All the while she was performing these tests, she was also running a third on clairvoyance. This one was as simple as the others, only Arianne found it a lot more interesting. The control person had gone out driving in a car, without a specific destination or route in mind; his orders were to drive wherever he fancied in the United States and Canada, and keep on driving until he was told to turn around and come back. At half hour intervals, Arianne was supposed to figure out where he was with her "far sight." The first half hour after the start of the test, she enlightened the doctor not only as to where the ensign in question was on the map, but also that he'd taken his girlfriend along for the trip!
The examination went on and on for hours. While computer programmers and technicians worked here and there in the canyons of the machined wall, Leo divided his time between them and Arianne's station at the center of the room.
Larry telephoned her again on Monday, wanting the password for the third ring. Instead she gave him the information the admiral had given her, and Larry was so ecstatic with that, he wanted to take her out for dinner, since Uncle Art was home to baby-sit. Arianne said she couldn't possibly leave Rae when he was sick. And neither could Larry come over to visit her, because she had the flu now, too.
She had to work that day at the shop, and so Monday flew by, and Tuesday did, as well. But there were always the early-morning hours before dawn that she and Leo had all to themselves. Meanwhile the testing continued relentlessly. In suspense, everyone waited for Larry to carry the MiGs tip to his contact in Seattle. Under surveillance, all Larry's movements and conversations with his contacts could be overheard by various devices and spies.
Wednesday night, about ten o'clock, those down in the bowels of the computer overheard a segment of tape that had been recorded about an hour earlier: Larry and two of his contacts at a singles bar, the officer repeating word for word what Arianne had told him. Then the two men got into an argument about money and how it was to be paid. A great many dollars were about to change hands; their casual undertones belied what was actually taking place.
The admiral switched the tape off halfway through a sentence, and everybody turned to look at Arianne. She found it most unnerving.
"That settles it." The admiral shook his head. "We bring Barnes in."
"You could bring him in for questioning," Leo suggested, "on those old charges of theft. That gets him out of commission and leaves you more options in dealing with him... and the network remains intact, feeling smug and safe."
"You've a scheming mind," the admiral remarked with a faint smile.
"I need it to stay one step ahead. Despite appearances sometimes, Barnes is no slouch. He latched right onto a good thing when he saw it—" Leo glanced at Arianne "—and he simply used his resources to get what he wanted—lots of dough!"
The order went out and the navy closed in on Lieutenant Barnes. Still, there was tension in the air. Until the officer was actually behind bars, Arianne was to be treated like a very valuable piece of fine china.
Thursday morning, as Arianne was getting ready to go to work, Uncle Art came in from taking the garbage out, inordinately excited. Taking out the garbage was a means of relaying messages back and forth between the fort and the house. It seemed he had learned en route to the cans and back—from Arianne's assembly of navy bodyguards stationed out of sight in the trees—that Lieutenant Barnes had slipped through the fingers of the hand of justice closing in on him and was presently AWOL. Not only that, but he had turned up at the contact's apartment. He had told the contact about Arianne and had demanded one hundred thousand dollars, just for her name. He had added that the network was getting an incredible bargain, but with the navy on his back, he was cutting his losses and leaving the country, fast.
Naturally, Uncle Art went on, the contact hadn't believed Barnes's ravings any more than the admiral had believed Leo's. He wasn't giving Barnes one dime unless he had proof. The contact told Larry to ask his psychic who was funding their little project. Who was it that supplied him with the money he paid Barnes? Which was precisely what they all wanted to know.
"Arianne...?" Leo asked.
"I can't—I'm so involved. And that interferes. It never works for me," she said, sighing sadly. "Why don't you let me give him an answer? He's already spilled the beans on me.... Isn't the primary object to discover the head of the network? If Larry's out of commission, maybe we'll never find out. And he's only coming to ask me a question. He's hardly going to kidnap me in broad daylight out of a very busy shop! He'll not give away my name, not until he gets his hundred thousand, right? I'll be fine. Besides, there's my bevy of bodyguards. Come on, I'm sure the admiral will go along with me!"
Some rapid relaying took place between the fort and the elegant Victorian house, with messengers sneaking up to meet bodyguards in the dense cover of the forest.
They, in turn, passed the most recent news on to Uncle Art, gathering pine cones supposedly for Christmas decorations. The end reply was, yes, Barnes was going to be allowed to run back and forth on his hectic mission until the navy had what they wanted.
"You must give him the wrong answer to discredit yourself. They must dismiss his psychic as the ravings of a frightened lunatic. Let me think.... They figure you'll never guess who they are, so their identity can't be obvious. They're not a powerful enemy interested in our defense. They can't be Mother Russia, for instance, so that's what you'll say to Larry, that his contacts work for the Soviet Union. He'll believe it, too."
Leo went to the fort; Arianne, to the shop. Larry didn't even bother to come to the store; he telephoned her, instead, from Seattle. With great circumlocution, he posed his question to her, and she replied after a convincing show of reluctance. Arianne couldn't wait to get home to find out what had happened since.
On the last stretch of the road home, in a hurry, she had to floor the brakes of her car. Out of a hidden side road shot a bright-red Corvette. The little sports car effectively blocked her path. As her car rocked with the force of her stop, her heart leaped. Where were her bodyguards now that she needed them?
Larry slammed his door and then started coming toward her at a trot. Before she had a second to formulate an escape plan he'd opened her passenger door and was sliding in on the seat. Frozen with fright, she simply stared at him.
"About your answer, the Soviet Union... you're sure that's right?" The words fell bluntly, harshly, from his lips. "You're absolutely sure?"
Numbly she nodded.
"You... wouldn't be having me on?"
She shook her head.
"I don't like to be messed around with, baby!" he threatened, most unpleasantly.
"Whatever are you talking about?" Her voice quavered a little with nervousness. "Why would I be messing around? You're hardly making sense, Larry. And you scared me half to death, driving your car out right in front of me! Are you crazy?"
In the dim greenish light of the dash, he stared sharply at her. Arianne's heart seemed to fill her throat, and again she wondered where on earth her guards were?
"I told you before, Larry, not to set too much store by me. I mean, I do try, but that's really all I can do." Schooling her voice to sound as normal as she could took a huge amount of effort, since in her terrified condition she could scarcely remember what normal was, let alone produce it. "Are you coming over to the house? Everyone's still sick with the flu, you know—" she coughed "—and to tell you the truth, I'm beat after the day I had in the shop.'' She did her best to imitate a hacking cough.
He seemed deep in thought. "No, uh, I was just leaving. I'm on duty in an hour. So I hardly have the time to sit here chatting with you!" He added this as if she'd been the one to stop his car.
As he opened her door, out of the corner of her eye she saw a shadow slip back into the dark shadows of the pine forest. Was it one of the guards? She felt immensely better.
"Bye, Larry. Drive carefully!" She couldn't resist being a little sarcastic. But he was already gone. The low-slung car
drew back into the cross street, and she passed by it, her shoulders drooping in exhausted relief.
Leo wasn't home to greet her, but Uncle Art had already heard all about the incident in the woods, and he immediately went to "take the garbage out." When he came back he had news for her, too. The information about the MiGs and Floggers had finally been traced along a convoluted and surprising path.
The culprit who started the mess was a computer firm not presently supplying the armed forces with either computers or the programs to make them work. Rather too eager for business, they sought to discredit current supply firms by breaking into the navy's computer system and then confronting the navy with confidential information garnered in this manner. This was meant to prove that the current supply firms, among them MicroCon, were deficient in system design, as well as short on security.
It was a daring plot and might even have worked, except that one board member of the company, the one responsible for paying Barnes and dismissing him when the company had enough of the confidential information, saw an opportunity to make a little cash of his own on the side.
He kept the officer on in the same capacity as spy and sold the data received off him—that is, the entire first and second rings, as well as the very juicy tidbit about the Soviet combat aircraft, the Floggers and the MiG-21s, in possession of the armed forces.
The person he contacted to sell the data to was a low-ranking employee of the consulate of one of the South American countries. This staffer, while low ranking, had ready access to the consulate's computer system. Visiting the consulate in Seattle, ostensibly on company business but really to meet with his contact, the board member saw his neat little package of data continue intact to the next level in the spy network by prompt processing in the consulate's computer room.
Indiscreetly he mentioned this to Larry when paying him off for the juicy tidbit that very afternoon. Larry had then given the board member Arianne's ESP answer—the money presently in his hand had been supplied by Russia. Laughing disdainfully, the member had told him his psychic was a joke and a liar, and that he paid good money for information, not for hocus-pocus!
Barnes had left his contact's apartment with a pocketful of cash, but no additional hundred thousand dollars. He had begged for another chance to vindicate his source, but the board member had advised him, instead, to leave the country—if he still could. At that point, determined to give himself one last chance at the hundred thousand, Larry headed for Port Townsend as fast as his car could go, to apprehend Arianne in that dangerous and frightening manner on the dark country road.
Now, once again, the navy was closing in on Lieutenant Barnes. Arianne was thoroughly pleased about that. She and Uncle Art speculated on Larry's next move. Would he decide to leave the country, or would he, still hoping for more payoffs, try to convince the low-ranking consulate staffer of Arianne's credibility. It all depended on whether he believed in Arianne's Russians or the board member's scoffing over psychic idiocy.
"I knew there was a mystery going on," Arianne said, beaming. "I just knew it! When's Leo coming home, Uncle Art?"
"He's not. He's gone."
"'Gone'?" Arianne spun around, clutching Rae's green crocodile to her breast. "What do you mean, 'He's gone'? How could he be gone?"
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
"Sit down, Arianne. Come along now, honey." Uncle Art called her "honey'' the way Leo did, but since he was sixty-some odd years, she didn't mind. "Honey, he's gone to, er, tamper some with those computers at the consulate in Seattle. After he's finished, we'll know where that staffer sent the information and be able to trace the various levels of the network. And we'll be able to do a little rearranging of data to ensure that the information that does go through is false."
"Oh, no," she lamented.
"He had to go. You know he had to. He took the job and he'll finish it, you'll see. The admiral's used him before. He's good. Not to worry. He's real slick. How do you think he lasted so long in a rough business? Big bucks in computers, ya know."
"But when I think of him creeping down some dark hall..."
"Come along now, honey. Eat your dinner and relax. He can take care of himself, the lad. What do you think all them muscles are for? His head's not bad, either. He'll get in and out again, you'll see. Eat, eat! You're bein' a bad example for the boy!"
Rae wasn't eating, either; he was throwing his food willfully on the floor—something he wouldn't be doing if Leo were present. Rae knew he couldn't get away with such pouty behavior around his new friend.
After dinner, since Leo wasn't there to take Arianne to the fort, another escort, one of her guards, slipped into the house to make her acquaintance. She discovered then that the shadow she'd seen earlier had been one of her guards. She was grateful for that revelation; it made her feel a whole lot safer.
However, once in her customary chair down in the clandestine computer cellar, Arianne simply couldn't concentrate on the tests she was required to do that evening. She kept pushing and pushing at her mind, only to conjure up pictures of Leo. His face was superimposed on every star and square and wave. And when she was supposed to point out on the map where the ensign and his girlfriend, still driving, had got to by now, she couldn't; she hadn't a clue, just as she hadn't had a clue about Leo.
The doctors gave up, not wanting to aggravate her more. Instead they just sat around together in an informal group and asked her simple questions about what it was like to be blessed and burdened with ESP.
About two hours after she arrived, one of the doctors suggested a little brandy would not be inappropriate. When the required number of glasses were assembled, he poured out the drinks. Arianne accepted a snifter and got up out of the deep plush sofa to stretch her legs. She wandered away from the group awaiting their glasses, then she put down the snifter, took a deep breath and quietly fainted.
Nobody noticed at first, but when they did there was a hue and cry and the admiral was sent for. Eleven doctors pored over her inert form on the floor.
It was the admiral's face she saw first, upon recovery just a minute or two later. She quickly closed her eyes again, but he shook her determinedly by the shoulders, and she mumbled, her eyes still shut, "They're shoving Larry into the trunk of a black sedan with... with diplomatic plates. He's... been shot." She blinked and reluctantly opened her eyes then.
"Good God! Get her on the couch! Where's some brandy! Get somebody on the line and find out what the hell is going on out there! Where's a pillow!"
"Wait," Arianne whispered. Everybody stopped moving at once. "They're arguing... they're stopping now under some trees where it's dark. There are two men and they're carrying Barnes. He's... they're putting Larry in the back seat of the car...." In the utter quiet her whisper sounded loud. "Oh, dammit, he's bleeding all over the red carpet...." Her voice shook.
The admiral offered her a small quantity of brandy, which she swallowed agreeably. "Where are they going, Arianne? Can you see where they're going?" he probed gently.
She lay back, feeling the brandy warm the terrible chills inside. Somebody got a pillow and somebody else a blanket. Arianne wasn't totally aware of them, and yet she wasn't oblivious, either, but a state somewhere in between. She didn't say anything for some time, yet they all stayed about her, waiting....
She sighed. "The car is stopped in an alley... it's dark and dangerous-looking. There are garbage containers... somebody's passed out in a doorway, but they don't notice. They pull him out and mess him up a bit, like he's been in a fight... throw him against... it's a hotel, an old seedy hotel. It's called the... the... something Moon. The Honey Moon—no, the Sweet Moon. No, that's not it, either. I don't know where it is, but it's the... Sugar Moon. That's it, the Sugar Moon Hotel! And he's still alive, but just barely...." Her teeth chattered, and the admiral administered more brandy, while Dr. Ekhart set about briskly rubbing her hands.
"If they can shoot Larry just like that,'' Arianne suddenly said, sitting up and pushing the proffered snifte
r away, "what are they going to do to Leo?"
"They have to catch him first," Thrush reminded her.
"But what if they do?" she insisted.
"Then, Arianne, we'll take that consulate apart at the seams! Honey, we'll get him back! But I don't think they'll catch Leo. I really don't."
The admiral's aide was kept hopping the next while, running messages back and forth. Everybody just waited—for Larry's hotel to be located, for Leo to send confirmation through from the computer in the consulate to the one in their building.
About an hour later, word came that the Sugar Moon and the lieutenant had been found. A local ambulance was at that very moment wailing through the streets, rushing him to the nearest hospital. He was still alive, but just barely, as Arianne had said.
"Go home, honey—" the admiral patted her hand "—try to get some sleep. Leo might not get a chance to take care of... business till the wee hours, maybe not until tomorrow! And as I told you, we'll not permit an asset like Leo Donev to fall into enemy hands. Between the two of you, you're worth a king's ransom! So go home and sleep, and that's an order!"
"Yes, sir." Arianne smiled faintly.
Uncle Art took care to see that she got some sleep; he put a sedative in her cocoa, and she slept the night away and far into the next morning. Still there was no word from Leo.
***
Friday, at work, Arianne kept glancing at the telephone, wondering if Uncle Art would call her, but while the phone rang off the wall with last-minute orders for Christmas, only two days away, there was no news for her. And when she got home, all her pretend-uncle did was shake his head and shrug his shoulders.
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