Thankfully, the door at the top was not locked and he was able to leave the lifesaving cutter in the pocket where he had absently shoved it. A pair of hardcapped workers saw him stagger out of the stairwell entrance and immediately started in his direction. Still coughing up seawater and breathing with difficulty, Cardenas fumbled for the shocker holstered inside his sodden windbreaker.
Tall, bearded, and powerfully built, the bigger of the two reached for him—to put a steadying hand on his shoulder. "Facilit, homber. You okay? You look like you've been in a real frog strangler!" His equally concerned companion mustered a reassuring smile.
"Around here, compadre, we prefer to do our fishin' with poles." The other man's expression of honest bafflement as he peered past Cardenas reinforced his appearance of innocence. "What the hell happened down there, anyway?"
Cardenas let his hand fall away from the shocker. He'd been needlessly concerned. Like their supervisor Chanay, these men were blithely ignorant of the illegal activities that had been an ongoing concern beneath the warehouse.
Digging into a belt pouch, he pulled out some fragments of sea grass along with his ident bracelet and weakly flashed both at the two men. "Angel Cardenas, Inspector, NFP." He nodded back the way he had come. The sound of rushing water could be heard clearly now, rising from the rapidly filling stairwell. "You may have a leak in one of your subsurface chambers. I can't say for sure. I'm a little tired and not feeling too well. I wonder if one of you could—could...?"
Reacting swiftly and simultaneously, both men reached out to grab him as he fell forward.
SEVENTEEN
HE CAME TO, DRY AND AT EASE, IN A HOSPITAL bed in Masmatamoros, with the faint but fading taste of the Gulf still clinging tenaciously to the back corners of his mouth. Recuperating in bed for the rest of the day, he had time to reflect on how his hospital visit was considerably less physically taxing than his partner's had been.
As soon as he could wrest an official discharge the following morning, he communicated all that had transpired to Pangborn. The Captain would see to it that The Mocks apparently vacant command center was carefully monitored, in case any of the deceased feleon's subordinates attempted to make use of its facilities. As per the Inspector's specific instructions, the authorities would not try to enter it or interfere with its latent functions until the safety of Katla Mockerkin could be guaranteed.
Pangborn also informed him that the janitor Rodrigo's story checked out: there had been a double fatal accident outside the Brazos Mall in Harlingen in the time period the custodian had specified. Interestingly, neither man had been traveling with any documents, and conclusive identification of both was still pending.
It was good to be back in Nogales, where the humidity fluctuated between low and desiccated and the smell of salt filled the nostrils only when one's face drew near to the rim of a glass full of sloshing margarita. Hyaki was as glad to see him as the Inspector was to be home.
"How's the back?" Cardenas spoke as they checked out a cruiser from the NFP's subterranean garage.
Hyaki rolled massive shoulders. "Good as can be grown. I nearly get fried, you almost get drowned. That's enough medical for one case. I'm ready for a vacation."
Cardenas slipped into the passenger seat. "You just had one, remember? Beautiful Costa Rica of the Central American Federation. Didn't you have a nice, relaxing time in the scenic World Heritage rainforest?"
Hyaki guided the cruiser out of the garage and up into the brilliant Sonoran sunshine. "Oh si, sure. Only problem is, I can't look at a banana quite the same way I used to."
Leaving the interminable, unbroken arcomplex of the Strip behind, the highway narrowed as it began to wind through canyon country, leading into the designated parkland that surrounded Boboquivari Peak. Stores and strip malls, cool codo developments, and finally expensive single-family residences gave way to flaming ocotillo and peridot-colored paloverde. Overhead, a trio of buzzards circled something distant and dead. Once, a roadrunner darted across the road, head down, tail outstretched, a dead snake dangling from its beak like scavenged spaghetti. The snake danced and jumped with the bird's movements like an outsized rubber band.
Entering parkland, they left all commercial development behind. The bored guard at the access gate came to life slightly when Hyaki flashed his ident. A parkland employee, he was far out of the NFP loop, and had no idea what was going on within his own jurisdiction.
A converted ranger outpost, the safe house lay at the bottom of a winding canyon reachable only by air or a bumpy dirt road. Its inimitable modern air suspension notwithstanding, the cruiser still reacted to a few sharp bumps and jolts as Hyaki negotiated the awkward track. They found themselves wishing for the jungle-outfitted 4X4 they had rented in San Jose. Remembering the vehicle fondly, Cardenas regretted leaving it a burned-out hulk.
Both men were grateful when the rambling, single-story structure hove into view. Constructed of gray block, with a white peaked roof and triple-pane, thermotropic, bulletproof windows, it featured its own water and power supply. The communications dish mounted on the roof kept those inside in constant contact with the outside world, with the Strip, and with NFP headquarters in Nogales. A parklands helipad out back allowed for quick arrival or departure, as the occasion demanded. Cardenas had opted to take a cruiser rather than fly in because he wanted the flexibility of having his own transportation, and also because he knew he and his partner would be able to relax and enjoy the drive.
They were not the only ones. An unmarked cruiser stood parked between a pair of larger 4X4s beneath the shade of the carport. Hyaki slowed as they approached the compound gate. The lengths of wire fence it clasped together were not impressive to look at. Cardenas knew that the amount of voltage they carried was rather more so.
As soon as they were cleared, the gate was raised to grant entry. Hyaki steered the cruiser through and into an open space beneath the carport roof. Despite having been cleared at the gate, they were met by two officers wearing parklands uniform. Attire notwithstanding, both men were actually in the employ of the NFP, not the Park Service.
Handshakes and greetings preceded the newcomers' admittance to the building. A third officer, who met them just inside the door, turned out to be an old friend of Hyaki s. While the two of them headed for the kitchen in search of cold drinks and warm conversation, Cardenas sought out the Department case worker who had been assigned to watch over Katla Mockerkin until her safety had been assured and more permanent living arrangements could be made for the girl.
She found him first.
"You're Angel Cardenas, aren't you? I was told to expect you."
Turning, he found himself gazing into the eyes of an attractive, dark-haired woman in her late thirties. She was as tall as he (or as short, depending on your perspective), with hair cropped short on one side in the fashion currently favored by many civil servants. A single long silver-and-sugilite earring, probably Navajo, dangled from the shaved side of her head. Cosmetics had been applied decorously, to enhance her unusually large eyes and high cheekbones. Her grip was firm and assured, the handshake of an experienced professional.
"I'm Minerva Fourhorses."
Cardenas smiled engagingly. "Nice to meet you." His gaze rose to look past her. "Where's Katla?"
"Katla, is it?" His familiarity pleased her. "You two must have talked a lot, down in Costa Rica."
"Enough to where I feel as if I know her well enough to talk to her on an informal basis, without having to remind her that I'm federale." Side by side, they headed down the hallway. The floor, he noted, was reinforced and epoxied Saltillo tile. It clicked loudly beneath the case worker's shoes, as if she was wearing castanets in place of heels.
"That helps. She's a quiet girl, though she's willing enough to talk. Reserved, though. Guarded." Her tone revealed honest concern, the hallmark of any first-rate social worker. "Hardly surprising, considering her background and what she's been through. I've read the official reports."
&nbs
p; Cardenas nodded knowingly. "Not what you'd call a normal childhood."
"Having her mother killed like that." Fourhorses's lips tightened. "If it wasn't for box access, I think she would just sit and stare at the walls. The box is her sanctuary. She looks on it as a place of refuge. It's accepting of her, and she doesn't have to justify or explain herself."
Moon-pool eyes met his. "I've never seen anyone so proficient with a vorec. Not even the specs downtown."
"She's a tecant," Cardenas explained. "A natural."
The social worker nodded. "It's in the report. But it's one thing to read about it, another to watch that kind of ability in action."
They turned up another corridor. Seated halfway down the hall, another plainclothes officer looked up from the screen he was reading. Recognizing Fourhorses, he smiled and passed them onward.
"It's that ability that has caused so much trouble for her," Cardenas explained. "It may also be what guarantees her future."
Fourhorses's apprehension was palpable. "You're not going to ask her to do anything that will stress her further, I hope. Outwardly, she may look and sound like she's in good health. My own take these past few days is that she's actually quite fragile." Her voice took on a harder edge. "I couldn't give my approval to anything that would risk further damage to her mental well-being. What she needs now is stability, and reassurance. Most of all, she needs hope."
"That's what I want to give her." He smiled at the visibly concerned woman. "We both want the same things for her, Ms. Fourhorses."
"Minerva." The case worker spoke absently as she stopped outside a double set of wooden doors. "She'll be in the tunnel, working. She always is." Reaching up, she knocked three times.
For a long moment, Cardenas thought no response was going to be forthcoming. Then came a soft, girlish voice that he remembered well from his recent southerly sojourn. "Come in, Ms. Fourhorses."
Leading the way, the case worker opened one of the two doors. Cardenas listened as he followed her in. "Good morning, Katla. There's someone here to see you." Stepping aside, Fourhorses watched with obvious interest to see how her charge would react to the visitor.
Spinning in her chair, Katla Mockerkin recognized the swarthy, heavily mustachioed federale immediately. If not overtly welcoming, her smile was still somewhat more than just polite.
"Hello, Inspector Cardenas. I remember you."
"Hoh, Katla. It's nice to see you again." Entering farther into the room, he set himself down in an empty chair and wheeled it over to her side. "I'd like to chat for a little while—if that's okay with you?"
She shrugged and set down the vorec she was holding. Sensing the movement, the vit pickup of the box she was working darkened the tunnel she had been facing.
"You don't have to talk to Inspector Cardenas if you don't want to, Katla," the watching woman reminded her.
The girl smiled shyly. "That's all right, Ms. Fourhorses. I know Mr. Cardenas—Angel. He was nice to me when I was—when I had to leave the Reserva. He's a good man." Her smile turned to a sly grin. "Even if he is a spizzing federale intuit."
In a way that no other officer could, Cardenas knew that it was not an insult. Fourhorses was watching him closely. "How are you doing, Katla?"
She glanced longingly back at the muted, softly glowing tunnel. "All right, I guess." A hint of the subtle slyness he had come to associate with her crept back into her voice. "But you'd know that anyway, wouldn't you? You're just making polite conversation."
He grinned. "When I was your age, the other kids used to tell me I was too smart for my own good." She looked back at him sharply. "So I know what it's like to feel different from everybody else. From all your friends. No more small talk, then." He leaned slightly toward her. "I have some news for you. Your father, The Mock, is dead."
Her expression did not change. But he observed the slight tensing of the muscles in her neck and forearms, detected a heightened rate of respiration. She did not show it—at least not to anyone else— but she was reacting.
"He was hit by a bus while crossing a street."
By way of acknowledgment, she nodded once, almost emotionless. "I'm glad to hear it." Then, somewhat to his surprise, as well as that of the watchfully observant Fourhorses, she snickered mockingly.
"I heard him talk about dying, once. He said that the federales would never capture him. That if he didn't die of old age, he would go down in a storm of fire. He was hit by a bus?" Cardenas nodded. "That's great! Real ordinary. That's just what he deserved—to die like anybody else, unnoticed and overlooked, without having his nasty, mean, lepero face spread all over the vit. I'm glad it happened that way!" As her anger subsided, her exceptional intelligence took over. Cardenas waited patiently, knowing that it would.
"But," she began anew, stammering slightly, "if Daddy died months ago, then who ordered that my mom be killed only weeks ago?" Lowering her eyes, she sank into profound contemplation. "Mr. Brummel couldn't have done it, because he was already dead, too. Mr. Vanderberg doesn't like violence, and Ms. Beryl wouldn't know how to compile the necessary instructions." Her confusion and puzzlement was plain to see as she looked back up at Cardenas. "Do you know who ordered it?"
He nodded bleakly. "They come from the same source that is still trying to have you abducted or killed. A source you probably know better than anyone. Your father's company box, the one that's headquartered in Southeast Texas."
Her mouth opened in a little O of surprise. "It's that stupid molly at Padre! Daddy had it grammed so it would run everything when he wasn't there to supervise it personally. But I don't know anything about the kind of gram you're talking about. He must have entered it into the box after Mom and I ran away with Mr. Brummel."
Fourhorses couldn't take it any longer. The conversation between her charge and the federale was leaving her further and further behind. "I don't understand. Who is trying to kidnap or kill Katla?"
"A program." Cardenas looked back in her direction. "One implanted by her father. He was, by all accounts, an unforgiving, merciless son of a bitch." He nodded in the girl's direction. "The molly containing the gram stays in touch with every element of her father's illegitimate domain. It promulgated directives to subordinates ordering the killing of Wayne Brummel, who was Katla's mother's consort and partner in a pretty large-scale embezzlement of funds. It expanded that order to include the recent slaying of her mother. Now it's trying to capture or kill Katla because she's a tecant who, among other things, has much if not all of her father's business dealings committed to memory." Turning back to the girl, he favored her with renewed sympathy. "She's a walking mollysphere."
Fourhorses's tone showed that she still did not entirely understand. "But if her father is dead, why is this monstrous gram of his still interested in her?"
"Because it hasn't been formally canceled," he explained tersely. "Until it is, it will continue to issue what it deems to be applicable directives to elements of her father s domain that still respond to commands from the central hub. They will try their best to comply with these commands, because they believe them to be coming from her father, or from her father's second-in-command—whomever they assume that might be.
"Eventually, word will trickle down to the lowest ranks to ignore any and all such directives as coming only from a molly. That's fine. The only problem is, we can't wait for that to happen, for nature to take its course. Because by then it may be too late for Katla."
Fourhorses started toward him, arms spread imploringly. "Well then, expiate this damn molly that's spinning these orders! Shut it down, turn it off—blow it up!"
Cardenas shook his head slowly. "Can't. That is, we can, but if we destroy the molly, there's no guarantee that built-in backups won't kick in throughout the box. Without knowing where all the wishwire is located, we can't be certain of shutting down the gram completely. And we can't risk allowing it to spread to secondary hubs whose location we don't know, because then we'd never get the gram vaped. It's like a snake. Yo
u can cut off its head, but the body will keep on twitching for hours."
Her unhappy expression showed that she understood. "Then there's nobody who can order this gram to terminate itself?"
"I was there. I spoke to it. It insists that termination of the gram can only be accomplished by input of 'a command paradigm compiled by Cleator Mockerkin'—her father."
"But—her father's dead," Fourhorses exclaimed. The Inspector nodded. "Then, there's no one left to bring closure to the program."
"Maybe one." Cardenas turned back to face Katla Mockerkin. So did Minerva Fourhorses.
His spirits sank at her reply to his unasked question.
"I can't do it."
"Why not?" His heart went out to her; to this poor, abused, brilliant girl who had had no real childhood. She deserved better. Anyone her age deserved better.
"Because I don't know the paradigm. Just like the order to kill, my lepero of a father must have compiled and inputted it after Mom and I ran away with Mr. Brummel."
They were left with no choice, he saw. He would have to give the order to disable the molly still spinning away in the bowels of the underwater redoubt in Texas. If they were lucky, the gram would not propagate throughout The Mock's surviving box. If they were unlucky...
She was gesturing shyly at him, interrupted his sad reverie. "What is it, Katla?" he asked as gently as he could.
"I can't input the paradigm, because I don't know it. But there is something else I think I might be able to do."
"What's that, Katla?" Forgetting that she was supposed to keep to the background for the duration of Cardenas's visit, Fourhorses had come up to stand alongside the federale.
Young but far from innocent eyes stared back at them both. "I might be able to wipe the entire system. That's an entirely different paradigm. It's problematical—there's a lot of steps—but it's a doable thing. I think."
Cardenas's thoughts whirled. Wiping The Mock's box would surely eliminate the gram that persisted in ordering her abduction or assassination, but it would also result in the loss of information of incalculable value to the NFP's central office. Names, figures, statistics, locations, histories of crimes committed, plans for crimes expected: all would be lost. He said as much, and in so doing, drew a dirty look from Minerva Fourhorses.
The Mocking Program Page 25
