Tek Power (23 page)

Chen picked up the phone once more. “Nurse Gallardo,” he requested, “hold all my calls.”

A
RLO
H
ARMON WAS
short, had crinkly brown hair and was forty-one. The parlor of his mobile home was a maze of gadgets, large and small, winking, blinking and humming. One wall was jammed with twenty-three small television screens, each tuned to a different channel.

Standing wide-legged, hands behind his back, the proprietor of Cyberwacky Services, Ltd. was scanning the screens. “You came while three of my favorite soaps are airing,” he mentioned in his deep, chesty voice. “
Marriage on the Moon, Microsurgery Center
and
Love Among the Robots
. You follow any of 'em?”

“Not lately,” admitted Gomez, who was leaning against the detached torso of a silvery robot. “Before I hand over this outrageous amount of dough, suppose—”

“I'm not in the mood for flapdoodle, Gomez,” said Harmon, perching on the edge of a dictadesk. “Twenty-five hundred smackers is a mere spit in the deep blue sea to a topseed private eye outfit like yours. I'm fully aware of what a Cosmos expense account reads like, so—”

“Can you tear yourself away from this romantic gunk long enough to—”

“A guy who, according to the personality review I ran on you, watches air hockey games when he's—”

“Suppose we concentrate, the both of us, on the job at hand?”

Harmon pointed at the wall of screens. “There's your boy—third row, second screen from the left.”

President Brookmeyer, or rather the Brookmeyer simulacrum, was up there grinning broadly. He was sitting, legs dangling, on the rail around the imitation train car he was traveling in.

Harmon pointed to another wall and a large vidscreen materialized. It provided a blowup of the presidential talk.

“… fellow Americans, I just want to tell you how happy and delighted I am to get close to you all like this. You folks are the …”

“And similar guff, etcetera, etcetera.” Harmon killed the sound. “He is the one you're interested in, isn't he? This second-rate android?”

Frowning, Gomez inquired, “How'd you find out he was a fake?”

When Harmon shook his head, his hair made faint crackling noises. “You're chinning with the CEO of Cyberwacky Services, Ltd., fella,” he reminded. “I can't spot an andy at twenty paces? I can't find out what you and Cardigan have been up to in that shaky banana republic? I'm not six jumps and a couple of hops ahead of what you're contemplating in that coco of yours?”

“Do you know
why
I dropped in on you?”

“There you've got me, Gomez,” admitted the electronics wizard. “I can make some nifty guesses, though. But tell me how we can serve you.”

“The folks who touted you to me, Harmon, tell me that one of your specialties is remote control, telemetry and related areas.”

“That's one of a multitude of our specialties, sure.” He glanced at all three of his soap operas for a moment. “Bam! I've got it, right on the noggin. You want me to take over that pitiful sim and—”

“Can you do it?”

“For 3,500 dollars.”

“Wow, the inflation rate in these parts is something awful.”

“We're talking a very tricky task here, dimwit.”

“A thousand bucks more tricky?”

“That's a thousand skins in
front
,” corrected Harmon. “Plus, maybe you ought to jot these figures down so they don't slip out of your sconce,
plus
another two thousand bucks when it's over.”

Gomez moved closer to the screens. He watched the imitation president speaking to a small crowd in Atlanta. “Okay. The Cracker Barrel Express will hit Chattanooga tonight at around sundown. Let me explain what, exactly, you're going to do for me.”

“I've got a pretty fair idea already,” said Harmon.

37

N
ATHAN
A
NGER SAT
up suddenly in bed, reaching for the lazgun beneath his pillow.

A metal hand caught his wrist. “Your nerves are really shot, Nate,” said the silverplated robot.

“Why are you in my room? The deal is you don't—”

“I'm your
partner
,” Sunny reminded the OCO agent. “This is an emergency.”

“What's an emergency?”

“Frank Dockert has a rush assignment for us.”

Pushing the looming robot aside, Anger tumbled free of the bed. “How do you know what Dockert wants?”

“How else? We just talked on the phone.”

“He's supposed to deal with me. That's the procedure we—”

“You should appreciate the fact that I just saved your butt, Nate,” the big robot told him. “Rather than inform Frank that you were in here in the middle of the day sleeping off a hangover, I said you'd stepped out to—”

“I was working last night until six AM. That's the only reason—”

“You've got very spindly legs for a chubby man.”

“I'm in no way chubby.” Locating his trousers, Anger put them on. “Now what's this urgent damned assignment?”

“Sounds to me like a last chance sort of thing.” Sunny settled into an armchair. “If you botch this one, you'll be behind a desk in the bowels of DC from hence on.”

Anger stopped in the doorway to the bathroom. “If I'm through, so are you.”

“No, I'll simply team up with a better agent,” said the robot. “Anyway, Nate, Dockert isn't happy with the way you screwed up the surveillance of Jake Cardigan while he was in Manhattan. Should you futz this new—”

“Tell me what the new assignment is, damn it.”

“Jake Cardigan has been sighted in the Miami Enclave.”

Anger said, “Then he must know about Brookmeyer.”

“That's exactly what Dockert concludes,” said Sunny. “Cardigan is to be discouraged from poking further into this business.”

“How far can we go?”

The robot put his metal hands behind his head, eyed the ceiling and chuckled. “Far as we want to, Nate.”

K
ARLA
M
AXFIELD CAME
into the bedroom of her suite at the Atlanta Skytel and found Gomez, legs crossed, sitting on her unmade bed. She stopped just over the threshold, caught her breath and then squinted at him. “A very believable projection,” she remarked. “How're you doing this?”

“It's merely—”

“Another innovation from Cyberwacky Services, Ltd.,” put in a deep voice from an unseen source.

“Begone, Arlo,” suggested Gomez. “
Buenas tardes
, Karla. How are you faring?”

“I'm fine and dandy. Where are you at the moment, Gomez?”

“Chattanooga,
cara
.”

“We'll be there this evening. Want to meet for dinner?”

“An interesting and intriguing suggestion,” said the holographic projection of the detective. “This, however, is more than just a social call. I wanted to make certain you'll be attending the Cracker Barrel speech here tonight.”

Crossing the room, the young woman sat on the bed a few feet from his image. “Frankly, I was planning to skip it and just hit the press party afterward. It's the same darn speech he—”

“You don't want to miss this one,” he advised.

“Oh, really?”

“When last we met, you mentioned a scandal involving the president that you were going to look into. Have you come up with anything,
chiquita?
”

“So far I've got somebody on Brookmeyer's staff just about persuaded to talk—and provide some pics—about the president's Tek habit,” she answered. “I should be able to break that story in my … But, wait now.” She leaned closer to the projected detective. “You've got something bigger than that, haven't you?”

“Considerably bigger,
sí
.”

“Is this exclusive to me? You haven't passed it on to that emaciated Newz reporter you hang out with?”

“This advance warning is exclusive,” he told her. “After tonight, however, every reporter who's in attendance will have it. I wanted to make sure you didn't miss this, Karla.”

“Okay, allright, I'll settle for that, I guess,” she said, frowning. “Now what exactly have you got,
amigo?
”

Gomez filled her in on what he had and what he was planning for tonight in Chattanooga. “That's why I think you ought to drop in,” he concluded.

“Oh, I shall.” Karla smiled, hugging herself. “And I'll make certain my father's vidpeople attend, too.”

“
Bueno
,” said Gomez. “I want this story to spread rapidly around the globe.”

“Oh, you can depend on that,” she said. “And how about dinner afterward?”

“If I'm still extant, it's a date.”

Karla kissed the cheek of his image just as it started to fade away.

38

P
ART OF
M
IAMI
Slum was ablaze. Huge clouds of smoke, sooty black and chalky white, were swirling up into the afternoon sky. Firevans were hooting as they raced there.

Jake blanked the windows of their Miami Enclave hotel suite. “Distracting,” he said.

“Other people's tragedies usually are,” said Bev.

Up on the vidwall of the large living room was a projected floor plan.

Jake returned to his chair, sitting on the arm. “Okay, this is Level 1 of the Bergstrom Clinic, based on data from Vince Chen and a select group of knowledgeable informants,” he said. “There doesn't seem to be anyplace on that floor where President Brookmeyer can be stored.”

Crossing to the wall, Bev tapped a portion of the detailed diagram. “Here's the Monitoring Room and the Security System Center, which look to be directly behind Dr. Bergstrom's personal office.”

“Yep, so once we get into his hideaway, we can defuse the alarm setup,” said Jake. “Let's look at Level 2.”

The suite computer complied, shifting diagrams.

“Two possibilities here,” suggested Bev. “Nobody seems to know what's in this big room right off the ramp entrance. And the tenant of this complex of rooms at the rear isn't known.”

“They must have Brookmeyer monitored, so we may be able to find out once we get a look at the monitoring screens. Otherwise, we'll have to check both those possible locations.”

Stretching up out of her chair, she said, “I'd better change into a more serious outfit, since I'm going to be your personal psychiatrist.”

“I can probably pass for a Tek addict dressed just as I am,” said Jake.

Saying nothing, Bev went into her bedroom.

Jake studied the plans of the two-story clinic again. He was still doing that when the door of the living room rattled, shimmered and then began to fall away to gritty grey dust.

T
HE
C
RACKER
B
ARREL
Express, consisting of five large landvans that had been modified to look like oldfashioned railroad passenger cars, was rolling along the highway toward Chattanooga. In the presidential car, which was midway in the procession of vans, Vice President McCracklin was tapping on the door of President Brookmeyer's private compartment.

The door was opened by a Secret Service agent, a large woman holding a lazpistol in her left hand. “Yes, Mr. Vice President?”

“I have to talk to President and Mrs. Brookmeyer.”

“I'll see if—”

“Send Mac right on in, Mildred,” ordered the president. “You wait out in the corridor for a spell, okay?”

“Very well, sir.”

Trina Brookmeyer was a thin, blonde woman of fifty. She was sitting facing the Brookmeyer simulacrum. When the door shut, she asked, “Now what, schmuck?”

“Honey,” suggested the android, “you ought not to address Mac that way, even in private. Afterall, he's the—”

“Is there any way to shut him off enroute?” she asked McCracklin. “It's difficult to believe, but I really believe he's an even
bigger
bore than Warren himself.”

“Dear, that's no way to—”

“Just sit there,” ordered McCracklin, “and shut the hell up.”

The android frowned and squared his shoulders. “I should think, Mac, that the dignity of my office would prevent you from—”

“Hush up,” the First Lady told him.

“Very well. I bow to the majority opinion.” The Brookmeyer dupe folded his arms and gazed out the one-way window. “Wonderful countryside this, makes you proud to be an American.”

Trina patted the seat beside her. “Sit down and tell me what's bothering you,” she invited. “You look worried.”

Joining her, McCracklin said, “I don't think it's anything serious, Trina.”

“You wouldn't look so green around the gills if it weren't damned serious. So what's wrong?”

“You already know about the mess down in Nicaragua. We—”

“I thought everyone who could talk was dead. Thanks to an act of god and some help from the Office of Clandestine Operations.”

“That's more or less true, except we're still not certain about Dr. Izabel Morgana. Her body hasn't been found yet.”

“I'm sure she's buried under a ton or so of adobe bricks.”

“And Jake Cardigan is in the Miami Enclave, along with Bev Kendricks.”

“Two aging excops.” She gave him a look that conveyed disappointment with him. “I suppose you're also still worried about that greaser. Chavez, is it?”

“Gomez,” corrected the vice president. “Sid Gomez. The fact of the matter is, he's dropped from sight and we have no idea where he's gotten to.”

“Hopefully he fell into a deep hole in Managua.”

“No, he's in the United States somewhere, but he's managed to dodge all our tails.”

“I still fail to see why you worry about such an—”

“Those were cows,” said Brookmeyer. “Not robot cows, but the real thing. You know, that's the sort of experience, the sort of simple, everyday sight, that makes a trip such as this one so darned—”