newsfeeds where somebody had mentioned Stark. At least enough so he could make a connection between Stark and whoever else might have been on the raids at the Army bases. Every new lead he found would need to be checked out.
He thought about calling Rachel and inviting her into his hunt, but since she was military and restricted to using their systems on this project, that would mean he’d have to go to the Pentagon and set it up there, and at the moment, the only place he wanted to deal with Rachel was in VR, not the Real World. Not that he was repelled by her, no, that was the problem. She was altogether too attractive. It was way too easy for him to visualize her with her hair spread out on a pillow. Something he had certainly thought about.
He wanted her, and he knew he wanted her, but he didn’t
Fortunately, they couldn’t hang you for thinking—not yet anyhow.
But she had rubbed his neck. And it had felt really good. . . .
Jay drifted across the exercise area, looking at the yard monsters lifting weights. The temperature out here was well above body heat. Some of the iron-pumpers had arms as big around as Jay’s head, and looked as if they could pick themselves and all the weights on the bench next to them up with one hand. Jay was here to find information on a guy who’d lived in the same barracks as Stark when they’d gone through basic training. His contact-metaphor, whose name here was “Jethro,” wasn’t a weight lifter, but a boxer who was working the heavy bag.
High-tech as the prison was here in the future, there were still some old-style technologies extant, and a stuffed bag hung from a steel frame was among them.
Jethro was muscular in the way of a heavyweight boxer, and he wore bag gloves and shorts and boxing shoes. Here in the sticky heat, sweat beaded and ran down his torso to stain the waistband of his shorts, and more perspiration ran in rivulets along his legs to soak his socks. He had a few interesting scars on his body, along with a few tattoos. He hammered the bag, chuffing and breathing hard, grunting with effort. Jab, jab, cross. Jab, cross, hook! Overhand, jab, uppercut . . .
Jay stood by, not speaking, watching Jethro work. And maybe patting himself on the back a little at how good his sensory details were.
After a few minutes, the man paused to drink something colored a phosphorescent orange from a plastic bottle, and to wipe his face with a towel.
“What?” he said.
“We had a friend in common.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“Stark.”
Jethro shook his head. “Stark didn’t have any friends.”
“It was more of a work arrangement,” Jay said.
“So?”
“So I need to know something he knew.”
“Too bad. Why would I care?”
“I cut a deal with somebody. I find out this information he knew and pass it along.”
“And this buys you what?”
Here Jay had but one thing of any real value to sell. Everybody here was a lifer. The only way to leave The Cage was to die, get recycled, and flushed through narrow sewage pipes into the swamp. Hardly a glorious exit.
“A way out.”
“Sheeit.”
Jay shrugged.
Jethro wiped at his face again. “How?”
“A door is going to be left unlocked, a guard will be looking the other way. I’ll have a weapon. Not much chance I’ll survive the run to Port Tau, but at least it’s a shot. Better to die on my feet free and running than in here.”
Jethro considered that. “Say I buy this. How long is that door going to be unlocked? How long is the guard gonna be blind?”
Jay shrugged. “Could be long enough for two guys to pass.”
The boxer shook his head. “You know that’s how Stark got it? He was trying to run, got a needler bolt in the back.”
“I heard.”
“Been a while since Stark and I were tight.”
“I just got here,” Jay said. “More likely you can talk to people than I can.”
“What do I have to pay them with?”
“Two, three fast guys can run through an open door as quick as one, if they hurry.”
Jethro considered it. Nodded. “I can maybe talk to a couple people. Of course, if this is bunta-crap, you’re a dead man.”
“Of course. Whaddya got to lose?”
“That’s the prongin’ truth.” Jethro hung the towel over a steel strut, stepped back up to the bag. Hit it with a short right, hard. “I’ll find you if I get something.”
“I ain’t goin’ anywhere,” Jay said. “For a while, anyway.”
Jethro smiled at that one.
Lewis had picked the little country store because it had recently closed. She had happened across the place while out driving one day, feeling too cooped up after a long VR session and needing to move. The store was for sale, and there was a sign up over the front window saying so. Who owned it? Why had they shut it down? Where were they now? Those things didn’t really matter.
The place was not exactly the middle of nowhere—the sun didn’t come up between it and town—but it was an hour and some away from the District, half a mile from any other building, and the closest of those was a farmhouse off the road and mostly screened by trees. If she could get in and out fast, there wouldn’t be a problem. She rented a car, switched license plates with a vehicle parked in the back of an apartment complex that was the same make and model, and wore her standard disguise—baseball cap with her hair tucked under, sunglasses, dark T-shirt, jeans, running shoes, and a Windbreaker. Plus she had a new revolver, another S&W Chief .38 Special.
She didn’t want to be parked out in the boondocks long enough for anybody driving past to take notice. Her intent was to arrive five minutes before the meeting time, pull in, and wait for Carruth. As soon as he showed up, she would put two into his head before he could get out of the car. She hoped he had that big handgun with him, but if not, she would make sure there was something in the car to lead the state troopers who worked the case to his house. He’d rented that under a phony name, and she didn’t know if his driver’s license matched the address or not, but a wadded-up piece of paper with the street number and name on it dropped onto the floor would be enough, and they’d find it. They tended to search the cars of murdered folks very carefully. If Carruth still had the cop-killing gun, it would be on his hip, in the car, or stashed at his home somewhere.
She was tempted to run past his house and make sure there wasn’t anything she didn’t want the cops to find, but she didn’t think there would be. Carruth was pretty good about stuff like that.
