Cradle: A Max Fend Thriller (Maximum Risk Book 2) by Chris Bauer

Author:Chris Bauer [Bauer, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn River Publishing
Published: 2024-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

They walked back to the large NASA Room near the vestibule, just inside the front door. It would have felt more like a memorabilia room overloaded with Space Shuttle and Apollo program trinkets had it not been for the sculptures occupying its perimeter and the polished Western red cedar table in its center, plus the hanging museum-quality art. One massive bronze piece sat directly on the planked floor along one wall, another large bonze piece along the opposite wall, plus two eclectic porcelain vases opposed each other on the other two sides, both on pedestals. The senator hobbled around the art pieces and told them to grab seats at the rectangular table. The six chairs were carved from the same massive cedar as the table, they were told, and were as beautiful and as exotic as the sculptures.

“The table looks great, doesn’t it? I love it,” Susan said. “But these chairs are as uncomfortable as the dickens. By design. I want people to get through their business in here, then leave. Sorry, not sorry. Max, son of Charles, you are up.”

Max searched the room, its contents distributed evenly around it—balanced was the word—and tidy. Two pull-down screens for presentations, one each at either end—again, balance—and an even number of built-in bookcases containing framed pictures of notable folks like President Vaughn and NASA Administrator Ignacio together, more Space Shuttle memorabilia, and more NASA trinkets. Max gestured, the signal for him and his propulsion guy Ted Leonard to grab their backpacks, the stars of the show. They lifted them onto the table.

Max about-faced a moment, a double take at one of the sculptures. “Senator?”

“Yes, Max?”

“Is that one also a Remington?”

“The Buffalo Horse. Yes. It’s a reproduction of Remington’s tallest bronze piece. I paid top dollar for it. The original casting is in a museum in Oklahoma. Or it was until a few years ago when it was reported stolen. That was the reason this reproduction was so damn expensive.”

Three feet high, two feet wide, a foot deep. An American buffalo on its hind legs, an airborne horse in motion, wrapped oddly around the buffalo’s neck, an Indigenous warrior in a breechcloth above it all, with him in the process of getting tossed headfirst off the horse. The buffalo had ruined the warrior’s intentions of running it down. The senator flinched as she glanced at the sculpture.

“Jimbo,” she called, her voice raised but not loud. Jimbo appeared in the NASA Room’s doorway. “That new delivery. It’s ruining the room’s aesthetic. Take it to my bedroom, please.”

She pointed at the buffalo sculpture. Out of place amid the bronze piece, a shoebox with cable ties securing the lid sat under the bucking buffalo, atop the sculpture’s base, upsetting the study’s tidiness and balance and the magnificence of the masterpiece. “Easy mistake, but it doesn’t belong here. Okay, where were we?”

Max faced the seated group of Ted, Renee, his dad, Emily, and the senator. The demo began, Ted rising to pilot their drone airborne.

It attached itself to the mini Blue Spectre lander and lifted off again.

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