All in Good Time

by Mackey Chandler

  Heather expected some snarky reply, but Dakota nodded pleasantly.

  “Linda Pennington has called twice already this morning. Do you want me to deal with her?” Dakota asked with a predatory grin.

  “Dear God, no,” Heather said, “at least not yet. I know how permanently you’d deal with her. One of the bad things about living on the Moon is you can’t fantasize about a random bolt of lightning taking care of difficult people for you.”

  That task taken care of, Heather dismissed the mental picture and made her connection.

  “Good morning Dr. Holbrook. How are things going with your studies?” Heather asked.

  “I just got here this morning. I’m on my first cup of coffee and haven’t spoken to anyone.” He stopped and looked briefly puzzled. “That is one of those social greetings you don’t really want to be answered, isn’t it? If you wanted to know in detail you’d ask for a formal written report or get together for a discussion, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, it’s a limited scope inquiry,” Heather agreed. “If you had any fires to put out, whether physical or the organizational equivalent, of which I was not aware, I’d agree to offer help or call back another time. It’s one way to ask if you are free to speak briefly.”

  “Ahhh, I’m getting better at sorting those out. I was briefly disturbed it was going to take me most of the morning to answer and I had other things scheduled.

  “There are no significant problems apparent this morning with either the facility or any of my personnel. Our progress on several projects is a mixed bag, with some success and some disappointment. As my personal assistant and secretary is fond of saying, ‘You win some and you lose some.’ She has a remarkable ability to dismiss a line of inquiry that shows signs of returning little value for the resources it would need to continue.

  “I believe the correct thing is now to reciprocate with a limited inquiry as to how your day is going?” he said and smiled. It was kind of scary. Heather wondered who taught him how to do that and if he had an orthodontist, given his perfect dentition.

  “No emergencies here either,” Heather said. “I do appreciate the information your assistant is proving of value. I’ll move on to my primary purpose in calling this morning.”

  Dr. Holbrook nodded looking relieved.

  “Dr. Holbrook, I wonder if it is possible for you to undertake a new study, or help set up somebody to do so under your direction?” Heather asked.

  “It is always possible, but we always have more lines of inquiry than we have resources. I need to know how you regard the potential value compared to what you know we are working on,” Holbrook said. “It would be a matter of dropping something less promising to take up this new research. Do you have some estimate of its worth? I will assume you see potential or you would not be asking.”

  “Do you remember I sent you a memo that our survey crew saw an alien vessel make passage through the same star system during a visit?” Heather asked.

  “Yes, that was interesting, but their drive system appeared similar to the one being developed by Earth nations. It is already inferior to ours and we recovered no artifacts or detailed data. I saw it as a dead-end for now. Do you have new data?”

  “We have more data of which you were not apprised,” Heather said. “Previously, it was also a dead-end and a politically sensitive secret we contained as potentially harmful to us. That has changed because we will soon have alien artifacts.”

  Heather wondered if he’d be angry he wasn’t told everything but he just looked interested, not upset.

  “The Martians have an ancient alien starship wreck,” Heather said. “That has been the driving force behind their declaration as a nation. It is not going well for them and they are expelling other researchers, much like Armstrong did, to reduce their population and concentrate on the wreck rather than the original Martian studies.

  “Due to reduced support from Europe, they are up against time limits and need help to remain a viable outpost. They have already had one political killing and change of administration rather than engage in mass murder to maintain their secret.

  “In my estimation, revealing they hold this wreck would result in the Earth powers taking extreme measures to seize it. They will envision all sorts of exotic and disruptive technologies coming from it. The truth is otherwise. Not much has been found. The Martians are also lacking in the sort of high technology experts who might find such discoveries.

  “That is where we come in.

  “In exchange for very limited support in supplies, evacuation of some personnel, and a couple of special machines, the Martians will trade us three distinct subsystems from the ship that they have been able to remove intact. Neither they nor I imagine these are major parts of the vital systems such as the drives, but they still have large potential value to us. It is imperative we maintain the same secrecy for now or risk political chaos.

  “I thought of you first as our head investigator, but the return is uncertain. It could be great or nothing. Are you willing to take the risk?”

  “Oh yes. Everything on which we are working at present are incremental improvements on existing technologies. This has vastly more potential. I’ll personally take charge of this and supervise three assistants who will each concentrate on one device, but be aware of the others and share information freely. Four people are feasible for both physical and information security.”

  “We’re looking at a few weeks before we deliver our aid and take possession of these items as our fee,” Heather said. “Do you need anything to prepare to receive them?”

  “I’d like a separate tunnel bored with a controlled entry inside our present security perimeter. I’m sure there is unused cubic behind ours in the public works section. Inside, each device should have its own tunnel and branches but a common lavatory, break room and at least one simple room for researchers to take a nap or stay overnight at need rather than go home. You might consider if any of these scientists being expelled would be of value to recruit for your own uses.”

  “That’s an interesting idea. I’ll issue orders today for the boring machine to come down your central corridor and extend it. I’ll arrange it for the first off shift that it can be transported there. You may have to have some workers skip a late shift they intended to work, without giving them any real explanation.

  Dr. Holbrook smiled. “My mother taught me the administrative protocol for that. I’ll simply tell them it’s going to happen because I said so.”

  Heather struggled to keep a straight face until she signed off. Dr. Holbrook could seem very strange, and then suddenly absolutely dead normal neurotypical without warning.

  * * *

  The agent in charge of the Miami Secret Service office thought he was smart. April had two previous satellite views of his limo picking him up. The driver stopped at exactly the same spot and went around holding the door open for him before he emerged from the house. He carried a case tucked under his arm and tossed it on the seat before getting in. This morning the same limo parked at the same spot and the man emerged from the house while the driver was still walking around to open the door. The man reached up and put his hand on the roof, getting in with the portfolio still tucked under his arm.

  It irritated April. How stupid did they think she was?

  She watched the imposter drive off and waited. A half-hour later a delivery van showed up at the rear entry and a man unloaded things to a two-wheeled hand cart and went inside. A man, another man she was sure, came out much too fast to have made the delivery and gotten a signature. He was very awkward at returning the hand truck and pulling the door down. April assumed there must be a driver. Surely, driving a delivery truck would be above his station. If they wanted to play with her she could play with them.

  Examining the possible routes to the Federal building there was a long stretch of road they would likely take through a golf course. There were no side roads and beyond was limited access. Traffic was heavy enough to provide a long en
ough transit time and restrain their movement to let her send a message.

  Her first rod dropped from orbit starting when the van was about a kilometer and a half short of the last side road. By the time it was a flaming meteor descending from the sky the van was past the turnoff and committed to the road. The rod didn’t hit the road, rather it was aimed out on the golf course a half kilometer to the side near the opposite end. The rod was followed by others at twenty second intervals, walking a line of explosions right up to the road. The water table was so near the surface here that they made an impressive fountain of mud each time a rod blew a shallow crater in the golf course.

  The motorists on both sides either braked to a stop or sped up to escape the line of explosions walking toward them, although a few played it much too close and emerged from the mud storm wipers working to clear the muck. The last rod in the series cratered the now vacated roadway.

  When traffic going the opposite way cleared the van did an awkward turn as did others, having to back up twice to point the other way. It didn’t have an opportunity to even start back the way it had come before a line of explosions repeated the same process in front of them cutting off their retreat.

  With the van was stuck behind a line of traffic and trapped between the cratered ends of the road April dropped two more rods to make sure her point was driven home. A rod dropped on either side of the road exactly beside the van, as close as she dared without the risk of killing the agent with a slight miscalculation. It pelted the van with debris and likely busted the windows. Certainly, it was deafening and if the man wasn’t scared out of his wits then something was terribly wrong with him.

  It took a full half-hour for a fan platform to land and extract the agent. The pilot stayed in the platform and a guard went to help him across the shoulder and uneven field. The delay after he boarded suggested they’d shut down the fans to keep from soiling his suit. It wouldn’t have surprised her if the guard had carried him piggy-back to preserve his dress shoes. If there was a driver left in the van they didn’t rescue him. She’d seen enough and cut the feed even though she had more time bought. She couldn’t imagine she’d failed to make her point.

  * * *

  “I can work with you,” Tetsuo said. “We do have different styles. You are publically notorious, which came back on you eventually, but it can be useful too. I’d rather remain unknown to the public, but that has its own hazards. If I vanish there would be no outcry.”

  Chen was just observing, nervous over the meeting he’d arranged.

  “The public has a very short memory. I expect I’ll be forgotten quickly,” Jan said.

  “But institutional memories last longer. Your face is on the web beyond ever erasing. I will be happy to partner with you like Chen. Having you as a public face might even have business uses. Chen and I can hardly open an office and be seen coming and going. But I don’t intend to appear with you in public.

  “That’s perfectly acceptable,” Jan said. We may be able to create a sort of transitional agency that affords some information gathering to augment security services such as Christian Mackay offers. Some would be quite open and some clandestine.”

  “Exactly, Chen and I regard helping Home and its institutions as beneficial to our own safety and fortunes. We are not chauvinists, but it is our haven from Earth. For example, we are running a small operation to draw Hawaii and Texas together as a counter to North America. We generally regard North America as hopelessly flawed and in opposition to Home. We want to be paid when that is possible, but we also act in our own interests that way when it is possible incidental to our other work. How do you feel about that?”

  “It’s nothing I haven’t already done,” Jan said with a casual wave. “I helped April escape ISSII without specific payment, and it had eventual benefit. Flushing the offending Chinese out the airlock was something I added for free and happy to do it. I’ve come to regard aiding April and her people as pretty much the same thing as aiding Home. I hope to now benefit from doing what just seemed the right thing to do at the time.”

  “Yes, I think we can work together just fine,” Tetsuo said smiling.

  * * *

  Heather had their jump crew in again. If she talked to only Deloris on com she had no feel for how their chemistry was working. She wanted to feel sure she wasn’t piling too much on them like she had before. They seemed happy and attacked her buffet without restraint.

  “Laja has some time free before she starts for Larkin,” Heather told them. “She’s going to second to one of his freight handlers after the chief is promoted and the current second moves up. I’d like you to take her on a tour to recover mining yields and refuel mills and claim radios on the minor planets.”

  They all did the look around thing so quick she’d have missed it if she blinked. Deloris just nodded yes easily. Apparently, they weren’t having any second thoughts they were shy to bring up about Laja since their last visit.

  “Do you have a preference who takes her and who gets leave?” Heather asked

  The four looked back and forth among themselves like they’d done before but it seemed to require a back and forth look that touched each of them and took a couple of seconds to work this more complicated question out. It was starting to creep Heather out that they seemed to communicate non-verbally. If they at least lifted an eyebrow or used some helmet talk like riggers it wouldn’t be so strange. It was enough to make you reconsider telepathy.

  “I’ll fly it with Barak. Alice and Kurt will take leave,” Deloris told her.

  If they did this flying together Heather had to wonder if Laja would be able to decipher their code or not fit in? If she couldn’t, Heather resolved not to automatically blame her. There were procedures to follow on a flight deck, not nods and blinks.

  * * *

  “Better for us if she’d killed him and a hundred innocent bystanders,” the Secretary of Defense said. “It was humiliating. She played with him and it hasn’t gone unnoticed he was willing to sacrifice the limo driver and double to put her off him.”

  President Wiley sighed. “If the banker would have a fatal accident, food poisoning or something, there would be nothing left to argue about. People will believe it if they know what’s good for them.”

  “She said straight out it would be blood for blood,” Brandon reminded them. “Reviewing everything that has happened, she has done everything she said she would. The woman hasn’t backed off or bluffed once. What the public will accept is irrelevant. We’re actually at horrible risk just holding him. If he really did have a heart attack or something she’d never believe it. I’d never believe it at this point.

  “If she just removed New York City from the map we might survive as a nation,” the Secretary said, “but I wouldn’t expect any of us in this room to be around to see how it works out if we trade New York for one rather unexciting banker who committed an obscure and non-violent financial crime. Too many people will know. It’s not like we arrested him in secret and the issues haven’t been out before the public.”

  “Assuming she would stop there,” the Commander of Space Forces reminded them. “If she dropped a rather large weapon such as they’ve used before on say, six major cities I’m not sure the nation would survive in a recognizable form.”

  “Do they have six?” The Secretary asked.

  “We have no idea. They could have used those two and be out or have sixty ready to rain down on us,” Director Brandon said. “These three have such tight security we have no way to determine what they are doing. They use less than two dozen fabricators and suppliers and it’s impossible to sort their weapons purchases from their other businesses. Their suppliers are paranoid and all know each other. We suspect only the three principal owners have the actual keys to the weapons systems and they don’t share any of their private systems with the militia or other armed transport businesses. There are no government reporting requirements or bidding processes to expose the extent of their preparations. It’s just to
o small an organization to penetrate.

  “That statement about ‘Do you feel lucky?’ is both strange and troubling. Some thought it a quote from an old flat movie. It wouldn’t make sense because the character in that scene had shot his weapon empty and was bluffing. She’d hardly signal us she was bluffing.”

  “Not unless she really wants to sucker us into giving her an excuse to bombard us and still be able to claim it was our decision that forced it later. It would allow her to keep her hands clean for public opinion and history,” President Wiley said.

  “Once you speculate beyond the first layer of deceit you are gauging your own levels of paranoia as much as your enemy’s intentions,” the Secretary insisted.

  “If you don’t feel like committing political suicide, and you have to give the damn banker back, all I can think to suggest at this point is to get the best exchange you can with the least possible public humiliation,” Brandon suggested. “Take the assassin back gratefully even if we don’t really give a damn about repatriating him at this point. It will be one small thing that looks better to the public. We can arrange for a safe pasture to put this old horse out to retirement where nobody will get to him for internal methods and secrets.”

  “Then arrange it as best you can, quickly, before she decides to kill the next target instead of just playing cat and mouse with him. That would make coming to an accommodation with her even more difficult to justify,” Wiley said. “I’m giving clear orders he is to be released at your direct request in case anyone balks.”

  “Brandon nodded, happy inside that these orders seemed to indicate the CIA chief had deflected all blame off him or he wouldn’t be charged with this task.

  “I’ll see to that without delay,” he agreed.

  “And Brandon, I’ll accept it may not be possible today but I want a small very black group formed to study how to take down these Spacers. I want them to keep at it until they have a viable plan and I want it compartmented so tight the Homies never hear of it.”