by Tom Clancy
“So you spy on these people,” Andy said in disgust, “and try to leverage your way in to them to sell your games?”
“No.” Zenzo looked offended. “We’re doing market research here. We take a good look at all the publishers, try to figure out who’s looking for what, who might be more interested in what we have to offer. Then we disburse the information to other game designers. Despite all the colleges the publishers create, despite all these wonder programmers they produce, they still need people like us.”
“And like Peter Griffen,” Mark said quietly.
Andy studied the other monitors. Two of the people worked on backgrounds while two more worked on character design. Tommy T appeared to be testing gameplay.
“Peter’s one of us,” Zenzo said. “He didn’t go to their schools. He sent in samples of his work they couldn’t ignore. Blistered them with stuff they’d never seen before and made them come looking for him. Then, when he could have named his own ticket with any publisher out there, Peter pulls a fade for a year and announces he’s putting together his own imprint, subsidized by Eisenhower Productions. That takes brass.”
“You respect him,” Andy said.
Zenzo grinned. “No, man, I want to be Peter Griffen when I grow up. He’s an example to every self-taught gamer who dreams of making it big. That’s why I want him found. Eisenhower Productions isn’t going to just bury him and take his game away from him if I can do anything about it.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s in the contract,” Zenzo said. “If anything happens to Peter Griffen, all rights to Realm of the Bright Waters revert to Eisenhower. All rights, and every last nickel and dime in profit.”
“Why would he sign something like that?” Mark asked.
“Peter doesn’t have any family,” Zenzo said. “He grew up in an orphanage. That’s why he didn’t have a problem signing the agreement with Eisenhower. Who was he going to leave it to?”
“You think Eisenhower had something to do with his disappearance,” Andy said.
Zenzo nodded. “Without a doubt. They were the ones who chose the floor space over that underground tunnel. That seems kind of suspect to me.”
“Why would they abduct Peter?” Mark asked.
“After that thing today, when the dragon appeared in all those games, Peter was going to pull the game. We overheard two of the Eisenhower execs talking about it in the lobby right after it happened.” Zenzo turned to the heavyset guy in the Arachno-Boy T-shirt. “Tommy T, roll that vid.”
Images came to life on the monitor in front of Tommy T. Andy watched as a young man burst through the doors of the Bessel convention center into the hallway.
“The feek’s hit the fan in there,” the man said to another man in his mid-thirties. “Peter must have used one of the game packs instead of the rev he had.”
“Why?” the older man asked.
“I don’t know, but something’s going to have to be done. He’s demanding to pull the game. He’s getting ready to step back out and announce that the game is flawed.”
Without another word, the older man shouldered the younger one aside and sprinted back into the gaming convention center. The vid ended abruptly.
“Unfortunately,” Tommy T said, “all our cams and audlinks inside the center were down due to the bleed-over.”
“So you don’t know what happened inside the Eisenhower booth for sure?” Mark asked.
“I don’t think you have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out,” Zenzo erupted. “Peter Griffen would have pulled that game. That effect, that rollover into all the other games, that wasn’t an advertising stunt the way some people think. That was a glitch that he wasn’t going to allow.”
“You think they kidnapped him?”
“To keep him from pulling the game? To keep him quiet?” Zenzo nodded. “Oh, yeah. Eisenhower Productions had every reason in the world to do that.” He studied Andy and Mark. “I’m giving you this so you can do something with it. We could pass it on to a HoloNet server, but they’re not going to take it. Not from guys like us. They’ll say we created it ourselves, to get attention. In the meantime, Peter Griffen’s going to be rotting wherever they left him.”
Looking at Mark, Andy said, “I’m in. Zenzo may not have sold me everything, but I want a closer look.”
Mark nodded and shifted his attention back to Zenzo. “What else can you give us?”
Zenzo grinned hugely and swept a hand around the computer hardware-packed room. “Access. And there’s nothing in the world you can’t do when you have access. Peter’s out there somewhere. Let us help you save him.”
“Do you know what luminol is used for?”
Maj nodded, not wanting to look at Roarke. The Net Force agent was too dispassionate in her opinion. They watched from the hallway as the forensics techs finished spraying down the room with the chemical. “It makes blood patterns show up. Even if an area has been scrubbed, trace evidence remains that the luminol can detect.”
“Right.” Roarke leaned against the wall, seeming to watch in the idle speculation, like the whole investigation was just a textbook exercise.
“Agent Roarke,” the lead forensics man called out. “I believe we’re ready.”
“Light it up,” Roarke commanded.
The men placed the ultraviolet projectors in the room to play over the treated carpet areas. They turned them on and switched out the room’s lights.
Immediately a soft blue glow shimmered into being on the carpet. Most of it was gathered in a single area, but there were splatter patterns leading off from it. Maj knew the blue glow represented the amount of blood that had been spilled there recently. God, that’s a lot.
“He was a big guy,” Matt whispered as he came up beside her and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “And maybe that’s not all from him.”
Roarke pushed off the wall and pulled his foilpack out. “Do the entire room. Every scrap, every fiber. I want it all yesterday, and I want it done right.” He glanced at Maj. “Think you and your friends can cover the hospitals? Call and see if someone was admitted to an ER tonight that fits Oscar Raitt’s descriptions? I’m going to see what kind of help Captain Winters can scrounge up for us.”
Maj nodded and took out her own foilpack. Her mind whirled with the possibilities, but it felt good to have something to do. She just didn’t know if Roarke knew that or was just handing off a job he didn’t believe in and didn’t want to do himself.
Back in her room Maj looked over the notes she’d made during the phone calls to all the city’s emergency rooms. It was a short list. Thankfully Oscar Raitt wasn’t just an average person. She’d been surprised how many people had been admitted during the two-hour time frame in question.
Out of all those, only two had any potential for being Oscar Raitt. One of them was in Orange County lockup for attacking a sheriff’s deputy, but Maj didn’t want to overlook any possibilities. She doubted Oscar’d had time to attack a sheriff’s deputy, but maybe he’d gotten spooked. Or maybe the charges were ersatz. Either way, it had to be checked out.
The other possibility was a young man of towering proportions who’d checked into the ER long enough to have a scalp laceration tended to, then walked out when the nurses and doctors weren’t looking.
Maj glanced at the time/date stamp on the muted holo in one corner of the room. It was a handful of minutes past seven A.M. Friday morning. Her eyes burned and she felt worn down to the bone.
Andy was crashed out on the floor in front of the holo, his hands folded behind his head. He snored gently. He and Mark had been out late and had been a little mysterious about what they’d been doing, but Mark had assured her that what they were bringing in would help. Mark was either at home or on the Net.
Catie and Megan had given up only a little while ago, returning to their rooms to grab a shower and a few hours’ sleep. Matt slept facedown on her bed, totally beat. The right side of his face had purpled up dramatically overnight. He’d
refused to leave last night, insisting on staying there to guard her.
Some bodyguard. Even though she’d only thought it in jest, Maj felt guilty. It was a further sign of how tired she was because she knew she had nothing to feel guilty about.
Leif Anderson had wandered off, presumably to bed.
And the mysterious Agent Jon Roarke hadn’t bothered to reappear after last night’s disappearance.
Maj underlined the two ER incidents she’d isolated from all the lists they’d generated. She answered the vidphone automatically, punching the connect button.
Captain Winters’s face appeared on the screen. A heavy five o’clock shadow tanned his cheeks, but the knot in his tie looked fresh. “Good morning, Maj. I took a chance that I’d find you still up.”
“I’m not sure how good it is,” Maj replied.
“I don’t know if I’m going to make it any better. Do you mind if I stop by? A holo transmission through the Net will be much easier to encrypt than the phone.”
Maj nodded.
A moment later Captain Winters stepped into her room. He gazed around at Andy and Matt. “Attrition in the ranks?”
“More like exhaustion.”
Winters nodded. “I won’t take up much time. You need to get some sleep as soon as we finish here.”
Maj recognized his words as an order, not a suggestion. “Yes, sir.”
“Intelligence turned up a file on Heavener,” Winters said. “If it’s the same person.” He gestured and another holo formed beside him. This one was of a slender brunette.
At first Maj didn’t key in on the similarities between the brunette and the blonde she’d encountered last night. The shape of her chin and jawline had been altered. And the blonde’s lips were more full. But there was something about the eyes — even though they were blue on the holo instead of the tiger’s-eye amber — which made the identification unmistakable.
“She looks a lot different now,” Maj said, “but it’s her.”
Winters waved a hand through the holo, and it shattered into millions of pixels and disappeared. “Heavener is only one of the aliases she uses. She’s a very dangerous woman.”
“I gathered that from last night.”
“I’ve got a full report I’ll send,” Winters said, “but I’ll give you the highlights now. Her real name — our intelligence division believes — is Katrina Mahler. She’s in her late twenties. She’s worked for the German terrorists, became a specialist in demolitions and close-in assassinations.”
Remembering the cold lights in the woman’s eyes, Maj believed it.
“When the German counterterrorist organization, GSG9, turned up the heat on Heavener, she fled to the Balkan countries and set up shop there for a while. Three years ago she apparently gave up political terrorism for the corporate world. There’s no real proof of that, but that’s been the speculation of the GSG9 people.”
“Do they have any idea of who she’s working for?” Maj asked.
“I’m checking around,” Winters replied. “So far the answer is no.”
“Her working for Eisenhower Productions seems unlikely — a gaming company and some kind of industrial espionage or security work?”
“Our profilers agree,” Winters said. “Heavener is addicted to danger. Her assignments in the past have always been a step over the edge. Whoever she’s working for, it’s someone big. Someone with a huge agenda.”
“But it must tie into the gaming world.”
“She’s here,” Winters agreed. “We have to acknowledge that. Figuring out who she’s working for would be a big help, but I want you and the other Net Force Explorers to stay away from her. She won’t think twice about harming any of you.”
“Yes, sir,” Maj replied, dreading hearing Winters order them off the firing line. But she didn’t want to wait. “Are we going to stay involved in this?”
Winters hesitated. “At this point I don’t have enough authority to get a team from Net Force down there. And if I did, Jay Gridley and I feel showing up in force prematurely would make Heavener and her employers shut down. Whatever they’ve got planned, it’s been underway for a long time. There’s no guarantee that if they backed away from the operation here that we’d have nullified it. And whatever they’re planning may even be in play now.”
“Yes, sir.” Enthusiasm at this point, Maj told herself, would be sooo out of place. She restrained herself.
“The convention lasts another three days,” Winters went on. “For now, I want you and the rest of your team to keep your eyes and ears open and to stay away from Heavener and her group.”
Maj nodded.
“And keep me apprised of any changes in the situation immediately.”
“Of course. Could I ask a question?”
“Certainly.”
“I need to know about Agent Roarke.” Maj felt guilty for bringing it up. Winters stood firmly behind anyone he put into the field.
“Jon Roarke,” Winters said, “has a lot of abrasive qualities, but he’s a good man. Before he got this assignment, he was on administrative leave.”
Uh-oh, Maj thought. Read that as bucking the chain of command.
“He achieves his assignments,” Winters said, “but his manner of achieving them has sometimes left muddied waters. Even so, I feel lucky to get him.”
“Thank you,” Maj said. “That’s what I needed to know.”
Winters said good-bye and faded from the room.
Maj peered out the hotel windows at the early morning sunshine breaking over downtown Los Angeles’s skyline. Despite the promise of sunlight, a cold feeling of dread seeped into her.
20
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Andy Moore said, jerking a thumb at Leif Anderson.
“I protest,” Leif said, dropping into a cross-legged position on the carpet in Maj’s hotel room. “There was no dragging of cats or other creatures in any of the gaiety I involved myself in.”
“It’s eleven o’clock in the morning,” Andy said, pointing to the tuxedo Leif wore. “Isn’t it premature to go out partying again?”
“Again?” Leif squared up the wilted carnation in the jacket’s boutonniere. “Actually, anyone who wimped out after the banquet last night missed the real parties where business was done. I was scouting the terrain.” He glanced up at the huge breakfast cart room service had brought up at Maj’s request. “Are those muffins?”
Maj scooped a muffin up from the tray. “Blueberry.”
“My favorite.” Leif took the small saucer with the muffin Maj passed to him. He sighed contentedly.
“You’ve been out partying till now?” Catie asked in disbelief.
“Yes.” Leif broke the muffin into halves and munched, then swallowed. “I had a few glasses of champagne and lots of coffee, but nothing to eat. Crumbs on a tux are just too tacky, especially when you’re trying to impress corporate execs who don’t admit to human frailties.”
Maj sat in one of the room’s chairs, her knees pulled up beneath her chin and her feet resting on the chair seat. All of the Net Force Explorers were gathered in her room, getting ready to descend on the convention center. “Were any of the meetings productive?”
“Most of them, no. However, I did get some information on Eisenhower Productions that was very interesting.” Leif took another bite.
“Okay, consider the time limit on the dramatic pause over,” Matt advised. He sat in the floor as well, the right side of his face a mask of purple bruising.
“If you’d looked at the business history of Eisenhower Productions two years ago,” Leif said, “you’d have felt certain the corporation was about to go under. They hadn’t had a solid hit title in four years. With the inflated cost of doing business after having a few profitable years, they’d cut designers and programmers from the payroll.”
“That’s stupid,” Andy snorted. “If you can’t make anything, how are you supposed to sell anything?”
“They tried to make it by just publishing games inde
pendent designers came up with. That didn’t work out too well. The guys at the top of the corporation were coasting, getting by on residuals from earlier games that still sold. Frankly, they were on a slow boat to bankruptcy.”
“But two years ago,” Maj said, “something happened.”
“Peter Griffen approached them and started negotiating the release of Realm of the Bright Waters. He’d put together concept art, computer graphics, the story line, and some gameplay. They knew they had a winner on their hands. The only sticking point was that Peter would be the one to set the actual release date. However, at that time Eisenhower was two months away from insolvency.”
“They didn’t tell Peter that,” Maj said.
Leif shook his head. “It would have been suicidal on their part. Peter was even picking up the tab for most of the development so he could maintain control over the game. They didn’t try to buy out any more of the interest than Peter was willing to sell.”
“Because they didn’t have the money,” Megan said.
“Bingo. However, they weren’t going to survive. They were desperate, so they started trying to find someone else to pick up their tab while they waited on Peter.”
“Why should anyone touch them?” Matt asked. “All they’d have to do was wait them out, let their contract and deal go south, then go to Peter.”
“Right,” Leif agreed. “And I’ll bet the CEOs and production managers handling the deal were on the verge of total melt-downs. Here was a goose that laid golden eggs, and they couldn’t even wait around for the first one to drop.”
“Why did Peter pick Eisenhower Productions?” Maj asked. “There were probably other corporations just as approachable.”
“There were,” Leif agreed. “It was just luck of the draw. However, the funding they got is like a national secret. Two years ago somebody poured a mountain of liquid cash into Eisenhower’s coffers. That’s how they were able to do all the marketing for the game today, and how they were able to shore up Peter when his money ran dry.”