Chapter Eleven
Wednesday
Building 433—T Program
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Daydreaming during the hour drive from San Francisco International airport, Hal Michaelson felt his eyes growing gritty from too little sleep and too much traveling. He wanted to go back home and sleep it off until his body caught up with the time zone, but he had to get back to work. It was noon already, and he had to put all the wheels in motion for the upcoming IVI demo. The nap he had snatched on the plane was all he was going to get.
He could have slept more the night before, but Amber hadn’t given him much chance—not that he minded.
His mind on autopilot, Michaelson automatically turned off the interstate after a numbing drive across the San Mateo Bridge, through the East Bay lunchtime traffic mess, and finally over the grassy hills into the Livermore Valley. He turned off the Vasco Road exit, but the Westgate Drive entrance to the Lawrence Livermore Lab came as a surprise.
Michaelson snapped out of his funk and turned left into the sprawling, fenced-in complex of the government research installation. When the gate guard stepped out of his kiosk into the road, Michaelson rolled down his window and fished for his badge. He extended it to the guard, who tapped it without much interest and let Michaelson drive through the gate onto the site.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory looked more like a university campus than one of the nation’s primary nuclear design facilities. People bicycled past, some riding their own ten-speeds, others pedaling battered red Schwinn bikes the Lab kept for employee use. Wind rustled the tall eucalyptus trees that stood over bike paths and buildings.
It was lunch hour, when the scientists, administrators and support staff suddenly became health conscious, shucking their work dress for shorts and colored spandex tops. Men and women jogged in groups of two and three just inside the gate, around the par exercise course, running from station to station, performing calisthenics suggested by the fitness placards, then running to the next stop. The sun shone down, and everybody enjoyed the fine weather—a big switch from Washington, D.C., Michaelson thought, where it was just too damned hot and sticky to be outside.
Michaelson rubbed his eyes and fought back a yawn, wanting nothing more than just to be back in his office. He clipped the badge back onto the chain around his neck as he drove onto the mile-square site, straightening the badge over his tie, a leftover from his D.C. trip.
Even with the five uninterrupted hours he’d spent on the plane, going over the management plan for the International Verification Initiative, Michaelson was still far behind. And thanks to Amber he didn’t know how he was going to manage to squeeze in the rest he needed.
Amber—the sweet memory of their lovemaking—how could anyone wearing a formal staffer’s uniform and so much meticulous makeup be so wild and uncontrolled in bed? He grinned as he used his special car pass to drive through a second gate, behind another wall of chain-link fence into the RESTRICTED area where the T Program trailers were located.
Beyond, a series of two-story aluminum and dark-glass structures resembled a futuristic movie scene. A white, thirty feet in diameter satellite dish stood in a grassy clearing to the south; construction crews worked on another new building to the north.
The executive parking lot next to building 433 was big enough for only a few cars. Hal slid his aging Oldsmobile into the slot marked DIRECTOR and walked the sycamore-lined path to the white lab trailers, large portable buildings that had been given so much landscaping that they would never be moved any time soon. Built from money originally designated for the Laser Implosion Fusion Facility, the Virtual Reality lab stood in the shadow of the towering LIFF, now used primarily for low-level laser experiments and equipment storage on the other side of the RESTRICTED area fence.
Well, with the IVI they would have an extravagant budget, enough money to build themselves a slick new facility, design fancy logos, get wooden desks instead of lab-standard modular furniture and fabric cubicle dividers. Give it time, he thought. But they had a great deal of work to do for the international delegates, who would have to be totally wowed by the VR capabilities.
Entering the Virtual Reality lab through the badge-reading CAIN booth, Michaelson found himself the only person in the cluttered small building. He looked around and frowned. Where the hell was Lesserec? Noontime and the place looked like the Mary Celeste. T Program workers weren’t supposed to take lunch hours. Lunch was for people who weren’t doing anything important.
The heavy vault door stood open, and the smooth-walled, featureless VR chamber looked the way he had left it two days before; but in all that time the team members should have been able to show something for their efforts.
In the wake of that shock, Michaelson expected the place to be filled with bodies scurrying around, preparing for the high-level foreign visitors that would arrive here in only four weeks. He’d have to come down on his deputy, get Lesserec to start taking things more seriously, make sure his priorities were appropriately established. He wondered if Lesserec knew his days were numbered.
Michaelson grumbled to himself and made his way through the tangled nerve center with its control racks and monitor screens, stepped over bundled fiber optic cable. He scanned the rows of empty workstations, discarded Diet Coke cans, and stacks of technical papers and software users manuals that cluttered the lab area. At least his own office would be clean and neat. Whenever he went away on travel, his administrative assistant Tansy Beaumont took the opportunity to file away the debris he left scattered around his office.
Tansy had her own cubicle now; her former area, tucked away in the far corner of the open hall, served as a holding area for the electronic equipment and spare parts that Lesserec’s people insisted on keeping around. With the growing success and visibility of T Program, though, Michaelson had needed to establish his “moat dragon” in a prominent position to act as a buffer for all the administrative bullshit, so he could get some work done.
Once the IVI got off the ground, this place would turn into a case of bureaucratic constipation, with everybody trying to push their mouths in the same watering hole … he’d have to give Tansy a special briefing on how to handle it. But he wouldn’t worry about that for at least another month, given the usual ramp-up time. There were just too many things to do right now.
Michaelson glanced at the yellow phone messages on his desk. Other than the usual queries for information and pestering calls he could ignore, he found a terse memo from José Aragon—did that man want his fingers in everything?—requesting that Michaelson meet with him at the Plutonium Facility by the end of the afternoon. Michaelson snorted; that could wait, though it probably had something to do with the IVI demonstration. At the end of the day he was scheduled to have a meeting with the Lab Director himself, which was probably more important; but Michaelson knew he’d probably be chastised for springing such a surprise on everyone. Oh well, that’s tough. He had thought there would at least be messages from the local press, requests for interviews. He hoped Tansy hadn’t squelched them.
Michaelson shuffled through the yellow notes, tossing the entire wad into the wastebasket. Then he logged onto the Quickmail system and methodically went through his electronic messages; still nothing of consequence. Finally, he punched up his home phone number to access his private messages. The thing he hated most about constant travel was all the tedious catching up once he got back.
When his home answering machine kicked on, he keyed in his private code and pulled up the messages. Finally, two reporters requesting interviews. He smiled. The delivery service telling him they had stocked his pantry. The next caller, though, caused him to rock back in his seat.
“Hal—this is Diana. Pick up if you’re there.” A pause. “Where are you? I got into Livermore last night and you’re not home. I thought you were catching the red-eye. Give me a call when you get in. I’m staying at the Pleasanton Sheraton. I must have missed you on the plane.”
The answering machine beeped for the next caller. “Hal, this is Diana again. Dammit, it’s ten o’clock in the morning and you still haven’t gotten in—or you’re not returning my calls. What the hell’s going on? The Lab says you’re not due in until later this afternoon. You bastard, you knew you weren’t coming back!” There was a long pause on the recording, a disgusted sigh. “Hal, we’ve got to talk about your confirmation hearings for the IVI. You might think this is all a big joke and you’ll be able to breeze past this senate confirmation, but you’re not bulletproof. Get that through your thick, arrogant skull. If they ever find out about us, it’s going to be one hell of a ride for you. And for me, as well. I’m in line for a promotion here, you know.
“These guys are out for blood. You’ve been taking potshots at Congress and the administration for years—this is their chance to get even. They can taste it, and they’ll stop at nothing to discredit you. People have had their careers ruined for far less than fucking administration officials. Talk to me—or do I have to threaten you?”
Michaelson punched the buttons on the phone, cutting off the recorded message.
Rocking forward in the chair behind his desk, he tossed the lightweight plastic phone back into its cradle. Diana was becoming a bigger pain in the ass than he had imagined. Well, screw it. It’s over with her.
Bothersome details filled his days, forcing him to work late hours just to get his job done. It was going to be another long night—alone again.
But first he had to clear up the stack of administrative requests. He sighed and plucked one of the yellow slips out of the wastebasket. The meeting with Aragon and the Lab Director was first on the list. It was probably one of those butt-kissing circuses he couldn’t get out of.
He heard several people arriving, passing one by one through the CAIN booth, slipping their badges into the reader, keying in their access number, and pushing open the heavy door. The tightly knit group of technicians returned from lunch, but it sounded as if they had spent their entire time talking about work-related problems. Michaelson expected nothing less.
“Hey, Dr. Michaelson, that was some press conference!” the young black woman from Caltech called, raising her hand.
“Yeah, does this mean we can move to a real lab facility now?” said someone else. Michaelson had forgotten his name.
He waved them off and growled as he picked up the phone to call Aragon. “Tell Gary I want to see him in my office as soon as he gets back,” he called. “We’ve got to change these banker’s hours and accomplish some work around here. That international team will be here before you know it.”
Not waiting for a reply, he punched the number to call Associate Director José Aragon and acknowledge the meeting in the Plutonium Facility for that afternoon.