editedThe RainmakersReggie closed one eye and looked up through the barrel of the telescope. His manner and language was sassy and street-smart, but he could not entirely conceal his interest in the science and equipment in MacGyver’s unusual bachelor pad. “Come on, Mac! I've had Big Brothers before...
none of them lived in a place like this!”
MacGyver leaned against the rail, watching the heads-up display as he made adjustments to the big telescope. “Well... it's comfy. I call it home.”
“I thought you had to be real normal to be somebody's Big Brother. I mean, this ain't a normal place to live... this is
weird! ”
“People a lot taller than yourself have said the exact same thing. I think it's interesting.”
“Okay, it's interesting... now can I see Venus?” Reggie turned to peer through the eyepiece of the bigger scope.
“You will be able to... once that cloud clears.”
It’s just nature, Mac told himself, but he was still mildly disappointed. The rabid winds of summer had died down and a few clouds had gathered during the night, threatening to obscure their viewing window. During the hours of this morning the planet Venus would be closest to earth, and the viewing of it enhanced and prolonged by a perfectly timed partial solar eclipse; a rare conjunction of opportunity. Mac had friends in the European continent who were photographing the solar eclipse for him, as they had a better view of the event from their side of the planet. Mac was photographing the presentation of Venus in return, and he was now praying that the clouds would break up before the sun rose and the eclipse began.
There’s no use in worrying about it. The clouds would part or they wouldn’t… ‘Nature will out,’ as my dad used to say. I just hope Reggie’s not too disappointed.To Reggie, Mac said, “Tell you what, in the meantime, what do you say we go down and get a bit to eat?”
“Okay!”
Nothing cheers up a young man like food, Mac reflected with amusement. He turned and gave the offending clouds one last wistful glare before following Reggie to the kitchen.
Chapter 6, OcclusionBarbara Spencer woke with a head cold that morning. Rising from her bed with a slight groan, she made her way into the small washroom attached to her quarters and opened the mirrored door to the medicine cabinet. She found some capsules behind the toothpaste and took one, washing it down with a handful of water from the tap.
As she prepared for her day, she rehearsed the schedule that she and Dr. Steubens had discussed for Dr. Marlow’s arrival. She selected a light, colorful dress and pinned her KIVA nametag over her heart. Into one pocket, she slipped the package of cold capsules and a clean handkerchief.
Pausing before the small mirror by the door, she made sure that her hair was arranged and that she looked presentable. She had never met Dr. Marlow, and since he was Karl’s friend she wanted to give a good first impression. Satisfied, she turned off the lights and closed the door.
⌂
Karl Steubens was already in his lab. Indeed, he had been in all through the vacant hours of morning, doing very careful and delicate work; the package was neatly concealed beneath his desk against the inside wall of the lab. He arranged a table with his finest chess set a few feet away, where the blast from the explosive could not possibly fail to kill both himself and his friend. He used the entire package of plastic explosive, to make sure that it would be over quickly.
When all was ready he went to his room to change into clean clothes, but the fresh linen and wool could not conceal the fact that he had not slept for days. He hoped that the tiredness in his eyes would be put down to over-work and dismissed. He only had to fool them for a little while.
The clock was ticking.
⌂
Danny Dobson delivered chemicals to the KIVA that morning. He wore a dark blue coverall and wheeled his handcart deftly and carefully through the corridors and into the elevator, taking the canisters down to the laboratories where their contents would be used in ways he had no desire to know. He was a delivery man, and getting stuff from ‘here’ to ‘there’ was all he cared about.
His final delivery was on the third level. He found the sign that said ‘Metallurgy’ and was pleased to see, through the glass walls, that there appeared to be no one in the lab.
Scientists just get in the way, he mused as he pushed his handcart into the rooms.
His satisfaction was short-lived, however, because when he found the area where the chemicals were supposed to be stored, he discovered that there was no room for his delivery. Cursing mildly, he looked around and saw a space nearby, back against the inner wall, that looked out–of-the-way. He quickly unloaded the canisters and stacked them neatly, turning their
‘Warning! Flammable Gas!’ labels out so that they could be easily seen. It wasn’t code—and his supervisor would have his head on a plate if he got reported—but it was the best he could do when there was no one around to show him an alternate storage area, and he was eager to get on with the rest of his deliveries. After the KIVA, he had a long drive to Bannon to deliver some tanks to the service station, and he was hoping to find that new waitress working in the café… was her name Sally? Maybe today he’d have the nerve to ask her out for a date.
His mind on other things now that his work here was done, he whistled softly as he waited for the elevator. When the doors parted, he maneuvered his handcart inside and pushed the button for the first level.
⌂
Barbara stepped into the elevator and smiled at the young delivery man. He gave her a respectful nod, and when she turned away from him to face the doors, he covertly checked out her slender figure. Not as pretty as Sally, but she did have a nice…
They reached the first floor and Barbara headed to the control area to make sure that the State Department had sent a car to pick up Dr. Marlow at the airport.
Danny went toward the garage. He didn’t look back. His work here was done.
⌂
Dr. Sidney Marlow sat in the back of the limousine and stared through the tinted windows. The sky was lightening in the East, throwing a weird lumination across the vast desert. The horizon seemed to stretch on endlessly. England had no such vistas, and the sun usually rose anonymously over London, hidden behind banks of clouds or screened by thick fog.
The road cut a path around invisible obstacles, weaving between cacti and mesquite bush as if plotted by a drunken man. Still, the ride was not an unpleasant one, and Marlow enjoyed the sight of the brief morning haze rising from a lonely Joshua tree to disappear in to the sky. Already in the distance the view was distorted by rising vapors, making the land look like a drying watercolor painting.
Marlow glanced at the seat next to him where his briefcase lay. There was an umbrella there which he had carried with him all the way from London. He smiled as he looked at it; he knew before he had boarded the plane at Heathrow, that it would be unlikely in the extreme that he would need it in the heart of this American desert, but it was kind of a joke between his friend Karl and himself. They were ‘the rain-makers’, and carrying the umbrella was positive thinking… arming themselves for the possibility of success, as it were. He had felt the need to bring it, hopefully to lighten his friend’s heart after the terrible setbacks that their research had suffered.
Marlow wondered about the change he had noticed in his friend. Karl Steubens had never been what anyone would describe as a particularly jovial or outgoing individual, but for some time now the tone of his Telex messages had been tangibly gloomy. His chess moves, always clever and cunning, had begun to show a trend toward impulsiveness. It just wasn’t like Karl to take such risks…
The window that separated the driver from his passenger slowly lowered with a mechanical hum. “We’ll be arriving at the KIVA in an hour and a half, doctor,” the man said. “There’s hot coffee in the thermos in the sidebar, if you would care for any.”
“Thank you.” Marlow glanced at his pocket watch and frowned, “Aren’t we running rather late?”
“It’s 8:26 a.m. local time, sir. We’re right on schedule.”
“Ah! I forget how you juggle time zones here in America… I set my watch when I arrived in the Los Angeles airport, but I forgot to turn it forward.” He made an adjustment to his timepiece, then looked at it for a few seconds, wondering if he should not have left it on London time. He sighed and shook his head a little, then settled back to enjoy the view.
That was when Sidney Marlow happened to witness the most unusual sight: Morning was breaking over the desert, but the sun was curiously obscured. Marlow realized that this was an eclipse, and he reprimanded himself for forgetting that the unusual event was happening.
The hollow sun rose slowly, and the night soaked into the ground like rain on the sand, leaving the Joshua tree mourning the loss of its shadow.
~~~
Link to Chapter 7
Everyone, sometimes, needs a camel.
Old troubleshooters never die...
They just wait til the last moment and then rescue themselves!
The extra background to the story fits in loverly! 
Even though I know how the story goes I am interested to read more of this expanded version. 
