Cybernation

summery, early evening air…

Ahead, on the right, was a weathered wooden building. It had a caduceus painted on the side, the winged staff with two snakes twined around it, indicating a doctor’s office, the paint weather-worn and faded from black to a light gray. Yes, this must be the place.

Jay walked to the front door. The office was closed for the day, and the door was locked, but the latch was an old-style spring lock, and it took all of ten seconds for Jay to open it with a skeleton key he pulled from his pocket.

It was dark and quiet inside. Jay looked around, didn’t see any alarms. He flipped a light switch up. There was a four-drawer steel file cabinet full of patient files next to a big wooden desk. The drawers were locked, but he opened them with a couple of bent paper clips. So easy when you knew how.

He found the file quickly enough, too. Keller hadn’t even bothered to use a phony name, and had paid for the office visit and medication with his corporate credit card — which is how Jay had tracked him here so quickly.

He read the report. “Fell down stairs” was what had been written on the new patient form. The physical examination showed multiple contusions and abrasions, no broken bones or torn ligaments. In one corner, in tiny, neat lettering was a note: “Altercation c jealous boyfriend over woman,” it said. The letter “c” had a line over it, and the words were underlined twice. Apparently the good doctor, one Willem Konig, M.D., had gotten a different cause for the injuries than had his receptionist.

So. Whaddya know. Keller had gotten his butt kicked for fooling around with somebody else’s girlfriend. That was interesting. Keller had never been a ladies’ man in school, but you never could tell. Jay himself hadn’t been that much of a lover back then, either. Things changed.

He put the report back into the drawer, closed and re-locked it, looked out the window to make sure nobody was around, then exited the building, locking it behind him. Technically, he was bending the law here. While he had a legal warrant to do an electronic search, that permission only extended to the U.S. borders. While Net Force did have reciprocity agreements with dozens of countries, including Germany, and the U.S. federal warrant would eventually have gotten a counterpart here, he didn’t have time to wait. He wasn’t planning to use this information in court, so it didn’t have to have all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed, as long as it helped him find his quarry.

Outside, behind the doctor’s office, was a small hill. Jay climbed to the top and looked around. Krumme Lake was to the west, a short distance away, on the edge of the Berlin Forest. The Grunewald area was right over there. There were roads, a train track, and what was still West Berlin, deep in the eastern heart of a divided Germany, that wouldn’t be reunited for decades. The Cold War was still cranking up in this era.

So, Keller was in Germany, or at least he had been yesterday, and a routine request from State to the German government for any use of Keller’s U.S. passport had come back negative, so if he was gone, he must have done it illegally. Given his current status, Jay couldn’t say Keller wouldn’t do that, but since he didn’t know anybody was looking for him, there wouldn’t be any compelling reason for him to sneak out of the country.

Why Germany? Who was the jealous boyfriend who must live here who clobbered Keller? Where had he gone?

That was the problem with searching for information. Sometimes you came up with more questions than answers…

“Hold on a second,” Jay said aloud. Wasn’t there something else about Germany he had come across recently? Something about a barge…? No, that was Japan. It was a train. CyberNation ran a tourist train or somesuch here. And there were the iron horse’s tracks, right there. Maybe it was a sign.

And maybe not. But it gave him something he could check. Train schedules were public information. Find all those that had passed on this track down there for the last couple of days, run them down, find out where they went. Find out if the one owned by CyberNation was around. If it was, that would certainly be a big coincidence, wouldn’t it? And a great place to go and look…

31

On the Bon Chance

Toni played the tourist, mindful of what she had come to the ship to do. She carried a cheap electronic camera, and she took pictures of her room, the exterior decks, the swimming pool, and the helicopter barge. She bought a gambling credit card for two hundred dollars and played the slot machines. She lost eighty dollars over a period of four hours, then hit a three-cherry payout for a hundred dollars. She had lunch in one of the cafeterias, a club sandwich and iced tea, with a slice of very good banana cream pie for dessert, and that cost her half what it would in most D.C. restaurants.

In the early afternoon, she slathered herself with coconut-scented sunblock and lay in one of the deck chairs near the swimming pool. It was hot, but a nice breeze off the water kept things bearable.

A steward came by and asked her if she wanted a drink. She ordered a margarita, and when it came, it looked like a big green snow cone.

She went to her cabin, showered, put on shorts and a T-shirt, then took her camera to the ship’s stern, where passengers tossed bits of food to a flock of hovering sea-gulls. She took pictures of the birds, and more views of the ship from that angle.

The periodic drone of passenger helicopters landing and taking off from the barge was noticeable, but not overly loud.

She could get used to this. Too bad Alex wasn’t here to enjoy it with her.

Late in the afternoon, she went back to her cabin and changed into workout clothes, bike shorts and a halter-top, running shoes, white cotton socks. She didn’t want to practice silat while she was here, even in her room, but she could at least ride the stationary bike and maybe do a few sets on the weight machines. She draped a towel around her shoulders, tucked her room keycard into her left sock top, and headed for the gym.

There were a dozen people in the gym, which was down a level from her cabin. The place had eight or ten weight station machines, pneumatic rather than stacks of iron, six bikes, three stairclimbers, two treadmills, and in one corner, a heavy punching bag hung on a thick nylon strap, the bag itself center-wrapped with layers of duct tape. Toni wished she could work the bag, but she didn’t want to draw any attention to herself. Even in this day and age, a little woman beating the stuffing out of a punching bag drew raised eyebrows and male interest. Men who might not ever speak to you while you were on a bike or stairclimber would feel the need to say something if you were kicking a heavy bag. It was somehow a challenge to their masculinity.

Toni got a free bottle of spring water from a dispenser, found an empty spot in front of the mirrors, did a little stretching and a few warm-ups, then moved to one of the cardiobikes. The one she picked had one of those fan blade front wheels, so the harder you pedaled, the more air you had to move. This was good, because it helped keep you cooler. The electronics allowed a choice of difficulty. She started off slow, and built up resistance after a few minutes.

She was halfway through what she figured would be a forty-minute ride when the black man she’d seen on the copter ride came in. He wore an old pair of baggy shorts, no shirt, rubber sandals, a white cotton headband, and had a towel around his neck.

The shorts had the Bon Chance logo on them. He must work here, she realized. If he was a tourist, the shorts would be new, not old and worn as they were, right?

Toni sipped at her water. The man was well-built, all muscle, no fat on him. Not like a power lifter, but more like a boxer a few days from a championship match.

He moved to the hanging bag, kicked off his sandals, tossed the towel next to them, and went through a series of stretches.

He was very limber for somebody with that much muscle, she noticed. She was curious to see if he was going to work the bag, or that was just a place where he loosened up.

It didn’t take long to satisfy her wonder.

The man stood in front of the bag, and started slapping it. Open-handed, first with the palms, then with the backs of his hands, he developed a rhythm — palm right, backhand right, palm left, backhand left, over and over, until the sound of the strikes sounded like somebody working a speed bag, wapata, wapata, wapata,