Free The Miraculous Plot of Leiter & Lott by Jonathan Lowe Page A

couple years ago?"
    Doug squinted into the blue distance, as though the memory there needed resurrection. Finally, he cleared his throat. "Yeah, okay. Say they are the same ones, then. Pulling this off would still require a lot more than using a checkbook. There's targeting logistics, launch guidance, not to mention surveillance. It'd require a whole team of professionals."
    "Which can't be bought at any price, even among all the terrorist cells training somewhere out in the desert? It'd be fairly easy to convince someone such an operation would make the U.S. military look responsible."
    Etherton looked out at a passing dhow--an old wooden ship incongruously navigating between the Palm and the World, as though poor fishermen were among those ogling the rich. "Hope I'm wrong. Hope we're wrong, I mean. More than likely, though, those paranoid delusions you mentioned having are rubbing off on me. It's why I had questions in the first place. Biggest one now, of course, is why hasn't he hit the Swann Tower, if that's his beef."
    "Maybe it's next," David said. "Day after tomorrow is another nine-eleven, after all, and the buzz is that what's happened is only a lead up to that."
    Doug grimaced, then sighed. Finally, he slapped David's shoulder. "Let's grab a whisky, and forget about this nonsense for now, shall we?"
    ~ * ~
    Watching from the control room as Aazad Baloum's primary residence neared, David felt his newly induced mystical acuity being seriously tested. The white sand-lipped island was scarcely three acres, yet it exuded an overpowering sense of mastery over one's physical environment---an exclusive air of luxury that extended from its flawlessly contoured landscaping to its artistically rendered architecture. The central structure was a two-story white granite home whose upper floor boasted a vaulted ceiling framing a massive span of tinted glass. Date palms rose strategically from a rock garden to one side, and along paths leading in one direction to a pool, and in the other to a helicopter pad and boathouse. A row of lounge chairs faced forward from an elevated deck beside a long reflecting pool fed by a ten foot fountain. The main dock fronting the property edged out from the shallows near a perfect beach to join a pillared platform accommodating craft requiring deeper clearance.
    The Big Dipper, bearing its big tipper and guests, maneuvered into position like a space shuttle docking station-side. A whistle sounded, announcing the feat. Then a gangway was extended, and they stepped from the cool comfort of the pilothouse into the warm reality of paradise.
    "Where's Ricardo Montalban ?" Etherton asked one of Aazad's staff, attempting to disguise--with levity--the amazement that his face nonetheless telegraphed.
    Aazad himself led them alongside the reflecting pool toward the house, gesturing both right and left. "My neighbors. . .Rod Stewart being one, David Beckham another, by the way. . . live in other countries far, far away, as you can see," he said. "But in this magical place, you can sip wine in France, eat lobsters in Maine, and make love here in Tahiti all on the same afternoon."
    "I trust it's all not this afternoon," Etherton quipped.
    ~ * ~
    The staircase rising from the house's lower level boasted framed art of planetary nebula: the Helix, M27 the Dumbbell, and the ghostly Ring Nebula of Lyra . The largest, facing the top of the stairs, was the Horsehead, a red emission nebula in Orion. The fine detail within the dark pillar of illuminated gas, lit from behind by the fires of birthing suns, made David suspect it to be an original reprint from the Hubble catalog. More impressive yet, the great room at the top of the stairs overlooked an elevated deck and sculpture garden to the rear of the house. The centerpiece of the garden was a gazebo housing a full size reproduction of Michelangelo's David . It reminded him of the scale reproductions of the Taj Mahal , Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and Pyramids being