Eileen Reed - Ground Zero Part 8

The big center room was empty now, the clutter of coffee cups and crumpled napkins the only evidence of the former crowd. The room was very cold.

"I've asked Sharon, Lowell, and Doug not to leave the base until they've spoken to you," Blaine continued. "Those are the Gamers you haven't interviewed yet. The Observers have been allowed to leave the base provided they don't leave the city. You'll contact them as you need to."

Eileen nodded, feeling again as though Blaine were giving her orders and finding herself helpless to respond. The only possible response was to be insultingly rude, and Eileen found rudeness difficult. Instead she turned her attention to the video cameras. The video cameras were mounted high against the ceiling. A person would need a stepladder to tamper with them.

"Don't touch the cameras until I can get fingerprints from them," Eileen said as Blaine took out his notepad and pen. "I need the names of the workmen who installed the cameras, whoever repairs them, anyone who might have a legitimate reason to have touched them."

"You'll be able to look at the tapes while we're waiting for Dr. Rowland," Blaine said. He pointed with his pen to a door at the back of the room. "The video center is right here. No one has been in there since the game started. It's all controlled by Art Bailey and Joe Tanner, through the computer."

Eileen was surprised when Blaine opened the door. She had seen television studios before, but this was a surprising sight on a military base. The room was crammed with tall electronics panels. The panels were stuffed with high-resolution television monitors, dubbing equipment, and a soundboard to rival that of a recording studio. There were a couple of comfortable chairs in the same style as the ones in the conference room. Blaine dropped into one and studied the equipment with a frown.

"What do they need this stuff for?"

"To make films about missile defense," Blaine said absently.

"Films?"

"Propaganda," Blaine said shortly, and twisted his mouth. "Beautiful stuff, you should see it. Very exciting. Makes you glad we are building missile defense, all of that. We have to get funding, you know."

"I thought it was all cla.s.sified."

"The people who see these films all have clearances. These films aren't shown to the Boy Scouts."

"I see," Eileen said, flushing despite herself. How was she to know such a thing? She opened a drawer at random and saw a stack of compact discs. "Your Gamers like their rock and roll too, I guess?"

Blaine turned to see Eileen holding a CD. "I guess they do. At least the thousands they spent on the sound system is being used more than once a month."

Eileen thumbed through the CDs. There was everything there, from cla.s.sical to heavy metal to Nat King Cole. She opened the Cole CD and saw "Joe Tanner" written within in a large, neat hand. She smiled.

"Er-" Blaine said.

Eileen glanced up, not knowing how much time had pa.s.sed. Blaine was sitting at the console, his hands busy at a keyboard. It was fascinating to see how much she was learning just from people's taste in music. Arthur Bailey, the earnest Truth Team lead, had a whole collection of hits from the seventies music that Eileen couldn't stand when she heard it the first time. She couldn't imagine someone actually listening to an entire Donna Summer disc. Roberto Espinoza tended toward alternative music. There were no discs with Lowell Guzman's name, but quite a few with Terry's. Terry, whose body was cooling less than fifty feet away, liked Top Forty music. Doug, one of the Gamers he hadn't met yet, was a New Age fan. His CDs were all instrumental Windham Hill artists. Sharon, one of the other unknown Gamers, had only two CDs and the plastic was cloudy and chipped on the cases. She had one Michael Jackson and one Whitney Houston, and although the cases were ancient the CDs inside were clean and shining, with no hair or dust.

Tanner, he of the green eyes and square hands, had nothing cla.s.sifiable. There were some New Age discs and some cla.s.sical. There was Nat King Cole, a Replacements disc, one from a local band called the Auto-No, and Aretha Franklin. Eileen knew about the Auto-No. She liked their music a lot. She wondered if Tanner ever went to the local bars where the band liked to play.

"Ahem," Blaine said. Eileen looked up again.

"I don't know how to work this," Blaine said. "We're going to have to get Joe or Art in here. I thought it would be like a VCR, but-" And he spread his hands in front of the bewildering array of equipment in front of him.

"Only one, please," Eileen said. "Only one and we'll both watch."

"That's fine," Blaine said, and picked up a phone. Eileen turned back to the CD drawer, noticing that without even realizing it she had sorted out the music by Gamer. There was a sheet of paper at the bottom of the drawer, and she pulled it out. On it was large type:

TUNES RULES:.

1) No more than three CDs in the queue.

2) No stopping the CD in progress. If you hate it, wear earplugs!

3) No volume past the third hash mark. Unless it is after midnight.

Blaine spoke briefly into the phone and replaced it in the cradle. He swiveled around to face Eileen, scrubbing tiredly at his face.

"Joe's coming over."

The phone rang suddenly, startling them both. Blaine picked it up and listened for a moment.

"We'll be right there," he said, getting to his feet. He put down the phone and jerked his head toward the door. "The ME is here. Dr. Rowland. And the whole Air Force Crime Scene crew."

"I'll wait here," Eileen said. Blaine nodded and went to get the door.

Eileen, in her music sorting, noticed there were CDs owned by someone called Sully, a name she hadn't heard in connection with the Gamers. She tapped one of the CDs against her lip gently, finished up her sorting job, put them all back, and shut the drawer as Major Blaine led in a short Air Force captain in a wrinkled, ill-fitting uniform. Behind him were four other people, all in comfortable civilian clothing. The photographer looked upset, clutching his big camera with white fingers.

"Dr. Rowland," the captain in the rumpled uniform said, shaking Eileen's hand. "I don't believe we've met yet, although I know your Captain Harben. A good guy." Dr. Rowland had bright, small brown eyes and a shock of thinning reddish hair. He walked in brisk, abrupt steps and when he c.o.c.ked his head to the side while shaking hands Eileen almost laughed aloud. Rowland reminded her of a small red fox.

"Nice to meet you," Eileen said. "I'm glad you're here."

"Took me long enough," Rowland said with a quick glance at Blaine. "I've never been through more checks, not even at the Pentagon." Blaine shrugged and spread his hands apart. The photographer blew a strand of black hair off his forehead with a loud snort, but said nothing.

"Where?" Rowland asked, not looking at the screens that had captured Eileen's attention earlier. The globe was still focused on the eastern seaboard, where streamers of radioactive clouds could be seen flowing north and west. New York City was already covered by a long plume. Blaine pointed at the closed door, and Rowland immediately shifted his grip on his medical bag and strode off in his quick little steps.

"Just got finished on a murder at Fort Carson," Rowland said briskly. "No mystery there, straight overdose. Needle marks still clear. Trouble was," and he gestured for Blaine to open the door, "the soldier was in the bushes for a week. Hot weather is rough on a corpse."

"Pendleton," Eileen said gloomily, and Rowland laughed.

"You'll be working that one too, I imagine? Camera, please. Closed door first."

The camera flashed. The door swung open. Eileen remained impa.s.sive. She'd stood watch enough times to know how many terrible odors a dead body emits in the first few hours. After that things get better as rigor mortis sets in, and the smell only becomes awful again after decay really starts to take hold. Eileen didn't envy Dr. Rowland the examination of Pendleton's corpse after weeks in the summer heat.

Dr. Rowland stood for a moment, and to Blaine's amazement and Eileen's approval, took a deep, sampling breath. "Ahh," he said, but it was not an expression of enjoyment. He looked at the shape of the woman, still slumped over her keyboard, looked at the yellow handle of the screwdriver. He gestured for the camera, here, there. The flashes were silent and too bright. Finally he stepped into the room. He crouched down and looked underneath the loosely hanging arm, peering up at the dead face. He stood again, took the wrist of the body, and appeared to be feeling for a pulse. Eileen could see how deeply the fingers were pressing into the skin, feeling the silence. The cameraman took a picture from the same angle, crouching down on limber haunches. One team member took notes in what looked like a notebook. Eileen saw it out of the corner of her eye and glanced at it. As fast as the man was writing notes, the text was turning into typed words on a little computer screen. Eileen turned her attention back to the body.

Dr. Rowland looked at the screwdriver and bent down to his medical bag. He took out a small paper bag and taped it carefully over the screwdriver handle.

"Prints at the autopsy from this," he said in the direction of the fingerprinters, who were patiently waiting their turn. One of them nodded and snapped his gum.

"I need a hand here," Rowland said, looking at Eileen and Blaine.

Eileen stepped into the room before Blaine could move.

"I'll help."

"Okay, then, take her shoulder. We're going to lean her back in the chair. The screwdriver is high enough to miss the back of the chair. She'll be heavy," he warned.

Eileen nodded, and took hold of the slack shoulder.

"On the count of three."

At Dr. Rowland's sharp "Three," both of them pulled the body of the woman up and back in the chair. Her head lolled forward, then tilted back toward Blaine. Trapped ga.s.ses gurgled out of her throat. Blaine looked away, grimacing.

Dr. Rowland started examining the chest, the face, the neck, and Eileen met the murder victim. She would see pictures later that would give a better impression of soul and personality than the lifeless clay in front of her. She would get a better idea of what Terry Guzman was like from the interviews she would make. In fact, she already was forming an idea of the personality of the dead woman. Here was the physical thing, however, limp and dead though it was. Terry had rich brown hair and the ring of iris from one dulled eye was blue. Her body was lush and full under the formal green suit. Her skin showed faint marks of sun and wind, and Eileen looked for the character lines. She found a set of lines by the mouth, lines that spoke of self-indulgence and the set of a mouth in bad temper. Already, though, she wondered if she would have characterized those lines as bad temper if she hadn't already known that Terry was not a well-liked person.

The room was too small to hold Eileen, Dr. Rowland, and the photographer comfortably, so Eileen stepped out into the fresher air of the Center. She blinked at the sight of Joe Tanner standing at the doorway, his hands at his sides, his face as pale as chalk.

Eileen cursed under her breath and quickly closed the door. She didn't want Joe to see the body. If he were the murderer, he could use this glimpse of the body to cover up any slipups he might make later. Blaine noticed Joe.

"How long have you been there?" Blaine barked.

"I-I-I just got here," he stammered.

"It's all right," Eileen said, more to Tanner than to Blaine.

"We need to see the videotape," Blaine said to Joe. "I'm sorry to call you over here. I didn't want you to see that."

Tanner shrugged faintly and nodded at Blaine.

"It's okay," he said. "Not something I really wanted to see."

"I need to know how to work the machine," Eileen said. "I'll be going over it quite a bit, and I wouldn't want you to have to stay here while I work."

"Okay," Tanner said.

In the studio, more color came into his face. He obviously felt very much at home. He sat down at a console and logged on to a computer terminal, his fingers striking the keyboard quickly. The screen went dark and then cleared, showing a series of boxes of different colors and sizes.

"Okay," he said to himself, and took a deep breath. "Okay." He turned to Eileen and gestured her closer.

"This is like your VCR, only a little more complicated," Tanner explained. "Ignore the console itself, that won't do anything. It's all hooked into the monitor here." Behind him, Blaine made an ahhh sound. "The tapes from monitor A are here," and his finger touched the screen at a large A. "To view the tape, press this b.u.t.ton with your mouse key," and he moved the mouse so the computer arrow was directly over the View b.u.t.ton. "The rest should be obvious; there's Pause, Fast Forward, Rewind, and this one you'll probably like, it's a frame-by-frame option." He pressed the View b.u.t.ton, and the TV monitor set into the studio console went dark and then lit up with a scene of the room in front of them, full of people. He pressed the Frame-by-Frame b.u.t.ton with his mouse key, and the people froze. Every time he pressed the b.u.t.ton, the people made some kind of tiny advance in their movements. The picture was perfectly sharp.

"Good equipment," Eileen murmured.

"The best," Tanner said absently. "Now, there is an audio feature too, you'll want this too. Look."

He moved over to the television picture and picked up another mouse. A cursor appeared on the television screen. Tanner swirled the cursor around in a nervous little gesture, then picked on a tall major with a cup of coffee and a donut in his hand. He held down the first mouse key and drew the mouse sharply downward. Where the cursor was, a box appeared and grew as he moved the mouse. He "drew" a box around the donut-eating major, then let the mouse go and moved his chair back to the other keyboard. He picked up the mouse and clicked on Audio and then pressed a b.u.t.ton marked Listen.

"Resume is the b.u.t.ton for when you want to listen to all the conversations again," Tanner said. "Don't forget that, or it's annoying." He pressed the Play b.u.t.ton on the tape.

"Another show," the major was saying to the person at his side, another major who was wiping his fingers on a napkin. The other major said something, but there was no sound as the lips moved.

"Yeah, they do have some lookers here, don't they? I'd like to hang out in the Ground Weapons room just to look at that babe in the green suit."

Eileen nodded. That was a comment she'd expect about a woman like Terry.

"You can listen to anyone's conversation?" Blaine asked. "What does the whole room sound like?"

Tanner didn't say a word. He turned back to the terminal and pressed the Audio, and then the Resume b.u.t.ton. At once, the sound of fifty voices filled the booth, the crowd noise.

"Amazing," Eileen said admiringly. "This may help me quite a bit."

"It's easy," Tanner said. "I'll be at my desk until four o'clock if you have any other questions, and you could call Art or me if you need to."

"That's fine, then," Blaine said. "I'll let you get back now so my team can get to work."

Eileen tried to keep her face expressionless. My team?

"There's one other thing," Tanner said, looking anxiously at Eileen. "I need to bring the simulation down. Er, I mean, I need to stop the programs from running." He gestured at the globe in the front of the room. The sun was westering and the lights were coming on in many of the cities.

"Hey, there's lights in the east," Eileen said. "Wouldn't the power be out?"

"Well, I'll be dipped," Tanner said in wonder. "We never let the thing run this far before. 'Berto will love this one!" He snapped his fingers and grinned, and for a moment Eileen saw him as he must have been before Terry's body was discovered: vibrant, alive, full of humor and vinegar. Then as he glanced over at her in amus.e.m.e.nt, as if to share the knowledge of the computer bug, he remembered the murder. For a moment, he'd obviously forgotten. The light in his eyes died out and he looked miserable.

"What will happen if we just let it run?" Blaine asked.

"You'll crash a Cray supercomputer, is what you'll do," Tanner answered dully. "Every keystroke and mouse movement is stored on the Cray, as well as all the number-crunching to run the simulation. If we just let it run the Cray will fill up like a bathtub. We never run simulations this long, we have to store the data away so it can be processed."

"You can bring it down," Blaine said.

"Please don't get rid of anything," Eileen added. "Not until we know if there's anything on that computer that could help us."

"Okay," Tanner said. "I can bring it down from next door, that okay? Art and I will have to do the cleanup, but we can do that from our desks too, we're linked to the Cray."

"Bring it down, then, Joe," Blaine said, before Eileen could say anything. She blinked hard and thought about whether or not she should challenge him. But she really had no idea what was stored on the computer, or whether or not Joe Tanner or Arthur Bailey would be getting rid of valuable information. Eileen simply could not control everything, and she knew it, so she let it go.

Tanner gave a brief ghost of a smile and got to his feet. He picked a piece of paper from a note board to the side of the console and handed it deliberately to Eileen.

"Our numbers," he said.

"Thanks," Eileen said wryly. A murder suspect, giving her some support against the big bad Major Blaine. This was turning out to be some day.

As Blaine escorted him out, Eileen went back to Dr. Rowland. She waited until Tanner was out of sight before opening the door to the little room where Terry was killed. As she did, she realized anew that she had no idea how the murder was committed. The room had only one door, and that was on the monitor. Perhaps the videotape would show something. She froze for a moment, trying to keep her heart from speeding up in her chest. Now was no time for her doubts to show.

"I'm done, you can call the wagon," Rowland said. "She died of the stab wound, I would predict, but I won't know until the autopsy for sure." He was scrubbing at his hands with a disposable wet tissue. Overwhelming the other odors was a smell of baby powder.

"Diaper wipes," Rowland said, winking at Eileen. He dropped the wipe back into his bag. "Greatest stuff ever invented. Take off anything and they smell awful powerful. I've got a little girl, so I steal from our home supply."

Eileen smiled at the little doctor. It was a good smell. In the room the fingerprinters were now going to work. They were done with the door. It was marked with streaks and smears of light brown dust.

"You're the investigating officer, that right?" Rowland asked.

"That's right."

"This is a h.e.l.l of a stab wound," Rowland said thoughtfully. "I don't know if the screwdriver was sharpened or not, but even if it was, it still takes a lot of force to drive a screwdriver into someone's back. This person you're looking for is strong. Smart to use a screwdriver. No blood splash like from a knife," Rowland said.

"You can buy one at any store," Eileen added.

"Fingerprints nearly impossible to take from that plastic." Rowland continued grinning.