want the technology so badly, why don't they just buy a fusion plant and take it apart to see what makes it tick?

That's one of the unique things about the design, Wei joined in. You can't take it apart without shutting it down, but to shut it down, you have to shut down the containment field. When you shut down the containment field, the last reaction destroys the containment field generator. Even if you let it run out of fuel, the power for the containment field fails before the last reactions are completed, with the same result.

So how about X-rays or something? Liam cut in.

Can't get through the containment field and radiation shielding, Mei answered, and even if they could, radiation from the reaction would foul the image. Same with magnetic resonance - magnetic fields in the reaction chamber are too strong. So far, no one has invented a technology that can effectively map the inner workings of a Hastings fusion plant without the blueprints. As long as we can keep the parts and plans under control, it's going to remain proprietary until someone invents it again, independently.

The entire exchange took place in the blink of an eye, unbeknownst to the young lady in the bed.

"That makes sense." Darren told her, reaching for his wallet. "Perhaps this will make up, in some small measure, for what your previous employer failed to pay you. I'd offer you a ride back to the States, but I don't think your leg would stand up to the g-forces of suborbital flight."

He tossed a handful of US hundred dollar bills on the bed. Stella picked them up, stacked them carefully, and handed them back.

"Thanks," she said, "but I told you this as a means of retaliating against a client who tried to stiff me. I don't sell anybody out."

Darren studied her for a moment while another quick, silent conversation went on with the others. When he took the money back, he handed her his business card. "If you ever decide that freelancing is no longer your cup of tea, look us up. Gemini/Winchell Security Systems can always use a tough broad with some integrity. Especially one who knows the ways of the 'shadow world' and has the stones to bug the First Gentleman - inside the White House, no less!"

Stella smiled at the compliment and took the card. "I'll keep it in mind. "

Liam enjoyed the return flight much more than the trip to Hong Kong. His link with the others allowed him to experience piloting the plasma driven beast through the minds of Mei and Wei, and the steadying influence of the others kept his nausea at bay as they arched over southern Asia, Europe, and the Atlantic Ocean to glide into Dulles a scant three hours after their departure.

Darren's first destination after a refreshing shower was the White House, and since he was still employed as the First Gentleman's bodyguard, Liam went along. As he hung about in the company of the President's Secret Service detail, Liam felt strangely isolated by the very intimacy he now shared with the President and her husband. No secret was secret from him, whether it be a matter of National Security or of a personal nature. Even after their dinner, when Darren and Stephanie made love, partly to take the edge off the lust that had been with her since she shared their first session of physical intimacy with Liam, he was there, enjoying the President's delight as he had that of the Gemini girls in Hong Kong, even as he guiltily shared the pleasure Darren felt in being with her.

As an 'insider' he now saw and gained a powerful appreciation for the power of the multi-mind when it came to solving the potentially world-shattering problems faced daily by the White House. No wonder this President had gained a reputation for wisdom far beyond her years! There had been, throughout her years in office, six minds helping make the decisions that flowed from the Oval office with such insight and diplomacy that members of Congress from both sides of the aisle held this President in high regard. To his astonishment, Liam, too, found himself being drawn into the decision-making process. He discovered what the others already knew, that his years guarding members of various First Families and other diplomats had given him a depth of political insight far beyond that of the common man.

"I don't suppose Madame President would care to explain how the dead body of our hacker came to be in the cargo space of an SUV that was being used by the First Gentleman and his partners in that security firm," Donald Patterson asked testily, "or, for that matter, how Madame President came to know about it?"

"This is a government built upon a system of checks and balances, Donald," Stephanie answered smugly, while chastising herself for not keeping the phone records straight during Darren's trip to Hong Kong. "It pleases me to have more than one resource in this field because, sometimes, bureaucracies take a bit longer to accomplish things than is prudent, wouldn't you agree? Since my husband's firm is quite capable of, and experienced in, handling similar cases, and since they had a stake in the matter themselves, it seemed prudent to give them leeway to do what they could."

"And if they had started an international incident, killing a foreign citizen on foreign soil, with the First Gentleman present?" She could feel his anticipation in the way he delivered the question, and gave him a little more rope.

"Oh, it's much worse than that, Donald." She told him solemnly as she slid the Gemini/Winchell report marked 'POTUS Eyes Only' across the table to him. "It seems they raided a camp run by China in the New Territories. Killed dozens of ROC soldiers, if I read this correctly, as well as three others like themselves."