Michaelmas (22 page)

Michaelmas sucked his teeth.

"They still haven't finally decided," Domino said.

"Yes, they have. Every passing minute makes it less advisable to report it as sabotage. Pretty soon they'd also have to account for the reporting delay, and the thought of that will swing it."

"Well, yes."

"So how was it done? Did Cikoumas hang around the airport? Of course not. What sanatorium employee? What henchman? Who?"

"I'm working on it. Meanwhile, Daugerd's plane has just landed at Hanrassy's dock. Time there is seven thirty-five AM."

Michaelmas glanced at his wrist. Two thirty-five pm.

Frontiere leaned across the aisle. "Ten more minutes, Laurent, and we'll be there."

Simultaneously, his telephone sounded. He reached into his jacket, took out the instru-ment, and inserted the privacy plug in his ear, answering the call with his mouth close to the microphone.

Then he recoiled pleasurably.
"Dei grazia,"
he said, put the phone away, and stared at Michaelmas incredulously. "You were exactly correct in your jest," he said. He leaned closer. "The sender looks Russian. The assembly technique is Russian. But our analytical equipment shows that some of the
material
only resembles stock Russian material; the mole-cular structure is off.

Our analytical programmes caught it and the -ones Norwood used at Limberg's did not. A very sophisticated effort was made to take circuit material and make it
seem
like other circuit material of no greater or lesser practicality. Why would the Russians do that? Why should they?"

Frontiere grinned. "No, someone
is
trying to muddle things up. But we can be rather sure it isn't the Chinese, and if it isn't them or the Russians, then the situation is nowhere near as critical."

Frontiere grinned. "It's just some accursed radical group that didn't even kill anybody. We can handle that." He sat up straighten "We were right to delay." He drummed his fingers on the armrest. "All right. What now?" he said absently, his eyes still shining. "What must be done immediately?"

"Well," Michaelmas said equably, "there is still the prob-lem of forestalling Norwood and Limberg. Steps of some sort must be taken quickly. It would be particularly galling now if one or the other lost patience and blurted out his error in all honesty."

Frontiere grimaced. "Just so."

"So I suggest," Michaelmas went on, "that the analytical tests be rerun immediately in your laboratories with Nor-wood in attendance. In fact, let him do the running. And when he gets the correct result, let him call Limberg with it. It's no disgrace to have been wrong. It's only a minor sin of eagerness not to have waited in the first place to use your lab and your engineering analysis computer programmes. It's only natural that your equipment would be subtler and more thorough than anything Norwood and Limberg were able to graft on to Limberg's medical software. And Lim-berg will understand that until the real culprits are identi-fied, absolute silence about the existence of the sender is the best hope of unearthing them."

Frontiere blinked. "You have a swift mind, Laurent."

"Thank you."

Frontiere frowned slowly at Michaelmas. "There may be difficulty. Norwood may not be entirely willing to accept results different from those he found for himself."

Michaelmas glanced down the aisle. "I think you may find him less sure of himself than he has hitherto appeared. More ready to consider that his faculties might err from time to time."

Frontiere's eyes followed Michaelmas's. Norwood was sit-ting with one heel hooked on the edge of the seat, his chin resting on his knee. His hands were clasped over his shin. His thumbs absently massaged his calf, while he sat silently looking out the window as if cataloguing the familiar things of his youth while the bus sped in among the outbuildings and the perimeter installations. Frontiere contracted his lower lip and raised an eyebrow. He looked over at Michaelmas. "You are a shrewd observer." He stood up smoothly. "Excuse me. I will go speak to him." He touched Michaelmas's shoulder. "You are an encouraging person to know," he said.

Michaelmas smiled. When Frontiere was down the aisle, he said : "Well, Domino, congratulations."

"I simply took your hint. Now, the interesting news. I did in fact cause UNAC's analytical apparatus to produce the desired result. A competent molecular physicist examining the readouts will be able to determine exactly with what plausible and fully worthy action group the sender is most likely to have originated. Nevertheless, we are not dealing one hundred percent in deception."

"Oh?"

"Daugerd will never find it simply by looking at holo-grams. UNAC's programmes would never have found it unaided. The difference isn't gross. But it's there; there's something about the electrons...."

"Something about the electrons?"

"It's . . . they're all
right;
I mean, they're in the correct places in the proper number as far as one can tell, and yet.. .. Well, I ran an analogue; built another sender so to speak, using materials criteria I found stored in the physical data banks of the People's Diligent Electronics Technicum at Dneprodzerzhinsk. And it's different. The two things are out of ... tune . . . with each other, and they shouldn't be; that damned thing has molecules all through it that say loud and clear it's blood kin to ten thousand others just like it from a bastard second cousin masquerading as the legiti-mate twin."

"Can you give me more detail?"

"I—No. I don't think so."

"Are you saying the sender was produced by some organi-zation on the order of a normal dissident group?"

"No. I don't think so. I don't think—I don't believe there is material exactly like that."

"Ah." Michaelmas sat deeper in his chair. The bus entered the shadow of Control Tower, and the windows lightened. "Did you feel as you did at the sanitorium?"

"I ... couldn't say. Probably. Yes. I think so."

The bus was pulling up to a halt among the colonnades and metallized glass of the ground level. People began rising to their feet. Mr Samir, Michaelmas noted through his window, had gotten the Oskar in through the portal and was parking nearby; the sides of the little van metamorphosed into an array of platforms, and a technician was out of the truck and up on the topmost one instantly, slipping one camera into its mount, and reaching down to take another being handed up to him. "What about Norwood?" Michael-mas asked. "When you touched him."

"Norwood? Nor- ? No, I wasn't getting anything through the sensors in that terminal. You wouldn't find it with sensors: you have to be electron-to-electron with it. ... Norwood? What an interesting question! No — there's no way. There's no interface, you see. There's only data. No, I could only feel that with something approxi-mating my own kind."

"Approximating. Yes."

Michaelmas was watching Norwood in conversation with Frontiere. Frontiere was talking intently and softly, holding one hand on Norwood's shoulder and tapping lightly on Norwood's chest with the spread fingers of the other. Nor-wood was looking into his face with the half-focused stare of an earthquake victim. It was over in a moment. Norwood shrugged and nodded, his eyes downcast. Frontiere smiled and put his arm protectively around Norwood's shoulders in good-natured bonhomie. He patted Norwood's shoulder absently while looking about for aides to make sure the astronaut's entrance into Control Tower would be properly handled.

"An interesting statement. But hardly relevant at this moment," Michaelmas said. "Your sensors
were
adequate to measure his belief in himself."

"As any other lie detector would have."

That may be as much detection as any man needs. Well — we're off." The bus was emptying.

To keep in trim, Michaelmas stepped forward deftly and debarked just be-hind Norwood and Frontiere. Not only Ossip Sakal but Hjalmar Wirkola himself were waiting to greet Norwood, all smiles now. There was a faint flicker through the lobby lights, unnoticed. Frontiere propelled the astronaut gently toward the Director General. The stately, straight-backed old gentleman stepped forward from Sakal's side as Nor-wood approached, and extended his hand. Somewhere very faintly there was a ringing bell, if you listened. "My boy!" Wirkola said, clasping the astronaut's handshake between his palms. "I was so glad when Ossip told me you are all safe now."

Everyone's attention was on them. Over at the elevator bank, a security man was looking at the lights of an indicator panel and frowning, his ear to the wall, but that was the sum total of distraction in that crowd.

The press of people built up around Norwood and Wirkola; Michaelmas could see additional UNAC people coming from a side foyer. Getulio's press aides were bringing them in through the more casual onlookers and the news people. There is a lot you can do with a properly swung hip and a strategically insinuated shoulder to create lanes in a crowd without it showing on camera.

There was, somewhere, away in the higher levels of the tower, a dull thump. Perhaps, really, it was a sonic boom outside, somehow penetrating the building insulation. Or masked burglars blowing a safe with black powder. A freight elevator door opened and Papashvilly stepped out, looking momentarily flustered but recovering quickly.

Domino was making the noise again. He had learned to make it clearly, now. It was a bronchitic giggle, brought up sawing from the depths of a chest in desperate search of air. "The building systems programme?" he gasped. "It's trying to maintain homeostasis with everything going to hell up-stairs. It's running from switch to switch like an old maid chasing mice with a broom. Oh, my! Oh, me!"

Papashvilly had his head up, his shoulders back, and his grin delighted as he moved toward the main group. He was waving at Norwood. As his glance reached Michaelmas, who was making his way across Luis's line of sight on Norwood, he momentarily shifted the direction of his wave, and wagged two fingers at him, before redirecting himself to the welcome. Michaelmas raised a clenched fist, one thumb up, and shook it. Clementine Gervaise stepped on Michaelmas's foot.
"Pardon"
she said, the corners of her mouth quivering slightly and her eyes a little wider and shining more than normal, "you are blocking my camera, Laurent." Michaelmas stared at her. "Excuse me," he said, wondering if they would now spend days grinning at each other. "It was innocent, I assure you." he said and pushed on, his eyes sliding off Campion's face en route. The man was looking around a little busily, his face raised. He made a sniffing expression. There was the faintest whiff of smoke in the air, already being dissipated by the building's exhaust ventilators. Campion shrugged faintly and returned his attention to matters at hand. Michaelmas found it interesting that Douggie did have a nose for news. He winked toward Papashvilly.

"Hanrassy is punching up Gately's number," Domino said.

Michaelmas stopped, changed direction, and began work-ing his way clear. "I'll want to monitor that," he said, and pulled the plug out of the terminal, inserting it in his ear as he went, to account for the fact that he was stepping out of the crowd and standing with an intent expression, his hand over his free ear to shut out other sounds. He stood apparently oblivious, while Gately's secretary fielded the call and then put Hanrassy through.

"I want you to look at something, Mr Secretary," she said without preamble.

Domino said : "She's showing him a holo of the sender."

"Yes," Michaelmas said. He clenched his jaw.

"I see it, Miz Hanrassy. Should I recognize it?" Gately said.

"That would depend on how familiar you expect to be with Soviet electronic devices."

"I don't follow you, ma'am. Is that thing Russian?"

"It is, Mr Secretary. There's no doubt about it; it's not exactly a standard component in their engineering, but it's made of standard pieces and the workmanship is charac-teristically theirs."

"Yes, ma'am, and in what way is that relevant to my duties?"

"I wonder if you'd care to call Colonel Norwood and ask him if he found it in his capsule just before he was forced to escape."

Michaelmas took a deep breath. "That's it, then," he said to Domino steadily. "There is no further doubt. Limberg and Cikoumas supplied it to her, along with their story. They don't have the slightest sense of restraint or responsibility. They think we are an ant farm."

"Ma'am," Gately was saying, "are you telling me the Russkis sabotaged Norwood's shuttle and you can
prove
it?"

"The sons of bitches," Michaelmas said. "The bastards. Get me to the sanatorium. Right now.

And I arrive without warning. Right?"

"Viola Hanrassy said : "Ask Norwood, Mr Secretary. Ask him why UNAC hasn't let him say anything about it."

"Ma'am, where'd you get this information?"

"If you obtain corroboration from Norwood, Mr Secre-tary, then I'll be glad to discuss details with you. In fact, Will, I'm holding myself in readiness to work very closely with you on this. We may have the joint duty of alerting the American people to their responsibilities and oppor-tunities in the coming election."

Domino said : "I think that may have been an offer of the Vice Presidency."

"Bribes," Michaelmas said. "They always go to bribes when they're not sure they're on top, and coercion when they are. That's all they know. They really don't believe anyone would help them just on their merits. Well, Christ, at least they're our own. How's my ride to Berne?"

"Wait one."

Gately was saying: "I'll place a call to Africa right away and get back to you."

"Thank you, Mr Secretary."

"And kiss my bum, both of you," Michaelmas muttered as the connection broke. He was looking around with sharp, darting swings of his eyes, his hands raised in front of him and his feet well apart, so that he was leaning forward against his weight.

"Mr Michaelmas."

"Yes."

"Get to the airport."

"Right."

He strode directly toward Mr Samir. "How do you do," he said, thrusting his hand forward.

"How do you do, sir," Mr Samir said, responding with a calloused palm and a dignified smile.