Breaking point - By Tom Clancy & Steve Perry & Steve Pieczenik Page 0,26

or thirty feet away from the nearest buffalo as it chewed on hay or something. As they watched, the creature let loose a big dump, clumps of brown and yellowish stuff plopping onto the ground under its tail. It never even lifted its head from its grazing. Poot and eat at the same time. Yuk.

“Puuwee!” Nadine said.

Before it had smelled kind of rank, but now it really stunk.

“Yeah, well, I’m impressed. No wonder they wiped them out. Come on, let’s get upwind,” he said.

Behind them, the thirty-foot-long RV Tyrone’s dad had borrowed from an admiral he knew was parked at the gas pumps, sucking up fuel. The thing would hold like fifty or sixty gallons in the tank, and it needed it, because it got only eight or ten miles to the gallon. On a round trip that was probably going to run almost six thousand miles, the RV was going to drink a lot of gasoline. Even with the new clean-burn technology and the solar-assist panels, the RV was a big old tank, big as a bus, and it lumbered along like a dinosaur. Of course, it was huge on the inside. There was a bedroom in the back with a queen-sized bed, where his mom and dad slept. A bathroom with a shower and toilet and sink, lots of closet space, and even a tiny bedroom up front that pulled out from one side of the main body like a drawer when they were stopped. Nadine slept in that little room behind one of those plastic accordion doors. Plus there was a dining area with a table, a kitchen with a stove, fridge, sink, microwave oven, and a pretty good-sized TV set and computer, with an automatic track-and-lock sat dish on the roof that caught narrowcast audio-vid, and telecom signals. You could sit there and eat a bowl of Häagen-Dazs pineapple-coconut ice cream and watch entcom stuff, or log onto the net, all while your dad was driving down the interstate at sixty. Pretty amazing. A lot more fun than being cooped up in the back of the family Dodge. Although being cooped up hip-to-hip with Nadine wouldn’t be so bad. She wasn’t gorgeous, but she was smart, athletic, and definitely female.

There was a couch behind the passenger seat that pulled out into a bed, and that was where Tyrone slept. He’d gotten used to it after the days on the road, and it was almost as comfortable as his bed at home. His dad had said it ought to be, since the RV had cost the admiral as much as they’d paid for their house.

He saw his mom and dad coming back from the direction of the truck stop. They had a couple of big paper bags and a cardboard carrier of soft drinks. This was a treat, since Mom usually cooked in the RV.

“There’s a place to park around the side of the buffalo pen,” his dad said. “We can eat and watch the buffalo roam.” He rattled the bags.

“Flawless,” Tyrone said. “As long as it’s not downwind.”

The fries were good, the onion rings really good, and the burgers had a kind of smoky, odd flavor. Not bad, but different. Tyrone swallowed a bite of the burger and said, “They cook burgers kinda differently out here.”

His father smiled. “It’s not how they cook them, it’s what they make them out of.”

Tyrone looked at him. “Huh?”

His father pointed out the window over the table and grinned real big.

Tyrone looked at the buffalo. He looked at his burger.

Ah...

Both Nadines laughed.

All of a sudden Tyrone wasn’t that hungry. Then again, he was going to eat this burger, and he would do it if it killed him. No way was he going to let his dad get this one, no ... way.

He smiled, took a big bite, and smiled again, mouth full. “Good. I love it.”

9

Wednesday, June 8th

Washington, D.C.

Michaels felt as if he were a thousand years old and mostly turned to dust as he held the phone’s receiver in a death grip that threatened to break his hand or the instrument. He kept his voice as light as he could.

“... really great, Dadster, and all the kids in my class love him.”

His daughter was talking about Byron Baumgardner, a teacher at her school in Boise—and his ex-wife Megan’s boyfriend.

No, not boyfriend—fiancé. They were getting married at the end of the month. And they wanted to have Byron the bearded wonder adopt his daughter, move in and take over as