The Alejandra Variations Read Online Free Page A

hundreds of tiny electronic firms and computer businesses. Some of them were connected with the government, some not. Project Foresee had been concealed in a series of innocuous buildings in downtown Santa Barbara that seemed to be nothing more than warehouses owned by one of the larger southern California aerospace concerns.
    Industrial sabotage, or military sabotage, was considered a virtual inevitability. But Foresee, at least the S.B. branch, was hidden very well. Or so Nicholas had thought.
    "How did it happen?" he asked.
    "It was bombed."
    "Bombed? You mean from an airplane?" The idea sounded preposterous.
    Dr. Massingale stepped out into the corridor with the nurse.
    Melissa continued, "They found the plane that did it. It was a drone. Made locally, too. The CIA doesn't think anyone's onto us specifically, since a number of other plants further north in Silicon Valley have also been struck with the same method. Aias Electronics and TonTec Systems were hit only a few months ago. It could be a coincidence."
    "I don't like coincidences, Sal. I never have."
    "Neither do I," she said. "But we got a little warning, so we pulled up stakes and hightailed it here to Vandenberg.
    "We have Mnemos looking into who might have done it, but we don't expect to learn anything soon. There are so many fringe groups who deplore our high-tech surge."
    "It could have been someone else," he remarked.
    "Yes, someone else," the Director affirmed grimly.
    There seemed to be electricity in the air; Nicholas felt Melissa's suppressed uneasiness.
    "Sal," he said, staring evenly at her. "You're not giving me the full poop on this, are you?"
    There was a small chair at the bedside. She pulled it over and wearily lowered herself down into it. As she did, Nicholas heard a large glass object being dropped out in the hallway. But the Director of Foresee showed no interest in what was going on beyond the room.
    "Nick," she said, "we're as close today as we've ever been to going to war with the Soviet Union. I mean today. This minute."
    Nicholas stared up at the ceiling. He realized it now. He'd been feeling its terrible weight all along. He'd awoken from one nightmare into another, more real and tangible horror.
    He knew that the Vandenberg hospital—along with all the other main buildings—was aboveground. But here they were, bunkered under the surface of the earth. There was an oppressive air surrounding them—the kind of clamminess that one finds in caves, or tombs. They were underground for a reason. He knew what it was.
    "Minutes before you woke we got word from Derek Mallory, working with Mnemos Nine in Colorado, that the Russians might strike first at Vandenberg," she told him.
    "Here? You mean right here? Now?" Nicholas sat up. "Oh, swell!"
    "There's a small flotilla of Russian trawlers just beyond our territorial waters. They've been there for days." She fussed unconsciously with her wedding ring, moving it in small turns around her finger. "And there are Russian ships of one sort or another in place all around the United States. In the Caribbean, off Newfoundland. Everywhere there's water."
    Nicholas rolled back the covers of the bed and reached for his IV, preparing to disconnect himself from the computer. Melissa quickly stood up and stopped him.
    "Hold on, Nick. We haven't gotten a confirmation on Derek's projection just yet; and even if we did, you're in no condition to go rushing off, at least at the moment."
    Nicholas pointed to the outer hallway beyond his closed door. There had been some commotion there for the past few minutes. "What's that all about? Somebody knows something."
    Neil Massingale came back into the room at that point and nodded unhappily to the Director of Foresee, who immediately rose from her scat.
    She said, "Vandenberg was the nearest link to Mnemos where we felt it was safe enough to move you. But now it looks as if there might be a preemptive strike against us here. We're so far underground that we could survive