Book 4: 3rd World Products, Inc.

by Ed Howdershelt

  Jeffries drained his beer and said, “I heartily concur."

  Chapter Six

  Myra became angry.

  "Lawyer? Because of me? I told you why I think I'm here. Do you think I'd bother lying at this point?"

  Jeffries rather flatly said, “Oh, without a doubt, dear lady. Without a doubt. How about another beer, Ed?"

  I reached into the cooler and said, “You got it,” as I fished out another beer for him and myself. “How about you, Myra?"

  Myra's anger appeared real enough.

  She snatched the beer bottle out of my hand and said, “Yeah. Sure. Thanks bunches,” before downing several swallows of it.

  I reached for another one and opened it as I watched her. Damned good-looking woman. Tall. Solid. Elegant lines.

  "Ed,” said Steph through my implant, “I've found several coins under one of the larger cannons. They appear to have been in a man's pouch. There's also a belt buckle and the remains of a knife a few inches away from the coins."

  I nodded and said, “Everybody, we'll be here another few minutes yet. Steph, would you put up a display while you dig the stuff out?"

  A vid screen field popped into being above the pilot's console and we were able to watch as Steph's fields ferreted the objects from amid a skeleton beneath the cannon.

  Jeffries said in amazement, “Some poor blighter was under that cannon, rest his soul!"

  Myra seemed fascinated; half by the picture and half by the display field itself. Her attention was diverted when the objects passed through Steph's field and floated over to me. I spread the stuff out on the deck.

  The knife's wooden handle had long ago rotted away and the knife and belt buckle were both heavily pitted and eroded, but Steph had only separated their shell of hardened muck rather than dissolving it, and that shell displayed the items’ former shapes. Jeffries handled them as if they were fragile heirlooms.

  Myra reached for one of the gold coins and studied it in much the same manner that Jeffries studied the knife.

  "This is absolutely fabulous,” she breathed. “Just think; nobody has seen or touched these things in ... Oh, I don't know ... in hundreds of years!"

  Her gaze fell again on the knife and buckle in Jeffries hands and her face fell as she bit her lip and said, “Oh, that poor man. It must have been absolutely horrible for him."

  That surprised me. I'd been ready for greed, fascination, or a number of other responses from Myra-the-spook, but not an expression of overt sympathy for a man over three hundred years dead.

  Steph said, “I've found more coins and some jewelry in the stern. A moment while I dig them out."

  Jeffries and Myra watched the screen in excited fascination as Steph's fields winnowed the muck and transported her finds to the flitter. Within fifteen minutes or so Steph reported that she'd retrieved all of the items.

  Compared to a treasure ship's cargo, there wasn't a helluva lot in the pile. Some fifty or so gold and silver coins, some religious and common jewelry, and a good number of pewter utensils were all of it, but Myra and Jeffries acted as if there were a ton of the stuff.

  While they pawed gently through the small pile, I glanced at Steph. She asked through my implant if we had any reason to stay and I shook my head. We began rising through the blackness, our ascent apparently unnoticed by either Jeffries or Myra until light from above began to cast their shadows on the deck.

  As we broke the surface and hovered above the waves, I said, “Next stop, Wilmot's office. I want him to meet Myra."

  "Ed,” said Steph, “Let's discuss some things before we get underway. I don't particularly need a deck cannon at the moment. Do you?"

  I laughed. “No, not really,” I said. “Why?"

  "In that case, I'd like to give one or two to George Wilmot and let Myra and Don have the others."

  Surprising the hell out of both Jeffries and me, Myra said in a high-pitched tone, “What!? They belong in a museum!"

  I said, “They belong wherever their new owners care to put them. Donate yours to a museum if you want."

  Jeffries said, “Quite right. Don't worry about it, Myra. Cannon are rather common finds. Transporting one back to the UK would cost more than it's worth, but I'd be happy to document them and donate mine to a local museum."

  In a somewhat haughty and self-righteous tone, Myra said, “Thank you, Mr. Jeffries.” Looking at me, she asked in the same tone, “And what about the other items?"

  "They belong to Stephanie,” I said, “She found them and salvaged them."

  "But..!"

  I cut her off. “No buts. Not all treasure makes it to museums, and that's just the way it is. Steph, what do you want to do with this junk?"

  Myra almost screamed, “Junk!?” and Jeffries snickered.

  Steph said, “Unless you want the buckle and knife, Don and Myra can have them."

  Her fields went to work dividing the coins into four piles, then she said, “I've divided the coins approximately evenly among us. You may each do what you want with your share."

  As Myra wonderingly pawed through the coins in the pile that Steph pushed toward her, Jeffries stood up and moved to his previous seat, then sat down and sipped his beer.

  He said, “I'm sorry, Stephanie, but I can't take your kind offer. I did nothing to assist you. You found them and you salvaged them. They're all rightly yours alone."

  Myra looked at him in stunned silence for a moment, then said, “Well, I'll take them, and his, too, if he doesn't want them! These coins are artifacts. They're history. They belong on public display, not hidden away or sold as knickknacks."

  "Uh, huh,” I said with a grin, “Well, I'm keeping mine. Steph, how about giving her a complete inventory of what she wants to donate and making copies for everyone here? We can have George Wilmot arrange the donation through an agency. Make sure the tax deduction receipt is in your name, ma'am."

  Myra eyed me sharply. Jeffries eyed me quizzically and seemed about to ask a question.

  I said, “If they won't give her a tax receipt, they don't get the stuff. In order to issue a tax receipt to an individual in the US, that individual must have a valid Social Security number. In order to acquire US residency, a person must have a valid Social Security number. A Social Security number cannot be issued to non-persons, so if they want the stuff, they'll have to help us make Stephie a legal person."

  Jeffries said, “Very cunning, indeed, Ed, but they may not do that for a handful of old coins, even gold ones."

  "How many handfuls would it take, Jeffries? How many ships have gone down with stuff like this aboard? Maybe they'd like Steph's help with raising other things, as well? There are a couple of sunken nuclear subs that won't hold together forever. One is Russian and poses no danger at the moment. The other is a US sub that went down near a chasm on a fault line, and they can't get to it well enough to remove it. Stephie could be a big help with something like that."

  With a tone of awe, Jeffries said, “By God, she certainly could."

  Myra's gaze narrowed as she said, “If there's a real danger and you can prevent it, it's your ... her ... duty to try..."

  "Save it, lady,” I said. “We aren't asking all that much, so if the powers that be can't figure out a way to make Stephanie a legal person and a citizen, maybe they'll have better luck figuring out a way to keep one of their nuke subs from falling into an undersea nutcracker."

  Myra's face reflected her shock at my words.

  Steph quietly said, “Ed, whether they grant me legal status or not, I couldn't allow that to happen."

  I grinned and said, “Yeah, I know that, Steph. Now Myra does, too, and that'll make it that much harder for her to play the company girl if it comes to push and shove later. Right, Myra?"

  In a cautious tone, Myra asked, “Push and shove? What do you mean?"

  "I mean that we may need real, live people who will stand up for Steph. Character references. May we call on you?"

  Myra seemed slightly confused for a mo
ment, but she finally said, “I ... All I can tell them is what I know about her, which isn't much."

  I shrugged. “What kind of person do you know her to be, Myra? The kind of person you'd like to know, or the kind of person you'd be afraid to have living next door?"

  Jeffries chuckled and asked, “Living next door?"

  "Sure,” I said. “She kind of lives with me, and none of my neighbors run screaming when they see her."

  Jeffries looked Steph over for a moment and said, “No, I would imagine they wouldn't. Especially the men. I'd expect quite the opposite from them."

  Myra shook her head as if to clear it and asked, “You'd call me as a character witness? After only a few hours of knowing me? After discovering that I'm with the NSA and that I ran a con to get aboard?"

  "Sure,” I said. “Why not? It was in the line of duty, wasn't it? Do you have any reason to lie about what you know of Stephanie?"

  "Uh ... Well, no, but still..."

  "There you go, then. If appearing won't jeopardize you unnecessarily, we'll call you as a reference if we need you."

  "I'll have to check with my office. We don't normally make public appearances, Ed."

  "No sweat. Do you think the US government would allow any of this to become public, Myra? Not likely. Not as long as those who were in charge when the sub went down are alive. Closed-door sessions all the way. All we have to do is invoke national security concerning the nuke sub problem and a few other things that Steph will likely be asked to help fix."

  "You said 'we', not 'they'. Why?"

  "Because somebody had to, sooner or later. We can't keep calling the people we'll be working with 'they' and 'them'. If we're working together, the term is 'us'. If we can't work together, the term for me is 'journalist's informant'. Pictures of a busted nuke sub less than an eighth of a mile from an active volcanic trench are bound to sell some papers and jack up TV ratings, particularly since the official word has always been that it's over sixty miles away from that trench. The public doesn't like being lied to about things that can poison a whole ocean. The fact that we're now able to remove the sub with Amaran technology won't offset the fact that they've lied about it for a few decades already."

  Jeffries grinned as he asked, “So you'd help, then blackmail the US government into granting her citizenship?"

  I said, “Steph couldn't do it, but I could. I feel as if I shouldn't have to do something like that, but it can be one of my own last resorts. You already know that Steph won't refuse to help, but when she comes out of her non-person closet, she can either do it quietly or with the ACLU and a pack of civil-rights groups backing her. All I'm looking for here is quick and quiet action versus a guaranteed media circus."

  "Doesn't the US government have access to similar flitters?"

  "Yup, but there's no record of any of them being used underwater. Most of them are used as political limousines around Washington, I think. Besides, Steph would have her own ... quarters ... by then. A smaller device than a flitter."

  Jeffries sat back and sipped his beer for a moment. Myra dropped one of the coins and leaned to retrieve it and Jeffries’ eyes followed her every move in a manner that bespoke more of her attractiveness than any distrust of her.

  The flitter rose and accelerated in the direction of Tampa without any comment or question from Steph, but I could almost feel her eyes on me.

  I turned to face her and asked, “Do we have a problem?"

  "I don't know yet. Would you really create a potentially damaging exposé about the submarine?"

  Smiling at her and nodding, I said, “Sure. It never hurts to give people a reason to look closely at their government. Public apathy is why too many of the wrong people have been in public offices. If the right people had been in those offices in the sixties, they'd have made a show of trying to find a way to get that sub out of there instead of lying about it. Same thing today. Nobody wants to be the whistleblower or be saddled with the responsibility of getting the sub back to shore. If the situation goes public, they'll have to get off the damned dime about it at long last."

  I didn't look to see how Jeffries and Myra took my remarks. It didn't matter and I didn't want to open further discussion on that issue, anyway.

  "Jeffries,” I said, “There's something I'd like to talk about before we visit Wilmot. We'll stay aboard the flitter for a few minutes and let Steph and Myra go on in, okay?"

  He raised an eyebrow, but nodded and said, “Fine."

  "Thank you. Myra, we'll give you a ride to wherever after the meeting, so you can leave your bags aboard if you want. Or not. Doesn't matter."

  Myra glanced at the bags and said, “There's nothing in them but some used clothing that probably isn't even my size. I think they can stay aboard."

  Chapter Seven

  We settled to the sidewalk in front of George Wilmot's offices and Steph and Myra headed into the building with the coins, knife, and buckle in an opaque transport field.

  I keyed my comm implant and said softly, “Steph, put a total barrier field around Myra's luggage, please."

  Jeffries looked around, then at me oddly. A dome of opaqueness surrounded Myra's luggage and Jeffries stepped back a pace quickly.

  Steph's warm voice seemed to surround us as she said, “I scanned her luggage, Ed. There's no transmitting device."

  "Take every precaution, ma'am. Never assume you have all the bases covered. The NSA is a slick bunch, and I'm sure they have access to some of the Amaran technology."

  "According to their records..."

  "Don't believe everything you read in their records, Steph. Records lie."

  Jeffries’ jaw dropped. “She has access to NSA records..?"

  "Yup. Steph, you remember the records you found that said that I owned a red Opel four-door sedan in Germany?"

  "Yes."

  "Did you spot anything unusual about those records?"

  "Yes. The date on the registration forms, but I assumed that was a typographical error."

  "Like I said; never assume anything. It wasn't a typo, milady. I've never owned a red car. Not once. Some bright soul registered the car in my name a couple of days after I'd left Germany. They used it on a decoy run and parked it at 42nd MP Customs in Mannheim a few days later. Never, ever, completely trust any agency's records, Steph. Particularly any intelligence agency's records."

  Steph's slightly distracted gaze told me she was reviewing someone's stash of twenty year old data.

  "I see. Indeed, Ed, a man named Canfield signed as a witness when the car was bought and again when it was sold as an abandoned vehicle. In each case a man named Allison produced power of attorney documentation stating that he was acting on your behalf."

  "Allison and Canfield both worked in the Kaiserslautern office of my outfit. If anything questionable had happened, I could have proved that I'd been elsewhere. While you're at it, could you see if they did anything else in my name that might have caused me trouble?"

  "An apartment was rented in your name in Ramstein two days after you left Germany. The lease was for a period of six months. I can't find anything else bought or rented in your name or any record of activities involving that apartment."

  "You probably won't, either. They likely just kept it as a contingency safe house for a while."

  I then asked her to drop the concealment field surrounding the gold in the back of the flitter. Jeffries froze, staring at the half-ton or so of treasure for some moments before he turned to me.

  "It's been here all the time..?"

  I nodded. “Yup. There's probably no place on Earth safer than Steph's deck. We'll need to make arrangements to put it where you can reach it. We'll also want to set some quick-sale prices, because we won't want to sit on it."

  Jeffries rose to go over to the pile and said, “No problem, but Jesus, that's a big pile! Why is some of it clean and some of it still encrusted?"

  "Some of it will go to museums. They'll want to clean some of their own and may want to display s
ome of it as it was found, along with pictures of the wreck."

  After several minutes of inspecting bars, coins, and jewelry, Jeffries stood up and came back to his seat, where he downed about half of his beer and said, “Right, then. My God. Okay, I think it's time to go upstairs and see George. Has he seen this, as well?"

  "Just a sampling. Not the whole pile. Steph, you can put the field back up now."

  The pile of treasure again disappeared. Jeffries stared at the spot for a moment, then got up to go over there.

  I said, “Careful. You could trip over something."

  Jeffries watched his arm seemingly disappear as he reached tentatively into the field surrounding the gold. He brought out a coin and stared at it for a moment, then reached to put it back and straightened up.

  "By God, that's a damned fine trick,” he said with a grin. “Damned fine."

  "Thank you,” said Steph.

  "Steph,” I said, “You can remove the luggage field now. We're coming inside."

  The opaque dome winked out of existence. We left the flitter and watched it ascend above the height of the building to hover and wait for us.

  Jeffries shook his head slightly and said, “I will have to get one of those someday."

  When we got upstairs we discovered that Myra had introduced herself to Wilmot as our “NSA liaison” and had described her reason for being there as “verification purposes” in the matter of Stephanie Montgomery's residency application. Wilmot seemed unimpressed.

  We went over some of the details of Steph's application's progress through the maze of examinations and approvals it had already survived. The app had apparently been put on hold after being forwarded to Washington.

  With a glance at Myra, Wilmot said, “Now we know why. All I can do is push through the usual channels. If the application is stalled too long or refused entirely, we can buy her legal residency or citizenship in one of the lesser nations as a stopgap measure and try to get her a US visa."

  Looking at me, he said, “That's when we'd use publicity as pressure. I'd hesitate to play that card too soon, Ed."