The Archimedes Effect (37 page)

Lewis would have to pay him if she made the deal, because he could bring her down, and she wouldn’t want to risk that. Could still turn out okay, maybe.

Maybe he’d been wrong. It could have happened like she’d said. One thing for sure, if he killed her like he’d been thinking, that wouldn’t make him a dime. Alive, she might still help him become a rich man. He could live in Mexico or Brazil or somewhere forever with a couple million, and live well. Lots better than some of the other options. State murder charges. Federal rap for treason.

If she didn’t come through, he could always turn her in, or pay her a visit and drop her.

The Mall was a good place to meet. Nobody would pay any attention to them, and a cop searching for him wouldn’t put the lawn next to an art galley on the top of his go-look locales.

He could collect the money and head out. Get away, get set up, see what happened. If worst came to worst, he could always find a war zone somewhere and get work. Better than a kick in the gonads. Better than prison or the chair.

He headed across Madison toward the lawn. The Smith Castle was off to his right. He didn’t see Lewis.

 

Lewis, across the corner of Seventh and south of Madison, close to the National Gallery West, watched Carruth amble across the lawn, his back to her. Too far. She’d have to get closer.

She started that way.

She was maybe forty meters away when Carruth stopped and turned around, as if he’d sensed her. Any sudden moves, he’d jump.

Crap. Well. It was what it was. She already had the gun in her hand, still inside her jacket pocket. She raised the shopping bag in her left hand and waved it at Carruth. Kept walking that way. She smiled real big.

He raised his right hand to wave back.

Good. His hand was as far away from his hip as it was going to get.

She pulled the S&W snubbie from her pocket and pointed it. Stopped walking and lined up the rudimentary sights. One-handed. Forty meters. Not the best.

 

When Carruth saw Lewis wave a shopping bag at him, he waved back. Her breath made fog in the cold air. Bag full of cash? that would be nice—

Then he saw her pull her other hand out of her pocket—

Holding a
gun
—!

Jesus! He jerked his hand down for his piece, jumping to his left as he did—

She had to adjust her aim, she swung her arm to her right—

She was too far away, she’d never make the shot with that stubby piece at this range, he was okay, he had time, he had time—!

He grabbed the BMF’s butt, pulled the heavy gun clear, and thrust it toward her, bringing his left hand up to catch it in a two-handed grip—he had her, the stupid bitch—!

 

Lewis held the revolver one-handed, like a target shooter, but she finally had Carruth under the front sight. Take it easy, don’t jerk. . . .

She squeezed the trigger, once, twice, three times—

The gun didn’t seem all that loud out here in the open, though it made a lot of smoke in the cold air—

 

Carruth felt the bullets slam into him, in the chest,
thump-thump,
at least two of them. He was stunned. How could she hit him that far away with that gun?!

He tried to line up on her, but as he pulled the trigger, his arms felt weak suddenly, and they sagged. Came the monster
boom!
and the recoil, but he saw where the bullet hit the ground and kicked up a divot of grass ten feet in front of her, a miss—

Crap, crap—!

He struggled to raise the gun again. So heavy—

 

The blast from Carruth’s gun was loud, it sounded like a bomb, but his arms drooped as he fired, and she didn’t feel the impact of the big bullet, so she was still golden—

Lewis squeezed off the last two rounds in the S&W, was sure that at least one more hit Carruth, this one higher, at collarbone level. At least three hits, maybe four, center of mass, mostly. Best she could do. Surely he’d die before they could get him to a hospital—the bullets she’d used were hot-loads that should blow up any major organs they hit. Heart, liver, lung, he should bleed out fast.

She dropped the gun, turned, and walked quickly—not a run—toward the National Galley of Art.

Carruth felt cold as he collapsed to his knees. He tried to cock his gun, but he didn’t have the strength to pull the hammer back.

Lewis was walking away from him, not looking back.

The bitch! The fucking bitch! She had shot him! And from so far away . . .

His vision grayed out; all he could see was the green grass next to his knees. He felt his consciousness ebbing. Must have hit the heart, no blood getting to the brain.

He looked at the big revolver in his hand. It fell from his grip. Hit the grass.

That was his last sight as he fell forward onto his face. That gun. That goddamn gun . . .

 

Inside the museum, past the huge marble columns, Lewis smiled at the guard who was heading for the door to see what the commotion was about outside.

“Somebody shooting off firecrackers,” she said to him when he looked at her.

She headed for the bathroom.

Inside, she stepped into a stall and stripped off her gloves, jacket, cap, sweats, and shoes. She put on the skirt and blouse, the flats, and finally the sweater. She pulled a comb from her purse and peeled the Band-Aid off her nose. She turned the shopping bag inside out and put the old clothes in it. She would burn them when she got home.

She combed her hair in front of the mirror, smiled at her reflection, and left the bathroom, a different woman altogether.

People searching for a slightly built man or a woman dressed as she had been wouldn’t look at her twice. She was a citizen, an Army officer, and if anybody stopped her—which they wouldn’t—she would smile and talk her way past them.

She left the gallery through an east entrance.

She walked briskly north, away from the Mall, to where she had parked her car. Her biggest problem had just been solved. The rest of it, she’d figure out as necessary.

Jay was blurry from all the input. He had run down every fact and factoid on Rachel that he could find. He was sure he knew more about her than anybody alive did—if anybody had put data into a system that was linked to the web anywhere, he was pretty sure he had seen it, from her grades in primary school to her date for the junior high school prom, to every posting she had ever made to Usenet under her own name.

It had been like wading through a heavy surf. It would surge, roll in, and just about knock him down. He would regain his footing, and in would come another wave. Even skimming, it was a lot to see. And the little things kept piling up.

Item: Rachel had been in school when the Troy game had been posted on that server, and she’d had both the access and the skill to have done it.

Item: There was no translation on any fan website of the bug language that supposedly was Max Waite’s signature, zip, so that splotch of hieroglyphs could say anything—or nothing.

Item: It needed somebody with very good access to the Army computers to have gotten the information about the bases. And there was still no sign of an external hack.

Item: Jay’s version of the bug game, saved from an old site, was slightly different than the new version in which Rachel had supposedly found that old desert-scenario web page. That bit was missing from the older version, indicating it had been put in later. Somebody with a hidden door could do that, and backdate their input. It was easy if you knew how—and if you had a back door into the program.

She had never been pregnant, much less had a baby. She had no reason to love the Army, which had convicted her father of murder.

She had been actively trying to seduce Jay, and, let’s face it, he knew he wasn’t God’s gift to women.

She was the bad guy. That sucked, but he was sure.

None of it was solid proof. Yeah, she was a liar, but that wasn’t enough to put her away. Jay was sure—he
knew
she was the one behind all this—but his certainty by itself wasn’t nearly enough, and he hadn’t found a solid link to anything criminal.

He shut down the library. He was tired. He would go home, get some rest. Talk to Saji, much as he wasn’t looking forward to that, and hit it again as soon as he could. If it was there, he’d eventually find it. If it wasn’t there, he was screwed.

His com beeped.

“Yeah?”

“Jay? Can you come to my office?” Thorn.

“On my way. Good news?”

“Yes and no.”

 

At Thorn’s office, the boss waved him in and at the couch.

“There was a shooting today on the Mall. Park rangers and local police found a dead guy on lawn,” Thorn said. “Shot four times with a .38 Special revolver by a tall-short-fat-thin-black-white-man-woman-teenage-boy-or-girl, depending on which tourist you believe.”

He paused, his gaze steady on Jay. “The good news is, the corpse is Carruth, and he’s all paid up for his crimes. The bad news is, he won’t be helping us with our investigation.”

“Aw, crap,” Jay said. “What time?”

Thorn looked at his holoproj’s clock. “A couple hours ago. It took a while to ID him. They found a gun lying next to him they are pretty sure was the one used to kill the Metro cops and Army guy, but they’re waiting on FBI ballistics to get back to them.”

“Where was Captain Lewis when this happened? Can we get the Pentagon Annex logs?”

Thorn frowned. “Captain Lewis?”

“Yeah. She’s the one behind this.”

“Really?” Thorn sat up straighter in his chair. “You have something we can take to the Army and FBI?”

“Not enough.”

“But you have good reasons to believe it?”

“Yeah.”

Thorn waited.

“She . . . came on to me,” Jay said.

“Well, yeah, I guess that’s reason to hang her for treason.” He smiled. He started tapping his keyboard.

“I’m serious, Boss. I started doing some backtracking. Every time I hit a dead end, she was behind it. She’s been leading me around by my . . . nose. When I was about to out Carruth, she was with me when my scenario mysteriously crashed. She lied to me about all kinds of things. She had the skill to build the game, she had access to the information that was supposedly grabbed by a hacker. She has a reason to hate the Army. I don’t have a direct link between her and Carruth, but I know she did it.”

Thorn looked at his holoproj screen. “I just got the logs from the Annex. Captain Lewis checked out shortly after you did. She’s not back yet.”

“She went to meet Carruth and she iced him,” Jay said. “I’d bet every computer I’ll ever own on that. But I don’t know if there’s any way to nail her on it. I’ve been reading stuff for hours, and so far all I’ve got is a bunch of circumstantial stuff. She didn’t leave anything obvious lying around.”

Thorn said, “Maybe that’s all we need.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I have to call this in. Now that you’ve brought this to me—which is exactly what you should have done, of course—I can’t sit on this. But if I call General Hadden and tell him we are sure that Captain Lewis is behind the attacks on his bases, he’ll have his MPs grab her right away. After all, he doesn’t need absolute proof. She’s in the Army, and not subject to the same search-and-seizure protections as a civilian. Hadden will most likely have her reassigned to sentry duty inside a maximum-security prison until he sorts it out. If she tries to run, there’s surely some antiterrorism statute he can unlimber and hold her on. At the very least, it would stop her from doing whatever else she might have planned.”

Jay nodded. “Yeah . . .”

“But—?”

“It’s a slippery slope, Boss. I know she’s guilty, but if you can just throw anybody into jail that you want without due process, who’s next? If they can do that to her, then somebody could look at you or me and decide we are bad guys and put us away for years, too.”

“Like I said, she’s in the Army, so it’s not quite the same thing, but I understand your point, Jay. I even agree with you, but I don’t see an alternative here. It’s an imperfect system, Jay. Some folks’ll tell you that sometimes the ends do justify the means.”

“And sometimes they don’t.”

“That’s true, and I know you’d rather have ironclad evidence. So would I. But you’re sure she’s guilty, which means she’s still a threat.”

“Yeah. But I could be wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time, much as it pains me to admit that.”
Like he’d been wrong about Rachel, up to a few hours ago . . .

“You don’t think you are, though.”

Jay shook his head. “No. I know what I know. But—”

“What do you want, then, Jay? Would you rather see her skate? Get away? Maybe swipe a tactical nuke from the Army next time and blow up half a city full of innocent people?”

“No, but—”

“If we err, shouldn’t we err on the side of safety? If Captain Lewis has to spend a few days in detention, is that worse than ten thousand people going up in a fireball?”

Jay sighed. “Of course not, but that doesn’t mean I have to like choosing between evils. Either way, they’re both still bad choices.”

“Do you have a better choice to offer?”

Jay shook his head.

“Then I don’t really have any choice, Jay. I’m sorry.” Thorn waved his hand over the com. “Get me General Hadden,” he said.

Jay got up. He was going to head home, but his virgil blinked, indicating he had an incoming call. He looked at the caller ID.

He felt a deep chill.

Thorn looked up at him.

“I’ll be in my office,” Jay said. “One more thing I need to do before I go.”

It was her scenario, and Jay was invited, but he hacked in without using a password, brute-forcing. He’d been there before, he knew where to hit it. No way he was waiting for her to open the door.