The Destroyer - 51 - The Destroyer 051 - Shock Value by Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir

Author:Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir [Murphy, Warren & Sapir, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pulp Action
ISBN: 0-7408-0574-6
Publisher: PINNACLE BOOKS
Published: 2010-03-19T14:52:18+00:00

Chapter Ten

The task force meet­ing last­ed all day. Much of it was spent in lengthy in­tro­duc­tions, the del­egates pour­ing pink cock­tails down their throats as each one rose to speak about his area of ex­per­tise. Smith’s group con­sist­ed of a banker, a stock­bro­ker, an economist, a mil­itary strate­gist, a math­emati­cian, an ed­uca­tor, a his­to­ri­an, a jour­nal­ist, an en­gi­neer, and the for­mer sec­re­tary of state, who looked con­sid­er­ably more deco­rous than he had the last time Smith saw him. His “Shake Your Booties” T-​shirt had giv­en way to a white linen suit that hung shape­less­ly on his shape­less body.

Smith won­dered about the pe­cu­liar col­lec­tion of oc­cu­pa­tions des­ig­nat­ed for Phase Two of the Great Plan, but he said noth­ing. He was forced to at­tend the meet­ing, and he at­tend­ed. Pe­ri­od. He would make no oth­er con­tri­bu­tion to Abraxas or his mur­der­ing coun­cil.

The man named LeP­at, seat­ed at the head of the long red­wood con­fer­ence ta­ble, chaired the meet­ing. Be­hind him was a large blank pro­jec­tion screen. He was a changed man from the timid dor­mouse who had stood, hat in hand, at Smith’s door­way in the mid­dle of the night. Now an au­ra of con­fi­dence sur­round­ed him. His man­ner was ef­fi­cient and com­mand­ing.

The born bu­reau­crat, Smith mused, com­fort­able on­ly when en­meshed in a net of rigid rules. Aside from LeP­at’s man­ner­ism of stroking his patent-​leather hair, he seemed as much at ease as the im­per­turbable Circe, who sat on a cor­ner di­van near a film pro­jec­tor, smok­ing a cigarette.

Di­rect­ly across from her was a tele­vi­sion cam­era, hum­ming as it swung in its con­tin­uous arc around the ta­ble.

“And, at last we come to the fi­nal del­egate in the Phase Two task force, a man whose bril­liance in the field of com­put­er sci­ence will broach new hori­zons and for­ev­er ben­efit mankind in his work for the Great Plan of Abraxas,” LeP­at said. “Gen­tle­men, I present to you Dr. Harold W. Smith. Please rise, Dr. Smith, and tell us about your­self and your views on the world and how we of the in­tel­li­gentsia may im­prove it.”

Po­lite ap­plause sprang up, along with shouts for more of Samuel Longtree’s pink fire­wa­ter.

Smith re­mained seat­ed. “Call the Amer­ican em­bassy,” he said di­rect­ly in­to the cam­era. “I’m here against my will.”

LeP­at sput­tered. The cam­era stopped in its arc and rest­ed on Smith. “But Dr. Smith–“

“Leave him alone,” came a high­ly am­pli­fied voice from all four walls at once. The oth­er del­egates fell silent, search­ing the room for the source of the sound. LeP­at’s mouth dropped open. Af­ter a mo­ment, a whis­pered buzz of ex­cite­ment cir­cu­lat­ed around the ta­ble.

“I am Abraxas,” the voice de­clared, a deep, full bass sound­ing like a procla­ma­tion of Moses.

The whis­pers turned to gasps as the del­egates clasped one an­oth­er fren­zied­ly and slogged down the pink cock­tails. On­ly Smith was unim­pressed. He fold­ed his arms in front of his chest and con­tin­ued to stare at the cam­era.

The voice an­swered his un­spo­ken chal­lenge. “Dr. Smith, do I de­tect some hos­til­ity from you to­ward our benev­olent con­fer­ence?”

“Oh, no,” LeP­at said quick­ly, his ve­neer of self-​con­trol shat­tered.

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