The Mirror Maze

by James P. Hogan

  Slade continued. “Naturally, we expect her to be out there with everyone else if she does show up, so that’s where we look. But she’s not there. There’s a woman at the gate, all wrapped up and in a hat, but she just looks like somebody passing by who stopped to watch, so we don’t pay any attention. However, we do recognize an old boyfriend of Eva’s, Shears. Since there doesn’t seem to be anything else going, we decide to tail him when he drives out, on the off-chance that he might give us some kind of lead. But a little way down the road, he picks up the woman who was outside the gate. They drive out to the ocean and stop to look at the view. Why? Who knows? But when the woman gets out of the car she’s taken her hat off and let out her hair. It’s Eva.”

  “You thought,” Landis interjected.

  Slade shook his head. “No, we were sure, Warren. She’s right here in the next room with Larry and Shears at this moment, and we’re still sure of it.”

  “Okay. So what happened then?”

  George shrugged. “We get out and go over to talk to them, but as soon as they see us, they go crazy. She’s yelling as if we’re about to mug ’em or something, he grabs me when I try to stop her going over the edge. Everyone’s yelling. So we bundled them in the car and brought them back here.”

  Landis shook his head reproachfully. “You mean you used force? That’s bad. I suppose you know that Shears is a lawyer?”

  “Shit, that’s all we needed,” Bassen muttered over his shoulder from the window.

  George’s voice rose in protest and his hands flashed in front of his face on the screen. “We were on the edge of a mile-high drop straight into the ocean, for chrissakes! They guy was heaving half-ton rocks at Larry’s head, and she was about to pull us all over the edge! Anyone could have come along. It wasn’t exactly the time for a conference.”

  “Okay, okay. So what kind of a mood are they in now? Is there still trouble?”

  “George says they’re taking it pretty calmly, considering, which is something, I guess,” Bassen answered, turning back from the window.

  “They’re not saying much, but I think they thought we were somebody else,” Slade said.

  “Hum.” Landis stroked his chin. “Who did they think you were? Any idea?”

  Slade shook his head. “They won’t say anything until they’ve got a better idea who we are.”

  “And we don’t want to admit that and invite a public circus over it,” Bassen said. He came back to stand next to Landis in front of the screen. “I say we just wrap it up. Give ’em a grand each with apologies and no explanations, say it was all a big mistake, and get the hell out. What else is there to do?”

  “I agree,” Slade said simply.

  Landis, however, was stroking the sides of his face thoughtfully with the fingers and thumb of his cupped hand and gazing through the wall at a point somewhere near Saint Louis. Bassen’s uneasiness increased as he sensed the intelligence analyst’s instincts rising in response to a challenge. “There’s only one possibility it can…” Landis began. But then he seemed to change his mind. He uncrossed his legs and crossed them the other way around, without changing his leaning posture against the desk, and tried it from another angle. “This sister who killed herself and was buried this morning—did you know they were look-alikes? I read through the file before I came in.”

  “So that would—” Bassen started to say, then frowned. “No, that doesn’t explain anything, does it?”

  But Landis nodded, reading the part that Bassen had left unsaid. “It would if it was Eva who was buried this morning,” he said soberly.

  Bassen stared at him. “Eva? Dead?” A dazed look had come over his face. There was a pause while he struggled to absorb it. “What are you saying?” On the screen, Slade was craning forward incredulously, as if unsure that he had heard it right.

  “It would start to make sense if the one you’ve got there in the hotel is the other one, Stephanie,” Landis said. He reflected for a moment longer, then added, “And it might have something to do with why she didn’t go into the cemetery. It was supposed to be her funeral.”

  Bassen’s rugged, fleshy face contorted as he puzzled over the possible implications. “But… that would mean that her own family didn’t know what was going on, either. How could that be? This is getting crazy.”

  “But this guy Shears knows what’s going on, maybe… if he picked her up outside,” Landis suggested. “See what I mean?”

  “Sure, that’s all very interesting, but what are we supposed to do right now?” Slade said. “We’re liable for a criminal lawsuit already. I’m not about to tell them that Larry and I are official agents of the Constitutional party.”

  “Obviously we need to know what’s going on,” Landis said. “If we let them go now, we could lose the whole thing. My suggestion is that you take them out for the best dinner you can find and exercise some diplomacy. If we could find out what their attitude toward the Constitutionals is, it would help a lot. Try and get them talking about the election.”

  “But how long do you think we can keep them?” Bassen asked. “And what for? What, exactly, are you trying to achieve?”

  Landis looked at him with a distant, thoughtful expression. “Look at it this way, Ron,” he said. “It involves one of our people, who might be dead. If she is, then the whole business with Kirkelmayer will have to be scrapped. That’s something that Henry Newell is very concerned about. Now, he’s over there on the West Coast in Seattle at the moment. See my point? He might need to get involved in this personally. I don’t want to let them vanish again before I’ve had a chance to talk to him.”

  • • •

  Mel’s first reaction to the two men’s sudden appearance had been that they were from the KGB or otherwise connected with the Soviets, and that having failed to get rid of Stephanie the first time, they had somehow discovered their error, picked up her trail, and were seizing the opportunity that had presented itself at Devil’s Slide to finish the job. He was now satisfied that such was not the case.

  The question remained, What organization, then, were they from? It was obviously one that Eva had had some connection with; also, it employed people who did furtive things like watch people covertly, tail cars, and decline to reveal who they were. The first thing to suggest itself was that it had to be CIA, a branch of military intelligence, or some other national-security outfit. One convoluted possibility that crossed his mind was that if Eva had gotten herself mixed up in that kind of business, then maybe her death hadn’t been a case of mistaken identity after all. Was it conceivable that the KGB, or whoever the opposition was, had deliberately rigged her assassination to look like a faked suicide that had been botched by a nonexistent someone else who was supposed to have some reason for killing Stephanie, as a means of covering their own tracks? He found himself getting a headache from trying to untangle the logic of the double-double deceptions which that would imply. Could things become that devious in the world that he was being drawn into?

  However, the best way to find out more, he had decided, would be to say nothing. For it was clear that George and Larry—as they had been calling each other since the drive back from Devil’s Slide to the Embassy Hotel—although now acting amiably enough, didn’t have the authority to reveal even who they were, let alone what was happening. And if Mel and Stephanie were just as firm in not revealing anything to them—he had said that his name was John, and she had followed suit by giving hers as Mary—eventually they would have to bring in somebody higher up to break the deadlock. And from the amount of time George had spent on the phone in the next room, it seemed that was exactly what was happening. So, Mel was more than willing to wait it out in the hope of learning something. That was one of the reasons why they had come to California, after all.

  If movies were anything to go by, this was a very strange kind of abduction, Mel reflected as he sat at a table on the veranda outside the suite, sipping a gin and tonic and watching the jets coming gracefully down on their approach run
s from the south over San Francisco Bay. George and Larry had brought them back up to the suite after standing them an afternoon lunch in the hotel’s buffet restaurant, evidently endeavoring to make life agreeable—and coax out any further information that they cared to divulge—until answers came back. It had also become clear to George and Larry that they in turn had their own motivations for not objecting to staying around, and an unspoken mutual understanding had established itself, along with a far more relaxed atmosphere.

  “San Francisco Bay Blues,” George’s voice said from behind. Mel looked around as George came out onto the veranda and leaned with his elbows on the rail. Stephanie was inside with Larry, watching a movie on the TV. “Ever hear that song, John?”

  “Can’t honestly say I have.”

  “Old Jesse Fuller number—old-time blues singer. Black. Played a twelve-string guitar. Lived across the water there in Oakland.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought that was your kind of music.”

  “Oh, I went through a phase of it way back, when I was a kid. Even had a guitar myself. Straight, six-string round-hole. Electric didn’t go with the style. It seems a long time ago now.”

  George hadn’t removed his jacket, Mel noticed, even though it was a warm day. “Out of curiosity, George, are you carrying a gun?” Mel asked.

  “Sure. It’s all licensed and legal—part of the trade.”

  “What’s the ‘trade’?”

  “Come on, John. We’ve been through that.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “Why?”

  Mel shrugged. “As I said, just curious.”

  George pulled across one of the chairs on the far side of the table at which Mel was sitting, sat down on it, and produced an automatic from an underarm holster. Without getting too close, he held it out for Mel to see. “Know anything about guns?” he asked.

  Mel shook his head. “Not a thing. I’ve never even fired one.”

  “Best to stick to proven, dependable designs,” George said. “This is a point three-two ACP Walther PP, double action. It’s concealable, reasonably accurate as handguns go, with a four-inch barrel, and reliable.”

  “That’s a fairly light caliber, isn’t it?”

  “I use copper-jacketed lead rounds, which give you a fair wallop and stopping power at close range. You don’t want the lethality of heavier calibers and all the legal complications that can get you into. If you have to use it, you’d rather have the guy live to confess and account for himself.”

  “A point,” Mel agreed. “I’d never thought of it that way.” It also said to him that he was dealing with an organization that had respect for the law and concern for staying on the right side of it. That was reassuring, anyway.

  “That’s why most of the European police forces prefer lighter rounds, too,” George said.

  “So, are you in the people-protecting business?”

  George returned the gun to its holster and sighed in a what-the-hell kind of way. “You could say that’s part of it.”

  “Karate and stunt-man driving too?”

  George snorted. “You can forget that kind of stuff Ninety-nine percent of the time, all you’re concerned with is getting your principal from one place to another alive and in one piece, despite the efforts of the idiots behind the wheel you get anywhere anytime—drunks, housewives spaced out on Valium, pissed-off rednecks, students loose in daddy’s Porsche, you name it…”

  “And there are more lunatics out there right now,” Mel remarked. “The election’s had them pouring out of the woodwork.”

  “Do you work in politics, then?”

  “Come on, George. We’ve been through all that.”

  “Hm.” George looked away and watched a Pan Am wide-body and a Japanese Airlines SST coming in almost neck and neck toward the airport’s parallel main runways. “What do you think of the Constitutionals, then?” he asked, sounding casual.

  Mel couldn’t see any reason not to be frank. The situation was the reverse of that which applied at cocktail parties, where jobs and personal affairs were the stock of conversation, and politics was taboo. “Oh, I’m a tortoise,” he answered.

  “What about all the things they’re saying?” George waved toward the doorway from the suite, through which they could hear the sound of the movie that Stephanie and Larry were watching inside. His gesture meant the TV, the media, and public-opinion-molding machinery in general. “Won’t the little people go to the wall?”

  Mel shook his head. “Not if the taxes go as well. Let the economy grow and create jobs, and you won’t need the handouts.”

  “Wouldn’t we lose all our friends overseas if they wrapped up the foreign-aid programs?”

  “What friends? You get about the same respect from running international welfare schemes as we got from domestic ones. It isn’t appreciated as a favor. It gets to be demanded as a right. If you want real friends, all you have to do is let them trade on equal terms, and keep their self-respect.”

  “But if there’s no restrictions on free trade, wouldn’t that mean drugs would be legal?”

  George seemed to be interested in sounding out Mel’s position generally, for some reason. Mel was curious, too. George was a lot better informed on such things than somebody conforming to Mel’s picture of a gun-toting strong-arm man ought to have been. “What of it?” Mel replied.

  “Wouldn’t you be guaranteeing a crime epidemic?”

  “I’m not sure you would. Why?”

  “To pay for all the habits.”

  “If the price came down, there’d be less to pay for. Besides, if that’s really your objection, why not ban pretty women, fast cars, and exotic lifestyles while you’re at it? Banks get robbed to pay for those, too.”

  “What about all those demented crazies you’d have?”

  “Most drugs don’t work that way. The stereotypes of conventional wisdom don’t have much to do with reality. It all gets blown out of proportion for political reasons: scare the public, and then get elected for touting a program to deal with the problem. Back in the seventies, Rockefeller got the governorship of New York state largely on claims of drug-related crime that were exaggerated by factors of hundreds. You can still find those figures repeated in sources that are quoted as authoritative today. Nixon tried to create a personal police force for himself on the pretext of the drug menace. No… I think there are other problems to worry about that are a lot more serious.”

  “You don’t think it matters if people’s brains get scrambled?”

  “It matters, but the point is it’s their brains. They own them, I don’t. It’s not for me to tell them how they should use them.”

  George stared at him for a few seconds longer, then nodded abruptly and looked away. Mel got the feeling that the questions had been more than just curiosity. “That’s interesting.” George said. “I’ll talk to you later.” With that, he disappeared back into the suite.

  Mel resumed contemplating the scenery, trying to make something out of the conversation. A goon-for-hire with political awareness? No. Whatever else he might be, George was no goon. So, they were dealing with an organization that got involved in covert activities, and which employed not only professionals, but smart professionals. And it seemed to have a strong interest in the Constitutional party. That sounded like Eva, all right.

  “More and more intriguing,” Mel murmured to himself.

  He spent a few minutes finishing his drink, than set the glass down on the table, stood up, and followed inside after George. The movie was still showing in the lounge, but Stephanie was alone. “Hi,” she said as he came in.

  “Where are the others?”Mel asked her.

  “Through there. ” Stephanie nodded at the door to the outer room of the suite. “I think they’re having a conference. What were you and George talking about out there? He seemed very earnest all of a sudden?”

  “Politics, believe it or not.”

  “Did you find out anything interesting?”

  “
Maybe. I think that Eva might have been working for the outfit they’re from. They lost track of her, and they thought you were her. Now they want us for something.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Why else are we here? Why the lunch and the treatment? We don’t know who they are or anything about them. If it was all just a mistake that they wanted to forget, they’d have taken off long ago.”

  Stephanie raised her eyebrows and shook her head quickly a couple of times as if to clear it. “Any idea what?”

  “No,” Mel said. He looked across at the room’s datanet extension terminal by the bed. The “busy” light was on, indicating that George and Larry were making another call from the main terminal in the outer room. “But I don’t think it’ll be very much longer before we find out.”

  The outcome was that George offered them rooms of their own at the Embassy, courtesy of the “firm,” for them to stay overnight. He explained that “somebody from the top” would come to San Francisco to talk to them in person. However, he was in the middle of a pressing schedule and couldn’t get there until morning.

  “What if we don’t want to stay?” Mel asked.

  “Then, naturally you can go. We’re not the police.” George seemed anxious to keep the record clean. “But it would be in your interests to hear him out,” he said. “Think of it as a business proposition.”

  They agreed to stay. Mel then pointed out that they had rooms of their own already booked at the Crowne Plaza, another in the complex of airport hotels, just a few blocks away. That was where their things and their clothes were. How would George and Larry feel about their going back there and coming back to the Embassy for breakfast? That would be fine. The atmosphere had changed a lot in the course of the afternoon.

  George and Larry drove them back to Devil’s Slide to collect their car, and they returned with the two vehicles to the hotel. Mel and Stephanie went to their own hotel to freshen up and change, and later all four of them went into San Francisco for dinner. By the end of the evening they were getting along like old friends. Now, however, the only subject that George and Larry refused steadfastly to discuss at all—was politics.