by Pam Richter
Obeying Ferd's instructions, Alexander and Stephan waited until 9:00 p.m. that night. Then they maneuvered the wheelchair, with Stephan inside, into a special van they had rented. Alexander struggled into the drivers seat with his crutches. Driving was a bitch with his plastered leg jammed sideways under the dash.
Alexander knew that they were probably being followed, and he kept an eye on the rear-view mirror, but he could not discern any one car obviously tailing them. Maybe he was paranoid. He said as much to Stephan, who told him it just indicated the spies were professionals; FBI, or even CIA.
Alexander parked in the yellow loading zone in front of Ferd's Tanning Salon and cursed his own clumsy body when he painfully caught his plastered leg on the accelerator. He tumbled halfway outside the door, sideways. He must present a cute picture, Alexander thought, A big man almost falls out of his van. If a car had passed at that moment he would have been dead meat.
The plan was to have Stephan stay in the van and honk the horn if anyone went inside after Alexander, but Stephan could not reach the horn from the back of the van. Alexander climbed back in again and turned the van around so that it was pointed in the wrong direction at the curb. Then he got Stephan out of the van and positioned his chair beside the open door on the driver's side. The whole procedure was time consuming, with one man set in position in a wheel chair by another man on crutches.
Stephan was whining that anyone who wanted to do them serious harm could see how helpless they were. Alexander countered that he still had his gun. He would not hesitate to use it. Stephan said that that was fine for him, but he was in a goddamn wheel chair, for Christ's sake. When Alexander was inside Ferd's apartment, he would have no protection. Disgusted with all the whining, Alexander gave Stephan the gun to shut him up.
Alexander felt a little uneasy when he entered the place because it was so dark. Maybe someone was inside. He found the light switch and looked around suspiciously. No one. The machinery Ferd wanted him to dismantle was upstairs. It would be a bitch getting up there on crutches.
Halfway up he was sweating and shaking. He had almost fallen backwards a couple of times. The stairs were narrow and steep and he couldn't hold the hand rail and both of his crutches at the same time. Then he realized that he could go up without losing his balance on one knee. It was demoralizing, but much easier to crawl. He kept painfully banging his plaster cast on the stairs behind him as he dragged himself up.
Alexander went into the second bedroom, Ferd's laboratory, and took the camera from around his neck. He took pictures of all the machinery. He was almost finished when he heard the van's horn. One honk meant that Stephan had seen a pursuer. Two signified danger.
The second honk galvanized Alexander. He lurched out of the laboratory and started full speed down the stairs at a fast crawl.
* * * * *
Sabrina woke up from her nap befuddled and lethargic. She was so used to living alone that she didn't realize that Eve was gone for a couple of minutes.
Sabrina called Jack at the condominium's front door and asked if he had seen Eve. Jack told her Eve had left several hours ago.
Sabrina waited for hours. By the time it was nine o'clock, Sabrina was scared that something disastrous had happened to Eve. She checked the syrup supply and thought Eve might have taken a bottle with her.
When Mark arrived he suggested that maybe Eve had gone back to Ferd's apartment. Perhaps she was confused and expected Ferd to be there. After all, Eve had only been with Sabrina for three days. They decided to look for her there.
They gave Jack instructions to tell Eve where they had gone in case she came back to the building.
* * * * *
Ivar felt it was dangerous calling his Soviet contact from his own apartment, but he couldn't leave Eve sleeping alone in the apartment and go outside to a pay phone. She might wake up. He went into the bedroom, closing the door so she wouldn't hear the conversation. He related what he had learned about Eve to his Russian operative and was given specific instructions. His orders left him very disturbed. He was supposed to find out if Eve's relative, Sabrina Miller, had the same characteristics of extreme intelligence and unusual body weight. He was to continue the 'friendship.' Ivar deliberately did not tell his Russian contact all that had transpired that evening.
Ivar understood that eventually the network would intercept Eve and Sabrina. They would be questioned, probably given drugs. He was told to expect that another Russian agent would be working with him in the future. That agent, Sergi Malcovich, was being flown across country right now.
When Ivar went back into the living room he found Eve sitting up on the couch. She had not put on her clothes. She was staring at him so steadily and with such intensity that he had a momentary and very disturbing impression that she had heard his phone conversation. He dismissed the thought. He was reacting to a guilty conscience.
Ivar went over to Eve and handed her a robe he had taken from his bedroom closet. Her look was very curious. She didn't even blink.
"You were crying in your sleep."
Eve resumed blinking. "Sometimes I have bad dreams."
"I hugged you until you stopped. I'm famished. Would you like something to eat?"
"I'm famished, too."
"Let’s go check the kitchen. See what I can come up with." Eve followed him into the kitchen.
"You didn't put on the robe?" Ivar asked.
"I'm not cold."
Ivar opened the refrigerator door and wondered how Eve could stand naked in front of the chill. He pulled out a pork roast, some bagels, mustard and mayonnaise. "Are sandwiches all right?"
Eve nodded and smiled at him. Ivar thought everything must be fine. Some people are groggy after waking up. She couldn't possibly have heard his phone conversation.
Ivar turned on the television and they ate while watching the 9 o'clock news. Ivar was still a little hungry. He told Eve he was going to have another sandwich. She requested another one, too. He remembered that Malcolm had seen Eve consume large quantities of food, so after he finished the second sandwich he said he was still hungry. Would Eve like another sandwich? She said yes. Ivar made their third sandwiches, really enormous ones. He was so full that he could hardly consume another bite, but he forced himself. Eve seemed to have no problem with the titanic sandwich. He then brought out apples and cheese. Later, he knew he was going to have an awful stomach ache when he presented the chocolate cake. They each had two pieces. A woman after his own heart, Ivar thought.
All the food made Ivar sluggish and he wished he could go to bed and digest during the night, but he still had to get Eve home. As Ivar watched Eve he was amused that such a fragile looking creature could eat like a lumberjack. He found her comments during the television program entrancing. She was curious about everything and seemed to hang on to each of the newscaster's reports, making comments and asking him questions.
Ivar had severe regrets about calling his Soviet contact and, feeling resentful, rebellious and regretful, walked her home. He decided that if he was discovered to have broken cover, even if he was taken off of the case, he could continue seeing Eve and would be able to communicate to the KGB. Even so, he was relieved to see that his partner was gone. Malcolm must have followed Sabrina someplace.
Ivar waited outside the condominium, across the street after saying good-by. Eve was talking to the doorman. She waited while the doorman flagged down a taxi and then got inside.
Luckily, another taxi passed by seconds later. His driver made an illegal U and followed Eve's taxi. When Eve's cab stopped, he told his driver let him out.
Ivar kept to the shadows as he moved slowly toward Eve. She was handing the ten dollar bill to her taxi driver. He stealthily looked around the location, keeping within the shadows and close to the walls beside him. There was a man in a wheel chair beside a van parked in front of Ferd's Tanning Salon. As Ivar waited in the dark, he saw Sabrina and her friend Mark arrive. He continued to look at the other people in the street.
>
Shit, there were enough agents to cover a terrorist attack.
Ivar counted to himself and tried to figure out what was going on. There was his partner following Sabrina. The agent covering Mark. An agent presumably covering the tanning salon itself, sitting across the street from it. And two more agents, possibly covering the people who had come in the van. Six agents in all, following five people.
On top of that, there was a car full of Japanese who must have followed Sabrina.
Did all of the agents have as little information as he, or would they try to snatch the two women? If the Americans, or even the Japanese, tried, Ivar knew he should prevent it. He was certainly outnumbered. He always carried a gun, but so, presumably, did they. It was a dangerous situation. If he tried to prevent the Americans from taking the women, he would be made as a double agent and his carefully devised cover of almost a decade would be blown. Did the situation really demand that?
All Ivar knew for sure was that there was a woman named Eve who had enormous intelligence, strength, weight, and an unusual appetite. She now owned a part of his heart.
Ivar knew he had been recognized by the other agents too, but that was all right. His partner, Malcolm, would just think he was doing his job, following Eve.
Ivar saw Eve straighten up after getting change from the bill she had given her taxi driver. She saw Mark and Sabrina getting out of their car and went over to them. They all started walking toward Ferd's Tanning Salon, jay walking across the street about a half block from the place. Ivar thought that maybe they were meeting with the crippled man in the wheel chair. To Ivar's astonishment the man in the wheel chair started honking the van's horn violently when he became aware of the three people moving toward him on the sidewalk. He made two short blasts, then lay on the horn.
Ivar recognized Stephan Steinbrenner as the man in the wheel chair. He had taken out a gun and pointed it at Eve, Sabrina and Mark as they continued to walk toward him.
Stephan was shouting and waving the gun around in a most unprofessional manner. Ivar was afraid it would go off accidentally. He couldn't hear what they were saying and could not move any closer or they might notice him hiding in a recessed restaurant doorway two blocks away. Ivar decided to go around the block and come up a side street, closer to the tanning place.
As Ivar was sneaking around to get in position, Stephan was speaking softly, "I'm a lawyer. I don't shoot guns. But if you come any closer, I will. Look here." He picked up his right leg slightly and pointed at it with the tip of the gun. "Broken tibia and fibula. This one," he picked up the left leg, "only the tibia's broken. But that is enough!"
Alexander came out of the tanning salon at a fast crawl, looking like an enormous, anxious crab. He looked around and then pulled the crutches into position and stood up, swaying and out of breath. He crutched over to stand beside his brother.
"We didn't come here to harm either one of you," Mark said. "But these women have been threatened."
"Threats! Threats? We have been physically assaulted by one of you. Which one's the computer, anyway?" Alexander asked.
Sabrina and Eve glanced at each other.
"I am," Eve said.
"I am," Sabrina said, almost simultaneously.
"Why don't you put the gun down," Mark asked reasonably, trying to calm the situation down.
"We don't intend to be killed by a berserk computer who indiscriminately breaks legs," Alexander said.
Stephan motioned for Mark and the two women to come closer. When they cautiously did so, he said in a very quiet voice, "There's some kind of government spy operation keeping tabs on us. Both of us, and our father. We think they know there's a human computer. And they want it."
Stephan, who had been watching the street from the side mirror on the van's open door added, "I think the car that parked up the street from your car was following you. I'm pretty sure that we were followed by the car...No! Don't look now...but there's a car with two men in it behind us. We're all in danger, just being seen together. The FBI or CIA is onto Ferd's work. Ferd sent us here tonight to dismantle his equipment. You'd better leave. And be careful. The government might try to snatch the computer."
Eve was thinking that she was glad that she had experienced sex with Ivar before learning he was a spy. She realized she was experiencing her own emotion of sadness for the first time. But Ivar might be the person who would try to snatch her. She was melancholy because she was in love with Ivar.
Stephan looked at Alexander and said, "Did you dismantle the stuff?"
"I can't do it on crutches."
"Well, I can't help you because I can't get up the stairs in this...machine."
"Wait," Mark said. "Are you sure you were followed?"
"Not positive. We'll know when we leave. We ought to do it separately, to make sure. Why don't you go to your car, Sabrina Miller, isn't it? You and your friends. You can watch us. We'll watch your car, too."
Mark and Sabrina nodded.
"We have your phone number. We'll contact you. I guess we'll have to buy a prepaid cell. Sounds like a stupid spy flick. Our father is in deep shit for his experiments and may have to go to jail. Along with us."
"Why would you two go to jail?" Mark asked.
"We supplied the baby."
"Baby? Who were the parents?" Sabrina asked curiously.
"Just a prostitute who was pregnant. She didn't even know who the father was. She's long gone. Took money for the baby. Now we have to get out of here."
"If Ferd said to dismantle the equipment, it's incriminating," Eve said. "We should do it. If there are government agents around, they've already seen us."
Eve walked over to Alexander. "We don't want any evidence, do we?"
Sabrina moved beside Eve, who was standing in front of Alexander. She didn't want him to guess who had the computer. She was surprised when Alexander flinched back and almost lost his balance. He evidently thought Eve would attack him.
Alexander, balancing on the crutches, didn't have his hands free. Eve took the camera from around his neck, dropped it to the ground and stomped on it. Then she picked it up and took the film out. She tore the tough film into tiny pieces.
Sabrina stepped on the camera a couple of times too, so that Eve wouldn't be the only one performing a destructive act in case someone really was watching.
Eve took the tiny pieces of film over to a sewer grate in the street and dropped the brown brittle bits of film down inside.
"Sabrina's right," Mark said to confuse matters more about who the computer was. "We have to dismantle the equipment."
Stephan, always cautious, thought that it would be too dangerous at night. Right now the only activity was a few blocks away at a delicatessen. Otherwise the street was deserted. And what if they all went inside? They could be trapped. They couldn't fend off FBI or CIA agents if they wanted to snatch the computer for themselves. Wasn't the whole point of the human computer to save it so that Ferd could disclose his discoveries to the scientific community?
As Stephan was arguing for waiting until daylight to dismantle the scientific equipment, Ivar's partner, Malcolm, was sitting comfortably in his car, listening and taping the whole conversation. He was using a directional microphone and the conditions were perfect for the small hand held, battery powered machine, which resembled a gun with a rather long muzzle. He didn't use the earphones, but had the microphone broadcast directly into a tiny tape machine.
He heard the five people decide that they would come back the next day at lunch time to dismantle the machinery. When they drove away he did not go after them, but radioed for backup. They were expecting pursuit and he didn't want to give himself away. Anyway, he had seen Ivar and could hardly wait to play the tape for him.
In the meantime, while waiting for Ivar to make his way to the car, he used his radio to broadcast the contents of the tape to Burgess Whitcomb.
CHAPTER 15
"We should go back," Eve said. "Dismantle the machinery ourselves." She was
crouched on the back seat of Mark's car with just enough of her head poked up so she could see out the rear window.
Mark slowed to a crawl, until he was sure he would hit the red light ahead of him, causing two angry motorists to honk and receiving the finger from another. It was taking so long for Alexander to get into the van that Mark went around the block quickly and got back on Fairfax. Then the van was coming in their direction, behind them. Mark slowed down and let the van pass him.
Eve watched a Toyota parked down the street pull out after the van. Stephan and Alexander were being followed. They would know for sure in a few blocks, when Alexander turned on Santa Monica Boulevard.
"If we go tomorrow, they'll know I'm the computer," Eve said. "I'm the only one strong enough to wreck the equipment."
"I'll do it on my lunch hour," Mark said. "Did you see anyone following us, Eve?"
"No one is," Eve said positively.
"Eve's probably right," Sabrina said. "With both of us helping, we can do it before the government checks out Ferd's lab."
"The bum sitting across the street was watching. He may be on surveillance," Eve said. "I think the street behind Ferd's place is Rosewood. We can get in through the back entrance."
"You're out of your mind," Mark exploded.
Sabrina looked at Mark, surprised he would directly confront Eve and tried to defend her. "Eve's right. We can do it tonight. Ferd wanted his sons to do it, but they're in pretty bad shape to do anything physical."
Mark shot her a look that said, And you know why.
Sabrina ignored the look, "We can protect both Eve and Ferd and we won't have to meet with his slimy sons again."
"Sabrina, you're talking breaking and entering. Destroying private property. That's very serious."
"You let us off and we'll do it. I don't blame you a bit, Mark," Sabrina said.