Chapter 10: Halcyon

Nolan Stroud watched the whole thing from the back of the control room with his arms crossed.

He had not planned to say a word.

When the badge number went up on the wall, he heard himself laugh out loud, once, and the technician at the next console turned around.

"Sorry," he said.

"No," the technician said. "Please. That was the best thing I've seen in this building."

On the monitor, Dani was walking off the stage.

She did not rush.

She walked.

Nolan went to meet her in the corridor.

He did not get there first.

Preston Halloway came through the fire door from the stairwell in shirtsleeves, out of breath, with his tie hanging loose.

He had come straight from the tower by car and run the last flight of stairs.

"Where is she?" he said.

"Halloway," Nolan said.

"Get out of my way, Stroud."

"No."

Preston stopped an inch too close.

He was a handsome man and a good deal shorter than his photographs.

"You think you can buy my wife," he said. "Six days, and you've got her at a window desk and in a TV studio."

"Ex-wife," Nolan said evenly.

"Did you think I wouldn't notice?"

"My lawyers will have an injunction on your lab by Monday."

"They can try."

"She's not going to be your pet genius. She's a girl from a trailer lot who got lucky."

Nolan did not raise his voice.

He did not raise his hands either.

He had learned that most men were louder than they were strong, and that the way to end it was to be a wall.