Critical Mass (54 page)

“Drop the gun, Warshawski,” Durdon ordered.

I dropped the gun.

“And that one stuck into the back of your pants.”

I dropped the Smith & Wesson.

“You were lucky yesterday, weren’t you,” Durdon added, his tone
contemptuous, “but Mr. Breen wasn’t impressed. If you thought you were smart enough to outwit him, it proves how stupid you really are.”

I was stupid, no question about it. I shouldn’t have left the Mustang out on the road, for one thing. And I should have gotten Martin and Alison away from Tallgrass Drive at once, instead of lingering to talk.

“Where’s your pal Deputy Davilats?” I asked.

“I don’t need him, not when I’ve got federal agents to back me up.”

Alison and Martin were climbing down the stair ladder, Dorothy and Meg slowly following. Curly brought up the rear, covering the group with an ugly snub-nosed twenty-two.

Durdon planted Lily on the floor, hard. She was still crying, no longer the shrieks of terror, but the heartbreaking moans of desolation.

“We were heading for your car, but they threatened to shoot my mom,” Martin said, his voice dead. His hands were empty. At first I thought he’d dropped the papers, but then I saw Curly was holding them.

“You!” Durdon turned to Dorothy. “Get the brat to shut up.”

He pushed Lily toward Dorothy, who carried the little girl to the daybed that stood against a side wall. She sat the child down, cuddling her, smoothing her hair with thick arthritic fingers.

Meg was so distraught that she hadn’t registered what had happened to her child. She called Lily’s name, looking around in distress until she saw her daughter with Dorothy. She stumbled over to the daybed and sat next to them, taking the child into her own lap and folding her into her chest.

“Why did you let these men come here?” Meg demanded of me.

I had no answer, only remorse, which was useless right now.

“Durdon, why are you doing this?” Alison asked. “Doesn’t Dad pay you enough?”

He looked at her in astonishment. “I’m doing this
for
your father. I’m helping him protect Metargon. That’s why we involved Homeland Security in the first place, to make sure our assets aren’t compromised.”

“But not like this,” she protested. “I know Dad wouldn’t order you to do this, scare little children, beat up people. He’ll be terribly upset when I tell him.”

“Your father knows he can count on me to do whatever is necessary for Metargon’s long-term security,” Durdon said. “What I don’t know is whether he can count on
you
to do the same.”

“I don’t believe Dad wants anyone to hurt people to keep Metargon safe,” Alison said. “Martin’s grandmother—that wasn’t you, was it? Why would an old lady need to die?”

“Metargon’s secrets are proprietary. Some are vital for America’s nuclear safety. The old lady was keeping us from getting back documents that were essential for our survival,” Durdon said.

Alison’s hand went up to her mouth, an involuntary gesture of revulsion.

“I guess that’s the logical outcome of the Supremes deciding that corporations are people,” I said. “You start to feel the same fealty to the corp that medieval people attached to their kings. Does Cordell Breen share your devotion?”

“Huh?” Durdon glared at me.

“You know,” I said. “Does Metargon come first with him? Would he be delighted to know you were holding his daughter at gunpoint?”

“If Alison paid attention to Metargon the way her father wants her to, this never would have happened. She brought all this on herself.”

I kept up a meaningless patter, hoping to distract the three men while I looked for escape routes. I glanced at the monitor on the worktable. The camera feed was still on, but I couldn’t see Judy Binder.

“What did you do with Martin’s mother?” I asked.

“The junkie?” Durdon said. “She’s a lost cause. Mr. Breen told me to grab her from the hospital; he figured even though she’s a meth head, the Binder kid wouldn’t want to see her hurt, but the bitch can hardly walk. We dumped her in the kitchen once we had Binder and Alison under control.”

“Is she still alive?” I was eyeing the ferromagnetic device Martin had been building. Could the loose wires dangling from the grid be used as a weapon?

“What difference does it make? Where did you put that drawing you stole from us? We busted open your safe and looked through all your papers. We searched your apartment this morning. What did you do with it?”

“It’s like Mick Jagger keeps on saying, Durdon: You can’t always get what you want.” I kept my voice light, but I was frightened, worried about Mr. Contreras. I didn’t ask if he’d tried to stop them. If I showed my fear, Durdon would add him to their list of potential hostages.

“The drawing?” Alison repeated numbly. “Are you saying—Vic—did you steal the BREENIAC sketch? I thought Tuesday was the first time you were in the workshop.”

“It was. But Deputy Davilats planted it in Julius Dzornen’s house on Wednesday morning after he murdered Julius. I found it in the coach house Wednesday afternoon. Your father blamed the theft on Julius so it would seem as though Julius had harbored a grudge against your grandfather all these years.”

“That isn’t true—it can’t be true!” Alison cried. “The sketch has been on the wall ever since I can remember. Anyone who visited us could see it. Mr. Dzornen must have stolen it himself.”

I shook my head. “No, sweetie, it didn’t happen like that. Edward liked to hang it over his desk, to gloat about how he’d pulled a fast one by stealing the design and claiming it for his own. Cordell inherited the sketch and the gloat. It was when Martin recognized Newton’s prisms and knew he’d seen them before that your dad became alarmed. He knew he had to get any other papers Martina left behind before Martin made them public. Cordell used his contacts in the Department of Defense to get Homeland Security involved.”

“We have a mission to safeguard our country’s nuclear secrets,” Curly growled. “Whatever crap you’re spouting is beside the point.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said wearily. “National security, blah blah. Do you know, do you care, that Cordell Breen made you an accessory to murder? He sent Durdon down to Palfry to work with a bent cop to steal the papers from Ricky Schlafly. Schlafly was not one of nature’s princes, but he didn’t deserve to have his eyes eaten out by crows.”

“He didn’t cooperate!” Durdon said. “And you won’t, either. You should have kept your Polish nose out of our business.”

“I should have had a keener Polish nose,” I said. “I should have recognized you right away when you picked up Mr. Contreras and me Tuesday night. That bruise on your face—that was when I whacked you with my gun in the parking lot down in Palfry. When you were breaking into my car to steal the documents Deputy Davilats told you I’d found.”

Alison’s legs gave way. She grabbed at the edge of the worktable but ended up on the floor. When Martin went to her side, Moe pointed a gun at him, but decided Martin wasn’t going to do anything rash.

“Yeah, it’s a nice story,” Durdon said. “It doesn’t matter what you say or think since you won’t have anyone to say it to before too long.”

I continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “The patent for the Metargon-I expired decades ago, so it’s not as though Metargon would lose their rights to the design, but the company could lose a lot of face. Knowing Edward stole the BREENIAC design would make people question products coming to market today. They’d look at things like the Metar-Genie and think it was flawed because Metargon didn’t really know how to design computers. The share price could sink, the Defense Department would start to look for someone else to design Princess Fitora.”

“You talk too much,” Durdon said. “Tell me where you put the BREENIAC drawing, or I’ll shoot the little girl.”

Meg screamed and lay on top of Lily, who started howling again at her mother’s terror.

“It’s in the University of Chicago Library,” I said quickly. “I put it in an envelope inside a book I returned there yesterday.”

Durdon looked at me suspiciously. How could he be certain I was telling the truth?

“What book?” he demanded.

“
Secret Diary of a Cold War Conscientious Objector.”
It was the first title that came into my head.

“She can’t open her mouth without lying,” Curly said. “Maybe it’s in these papers here. Go through ’em before we burn them.”

“Don’t burn them!” Martin begged. “They’re irreplaceable, they’re Martina Saginor’s work.”

“You’ll be in a federal prison for stealing national defense secrets, so I don’t think you’ll have to worry about them,” Curly said, not really paying attention to him. He was sifting the papers he’d taken from Martin, dropping them on the floor as he finished with them.

“Mr. Breen needs to look at these,” Durdon announced. “He wants to see any other patents that might have been filed around the same time as the one for our first Metargon computer.”

“We need a box to carry all this crap,” Moe said to Dorothy. “Where do you keep them?”

“They’re in the basement,” Dorothy said in a dull voice. “On the other side of the wall.”

“Show us how to open the door,” Moe ordered her.

“You shot out the electric release,” Dorothy said in the same heavy voice. “I tried to tell you when you started to shoot it that it has a dead man’s switch. The panels lock into place if someone tries to break in.”

“You can go around via the stair ladder.” I nodded my head toward the exit up to Martina’s observatory.

“Someone should have taught you to shut up when you were still young enough to learn,” Durdon said. He swung a fist at me again, but I ducked under it and rolled out of the way. “You, old lady, you live here, you have to know another way to get the panel open.”

Dorothy looked from his gun to Lily. “There’s a button under the table. I don’t know if it will still work, though.”

“You.” Durdon pointed the gun at me. “Do something useful for a change. Push the switch.”

I crouched down under the table to look for the button Martin had been going to push. If there hadn’t been so many people to look out for, if one of them hadn’t been a terrified four-year-old, this would have been my chance.

As it was—as it was, next to the button was a master switch. I pushed the button and the switch at the same time.

The room went dark. Durdon swore and fired, but over the noise from the gun I heard a groaning from the wall panels. Keeping low, I moved toward the sound.

“Meg! Dorothy! Get Lily up the back stairs. Move!” I bellowed. “Alison, Martin, follow me.”

Someone crashed into the worktable, knocking a spool of wire onto my head. A hand lunged at my shoulder. I rolled away from it, kicking wildly, but only connected with air.

The opening in the panels let in a pale light from the basement windows. I could see the big shape of Moe looming over me. There was fighting behind me; a fist connected with skin, followed by a deep groan. Moe grabbed me by the hair. I kicked again, hit a kneecap. Moe jerked my head back.

“I’ve got the boy,” Durdon said. “I’ll shoot him right now if you don’t get the light back on in five seconds.”

The Homeland agent released me with a kick to the back of my knees. I limped to the table and fumbled for the master switch. When the lights came back up, Durdon was holding a half-conscious Martin upright with an arm across his chest. Curly had grabbed Alison at the bottom of the stair-ladder. Tears left white tracks in her dirty face.

Dorothy was still sitting on the daybed, but Lily and Meg had disappeared. When Durdon realized he’d lost two of his hostages, he swore.

“Let’s get what we need and get going,” he said to the Homeland
agents. “We can prove we have a right to be here if a local LEO shows, but it would leave us with a lot of loose ends.”

Namely Dorothy, Alison and Martin. And me.

“And cuff the detective bitch to the table. She can die in the fire.”

“Can’t do that,” Curly objected. “If they find her after the fire, they’ll be able to tell the cuffs came from Homeland Security.”

Durdon made an ugly gesture. “Cuff her to Alison. We’ll figure it out later. Get the papers and the gadget the kid’s been building.”

Curly yanked me over to Alison and cuffed us together. Moe went through the open panels into the basement. We heard him flinging things to the floor; in a minute he returned with a couple of empty cartons. He dumped Martin’s ferromagnetic grid into one of the cartons and swept all the papers into another.

Martin had recovered from his half-swoon, but he was bleeding around the left eye. He watched in misery as Moe and Curly jammed a chisel into the device he’d been building so painstakingly, but he didn’t say anything.

“You go first with the Binder kid,” Curly said to his partner. “Durdon and I will follow with the other three.”

Moe frog-marched Martin from the workshop, a gun against his ribs. Durdon stuck his gun under Dorothy’s armpit and said, “On your feet, Granny.”

She stood slowly. “I suppose even a sociopath like you had a grandmother once. And unless she was as horrifying as you are, she would be disgusted to hear you talk to me like that.”

He hit her. “What is this, a TV talk show? First the detective bitch and now you? Shut up and move.”

“That’s the Metargon spirit, Durdon,” I said heartily. “It’s where old Edward Breen started all those years ago, bringing Nazi collaborators into the country, then murdering them and burying them in his basement. No wonder Cordell likes you so much.”

“You can say what you want; it doesn’t matter.” Durdon refused to
be provoked. “Mr. Breen already covered that issue with the police. They know it was that loser Dzornen who buried the woman.”

“Cordell
told
them that, but that doesn’t make it true. We’ll find what happened to Gertrud Memler when we get Martina’s German journals translated.”

“Get Warshawski out of here,” Curly said to Durdon. “She’s stalling until the other woman gets back here with a cop. Don’t argue with her.”

“You take them,” Durdon said. “I’ll bring up the rear with Granny. Gun’s at the base of her neck, girls, so move along double-quick if you don’t want her dead at your feet.”