Sparrowhawk

by Thomas A Easton

  Briefly, he told the tale, while the woman on the porch listened and his fellow officers—Larry Randecker was one of them—shooed the bystanders away. “Find the computer,” he concluded. “There’ll be another of those goddamn chips in it.”

  The Count gripped Bernie’s biceps with one hand and gestured with the other. “That’s what they’re looking for,” he said. “Don’t need a cargo hauler for a Hawk. They’ve got nets.”

  “Did you bring a body bag for me?”

  Lieutenant Napoleon Alexander looked uncomfortable. After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “We didn’t know what to expect, so…”

  Bernie laughed. “So you did!” Then: “Where’s Connie?”

  “We couldn’t be sure, but she was afraid it was you. She wouldn’t come.”

  “Excuse me?” Larry Randecker clapped Bernie on the back, but he was speaking to the Count. “We’ve got a veedo reporter.”

  “Tell him we’ll have the story later. At headquarters.” He sniffed at Bernie, then at the crumpled chute. He wrinkled his nose as if to say they both stank. They did, though most of the obvious mess was now embedded in the chute’s fabric.

  “Maybe we should put the chute in the bag. But come on.” He led Bernie toward the waiting Hawk, one free of sabotage, well behaved, normal, safe.

  “I didn’t dare.” Bernie had showered and changed his uniform for a set of overalls belonging to one of the Hawk handlers. When he emerged from the Aerie’s locker room, Connie was there, seizing him in arms like steel bands, laying her head on his chest, saying, “I just didn’t dare go out there. If I had to help shovel you into a bag…” She choked on tears, and he struggled not to pat her on the back. Instead, he squeezed her as hard as she was squeezing him.

  “Come on,” said the Count. “They’ve got it all, and…” Both of them followed, their arms around each other’s waists, as he led the way out of the Aerie, across the yard, and down the street toward the warehouse. No one worried that they were not upholding the proper image of a police force.

  The warehouse was as gloomy as ever, its lights as dim, its walls as darkly shadowed. Bernie’s Hawk lay where the Mack once had been, and the department’s butchers labored over it. The meat was fresh this time, and there was no need of delay for inspection. They were reducing the carcass to slabs of meat for the Aerie’s genimals. Probably, Bernie thought, some of it would find its way into the cafeteria. That sometimes happened; it always did when the dead vehicle was a Roachster, the meat of which was indistinguishable from lobster.

  The wreckage of the pod lay in a pile to one side, set off by a line of official sawhorses from the residue of the Mack’s debris. There were shards of the plastic that had been the pod’s bubble. There was the seat Bernie had ridden down, and the parachute. There were the straps the Hawk had torn. There were the crushed and mangled remnants of the control board and cabinets and computer.

  “Looks like you needed a shovel,” said Bernie. He let go of Connie when she tugged at his arm. He watched as she approached the butchers’ area and retrieved a tail feather.

  “Damn near,” answered a young technician. She stirred a mass of small, black fragments. It looked like a pile of dead beetles. “The composition board material shattered. These are all the chips we could find.”

  Bernie knelt and sifted through the pile with his fingers. Each chip—or rather, its epoxy, contact-legged housing—was intact, and its code numbers were legible. But he could not recall the numbers that had identified the PROM chips the saboteur had used. He had no hope of finding the evidence he craved, not unless he trekked back to the office. He did not feel like exerting himself when he was so certain of the result.

  Another technician opened a case. “Intact boards from a Hawk controller,” he said. “A full set.”

  Connie returned, carrying the feather over her shoulder as if she were a carpenter lugging a board. She murmured, “A souvenir,” and took Bernie’s hand. Then, while she, Bernie, and the Count watched, the two technicians carefully matched each of the loose chips to those mounted on the boards. In ten minutes, there were just two chips on the boards for which they had not found matches, and they had one loose chip that did not correspond to either one of them. Wordlessly, one held it up to Bernie. He accepted it, studied it, and thought the numbers looked familiar. Finally, he nodded. “I’ll check it against the others. But, yes. This has to be it.”

  “What now?” asked Connie.

  “Back to Neoform,” he said. “It had to be put in while I was there this morning. So whoever it is…”

  “But how will you find him?”

  Bernie looked at Connie until she blushed lightly. “Or her,” he said at last. “They keep good signout records.”

  “Want a Roachster this time?” offered the Count.

  Bernie shook his head. “I’ll be brave. I’ll stick with Hawks. Just make sure it’s got a good parachute.”

  He had arrived there before lunch and stayed through the lunch hour, Bernie told himself. Surely no one would have dared to tamper with the Hawk while Neoform’s people had been passing through the parking lot on their way to their favorite restaurants. But there had been a little time before lunch, and then a little more when the lot had certainly been quiet, waiting for the return flow of people and their genimal vehicles.

  He had checked the chip. It had indeed been identical to the others, and as he had with the one that had made Emily’s Tortoise go astray, he knew, without looking, exactly how it had been programmed. Had it been just that morning, that noon, that he had been telling her what someone had done to her? Now he could tell her that that same someone had tried a similar trick on him. Later, before the case came to trial, if it ever did, he would have to see Narabekian for confirmation. On both chips, his and Emily’s. But he had no doubts. The modus operandi was far too clear.

  The new Hawk had lifted from the Aerie roof as if someone had lit a fire under its tail. Had that been nothing more than the thrust of the beast’s jet engine? Or had Bernie’s determination leant it impetus? It did not matter. It was enough that the jet spread its wings and pushed him through the sky at speed. Soon the Hawk was banking obediently to circle above the Neoform estate. There was no hint of sabotage, no least suggestion that someone had plugged some subversive hidden program into the beast’s circuit boards, waiting for its first chance to get him. Bernie grinned mirthlessly. He hoped the sonuvabitch would try. The afternoon was winding down—it was after four already—and he could see that the Neoform parking lot was already emptying. He would land in a vacant area—that one, there, to the right, not too far from the building’s entrance—and leave the Hawk awake, not toggled down.

  The bird’s head was up, cocked now this way to look at clouds above its head, now that way to watch the traffic on the road that bordered the parking lot on two sides, now peering at genimals beyond its reach, now at people leaving the building, now at Bernie as he approached the entrance. Bernie felt confident that, this time, he was safe. If anyone approached the Hawk without him, there would be no need for a trial. He had come too near needing a body bag himself. This Hawk would leave so little that a baggie would be enough.

  Neoform employees were trickling past the reception desk. As each one paused to scrawl his or her name on the signout pad, a light glowed and the company’s central computer checked the signature against the template it had on file. If the signature checked, a tone sounded, and Miss Carol released the turnstile.

  A woman as gray-haired as Miss Carol stood behind the receptionist. Bernie, presuming she held down the evening shift, ignored her as he moved over to the counter that separated her from visitors. “Miss Carol…”

  “I just called her. She’s coming down.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not what I’m here for. I need to see the sign-in and signout records for earlier today.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “You can’t do that!”

  He sighed. “I can get a warrant if I have to. Someone here sabot
aged my Hawk this noon, and I want to see who had the chance.”

  “But that will take hours!”

  “I doubt it,” he said.

  “And besides…” She glanced at a clockface set in her console, and then at her replacement, who simply shrugged and said, “I’ll go get a cuppa.”

  Emily arrived as the other woman left. She looked puzzled, but Bernie quickly explained what had happened. When she said, “Oh, no!” and put a hand to her mouth, he flapped a hand. “I’m all right,” he said. “There was a moment there when I was saying goodbye to my descendants, but…” He shrugged and said what he was after.

  When Miss Carol objected once more, Emily said, “There shouldn’t be any problem. It’s on the computer.” She moved behind the receptionist and pointed to a slot in the side of her computer terminal. The printer was built in. “And it shouldn’t take very long to get a printout.”

  It didn’t. Though she grumbled as she worked her keyboard, Miss Carol was able within minutes to elicit a list, two single-spaced pages long, of all those who had signed in or out between 11:00 A.M. and 1:00 P.M. Beside each name was the time that person had left the building and the time he or she had returned.

  “Thank you,” said Bernie.

  “You can look it over in the lab,” said Emily.

  They were alone in the lab. Alan Bryant was gone. The broad screens of the workstations were dark, and the papers, books, computer disks, and pieces of apparatus atop the lab’s desks and benches had been carefully straightened. Clearly, Emily and Alan wanted to be able to get straight to work when they arrived in the morning. The desk and bench tops were not empty, though Bernie supposed sensitive material must be kept in a vault at night. At least, that was how it had worked in other labs past cases had taken him to.

  “I was about to leave,” said Emily. She led him across the lab to a bench with more clear space than most. When she reached it, she pulled out a chair for him. Then she kept moving, circling the bench until, safely untouchable, she could face him from its other side.

  Within himself, Bernie winced. So short a time ago…“Sorry,” he said, and he was, for everything. “It shouldn’t take very long. But it can’t wait.”

  “Why on earth not?” As if despite herself, Emily leaned forward over the bench. Her blouse gaped, and he deliberately kept his gaze on the sheets of paper in his hand.

  “Because it’s the first solid clue we’ve got.” He pushed aside the few pieces of workaday clutter that occupied even a relatively clean bench. Then he spread out the pages of the computer’s printout. “Whoever planted that chip had to do it when the Hawk was here. They couldn’t have done it at headquarters.”

  She pulled back, found a seat at another bench, pulled it into position, and sat down. “Couldn’t they have done it on an earlier visit?”

  He shook his head. “Too unreliable. I don’t always have the same Hawk. I try, but…”

  He leaned over the papers, scanning. He cursed when he realized that the names were in alphabetical order. “I wish it had listed folks in the order in which they signed out.”

  It was her turn to apologize. “I should have realized.”

  He found his own name. “Here,” he said, handing her a page. “Cross out everyone who left before 11:23 A.M. or after 12:47 P.M.” He did the same on the page he had retained. Those were his times, and they bracketed the vulnerable period. No one here could possibly have sabotaged the Hawk before he arrived. And the deed had been done before he left.

  Together, they studied the names that remained. One had “returned” before she left. “On vacation,” said Emily. “She comes in for her mail.” Most of the rest clustered near twelve noon. Only one left after 12:15, and that one signed out at 12:20 and back in at 12:29. A delay, perhaps, to allow the parking lot to clear, and then just enough time out of the building to do the job.

  Bernie sighed in satisfaction. “The only one.” He pointed at the name on the sheet of paper, the damning numbers beside it. “The only one who had a chance. I was afraid there would be more. Or that he would be cleverer.”

  Emily stared at the page. “But why him?”

  Bernie shook his head. “I don’t know. But at that party he asked about attempts on your life.” When she looked puzzled at the significance of that clue, he explained: “Attempts. Plural. More than one. And at that time, there had been only one that we knew of, the Assassin bird. No one suspected the Sparrow had been aimed at you. That’s when he became a suspect.”

  “But…” Her eyes widened, as if even now it were inconceivable that anyone would really want to kill her. “But why?”

  He picked up the printout, folded it, stuck it in his shirt pocket, and shrugged. “Rivalry, perhaps. Or part of his general mad-on for everyone in sight. You told me about that. Or maybe…” He hesitated.

  “What?”

  It had occurred to him that if Chowdhury were truly capable of trying to kill Emily, and of doing so with no regard for hapless bystanders, he might well be capable of other evils. And he lived, he had told Bernie at the party, not too far from the Gelarean place. That put him in or near Greenacres. He might have been the one who had treated Jasmine Willison so poorly.

  Bernie said nothing to Emily about his additional suspicion. It might be sheer coincidence. There was nothing except his personality that made him think the man was even capable of such an act. But if she met the man before Bernie could gather the final shreds of evidence and make the arrest, her reaction to him, involuntary though it would be, might give away too much.

  In fact, he regretted what he had said already. But that was done, past changing, and he would have to make the best of whatever came next.

  “He must be scared,” she said. “He left no tracks before, but now…”

  “I’ve been around too much,” said Bernie. “He must have thought our affair…” She winced when he said the word, and he hesitated. “Our affair was just a blind, while I snuck up on him. Of course he’s scared. They always are, and when they panic, that’s when they slip. And we get them.” It was, he thought, a cliche right out of centuries of detective stories. And though writers often thoroughly fouled things up, some things they could not get wrong. They were just too real, too inescapable as basic aspects of reality. They were cliches, yes, but no less true for that.

  “What next?” She licked those broad lips, and Bernie looked away.

  “I’ll need to get a pair of search warrants. Then, tomorrow, I’ll go over his lab and his apartment. Wherever I find him, I’ll arrest him. And you’ll be safe.” And back with Nick, he told himself.

  “Can I go with you?” She stood and began to edge, crabwise, toward the end of the bench. The distance between them increased, but Bernie realized that, really, she was drawing closer to him, diminishing the length of the perimeter between them. He held his breath for a moment, though he knew he was being an idiot. She was Nick’s. He was, he knew it now, Connie’s.

  Would she be safe with him? Taking her would not at all resemble standard operating procedure for a cop nailing a suspect. But she was certainly concerned, and he did still feel something—more than something—for her. “Why not?”

  * * *

  Chapter Eighteen

  A LITTLE AFTER Emily had left the house that morning, Nick had busied himself with doing laundry in the basement. Andy he had left in the living room with the veedo running and his plastic Warbirds within reach.

  Emily denied it, but he was sure she had a yen for that cop. Maybe more. He wouldn’t be surprised if she actually had something going with him. He had, after all, seen her face when Connie Skoglund had asked her last question. And if she didn’t, or hadn’t, she wouldn’t have said she wasn’t about to walk. But she wasn’t about to. She said so.

  He sorted the clothes as his mother had taught him once, long ago, thinking. The cop was lucky. Two women. That Connie wanted him too. Which one did he want? Lucky bastard.

  Or was he? Was he, Nick, luckier than he thou
ght? Bernie could have Connie, she had made that clear. But not Emily, after all. She had said she wasn’t leaving.

  Nick grinned at the sense of relief that rushed over him. She loved him. She must. And he loved her. He always had, he always would. He should tell her so, now.

  He set dials, pushed buttons, and waited a moment while the machine began its noisy labors. Then he went upstairs and checked on Andy, who had folded a throw rug into a mountain range and poised his Warbirds on the edge of the couch. He was launching the ‘Birds one by one to strafe and bomb the range while invisible ground forces strove to shoot them down. At the end of each run, the Warbird would scream, roll, and crash noisily before returning to the couch.

  The phone was in the kitchen. He punched the Neoform number, got the receptionist, and asked for Emily. The answer startled him: “Oh, Mr. Gilman! She’s in a meeting right now, but she’s all right. Really, she is!”

  For a moment, he could not speak. Why shouldn’t she be all right? He was happy that she was, of course, but…But…He almost shouted the words: “What happened, Miss Carol?”

  “I don’t know the details,” she said. A “yet” seemed to linger behind the words. “I’m sure she’ll tell you all about it later on. But she is all right!”

  He hesitated once more, as uncertain as he had ever been of what to do. Finally, he said simply, “Tell her I love her.”

  “Of course you do!”

  “What’s the matter, Daddy?” Andy was at his knee, looking up, eyes wide, drawn inevitably by the tone of panic in his voice. “Did something happen to Mommy?”

  Of course he would think that. Nick shook his head. “She’s all right,” he said, straining to sound normal, hoping that was the whole truth. “Want to go for a ride?”

  “Yeah!” The boy grinned. “But Mommy’s got the Tortoise.”

  “So we’ll take the bus.”

  “The airport?”

  “Why not.”

  Nick had heard that the gengineers had, in the name of historical aptness, experimented with turning greyhounds into mass-transit vehicles. Unfortunately, their long, lean bodies had buckled too easily under the weight of loaded passenger pods, and it had been impossible to correct the problem without losing the greyhound look entirely. Most buses were therefore based, like trucks, on bulldogs. A few were based on Saint Bernards.