Trifecta (48 page)

S
abrina woke up from her nap befuddled and lethargic. 
She was so used to living alone that she didn't realize that Eve was gone for a
couple of minutes.

Sabrina called Jack at the condominium's front door and
asked if he had seen Eve.  Jack told her Eve had left several hours ago.

Sabrina waited for hours.  By the time it was nine o'clock,
Sabrina was scared that something disastrous had happened to Eve.  She checked the
syrup supply and thought Eve might have taken a bottle with her.

When Mark arrived he suggested that maybe Eve had gone
back to Ferd's apartment.  Perhaps she was confused and expected Ferd to be there. 
After all, Eve had only been with Sabrina for three days.  They decided to look
for her there. 

They gave Jack instructions to tell Eve where they had
gone in case she came back to the building.

I
var felt it was dangerous calling his Soviet contact from
his own apartment, but he couldn't leave Eve sleeping alone in the apartment and
go outside to a pay phone.  She might wake up.  He went into the bedroom, closing
the door so she wouldn't hear the conversation.  He related what he had learned
about Eve to his Russian operative and was given specific instructions.  His orders
left him very disturbed.  He was supposed to find out if Eve's relative, Sabrina
Miller, had the same characteristics of extreme intelligence and unusual body weight. 
He was to continue the 'friendship.' Ivar deliberately did not tell his Russian
contact all that had transpired that evening. 

Ivar understood that eventually the network would intercept
Eve and Sabrina.  They would be questioned, probably given drugs.  He was told to
expect that another Russian agent would be working with him in the future.  That
agent, Sergi Malcovich, was being flown across country right now. 

When Ivar went back into the living room he found Eve sitting
up on the couch.  She had not put on her clothes.  She was staring at him so steadily
and with such intensity that he had a momentary and very disturbing impression that
she had heard his phone conversation.  He dismissed the thought.  He was reacting
to a guilty conscience. 

Ivar went over to Eve and handed her a robe he had taken
from his bedroom closet.  Her look was very curious.  She didn't even blink.

"You were crying in your sleep." 

Eve resumed blinking.  "Sometimes I have bad dreams."

"I hugged you until you stopped.  I'm famished.  Would
you like something to eat?"

"I'm famished, too." 

"Let’s go check the kitchen.  See what I can come
up with."  Eve followed him into the kitchen.

"You didn't put on the robe?"  Ivar asked.

"I'm not cold." 

Ivar opened the refrigerator door and wondered how Eve
could stand naked in front of the chill.  He pulled out a pork roast, some bagels,
mustard and mayonnaise.  "Are sandwiches all right?"

Eve nodded and smiled at him.  Ivar thought everything
must be fine.  Some people are groggy after waking up.  She couldn't possibly have
heard his phone conversation. 

Ivar turned on the television and they ate while watching
the 9 o'clock news.  Ivar was still a little hungry.  He told Eve he was going to
have another sandwich.  She requested another one, too.  He remembered that Malcolm
had seen Eve consume large quantities of food, so after he finished the second sandwich
he said he was still hungry.  Would Eve like another sandwich? She said yes.  Ivar
made their third sandwiches, really enormous ones.  He was so full that he could
hardly consume another bite, but he forced himself.  Eve seemed to have no problem
with the titanic sandwich.  He then brought out apples and cheese.  Later, he knew
he was going to have an awful stomach ache when he presented the chocolate cake. 
They each had two pieces.  A woman after his own heart, Ivar thought.

All the food made Ivar sluggish and he wished he could
go to bed and digest during the night, but he still had to get Eve home.  As Ivar
watched Eve he was amused that such a fragile looking creature could eat like a
lumberjack.  He found her comments during the television program entrancing.  She
was curious about everything and seemed to hang on to each of the newscaster's reports,
making comments and asking him questions. 

Ivar had severe regrets about calling his Soviet contact
and, feeling resentful, rebellious and regretful, walked her home.  He decided that
if he was discovered to have broken cover, even if he was taken off of the case,
he could continue seeing Eve and would be able to communicate to the KGB.  Even
so, he was relieved to see that his partner was gone.  Malcolm must have followed
Sabrina someplace. 

Ivar waited outside the condominium, across the street
after saying good-by.  Eve was talking to the doorman.  She waited while the doorman
flagged down a taxi and then got inside. 

Luckily, another taxi passed by seconds later.  His driver
made an illegal U and followed Eve's taxi.  When Eve's cab stopped, he told his
driver let him out.

Ivar kept to the shadows as he moved slowly toward Eve. 
She was handing the ten dollar bill to her taxi driver.  He stealthily looked around
the location, keeping within the shadows and close to the walls beside him.  There
was a man in a wheel chair beside a van parked in front of Ferd's Tanning Salon. 
As Ivar waited in the dark, he saw Sabrina and her friend Mark arrive.  He continued
to look at the other people in the street. 

Shit, there were enough agents to cover a terrorist attack.

Ivar counted to himself and tried to figure out what was
going on.  There was his partner following Sabrina.  The agent covering Mark.  An
agent presumably covering the tanning salon itself, sitting across the street from
it.  And two more agents, possibly covering the people who had come in the van. 
Six agents in all, following five people. 

On top of that, there was a car full of Japanese who must
have followed Sabrina.

Did all of the agents have as little information as he,
or would they try to snatch the two women? If the Americans, or even the Japanese,
tried, Ivar knew he should prevent it.  He was certainly outnumbered.  He always
carried a gun, but so, presumably, did they.  It was a dangerous situation.  If
he tried to prevent the Americans from taking the women, he would be made as a double
agent and his carefully devised cover of almost a decade would be blown.  Did the
situation really demand that?

All Ivar knew for sure was that there was a woman named
Eve who had enormous intelligence, strength, weight, and an unusual appetite.  She
now owned a part of his heart. 

Ivar knew he had been recognized by the other agents too,
but that was all right.  His partner, Malcolm, would just think he was doing his
job, following Eve.

Ivar saw Eve straighten up after getting change from the
bill she had given her taxi driver.  She saw Mark and Sabrina getting out of their
car and went over to them.  They all started walking toward Ferd's Tanning Salon,
jay walking across the street about a half block from the place.  Ivar thought that
maybe they were meeting with the crippled man in the wheel chair.  To Ivar's astonishment
the man in the wheel chair started honking the van's horn violently when he became
aware of the three people moving toward him on the sidewalk.  He made two short
blasts, then lay on the horn. 

Ivar recognized Stephan Steinbrenner as the man in the
wheel chair.  He had taken out a gun and pointed it at Eve, Sabrina and Mark as
they continued to walk toward him.

Stephan was shouting and waving the gun around in a most
unprofessional manner.  Ivar was afraid it would go off accidentally.  He couldn't
hear what they were saying and could not move any closer or they might notice him
hiding in a recessed restaurant doorway two blocks away.  Ivar decided to go around
the block and come up a side street, closer to the tanning place.

As Ivar was sneaking around to get in position, Stephan
was speaking softly, "I'm a lawyer.  I don't shoot guns.  But if you come any
closer, I will.  Look here."  He picked up his right leg slightly and pointed
at it with the tip of the gun.  "Broken tibia and fibula.  This one," 
he picked up the left leg, "only the tibia's broken.  But that is enough!"

Alexander came out of the tanning salon at a fast crawl,
looking like an enormous, anxious crab.  He looked around and then pulled the crutches
into position and stood up, swaying and out of breath.  He crutched over to stand
beside his brother.

"We didn't come here to harm either one of you," 
Mark said.  "But these women have been threatened."

"Threats! Threats?  We have been physically assaulted
by one of you.  Which one's the computer, anyway?"  Alexander asked.

Sabrina and Eve glanced at each other.

"I am,"  Eve said.

"I am,"  Sabrina said, almost simultaneously.

"Why don't you put the gun down,"  Mark asked
reasonably, trying to calm the situation down.

"We don't intend to be killed by a berserk computer
who indiscriminately breaks legs,"  Alexander said. 

Stephan motioned for Mark and the two women to come closer. 
When they cautiously did so, he said in a very quiet voice, "There's some kind
of government spy operation keeping tabs on us.  Both of us, and our father.  We
think they know there's a human computer.  And they want it."

Stephan, who had been watching the street from the side
mirror on the van's open door added, "I think the car that parked up the street
from your car was following you.  I'm pretty sure that we were followed by the car...No!
Don't look now...but there's a car with two men in it behind us.  We're all in danger,
just being seen together.  The FBI or CIA is onto Ferd's work.  Ferd sent us here
tonight to dismantle his equipment.  You'd better leave.  And be careful.  The government
might try to snatch the computer." 

Eve was thinking that she was glad that she had experienced
sex with Ivar before learning he was a spy.  She realized she was experiencing her
own emotion of sadness for the first time.  But Ivar might be the person who would
try to snatch her.  She was melancholy because she was in love with Ivar.

Stephan looked at Alexander and said, "Did you dismantle
the stuff?"

"I can't do it on crutches."

"Well, I can't help you because I can't get up the
stairs in this...machine."

"Wait,"  Mark said.  "Are you sure you were
followed?"

"Not positive.  We'll know when we leave.  We ought
to do it separately, to make sure.  Why don't you go to your car, Sabrina Miller,
isn't it? You and your friends.  You can watch us.  We'll watch your car, too."

Mark and Sabrina nodded.

"We have your phone number.  We'll contact you. 
I guess we'll have to buy a prepaid cell.  Sounds like a stupid spy flick.  Our
father is in deep shit for his experiments and may have to go to jail.  Along with
us."

"Why would you two go to jail?"  Mark asked.

"We supplied the baby."

"Baby? Who were the parents?"  Sabrina asked
curiously.

"Just a prostitute who was pregnant.  She didn't even
know who the father was.  She's long gone.  Took money for the baby.  Now we have
to get out of here."

"If Ferd said to dismantle the equipment, it's incriminating," 
Eve said.  "We should do it.  If there are government agents around, they've
already seen us." 

Eve walked over to Alexander.  "We don't want any
evidence, do we?"

Sabrina moved beside Eve, who was standing in front of
Alexander.  She didn't want him to guess who had the computer.  She was surprised
when Alexander flinched back and almost lost his balance.  He evidently thought
Eve would attack him. 

Alexander, balancing on the crutches, didn't have his hands
free.  Eve took the camera from around his neck, dropped it to the ground and stomped
on it.  Then she picked it up and took the film out.  She tore the tough film into
tiny pieces.  

Sabrina stepped on the camera a couple of times too, so
that Eve wouldn't be the only one performing a destructive act in case someone really
was watching.

Eve took the tiny pieces of film over to a sewer grate
in the street and dropped the brown brittle bits of film down inside.

"Sabrina's right,"  Mark said to confuse matters
more about who the computer was.  "We have to dismantle the equipment."

Stephan, always cautious, thought that it would be too
dangerous at night.  Right now the only activity was a few blocks away at a delicatessen. 
Otherwise the street was deserted.  And what if they all went inside? They could
be trapped.  They couldn't fend off FBI or CIA agents if they wanted to snatch the
computer for themselves.  Wasn't the whole point of the human computer to save it
so that Ferd could disclose his discoveries to the scientific community?

As Stephan was arguing for waiting until daylight to dismantle
the scientific equipment, Ivar's partner, Malcolm, was sitting comfortably in his
car, listening and taping the whole conversation.  He was using a directional microphone
and the conditions were perfect for the small hand held, battery powered machine,
which resembled a gun with a rather long muzzle.  He didn't use the earphones, but
had the microphone broadcast directly into a tiny tape machine. 

He heard the five people decide that they would come back
the next day at lunch time to dismantle the machinery.  When they drove away he
did not go after them, but radioed for backup.  They were expecting pursuit and
he didn't want to give himself away.  Anyway, he had seen Ivar and could hardly
wait to play the tape for him. 

In the meantime, while waiting for Ivar to make his way
to the car, he used his radio to broadcast the contents of the tape to Burgess Whitcomb.

"W
e should go back,"  Eve said.  "Dismantle
the machinery ourselves."  She was crouched on the back seat of Mark's car
with just enough of her head poked up so she could see out the rear window. 

Mark slowed to a crawl, until he was sure he would hit
the red light ahead of him, causing two angry motorists to honk and receiving the
finger from another.  It was taking so long for Alexander to get into the van that
Mark went around the block quickly and got back on Fairfax.  Then the van was coming
in their direction, behind them.  Mark slowed down and let the van pass him.

Eve watched a Toyota parked down the street pull out after
the van.  Stephan and Alexander were being followed.  They would know for sure in
a few blocks, when Alexander turned on Santa Monica Boulevard. 

"If we go tomorrow, they'll know I'm the computer," 
Eve said.  "I'm the only one strong enough to wreck the equipment."

"I'll do it on my lunch hour,"  Mark said.  "Did
you see anyone following us, Eve?"

"No one is,"  Eve said positively.

"Eve's probably right,"  Sabrina said.  "With
both of us helping, we can do it before the government checks out Ferd's lab."

"The bum sitting across the street was watching. 
He may be on surveillance,"  Eve said.  "I think the street behind Ferd's
place is Rosewood.  We can get in through the back entrance."

"You're out of your mind,"  Mark exploded.

Sabrina looked at Mark, surprised he would directly confront
Eve and tried to defend her.  "Eve's right.  We can do it tonight.  Ferd wanted
his sons to do it, but they're in pretty bad shape to do anything physical."

Mark shot her a look that said, And you know why.

Sabrina ignored the look, "We can protect both Eve
and Ferd and we won't have to meet with his slimy sons again."

"Sabrina, you're talking breaking and entering.  Destroying
private property.  That's very serious."

"You let us off and we'll do it.  I don't blame you
a bit, Mark,"  Sabrina said.

"Oh, hell."

"What?"

"I can't let you two go in there alone."

"Don't worry Mark,"  Eve said.  "We'll be
careful."

"Right."  Mark turned the car around, muttering
under his breath that they were all crazy.  He went down Rosewood, parallel to Fairfax
Avenue, through a maze of turns, until they were convinced no one was tailing them. 
Mark parked in an alley.

When they got to Ferd's back door Mark pushed hard against
it, testing it's strength.  The door was solid and bolted.  They had agreed not
to talk unless it was absolutely necessary, so he just shook his head.

Eve felt the door knob.  She knew she could twist it off,
but she was worried about the bolt.  If she made a lot of noise she might alert
the man sitting across the street in front of the place.  She took the doorknob
carefully off of the door, twisting slowly, with only a few sharp metal ticks and
grinding crunches.  Then Eve removed her shoes and kicked the door next to the bolt. 
The dull thuds didn't make much noise, so she continued the high kicks until the
bolt was gradually worked away from the wooden frame.  When Eve felt she had the
bolt loose enough she pushed hard, and with help from Mark, the door opened soundlessly.

They tiptoed into total darkness.  Eve knew her way around
the place, having lived there, and led them to the front door.  She turned on the
light for a moment so they could get their bearings.  Then she led Mark and Sabrina
up the steep, dark stairs like a train, each holding on to the one in front, into
the laboratory.  There were blackout curtains so Eve could turn on the lights without
fearing the illumination would show outside. 

The room was very neat and obviously used only for scientific
experiments.  There were clean white shelves along the walls which held various
vials and beakers of chemicals.  There was an EEG machine, but most of the other
stuff in the room looked exotic and foreign.  There was some medical equipment that
was recognizable, a stethoscope, a microscope and the usual paraphernalia a regular
doctor uses.  There were meticulously cared for cages of mice and rats, which, being
nocturnal, were moving in the cages, some squeaking in the unusually timed fluorescent
laboratory lights.  Several computers were lined up on a work table.

They started to work quickly.  The tank that the computer
had been kept in was drained of saline solution down the toilet in the bathroom. 
The holes in the floor, which looked down onto the couches in the tanning salon
below, were covered with wooden pieces and then with a rug. 

Eve was able to loosen bolts on the large machinery, using
a screwdriver and sometimes her bare hands, but she lost her fingernails because
they were not reinforced.  Sabrina was worried when she saw Eve's fingers bloodied. 
They healed immediately.  Even so, Sabrina got the syrup and handed it to her. 
Eve had to have hurt her foot on the back door and Sabrina didn't want her to faint.

The machinery did not have to be destroyed, merely reduced
so that no one could figure out how it had been used.  Dismantled parts were taken
off of each of the machines and scattered around.  Ferd was going to have an awful
time putting his laboratory together again, but it was preferable to jail. 

During the second hour of hard physical labor Mark took
a swig from the bottle of syrup himself.  He was feeling light headed and wondered
at the point of all the grueling physical labor.  He felt like he was dismantling
the laboratory of the man who had made the Frankenstein monster.  The equipment
was that strange.  He knew how valuable Eve was, but she was very strange too, and
he was really questioning his role in the whole situation.  They should have waited
for Stephan and Alexander.  If someone found he, Eve and Sabrina causing chaos,
they would just believe the three were wantonly trashing the place.  At the very
least they would all go to jail.  It was even more scary because the United States
government was involved.  They might be labeled traitors, or be required to go through
long interrogations.

Eve worked tirelessly, carrying the heavy pieces of machinery
that even he could not manage.  Sabrina was carefully taking wires out of the guts
of a particularly weird looking thing that must have some scientific use, and she
had emptied all the vials and beakers of chemicals.

Eve held up a large beaker she found in a refrigerated
cabinet.  Inside there was a grey jelly-like mass with a metal chip inside.  Mark
knew it was another computer, like the one she had in her own head.  He followed
her to the bathroom and watched her flush what was probably worth billions of dollars
down the toilet.

Sabrina went into Ferd's kitchenette when she got tired
and saw cokes in the refrigerator.  She got out three and made Eve and Mark take
a breather. 

They sat on the floor and checked out the ruins.  Sabrina
didn't think anyone could reproduce Ferd's equipment now.  She believed they had
done enough and whispered the thought. 

It was lucky that they had taken a break just at that time,
because they heard a squeak and then a scrape.  The front door opening.  They looked
at each other, eyes rounded in panic.  Eve jumped up, ran to the doorway, and switched
off the light. 

Sabrina was blinded by the sudden absence of light.  She
could not move through all of the stuff now littering the floor.  She would fall
on her face.  And then, suddenly, she could see. 

Eve had not been able to see either, but had memorized
the position of each piece of debris, so she was able to silently cross the room
and open the blackout curtains.  Silvery moon light came in through the window. 

They all backed into Ferd's bedroom and retreated into
the bathroom.  Mark locked the flimsy door and looked around the tiny dark room. 
There was no way out except a small window above his head, barely illuminating the
place.  He boosted himself up on the window ledge to see if they could possibly
get out that way and found himself held up by strong hands around his waist.  He
felt peculiar about being held up by a woman for only a second, because he was worried
about how quickly the people from down below would come upstairs and start looking
around.  It could be the police, or burglars, or government agents.  It would be
a disaster to be caught by anyone.

Mark pushed the window open, wincing at the squeaking noise,
and looked outside.  The roof sloped down from the second story window at an appalling
forty-five degree angle, but it did face the back of the building and maybe they
could crouch there and hide.  Mark took deep breaths to keep from panicking as he
pulled himself up and started wiggling out of the window to see if hiding out there
would be feasible.  It was better than being caught like rats, hiding guiltily in
the bathroom.

There was no way down to the ground from the second story
roof of the structure, unless they took a two story leap.  He retreated back inside.

They discussed strategy in hurried whispers.  Mark would
go out first and brace himself.  Sabrina would go next, as Eve could boost her up
and Mark would steady her on the roof.  Eve was strong enough to get out herself
and would try to close the window as well.

Sabrina peeked out of the bathroom door into the bedroom,
then carefully sneaked from there back into Ferd's lab.  The wooden floorboards
made enormous noises.  She felt as if her ears were pricked up like an animal, listening
for unknown men coming up from the stairs.  She picked up the coke bottles and wiped
them off on the front of her blouse and put them in a closet.  They must have left
fingerprints all over the place, but the coke bottles were too obvious.  Before
retreating back to the bathroom Sabrina peeked from Ferd's upstairs apartment to
the salon area downstairs.  Two men were talking and there were flashlight beams
flickering through the darkness.

When she got back to the bathroom Mark was already outside
on the roof.  Sabrina took off her shoes and handed them to Eve, who threw them
out the window as hard as she could.  They did not hear them land.  Then Eve threw
her own shoes out the same way.  Sabrina could imagine them landing in a tree or
maybe crushed by traffic on a street some blocks away, but wearing shoes, especially
heels, on a steep roof might prove fatal.  Sabrina started out of the window head
first.  Mark helped guide her down, and then she was crouched down beside him. 
Eve made the whole process look easy. 

The natural way to keep from overbalancing and falling
backward was by lying down and they all stretched out on their stomachs.  It was
also safer because they were not such obvious targets.  The roof was made of overlapping
wooden slabs, which were sharp and splintery.  The night was cold.  The pitch of
the roof was so steep that Sabrina could imagine herself sliding down over the rough
wood and then a nauseating flight to the cement sidewalk below.  She unconsciously
gripped with both her fingers and her toes, causing wooden splinters to get imbedded
in both hands and feet.  The traffic noises were like whispers passing in the night,
alien from the reality that they were all hiding above a laboratory they had ruined
on purpose.

About a minute later they heard the bathroom door open
and saw the leap of light beams playing around, piercing outside the window, just
above their heads.  They guessed that no one bothered to look out of the high bathroom
window, but could not be sure.  If someone had, they did not hear anything about
it a couple of seconds later when a voice said, "A gang must have been here. 
Went in through the back door where the lock was broken."

"I've been around this place a hundred times in the
last two days.  It must have happened while we were watching the people in front
of the building.  They were providing cover while the place was dumped."

"No.  This goddamned mess would take hours.  Let's
look around outside." 

They heard feet thundering down the stairs. 

They had to get back inside, fast, or they would be discovered. 
Eve was the first to recover and she crawled quickly up to the window and slid it
open.  Mark helped Sabrina up and Eve boosted her head first through the window. 
Mark was next.  In his blind headlong push through the window he banged his head
painfully on the toilet bowl.  Eve slid gracefully through the window and closed
it behind her.  They had no idea if they had been seen.  They crouched in the darkness
and tried not to breath.  Someone might still be inside, guarding the place.

After a tense half hour spent pulling splinters out of
their hands and feet they decided to take a look around.  Mark opened the bathroom
door a crack and peeked outside.  He could not see a thing in the blackness and
took a few tentative steps.  They walked into Ferd's bedroom.  Then they went into
the living room where Eve had broken the legs of Stephan and Alexander.  No one. 

They went silently into Ferd's lab, found paper towels,
and started wiping off everything they had touched.  Then they went through the
whole top apartment and wiped everywhere they might have put their hands; the window
sill, window, toilet and doorknob in the bathroom.  In the kitchen they wiped the
refrigerator handle, the counters and the sink.  They wiped the stairway bannister
as they started toward the back entrance. 

They crept slowly down the stairs, feeling more than seeing
their way down the hall to the back door.  This was the crucial part, getting outside. 
The door had been propped closed, but Eve pushed hard and the door opened enough
to see outside.  It had been so dark inside that moonlight almost seemed like silvery
daylight to Eve's eyes.  She stayed in position, looking for movement for about
five minutes.  Someone walked by and Eve quickly retreated and closed the door. 
She thought they would have a few minutes before he made the rounds again.