The Centauri Conspiracy

by G Russell Peterman

Chapter Thirty-eight

  After the theft

  In every building for miles around the launch site area at fourteen minutes after four in the morning, an alarm sounds. It wakes everyone. The government spokesperson’s flushed and excited face fills every screen and all view-screen channels to give an official announcement about what has happened, followed by a second spokesperson’s face explains that a spaceship will be launched at 6:37 to catch a runaway New Horizons. After that a third announcer makes the local U.N announcement in a calm flat voice telling everyone that all ground activities will be delayed until the problem is corrected and New Horizon returned. Everyone, including colonists, should return to their cities where housing would be provided to colonists.

  Bakman and his family are able to make connections to return to New Dallas on a very crowded 7:18 hover-shuttle thanks to Breen buying a six-by-six foot space in the cargo hold at double the price. During the standing room only flight, Bakman tells everyone quietly what he has planned.

  "In a day or at the most two they will trace some element of the plan back to me; they will come to arrest me. I will be in the building alone when they arrive with a set of disks full of evidence pointing only at Harry and me—no other names are mentioned on any disk. Woll and two men will meet us in New Dallas to look after Dee and the children. You and the children are to go to the Clone Colony and are expected. Woll’s second team, his backup team, in the northeast part of the city has a set of disks and the papers that Dee and the children will need. Breen and his men will leave me at the office. I’ve a set of disks for Breen. They will take Harry's secret elevator down to the Sixth Level basement and make a get away through the lower tunnels."

  Everyone knew this day would come and they knew Bakman. He would meet the government agents or police with all the evidence they needed to convict him, and they would convict him.

  In the transportation hub, Dee hugs and kisses her husband goodbye. While kissing his children goodbye he pushes his last five books into her baby bag. Wishing it did not have to be, Bakman nods, gives all a smile, and whispers his final instructions to Dee, “Go in the ninth stall, look up, and wait.”

  A stern faced Dee walks away carrying baby Zee Vae in her arms. Mary the mechanical follows with the baby bag in her right and the older child Mary clutching her left hand. They turn into the women’s lavatory. Outside, Bakman, Breen and his two men wait five full minutes to give his family time to get away.

  Inside, a panel in the ceiling opens above Dee standing in the ninth stall as ordered. Arms reach down, quickly lift up all three humans, and a cable hoist lifts Mechanical Mary to a narrow metal walkway. Woll smiles at Dee and points at his two men. Mary carries Baby Mary. One of his men carries the baby bag, Dee carries the baby, and Woll replaces the ceiling panel before directing them down the overhead walkway and through a narrow service door. They hurry down a narrow maintenance hallway full of pipes and wires to a small repair elevator. With an entered code Woll sends the cramped elevator down to the sixth level basement.

  In the basement, Woll motions them toward an access cover over a ladder to the tunnel below. In less than three minutes, the cover is replaced and Woll leads them down dark tunnels with only small safety lights spaced nine feet apart to guide them. Dee is quickly and hopeless lost as they twist right and turn left and back straight again going somewhere in a maze of interconnecting service tunnels.

  Upstairs in the Transportation Hub it was time to leave. Bakman, Breen, and his two bodyguards walk outside and rent a large public hover for the ride to the OpDyke Buildings. Once loaded Breen orders it over next to the white line near the middle of the first level causeway and their heads turn from side-to-side looking for signs of police or assassins. Three buildings later Breen pushes end. Bakman leads them to an elevator that rises to the Seventh Causeway; they rent another hover and continue south. Eight buildings later Breen again pushes end, leads them to the elevator up to the Nineteen Causeway, and rents another hover to the OpDyke Building. On the way they do not see any police or assassins, but each of them knows that on this trip they are being watched and every foot of their trip is recorded—probably by both groups.

  At the nearly empty OpDyke Building, they take the main elevator upstairs. Bakman shakes hands with his three last men, hands each one a book, his last three books from his vault, and hands Breen the extra set of disks. All three men walk quickly to Harry OpDyke’ small secret elevator and manage to crowd inside an elevator designed for one person. Bakman punches in a special code, 2825HO1, needed to operate it. The elevator door slides closed. With a lift of his hand Bakman watches their faces disappear and his eyes stare at numbers descending as the unit glides downward.

  In the sixth level basement, Breen and his two men trot quickly down the hallway, take the elevator down to the seventh floor, hurry through the empty clone lab, climb through the access hatchway into the tunnels beneath the city, shake hands, and separate. With a last wave and a shout of a single word, “Luck,” at each other and the last three men in Bakman’s employ trot away through different tunnels.

  After the small elevator unit returns and the service light blinks off, Bakman walks to the vault, takes out the last set of disks, and two sheets of paper. He carries them to his desktop, sits, reads his and Harry’s confessions, and waits. As he waits, Bakman puts in a call to the Silo over the last secure line to order the release of all detainees. After that last call on the last operating line, Bakman enters the code 9825K to disconnect this special line from service in three minutes. Another typed code 7458CA deletes all information about numbers called to or from this building on all nine already disconnected circuits inside the local New Dallas terminal computer for the last two weeks. When this second deletion is complete a special additional third programmed code is activated by 6563M to add digital garbage to all lines and then deletes it all to make retrieval difficult. After full half minute, all records of any previous line rentals is deleted, makes a last payment of more than twice as large as needed, and files a request for a refund. Now, according to computer records this one unused line was discontinued fifteen days ago. All bills were paid for the ten lines used by the OpDyke Building and were, in fact, overpaid by three thousand and eight dollars.

  Just when Bakman was getting bored at looking out at the city or walking back and forth, the elevator’s yellow light, the in-service light blinks on. Two minutes later an angry voice on a wall-screen shouts as the screen fills with a carrot-topped blue uniformed face.

  "You’re under arrest Duncan Bakman. The building is surrounded. Better remove the elevator block or we’ll climb up and arrest you anyway."

  Bakman presses six numbers and a letter code, 7234B, into a panel on his desk to remove the elevator blocking program. A grim smile crosses his face as the numbers flash upward on the elevator panel.

  In less than half a minute, three junior grade police officers in their blue tunics burst into Bakman’s office with stun wands drawn. They walked over and forcefully yank Bakman out from behind his desk, slam him face down across it, roughly yank his hands behind his back, and apply restrains brutally tight to his wrists. The restraints are so tight they hurt.

  "Take that tray of disks and those two pieces of paper to your superiors. I had them prepared for you," Bakman tells the carrot-top junior grade police detective that seems to be the leader. Carrot-top nods he will as the other two policemen heartlessly punch, kick, and push him out of the office and through the open elevator doorway.

  The carrot-top leader turns back to the desk, folds the two pieces of paper twice for his side pocket, and lifts the tray of disks before he follows. In the elevator carrot-top orders over the COM, “Teams 9, 10, and 11, search the entire building.”

  It was a quick silent elevator ride down to the Nineteenth Causeway. Outside, an officer roughly pushes Bakman face first into the plastic cage of an armored police hover van. Not wanting that image on screens for weeks, Carrot-top reaches in, grabs his wrist rest
raints and arm, and lifts a struggling Bakman up to a seat.

  All city Informationalists record an arrested Bakman’s hover ride to the New Dallas Police Station number One. That day all local networks earned an income more than equal to two years profit selling at high prices recordings of that ride all around the planet. All Information Screens plan to replay Bakman’s arrest images on the evening news all over the planet for days and during his trial.

  “So … it ends the way it started,” Bakman says aloud to himself in his empty clear plastic cage as the police hover turns the last corner. This ride Bakman knows will make all the Information Screens all over the planet and eventually so will most of the information on each of the disks he and Harry provided.