Zero Hour

“And misfits.”

“Boastfully,” she said. “That was a lesson right there… learning to accept people for who they are and make the most of their differences, rather than judge them by my predetermined expectations. And I really can’t say it was the hardest lesson, Pete.”

“You want to tell me what was?”

“I could list a few that would rate,” she said. “But right up top is that I’d been using myself as a standard for those expectations without examining my own flaws. And realizing I had some very serious ones.”

Nimec considered a moment, shrugged.

“Funny,” he said. “I always figured you for perfect.”

Megan smiled.

“Relax, Pete,” she said. “I may have become your boss in title, but you’re still my shining knight in fact.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Sure,” she said, looking straight at him.

They stood in silence for a few seconds.

“How about you telling me something now?” Megan said. Nimec shrugged.

“I suppose it’d make us even,” he said. “And get you back to the bag.”

“You brought up the New York matter,” she said. “I’d like your feelings about it.”

Another shrug.

“Ask me after our vid conference with Noriko Cousins in a couple hours and they might be clearer,” he said. “We’ve got somebody who could be a roaming husband, a guy in a jam, or an undiscovered body. Gord wants us to look into it as a favor to his friend Lenny Reisenberg, fine. I know Lenny some and he’s okay. If we could check things out for him, pass along a tip or two, I’d be all right with it.”

“But you aren’t.”

“Noriko’s got her eye on what could be export violations at Armbright. She feels she’s right on track and has concerns about having her wheels knocked off. That could happen if we get caught sticking our fingers where they don’t belong.”

“The Case of the Vanishing Husband, you mean.”

Nimec gave her a nod.

“Those briefs she e-mailed over the weekend… you have a chance to look at the ones I forwarded?”

“Not enough to sound like an authority,” Megan said. “Probably enough to have an idea why Noriko might be uncomfortable. Her intel suggests Armbright’s been very aggressive with its high-energy laser development program.”

“At least a couple of years ahead of our timetable,” Nimec said. “Way ahead of what they’ve got going at Rheinmetall Weapons and Munitions in Germany, or anything the military’s tested at White Sands. But for me the yellow flags aren’t only waving on a business front. Armbright’s laser research went into overdrive when it bought up the Kiran Group. And Kiran’s top man… this Hasul Benazir…”

“Had some ill-chosen associations when he was younger, I know,” Megan said. “Except who hasn’t, Pete? They seem to begin and end with his early college days. He’s made no secret of them and has a long-term business visa, which wouldn’t have been awarded without extensive background checks. Talk about UpLink minding its own affairs, it’s not up to us to second-guess the INS. And there are at least two major government regulatory bodies overseeing export controls.”

“So you’re saying…?”

“Just what I did at the start… that I wanted a sense of how you’re leaning initially before Noriko gives me an earful at the conference.” Megan spread her arms. “It’s a sensitive issue. There’s no question Kiran’s operations warrant continued awareness and review from a purely competitive standpoint, and Noriko’s position is that looking for hubby could disrupt her work, or in a worst-case scenario blow things for her. I know she’ll oppose it, try to sway us toward backing off, even use stall tactics if I give her the chance.”

Nimec gave a nod.

“It’d be like Noriko,” he said. “She feels we’re going to roll over her, she’ll do whatever she can to flatten our tires.”

“Which leaves me to figure out how to satisfy Gord and address her concerns. Find an approach that makes everybody feel accommodated, if not altogether happy—”

Nimec’s WristLink timer beeped, interrupting her. He held up a finger, looked at its display.

It was a quarter to six.

“Ten minutes till I need to get the kids shaking for school,” he said. “Want to stick around after your session and have breakfast with us? You can leave your car down in the garage, ride along when I drop them off. Then we can pick up on this subject on our way to the office.”

Megan nodded.

“Sounds great,” she said. “But please tell me Chris isn’t going to ask for my hand in marriage again. Because it’s hard to reject a proposal gracefully with bits of scrambled egg caught between my teeth.”

“Don’t worry, I’m serving buttermilk pancakes.” Nimec glanced at the lighted floor indicator above the elevator, then gestured toward its door with his head. “Anyway, you’ll have the chance to find if he still loves you in a second… looks like the little gym rat’s out of bed and coming up to join us.”

* * *

Lately Avram had been conscious of the hallway mirrors. Conscious of them to an unsettling extreme, and for no reason he could figure out. True, they were everywhere around him. They paneled the walls to his left and right as he walked through the building’s doors. They hung above the guard platform by the elevators, mounted in the corners of the ceiling, concave, silvery, angled downward like inscrutable metallic eyes. They were kept clean and polished, without the merest trace of smudges, dust, or fingerprints. On cloudless mornings such as this one, they would catch the sunlight that came spilling in from the street and bounce it between them to give the corridor a brighter feel, an illusion of space that made the walls seem less pressing and constrictive than they really were.

First and foremost, Avram realized, the mirrors had been installed for purposes of safety. They aided the steady vigilance of Jeffreys, the ground-floor security man, and allowed those who approached the elevators to see what was going on around them, warn them of anything suspicious at their backs. But the stories above were layered with surveillance mechanisms — overt and circumspect — and Avram couldn’t recall a single instance of a serious breach having occurred in the building’s long history.

As he passed through the entrance from the sidewalk for what was only his third time since flying back into town, Avram again found himself glancing over the mirrored wall, almost as if it were a new addition to the corridor. It was odd, very odd, and hard to understand. In this fixture of stubborn constancy the slightest change was viewed as a concession, and each step forward brought a dose of the familiar that Avram might have expected would dull him to his surroundings. In recent months, however, things had been just the opposite. Avram had probed his mind for an explanation, focused on the obvious possibilities, and ruled them out. He harbored no guilt over his choices. Not a kernel. None. And he hadn’t for a minute. Of course he was only human and couldn’t deny his increased stress over the recent gambles he’d taken… but in his occupation that went along with the terrain, and Avram thought he was better-than-average at handling it.

This building, this institution, was for him associated mostly with feelings of comfort and stability. Connected to his formative memories in a thousand ways, it was an inseparable part of his life, and had been since he’d been brought here on regular childhood visits by his father and uncles. These days, so many years later, he was accustomed to coming four, sometimes five mornings a week. Even diminished, the Club carried an influence that was felt worldwide. What went on within its walls imparted a sense of rock-steady continuity.

Why, then, should even a glance at one or another of the mirrors have such an effect on him? It was incomprehensible. Still, Avram would at times glimpse his reflection and halt in mid stride, pausing to wonder over the expression on his face — how it seemed overtaken by a sort of puzzled, disoriented surprise. At other times he might feel an abrupt reversal of perspective, as if he’d switched places with his mirror image. For a span of several heartbeats, he would become Avram the Reflection. Detached, two dimensional, without substance, he would manage to hold on to a vague, nameless recognition of the physical form he’d quit, sharing the