The Silicon Dagger

by Jack Williamson

  “Here you can,” Hunn snapped impatiently. “We want the truth.”

  “Sorry air but too much talk about my previous employment might endanger my life.”

  Hunn appealed to the judges.

  “The witness will answer.” Burleigh scowled at him. “You’re in a new country, Mr. Ralston, under new laws of life. If you need protection, you’ll get it here.”

  “In that case—” Ralston paused, turning his eye-patched profile for the camera. “I came to McAdam County as an undercover agent for the FBI.”

  That caused a stir in the audience. Burleigh picked up the gavel and silence returned.

  “How was that?”

  “It all began with a writer named Kirk who was doing research for a controversial book.” He gave me a piercing stare and turned soberly back to the judges. “His articles and infonet pieces stirred up the bureau and put them on the trail of an American mafioso. ”

  Coon nudged Burleigh, with a knowing nod.

  “The gang was a hard nut to crack. It’s a group of high-level nerds recruited on the infonet. They keep in touch with codes the Bureau never broke. They never meet except when they must, never learn more about one another than the work in hand requires. With no name for the kingpin, the bureau calls him Shadow Hand.

  “He’s keen as they come. Seems to have begun in the marijuana trade—marijuana is the big money crop here in the county—but he’s gone on into more sophisticated games. White-collar crime, often international. Money laundering, infonet scams, cracking security systems to loot banks and federal agencies. High-tech tricks of his own design.

  “All that put heat on Bella Garlesh. She tried to fight back with a special secret unit, code-named Oakwood. No match for Shadow Hand. Even when they caught a gang member on his Arizona ranch, with his computers hidden behind a bookcase and his loot stashed under phony names in a dozen offshore accounts, he wouldn’t talk. Afraid his family would be slaughtered if he did. He killed himself—broke a cyanide tube implanted under his arm—before they could persuade him.

  “But Garlesh is a tough cookie. She recruited this Alden Kirk, who was slick enough to make a killing out of all the dirt he dug up. Till he finally killed himself.”

  Ralston paused, with a long moment for the camera and a malicious grin for me.

  Hunn asked, “How was that, Mr. Ralston?”

  “He was acting the holy innocent, inquiring into the springs of crime.” He nodded at Hunn and winked at the judges. “Crime here in the old McAdam County. Somehow worked his way into the gang. Could be they had to take him in because he’d already got too much on them. A big score for Garlesh, till he sold her out.”

  The impulse to slug him brought me half out of my seat. My manacles had jingled. With a whispered warning, Katz caught my arm. Sitting back, I took a deep breath and made my fists relax. “Huh?” Hunn’s surprise seemed almost real. “How was that?” Happy under the searching eyes of the judges, Ralston turned for a long glance at the camera.

  “Kirk’s first assignment had been to identify the ganglord. He did, though Shadow Hand was the only name he ever reported to Garlesh. What he did, instead, was to pass the poop the other way. He fingered Oakwood.”

  “Object!” I jogged Katz’s elbow. “I knew my brother. That has to be an ugly lie. Ask Ralston how he knows.”

  Nervously drumming his knuckles on the table, Katz gave me a tight-lipped, lopsided grimace.

  “Order!” Burleigh brought his gavel down. “Order in the court.” He nodded at Hunn. “Your witness will continue.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Hunn gave me a wolfish grin. “If Kirk’s brother seems astonished by this revelation, so am I. Perhaps the witness can explain Kirk’s behavior.”

  “Knowing what I do of him and Shadow Hand, I can guess.” Ralston paused to frown sympathetically at me. “Kirk seems to have been fond of his wife and children. I suspect that he was swapping lives.”

  “Huh?” A grunt from Burleigh. “How’s that?”

  “I believe he was trading his comrades on the Oakwood team for his family—to save them from slaughter.”

  “Yes?” The room was hushed. “That answers the mystery?”

  “Apparently sir, from what I was able to learn.”

  Ralston paused, frowning and rubbing at his ear, thinking for the camera. I sat trying desperately to grasp what manner of man he was. A harmless-seeming braggart with me in my jail cell, he had revealed nothing of the suave monster sitting now in the witness box.

  “Oakwood?” Hunn was asking. “Are you saying—”

  “Excuse me, sir.” With a smile of apology, he resumed, “The Oakwood team was headquartered in the Federal Building at Frankfort. Kirk gave Shadow Hand the date when the bureau team would all be there together.”

  Seething with a baffled anger, I looked at Katz. Jittery now, his pale face beaded with sweat, he was removing the black-rimmed glasses. Deliberately but perhaps unconscious of the action, he licked the lenses, polished them with a white silk handkerchief, replaced them, gave me an empty stare.

  “Thank you, Mr. Ralston.” Beaming, Hunn waited for the judges to nod agreement. “You have answered questions that have troubled many of us. I’m sure, however, that the defendant and his attorney are anxious to know more about Kirk and Shadow Hand. Can you enlighten us?”

  “Certainly.” Eye-patch turned for the camera, Ralston paused to make a show of thinking. “Garlesh was just as anxious. With my evidence, she was moving to arrest Kirk till Shadow Hand beat her to the draw with the letter bomb that killed him.

  “She was already setting up a new unit, code-named Acorn. Obsessed with security by then, she patterned it after the Shadow Hand gang. To guard against anything like the fate of the Oakwood team, agents were to work in secret, linked by coded signal, keeping well apart.”

  “You were an Acorn member?”

  “Perhaps the first.” Ralston nodded somewhat smugly. “She knew I had experience in military intelligence and military security. She asked me to help select and train the others.”

  “So you knew them?”

  “True.” He hesitated, frowning at the judges. “I don’t want to name them all. Needless names could embarrass loyal Americans— loyal citizens who were only trying to serve their country. However, there’s one man I can name.”

  He looked hard at me.

  “Clayton Barstow. Chosen by the director herself, because he was Kirk’s half brother and research assistant. She’d never suspected Kirk, and she hoped Clayton could help us nail the bombers.”

  With an ironic grin, he shook his head at me.

  “Too bad for the Bureau—”

  He stopped, looking toward the entrance. The room had fallen silent. Glittering in his new dress uniform, Stuart McAdam came marching down the center aisle, two Riflemen in step behind him. He stopped for a moment in front of the startled judges, glanced sharply across at his sister and his father, and settled himself with his guards in the vacant seats across the aisle.

  Old Colin McAdam had turned his emaciated head, frowning sadly at his son. Glancing at Beth, I found her somber stare fixed on me. Our eyes met for a moment before she dropped her gaze with a look I could not read.

  “Okay, Mr. Ralston.” Hunn had recovered. “You were saying?”

  “Barstow was a grave disappointment.” Ralston continued, with a reproving headshake for me. “To the director. To all of us. He claimed to know nothing of his brother’s connection to the Bureau, nothing of Shadow Hand.

  “When he said he wanted to identify his brother’s killers, we brought him here under cover as a graduate student at McAdam College. His actual motive, it turned out, was to defend his brother’s reputation—to deny or cover up evidence of what a cunning double-dealer he had been.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I have his confession.”

  Trembling with my helpless fury, I had jingled the manacles again. Katz gripped my arm.

  “You do?” Hunn ass
umed surprise. “How was it obtained?” Ralston smirked at me.

  “Barstow has been a guest of the county jail. I was able to join him in his cell with a fifth of Jim Beam. He drank most of it. Before daylight he was maudlin, sobbing with regret for the way Alden Kirk had wrecked the lives of his wife and his kids.”

  “Just what did he confess?”

  “Everything.” Ralston nodded soberly. “He was drunk and overwhelmed with guilt. I was a fellow prisoner. He trusted me.” “You know the charges?” Hunn was aglow with triumph. “The murder of Lydia Starker? The murder by arson of Dr. Stuben Ryke? The sneak assault on Colin McAdam?”

  “I do.”

  “Can you tell us the circumstances of Miss Starker’s death?”

  I heard a muffled moan from Lydia’s mother, now seated somewhere behind me. A woman hissed to hush her. Burleigh banged his gavel. After a nod from Hunn, Ralston went smoothly on.

  “Starker was another member of the Acorn unit. She had met Barstow at a secret meeting of malcontents. He learned that she was in fact a double agent, recruited on the infonet by Shadow Hand. Kirk had been another member of their little secret cell. Their mission had been to save the Frankfort bombers from the Bureau investigators. Like Kirk, she died for what she knew.”

  He paused with that, turning to glance at Stuart.

  “How so?” Hunn was impatient. “Be explicit.”

  “Besides the ganglord himself, Barstow believed that only she and Stuben Ryke knew that that it was his brother who had tipped off Shadow Hand. He slaughtered Lydia Starker and burnt Ryke in his clinic to save his brother’s name.”

  “Preposterous!” I whispered to Katz. “When the fire happened—”

  Rapping the table with his pen, he made a twisted grimace and shook his head at me. Burleigh scowled at him and brought the gavel down.

  “Okay.” Hunn was nodding, satisfied. “That wraps up the murders. There’s still the charge of felonious assault, when Colin McAdam was nearly killed by a bullet fired from outside his house. Did Barstow confess to that?”

  “He did.”

  Ralston stopped to glance at Beth and her father in their front-row seats. Colin’s deep-sunk eyes were fixed on me, with no expression I could understand. Hers, I thought, were hopelessly sad.

  “What, precisely, did he confess?”

  Ralston eyed me with an air of mingled contempt and pity.

  “He was maudlin by then, crying so hard he could hardly speak. Sorry for himself, sorry for his brother’s widow and her children, sorry for all he had done. Finally, however, he got the whole story out.

  “He had become infatuated with Miss McAdam. A fugitive from the law by then, he had persuaded her to hide him in her home. He said he had hoped to marry her. That may seem irrational, but no rational man would be where he is now. He believed that her father, not so gullible as she was, would oppose the marriage. With a cold brutality I can’t understand—” Assuming a baffled regret, he shrugged and dropped his voice. “Standing outside in the dark, he fired though the window, hoping to put her father out of the way.”

  A murmur of hushed voices swept through the room. Gottler touched Hunn’s sleeve and gave him a nod of approbation. The three judges bent their head together, their eyes on me.

  “Very good, Mr. Ralston,” Hunn said. “Very useful testimony. We thank you for it.” Ralston was moving to rise, but Hunn waved him back. “One question more before you leave the stand. Can you identify the ganglord, Shadow Hand himself?”

  Ralston sat back, shaking his head.

  “No, sir. Not of my knowledge.”

  “Do you have other knowledge?”

  “Only hearsay, sir. Hearsay from Lydia Starker while she was still alive.”

  “What was that?”

  “As she told me, her association with the gang began with a call on a secure telephone. The caller was a man who asked her to join a secret group devoted to the defense of freedom. She asked who he was. He told her to call him Shadow Hand.

  “She tried to balk, but his threats were convincing. Threats to expose past chapters of her private life and disgrace her family. She served in that Bureau cell with Ryke and Alden Kirk. She never was told the names of any others, even when they had joint assignments, but all her orders had come from Shadow Hand himself. She finally recognized his voice.”

  “And who is he?”

  “You’ll be surprised.”

  Enjoying a moment of suspense, Ralston grinned at Hunn and the waiting judges and even turned to look for a moment at Stuart McAdam.

  “All of you know him. A man who’d made and lost an honest fortune before he turned to crime to make it back. A leader in the Haven cabal, he’d come close to winning all he’s schemed and killed for. You have him upstairs now, in the penthouse cells. If you want his name.”

  He paused a moment for the camera.

  “He’s Kit Moorhawk.”

  The room buzzed till Burleigh slammed his gavel down. Hunn turned to the judges.

  “Mr. Ralston is our final witness in the state versus Clayton Barstow,” he said. “In light of his testimony, new charges may be filed against the Haven leaders now in our hands, but our case against Barstow is now concluded.”

  “Mr. Katz?” Burleigh frowned at him. “Are you ready for rebuttal?”

  Katz blinked at me through the black-rimmed lenses, his face weirdly contorted, and rose to face the judges.

  “No sir.” He stood twisting his flabby hands together. “These accusations have come very suddenly. We have had no time to prepare any adequate defense. We must beg for a delay.”

  Burleigh glanced at Hawes and Coon, both impatiently stacking their notes. He glared at Katz and me.

  “Have you witnesses to call if we should grant delay? Can you rebut Mrs. Starker’s testimony? Or Mr. Tellmark’s? If you should claim that Barstow did not fire the shot that wounded Mr. McAdam, can you tell us who did?”

  “No, sir.” Katz made another freakish grimace. “Not without time—”

  “We have no time,” Burleigh cut him off. “Not to waste on piddling frivolities or lunatic lies.” He glanced at Hawes and Coon. “I believe we are ready for the verdict. Mr. Barstow will stand.”

  Weak in the knees, I stood. Burleigh leaned for a moment to catch the whispers from Hawes and Coon. He cleared his throat.

  “Mr. Barstow, we find you guilty of the murders of Lydia Stalker and Dr. Stuben Ryke and the cowardly assault on Colin McAdam. By unanimous agreement, we sentence you to death by firing squad.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  . . . DEATH BY FIRING squad.

  The words rang loud in my head. Time had stopped. I felt a curious sense of detachment, almost as if I were already dead and beyond the need to care. The dismal old courtroom seemed suddenly strange. Looking at the judges, I saw Burleigh’s thick lips half open and yellow teeth gleaming. Goon, his hand raised to cover a yawn, had tipped his head to hear a whisper from Hawes, whose hawklike features were set in a frown of angry impatience. All of them more stupid than evil, but hard, cold, with no trace of compassion for me.

  Gottler was on his feet, grinning, reaching to shake Hunn’s hand. Beth’s face was drawn with hurt when 1 turned, dark eyes intent on me. Her father was staring across at Stuart, who sat stiffly, his face a masculine mirror of hers and somehow seeming to reflect her pain.

  That suspended moment ended when I heard the shrill squeak of Gottler’s voice, congratulating Hunn. Time swept on. I heard a muffled cough. Burleigh murmured to Coon and reached for his gavel. My own emotions alive again, I felt a shock of terror.

  “Can’t you—” My desperate whisper caught. “Can’t you do anything?”

  Wiping his glasses, staring blindly at Gottler and Hunn, Katz seemed not to hear me. I turned back to the judges.

  “Colonel Burleigh?” I waited till he finally glanced at me, and raised my breathless voice again. “Sir, may I speak?”

  “You have an attorney to speak for you.”

/>   I scanned the hostile faces of the other judges and found no comfort. I turned to Katz. Nervously sweating, he was replacing the glasses. With a fleeting mask of fear that seemed to mirror my own panic, he blinked and shrugged without a word.

  “Please!” My voice seemed weak and broken. I caught my breath and fixed my eyes on Burleigh. “I didn’t kill Lydia Starker. I didn’t drive the firebomb into Ryke’s clinic. I didn’t fire that bullet out of the dark.”

  “Then who did?”

  Gottler was quacking at Hunn and Ralston, who had joined them at their table. Ralston grinned and gave me a contemptuous finger. Pink with anger, Hunn surged to his feet.

  “Mr. Katz!” he shouted. “Your client is out of order.”

  Katz made a madman’s mask and said nothing.

  “Colonel Burleigh!” I raised my own hollow voice. “I do know I’m not the killer. Won’t you let me tell my story?”

  Coon and Hawes were frowning at him, shaking their heads. “We’ve had his story,” Hunn was shouting again. “We’ve heard his confession to Mr. Ralston. We’ve reached a verdict. The case is closed.”

  I saw Beth on her feet, catching her breath as if she wanted to protest. Her father caught her arm. With a distressed glance at Stuart, she sat down.

  “Saul!” Stuart was rising, his features sternly set, his voice harsh and loud. “Let him speak.”

  The room was startled, hushed. Burleigh sat gaping at him. Beth stared at Stuart, her face tight, pale, agonized. He looked at her and his voice rang out again, harsher, louder.

  “Let the man speak.”

  “Thank you, General.” Burleigh stood up to make a pose of rugged determination for Del Rio’s camera. He took a moment to choose his words. “We are a new nation. The future we want cannot be founded on any accusation of injustice.” He made an impatient gesture to silence Coon, and nodded stiffly at me. “Okay, Barstow, what can you say?”

  For a moment I had nothing.

  Weak in the knees, baffled by the McAdams, I glanced around the room. Gottler was on his feet again, clutching Hunn’s arm. Stuart sat scowling at them, his face pale and hard. Colin had bent urgently to Beth. Listening, she shook her head.