by John Nelson
“Sounds good to me.” I took a fruit drink out of the refrigerator.
She turned around. “So, what’s up?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling just a little guilty.
“Well, I come home and find you out on the patio, staring off into space, and I’m thinking something is bothering you.” The quick-oven alarm went off, and she pointed toward the dining room table. I sat down while she served dinner.
After she joined me, I said, “Oh, just the normal conflicts at work. Clipping the wings of people who just want a little freedom. That sort of thing.”
“Well, why don’t we go out and catch a period play or movie about the good old days.”
I had to laugh. This was most unlike my wife. I wondered what was on her mind.
“Or, we could … stay home and see what develops,” she said rather coyly.
I laughed. “Rough day, huh?”
She closed her eyes, nodding her head.
“Sure, let’s just stay in,” I said.
“Good. I’ll wear something retro, just for you,” she said with a leering smile.
I nodded my head, thinking of Emma the whole time. Well Sherry was definitely in one of her “moods,” and so I let her play the dominant role in our little sexcapade that evening, but while the Bluie kept me functional throughout and certainly satisfied Sherry, I had to fake it at my end. She must have sensed something, because when we finished and I stood up to leave, she said, “What’s up with you tonight?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Getting tired of me, Alan?”
“No. Just think this head job is getting to me,” I said in all sincerity.
“Maybe you ought to talk with somebody at work about a transfer,” Sherry replied, and I could detect real concern in her voice.
I snickered. “That’s the problem. I did, and they want me to go back into the field.”
“With that woman?” she asked, sitting up in bed and covering her chest with the sheet.
“No. Emma’s out of the picture.” I couldn’t say more than that.
This seemed to be a relief to her. “Well, can’t Dr. Bowman help? Earn a little of his money.”
“Look. I’m tired. Got to go in to work tomorrow. Can we talk about this later?”
“Sure. I’ve got plans too,” Sherry said, reaching over and turning off her bed lamp.
“Well, good night.” I closed the door behind me and walked down the hallway to my bedroom. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought that Sherry had sensed, at some unconscious level, that I was planning to meet with another woman, although it wasn’t a romantic tryst. After slipping into my sleep briefs, I sat up in bed and thought about her reaction. She was mostly closed off to deeper levels of herself, hardly ever dreamed or wanted to remember them, and wasn’t really interested in the psyche at any level. Or, maybe it was my own psychological tells in a less-than-fully-responsive lovemaking session.
In our post-techno world, where one’s individuality was assaulted from every angle, people adopted new behaviors and watched for those in others, like teenagers adopt hairstyles to express themselves. Few people wanted to delve deep inside and find that expression there. I mean most younger couples today didn’t even sleep together to prevent unconscious merging. It was one of the most difficult parts of my borny assignment, the fact that couples there slept together like the bornies, and the company insisted that we did the same as part of our cover. But, I’d have to admit, if I were watching my own reaction, I would have detected a heightened feeling level at the prospect of catching up with Emma and discovering why she had contacted me.
5.
In the morning I took the same underground as if I were going to work, just in case Sherry was following me. She had already left the apartment when I woke up, and so I was being cautious. Sherry hated traveling on them since they made her claustrophobic. The Museum of Communication Technology was located in Greenwich Village, near Washington Square Park, where the New York hacker community had congregated in the early twenty-first century. So, I got off at mid-Manhattan, strolled through the entrance to K Industries, in case she had taken a cab there and was watching for me, and then headed out the east side of the building. I walked twenty blocks to the Museum, the collar of my overcoat pulled-up, wearing a Yankees baseball cap and sunglasses. No underground or cab fares to note my travels, other than the street surveillance of a guy who matched the description of a thousand other male pedestrians that day.
At the Museum I paid in cash and took the visitor’s tour through the ground-floor exhibits, and then an hour later rode the escalator to the second floor, where the Einstein Exhibit was located. I didn’t go directly there, but took a roundabout route and finally arrived around noon. The outer studios, concerned with his life and times, were fairly under populated, but would give somebody watching me for tails ample room to detect them. After a while, I moseyed over to the studio on Relativity that attracted most visitors. At some point, somebody bumped into me. It was a blond-headed woman wearing a short black skirt, leather leggings, a see-through blouse and a hat—Emma’s height and built. After a while, I headed for the lavatory, went into a stall, and checked my coat pocket. There was a pack of matches for the “Kitty Kat” club in the bowery. I had to laugh. I assumed it was a sex club without surveillance cameras, since too many people in our line of work frequented these places, on and off the job.
I ate lunch in the museum’s cafeteria, browsed their bookstore, and then left and walked south to the club. I arrived around 2:00 in the afternoon, which would be early in times past for this kind of activity, but our world was definitely 24/7. I stopped across the street and watched the place for twenty minutes. There was some club traffic, mostly stevedore types, and my hand-held snoop scope didn’t detect any camera frequencies, and so I strolled across the street, paid my $50, and stepped into the club. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkened room. A 20s something hostess, in tight black satin pants and no top, sidled up against me, her ample breasts with nipple rings brushing my arm.
“What’s your pleasure?”
“Whatcha got?” I asked.
“Well, there’re private rooms for shows and intimate encounters, and in the main room, strippers in cages at either end, and a live sex show in about twenty minutes on the main stage.”
“I think I’ll just get a table and watch the show for now.” This definitely didn’t suit her.
“We have booths where the girls can ‘serve’ you, or tables. Your choice.”
“I think I’ll take a booth in the back over there,” I said, pointing to a dark part of the cavern. This was more encouraging for her. “And I might have someone joining me.” This definitely marked me as a low-income prospect.
“Well, no pros and no sexual activity with outside girls or guys,” she said, rather sternly for someone with her breasts fully exposed.
I nodded my head in agreement and followed her through the club to the back row, weaving our way through a most unsavory group of customers.
I took a seat and watched the dancer in the cage to my left. She couldn’t be any more than fourteen years old, which was perfectly legal, but from the way she moved and her provocative poses; you’d think she’d been doing this for years—maybe at some illegal “kiddie” club. A topless waitress came over and asked for my order. I glanced down at the illuminated menu on the tabletop and ordered a light Heineken. She left.
I’d been sitting for ten minutes, when a tough-looking Asian girl with a blue wig, short but well-toned and fit, with dark expressive eyes, stepped over and slid into my booth.
“Sorry. I’m waiting for someone.”
“Honey. I’m someone.” She put her hand on my thigh, her fingers inching toward my crotch.
“No. Really. She should be here anytime now.”
The girl smiled at me, her hand rubbing my crotch. “She’s come and gone, and gave me this for you.” She removed a note from her black-l
aced bra and handed it to me. I put it in my pocket. The girl started to unzip my pants. “She also paid for a BJ, to get things going for you.”
I pushed her hand away and zipped up my pants. “Then you got a freebie, because I’m good to go.”
The woman looked at me as if I were slightly unhinged. She licked her big red lips. “Really? Nobody’s ever turned me down, free or not.”
The waitress came over with my Heineken. I laid some cash on the table. “Then, honey. You need this more than I do.” I stood up and hurried away. Outside I glanced at the note—all it said was: “Around the corner.” I turned left, since our training told us that right-handed people, given such directions would go right 90 percent of the time. At the corner I spotted a sleazy hotel halfway down the block. I walked over to the hotel and stood outside. A moment later, the woman in the black skirt strolled past me and said, “202.” I waited five minutes and then stepped inside and climbed the stairs to the second floor. I knocked on the door. No answer. I tried the knob; it opened, and I stepped inside.
Emma was standing behind the door; she shut and locked it. “Alan. Thanks for coming.”
We stood there in the middle of the room, unsure of how to greet each other. Emma was taller than average, thin, a brunette with a heart-shaped face and green eyes. After a moment she gave me a full-body hug and led me over to a tattered brown sofa, its stuffing spilling out from behind the buttons. I sat down next to her. As she removed her blond wig, she said, “And I’m sorry for all the cloak-and-dagger protocol, but I had to be careful.”
“I assume there was a good reason for it.”
“What’ve you heard about me?” she asked, and then added, “if you don’t mind telling me.”
Technically, I was breaching my confidentiality agreement by sharing any information with her, but I was, as we say, already totally exposed. “Not much, but I assumed you were compromised, or you would’ve just called me.”
She thought about this for a moment. “Well, I didn’t renew my contract, so it was all legal.”
“You mean that after your probationary period, you didn’t choose to sign up for a five-year stint?” I asked.
There was a flash of anger in her eyes. “Yes, if you want to put it that way, Alan. But, given the cost of our training, they think they own you.”
“They put pressure on you?”
Emma let out a sigh, closed her eyes. She was too well trained to cry, unless for effect. “They threatened me. They said, given the current level of anti-government activity, anybody with borny-village experience could have been turned. They said it was within their rights to ‘interrogate’ me; I agreed but didn’t show up for it, and have been underground ever since.” She paused. “I mean. I didn’t commit a crime; there’s no indictment against me.”
“If you had nothing to hide, why not go along with them?” I asked, but knew the answer.
“Aggressive chemical interrogation can really fuck up your mind.”
“Yes, I know. That’s what they threaten to get people to reenlist, but the alternative …”
“Well, I could hire a lawyer and fight them. Some people have won their case against reenlistment, but I just don’t have the resources to ‘fight city hall.’”
“So, what’s the statue of limitations on this kind of holdout?”
“Five years max, but that depends on your status. It’s usually two years for rookies like me, but I don’t know and they won’t tell my father.”
I could see what was coming. “So you want me to find out?” I asked.
“Alan, I know that’s a big favor, and you can’t just ask them, because that would be admitting to illegal contact.”
“I assume you’ve figured out another way.”
Emma smiled. “You’re so smart. That’s what I miss about you, besides being really … nice to me on our assignment.”
This sounded sincere.
She took a thin metal disc from her pocket. “One of the old-time tech guys, who went through this reenlistment tango himself, gave me this high-tech scanner. It’s totally undetectable; you put it under your watch, and all you have to do is get someone to call up my file, and it’ll scan what’s on the screen, page by page from twenty feet.”
This sounded very dicey to me. “I don’t know, Emma. That’s pretty risky. I could not only lose my job, but go to prison for it.”
“I know. There’s no rush. Think about it. I’ll contact you in a couple weeks, and if you decide against it, just don’t show up at our meet.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Alan, I have another big favor to ask.”
“If you need money, I don’t have much, but I can help you with that.”
“No, but that’s sweet of you. I’m fine, but I’ve been on the lamb for six months now, mostly by myself, with little human interaction, always on my guard.” She shed a tear. “Alan, can we get … intimate, just this one time. I’m simply going to die without some kind of caring physical contact.”
She reached over and took my hand and looked me in the eyes. I held her stare for a long moment, and then I let her lead me over to the bed. We sat there and kissed, slowly and gently, nothing rushed and forced like with Sherry. We slowly disrobed, kissing each other’s bodies, and then we made love with our eyes never losing contact, and this stirred me to my core. And later, as she fell asleep in my arms, I knew that I would help her.
6.
By Sunday night I had ruled out using Emma’s tech device to copy her employment file. I knew Dr. Klaus had that kind of access, but he would be too crafty to manipulate for the information. Also, even if I did succeed, Emma would have me in a compromising position with hard evidence. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her, but she could be compromised at her end, or even running a sting operation for the company to settle her case. No, if I were to help her, it had to be a situation where I was covered if I got caught and could reasonably explain away the inquiry. However, I didn’t have time to consider my options, since I was hit with a high-level emergency detail first thing Monday morning.
Gene called me and Beatrice into his glass, office cubicle while everybody was just getting situated to start their day. “We have a high-level leak in the Communications Ministry, and the FBI has asked us to review their case.”
I glanced over at Beatrice and then back at Gene. “Us?” I asked.
“Yeah, we think Minister Kohn may be the leak, or the source of it, so they told us to put together a two-man task force to help keep the inquiry contained.”
“Did you pick us or did it come from them?”
“Are we being paranoid, Alan?” Gene asked. I laughed. “Beatrice was recruited because of her political background, and since they’ve run into a dead end with their thinking, they wanted some unorthodox or creative approaches.”
Beatrice snickered. “You mean Alan’s screwball thinking.”
Gene nodded his head. “Yeah, that’s the tag they use to save face for them being so unimaginative.”
“Well, it’s always nice to be appreciated. So, how do we work this without everybody questioning what we’re doing?”
“We’ll use the satellite office in the basement that has everything you’ll need: full tech, a private link to the Bureau and one to me.”
So, Beatrice and I took an early lunch together, and didn’t go back to the 10th-floor office afterward. When we went to the basement, there was an FBI receptionist and a plainclothes guard out front. Inside, however, we had the whole office to ourselves, with the same level of sophisticated computers and linkups as upstairs. To start off, the agent in charge interfaced with us from the FBI via a video linkup. Agent Musgrave, a thin guy in his forties, with a bushy mustache—not one of the Bureau’s muscle-bound types—gave us a rundown on the leaks and their investigation of everybody in the ministry with the needed access.
“Well, our conclusion is that only Minister Kohn had all the access for these leaks, but nobody here believes this 30-year pro has anyth
ing to do with this kind of treason.”
“I assume you’ve delved into his personal life and checked the pillow-talk angle?” Beatrice asked.
“Yeah. No girlfriends, no hookers, no compromising friends he’d share this kind of info with.”
“What about his wife?” I asked.
“Well, her clearance is as good as his; she worked in the government for years before retiring. All bank accounts, all communications, everything has been checked out with no apparent breaches from either of them.”
“What about kitchen help, gardeners, and the like? Beatrice asked.
Musgrave seemed to be getting impatient. “Yeah, all staff members, at the office and all the help at the house and vacation home; everybody’s been vetted. Believe me, no stone’s been left unturned.”
“Thanks for the briefing, Agent Musgrave. You certainly seem to have covered all the angles,” I said.
“Yeah, well we suspect that there was another leak this weekend, so you tell me.” He smiled wearily and then cut the com link.
“Not a happy camper, and certainly unhappy about our involvement,” Beatrice said. I nodded my head. “So, where do you think we should start?”
“Let’s download the raw data and then just study the footage and see if we can spot anything, like we did with Dr. Quirk.”
The data feed, at fifteen pages a minute, flashed across the screen. Then we scanned through the footage of the minister, his wife, and their staff and help over a three-month period, our processors isolating and making quick data comparisons, but nothing jumped out at us. No smirking giveaways. At the end of the day, before we called it quits, Beatrice said, “Well, I don’t see anything odd, not that I know what I’m looking for.”
“Yeah. The only thing I noticed is that Barbara Kohn certainly has a great mane of hair for a woman her age.”
“I caught that,” she said. “Seems she goes out of her way to keep up her appearance. Maybe she feels threatened, or there’s some female competition at the office we don’t know about.”
As we came out of the operation’s room, the receptionist, Agent Silvia Moore, asked, “Any updates?”