'Wizard,' Hamp said in deprecation. 'But we'll have fewer field men than ever if you wear us down to the point where we lose efficiency. I've been in the trenches too often in the past couple of months. I need a breather. I think I'll spend some time in New York. Where do I report when I'm unwound?'
Max handed him a note. 'To me. As usual, I haven't the vaguest idea of what your next assignment will be. However, there's one item of business on your way back east, a new contact. A Lee Garrett, who lives in Greenpoint, Pennsylvania.'
'A new contact?' Hamp said, moderately indignant. 'Have I sunk to the level where you're using me for elementary propaganda?'
'Headquarters seems to think that this one is a better prospect than usual. A whitey. Not on GAS. Better than usual education. Our local section isn't too top-level, so they want a good agent to make the initial contact with Garrett.' Max handed the black another note.
'Wizard,' Hamp said, coming to his feet and brushing pine needles from his shorts and jacket. 'Do I leave now, like Tom and Joe?'
Max stood, too. 'Why don't you come over to my place and we'll talk some shop and have a couple of quick ones. Tom and Joe never did get that drink I promised them.'
'They're dedicated,' the other snorted. 'Both of them hardly touch the stuff. Lead me to it. As a matter of fact, I've got some good French brandy in my luggage. We can crack that.'
Max Finklestein wondered vaguely how the other could afford a bottle of imported brandy. It would take a month of GAS credits to buy such a potable.
Chapter Two: Franklin Pinell
When the two corrections officers from the prison handed Franklin Pinell over to the court bailiffs in the Justice Department Building, he was still handcuffed to the heavier-set, tougher-looking guard. While the second officer was getting a bailiff to sign the receipt for their charge, the prisoner was freed of his cuffs. The guard dialed the appropriate number on the shackles and then put his thumbprint on the tiny screen. The titanium alloy handcuffs came away.
'There he is,' he said, obviously bored. 'Frank Pinell. Supposed to be tough. Haven't you got cuffs for him?'
'No,' the bailiff said. 'We don't usually use them.'
The prison guard looked the two court officers up and down. The older one was pushing sixty, much overweight, and the second didn't look much more competent.
'He's supposed to be tough,' the guard repeated. 'A killer. You fellas heeled?'
'We don't usually carry guns,' the other said.
Frank Pinell stood there rubbing the wrist that had been confined. He looked at the prison guards emptily as they turned to leave. 'Be seeing you,' he said.
The one to whom he had been handcuffed snorted tack over his shoulder. 'Not where you're going, chum- pal.'
When they were gone, Pinell looked at the bailiffs.
'This way, son,' the older one said, and then added gruffly, 'Tough luck. I've got a son your age.'
The three of them ascended marble stairs to the second floor and then proceeded to the left down the wide corridor.
The younger bailiff said, 'Those types see too many crime Tri-Di shows. What good do they think it would do you to escape? Without a credit card you couldn't buy a stick of chewing gum, or a ride on the metro, not to speak of a meal.
You have no home and it's a felony for any friend to take you in.'
'Stop it, stop it,' Pinell said without tone. 'You're breaking my heart.'
He was twenty-five years of age, looked surprisingly athletic as proles went, was medium tall, clean and neat even in less than top quality garb, and his bearing would have passed muster in any upper class gathering. His dark brown hair was worn full and combed directly back. His eyes were a dark green and his rather long face had a Scottish cast. In less plebeian dress he might have been typed as a graduate student or a junior executive.
'Okay, son,' the older one said. 'Here we are.' He opened half of a heavy double door and the bailiffs led their charge through before them.
The judge looked up from his desk. He was dressed in his traditional black robes and resembled the older and kindlier of his two court officers. That is, he was about sixty, overweight, his face lined not with an immediate weariness but with one that had accumulated down through the years.
'Franklin Pinell, Your Honor,' the younger bailiff said.
'Yes, of course, James.' The judge looked at the prisoner. 'Be seated, Pinell.' Then back at the guards. 'Please wait outside. I believe you already have your instructions.'
'Yes, Your Honor.' The younger bailiff hesitated, then said, 'Judge, the corrections officers from the prison said Pinell is reputed to be dangerous.'
'Indeed?' John Worthington looked at the youthful prisoner. 'Are you?'
Frank Pinell hesitated, then let air out of his lungs and said, 'Under the circumstances, no.' He took the chair across from the judge's desk.
'Very well, that will be all, James, Bertram.'
The bailiffs left and the judge sighed, studying the prisoner for a moment. Pinell returned the scrutiny, his expression saying,
The judge sighed again and took up a report from before him. He said, 'I am afraid we have bad news for you, Franklin.'
'I expected it.'
The judge ignored that, looked at the report, and said,
'The legal computers have found you guilty and recommend deportation.'
Frank Pinell's face went blank. 'Deportation? But I've got only one major…'
The other was shaking his head. 'Your criminal dossier lists four felonies. As a four-time loser, your sentence becomes deportation for life.'
'But Your Honor, those first two romps were kid stuff. I was only in my early teens.'
'But you served time for your offenses, no matter how short, as you did for your third, ah, romp. The fact that your first felony amounted to no more than taking an unguarded hovercar for a joyride is beside the point. You served several months in a youth detention camp. And your second offense and third…'
'All right. Who can argue with a damned computer? Isn't there any way I can appeal?'
'Not at this point,' the judge told him. 'If you can claim new evidence later and it is made available to the data banks, you can then appeal. Appeals are seldom successful. The computers don't make mistakes, Franklin. Judges and juries used to, perhaps, but computers don't.'
'It's a hell of a thing to call justice,' the younger man said bitterly. 'Being thrown out of your own country.'
The judge looked at him in weariness and said, 'What was it the old cynic asked? 'Come now, the truth; who among us would be satisfied with justice?' The fact is, your fourth crime was the only really reprehensible one. But it was homicide, and under rather strange circumstances. Had that been your only felony, you would not have been deported. Our penal system allows for rehabilitation even of murderers. But with three other felonies on your record, the computers opted for deportation.'
'I don't want to live anywhere except in the States,' Pinell said.
'Unfortunately, that is now out of your hands, Franklin. You should have considered it sooner. Deportation makes sense, from the viewpoint of the government. Some decades ago, when the penal laws were revamped, they found that it cost more to keep a criminal in prison than to send him to Harvard. As it is now, the government will no longer be put to the expense of keeping you in prison, or even on GAS. Nor will you be free to commit new felonies upon serving your time or being paroled.'
The older man put that part of it behind him and said, 'You will be issued one thousand pseudo-dollars in the form of Swiss gold francs. You will be deprived of your Universal Credit Card, and you are forbidden ever again to enter this country.'
'What happens when the thousand runs out?' the other said, his voice still low.
'That is not the concern of the United States of the Americas. You make what arrangements you can in your
