by Stuart Clark
He’d given up on the advice of his doctor, for the sake of his health. “Cancer sticks,” his doctor had called them, but he’d never suffered from cancer, just a rattling cough that made his lungs sound like marbles being thrown around in a box. Ah, what the hell! Death was inevitable, why postpone it?
He fished around in his other pocket and pulled out a cheap lighter, struck it to flame and leaned to it. A steady plume of smoke indicated the cigarette was lit. He inhaled deeply, feeling the burning acrid smoke course through his airways. He blew the gray breath toward the ceiling and examined the cigarette between his fingers as if he’d never seen one before. He’d forgotten how much he enjoyed them. Putting the butt back to his lips, he took another deep drag, squinting as he did so. Mannheim needed the I.Z.P. like a smoker needed his nicotine. He lived and breathed it. There was no hurry. He’d be there later, and later there would be fewer people around. Besides, he’d gotten used to waiting for this day.
* * * * *
Bobby sat with her feet up on the console and Furball on her lap. She scratched the friendly little creature behind its ear, like Kate had shown her, and it arched its head backward in appreciation, regarding her through half-closed eyes. She had cut the hyperdrive after making contact with the remote listening post and manually fine-tuned the nav computer to take them back to the moon-base. The stars drifted past like snowflakes falling out of a dark night sky. The only sound was Furball’s occasional chitter of satisfaction and the background hum of the ship itself. It was so quiet here. So peaceful.
Her thoughts wandered. Six days. She could hardly believe it. She never thought she would be going home. She never thought she’d see the people she cared about ever again. Six days and they would be home. Those who had survived, of course. Her mind went to the others then, to Par, his sad face before he turned away from her. Alex, and Chris cradling his friend in his arms, devastated at his loss. She thought of Kit, and could even remember a time when she saw him share a joke and smile. And she thought of Byron. One of her best and oldest friends who would now be missing forever. She closed her eyes to the pain the memories invoked, trying to shut it out.
She kept asking herself the same question.
Why?
* * * * *
Mannheim frowned and looked at his watch. It was late for Leonardson to come calling. “Let him in,” he said to the computer, and the door to his office slid open quietly. “Come in, Kurt.”
Leonardson ducked his head as he passed through the door. It had become habit for someone as tall as him. “Good evening, Douglas. I’m glad I caught you.”
Mannheim shrugged. “You know me. I’m here more often than I’m not, but this is an unexpected pleasure. Can I get you a drink?”
It was Mannheim’s standard opening line, and on this occasion Leonardson resented it. Mannheim was supremely confident. Even now, he thought he was in charge. He had no idea how dangerous the situation was. “I’ll get it.” Leonardson strode purposefully over to the cabinet where he knew the brandy decanter was housed. He’d been here many times before. He poured two, giving himself a large measure which he downed in one gulp before refilling, then turned with the two glasses, handing one to Mannheim. Mannheim eyed him suspiciously, fingering the rim of his glass. “Are you all right, Kurt?”
“Fine,” Leonardson finished his second shot before putting the glass down on Mannheim’s desk. He remained standing, his tall, lean frame imposing in the office, a stark challenge to the overweight and seated Mannheim.
“Well then, please sit down. You’re making me nervous.”
“And so you should be.” Even though the words were said quietly, the malice in them was evident. Mannheim chuckled with no mirth. “My organization’s remote listening posts picked up a maxi-shuttle on their sensors today, coming back across the boundary. It’s called the Endeavour.”
Mannheim shrugged, frowning. “So? Happens all the time. This warrants a personal visit from you, in full uniform? What has it got to do with me?”
Leonardson put his hands on the desk and leaned toward Mannheim with predatory intent. “The Endeavour, Douglas? Does it ring any bells?” His fury was at the end of its leash. “It was one we thought we’d lost.”
Mannheim’s disarming smile faltered for a fleeting instant. The name Endeavour did mean something to him, and Leonardson knew it. “Well, congratulations, Kurt. I’ll drink to that.” Mannheim took a particularly large swig and swallowed nervously. The glass rattled against the table as his shaking hand put it down.
Leonardson turned away from him in disbelief and disgust and paced into the center of the room. “Even now, you try to play me like a fiddle,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t have given you that information. It was too sensitive. I knew it had been a mistake as soon as I did it, and you gave me your word!…” he rounded on Mannheim, pointing an accusing finger. “…your word that you hadn’t acted upon it!” His face was red and contorted with anger.
“I assure you Kurt, I…”
“Don’t…bullshit me, Douglas. The time for games is over. Wyatt’s coming back.”
Mannheim visibly blanched. His nemesis was coming back. Thoughts raced in his head. What was he going to do? How did Leonardson know what had gone on?
“You’ve blown it, Douglas. You and your greed. The whole thing is about to come crashing down around us. It’ll be the ruin of both of us.”
For the first time, Mannheim had an inkling of the reasons behind Leonardson’s visit. It wasn’t just he who was in trouble, it was Leonardson too. But what was Leonardson proposing to do about the situation? The thought alone scared him. He must reason with him, make Leonardson see sense.
“But that can’t be.” Mannheim took another gulp of brandy.
“It’s true, god dammit! I’ve spoken with one of the crew already. Keele, is it? I know they’re coming back.”
Mannheim collected himself. “Well, we must be able to do something.”
“We? WE? I never wanted these people dead! I never sent them away!”
A bead of sweat rolled off Mannheim’s forehead. This wasn’t going the way he had hoped. Leonardson was agitated, bordering on the hysterical. He raised his finger to an idea; no point in trying to hide his original intent now. “I could have them blown away, yes…” he smiled, warming to it idea. “I have contacts, people in high places, like you, Kurt. It would only take one phone call.” His mind was racing now, almost oblivious to Leonardson’s presence in the room.
“It’s too late for that. Standard protocol requires that the CSETI, after identifying a craft, register it with the moon-base. Even you know that. People on the moon will be expecting them. Too many eyes are watching, Douglas, you can’t just make them disappear.”
“But we must be able to do something,” Mannheim said again, rising from his seat. “You and me.”
“Sit down!”
“Kurt…” Mannheim spread his hands in an open gesture, “…Like it or not, we’re in this together. Always have been.”
Leonardson drew the revolver and leveled it at Mannheim’s chest. “Sit the fuck down!” he exploded, his face a testimony to the madness that raged inside him. Leonardson had suddenly become the embodiment of menace.
Mannheim froze. “Kurt, you’re not…”
The arm holding the gun swung violently to the right and Mannheim jumped in fright as two deafening bangs filled the office. He turned to look over his shoulder. Two neat holes had been punched in a window of the office’s glass wall. Cracks of varying lengths radiated outwards from them like strands of cobweb. Mannheim turned to look back at Leonardson and found himself looking down the barrel of the revolver which was now trained back on him. Beyond the gun sight, Leonardson’s face was grim.
Without looking, Mannheim reached back for the armrests of his chair, his hands floundering nervously in empty space before finding them. Gingerly, he lowered himself back into his seat.
Leonardson walked around the desk, never taking the gun off h
im. “Because of what you’ve done, you’ve brought this down on both of us…” He stopped, right behind Mannheim’s chair so that he couldn’t be seen. Just a presence, and a voice in the room.
“W-what are you going to do, Kurt?” Mannheim tried to turn his head to ask the question but came up short. He felt the cold steel of the muzzle of the gun touch his temple.
“…Well, it’s over, Doug, the whole sorry affair.”
A third deafening report shattered the quiet, but Mannheim didn’t hear it. He slumped forward and what was left of his head thudded into the desk. A pool of crimson began to form on the dark glass.
Leonardson blinked in shock, and then wiped flecks of blood off his face. He had to move quickly now. Even though the hour was late, he was not naive enough to think that the rest of the IZP was deserted. Someone would have heard the gunshots. Someone would be coming to investigate. He was not concerned with being discovered; in fact he counted on it. He had come here this evening knowing that he was not going to leave.
Mannheim was gone and Leonardson was finally free of the shackles of blackmail. But he was also a murderer, and he couldn’t live with that. Leonardson stood with his back to the window that bore the marks of the previous shots. They had been fired not only for effect, but for a purpose. The glass had not shattered like an ordinary window should, for it was tempered, but the fractures which spread across its surface from the previous shots had weakened it considerably. Leonardson checked behind, lining himself up, and then he pressed the muzzle of the gun into his left shoulder. Without stopping to think what he was doing, he pulled the trigger again.
The window spattered with blood as the bullet tore through his shoulder blade and punched a third hole in the glass. Leonardson dropped to one knee in the room. Searing pain shot through him, the intensity of it taking his breath from him. As he crouched there, waiting for the pain to subside, the first drops of blood from his wound dripped onto his polished shoe. He rose slowly. The pain made him feel nauseous and dizzy, but there was something else he must do. He walked back towards Mannheim’s body, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and cleaning the butt of the gun with it. When he was satisfied, he placed the gun in Mannheim’s limp hand, carefully curling a finger over the trigger, before returning to stand in front of the blood spattered window. He turned and looked towards the door. He thought he heard something. Maybe they were coming. Maybe he was already out of time.
He turned back to the window and started to run towards it. He brought his arms up to protect his face and then crashed through the glass, falling through the night. Fragments rained down on him long after he was dead.
* * * * *
It had been a busy day in downtown Chicago’s homicide department. It was always a busy day in downtown Chicago’s homicide department.
Detective superintendent Ed Lieberwits sat at his desk and looked forlornly into a crumpled cigarette packet. He was down to his last smoke. The ashtray full of butts accused him of addiction. He’d drunk enough synthetic coffee today to keep him awake for the next two nights, but he’d figured one more wouldn’t hurt and had just returned from the nearby replicator down the hall. He slurped a sip of the scalding liquid, winced at its strength and temperature and replaced the steaming cup on his desk.
When the telelink rang, he reached for the com button and instinctively looked at the clock. Minor details had become the bane of every police officer’s life. Catalog everything—times, dates, places, phone calls—or some smart-ass lawyer would find a loophole and your man would walk. It was 11:30 PM exactly.
It was a prudent but nasty habit of Lieberwits’, since when he looked at the clock, he never looked at the link, and as his hand swept around to find the button, it caught the top of his cup and toppled it over. The dark brown liquid spread indiscriminately, like an amoeba, threatening to engulf the documents on his desk.
“Shit! Homicide. Lieberwits.” he said as he waved a page in the air. Streaks of coffee raced to the corner and dripped into the puddle on his desk. The paper was warping already and the print was starting to run.
A face appeared on the link. “Sir, we’ve got something for you.”
“What is it?” he asked as he desperately sought something other than his own paperwork to mop up the spill.
“Latest reports say shots have been fired at the IZP.”
“Shots? What, as in good old fashioned bullets?”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“And you called me because of that?”
“The first officers on the scene report two bodies, sir.”
“Oh, I see. Where did you say, again?”
“The IZP, sir.”
“That’s what I thought you’d said.” He frowned, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Okay. I’ll be there quick as I can.” Lieberwits grabbed his raincoat from the closet, draped it over his arm and snatched his hat from the top of a pile of case files. He slammed the door of his office shut behind him. As he placed his hat on his head and marched to leave the building he shouted, “Can someone get me a cleaning droid, and preferably one with a drying facility?”
The place was deserted except for two plain-clothes officers eating pizza and running a database search. “Looks like Lieberwits spilled his coffee again,” one said with a smirk.
* * * * *
Lieberwits saw his badge reflected in the visor of the young officer guarding the IZP office. Satisfied, the young man turned and deactivated the red pencil-thin lines of laser which cordoned off the area and identified it as the crime scene. Lieberwits stepped into the room. The place was already busy with people.
Men in white polythene suits crouched over the floor; two were examining glass fragments by the window, others were dusting down cupboards and collecting items that they were putting in labeled plastic bags.
“Ed.” He turned at the mention of his name. A middle-aged sergeant was strolling towards him. He recognized him from the local precinct. The gold nameplate above his badge labeled him as Conway.
“What have we got here, Sergeant Conway?”
“Come on, I’ll show you.” He turned and Lieberwits followed him into the room, admiring the office and its decor. The zoo appeared to be a lucrative business.
Conway stopped and indicated to two of the men in white suits. Between them they reached over and pulled back a white sheet back just far enough to show what remained of the body slumped over the desk. Lieberwits grimaced and turned away. Conway motioned for them to drop the sheet back. “The other one’s outside,” he indicated the shattered window behind him.
“Do we know who they are?”
“Well, this guy, or what’s left of him, was Douglas Mannheim. Director of the IZP. The one outside is a General Kurt Leonardson. He worked for the Continuing Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.”
“The what?”
Conway rolled his eyes.
“Don’t worry about it,” Lieberwits said. “It’ll be in the report, right?” Conway nodded. Lieberwits walked over to the shattered window. The men in white suits parted to grant him access. He leaned out, looking down to see spotlights playing over the prostrate form of Leonardson on the rocks below. A patrol unit outside came down level with him, bathing him in a swath of white headlights and causing red and blue fringed shadows to chase each other around the room. Its turbine whined and whipped up a localized storm, forcing Lieberwits to grab onto his hat. “Can someone get this unit out of here?” he shouted over the wind that whistled through the shattered window. He heard someone bark an order into a com and a couple of seconds later, the pitch of the turbine changed and the unit banked lazily and lifted away into the night.
Lieberwits turned and walked back into the room. “What do you think happened?”
Conway looked up from the keypad he was furiously typing into. He shrugged half-heartedly, “Looks like a classic case of murder-suicide.”
“Motive?”
“Dunno, we’re looking into that right now.” Con
way returned his attention to the keypad.
“Mind if I take a look around?”
Conway never looked up. “Sure. Help yourself.”
Lieberwits snatched a rubber glove from the forensics trolley and pulled it on. Sitting next to the box of gloves was one of the plastic bags he had seen earlier. Holding it up he examined the contents closely. He put it back down and walked around the back of the desk. His head was bowed deep in thought. Why would anyone use a gun? That was just asking to draw attention to yourself. That was when he saw them. Drops of blood on the carpet. He crouched and looked at them. There was no way they had come from the body, the man had shot himself in his seat, and any blood that had pooled from his wound was on the table. Nor had it dripped from the table, it was too far away. He was behind the seat.
He stood and turned to the two men who had lifted the sheet earlier. “You two. Yes, you. Did either of you find any wounds on this body?” The two masked figures exchanged puzzled looks. “Okay, apart from the obvious.” They both shook their heads.
Lieberwits rubbed his brow under the hat rim. This made no sense. Gunshots created sprays of blood from the exit wounds, like the one to the left of this desk, and on what remained of the window. These blood spots were from a wound that had been left to bleed, that was actually dripping blood. There were other spots too, moving towards the center of the room, away from the desk but difficult to see on the dark carpet. “You guys might want to look at this,” he said to the suited men.
Murder-suicide it may be, he thought, but who here was murdered, and who committed suicide?
He started for the door. “Sergeant Conway, I’ll expect a thorough report by the end of the week.” Conway gave him a curt two finger salute.