The Silicon Dagger

by Jack Williamson

  “Speak!” Burleigh rapped at me. “If you’re going to.”

  I heard Beth’s sharp whisper, “No! No!”

  Somehow, that set my mind to moving.

  “My brother—” Facing the judges again, I was still uncertain how to begin. “My brother was Alden Kirk, author of Terror in America. I didn’t know he was reporting to the FBI till after he was dead. But I do know he would never sell out to any outlaw gang.”

  I glanced at Hunn and Gottler. They were seated again with Ralston. He wore a mocking grin. They were muttering together, glaring at me.

  “You say he wouldn’t,” Ralston hissed under his breath. “I say he did.”

  Burleigh frowned at him.

  “The Bureau did send me here.” I tried to ignore them. “My brother had been investigating what he called the seed of terror here in the county. He evidently found them.”

  I heard a muffled snicker behind me.

  “I was to be working with the Bureau in the Acorn unit Mr. Ralston mentioned, though I was never really told anything about it. My contact was an agent named Botman. He gave me a telephone security device and a code name, Acorn Two.

  “He was Acorn One. I called back several times, following his instructions. The last time a strange voice answered with the name Acorn Three.” Watching Gottler, I saw his face stiffen, but only for a moment before he turned to listen at a murmur from Hunn.

  “That was my last contact. I never called again. I heard no more from Botman or the Bureau, but I stayed here, hoping to identify the killers. And—” I stopped for a moment, searching for sane connections. “I saw more acorns than I ever understood.”

  Coon and Hawes were shuffling their papers and frowning at a clock on the wall. Gottler was clutching Hunn’s arm, muttering at him urgently. He got to his feet.

  “Sit down, Saul.” Burleigh glanced at Stuart, who was staring at me with a look that chilled me. “Barstow may continue.”

  Lost for a moment, I turned to glance at Beth. She was watching Stuart with a look of mute distress. I stood there aching with pity for her and disturbed by his look of half-contained savagery.

  “Okay, Barstow,” Burleigh growled at me. “What’s this about acorns?”

  “A puzzle, sir.” I hesitated, still with no believable answer. “The forensic lab found fibers from an oak acorn among fragments of the bomb that killed my brother. That was only the beginning. The killers used acorns to sign their work. I don’t know why. Maybe to mock the Bureau. Maybe to throw it off their trail.

  “Lydia Starker called me the morning she was killed. She told me to get out to her place if I wanted to know who mailed the letterbomb. She seemed frantic. I found her stabbed to death when I got to her room, lying in her blood on the bathroom floor. Three oak acorns lay in the blood around her head.

  “The night of the fire that killed Dr. Ryke, I was staying in the McAdam house, asleep in the room that had been Stuart’s. Sometime in the night I was kidnapped, beaten up, left unconscious by a lonely road in the strip-mined country out beyond the county line. I found three acorns placed in the mud around my head.

  “The night Dr. McAdam was shot—”

  “No!”

  I heard that hushed outcry from Beth. Her pale hand was over her lips when I turned, her eyes on me, wide and dark with pain. She flinched away from me as if I had struck her, but in a moment she caught her breath.

  “Go on, Clay.” Her whisper was almost silent. “You must go on.”

  Burleigh’s gavel fell.

  “Barstow!” A sharp command. “Continue!”

  I was trembling, the manacles clinking when I turned back to face him. It took a moment to recover my voice.

  “My fingerprints were on the gun that wounded Dr. McAdam. Staying there at his house before I was kidnapped, I had found it in a drawer in a table beside the bed—”

  “In Stuart’s room?”

  A cry of pain from Beth. She clapped her hand over her mouth and sank back beside her father. Stuart swayed where he stood, a glassy stare fixed on them. His look of anger faded into agonized appeal. He said something to Beth that I didn’t hear and stood with his hands spread toward her, silently begging.

  Her face white with pain, she shook her head.

  “Sit down!” Burleigh shouted at the guards. “This is a court of law.” He swung to me. “Answer me, Barstow. Do you say the General tried to kill his father?”

  Looking into Beth’s desolate face, I found no words.

  “Do you know who fired that shot?”

  “I do.” Her eyes fixed on Stuart, Beth came back to her feet whispering so faintly I could hardly hear. “I’m afraid I do.”

  That silenced the room, people straining to listen. Gottler muttering to Hunn. Hunn shouting an objection.

  “Miss McAdam!” Burleigh blinked at her. “You are not a witness. Please sit down!”

  “No!” Stuart whispered hoarsely. “Let her speak. I’ve had too much. I’ve tortured her too long.”

  Burleigh goggled at her and caught his breath to listen.

  “Bett—” Stuart’s whisper was almost a moan. “Say what you know.”

  She stood a long time staring at him, white-faced and swaying, before she caught her breath and spoke huskily to him.

  “I know too much. I know what Lydia told me.”

  He cringed as if from a blow.

  “God forgive me!” He took a step toward her and stood there, agony on his face. “Forgive me if you can.”

  “Sir?” Burleigh shouted. “What do you mean?”

  “I fired that shot.”

  Burleigh dropped his gavel. The tiny crash rang loud in the breathless room.

  “Why?” Burleigh gaped and shook his head. “Tell me why!” Stuart stared at Beth and his father, caught a long uneven breath, turned finally back to Burleigh.

  “He threatened me.” He had flushed, his voice gone quick and sharp. “He was afraid of what I would do with Roy’s shell. He promised to stop me any way he could. I was afraid he could. Afraid of what Lydia had told him.”

  “General, sir—” Burleigh stood shaking his head, his voice gone sharp with incredulity. “You say you shot your own father?” Stuart swung to face McAdam, who sat bolt upright, gripping the cane with both thin old hands, gazing at him stonily.

  “You never wanted me!” Stuart’s voice sharpened in bitter accusation. “I was unexpected. You already had Beth and Roy—my angel brother, so nice and fine and bright. You and Mom had your lives all planned out, you with your war between the states, Mom with her Christian missions. You left me to Orinda and set hard rules and beat me when I broke them. You couldn’t wait to be rid of me, shipping me off to that military school before I was twelve years old. Nobody but Beth ever loved me.”

  He looked at Beth, his face working.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Sorry for all the hell I’ve given you.” She looked up at him with a sad white smile, her lips moving to words I couldn’t hear. He glanced at his rigid father, made a quick angry wipe at his eyes, turned back to frown a long time at Burleigh, his lips pressed tight.

  “Jim, I’m sorry for you.” His voice quivering, he opened his empty hands. “Sorry for how I’ve let you down. And let the Rifles down. The only friends I ever had. We could have changed the world.”

  He stood there a moment longer, glanced vacantly around the room, and stumbled back to his seat between his Riflemen, the life gone out of him.

  The judges sat for half a minute huddled together. Burleigh looked stunned. He sat motionless till Coon reached for the gavel and cleared his throat.

  “A hard blow.” He stopped for a long look at Stuart. “A hard blow and hard to take, but it ain’t the end of the road. Nor the end of the Free State of America. We’ve still got the Rifles and good men to command them.”

  He squared his heavy shoulders. I thought he must be thinking of himself.

  “We’ve still got the shell. We’ve still got a war to finish. And we’ve s
till got this rat Barstow sentenced to die for his crimes.” He paused to give me a long, sardonic stare. “Unless he’s got another rabbit in his hat.”

  I heard Gottler’s high-pitched yelp. Huddled over the table with Ralston and Hunn, he was glaring across at Stuart, who was rubbing and squeezing his upper arm in an odd way.

  “Sir!” Hunn stood up. “It’s time to stop this outrageous nonsense. Barstow is not under oath, and I see no reason to believe a word he says.”

  “Neither do I.” Recovering himself, Burleigh took the gavel back. “But we’re making history here today. We must be fair. Perhaps our verdict must be reconsidered. Barstow, we can give you five more minutes.”

  I looked away from Beth’s stricken face and tried to pull my mind together.

  “One minute will do.” Katz caught my arm to hiss at my ear. I shook him off. “I told you how the Bureau had me in that Acorn unit. The last time I called, I heard a different voice, high-pitched and oddly accented. I believe it belonged to somebody in the gang that had infiltrated the unit. Hearing it again, just now in this courtroom, I recognized—”

  My hand trembling, I pointed at Gottler. He was on his feet, shrilling curiously at Hunn.

  “The voice of Acorn Three.” I lifted my own husky voice. “Juan Diego Gottler’s.”

  “A lie!” he snarled. “Another monstrous lie!”

  White with fury, he shrugged off Hunn’s clutching hand and left the room, striding down the central aisle. I heard a guard at the door ordering him to halt. He stalked on. Guns crashed, deafening in the room.

  “Order! Order!”

  The lifted gavel fell out of Burleigh’s hand. He stood gaping at Stuart, who had pitched out of his seat and lay sprawled on the floor. One of the guards stood over him, gun drawn. The other had knelt to feel his pulse.

  “The General—” He stood up unsteadily. “The General is dead.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  PEOPLE WERE ON their feet, yelling questions, crowding toward the exit where the shots had been fired, crowding forward toward the judges and the body. Burleigh shouted for a doctor. A woman who said she was a nurse slipped out of the mob, but the guards refused to let her touch the body.

  Leaning on Beth, her father came limping to look down at it. She knelt to feel the wrist and close the glazing eyes. Silence around them, they went slowly down the aisle and out of the room. Medics arrived with a stretcher. Burleigh called the captain to the bar when he had examined the body.

  “Stone dead, but I can’t say why.” He made a baffled shrug. “I’d examined him for his checkup just a few weeks ago. Found him in first-rate shape.”

  They carried the body away. The judges were still on the bench, watching the doors and muttering uneasily to each other. Jittery Rifle officers huddled with them and one another. Oxman bustled in to see them and bustled out. Katz went up to them, begged for his moment of attention, and came back beaming through the wide-rimmed lenses.

  “Burleigh says they’ll reverse the verdict and release you in my custody. You will remain at my place under house arrest, pending a final disposition of your case.”

  We met Pepperlake, Moorhawk, and Rob Roy Me Adam at the elevator when Oxman brought them down from the jail, profusely apologetic for the unfortunate inconveniences of their stay. Awkwardly, since I still wore the manacles, they shook my hand and wished me well.

  Out of the manacles and back in my room at the Katz House, I enjoyed a hot shower and clean clothing. Julia Sue invited me to dinner with them and Katz broke out a bottle of wine to toast my freedom and the future of the Harven. After the meal he asked me into his office and offered a cigar.

  “Julia Sue will have to forgive me.” Settling contentedly behind his desk, he lit one for himself. “I hope you will. You must blame me for the way I left you to defend yourself, but—”

  He flushed and stopped, peering at the cigar in his stubby fingers as if it had been something strange. I waited, wondering at him, until at last he laid it carefully on an ashtray and took off the glasses, polished them deliberately, replaced them to blink uneasily at me.

  “You see, Clay,” he went on, “I’d known Lydia since she came to me for help to get away from Stuart. She’d told me a little of what came out at the trial. I’d suspected enough of the rest to make me uneasy.”

  Nervously, he picked up the cigar and puffed it back to life.

  “Your brother spoke to me while he was here, but I had to be careful what I said. Lydia had hinted that Stuart was involved in some underground infonet gang, but she never had names for anybody. She felt she was in danger and wanted me to help her, but she seemed to have no basis for any action I could take. And—” He shook his head, with an apologetic shrug. “I didn’t want to make anybody’s hit list.”

  He blinked at me, grinning.

  “A lot of us feel better now.”

  “About Gottler’s gang?”

  “Lydia believed it was a one-man show. She never had a name, but now we know he was the man. He took two bullets through his lungs when he tried to break past the guards. He died before they got him to a doctor. As for Stuart—”

  He shook his head, his face twisted with the tic.

  “What’s there to say? I used to like him. People loved him. Those who hadn’t crossed him. He could be savage with those who did. He got rough with me, but I could never really hate him. Maybe he was born that way. Maybe his parents made him what he was, like he said at the trial. I never knew much about what he had to do with Gottler, but they were trying to use each other. Gottler financed the Rifles.”

  I asked about Ralston.

  “The cops are looking for him. A slick operator. He walked out of the courthouse with Hunn and seems to have disappeared. Any other associates of Gottler, whoever they are, will be taking any cover they can.”

  He picked up the cigar and laid it down again.

  “Stuart McAdam killed himself. When the medics looked, they found a broken glass tube implanted in his upper left arm. It had contained cyanide; they got the odor. It must have killed him almost instantly.”

  He fired up the cigar and sat puffing on it moodily.

  “You’ve got to feel sorry for his family. Maybe for him. I doubt he ever was a happy man.”

  “His Free State?”

  “Gone with him, I guess.”

  “The Haven’s still alive?”

  “And still at war with the USA. Higgins don’t care what we call it. Zeider may be stalled. No guns firing now, but he’s still got us bottled up.”

  He pulled on the cigar, exhaled blue smoke, and laid it aside.

  “A crazy kind of war,” he muttered. “One nobody can win. Even here in jail, Rob Roy held an ace in the hole. Mike Densky was holding out in the little safety shell around the CyberSoft building. Stuart had his Rifles surround the building, but they couldn’t get inside. Pepperlake had warned them that Densky had orders to open the main shell for Zeider’s army if Stuart hurt or killed Rob Roy. Stuart was stalled the same way Zeider is.”

  He reached for the cigar and laid it back again.

  “The art of war has changed.” He blinked owlishly behind the dark-rimmed glasses. “Something to think about.”

  He reached again for the cigar while I thought about it and finally asked, “What next?”

  “Who knows?” He waved the cigar. “You might ask Rob Roy.”

  I lay awake till midnight, reliving the trauma of the trial. Beth’s pale and agonized face ached in my heart. The image of her father stuck in my mind, a frail and saddened figure, standing bent over his dead son. And Stuart—he was still a painful riddle. I had felt his charm, seen his gift of leadership. Somehow he must have earned the love that Beth and even Lydia had spent upon him. Groping to understand him, I pitied him for the bright promise he had wasted and tried to forgive the harm he had done.

  I slept late and found Del Rio on KRIF next morning.

  “Bulletin! Bulletin!” Her breathless excitement seemed real.
“The Kentucky rebels have captured Washington and paralyzed America. Information is fragmentary and confused, but sources in Baltimore report a barrier described as a second silicon shell that has sealed off the entire capital area from Silver Springs to Alexandria.

  “It is said to have appeared before sunrise. Transparent at first, like the shell over the Kentucky county, it flickered and became a mirror surface, reflecting a distorted image of the landscape. Local police authorities report morning traffic on highways into the city backed up for many miles. Rail and air services are blocked. Electronic contact has ceased.

  “President Higgins is believed to have been caught in the White House. The Vice President and most cabinet members were in the city. Congress and the Supreme Court were in session. With almost the entire national leadership trapped, the nation has been decapitated. Sporadic and conflicting reactions are reported outside the barrier. Several state governors are said to be mobilizing guard units. General Zeider is believed to be moving armor to surround the capital, though no organized and immediate response seems apparent. In the words of one commentator, the nation is flopping like a chicken with its head cut off.

  “A plea for calm, however, has come from Secretary of State Margo Brooke. Somewhere over the Pacific on her way back from a mission to Beijing, she has called from an Air Force plane to assure the nation that she sees no reason for panic. ‘We Americans are sane,’ she said. ‘Though Haven forces are reported to have invaded the capital, I am not yet aware of any violence. I expect none.’

  “Secretary Brooke is next in succession to the presidency, if the President and Vice President are incapacitated. Though she has refused to announce any plans for political action, she may be expected to play a leadership role in the formation of a new government if that becomes imperative.

  “At this moment, the capital is still in total isolation, cut off from all contact. In a brief interview granted to this reporter, Haven Councilor Cass Pepperlake denied any knowledge of what may be happening under that mirror shell. He did admit, however, that Councilor Kit Moorhawk is now in Washington, invested with full authority as a minister plenipotentiary to negotiate for the immediate recognition of the Haven as a sovereign nation with guaranteed unimpeded access to the outside world by road, rail and air. Pepperlake expects the barrier to remain in place until negotiations are completed.”