Maybe not, but Michael Heinser was one of their major players. The check I ran flagged him as a high-level revivor R & D man, but the specifics of his position were classified. There was no way to bring him in for questioning without some level of public exposure. No matter how else you looked at it, the one place no media would be able to follow was onto the grounds of Heinlein Industries.
A red flag popped up in my visual display and warning data began streaming by as the JZI detected an orbital beam painting my vehicle. I’d just been targeted by a satellite capable of incinerating me right there on the tarmac. A second later, a pulse caused the information to warp in front of me, and my JZI powered down.
They were jumpy. I couldn’t blame them.
I checked my cell phone, and it had powered down too. Not knowing exactly where we were supposed to meet, I continued straight toward the main compound. A full minute passed before I saw another vehicle come into view up ahead. It moved to intercept me.
The vehicle was a black military jeep. Without the JZI I couldn’t make out who was in it, but he flashed his lights and I cruised to a stop. The jeep pulled up a few car lengths away, and a middle-aged man with dark skin got out. He was wearing a suit, and a badge fluttered in the wind from a clip on his belt.
Whoever he was, he wasn’t alone. Two revivors in body armor climbed out of the back. I began to doubt I would be coming face-to-face with Michael Heinser, but whatever they had set up for me, it was going to have to do. I cut the engine and got out of my car, walking toward the man.
The revivors stepped in front of him and met me halfway. One of them looked me up and down until its scanner found the badge inside my jacket. It turned to the man.
“It’s him,” it said.
The man removed an electronic device from his jacket and held it up in front of me. After a few seconds, it emitted a sharp beep.
“You’re bugged,” he said.
“I know better than to try that. Anyway, you shut down the JZI.”
“This is independent of the JZI,” he said, moving closer. He held the device close to my left eye, and it beeped again.
He turned the device around so I could see the screen. A snapshot from a tissue scan was displayed there. I could make out the corner of my eye at the edge of the screen. There was a tiny speck there that stood out as a bright white dot.
“What is it?” I asked. He looked at me skeptically.
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
He looked at the screen again, then switched off the device.
“I believe you,” he said. “The device is nearly microscopic. It could have been delivered through casual contact without your feeling it or knowing it. It piggybacks onto your JZI’s systems, so as long as that’s offline, the bug is cut off from its source.”
The blue-eyed woman with the wool hat who showed up at the restaurant; she planted it when she stopped me in the bar. It was a setup.
“Someone is spying on you, Agent Wachalowski.”
Ai was hedging her bets, then. She’d been watching since that night. She knew what I found at the Rescue Mission clinic. She knew Heinser’s name, and that I’d traced him to Heinlein Industries. She knew about the Buckster interview too.
“I used a magnetic pulse on it; it’s destroyed,” he said. “When you leave the campus and your JZI reinitializes, it will not come back online. You should be more careful.”
The man waved at the revivors, and they retreated. They moved back toward the jeep but didn’t get in. They stood in front of the grill and waited.
“Sorry about all this,” he said. He held out his hand, and I shook it. “As you can see, we must be careful. I’m Anan Bhadra. I represent Heinlein Industries.”
“I thought I was meeting with Michael Heinser,” I said. “Where is he?”
“Unfortunately, Mr. Heinser is out of the country on business at the moment.”
“When is he due back?”
“It’s hard to say, but in the meantime, I’ve been sent to make a statement and to answer any questions you might have.”
“Out here?”
His face didn’t change, keeping an even smile as the wind ruffled his suit jacket. I had expected them to hold back, but even so, it was a hostile reception. They had me at a big disadvantage; with no JZI and no line of communication to the outside, there was no way I could verify whether he was telling the truth about Heinser. By the time we were finished and I was back outside their perimeter, he could be in the air, if he wasn’t already.
“We have become aware of several handheld nuclear devices whose whereabouts are currently unknown,” he said. “Heinlein is a high-profile target.”
“You’re saying this is a security measure?”
Bhadra shrugged, without saying one way or the other. It didn’t matter; he had his instructions. I wasn’t getting inside.
“We were able to verify that someone at the Rescue Mission facility attempted to contact Mr. Heinser several times,” I told him.
“I don’t believe Mr. Heinser would have received such a call on either his private or business lines.”
“It was a wireless line, leased by a Second Chance arm called the SCO.”
“I don’t believe Mr. Heinser is a member of the Second Chance organization.”
“He’s not, but for whatever reason, he had the phone in his possession and the calls were made to him.”
“Can you prove that?”
“I don’t have to prove it. I know it’s true. I also know that the bombs used to destroy the Rescue Mission Clinic, and the others, were almost identical to the one used to destroy the Concrete Falls recruitment center.”
That ruffled Bhadra’s feathers. His cool demeanor slipped a notch.
“There were Heinlein employees at the Concrete Falls site, Agent Wachalowski. Do you have any idea—”
“I’m not suggesting Heinlein was behind the attack. I think that whoever hit the recruitment center was there to hit Heinlein Industries. I think whoever did it then set themselves up at the Rescue Mission Clinic. What I don’t understand is why. That’s what I want you to explain to me.”
The rain started up again, misting over the tarmac. Bhadra signaled to one of the revivors, who approached and handed him an umbrella before returning to its spot. He opened it as the rain picked up, then moved closer so that it covered both of us.
“This is off the record, Agent.”
“Mr. Bhadra, I am conducting an ongoing investigation into—”
“I’m not asking, Agent Wachalowski. I am telling you. This is off the record. Neither your JZI implant nor any other recording device you may be carrying will work here. If I or anyone from Heinlein Industries is asked about this later, it will be denied.”
He stood there, waiting for my reaction. It was clear that if I didn’t agree to his terms, the discussion was over.
“Go ahead,” I told him.
“I can’t comment on why Mr. Heinser’s name was in the Rescue Mission directory, because I don’t know,” he said. “However, I can say that what you found there is connected to the incident at Concrete Falls.”
“You knew about what was going on at the Rescue Mission Clinic?”
