Foundation (14 page)

If the rogue driver thought that a taser was no gun, he had it all wrong. A taser had two modes:
STUN GUN
and
ELECTRIC PISTOL
. Surely enough, stun-gun mode was no use with a car. But the needle bullet that would be shot in electric-pistol mode was certified to break through an inch of concrete and certainly had no problem at penetrating most windshields on the market.

Trumaine waited for the driver to stop the car and finally surrender, but he didn’t. The electric engine whirred to an earsplitting noise as the tires squealed in protest and shoved the car onward.

So that was it, thought Trumaine—and he shot ...

The solenoid coiled inside the barrel activated in silence. The taser jerked back in Trumaine’s hands as a thick, shiny needle of steel was sucked into the gun from the magazine and propelled at high speed out of the muzzle toward the charging vehicle.

The grin that had curled Trumaine’s lips lasted a very short time. Something he had never seen in his life had just happened ...

At the very same time he had pulled the trigger, the rogue driver had steered away from bullet. The electric dart whipped by inches away from the car. It kept on going, embedding itself with a puff of grit in the farthest wall.

The car sped onward ... hitting Trumaine squarely.

It was only thanks to the car’s low bumper that he just got scooped onto the hood and tossed into the air like a twig.

Almost in slow-motion, he vaulted over the car, looking like a spread-eagled tumbler performing his ultimate trick and crumpled against the next pillar.

He rolled to the floor as excruciating pain exploded in his body like fireworks then, with one last glance at the fleeing car, he fainted.

Chapter Eleven

Trumaine sat on a stretcher.

He was still in the underground parking of the Rampart and there was no sign of the car that had run him over. He couldn’t remember when the ambulance had arrived and he had no idea about who had sent for it. All he knew was that a young medic stood in front of him, conscientiously tapping his forehead with a wet swab smelling of antimicrobial. Beyond the medic, the ambulance driver could be seen, talking into the radio.

The medic dropped the bloodied swab and produced a big bandage he slapped across Trumaine’s forehead.

 “It’s just a minor concussion,” he said. “Give it a couple of days and you’ll be as good as new.”

He rummaged in his case, retrieving a bottle of pills.

He handed them over to the detective.

“If it hurts, take one. It might cause drowsiness, so be wary not to drive, afterwards.”

The doctor smiled, then packed his things. He went back to the ambulance, where he started filling some electronic forms.

Trumaine looked at the pills in his hand. Maybe he should take one, his head was aching badly already. Then he thought that it could be worse than that, so he put the pills in his pocket.

He got to his feet and his legs felt like jelly.

He turned to see a squad car he hadn’t seen before. Inside it, Firrell and the platinum-wig girl from the sidewalk, the one who had called him “daddy,” were talking. It didn’t take them much to finish. When they did, they climbed down from the car and approached Trumaine.

The girl looked him over and winked.

“Hey, daddy, you ain’t dead, after all,” she said lightheartedly. Then she turned all serious and, in a worried whisper, she added: “You scared the hell out of me ... I thought you were.”

“It’s just a minor concussion, says the doctor.”

“It didn’t look like that, when I found you, I swear. Your face was all covered in blood.”

She was suddenly lost in thought.

“I’m always afraid something like that is going to happen to me ...”

“Too bad for you I’ll still be around to dispense my good advice.”

Trumaine grinned. Just listening to the voice of the girl had eased his headache considerably.

She looked him straight in the eyes.

“It’s economics I study, not science, by the way.”

For a moment, she was silent and she looked like an angel—Trumaine’s guardian angel.

“I better go home now, I’ve got a test due in the morning.”

She stood on her toes and pecked him on the cheek.

“Good luck, then. And thanks for looking over me.”

“Aww, don’t mention it, daddy.”

With that, she strolled off.

Trumaine stared after her until she went up the exit ramp, disappearing from view.

Firrell stepped forth. It was clear from his small eyes, the long stubble and the crumpled suit that he hadn’t slept a wink tonight.

“I’m sorry I kept you up this late, Grant.”

“It’s five in the morning,” tutted Firrell, “that ain’t late—it’s early.”

He made a weak attempt at smiling.

Trumaine realized with a bit of regret that the whole Credence thing wasn’t hard on him alone; it was at least as hard on his captain.

Even if Firrell had developed a thick skin during all the years he had been serving in the force, the long waking hours spent in the dead of the night would wear even the strongest. Firrell was a brave fighter devoted to pursuing justice and he surely didn’t spare himself.

As he looked at him, Trumaine prayed to God that they were both going to chalk this up along with the solved cases.

“Would you mind telling me what the hell you were doing down here?” asked Firrell.

Inadvertently, Trumaine touched his fingers to the bandage around his forehead and a fit of pain stabbed through his skull. He swore.

“I was in Matthews’s office,” he growled. “I was wrapping my head around models of belief, belief levels and believers’ test charts and reports. I was looking for some clue, when something happened that struck me dumb. A small stack of computer punch cards—you know, those plastic sheets riddled with small holes? It looks like they still use them, after all. Well, a stack of punch cards toppled over one of the reports I was reading. Through the punched holes, I could read some of the words in the report, as if they formed a sort of disjointed code. Do you follow?”

Firrell was doing his best.

“That’s when I realized the punch card I had found in Jimmy Boyd’s desktop drawer could have been used for the same purpose.”

Firrell furrowed his brow, not sure he got it right.

“It’s elementary cryptography. The code is provided by a given page from a given book—any book, you name it. You just need to find and mark the words that form your message—as they come on the page, skipping the words that do not match. This way, you will have a number of words placed randomly on the page. If you cut matching holes in a blank sheet and send it to a second person, he will only need to have the same book and know the page number to read the message.”

Firrell frowned even more as he processed the information.

“The punch card would have no meaning for anybody else,” he said.

“Exactly! The card alone means nothing without the book and the page. It’s a simple but very effective way for sending and receiving encoded messages.”

Suddenly, pain pierced through Trumaine’s head and he made a pause, trying to focus.

“I was looking for this punch card that was in Boyd’s desktop drawer. That’s why I came back. I didn’t put much stock in it, at first. But now I’m sure it’s some encryption key Boyd used to transmit information to someone else. What, I don’t know. It was a major clue and now it’s gone, Grant. Someone took it. He was in the room with me. When he ran, I could only glimpse him: five feet five inches tall, medium-to-small build. Damn, he was fast, I chased him from the apartment all the way down the emergency staircase, until we got in here. He climbed in his car and he was about to leave. I stood in his way, pointing the gun at him. Well, you won’t believe this. The same moment I shot, he drove away from the bullet.”

Trumaine shook his head in disbelief. “He knew the moment I was going to shoot. I’m sure it was him ...”

“The mole?” asked Firrell.

Trumaine nodded his head.

“I’m not so sure Boyd killed himself, after all.”

Firrell’s eyebrows didn’t straighten. They were getting nowhere with the case. He had really hoped that Boyd was involved, now it looked like he too was a victim.

“We’ll search the apartment again, if that helps.”

“It’s gone, Grant.”

“What is this really all about? I mean, what has Boyd to do with the Jarvas’ murder? How does it all fit into the Credence angle?”

“I’ll be damned if I know,” said Trumaine, bitterly.

“No doubt, you’re onto something. Credence is not the peaceful realm Benedict wants the world to believe. But we’re getting closer, I feel it. Keep up the good work, Tru, and we’ll get him.”

“If he doesn’t get me first ...” groaned Trumaine.

His head was aching again.

He was beginning to fear the telepath’s skills. The fact that he could read not just the contents of his memory, but also see in advance what his actions and his movements would be, gave the murderer a disproportionate advantage.

“Any news from the Hibiscus?”

Firrell shook his head. “Nothing yet. They’re still looking for it.”

He gave Trumaine the once over.

“You look like shit, Chris ... Why don’t you take a few hours off? Go home. Get some rest.”

Trumaine nodded tiredly, it wasn’t a bad idea.

The first, cold light of day was just sweeping the horizon. The ocean hung below it, gray and flat like a millpond. The few solitary trawlers that were already out looked like confounded ducks swimming in circles. Even if they hadn’t pulled in their nets yet, they were stormed by flights of hungry, shrieking gulls looking for a free breakfast.

An electric car sped along the deserted seaside highway, its engine whirring away, quickly enlarging.

A pale, overworked Trumaine sat behind the wheel.

His head was getting worse, but he couldn’t stop thinking. He couldn’t stop feeling an idiot for having been fooled two times in a row: with the punch card first, and then when he had confronted the murderer.

Was he getting old all of a sudden? Was he beginning to lose his touch? Or was it something else? If the case was totally off all known charts, he needed to develop a new set of skills and he better do it quickly if he didn’t want to end up like Jimmy Boyd and the Jarvas before him. He needed to think out of the box, this wasn’t the usual murder case. Weren’t those Benedict’s exact words? Maybe he knew a thing or two about telepaths, after all.

He could tell that there was something big behind the death of the Jarvas. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the faintest idea of what it was. Why did Boyd use encrypted messages? Was he an accessory to their murder? If, as it seemed, the intruder was the telepath they were looking for, could he have used his skills to induce Boyd to kill himself? Again, why did he need to do that? To throw them off? To put the blame on Boyd?

The turmoil of thoughts crowded in Trumaine’s head and he felt like it was going to explode any minute now.

He pulled to his right and drove away from the highway, along a side road that soon shriveled down to a track in the sand. By jerks and jolts, the car arrived at a washed-out beach house overridden with sage and rosemary bushes and dried-out weeds.

From this side of the road, it didn’t look much more than an old bungalow. The plaster had turned yellow, was cracking in many places and peeling off at the corners, the caulking needed some serious fixing and the weight of the sand that had piled against the fence had bent it backward.

It was all the “house” he had in mind of selling for a bachelor apartment in the City amounted to.

Trumaine left the car and approached a mesh gate eaten away by the salt, where a coiled wire made for a lock. He untwisted it. The gate screeched loudly as it swung on its rusty hinges. After he had stepped past, again he wrapped the wire around the gate, ever so carefully, as if it wasn’t a rundown vacation house he was locking up, but a princely abode.