Bug Park

by James P. Hogan

  "What does he mean, it's been canceled? We were invited. Tell him you want to talk to Martin right away."

  "What kind of emergency? . . ."

  "Of course it's not the weather. We don't have to go anywhere. . . ."

  Michelle recognized Payne straight away when he reached the deck: yellow hair and bronzed features, wearing navy dungarees and a buff duffel jacket. He was with a dark-skinned, mustached man who looked like the captain, talking to some people standing in a semicircle, but excused himself when he saw Garsten and Vanessa. His eyes moved to Michelle and assessed her silently for a moment. Vanessa moved forward and murmured something to him that Michelle didn't catch. On the quay below, the hookers were getting into a red BMW.

  "Later," Michelle heard Payne say. "First I need an update from you and Phil." He started to turn away, but caught Michelle's eye in the process. Michelle still didn't think it would do much good, but this was the time to try, if only for form's sake. Here was the boss, after all.

  "Martin Payne, isn't it?" she said. He stopped and looked back. "Look, I'm not alone in this. You have to know that what you're doing is crazy. Why are you doing this? You've run up enough charges already to risk going away for a while, regardless of anything we've done. It's not making sense. Why let it get any worse?"

  He seemed to only half hear, as if distracted by more pressing things. "Put her down in the salon with your two guys and keep everybody else out," he told Finnion. Then, nodding at Michelle, "I'll talk to you in a minute."

  "What do you want me for?" she demanded, unable to prevent her voice from rising as Finnion took her elbow.

  "Come on, you heard the man," Finnion said, guiding her firmly.

  They took her down some stairs to a wood-ceilinged room with elaborate ornaments and furnishings, where cocktails and a buffet meal had been set but evidently abandoned in a hurry. Finnion posted one of his men by the stairs, the other inside the door at the far end, leading forward.

  "Sit down and relax," he told them, waving a hand. "It's supposed to be a party. Have a sandwich or something. It looks like the guests won't be using this." The one carrying Garsten's bag set it down on the floor and surveyed the food laid out on the large table.

  Finnion looked at Michelle and must have read the question still written on her face. "Don't worry," he said to her. "You're just in case we need a bargaining chip getting out of here. They'll put you off in a boat when we clear the limits." He turned and disappeared back up to the deck, closing the door at the bottom of the stairs behind him.

  Michelle didn't believe him. But she poured a hot coffee and picked out a couple of rolls with cheese and meats anyway. Even people on the verge of nervous exhaustion had to eat.

  "This stuff's not bad," one of the two left with her murmured through a mouthful of caviar, scooping crab paté with a finger of toast. "I'll take leftovers like this any time."

  "Pity they didn't leave the girls too," his companion answered.

  Michelle hunched down on one of the bench seats and sipped her coffee. It tasted good and was warming after the gray weather outside. One of the two men looked at her curiously, as if amenable to opening up a little and talking now that the mission of getting her here was accomplished. She avoided his gaze, and he turned away.

  Corfe left the Interstate at the Convention Center and drove a few blocks east toward First Hill, oddly enough not too far from Garsten's office, where the day's whole crazy chain of events had begun. He parked the van in a quiet side street and was about to call Eric to let him know where he was, when an incoming call arrived first.

  "Yes?" Corfe acknowledged warily.

  "Doug, it's Kevin."

  "Hey, Kev! What's been the problem there? We—"

  "Doug, you don't understand. I'm on my way north with Ohira now, doing some low-flying on the Interstate. We had it all wrong. It was today! You understand me? They had it set up for today."

  Corfe shook his head protestingly. "That's impossible. Michelle said—"

  "She was a lot righter than she ever knew. There was a killer mec planted in Vanessa's car—the one Dad's using."

  "But, but . . . I talked to him . . . it couldn't have been twenty minutes ago. He was okay. What are you saying? . . ."

  "He didn't even know about it. Don't worry about that part, Doug. It's over. We just talked to him too. He says you've lost Michelle."

  "I was just about to start trying to locate her."

  "Ohira just got to the firm in time. They sent a couple of their heavyweights down to pick me up. So they know everything." The alarm in Kevin's voice sharpened. "It means she's in danger, Doug. You have to find where she is."

  Corfe gulped and nodded into the phone. "I'll do what I can." He gave Kevin his location and cut the call, then scrambled into the rear of the van, activated one of the on-board couplers again, and began frantically scanning the channels.

  There was something familiar about the drapes high on the wall opposite, and the windows with the rounded corners, Michelle thought. She looked around and took in the round-backed chairs and couch, the sculptures and art works, rich carpeting, and marble-topped bar with mirrors below a long window at the far end. She looked the other way and saw two doors in the end wall, and between them the centerpiece with the crest carved in wood and the ship's name. It was the room that she had seen on the tape, she realized—the tape Kevin and Taki had made from the mec that had inadvertently found its way into Vanessa's car. Near Michelle's elbow was a furled U.S. flag secured to the wall, and beyond it the end of a wooden cabinet. From what Kevin had said—assuming nobody had come across it—that mec should still be there, up on the top of that cabinet somewhere. She forced herself not to look up and risk showing too much curiosity.

  So what was Finnion talking about? Getting out of here, clearing the limits? . . . A party obviously canceled at short notice. It sounded as if they were intending to leave the country suddenly. All because somebody had been found trying to snoop into Garsten's office? Surely not. It made no sense. The situation was getting crazier by the minute.

  Then something else in the corner of her eye caught her attention—just for an instant. She turned her head to look at the large briefcase of Garsten's that one of the guards had carried on board and put on the floor just below one end of the table. Michelle was sure it had moved. She watched it while she nibbled on a roll, trying not to stare too conspicuously. It did it again. The whole briefcase didn't move; but a bulge appeared for a moment part way along one side. Something was moving inside it.

  After her experiences this week, the first thing that came to mind was mecs—they seemed to be involved in everything, whichever way she turned. She frowned. What could be going on this time?

  The briefcase had come out of Garsten's car. When Garsten left the parking lot where Michelle had been seized, before he reappeared later at Microbotics, he'd said he was going to check his office. At Microbotics, Michelle had overheard Finnion saying something over the phone about the office being "clean." That had to mean Garsten's office. "Clean" probably meant that the signs of interference had been cleaned up—although why they would want it that way, Michelle couldn't imagine; she'd have thought Garsten would rather have left it as was, for evidence. But nothing today was making any sense. So if Finnion had meant that the mecs were no longer in Garsten's office, where were they? That had to be it. Michelle was looking at them. They were in the briefcase that Garsten had brought with him.

  Excitement gripped her suddenly for the first time in hours as she realized the implication: It meant that the van was out there somewhere in the city, and Corfe or Kevin—or conceivably both of them—were still operational. Which in turn meant there was still a possibility of letting the outside world know where she was.

  Before her eyes, a lump appeared in the side of the briefcase again, stretched to become a peak, and then a gray metal blade thrust itself through and began sawing its way down toward the floor. Michelle almost choked; then she sat forward
hurriedly, putting her hand to her mouth as one of the guards glanced at her. She was not immediately sure what she meant to do, but obviously, to let anything come walking out onto the open floor would be guaranteeing disaster.

  Yet even as she watched, a metal hand grasped one side of the rent and pulled it aside. Sure enough, one of the beer-can-size mecs that had been in Garsten's office began squeezing its way out. Michelle was on her feet reflexively. The guard who had eyed her before looked up questioningly. For a moment she stood, confused; then she wiped her brow with a flick of her hand and took off her coat. "It's hot. I need to get out of this." The guard looked away and resumed eating, smacking his lips noisily. The mec was outside the bag, and from the angle of its head Michelle could tell that whoever was operating it had seen her. She wasn't sure if that model registered sound or not. Surreptitiously, behind the cover of her coat, she made a quick "hold-it" gesture, showing her open palm and rocking it sideways several times.

  She looked to one end of the room, then the other. "Is there a bathroom anywhere I can use?"

  The guards looked at each other, as if to ask why nobody had thought to brief them on something like that. The one farthest away shrugged and nodded. The other moved past Michelle and opened the door in the left side of the end wall—the one opposite that through which they had entered. Beyond it, stairs led down to a corridor leading aft. He checked the doors opening off from it. "There's one right here."

  As Michelle passed the end of the table, she let her coat slip off her arm, seemingly accidentally, to fall across the briefcase. As she stooped to pick it up, she scooped the mec with it, at the same time pushing the sides of the tear together so that it wouldn't be instantly obvious. She straightened up, collected her purse from the seat where she had been sitting, went down into the bathroom, and locked the door.

  It seemed to Corfe that he couldn't move without walking straight into some kind of trouble. Listening for a while through the acoustically equipped mec that he had included in the complement at Garsten's had revealed nothing. Then, when he activated one of the larger telebots and tried looking outside whatever it was he had found himself shut up in, he'd had quick impressions of being on the floor in some kind of room, Michelle looking worried and flashing a warning signal at him, and then himself being bundled up inside something constricting and being moved. Since any further action on the telebot's part seemed not to be in order for the moment, he transferred to one of the smaller mecs still inside whatever the telebot had emerged from, and used that to gain another peek through the gap that he had made.

  There was carpeted floor, the under parts of a table, and a pair of legs terminating in men's shoes. He crawled out and looked back to see that the mec had been in a large leather briefcase. There was something familiar about the place he was in, he realized. After a few seconds he recognized it, from this unfamiliar angle, as the main salon of the Princess Dolores. The Dolores was normally kept at the private dock behind Payne's house in Bellevue, yet when Corfe had stopped less than a mile from there before crossing back over the lake, he hadn't made contact. He could only conclude that the Dolores had been moved to some location nearer Seattle center.

  Michelle had gone, and the surroundings looked clear. Deciding it would be prudent to spread his options around, he walked the mec farther back under the table, into the space between the edge of the carpet and the wall. Then he switched back to the telebot and remained inert, awaiting developments.

  He felt the circus tent in which he was wrapped being set down on something solid. Then part of it was lifted aside, and a hand brought him out onto a shiny orange terrace by an empty swimming pool. Above the pool was an enormous mirror wall edged by lights. There were two Michelles, one reflected in the mirror, the other looking at him directly. He was in a bathroom, standing on the side of a marble washbasin.

  Michelle's lips were moving. He made a side-to-side horizontal movement with an arm, indicating that he couldn't hear her. She seemed to understand. Corfe could see her biting her lip, thinking frantically. He walked across the surface and pointed at a chrome dispenser holding facial tissues. Michelle nodded, rummaged in her purse, and produced a felt-tipped pen.

  She pulled out the top tissue, wrote on it, Doug? Kevin? and held it in front of him like a poster. Corfe indicated who he was, then pointed at the pen and made writing motions. Michelle gave it to him and held the tissue flat while he used both arms to write, moving the pen like a broom.

  YACHT WHERE?

  Michelle took the pen again and wrote: Shoals club, Lake Union. Believe sailing soon. Fetch help. Corfe signaled that he understood and would do his best. Michelle asked: You have the van? He nodded. In similar fashion he answered that he had contacted Eric and that he didn't know what the situation with Kevin was.

  Michelle looked at the door suddenly as if someone was knocking or calling, then back at the mec, indicating by showing a palm and pointing that she was out of time. Corfe got the pen back and wrote hastily: LEAVE MEC HERE and pointed at the floor. Michelle stared for a second, then nodded. She took the pen, gathered her purse and coat, and set him down beneath the washbasin. Then she turned the light off and left, leaving the door cracked open.

  Corfe waited a half minute, then moved cautiously across the floor and widened the gap till he could see out. He was looking along the corridor leading aft to the engine compartment. In the other direction, a short flight of steps led up to the salon. There was no sign of anyone nearby. He wasn't sure what he planned to do, but he needed to move the mec to a place where it would be less conspicuous. He walked it out of the bathroom, across the nearest stretch of passage, into the dark space beneath the stairs. Then he deactivated it, exited from coupler space, and was instantly back in the van. He took his personal phone from his pocket and called a number in Seattle Police Department headquarters.

  "Hello, Lieutenant Shelvy? This is Doug Corfe again. I'm the guy who was there earlier, about the woman who had been abducted—the one I thought was at the lawyer's office."

  "Yeah. I just heard the reports." Lieutenant Shelvy didn't sound very amused today.

  "Look, I know that I've given you guys the runaround, and I know how this must sound, but you have to believe me. I do know where she is this time."

  "Surprise me."

  "She's on his yacht, Martin Payne's yacht: the Princess Dolores. It's at the Shoals club on Lake Union." There was an ominous silence. Corfe got nervous, and his mouth went onto automatic. "I mean, I've just been there. I saw her there myself not five minutes ago."

  "You were on Martin Payne's yacht, Mr. Corfe?"

  "That's right. . . . Well, not exactly on it myself, but—"

  "Don't tell me. You sent one of those little machines there, the same ones that weren't in Phillip Garsten's office, right?"

  "Yes, exactly. Except I didn't—"

  "Mr. Corfe, if I hear one more word about this, you will be arrested and charged with obstructing the police. There will be no further warning." The line went dead.

  Corfe called Eric and updated him on the situation. "You've got to stall things and stop that boat from sailing," Eric said.

  "How?"

  "Figure out something, Doug."

  Corfe cleared down and stared at the console, thinking. The only way he could see of influencing anything that happened on the yacht was via the mecs. He recoupled to the system and activated another of the ones still inside the leather briefcase, and peered out. He was in shadow. Michelle had gotten the message and put her coat down over the bag. Corfe ran an inventory. In addition to the mec already free below the table and the larger telebot under the stairs, he had another telebot, five smaller Neurodyne models, the Keyboard Emulator, and the experimental acoustic model. Also, there was the almost run-down one that Kevin had left up on the cabinet, which was also acoustic. Corfe began moving them out to spread them around better.

  Somebody else from police headquarters called Finnion a few minutes later. The tone was low and c
onfidential. "Andy, it's Gus. Look, I don't know what's going on, but your boss's name has been buzzing all day here. Whatever it is, you guys had better cool it. Just a friendly word of advice, huh? Be careful, understand?" Finnion passed the word to Payne.

  "Get everybody except Vic, Norbert, and the rest who are staying, off the boat now," Payne instructed Michaelis Ellipulos, the captain. "We're sailing as soon as you're ready."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Wrapped in a heavy, hooded overjacket, Vanessa stood to one side of the bridge of the Princess Dolores, tight-lipped and saying nothing. Payne was pacing restlessly in front of the chart table to the rear, periodically checking his watch and sending nervous glances toward the shore. Ollie and Royal had stopped answering the phone. The conclusion had to be that something had gone wrong in Tacoma. After a quick conference, Payne had agreed they couldn't wait any longer. Now they had switched over from shore-based power to the ship's generators; the gangplank and the steps were up. But they still weren't moving.

  Victor Bazhin appeared on the foredeck below. "Hey, Martin, what's going on?" he called up. "I thought we were supposed to be pulling out. Nothing's happening."

  Payne leaned out of the starboard wing station window, to the side of the bridge. "There's a glitch with the electronics. We're looking into it now."