Robert Charrette - Arthur 01 - A Prince Among Men

by Robert N. Charrette

  CHAPTER

  7

  Sorli droned through his report on Friday night's fire bombing in the village of Blaisdell Corners, and Pamela Martinez listened dutifully. She was only receiving what she had asked for, after all.

  The eyewitness accounts were vague, but there was nothing vague about the three deaths and the nearly one million dollars in property damage. Sorli seemed more interested in a report by the keeper of a local tavern that one of his regulars, a known drunkard, had claimed to have seen a lone female motorcyclist fleeing from a pack of fiery hounds. He found it especially significant that the drunkard in question was found dead in the bushes the morning after the attack. The preliminary police report said that the man had died of exposure.

  "Of course, that was only the apparent cause of death," Sorli said.

  "Of course." She checked the monitor to ensure that the record function was activated; last time, their conversation had not been stored in her console's memory. "And the real cause?" "He saw those who hunted the woman. They are not yet ready to reveal themselves, and so they silence those who are unfortunate enough to discover their existence."

  "Of course." Sorli's was a relentless obsession. "Yet we know of them. Why do they not seek to silence us?"

  "They do not know that we are aware of them."

  "How can you be sure?"

  "By the very fact that they haven7 made any attempts to silence us."

  Neatly circular. "They have taken no notice of your investigative efforts?"

  "They have always been gone by the time we learn of their activities. This is both fortunate and unfortunate. Fortunate in that they are as yet ignorant of our opposition to them, and unfortunate in that we have been unable to act effectively against them. This will change.

  "And soon, I think. This morning I learned of an incident which occurred last night in the Tewksbury District." He spoke of a car crash resulting in the death of the driver and his passenger and the crippling of a pedestrian. She had heard of it already; the pedestrian was a Mitsutomo dependent. The only new piece of data he provided was an account of a woman seen running from the scene. "We have people looking into it, but I do not expect more than confirmation of the details we already know."

  "And why is that?"

  Sorli frowned. "My team cannot investigate this incident

  directly."

  This was new. "Why not?"

  "One of the officers involved in the investigation is Charles Gordon, the man who found Churdy's body. Were any of my team to appear on the scene, he would undoubtedly recognize us and make connections between the incidents which would be best left unmade at this time. We need freedom of action if we are to successfully combat the danger."

  "Meaning the convergence?"

  "Exactly." Smiling, he added, "I knew I was correct in coming to you."

  The lame attempt at flattery surprised her. "Your point?"

  "These most recent incidents are clear evidence of the destructive nature of the otherworld, and the lack of regard in which they hold our world."

  "But the existence of the otherworld remains unproven." She waved down his protest. "The media is labeling the fires a terrorist attack, despite the lack of motive or claimants to the responsibility, and they have described the car crash as a 'drug-related incident.'"

  "They are correct in the first case, although not in the way they think. There will be no one taking responsibility for the attack. As to the drugs, the only ones involved are those taken by the media hacks. They may be blind to the approaching danger, but we must not allow ourselves to be blinded. There is a pattern to these disturbances."

  "What sort of pattern?"

  "The presence of the woman."

  "Half the population is female, and we don't know if all these incidents involve the same woman."

  "Perhaps pattern is too strong a word," he conceded. "Rather let us say that we have a progression. First the Churdy killing in the mountains, then the incident on the Main-New Hampshire border, now this one in the Tewksbury, an outer district of the Northeast sprawl. The disturbance is moving south and west."

  "If this is a progression, what is the goal?"

  "That is unknown. Certainly it is related to an attempt at convergence."

  "How is it certain?"

  "Other sources confirm that the woman is an agent seeking the convergence. It is foolish to ignore the likelihood that these incidents center around her. We cannot afford to be foolish, Ms. Martinez."

  I certainly can't, little man. "What are these 'other sources'?"

  He tilted his chin down in a defiant manner and stared her straight in the eyes. "I will not say."

  " Will not? I could insist otherwise." "You would not be wise to do so. We cannot afford a rift in our ranks. This woman must be stopped before she achieves her goal."

  "Your otherworld faction seems intent on that."

  "They are not mine," he snapped. His vehemence vanished as quickly as it had risen. He continued, "But, yes, it would seem that a faction is intent on stopping her. However, they have had notably little success. It is possible that these attempts are merely a device to lull us, to keep us from acting."

  "I thought you said they didn't know about us."

  "I could be wrong. But such actions could have nothing to do with confusing a known or specific party. The rulers of the otherworld are devious and have strange ways. They have a passion for confusion, even when it has no discernible purpose."

  A passion for confusion, eh? Like Sorli's? If they had half the mesmeric force of this man, those rulers would be dangerous. Through implication, inference, suggestion, and only the most circumstantial of evidence he had drawn her into his delusion, if delusion it was. How could belief as intense as Sorli's be based on anything short of reality?

  Sorli had to be worried if he would admit to a possible error, even if he backpedaled immediately, and seeing him worried made her anxious. "What do you propose?"

  "We must spread a net for this woman. We must start surveillance on all possible otherworld agents along the path of the disturbance, and I need your authority to requisition the necessary resources. Further, we must prepare to stop her."

  "Capture her, you mean."

  He stared at her, saying nothing.

  "For interrogation."

  He remained silent.

  "You want to kill her," she accused.

  "She is too dangerous to deal with any other way," he said matter-of-factly.

  "I will not be a party to a private murder."

  He tilted his head and gave her an indulgent smile, then his expression sobered. "This is a matter well beyond private concerns. With the fate of the planet lying in the balance, will you let one woman outweigh all? Will you let her tip that balance and send us all into chaos?"

  "I want to know more."

  "There is little time. We must act."

  "So you say."

  "Yes, so I say."

  "Where's the proof you've always promised?"

  "By the time—"

  "Yes, yes. I know. It'll be too late."

  "We face dangerous opponents."

  "I believe you." We have dangerous friends, too. "I'm not asking you to risk your life. Mitsutomo has no policy against employees' carrying defensive weapons."

  "A sound policy."

  "Defensive weapons. If you involve Mitsutomo in murder, I will disown you. And don't look so smug; I can make sure you don't work for any corporation in the Northern Hemisphere. You know I can."

  "I am aware of your influence, Ms. Martinez," he said, still looking smug.

  "Keep it in mind. Now go, set your snares. Capture this woman and bring her to me."

  He stood, but did not immediately turn to leave. When she looked at him, he said quietly, "She may resist."

  "If she does, use force, but not lethal force, I want to interview this agent of the otherworld."

  "She may have allies who will oppose us."

  "There hasn't been any s
ign of 'allies' so far. But if any show up, oppose them. I'm tired of stumbling around in the dark. I want hard information and I want it soon. You understand?"

  "Quite."

  "Understand this, too. I want this operation quiet, and we both know that you know how to be quiet. If things don't stay that way, you'd better have a very good reason."

  "I do nothing without good reason."

  "Your good reasons do not always accord with mine. This time, they had better." He nodded and started for the door. She let him get halfway there. "If you start shooting, you'd better bring me back a goblin's head to mount on the wall-—because if you don't, I'll mount your head up there."

  On Thursday the media announced the whereabouts of the missing Winston. His severely beaten body was found over on the south side, near the old train station. It wasn't a nice part of town, so Winston's being dead wasn't as shocking as it would have been if his corpse had turned up in the middle of the Polytech campus. There were lots of burned-out injectors and empty capsules around, so the media naturally picked a drug angle: student beaten to death as drug

  deal turns sour.

  It was big news all over campus that morning. John cut his classes and spent most of the morning in the student center, where live reports and taped segments fed in from a news service ran almost uninterrupted on the vid wall. In one, Winston's roommate, clearly badly shaken up, told a reporter that Winston had been talking and acting oddly on Saturday night In another, a solemn-faced reporter babbled about an unnamed university custodian having said that he'd seen Winston get into an argument with another student. Supposedly the argument had devolved into a shoving match and after the two were separated, Winston made some threats. The custodian allegedly saw Winston meet with a man in a dark raincoat, the two of them departing in a late-model sedan with out-of-state plates. All very mysterious and "suggestive of the tragedy to come," according to the reporter.

  John wondered if the "unnamed custodian" was Trashcan Harry.

  Of all the students talking about it, on or off the screen, only Winston's roommate spoke of seeing the dead jock after Friday afternoon. One of Winston's frat brothers collected an audience for himself by repeating in person his interviewed statement denying that Winston had ever done drugs. In the background, on screen, official spokespersons for the university denied prevalent drug abuse on campus and agreed with the frat rat, but many of the live audience weren't buying. One loudmouth in the crowd made a point of recalling Winston's reputation as a hard partyer.

  Sitting sunk in one of the lounge chairs, John stayed out of the discussion. He stared at the screen and listened to the reports, ignoring the few students who spoke to him. Mostly he saw Winston's still body lying on the ground outside of the Dunstan Building.

  He felt a little sick.

  There was a hole in the reporting, and it wasn't just the failure to mention John's brawl with Winston on Friday. None of the reports mentioned anything unusual about the body's condition, which puzzled John. If Winston had died of the beating John had given him—too likely a possibility—the body should have been decomposing. But it wasn't. So John was not the killer.

  Right?

  If John hadn't killed Winston, the jock had gone on with his life after their encounter on Friday. But if Winston had gone on with his life, some of the bruises would have begun healing. There wasn't any mention of evidence of "systematic abuse," as the media liked to call repeated beatings. To all appearances, Winston had been beaten and killed on Wednesday night.

  The coroner was reported to place the time of death at one in the morning, a not uncommon time for drug deals. Who else would be out there at that time of night?

  The killer, for one. But not John. John had been home in bed. Asleep. Which was where Winston should have been.

  For all John thought Winston had been an ass, he had never known the jock to use more than alcohol or mild stimulants. Just over-the-counter stuff. Being on the basketball team meant too much to Winston; he wouldn't have risked losing that. Winston's being down on the south side didn't make sense.

  There had to be more to the story. Where had Winston been for five days? And had he spent those days dead or alive? Normally John liked mysteries. But normally he wasn't a part of them, one of the suspects. Suspects? Not really. He seemed to be the only one who suspected him.

  His stomach flopped and he thought about heading for the men's room. He waited it out, scowling at the vid wall. When he felt as though he could walk safely, he headed home. He took the shortcuts, not for speed but because there were fewer people to see him along those byways. Once home, he shut himself in his room. He even told Faye to shut up and go away.

  Mysteries, but not mysteries for him to solve. He was just a student. Maybe a killer. He didn't sleep much that night, worrying at the problem.

  He stumbled through his Friday morning classes in a daze, struggling to piece the facts he knew into a picture that made sense. He spent the dead time between classes wandering around the campus with no real destination in mind. The walking seemed to keep him calmer, let him think more clearly. Slowly he came to the conclusion that it was physically impossible for him to have beaten Winston to death. Dead men don't lie around for five days without decomposing. The bruises of the fatal beating must have overlain those that John had given the jock. The south side thing had to be what it appeared to be. Winston must have had a hidden side that his friends didn't know. That kind of thing happened all the time with serial killers. Why not with victims?

  Feeling better, he headed for the student-center cafeteria. He put a Coke and a plate of the daily special on his card. The anonymous collection of brown, green, and yellow things on the plate didn't look much like food, but state law required the mess to be nutritious. A day without solid food had left him hungry enough to enjoy it. By the time he was washing down the last of it with his Coke, his attitude was improved considerably.

  Awake, awake, sleeping beauty. You are being followed.

  What?

  Two men over by the concession stand.

  John thought they looked more interested in the magazines than they did in him.

  But they haven't been more than a block away all morning.

  Really?

  Really.

  Dredging his memory, he realized that he had seen those two before. One or the other of them had been somewhere nearby all morning. Coincidence, surely. They had business on campus and just happened to be in the same places. Yet there was something ominous about their presence.

  His watch beeped. He had lab in ten minutes, and he'd be late if he didn't hurry. Enviro lab in the Dunstan Building. Just like last week. But not like last week—Winston wouldn't be carousing along the walk when John got out.

  Telling himself that the past was behind him, he gathered his stuff. He noticed that the two men finished looking at the magazines about the time he went past the concession stand. They didn't buy anything.

  They walked on past when he entered the Dunstan Building. Though they had apparently gone on about their business, they stayed on John's mind throughout the lab. After he'd turned in Ms assignment, he decided he wouldn't go out the usual way. He took the side door he used on rainy days; the cut across to the trolley station was shorter that way. Before leaving the building, he took a look around. He didn't see anyone.

  While he was waiting for the trolley, the two men showed up again, one at a time. Neither approached him and neither paid attention to the other, but they both boarded the trolley when John did. To see what would happen, John got off before his regular stop. The two men got off as well.

  The men of grim intent stay on your trail.

  That was obvious.

  He headed up the street toward Stetson Mall. There were always a lot of people at the mall. Bad guys didn't start trouble around lots of people.

  What was he expecting from these men? He didn't even know who they were. Why was he assuming they were the bad guys?

  Pretending to make
a phone call just outside the mall gave him a chance to look them over. They were nondescript fellows: average height, average build, ordinary haircuts, regular features, and simple, slightly conservative suits. One was a blond Caucasian, the other an Asian. The suits were (he only thing that made them stand out on campus. John couldn't remember seeing either of them before.

  Were they cops? Mitsutomo men checking on him? Associates of the mysterious Mr. Bennett? Did it matter who they were? Of course it did, especially if it involved Winston's death. The only safe assumption seemed to be that they were not thugs out to rob him; thugs didn't wear tailored suits.

  So why were they following him? The answer would be intimately tied to who they were, the one answering the other. Whoever they were and why ever they were tailing him, he didn't like the idea of strangers following him around, watching everything he did. There wasn't much he could do about it without knowing who they were. There might not be anything even he could do if he did know, but knowing was better than not knowing.

  There was no one available to ask about these guys except the guys themselves. Confronting them in the middle of the street seemed inappropriate; this was some sort of cloak-and-dagger game. John started looking for a suitable place. As he approached the mall entrance he remembered a serviceway that ran behind the Lechmere's. It was a narrow place, usually Ml of trash, private but still near enough to the crowded bus stop at the mall entrance that any shouts for help would be heard.

  He passed the mall entrance, checking in the glass to see if they were still following him. They were. The walk along the wall under the Lechmere sign seemed longer than usual. He spelled out the store's name, whispering each letter as he passed under it. Two steps past the last "e" and a couple yards from the entrance to the serviceway, he started to sprint. Three strides put him in the alley, moving at speed, but instead of racing down the lane, he kept turning, fetching up against the wall of the building.