Tek Power (9 page)

“Might be a good idea to talk to someone at MaxComm,” suggested Jake. “To get more information on what Maxfield, Jr. was up to down there. Their headquarters office is in New Baltimore, just outside of DC. Do you have any contacts there?”

“I'll check and provide you a name when you get to Washington,” the agency head promised. “The OCO is in this, too, huh?”

“As I mentioned, Nate Anger and his pet robot warned me off. A sure sign that they're hooked in somehow.”

“You have anyone in the OCO you can tap?”

Jake thought about it. “One possible contact—maybe.”

“Use it if you can.”

Gomez said, “We'd best tread lightly on this,
amigos
. We're going to be waltzing around with intelligence boys, cutthroat tycoons and probably even Teklords.”

Jake stood up, rested his hand on the back of his chair. “What about Eve's message to your son?” asked Jake.

“Eventually he'll have to see it,” said Bascom. “But not right yet. Wait until this is all over.”

“He may not,” said Jake, “be ready for the truth even then.”

M
OST EVENINGS AT
this hour Frank Dockert could be found at his club in New Baltimore. Alone, a large black man in his middle forties, he was down on the shooting floor six levels underground. He'd chosen a simulated jungle area tonight and was moving carefully through a stretch of simulated steamy tropical forest, carrying a lazrifle.

He became aware of the spoor of a tiger just seconds before his vidphone buzzed.

Up ahead the dense green foliage flickered as the unseen tiger headed for elsewhere.

“What?” said Dockert.

“Access B2,” spoke the phone as he lifted it free of his jacket pocket.

“Go ahead.” He sat on a real log that had been placed among the hologram trees and vines.

“I'm sorry to break in on your—”

“Reach a point, Nathan.”

Anger said, “We have to assume that Cardigan and Gomez have the vidcaz.”

“Why?”

“Because they're leaving Manhattan early tomorrow morning.”

“Heading for where, Nathan?”

“They're coming your way, Frank.”

“Specifically to me?”

“No, no. They're booked into the Beltway Plaza in DC. They don't know anything about you.”

T
HE PRESIDENT OF
the United States sat stiff and straight in the midcabin seat of the military skyvan. “I'm still not convinced we'll get away with this, Jim,” he said quietly.

Vice President McCracklin was lean and blond, almost handsome, a few years younger than the president. “We've got the most efficient people possible working with us on this, Warren. Relax, will you.”

“A great many things, numerous unforeseen things, can go wrong.”

“No, not with something as carefully worked out as this.”

The windows were all blanked and they could see nothing of the night sky they were flying through.

“Someone may well find out I'm at the clinic when I'm supposed to be on the tour.”

“Not a chance.”

“Besides, Jim, I keep telling you and this Dr. Marchitelli that I'm not actually a confirmed Tek addict. True, I admit, I get a lift from using Tek now and then. But, hell, there can't be more than a dozen people in the world who have to deal with as much pressure and stress as I do. So a little Tek session now and—”

“It's a lot more serious than that, Warren. We all know that.”

Sighing out a breath, Brookmeyer said, “The other factor that worries me is this damned—stand-in. That's not going to fool anybody or—”

“Mechanix International turns out a very good product. Don't worry.”

“I don't know,” said the president. “Now that we're actually going ahead with this—I feel extremely uneasy.”

“Relax,” urged the vice president, smiling. “Everything is going to go exactly as intended.”

13

J
AKE WAS HEADING
his skycar, as per instructions, for a landing at Visitors Lot 3A at the vast MaxComm Communications Centre in New Baltimore.

“Jake Cardigan?” said the voxbox on his control panel.

“Yeah?”

“Whom are you visiting at MaxComm this morning?”

“Already told you—Arlen Sulman, who's with the KwikNews Division.” That was the contact name Bascom had provided him with earlier this morning.

“Just confirming, sir.”

“Okay.”

“You're being rerouted to Personnel Lot 4B,” the voice informed him.

“Oh, so?”

“That's on the harborside of Wing 3.”

Jake tapped out a revised landing pattern.

His skycar continued dropping down, sailing over the multidomed central headquarters of Arnold Maxfield, Sr.'s communications empire.

“Jake Cardigan?”

“Right here.”

“Further landing revisions, sir,” said the MaxComm reception voice.

“Okay, I'm standing by.”

“You're to set down in Public Parking Lot 16, which you'll find directly across the street from the backside of Wing 3. You are not to enter MaxComm property.”

“Why is that?”

“After you land at Lot 16, Mr. Sulman will be brought to you.”

“Brought?”

“It seems he's having some trouble walking.”

T
HE SMALL, SWEETSMELLING
little restaurant was on a short sidestreet just off Nixon Boulevard. When Gomez stepped out of the humid DC morning and into the frilly beflowered dining parlor, he sneezed.

“A nice cup of cranberry tea is just what you need, young feller.” A grandmotherly android came up and took hold of his elbow. “Welcome to Granny Gurton's Breakfast Nook. All by our lonesome this lovely morning, are we?”

“No,
gramacita
, we're meeting that gent seated over yonder.”

“Tsk,” remarked the android. “He's been awfully restless. He really ought to relax more. My sakes, even in a worrier's town like DC he's a standout. Always checking all those watches and—”

“I'll find my way over to him.” Extricating himself from the greyhaired android's grasp, Gomez crossed to the table where the young Chinese cyborg was waiting.

“Geez Louise, Gomez,” the young man said, rolling up the sleeve on his metal arm. “When we agree to meet at ten-fifteen AM, does that mean ten-seventeen to you?”

“Landsakes, Timecheck, you're turning into a real worrywart.” Gomez took the chair opposite him. “What's that on your plate, by the way?”

“Jamcakes with honeyberry sauce. Want an order?”

“No, absolutely not.”

“Just look at that.” Timecheck tapped the face of one of the many watches built into his metal right arm. “Buenos Aires time is running four seconds off again. I tell you, daddy, the craftsmen these days—”

“Can we rush through all this temporal chitchat and get to the business of the day?”

“Precisely why I'm here, kiddo.”

“When I learned that you'd relocated in this citadel of democracy, Timecheck, I figured I'd tackle you first for the information I seek,” Gomez told the informant. “Since I've dealt with you fruitfully in various climes and locales.”

“I got to tell you that Washington beats them all.” Timecheck lifted up a forkful of jamcake. “You recall how glum I was in Japan? Wow, all those Zen types with no idea of deadlines and the swift passage of time. Paris was a terrific improvement. I meant to tell you, daddy, a whole city stuffed with clockwatchers.” He took another bite, savoring it. “Ah, but Washington, DC. It's the timebound center of the universe. A microsecond means something in this burg.” He pointed his fork ceilingward. “I love it here and inside info abounds, you bump into secrets and scuttlebutt at every turning and—”

“Here's that tea, darling.” The Granny android put a teacup in front of Gomez. “Drink that down and just see if that nasty old cold doesn't go right away.”

“
Gracias
.”

Timecheck inched his chair back. “You sick?”

“No.”

“I don't like to catch colds. For some reason whenever I'm down with one, all my clocks run slow.”

“I'm in the pink,” the detective assured his information source. “Now tell me what you've come up with for me since we spoke on the vidphone an hour ago.”

“One hour sixteen minutes ago,” corrected Timecheck after consulting two of his builtin watches.

“What have you learned about the activities of the Nicaraguan Embassy?”

Timecheck tapped Gomez's teacup with a metal fingertip. “You planning to drink that?”

“Not in the least.”

After appropriating the cranberry tea and enjoying a long sip, Timecheck said, “Not sweet enough.”

“Facts,” urged Gomez.

“The day before Eve Bascom died, an official at the embassy—one Raoul Martinez—had a visitor,” the Chinese told him. “This visitor was Dr. Izabel Morgana, who teaches at the Federal University in Managua. Poli Sci is the lady's subject and, it goes without saying, she has the complete approval of General Alcazar and the junta.”

“How does she fit in?”

“After visiting Martinez, she dropped into a sleazy—make that sleazier—section of town to meet with a gent who's been known to help arrange killings for hire up in Manhattan. I can provide his name and background if—”

“Not just yet,” said Gomez. “It sounds like Dr. Morgana is somebody I ought to look up.”

“To do that, you got to wend your way to Managua,” Timecheck told him. “She headed for home at just about the exact moment Eve Bascom was going on to glory.”

Gomez said, “Anything on why they—”

“Goodness sake, how're you going to shake that cold if you give your nice tea away, young man?” The android placed another steaming cup in front of Gomez. “Now drink that all down like a good boy.”

“Soon as it cools,” he promised. “Now shoo.”

Timecheck said, “If you were going to inquire into motive, save your breath.”

“Nothing?”

“Not so far. All I know is that Dr. Morgana wanted to make absolutely certain that Eve Bascom ceased to be.”

“Seems likely she's in cahoots with somebody in the Nicaraguan government.”

“Very likely, sure.”

Absently Gomez drank some of his cranberry tea. “Keep nosing around,” he told the information dealer. “I'll be in touch again soon.”

Timecheck eyed him as he stood up. “You certain you haven't got something contagious?”

A
RLEN
S
ULMAN WAS
a slight, greyhaired man. He was standing near the entrance to Lot 16, being supported by a bored-looking chromeplated robot. Piled up next to him on the paving were three plasticartons, a filebox chockfull of memodiscs and a bundle of faxpapers tied up with real twine.

“But I didn't fall,” he was saying to the robot as Jake came walking up to him. “You shoved me.”

“I never shoved you,” argued the robot. “I was simply helping you along.”

“You gave me the old heavho.”

“When you're terminated from MaxComm, you have to leave,” said the robot. “You don't dawdle, you don't tarry.”

“I couldn't very well dawdle with you there throwing me down a ramp.”

“It was a nudge, a friendly nudge.” The mechanical man noticed Jake. “I'd appreciate it, sir, if you'd help Mr. Sulman hobble to his skybus stop up at the corner. We're not supposed to stray even this far from the MaxComm grounds, but since he claims he has a twisted ankle, I—”

“It's sprained. You can see that.”

“I'll help out.” Jake took hold of Sulman's arm as the silvery robot stepped clear of him.

“Good luck in your next job, Mr. Sulman,” called the robot as it went hurrying away.

“I'm Jake Cardigan.”

“Oh, great. Because of you, I'm out on my ear.”

“How's that?”

“Well, that has to be the reason. Somebody got wind that I was going to blab to you and—”

“Why would that matter?”

“Because they know you're investigating Eve Bascom's death.”

“Does MaxComm have something to hide?”

“They've already got a detective agency of their own looking into Arnie Maxfield, Jr.'s death,” explained Sulman. “Since those two cases are likely to link up, I imagine they don't want you gumming up the works.”

“What agency is handling the case for them?”

“I don't think I better talk to you. If you'll help me get to the corner, I'll—”

“Which agency?”

“An outfit from out your way. Bev Kendricks & Associates.”

Jake grinned. “That's interesting.”

“Not to me, Cardigan. What's interesting to me is that shortly after promising to do a favor for Walt Bascom—who, come to think of it, hasn't done a darned thing for me in ages—I get bounced.”

“That can't be the only reason.”

“Well, there have been some remarks about my getting too old for the news business.”

“What's your age?”

“Nearly fifty.”

“That's not old.”

“Can you help me to that bus stop? I'm afraid I'll fall over if I try to walk on this ankle.”

“Okay, lean on me and let's start.”

“Wait, my stuff,” remembered Sulman. “You'll have to tote that, too.”

“Look, I'll prop you up on these cartons, go over and get my skycar and give you a ride home.”

“No, I don't want to be seen flying around with you.”

“What else can happen?”

“Right now I'm only unemployed. Blacklisted I don't need.”

Jake suggested, “You may as well tell me what you know.”

“Not a blasted thing do I know, Cardigan.”

“You knew that Maxfield, Jr. was involved with Eve Bascom.”