The Fellowship of the Hand (14 page)

And then he saw it clearly.

Here, on the floor of this sealed passageway at the back of a huge computer complex, rested the bones of a human skeleton.

A
S SOON AS HER
nostrils detected the familiar harsh odor of those soilweed cigars, she knew that Stevro was back. And that was odd, because she hadn’t even thought of him in the better part of a year.

She walked through the sliding lucite doors to the south patio and there he was, as brash and shabby as he’d always been. For just an instant, seeing him here in the unfamiliar setting of Sargasso unnerved her. But she recovered to say, “Hello, Stevro. It’s been a long time.”

He moved his bulk with the jerky motions she remembered so well. “You are more beautiful than ever, Masha.”

“Thank you. And you are more ugly than ever.”

He chuckled softly. “Three years have made you a shrew already. But I see they have made you a wealthy shrew.” He glanced around in open admiration at the big house of glass and steel.

“What brings you halfway around the world, Stevro? Did the supply of young girls run out in New Istanbul?”

“Hardly,” he answered with a dry chuckle. “There were some irregularities with the Turkish police, and I thought it wise to move on. Naturally, since I was passing through the area, I had to stop for a visit with my Masha.”

“I’m not your Masha anymore, Stevro. You sold me to Jason, remember?”

“Dear girl …”

“Never mind. Come in and I’ll give you a drink. Standing out here on the patio you look as if you’re casing the place for a robbery.”

He followed her inside, marveling at the decor. “This place is worth a very large fortune, Masha dear. Is your husband about?”

“He’s gone west on business, but there are servants,” she said by way of warning. “And the drilling technicians at the end of the island, of course.”

“The gear is so quiet!”

“The actual drilling goes on seven hundred feet beneath us. We rarely hear a thing.” She walked to the wall bar and pressed a series of buttons for some premixed drinks. “How was your ride on the sea-rail? I assume that’s how you arrived.”

“Of course! I could hardly afford to hire a rocket-copter or a boat.” He took out another of his soil-weed cigars. She could see that he was already mildly high from their effects. “The ride was pleasant. I sat with a man on his way to Panama for the fiesta.”

She handed him his drink. “Just what do you want, Stevro? Is it money?”

“Masha …”

“Let’s cut out the games. I like to see old friends, but you’re not one of them. I was strictly a business proposition to you.”

He smiled slightly, as if in memory. “And the most successful business proposition of my life.”

“Then it is money you want.”

“But not from you. I have some information your husband might find valuable.”

“I doubt that.”

“Information about his oil-drilling operations in the Mediterranean. Think that might interest him?”

Masha studied him in the afternoon sunlight that poured through the great glass windows. As long as his visit concerned her she felt free to order him from the house at any time, but now he had cleverly shifted the emphasis to Jason—and to Jason’s business operations.

“You’ll have to call at some time when he’s home,” she said quietly. “It was foolish of you to make the trip here without calling first.”

“Ah, but I wanted to see you in any event.”

“You’ve seen me. Now you can go.”

He shifted in his chair, holding the drink in one hand and his soilweed cigar in the other. “Could you contact your husband? It’s important that I talk with him.”

She wanted to say no, but the vision-phone was at her elbow and she knew full well that Jason was in Utah, available within seconds. “All right,” she agreed finally. “I’ll try to call him.”

Within a minute the face of a pert, pretty secretary was on the screen. “Yes, Ms. Blunt. Your husband is here. Right now he’s inspecting the facilities with Mr. Crader.”

“Could you call him to the phone, please? It’s important.”

“Just a moment.”

Masha saw the secretary turn in her chair and activate a remote paging system. There was a wait of perhaps three minutes before Jason’s face appeared on the screen.

“What is it, Masha?” He sounded exasperated. “I’m very busy.”

“Jason, remember Stevro, from New Istanbul? He’s here on Sargasso, to see you.”

“I don’t have time to talk to him now!”

“He says it’s important—about your Mediterranean drilling island.”

She saw his features tighten with interest. “All right, put him on.”

Stevro grinned slightly and took his place before the screen. “How are you, Mr. Blunt? Good to talk with you again.”

“What is it, Stevro? I’m very busy here.”

“You have a drilling island in the Mediterranean, I believe? Near Crete?”

“Yes.”

“I can give you some information about that island, and about why your oil output there has fallen off in recent months.”

“Well? Why has it?”

Stevro smiled and shook his head. “No, no, Mr. Blunt. I am a businessman like yourself. I sell my information.”

“Damn it, man, I haven’t got time to fool with you!”

“Let me come there, where you are, and we will make a little business deal.”

On the screen Jason shook his head. “Either give me the information or forget it. I haven’t time for games.”

“I can tell you one thing. My information concerns a man named Stanley Ambrose.”

Jason Blunt was silent, thinking. Then he said, “Masha?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Masha, call for the rocketcopter. I want you to fly out here with Stevro.”

“Today?”

“Right now. You can be here in a few hours. I’ll be waiting for you.”

“All right.” She flipped off the set and turned to Stevro. “You heard him. I guess he thinks it’s important.”

“Where are we going?”

“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”

Jason Blunt was indeed waiting for them. He ushered Masha and Stevro into his private office and seated himself at the great console facing them.

“Now then, what is all this business?”

“Quite a place you got here,” said Stevro, looking around. “Is it all underground?”

“Never mind the place. I brought you out here for business. How much to tell me what you know?”

“A quarter-million.”

“Ridiculous!”

Stevro shrugged and said nothing. Masha took the opportunity to ask, “Where’s Carl Crader?”

Blunt turned his eyes toward her in surprise, as if he’d forgotten her presence in the room. “Crader is locked away. He wanted to inspect the circuits, so I’m letting him. With luck he may be lost in there for days.”

“In where?”

“The wiring tunnels behind the main computer bank. They run on for miles.”

As her husband turned his attention back to Stevro, Masha left the office and made her way along the narrow sloping corridor. Soon she was in the main computer room, trying to remember the layout of the place from her single previous visit.

“Can I help you, Ms. Blunt?” one of the white-suited technicians asked.

“The wiring tunnels. Where is the main one?”

“Down the corridor to your left, but that’s all sealed.”

She nodded and went the way he’d directed. It seemed suddenly very important that she find Carl Crader, though she couldn’t consciously explain the reason for her concern.

The corridor at this point seemed hewn out of solid rock, with a primeval look that contrasted sharply with the trim, modern lines of the computers. She hesitated, seeking a clue on the luminous wall signs, and then continued. The door, when she finally found it, was latched but not sealed. She slid it open and entered the dimness of the tunnel.

It was an eerie world of half-light, throbbing in the glow from the computer panelboards. Guided by that, and seeing very little else in the near darkness, she made her way along the tunnel.

“Carl Crader,” she called once, and stopped, waiting for a reply. When none came, she moved a bit farther along the tunnel.

“Carl Crader!”
Louder this time, so that her voice carried and echoed through the labyrinths ahead.

“Here! This way!” came an answering shout.

She found him finally deep down one of the side passages, guided by the glow from his wrist-light. “I never expected to find you in this maze,” he said.

“I came to rescue you, but now I think we’re both lost.”

He smiled at that. “I can get out any time I want to, just by pulling a few of these circuits. They’d come for me fast enough!”

“Then you know the way back?”

“I think so. Come on. I’ve seen enough here anyway.”

Outside, back in the corridor with the white-suited technicians, Masha led the way to Jason’s office. He was still talking with Stevro, but he broke off in mid-sentence as they entered.

“Well, good to see you again, Crader. Find what you wanted in there?”

“I found quite a bit in three hours.”

“Good! This is Mr. Stevro, an old friend of Masha’s.”

Stevro rose to shake hands, moving his bulk in the manner of a tired fighter. She wondered how the discussions had been going, but could tell nothing from her husband’s face.

“I’ve heard about you,” Stevro told Crader. “Computer Cops.”

“We have other names too.”

Stevro turned back to Jason. Apparently he wasn’t about to be put off by their arrival on the scene. “Well, then, Blunt—how about it?”

Jason ran his fingers over his pointed black beard. “The sum is agreeable on one condition. That you remain here till tomorrow and confront Stanley Ambrose with your information.”

Carl Crader appeared startled. “Ambrose is coming here?”

Jason nodded. “I just heard from him. He’ll be here in the morning, and then maybe we’ll get this thing straightened out.”

“What thing?”

“The secret election. And other matters.” He shot a look at Stevro.

“I have my own questions for Stanley Ambrose,” Crader said. “I’d like to stay and meet him in the morning.”

“What questions would those be?”

Crader’s face was grim. “I can ask you the same ones, Blunt. My tour of the tunnel was very interesting. In addition to some circuited learning capabilities, I found a much more ancient evil.”

“Learning capabilities?” Blunt repeated, looking blank. “I know of nothing like that.” And then, as if the words were just catching up to him, he asked, “What ancient evil?”

“Murder. There’s a human skeleton in that tunnel. The skull has been crushed by a blow. I’d like to know who it is, and how he died.”

“A skeleton? In the computer?”

“In the wiring tunnel. Yes, I suppose you could say it’s in the computer.”

Masha was staring from one to the other, trying to grasp what was happening. “All right,” she heard her husband say. “You’ll stay here too. And in the morning we’ll all have questions for Stanley Ambrose.”

E
ARL WAS LATE LEAVING
the office that night, and he was still there when Carl Crader’s call came through on the vision-phone from Utah. His face was a bit blurred on the screen, and as Jazine tried to adjust the focus, Crader said, “I didn’t think I’d find you there this late. I was going to tape a message for you.”

“A long day, chief. I was trying to find out something on the Norris killing, but the police didn’t have a thing.”

“Keep at it.”

“How’s it going out there?”

“Confusing, at the moment. Ambrose is due here in the morning, so I’m spending the night. There’s something I want you to look into, though.”

“Fire away.” Jazine pressed the button of the electric pad to bring a fresh sheet of paper into position on his desktop.

“Nova Industries,” Crader said, speaking softly. “You were successful breaking into their Chicago office. How about trying their plant in Kentucky?”

Jazine nodded. “Looking for what, chief?”

“We have a dead man here—or a skeleton.”

“A what?”

“You heard me—a skeleton. Inside the computer, in one of the service tunnels. The door had a twenty-year seal on it, so I suppose whoever put him there felt safe. Anyway, the only bit of evidence other than bones is a torn piece of label from Nova’s plant in Lexington, Kentucky. I’ve shown it to Jason Blunt, and we suspect the man may have been killed in Lexington and shipped west in an aircarton of computer parts.”

“Why not just bury him?”

“That’s one of the mysteries. That, and who it is. I want you to get inside the Lexington plant, if you can, and have a look at their personnel file. I need names of any employees who left or disappeared during the past year, when this tunnel was completed and sealed.”

“Chief?”

“Yes?”

“If Blunt is with you on this, why can’t he get the information? It’s his company, isn’t it?”

“Not the Lexington facility. That’s Ambrose territory. And Blunt says he guards it well.”

Jazine nodded. “I’m on my way.”

On the way out of the office he saw the radiant ceiling still glowing in Judy’s cubicle. “You still here too?” she asked.

“Call from the chief, out in Utah.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Good. Spending the night out there. Meanwhile, he’s got a job for me. I need someone to copter down to Kentucky with me.”

“Tonight?”

“If possible. Think we could rouse Mike Sabin?”

She glanced up at him, rabbiting her nose. “How about me? I could go.”

“You?”

“Why not? Remember the time we crashed that flippie rally together?”

He considered it for a moment, weighing the dangers against the advantage of a fast start. They could leave now, do it tonight, without having to track down Sabin and get him to the office. “It could be dangerous,” he warned. “I’m breaking into the Nova plant.”

“Just working for the CIB is dangerous, with some of you guys around the office.”

“All right,” he agreed. “Let me pick up my gear. Call for the rocketcopter.”

“How soon?”

He glanced at his digital watch. “Fifteen minutes. That should get us there by ten.”

“Do you know anything about the layout of the Nova plant?”