Trifecta

by Pam Richter

  "Oh, hell."

  "What?"

  "I can't let you two go in there alone."

  "Don't worry Mark," Eve said. "We'll be careful."

  "Right." Mark turned the car around, muttering under his breath that they were all crazy. He went down Rosewood, parallel to Fairfax Avenue, through a maze of turns, until they were convinced no one was tailing them. Mark parked in an alley.

  When they got to Ferd's back door Mark pushed hard against it, testing it's strength. The door was solid and bolted. They had agreed not to talk unless it was absolutely necessary, so he just shook his head.

  Eve felt the door knob. She knew she could twist it off, but she was worried about the bolt. If she made a lot of noise she might alert the man sitting across the street in front of the place. She took the doorknob carefully off of the door, twisting slowly, with only a few sharp metal ticks and grinding crunches. Then Eve removed her shoes and kicked the door next to the bolt. The dull thuds didn't make much noise, so she continued the high kicks until the bolt was gradually worked away from the wooden frame. When Eve felt she had the bolt loose enough she pushed hard, and with help from Mark, the door opened soundlessly.

  They tiptoed into total darkness. Eve knew her way around the place, having lived there, and led them to the front door. She turned on the light for a moment so they could get their bearings. Then she led Mark and Sabrina up the steep, dark stairs like a train, each holding on to the one in front, into the laboratory. There were blackout curtains so Eve could turn on the lights without fearing the illumination would show outside.

  The room was very neat and obviously used only for scientific experiments. There were clean white shelves along the walls which held various vials and beakers of chemicals. There was an EEG machine, but most of the other stuff in the room looked exotic and foreign. There was some medical equipment that was recognizable, a stethoscope, a microscope and the usual paraphernalia a regular doctor uses. There were meticulously cared for cages of mice and rats, which, being nocturnal, were moving in the cages, some squeaking in the unusually timed fluorescent laboratory lights. Several computers were lined up on a work table.

  They started to work quickly. The tank that the computer had been kept in was drained of saline solution down the toilet in the bathroom. The holes in the floor, which looked down onto the couches in the tanning salon below, were covered with wooden pieces and then with a rug.

  Eve was able to loosen bolts on the large machinery, using a screwdriver and sometimes her bare hands, but she lost her fingernails because they were not reinforced. Sabrina was worried when she saw Eve's fingers bloodied. They healed immediately. Even so, Sabrina got the syrup and handed it to her. Eve had to have hurt her foot on the back door and Sabrina didn't want her to faint.

  The machinery did not have to be destroyed, merely reduced so that no one could figure out how it had been used. Dismantled parts were taken off of each of the machines and scattered around. Ferd was going to have an awful time putting his laboratory together again, but it was preferable to jail.

  During the second hour of hard physical labor Mark took a swig from the bottle of syrup himself. He was feeling light headed and wondered at the point of all the grueling physical labor. He felt like he was dismantling the laboratory of the man who had made the Frankenstein monster. The equipment was that strange. He knew how valuable Eve was, but she was very strange too, and he was really questioning his role in the whole situation. They should have waited for Stephan and Alexander. If someone found he, Eve and Sabrina causing chaos, they would just believe the three were wantonly trashing the place. At the very least they would all go to jail. It was even more scary because the United States government was involved. They might be labeled traitors, or be required to go through long interrogations.

  Eve worked tirelessly, carrying the heavy pieces of machinery that even he could not manage. Sabrina was carefully taking wires out of the guts of a particularly weird looking thing that must have some scientific use, and she had emptied all the vials and beakers of chemicals.

  Eve held up a large beaker she found in a refrigerated cabinet. Inside there was a grey jelly-like mass with a metal chip inside. Mark knew it was another computer, like the one she had in her own head. He followed her to the bathroom and watched her flush what was probably worth billions of dollars down the toilet.

  Sabrina went into Ferd's kitchenette when she got tired and saw cokes in the refrigerator. She got out three and made Eve and Mark take a breather.

  They sat on the floor and checked out the ruins. Sabrina didn't think anyone could reproduce Ferd's equipment now. She believed they had done enough and whispered the thought.

  It was lucky that they had taken a break just at that time, because they heard a squeak and then a scrape. The front door opening. They looked at each other, eyes rounded in panic. Eve jumped up, ran to the doorway, and switched off the light.

  Sabrina was blinded by the sudden absence of light. She could not move through all of the stuff now littering the floor. She would fall on her face. And then, suddenly, she could see.

  Eve had not been able to see either, but had memorized the position of each piece of debris, so she was able to silently cross the room and open the blackout curtains. Silvery moon light came in through the window.

  They all backed into Ferd's bedroom and retreated into the bathroom. Mark locked the flimsy door and looked around the tiny dark room. There was no way out except a small window above his head, barely illuminating the place. He boosted himself up on the window ledge to see if they could possibly get out that way and found himself held up by strong hands around his waist. He felt peculiar about being held up by a woman for only a second, because he was worried about how quickly the people from down below would come upstairs and start looking around. It could be the police, or burglars, or government agents. It would be a disaster to be caught by anyone.

  Mark pushed the window open, wincing at the squeaking noise, and looked outside. The roof sloped down from the second story window at an appalling forty-five degree angle, but it did face the back of the building and maybe they could crouch there and hide. Mark took deep breaths to keep from panicking as he pulled himself up and started wiggling out of the window to see if hiding out there would be feasible. It was better than being caught like rats, hiding guiltily in the bathroom.

  There was no way down to the ground from the second story roof of the structure, unless they took a two story leap. He retreated back inside.

  They discussed strategy in hurried whispers. Mark would go out first and brace himself. Sabrina would go next, as Eve could boost her up and Mark would steady her on the roof. Eve was strong enough to get out herself and would try to close the window as well.

  Sabrina peeked out of the bathroom door into the bedroom, then carefully sneaked from there back into Ferd's lab. The wooden floorboards made enormous noises. She felt as if her ears were pricked up like an animal, listening for unknown men coming up from the stairs. She picked up the coke bottles and wiped them off on the front of her blouse and put them in a closet. They must have left fingerprints all over the place, but the coke bottles were too obvious. Before retreating back to the bathroom Sabrina peeked from Ferd's upstairs apartment to the salon area downstairs. Two men were talking and there were flashlight beams flickering through the darkness.

  When she got back to the bathroom Mark was already outside on the roof. Sabrina took off her shoes and handed them to Eve, who threw them out the window as hard as she could. They did not hear them land. Then Eve threw her own shoes out the same way. Sabrina could imagine them landing in a tree or maybe crushed by traffic on a street some blocks away, but wearing shoes, especially heels, on a steep roof might prove fatal. Sabrina started out of the window head first. Mark helped guide her down, and then she was crouched down beside him. Eve made the whole process look easy.

  The natural way to keep from overbalancing and falling backward was by lying down and they all stretc
hed out on their stomachs. It was also safer because they were not such obvious targets. The roof was made of overlapping wooden slabs, which were sharp and splintery. The night was cold. The pitch of the roof was so steep that Sabrina could imagine herself sliding down over the rough wood and then a nauseating flight to the cement sidewalk below. She unconsciously gripped with both her fingers and her toes, causing wooden splinters to get imbedded in both hands and feet. The traffic noises were like whispers passing in the night, alien from the reality that they were all hiding above a laboratory they had ruined on purpose.

  About a minute later they heard the bathroom door open and saw the leap of light beams playing around, piercing outside the window, just above their heads. They guessed that no one bothered to look out of the high bathroom window, but could not be sure. If someone had, they did not hear anything about it a couple of seconds later when a voice said, "A gang must have been here. Went in through the back door where the lock was broken."

  "I've been around this place a hundred times in the last two days. It must have happened while we were watching the people in front of the building. They were providing cover while the place was dumped."

  "No. This goddamned mess would take hours. Let's look around outside."

  They heard feet thundering down the stairs.

  They had to get back inside, fast, or they would be discovered. Eve was the first to recover and she crawled quickly up to the window and slid it open. Mark helped Sabrina up and Eve boosted her head first through the window. Mark was next. In his blind headlong push through the window he banged his head painfully on the toilet bowl. Eve slid gracefully through the window and closed it behind her. They had no idea if they had been seen. They crouched in the darkness and tried not to breath. Someone might still be inside, guarding the place.

  After a tense half hour spent pulling splinters out of their hands and feet they decided to take a look around. Mark opened the bathroom door a crack and peeked outside. He could not see a thing in the blackness and took a few tentative steps. They walked into Ferd's bedroom. Then they went into the living room where Eve had broken the legs of Stephan and Alexander. No one.

  They went silently into Ferd's lab, found paper towels, and started wiping off everything they had touched. Then they went through the whole top apartment and wiped everywhere they might have put their hands; the window sill, window, toilet and doorknob in the bathroom. In the kitchen they wiped the refrigerator handle, the counters and the sink. They wiped the stairway bannister as they started toward the back entrance.

  They crept slowly down the stairs, feeling more than seeing their way down the hall to the back door. This was the crucial part, getting outside. The door had been propped closed, but Eve pushed hard and the door opened enough to see outside. It had been so dark inside that moonlight almost seemed like silvery daylight to Eve's eyes. She stayed in position, looking for movement for about five minutes. Someone walked by and Eve quickly retreated and closed the door. She thought they would have a few minutes before he made the rounds again.

  They slipped out of the doorway, one at a time, propping the door closed again, and walked noiselessly on bare feet to the car. It was in a smelly alley between a fish store and a grocery. They did not know how lucky they were that Mark had parked behind a giant dumpster. There had been an intense search for the car during the hours they had been dismantling the lab.

  No one talked on the way back to Sabrina's apartment.

  When they finally had the door safely closed behind them, Mark and Sabrina went to the couch and plopped down like puppets. Sabrina felt like she had just regained her breathing ability after a prolonged period of abstinence. She sighed and, looking at her soiled feet, said, "I lost two pairs of my favorite shoes."

  "Do you know how lucky we were?" Mark said.

  "I liked them a lot. Wore them all the time."

  "We didn't get caught and we didn't fall off that goddamned roof." Mark collapsed back on the couch.

  Eve sat down on a chair, opened her purse and took out the bottle of syrup. She took a few sips.

  "Even so..." Sabrina said.

  "Breaking, entering, trashing a whole laboratory, hiding on the roof while the place was searched."

  "I guess we were lucky," Sabrina acknowledged.

  "Damn lucky," Mark said, starting to smile. "We go through all that, and all you think about is your shoes?"

  "But they were nice shoes," Sabrina said, smiling back at him.

  Eve knew that they were joking and watched with interest.

  "Small sacrifice," Mark said.

  "Maybe to you."

  "I'll buy you some new shoes."

  "No. It's okay." Sabrina said perversely.

  Eve watched them laugh with interest. She didn't realize the relief they were feeling was so tremendous that they were on the edge of hysteria. She found herself joining. She recognized the laughter was a release of some type of pressure they had been feeling. The laughter was contagious, like a flu humans were prone to, or fire in dry wood, like the passion she had felt this evening, or the anger that could build on a silly incident when she was pushed.

  Eve thought living was a very marvelous and interesting experience.

  CHAPTER 16

  Malcolm flipped on the tape recorder when Ivar got into the car. Ivar sat there listening, dumbfounded at the implications.

  "Imagine! One of the two is a robot," Malcolm said after the tape had played out. "I wonder which one it is, the redhead or the brunette. Did you get close enough to see?"

  Ivar shook his head, "Not really."

  "What was the dark haired one doing all that time?"

  The thought of saying anything was distasteful. Ivar made up a story about following Eve during a shopping spree to cover the time he had spent with her. He hoped his lies would be believed, and there weren't agents also spying on him. His job inspired paranoia.

  "I called Whitcomb," Malcolm said. "Played the tape for him. I guess we'll pick up the women pretty soon. Maybe they're both computers. They look so real, don't you think?"

  "Yes. Very real." Ivar was thinking that the Americans now had more information than the Russians. It was up to him to fill in his operative. Then there would be a race for Russia to get the women, or the android, or whatever, first. They would be drugged and interrogated, not tortured. But there would be experiments, possible surgery to make sure that one of the women was, in fact, a computer. They would probably be spirited out of the country to do this. Some kind of mind altering job would be done on the one who was not a computer, so that she could go back and resume her life without a memory of what had transpired.

  "Mark Ponti called the dark haired one Sabrina, so I think the computer is the redhead," Malcolm said.

  Ivar could feel his stomach spasm. He had eaten too much food tonight. He didn't think the Americans would do anything without further proof. He would have to do some damn fast investigating.

  "Old Hood Eyes wants this, now." Malcolm waved the small tape recorder. He started the car and they worked their way east to the freeway.

  The clouds and fog were rolling in. The city in the distance appeared like a fairy land of lights enshrouded in mist, unlike the skyline normally encased in a brown smoggy haze.

  Ivar wished he could destroy the tape machine that encased the damning conversation. A automobile accident that would smash it to smithereens. He was beginning to question his own motives. He had known for a long time that he felt no loyalty to the to the KGB, or to Russia, for that matter. He was grateful that he could be here, living in freedom, but he didn't feel particular loyalty to this country either. It was a wonderful country, but he thought that its government might be as corrupt as his own. He did not want to think of what would happen if either regime got hold of the two women.

  In the past, Ivar had contemplated defecting to the United States. He could become a triple agent, working for the United States, leaking disinformation back to his superiors in Russia. He wou
ld be highly prized, but regarded with suspicion and used accordingly, never totally accepted in his loyalty. Of course, they would be right.

  Ivar liked to think of himself as peace loving, even though he had had lethal training for what was quaintly called 'wet work' by both the KGB and the CIA. He did not want to be working for either government. He did not wish to defect. Neither did he want to return to Russia. Maybe he could disappear and go live in Canada. The notion was rather simplistic, but he had gathered information about how to obtain false identification papers. Ivar kept that knowledge in a part of his brain that searched for comfort.

  Ivar felt he had nothing at all, having been placed to observe the workings of the CIA for Russian Intelligence. He'd had years of hiding his heritage and his native language. A pantomime of living.

  The mist enshrouded fantasy was becoming a reality as the freeway took Ivar and Malcolm past buildings looming out of the fog, which were now walls on either side of the car; walls of dirty gray or beige, defiled with graffiti. There were wino's on the streets, which were garish with neon signs for liquor stores and pawn shops, grocery stores and ugly department stores with numerous filthy parking lots. The only fantasy left was in the rainbow halos around the street lights in the lowering night fog.

  Los Angeles, the City of the Angels; known for Hollywood films, gang wars, decadent living, illegal aliens, the L.A. Lakers, and earthquakes; the city which worshiped designer clothes, film stars, youth, and people wealthy enough to live in Beverly Hills. Swindlers fed off the tired and lonely adolescents who flocked here with wild dreams of becoming film stars, and who would inevitably end up on the streets, addicted to drugs.

  Ivar wondered if he was clinically depressed or if he just wanted out as they parked near the light grey, federal building's facade, slightly cracked from the last earthquake. They hurried up the stone steps and showed their badges to the night security guard.

  Burgess Whitcomb, Old Hood Eyes, was on the telephone in his inner office when they arrived. His exhausted assistant, Willard Modert, bade them wait.