“Especially about the obvious.”
“I guess it is pretty obvious, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Worst part is—the damn Tek didn’t even help any. I wanted a simple, comforting illusion. One where Beth is still alive.” He moved, feet a little clumsy, toward the doorway. “What I got was a nightmare.”
“Defective chip maybe.”
“No, it’s me. My brain won’t let me bullshit it anymore.”
Gomez asked, “You about through wallowing in grief, amigo?”
“Probably. Why?”
“Got a call from Bascom just before I left to beat the bush for you,” replied his partner. “Cosmos has been retained to look into the killings in Berlin.”
“Representing what client?”
“Bascom won’t say, but he implied it’s a government agency. One that suspects the murders don’t smell quite right.”
“I don’t think we can find out anything more here in Brazil,” Jake said. “I was planning to head for Germany on my own anyway.”
“Are you up to taking on this job?”
“I am, Sid, don’t worry. I won’t fall back on Tek again.”
“There’s nothing wrong, you know, with getting hit hard by something. The thing is, when you—”
“I won’t screw up again,” he promised. “Now I want to see Dan and then get him sent back home safely. When do we leave for Germany?”
“Five P.M.,” answered Gomez.
18
THE TUBE TRAIN SLID to a stop at the skyport platform.
“This is the Europe Wing, ladies and gentlemen,” announced the overhead speakers in their car. The message was delivered first in Portuguese, then in English.
Jake and Gomez gathered their luggage from the racks, with Dan helping, and moved to the nearest exit from the car.
The doors remained shut.
Out on the crowded platform a woman screamed.
A group of five or six uniformed policemen were surrounding a fallen man, a Brazil vet judging by the faded uniform he wore. Several were prodding him with shockrods and one cop was kicking him in the ribs.
“Remind me,” said Gomez, “never to do whatever it was that hombre did.”
Dan said, “They shouldn’t be treating him like that.”
“Don’t tell them so,” advised his father.
The speakers said, “We will open the doors, ladies and gentlemen, just as soon as a minor incident involving begging without a permit is settled.”
The beggar cried out in pain, shook convulsively and then passed into unconsciousness. Three of the skyport officers took hold of him and dragged him away along the mosaic tile platform.
“Not a good place to work without a permit,” observed Gomez as the doors finally hissed open.
Dan said, “But no officer should treat a suspected violator like—”
“And visitors from out of town shouldn’t criticize them,” said Jake. “Not too loudly anyway.”
“Okay,” said Dan, frowning, “all right.”
“You’ve got an hour and a half after our skyliner takes off for Berlin before yours heads out for Greater LA,” reminded Jake as they started along the platform toward the Europe Wing complex. “I don’t want you getting into any sort of—”
“Hey, I’m not a kid. I got down here on my own, didn’t need anybody to hold my hand or stick an electrotag on me,” he told Jake. “I think I can manage to toddle back to the US Wing of this place on my own.”
“Just be sure you don’t stop to interfere with any local law enforcement operations.”
“Actually, you know, I ought to be traveling to Berlin with you and Sid. I could really be a—”
“Back to school is where you’re going,” cut in his father.
“But helping you over there would be an educational experience, Dad.”
Gomez said, “I doubt the SoCal State Police Academy would agree, niño.”
Dan gave him a frowning look. “Don’t you call me a kid, too.”
“Cardigan, what a great blinking surprise running into you.” Striding toward them across the vast domed room was the silverhaired Larry Knerr. “You’re just the chap I’m most eager to interview.”
“Go away,” advised Jake.
“Seriously, my friend,” continued the GLA Fax-Times newsman, “this has become a very important news story now. What I really could use is your reactions to the death of Beth Kittridge. Emotional stuff on that and then some shrewd speculation as to who is behind the whole—”
Jake took hold of the young man’s arm just above the elbow. “I’m not fully convinced that you and China Vargas weren’t involved somehow in setting me up. Right now, though, I have something more important to—”
“Set you up? Good lord, man, are you blinking paranoid?” Knerr struggled to break free of Jake’s grip. “We hired you, remember? And, believe me, old man, we were as taken in by that Sparey woman same as you were. You must know that the Vargas family wouldn’t be party to any sort of—”
“Amigo, I won’t say this cabrón doesn’t need some rattling,” said Gomez to his partner, “but if you don’t want to attract the law, you’d better cease this lively conversation.”
Glancing around, Jake noted that two uniformed skyport officers were watching him from beside a decorative palm tree. “Yeah, you’re right.” He let go of the silverhaired newsman. “I’ve got no comment for the press. Goodbye.”
Knerr took a few shaky steps back, rubbing at his arm. “I warned you before, Cardigan, that you’d be better off trying to get along with us.” Turning, angry, he went walking away.
Watching him go, Dan asked, “How’s he fit into all this?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” answered Jake.
Dan was almost an hour out of Rio, heading home toward GLA, before Larry Knerr approached him.
The newsman had apparently been sitting in the forward section of the skyliner. He came ambling back, a glass clutched in his left hand, to halt in the aisle next to Dan’s seat. “Well, here’s another blinking coincidence,” he said, chuckling. “Imagine your being on the same flight.”
Dan looked up at him. “My father doesn’t think much of you.”
“I’ve noticed that, yes, and it upsets me. I can’t, truly, understand why,” said Knerr. “I’ve been making, after all, an enormous effort to ingratiate myself with the old boy.”
“The point is—I’d prefer not to talk to you, Mr. Knerr.”
“Is that being quite fair, young fellow? All I require from you is some background material.” Knerr leaned down. “About what your dad is up to, what he intends to do over in Germany. And you knew Beth Kittridge, too, so you can give me your own impressions of this tragedy and—”
“I promised my father I wouldn’t get into any trouble on my trip home,” he said quietly. “So you’d better leave me alone, before I break my word.”
“Lord, you’re as cranky as your old man.”
“Runs in the family.”
Shaking his head, scowling, Knerr took a quick swig of his drink. “Very well, sonny boy, I’ll leave you to your thoughts,” he said. “But keep in mind that I may be able to help you some day.”
“You may at that,” said Dan.
19
IT WAS FOGGY IN Berlin. A thick greyness surrounded the Sekunde Skyport and pressed against the plastiglass walls of the corridor leading to the customs area. The midnight city outside lay hidden.
Hunching his shoulders slightly, Gomez remarked, “I prefer tropical climes.”
“You didn’t much like them when we were hiking through Brazil.”
“I mean to look at, amigo.”
At the end of the corridor was posted a large gunmetal robot with a scanner built into his left hand. “Please have your passport cards ready,” he repeated to the line of freshly disembarked passengers that included Jake and Gomez.
“Dan ought to be home in GLA by now,” said Jake.
“How old do you thi
nk he is?” asked his partner.
“He’s fifteen. I know how old my—”
“Allow me to rephrase that. How old do you feel he is?”
Jake admitted, “About ten or eleven I guess.”
“He can fend for himself in most situations.”
“Mein herr, your passport card, bitte,” requested the robot of Gomez, holding out his metal hand.
Gomez placed the card atop the scanner. He then stood shifting absently from foot to foot. “As I was saying, Jake, Dan is—”
“You are Gomez, Sid?” asked the customs robot.
“Also known as Sid Gomez, sí.”
“If you pass into the next room and wait by Doorway 16, Herr Gomez, please.”
“Why am I doing that?”
“I have been instructed to convey the message. I can provide no details.”
Shrugging, Gomez walked on into the large oval room.
When Jake presented his card, the robot gave him the same instructions.
Waiting in front of Doorway 16 were two men. The larger and elder was a blond man of about forty-five. “Guten Abend, Jake,” he said cordially, holding out his hand.
Jake studied the big man’s tanned face for a few seconds. “Rhinehart Spellman?”
“That’s right. Welcome to Berlin.”
“You still a sergeant with the Hauptstädische Polizei?”
“I’m an Assistant Inspector now,” answered Spellman. He gestured at the lean dark man beside him. “This is my colleague, Lieutenant DeSelms.”
Gomez inquired, “Is this more than a welcoming committee, Inspector?”
“Well, Jake and I do happen to be old friends. We worked together on two or three investigations that took me to Greater Los Angeles some years ago,” he said. “Tonight, however, we’re on official business.”
“You arresting us?” asked Jake.
“Nein.” Spellman shook his head. “We assume you’re here because of the tragic death of Miss Kittridge and the two IDCA agents. Is that so, Jake?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Our superior, Chief Inspector Hauser, wishes to talk to you before you begin any investigation of the matter.”
“Talk about what?” asked Jake.
“The fact that,” replied the Assistant Inspector, “we have in custody the man who killed Beth Kittridge.”
Inspector Hauser of the Berlin Metropolitan Police was a plump, pinkish man of fifty. He was standing, widelegged, next to the holographic projection platform at the center of his office. The office was high in the Polizei Hauptquartier building just off the Kurfürstendamm. “We have as yet, gentlemen, not released anything about this to the news media,” he was saying. “I am assured by Assistant Inspector Spellman here that you will not discuss this with anyone on the outside.”
“Can you tell us how you tracked this man down?” Jake was straddling a metal chair near the circular platform.
“Actually, he came to us,” replied Hauser, who was holding a controlbox in his hand. He pushed a sequence of keys.
The platform produced a crisp popping sound. Ten seconds later a lifesize tridimensional holographic image of a tall, thin young man materialized. He wore a shabby grey suit and his sandy blond hair was shortcropped. His left eyelid drooped nearly shut and two fingers of his right hand were folded in on his palm. He sat very straight in a metal chair and his knees and ankles were pressed tight together.
“Repeat your name, please,” requested an unseen voice.
“Will Goldberg.”
“Age?”
“Twenty nine.”
“Why did you kill these people?”
“I didn’t intend to kill anyone but her.”
“You mean Beth Kittridge?”
“Yes. She was my one true love.”
Jake stood up. “Who the hell is this guy?”
“Watch a few more minutes, Herr Cardigan,” suggested the Chief Inspector.
“ ... and fell in love at SoCal Tech,” continued Goldberg, still sitting stiffly. “We became very close friends.”
“You slept together?”
“Oh, no. We never did anything carnal, because that would have been wrong. Beth often suggested that we try ... certain things. But I wouldn’t do anything of that nature. It would have spoiled the—”
“This asshole was never a friend of Beth’s,” shouted Jake, circling the platform and jabbing a finger at the lifesize image.
“Let’s hear his spiel.” Gomez was leaning against a desk.
“ ... for several years I was Beth’s closest friend. Then that terrible person became her lover.”
“Whom do you mean, Herr Goldberg?”
A spasm of pain passed through his lean body. “I don’t wish to speak his name.”
“Jake Cardigan?”
“Yes, that’s the man. He defiled her, stole my Beth from me and ruined her.” Both his eyes were tight shut. “I pleaded with her to renounce the sinful life she lived with him, yet she refused. When I realized that she would never give him up, I knew there was only one way to save her immortal soul.”
“You mean by killing her?”
“Yes, her body, you see, had to be sacrificed in order to save her spirit.” He smiled contentedly. “She’s safe now.”
“How did you do this, Herr Goldberg?”
“I happen to be an expert in the field of robotics. That’s one of the many interests my darling Beth and I shared. I began constructing the android replica of ... of that evil man several months ago. I knew that the day would come when I would have the opportunity of using it to purify her.”
“How did you get this android to Berlin?”
“Friends helped me smuggle it in. It was in several parts,” replied the young man. “I reassembled the android here and added the explosive charge.”
“Your android was very much like the kamikazes used by the Tek cartels, wasn’t it?”
“Certainly, yes. I based mine on theirs. Although my andy was, from all the accounts I’ve studied, much more sophisticated and efficient.”
“You maintain that you aren’t working for one of the Tek cartels?”
“I am working only to do God’s blessed will, sir.”
The image faded and was gone.
Jake turned toward Chief Inspector Hauser. “This guy is a fake,” he said evenly.
The plump man gave a disagreeing shake of his head. “Not at all, Herr Cardigan.”
“Every aspect of his story checks out, Jake,” added Spellman. “We even have the three fellows who helped him get the android into the country.”
Jake shook his head. “I don’t care who or what you’ve got. Will Goldberg was never a friend of Beth Kittridge.”
“But he was,” said Hauser calmly. “We have already done considerable preliminary work on this matter. Goldberg and the Kittridge woman did attend SoCal Tech in your own Greater Los Angeles together, Herr Cardigan. They were, according to several reliable witnesses, very close and intimate friends.”
“They weren’t, not at all.”
Spellman coughed into his fist. “What makes you so certain, Jake?”
“Beth told me about the men she’d been involved with.”
“Perhaps she had some reason for keeping the relationship with Goldberg to herself.”
“Meaning what, Rhinehart?” Jake strode over to Spellman, stood facing him. “Damn it, I knew her better than anyone. She never lied to me, never kept anything important back from me.
“So you believed.”
“No, so I knew!”
“Jake, this fellow’s story seems to hold up so far,” persisted the Assistant Inspector. “We’re still investigating certain aspects, of course, yet I must tell you that—”
“C’mon, you don’t really accept the idea that a lone fanatic is responsible for the killings?” demanded Jake. “You can’t possibly think it’s simply a coincidence that the Tek cartels benefit from Beth’s murder?”
“A good investigator doesn’t appr
oach a case with too many preconceptions, Herr Cardigan,” reminded Hauser.
“Yeah, and a good investigator doesn’t get hoodwinked by an obvious fake.”
“Am I wrong in believing that you come to us fresh from being hoodwinked in Rio?” inquired Hauser. “Perhaps you ought to—”
“Let me talk to Goldberg,” requested Jake.
“That’s not possible at present.”
“I can persuade him to tell the truth.”
“We’re holding him at our psychiatric facility. After he’s been processed there, perhaps it—”
“How long is that going to take?”
“A few more days.”
“In a few more days, Inspector Hauser, the real killers may be—”
“I have, because Inspector Spellman spoke so highly of you, gone against my better judgment, Herr Cardigan, and shared highly confidential information with you,” Hauser said. “I sincerely hope that you will now take my advice and refrain from pursuing this matter further on your own.”
Jake took a slow breath in, then slowly exhaled. “I appreciate your sharing all this with us,” he said. “We won’t tell anyone what we’ve heard while we’re in town.”
“Then you intend to remain in Berlin?”
Jake grinned. “For awhile, yeah.”
20
THE BLONDE YOUNG WOMAN was sitting on the neoleather sofa in the parlor of their suite at the Hotel Palast when they walked in. She wore a black slaxsuit, black gloves and boots. There was a silver lazgun dangling from her right forefinger.
“I’m not all that keen on waiting around,” she informed them. “Where the heck were you dimwits?”
Gomez eyed her, booting the hall door shut behind him with his heel. “Are you part of the decor, miss?”
“That’s right, Gomez, you’re supposed to be the smartass of the team.” She spun the gun twice before flipping it away into her shoulder holster. “You were due to check in several hours ago. So what happened?”
Jake sat down opposite her. “Here’s how we’ll run this conversation,” he said. “You tell us who the hell you are.”
“Don’t you know?”
“Outside of the fact that you’re someone who’s working very hard to impress us, I haven’t any idea who you might be,” he admitted.
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