“I heard from Jake.”
“Muy bueno.” Gomez started to smile, thought better of it and asked another question. “Is he alive and well?”
“His message was delivered by somebody else and I didn’t speak to him directly,” continued the agency head. “I talked with a very feisty attorney from Farmland. Georgia Petway by name.”
“What’d she have to pass on?”
“Jake’s found Alicia Bower.”
“Chihuahua!” he exclaimed. “I assume she’s okay?”
“Yes, and with Jake.”
“And where the devil is Jake?”
Bascom rested his sax atop his desk. “Miss Petway doesn’t know, mainly because he didn’t tell her exactly where he was heading.”
“But it’s not our way?”
“Not yet, he told her that much.”
Slumping into a canvas chair, Gomez put his booted feet up on a box of infodiscs. “Was Alicia actually within the confines of the Mentor joint?”
Bascom nodded. “Jake, with the capable assistance of Miss Petway, got her out of there yesterday,” answered Bascom. “Dr. Spearman and our old chum, Sam Trinity, were temporarily incapacitated in the process.”
“That’s not good,” observed Gomez. “Unless Trinity is under the sod, he’ll be champing to get even with Jake for taking her away from him.”
“No doubt,” agreed the chief.
Gomez asked, “Does this legal señorita have any notion what this is all about?”
“Only that it looks like Spearman was trying to mindwipe Alicia. No word as yet on what it is everybody is so anxious to have her forget all about.”
Steepling his fingers, Gomez rested his chin on them. “Possibly Jake transported her someplace where they can help her remember.”
“That occurred to me.”
“Could be it’s Maggie Pennoyer’s brain workshop.”
“That, too, occurred to me,” said Bascom. “And if we don’t hear directly from Jake by nightfall, I may try to contact the lady.”
“It might occur to that cabron Trinity to check with her, too.”
“If he has any idea where she’s hiding out these days.”
Standing up, Gomez stretched and yawned. “We can’t quite call this case closed, can we?”
“Too many loose ends,” said Bascom, shaking his head. “Speaking of which, Sheldon Gates remains in police custody in connection with the murder of Ford Jaspers and he still hasn’t said a darn thing. Meantime, I’ve got people monitoring the activities of both Myra Ettinger and Bernard Zangerly.”
“Our client’s padre is tangled up in this mess, huh?”
“According to the identification Jimalla Keefer helped us with, it’s Dad who was one of the Mechanix gang in cahoots with Shel.”
“I’m going to be checking with an informant later in the day, jefe.” Gomez wandered in the direction of the door. “Digging into Myra’s links with government agents.”
“Are you sharing anything with that redhaired reporter?”
“As little as possible,” said Gomez.
The rain was still there in the morning, thinner and quieter now. After his solitary breakfast, Jake went out onto the cabin porch and sat in one of the raw wood chairs. Gripping his mug of nearcaf in both hands, he watched the rain falling down through the forest. Twice in the first fifteen minutes a tree shimmered and disappeared.
A little after ten Maggie came’ out onto the porch. “Good morning,” she said as she pulled herself up into the chair next to him.
“How’s it progressing down below?” he inquired.
“Moderately well.” She rested her left hand on her left knee and swung her built-up shoe, slowly, back and forth.
“But?”
“I’d like you to come down and take a look at what we’ve got so far.”
Jake studied her face. “Have you found out what it is she knows?”
“Yes, most of it,” answered Maggie quietly.
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“This young woman likes you, lord knows why,” she told him. “More importantly, she trusts you.”
“Maggie, what in the hell is bothering you?”
“Nothing, Jake my dear. Not a damn thing, not a single god damn thing,” she said, gazing out at the woods. “I have an MD, don’t I? That means I’m tough and I’ve cut up corpses that once were living, breathing human beings and I’ve watched cute little kids die. Hell, I’m a tough old broad.”
“That’s what all the polls show.” Leaving his chair, he crouched beside hers. “You found out more than you expected.”
“I found a hint of something.”
“And you don’t know whether you should tell her about it.”
“Oh, hell, she’ll have to know.” Putting her hands on his shoulders, she got herself down out of the chair. “Have you wondered why I don’t have any chairs built to my size around here?”
“I know the answer, Maggie. That would be too easy on you.” She nodded, laughing briefly and quietly. “Come along underground with me,” she invited. “Alicia wants you to watch this, too.”
39
THE FIRST UNDERGROUND ROOM Maggie led him to contained two low white cots and an elaborate array of electronic equipment. Spread on a small metal table between the cots was what looked to be a collection of Tek gear.
“How do you use that junk in your work?” asked Jake when he noticed it.
“That’s an adaptation of my own, not meant for Tekheads.” Pulling herself up, she perched on the edge of a cot. She gestured with her right hand at the complex of equipment that filled the entire wall behind her. “By rigging a subject to all this formidable hardware—most of which is of my own design—I can get a pretty good idea of what’s been done to their heads.”
“And what have you found out about Alicia?”
“That clumsy bastard Spearman definitely tried to set up blocks to her remembering certain things,” answered Maggie. “He’s not especially deft, the damn butcher. On top of that, Alicia’s pretty stubborn. The blockages didn’t completely take, memories started spilling out and back into her consciousness. When people realized that, they got upset and decided on a return trip to that crackpot’s facility.”
Jake asked, “You know what they wanted to erase?”
“Not erase, Spearman’s processes don’t work that way,” she corrected him. “Tried to block, hide, keep pushed down below the surface of recollection.”
“But you know?”
“Yes, I unblocked it.” She pointed at the scatter of Tek paraphernalia. “Now, by hooking a subject up to that and feeding the impulses into my own variation of an ID Simulator, I can produce what amounts to a holographic vidtape of what’s being recalled inside the brain. These little peepshows aren’t completely accurate, obviously. Since there’s always a certain amount of subjective distortion and a loss of definition caused by the limitations of my equipment. But the results, Jake, ain’t bad.” In attempting to get herself to the floor, Maggie stumbled and fell to her knees.
Jake made no move to help her. “And that’s what we’re going to take a look at—the footage you got from Alicia?”
“Thanks.” She got herself back to her feet by grabbing the frame of the cot and pulling. “Most folks would’ve rushed over and fussed over me. You know better.”
“Could be I’m just heartless.”
“Nope,” she said, walking toward the door. “I’ve never had the opportunity of taking a close look inside your skull, but I’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s in there.”
Near the center of the large circular room four chairs were arranged on a low, narrow platform. Alicia, knees together and arms folded, was sitting in the leftmost chair. When Jake entered, she smiled fleetingly at him and nodded at the chair next to hers. “Sit by me during the show,” she invited.
He took the indicated chair, touching her shoulder reassuringly as he settled down. “How you doing?”
“As well as ca
n be expected,” she answered quietly. “Did Maggie tell you what we dug up?”
“Nope.”
Unfolding her arms, she reached out and took hold of his hand. “It’s not very nice,” she told him. “In fact ... well, you’ll see.”
“You sure you want me to sit in on this?”
“Yes, I am. I’m going to need your help afterwards, Jake, because ... well, you’ll see.”
Maggie had taken the rightmost chair and was holding a control pad in her right hand. “Shall we get rolling, kids?”
Alicia didn’t immediately respond. Finally, very softly, she said, “Yes, fine.”
The room lighting grew gradually dimmer and then darkness closed in all around them. Alicia pressed his hand tighter. Her fingers were chill.
A few feet in front of them blossomed a dimlit hallway. A pretty auburnhaired young woman, wearing a party gown, came in through the front doorway. It was late night outside this house.
“That’s me,” Alicia whispered close to his ear. “I apparently see myself as a lot cuter than I actually am.”
All at once a door in the hallway was yanked full open. Standing in the rectangle of harsh, bright light was a younger, healthier Owen Bower. The wideshouldered man was wearing a short bathrobe and clutching a drink in his large hand. “Come here, damn it,” he shouted in a gruff, drunken voice. “Come here when I call you or...
Suddenly he was gone, the door was only open a few inches now.
“I don’t know where that came from,” Alicia whispered. “It’s ... out of context.”
The other Alicia paused at the thin line of light, frowning, listening.
From out of the room drifted arguing voices.
“Don’t try any patriotic shit on me, Treska,” shouted Bower. “The price has already been settled.”
“This has nothing to do with flagwaving, Owen. What I’m trying to tell you is that the Office of Clandestine Operations can’t be bullied, certainly not by you or Myra, into—”
“Go to somebody else then.”
“You know we can’t possibly do that,” said Treska. “Mechanix has a virtual monopoly on the sale of servomechs, androids and robots in Central and South America.”
Bower gave a harsh chuckle. “You bet your skinny ass, Treska,” he said. “And every name on this list of yours, from Antonio Corte on down, happens to be a customer of ours. If you want the people on this shitlist to have fatal accidents, then you’ll have to work with me. And you’ll pay the god damn price we agreed on.”
“The price, Owen, was agreed on. But now you’re attempting—”
“That was a tentative price. But the technical difficulties and the various arrangements have caused us to be more realistic,” Bower told him. “To rig those robots and androids so that they’ll arrange fatal accidents—believable fatalities that don’t look anything alike—that takes time and skill.”
“We won’t advance you any further funds unless—”
“Quit screwing around with me. You know damn well you’re going to pay exactly what I’m asking.”
The projected Alicia walked slowly away from the door, disappearing into darkness.
“That was a year and a half ago, when I’d just come home from a date,” she explained to Jake. “The door to his den wasn’t quite shut and I heard them talking in there.”
Another image grew out of the darkness. Alicia in jeans and a striped shirt, hair tied back, was standing next to a heavy wooden desk. In her hand she was holding a sheet of pale-blue paper.
“Darling, that’s the list, isn’t it?” Bower had come walking quietly into his den. He was older than he’d been in the earlier glimpse of him, wearing a grey business suit and not yet showing any signs of illness.
“You ... you’re going to kill these people.” The paper was shaking slightly in her hand. “Every one of them, ten people.”
“Ten unimportant people,” said her father. “Oh, important to the OCO and to the Tek cartels they’re in on this with, but not people who have much real value to the world at all.”
“You can actually modify our robots and androids to kill people?”
“Easiest thing in the world, darling.” Very gently, he took the list from between her fingers.
“And they’ll fix it to look like an accident, a series of accidents?”
“We don’t want anyone to get caught or arrested. We’re not talking about kamikaze assassins here.”
“I just don’t understand how you—”
“Alicia, I’m really afraid you’re going to have to go away for a rest.”
The images were replaced by darkness.
Slowly the circular room grew light again.
“I can remember all the names on the ‘list,’ said Alicia quietly. “Three of them are still alive.”
40
ALONE IN HIS ROOM, shoulders slightly hunched, Jake sat facing the tap-proof vidphone. On the small screen showed the face of his partner.
Gomez and Jake had just finished filling each other in on what they knew about the case.
“The problem is,” Jake was saying, “that we can’t prove much of this.”
“There are still some hombres scheduled to get knocked off in the next few weeks unless this information gets spread around hither and yon,” said Gomez out in Greater LA. “As I told you, I’m on the brink of being able to establish that Myra’s in cahoots with some OCO boys. And, if and when Sheldon Gates tells all, that’ll link her with a murder.”
“That’s only part of the mess.” Then, grinning, Jake sat up in his chair. “Whoa now. Here’s our answer, Sid—Natalie Dent.”
Gomez tugged at his moustache. “I’m afraid, amigo, to ask you what the question is.”
“This is the big story she’s been waiting for,” explained Jake. “She’s not bound by the same rules that we are and, if I know Newz, Inc., they’ll be overjoyed to have her go on the air right away and allege this whole damn conspiracy. She can give out the list, those that have already been assassinated and those that are about to be. She can even hint that Mechanix International is strongly involved.”
Gomez said, “That would mean I’ll actually be giving the señorita the sensational scoop I’ve been promising her.”
“Once this is out, they won’t go ahead with the killings.”
“Si, and Shel may be persuaded to break his vow of silence,” he said, brightening. “And Bascom’ll be in a better position to spread the word to some of his highplaced government cronies.”
“I’ll be staying here one more day, so don’t give out anything on where Alicia is,” Jake told him. “But go ahead with the rest.”
“Bueno,” said Gomez, “it’s as good as done.”
The pretty blonde android private secretary rose up from behind her desk, placed both hands palms down on her desk top and glared reprovingly at him. “You’ve caused your poor father considerable anguish and worry, Mr. Zangerly.”
“Yes, I imagine so,” said Barry. “And it’s not, I’m afraid, over yet.”
The door of his father’s office slid open. “You shouldn’t have come here,” Bernard told him from the doorway.
“Do we talk out here or in your office?”
“Allright, since you’re here—come in. No calls, Irene.”
“I’d give him a good talking to, Mr. Zangerly,” said the pretty android. “Disappearing from the hospital, getting in a fight with an intern and then—”
“Yes, yes, Irene.” The door slid shut as soon as Barry was inside the large, stark office with him. “Everyone knows you’re here, our security system being what it is. That could be ... He sighed and went over to his desk.
“Dangerous?”
“I was going to say embarrassing.” The gaunt man sank down into his chair.
“Where’s Rog?”
“I don’t know.” He concentrated on arranging a stack of infodiscs that sat next to his voxclock.
Leaning, Barry swept the discs to the floor with the side of
his hand. “Look at me. Look right at me, damn it, and tell me you don’t know what’s happened to him.”
His father raised his head. “You and Roger have never been, not for years anyway, especially close,” he said. “Why this sudden—”
“He was looking into what happened to Alicia,” said Barry. “Mechanix is involved in her disappearance, and a guy named Rob Stinson and—and you, Dad. You’re tied in with it, too.”
“That’s ridiculous. And, Barry, I won’t continue this conversation if you keep yelling at me the way you—”
“Alicia is missing. Now Roger, too. I intend to keep yelling until—”
“Please, Barry, don’t.” He left his chair, knelt and started to gather up the scattered infodiscs. “What makes you think something’s happened to your brother?”
“Because I can’t locate him. I haven’t been able to for two days.”
“That’s not unusual, he—”
“Roger’s been checking in with me regularly. Then he stopped,” his son told him. “Stopped in the middle of trying to find out what you did to Alicia. Have you had Roger killed?”
Bernard left the discs on the carpeting and got back into his chair. “He hasn’t been hurt, son,” he said in a faint, tired voice. “Neither has she.”
Barry walked around the desk to stand over his father. “Jesus Christ, you’ve known all along where she is?”
“Please, don’t shout at me,” he said. “There’s no reason why we can’t—”
“Where is she? Just tell me where the hell she is.”
The older man reached out, trying to take hold of his son’s hand. “There are some things you have to under—”
“Tell me, you son of a bitch!” He yanked his hand out of his grasp.
“Over the years, Barry, you’ve never once wanted to listen to me when I tried to explain the financial reasons for my staying on here with—”
“Yeah, I know. It was your Mechanix earnings, your huge impressive take, that put me through school and made me the respected academic I am today.”
“It’s only that ... I got afraid that the money would stop. So I did certain things—”
“Don’t! Don’t try to blame your dishonesty on me,” shouted his son. “I never asked you to finance me, you wanted to do it. I could’ve earned my tuition on my own.”
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