Skywatcher

by Winona Kent

  “Who is it?” he inquired, politely.

  “You know who it is,” Gwennie answered. “May I come in?”

  “Certainly.”

  His mother flew into the room, fury paramount. “Your brother hasn’t been home.”

  “I know. He phoned.”

  “When?”

  “Last night—you were asleep. It was around three.”

  “At three? He phoned at three?” Gwennie said, incredulously. “Where is he? I’ll strangle him.”

  “He went to Whistler.”

  “What?”

  “He met a bunch of his friends from the English department, and they all piled into their cars and went to Whistler. One of them has a condo up there.”

  “They went, just like that? Not a thought to their studies or their classes?”

  “I guess not,” Anthony shrugged.

  “Did he say when he’d be back?”

  “Nope.” He changed his mind: She’d worry. “Maybe by Friday.”

  Gwennie looked at her middle son. She wished he’d cut off that ridiculous bit of braid at the back. What did it mean? What did it stand for, other than another one of his subtle attempts to annoy Rolf? She walked past the bed and tugged at the curtains, opening them to admit the morning light, then turned around and assessed Anthony, who was still lying in bed, the covers pulled up to his chin, an expression of exaggerated innocence on his face.

  “I’m not pleased.” She walked back to the door, thought of something else to say, then changed her mind and left.

  “Good-bye,” Anthony called pleasantly.

  Evan slid the thin strip of metal inside the window of the Ford. The bottom edge caught the lock. He pulled up, clicked the door open, and slipped into the car, slamming the door shut on the buckle of the seat belt.

  “Cut.”

  “Sorry,” Evan said, getting out. He bent down and looped the errant buckle and belt around the back of the headrest.

  “Try it again.”

  One more time. He whacked his hand with the slim-jim. Who would believe a simple thirty-second scene could turn out to be so complicated? Take four.

  This time the break-in was flawless. The camera tracked back a foot or two to shoot his getaway. Evan started the engine, waiting for the scene to be set up. He watched the crew, waiting for Jerry Canfield’s signal to go.

  “Everybody quiet.”

  “Sound.”

  “Mark.”

  “Blockbuster, scene fifty-two, take one.”

  “Action.”

  He floored the accelerator and skidded down the road, the camera panning with him. At the end of the block, he coasted to a stop.

  “Cut!” Jerry called, through his bullhorn. “OK—good work. Thank you.”

  Evan got out and wandered back to the little gathering by the side of the road. He helped himself to his third cup of coffee and walked a couple of blocks back in the other direction to see where the big stunt was supposed to take place.

  The way the script went, he—George Castelluco, small-time car thief and unwitting recipient of underworld loot—was supposed to lead a car chase along Oak Street, crossing Broadway, and careening down the steepest grade in the world until he hit the on-ramp of a multilevel transport truck waiting to make a right turn onto West Sixth Avenue. Good luck, Evan thought, standing at the corner of Broadway and Oak, staring down the hill. The car was supposed to take flight over Sixth, clearing a high wooden fence and a set of still-used railway tracks, coming to rest at last on the roof of a posh condominium project on the banks of False Creek.

  Evan sipped his coffee. Whoever did the stunt work was going to have a field day. The grade was so steep that the transport truck’s hind end was forty-five degrees higher than its front end, and they had to construct a second ramp on its deck, so the Ford would take off airborne instead of slamming straight down into the road.

  He trudged back to the set and, leaning against the corrugated side of the catering truck, watched the actor playing the owner of the Ford come running out of his office, distraught at his vehicle’s disappearance. He was supposed to swear, look around, and then run back inside, presumably to phone his underworld bosses about the theft. The actor got as far as the front step of his building, slipped on something on the sidewalk, and fell flat on his back, the expletive deleteds far more colorful than anything the script called for.

  His stunt earned him a round of applause from the crew. Evan sat down on the curb. At this rate, his next scene wouldn’t come up for hours.

  One of the extras hired to walk along the street as part of the general pedestrian traffic sat down beside him. “Isn’t this supposed to be L.A.?” he said.

  Evan shrugged. “I believe so, yes.”

  “So how come all the license plates on all the cars say ‘Beautiful British Columbia’?”

  Evan considered the question. “A very good point,” he conceded. “Have you mentioned it to anybody?”

  “Oh, sure. I’ve been told to piss off by five separate production assistants. And the script girl.”

  Evan smiled. “Par for the course,” he said, getting up. “I’ll be right back.”

  He strolled across to Jerry Canfield, who was having a huddled conference with one of the cameramen on the sidewalk. This, he thought delightedly, was going to set the shooting schedule back at least a week.

  Anthony started whistling “Colonel Bogey” softly to himself when the elevator opened at the fifth floor of the east wing. He meandered past the nursing station and down the hallway, checking room numbers as he went, stopping here and there to read the special notices that had been stuck to the doors concerning infections and drainage procedures, use of oxygen, and warnings about contamination. Pleasant sort of place.

  There it was: 532. He looked at the name on the label above the room number, just to make sure. It wouldn’t do to go bursting in with good cheer and happy thoughts, only to be confronted by a nasty old codger with varicose veins and hemorrhoids. This was it. He took a deep breath and went inside.

  His brother had been propped up in the bed, pillows stuffed under his armpits and elbows and behind his shoulders and neck. His eyes were closed, and his head had fallen over sideways, as though he wanted to sleep and would rather have been lying down.

  “Hi, Pooh.”

  Robin’s eyes crept open. “Hi, Ant,” he answered hazily.

  “I understand you’ve decided to take up spying for a living.”

  Robin’s eyes closed for an incredibly long time, and then struggled open again. “Oh?” he said.

  “Silly old Bear,” Anthony said fondly. “It’s all right—Evan told me everything.”

  He dropped the shopping bag he’d been carrying onto the floor, unwound his scarf, and took off his coat. The room was uncomfortably warm.

  With what seemed like great effort, Robin dragged his head upright.

  Anthony perched on the edge of the bed. The side of Robin’s face was swollen: there was a gray-green bruise on his left cheek and dark circles under his eyes. The beginnings of a beard shadowed his chin. Funny: it made him look rugged—fashionably unkempt. “I brought you a Care package,” he said.

  “Did you?”

  “Uh-huh. Clean clothes, your toothbrush, a book—”

  “Which one?”

  Anthony fished into the paper bag. “Spy Squad,” he said, flashing the cover, with its picture of Mandy, Huff, and Jarrod in a ready-to-take-on-the-world collective crouch, guns out. “It seemed appropriate.”

  Robin grinned, a little lopsidedly. “You nut.”

  Anthony slid off the bed and went to the closet with the sweatshirt and jeans he’d pulled out of his brother’s cupboard when Gwennie wasn’t looking. There was a ski jacket, too, stolen from the front hall, and shoes and socks, which he left under the dressing table. He came back to the bed.

  “Are you all bare-naked under there?” he teased, impishly lifting the corner of the blanket.

  “You wish,” Robin said. “R
egulation hospital issue PJs, Tree. Don’t let my manly unclothed chest fool you.”

  Poor Pooh was so spaced-out. Anthony remembered the last time his brother had been in a condition like this, when he’d had a couple of wisdom teeth removed the previous year. His jaw had swollen up then, too, making sleep impossible. Anthony’d rented Tron, and the two of them had rolled around on the floor, in front of the television set, giggling, running the tape backward with the sound turned off until five in the morning.

  He sat on the edge of the bed again.

  “Does Mom know anything about this?” Robin asked.

  Anthony shook his head. “I told her you went to Whistler for a couple of days. She wants you to know she’s not pleased.”

  “I wish I was at Whistler,” Robin said, wistfully.

  “Why didn’t you say anything about Evan when we were at UBC, you dope?”

  “I wasn’t supposed to,” he answered simply, looking at his brother. “Did you know, too?”

  Anthony nodded.

  Robin raised his eyes to the curtain track on the ceiling. “Oh,” he said with a smile.

  “You weren’t really going to the RCMP with those pictures, were you?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “That’s what we thought.” Anthony saw his brother’s wrists. “What happened there?” he asked, gently brushing the circle of bruises with his fingers.

  Robin swallowed. “They tied me up.” He probed the inside of his cheek with the tip of his tongue. “I tried to get away—I broke a window—so they hit me.”

  “Poor old Pooh,” Anthony said. He took his brother’s hands in his own, touching the places where the rope had scraped away his skin.

  “Cut myself all to hell.” Robin poked his leg out of the blankets; a large bandage had been stuck over the bottom of his foot, curving around his instep. “Twelve stitches, tetanus shot.”

  He shut his eyes. He was crumpling, losing all the resolve he’d built up in the garage. The memory flooded over him, hurting.

  “Pooh Bear, don’t cry.” Impulsively, Anthony wrapped his arms around his brother, hugging him close. Robin smelled the way hospitals were supposed to: disinfected, clinical. He could feel the hot tears soaking into the collar of his shirt. “Don’t cry.”

  “They used a strap on me, Ant—” Robin flinched as his brother’s fingers touched the swollen welts on his shoulders. “My legs, too—I can hardly walk.”

  Anthony stroked his head, his hair. He could see what Grosch had done: massive, dark bruises, lash marks that were still red and bleeding, his brother’s back raw in places. It was horrible.

  “Don’t tell Mom.”

  “I won’t.”

  He held onto Robin tightly, rocking him.

  “Don’t let go—please.”

  “I won’t,” he promised.

  There it was. Evan studied the magnified slice of film, adjusting the focus on the reader. There it was, what Rosie had been killed for.

  She’d been undercover at the Russians’ Vancouver station for years, had been feeding information back to Ottawa for months about the Star Tech project, codename: Skywatcher. Data about the location of the dishes, the number of installations, the progress of the Soviets’ attempts to crack the Americans’ access codes.

  Washington had continued to dismiss any possibility of that ever happening, but Ottawa had maintained her cover. And, the previous Monday, what could never occur did occur, and the Americans were left scrambling.

  With their East European network inoperable, they had only two choices: to destroy what was already up there and start again from scratch, or to buy time until they could rethink their codes and steal back their satellites.

  Evan had been briefed in full on Tuesday. They were going for the stall. Rosie would supply a complete set of Soviet data for him. It would be up to him to intercept and disable the Star Tech project. By the time the Russians managed to put together another attempt, the Americans would have the situation in hand.

  Simple.

  Except something had gone terribly wrong. He’d listened to the tape recording of Rosie’s conversation with the section head downtown.

  Rosie’s voice, out of breath: “Me, Rosie. He is coming to here, yes?” Her accent thick and abrupt.

  Then the agent’s voice: “Evan? We’re expecting him Monday.”

  “Tell him—I give to Tigger.”

  “Tigger? Who the hell’s Tigger?”

  “No.” A gasp in Rosie’s voice. “No time. You tell. I go. I am caught. I go.”

  Then there was the click and buzz of the line going dead.

  It had taken a few minutes for Evan to figure out who Tigger was. A codename for somebody? No one he had heard of. Tigger—A. A. Milne. Winnie the Pooh. Christopher Robin. Of course.

  She knew what his children looked like: he’d shown her their pictures. She must have checked Robin’s schedule. She’d made sure he had the robot safely in his possession. And she’d been killed.

  By whom? It was perplexing. The KGB? Evan’s information indicated that her cover was intact. Berringer? That was a possibility—but again, why? Berringer wasn’t a killer; he was squeamish about death. That much Evan did know about him. A sadistic son of a bitch, and crude about it, too—but not a killer. Grosch? Perhaps.

  The question continued to vex him. It stayed at the back of his mind like a cat, eyes glowing bright into the night, ever watchful. The Gage flat was supposed to have been a Safe House, a permanent haven. What had happened?

  Shaking his head, he studied the photographs and translations that Anthony had given him. Then he inserted the second strip of film from the wheel of the robot into the reader. There it was: the sum total of Rosie Mladenovicki’s final assignment.

  He forced himself to keep looking at the screen of the microfilm reader. He hated doing this kind of work. It was like watching television up close, or spending too many hours in front of a computer. His eyes were beginning to ache, the constant scanning making him feel ill. It was something to do with motion sickness, he knew. He’d suffered from that all of his life, and he’d also always had trouble reading microfilm. That, and following maps in fast-moving cars, and studying lines inside turbulent aircraft, and consulting important documents on trains hurtling through tunnels—

  Really, he thought, he wasn’t good for much aboard anything that moved. It had simply always been his excellent fortune to have someone with him who was.

  He pressed the heels of both hands into his eye sockets, waited a moment, and then looked at the screen again.

  The Americans were employing two types of surveillance over Russia: travelers and geosynchronous satellites. Hovering over the earth at anywhere from 100 to 5,000 miles out in space, the travelers did exactly what their name suggested: they could be maneuvered into position by the Americans for specific assignments. The geosynchronous satellites were fixed at 22,500 miles and were strategic to the detection of such pleasant little events as the launching of missiles. The travelers had directional antennas that would only open when they passed over friendly territory; the geosynchronous ones were geographically secure—a deviation of only a few degrees would make transmission and reception impossible. Their orders had to come from inside North America.

  Which made Vancouver one of the best possible choices for the exercise. A highly amplified signal, nearly impossible for the Americans to detect, had been programmed into each group of Star Tech dishes, to be transmitted out into space upon receipt of a similar master tone from a nearby broadcasting station. And where would one expect such a station to be located?

  Evan scanned further, past the columns of numbers that represented the access codes of both the geosynchronous and the traveler satellites, the coordinates that would enable the Soviets to disable the entire Eastern European surveillance theater. Oh ho. Now this was interesting. He sat back, folding his arms.

  AM radio.

  And not just any AM radio outlet.

  CGUL.

  Rolf
Raymond’s one-man empire.

  That perverse sense of well-being was creeping up on Evan again. He’d never liked Raymond. The damned man was impossible to read. He wasn’t fond of children. And he’d conspired to drive Ian out of the house as soon as was practically possible, principally because Ian was the one person who had the nerve to stand up to him.

  What the hell had Gwennie ever seen in him? Evan leaned forward, shaking his head.

  Every employee down at CGUL had access, in theory, to the on-air facilities. It wouldn’t even necessarily take an inside agent. If he was reading his information correctly, the signal to the satellite dishes was going to be broadcast around two in the morning this Saturday, tacked onto the end of a Star Tech commercial. All it needed was someone to go in and put the tone on the ad. At the frequency calculated to set the dishes in motion, the signal wouldn’t even be audible to the human ear. Nobody at CGUL need know anything about it.

  He rested his chin on his fist. He would have to pull that tape. It was so simple—and yet, so complicated. Radio stations were not deserted at night: there were news people around, DJs, cleaning women. The other problem was even more elementary: who was to say the tone had already been added to the commercial? Perhaps there was an inside agent at CGUL, and that person was carefully waiting until the last minute to do the deed.

  Evan massaged his eyes. Nothing was ever easy. As Rosie used to say, “Life is not a cherry.” She meant “a bowl of cherries,” but her English was somewhat flawed.

  “Life is not a cherry,” he said aloud, flipping back to the first page. “More like the damn pit, if you ask me.”

  The last thing Evan did before switching off the reader was to make a note of the access codes listed, one after the other, on the third page of the Skywatcher document. Standard operating procedure: keep a copy of everything. In duplicate. Government efficiency at its worst. He hit the print button, retrieved the information as it slid out the bottom of the reader, folded it up, stuck it in an envelope, and dropped it into the time-locked safe built into the floor of the lab. Copy One.