The Theory of Games (13 page)

We got out, Duncan turned on the third floor lights with his special key and we walked over to the computer lab. Kate swiped her card and opened the door for us.

“So where, exactly did you find this notebook?” Reardon asked Kate.

“Actually, I found it,” I volunteered. In my peripheral vision I could see Kate rolling her eyes.

“You found it?” huffed Reardon.

“Yeah, I found it over there,” and I pointed to the computer in the far corner.

“How do I know you just didn’t plant it?” Reardon asked.

I was floored - I didn’t expect this – but obviously Katelynn did. “Because I
didn’t
plant it,” I walked over to the exact spot where I found the notebook, “this is where I found it and Nick’s pens.” I moronically showed Reardon the pens as if this would convince him of the voracity of my statement.

“Uh hunh,” said Reardon. “I think I’ll take the notebook and the pens as evidence,” he said taking the stuff. Kate shot me an
I told you so
look. Reardon made a most cursory examination of the area around the computer. “Doesn’t look like anything else is here. Okay, show me your office,” Reardon said to me.

Duncan was shocked. “Jake, were you in your office?” Duncan asked, “You know you weren’t supposed to go back there. Professor Gilfoyle specifically said you weren’t supposed to go back there.”

“Yeah, I know I wasn’t supposed to, Duncan,” I told him, “Let’s just get this over with.”

We filed out of the computer lab, Dunc turned the lights off as we left and we went back to the elevator. Again, another unpleasant ride crammed inside the lift, a lurch and then we filed back out on the first floor.

I didn’t know what to expect as we turned the corner into the vestibule of what had been my office. As we were waiting for Duncan to unlock the door I nodded my head to Kate in the direction of Gilfoyle’s office. No light peeked out from under his door.

A click as Duncan unlocked the office door, the squeal of the hinges, another click as he turned on the lights and then we all filed into my old office.

My office looked like… it looked like an empty office. No blood on the floor, the broken desk lamp was gone; the drawers were back in place.

“Someone’s been here and cleaned everything up,” Kate sputtered. This time
she
was rattled.

“There was blood right there,” I pointed to the exact spot on the linoleum. “Don’t your forensic guys have that stuff you can spray on it and then check it with a black-light or something? Call your forensic guys.”

Reardon slowly turned in a three hundred and sixty degree arc surveying the small office, “There’s nothing here,” he said, “case closed. Let’s go.”

Katelynn tried to turn the charm back on, “Lieutenant Reardon, you believe me don’t you?” I swear she was batting her eyelids at him.

“Case closed, Miss O’Brian.” Reardon said with complete and total finality. He addressed Duncan, “Thank you for your time, I’m sorry to have disturbed you. I will personally escort Mr. Grant off campus.”

I suddenly remembered my computer. “Nick was looking at some of my old computer files. Here let me show you,” and I lunged over to the computer and wiggled the mouse to wake up the monitor but the computer wasn’t in sleep mode this time; it wasn’t even on. And, if I had to take a guess, I doubted if it was even my old computer. It could have been swapped out with one that was in storage. Somebody had quickly and thoroughly cleaned up my office.

“We’re all done, now,” Reardon put a very firm hand on my shoulder and pulled me away from the computer.

We filed out of the office; Duncan turned off the lights and locked the door behind us and Reardon, still with his tight grip on my shoulder, pushed me out through the doors of Morton Hall.

As we walked the forty short yards back to Reardon’s squad car Kate slipped into
silly girl suck up mode
, “I am
so
embarrassed, Lieutenant Reardon,” she burbled, “you know with Nick’s death, and all the excitement, well….” The sentence trailed off into space and she sadly shook her head.

Reardon got back into his squad car and rolled down the window. “Okay, Ms. O’Brian, no real harm done. Leave the detective work to the pros, okay? You stick with your Nancy Drew novels.” Reardon turned the engine over, put the squad car in drive, pulled out of the driveway and disappeared down the hill.

“Nancy Drew novels?” Katelynn hissed, “That motherfucker!”

CHAPTER 3.9

The Authoritarian Man took the empty coffee cup from my hand and put it back on the tray. “So, then, you don’t have any evidence contradicting the coroner’s conclusion that Nick Constantine committed suicide?” he asked.

No
I shook my head.

“Custodians probably cleaned your office. It sounds like that Lieutenant Reardon did a pretty thorough investigation. I know the conclusion is hard for you to accept but I can’t change facts.” The Authoritarian Man spread his hands before me as if he was laying out irrefutable invisible evidence.

I know what I know and what I’ve been through; but I kept it to myself for now.

It was getting dark; the end of a long day of interrogation. I could hear a gentle rain splashing against the window of my room. “It sounds like rain. Is Bill dry?” I asked.

“Bill is warm and dry. He’s receiving his medication. He’s been examined by a vet. You have my word,” the Authoritarian Man answered and I wanted to believe him. “You want some more coffee? I could send out for some.”

A thought burbled up in my devious brain. “Jim, I wouldn’t mind another cup, but, ahhh - I don’t know how to say this – it’s kinda embarrassing using this bed pan. Could I please go to the bathroom like a big boy?” I asked.

The Authoritarian Man thought for awhile. “Sorry, Jake, not today; maybe tomorrow. Keep cooperating and I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’ll pass on the coffee, then,” I answered.

“Okay,” the Authoritarian Man replied. “Let’s get back to your work on the Stanhope simulation.”

•

The next day and the rest of that week, Kate and my students and I worked on the Stanhope simulation. With Nick’s code we made pretty rapid progress. Bill and I didn’t go to any more ballgames. I really don’t remember any of us leaving the house except to go out to pick up food or take Bill for a walk. I was smoking two packs a day, easy; drinking a lot of coffee and getting very little sleep. Katelynn seemed to be sleeping even less.

Zoë had a good chunk of the game engine up and running. By Friday, using the data on the CD in combination with Nick’s code, she was giving 3D virtual tours of the White House.

“Hey, Jake, come over here. You gotta see this!” Zoë called me over to her laptop, “It’s the President’s
bathroom
!” As she moved her mouse we navigated around the Presidential commode, out the door and into the President’s bedroom.

“This is great work, Zoë,” I told her, “Really, a very nice hunk of code.” ‘Very nice hunk of code’ is probably my ultimate compliment. I walked away so the rest of the students could crowd around. Zoë moved in virtual space out of the bedroom and down the corridors of the Family Quarters towards the West Wing.

Pete Felix announced, “I think I’ve got multiplayer working, too, hold on a sec.” In a few minutes all the students were racing about the White House on their own laptops, playing virtual tag. Each of the students was represented by goofy avatars.

“What’s an avatar?” the Authoritarian Man asked me.

“An avatar is an object in 3D space that represents you. It represents your location,” I answered.

“Hunh?”

“Like Katelynn used Minnie Mouse as her avatar, okay? So wherever she was in the White House, you know, it looked like Minnie Mouse walking around on the other computers.”

“Really? You can do that?” the Authoritarian Man was incredulous.

Yeah, we can do that. That’s what we were hired to do. Or what we thought we were hired to do.

I walked out to the back porch for what must have been fortieth cigarette of the day. Bill followed me and sat down by my feet.

From where we sitting I could clearly see the window in the third floor computer lab; the window that Nick must have looked out of when he had sent his file to us. He must have been looking right here.

I kept going over the pieces. Nick was murdered in my office; Reardon be damned, Kate and I had seen blood.

What was Nick doing in my office? He was looking at my computer code that I had written years ago.

What did I write that code for? It was for a tactical operations simulation that I did for DARPA.

What was it about my code that got Nick killed?

A chill traveled up my spine and down my arms. I had no idea why my code got Nick murdered.

CHAPTER 4.O

“The Political Object Now Comes to the Fore Again.”

-
Carl Von Clausewitz;
On War

The C4 damn near blew in the whole southeast wall of the Oval Office.

Smoke, debris and charred remnants of Kevlar that had until just recently made up the interior of the wall spewed down the east corridor past the President’s Dining Room and the Deputy Chief of Staff’s office. Visibility, even with the Northrop Grumman AN/PVS-14D night vision goggles, was reduced to peering through a swamp of green back-lit murk and wall particles that glistened in the false light.

A dazed Secret Service agent, blood trickling from his ears, stumbled out of the Roosevelt Room directly opposite the breech in the Oval Office’s wall. He held his UZI 9mm submachine gun at the ready and he was furiously blinking his eyes that were caked shut with a paste made from plaster and his own blood.

“Mr. President! Mr. President!” A red laser targeting beam pierced the fog and played about the center of his forehead. A fine mist of powdered concrete made the beam visible back to its source. “Mr. President! Can you…” His speech was cut short by a .45 caliber steel-jacketed slug fired from a Desert Eagle Special that plowed through his temporal lobe.

The section leader, a black-suited apparition still holding a smoking pistol, appeared through the dust.

“White Knight 5, you asshole, how much C4 did you use?”

“Two kilos, just like I was told.”

“You were supposed to use two pounds, not kilos, shit for brains! Get your ass in there and see if you can find the Package and it better still be breathing.”

Alarms, both distant and near, blared from all directions. Over his headset he could hear the chatter of Chalk 1 and Chalk 2 fast-roping onto the roof of the West Wing of the White House and the choppers flying off to hover at station.

He took a quick look at his watch: one minute and 25 seconds behind schedule.
Fuck
.

“Ah… White Knight 1, White Knight 1 –
a burst of static -
this is White Knight 5. No sign of the Package in the Castle. Over.”

The Team Leader wanted to laugh; he wanted to cry.
What a colossal fuck fest this mission had become
. He pressed the send button at his throat, “Chalk 1 this is White Knight 1. The Package is not - repeat not - in the Castle. Chalk 1 deploy to the Living Quarters, Chalk 2 deploy to the Ground Floor.”

He turned left past the rubble of the Oval Office and kicked in the door of the President’s Secretary’s office. It appeared to be empty until he saw a woman’s nyloned foot peeking out from under the large mahogany desk. It was twitching uncontrollably; she was still alive. He stooped down into a crouch and gently, but firmly, yanked the trembling woman from her hiding place. Before she could say a word he forced the barrel of his gun into her mouth.

“Where is he?” he asked.

The woman’s eyes flew open in terror. A river of blood flowed from a deep gash behind her left ear. Her silk Coco Chanel power suit hung in shreds from her shoulders.

He cocked the trigger with the thumb of his right hand and with his other hand pushed up the night vision goggles so he could look directly into her eyes. “Where is he? I’m going to start counting and you know how this is going to end. One…”

She wanted to scream but the muzzle of the gun blocked her airway. She began to choke. She was gagging. She was going to vomit.

“Two…”

Her mind was paralyzed with fear. Her urachus spontaneously relaxed and a stream of urine wet the royal blue carpet beneath her.

“Ah,
shit
, three.” He pulled the trigger and her temporal fossae blew back from her skull and splattered the west wall behind her. He dropped the corpse of the President’s Secretary and left the room. Turning south in the corridor he entered the Cabinet Room and, after a cursory examination, found it empty.

He returned to the corridor, heading south and towards the Living Quarters. His headset crackled, “Ahh, White Knight 1, this is Chalk 1 Leader, we’re in the Living Quarters and we’re not finding a fucking thing.”

He depressed the send button, “Chalk 1 Leader this is White Knight 1, Is there anybody there at all?”

“Ahh, White Knight 1, this is Chalk 1 Leader, ahh, yeah, we got a bunch of scared maids and shit here. I think we’ve got the First Lady, too.”

The sound of gunfire came from behind him and to his left. The Secret Service was beginning to get organized. Another look at his watch; they were now 2 minutes 48 seconds off schedule.

“Chalk 1 Leader, find out where the Package is from the fucking First Lady! Pistol whip her you chicken-shit cunt! This isn’t a fucking picnic!”

His vision was suddenly obscured by a crimson cloud that seemed to burst across his HUD (Heads Up Display). The sound of his pounding heart filled his headphones. His vision began to clear.

He had just been shot from behind by a Secret Service agent that had turned the corner at the far end of the corridor by the Oval Office. He rolled to his right, patiently waited until the laser site fixed on the agent’s forehead, above the blinking agent’s eyes, and pulled the trigger. Three minutes and 12 seconds into the mission and he had just killed his third human.