The VMR Theory (v1.1) (18 page)

Catarina suddenly stiffened. “Ken,” she said in a low voice, “I think we’re in real, deep, deep trouble.”

As we watched, a cute little animated animal that looked suspiciously like a Rodent poked its head out of what was obviously a beaver lodge with a beaver dam in the background.

“It is a new show called ‘Tee Adventures of Bucky Beaver.’ Tee narrator said t’is week’s adventure is ‘Bucky Beaver Meets Bun Rabbit,’ “ Trixie explained. “Tee narrator sounds exactly like Mjarlen.”

We sat through the animated part of the adventure in stony silence. At the end, Mjarlen appeared to explain the story’s moral overtones, including the symbolic significance of the penny that Bun Rabbit picked up, the phrase “And all the day you’ll have good luck,” and the applicability of the seventh commandment.

“Well, maybe it won’t have much of an impact,” I said with a greater degree of cheer than I felt.

Catarina silently pointed to Trixie. “It was such a beautiful story,” Trixie sniffled, wiping her eyes.

“Can we put Soaprah back on now?” Wyma Jean demanded.

We went back to Catarina’s room and laid down to get some rest. As I say, ours is a strange relationship. I studied her face as she napped. Her flowing hair was of white gold; her forehead the Elysian fields; her eyebrows two celestial arches; her eyes a pair of glorious suns; her cheeks two beds of roses; her neck alabaster; her hands of polished ivory; her bosom whiter than new-fallen snow—all the usual. Some of the Catholic religious orders know a lot more about vamps than they let on, and before Catarina had me to look after, she had seriously contemplated joining one of them. Of course, every time I suggest moving a step forward or sideways in our relationship, she starts dropping hints about the advantages of a contemplative life.

“Are you awake?” I asked.

She opened one eye. “No.”

“I just wanted to apologize for telling Harry he could have the charges. It was a pretty dumb thing to do.” I cocked my head. “Is that somebody out in the hall?”

She patted me on the arm and turned over. “Go to sleep.”

“Are you sure nobody knows we’re here? Rizvi struck me as a pretty sharp guy for a career bureaucrat, and the ambassador did leave orders to have us kicked out on sight.” I heard a rattling noise and sat up. “What’s that?”

“It’s probably just a cartload of chocolate chip cookies,” Catarina said sleepily, curling up next to me. “Take two and call me in the evening. As you say, Rizvi is a pretty sharp guy, for a bureaucrat.”

Around 1850 hours Catarina and I dressed up as Elvis impersonators and headed down to the garage. As we were climbing into the elevator, a tall Marine captain took me by the guitar. “Mr. MacKay? I’m Captain Kuz-maul, head of the embassy security detachment. May I speak with you?”

Kuzmaul was tall and athletic-looking, and under the circumstances, he was easily the last person I wanted to see. However, the door wouldn’t close with his arm in the way, so I smiled at him. “I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

“This will only take a minute.”

My arm didn’t seem to be going anywhere of its own volition, so I smiled at Catarina. “I’ll meet you in the garage in a minute.”

Catarina looked at me with concern. “Do you need directions?”

“Not if they begin with ‘Fourth floor and seven years ago.’ “

What she meant was, “Did I need help?” to which the proper answer was, “Yes, but only my psychiatrist knows for sure.”

I followed Kuzmaul down the hall to his office, where I gingerly planted my posterior in an armchair. Kuzmaul locked the door. “Ah, Captain MacKay—”

“Please, call me Ken.”

“A few matters have come to my attention.”

“I’m sure I have an excellent, and possibly even believable explanation for everything.”

“I’m not quite sure how to broach this subject with you. It seems that one of your crew members—-a Mr. Harry Halsey—sold some of my men artifacts allegedly taken from Prince Genghis’s Rodent warfleet.” He paused. “There seems to be a question as to their authenticity. For example, one of the battle flags examined had ‘Property of the Confederation Foreign Office’ inscribed on the reverse side in the lower right-hand comer.”

Truth is the first casualty in war, and it looked like I was the second. I shrugged. “Considering the source, I’d say that every souvenir your boys purchased is phonier than a three-term congressman.”

Kuzmaul ran his fingers through his sandy hair. “This is very difficult for me.”

“Placing me under arrest? I don’t know. It seems like everyone else has.”

“Oh, no sir.” He looked down at the desk. “I meant that, well, Mr. Halsey is navy. It’s just that, well, Marines have been selling fake war trophies to swabbies since the dawn of time, and if it ever got out my men bought fake war trophies from a swabbie, well—the Corps would never be the same, sir.”

He looked me straight in the eye. “I’ve burned the stuff and sworn my men to secrecy.”

I nodded. “Right. I’ll handle my end. It never happened.”

He shook my hand solemnly. “Thank you, sir.”

He walked over and unlocked the door. “The boys all asked me to wish you luck on making it out of here.”

“That’s really nice of them. Tell them we’ll give it our best shot.”

“I’m glad to hear that, sir. Some of them may have bet a little more money than they should have.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope. “I was asked to give you this. Once again, best of luck, sir.”

“Thanks.”

Catarina was waiting for me with Muffy, Trixie, and Belkasim. Trixie was wearing a submachine gun, crossed bandoleers, and an Interstellar Rifle Association hat. “How did it go with Kuzmaul?” Catarina asked.

“He wants us to forget those phony souvenirs of Harry’s ever existed. He also gave me this.” I opened the envelope and began reading. “I’m being audited.”

Catarina folded her arms. “I told you that you couldn’t accelerate depreciation on a missile launcher.”

I tossed my audit notice into a corner and looked around. “Where’s Calvin?” My radio beeped and I held it up to my ear. “Hello.”

“Gunslinger Six, is that you? This is Wild Woman Six. You’re supposed to answer with your call sign!”

“Uh, sure. What’s up, Wyma Jean?”

I heard her say, “Oh, my God! Not again.” There was a brief silence. Then she said in a subdued voice, “Ken, this isn’t working. I figured out why the diaper bag is so big.”

“Sorry. You’ll just have to do the best you can until we get back.”

“You know, Ken, I’ve been thinking.”

“What’s wrong? Er, ah, what have you been thinking about?”

“I want to be a dancer.”

“Sure, and I want to be solvent.”

“I’m serious, Ken!”

I thought I had at least as much of a chance of becoming solvent as she had of becoming a dancer, but I tried to inject some slight degree of sympathy into my voice. “What kind? Ballet? Tap? Belly?”

“Ken! I’m serious!”

“Sorry.” I tried to imagine Wyma Jean doing
Swan Lake
but it kept coming out as
Pelican Wallow.
“Can you hold that thought for a moment?” I cupped my hand over the receiver and motioned to Catarina. “She wants to be a dancer. Does our health insurance cover psychiatric care?”

“You’ll want to ask her what steps she plans to take to achieve her goal, but that looks like Calvin, so could we continue this discussion another time?”

Wyma Jean was saying, “Oh, my God! There he goes again. Where does the little slug hide it all? Ken, you got to get his mother up here quick with a shovel!”

“Uh, Wyma Jean, we’ve got to get moving here. Why don’t you think about this dance thing for a day or so, and then we’ll talk.”

“Ken!!!!!”

“Gunslinger Six out.” I turned off my radio and looked at Catarina. “When we bill Admiral Crenshaw, do we put this down as ‘day care’ or ‘hazardous waste’?”

Calvin walked up and dropped his satchel. “I’m here. Why aren’t we ready to go? We’re already four minutes behind schedule.”

We trooped out to where the car was waiting. Tskhingamsa tossed Catarina the car keys and disappeared. Muffy, Trixie, and Belkasim piled into the front of the vehicle. Catarina, Calvin, and I scrunched down in back.

Calvin grumbled, “You would think these people would appreciate what we’re about to do for them. We’re risking our necks to save their capitol and all of their elected representatives.”

Catarina grinned.

“Calvin,” I said earnestly, “think what you’re saying.”

Trixie stopped the car in the parking lot for the pet hotel. The capitol loomed over us, its massive dome showing the influence of human statuary styles. On top, beneath a very large dollar sign, a Legislator straddled a hog-tied Truth surrounded by gargoyles representing various special interests.

Calvin and I got out, brushed our hair, and walked across the street. When we reached the door, Calvin pushed down on the lever. “It’s locked!” he announced in a high-pitched nasal voice.

Plans rarely survive contact with the people assigned to carry them out.

“Any ideas?” I inquired.

“We could blow it open. Of course, that’s likely to detonate the charges inside. Now, I personally wouldn’t do it that way, but you keep telling me that you’re the boss, and—”

“Thanks, Calvin.” I touched my radio. “Uh, Gunslinger Six to Gunslinger Four, we got a problem. The door’s locked. Ask Muffy how she got in before.”

“She says she used the key,” Catarina reported back.

“Did she bring it?”

“No,” Catarina said cheerfully.

“We’re already seven minutes behind schedule,” Calvin pointed out helpfully.

“Do you have any constructive ideas on how to get inside without setting off the charges?” I asked him.

“If I had planned this operation, obviously I would have considered the possibility of the door being locked and taken appropriate precautions,” Calvin explained as he took out a small drill and bored a hole in the door to insert an optical relay and scope out the interior. “Now, I’m not running this show—as you keep telling me, you’re in charge—but it’s obvious to me that we have here a locked door with no key, so the solution is to pick the lock.”

“Good idea,” I said. “Can you?”

“What do I look like to you? A burglar? I am an ordnance disposal expert, and proud of it! Everybody knows there’s no locked doors in ordnance disposal.”

Swelled heads yes, locked doors no. I saw Catarina approach and fought down my first impulse, which was to embrace her, and my second, which involved Calvin. “Can you pick the lock?”

“But of course,” she said, producing a tool designed for that purpose.

“She can cook, too,” I explained to Calvin as Catarina worked on the lock. She gently pushed the door open.

Three cars full of cops pulled up. A dozen police piled out and began milling around the parking lot.

Catarina pulled the door shut. “Maybe we should defer this for a few minutes. Up on the roof?”

We grabbed Calvin and climbed a ladder conveniently positioned as a fire escape. From there we surveyed our predicament. Another three cop cars were pulled around in front, conveniently blocking our egress. I pointed. “That’s Wipo. I recognize the hat. What’s he doing here?” I looked at Calvin. “You didn’t tell anybody where we were going, did you?”

“Not unless you count Lieutenant Commander Stemm—you all right, Ken? You look a little weak around the liver.”

“No, I’m fine. I always groan when I feel this good.” I asked Catarina, “What do you think?”

She smiled in the darkness. “I think we have a problem.”

Feeling unusually conspicuous in silver spandex, I carefully ran my hand over the ledge where we were sitting. “Do they have pigeons here?”

“No,” Catarina said judiciously.

“Good. That means that I’m sitting in something else.”

“Things could be worse,” Catarina observed as we watched the Special Secret Police sniff around the building.

“Excuse,me? Here we are, trapped by people who intend to kill us, on top of a building that’s going to blow up in six hours, and you say things could be worse. How could things possibly be worse?”

Just then I felt a raindrop hit the end of my nose. “That was intended to be a rhetorical question.”

“We’ve got to get off of our bully pulpits and do something!” Calvin volunteered.

Catarina handed me her guitar and reached into her belt purse for some change. “You call it. Heads, we stay up here until we go out in small pieces. Tails, we go down there and eat lead.”

“Maybe we could hold off on making a decision for an hour or so,” I suggested.

Catarina brightened. “While we’re waiting, we could tell ghost stories. I know some good ones about poltergeists who scrawl graffiti on subway trains, and other things that go bump when they write.”

I took the coin from her and tossed it. “Tails it is,” I lied.

She patted me on the arm. “Here’s the plan. I create a diversion. You and Calvin slip inside and disarm the charges.”

I shook my head. “Let’s flip for the honor. That way if I win, I don’t have to finish doing my taxes.”

She looked down her nose at me. “Why do you always wait until the last minute to file?”

“Hey! I get an automatic thirty-day extension for being off-planet. Besides, there are several possible endings to this mission, not all of which necessitate my filing taxes this year.”

“Would you believe I had to fill out a 4562 and an 8829 this year?” Calvin said gloomily.
“And
a schedule H.”

Catarina took the coin from me. “Call it.”

“Heads,” I said.

“And
I made a mistake figuring my capital gains, which means I’ve got to fork over an extra three hundred that I hadn’t counted on,” Calvin continued.

Catarina caught the coin neatly and slapped it on her wrist. “Tails it is.” She held it out for me to see.

“Two out of three?” I suggested.

Catarina ignored me, and we both ignored Calvin. “I think I can crawl to the car without being noticed. Hopefully, the crowd will follow me. Give me the cash you’re carrying.” She began transferring it from my belt pouch to hers. “If I’m spotted, I’ll try the money-scattering trick.”

“Lydia is going to flip when she sees this on our expense account.”