AI - Alpha Part 16

with Bart. Get it to General Chang and arrange the meeting as soon as possible. Also, tell the Alley team to knock off for forty-eight hours. No more copy attempts unless they get an order from myself or Chang."

"Will do, sir." Matheson sounded surprised.

Thomas sat back and closed his eyes. Fatigue weighed on him. He wished he could go home and sleep, but he intended to stay on the job until they resolved the problem. Still, perhaps he could rest a bit. "C.J.,

is anything scheduled for the next ten minutes?"

"Nothing," Matheson said. "But you have a call from your daughter. She's been holding."

Thomas opened his eyes. "Put it through."

After a pause, Leila's voice came out of the comm. "Hi, Dad. How are you?"

He smiled. "Great. How's the Moppet?"

"She's okay. But scared."

He tensed, remembering Alpha in Jamie's room. She must have climbed in the open window while he

was downstairs talking to Karl. His adrenaline jumped every time he thought of the whole business.

"Are the guards with you?" he asked Leila.

"Two sec-tech hulks," she said, sounding bemused.

"Good." The Technical Security police force had developed as a response to the increasingly

sophisticated terrorist threats experienced by military officers and their families.

"Are you sure the woman who came to the hospital is the same one who broke into your house?" Leila asked.

"Jamie thinks so."

"Dad, she's only three."

"It doesn't hurt to be careful." He had underestimated Alpha before. "Leila, have you ever had Jamie

tested?"

"For what?"

"Academics, intelligence, that sort of thing."

Her voice tightened. "I wish people would let it alone. I don't want her labeled by some set of numbers."

Thomas blinked. "Why not?"

"Why should we? She doesn't have to prove anything to anyone."

"It's a tool to help you plan her education."

"People wear test scores like labels. Besides, what do they measure? An ability to do a narrow range of

problems."

"Nowadays you can test as wide a range of traits as you want, everything from math to emotional intelligence."

"It's a lot of pressure on a child her age."

"Tell her it's a game." Personally, he thought Jamie would have fun with it. Then again, he wasn't the

one who spent every day with her. "I've sometimes wished your mother and I had done something like that with you."

"Whatever for?"

He spoke carefully, negotiating a minefield of memories. "I've wondered if the reason you had problems in high school was because you were bored."

Anger sparked in her voice. "It's always my problems."Thomas could have kicked himself. He hadn't meant it to sound that way. He and Leila had argued all during her teen years and even now they sometimes fell into the old patterns. "Honey, I didn't mean it that way. I've wondered if you were frustrated in school because you weren't challenged enough."

Leila was silent for so long, he thought he had offended her. Then she said, "You were always so

impressed with Sam Bryton. Sam, the whiz, Sam, the inventor. I like her, too. But sometimes-well, I

felt like I never measured up."

Thomas was so surprised, it took a moment to find his voice. "Good Lord, Leila. I thought you were the moon and the sun. I wanted you to have a role model, someone you could relate to better than your cantankerous old father."

Her voice gentled. "I know that now. It was harder to see when I was a teenager.""Please don't ever doubt it.""I won't." Softly she said, "But thanks."Thomas had a sense something important had happened. "I'm glad you called.""Me, too.""That husband of yours home yet?""He caught the first open flight. It gets in tonight.""It had better," Thomas grumbled.Her voice lightened. "Dad, it will be fine. We can all have dinner tomorrow.""I'll hold you to that.""Good. Love you."He almost said, See you, but then he remembered the vow he had made in the ambulance, after his heart attack, when he had thought he was going die without telling his children he loved them. He had sworn if he survived, he would learn to be less restrained.

"Love you, too," he said.

"Bye, Dad." The channel clicked off.

Thomas sat back, thinking about Leila. She was ten years younger than Sam. In trying to encourage the friends.h.i.+p, had he led Leila to think he believed in her less than Sam? His daughter had been restless in school, often incensed about one issue or another, ready to confront the world. It was no wonder she became a lawyer. But he had always felt he failed her on some basic level, perhaps because he had struggled so much with his own problems in his youth and he feared to pa.s.s that legacy to his children.

He was immensely grateful he and Leila had found their way back to each other after those troubled years.

A knock came at his office. "Come in," Thomas said.

Matheson opened the door. "Did you want to go to the conference room? I've got the files ready."

Conference room? Then Thomas remembered; the staff meeting.

"What about the conference with Chang?" Thomas asked.

"Tomorrow morning, first thing."

It didn't surprise Thomas that Chang had agreed. She wanted to solve this Alpha and Alley mess as

much as he did. It had happened under her watch, too, and she had to answer to the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff if the situation precipitated a crisis, like the murder of a lieutenant general. He would have preferred to meet with her this afternoon, but this would give him time to do research on the idea of Sunrise Alley as its own country.

"Very well." Thomas stood up-and staggered when his cast hit his desk. He grabbed his chair to keep from falling. d.a.m.n. He had forgotten his leg.

Matheson was at his side immediately. "I can reschedule the meeting."

Thomas glowered at him. "A broken leg is hardly life-threatening. I can attend a meeting."

Matheson started to speak, then hesitated the same way he had earlier in the hallway.

"What is it?" Thomas asked.

"Last night, the doctor said he expected you to be in the hospital for a couple of days."

"You were at the hospital?"

"Major Edwards, too. By the time we got there, you were asleep."

"Oh." Thomas spoke awkwardly. "Thank you." Nothing in either Matheson's or Edwards's job

descriptions required they get up in the middle of the night to visit their boss in the hospital.

"We were concerned," Matheson said.

"I'm all right," Thomas said. "Really." He took his crutches from where they were leaning against a table

behind his desk, set them under his arms, took a step-and dizziness swept over him.

He managed to grab the table before he fell. His nausea surged and an all-too-familiar ache began in his chest. He stumbled back and sat heavily in his chair, painfully aware of his heartbeat. For a moment he just stayed there, angry at his symptoms. Then he opened the top drawer of his desk and removed a brown gla.s.s bottle. Its nitroglycerine tablets were small and white. He put one under his tongue, all the time looking at his desk, the bottle, anywhere but at C.J. He recognized the pain in his chest. Angina. It had presaged his heart attack by over a year. He doubted he was having another attack, but the pain

served as a warning. Once, he would have ignored it and gone on with his day. As much as he wanted to do that now, he knew better.

Thomas looked up at Matheson. "Perhaps we should reschedule the staff meeting for tomorrow."

Matheson didn't hide his relief. "I'll take care of it."

"Thank you." Thomas heard how formal he sounded. The stodgy old general-"old" being the operative

word, it seemed. Perhaps it was time to rethink his retirement. He had intended to years ago, with a hefty package of benefits. Then Janice had died of a stroke, and with her, their dreams of traveling the world together. He had submerged himself in work after that. The Air Force seemed to consider him valuable; they even offered him incentives to continue in his position. So here he was, still at his job at an age when he and Janice had expected to be spending their days on exotic beaches.

"Shall I have your sec-techs meet you at the parking lot?" Matheson asked.

Thomas stood up more slowly. "Thank you. That would be good."

Matheson held up the holofile he had brought. "I can walk out with you and discuss the agenda for the

meeting."