Vertical Run (27 page)

The machine told him it was working. After a few moments it displayed,
“12 MATCHES FOUND. USE
<
ENTER
>
TO REVIEW. USE
<
DELETE
>
TO CHANGE SEARCH CRITERIA.”

Dave stroked the “enter” key again.

“FULL
<
F
>
OR AB STRACT
<
A
>
?”

Dave touched the “A” key.

The first four stories were recent articles from
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week
, and
Newsday
about Senterex’s acquisition of Lockyear. Dave didn’t bother to retrieve the full stories. He’d already seen them.

The fifth abstract read,
“LOCKYEAR AWARDED PATENT FOR D-RECEPTOR ANTI-IMMUNE DRUG.”

Dave touched the “F” key. The full story scrolled down the screen. It didn’t say very much. Nor did the sixth, seventh, eighth, or ninth story. The tenth, however, was what he’d been looking for:

It was a short obituary, four or five column inches at most. It didn’t say much. All it really did was raise questions.

Like what?

How did he get to be an aide to MacArthur? He couldn’t have been more than thirty-three or thirty-four years old at the time. You would have thought someone like MacArthur would have wanted a more senior man.

It was wartime, pal. You remember what that’s like
. Everyone
is young except the generals
.

He was a member of the Board of a Japanese company. The Japanese don’t invite foreigners to sit on their Boards.

It was probably a trade. Some sort of technology licensing deal. Lockyear gave them some patent rights, they gave him a Board seat. No big deal
.

And he had government connections. Pretty high ones.

Who doesn’t? Once you’ve achieved a certain seniority, you get those kinds of offers. Hell, Doc Sandberg has been on a dozen government panels
.

Yeah, but …

“Myna, this is Robin. Where’s your quarter hour check-in?” Ransome sounded as laconically self-controlled as ever.

The radio hissed. “Sorry, Robin.” The voice belonged to the lobby guard. “This goddamned radio’s fucked. It wiped its codes and I had to reset. Plus I had some company.”

Dave licked his lips. Swapping the radios had been a risky move. If the guard had noticed …

“Company? Expatiate.”

“Some fruit got in dutch with a bunch of prosties. They …”

“Who’s the pixie?”

Dave glanced at the remaining abstracts on the Nexis terminal. More patent stories. They wouldn’t tell him anything. He switched the machine off.

“Just some computer guy. Works for American Interdyne. He …”

“Name?”

“Ah …”

“Look at the sign-in log, Myna.”

There was an embarrassed silence. The guard finally muttered, “Well, er, with all the excitement, I forgot to make him sign in. But, I remember … yeah. It’s … I saw his ID … it’s … shit, I forget.”

Ransome growled, “Fourteenth floor?”

“No, twelve. That’s the computer room. I checked. Look, Robin, he was a real three dollar bill. Didn’t fit the subject’s description, and …”

“Snipe, are you reading this?”

“Affirmative.”

“Get down to twelve. Check him out. Maintain radio contact at all times.”

“On my way, Robin.”

Dave had been expecting that. He’d already turned on a half dozen monitors, and spread sheaves of printouts around one of the desks in the computer room. He loosened his tie, and tried to look busy tracing through a line of programming code with a red felt-tip pen.

“Myna.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Give it to me line by line.”

“Yes, sir. It was just after I came on duty. I observed the pansy running toward the entrance. Half the whores in New York were after him. He came in. They followed. He claimed they were trying to mug him. I think he was right. Those broads were out for blood.”

“What was their gripe?”

“They said he was a fag basher. No way, sir. The guy is a cupcake. If he tried to duke it out with a Smurf, I’d put my money on the blue …”

“No editorials.”

“Yes, sir. Well, there was some shouting and whatnot. So I had to show them my piece. They backed off. End of story.”

“And the queer?”

“Sick as they come, sir. My gun was giving him a hard-on. He wanted me to blow the prosties away. Anyway when he left, I watched the elevator monitor. He went straight to twelve just like he said.”

Better be careful how you travel, pal, they’re tracking every move the elevators make
.

“Description.”

“Ah … tall and skinny. Half-bald with blond hair. You know, with one of those swishy haircuts, how they trim it short and brush it forward. I’d say he gave Mother Nature a hand with the coloring, too, sir. Had eyes like Bambi, all big and wet.”

Eyes like Bambi, eh? I like that
.

“Snipe, what’s your status?”

“On twelve, sir. Computer room ahead.”

“Keep the channel live.”

Dave snapped the radio off and slid it into a desk
drawer. A moment later there was a tap on the computer room door. He called out, “It’s open.”

The man called Snipe walked in. He was young and cut from the same cloth as the rest of Ransome’s men—bulky, muscular, and hard in the eyes. He wore a blue rent-a-cop uniform. It was too tight across the shoulders.

“Good evening, sir.”

Dave glanced up. He’d found another pair of glasses, wire-rimmed. He peered over their tops, eyes wide and looking, he hoped, precisely like Bambi’s. “Well,
hello
. Come to keep me
company
, officer?”

Snipe studied him, making no connection between David Elliot’s description and the prissy-looking man before him. “No, sir,” he growled. “I’m just making the rounds. You’re working late tonight, aren’t you?”

Dave nodded. “I
know
. What a
bore
. I was just heading home from the Village when they beeped me. There was this
gorgeous …
well … someone I met.”

Ransome’s man pursed his lips and gave Dave a sour look. “Em.”

Dave sighed. “At night we’re slaved off of the corporate DP center in Missouri. There was a system crash. I’m on night call this week, so they buzzed my beeper. So much for
my
sex life.” He paused two beats, simpered, and asked, “How’s
yours
?”

The man glared at him, blushing.

Dave waved his pen over the printout. “Well, I’d just
love
to sit here and chitchat with you, but …”

The guard nodded, mumbled, “Good night,” and turned to leave.

“Good night to you. But why don’t you stop back in an hour or so. I should be finished then. I’ll brew up some herbal tea, and we could have a
little
talk.”

“I’m a coffee man, myself.” The door slammed shut behind him.

Dave pulled the radio out of the desk and snapped it on, the volume set to low.

“… catch that, Robin?”

“Affirmative, Snipe. Why didn’t you card him?”

“I was in the lobby this morning, sir. I got a look at the subject. This one isn’t him.”

Dave leaned back and blew through his cheeks.

“Okay, Snipe. You’d better know what you’re doing. Robin out.”

“Sir?”

“What is it, Snipe?”

“Sir, are you sure about his coming back? I mean it’s almost 2:30 and …”

“He’ll be here. There’s nowhere else for him to go. He’ll be here. And we’ll get him.”

“With all respect, sir, we’ve been saying that …”

Ransome’s voice changed. He sounded weary. “I know, Snipe. God knows, we’ve been saying that all day long.” Ransome paused as if thinking something over. Then, quite contemplative, he continued: “Let me tell you something: more than once today I’ve had second thoughts about the subject. Wondered about his record, about what he did in ’Nam. Most people would say what he did was cowardly. But, you know, you could look at it differently. You could look at it and say the man had guts. To do what he did took courage—a different sort of courage, but courage nonetheless.”

“What, sir?”

“That’s classified information. However, I’ll tell you one thing, if he did what he did because he’s a brave man rather than a coward, then I have been operating under a misimpression. And, gentlemen, it is a misimpression I intend to remedy.”

Ransome hesitated. Dave heard the snap of a cigarette lighter. Ransome inhaled, blew out. “Experience, that’s the key. The subject’s experienced—too experienced for the sort of maneuvers we’ve been trying to run on him. Listen, Snipe. Listen up, all of you. We’ve been treating Mr. Elliot like one of our usual subjects. Well, he’s not one of those, he’s not even close. Same as you and same as me, this man has been out there at the dirty end of the stick, down at the business end of the chain of command. He’s seen real life real close and doesn’t have any illusions.
Oh, Snipe, let me tell you who this man is: this man, he’s one of us, he’s one of our own.”

We have met the enemy and he is us
.

Ransome went silent again. Dave heard him draw on his cigarette. “That’s where this has gone wrong. As per orders, we’ve been treating him like one of them rather than one of us. An easy target. The usual procedures. And if he got lucky the first time, then all we’d have to do was apply a little psych-warfare. Bring in his wife, his kid, his friends. Shake him up. Slow him down. Make him an easy mark.”

He grunted. “Damn!—it just rolls off his back. I could stake his mother out for bait, and he’d just shrug and grease another couple of men. I’m telling you, the usual procedures won’t work with the man. He already knows them. We taught them to him. No, Snipe, the customary ceremonies of our trade are not going to succeed with this subject. Ordinary solutions don’t solve extraordinary problems. It’s going to take something special.”

“Sir?”

“I’m setting it up now. This will do him, Snipe. Nothing else will, but this will turn the trick.”

“What, sir?”

The weariness faded from Ransome’s voice. A tone of triumph took its place. “I’m reinterpreting our orders, Snipe. You don’t want to know how. Suffice it to say that this one is a masterpiece, my pièce de résistance. They’re going to put this beauty in the textbooks, I guarantee you. And I guarantee you that this time is the last time Mr. David Elliot is going to mess with this cadet. Before I’m through with him, the subject will be begging me to kill him!”

Ransome laughed. It was the first time Dave had heard him laugh. He didn’t like the way it sounded.

Showtime!

Dave had not planned on making his move quite yet. However, Ransome’s words had changed things. His guard was down, and whatever hellish trap he was preparing had made him smug and overconfident.

The phrase “target of opportunity” comes to mind. Likewise the phrase “counting your chickens before they’re hatched.”

Dave kicked off his shoes and ran out of the computer room.

The corridor was long, anonymous, lit from above with fluorescent light. A few cheap art posters were hung along its cream-colored walls. Dave’s stocking feet made no sound as he raced toward the elevators.

Snipe was standing in the elevator lobby, his back turned. He had his finger shoved against the elevator button, impatient for its arrival.

Dave moved in. Snipe sensed that something was wrong, and began to turn. It was too late. Dave shouldered him into the wall and thrust the muzzle of his pistol against his neck. Blood ran down the plaster; Dave’s back slam had broken Snipe’s nose against the wall.

Dave twisted the gun left and right, burrowing its business end into the man’s flesh. “It’s thirty-one, right?”