Skywatcher

by Winona Kent

  He walked down the hallway to the front of the building, completing the square. Now for the inside of the beast. Ducking into the men’s room, he took out the preliminary map he’d prepared, and scribbled in the details with a black felt pen. He sauntered out again and disappeared into the heart of CGUL. Here was the record library, and the places where commercials were voiced and edited, the storage areas for old and new tapes. And ads that were still in production.

  Anthony and Charlotte were sitting on a picnic table beneath a tree offering very little protection from the drizzle that had not let up all day. It was a summit meeting, of sorts. Anthony wound his scarf around his hands; he’d left his gloves somewhere and his fingers were beginning to tingle with the icy cold.

  “We haven’t even caught a glimpse of Larry Hamelin,” Charlotte said, disappointedly. “Let alone Ian. Are you sure you know what you’re talking about?”

  “Absolutely,” Anthony replied.

  “Besides, I don’t even know what he looks like—Ian, I mean. I can’t just walk up to every twenty-nine-year-old guy I see and start analyzing his jawline and eyebrows.”

  Anthony looked away; he tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent a very large smile from creeping onto his face. “I have a confession.”

  “What?”

  “I know what he looks like.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Promise me you won’t get hysterical.”

  “Promise.”

  He didn’t really believe her. “I met him,” he said, opting to keep the anonymity his father so treasured. “Once.”

  “Where?”

  That was a good question. “At a concert,” he said. “Doug and the Slugs. He was lining up for tickets.”

  “What did you say?”

  “You promised me you weren’t going to get hysterical.”

  “I’m not! I’m not! What did you say? What did he say?”

  Anthony’s mind was hopping from puddle to improvisational puddle. “I said, ‘Hot tickets for Doug and the Slugs—forty dollars each,’ and he said, ‘OK, I’ll take two.’”

  “You scalped a couple of tickets for Doug and the Slugs to Evan’s son?”

  “Sure. You think he couldn’t afford them?”

  Charlotte was giving him another one of her sideways looks. “How do you know it was him?”

  “I saw his I. D. when he took out his wallet.”

  She didn’t seem convinced.

  “He had a Jarrod Spencer bubble gum card stuck right up front.”

  The look was becoming more and more skeptical.

  “And I asked him if he was, you know, Ian Harris. The Ian Harris.”

  A glimmer of trust. “What did he say?”

  Anthony shrugged. “He said he was, so I said, ‘Pleased to meet you,’ and I went off and sold six more tickets. That’s all.”

  “That’s all? That’s everything.” She slid around, pure adoration in her eyes. “What did he look like?”

  Anthony blew his breath out. “A little shorter than me—red hair—disgustingly handsome. I’m sure I’d recognize him if I saw him again.”

  Charlotte sighed, and Anthony changed the subject. “I saw a notice board earlier today,” he said. “There’s some kind of gathering of the masses later on tonight, around seven. I think we should go, don’t you?”

  “Maybe,” Charlotte said. Her head was filled with dancing thoughts of Ian, and Doug and the Slugs, and scalpers’ fees of forty dollars a time.

  “First of all, though, I’d like to do a little more scouting around.” Somewhere on the grounds of Dehra Dun there was a very large collection of satellite dishes. And one very-hard-to-find brother.

  He glanced up at the gray, overcast sky, and then around at the grounds, the buildings. So far, the search had been fairly superficial, consisting of strolls across lawns and down deserted corridors, and slow scans of faces in crowds. It was time to get down to specifics. Scrambling to his feet, he got up on top of the picnic table and surveyed the hangars on the perimeter of the community, adjacent to the airstrip. Those very same structures were supposed to be housing the Shirda’s famous collection of Cessnas.

  “Anything interesting up there?” Charlotte asked.

  “Perhaps.” Anthony jumped down to the ground. “I think it’s time we got devious, Charlotte.”

  His companion’s grin spelled intrigue. “An organized skulk through a ventilation shaft?” she guessed. “Concealed microphones? A couple of spies camping out in the closet?”

  Anthony flung his scarf around his neck in a dramatic gesture of skulduggery. “I’m off on a little walk out to the airstrip,” he said. “I have a suspicion.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Look for Ian,” he shrugged. “There can’t be that many disgustingly handsome redheads around. He’ll probably be talking about the stock exchange and mutual funds.” Charlotte gave him an odd stare. “It’s what he was talking about in the lineup for Doug and the Slugs,” Anthony said, thinking fast. “See you later.”

  “Do I take it, then,” the Shirda said, “that we are in business?”

  “You do,” Ian replied.

  It had been an extremely civilized meeting, conducted in the privacy of Hamelin’s office, a rather mundane, functional sort of place that reminded Ian of government bureaus and doctors’ consulting rooms. Throughout the meeting, two gentlemen in three-piece suits had stood sentry by the door, more resembling CIA men guarding the president of the United States than financial advisers to Dehra Dun, which was how they had been introduced by Hamelin.

  “We’ll begin the campaign next week, then. I’ll expect to see some copy by—Tuesday?”

  “I’ll have it couriered down,” Ian said.

  “I’d really rather you stay here until I give my approval,” the Shirda replied, with a persuasiveness Ian couldn’t ignore.

  He considered the man’s request. A safety measure on his part? All right. He’d simply have to write the copy himself and try to present it in as attractive a way as possible, utilizing the materials at hand. There had to be a typewriter somewhere on the premises; a word processor was too much to hope for. And an extra couple of days in Dehra Dun wasn’t going to make life terribly miserable for him—although Jennifer was probably by now climbing the condominium walls. He’d give her a call later.

  “My understanding,” he said, pressing his fingertips together, “is that all of this is still somewhat tentative. You’re waiting for final authorization from somebody?”

  Hamelin smiled. His eyes were like ball bearings. They saw right through you.

  “I’m awaiting the arrival of certain crucial items of information,” he said, “without which the project cannot proceed.”

  “And if this information is not in your possession by the weekend?”

  “It will be,” Hamelin said, with confidence.

  Ian nodded. A fair amount of tact was required in dealing with this fellow. One needed to know when to speak and when to remain diplomatically silent. He supposed that was why Hamelin had requested him for this particular job: his business sense was impeccable.

  “What name have you chosen now that you’ve decided to join our little community?” Hamelin was walking with him to the door. The two high-financiers stepped aside.

  “Oran,” Ian answered, pausing in the doorway. He turned to face his benefactor. “I do have one more question.”

  The Shirda waited patiently, a bland, self-effacing, totally deceptive smile still on his lips.

  “This campaign I’ve been hired by you to coordinate—it involves a series of broadcasts over existing satellite TV and radio systems.”

  “That is correct.”

  “And you want me to write your speeches for you. Put words in your mouth. Produce copy for other members of your group to read.”

  “Have we not already discussed this, Oran?”

  “We have,” Ian said, treading carefully. “I’m still a little unclear on one point, tho
ugh. I’m a writer—but so are you. You made a living at it for years. Why do you need to hire me? Why don’t you simply do it yourself?”

  The Shirda’s thin-lipped smile neither faded nor grew. “Aside from priorities—I’m much too busy to concern myself with rhetoric at this point—there is a practical consideration. I am a writer of fiction. You, however, come to me as a writer of fact. And therein lies the difference. We are not dealing with fantasy here, Oran. We are dealing with truth. You have been selected to deliver the message.”

  Wonderful, Ian thought. Well, at least that question had been answered.

  “You will be attending the initiation ceremony this evening?”

  “Wouldn’t dare miss it,” Ian replied. “Should I wear anything special?”

  “The robe will suffice. And please remember the rule concerning fasting: nothing to eat for two hours prior to the ceremony. Good-bye.”

  Ian stood alone in the hallway. He folded his arms and walked softly toward the exit. If there was anything he hated, it was stepping into the unknown. He liked to be prepared—had been prepared, in fact, even when he’d done Europe on ten dollars a day. This initiation ceremony left him feeling cold: he wished he knew what to expect.

  Damn those confounded rules about eating, too. First, no breakfast. Now, no dinner. There had to be a way around it.

  Of course there was. Congratulating himself on his inventiveness, he was about to set off for the dining hall when he recognized the woman who had been sitting with Anthony earlier. She was perched on a picnic table in the small landscaped park beyond the community’s main administration building. Where was his brother?

  His eyes swept the area, but there was no sign of Anthony. Best to play it safe, nonetheless. He pulled up his hood and set out, hands inside his sleeves, the very picture of a Dehra Dun supplicant.

  Chapter Eleven

  Late Thursday Afternoon

  Robin liked the waiters at the Coal Harbour Steakhouse. At one point in his life, it had been his ambition to become one of their number—if only for the summer, or as part-time employment, during the school year. The dream had diminished somewhat as his interests had begun to lean more toward the cerebral, but he still enjoyed the ambience of the place, the guys in their red T-shirts, the easygoing lack of formality the restaurant maintained.

  He liked the food, too, which was why he’d suggested it to Evan as a starting point for the night’s activities. A well-done filet and a huge, butter-soaked lobster tail, and the most incredible chocolate dessert—

  “Ahem,” said his father, waiting.

  Robin dragged his attention—and his appetite—in from the waterfront. He’d been gazing rather absently at the stretch of Burrard Inlet that had lent the steakhouse its name.

  “Sorry,” he said. Evan had been studying the map. “Is it all right?”

  “It’s very well done,” his father replied, a note of admiration in his voice. “What’s the best way in?”

  Robin thought, then pointed with his steak knife to a small side exit. “This door at the back leads straight into the newsroom.”

  “Anybody in there tonight?”

  He shook his head. “Their last news and sportscast is at six. Nobody hangs around much past six-thirty.”

  Evan looked at the box his son had sketched in and labeled “Studio,” adjacent to the block marked “Newsroom.” “Will the fellow who’s on the air here”—he tapped the studio—“be able to see me as I walk through here?” He stabbed the newsroom with his fork.

  Robin thought again. “There’s a window in the wall but it’s got curtains and they’re usually closed. There’s another window in the studio door—it’s really small. He’d have to be standing up. Or you’d have to be right up close.”

  He reached over and deftly slid the map out of the way as their eternally chipper, red-shirted waiter deposited a loaf of sourdough bread and an aluminum tub of whipped butter on the table. His name was Mike: he’d introduced himself before rattling off the evening’s specials like a series of stations on a gourmet railway line.

  “You guys planning a break-in or something?”

  “Yes,” said Robin. “We’re spies.”

  “Yeah?” Mike looked at him, and then at Evan. “Like, Open Channel D and Del Floria’s Tailor Shop?”

  “Their competition,” Evan answered casually, pouring Robin a glassful of white wine from the carafe they’d ordered. “I’m Jarrod Spencer. This is my son.”

  “Kato,” said Robin.

  Mike scrutinized the two of them carefully, trying to remember where he’d been and what he’d been doing when that particular show had been aired on TV. The guy certainly looked familiar. He shook his head, opting to allow them their little fantasy. “Enjoy the bread.” He stuck his order pad into the back of his waistband and sauntered away, hands tucked into the pockets of his apron. Some people.

  “The side door to the station,” Evan said, pulling the piece of paper across the table once again. “How’s it locked?”

  “It’s electronic.” Robin forced himself to concentrate: he was starving. “You have to have a key card. Problem?”

  Evan shook his head. “Once I’m inside, I’ll need an oscilloscope. Where would I find the engineering department?”

  “Up here.” Robin traced a path through the newsroom’s back door and out to the offices along the rear hallway. “I thought about that spot—where they could be keeping it. To tell you the truth, it might be anywhere. Production, copywriting, sales—maybe even in a studio, if they’ve already produced it and it’s on a cart and ready to fire.”

  His father studied the map without speaking. Breaking into the station, he could handle. Finding an oscilloscope, no problem. Locating the tape—

  “What’s a cart?” he said.

  “A cassette. A cartridge—you know, like an eight-track.”

  Evan was silent again. “Is there ever a time when that particular studio’s empty?”

  “Not when they’re on the air twenty-four hours a day like that. Even when the show’s voice-tracked, an operator has to be there to punch buttons.”

  “Always?”

  Robin had some wine. House white. Surprisingly good stuff for a steakhouse—not too dry. “Sometimes they slip out for a couple of minutes,” he said. “Someone has to rip the wire-copy in the newsroom. Someone has to get the coffee.” He smiled mischievously. “Someone has to use the bathroom.”

  Evan looked at his son. “What does one do,” he said, thinking, “should one happen to be struck by an acutely urgent need?”

  Robin tried not to laugh. “One puts on a shitter and runs like hell.”

  His father gave him a quizzical glance.

  “A long song—seven minutes. ‘Hey Jude’—or ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ Something like that.”

  Evan drank his wine.

  “What are you planning? You have that look on your face.”

  His father didn’t say anything. He sawed through the steaming sourdough. “Tell me about Rolf’s office,” he continued, conversationally, passing a slice of bread across to his son.

  Why, Anthony wanted to know, would the High Bagraj of New Dehra Dun have guards surrounding his aircraft hangars—unless those hangars contained items that required careful guarding?

  They weren’t very good guards, anyway: they hadn’t seen him, and Anthony didn’t think he was doing a particularly expert job of slinking about.

  He scrambled up to the first building and slipped inside, squeezing through the narrow opening where the immense sliding door didn’t quite meet its opposing wall.

  Then he saw them. Not Cessnas—although there were two, tied down by their wingtips to the tarmac outside, clever decoys. Not Cessnas, but dishes. White dishes, large dishes, dishes stacked one behind the other, like soup bowls in a rack. Anthony counted thirty-six. And that was only in this hangar, the first of three.

  He slunk out again and crossed the open field, heading in the direction of the pay telephones h
e’d seen standing in a row just outside Dehra Dun’s gates. He desperately wanted to tell someone about his discovery. There was a lineup. He waited, impatiently.

  Finally, it was his turn. He slammed the folding door shut and hunted through his pockets for American quarters and nickels and dimes.

  He tried Evan at the Haverstock. There was no answer. The hotel operator inquired whether he wanted to leave a message.

  “No,” Anthony said. “Thanks anyway.”

  He disconnected and redialed, this time reaching Blockbuster’s production office, which was occupying a suite two floors below Evan’s in the Haverstock. It was a long shot, but if anybody was there, they might at least know where his father had disappeared to.

  No. The office was closed; a recorded voice intercepted the call. Anthony hung up, rudely. Ian hated it when people did that to his machine.

  He tried the hospital in New Westminster and discovered that Robin had checked himself out the previous night. Telephoning the house resolved nothing. His brother wasn’t there, either, and his mother was no help at all because daft old Pooh had told her he’d gone to Karen’s—and Anthony knew for a fact that couldn’t be true, since Karen was currently involved with one of his fellow drama students, a character of dubious reputation who liked to pretend he was an authority on black girl groups of the 1960s.

  There was no answer at Giselle’s.

  And he was all out of American coins.

  Frustrated, he trudged back to the picnic table where his patient partner in crime was waiting. If only he could connect with the agents Evan’s department had sent down from Vancouver. Where were they? Who were they?

  The twilight was blue-gray and cold. Charlotte was sitting, shivering, under a wan yellow bug light that dangled absurdly from the single tree in the grassy square. “Did you find Ian?”

  “No. Did you?”

  “Someone even better.”

  That, Anthony thought, was a matter of perspective.

  “Mandy,” she said. “Lesley Towne. She’s here. She came all the way across the yard, from the dining hall to the admin building. She went in there.” Charlotte nodded at the building that housed the Shirda’s office. “I was dumbfounded,” she said, a little embarrassed. “I couldn’t say anything. I took her picture, though. She wasn’t too impressed.”