On Thursday morning I awoke alone, as was definitely getting to be even more common, in a cold and silent house, with snowflakes drifting lazily in the darkness outside my window. The snowflakes were sporadic and mostly disappeared even before I started my running.
I paused by the door, glancing down at the white enamel of the kitchen windowsills, polished virtually every day Marie came. Then I took a deep, cold breath
before jogging down the drive. Running in the dark wasn’t that much fun, and I had to cut my climb to the hillcrest short of the ridge because I needed to drive to Lebanon to meet a train and return well before my eleven o’clock.
I hurried through making breakfast, deciding to shower and shave after I ate. When I sat down to the hot rolled oats and milk and a strong pot of Russian Imperial tea, I thought about wiring Llysette, but, given her moods in the morning—especially at six o’clock—decided to hold that until later.
After cutting an apple into sections, and slowly chewing, I thought about what else I could do to anticipate whatever disaster would hit, but there’s a time to act, and a time to respond. Unhappily, the situation still required me to respond mostly—at least until I could find a lever to unbalance vanBecton. So far, he’d kept pushing, and I hadn’t responded until now—with my upcoming distribution of the cheap-looking flier from the “Order of Jeremiah” and the letters from Gerald Branston-Hay.
The memos would come later, and vanBecton wouldn’t know that they were from me—assuming everything went as planned, which it wouldn’t. In any case, that meant he’d have to push farther. I just hoped I could dodge the next push, or that it wasn’t fatal.
In the meantime, delivering my hastily created fliers meant getting them to their destinations without a direct link to Vanderbraak Centre. I did know how to do that. Unfortunately, it meant driving to Lebanon, which was why I had dragged myself up so early.
/ With that cheerful thought, I rinsed the dishes and headed up for the shower. Pausing at the landing window, I watched a few lazy white flakes drift toward the partly covered lawn before shaking myself back into motion.
I took Route Five south through the scattered flakes before I got on the Ragged Mountain Highway west. I passed Alexandria and the biomass power plant just after seven, slowing for only one hauler filled with wood chips.
The rest of the drive to Lebanon was quiet, with only a few haulers and steamers on the road. I was standing trackside at the station a good ten minutes before the express stopped. I’d already posted the first letter from Gerald to Minister Holmbek in the box outside the station. The second would be posted from Styxx on the way back to the university.
The conductor looked for my ticket as I stepped up.
“No ticket. Need to mail these.” I held up the letters.
He smiled, a knowing smile that acknowledged I wasn’t supposed to do it, but that he’d seen more than a few men or women who needed faster post service on some debit payments. “Make it quick, sir.”
I did, smiling at the conductor on the way down the mail car steps, and resting somewhat more easily knowing that the postmark would be from New Amsterdam.
On the drive back to Vanderbraak Centre, I thought a lot, probably too much, but I did drop the second letter from Branston-Hay into the postbox in Styxx. I doubted either would really get to Holmbek, but they might, although that wasn’t
their main purpose. The copies I’d kept were the useful ones. Then I reflected and went inside, almost right after the Styxx post center opened, and bought an inordinate amount of postage, knowing that I would certainly need it. If I didn’t, the money would be immaterial. The clerk shook her head, her white bonnet bobbing as she did.
With the sun up, I saw a handful more steamers on the way back, mostly battered older farm wagons.
As I finally neared the square in Vanderbraak Centre, I did keep an eye out. A little paranoia never hurts, especially when you know they are out to get you, but there wasn’t a local watch steamer in sight, not even when I pulled up in front of Samaha’s.
Louie Samaha and another white-haired man glanced briefly at me and lowered their voices—another sign promising trouble—as I retrieved my paper. Wonder of wonders: there were actually two papers in mister Derkin’s box, the first time I’d ever seen anything there. Perhaps he did exist.
With a nod to Louie, who nodded back as I left the silver dime on the counter, I scanned the front page of the Post-Courier, but the dirigible-turbo fight dominated the ink, and even the charge that Governor vanHasten’s son had forged his father’s signature to a cheque given to a well-known Asten courtesan was but a tiny story below the fold.
Llysette’s Reo was not yet in the car park, but again, that was not especially surprising, not since I was relatively early.
Gilda smiled briefly from the main office.
“Good morning, Gilda. How are you on this wonderfully warm and bright morning?”
“Doktor Eschbach, how kind of you to inquire. Your presence brings light into all of our lives … just like a good forest fire brings warmth to the creatures of the wood and vale.”
“I do so appreciate your kind words.”
“I thought you would. Doktor Doniger is most unhappy, and I think it concerns you, since Dean Er Recchus called him out before he could even finish his coffee, and he was mumbling about former government officials.”
“How absolutely cheering.” I bestowed an exaggerated smile upon her, and she responded in kind. Then I went upstairs, where my breath almost steamed in the cold of the hall that the overhead glow squares did little to relieve, and unlocked my office.
After getting settled behind my desk, I penned a short note to Llysette, wishing her well with her rehearsals and conveying more than mere affection, then slipped it into an envelope.
By then it was still only a quarter before ten, and, not wanting to waste too much time, I reluctantly dug into the Environmental Politics 2B papers. My reluctance was indeed warranted, given the dismal quality of what I read. Why was it so
hard for them to understand that, just because a politician claimed he or she was environmentalist, politicians were still politicians? After all, the subsidies for steamers and the fuel taxes weren’t enacted for environmental reasons but strategic ones. Speaker Aspinall never met a tree he didn’t think needed to be turned into lumber or a coal mine that he didn’t love—but he pushed both the subsidies and the taxes through. Why? Because Ferdinand and Maximilian—the father, not the idiot son who was deGaulle’s puppet—would have strangled Columbia if we’d ever become too dependent on foreign oil. Now, the taxes are seen as great environmental initiatives. I tried not to lose my breakfast at the soupy rhetoric asserting such nonsense, and instead contented myself with an excess of red ink.
At ten-thirty I trotted down to the Music and Theatre Department, since I knew Llysette was teaching Diction then. After putting the envelope in her box, I turned to Martha Philips. “Don’t tell her it’s there. Just let her find it when she will.”
“That’s mean.”
“I hope it’s romantic. We need that around here, especially these days.”
“These days … ? Wasn’t that terrible about Dr. Branston-Hay’s accident? Such a nice man. And his boys, they are so adorable. And then the fire.”
“Fire?”
“Didn’t you hear? Last night, the electrical box shorted. It was terrible. They lost everything—all his years of research, and his own Babbage system. At least they escaped.”
“At least …” I shook my head. “It wasn’t in the paper. I didn’t know.” So much for Branston-Hay’s backup disks. VanBecton wasn’t leaving much to chance.
“It will be. Poor woman.”
“Strange. First Miranda’s murder, then this. The watch hasn’t been able to do much. You know, after her murder, they even called in the Spazi?”
“They did?”
“There was a big gray Spazi steamer parked right next to the watch office for two days.” I shook my head. “Gerald was doing some sort of research for the Ministry of Defense. He didn’t like to talk about it. I wouldn’t either, I suppose, not with all the other fires and accidents happening at Babbage centers at other schools. Still, the feds won’t let on, and probably poor Chief Waetjen will get the blame for not solving the crimes. And another fire.” VanBecton liked fires, or this was a way to pin it on Ferdinand.
“Ah, do you think so, Doktor Eschbach?”
I grinned. “Given the federal government, is there any doubt?” I grinned. “I need to go, and please don’t tell Doktor duBoise. Let her find it when she picks up her messages.”
“I won’t.” She smiled faintly, as well she might, since her husband was on the town council that had hired Chief Waetjen.
That had been one of the purposes of my visit, that and reminding Llysette
that I was still around. She had been reserved, or was it just preoccupied with her opera production coming up? Or was I withdrawing from her?
I waved briefly to Hector as he was placing snow shelters over the bushes beside the music building, but didn’t see Gertrude anywhere. Hector waved back, in his somber but friendly manner, and I marched back to the Natural Resources building, where I repeated the same conversation with Gilda, not because she was connected to anyone in particular, but because she talked to almost everyone about everything. Except with Gilda, I added one more twist.
“I wonder if the Spazi have their fingers on the chief.”
“Don’t they have their fingers on everyone?”
We both laughed, but Gilda’s laugh died as the good Doktor Doniger marched toward his office.
“Gilda. Where is the memorandum from the dean?”
I went upstairs, actually reading through the text assignments—novel concept—and reviewing my notes for my eleven o’clock before I trudged through the snow flurries to Smythe Hall for Natural Resources 1A.
“I beg your pardon for my breathless arrival, and I do know that you are waiting breathlessly.” I held up my hand. “Unfortunately, a number of matters have retarded my arrival, including a few recent deaths.” I waited. “I assume you have heard about the accident that killed Doktor Branston-Hay? I hope it is not part of the unfortunate pattern of accidents involving professors at university Babbage centers across the country.” I shrugged.
“Accidents?” finally came a whisper.
“You should read the press more closely. However, in answer to your question, there have been explosions and fires at a number of Babbage centers across the country. I do not know if students have been killed, but several professors and staff have died. There was even one incident in Munich. Now, enough of noncurricular speculation! What about solid deposition?”
I looked around the room. “Mister MacLean? What is solid deposition?”
I got a blank look, but eventually, someone got the idea. We didn’t get into carbon, and I had to spend far too much time explaining why it was highly unlikely that significant quantities of VOCs would ever be present in any form of atmospheric deposition, solid or liquid.
A faint glimmer of sunlight graced my departure from Smythe, but it vanished as I entered the bright redbrick walls of the student activities building.
After wolfing down the bowl of bland chicken noodle soup at the counter in the activities building, I returned to my office through another, heavier snow flurry, and finished grading the Environmental Politics 2B papers. The last papers weren’t that much better than the first.
Since I hadn’t heard anything from Llysette, I dialed her number at about quarter to two, but there was no answer. I shrugged and gathered together the papers.
The grass wore a thin sheet of white flakes, but the brick walkways were
merely damp, and the snow had stopped falling before I left the Natural Resources building. Perhaps three students nodded to me as I crossed the green back to Smythe. I nodded in return, but all three looked away. I must have looked grim. Either that or the word was out that Professor Eschbach was flattening all markers, or whatever the current slang on the korfball court was.
My Environmental Politics 2B class almost cowered in their desks, except for one brave soul—Demetri Panos, a Greek exile. What he was doing in New Bruges, I never understood. He shivered more in a classroom under a coat than even Llysette did outside:
“Professor, you will be generous in considering our faults?”
I had to smile.
“If your faults show effort and some minimal degree of perception, Mr. Panos.” I felt safe saying that, since he’d actually gotten a B, a low B but a B, one of the few. Then I began handing back the papers, trying to ignore the winces and the mumbles.
“… not graduate school …”
“… what does he want …”
I did answer the second mumble. “What I want from you is thought. You have brains. You should read the material, make some effort to comprehend it, and then attempt to apply what you have learned to one of the topics. For example, take the second topic, the one dealing with whether real environmental progress has been made, or whether most of the environmental improvements of the past generation occurred for other, less altruistic, reasons. Were the petroleum taxes pushed through by Speaker Aspinall for environmental reasons, or because the Defense Ministry pointed out the need to preserve domestic petroleum supplies with the drawdown of the Oklahoma fields and the difficulties in extracting North Slope oil?”
Half of them still looked blank. I wondered if that blank expression were a regional trait common to New Bruges or a generational expression common to all young of the species.
Somehow we struggled through, and I got back to the main office. Still no message from Llysette, and I wondered if she were out on a short tour with her group. But would she be traveling so near a production?
Or had I done something to offend her? Finally I picked up the handset and dialed.
“Hello.”
“Is this the distinguished soprano Llysette duBoise?”
“Johan, do not mock me.”
“I wasn’t. I was just remarking on the quality of your voice.”
A sigh followed. I waited.
“A long day it has been.”
“So has mine. Would you like dinner?”
“We are still rehearsing, and still I am beating the notes into their thick Dutch heads.”
“Chocolate before rehearsal? Now? At Delft’s?”
“I do not …” She sighed again. “That would be nice.”
“I’ll be at your door in a few moments.”
And I was. And another wonder of wonders, she actually was ready to leave, carefully knotting a scarf over her hair and ears as I rapped on the studio door.
“Johan …” I got a kiss. A brief one, but a kiss. “For the note. Sweet and thoughtful it was.”
“Sometimes I try. Other times, I’m afraid I’m trying.”
We walked down the hill to the center of town.
“How are you coming with rehearsals?” I shook my head. “From what I’ve seen, you’re really pushing them to do Heinrich Verrückt. Didn’t everyone think Beethoven was totally insane for writing an opera about Henry VIII? From what you’ve told me, it has the complexity of the Ninth Symphony and the impossibility of Mozart’s Queen of the Night in every role.”
“Johan,” Llysette said with a laugh, “difficult it is, but not that difficult. To baby them I am not here.”
Delft’s was almost empty, and we got the table by the woodstove again.
“Ah, much better this is than my cold studio.” She slipped off the scarf even before sitting.
Victor’s son Francois arrived and nodded at Llysette. “Chocolate? Tea? Coffee?”
“Chocolate.”
“I’ll have chocolate also, and please bring a plate of the butter cookies, Dansk style.”
As Francois bowed and departed, Llysette shifted her weight in the chair, as if soaking in the warmth from the stove.
“Johan?”
“Yes.”
“Well did you know Professor Branston-Hay?”
“I can’t say I knew him exceptionally well. We talked occasionally. We had troubles with the same students.”
“A tragedy that was.” Llysette pursed her lips. “Some, they say that it was not an accident.”
I shrugged. “I have my doubts. According to the papers, a lot of Babbage researchers are dying in one way or another.”
“Is that not strange? And Miranda, was she not a friend of Professor Branston-Hay?”
I nodded.
“Your country, I do not understand.” Llysette’s laugh was almost bitter.
“Sometimes I don’t, either. Exactly what part don’t you understand?”
“A woman is killed, and nothing happens. A man dies in an accident, and the
watch, they question many people, and people talk. No one says the accident could be murder. But they question. The woman, she is forgotten.”
Except I hadn’t forgotten Miranda, and I didn’t think vanBecton had, either.
Francois returned with two pots of chocolate and a heavily laden plate of Danish butter cookies. He filled both cups.
The chocolate tasted good, much better than the bland chicken noodle soup that had substituted for lunch. The cookies were even better, and I ate two in a row before taking another small swallow of the steaming chocolate.
“Did they question you?” I asked.
“But of course. They asked about you.”
“Me? How odd? I barely knew either one—I mean, not beyond being members of the same faculty.”
“I told the chief watch officer that very same.” Llysette shrugged. “Perhaps they think it was a ménage à trois.”
“Between a broken-down federal official, a spiritualistic piano teacher, and a difference engine researcher with a soul written in Babbage code? They must be under a lot of pressure.” I refilled my cup from my pot and hers from the one on her left.
She laughed for a moment, then added, “Governments make strange things happen. People must … make hard choices, n’est-ce-pas?”
“Mais oui, mademoiselle. Like insisting on producing Heinrich Verrückt in New Bruges. Why didn’t you just use one of the Perkins adaptations of Vondel?”
“Vondel? Dutch is even more guttural than low German.”
“I think it’s interesting. Seventeenth-century Dutch plays turned into contemporary operas by a Mormon composer.”
Llysette made a face.
“The Dutch think that Vondel was every bit as good as Shakespeare.” I took a healthy swallow of chocolate. The second cup was cooler.
“Good plays do not make good operas. Good music and good plays make good opera.”
“You have a problem with Perkins?”
“Perkins? No. Good music he writes. The problem, it is with Vondel.” Llysette looked at her wrist. “Alas, I must go. A makeup lesson I must do, and then the rehearsals.”
I swallowed the last of my chocolate, then left some bills on the table for Francois.
Llysette replaced her scarf before stepping into the wind. A few damp brown leaves swirled by, late-hangers torn from the trees lining the square.
“Makeup lesson?”
“The little dunderheads, sometimes, they have good reasons for missing a lesson.”
“Few times, I would guess.”
Llysette did not answer, and we proceeded in silence to the door of the Music and Theatre Building. I held it open, and we walked to her empty studio.
“Take care.” I bent forward and kissed her cheek.
“You also, Johan.” Her lips were cold on my cheek. “The note—I did like it.”
I watched for a moment as she took off the scarf and coat, then blew her a kiss before turning away.
As I walked back to my office, I had to frown. Was I getting so preoccupied that Llysette was finding me cold? She still seemed distracted … but she had kissed me and thanked me. Was I the distracted one—not that I didn’t have more than enough reasons to be distracted—or was something else going on?
I went back to my own office, where I reclaimed my folder before locking up. The main office was empty, although I could see the light shining from under David’s closed door. Whatever it was about me that he’d been discussing with the dean apparently was still under wraps. He was probably plotting something. God, I hated campus politics.
The wind continued to gust as I walked to the car park. A watch car was pulled over to the curb on the other side of the street outside the faculty car park. I started the Stanley, then belted in. As my headlamps crossed the dark gray steamer, glinting off the unlit green lenses of the strobes, I could make out Officer Warbeck, clearly watching me. When I got to the bottom of the hill, he had pulled out, following me at a distance. He followed me across the river, but not up Deacon’s Lane.
First Llysette, and then the watch.
At least Marie had left me a warm steak pie, and I had eaten most of it when the wireset rang. I swallowed what was in my mouth and picked up the handset.
“Hello?”
“Doktor Eschbach?”
“Yes.”
“This is Chief Waetjen. I just had one additional question.”
“Oh?”
“Do you recall whether Professor Miller was wearing a long blue scarf the night she was killed?”
I frowned. “I only felt her ghost. So I wouldn’t have any way of knowing what she wore. I hadn’t seen her since that Friday, I think, and I don’t remember what she was wearing then. You might ask one of the women.”
“I see. Well, thank you.” Click.
I looked out into the darkness onto the lawn, barely visible under the stars that had begun to shine in the rapidly clearing skies.
In belated foresight, the situation vanBecton was setting up was clear enough. Johan Eschbach had been under enormous stress, had even received a health-based pension for wounds from a would-be assassin. Now a murder, perhaps one he had committed in his unstable state, would be found to have turned him into a zombie—one of the more severe varieties. And his ghost would never be found. What a pity!
I walked upstairs and looked outside, seeing a few bright and cold stars between the clouds and wondering how long before I got a caller. Then I opened the false drawer in the armoire, taking out a few Austro-Hungarian items—and the two new shiny nuts I had put there just the day before. Of course, the whole thing was ridiculous, since no real agent would carry anything even faintly betraying, but the items were suggestive—a medallion reminiscent of the Emperor’s Cross, a fragment of a ticket in German, the sort of thing that could get stuck in a pocket, a pen manufactured only in Vienna, and a square metal gadget which contained a saw and a roll of piano wire, totally anonymous except for the tiny Austrian maker’s mark.
As evidence they might be too subtle, but I didn’t have much to lose. I put them in my pockets, not that they were any risk to me, since I’d either walk away or be in no shape to do so.
I studied the lawn, but no one was out there, not that I could see. So I walked back downstairs and washed the dishes. Then I went into the study, got the disassociator, and set it in the corner by the door. I got the quilt from the sofa and rolled it up and set it on the chair before the Babbage console, putting a jacket from the closet around it and an old beret on top. I’d never worn it, not since Anna had sent it to me from her trip to New France years earlier, but I doubted any agent knew what I did or didn’t wear in my study. In any case, the lights would silhouette the figure, and, from the veranda, it would be hard to distinguish the difference between me and the impromptu dummy from any distance because the Babbage screen assembly would block a head-on view until an intruder was almost at the windows.
I reached forward and turned on the difference engine. After that, I slipped the truncheon from the hidden holder on the table leg into my belt, then turned on the lights, picking up the disassociator.
I didn’t have to wait long before a tall figure in a watch uniform glided up the hill and across the veranda. I shook my head. He was relying a lot on his uniform, and I’ve never had that much respect for cloth and braid and bright buttons.
He fiddled with the door, opened it, and lifted the Colt-Luger.
Crack. crack.
The young Spazi—I was sure the imposter’s name wasn’t Warbeck, even if I had appreciated his sense of humor—actually fired two shots into the quiltdummy before he looked around. Metal glinted under his watch helmet. His large Colt-Luger swung toward me.
Crack.
I jumped and pulled the trigger on the disassociator, then dropped it. The room went dark, but I hadn’t waited for that, as I had dropped forward and to Warbeck’s right. I could feel him ram into the heavy desk, and his hesitation was enough, even if it took me two quick swings with the truncheon. I had to aim for the temple because I didn’t know how effective the truncheon would be with Gerald’s mesh cap and Warbeck’s regular hat over it.
Still, even in the darkness, I could tell I’d hit him too hard, not that it frankly bothered me much. The Colt thudded to the carpet, but did not discharge again. My effort with the truncheon had been quick enough that there would be no ghost, although the disassociator would have taken care of that detail.
I pulled the flash from the desk drawer and played it across him. He was definitely dead.
After placing those few items I had prepared in Warbeck’s clothes, I used a handkerchief to replace the Colt in the military holster, then wrapped his cooling fingers around the weapon before dragging the body out the door and onto the veranda. I used the handkerchief to put his hat by him, then waited in the shadows. I’ve always been good at waiting. It’s what separates the real professionals from those who just think they are.
It must have been an hour before the two others slipped up the lawn through the trees. One carried a large body bag. I felt like nodding. Instead, I waited until they found the body.
“Shit. Somebody got him first …”
Both lifted their weapons, and that was enough for me. I held down the spring trigger on the disassociator. One collapsed, and the other shrieked. I waited and potted both ghosts with the disassociator, but the second one resisted. The power meter I hadn’t paid enough attention to earlier dropped into the red.
I set aside the disassociator, placed the truncheon in the hands of the collapsed zombie, and took Warbeck’s truncheon. I also thought about taking the metal hair net, thinking I might be needing it myself. Then I decided it would be more valuable on Warbeck. The other zombie looked at me blankly—still somewhat there probably because the disassociator had run out of power.
“There’s been an accident.”
“There’s been an accident,” he repeated.
“Wait here for help.”
“I wait here for help.” He wasn’t quite expressionless in his intonation, but close enough.
I had to hand it to vanBecton. He hadn’t even wanted me as a zombie, and he’d set up Warbeck. Poor Warbeck. He’d just thought he was carrying out a removal. If he succeeded, then I was out of the way, and then he would have been killed trying to escape from my murder.
Waetjen’s own boys had doubtless been told that Warbeck had gone off the deep end and to bring him back in one piece or many, but not to risk their lives. They’d also been told I was dangerous, and armed, and not to be too gentle there, either. Neither vanBecton nor the chief was in favor of my continued presence, although it would have been hard for me to convince any judge or jury of that.
That was the hell of the position I was in. If I’d waited, I’d have been dead. If I weren’t careful, I’d be in jail for murder, because I couldn’t prove, and no one outside the intelligence community would understand, that I was being set up.
My knees were weak. As I walked to the study, I was beginning to understand the difference between being an impartial agent and a directly involved victim. I didn’t like being the targeted victim, nor what it was doing to my nerves.
In the study, by the light of the flash I dialed the watch number and began screaming. Chief Waetjen got on the line.
“Who is this?” he snapped.
“Johan Eschbach! There’s been a terrible fight outside. I think … I don’t know. Get someone up here.”
“There were two men headed there. Have you seen them?”
“There are three men here. One’s dead, one’s unconscious, and the other’s a zombie.”
“Oh …”
“And, Chief, I think the dead one’s an Austro-Hungarian agent.”
“You would now, would you?”
“Well,” I said carefully, “someone has to be. The way I see it, your men tried to stop him from potting a former government minister when he started shooting at me. I probably owe them a lot. So do you.”
After that, I flipped the switch on the difference engine so that it wouldn’t come on when the power returned. Then I went to the closet and reset the circuit breakers. I shivered. Had I destroyed Carolynne as well?
A flash of white by the veranda, a glimpse of the recital dress reassured me. With that, I quickly tucked the disassociator back in the closet, and put the quilt, jacket, and beret away. The sirens echoed from across the river as I flicked through the wireset directory until I found the number. I wished I’d cultivated press contacts in New Bruges, but …
“Post-Courier.”
“News desk, please.”
“Vraal, news.”
“My name is Johan Eschbach. There’s been a murder at my house, and two zombies are walking around the yard. I used to be a government minister under Speaker Michel, but I now teach at Vanderbraak State University in Vanderbraak Centre. The murdered man is an imposter, and the two zombies are local watch officers.”
“We don’t take crank calls, sir.”
“If you look at last year’s Almanac of Columbian Politics, my name and profile are on page two hundred twenty-nine. If you don’t want the story, or if you want it buried, that’s your problem.”
A long pause followed.
“Who did you say you were?”
“I was, and still am, Johan Anders Eschbach. The Vanderbraak Centre watch chief, Hans Waetjen, is headed to my house at the moment.”
“What happened?”
“I heard someone trying to break in. When I went downstairs, someone shot
at me, and there were yells and sounds of a struggle. Then I found the body on the veranda and two zombies standing there. One had a bloody truncheon in his hand. The house is off Deacon’s Lane across the River Wijk from the main part of Vanderbraak Centre. You might find it worth looking into.” While I talked, I found the number for Gelfor Hardin, who edits and prints the Vanderbraak Weekly Chronicle.
“I hope this isn’t another crank call.”
“It is scarcely that, although I must admit that I have little fondness for armed men who shoot at me and bodies appearing behind my house.”
“Why did you call the Courier?”
“The occupational paranoia of government service stays with one for life, I fear. A good news story is often a deterrent.”
“You say that one watch officer tried to break into your house, and he was killed by two others?”
“I don’t know that. That is what it looked like.”
“Why would someone be after you?”
“I don’t know—unless ! I happen to be a handy scapegoat for something.”
“Scapegoat?”
“You might remember the Colonel Nord incident.”
“Oh … you’re that Eschbach?”
“How fleeting fame is.”
“Can we call you back?”
“Yes.” I gave him the number and wired Hardin.
Hardin didn’t answer, but another voice, female, did. “Chronicle services.”
I gave an abbreviated version of the story to the woman, then walked back out on the veranda. By then, Chief Waetjen was standing there with three other officers beside the dead man and the two zombies.
“Who were you wiring?” asked Waetjen.
“The newspapers. I thought they might like the story.”
“You know, Doktor, I could end up not appreciating you very much.”
“I understand.” I bowed slightly. “But you should understand that I don’t like finding bodies outside my house, especially bodies in watch uniforms. It’s bad for my digestion.”
Hans Waetjen wasn’t as smart as he thought, because he’d used sirens and brought three watch officers with him. I was grateful for small favors, since those were the only kind I was likely to get.
He bowed politely. “You understand that my digestion also suffers when I find dead officers and officers who are zombies?”
“I can see that we share many of the same concerns, Chief Waetjen.”
“Could you tell me what happened?”
I gave him the sanitized version of Warbeck’s efforts, concluding with, “I don’t know what Officer Warbeck did, but when the shooting stopped, he was on the veranda, and the two others were just like they are now.”
“Just like this?” He clearly didn’t believe me, and he was certainly correct, but I wasn’t about to oblige him.
“I didn’t check exactly, but I don’t think anything’s changed since I called you.”
“What about before that?”
“I heard the noise at the door. Then all the lights went out—”
“You didn’t mention that.”
“Sorry. They did. I reset the breakers after I called you.”
“How could you see?”
“I have a flash in my desk.” I glanced over my shoulder. “It’s on the corner now—right there.”
“How convenient.”
“No, just practical. I spend most of my time at home in the study or the kitchen. There are flashes in both places. I have a kerosene lamp in the bedroom.”
One of the other three watch officers had set up a floodlight and was taking pictures of the scene on the veranda flagstones.
Another siren wailed, and the ambulance glided up the drive and stopped behind the two watch steamers. I watched and waited until the medics carted off the two zombies with a promise to return for the body shortly.
Chief Waetjen finally turned to me. “I could insist you come in with us, Doktor Eschbach.”
“You could,” I agreed amiably. “But …” I looked at the body on the cold stone and thought of the truncheon with one of the zombies’ fingerprints all over it. “Arresting me for something someone else clearly did wouldn’t look really good. Especially since we both know that Warbeck isn’t Warbeck.”
“He isn’t?” asked one of the officers, who was using some sort of amplified magnifying glass to study the stones around Warbeck’s body.
“No.” I smiled at Waetjen, who tried not to glower at me.
“You think you’re pretty clever, don’t you?”
“No. I don’t. There are people a lot more clever than either one of us, and I suggest we leave the cleverness to them.”
Waetjen paused. Then he turned to the others. “Finish up the standard procedure. Do you have prints, photographs, complete tech search?”
“We’re still working on it.”
“Don’t forget the outside knob on the door there,” I suggested. “It should have Warbeck’s prints all over it. And there are some bullets and bullet holes somewhere in the study.”
Waetjen didn’t say a word, just gestured at the watch officer with the print kit.
The wireset bell rang.
“Excuse me, Chief.”
I edged the door open by the inside of the frame and went inside to pick up the handset.
“Hello.”
“Do you come in, or do we put you in cold storage?” It was Ralston McGuiness’s voice. “Think about your friend, too.”
“This is somewhat … open.”
“Christ, all of Columbia will know something’s up. Your nominal superior downtown will call you in, and you’ll never come out.”
“I’ll come in. But where?”
“Use the bolthole we discussed.” Click.
Trouble wasn’t quite the word. More like disaster, I thought. And what Ralston had in mind wasn’t exactly friendly. Come in or we’ll ensure you never go anywhere, and, if you don’t understand, we’ll take out one Doktor duBoise. That wouldn’t happen immediately, because he’d lose leverage, and he’d want me to think about it, but he’d start with her, and then it would be my mother, Anna, Judith, Eric …
The wireset rang again.
“Hello.”
“This is Garrison vanKleef at the Post-Courier. Is this Doktor Eschbach?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think this incident has anything to do with the Nord incident?”
“I would hope not. The last time I heard, Colonel Nord was reforesting semitropical swamps outside of Eglin. And I don’t have another wife and son to lose.”
“Have the watch arrived yet?”
“Chief Waetjen is standing about fifteen feet from me with three others. He does not look terribly pleased.”
“How does he look?”
“As always, stocky, gray-haired, and not very pleased.”
“Why should we be interested in this?”
“Call it a feeling. You also might try to find out, though, why the dead watch officer was wearing a funny metal mesh skullcap.”
“A funny metal mesh skullcap, you say?”
“Under his watch helmet. I thought I once saw one in the Babbage research center. A rather odd coincidence, I thought, especially after the recent accident that killed the Babbage research director at the University.”
“So do I, Eschbach.” A laugh followed. “You have a body and two zombies there. Any thoughts on why this happened to you?”
“One thing I did learn from all my years in Columbia was that speculations are just that. It’s Chief Waetjen’s job to get to the bottom of the mess.”
“Do you think he will?”
“On or off the record?”
“On, of course.”
“I think the chief will devote a great deal of effort to this investigation, and I trust that he will discover why one of his officers apparently went beyond the call of duty.”
“You spent too much time in Columbia, Eschbach. Good night.”
I walked back outside.
“More press?”
“Of course. Isn’t the press a man’s safeguard?”
“Sometimes. If the feds don’t get there first.” Waetjen snorted.
I understood. The government can’t force retractions, but it can suggest that stories never be printed—if it knows in advance. The press still likes good stories, and they like to scream about direct censorship. It’s a delicate balancing game, and I’d tried to upset the balance.
Neither of the other three watch officers said anything. So I stood and watched while they poked, prodded, and photographed everything. What they didn’t do was take my prints, and that obviously bothered me, because it wasn’t an oversight.
It was well past midnight when the chief left and I locked up the house. After pulling the study drapes closed, I plugged the disassociator into the standard recharging socket, and it seemed to work, just the way Bruce had designed it. That was one reason I liked Bruce. When he built something, it did what it was designed to do.
“These things are beyond all use, and I do fear them.” Carolynne floated in the study doorway.
“I have gotten a similar impression. The question is what I should do about it.”
“Do not go forth today … not go forth today …” Carolynne’s voice seemed faint.
“Do not go forth? What about the people who sent the false watch officer?”
“Graves have yawned and yield up their dead; fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds.”
If she meant that both the ghosts and the powers that be in Columbia were after me, she was right, but having a ghost’s confirmation on that wouldn’t help me in Columbia City. So I began to stack all the materials I would need on the side of the desk.
“When beggars die, there are no comets seen … alas, my lord, your wisdom is consumed in confidence.”
“Probably, but I’m no Caesar. And I can’t fight enemies in the federal city from here. Not any longer.”
“Let me, upon my knee, prevail in this.”
“All right.” I had to laugh. “I probably should leave tonight, but I’m too tired. Besides, if he detained me right now, Chief Waetjen would look as though he were trying to run on foam. He’ll need to go through all the procedures, and that will take a day or two, making sure that I am very visible. Of course, if I disappear, then I will be presumed guilty. But if I don’t I’ll either be charged or killed while resisting arrest.”
Carolynne listened, but she said no more as I gathered together identity documents and copied real and false memoranda and all the supporting materials. I carried the whole mess upstairs.
I packed quickly but carefully, with working clothes on the top of the valise and suits in the hanging bag. The top suit was shiny, hard gray wool, a threadbare and very cheap old suit I had kept around in case I might need it. I had always hoped I wouldn’t, but you always plan for the worst.
Then there was the equipment bag—all the gadgets I’d collected over the years and never turned in. All of us who worked those jobs have such bags. You never know when you might need them again. Some I knew—and I thought Bruce might have been one—did keep firearms they had picked up. You didn’t keep issue weapons, not since they really tallied those. But how could anyone tell if you used eight or eighteen yards of plastique, or an electronics installer’s belt, or tree spikes, or mountain gear?
Mine had a coil of thin plastic, nearly ten yards’ worth. I had two radio detonators, plus a handful of contact detonators. There was the truncheon, plus a complete Federal District watch uniform, including the Colt revolver I’d never used. I’d been undercover back in 1986 when the French president in exile pleaded for Columbian support against Ferdinand, and the federals were afraid that the Jackal’s group might try an assassination. We’d had a tip that they had a plant in the watch. They’d had two, actually, and I’d turned in one’s uniform instead of mine. Larceny, I know, but when dealing with thieves total honesty is suicide.
I looked up, but Carolynne was gone. Even ghosts don’t like being ignored or being thought of as part of the furniture. I sighed, although I wasn’t quite sure why, before pulling out the next item, a set of blue coveralls, almost identical to every electrical installer’s in the country, and very useful for a variety of purposes. I shook the dust off them and packed them in the bag.
After laying everything out, I collapsed into bed, setting the alarm for an hour earlier than normal, wishing I could get more than five hours’ sleep.
But I did sleep, even if I dreamed about ghosts, and iron bars, and driving endlessly on unmarked roads through rain and fog.