Death Dream (40 page)

As she swiftly dressed and put on her makeup, Vickie smiled at his choice of restaurant: there would be belly dancers at the Moroccan Pavilion, she knew. She decided to wear a white belted tank dress with a gold-trimmed white jacket over it. Simple and modest, with a knee- length skirt.

When she saw Smith waiting for her at the restaurant's bar he was in the same light gray suit he had worn all day.

She had never seen him in anything else. Did he bring only the one suit or did he have several of the same cut and shade?

"What's it like living in Disney World?" she asked over the reedy Middle-Eastern music. The restaurant, an opulent Hollywood version of the Arabian Nights, was barely half-full at this late hour. And the service seemed painfully slow.

Smith shrugged his square shoulders. "The hotel's okay. Good service. Everybody's very pleasant. I don't know if that's Floridian or Marriott training."

"Some of both, I should think," said Vickie. Once they were seated at their table and dabbing at an appetizer of stuffed grape leaves, Vickie said, "Quentin seems such a formal name."

"It's a family tradition. Actually I'm Quentin Wayne Smith the Third."

"That's a mouthful. What do your friends call you?"

"Mr. Smith."

That brought Vickie up short. Then she saw he was grinning at her.

"Chuck," he said. "My friends call me Chuck."

"Not Smitty?"

"No." He shook his head. "Never Smitty. I hate that."

He was rather handsome when he smiled, Vickie thought. Good-looking in a boyish athletic way. But he didn't come across as boyish. This was a man, an adult who looked out at the world through those startling blue eyes and measured everything very rationally. He was ambitious, that Vickie could see easily. Already working in the white House. It seemed perfectly clear to her that he had plans to move higher.

But apparently his mind was on things closer to hand.

"I guess I'll be in the lab all day tomorrow with resident genius," he grumbled. "Is there a portable TV I can bring into his lab? I don't want to miss the Thanksgiving games."

"I don't think there are any portables in the building," Vickie replied, reaching for a piece of the round flat pita bread.

"Rats."

"But there's a tabletop TV in Muncrief's room. You could watch the games in there. Or carry it down to Jace's lab if you want to stay there with him."

His face brightened. "Okay. That'll work."

"Just remember to bring it back again after you're through with it."

"Sure. Okay."

They made innocuous conversation through dinner, Vickie wanted to tell him about her problem with Peterson and whoever he was working for, but she hesitated, waiting for the right moment, the right mood. Then the belly dancer came out and she saw that Smith pulled a pair of eyeglasses from his jacket pocket and wiped them carefully before putting them on. The dancer was young and lithe and buxom. Smith never took his eyes off her.

She made a mental note of that.

After dinner they went out to the artificial lake and watched the nightly fireworks display. As the crowd gasped and applauded the colorful bursts, Smith asked, "You said you needed my help?"

"I think I do," she said, trying to keep her voice low, despite the fireworks and the crowd's delighted shouts.

"What's the problem?"

"Security." she replied, hoping that it was a word that would catch his interest.

It did. In the shadowy light she could not make out the expression on his face, but his whole body seemed to tense.

"We have competitors—"

"We?"

"ParaReality. There are plenty of big corporations who are curious about what we're doing."

She saw teeth flash into a grin. Smith gestured toward the lake, the fanciful buildings, the crowd, the fireworks. "Our genial host, for one, I would imagine."

"Disney, yes. MGM. plenty of others. From overseas too."

"Foreign competition," he murmured.

"They've hired a private investigator. At least one, that I know of. He contacted me—"

"How?"

"Phoned me at home one night. Said he wanted to meet with me and make me rich. Not in so many words, but his meaning was pretty clear."

"What did you do?"

Victoria took a deep breath. She was walking a tightrope here and she knew it. "I went along with him. To find out as much as I could. Find out how much he already knew, who he was working for. You know."

"That can be pretty tricky."

"So I discovered. He seems to know quite a lot about ParaReality. He must have informants inside the company. And he knows you're from the government."

"Damn!"

"I don't think he knows what you're doing here," she added hastily.

"Who's he working for?"

"I haven't been able to find out. I—" Vickie realized that her voice was shaking slightly and it was no act. "He scares me, Chuck. He's starting to threaten me. I told him I wouldn't talk to him any more and he said things could get very rough for me."

For several moments Smith said nothing. Vickie looked up into his face, lit by the flickering glow of the fireworks. He looked grim.

"I'll take care of it," he said at last. "Give me his name, anything else you know about him. I'll have some check him out."

Vickie gushed thanks all over him while a part of her marveled at the fact that she actually felt almost as relieved and grateful as she was telling him.

Then she said, "Look—there's no reason to tell Kyle about this."

"He doesn't know?"

"I haven't told him. He has enough to worry about."

Smith's expression seemed to go stony. It was hard to tell in the staccato light of the fireworks but he seemed to be eyeing her suspiciously now.

"Besides," she added quickly, "Kyle's very sensitive about having you around. He doesn't like having to deal with the government. He wants to keep ParaReality entirely under his control."

"But it isn't, is it?"

Ignoring his jab, Vickie went on, "He's almost paranoid about the company. If he found out that you're going to involve more government people—"

"For his own company's protection."

"Even so," Vickie said. "Just leave him out of this, okay? You and I can handle it without getting Kyle involved."

He nodded, but Vickie thought it was reluctantly. He can see through me, she told herself. He knows I haven't told him the whole truth.

The fireworks ended and everyone started for their cars once the last starburst had faded from the midnight sky.

Smith started to stroll around the perimeter of the lake. "Give them a little time to clear out the parking lot," he suggested. "Be easier to find your car then."

"Good thinking," said Vickie.

"You'll be okay to drive home alone?"

"I think so. But I feel a lot better about everything now that you're going to do something about Peterson. Thanks again."

"Nothing to it. I ought to thank you for taking pity on a lonely man and having dinner with me," Smith said as meager crowd moved past them.

"My motherly instinct," she said.

He smiled in the darkness. "Do I come across like a little boy to you?"

"Not really, But I was surprised that you didn't fly back to Washington for the holiday. Don't you have family there? Friends?"

"I've got to stick close to Jace," he said tightly. "He may be a genius but I can't trust him to do what I want without blathering about it to everybody he sees unless I'm right there with him. And now I've got this Peterson thing to worry about. I'm not going anywhere until this job is finished."

"But you let him go home alone?"

Again that tight smile. "He's being watched, don't worry. If he sneezes I'll know it."

"Oh." Vickie was surprised for a moment, then relieved that Smith already had helpers on hand. She returned to her original line of questioning. "Do you have family and friends in Washington?"

"In Washington what I have mostly are associates, teammates, a few helpers, a lot of hinderers." He hesitated a beat, then added, "Plenty of competitors."

"Esther never told me exactly what you do in the White House . . ."

"Esther Cahan. Nice woman. Very bright."

"What do you do there?"

He stopped and leaned on the railing that circled the lake In the darkness her white skirted suit looked almost ethereal. Despite her age she was an attractive woman, Smith realized. Not as lushly exotic as the belly dancer but nice legs, a neat figure, probably good muscle tone underneath that tan.

He asked, "What are you after, Vickie?"

"Me?" The question caught her by surprise and she had to make time to think. "What do you mean?"

"You're an extremely attractive woman and the boss's right hand. I'll admit that I'm young and handsome and incredibly attractive. And unattached. But why did you invite yourself to dinner with me? You could've told me about Peterson in your office. What are you after?"

Vickie decided that he was too sharp to play games with. "Your job in the White House," she said. "Whatever it is."

He gaped at her, then threw his head back and laughed. "My job? And then what do I do? Retire to Disney Village?"

"No," Vickie replied. "You move up."

For a long moment he made no reply. Finally, "I don't think you have any idea of what a shark pool Washington really is."

"I have some idea," she said. "I've been there."

"And you want to help me get ahead, is that it? Because of your motherly instinct?"

She ignored his sarcasm. "If I help you then you can help me. Isn't that the way the game is played?"

"This isn't a game, kid. It's deadly real."

"So am I," Vickie snapped. "I don't intend to be Kyle Muncrief's nursemaid forever."

"Are you sleeping with him?"

"With Kyle?" She almost laughed aloud. She almost said that Kyle was not interested in any woman older than twelve. But she caught herself. "Never sleep with the boss. It's foolish."

"Amen." He said it with a fervor that made her wonder.

Then he added, "My hotel's about a fifteen minute walk from here."

"Let's get my car from the parking lot."

"Good thinking. you can park all night at the hotel."

And, Vickie said to herself, this will seal the bargain. He knows I'm not telling him everything but he's willing to go along with it as long as I'm willing to go along with him. Smiling inwardly, she thought that it might be the best deal she had made in a long time.

CHAPTER 30

It felt really strange toting Susan and both kids to the lab. The front parking lot was empty, Dan saw. Still he drove slowly around to the back. Nothing there either, except Joe Rucker's beat-up T-Bird with its handicapped license plate. And Jace's bike. Yes, it was there. Dan felt his teeth clamp together.
I've got to face him down and find out what the hell he's done. I've got to. Can't let him off the hook this time. Can't let him push me around, either. I've got to get the truth out of him. Lives depend on it and there's nobody else to get it done except me. I've got to do it. Got to.

Dan parked his bird-spattered Honda under one of the oaks.

As Susan got out on her side she said, "You really ought to wash this car one of these days, Dan. Look at the bird droppings!"

"I know," he said, opening the rear door for Angela. "I've been hoping it'll rain."

She made a small smile. "If you wash the car, it might break the drought."

"Guaranteed," Dan muttered.

He had told Susan nothing about what had happened at Wright-Patt. Nothing about his near-certainty that somehow, in some weird way, Jace was at the bottom of the problem there.

"Brung the whole family, did ye!" Joe Rucker's voice called across the parking lot as Dan tugged Phil's car seat from the back of the Honda.

"Hello, Joe. Happy Thanksgiving." Rucker limped across the lot, touched the bill of his cap as he smiled at Susan. "Mornin, Mizz Santorini."

"I thought I was the only one working today," Dan said as he headed for the rear door, lugging the car seat and a slim briefcase.

Rucker took the bag of toys that Susan was holding and, with the bag dangling from his hand, pointed toward the bicycle leaning against the loading dock wall. "Nope. Ol' Jace is here, workin' his head off. And me, o' course. Place needs guardin' even on Thanksgiving."

Angela stared at Rucker. She had never seen a one-armed man before.

"I'll have to make out visitor's badges for y'all," Rucker said as he limped toward the rear entrance. "Can't go into th' building 'less you've got a badge. 'Cept fer the front lobby, o' course."

"There ought to be a consultant's badge for Mrs. Santorini," Dan said as they reached the door.

"I'll check in the security office," said Rucker.

Dan led the little procession down to the pit, the computer center, where Rucker left them and shambled up the corridor. He was back moments later with a red consultant's badge and green temporary badges for Angela and the baby. Susan peeled the back off Angie's badge and let her stick it onto her blouse. She put Philip's badge in her purse.

"I reckon that's all right," Rucker said, "seein' how he's too little to wear it regular-like." Satisfied that the company's security regulations had been followed, he left them in the Pit and headed back to his post at the front door.

"He looks familiar," Susan said. "Wasn't he one of the guards at Wright-Patterson?"

"Couldn't have been," Dan said.

"I'm sure I saw him there a couple of years ago."

"They wouldn't hire a cripple for guard duty," Dan said. "They use the Air Police."

"I saw him somewhere," Susan insisted. "I know I did."

Dan passed it off as he set Susan up at one of the desks in the computer center. It was a square room big enough for a dozen people to work in simultaneously. Along the back wall stood the big IBM and DEC mainframes, tall and blocky as refrigerators. The Cray supercomputer was against the side wall. No windows. The whole ceiling was covered with glareless light panels. The tile flooring was slightly spongy, easy on the feet.

Angela immediately went to the copying machine. "This is bigger than the one in your old lab, Daddy," she said.