Razing Beijing: A Thriller Read Free

of
engineers shuffled toward the door, muttering about the grotesque blemish on
their achievement. Stuart watched Emily Chang silently gather her things and
follow them out—her eyes caught his the instant she stepped through the
doorway.
    Vickers remained behind and stared at the table while
Stuart rolled up the blueprint.
    “What am I supposed to tell everyone?” Gloria Jackson, Thanatech’s
squat, round-headed public relations spokesman stood in the doorway, her thumb
jabbed over her shoulder. “The California state congressman just arrived. They’re
all expecting to see a fly-by. They’ve got TV cameras and we just canceled it!”
    Stuart looked through the smoked glass windows of the
conference room. Fifty or so people milled along a stretch of taxiway that
paralleled the runway. In their midst was a gleaming white panel truck with a
satellite dish angled up at the sky. The CEO of Thanatech was scheduled to join
the congressman for the airport fly-by and talk up the benefit of the program
to the local economy. But Stuart’s boss had phoned to say his flight was going
to be late—that the job had been delegated to him. He’d forgotten all about it.

2
    STUART SHIFTED HIS FOCUS between the attractive young
woman holding the microphone and the sky above the hills beyond her camera
crew. The tiny cable television operation, WMJV-TV, apparently viewed their
feature of the flight test as today’s biggest headline. Every community’s
ongoing interest in almost any ‘green’ initiative amid the slumbering economy
had made such stories newsworthy. This was especially the case, should it also be
shown as having the potential to strengthen America’s hand against OPEC’s embargo
of crude oil delivery.
    Stuart wiped away beads of perspiration forming over his
lip. Aside from quickly ending the interview, his goal was to casually
interject that today’s test flight was proceeding ahead of schedule and would
therefore be completed early, which in his mind he could justify as being
factually correct. Gloria Jackson stressed the importance of doing this before the plane caught people off guard by appearing in the pattern to land.
    He caught glimpses of the company spokesman beyond the
camera crew, a serenely confident smile plastered to her face, her hands
fidgeting nervously. Murdoch had informed them both before the interview that
the aircraft would be returning from the northwest. Jackson continually scanned
the sky in every direction until even Stuart became nervous. Ten minutes into
the interview, presumably at ease with Stuart’s performance, Jackson had
thankfully disappeared.
    He made a show of examining his watch as the television
journalist glanced up from her notes. “Mr. Stuart, we heard unofficially...”
    Stuart was aware of movement to the left and behind the
television crew, a stout figure in the doorway to the administration
building—Gloria Jackson frantically waving her arms.
    “...noticed only one single passenger boarding with the
pilots today. With all the electronics aboard, one would naturally think the
test of such a big airplane required more than a single passenger.”
    “I’m sorry. What is your question?”
    “Is there some concern about the safety of this new engine?”
    On its merit the question was innocent enough, but
something in the woman’s intonation, or a subtle shift in her posture, alerted
Stuart to an ulterior motive. Anyone who followed Thanatechnology was aware of
the program’s earlier problems, widely publicized in aerospace journals. Several
engines had violently exploded during ground test, such things being par for
the development course. In the hands of competing marketing teams they made for
exploitable fodder.
    “Well”—Stuart glanced at the identification tag pinned to
the breast of the woman’s aqua silk blouse—“we’ve had the normal assortment of
development hurdles. Truth is, it’s simply prudent to limit the number of
personnel on early test