Rock Killer

by S. Evan Townsend

  “Yes.”

  She put the visa in a slot on the computer and asked him to step on the scale. She typed on the computer then indicated he could step off. “Okay, Mr. Oaks, you have a seat on the next shuttle. It’s leaving in about eight hours. Please be in the terminal at least an hour before. In low Earth orbit you’ll transfer to the intra-Lunar shuttle. In the meantime, there’s the NESA hotel. Shall I get you a room? You can rest up before your trip.” She handed back the visa.

  “Thank you, yes,” McConnell said.

  “Also,” she said, “do you need reservations at a NESA hotel on the Moon? You’ll be arriving in two days. You never know if they’ll be full. You may end up in a dorm.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And which hotel, Mr. Oaks?”

  “The best one,” McConnell said, as if it were obvious.

  “Yes, sir. That would be the Selene. And how would you like to pay for that today?”

  “Credit.” He held up his wrist with the Roger Oaks computer on it.

  “Fine. You realize there will be a reweighing at check-in and any significant weight gain will be charged against your credit account.”

  “I understand,” McConnell replied.

  ***

  “Hi,” the woman entering Charlie’s hospital room said. “I’m Cathy Williams. I’m with the SRI West Coast Terrestrial Information Gathering Office in San Francisco. Joe Murda sent me down at Mitchel’s behest.” As she spoke, she glanced about the room, surveying it.

  “Hi,” Charlie said to the petite, black woman. At first glance she didn’t look as if she could harm a fly. But Charlie noticed Williams was aware of every aspect of the room. She seemed like a chemical mixture that just needed the right activation energy to give a violent exothermic reaction. A sizable bulge under her leather jacket was either a congenital defect or a very large weapon. She wondered how she got it past the locals. “You here to protect me?”

  Williams nodded. “Yes, and Mitchel wants you back in Tokyo as soon as you can travel. The local constabulary already failed once to keep you safe. The corporate spaceplane can be at Orange County Airport within a few hours, waiting for you, when you’re able to leave.” She had moved to the window, looked out, and closed the shades.

  Charlie’s eyes grew wide. “How did I rate that?”

  “Apparently,” Williams said, “Mr. K. liked what you did.”

  “Excuse me,” Freeman said, coming in the door.

  Williams spun, placed her body between Charlie and the door and had her hand in her jacket. She relaxed, but not too much.

  “Oh, it’s you,” Williams said.

  “You know each other?” Charlie asked.

  “Agent Freeman,” Williams explained, “got me in here, past the LAPD.”

  “It’s great,” Freeman said. “We got Trent’s activities to obtain support for the GA by a foreign nation. That violates the Anti-Terrorist Act of 2024. We’ve got her ass,” Freeman said with glee.

  “Whaltham?”

  “You won’t believe it. The computer had records of his financial dealings with the GA. He’s a damned psychologist in Denver named James Whaltham McConnell. The Denver office will pick him up.

  “Charlie, what you did effectively has shut down the GA. Beatty and Griffin are dead and Trent and McConnell will be arrested soon. Without them the GA is just a bunch of overzealous idealists. I’m flying back to D.C. right now to personally arrest Trent. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “That’s great,” Charlie said.

  “I forgot to give these to you earlier.” Freeman reached into his briefcase. He handed Charlie her SRI ID and her wrist computer.

  “Thanks,” Charlie said. She looked at her ID as if it were a holy totem.

  “Freeman?” she asked.

  “Yes?”

  “Why haven’t I been charged with unlawful self-defense?”

  Freeman put his finger to his lips. “Shhhhh!”

  Charlie looked at him quizzically.

  “Listen,” Freeman said softly, “this isn’t the state of Columbia. Yes, technically, you are guilty of unlawful self-defense. But no one is going to file charges. The only person they can prove you killed is Beatty, and he killed three cops to get to you. You’re a hero; even the media is treating you as such. The local authorities know that, politically, they can’t touch you.”

  “I didn’t mention it,” Williams said, “but that’s another reason Mitchel wants you out of the U.S. Once the hubbub dies down, you may be liable for indictment. But NESA won’t extradite you from the Moon.”

  “Well, I’ve got to go,” Freeman said, stepping toward the door.

  “Okay, bye,” Charlie said.

  Freeman stopped short of pulling the door open. “You did a great job.”

  Charlie smiled. “Thanks. You too.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  Charlie laughed. It hurt a little. “You’re right.”

  “Well, bye.”

  “Good-bye, Gordon.”

  He smiled and walked out of the room. The door slowly closed.

  “He’s cute,” Williams said. “Yours?”

  Charlie laughed again. “No.”

  There was soft knock on the door. A thin, tall man with longish auburn hair and beard walked in. He was wearing a lab coat and a stethoscope was draped around his neck.

  “Excuse me,” he began, “I need—”

  Williams was on him immediately. She pushed him against the wall and, while holding him with one arm, frisked his lab coat with her free hand.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “He’s my doctor,” Charlie explained.

  “Oh, sorry,” Williams said, releasing him.

  ***

  The environmental committee meeting went late. Late for Washington that is: about six.

  Trent went to her office. Most of her staff had gone home and she scooted her secretary out the door. Trent had some work to do and there was no need for the fellow to be there.

  Vera picked her up about nine and they drove to the house in Alexandria. Neither noticed the gray Fiat parked across the street. They parked in the carport, plugged the car in since its batteries were about drained, and went in through a side door into the kitchen. They started working on a light dinner together.

  “I’d better check the computer messages,” Vera said.

  “Okay,” Trent said, slicing some vegetables.

  Vera walked into the living room. The light on the old computer was blinking. Vera walked toward the machine but the front doorbell (another obsolete technology Trent and Vera preferred) rang.

  That’s strange, Vera thought. Who’d be ringing the doorbell at this late hour? She went to the door and looked through the peephole. It was two men in business suits. Vera didn’t have much use for men starting with, and especially, her father. She picked up the baseball bat kept near the door.

  “What is it?” she yelled through the door.

  “FBI,” one said. “We’re looking for Congresswoman Trent.”

  Vera chained the door and opened it, holding the bat behind her. “Congressperson Trent is busy,” she said through the crack. “May I see some ID?”

  One of the men held up a wallet with a badge and ID card.

  It looked official but Vera wouldn’t know an FBI badge from one found in a Cracker Jack box. “Okay, hang on.” She closed the door and locked it. The men could wait outside; it was starting to get chilly.

  Vera moved to the rear of the house where the kitchen was. She walked slowly, wasting as much of the men’s time as possible. And, of course, there was no energy wasting central computer system in this house to transfer messages.

  “Linda,” Vera said.

  “Yes, Vera?”

  “There’s two men from the FBI here.” Men and FBI were spat out like obscene words. “They want to speak with you.”

  Trent let out a long sigh. “Damn. Can’t they come to my office tomorrow?”

  “I’ll a
sk,” Vera said, leaving the room to hike back to the front door. She smiled slightly. This would mean more time the men would have to spend in the chill outside. She again walked slowly back to the entry, unlocked it, leaving the chain attached, and opened it. “Can you come to her office tomorrow?”

  “No,” one, the African-American, replied rather forcefully. “We need to see her now.”

  Vera swallowed hard on her anger at this impetuous man.

  “Fine,” she said simply and closed the door again and walked back to the kitchen again taking her time.

  Trent was listening to the computer messages.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Trent cried anxiously.

  “What?” Vera asked.

  “We got a message from Whaltham. The police know everything. Those FBI men must be here to arrest me.”

  “What can we do?” Vera asked.

  “The car?”

  “It’s charging but it’s pretty low.”

  “We’ll have to try it,” Trent decided. It might just get them far enough away. “Out the side door.”

  Outside the front door, Freeman pulled his coat around him. Why that woman wouldn’t let them in was beyond him. He looked at the other agent, named Palmer. Palmer pulled the radio pinned to his lapel closer to his mouth. “Report.”

  “Nothing here,” the woman watching the back door replied.

  “Nothing, yet,” the man watching the side door reported.

  “I give them 30 seconds and then we break down the door,” Freeman mumbled.

  Palmer nodded. “Everyone, prepare to go in,” he said into the radio.

  Trent and Vera ran out the side door. Another man was there, walking up to the door.

  “Ha—” he started before Vera tried to knock his head over the centerfield wall with her baseball bat. The man crumpled to the ground.

  “Shit,” Trent breathed.

  “In the car,” Vera hissed, trying not to talk too loudly. She unplugged the car and got behind the wheel.

  Electric cars make about as much noise as an electric can opener. Vera pressed the anachronistically named “gas pedal” and the car backed out of the driveway. As usual, it scraped the pavement as it pulled into the street.

  Palmer turned to see the old electric swing around and start down the road. He hit Freeman on the arm. “Hey, look!”

  Freeman saw the escaping Chevy. “Damn,” he spat. He ran for their car. The electric was going around the corner by the time they got into the Fiat and started the engine.

  “All units,” Palmer was saying to his label, “suspects are escaping in a distressed, gray Chevy Erg.”

  “Roger,” the woman replied. There was no answer from the man watching the side door.

  “Skwodovska,” Palmer said, “there’s no reply from Ligon. Check it out.”

  “Roger,” the woman said.

  Palmer then used the car’s computer. “Patch me into the Alexandria police.”

  Freeman put the transmission in gear and slammed on the accelerator. The motor screamed as it burned hydrogen and oxygen into water. Freeman threw the car round the corner, ignoring protests from the tires. He glimpsed the taillights of the electric turning another corner. He couldn’t see around the turn because of trees and bushes. The Fiat accelerated until Freeman braked just before the next intersection. Again the tires squealed as Freeman put the car around the corner. Then he slammed on the brakes. The electric had stopped in the middle of the street and its lights were off.

  The Fiat whacked the back of the electric, propelling it forward a few feet. The air bags blew in the Fiat and the belts tightened momentarily and then loosened.

  Freeman and Palmer jumped out and ran to the electric. Trent and the other woman were sitting in the front seat, dazed and bruised but, as far as Freeman could tell, unharmed.

  Deflated air bags hung from the steering wheel hub and the dashboard and into the women’s laps. The side airbags hadn’t blown. Freeman pulled open the door and wrenched Trent’s rotund form out and against the car. She offered no resistance. He heard Vera say, “Don’t touch me, damnit,” and saw that Palmer was pulling her out the passenger side. Freeman brought Trent’s hands around to her back and clapped on handcuffs.

  Palmer looked at Freeman while holding a struggling Vera by the handcuffs around her wrists. “Why’d they stop?” he asked.

  Freeman looked down into the car. A red light blinked on the instrument panel. Freeman started laughing.

  “What?” Palmer asked.

  “They ran out of juice.”

  The next morning he finished up his paperwork. He kept smiling. The electric car ran out of juice. Explaining the damage to the Fiat, government property, was going to be interesting.

  The computer beeped and he hit the answer button and turned to the screen. It was Chaikin.

  “Freeman,” she said, “I’ve been looking for you. McConnell’s missing. His wife says she doesn’t know where he is. Airline records show that he bought a ticket to Seattle.”

  “You called the Seattle office?”

  “Yes and they met the plane. He wasn’t on it. He bought a ticket in Whaltham’s name to L.A. but he wasn’t on that flight either.”

  “Damn,” Freeman said. “What happened to him?”

  Chaikin shrugged. “He disappeared into thin air.”

  ***

  McConnell tried not to think about how thin the air was outside the tiny window. The shuttle took off just like a spaceplane but continued to accelerate into low Earth orbit. It docked with the intra-lunar shuttle and the passengers and equipment were transferred. Using Masuka drives manufactured by Space Resources Inc., the stubby, cylindrical shuttle proceeded to the Moon.

  McConnell hated free-fall and lost his last meal into a little bag. He was happy when the Masuka drives kicked in. He looked for Trent and half expected her to be on the shuttle. She did have eight hours to catch up.

  He watched the news from his seat and learned Trent had been arrested. The FBI was being closed-mouthed about the charges but there were reports it had to do with terrorism. Oh, well, McConnell thought. He never liked that old dyke anyway.

  There was a lot of news on the continuing drama of the asteroid and some on the Los Angeles shoot-out. Beatty, it seemed, had found that SRI spy in the hospital but she’d killed him. And they weren’t charging her. In fact, she was being treated like a hero by the right-wing, establishment media. He turned off the news program in disgust.

  Then he smiled at the memory of his last night in L.A.

  ***

  Charlie’s doctor released her, reluctantly, on the evening of the second day after she’d been admitted. With Williams in the lead, two local cops, and a nurse, Charlie was led to a room marked “Checkout.” A tired looking clerk sat behind a computer.

  “Name?” he asked.

  “Charlie Jones,” a cop said. “Admitted under Jane Doe in the ER.”

  The clerk spoke softly to the computer for a moment, then said, “Uh-oh. We have a problem. You must not be a U.S. citizen. You’re not covered under MediSecurity. You’ll have to pay for your treatment or apply for government assistance.”

  “Space Resources Incorporated Medical Services will be paying the bill,” Williams said, handing her SRI ID.

  “What’s this?” the clerk asked.

  “Treat it like a MediSecurity card.”

  He put the card in the slot on the computer and watched the screen, occasionally raising an eyebrow. He spoke to the computer a couple of times, then looked surprised.

  “Okay,” he said, “paid in full. You’re free to go.” He handed back the ID.

  With her entourage, Charlie left the room. In the lobby, police were watching everything and everybody. They wheeled Charlie out the door into the cool night air, where even more police and an ambulance waited. Behind it was an empty van. The nurse and Williams helped Charlie into the ambulance and the nurse made her lie down on the stretcher. Williams knelt beside her.

>   Just before the door of the ambulance was closed, Charlie saw men and women that she assumed were just passersby run to the van and start to get in. The ambulance drove away and the van followed.

  At the airport, after passing through a gate, the ambulance drove out on the tarmac. The world’s only business-sized spaceplane, built for SRI by Mitsubishi-Sukhoi, was sitting on the concrete, bathed in light that was beating back the darkness. With its curved fuselage and delta wings, it looked like a living thing, a lovely, powerful bird ready to spring into space.

  SRI Security personnel exited the van and fanned out around the ambulance. Charlie saw their weapons glisten in the harsh, artificial light. Charlie wondered briefly how many laws were being broken.

  Cathy Williams looked out the window in the van’s rear door.

  “Looks secure,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  The door to the ambulance opened and Charlie’s stretcher was gently pulled out and taken to the door of the spaceplane.

  Charlie gingerly stood and, with Williams’s help, moved to the door.

  Mitchel came out of the plane.

  “Mitch!” Charlie exclaimed and held out her arms. “You old son of a bitch, I’m glad to see you.”

  Mitchel came down the stairs to meet her and gave her a gentle embrace. “Hi, Charlie. Ready to go home?”

  “Home?” she asked as he released her.

  “I can have you on the Moon in two days if you feel up to it and the doctors approve.”

  “You mean off this dirt-ball?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Let’s go!” she said moving too quickly. “Ow, damn it.”

  In the descent phase of the SRI spaceplane’s parabolic arch over the Pacific, Mitchel looked at Charlie and said, “What are you going to do now, Charlie?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “I still have to recover from this.”

  “Yes, but after that?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t.”

  “There’s still asteroid positions available for 2062. That’ll be a rush job because of what happened to 1961. It’ll be a challenge, but after this I think you can do anything you put your mind to.”

  Charlie shrugged. “I don’t know, Mitch. I don’t know if I can do it. If it hadn’t been for your help I’d still be stuck in Esmeraldas. And Frank helped me a lot on the Moon.”