CHAPTER 2

Someone was already beside the leer jet and opening it’s hatch before it had even finished taxiing. It was of no great surprise to Dee Brewer. After all, it was seldom that a company jet would come and pick her up in the first place. If her uncle would go to that much trouble, and he was normally quite a cheapskate when it came to such things, then he was certainly going to have a car waiting on her when the plane landed.

When Isaac Greenway got an itch, everyone jumped. Dee could even see it in the people, that wore an OK Corps logo, here at the airport. Odds were that not a single one of them had ever met Isaac and yet they were jumping around now as if he had come down here and personally ordered them to run around like chickens with their heads cut off.

Even if she did wait for the aircraft to come to a complete stop, before disembarking, Dee still found herself rushed once her feet hit the ground. Several of the company security people were standing by and did not hesitate to relieve her of the few bags she carried. They were in the trunk of the vehicle by the time she was in the back seat. The vehicle was moving, and headed for downtown Tucson, before she could even say hello to her fellow passenger.

“He called you back from Washington?” Dee asked her cousin.

Jess Greenway had barely acknowledged Dee when she slipped into the backseat of the limo. His briefcase was open on his lap and he was busily shuffling papers around. Dee had to wonder how much of his ass he was trying to cover right now. If he was sitting here in a car in Tucson then it meant he had been no more successful, in DC, than she had been in California. That left Jess with quite a bit of disaster control to take care of, and now all of it his own.

If Jess was actually worried about his job he did not show it. Dee had always wondered how the guy could stay so cool all of the time. Jess never got upset. He always had that pleasant and non assuming air about him. The guy could even stay awake, and attentive, during the most monotonous of board meetings. Dee would have admired him if all of his qualities were not so damn annoying. They were particularly so at times like this.

With a pleasant smile, Jess noted the fidgeting of his cousin, “I’m afraid the Fed’s are not going to back off on this one.”

Dee blew a strand of hair out of her face and tried to control her temper. This project had been hers! Uncle Isaac might have dreamed it all up, been the moral force behind it but, when it came to brass tacks then Dee was the one who made it all happen. This project belonged to her and her family! Now those bastards were trying to steal it.

“Oh come on Jess!” Dee said with a very distinctive sneer, “don’t tell me you spent all those years in Harvard Law, just so you could blow it in your hour of glory. They can’t do this!”

“I’m afraid they have Dee,” Jess said as he closed his briefcase. “And the situation being what it is, I know what recommendation I’m going make too Uncle Isaac.”

The security check points for the executive parking lot came in sight as Dee shot back at her cousin, “don’t say it Jess.”

With his hands extended out in a friendly gesture, Jess simply replied in his polite way, “well what else are we supposed to do?”

Once inside the garage the car doors were opened by even more security people. Dee had learned to ignore them a long time ago. Even so, she was too busy arguing with Jess this time. As they got out of the car and walked towards the elevator Dee let him have a piece of her mind, “all those bozo’s want is to get there so they can blow it up like they do everything else. I am not letting my designs, my creations, get turned into some new kind of weapon.”

Since it was obvious Dee was not going to do it, Jess used his access card to open the elevator door. It was also apparent that Dee did not even notice that he had, so, Jess held out his hand, “after you?”

Dee even kicked the elevator wall after the doors closed. Jess simply stood in the corner and watched her fidget and pace. Finally he asked, “Dee have you ever thought about taking up racquetball?”

The doors opened and she asked, “what’s that supposed to mean?”

The board room was directly across the hall from the executive elevator. The doors were open and it was easy to see that the room was alive with activity. Dee barely avoided being run over by an executive assistant, an over glorified secretary, when entering the room. The woman had to back up against a door jam to let Dee and Jess get by. She let out a big sigh as they passed, “good luck Doctor Brewer. It’s a madhouse today.”

That did not make Dee feel any better but, at least it did not make her feel worse. Very little could have done either in these past few days. Then she saw her Uncle. Instinctively Dee froze when she did. He had always had that power over her for as long as she could remember. Isaac was an imposing figure by sheer force of personality alone. He was also very tall and that only compounded his presence. His motions were tireless, his eyes were ever gazing, searching, analyzing all around him. His face was seemingly etched in stone.

Isaac had his usual board room attire on. His business suit had a definitive western air about it, complete with string tie and large ugly cowboy hat. He had always fancied himself a descendant of the Clanton Gang who were infamous for the shoot out at OK Corral. Not that Isaac could ever prove this fanciful dream of his but then who was going to tell him he was wrong? Like most things, in the OK world, if Isaac Greenway said so then it was reality or would quickly become that way.

This entire project was a good case in point. Dee never really understood where her Uncle had dreamed it up. She was certain he had been nurturing it for a very long time though. After all, he had sent her to MIT, just like he sent Jess to Harvard, for a reason. How long ago had that been? He most definitely had all of this in mind when he did.

After all, the OK Corporation’s main cash cow, and claim to fame, was a revolutionary new flush system for toilets. What would Isaac need with a Doctor of Theoretical and Applied Physics? That was what Dee was.

She knew way back when that OK had been diversifying in other markets. Isaac was a shrewd money man and such moves only made good sense. Only Dee had never thought that there was a pattern to his madness. It was not until Isaac gave his board of directors a heart attack, by announcing his little scheme, that she put it all together. Isaac had been buying up companies, and by extension their people, who had skills and technologies he was planning on needing.

The coup de grace had been his secret little venture with the federal government. At the time Dee had wondered if Isaac had decided on her course of education with that project in mind. After all, he had initially put her in charge of it. The plot only thickened after that.

Dee had eventually rejected that idea though. There was no way that even Isaac could have known he would be given the opportunity to fund NASA. As it turned out, that had been just a target of opportunity and one that Isaac had grabbed with both hands. It was a golden apple that furthered his real aim and put the OK Corps years ahead of schedule.

It all lead up to this. Dee knew for certain that she had seven years of her life completely tied up in it. How much had she given up to be on the verge of doing something that was truly historic? Till now it had all seemed worth it. Then Dee discovered the nasty dark side of grand schemes. When they failed it was normally equally as dismal.

Isaac never missed much. When Dee and Jess walked in he then lost all interest in the conversation he was having over by the windows. Of course Isaac never bothered with greeting people. His shrill voice rang out across the room as his niece and nephew put their things down on the board room table, “so who wants to explain this little disaster?”

There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Isaac had just addressed Dee. The plant had been her responsibility and any failure there was hers alone. What could she say about it though? The Feds had come in the doors with black suited, fully armored, machinegun carrying, storm troopers! Naturally OK Corps had it’s own leg breakers but the Feds had hit with no warning at all! Who would have thought that they would have tried a stunt like this!

Fortunately Isaac did not seem to be expecting a response, “you should have told security to shoot it out with them bastards.”

One of the senior board members almost dropped his coffee upon hearing that, “you can’t be serious Isaac?”

That board member got a good share of the wrath that had probably been stored up for Dee. Isaac swung his cold hard gaze at the man, “why not?”

Suddenly the board member was on the defensive, “well… I mean, they had swat teams! We would have been slaughtered.”

“Hell boy,” Isaac replied waving the man off in a gruff manner, “our family is famous for that!”

Now Isaac got back too Dee, “did they get the pictures?”

She shuttered every time he spoke to her like that. Dee had learned how to hide it better these days, “um, no sir. We only had hard copies and I shredded them before they got to my office.”

“Well pin a medal on you,” he replied in a biting fashion. Isaac then went to a more business like manor without skipping a beat, “so the next question is what are we going to do about it?”

Jess took that as a command to speak up since he was the companies chief lobbyist and primary legal council. Jess lived and worked in Washington most of the time and as such handled almost all of OK’s dealings with the government.

This time he did not even manage to get out a single word before Isaac cut him off, “I already know you crapped out Jess. Heard all about it before you even got on the plane.”

“Yes sir,” Jess sighed. He then licked his lips and stated, “may I make a suggestion Uncle Isaac?”

Dee had noted that there had been all kinds of little meetings going on when they arrived. Now everyone in the room had dropped what they were doing and focused on the center ring. She gulped as she realized that she and Jess were the ring masters. It was either that or they were the clowns.

“I have to point out Uncle,” Jess went on, “that we were technically breaking the law here. I did not really believe that our chances in court were realistic. Even if we manage to get this before a judge the preliminary hearings are going to be months away. As I understood it we don’t have months.”

“Oh breaking the law hell,” Isaac complained, “they don’t bother Detroit do they? Besides all that Jess, that plant was tooled up for this project long before they passed that stupid law. Remind me boy, but wasn’t it you that said something about they can’t make us stop if we we’re already doing it?”

“Um,” Jess tried to figure out how to put this delicately, “not exactly Uncle.”

At the moment Dee felt like she was in one of those nightmares where she was standing on a stage, naked, and could not remember her lines. She fought to suppress those feelings and let her anger well up.

Uncle Isaac could never be as angry about all of this as she was. He was not the one who had been working seven days a week on it for almost a decade. Dee had. She forced herself to speak up. She had to at least try and get this all back on track. At this point Dee was willing to grasp at straws to accomplish it.

“The last word I got was that the President has called a special news conference for the day after tomorrow. Uncle Isaac, they’re going public with this and if they do it then all the court rulings in the world aren’t going to help. Even if we get the plant back it’s not going matter.”

Apparently Isaac was not following her lead on this. He quickly asked one of his many assistants, “can we manufacture those components somewhere else?”

Someone replied rather bluntly and in a matter of fact tone, “not without putting us two years behind schedule.”

Dee grunted in frustration, “Uncle Isaac, it doesn’t matter.”

Now Isaac was asking one of his corporate security people, “what about the Japs?”

The man did not even have to look at his material, “well we confirmed the leak sir. It’s a sure bet they know what we know. Satellite photo’s also confirm they’re commencing construction of an orbital platform.”

Yet another man added, “we also have confirmation from Zaire. They’re definitely loading up warehouses with what they’ll need to start work on their ship.”

“All right,” Isaac said looking back to Dee, “now you know what the game situation is. It’s the fourth down in the fourth quarter. What can the Feds offer us?”

Maybe he had been paying attention to her? Somehow Dee doubted it and figured it was more likely that Isaac had simply come to the same conclusion she had and probably even before he drug her back from California.

It was really the only option they had. When Dee was not angry she could see that. She could even see some benefits to being partners with the Feds. It wounded her pride to say it but then Dee was ultimately a pragmatist. That side of her came from having been an engineer for so long.

The deeper that OK Corps got into this project the more abundantly clear it became that they were sorely lacking in many things that were crucial and none of which had to do with the technology involved. Dee was confident they could build the tools to do the job and then some. The problems were cropping up in unexpected places. There was just so much that they had never considered.

“That,” Dee’s nose wrinkled and she sneered when she thought of that gung ho jar head that had led the raid on her factory complex, “Gestapo goon, Winston was his name, showed me what they had in mind.” After a deep sigh Dee reluctantly admitted, “it’s a sound enough plan. The time table is a little unrealistic but I think we can work with them on that.”

Jess added, “before I even left Washington, Isaac, I was under the distinct impression that they plan on forging ahead with or without us.”

Everyone in the board room braced for one of Isaac’s world class tantrums. They were all quite surprised, and not a little bit relieved, when he laughed off the lawyers last statement and sat down with a smile on his face. “they wouldn’t have busted down our doors if they thought they could. The fact is we have something they need. They got caught with their pants down and now they’re doing the only thing they know how, to fix it. I’d say that gives us something of a good bargaining position.”

Dee blinked. What was he talking about? “Uncle Isaac, as long as they have that yellow tape, around the Stockton plant, we’re dead in the water. What’s worse is they know it.”

Isaac leaned back in his high leather chair and snickered. He looked at Dee in a very fatherly kind of way, definitely condescending but, still parental, “Dee, they want this to work as badly as we do. They’re not trying to stop us. They’re hitchhikers.”

Isaac thought about that for a second and them corrected himself, “all right, maybe carjackers but still a bunch of free loading bums anyway you cut it.”

All eyes were now on Isaac. Silence fell on the room. Dee had to wonder what her Uncle was thinking about right now. Sometimes, quite often in fact, she had wondered if he really understood just exactly how big this project was. This was something that was far outside the scope of any venture that they had ever undertaken. For that matter, it was larger than anything that had ever been attempted by humanity, in history! Did he really understand that? If they succeeded here, this was going to quite literally turn the page of history.

Judging by Isaac’s commands, Dee figured that he most likely did not. His orders sounded so mundane, so average, it was like Isaac was seeing this as no different than any other business decision he had ever made. He told his people how he wanted the various teams to run, what he wanted them to do, and how long they had to accomplish their tasks. Then he looked to Dee and Jess. “You two are going to handle point on this. Jess you high tail it back to DC and start doing what it is you do. Dee…”

Dee nodded and bit her lip.

Isaac finished, “you’re going back to Houston.”