Wanted

by Laurence E. Dahners

  “But I just did my training on how you can’t get out of trouble by saying you were following orders if the orders were illegal. And it says, right on the same screen, that those guys are actually here in temp block 3, exactly where she says they are!” Albie’s voice dropped, “Right down to the specific cell numbers. How does she know that?”

  “I don’t know! Just go tell her what it says on the screen!”

  Albie drew herself up, “No! I won’t do it. It’d be lying and I think that’s an illegal order. If you want her to be told that, you tell herself.”

  Ralph rolled his eyes and heaved himself up out of his chair. He had plenty of experience intimidating outsiders. He’d just go be his usual overbearing self. Outside at Albie’s station he said, “Yes?”

  Nis gave him a penetrating look then glanced at his nametag. “Mr. Mitchum, is that correct?”

  Ralph nodded impassively.

  “Well Mr. Mitchum, I’ve explained myself to Ms. White, as I’m sure she passed on to you. Are you hoping to inconvenience me by making me repeat myself?”

  Mitchum nodded to the “repeat myself” query before he realized that he’d also confessed to “hoping to inconvenience” her.

  “Very well, for the record, I object to this harassment. As to my request, I am here to speak to my clients who have been held here and questioned for hours while being denied their right to an attorney. I have just ported you their names and cell numbers and appended that list to the AV record I’m making. I expect to be allowed immediate access or I will bring charges against the individual who obstructs their legal rights. Will that be you?”

  Ralph found himself flustered by this woman who somehow loomed much larger than her actual size. He couldn’t judge her legal knowledge, but her smart dress and intense gaze made him feel that she knew exactly what she was doing. He cleared his throat and began, “Uh, Ma’am, the individuals you are requesting are actually being held...’

  Ralph had gradually run down to a stop as Nis had put her hand up in a halting motion. “Please, Mr. Mitchum, do not lie to me on the record here. You and I both know my clients are here in this facility and that their locations and the cell numbers I’ve described are displayed on that screen in front of you.”

  To Ralph’s amazement she grabbed the corner of the monitor in front of him and spun it quickly to herself so that her AI would record exactly what the damned screen showed. “Hey!” he said turning it back to himself.

  Niss said, “So, now, we both know they’re here and I have a record demonstrating that you know they’re here. Are you going to allow me to speak to my clients as the law demands, or are you going to continue to obstruct the process of justice? Please remember that I’m recording your response.”

  Ralph stared round eyed at Niss for a minute, then abruptly turned and went into the back.

  ***

  Special Agent Crispin blinked. “Our detainees are where?”

  “Speaking to their attorney in Green room E.”

  “What! How’d this attorney, uh, get in here?”

  “Showed up, had their names and cell numbers. Said she was here to talk to them. That’s their right isn’t it?”

  “Uh… Well yeah, but…” Crispin trailed off before he said something he might regret.

  The SAC was gonna be pissed.

  ***

  “SAC York!”

  York turned and saw the tech specialist hurrying down the hall behind him. “Yes?”

  “There’s a Raquel Kinrais, née Blandon living on the same street behind Donsaii’s farm where Donsaii’s security team lived. Her husband, Shan Kinrais, wrote a paper with Donsaii.”

  York’s eyes flashed wide, “You’ve got to be shittin’ me!”

  “No sir.”

  “Christ! This is like Osama Bin Laden, livin’ right under everyone’s noses!”

  “Yes sir.”

  He turned and headed back in to the offices set aside for his team. “All right everyone, we finally have a good lead!’ He turned to the tech specialist, “You’ll show us pictures and maps, can you be ready in ten?”

  “Yes sir.”

  He turned back to the room in general, “Meeting in ten to figure out how to chase it down.”

  ***

  Washington D.C.—The Secretary of the Department of Energy let slip today that he had spoken directly with Ell Donsaii, despite the fact that she is currently a fugitive from the law. This disclosure occurred in the course of an announcement that the DOE had just successfully negotiated with D5R’s subsidiary ET Resources to begin moving the United States’ nuclear waste to ETR’s nuclear waste repository on the asteroid Juno. ETR’s Ben Stavos had initially rebuffed the DOE’s request, “until the President rescinds her executive order declaring D5R’s leader Ell Donsaii ‘a national menace.’” Apparently this refusal was made without Donsaii’s knowledge because the Secretary said that when he spoke to Donsaii, she said she was personally unaware and had herself “never intended for the country to be held hostage to her own disagreement with the President.” Apparently Donsaii subsequently spoke to Stavos who has now agreed to undertake the disposal of radioactives for the United States (as it had already agreed to do for three other countries).

  The word in Washington is that President Stockton was absolutely apoplectic when she learned that a member of her own Cabinet had contacted a fugitive on the “most wanted list.”

  When Viveka had first arrived at Allosci she’d been astonished to find Dr. Pace making graphene at simply stupendous rates out at the space Habitat. Even in India she’d known that graphene was being synthesized at D5R, though she hadn’t heard of the Allosci subdivision at that time. However, she’d been under the misapprehension that graphene synthesis remained a slow, low volume process. Arriving here and learning that they could create tens of kilometers of graphene per hour had shaken her world view. She no longer wondered how they could afford to start her at a salary of $100,000 per year.

  One hundred thousand American dollars per year! And they’d paid her moving costs from India, expecting her to ship furniture. When she’d told them she had no furniture, they’d insisted on paying for two months’ rent in a furnished apartment in lieu of the moving costs.

  Of course, at present Viveka remained impoverished. She hadn’t yet received that first paycheck. Even though the flight from India and her astonishingly huge apartment hadn’t cost anything, she’d only had seven hundred dollars when she’d arrived. Dr. Donsaii had given her $10,000 during the Olympics as a prepayment on her employment. Foolishly feeling extraordinarily wealthy, Viveka had given $7,000 to her mother for repairs on her dilapidated childhood home and for her little sister’s education. The look on her mother’s face at the windfall of money had been priceless.

  Then Viveka had purchased her printer, an expense she now regretted. A few other purchases and expenses, had left her with the seven hundred dollars she’d had when she left India. Seven hundred had seemed to be so much until she found out that a taxi from the airport to her new apartment would cost sixty dollars here in America. Then there had been a two hundred dollar deposit on her apartment. Cost after cost that she hadn’t expected. A hundred dollar minimum deposit to open the bank account where her paycheck would be deposited.

  Thank goodness her genius level AI had been able to figure out how to get a bus most of the way to her job. She still had to walk a half mile to where she would catch a bus and three miles to Allosci from the closest that the bus routes approached.

  Food also cost much more than what she’d spent in India. A week ago she’d discovered Raman noodles and had been living on them for a week now. In another ten days she should get her first paycheck though! So much money! She couldn’t wait to send some money home to her mother. Though, she reminded herself, she must begin saving for a visit.

  At a chime from the materials testing machine’s AI Viveka looked down. A few minutes later she still stared at the display in disbelief.

  Graphend
! This combination of graphene and diamond they were making produced measurements that were simply hard to believe. The testing machine was powerful and the graphend specimens were small—still the machine strained near its limits to break these specimens.

  Staring in admiration and wondering if she would someday be brought into the secret of the creation of graphend Viveka didn’t hear someone approaching from behind her until she heard Dr. Donsaii’s “Raquel” voice say, “Hello Viveka.”

  Viveka scrambled around and to her feet, “Hello Doctor… uh, Raquel.”

  Donsaii smiled at her. “Dr. Pace tells me you’re doing very well. He thinks we’re going to be very happy to have you on our team.”

  Viveka ducked her head. “Thank you. I’m very glad.”

  “A little birdie tells me that you’re walking at least a big part of the way to work though.” Chidingly, “I’m thinking that you might not have a car?”

  “No Ma’am.”

  “You’ll really need a car here in America, you know.”

  “Yes Ma’am.” Viveka said, staring at the floor and trying not to melt through it.

  Donsaii studied her another minute, then said, “Oh, you probably don’t have the money do you? I’ll bet you haven’t been paid yet?”

  Viveka shook her head, feeling small.

  Donsaii laughed, “Well, we can’t have that. There’ll be a deposit in your account tomorrow morning and I’m going to ask Bridget to take you out tomorrow and help you figure out how things work here in America, rent you a car, help you find a different apartment if you like, etcetera. I’m embarrassed we’ve left you to flounder around trying to figure things out for yourself for so long.” She put a gentle hand on Viveka’s shoulder, “I’m sorry and we’ll try to do better. Please let Bridget know if there’s any other way we can help you adjust?”

  Viveka nodded spastically but managed to keep the tears from running down her cheek until after Donsaii had turned and cheerfully said, “I’d better get home to my hubby.”

  ***

  Ell lay in bed next to Shan who was reading as he waited to drift off to sleep. She’d been reviewing Roger’s AV recording of the last D5R meeting. “Damn, I could use one of those!” she mumbled to herself.

  “What’s that?” Shan asked sleepily.

  “Oh. You know how people in the hospital, a lot of the time they have a catheter put into their bladder? It lets the hospital track how much urine they’re making and keeps them from having to get up to go to the bathroom. In fact, during long surgeries, they put them in just so the bladder doesn’t get overstretched by all the urine they’re making while they can’t pee it out.”

  “Sounds gross.”

  “Yeah, anyway, the Quantum Biomed group has come up with a portal technology for it. They insert a deflated balloon with a port on it, the same way they do a regular catheter. A tiny port blows up the balloon so it stays in the bladder and a bigger port drains out the urine.”

  “Why’s that any better than a catheter?”

  “Umm, cause the catheters are irritating and they get infected if they have to stay in very long.”

  Shan turned his head to frown at her, “Why do you want one?”

  “‘Cause your son’s sitting on my bladder and I have to go every ten minutes. Do you have any idea how irritating that is?”

  He turned away, “It isn’t every ten minutes.”

  “Poetic license. Go to sleep, O unsympathetic one.”

  “I’m sympathetic,” he faked a snore.

  Ell elbowed him, but gently.

  ***

  York climbed into the mobile command post and turned to the tech specialist. “Frankie, do we know for certain that Donsaii is there at the house?”

  Frankie nodded. “Yes sir. We dropped off two video cams this morning, one in the front yard of the northern neighbor and one in back yard of the neighbor to the south. AI’s have monitored those feeds for movement of any type, which they’ve brought to the attention of agents. The only activity has been her husband getting home at 1647 and Donsaii parking in the garage at 1713 hours. Since that time no one has left the home, through either the front or the back door. Infrared on the cams occasionally showed people moving around inside, last movement at 2305.”

  “OK,” York said, then turned to the men arrayed behind him. “Drones up?”

  “Yes sir, eyes on the house at present.”

  “Choppers ready?”

  “Can be overhead in seven minutes.”

  “Farm team ready?”

  “Twenty five agents in two depths in the farm field right behind the ‘Kinrais’ house.”

  “Road team ready?”

  “Van with eight agents and bus with twenty two, idling just off main road.”

  “K-9 teams ready?”

  “Yes sir, four dogs on standby. All have Donsaii’s scent already.”

  York turned and swept his eyes over the men, “Anyone with any last minute ideas or concerns?”

  No one spoke. York resisted the temptation to sigh. This seemed absolutely foolproof, but so had his last trap. “OK, timeline starts now.” He made a chopping motion with his hand. His AI would send the teams on their way per the schedule they’d worked out so that the choppers would arrive overhead as the street team ran up the sidewalk with the big door knocker and the dog teams assumed position at the four corners of the yard, ready to run the woman down if she went out a window.

  The woman might be fast, but the dogs were faster.

  The big diesel of the command post rumbled to life and it swung in behind the bus full of agents. He’d be last on the scene, but still in plenty of time to be there for the collar.

  ***

  Ell was in the bathroom—again—when Allan spoke in her ear. “A van, a small bus, two more vans and an FBI mobile command post have just turned into the neighborhood. Lights are out on all vehicles. Audio detects the sounds of helicopters.”

  Damn! Ell thought. She stood, leaving her pajama bottoms on the floor of the bathroom, and stepped out into the bedroom pulling off the top. “Shan!” she whispered urgently, poking him. “FBI’s on its way. Rise and shine.”

  Shan started to reach for the bedside light but Ell grabbed his elbow, pulling his hand away. “No lights! Get your clothes on, grab your emergency pack and head to the basement.”

  Ell pulled her own emergency pack out from under the bed and reached into the pocket with her graphene underwear. The stuff was so flimsy it was hard to put on, but she’d practiced and practiced until it was second nature. Next came her black athletic gear with the cooling ports and the extra-large ports in the jacket pockets. Pulling the pants on over her bulging abdomen seemed like more of a struggle than it had been a just a week or two ago when she’d last done it.

  She picked up her pack, threw it onto her shoulder and, feeling like a clumsy waddle was the best she could do, stepped out into the hall just in front of Shan.

  For his part, Shan felt amazed by the speed with which his oversized wife had dressed and started down the hall in front of him. She opened the door to the basement and started down the stairs.

  ***

  Frankie turned to York, “Movement in the house.”

  “Where?”

  “Master bedroom on our copy of the plans.”

  “Just going to the bathroom?”

  She shook her head, “Two figures moving.”

  “Shit, shit, shit!” he cursed quietly to himself. “Teams! They’re moving around in the house. Abandon stealth. Get in position now, now, now! No sirens yet.”

  The rumble of the street passing by underneath the command post sped up. He glanced out the front window and saw the headlights come on.

  ***

  Ell turned right at the bottom of the stairs and stepped to the big rack of wall shelves containing paint and fertilizer. Reaching up under one of the shelves, she pushed on the loose screw that released the latch. In response to a firm shove the shelves pushed back into the tunnel beyond a
nd she and Shan stepped into the passageway. They turned and shoved the wall of shelves back into place until the latch clicked.

  Ell reached into her pocket and tossed something on the floor in front of the false door.

  Shan frowned at the object, wondering if his wife might have actually left a bomb or something. Then with a hiss it blew up into a large, somewhat translucent gray balloon which filled the hallway from one side to the other. “Graphene balloon?” he asked.

  Ell nodded as she started walking down the tunnel, “Yeah filled to seventy PSI. Even if they find the latch, the door isn’t going to feel like it opens.” She barked a little laugh, “And, they certainly aren’t going to be able to open it!” She got on the little golf cart.

  “Aren’t you worried they’ll have some kind of listening equipment that will hear this cart?”

  “If they can hear the cart, they can hear us walking. Speed will be important then.” Nonetheless, she didn’t rocket off down the tunnel like she often did, choosing a gentle quiet pace instead. “Allan,” she said, “What’s happening up there? Give Shan a feed too.”

  “Agents have surrounded the house. No doubt any longer that they are here for you. I count thirty agents on the street side and twelve on the farm side. Four K-9 teams. Two helicopters are overhead. Some agents are carrying something up the front walk, presumably a door breaker. Neighbors on either side and across the street are peering out their windows.”

  “Wow!” Ell said, “Not leaving any holes in their coverage, eh? Are the hoverbikes overhead yet?”

  “Yes, holding at 12,000 feet.”

  “What altitude are the FBI helicopters?”

  “About one hundred feet.”

  “And are the choppers staying close over the house?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK, put the hoverbikes over the groundskeeper’s shack on the farm and drop their cables to the ground just outside the small side door. Pull up the cables if the helicopters get within a hundred meters, we don’t want them getting tangled in the cables and crashing.”