Breaking point - By Tom Clancy & Steve Perry & Steve Pieczenik Page 0,10

no good, wasn’t it? If the ELF simian protocols hadn’t gone south on him, he’d never have gotten the job in Alaska, would he? And look where that had taken him. He could hardly be positioned better, could he?

Well, yes, he supposed, academically he could be. And certainly in pure scientific circles, with major universities begging him to come and present papers? Well, he was not at the top of that list. Ah, but if somebody just up and gave you five or six hundred million dollars, maybe more, to fund whatever research your heart desired, no strings, no oversight? Well, that would go a long, long way to assuage one’s wounded ego, wouldn’t it? People would kill for that kind of funding, and rightly so.

Money would get you through times of no Nobel better than a Nobel would get you through times of no money, that was the cold truth.

With half a billion in his pocket, he could thumb his nose at the journals, take his time to do whatever he damned well pleased, and when he was ready, then they’d come begging, by God! Because his theories did work after all, didn’t they?

True, he didn’t want to take the credit for it just now, given the mode and manner in which he had finally proved himself correct, but someday it would be his to claim. Perhaps he would hire the Goodyear blimp and have it fly back and forth across the country with lights flashing and blazing it out for all to see:

“I told you so!”

He looked at his watch. He would go home, spend the day with Shannon, then catch a plane back to SeaTac for the flight to Washington, D.C. After the second and third tests, the events would surely be public, and it was of primary importance that he be prepared for that. He was one of the sharper knives in the drawer, and he knew that it was not enough to be smart, you had to be clever as well. Smart, clever, a beautiful young wife who thought the sun rose and set in his shadow, and rich—he had it all but the last, and that was coming, a mere matter of a few weeks or months. When you got right down to it, how important was academic recognition compared to those? He could fund research if he wanted! Be a foundation unto himself!

Hah! Life was good—and it was about to get better.

Washington, D.C.

“We’re going to Oregon,” Tyrone Howard said. He grinned.

Nadine Harris, who at thirteen was the same age as Tyrone, returned his smile in a larger, white-against-chocolate version. “Exemplary, Tyrone. Congratulations!”

They were at the soccer field at their school, where they had gone to practice throwing boomerangs.

“No,” he said, “we are going to Oregon. My dad, my mom, me, and you.”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“I asked if you could go. My parents said it was okay. We can both enter the tourney. I might even let you win.”

She laughed. “Let me win? In your dreams, funny boy. Last I looked, my best hang time was seventeen seconds better than your best. Your ’rang comes down, you’re packed up and halfway home before mine even apexes.”

“That was then, honey chile, this is now.” He waved his backpack.

“It came?” She knew right away what he was talking about. That was one of the things he liked about her. She wasn’t the most beautiful girl in the world, but she was athletic, and she was very quick.

He nodded. “Yep. In this morning’s mail.”

“Lemme see, lemme see!” She reached for his backpack, and he quickly jerked it back.

“Hey, easy! I don’t want you to damage it.”

“I’ll damage your head if you don’t give it up right now!”

He laughed. From inside the backpack, he produced the object in question—a new boomerang.

And not just any boomerang, but a Larry Takahashi KinuHa—a Silk Leaf—a paxolin MTA L-Hook identical to the one that Jerry Prince had used to win maximum time aloft at the Internationals last year. It had cost him sixty-five dollars, plus insured shipping, and it came pre-tuned and ready to throw. Prince had spiraled his up at the Internationals in Sydney last summer and hung it for five minutes and sixteen seconds—with a thirty-klick-per-hour wind blowing. On a calm day, word was he could keep it in the air a whole lot longer, in practice anyway.

The boomerang was lightweight, thin, and flexible, made from layers of linen and glue, and colored a psychedelic electric blue with a