He offered a wry smile, obviously waiting for more.
“After a year at NASA, I was selected for a new team,” she said. “A follow-up to the relatively famous Daedalus project, which hoped to use nuclear explosions or some other form of exotic propulsion like matter-antimatter combustion to power future spacecraft at tremendous speeds. Much faster than we can achieve with chemical rockets. It was exciting. Intoxicating, really. The project demanded long hours, at close quarters. And as you might expect, with eight people spending almost all their waki
ng time together, we became a very tight-knit group. Then, out of the blue, we began receiving threats.”
“Because of the work?”
“Apparently,” she said. “A fringe group I’d never heard of began accusing us of militarizing space. At first we thought it was a bunch of nonsense. But the threats became deeper, more personal. We were sent pictures of ourselves in vulnerable areas, in our houses, in our cars, at restaurants with our colleagues. Whoever these people were, they were obviously stalking us.”
“I assume the FBI got involved,” he said.
“They did. And they were able to link the threats to an anti-American group that had killed two scientists in the Arctic and sent letter bombs to several high-tech companies. We thought with the FBI on the case, we’d be safe. Two weeks later, our team leader and a friend—a man named Beric—was killed.”
Across from her, Kurt nodded thoughtfully but said nothing.
“Beric was an incredibly kind man,” she told him, surprised at the emotion it brought up after all these years. “If anyone needed anything, right down to the cafeteria workers and janitors, he made sure they had it. If there was an underdog cause without much hope, he championed it. And he was brilliant. A genius in several fields, everything from software development to astrophysics. Above all else, he was committed to NASA’s mission of peace, committed to a world where all men and women treat each other with decency.”
She took a deep breath, gathered herself and then continued. “That someone would target him, accuse him of being a militarist and kill him for it, was a disgusting irony. It affected me. Lifted the blinders from my eyes. It proved to me that the pacifist mind-set is nothing but a childish dream. Peace is fragile, not a natural state. It can only be secured through strength. And when that strength fails, disaster ensues.”
“In many ways, I’d agree with that,” he said. “Mind if I ask how it happened?”
“Like many of us at NASA, Beric loved to fly. He owned his own plane. Took it up every chance he could. If we had to go somewhere, he’d fly himself instead of going commercial. One day, on the way to an astrophysics conference, his plane exploded. From the wreckage, the FBI was able to determine what we already knew: the explosion was caused by a bomb. Three of us were supposed to be on that plane. But, as it turned out, Beric went alone.”
“I’m sorry,” Kurt said.
“Anyway,” she continued, “the propulsion study was cancelled a short time later and the whole project was eventually shut down. Feeling like I was drifting, I began casting around for something else to do. When the National Security Agency began recruiting scientists for their space program, I jumped at the opportunity.”
He nodded thoughtfully and then changed the subject to something more cheerful. But even as he spoke, her mind lingered on Beric. She hadn’t thought of him in years. He wouldn’t have approved of her career change.
She shook off the thought and focused on Kurt once more. They continued to chat and enjoy the meal. Halfway through the second glass of wine, he paused midsentence and then pulled his phone from his pocket to study a text that had just come in.
“Checking your phone,” she said. “Am I really that dull?”
“Anything but,” he said, putting the phone away. “In fact, I think it’s time to see how adventurous you truly are.” He slid the triangular, noise-cancelling device toward her, pulled out several hundred dollars in cash and flagged the waiter down. “For the meal. And a tour of the kitchen.”
The waiter examined the cash briefly. Then he smiled and said, “This way.”
Emma stood and went along with whatever Austin was up to. If anything, she was interested in seeing how his mind worked.
They followed the waiter through the kitchen and out the back door, where Kurt gave the waiter another instruction. “Block this door for a few minutes, if you can. Don’t let anyone follow us.”
The waiter nodded and Kurt led her out into a dimly lit alley behind the restaurant.
“I think you’ve got this backward,” she said. “People normally sneak out of a restaurant when they realize they can’t pay, not after overpaying. And never before dessert.”
“We were being watched,” he said, leading her down the alley toward the main street.
“We’re American agents operating without cover in a foreign country,” she said, “of course we’re being watched. I’m sure the Ecuadorian government is following us, especially considering our last-minute travel and sudden arrival.”
“These weren’t Ecuadorian police or federal agents,” he insisted. “It was a young Chinese couple. They were waiting at the door and took a booth directly across from us. They never touched their food.”
“Chinese couple,” she said, remembering their features. “I saw them. Not a big surprise either. We know the Chinese are looking. But I promise you, no one could hear what we were saying as long as the interference processor was running. Our best people haven’t been able to crack it.”
He stopped. “They didn’t have to hear what you were saying. They were reading your lips.”
She froze for a second, trying to remember anything she might have accidentally said and suddenly thankful that he’d interrupted her at every turn. “I was wondering why you kept asking me to try your dinner, even though we ordered the same thing.”
“Less talk, that way,” Kurt said. He continued to lead her down the street.