Thursday - day 38

Bob Adams was in a wheel chair, being wheeled down the hall, toward the front door of Holy Cross Hospital. Ed Clark had come to pick him up, and the regulations called for all patients to be wheeled out, regardless of their condition. The nurse pushed Adams to the curb in front of the main entrance, and waited for Clark to bring his car. Clark pulled up to the curb and opened the door for Adams.

Ten minutes later they pulled into the driveway of Adams' house. They sat there for a minute; Adams just stared at the house.

"Want me to go in with you?" asked Clark.

"I'm going to have to manage it sooner or later," said Adams. "It might as well be sooner." He opened the door and after another minute, got out. He leaned down and said, "Thanks, Ed, for everything. I really appreciate it. I'll call you later about coming in to the office."

"If you need anything, don't hesitate to call me. I'm only a couple of minutes away. Oh, here's the telephone number you wanted." He handed Adams a slip of paper.

"Thanks." said Adams, sticking the paper in his shirt pocket. He pushed the car door shut and stood watching as Clark drove away. Then, he walked up to the front door, put the key in the lock and turned it, but he didn't open the door. It wasn't going to be like going home. Eventually, it would seem like going home, but never like it used to be. He went in and closed the door behind him. It looks the same, but he'd expected that. The bedroom was going to take a while. He sat in a chair, his chair, and, although he tried not to, but he couldn't help thinking about Betty.

He went into his office, sat at his desk, and gathered up the papers on the desktop calendar, and set them to one side. There it was, written across the top of the calendar, the license number of the blue van. And there, on the calendar, on the 26th of this month, a big red X, marking the day that the baby had been due. Betty had put the X there. He hadn't grieved nearly as much about the baby as he had about Betty, but now he was made so very aware of the fact that his son was killed before he even lived, and it angered him. His anger was like none he had never known is his life, even more intense than what he had felt these last few days. He looked back at the license number and memorized it, 'RAN 08L.' He was ready to go into the bedroom, now. He was a captain in the military police again; at least he would try to be.

He wasn't ready for the bedroom, after all. No one could ever be ready for that. He grabbed the doorframe to keep from collapsing. The bedclothes were gone; the bare mattress was covered with bloodstains, everywhere except for the extreme corners. The ivory-colored carpet had huge stains on both sides of the bed, where blood had run off the bed onto the floor. The room was filled with the stench of decayed blood. Eventually, he felt the blood making it to his head again, and he could let go of the doorframe and walk into the room.

There were two bullet holes in the headboard, one in the wall above the headboard, and four bullet holes in the mattress. He could see the marks on the wall behind and above the headboard, made when the police had dug the bullets out of the wall. Only two of the holes in the mattress looked like they had tried to get the bullets. He went to his office and took a letter opener from the center drawer and went back to the bedroom. He probed in the holes in the mattress with the pen and felt the bullets in the two untouched bullet holes. He brought a knife from the kitchen and cut the cover of the mattress and dug the bullets from the mattress. It had been a while, but he thought they were .38 caliber.

He had the license number and two bullets, and he knew what one of them looked like. With a little luck and maybe a little help, he should be able to track them down.

"You'll pay, you bastards," he shouted, as he walked out of the bedroom. "I miss you so much, Betty," he moaned. "Not that it will change anything, but they are going to pay. I swear."

He fished in his shirt pocket for the scrap of paper that Clark had given him. Finding it, he picked up the telephone and dialed the telephone number on it. The area code was 863; that meant his old C.O. was in Florida. Maybe he had retired.

"Colonel Brooks office," said a husky, female voice.

"I'd like to speak to Colonel Brooks, please. My name is Bob Adams."

"One moment, I'll see if he's in."

"Hello, Bob. How the hell are you? I haven't heard from you for years."

"I must admit that I've been better," said Adams. He gave his old boss a brief summary of what had happened.

"Jesus Christ, Bob. I'm sorry. Did they get the perpetrators?"

"Not yet. As a matter of fact, that's my main reason for calling you. By the way, where are you? I know it's Florida, but where?"

"Don't laugh," began Colonel Brooks, "I'm the C.O. of an R.O.T.C. unit, at Florida Southern College, in Lakeland. I wanted to retire and spend some time with my grandchildren; I have one in Tampa and two in Orlando. I heard about this duty and asked for it. In two years, I'll have my thirty in, and that will boost my retirement pay. In the meantime, I'm an hour away from each of my kids and grandchildren. The job is a snap. Not only that, but the life here is great for Amy, my wife. They have concerts and art exhibits right here on campus. It's a beautiful little private college, with much of the campus designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It's like being on perpetual R and R."

"Sounds great, Colonel. I'm happy for you."

"Call me Gabe, now that you're a civilian, Bob. What can I do for you?"

"I don't think the local police are worth a damn," said Adams. "From what I've heard, the police around here are more interested in seizing property than they are in solving crimes."

"That's becoming an epidemic across the country," said Brooks.

"I'd like to get some private help, and I was hoping you might either be able to recommend someone or know somebody that could."

"Where are you located?"

"I'm in Fort Lauderdale."

"That's pretty close. We have to get together. I gather you'll be busy for a while. If I can help at all, be sure to call me. If you get up to Lakeland or nearby, like Orlando or Tampa, call me, and we'll get together. As for recommending someone, there is a group in Miami. They aren't cheap, but they are as good as you can get. If I were in your situation, I wouldn't want anyone else."

"Sounds good to me," said Adams.

"The firm is called 'SIA,' sort of like 'CIA.' Actually they are mostly ex-CIA and FBI. I suppose you are going to do some work on your own and you need support. Is that it?"

"You guessed it."

"Talk to Phil Matthews, when you contact them. His father was General Matthews, who died in Vietnam. I once headed up his father's security team. Tell him I sent you. I've sent several people there, and everyone was pleased with the service."

"Thanks a million, Colonel-I mean Gabe. What's the distance to Lakeland, about two or three hundred miles?"

"I'd say about two-fifty."

"I'll try to make it up there soon. I just got out of the hospital today. I would have surely died, so they say, if Betty hadn't fallen on top of me, in just such a way that she put pressure on the hole in my chest, stemming the blood flow. I was hit in the head too, but that wasn't too bad."

"It's tough," said Brooks. "I understand why you want those bastards. I just hope they don't arrest them, slap their wrists and turn them loose. That's standard operating procedure, anymore."

"I know," said Adams. "I've been thinking about that."

"I see," said the Colonel.

"I'm going to let you go now, Gabe. I get very tired very quickly. I'll start building myself up, now that I've escaped the doctors. I'm going to see a nutritionist and see if I can get back in shape."

"Good luck, Bob. Please keep me posted."

Adams was truly very tired, but he called information for Miami, got the number for SIA, then, for the first time in his life, spent the thirty cents and let the telephone company dial for him. He talked briefly to Phil Matthews, who wanted him to come to Miami, until he heard that Adams had just gotten out of the hospital and wasn't up to the trip. Matthews said he could send Ira Lincoln, between two and three o'clock that afternoon.

***

Randolph was sitting at a table in the open-air restaurant of Las Brisas, sipping iced tea and watching the surf. But he wasn't merely relaxing; he was working on resolving his situation. The first day-really half a day-he had relaxed, listened to music, and spent some time in the pool and on the beach. Today, the second day, he had gotten up early and started to work. He had been going over everything for some time, but here in total tranquillity, he went over it again, and again. He had made a list of alternatives and evaluated each. He had gone through everything he could think of, no matter how ridiculous it might seem. He would think for a while, then swim in the pool or take a walk, then go back to trying to come up with the best solution. He had come down to one solution, and had been trying to find a reason to reject it, or a better alternative

He went back to the bungalow to get his CD player. Since there were no other guests in the motel, he didn't have to worry about disturbing anyone. With the CD player at the edge the pool, he could keep cool in the pool, while he listened to Beverly Sills' and Sheryl Milnes' Up in Central Park album of operetta favorites. His father was one of Beverly Sill's greatest fans, and he had evidently inherited a propensity for admiring her.

In early 1952, his father had gone to Orlando to see a performance of La Traviata, by the erstwhile Wagner Opera Company, and Beverly Sills happened to sing in it. It was his father's second live opera, and he had been utterly captivated by both Miss Sills' performance and Miss Sills, herself. Three times he had tried to get in through the stage door, to see her, and three times, they had thrown him out. Finally, he entered the front door of the theater, went down into the orchestra pit, climbed onto the stage and walked backstage; and there she was. Orlando was still too small to have a theater with dressing rooms, and she was sitting at a dressing table, practically in the wings. His father had told her that he was a reporter on the college newspaper, which was stretching the truth somewhat. He had once written an article for the college paper, and he had been editor of his high school's paper. But, he was afraid of being turned away. Beverly Sills was, according to Barry Randolph, as gracious as she was lovely and talented. She told him that in the second act, when Alfredo's father, Germont, tries to convince her that the best thing she could do for Alfredo and his family is leave him, she became so caught up in the role that she cried real tears. A hopeless romantic himself, young Barry Randolph was completely taken by the redheaded beauty, with the perfect voice, and the sentimental heart. He assured her that her future was secure; she would undoubtedly be a great star of the Metropolitan. She was less sure than he, but hoped that he was right. The rest is history.

Several years later, his father turned on the radio and heard a voice too wonderful to believe. He listened mesmerized, then when the announcer identified the voice's owner as Beverly Sills, he exclaimed, "Beverly Sills, she made it. I knew she would." He went immediately to the record store and ordered every record she had made, which were only a few at the time. Over the years, although she grew in fame and his collection of records, tapes and CD's grew as well, Barry Randolph said he always thought of her as the young, red-haired beauty in a yellow ball gown, crying real tears in the Wagner Opera Company's performance of La Traviata. "She might sound a little better today," his father would say, whenever he told the story, "but she could never look any better, and what a smile. Every time you see her, except when she's acting, she's smiling." In more recent years, since Beverly Sills gave up singing to run the New York City Opera, he would add, "and she's not just beautiful, with the most glorious voice ever, and the most endearing smile you ever saw, she's got a good mind too."

Randolph had heard the story so many times, he couldn't have remembered it any better, if it had happened to him and not to his father. He, too, had every recording Beverly Sills had ever made, but although he had not seen her that night in Orlando, judging from the pictures on the albums, it seemed unlikely that she could have looked much better than she did in her thirties and forties. By the time the CD ended, he wanted to call her and thank her for the monumental pleasure she had brought to his life. Perhaps he should go to New York to thank her, and take his father. But that might be too much for his father.

He climbed out of the pool. While he had been lost in a reverie about Beverly Sills, his subconscious had been making a last minute review of his problem and his options. He knew the last remaining solution was the most logical and, by far, the most appealing option. He went back to the bungalow and called Leonard Fisher. He would need Fisher's help, immediately.

"Hello, Leonard. It's Clint. Remember that I said I might need your help soon? The time has come."

"I'll be glad to help anyway I can," said Fisher. "What can I do for you?"

"What are you doing this weekend?"

"Not much of anything. Nothing important at any rate."

"How would you like to join me in Costa Rica?"

"Costa Rica? Are you there now?"

"Yes. I can understand if it's too far and too inconvenient. I came down here yesterday to think, and that's what I've been doing. I've made up my mind, and I need your help."

"It must be quite a problem for you to go to Costa Rica and think about it."

"It is. I'm working on my survival, Leonard."

"Where are you in Costa Rica? I'll be there as soon as I can."

Randolph explained how to get to Las Brisas. Fisher said he would make his reservations and call to let him know what time he would arrive. Fifteen minutes later, Fisher called back and said he would be there at 5:00. He said he had to run, because he would have to rush to catch the airplane. Randolph suggested he bring a laptop computer and a notebook, as well as a couple of bathing suits.

Randolph then called Alicia. "Hello, Alicia. Have you had any emergencies?"

"None we couldn't handle. There was a call from Stacey Morgan. She said to call her when you could. How is Costa Rica?"

"Costa Rica is wonderful, and Las Brisas is paradise. Listen, Alicia, I need for you to do me a favor."

"Yes, Sir."

"Send an e-mail message to jefferson-at-compuserv-dot-com. The message is: 'Please keep me posted on your location and telephone number. Thanks. Clint.' Put my e-mail address under my name. You got that?"

"Yes, sir. I'll send it right away.

"Thanks a million, Alicia. I'll see you soon."

He then punched in the number for Stacey Morgan's private line at the Morgan Shipyards.

"Stacey Morgan," she answered.

"Clint here. I got your message."

"I just wondered if you knew that our trip to New York has been bandied about on radio and TV?"

"No, but it doesn't surprise me. What are they saying?"

"Mostly that you are so filthy rich that you go from Palm Beach to Savannah to pickup your date and then to New York for the opera."

"It's true."

"The way they say it, though, it sounds like you are a robber baron flaunting the dirty money you earned from the sweat of child labor."

"Sounds like Patrick Parvell. Are you upset?"

"Are you kidding? I was a bit perturbed, when a small group of reporters were waiting for me, when I came out of the office."

"I'm sorry to have caused you this bother."

"Bother? I'm not bothered. I just wonder when we are going to do it again. I hope we're going to."

"At least that. Right now I'm in Costa Rica. As soon as I get back Monday, you'll hear from me. You can count on it."

"Enjoy your stay in Costa Rica. I'll talk to you Monday."

"It's an unwinding trip, and it's working marvelously. Good-bye." He smiled as he hung up the telephone. Then he thought about the media mob bothering Stacey, and he frowned. He didn't have time to dwell on that; he needed to stop by the office to arrange for someone to pick up Leonard and to reserve a bungalow for him.

***

Bob Adams had fallen asleep on the couch for a couple of hours, then gotten up and made a pot of coffee. He was sitting in his chair drinking coffee, when a black Porsche pulled into his driveway. Looking at his watch and seeing that it was twenty after two, he assumed that it was Mr. Lincoln.

"Mr. Lincoln?" asked Adams, standing in the doorway as Ira Lincoln walked toward him.

"Yes, Ira Lincoln. And you are Bob Adams, I presume."

They shook hands.

"Come in and sit down," said Adams. "I just made coffee. Would you like a cup?"

"Yes, please"

A moment later they were both seated on the sofa, with their coffee.

"What exactly do you need, Mr. Adams?" asked Lincoln.

Adams recounted the entire story.

"You see I have the license number of the blue van and I know exactly what one of them looks like."

"Did you give the license number to the police?"

"No."

"May I ask why not?"

"I'm not entirely sure. I have the impression that they have little interest in the case. Their interrogation of me was half-hearted, just a formality. They were merely going through the motions."

"Have you been interrogated before, with more enthusiasm?" asked Lincoln.

"No, but I was an investigator for the Military Police for several years and I have interrogated a lot of people myself, and I've been present at many more interrogations. This was a 'do it and get it over with' operation. I figured they wouldn't follow up and, if they did, they would probably blow it."

"Look, Mr. Adams," said Lincoln. "I know what you have in mind, at least more or less. Will you do me a favor and hold off until I can talk it over with my boss and maybe some of the other guys? Maybe we can come up with a way that you can be sure these guys get burned, and still not risk going to prison yourself."

"Okay," said Adams. "I'm still not up to par, anyway and probably won't be for a while."

"If I were you, I'd contact the NRA and help them. They're fighting the restrictions the government puts on our right to bear arms. I'm sure it has occurred to you that if you hadn't had to wait for your gun, you and your wife might have come out of the whole thing unharmed, with the two guys getting what they deserve."

"Of course I've thought of that, a thousand times."

"You can help the NRA get people's constitutional rights returned to them. There are a lot of people like you. What kind of work do you do?"

"I have a marketing business," said Adams.

"Hell, if you can't help them, who could," said Lincoln. "Look, we'll discuss this at the office and get back to you. Will that be all right?"

"That will be fine."

"We could run the plates and help you find the guys and you could blow them away and maybe go to jail for the rest of your life. I'd rather see you find some other way of getting back at them and remain free to help the NRA."

"I guess you're right," said Adams. "You'll have to excuse me, if I seem a little abrupt or lethargic today. Come with me." As they walked down the hall, he said, "I just came home today," and as he opened the bedroom door, he added, "to this."

"Oh, my God," exclaimed Lincoln. "You're a brave man, Mr. Adams. Jesus, don't they usually clean up crime scenes."

"I told them not to," said Adams. "Not because I wanted to see the blood, but because I wanted to be able to see if there was anything the police overlooked."

"Was there?"

"Not really. I dug these two bullets out of the mattress," said Adams, holding out the two bullets.

"Thirty-eights."

"That's what I thought," said Adams.

"Keep them. They might come in handy."

***

Later that afternoon, Ira Lincoln walked into Phil Matthews' office.

"Phil, this Adams guy has a real situation."

He summarized Adam's story and ended by saying, "So you see, he's an ex-MP investigator and needs some help. He has the license plate number of the killers and two slugs from the gun that killed his wife and unborn kid. You couldn't believe the bedroom, Phil. The entire mattress was soaked with blood and a lot had run off onto the carpet on both sides."

"He wants to take them out himself?"

"He didn't say so, but I got that impression."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him to hold off for a while. I said I'd talk it over with you and the guys and see if we could come up with a plan that would put them away without him having to risk going to prison. Then I told him to call the NRA and join up and help them. He owns a marketing business, and I said that he could be a big help to the NRA."

"He agreed to hold off?"

"Yes. He seems reasonable enough. He just wants justice. He said the police came across as disinterested, when they questioned him."

"What's new? I'll think about it for a while."

It's four-thirty. I think I'll just go home and get Clara and go to happy hour."

"Where are you going? Maybe I'll drop by, if you don't mind the company."

"Not at all. I'd welcome it. How does the Rusty Pelican sound?"

"Sounds great. It's one of my favorites. I'll see you there."

***

"This place is a paradise," said Fisher, sitting across from Randolph, at a table in the open-air dining room, drinking a piña colada. "I love those magnificent green mountains, and this wide, wide beach, with those enormous rocks sticking out of the sea. The iguana over there is watching us enjoy our drinks. How is it that you never mentioned this place?"

"I don't know, Leonard. I guess it just never came up in a conversation."

"Are you sure you weren't just trying to keep it to yourself?" said Fisher, with a laugh. "I could certainly understand that. Now that I know about it, I'll probably come here once in a while to unwind."

"It's perfect for that. It's also very private. Actually, that's why I wanted you to come here. Otherwise, I would have gone back home and talked with you there."

"When do we get down to the issue at hand? I know it isn't something trivial for you to bring me to Costa Rica, although I'm already glad you did."

"You know that the Justice Department is working on charging me with anti-trust violations. Right?"

"Of course. Every newscast plays it to the hilt. I wouldn't watch her, if she was the only newsperson alive, but someone told me that Cookie Robinson compared you with Hitler and Scrooge in the same sentence. I thought this might have something to do with that."

"You were right. It does. I know they are going to charge me. I know they are going to win, and they're going to break me up and make me help my competitors. Needless to say, I am not overjoyed with my prospects."

"How do you know they won't decide to drop the whole thing?"

"I happen to know the whole thing isn't at all about anti-trust. That is just the way they came up with to get me."

"They?"

"The Commission on Foreign Relations-not really the CFR, but the people that call the shots for them."

"Oh boy. What are those guys after you for?"

"They think I'm a bad influence. I'm independent and successful. On my own, with no government assistance, I live the American Dream. What if everyone thought they could do it? It would erode their efforts to foster dependency on the government, which seems to be something they want very badly. And, worse yet, I'm a Libertarian. What if I became political and ran for president or financed the Libertarian Party? You can calibrate the media on this. Every left wing fellow traveler will condemn me before any facts are ever mentioned. If anyone says otherwise, you can assume he has some integrity, if there is anyone with integrity left in the American media."

"What are you going to do?"

"That's what I brought you here to discuss. I have a plan, but it's a very major undertaking. I wanted to run it past you and see if you could help me with the financial aspects."

"I'll do anything I can, Clint. Let's hear your plan."

Saturday - Day 40

Michael Keller picked up his telephone.

"Hello."

"Michael, it's Marta. I didn't know if you would be home on Saturday night or not."

"I'm afraid so," said Keller. "What's up?"

"I just wanted to tell you that I found six more routines today. That makes twenty-three."

"Anything special?"

"One of them is the one you mentioned, the one that wipes out the hard drive. I've been backing up daily, just in case I hit that one. Thank goodness, I was expecting it."

"I owe Sandoz an apology for sure," said Keller. "He was right about it all."

"Do you suppose that MicroShaft is using any of these the way it used the Directory command?"

"Who knows? They said they stopped doing a directory, when people registered their software by modem. I wonder how anyone knew they were doing the directory in the first place."

"That's a good question? Is there a way you could tell if they use any of them?" asked Frazier.

"Sure," said Keller. "You can have it jump to a subroutine every time it accesses one. The subroutine can beep or something. I can do that, if you'll give me the addresses of all the routines. I'll have it play a tune and print the address or what the function does, so you can tell which routine has been called."

"I'll e-mail you the addresses and what each function is for," she said.

"That would be good."

"Unless you'd like to get a bite to eat. Then I could just give you the list. Have you had dinner?"

"No I haven't. I'd like to have dinner with you, Marta."

"Why don't you pick me up in half an hour?"

"Where do you live?"

"1244 North 22nd Avenue, apartment 712."

"I'll be there."

SUNDAY - DAY 41

It was two o'clock in the morning. Dennis Pierce parked in the shadows, half a block from his laboratory. As he had expected, there was no sign of life in this part of the campus. He hurried to the door, which opened without using his card, because he had disabled the lock, so there would be no record of his entry on the University's central computer. The only light was from two security lights that were always left on. He slipped a diskette into his computer, rebooted the computer from the diskette, then typed in "wipe c:" and pressed return. It wouldn't be enough just to format it. He'd heard they could retrieve the data anyway. This would write a pattern over the whole hard drive. There were backup tapes and the notebooks; he set them on the table beside a Bunsen burner sitting under a ring-stand with a flask on it. He had taken a set of backup tapes home, for himself. He poured two bottles into the flask and waited for the computer to finish wiping all the data off the hard drive. Then he turned off the computer. He looked at his watch. Kathy would call the hospital in two minutes. If things went as planned, the liquids in the flask would make a compound called picric acid. Picric acid was perfectly safe when it was wet, but very unstable when it was dry. You could paint a spot on one end of a two-by-four and let it dry. If a fly landed on the other end of the two-by-four, the spot would explode. But for these liquids to make picric acid, the temperature had to be closely controlled, or you would have an enormous explosion. A gas flame under them was definitely not the proper control. He lit the Bunsen burner and ran out.

Pierce was two blocks from the Yale New Haven Hospital when he heard the blast. He was so startled that he almost lost control of the car. It had happened much sooner than he had expected, and it was much louder than he had imagined it could possibly be. He had three hopes: he hoped no one was hurt; he hoped every scrap of information about the project was completely destroyed; and he hoped he would get away with it.

He pulled into the hospital parking lot and soon saw Kathy's car. He parked and ran over to her car. All his resolve and his courage had left him, and the whole idea seemed foolish. But he didn't want to upset Kathy any more than he surely had already.

"Did you hear that blast?" he asked, nervously. "It was sure loud enough. I hope nobody got hurt."

"So do I," she said. "I thought we were going to be here before it went off."

"I thought we would be. It went off sooner than I expected."

He helped her out of the car and into the passenger's side. Then he got in the driver's side and drove up to the front door of the hospital and walked into the hospital with her. Perhaps it was some kind of macho instinct; but now that he was with Kathy, his courage had returned.

"My name's Kathy Pierce. I think I'm having the baby," Kathy told the receptionist.

Pierce looked at his watch. It was two thirty-two. "Two-twenty-two," he said. "That must mean something; it's all two's.

The receptionist made a call, then she brought a wheelchair for Kathy and held it while they waited for a nurse to come.

"I feel good about coming in at two-twenty-two, honey," said Pierce. "All twos must mean you're going to have twins. Don't you think that two-twenty-two being all two's means twins, Miss?"

"I doubt it," smiled the receptionist.

"Well, I hope so," said Pierce. "I've want twins. Three two's have to be my lucky number."

A nurse came and wheeled Kathy away. Pierce followed them. The receptionist went back to her desk and wrote into the book on her desk: "2:22 Katherine Pierce - in labor."

"How far apart are your pains?" asked the nurse, as she pushed the wheelchair into the elevator. If he ever needed it, Pierce had an alibi.

"About ten to twelve minutes," said Kathy. "But they aren't all that regular. I know it could be a false alarm, but I couldn't take the chance."

By the time a doctor arrived, Kathy's pains had subsided, and she seemed a little embarrassed to say she thought it might be a false alarm. They kept her the rest of the night and let her go home the next morning.