"Bomb issa okay, Mr. Secretary."
"You haven't armed it?"
Doe shook his head. "Not without you terr me."
"Good. Good, good. Excellent. How do I look?" After summoning Doe, Babcock had banished the rest of the crew below. The ragtag Earthpeacers would be a distraction during this momentous meeting.
Babcock peeked anxiously out the side bridge window. The familiar tingle touched his bladder. Nossur Aruch was just stepping off the gangplank. PIO soldiers quickly secured the deck as the ex-terrorist climbed the steps to the bridge.
When Doe reached for the door, Babcock let out a horrified shriek.
"You're not here to open doors," the interior secretary hissed. "We used you people as slave labor to build the railroads, for Christ's sake. Is it too much to ask for a little less polite and a little more moral-outrage-inspired rudeness?"
When the door handle rattled, Babcock's eyes went wide.
"Chop-chop, Hop Sing," he snarled, shoving the Los Alamos scientist aside. The interior secretary flung the door open grandly.
"I bring you peace," Bryce Babcock announced. Nossur Aruch was framed in the doorway, an unshaved troll in rumpled fatigues. He looked like a trick-or-treater whose Halloween costume had gone horribly awry.
"May peace be yours, as well, Mr. Secretary," Aruch responded in his lisping, almost feminine voice.
As the men exchanged handshakes, Bryce Babcock's bladder tingled with watery excitement. He shifted his weight.
"I assume, Mr. Secretary, by your message and the manner in which we meet that this is a rendezvous of secret significance?" Aruch asked Babcock as he and a few of his guards were ushered onto the bridge. The former terrorist took special note of the subservient Ree Hop Doe cowering in the corner.
"Call me Bryce," Babcock chirped. "After all. We are to be partners in peace together."
Peace, peace, peace. The man was like a broken record.
Nossur had been right. This meeting was all about the Mideast peace process. Babcock was here at the behest of the American President.
It was an insult to send someone of lower rank than the vice president or the secretary of state to meet with him. In the old days, he might have shot the interior secretary. At the very least, Nossur would have turned right around and marched out the door. But Nossur Aruch was a politician now, and politicians were not allowed to shoot people. And, lamentably, politicians never, ever walked out on foreign dignitaries. No matter how lowly their station.
Holding his more violent impulses in check, Nossur smiled politely at Bryce Babcock.
"As you wish," Aruch said, deliberately not using the idiot's name.
For a moment, Babcock just stood there. Grinning.
"I'm sorry, Nossur," he suddenly gushed. "I really am. But I just can't wait. I'm like a kid at Christmas. Sorry. Christmas is probably verboten, right? Well, whatever the Muslim gift holiday is? That's what I'm like a kid on right now."
As the lunatic babbled, he moved over to a map table. Something large had been placed on it, with a sheet draped over to obscure. Babcock grabbed a corner of the material and gave a yank. The sheet fell away, dropping to the metal floor.
"Ta-dah!" Bryce Babcock chimed. He held both hands out to one side. A game-show hostess displaying a brand-new washer-dryer set.
The falling sheet revealed a gleaming stainless-steel object. So big around was it, Arach could have taken it in a bear hug and not touched fingertips on the other side. A small pad with glowing multicolored lights was affixed to its side. A few of the small lights winked hypnotically.
"What is this?" Nossur Aruch asked, a catch of intrigue in his soft voice. Eyes wide and unblinking, he took a hesitant, reverential step toward the device.
"The solution to all the world's ills," Babcock intoned. He beamed through his jowly face.
The former terrorist looked at the interior secretary.
"It is a bomb of some sort?"
"It is the bomb," Babcock explained. "The last bomb ever needed."
"It is atomic?"
Babcock glanced at Doe. The scientist nodded. "Ye-es," Babcock replied vaguely. "Technically it does work on the atomic level. But it's far more sophisticated than your garden-variety nuke. You must know that Earthpeace would never have anything to do with a common nuclear device." Aruch didn't seem interested in the moral distinctions the environmental organization drew between one bomb and the next. His fascinated gaze was leveled on the bomb before him.
"They are supposed to be available on the black market," the Palestinian commented as he stared at the stainless-steel casing. He reached out a tentative hand. "Former Soviet warheads are alleged to be popping up the world over. I have yet to see one, however. Radioactive junk is all one can get these days. This is the genuine article?"
"No, actually," Babcock admitted, frowning slightly. Aruch seemed a little too interested in the bomb. "As I told you, it's not a typical nuclear device."
"It will level a country?" Aruch asked hopefully. Babcock retreated a step. The glimmer of cunning in the PIO leader's eyes was unexpected and disturbing.
"Not in a standard way," the interior secretary offered slowly.
"Oh." The former terrorist's shoulders slumped. Hope instantly returned. "A city?" he asked.
"Maybe," Babcock admitted. "Listen, I'm not quite sure I like the way this is going."
"How big a city? Like Tel Aviv? Or Jerusalem? Do you have more than one? Where did you get it? Can you get more?" The questions came out in a flood.
Aruch didn't even wait for an answer to any of them. He wheeled to the men who had followed him onto the Grappler's bridge.
"Load it in the truck," he commanded.
"Now wait just a goldurned minute there, Nossur," Bryce Babcock warned. He slid protectively between Aruch and the bomb. "I don't know what you have in mind, but-"
Without a look at the secretary, Nossur Aruch snapped his fingers. Guns instantly rattled up.
The interior secretary's sagging jowls locked in midprotest. His face registered utter shock.
Silent now, Babcock was shoved roughly aside. Helpless, he watched as two PIO soldiers hefted the prototype neutrino bomb off the console, carting it out into the sunlight.
Babcock cringed when they accidentally banged it on the metal door frame.
"He knows how it works?" Aruch demanded. He aimed a stubby finger at Ree Hop Doe.
When Babcock nodded dully, Dr. Doe's hooded eyes opened wide.
"I onry hera for cash," the scientist pleaded. "Rawyer costa much money. Appear process taka rong time. China no foot birr anymore." He wheeled on Babcock. "Terr him I no wanna be stuck with clummy Mexican marr rawyer!"
Aruch ignored the man's pleading eyes. Fatang stood near the door. Turning to the soldier, Aruch pointed at Doe.