Read Online Capitol Reflections by Jonathan Javitt - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jonathan Javitt
Tags: thriller
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respectively and were comfortably entangled on the athlete’s bed, lips pressed together, legs locked. Henry hadn’t bothered to unfold his privacy screen.
Heather stood up, stepped over to Jamie’s bed, and curled her index finger coquettishly, coaxing the light-headed Jamie to her side. She refreshed Jamie’s drink, poured one for herself, and then slipped her arm around his waist, drawing him tightly against her body. Jamie was practically airborne. No woman had ever come on to him like this before.
For the next fifteen minutes, the room was absent of all speech. A far older, universal language was spoken as sheets and blankets were pushed into disarray by eager arms and legs.
Jamie didn’t know any women like this in Scranton. Tonight, all of his experiments would be on a decidedly different life-form.
Henry sat up in bed and looked around. The only lights in the dorm room emanated from the eerie glow above Jamie’s plants. He climbed carefully over Carol’s limp body and crossed the room to inspect Heather and Jamie.
Perfect. All unconscious, thanks to the Quaaludes he ground up and put into the liquor earlier that afternoon. His little bacchanal had finally wound down, and the two girls slumbered on either side of Jamie like babes after their favorite bedtime stories. Since Henry’s vodka bottle contained only water, he was as fresh as a new day.
Henry Broome smiled like a man about to open a bank vault. He slipped the chain with the computer key over Jamie’s head, unlocked the computer, and hit the “ON” button. The Apple’s motor hummed as the monitor screen glowed bright green. The words next to the cursor requested a password. Henry laughed and typed in “d23&if5#al@2r.” He’d glanced over Jamie’s shoulders a dozen times during the semester, pretending to do other things when his roommate was booting the computer, but he knew that a password alone wouldn’t unlock any files. He studied Jamie for weeks before he finally knew what he needed to know—the drill for making the machine surrender its knowledge.
He lifted the strawlike body of his roommate—the kid couldn’t have weighed more than 110 pounds—and dropped him on the desk chair facing the Apple. He then placed Jamie’s right thumb firmly against the recognition pad until the computer screen flickered twice and displayed what appeared to be a directory. Henry replaced Jamie next to Heather and sat down, inspecting the column of files.
“Jesus Lord Almighty,” Henry said lowly, shaking his head. “What the hell is all this crap?”
Having observed Jamie’s fingers carefully while the geek nightly tapped the keyboard like a mini-piano, Henry knew which keys would scroll through the files. The list was extremely long and the scientific names would normally have put Henry to sleep faster than a keg of beer. The first few lines read:
Adenosine
Agrobacterium Tumefaciens
Alpha Helix
Arganine
Beta sheets
Carbon Rings
Chiral Compounds
Climatology
Cyclic Hydrocarbons
Cysteine
Ethylpropane
Glutamic Acid
Isomers
Farther down, one file in particular caught Henry’s attention. It said, “Experiments, spring thru fall, 1977.”
Henry was happy to see familiar words. Though he was not well-versed in science, he immediately recognized the names of two molecules listed in the file that were, in fact, household words.
“Interesting,” he said. “Very interesting. I think the little weasel is actually on to something here.”
There was no need to copy the information by hand. Jamie had hooked the computer to a daisy wheel printer. It was a noisy contraption—it spit out words like a typewriter on speed—but it wouldn’t wake his companions thanks to the booze and the ’ludes. They would remain in the drug- and alcohol-induced black hole until the following morning, when they would awaken feeling like they’d been run over by a Peterbilt.
Despite his considerable knowledge of potent spirits and pharmaceuticals,
Heather stood up, stepped over to Jamie’s bed, and curled her index finger coquettishly, coaxing the light-headed Jamie to her side. She refreshed Jamie’s drink, poured one for herself, and then slipped her arm around his waist, drawing him tightly against her body. Jamie was practically airborne. No woman had ever come on to him like this before.
For the next fifteen minutes, the room was absent of all speech. A far older, universal language was spoken as sheets and blankets were pushed into disarray by eager arms and legs.
Jamie didn’t know any women like this in Scranton. Tonight, all of his experiments would be on a decidedly different life-form.
Henry sat up in bed and looked around. The only lights in the dorm room emanated from the eerie glow above Jamie’s plants. He climbed carefully over Carol’s limp body and crossed the room to inspect Heather and Jamie.
Perfect. All unconscious, thanks to the Quaaludes he ground up and put into the liquor earlier that afternoon. His little bacchanal had finally wound down, and the two girls slumbered on either side of Jamie like babes after their favorite bedtime stories. Since Henry’s vodka bottle contained only water, he was as fresh as a new day.
Henry Broome smiled like a man about to open a bank vault. He slipped the chain with the computer key over Jamie’s head, unlocked the computer, and hit the “ON” button. The Apple’s motor hummed as the monitor screen glowed bright green. The words next to the cursor requested a password. Henry laughed and typed in “d23&if5#al@2r.” He’d glanced over Jamie’s shoulders a dozen times during the semester, pretending to do other things when his roommate was booting the computer, but he knew that a password alone wouldn’t unlock any files. He studied Jamie for weeks before he finally knew what he needed to know—the drill for making the machine surrender its knowledge.
He lifted the strawlike body of his roommate—the kid couldn’t have weighed more than 110 pounds—and dropped him on the desk chair facing the Apple. He then placed Jamie’s right thumb firmly against the recognition pad until the computer screen flickered twice and displayed what appeared to be a directory. Henry replaced Jamie next to Heather and sat down, inspecting the column of files.
“Jesus Lord Almighty,” Henry said lowly, shaking his head. “What the hell is all this crap?”
Having observed Jamie’s fingers carefully while the geek nightly tapped the keyboard like a mini-piano, Henry knew which keys would scroll through the files. The list was extremely long and the scientific names would normally have put Henry to sleep faster than a keg of beer. The first few lines read:
Adenosine
Agrobacterium Tumefaciens
Alpha Helix
Arganine
Beta sheets
Carbon Rings
Chiral Compounds
Climatology
Cyclic Hydrocarbons
Cysteine
Ethylpropane
Glutamic Acid
Isomers
Farther down, one file in particular caught Henry’s attention. It said, “Experiments, spring thru fall, 1977.”
Henry was happy to see familiar words. Though he was not well-versed in science, he immediately recognized the names of two molecules listed in the file that were, in fact, household words.
“Interesting,” he said. “Very interesting. I think the little weasel is actually on to something here.”
There was no need to copy the information by hand. Jamie had hooked the computer to a daisy wheel printer. It was a noisy contraption—it spit out words like a typewriter on speed—but it wouldn’t wake his companions thanks to the booze and the ’ludes. They would remain in the drug- and alcohol-induced black hole until the following morning, when they would awaken feeling like they’d been run over by a Peterbilt.
Despite his considerable knowledge of potent spirits and pharmaceuticals,