Deathbites at-12

by Dick Stivers

  She ended with a small shrug. “So I spent all this time just applying for jobs and talking to people.”

  “Terrific job,” Politician told her.

  “What’s next?” she asked.

  “Next,” Pol said, “we move into that office instead of CompuSales. Ti, you’ve been in there once and know the approximate setup. Go to a prestigious location and rent something that would suit them much better.”

  She nodded and waited for the rest of the plan.

  “As soon as you have the location, telephone us at the new CompuSales office. Gadgets and I will be there waiting to tell them where they’ll be moving to.”

  Ti left the booth without another word. Pol and Gadgets started down the block to meet the owners of the new computer business.

  A young man in jeans and a T-shirt that read Love Bytes straightened up from the case he was unpacking and stared at Politician.

  “You want us to do what?” he asked.

  “Move to a better location where you’ll have a better chance of making your business really work.”

  “We can’t afford a better location,” the only other member of the business, a bearded youth, said.

  “Wrong. We’ll give you the same lease you have here at the same price. We put up the difference, plus the moving costs. You won’t be out anything more than the delay of half a day moving.”

  “Why this dump?” the youth with the beard asked.

  Pol proceeded to feed them a story about how the people they worked for had set their sights on that location, and that no other location would do.

  Pol talked to Ti, then to the young businessman. “How’s downtown sound? Same price.”

  The two men grinned at each other.

  “What are you guys?” the man with the T-shirt asked. “Tooth fairies?”

  “Deal,” said the other.

  Able Team was in business.

  “Where is this better location?” the youth in the T-shirt asked.

  The telephone rang.

  “If that’s for me, I’ll tell you where,” Politician answered.

  That night Lao Ti looked around the empty office. “We could use some furniture,” she commented.

  “Order some in the morning,” Gadgets replied. “In the meantime, what’s the first step?”

  “The telephones,” she answered. She stooped and rummaged in an open case. “I brought a switchboard along.”

  Gadgets looked at his watch. “The super and the cleaning staff will be gone by now. Let’s get it done.”

  There were still people moving around in some of the WAR offices. Otherwise the building was deserted. The trio found the door to the basement. Its lock yielded to Gadgets’s hands and a piece of spring wire. Soon they were in the basement, examining the junction boxes and spaghetti that controlled telephone service to the building.

  Ti quickly clipped a handset to one pair of wires after another.

  “No action on the lines,” she reported. “We’ll have to do something about that. Pol, if you can, find a place where there are five pay phones close together. Go down the line and dial the first six digits of WAR’s telephone number. Then go down the line a second time and dial the last digit. That should light up all their lines and speed up the process.”

  Gadgets and Ti hurried to connect small light bulbs and circuit testers to the wire sets.

  Ten minutes later, lights flashed and needles moved. Both Ti and Gadgets moved quickly, tagging the active lines with bits of tape.

  “I’ve found the trunk,” Ti announced. “Two of the lines in it didn’t light up. I’ll bet one of those is hooked up to the computer.”

  Half an hour later, the three were back in their new offices. Ti pointed to a compact switchboard that she had just hooked up.

  She explained to Politician: “All their calls go through that board. We can record everything that goes through the lines, but I still want to patch directly into their mainframe. Otherwise someone is bound to notice the increased activity through the modem.”

  Pol shook his head. “We’ll never get through that security and back out without them knowing we’ve been at their computers.”

  “So, they’ll have to invite us in.”

  “Sure.”

  “We monitor those two unknown lines until one starts to transmit to the computer. As soon as the transmission starts, whoever’s monitoring throws the switch that opens the line, cutting them off in the middle. After that, it should be easy.”

  Pol shrugged. “If you say so.”

  They dragged sleeping bags out and settled in on the bare floor. Gadgets took the first four-hour watch on the telephone lines.

  Nothing came into the computer modem until shortly after noon the next day. Ti was monitoring at the time. Her hands fluttered over the small switchboard, breaking open telephone lines, routing outgoing calls to the three telephones she had spread around the floor of the empty office. At 12:25, an outgoing call rang one of the telephones. An automatic LED display showed the number that had been dialed.

  “This is it,” she said calmly as she picked up the telephone. “Repair service,” she said into the mouthpiece.

  Gadgets came and flipped other circuits to allow the office below them the usual telephone service. The important call had been intercepted. The computer line was left dead.

  “Hold on for a moment, please,” Ti told the caller from WAR.

  She grinned at Pol and Gadgets, letting the caller wait ninety seconds before going back on the line. “We have a repairman in the building, now. I’ve talked to him. He’ll look at your problem as soon as he’s finished the job he’s working on now.”

  She hung up.

  “You’re up next,” Ti told Pol.

  He stood and started to change into appropriate clothes.

  Twenty minutes later, toolbox in hand, Pol was ushered into the computer room and to the area where the mainframe was hooked into the telephone line. Pol carefully set out his tools and began dissecting the modem. The two men who had ushered him into the computer room sat down to keep an eye on him.

  “Before I get too deeply into this I’d better do a line check,” he said when he had the modem into easily reassembled sections.

  He pulled a lineman’s handset from the toolbox, hooked it up and dialed a seven-digit number. Pol knew that the number did not matter because Ti would intercept the call.

  “Yes?” Ti’s voice was carefully neutral.

  “Just checking on the line. Everything here looks okay. Call me back on…” He paused and raised a gray eyebrow at one of the watchers.

  The watcher left and soon returned with a slip of paper on which he had written the computer’s unlisted number. Pol relayed it to Ti and hung up.

  Twenty seconds later, his handset rang. Pol answered. “Are you still being carefully watched?” Ti asked.

  “That’s about it.”

  “Gadgets wants to know if some smoke would help.”

  “Seems like we should do that,” Pol acknowledged.

  “Ten minutes,” Ti told him and hung up.

  Pol continued to pretend to work on the computer modem. A few minutes later, he smelled smoke. He kept busy, waiting for someone else to notice it.

  By the time someone did, there was a noticeable amount seeping under the door to the hall.

  “You smell something?” someone asked.

  “Look,” said one of the men guarding Pol.

  The two guards made for the hall door while the rest of the staff gathered around. The guards looked into the hall.

  “It’s only a smoldering wastebasket. Somebody’s playing tricks. I’ll take care of this. You get back to the repairman,” one guard told the other.

  Attention was off Pol for only ten seconds. That was sufficient. He whipped a pressure can of self-setting Styrofoam out of his toolbox, shoved the nozzle into one of the vents on the side of the computer mainframe and squirted for five seconds. The spray can was back in the toolbox before anyone’s a
ttention returned to the repairman.

  Politician carefully reassembled the modem.

  “That should do it,” he announced. “Care to give it a try?”

  A computer operator was called over. She telephoned Seattle and told them to try their transmission again. In twenty more minutes, she pronounced everything in order and Pol left.

  Politician went back upstairs and reported to Gadgets and Ti.

  “Terrific,” Gadgets said. “The computer should go down in two or three hours.”

  “If that foam is going to take the computer out, why didn’t it take it out right away?” Pol asked.

  “The Styrofoam isn’t conductive,” Gadgets explained. “It doesn’t affect the computer directly, but transistors generate heat, and if there isn’t sufficient cooling they fry themselves.”

  “So the computer has to operate for a while to build up enough heat to cook the circuit boards,” Pol concluded.

  “That’s right. Now, we wait and intercept the next repair call.”

  “We have to prepare. Let’s hope the computer lasts a few hours,” Ti reminded Gadgets. She then got the computer’s make and description from Pol.

  “It would be best to buy the entire computer,” Gadgets suggested. “Then Pol can show us where he squirted the foam and we can figure which circuit boards will be cooked.”

  Ti agreed.

  Gadgets took off on a shopping expedition. The computer went down before he returned, but Ti just promised them service within the hour.

  When Gadgets finally lugged the six cubic feet of mainframe into the office, Ti was intercepting the second call to see why the serviceman was not there. She assured them he was on his way.

  Once the cover was off the central processing unit, it was easy to see which circuit board was going to be out of service. Gadgets quickly removed several and put them into his toolbox. He put on a pair of yellow coveralls and left.

  Gadgets took the elevator to the main floor. When the door opened, he found the lobby milling with people.

  “Anyone here know where the office of Workers Against Redundancy is?” Gadgets shouted.

  A hard case looked him over, took in the toolboxes that looked like attache cases. “You the computer repairman?” he asked.

  Gadgets nodded.

  The hard guy stepped on to the elevator. “Where you been?”

  “Getting misplaced,” Gadgets answered. “What floor?”

  The WAR man hit the button for the fourth floor. “I thought I’d see you coming in,” he remarked.

  “What’s wrong with the computer?” Gadgets asked.

  “Hell, I don’t know. I’m part of the security detail.”

  They arrived at the fourth floor. The hard case led the way.

  Once on the spot, Gadgets opened one of the attache cases and went to work. The security man found a chair and sat to watch.

  Gadgets raised part of the metal cover, slid his hand under and lifted the blob of Styrofoam with the cover. That safely out of the way, he took out a tester and probed here and there.

  When one of the computer operators went past, Gadgets asked some questions about the malfunction.

  “This section was overloaded and is on the modem regulation part of the board,” he said. “Did you have modem trouble late yesterday?”

  The computer operator was impressed. “Actually we only found out about the defective modem today. It could have gone out late yesterday. We wouldn’t have caught it until information came in today.”

  Gadgets nodded. “No problem. I have a spare board with me. I’ll rewire slightly so this can’t happen again.”

  “Terrific,” the operator replied and went away, content to have Gadgets working on both the computer and the modem.

  Forty minutes later, he was done. The computer would operate normally, but Lao Ti had direct terminal access through extra telephone lines.

  “Our problems are over,” Gadgets told the security guard while putting tools away. “Call us if you do have more trouble, but the way I’ve set that up, you won’t be worrying about the computer.”

  “Yeah. Thanks,” the security man replied.

  The HIT man found a buddy and they accompanied Gadgets to the elevator. The Able Team member pressed the down button. As soon as the elevator doors were closed, he pressed the button for the second floor. He got off on the second floor. No one was in sight. He went to the stairs and walked up to the sixth floor.

  The two HIT men were waiting for him.

  “See,” said the one Gadgets had met in the lobby. “I told you this guy got off an elevator from this floor.”

  “How do you explain that, buddy?” the other one asked.

  Gadgets looked perplexed. “Of course I came from this floor. That’s where my last call was. I left my time sheets in there and I need them. Excuse me.” He started to shoulder past the HIT security man.

  The second one looked puzzled, but the first one was more sure of himself. He placed a hand on Gadgets’s chest.

  “Not so fast. I don’t believe you.”

  “If you got a problem, take it up with the company. In the meantime, I have to get my invoice book and write up the parts I put on your damn computer. Now, will you get out of my way?”

  “Sure. You don’t mind if we follow you to this office where you say you made your last call?”

  Gadgets dropped the cases and attacked.

  Before the cases hit the floor, Gadgets’s fist was striking into one solar plexus. His victim doubled over as Gadgets turned toward the other hardman who had started to claw for a weapon at the small of his back. He never managed to get the weapon out. Gadgets drove a foot into his crotch, then followed with a knuckle to the temple. The goon dropped in a dead heap. Gadgets returned his attention to the creep who was doubled up and fighting to breathe. He wrapped his arms around the goon’s neck. A sudden tightening of the arms caused a gross cracking sound. The man let out a moan before he dropped to the floor.

  Gadgets opened the door to the office where Pol and Ti waited.

  “Help me clean up,” he said.

  Gadgets quickly gathered the tools from the one attache case that had popped open while Ti and Pol each dragged a body into the empty office.

  “What happened?” Pol asked once they were inside the office.

  “One of them was too sharp. He noticed I got off from an elevator that came from this floor. So, he brought his friend along and they were waiting for me when I doubled back up the stairs.”

  “How soon do you think they’ll be missed?” Pol asked.

  “Too soon. They have a good security system. I figure these two will be missed and people will start looking for them within half an hour. If they think we’ll be out of the office at a definite time, they will probably wait until then to search here.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” Pol agreed. “But if they come to the door, we all stand a high risk of being recognized.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Ti told him. “I’m ninety-eight percent safe from recognition. To the sharp-eyed Westerner one Oriental looks like another.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Pol answered.

  “If someone comes to that door, we have no choice but to count on it,” she answered.

  Pol opened the window and looked out. “This building looks like it was built in the thirties — ledges, funny carvings, stones on the corners, the whole works.”

  Gadgets hurried to the window. “Let me look.”

  He hung out the window for a couple of minutes. He brought his head back in. “I know what we’ll do. We’ll return the bodies.”

  Pol and Ti just stared at him.

  “The window to the computer room is down two floors and over two sets of windows. If we lower someone on a rope, they can go along the ledge to the window. We break in and return their bodies. That gets rid of one problem. The…”

  “That ledge is only decoration. It’s only four inches wide,” Pol interrupted. “No one could walk the thirty feet a
long that to the windows of the computer room.”

  “We both know someone who could,” Gadgets replied. “And we both know she has the guts to do it.”

  Pol grinned. “And we both know how much you’re aching to see Babette Pavlovski again, but there must be some way that we can handle it ourselves.”

  “There’s dozens of ways we can handle this ourselves. The problem is to handle this and keep the cover on this operation at the same time. All our work is wasted if they find we’ve tapped into their computer.”

  Pol paced the floor for a few minutes without speaking.

  He sighed. “You better call your lady to come up from L.A.,” he told Gadgets.

  Then he turned to Ti. “While he does that, I’ll stack these bodies in the closet. Can you get that telephone and computer somewhere where it can’t be seen from the door?”

  She looked around the bare room.

  “How about inside one of the boxes?”

  “Let’s do it. Time may be limited.”

  7

  July 12, 1422 hours, Atlanta, Georgia

  “Just feather stroke the trigger and let it up as quickly as possible,” Lyons instructed. “These M-16s have only thirty rounds in a full magazine. It tosses them out the end of the barrel at the rate of eight hundred rounds per minute. Figure it out. That’s only two and a quarter seconds of firepower. If you don’t want to be killed while changing clips, make the ammunition last. You can kill an unarmed civilian with just one bullet, and if you line up children maybe you could make one bullet do for two.”

  The blonde who had been given Lyons as a partner, looked at him quizzically. She had treated him with barely suppressed contempt when showing him the basic stances of karate. She had found him an almost impossible pupil when it came to the etiquette of the dojo, but on the firing range it was different. This Carl Leggit — the name Lyons had chosen to go by — proved to be a better shot than the instructors. Quickly he was made a gun instructor and his karate partner was his first pupil.