The police noted the death on records that were promptly destroyed. The body was shipped to a warehouse where the receiver complained about the quality of the merchandise. The corpse was dissected, immersed in acetone to eliminate all traces of moisture, and then given a bath of polymers. The muscles and bones were touched up with paint, and the body bent into a standing position, the arm cocked and ready to smash a tennis ball.

When the transformed corpse arrived in London to join other bodies in an exhibition that would take it to Paris and New York, a tennis racket was placed in the boney hand.

In time, Wen Lo’s skinned body would adorn T-shirts, key chains, refrigerator magnets, even the cover of the catalog sold at the traveling exhibition.

And, as Colonel Ming had promised, Wen Lo had endless time to work on his backhand.

Unknown

NUMA 8 - Medusa

CHAPTER 48

WHEN JOE ZAVALA WASN’T DATING HALF THE FEMALE POPULATION of Washington or tinkering with his Corvette’s engine, he loved figuring out how things worked. To Zavala, the hologram projection room adjacent to Chang’s garishly appointed ship’s salon was nothing but an elaborate engine whose purpose was to send and receive lifelike images.

Zavala prowled through the intricate arrangement of microphones, lenses, lasers, projectors, and computers that surrounded the circular table and three chairs under the hanging cones. Austin was standing by, connected by cell phone to Hiram Yeager back at NUMA headquarters. Yeager was an expert on holograms, having developed a lovely young holographic woman named Max as the personification of the NUMA computer system, which he presided over. Austin relayed questions to Yeager and sent him photos of electronic or optic devices that Zavala was unable to describe.

After an hour of analyzing the ingenious setup, Zavala stepped back and brushed his palms together.

“She’s all set and ready to go, Kurt. You can project yourself with a push of that button.”

Austin peered up into one of the cones overhead.

“This isn’t going to reassemble my molecules so that I end up with the head of a fly, is it?” he asked.

“Nothing to worry about, Kurt. This is all high-tech illusion, smoke and mirrors.”

“Keep a flyswatter handy, just in case,” Austin said, settling into the padded, contoured chair.

Zavala stood off to the side ready to intervene if something went wrong. Austin glanced across the table at the two empty chairs, studied the control panel for a moment, and then punched in the code number Wen Lo had given Colonel Ming before the Triad triplet met his premature demise.