“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“You don't ask much.” Again it was in a kidding tone.

“You may have to use an alias to get the results. They may ask you to sign, also.”

“What's my name?”

“Pardee, Detective Jim Pardee. And if that's a problem for whatever reason, use Detective Fred Amelford.”

The kid smiled up from his computer, even his eyeglasses alight with the possibilities of intrigue. “I've always wanted to be a detective.”

“It's not a game. This is very serious. If you're caught-”

“I say I was working under Dr. Sanger's orders,” he finished as she emerged.

Stonecoat laughed. “You're a fast learner.”

'That's what I noticed about Randy the moment I hired him,” Meredyth added. “Just what've you two cooked up? No, don't tell me. I really don't think I want to know.”

“I'll fill you in on the ride over to your place and on the plane,” Lucas suggested, and they were off, leaving Randy Oglesby to stare after the couple. He wondered what Stonecoat expected to lift from the goblets he'd mentioned.

“This guy's got balls,” Randy told his computer as the screen flashed before him with the information needed to forward a voucher to Renquist from the Twenty-second Precinct. “Piece of cake. Give me something challenging, people!” he said to himself, recalling his darkest secret, something he'd never told anyone, not even his parents. When he was still just a kid in high school, he had hacked his way into HBO, and it was he who was responsible for the 1986 interference with the HBO signal. He had sent his own signal over nationwide television at HBO's expense, and it had read: I'll never pay for free airwaves. After that, he had avoided electronic capture by downloading everything, completely gutting his system, and starting all over again. He had simply pulled the plug on any possible investigation that could lead back to his PC in Steubenville, California, where he had grown up.

Randy had very much liked the mission Dr. Sanger had last put him on: sending out a request on the law enforcement Internet regarding any and all unsolved murders in which crossbow-styled weapons or arrows were used. The notion had tickled him at first, and then it revived some old memories of a game of cat and mouse played out on the video screen between the forces of good and evil, but the forces had become blurred with a madman named Helsinger and his henchmen each in turn taking on the name and the ritualistic quest of their leader to seek out and destroy evil. But it was evil as defined by the original game-player, Helsinger 1, who could be anybody who initiated the game. It was a lot like Dungeons and Dragons, but all mixed up with Ravenloft and vampires and vampire-stalkers, as well. It got a lot of play back then, Helsinger's Pit as it was called, because eventually the evil one's hacked-up parts were returned to the so-called pit from which they had emerged-Satan's underworld.

Randy had quit playing the game years before, having become bored with it, having graduated to more sophisticated software. Still, he thought it odd how so often life imitated art, for then only comic characters were firing harmless arrows from crossbows at imaginary, albeit human, targets, but here and now, some damned fool was out there in real time and in real space butchering men like Judge Charles Mootry, and now some guy in Oregon, in the same or similar fashion as in the game he'd nearly forgotten.

He was reminded of the song lyrics, “It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack…”

He wondered when, if ever, Dr. Sanger was going to share what they had learned on the Internet regarding bow-and-arrow deaths across the nation and throughout the world. They were more common than first thought might allow. Most were hunting accidents, granted, and some were spear gun accidents between diving buddies, but others had gone down as outright murders, most remaining unsolved, and some were as far away as Spain and Great Britain and Prague, while others were closer to home: Washington State, L.A., Nebraska, Oklahoma, Miami, Chicago.

Dr. Sanger hadn't told Randy what she'd done with the list, but from what he'd gathered, he knew she hadn't initially shared it with Captain Phillip Lawrence, that she more likely took it over his head, possibly to Commander Andrew Bryce. Then all of a sudden everything was popping and stripping. She was now headed for Oregon, where the latest crossbow killing had taken place.

Fascinating stuff, and he was proud to've played his small role. Dr. Sanger had also confided somewhat about Lucas Stonecoat and how hard she had worked to get the former detective, now in the Cold Room, to work alongside her on uncovering the truth out there. Maybe by Randy's helping Stonecoat with his problem, the favor would bounce back someday. He sent the electronic impulses that would fax Renquist all they needed from the Twenty-second Precinct to arrange billing for the work on the goblets.

SIXTEEN

764LTl: C42119Category42 — Topic 419LOG… Message 438…. Thurs, July 28, 1996… 1:10:01

Questor 1…. Helsinger's Pit…

Q1: There is a threat-A new enemy has risen and has flown from the Star Kingdom,

49th Realm. These are two enforcer demons, male and female. They must be stopped. They go now to where you last traveled. Take all necessary precautions and take as much help as you require-All details await your departure. Reply this board 0700-Good luck. Questor 1.

END TRANSHISSION, Category 42 Topic 49LOG…1:13:0b

Category 42…. Topic 49LOG… Message 439. Thurs-July 28,1996….1:51:02

Questor 2… from the Pit…

Q2: Understood. Will take all necessary precautions and resources. Will follow instructions to letter.

END TRANSMISSION, Category 42, Topic 49LOG… 1:52:00

Category 42…. Topic 49LOG… Message 440… Thurs. July 28-,1996… 2:05

Questor 3…

Q3: Agreed. WILL locate alien beings in North Star quadrant. Will dissuade all misguided creatures there.

END TRANSMISSION Category 42 Topic 49LOG… 2:06:01

Lucas and Meredyth had first gone to her apartment, where she quickly stuffed a flexible bag with whatever she felt essential for an overnight stay-which apparently meant quite a lot, Lucas thought when he looked at the time. Still, he knew that their trip could last through an extra day. While he waited for her to pack, Lucas looked about her neatly arranged, beautifully decorated apartment, feeling the lightness of it, the soft hues-her corner of paradise, it would appear. She was well dug in here, had put a small fortune into the upscale apartment. The place appeared all her.

“Make yourself at home,” she called out from the bedroom, where she'd disappeared moments before. 'There's some soft drinks in the fridge and some leftovers if you're hungry.”

He was more interested in snooping.

He looked at her paintings, the soft blues of mountains seemingly her favorite view. Some of the soft hues matched her intelligent blue eyes. He picked over a handful of photos she had displayed over a mantel, one of an older couple, their arms about one another-no doubt Meredyth's parents. They looked, from their clothing and the trappings around them, well-off indeed, their station somewhere south of filthy rich, but quite comfortable. They appeared to be rather bookish types, he likely a college dean and she likely a banker, if she worked at all. The father looked like a stern and intelligent man, possibly a scientist, possibly into psychiatry like his daughter, Lucas guessed from the disheveled way he wore his expensive. Ivy League clothes; perhaps he taught psychiatry at one of the local colleges and had invested well. Her mother looked the picture of comfort and caring, and had a dimpled face like Meredyth's own.

Another picture showed a youngster in the couple's arms, but here the parents were decidedly younger, straighter, and the child was a little girl dressed in her best-Meredyth as a child. A third photo was of a handsome, square-jawed, dark-haired man, perhaps Meredyth's current age or a bit older. He was no doubt her current boyfriend. The name Conrad was scrawled carelessly across the picture with the words Love and Devotion.

Lucas went to the large balcony windows which looked out over greater Houston, and he stared long at the

Вы читаете Cutting edge
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату