“She’s been in labor since five-thirty?” Masters asked incredulously.

“She’s apparently been in labor since three A.M., Jon,” Kaddiri corrected him. She could see him wince at the thought of being in pain for that long. If Jon were a woman, she decided, he’d get one contraction and immediately want to reach up inside and yank the kid out himself. “Everything’s going to be fine. Wendy’s a tough girl, and they’ve got some good docs up there.”

“Excellent,” Masters replied, relieved. “Can’t believe they’re going to have a kid. After all they’ve been through…”

“Jon, pay attention to me for once,” Kaddiri said. “Forget about the McLanahans for a moment-they’re going to be fine. It’s you I’m worried about. This is nothing but a dangerous grandstanding stunt that is likely to get you killed. I know you don’t care about yourself or your fellow officers, so think about our company-your company. The company would suffer a tremendous loss if you were hurt or killed. Don’t do this. Let’s put the telemetric mannequin in place the way we originally planned.”

“Helen, you crazy kid, you’re really concerned about me,” Masters said as he slipped into the seat, smiling his maddening, cocky grin. “I’m touched.”

“You are touched, Jon-touched in the head!” Kaddiri retorted, upset that he appeared to be making fun of her anxiety for him.

Jon Masters was closing in on his fortieth birthday, but in many ways he really was still a teenager-probably because he had bypassed most of his adolescence and teen years and pursued his studies rather than girls. He was a savant, a boy genius. He received his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College at age thirteen; by age eighteen he had a Ph.D from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and by age twenty he held over a hundred patents as a NASA engineer, doing work for the National Strategic Defense Initiative Organization and the Department of Defense.

And today, with billions in government contracts and licenses in the works, Jon Masters now had a little time to kick back and do what he really enjoyed doing-tinkering, experimenting, lab work-and it was as if he had regressed to his childhood when he played with transistors and drew detailed blueprints for rockets instead of playing baseball and drawing pictures of superheroes. But he never lost the cocky attitude he had developed when, as a superintelligent teenager going after his doctorate, he felt he had to break down his professors’ amused, smirking self-righteousness about awarding an advanced degree to a kid.

After all the years Kaddiri and Jon had worked together, it was still impossible for her to determine what that punk genius was thinking or feeling. Helen Kaddiri, the American-born daughter of Indian scientist-professor parents, had followed much the same path as Jon, but at a more conventional age and taking a more conventional route getting there-she was eight years older than he was. She started an aerospace company, Sky Sciences Inc., in Tennessee, after being rejected several times for senior-level positions at other companies where she felt her talents were being overlooked because of her gender. Her company was not large or hugely profitable, but it was hers and it was her pride and joy.

But in a surprise move, her own handpicked board of directors voted a young, cocky engineer from NASA onto the board, feeling he would surely help take the little company into the big leagues. The smart little brat took generous stock options instead of a salary, pledging to get rich or go broke along with them, a move that made him even more popular with the board. Jon Masters did indeed take Kaddiri’s little company to a higher level-and in the process took over almost all of the company’s outstanding stock, then control of her board of directors, then Helen’s position, then her authority, and eventually even the company name. Kaddiri made one unsuccessful attempt to wrest back control; her failure made Masters even more popular, even cockier.

She still enjoyed significant wealth, prestige, and authority as chairman of the board and corporate vice president of Sky Masters, Inc. But Helen Kaddiri could not count the times she had resolved to gladly trade it all in and go back to the bad old days as president and chief bottle washer of a company, no matter how dinky, that didn’t include Jonathan Colin Masters, B.S., M.S., Ph.D., CEO, RPITA-Royal Pain In The Ass.

Kaddiri clicked open the commlink again and said sternly, “Jon, you know about the instability problems, those power surges that we couldn’t control. The power surges could set off those explosives. Now put the dummy, the other dummy, in the seat and get out of there.”

“We did a test with explosives before, Helen…”

“But not with three separate chambers spaced so closely together, and not with the amount you’ve got loaded in there,” Kaddiri argued. “It’s too dangerous. At least have the range safety officers take some of those explosives out. Get out of that thing, Jon, and let’s-”

Masters looked at his watch and said quickly, “Too late, Helen. It’s time. We’ve got the satellite constellation for only another hour, and the FAA wants to reopen this airspace for the afternoon rush into San Francisco and San Jose. Let’s bring ‘em on in and get this dog and pony show started.” Kaddiri had no choice. She could either tell Masters to go to hell and get out of there before she witnessed a disaster, or comply.

Helen Kaddiri stepped up to the briefer’s platform after her audience filed in and the room was secured. She stood before a large rear-projection video screen, which showed the company logo along with video clips of several military technologies in operation-satellite reconnaissance systems, communications satellites, space boosters, and military weapons, all designed by Sky Masters, Inc. “Good afternoon and welcome, gentlemen,” Kaddiri began. “I am Dr Helen Kaddiri, vice president and chairman of the board of Sky Masters, Inc. Thank you very much for the invitation to present this technology demonstration program to you. I must remind you all that today’s presentation and the information contained in it is copyrighted and patented material, and is also classified under Sky Masters, Inc.’s memorandum of understanding with the Department of Defense concerning weapons-technology information transfer, and is not to be released to anyone outside this room without…”

It soon became obvious that the assistant deputy secretary of the Department of Transportation, Edward Fenton, who was the highest ranking government executive at the briefing, was perturbed. Just a few minutes after Kaddiri began, Fenton raised a hand: “Excuse me, Dr Kaddiri, but I understood that Dr Masters was going to be available to answer questions. Is he available today? If not, it would be best if…”

“Yes, Secretary Fenton, he’s with us now on a live videoconference hookup from California.”

“A videoconference? From California?” Fenton shook his head in exasperation, then nodded to his assistant, who started to pack up his boss’s notebooks. “Dr Kaddiri, I rearranged my schedule for two entire days to accommodate Dr Masters because he was flying all the way to Washington personally for this presentation. If we were going to do this by videoconference, I wish you’d have told us. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to…”

The screen behind Kaddiri went blank, followed immediately by the videoconference shot of Jon Masters in the cabin of the 727. “Sheesh, Ed,” Masters said, taking a sip of Pepsi from his ever-present squeeze bottle, “but you sure know how to spoil a good show. I was all set to do a big entrance.” Fenton’s irritation was quadrupled by being addressed by his first name. Masters noticed this right away and smiled. “Oh, sorry. I mean, Mr Assistant Deputy Secretary, I wish you hadn’t screwed up my entrance. But I’m ready to make our presentation now.”