“Milt,” said Mary, tired of the conversation. “You didn’t really want to be an astronaut?”
“No, it was a means to an end. Nothing more.”
“I wish you wouldn’t antagonize our brother. He scares me.”
“Morris is a fool,” Milt said.
“A dangerous one.
“True, we cannot underestimate him.”
“Then why all this messing around with the fake identity and the trip to the Moon?” Mary asked.
“I took something that he didn’t deserve to have.”
“The artifacts?!”
“Yes,” Milton said, nodding slightly. “They disappeared from his vault a little over two years ago.”
“Brother, I realize you want to punish Morris for what he did to dad.”
“Oh, he has yet to pay for that.”
“Dammit, Milt!”
“Don’t worry, Mary. Morris will not find the artifacts. He might figure out where they are, but for now, they are beyond his reach.”
“You mean?”
“Yes, I took them with me.”
“Did Annie MacInturner know?” asked Mary.
“No. She never suspected that she unloaded them herself.”
“Now what?”
“Now, I see if Carmike is the kind of man, I think he is,” said Milton.
“Desperate, you mean,” Mary said, narrowing her eyes.
“Yeah.”
“How do you do that?”
“We’ll need some money,” said Milt.
“How much?”
“Hundreds of millions.”
“Okay, I got most of that myself,” Mary said.
“We’ll need to make it look like typical investors. Nothing too much from anyone, so we can keep it anonymous. Big investors attract the wrong attention.”
“What about Mark?”
“To hell with him,” Milton said.
“I thought you two…”
“Nothing of the sort. He’s an egomaniac like his father. I have no use for him.”
“He’ll figure this out and want in,” Mary said.
“Of course he will. We need to make sure he’s always on the outside, looking in. I want his interest solely fixed on Nils.”
