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.”Thad was pretty sure he sounded naive, and a little foolish, but he felt that the words were sincere.An outsider might call it all attempts at rationalization, trying to explain himself in ways that went beyond the crassness of money or the cliché of love, but in that moment, camped out in the parking lot of a Baptist church because they didn’t have a hundred dollars between them to rent a hotel room—even though there were millions of dollars in moon rocks in the trunk—it was probably okay to sound a little foolish.“And what about Everett Gibson? I mean, we stole his safe.There were papers inside that probably meant something to him.He’d been working on those samples for thirty years.He was kind of a mentor of yours—”“Dr.Gibson is going to be just fine.I’m sure he’s got duplicates of anything that ended up in that safe.And if not … well, science is a living, moving thing.It’s not something to be shoved away in a corner.Gibson was a part of the greatest scientific adventure in human history.He had his moment, he lived his moment, and now we’re taking that baton.Plus, we boxed up everything else to mail back to NASA, so he will get back what we don’t sell.”Rebecca went silent in his arms.Maybe she was contemplating what he was saying, or maybe she was just looking at the moon.He was pretty sure that she wasn’t asking these questions because she felt guilty—just nervous.They were really close now; when the sun came up they were going to meet Gordon in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel.During the long drive, he and Rebecca had talked about what would happen if somehow things went wrong, and Thad had been clear about one thing.No matter what happened, Rebecca would not get into any trouble for any of this.If Thad got caught, she would tell the authorities that she had known nothing about what was in the trunk of her car.She would play dumb, and Thad would back her up.In return, she would be there to bail him out of jail—and even if he got in real trouble, went to trial, she would stay safe.He knew they had stolen something valuable, but they hadn’t hurt anyone; it was really just a big college prank.NASA wouldn’t see it that way, but Thad wasn’t going to be spending the rest of his life in jail because of four ounces of moon rock.There was no reason for Rebecca to feel guilty or afraid.She was his catalyst, he loved her—but it was his mental game that had turned real, his plan that they had followed.And he was ready to see it to its conclusion.“We don’t need to say anything,” he whispered in her ear.“Or do anything.We’ll just lie here and watch the moon, until the sun takes its place.”And that’s exactly what they did.32The Sheraton Hotel, Orlando, Florida, July 20, 2002Wild,Wild horses,Couldn’t keep me away …The hotel lobby pitched hard to the left, then dipped forward, the carpet seeming to ripple up beneath Gordon’s boots, like ocean waves licking across a sandy beach, and he tried to stand perfectly still, eyes blinking rapidly as he fought the urge to topple over.Because toppling over in a Sheraton lobby at four in the afternoon just wasn’t done—no, it fucking wasn’t.That was the kind of thing that drew attention to yourself—yes, it fucking was—and the last thing that Gordon needed at that particular moment was attention.The lobby slowly began to stabilize, and soon Gordon felt okay enough to take a tentative step toward the pair of overstuffed couches that overlooked the arched doorway leading out onto International Drive.He had to admit, as he inched forward over the still-oscillating carpet, that it was a pretty darn nice lobby, for a Sheraton.He’d only been in Orlando for a couple of hours, but he was really quite impressed with the place.And a hundred degrees with a hundred percent humidity didn’t feel all that bad—that is, when you had enough marijuana coursing through your system to put a bull elephant in a smiling mood.And there, he’d made it to the couch; now it was just a matter of getting his knees bent, his ass into those friendly-looking cushions, his boots up on the pretty glass coffee table.Nothing to see here, nobody special, just a guy in a hotel lobby waiting for a couple of friends.Okay, he was a bit stoned and he’d had a couple of drinks at the airport, and he was certainly planning to have a couple more drinks and some more smokes before the day was out, but that didn’t make him all that different from anybody else … hell, everyone was a little bit high on something, everyone had his poison.Like Thad, or Orb, or whatever the hell Gordon was supposed to be calling him.Thad was just as high as he was, even if the kid hadn’t touched pot or booze in his life.He was high on that chick, and he was high on the idea of the money they were going to make—hell, he was high on the information Gordon had already given him.The Belgian rock man and his sister-in-law, the lady who was going to be meeting them, just two hours from now.Yeah, Thad was high on all that; he was so high that he was right up there near the chandelier that hung from the lobby ceiling, so wonderfully crystal and glowing and warm, looking down on Gordon, little old nothing of a Gordon.And Gordon was down there way below, in that dark, dark place, in a well of … well, sadness.Still thinking about his wife and child and sister, poor dead sister, and the world, yeah, the fucking world coming to an end.Any minute, any day, and it couldn’t happen fast enough for his liking.Armageddon.Damn, but it was taking too long, like Thad and the girl, taking forever to get to the goddamn lobby.Gordon knew he couldn’t wait much longer, because his high was starting to wane, and he needed another hit of something, anything, to keep it going.Because his plan was getting cloudy, and he was beginning to see that it wasn’t really a very good plan anyway.Come down to Florida, be a part of something big and fun and cool, feel like a person again, alive, and maybe get the opportunity to keep on going like that.Maybe make friends with the lady and go off to meet her brother-in-law in Amsterdam, backpack across Europe with the 10 Gs he’d make from selling that moon rock, use the 10 Gs in a very responsible and intelligent manner, get some more pot, some heroin, enough heroin to OD in some Dutch youth hostel, jacked up with a needle in his arm and a rubber rope around his biceps, vein popping up, and they’d find him like that and tell his mom that he went out happy, and he’d be where he was supposed to be.Wild fucking horses …And then there they were, coming through the front entrance of the Sheraton.Thad, in shorts and a collared shirt, carrying a fishing-tackle box in one hand and a suitcase in the other.And next to him, the chick, the chica, the Eve to his Adam.Yeah, she was pretty and had jet-black hair and was all-American and all that.And she had that greedy little look in her eyes that he now suddenly saw in Thad’s as well, that greedy little cartoon look, dollar signs springing out so high they could touch the chandelier.Four o’clock, right on schedule.Gordon waited until they were just a few feet away before he sprang to his feet [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]