Tek Power (22 page)

“So did two hundred others,” reminded Bev.

“I meant they can't be brought to justice.”

“You have to rely on divine retribution sometimes,” said Gomez. “Although there's a rumor that Dominic Hersh was defunct before his
casa
folded up on top of him and all his Tek gear.”

Bev said, “They haven't found the remains of Izabel Morgana yet either.”

“Her
hacienda
turned into a half acre of firstclass rubble during the twenty-six seconds of the quake,” reminded Gomez. “After which it sank into a brand-new opening in the earth. An experience like that is
muy dificil
to walk away from.”

“Yes, I know,” admitted Bev. “But Dr. Morgana had reasons to disappear, since she must know we've found out what's going on.”

“Want to go in on this pool, Jake? Is Izabel defunct or ain't she?”

“We know for certain that Dacobra and Hersh are finished,” he said. “Her I'm not sure about.”

Bev, turning away from the window, said, “I turned in a prelim report to Maxfield. I told him what I think really happened to his son and why. Until I hear otherwise, I'm assuming my job is finished.”

“I contacted Bascom just before we took off,” said Jake. “He wants us to keep on this.”

“Until we put the Veep in the can?” Gomez rubbed at one of his bandages.

“Bascom suspects there might be gratuities and honorariums forthcoming from sundry enemies of Brookmeyer and McCracklin if we get the whole Surrogate 13 mess out in the open.”

Bev said, “Maxfield will probably also be working to do that.”

“Competition is the essence of the news business,” Gomez pointed out.

“I'm going to head for Florida,” said Jake, “and see about springing the
real
President Brookmeyer. Sid, the other angle on this is—”

“
Sí
, somebody's got to expose the android prez as a fraud.” He smiled, nodding. “I'll handle that end of things, even though it means temporarily splitting up our crackerjack team,
amigo
.” He leaned further back in his seat. “Karla Maxfield is traveling with that Cracker Barrel gang and I imagine she'll be thrilled and elated to encounter me yet again. But, then, who wouldn't be?”

Bev mentioned, “You don't have much of a self-esteem problem, Gomez.”

“Actually, I do,
cara
. I tend to underestimate my charm and abilities, but I understand there's a new capsule you can take to correct that.”

Bev said to Jake, “Would you mind if I tagged along with you to Florida?”

“Not at all, but I thought we were rivals.”

“I'm officially finished with my case, far as I can see. I'd like, though, to be in on the windup of this.”

“Okay, fine.”

“
Milagro
,” murmured Gomez, “a miracle of cooperation.”

R
ICHARD
B
ASCOM SAID
, “What?”

The polite voice of the apartment computer said, “I was suggesting, sir, that you might have given me a wrong command.”

“Not that I know.” He was sitting in the afternoon living room, wearing his pajamas and staring at a blanked window.

“But you requested that I
lower
the room temperature. Actually, however, it's quite low already and you're sitting there barefooted. In your present condition—”

“My condition happens to be okay,” Richard said. “I'm fine, absolutely fine. When your wife dies that doesn't mean
you
get sick.”

“A great many stressful things have been happening, sir,” said the computer. “When we monitored your vital signs this morning, for instance, we found that—”

“Who in the hell told you to do that?”

“It's a standard procedure, sir. Every—”

“Well, forget about it,” he said. “Now turn the room temp down. I'm roasting in here.”

“Ought I to send for the building medibot?”

“Just go away, asshole.”

A moment later, after making a sedate coughing noise, the computer told him, “There's a call for you.”

“Not interested in calls.”

“It's your father in Greater Los Angeles.”

Richard sat up. “Okay, put him on—he must have some news about Eve.”

Bascom, seated stiffly at his desk, flashed onto the wallscreen. “You're not looking well, son. Are you—”

“Don't you start in on me.”

“I'm concerned about you, for Christ sake. You can't just—”

“Do you have news or not?”

“Yeah, the whole thing is pretty much solved,” his father told him. “But you're going to have to promise not to try anything drastic.”

“The hell I will.” He got to his feet, glaring at the screen. “Who killed my wife? Who killed her, damn it?”

“This is a very tricky case,” began Bascom. “When the details get out—well, there's going to be one hell of an upheaval. When that happens, and there's no doubt at all but that it will, everyone involved will be taken care of by the proper authorities.”

“Oh, do they have proper authorities to take care of the murder of your wife? What kind of legalistic jargon are you trying to—”

“Hold it, back off. Calm down, sit in that goddamn chair and listen to me.”

“Okay, but tell me something.” He slumped down in the chair.

“The Surrogate 13 business involves President Brookmeyer, Vice President McCracklin and quite a few other folks here and there,” began Bascom. He gave his son a concise account of just about everything Jake, Gomez and he himself had come up with since the start of the investigation into Eve Bascom's death. He concluded, “As you know, the youthful louts who did the actual killing are dead. Dominic Hersh is dead, too, probably knocked off by his own people. Captain Dacobra and Izabel Morgana are dead, too. Which means that just about every major figure in this is—”

“Just about, but far from
all
,” his son interrupted. “McCracklin had to be involved in the orders to kill my wife. What about him?”

“Soon as this comes out, the VP will face impeachment and a federal rap.”

“No, somebody'll pardon him. They'll pull a shuffle and he'll end up with a fat job in some defense—”

“They won't,” insisted his father. “Chiefly because most of them will be in the pokey, too, or looking for new sources of employment.”

“I don't think that's the way things work.”

“Be that as it may, I want you to let things run their course.” Weariness was showing in Bascom's face. “Eve's death doesn't make much sense, but—”

“It makes perfect sense. She knew something important, so she had to be killed to keep her quiet.”

“Anyway, it's over,” said his father. “Let us take care of tying it all up.”

Richard looked away from the image of his father. “Okay, yes, you're absolutely right,” he conceded. “I really do appreciate all you've done. I'll call you again in a couple of days, when I'm feeling better.”

“Take care.” Bascom left the screen.

Richard said to the computer, “Find out where Vice President McCracklin is at the moment.”

T
HE ROBOT ON
the sundeck said, “Now your left hand, chum.”

Bascom shifted the neowicker basket from his left hand to his right, scowling at the big battleship-grey mechanical man. “The prints will be the same as on my right hand, nitwit.”

“You can comply, buddy, or I can administer a little shock that'll make your hair do a tapdance and your goonies go south.”

Bascom sighed and complied.

Seven minutes later the guardbot accepted him as Walt Bascom and allowed him to enter the Zuma Sector beach house.

There was another guardbot in the blank-windowed living room with Kay Norwood. This one was white-enameled and took only three and a half minutes to establish that the agency head was who he said he was.

“Now I'll have to turn that basket over to the kitchen staff,” said the bot. “They'll check it for poison and any other additions.”

Handing him the basket, Bascom sat in an armchair facing the tall blonde lawyer's sofa. “I brought you a basket of fruit,” he explained.

“Thanks—and some news?”

He nodded, asking, “Had any trouble here?”

“Well, outside of having a tough time getting used to living with a half dozen belligerent robots and not being able to enjoy the ocean view—no, I feel much safer here than I did under the Lighthouse. And nobody's tried to get at me.”

“Within a couple more days you should be able to come out in the open again.” He explained to her what Jake and Gomez had found out, what they'd been up to in Nicaragua and what they were planning to do next.

When he finished, Kay observed, “You don't look especially elated.”

Bascom drummed the fingers of his right hand on his right knee. “I'm concerned about my son's reaction to all this,” he admitted. “Fact is, and I don't like to do this, I put extra Manhattan operatives on him. These lads are to tail him and keep him from doing anything goofy.”

“You mean in the way of revenge?”

“His wife was murdered and Richard feels, I'm near certain, that he
personally
has to do something.”

“Most of the people involved in Eve's death are dead themselves.”

“Not all of them, though. Not McCracklin, for instance.”

Her eyes widened. “He wouldn't try to get at the vice president?”

“I really don't know.”

“The people you have watching him will see that nothing serious happens.”

Bascom stood. “Okay, I just wanted to fill you in on the current situation. I'll—”

“I was about to have some lunch,” Kay said, standing. “Got time to join me?”

“I'll dampen your feast.”

She smiled at him. “You can't be as bad as these robots.”

Bascom hesitated before answering, “Okay.”

36

G
OMEZ'S LATEST RENTED
skycar came without intrusive commercials. Whistling “Cielito Lindo” with his tongue pressed against his upper teeth, the curlyhaired detective was piloting it over the hills surrounding Chattanooga. Spotting his destination, he tapped out a landing pattern.

The skyblue cruiser dropped gracefully down through the sunny afternoon, settling to a gentle landing in a woodland clearing. At the far side of the glade stood a parked two-story mobile home. It was painted in camouflage colors.

When Gomez tried to disembark, he discovered his doors wouldn't open. “Hey,
qué pasa?
”

The dash voxbox spoke. “Who the frak are you?”

“This is my own rental asking me that?”

“C'mon, c'mon, dimbulb, answer up.”

“I'm Sid Gomez of the Cosmos Detective Agency. Is this Arlo Harmon?”

“Would Arlo Harmon go around with a voice like an aluminum cockatoo? Stop gabbing and answer the questions, huh? What's your business here?”

“I arranged a meeting with Harmon. I want to hire Cyberwacky Services, Ltd.”

“What was the agreed on fee?”

“Two thousand dollars, which is a hell of a—”

“No, nope. You got that wrong, fella.”

“I never get a fee wrong. I agreed to pay Cyberwacky the sum of—”

“It's 2,500 dollars in front,” said the voxbox. “Otherwise, junior, you can fly your woebegone butt right on out of this sylvan setting.”

Gomez leaned back in his seat, poking his tongue into his cheek. Narrowing his eyes, he looked out at the trees surrounding him. Most of them were real, mixed with only a few holoprojections. Finally he said, “Two thousand five hundred dollars it is. Provided Cyberwacky can do
exactly
what I have in mind.”

“Cyberwacky Services, Ltd. can do any darn thing you can think of, dimwit. C'mon in, kiddo. And wipe your feet on the doormat.”

The car let him get out.

D
R
. V
INCENT
C
HEN
said, “I suppose I do owe you a small favor, Jake.”

His private office was large, with a wide window giving a view of a bright, secure section of the Miami Enclave. There was no desk and Jake was in an armchair facing the psychiatrist's armchair. “I need a fairly large one, Vince.”

“When we were both cops in SoCal, you did … Excuse me a second.” He picked up the lap phone from the floor beside him. “Yes? Dr. Chen here.”

The phone had an earbug, so Jake didn't hear the other side of the conversation. He turned to watch a row of shimmering palm trees out on the street.

“His brain implant monitor ought to be functioning perfectly by now, Mrs. Henzler.… Suicidal? No, that's not a common side effect.… Yes, of course. Talk to Nurse Gallardo about getting him in to see me early next week.… I understand, yes, but we don't have a thing earlier.… Fine, goodbye.” He dropped the phone to the floor. “Now, Jake, explain this to me.”

“I have to get in and out of the Bergstrom Clinic,” he said. “Safely.”

“Very exclusive place, all kinds of tough security.” Chen rubbed his palm down across his face. “They run a … Excuse me a second. Hello? Dr. Chen here.… Moodjax should be helping you already, sir.… Sui cidal? Well, maybe I better switch you to Calmtex.… No, I don't think you need an implanted monitor just yet.… I'll contact your drugbot. Better talk to Nurse Gallardo about coming in for a visit early next month. Right, bye.” He frowned across at Jake. “Is this a criminal case you're working on?”

“In a way, yeah,” he answered. “I also have to spring a patient out of there.”

“Jesus, Jake—that's mighty near impossible.”

“But not completely so, Vince.”

“Give me some details, will you?”

“Sure,” said Jake. “The president of the United States is being held there against his will while an android dupe of him is running the country.”