Jezebel's Ladder

by Scott Rhine

  Tannenbaum called over one of his technicians. “Grab the security tape for the foyer and Ms. Hollis’s phone.”

  “This is my case,” the FBI agent insisted. “I need those for my incident report. I need these witnesses.”

  “Daniel Fortune is a minor, and Jezebel Hollis is his guardian. She’ll never agree to your questioning him when he’s in this condition. Carl over there would take a bullet for her. He’ll have a severe memory lapse. You have no evidence this suspect of yours even exists. Elias Fortune’s tech crew is already scrubbing servers of the video that led you here. In my file it says Ms. Hollis used to work in this hotel; they’re probably the ones that warned her. That leaves you with just the lady herself.”

  The Homeland Security officer paused for effect. “She’s already told you more than you’re allowed to know, and she’s leaving with me real soon. You’ve got nothing.”

  “I have one dead, one in the hospital, and a case that will never see the light of day.”

  “Tell Washington the felon lied to get to see a pinup in person. It’s all a case of mistaken identity,” Tannenbaum offered. “We’ll back you on that. Write one word of these cockamamie theories of yours, and I will make sure you get lumped in with those Area-51 nuts.”

  Normandy was seconds away from violence. When Carl saw the room polarizing for a rumble, the bodyguard ran to the bedroom. After apologizing to the boss, he said, “Someone started a pissing contest and we’re going to be the ones getting wet unless you guys separate them.”

  Benny grabbed a sheet and wrapped it around himself. By unspoken agreement, Jez took the older man, and the actor intervened with the FBI. “Where are your clothes?” asked the agent.

  “Um, you broke into my honeymoon with this gorgeous, young thing,” Benny blurted. He gestured back so the man could see how great his young wife looked just standing there. “And you’re the one who should be upset?”

  “Okay, you’ve got a point.” Normandy tried to keep a straight face. Then he recognized the groom. “I loved that high-school movie you did.”

  “Thanks.”

  “The last two sucked,” Normandy said, trying to shake him.

  “I know,” Benny admitted. Then he felt compelled to tell the whole truth so the man wouldn’t blame anyone else for the failure. “I was so drunk most of the time I could barely stand, but I got the job because I partied with all the casting agents.” Now, Benny knew he was infected by Ethics. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

  The admission made Carl laugh. “You’re all right, Hollis. Do you ever worry she married you for your money?”

  Benny shook his head. “No, about the only thing I own is my house and a small IRA. She makes more than I do. After our first date, I told her my worst secret and she still came back. A woman like that, you never let go.”

  “Especially in show business,” Normandy agreed. “So what do you do these days?”

  “Right now I’m the front man for an advanced think tank, real Buck Rogers stuff. I used to recruit quality people, but I sort of put myself out of a job when I hired Jez. Nowadays my main responsibility is to get the masses ready for the changes that are coming. It’s all happening so fast.”

  Everything about the pages was struggling to come out, like flood waters behind a dam. Benny grabbed the bodyguard and said, “Could you help me look for my underwear over by that tub?”

  The bodyguard raised an eyebrow. “Are you feeling okay, Mr. H?”

  Benny’s head was tingling with fever and the change was still going on. “I’m standing here naked in front of all these guests, and I need to get dressed now. Tell Jez I’m going to need her help.”

  His wife stepped away from her negotiations when she heard her name mentioned. When she saw Benny lurch for the bedroom door, clutching his forehead, she crouched beside him for support.

  Normandy laughed. “A close group you have here. What was the secret you told her?”

  The FBI man could only be distracted by one thing at this point. Jez shouted, “Everyone out of the room. Now!” Half the agents obeyed even before the two lead agents nodded their agreement.

  When it was just Jez, Benny, Tannenbaum, and Normandy left in the hotel living room, she said, “Read him in.”

  Tannenbaum blustered, “I can’t just tell people willy nilly.”

  “You tell him or I will. Benny’s infected. Who knows what he told. I need this man under seal of State Secrets,” she insisted. “Your cases obviously overlap. Put him on your team.”

  The gray-haired man nodded slowly. Debts were adding up fast for her. “Raise your right hand.”

  While Jez led Benny to the bedroom and got him a cold compress, Tannenbaum swore in his new team member. He told the agent just enough about the pages to make the assignment permanent, but not enough that anyone else would believe the story. Then, he looked at his watch. “Ms. Hollis, we’re leaving now. Normandy, you stick with that security-risk actor and make sure he doesn’t talk to anyone until we get back.”

  “I’m not a babysitter!” Normandy complained.

  “That man is boiling over with Top Secret information, and right now, he can’t even find his own boxers. Twice in the past two months, enemy agents have attempted to capture and interrogate him. There won’t be a third attempt on my watch. If there is, his wife might not help save us from our own stupidity. Trust me, your problems are nothing compared to the ones I’ve been stuck with.”

  Chapter 38 – Things You Don’t Want to Hear

  Claudette walked down the first-floor hall of the cheap hotel while Steve waited in the car. Ragnar had told her to enter alone. The brown carpet had worn through to the wood in places. The only illumination came from the window at the far end. There were no lights. She swore she could see rats through holes in the plaster-and-horsehair lathe walls. The wealthy starlet couldn’t imagine sleeping here. Her skin crawled considering the insects and vagrants that might end up sharing the bed.

  She waved to the pen-sized camera in the ceiling and then knocked on the door to 113. Claudette heard the sickening sound of a machine-pistol, slide-action bolt from the other side of the door.

  “Give me one good reason not to pull this trigger,” a woman’s voice said through the wood.

  Claudette held up her hands. “Momma Bear sent me with a message, Goldilocks. Men in suits are coming down hard on the whole family after your latest B and E.”

  The latch opened. “Inside,” snapped the assassin.

  Hand trembling, Claudette pushed the door open slowly.

  Sedna had black hair and was wearing Goth, bar-hopping clothes. “Close them behind you.”

  There were actually two doors. She obeyed. The second one was metal and closed with a lever handle. The whole interior wall had been lined with soundproofing tiles and wire mesh. The floor here was raised and clean. Air conditioners hummed and racks of equipment blinked with LEDs. “Is this one of the Virus’s safe houses?”

  “Not anymore,” Sedna remarked. She stood by a cot, tossing spare clips and lipstick into an already-full duffel bag. She smelled of gourmet coffee, cigarettes of questionable content, and vanilla sweat. She checked the edge on a dagger idly. “Thirty seconds.”

  Claudette was extremely uncomfortable. “Jez put herself in the middle of a firefight to cover your butt. Trina got away clean. The boys should pick her up soon.”

  Sedna snorted. “The Brownie Troop can’t follow me down this hole. I know why Goody Two Shoes is doing this, but why do you care?”

  “Trina won’t rest till you’re safe. Daniel won’t rest till Trina’s safe. Daniel…is probably the only kid I’m going to have. I guess I’m doing it for him. And the last thing Jez did as the Feds hauled her away was ask me to help you,” she explained, hugging herself for warmth. She was still in a sleeveless Dior dress that showed her navel.

  “You think we’re freaks,” accused the woman in black.

  “I can’t fathom how your little sister can screw that often
, but you want what everybody wants,” Claudette said, her voice cracking slightly.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” said the assassin, approaching with menace in her stride. The starlet backed against the wall. The pert beauty contestant had been a thin disguise for Sedna, one she had shed long ago. Sedna leaned forward until her lips almost touched Claudette’s nose. In terror, she watched the words as they formed. “I can’t have you following me. Maybe it’s time you found out how the other half lives.”

  “I don’t…” Claudette began. The pain lanced through her as the weighted fist pounded into her midsection. She slumped to the floor.

  “Stay down,” the assassin threatened. “Or I’ll make it hurt more.”

  The victim whimpered as a Velcro pouch opened. “Are you killing me? I came to save you.”

  “You’ll provide the necessary distraction,” the attractive Goth said as she removed a cool slip of golden paper. “This is about freeing you from constraints and expanding your narrow mind.”

  Ice stung her forehead. The ceiling became a doorway of light, and Claudette couldn’t close her eyes. Her synapses opened to the information.

  “Enter your new incarnation,” whispered the dark lips.

  ****

  Twenty minutes after Starlet went in, the guard, Steve, received a phone call from her. He heard a distorted cry for help before the connection was severed. He ran up the stairs and tried to kick down the door. His first, failed attempt caused the delicately balanced grenade to drop onto the drum of ether. There was a tremendous explosion, and neighbors called the fire department.

  In the confusion, Sedna left the unconscious Claudette in a shopping cart a block away and stole Steve’s car.

  ****

  By the time Benny got clothes on, Jez was gone. His head was buzzing. “Carl, get us to the jet. Where’s Tan?”

  “Ms. Johnson sent him to follow in a car, in case…”

  “We didn’t survive or got captured. I know my girl. And that’s Ms. Hollis to you,” Benny bragged as he opened the door to his room and found the lone FBI agent. “I’m sorry, were you expecting a tip?”

  Normandy smiled. “I’ve been transferred. I’m stuck following you till further notice.”

  “The boss was kinda worried about you,” Carl admitted, pushing Daniel toward the elevator.

  “Whoa, when did she become boss?” Benny exclaimed.

  Normandy chuckled, “The Colonel was right, you’ve got no filter.”

  Carl raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Daniel was staring at a point on the horizon.

  When they got to the front desk, Benny had to check everyone out, then sign Jezebel’s credit slip. His own wouldn’t cover the bill. “Maybe you should sign that Mr. Johnson,” joked Normandy.

  “Were you always a prick, or did they make you take classes in it?” asked Benny while they waited for Carl to get the car.

  Normandy laughed. “This is going to be a hell of a weekend.”

  When the car arrived, Daniel sat in front with the partition raised. That left Benny sitting next to Normandy. The agent said, “What was that secret your wife wanted to keep safe?”

  Without skipping a beat, Benny said, “I accidentally hit a girl with my car during a monsoon in Thailand.”

  “Happens. Can’t see your hand in front of your face in that downpour they have.”

  “I was drunk off my ass, and she died on the way to the hospital.”

  “But the locals cleared you?”

  “Because of studio money,” Benny clarified with disgust. “Are you going to arrest me now?”

  Normandy shook his head. “Nah. I couldn’t do a thing to you, even if I wanted to.” After a few minutes, he couldn’t restrain his curiosity any longer, “So you quit show business and dedicated yourself to charities, saving the world from things the rest of us have never seen?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I used to read about guys like you in comics. I don’t see a whole lot of your type in my business,” the agent said with grudging admiration. “I shot a fourteen-year-old my first year on the job.”

  “Toy gun?”

  “Gang initiation gone bad,” said the agent. “Still, you never get over it.”

  After a minute of silence, the airport could be seen in the distance. Normandy asked, “Anything else you’re busting to tell me?”

  Benny’s first impulse was to tell him about the clone debacle but pictured Trina splayed out on a dissection table as a result. “Maybe Carl can tell you a few of our war stories.”

  ****

  A convoy drove Jez to meet a military transport at Nellis Air Force Base for the five-hour-plus flight to Miami. Tannenbaum slid in beside her and clipped into his seatbelt. A tall, African-American man in uniform sat in the front seat. “Hi, I’m Jezebel. People call me Jez.” She held out a hand, but the newcomer didn’t take it.

  “My name is Talos,” he rumbled. “People call me when it’s too late, and the shit hits the fan.” The man stared at her slippers.

  She started explaining rapidly. “I left my sneakers in a friend’s bag. I wasn’t supposed to need them this weekend. And an over-enthusiastic husband snapped the heel of my wedding shoes. They were these gorgeous, ivory Louis…”

  The large man held up a hand. “I’ll talk with a cute blonde all day about lingerie, but I don’t do shoes.” To Tannenbaum, he said, “This is your expert?”

  She ignored the insult and asked, “So what is this favor that couldn’t wait long enough for Benny to carry me over the threshold of our own home?”

  Years of weariness straddled the colonel’s shoulders as he asked her, “Do you have a dossier on Nicholas Cassavettis?”

  “Dr. Reuter’s prize pupil from Stanford? We lost track of him when you picked him for your team in kickball.”

  “I want you to know that I had nothing to do with most of this,” the older man prefaced. “Like my esteemed colleague, the defense department only calls me when there’s a problem. I’m sure you know that Cassavettis inherited a slip of paper from the good professor with ten equations.” Jez noted that Tannenbaum was avoiding any direct mention of the pages. That meant Talos was still in the dark. “Reuter had them for years but always took Einstein’s advice about being a watchmaker to heart. Reuter was a consultant to presidents but never got involved with weapons research.” He went on to describe the basic idea of the Icarus transformation and the resulting force field.

  “You don’t seem surprised,” rumbled Talos when the briefing was complete.

  “It takes a great deal to shock me these days,” she noted.

  “Well, after incidents surrounding the prototype, I mothballed the whole concept. Then, the Pentagon moved forward on a production model without my knowledge or approval,” Tannenbaum complained. “Wanting to avoid notice, early this morning, the satellite team did a test fire.”

  “Only need to know,” snapped the man in the front seat.

  “Her clearance is higher than yours! Anyway, this discharge was erroneously viewed by the control software as an attack, triggering the field that was never supposed to deploy.”

  “What’s the catch? Why am I here?” asked Jez.

  The dark-skinned man answered, “The device won’t shut off.”

  Jez raised her eyebrows. “That’s not good.”

  “The theory is that the field gets bigger in space because gravity is so much lower there. We think it’s big enough now that it interferes with radio-wavelength communication, controls and telemetry,” Tannenbaum explained.

  “You think it’s bigger?” she said.

  Tannenbaum admitted, “We can’t observe it directly because the field is invisible.”

  After considering for a minute, she said, “If it bends radio, we can see it that way. I have time on two radio telescope arrays this week plus a couple observatories. I’ll get you updated stats on the field in a few hours. We’ll also check other wavelengths to see if the force field is affecting power
to the solar panels.”

  “That is my expert,” crowed Tannenbaum as Jez whipped out her phone.

  “Carl, give your phone to tall, dark, and handsome. Hi, babe. This is my hourly check-in. Are you using the radio arrays today? How much? Sure, I’ll clear it with Quan. Get some rest after you find our runaway bunny.”

  She dialed another number, “Mr. Quan, I apologize for raining on your barbeque. We have to pull you in to track an unfortunate mistake on the part of your former employers. We’ll need you to coordinate. He’ll give you the details.” She handed the phone to the man from Homeland Security.

  “Adam Quan from NASA?” he asked the phone. “This is Phil Tannenbaum from Sandia. Well, you’re being reactivated. Same rank, same pay until this is resolved. Get to a secure line as soon as possible and contact me.”

  Hanging up and returning the cell phone, Tannenbaum said, “I didn’t even know he was gone. Why did you recruit one of our senior astronauts?”

  “For our Brazilian shuttle launch Monday,” she said. “You needed me to look over some math?”

  “Nobody but Cassavettis really understands how this Icarus field works. We’re sending someone to interview that nutcase, but don’t expect much,” said Talos.

  “Give it here, and I’ll try while the observers are taking their measurements,” offered Jez. The older man beside her brought up an encrypted laptop and handed it to her. She scanned the first few pages of data. “Uh, you have a bigger problem. The corrective thrusters aren’t firing.”

  The man beside her shrugged. “All part of the interference.”

  “The satellite hasn’t even made a complete revolution around the earth yet. Without corrections, it’s coming back down,” Jez explained.

  Tannenbaum turned white and rubbed his left arm. “How long? Two weeks? One?”

  She blinked, performing calculations that only slightly stretched her normal abilities. “About 70 hours until impact. Quan can tell you to the minute; I don’t have all the…”

  Tannenbaum slumped over in his seat. Jez screamed, “He’s having a heart attack. Pull over!”