Too much crap had been going down around me lately. I'd been prepared to discover that the traffic stop had been something else, like a drop-off of yet another someone who'd make some kind of attempt on the house or me or maybe a distraction while someone was being dropped elsewhere nearby.
I had Elkor display outside views of the area around the house on the PDA and saw nothing out of the ordinary. It was with the thought that I might be becoming unnecessarily paranoid that I went back to my book and coffee.
The next morning I grabbed the case and went to a local restaurant for breakfast. The only smaller tables open were near the window, so I set Elkor on one and ordered. I read the paper and ate breakfast and lingered over an extra cup of coffee, then opened the case and whisperingly asked Elkor if he was ready to go. On the pad appeared the words, "Yes, Ed."
In the car I asked if he'd had a good time. He said that he was still processing over two hundred conversations and comments, but that he thought the experience had been quite interesting.
When a sheriff's car pulled me over on Deltona, I knew I hadn't been committing any kind of traffic violation. The deputy confirmed that I was me and said that he'd been told to ask me to drop by the station.
"Don't you guys make house calls when you want to talk to someone?"
"Sir, I just work out here." He gestured slightly to indicate the street. "I'm just delivering the invitation for Detective Greer."
I nodded and said, "Tell him to put some coffee on, then. I'll head over there now."
As I pulled back onto the street, I said, "Hey, Elkor, you get to spend some time watching how cops do office work."
"That will undoubtedly also be very interesting, Ed."
"Maybe if you're a bureaucrat. Tell you what, though, why not have an area inside the case - or the carrier - display my name and address. That way I can 'accidentally' leave it some places and come back to claim it later."
"The case and all items in it now have your name and address on them, Ed."
"Good deal. Oh, and if something happens to me, make the Bear-carrier show Sharon's address and phone number. I'll introduce you to her later. She probably wouldn't mind having a case as special as this one."
Elkor was quiet for a moment.
"If something happened to you, Ed?"
"Yeah, Elkor. I'm not a kid anymore and people have accidents. Bear would go to Sharon, even if you don't want to leave the case with her for some reason."
"What about Stephanie, the PDA, the watch, and the pen?"
"They can go to Sharon, too, if I'm dead. Heh. Maybe she'd set up a delivery service for WiccaWorks. I could just see her dropping off an order in Paris."
"If you leave the agency, is that what you'd do with Stephanie? Deliver orders to other cities and countries?"
"Sure, now and then I would, just as an excuse to go. You want to see the world, don't you? I've already seen most of it, but I'm sure they've changed a few things since I was out messing around in the seventies and eighties."
"Yes, Ed, I think that would be a fine idea."
When we arrived at the stationhouse, I asked to see Deputy Greer and let them examine my briefcase before I went in. The deputies who recognized me didn't seem particularly happy to see me, which was understandable, but Greer met me with a quick handshake and led me to his desk.
As we passed the coatrack I put my briefcase on the shelf above it and followed Greer down the aisle to the chair he indicated.
"Glad you could find time to visit, Mr. Howdershelt."
"I figured you had reason not to call or drop by the house. Weren't you in a green uniform the last time I saw you?"
He nodded. "Sure was. Somebody noticed my sterling qualities, I guess. Since you didn't seem to be the kind who appreciates formalities, I'll get to the point."
Greer leaned his elbows on his desk and gazed at me for a moment.
"We've tried to check you out, Mr. Howdershelt. When you got that seat-belt ticket six years ago we checked you out then, too. At that time you had a U.S. driving record in Florida, Texas, and Virginia. Just license issues. No tickets or accidents. Internationally, you got a parking ticket in Switzerland years back and were the registered owner of several cars in Germany."
He stopped a passing deputy and asked him to bring us a couple of coffees, looking at me as he made the request. "I got your message to put coffee on."
I nodded and said, "Black is fine, thanks."
Cops don't socialize much with civvies or feds unless they have reason to do so. The coffee was an invitation to chat, and I had tacitly agreed to it.
Greer continued, "When we ran a routine check on you after the bombing incident, we couldn't find any open records about you that weren't already in our own files. We were told that no information about you was currently available. Officially, we stopped looking."
I nodded and sipped the scalding coffee, then excused myself and went to the water fountain to cool it down. When I returned to Greer's desk he had a folder with my name on it in the middle of his calendar-blotter. The folder had perhaps a dozen sheets of paper in it that I could see.
Greer said, "If we hadn't had this folder, we wouldn't have had anything at all, and half of what's in here are duplicate copies. In other words, we don't know much about you, other than that you moved here in 1989, bought a house, own a car, and lately acquired some unusual friends. And enemies, apparently."
He pulled another folder from his drawer and tapped it. It was perhaps a quarter-inch thick with paperwork.
"For comparison, this is the folder of an eighteen-year-old girl who has received two tickets for speeding, a warning for speeding, and a warning for not wearing her seat belt. Note the difference in size."
He put the folder back and sipped his own coffee.
"Now, Mr. Howdershelt, the people who told me to sit down and shut up don't live in my town. They don't really give a damn about my town or the people in it or the deputies who had to go in to get the bombs out of your house. They like to think they have a bigger picture to worry about, but the little picture here is my worry, sir, and I want to know if you're likely to have any more incidents."
I sat back for a moment. Greer wasn't asking for state secrets.
I said, "I don't think so. My guest and her friend are gone and I'm not anticipating or inviting replacements."
"Were your guests aliens?"
"You'd have to ask them, and I don't know where they are now."
"Are you an alien, or working for the aliens?"
"No, I'm not an alien or working for them."
Greer leaned forward and said, "If that's true, then that would seem to indicate you're working for the people who came here to shut the door on further investigation by our office after the bombing incident."
He waited and watched to see if I'd confirm or correct him.
I asked, "Did you ask them if I'm working for them?"
Greer sighed. "Yes. Of course we did. I did, in fact."
"...And they said..?"
"They ignored the question and took the prisoners when they left. I was hoping that you might be a bit more cooperative."
"How would it benefit you to know more about me, Detective? None of what's happened has any connection to my personal history. Those guys were trying to kill aliens. Isn't it possible that some terrorists made a mistake?"
"Sure, but that doesn't explain why your records are sealed."
"All I can say about that is that I didn't seal them and don't know why they're sealed, especially since they've been available before now."
I pointed at the computer on his desk and asked if it was the latest model of that brand. He said it was about a year old.
"Does the Sheriff's Department have a website yet?"
"We have an information site with a question and answer section."
"Ever run a name through a search engine? Amazing what comes up."
Greer had been listening with the visible attitude of a man expecting to hea
r nothing he hadn't heard before. My last comment sharpened his gaze. When he started to speak, I held up my hand to stop him.
"Sorry I couldn't be of more help, Detective. Is there anything else?"
He looked at me for a moment, then said, "No, I guess not. Thanks for taking the time to stop by, Mr. Howdershelt. I'll see you to the door."
I grabbed my briefcase as we passed the coatrack and followed Greer back to the front of the office, then headed to my car. When a woman heading into the building passed near me, I turned to check her out and glanced at the front doors of the station at the same time. Greer was still in the doorway.
Elkor said, "When Detective Greer enters your last name in a search engine he will receive as many as three hundred and seventy-eight matches."
"That many? Wow. I get around some, don't I?"
"Only three hundred and six are directly related to you..."
"Only? That still sounds like a good score to me."
"Most of which will simply reflect your signature line in a page you've created for someone else or on your WiccaWorks pages. Eighteen of those matches will be from your Abintra Press website."
"You sound as if you know what you're talking about so far, Elkor."
"Three of the remaining eighteen matches will be links to sampler chapters of your ebook titled 'DRAGONFLY RUN'. Is that where you were guiding him, Ed?"
"Can you think of a better place? There's enough in it to give him some background, but nothing that hasn't been more or less publicly available until now. I changed some names, but just about anybody could figure out the details."
"In view of the fact that your records had been sealed by agencies of your own government, may I ask why you gave him any hint at all?"
"Elkor, if they had sealed records specifically concerning what I've done for them, that would be fine, but as usual, they didn't bother sorting. They sealed every damned thing, and all that does is generate unnecessary curiosity from people like Greer. The Greers of the world hate unanswered questions almost as much as they hate being told to sit down and shut up by the feds."
"But does Detective Greer have any right to pursue his questions?"
"Doesn't matter. He'll pursue them anyway. I would, too."
"What will you tell Linda about his curiosity?"
"Nothing. If he fishes in the wrong waters, their bells will go off. I will be asking Clark to declassify some of my mundane records, though."
We stopped at the house to pick up both my guns and some paper targets, then set off to visit the Thrasher Road dumpsite. I propped the briefcase against the carcass of a washing machine and taped the target above it, then backed away twenty paces and adjusted my earmuffs.
"First, I'll fire a couple of rounds at the washer, not the target, without a field. If you can record the results we can compare them later."
"I can record and display the results on the PDA, Ed."
"Good 'nuff."
I fired twice at the washer. Each bullet made a dent in the metal.
"Okay, Elkor, let's try the twenty-foot field first."
"Yes, Ed."
I aimed at the paper target and fired my .22 six times, then walked over to see what had happened. Elkor displayed the results as he'd recorded them on the PDA. The bullets had splattered when they hit the surface of the field.
The three little chunks of lead from each bullet had deformed until they were nearly flat and surged onward into the field, but further resistance had apparently slowed them even more and their new shape had made them Frisbee off in odd directions. Only four fragments had hit the washer. None had hit the target.
I reloaded with standard hollowpoint ammo and fired six more rounds. This time all of them hit the paper target, but while the paper was punched and torn, the washer surface behind it was only smudged. Elkor's display showed the bullets mushrooming and slowing as they encountered the field.
"Elkor, how long did it take the bullets to reach the paper after they entered the field?"
"Point nine-eight-three seconds, Ed."
"Huh. I could almost duck in time, couldn't I?"
"I wouldn't know that, Ed. You probably shouldn't rely on that tactic."
"That was 'pensive reflection', Elkor. No answer required. I still think that if I knew the shot was coming, I might be able to get out of its way."
I put up a new target and fired one round with the .357 so Elkor could record it. The bullet slammed through the sheet metal side of the washer and left a finger-sized hole surrounded by torn metal.
My next two rounds ripped the paper target and tore it off the washer. I could see the marble-sized dents in the washer as I approached.
"Not so effective against heavier ammo, and these were hollowpoints, not slugs. Without the dished nose, I think they'd have hit even harder."
"Ed," said Elkor, "If we knew someone was about to shoot, I could bolster and extend the field toward the shooter an extra ten feet or so."
"Let's try it."
I backed away and fired again. This time the target was torn and punched, but the dents in the sheet metal were about what I could have made with a small ball-peen hammer. In other words, survivable.
"Lots better, Elkor. Lots better."
"This method will leave the other side of you unprotected, Ed, and it depends on the shooter being thirty feet away."
"Figured that. Everything's a tradeoff, somehow, but this was a good idea, Elkor. Besides, if the shooter's that close, you can smack him with the field. I guess we can wrap this up, now. Come on in."
As the briefcase floated toward me I had another thought.
As I packed up my shooting gear, I asked, "Elkor, how much weight will that drone carry?"
"It can lift one hundred and fifty-two pounds, thirteen ounces, Ed."
"And I weigh one-seventy-eight. Damn. Thought I had something, there. Still, if I could strap it on well enough, I'd only be pushing about twenty-five pounds. That could take some getting used to, but it might be fun."
"I'll design a harness, Ed."
"Thanks, Elkor. We'll try it out sometime."
"You don't want to try it now?"
"No, not really. This place is full of nasty things to land on if I screw up. Your field might keep me from spearing myself on something like that shot-up post out there, but would it save me from breaking a leg if I landed badly?"
"I see what you mean. No, it wouldn't."
"So we'll save it for the beach and knee-deep water."
I put the guns and ammo on the back floor of the car and tossed a rag over them, then got in and started the engine. Elkor had the briefcase floating above the passenger seat.
I suggested that someone might think it odd that my luggage was floating. Elkor reshaped the case so that it was long enough to rest on the floor and lean against the seat.
On the way home, Elkor told me that Gary had contacted him because he'd been unable to contact me. Elkor said that he'd told Gary that I had put my watch in the refrigerator.
"In that case, open up, Elkor. I'll put this watch in the case and use the pen for a while."
Chapter Twenty-Six
There was a green Chevy in the driveway when we got back to the house, and as we approached, Gary stepped out of the car. I cautioned Elkor not to change shape or reveal himself to Gary as we pulled in next to the Chevy.
"That is, unless he already knows about this," I added.
"I was not obligated to notify anyone," said Elkor.
Gary walked over and shook my hand as he said, "I'd just arrived a moment ago, Ed. Glad you came back when you did. I tried to call, but..."
"But you got a busy signal. Hi, Gary. What brings you out here? I thought you were off-ship now and moving to the town with Ellen."
"Linda called me, Ed. She wanted me to talk with you."
I nodded. "Come on in, then."
We went into the house and I told him to make himself at home.
"That includes making your own coffee," I said. "I
have guns to clean. Get yourself something from the kitchen and pull up a chair."
Gary rooted in the fridge and found one of the cans of iced tea that he and Ellen had preferred to my Dr. Pepper. He sat in the sofa chair on the other side of the coffee table from me as I spread things out on some newspapers.
"I saw your watch on the wine bottle, Ed. Linda and I have been trying to contact you all day. If I can, I'd like to try to help."
"Did Linda tell you anything that might help you figure out how to help?"
"She told me about your flitter trip."
"Did she tell you why she's acting like a bureaucrat instead of a girlfriend? Did she tell you why she sent you, instead of coming to talk to me herself?"
Gary swirled his can of tea and said, "No. She only told me that she wants you to remain active in the project. I'd like to try to keep you from leaving."
I looked up from running a swab down the barrel of my .22.
"Why bother, Gary? You and Ellen are somewhere else these days. The job I was reactivated to do is done. Linda would rather be a boss than a girlfriend, I guess, and that sort of leaves me thinking it's time to get out."
"There are other things to do in the project, Ed. We could use you at the town, or at one of the factories. There have been a few attempts at sabotage."
I finished swabbing the gun's cylinders before answering.
"Let's talk about something else, Gary. Did you really want to try fishing?"
When I looked up from the gun he shook his head slightly.
"No, not really, Ed. I only said that because I thought it might be good to remain available as a link between you and Ellen."
I checked the bore and put fresh Hi-Shok ammo in the .22, then closed it up and set it aside. After prepping a couple of swabs for the larger bore of the .357, I began cleaning the bigger gun.
"Gary, Ellen wants kids and she'll have them. I don't want kids in my life or - for that matter - within a hundred yards of me. We may wind up being friends of some sort someday, but nothing more, I think, and even that will take a long time. She was pretty pissed at me when she left."
3rd World Products, Inc., Book 1 Page 29