Tek Power (25 page)

“They tried to kill me, too,” added Anger. “They destroyed my partner.”

“I'm not following this,” said the president. “You're implying that the OCO is behind my being here and not—”

“How the hell do you think McCracklin's been able to pull all this off, sir? Of course, the top people in the OCO are in cahoots with him.”

President Brookmeyer lowered himself to the cot and sat. “This is even more serious than I thought,” he said. “You've got to get me to DC at once.”

Jake grinned at him. “You're going to have to wait awhile.”

“I don't intend to wait, Cardigan.” The president stood up again. “Our country is in profound trouble. There's been an attempt at what amounts to a coup. If America, if this nation, is to survive, I must return to the helm as soon as possible.”

Anger coughed into his hand. “The media,” he said quietly.

“We'll control them, there's no need for the more unsettling details of all this ever to reach the public or—”

“Any time now,” mentioned Jake, “the media will be descending on this clinic.”

Brookmeyer nodded, unhappy, at Anger. “Did you alert them that I was here?”

Jake said, “You did.”

“How could I possibly have—”

“Actually it's your android dupe,” he said. “He ought to be doing that just about now up in Chattanooga.”

U
P ON THE
stage the President Brookmeyer android stood surveying the audience. “Folks, I'm not going to deliver my regular speech this evening,” he began. “What I have to tell you isn't pleasant, but I believe it's important that the American people know the truth.”

Gomez was in the aisle, leaning against the wall. The whitehaired woman had regained her seat and Richard was still slumped unconscious in his. A satisfied smile showed on the detective's face.

“Let me begin by saying, my fellow Americans, that I am
not
Warren Brookmeyer.”

Murmuring got going in the audience.

“No, I am a cleverly constructed android simulacrum,” continued the android, “constructed so that the administration could pull a fast one on you.” As he spoke, the Brookmeyer dupe shrugged free of his coat. “Just so they won't try to cover up by claiming I'm simply suffering from delusions, I'll prove to you right now that I'm nothing more than a highly sophisticated mechanism.” He got out of his shirt and singlet.

Most of the spectators were standing, staring at the stage. The level of murmuring and mumbling had risen.

“There, you can see my inner workings now.” The android had opened a panel in his chest to reveal circuitry, beads of light and intricate twists of multicolored wiring. “Why, you well may ask, have I been traveling this great land of ours impersonating the chief executive? The answer, my friends, is simple—or at least it started out simple. Your real president, a man you all trusted, is a hopeless Tek addict and at this moment is a patient at the noted Bergstrom Clinic in the Miami Enclave.”

Many of the reporters had left their seats to surge closer to the stage.

The Brookmeyer android continued, “I was, I ruefully admit, part of this shameful scheme. They wanted to lull you, the American public, into thinking that all was well while, in fact, your president was trying to cure his disgraceful addiction to Tek. You were meant to believe that I was the president and to suspect nothing.”

“
Bueno
,” said Gomez, arms folded and beaming. “Arlo Harmon of Cyberwacky Services, Ltd. is doing an
espléndido
job of controlling this expensive andy from afar.”

“My friends, you haven't heard the worst of it,” said the barechested android. “No, because even your once respected president wasn't aware of the
true
plot that was afoot. His once trustworthy vice president, James S. McCracklin, had conspired with—”

“That's enough!” McCracklin, a lazgun in his hand, came running out onto the stage. “Shut up, damn you!”

“This man,” said the android, pointing an accusing finger, “this man, ladies and gentlemen, conspired with seemingly respectable members of government intelligence agencies and, worse, with vicious Teklords to—”

McCracklin fired at him.

The pulsing beam of the lazgun dug across the android's left side, cutting a jagged gap.

The Brookmeyer simulacrum staggered, swayed, brought a hand up to the smoking hole in his side. “My fellow Americans …” He toppled to his knees, fell forward, his head smacking the planking. He stretched out, twitching violently, went rolling off the stage to fall at the feet of the shouting reporters.

Rushing to the stage edge, McCracklin aimed his lazgun to fire again.

But before he could do that a Secret Service agent in the far aisle, looking somewhat confused, decided to use his stungun on the vice president.

McCracklin straightened up, arms swinging, feet dancing a few wobbly steps backward. He bumped into two more Secret Service agents who were rushing onto the stage and collapsed against them.

Nodding, Gomez reached across the whitehaired woman, giving her an apologetic smile. He tapped Richard, who was just coming to, on the shoulder. “You're going to have to settle for this,” he told him. “And, as revenge goes, it ain't that bad.”

41

B
ASCOM WAS SUBDUED,
but somewhat less rumpled than usual. “As I anticipated,” he was telling Gomez and Jake as he prowled his tower office, “certain parties have passed along some cumshaw. We picked up a few bonuses from folks who are pleased with the results of this investigation.”

“This would be folks who are delighted to see McCracklin facing a long stay in the Freezer?” inquired Gomez, who was slouched in an armchair. “Plus those who are jolly about the possible impeachment of the real President Brookmeyer?”

“That sort of folks, exactly, yes,” answered the head of the detective agency.

Jake was standing near a window, his back to the fading day outside. “We're sharing in this jackpot?”

“Of course, obviously. You'll find your Banx accounts have swollen handsomely.”

“Your ideas of handsome,
jefe
, have often matched my notions of downright ugly in the past.”

“Gomez, I have mellowed,” he assured him. “Never again will I be considered a skinflint by my employees.”

“I notice your suit isn't wrinkled,” mentioned Gomez.

“Yet another turn for the better.”

Jake asked, “What about your son?”

Returning slowly to his desk, Bascom sat down. “He's doing, I hear, pretty well.”

“Back in Manhattan?”

“That's what I hear.”

“Aren't you talking directly to Richard?”

“Well, he seems to feel I didn't handle the investigation into Eve's murder properly,” Bascom admitted. “For now—I have to settle for having some New York ops keep an eye on him for me.”

“I don't think he'll make any more tries to get revenge,” said Gomez.

“No, that's passed, but he's still angry and unhappy.”

“Takes a long time,” said Jake, “to get over a death like that.”

“I know, but I was hoping he'd realize that I … Well, I suppose we're not any further apart than we were when the whole mess started.” Sighing, he stood up. “Gents, I must ask you to depart now.”

“You're not planning to work late into the night?” asked Jake.

“I happen to have a dinner engagement.” Gomez bounced to his feet. “With a
señorita
, I bet. That accounts for the suit.”

“Matter of fact, it's with Kay Norwood,” said Bascom. “She's an interesting woman.”

“She'd have to be.” Gomez headed for the doorway. “
Vámonos
, Jake.”

Jake nodded at the chief, grinning, and followed his partner out of the office.

J
AKE'S SON POINTED
his thumb at the vidwall. “You and Gomez really started things rolling,” he said. “Seven resignations at the OCO today so far, five separate investigations in DC, three suicides. It's great.”

“And, for those of us who thought that democracy still worked, a little unsettling.” Jake took off his jacket and tossed it on a chair in their living room.

“I guess so, but still it is
fun
to watch things fall apart,” said Dan, smiling at his father. “While you were over at Cosmos, Alicia Bower called a couple times. Three actually.”

“Okay.” He walked toward the deck, watching the night ocean.

“Are you, you know, involved with her?”

“No more than I was before.”

“She told me you saved her life again.”

Still looking out at the dark Pacific, Jake said, “I did that, yeah. But that doesn't mean we're engaged.”

“You still haven't filled me in completely,” his son reminded him, “on all that happened on this case.”

The vidphone sounded.

Moving over to it, Jake answered. Then said, “Evening, Alicia.”

“I'm home, back in Greater LA,” the auburnhaired young woman told him. “Since you are, too, I want to suggest that we get together.”

“Good suggestion, but not tonight.”

“I've been watching Newz most of the afternoon,” she said. “The whole country's going flooey. It's wonderful.”

“That's what my son was saying.”

Alicia hesitated. “You don't seem as elated as you ought to be.”

“There's usually a letdown after a case is finished.”

“I thought maybe—Well, there's something I better tell you,” she said. “Don't get angry or anything. If I'd known what was going to happen to me, I would've spared myself the trouble.”

“You're going to confess that those two goons who pretended to jump you the other night on the beach were indeed hired by you,” Jake said. “I knew that already.”

“You did?”

“Wasn't too difficult to figure out, or to check on,” he said. “Remember what I told you at the time, Alicia, you don't need any excuse to contact me.”

“Yes, I understand that now,” she said. “I still get a little goofy at times. That's not why you're avoiding me?”

“We're friends, that's permanent,” he assured her. “I like you and we'll continue to see each other. Tonight, though, I am on the brink of turning in.”

“Allright, okay.” She gave him a shy smile. “Goodnight, Jake.”

As Jake moved away from the phone, his son said, “Sounds like you really aren't tangled up with her.”

“Impressive piece of deduction.”

The vidphone buzzed again.

This time it was Bev Kendricks. “Sorry, but I'm going to be at least a half hour late, Jake,” the blonde detective said.

“Any trouble?”

“No, not at all. What's happening is that I'm trying to handle the new business that's starting to come in,” she said. “It turns out that the notoriety I got from working with you on the Brookmeyer mess is helping my agency a lot.”

“Only one of the many benefits,” he said. “I'll meet you at the restaurant, Bev.”

As his father left the phone, Dan said, “You didn't exactly give Alicia Bower a straight story, did you?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“In fact, you lied.”

“I still do that on occasion.” Jake put a hand on his son's shoulder. “It turns out that sometimes the truth can cause all sorts of trouble.”

Turn the page to continue reading from the TekWar series

1

P
ETER
T
RAYNOR WAS
having trouble getting to where he wanted to go.

It was a hot, dry, restless night in late October of the year 2121. A raw, feverish wind was knifing across the night beach in the Malibu Sector of Greater Los Angeles, rattling the long twisty row of decorative palm trees, snatching at Traynor's sleeve, shoving him off balance.

His difficulties had grown worse ever since he set his skycar down at the seaside lot and started making his way along the dark sand. It was probably because of that damned stopover in the Venice Sector. He'd promised himself he was through with that sort of thing.

A lean, lighthaired man of forty one, Traynor stumbled as a sharp new gust of hot wind hit at him. He fell to his knees on the harsh sand, putting out both palms to save himself from toppling over completely.

“Jesus!”

One of his hands had touched the face of a dead man who was partially buried in the gritty sand. Thick blood was smeared all across the dead face, great splashes of it. As he struggled to pull away clear, Traynor managed to drag the corpse with him. He struggled, but couldn't seem to disentangle himself.

“Don't you recognize me, Pete?” asked the dead man, smiling with his bloody lips. “It's me—Flanders.”

“You're five weeks dead, Flanders,” he shouted at him. “I had nothing to do with it.”