Eileen Reed - Ground Zero Part 34

She dialed, but there was no answer there either. Eileen frowned and left a message on the machine.

"Now, where could Joe be?" she wondered aloud, then realized he was probably working out at the health club near the Garden of the G.o.ds. Nelson had said he swam or ran there nearly every day. She got her keys from her desk.

"You got the rest of this?" she asked Rosen. He was still relaxing, feet up on the desk.

"I got the paperwork going," he said, and flapped a hand at her. "Go on."

As Eileen took her jacket from the hook by her desk, Rosen spoke behind the wet rag.

"Eileen?"

"Yes?" she said, shrugging into her jacket and checking her holster.

"You sure you don't want me to go? I got a funny feeling about this one."

Eileen felt a run of goose b.u.mps.

"No," she said, after thinking for a moment. "We have to get that paperwork out the door. I'll only be an hour at the most."

"Okay," Rosen said. "Just watch your back."

"I will." She smiled at the washrag. "Don't worry."

Colorado Springs.

Lucy leaned back in her chair, sighing. She'd had to pa.s.s on the plum wine because of her pregnancy, but she'd eaten the other dishes until she was stuffed.

"This plum wine isn't authentic anyway," Fred Nguyen said. Fred's wife Kim was another California Vietnamese with the same mixture of Asian features and beach girl mannerisms. They had two children, a boy and a girl.

"I'm afraid of labor," Lucy admitted. "But it's worth it to have a baby."

"You're going to love being a mom," Kim said, stacking dishes. "Labor isn't all that bad."

Behind her, Fred rolled his eyes.

"I need to get to my hotel room," Lucy said, smiling. "I've got to get ahold of Colonel Ellison. And maybe Detective Reed, if she's around."

"Sure you can't stay?" Nguyen asked. He'd already given Lucy his sheaf of doc.u.ments, which she'd locked in her little travel suitcase. The suitcase was the only CIA-made object in her wardrobe. No poison pens or little laser-beam penlights, she'd thought with a sigh. The suitcase was aluminum reinforced and had a tiny acid container in the locking mechanism. If the case was forced the acid would dump and destroy the contents of the case.

"Cool," Lucy muttered when Mills gave her the suitcase on her first business trip.

"Don't forget the combo," Mills had said.

"Or the acid will eat my shorts." Lucy grinned. Mills didn't laugh.

"I do have to work," Lucy said. "Thank you so much for the meal and the company."

Looking at the two of them made Lucy miss Ted terribly. She wished she'd talked him into coming with her instead of going to Florida. For whole blocks of time she could make herself forget Fouad Muallah and the Turtkul missile silo, then she would remember. Remembering felt awful. There was nothing she could do, she reminded herself as she shook hands with Fred. Her a.n.a.lysis was complete and that's all she was, an a.n.a.lyst. She wasn't some kind of movie hero, to go with guns blazing into Uzbekistan and somehow ruin Muallah's plans. She just had to wait it out.

"Good luck with your little one," Kim said, woman to woman, and they smiled at each other.

"Take care, now," Fred called as she walked to her car, and a shiver ran up her spine like the cold touch of a hand. Muallah. Nuclear threat. Lucy held one hand over the rounded swell of her belly as she got into the car.

Air Force One.

Richard, attached like a round little barnacle to the side of his father, heard the whole conversation. Air Force One was in the air and there were no aliens, just a crazy Arab terrorist who might launch a nuclear missile. Some CIA a.n.a.lyst had decided he was going to launch at the United States instead of the obvious target, Israel, and the Russians refused to let the Americans take the missile silo out. Evidently there were some Russian hostages.

Richard had great problems with algebra, but he had a keen grasp for detail. What was most important was that the chances of America getting nuked seemed pretty small. The atmosphere inside Air Force One was definitely more relaxed.

"Admiral Kane," Dad said in his Mr. President voice.

"Sir," said the voice over the radio. Kane sounded old, Richard thought. Or perhaps he'd been up for many hours.

"You're requesting authorization to enable the Missile Defense System?"

"That is correct, sir. The sooner the better. If there is a launch and the system is already set up for tracking, we should have a better chance of shooting it down."

"More than a chance, I hope, Admiral," the President said harshly. "For the money we've spent."

"Mr. President, the system is still in the start-up stages. It's not fully operational. But we feel confident the system will work."

"Any chances of the system being compromised?"

"None as far as we can tell, sir."

"Approved," the President said, and waved his hand to cut the communications link. "Now let's get to work on the Russian situation."

One of the Generals in the cabin looked quickly at Richard and Steve, then looked at the President. The President glared at him.

"They stay," he said, and Richard gave a smug grimace at the General. "As long as they don't say a word." Richard pressed his lips together firmly and looked over at Steve, who nodded back. They weren't going to get kicked out. This was much too interesting.

Colorado Springs.

Eileen finally found the Guzman residence. Rosen had been here, but she hadn't. It was merely another handsome tract home on a quiet cul-de-sac, a location innocent of any atmosphere. She turned off her lights and coasted to a stop against the curb. Her tires made a mild crunching sound over the few pieces of gravel on the road, and a dog barked a long way away. The thundershowers had stopped and it was almost dark. Water ran in the curbs, drying quickly in the warm evening air.

The porch light was on. There were lights on in the house, and there was the faint sound and flickering of a television. Eileen rang the doorbell.

Silence. The dog barked again, down the street. The slight breeze brought a heavy scent of summer roses. The Guzmans must have a rose bed somewhere. Eileen rang the doorbell again. She couldn't figure out why she was so nervous. Perhaps because she knew about Terry Guzman. She knew the spider this house was home to. Eileen wondered about Lowell Guzman. Could he not know what he was married to? Was there some deep feeling of relief under all that grief over her death?

Still no reply. Eileen drew a deep breath. Perhaps Guzman couldn't hear her because he was already dead. Maybe Lowell was the next victim. Eileen walked quietly around the side of the house. Her breath was light and quick. She came to the living-room windows and saw the television and the back of Lowell Guzman's head. The head was slack, resting in a big armchair. One limp hand hung around a gla.s.s of what looked like Scotch. The arm seemed too still. It looked more than pa.s.sed out. It looked dead. Eileen felt her whole body p.r.i.c.kle with goose b.u.mps. She drew her gun carefully from her holster.

The back-porch door was locked, but the window next to it was open. It took only a moment for Eileen to unlatch the screen and- reach through to the door. She stepped into the house.

Gaming Center, Schriever Air Force Base.

Joe Tanner took a deep breath and sat down in Art's chair. His terminal keys were dirty, he saw; the F and the J were particularly grubby. For a moment unexpected tears stung his eyes, and then he blinked them away. Art was shorter than he was. Joe had to adjust the chair. The workstation screen was dark. Joe posed his hands over the keyboard, fingers lightly touching Art's keys, and pressed the return key with one finger.

"Login." The words printed in cold white on the dark screen. Joe had three chances to log in to the computer network that controlled the simulations. If he failed three times and tried again, the computer system would appear to let him in, while screaming for help at the main operator console. There was a computer security program that would spill false data to an unsuspecting pirate. By the time the invader figured out that the system wasn't responding quite as it should, the FBI would be knocking at the door. Or, in Joe's case, he would call the operator and receive a tongue-lashing for his thick-fingered clumsiness, while the operator shut down the emergency alarms. It had happened to some Gamers, but not Joe.

Joe looked around, even though he knew no one could possibly be there this late at night. Besides, the door to the computer Center was a huge, noisy thing that beeped loudly when opened. Still, he was about to commit a computer crime.

He took another breath and typed Art's name and pa.s.sword on the screen. Art and Joe always shared their pa.s.swords, a secret they told no one else. Sharing a pa.s.sword was a crime, but it made their work easier during the long preparation hours for a War Game. Neither the name nor the pa.s.sword appeared, another security feature that Joe found irritating. The workstation seemed to muse for a moment, chewing over his request for access. The screen flashed white, then cleared. He was in.

Colorado Springs.

Eileen walked down the dim hallway toward the family room, where the TV chattered meaninglessly. A burst of canned laughter tensed her briefly. The sound of the TV, the darkness of the hallway, the absurdity she was involved with, made her feel unreal, as though she were part of some television drama. It was a soothing and dangerous thought, as though if Major Blaine were to leap from some unknown corner and stab her, Eileen could just wipe the blood away and shoot the next scene. She caught sight of the back of the armchair, the shock of brown hair, and the checkered bathrobe arm as limp as a store dummy draped over a fragile side table.

The armed moved stiffly, and the gla.s.s was brought to the front of the chair. Eileen felt her whole body relax in relief. She wet her lips and entered the room.

"Mr. Guzman," she said softly. "It's Detective Reed. Can we talk?"

There was no reply. Eileen moved in front of the chair and froze in surprise. She faced a nubbled yellow face without eyes or mouth or nose, topped by a snarl of brown hair. It took her a moment to identify the face as a foam football, turned on end and impaled on a thin pine board. Beneath the head, settled into the armchair like some malevolent broken toy, a nest of wires and circuit boards moved a bathrobe-clad robot arm toward the football. The gla.s.s turned, the Scotch rose smoothly up the side of the gla.s.s, the arm moved back toward the table. There was a gentle humming.

Behind Eileen the television flickered and launched into a loud musical commercial. The seamless face of the robot seemed to mock her. She caught a movement from the corner of her eye and turned to look, tensed in an instant, the sweat turning icy on her face.

The motion was from a house next door. A woman was in her kitchen. The woman's blinds were up, and the French doors in Lowell's house had the curtains pulled back. The woman was too far away to see an expression, but she could obviously see Eileen in Lowell's living room, and her posture spelled confusion.

Eileen moved carefully to one of the other chairs and sat down calmly, as though invited to do so by the faceless thing in the armchair. She saw the woman lose her suspicious posture and go on with some sort of homey evening cooking, probably cookies or some kind of treat. Eileen could almost smell the chocolate.

It was then that she realized, all in a rush, what the robot and the woman meant. The neighbor would swear Lowell had been there; she'd seen him in his armchair all evening. And that could mean only one thing: Lowell needed an alibi because he was going to commit a murder. Another murder.

Lowell Guzman was the murderer, not Major Blaine. Eileen couldn't move in the armchair. Everything came rushing together. It all fit. Lowell must have found out that Terry was selling secret doc.u.ments. If she were discovered and convicted, he would go to jail, or at the least lose his clearance. Lowell was in the Gaming Center the day Terry was murdered. Lowell was the d.a.m.n fine actor that Eileen watched on the videos of the Game, crumpled and weeping in the arms of 'Berto and Sharon Johnson. It wasn't Major Blaine at all. It was Lowell.

33.

Gaming Center, Schriever Air Force Base.

Joe walked from room to room, flipping on lights and punching the b.u.t.tons that turned on the graphics terminals. He had done this a thousand times, but always with Art chattering on the keyboard in the main room, or racing him to see who could turn on more terminals. His death surrounded Joe like a rough sea: sometimes it surged around him quietly and sometimes it took him and dragged him under and sc.r.a.ped him raw. It hurt. Then he thought of Eileen, and he knew how much better it was to feel, even if it hurt. For the two years since Sully died he hadn't felt much of anything. Now he was living again.

Then the seas quieted down around him and he forgot everything but the minutiae of the simulation, the terminal stations up and going, the computer network functioning without error, the ports between computers connected and transmitting perfectly. If anything was slightly less than perfect, his attempt would not work.

Joe returned to the main console, his fingers moving rapidly over Art's grubby keyboard. His eyes, lit by the screen, showed a dazed, slightly puzzled look of concentration.

Eventually he paused, sitting back in his chair and putting one foot up on the table where the terminal sat. The computer screen was full of square windows, each one filled with words. Joe flicked his gaze over each window, then nodded in satisfaction and punched the return key.

The screens in the Gaming Center went dark, one by one, then lit up again with the blue globe of the Earth. Joe went to 'Berto's console and stood plucking at his lower lip. He wasn't aware he was copying Art's favorite expression. On the console, the arrow that represented the mouse control suddenly jerked and moved across the screen, although there was no hand at the mouse. Joe nodded to himself, unsmiling.

The arrow moved again, and the globe shifted to a view of the United States. Joe watched, fascinated, as the slightest move of Roberto Espinoza was played back in front of his eyes. Every move that he had made on the keyboard, every tremor of muscle or finger key-click, had been recorded faithfully by the computer system. Joe, as he suspected Art had done before him, had set the system up so that the recording was being played back, exactly as the Game had happened on the day of the murder.

Somewhere, on one of the eight terminals in the Gaming room, one arrow would grow still. During a War Game the partic.i.p.ants were required to have their hand on the mouse at all times, to monitor the battle and send the right commands.

On one screen, the mouse would stop moving. The screen would stay unchanged. The person whose fingers should have been on the mouse, making it move and shift around the screen, would be gone. The mouse would stay absolutely still while the murderer crawled under the Gaming Center floor and rose up behind Terry Guzman like a cobra from a basket. The mouse wouldn't move again until the murderer was back in his seat, pretending all was well.

The missiles burst from the ocean and 'Berto's terminal flickered toward the launch. Joe stood and watched as the missiles lifted and flared and eventually detonated in Washington, D.C.

He sighed, and walked back to Art's console. He pressed a series of keys and the screens went black, then lit up again with the blue globe of the Earth.

Joe knew that the screens hadn't been live when they'd found Art. Art must have created a program to check on each of the terminals and make a decision when one was silent for too long. That was the "Found" phrase on Art's computer that Nelson told her about when Major Blaine discovered Art's body. Joe knew he could duplicate Art's code, but it would take him days where it had taken Art hours. He figured it would be easier to just replay the Gamers' screens and watch them one by one, in each person's room. Art was so good. He felt a surge of panic as he realized if there were more games to be played, it would be Joe Tanner at the helm now. He wouldn't ever be able to fill Art's shoes, but he'd have to try. He rubbed his hands together furiously and blinked hard. Finding out Art's murderer would be a good start.

Joe walked to Doug Procell's terminal, and the light from the screen lit his face as he stood motionless, watching.

NORAD, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado.

General Kelton was on duty that night. There were three American generals and one Canadian general who shared the on-call duty at NORAD.

Now that the Missile Defense program was more or less on-line, crucial decisions had to be made. Most important, the whole system wasn't operational yet. Control of the system alternated between NORAD and s.p.a.ce Command, out at Schriever. Eventually control would rest at NORAD, as it must, and Schriever would continue as a research-and-development station. For now there was always a bit of a battle whenever there were War Games going on.