So far, though, there was little that looked promising. There were the weekly features like the crossword puzzle and articles on gardening that had been written far in advance. The hard news that had already been filed consisted of the usual sorts of budget wrangling between the President and Congress, a piece on rising crime rates, strife in the Middle East, and that sort of thing. Nothing terribly remarkable, other than the Kolodny disaster.
He pulled up the indexes from the previous several days. He leaned back in the chair and started to scan through them as he hit the “redial” button on his phone.
This time, the phone on the other end picked up on the first ring. “Greenberg.”
“Lynch.”
“What do you want to know?”
“The Kolodny.”
“You and everyone else in the world. It’s a madhouse around here. We’ve got D.O.D. breathing down our necks, the White House calling every ten minutes ... Maybe we could dig up some answers for them if we didn’t have to spend all our time answering the phone.”
“That’s a lot of fuss for an accident.”
Greenberg snorted. “Yeah, right.”
“You’re not convinced.”
“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what the hell it is. But it’s sure no accident.”
“Bomb?”
“Not like any I’ve ever seen. No blast radius, none of the scorching or scoring that you’d get with a bomb.” “So what, then?”
“Damned if I know. Two breaches in the hull. Big ones. One of them measured out at point-nine meters long, the other at two-point-six.”
“Mm. But not a bomb.”
“Nah. Preliminary investigation of the scene shows multiple stress points at the seams between the plates, loosened rivets ... It’s like the damned thing just shook itself apart.”
“Maybe someone sabotaged it before it left port. Weakened the seams, loosened the rivets.”
“The Kolodny left port sixty-three days ago. Even if it took this long for the undersea pressure to take its toll—— which isn’t bloody likely—there’s regular maintenance that happens every day on those subs. There’s no way that kind of damage would have gone undetected this long. Whatever happened, happened last night.”
“And that’s why you’re so sure this wasn’t an accident.”
“Well, that and one other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“The part we’re not giving to the press.”
“Which is ... ?”
“There’s a Trident II missile unaccounted for.”
Lynch gave a low whistle. “So that’s why all the pressure from the Brass.”
“You got it. They get a mite touchy when we can’t find one of their nukes.”
“Do you realize what you’re saying?”
If Freefall had been using any caution at all, she
00:01:18. " " '
“Do you realize what you’re saying?”
“No, Lynch, I don’t realize what I’m saying. Tell me what I’m saying,” Greenberg said, exasperated. “Of course I know what I’m saying. Those holes in the sub aren’t big enough for a Trident to just fall out. Someone took it. That means there’s a rogue warhead out there. We don’t know who’s got it, we don’t know how they did it, we don’t know who they’re going to shoot it at, and it’s got our signature on it.”
“Besides that,” Lynch replied. “From the way you were describing things, I assumed this was a suicide mission. Someone infiltrated the crew, did the damage, and probably died with the rest of them. But that’s not it.
“If that missile is gone, then whoever took it survived to get off. And they managed to take a 130,000-pound missile off a sub from one thousand feet down.”
“That’s about the size of it,” Greenberg agreed. “Not exactly a modus opperandi I’m familiar with. Know any roving packs of terrorist killer whales?”
“Anyone take responsibility yet?”
“The usuals. ‘Retribution against the imperialist American government, yadda, yadda, yadda.’ But they’re all blowing smoke. None of them knew about the Trident.” “So what now?”
“What do you think? Publicly, we chalk the whole thing up to a ‘tragic malfunction,’ honor the heroic dead, and swear to make sure the equipment is upgraded so that it never happens again. Privately, we work our butts off to find out who did this and take our damned nuke back.” “Hmmmm,” said Lynch. “There’s still one thing that bothers me.”
“Just one?”
“This doesn’t add up as an isolated incident. Have there been any other . . . unusual events lately?”
Greenberg laughed without mirth. “If ‘unusual events’ like this were going on before, I’d have quit by now. Nah, it’s been downright dull around here.”
“Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do to help out with this thing.”
“Gee, you could find the nuke,” Greenberg said, with more than a trace of sarcasm in his voice. “That’d be good. Yeah, that would be a big help.”
Lynch smiled. “I’ll see what I can do. Thanks, Kal.” Greenberg hung up. A moment later, Lynch did the same.
Lynch sat in the chair with his fingertips pressed together, deep in thought. So, he had been right, after all. There was more going on than met the eye. Somehow, though, he didn’t take much satisfaction in being right about this one. Given the way that the stakes were rapidly mounting, he would just as soon have been wrong.
It wasn’t just that, though. He still believed what he said to Greenberg. It didn’t make sense for this to be just one isolated incident. With something so big brewing, there had to be other pieces falling into place, other traces to be found.
Lynch looked back at the computer screen. He’d scanned yesterday’s news index while talking to Greenberg, but nothing exceptional stood out there either.
Lynch clicked back to the day before. And there it was, splashed across the front page:
MURDER ON CAPITOL HILL!
Sturmer Dead Police Seek Mystery Slayer
Washington was rocked this morning by the brazen murder of Representative Charlene Sturmer (D-Colo.). Not only was reaction provoked by the death of the popular Congresswoman, but also by the location where the crime took place: the halls of the Capitol building itself...
Lynch stared at the account, his jaw hanging open. How could he have not jumped at this story before?
Then he remembered. Two days ago, he’d been boarding an airplane under an assumed name, for a twenty-hour flight back to the United States. He’d never seen the news that day. Since then, the follow-up stories had just made reference to Sturmer’s murder without giving details. He’d assumed it was a more run-of-the-mill crime, albeit with a famous victim. Sturmer wasn’t the first famous person to be murdered, and she probably wouldn’t be the last.
Lynch cursed himself for not checking into the details sooner. The crime bore atl the signs of being committed by a super-powered being—possibly a gen-active like Gen13 and himself—and the incident on the Kolodny did, too.
How many others have I missed? he thought.
Lynch was devouring every word of the article on Sturmer’s death when J. B. walked in. “Knock knock,” J. B. said. “Okay to cpme back now?”
Lynch replied without looking up. “How do I perform a general search through the archive?”
J. B. stepped around the desk and placed his hands on the keyboard. “What are you looking for?”
“Politicians who’ve died in the past six months.”
By the time they finished the search, Lynch had what he was looking for. Four Senators and Representatives had died within the past six months. The deaths happened in various parts of the country, and were spread over time. Five months ago, Representative Evan Lowenthal of Missouri died in a car accident on a dark country road. Four months ago, Senator Hilton Wong of California died from complications stemming from a stroke. Two months ago, Senator Martin Cheswick of New York committed suicide, a tragedy that was
being blamed on a secret addiction to pain killers; apparendy, he’d developed a dependence on them after a recent bout of surgery. Finally, two days ago, there was Charlene Sturmer’s murder at the Capitol.
The different settings and causes, coupled with the time lags between the deaths, meant that no one had spent much time trying to connect them before. Not to mention the fact that it was only four people. However, when Lynch and J. B. compared the Congressional death rate to other six-month periods, they found that four deaths was at least twice as many as had occurred during any comparable period in the last ten years.
“Of course, with numbers this small, ‘twice as many’ only means two more than usual,” J. B. reminded Lynch.
Still. Lynch felt he was onto something. Three of the four victims also shared something in common: They all sat on budget allocation committees.
“Sure, but that’s only three out of four,” J. B. saicl “What about the other one?”
“Wong was eighty-four years old,” Lynch replied.
“So you think that one really was natural causes?”
“A stroke at eighty-four? It’s certainly possible. If so, someone could have taken advantage of it to break the pattern and throw off suspicion.”
J. B. rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know, Jack. Everything you’re saying is possible, I suppose. But what you’re basing it on, well, calling it slim would be a compliment. You might be able to get the conspiracy nuts in your comer, but you’d have a hard time convincing anyone else.”
“You’re right,” Lynch admitted. “That’s why I’m going to gather more evidence.”
“What do you mean?”
Lynch rose from the chair and walked to the door. “Cheswick died here in New York.
“I’m going to examine the scene.”
CHAPTER 6
Bobby was sitting on the sofa with his feet up, an unplugged electric guitar on his lap. He accompanied himself quietly as his soft voice carried the lyrics and melody to a song of his own creation:
“Been down
This road so many times before I’ve found
Don’t wanna be here anymore This world
Is filled with dross dressed up as gold This girl
Could mean salvation from the cold
“So hold me
And tell me
Can you understand
The little boy
Behind the face
Of the angry young man ...”
Abruptly, Bobby stopped playing. He left the guitar sitting on his lap as he reached over to pick up the pencil and yellow legal pad that lay on the sofa beside him. Chewing thoughtfully on the pencil’s eraser, he studied the crossed-out lines and the scribbles upon scribbles that filled the top sheet of the pad.
Needs work, he thought.
There were days when Bobby still allowed himself to dream rock star dreams. Sometimes, in his fantasies, he would play to packed arenas of fans who would sing along with every memorized word. At other times, he would imagine himself playing clubs small enough to watch the faces of the crowd as they gave themselves over to his music. But Bobby was also realistic enough to recognize the idle fantasies for what they were: pleasant daydreams to pass the time, rather than concrete action plans for the future.
To tell the truth, after years of practice, Bobby had actually gotten pretty good on the guitar. He didn’t kid himself, though. He might be good enough to play for friends or his own amusement, but he knew he was no Dave Navarro or Jon Spencer. Not to mention the fact that his lyrics weren’t nearly as strong as his playing.
“Dross?” he thought, scanning over the page of verse. He scrunched up his face in distaste and crossed out the offending line. When have I ever used a word like “dross?”
Bobby was pondering a replacement when Roxy slowly made her way into the room, yawning and stretching. She was still wearing the oversized pink t-shirt with the big picture of a puppy that she’d used as a nightshirt the night before. “Yo,” she said in mid-yawn.
“Hey.” ’
Roxy scratched her hair roughly to clear her head. She looked around through tossled hair and bleary eyes. “So where is everybody?”
“Sarah’s in the kitchen. Grunge got up a little while ago, but then he looked around, screamed, and booked back into his room.”
“Huh? What’s up with that?”
“No idea,” Bobby said with an innocent smile. He adjusted his feet on the two-foot-tall stack of porn magazines that he’d since collected from their strategically-placed positions around the room.
Roxy shrugged and stifled another yawn. “What about
Kat and Mister L? No way I’m up before them.”
“Dream on. Sarah says my Dad’s out investigating something or other. No telling when he’ll get back. You know how he gets.”
“And Kat?”
“She’s got her job interviews today, rememeber?”
The reminder was like a jolt of caffeine through Roxy’s system. She was suddenly alert, her eyes open wide. “She ... went?”
“Yeah, sure. She had to get an early start.” He used the neck of the guitar to gesture toward the bar. “Check it out—there’s a list of her interviews over there. Looks like a pretty full day.”
Roxy walked over to the bar and picked up the list. “ ‘Digiworld?’ ” she read. “ ‘Mousetrap?’ ”
“Computer companies, souftds like. Maybe she’ll get lucky.”
Roxy stared at the paper. “Yeah. Lucky ...” she muttered quietly.
“Hi, Rox,” said Sarah, walking in from the other room. “There are still some pancakes left over, if you want to warm them up. Blueberry, your favorite.”
“Thanks,” Roxy said absently. “Maybe later. I, uh ... I forgot something I gotta do in my room.”
She looked away from her friends and hurriedly left the room.
Bobby and Sarah gave each other a curious glance. “Am I crazy,” Bobby asked, “or is everbody acting kind of weird today?”
“Everyone’s acting kind of weird today,” Sarah agreed. Then, she smirked and added, “But that doesn’t mean you’re not crazy.”
Lynch paid the cab driver and stepped out onto the sidewalk. He looked up at the Wall Street office building, and weighed it over in his mind. The towering edifice didn’t look like the sort of place where you’d be likely to find an after-school program. But then again, most people
probably wouldn’t have realized that there was a day care center in the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. That is, until some lunatic militiamen blew it up.
Lynch entered the lobby and walked past the guard station with a nod. He’d learned long ago that simply acting as though you knew where you were going was enough to avoid a lot of unwanted questions. He spotted the elevators out of the comer of his eye and walked purposefully into the nearest open car. Once inside, he pushed the button marked “17” and leaned back against the wall as the elevator rose.
The newspaper article had said that Cheswick fell from the seventeenth floor, but it hadn’t mentioned the room number for the center he’d been visiting. Lynch didn’t want to invite the guard’s attention by checking the building directory in the lobby. After all, he was hoping that the after-school center would be closed in the morning, during school hours. That way, he could let himself in and have the chance to look around undisturbed. As a rule, it was usually best not to give security guards advance warning of intended breaking and entering.
Besides, he figured the room would be easy enough to find.
On the latter point, at least, he was wrong.
Lynch walked the halls of the seventeenth floor twice, - but none of the signs on the doors sounded anything like an after-school program designed to keep children off drugs. There were a couple of unmarked doors, either of which could have been the right one. But there was no way to know which one it might be, or whether the program might be housed within the offices of one of the other companies on the floor.
Finally, Lync
h put on his best attempt at a friendly smile, knocked on the door of an insurance company, and stepped inside.
The middle-aged receptionist put down a magazine and looked at him as though he’d just interrupted delicate surgery. “Yes?” she said, grudgingly. “Can I help you?”
“I’m sorry to bother you, but yes, I hope you can,” Lynch said, keeping his smile in place. “I heard there’s an after-school program around here somewhere ... ? But I’ve been looking all over, and gosh, I can’t seem to find it anywhere. Would you happen to know where it is?”
“ ‘After... ?’ Oh, yeah. There was one for about a month or so, but it’s long gone.”
“Gone?” ' "
“Yeah, right after that senator took a header out their window. Bad publicity, I guess.”
“ ‘Header?’ Oh! You mean Senator Cheswick? That business with Senator Cheswick happened here?”
“Yeah, right down that way.” The receptionist pointed to her left.
“That way?” Lynch pointed in the same direction. “Yeah. End of the hall down there.”
“Oh, dear. How awful for all of you!”
The receptionist shrugged. “Politicians,” she said. “And the after-school program was only here for a month, you say?”
She shrugged again. “Who notices? Something like that, I guess,”
“Well, then, I suppose it probably wouldn’t have been right for my children anyway.-’
The comer of the receptionist’s mouth twitched into something that vaguely resembled an indulgent smile.
“Well, thank you so much,” Lynch said. “I’m so sorry to have taken up your time.”
“No problem.”
“Have a good day, now.”
Lynch walked back out into the hall, letting the door swing closed behind him. He took a deep breath. He hated adopting that particular persona; it was just too alien to him, and too much work to keep up the sunny facade. But it did have its uses, and this time around, it got him the information he needed.
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