CHAPTER 14

Headway

Cal slumped in his desk chair shakily. “Who did the bomb kill?” he asked, his voice suddenly hoarse.

“I don’t know,” said Michelle. Even on Vincent’s small screen, her agitation was obvious.

“Let me put you on hold for just a minute. I’ve got to see if Nikki’s all right.” To Vincent, Cal said, “Call her. Right away.”

“There’s no answer,” Vincent said several seconds later. “I don’t know if she’s just not answering or what.”

“Keep trying, damn it.”

“Will do.”

Cal’s fist clenched tightly as he wondered who had been killed in his office. Please don’t let it be Nikki. Anyone but her.

The office was uncomfortably hot. The sweat beaded on Cal’s forehead.

“I’m going over there,” he said suddenly, rising.

“Wait a minute,” said Vincent. “She just answered.”

“Thank God you’re all right,” Cal said explosively when he saw Nikki’s image.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “What’s happened?”

“I don’t know who it was yet, but someone was just killed by a bomb going off in my office on Daedalus.”

“Oh, God.”

“Nikki, there’s nothing I can do here. I’m going over there. Please be careful, whatever you do. I’ll let you know as soon as I know anything more.”

“You’re sure it’s safe to go?”

“It seems like right after an accident is the best time to do anything. Why am I saying accident? Just be careful, okay?”

“Okay.”

Michelle was listening to an earphone when she came back on the screen. She waited a moment longer before she said, “Someone in the hall thought he saw a man enter your office just before it blew. That’s all they know so far. They haven’t been able to get to the body yet.”

“I’ve got to go over there.”

She nodded and said, “I’ll meet you there.”

Cal had forgotten about Leroy. As he passed the man’s office, he remembered. “How about some other time?” he asked curtly.

“Fine,” said Leroy, a surprised expression on his face.

Cal hurried down the hall, worried, wondering who might have been killed in his office. And why. Maybe it was someone trying to place an explosive in the office. A faltering hand, a wire touching something it shouldn’t.

When he arrived, the area around the building was cordoned off. An acrid smell hung in the air. The bomb had somehow triggered a small fire. He was allowed into the lobby, but not into the office hallway. Michelle was there, with more reporters and a few people who seemed to be occupants of other offices in the building.

“What the hell’s going on?” asked a tall, nervous man Cal didn’t remember. He gripped Cal’s arm.

“I don’t know. I’m as puzzled as you are.” Cal freed himself and joined Michelle.

“No more information yet, obviously,” she said. She seemed nervous too. “A couple of people in nearby offices were treated for minor injuries, but no one was seriously hurt except the man they think was in your office.”

Cal looked down the hall. A couple of paramedics stood near the edge of the activity. Several people with bulky white suits struggled with sections of the ceiling that had collapsed in spots. Apparently they were trying to reach his office through one of its walls, rather than through the pile of rubble near the door.

Cal felt a bitter taste in his mouth. He shook himself. It could so easily have been him as the focal point of the cleanup crew.

He and Michelle waited for another twenty minutes before the crew was able to clear enough rubble so they could reach the office. Shortly thereafter two paramedics went in and then came back out with a body on a stretcher.

Cal stopped them on the way out. “This was my office. I’ve got to know who was killed.”

One of the two glanced at the other and received a nod. They put the body down. Cal pulled down the sheet, uncovering the bloody head of the victim.

“Oh, God,” Cal said quietly. His stomach twisted. “It’s my boss. Tom Horvath.”

As Cal looked at the dead man whose only sin was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, another mass of memories stirred in the depths, rising on a new current to tell Cal, too late, the dead man had been a friend. Not just a good friend, but a deep, firm friend. Cal wished the memories hadn’t returned, and that Tom were still alive. It was too high a price to pay.

Even after they covered Horvath’s bloody face, Cal could still see him. And he saw something more. He saw Tom staying up all night with Cal and Nikki, talking with them, consoling them, trying sometimes unsuccessfully to contain his own grief. Tom had almost seen Lynn as his own daughter.

A hand on Cal’s shoulder brought him back out of it, and he realized that he was crying, shaking uncontrollably.

“Are you all right?” Michelle asked.

“I’ll be okay, I guess,” Cal said a moment later. “I just didn’t realize how good a friend I had here, and now he’s gone, because of me.”

“What do you mean, ‘because of me’?” asked a male voice from behind Cal.

Cal turned to face Lt. Dobson, the policeman who had questioned him the morning before. “I mean it was my office,” he said, trying to regain his composure. “Tom’s dead because someone was angry enough with me to put a bomb in my office.”

“How about if we step into one of these other offices and talk for a few minutes?” asked the policeman.

“Whatever you want,” Cal said resignedly. “I’ll see you soon, Michelle.”

The nearest office was unoccupied, so they went in, and Dobson shut the door. “Well, now,” he said, getting settled. “What have you done to get someone this angry with you?”

“I honestly don’t know,” said Cal, looking at his hands in his lap.

“Do you think Horvath himself was the intended victim?”

“In my office? It doesn’t seem likely.”

“People can be killed anywhere. No one needs to feel guilty just because the victim happened to be near them or on their property.”

“I hear what you’re saying,” Cal said, looking back up at the policeman and feeling that the man’s eyes were softer now than they had been yesterday. “But I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt Tom Horvath. You couldn’t find a more thoughtful or gentle man.”

“So you were good friends?”

“The best. I’ve got to talk to his wife Dorothy, to tell her what’s happened.”

Lt. Dobson looked into Cal’s eyes for a long moment, perhaps seeing the pain Cal felt. “Who do you think might have done this?”

Cal could have told him Fargo Edmund did, but Edmund was dead, and that would require Cal to tell the rest of the story, and that led to much longer sessions with lots of more painful questions, so he simply said, “I don’t know. I don’t know anyone angry enough with me to do something like this. I don’t even know anyone irritated enough to track dirt into my office.”

“Obviously someone is a little more upset than that. Assuming this was deliberate. And I can’t imagine this was an accident. Explosives are just about at the top of the list of items you don’t want to be found guilty of possessing.”

Cal hadn’t really thought about it before, but he realized now that explosives on Daedalus would cause much more interest than on Earth. On Earth your neighbor could destroy his entire house and property and maybe not cause any permanent damage to you. With possession of explosives, Edmund had taken an even bigger risk than Cal had realized.

Dobson continued questioning Cal for several minutes before concluding with a request. “If you learn anything that explains why someone might have done this, I want you to call me.” He rose, and looked steadily at Cal to give emphasis to his words. “It doesn’t matter what time it is. Call me.”

Cal agreed. They left the office and went back to the lobby. A cleanup crew was busy stripping blackened wall sections off their mountings.

“Let’s get out of here,” Cal said to Michelle. “This air is giving me a headache.”

Outside, it was almost as though nothing had happened. The damages were invisible, the sun shone brightly, and the air was fresh.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Michelle said. “You didn’t remember anything about him until just now?”

“No. I saw him on the phone earlier, but it wasn’t until I saw him dead that something clicked inside. Maybe pathways that link emotional responses in my brain are somehow in better shape than straight chronological or associational links.”

“Do you remember anything that might help us figure out who’s responsible?”

“I don’t think so. I remember Nikki better now, and Lynn, and obviously Tom. But I don’t see anything more.”

“I learned some more today, if you want to hear it.”

“Go ahead,” Cal said.

“I had turned in an information search on travel authorizations. The report came back just a little while ago. Tolbor hasn’t been on Earth in ten years. The closest he’s been was an orbital inspection after the disaster. So he couldn’t have been there prior to the disaster.”

“So. That’s just one more piece of confirmation. I hope I haven’t wasted too much time on him while the real criminal is loose. What does all this do to your motivation? I had the feeling that you lost someone special down there, and that was part of the reason you agreed to help.”

“I’m still helping. Maybe you were wrong about the disaster. But someone is definitely up to something. You need help, and I like you.”

“Thanks, Michelle. I guess I’ve said that a lot lately. So I lose one good friend and gain another.”

“I wish I could bring Tom back.”

Cal reached over to squeeze her arm. “I’ve got to tell Nikki about Tom. And warn her to be even more careful. I’ll talk to you as soon as I’ve got any more ideas.”

“Right.”

Cal went to the clinic. He couldn’t give Nikki news like that any other way. She came out shortly after an associate took in a note. They went into an empty waiting room.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, obviously reading Cal’s expression.

Cal told her straight out, knowing that delaying the news would just make it worse. “It’s Tom Horvath. He’s dead.”

Nikki began to cry. Cal pulled her to him and stroked the hair at the back of her neck, letting her cry. Finally she asked, “What happened?”

“The explosion in my office. He’d said something on the phone about bringing me a plant.”

Nikki stiffened and pushed herself back so she could see Cal’s eyes. He was positive her look was accusing.

“Damn it all,” he said. “I’m sorry. Don’t you think it hurts me too? But what could I have done? Warn anyone who might come in contact with me to stay at least a hundred meters away from me, or my property, or anywhere I might go?”

“I didn’t say that. I’m worried about you.”

Cal stood silent, looking into her eyes. “God, I’m good with guilt,” he said finally. “It’s amazing I don’t feel personally responsible for the human condition. I’m sorry, Nikki.”

“It’s all right,” she said quietly. “I haven’t made it much easier.”

“I don’t blame you for not trusting me, for thinking I might be seeing another woman.”

Nikki looked at him quizzically.

“Seeing Tom lying there dead was a jolt in more ways than one. It also jarred some more of my memories loose. Before I saw him, I didn’t remember the time the four of us went to Luna. Or a lot of other things. I’m still not in a position to tell you for sure what happened, but I know I wasn’t having an affair. I think maybe I was acting as a spy for the police. On who, or why, I don’t know.”

Nikki looked at him without speaking.

“Well,” he said. “What do you think about all of this?”

“I’m beginning to think the man I married is still buried deep in you.”

“Go on.” Cal smiled, finding uncomfortably that he could feel something good despite Tom’s death.

“Just don’t press too hard right now. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I hate to break things up,” said Vincent. “But you’ve got a call coming in.”

“Does that thing get jealous?” asked Nikki. “Or am I paranoid, too?”

“Nobody says thanks anymore,” said Vincent.

Cal gave Nikki an amused glance, released her, and said, “Let’s have it, Vincent.”

“Mr. Donley?” said a man who looked familiar but still didn’t register.

“Go ahead.”

“I’ve got the information you requested the day before yesterday. The payments from your account went to a Mr. Jerry Lopez. Do you want the address?”

“No, thanks.” Cal stifled a wry grin. “The name is enough.”

The clerk hung up, and Cal explained to Nikki that Lopez was the analyst. Nikki grinned.

Cal began to feel guilty that he felt good about making progress with Nikki while Tom lay dead, and he caught himself.

He was about to speak, but Vincent said, “Another message came in. It’s text, and you might want to be alone when you read it.”

“I don’t have secrets from Nikki—any longer. Read it.”

“It says, ‘Horvath died instead of you. Stay home or someone else might die, too. Like your wife.’”

Cal couldn’t say anything for a moment. He took several deep breaths. His eyes probably reflected the shock he saw in Nikki’s. He sat down and motioned for Nikki to do the same.

“I’d like you to do something for me,” Cal said slowly. “I think you’d be a lot safer if you—”

“Don’t even start to say anything like that,” Nikki broke in. “I’m not running out to leave you by yourself to handle this.”

“Isn’t there someplace you could go, for just a few days—”

“You’re not listening.”

Cal saw the determination in her eyes, knowing she could be just as stubborn as he could. He wondered fleetingly if his attraction to Michelle was based on her similarity to Nikki. He began to say something more and just stopped.

“Yes, I’ll be careful,” Nikki said, responding to the unspoken request. “And I’ll expect you to be, too.”

Cal quietly accepted the inevitable. “One of us should talk to Dorothy before she hears about Tom from the police.”

“I’ll do it,” she said. “You’ve gone through enough already.”

“Thanks.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I guess I’ll give someone a call about going out for a drink.”

“Not Michelle?”

“No.” Cal explained about Leroy Krantz and wanting to know if his wristcomp showed any image defects.

“Why don’t you call him before you leave?” Nikki asked. “That way I’ll know your plan.”

Cal did so. Unfortunately, Leroy was still at his desk, so Cal learned nothing except that Leroy looked shocked when he told him Tom Horvath was dead, and he agreed that a drink together to lament Cal’s boss would be okay. They settled on a restaurant on Daedalus in an hour. Cal hung up.

“So,” said Nikki. “That gives you a guaranteed opportunity to catch him while he’s got only his wristcomp to communicate with?”

“Exactly.” Cal was still getting used to her perceptiveness and speed. “I passed by that place today. It’s being redecorated. So I can call him to change locations.”

“If you’re not a spy, maybe you ought to be,” Nikki said, and grinned.

“As a matter of fact, that’s still the only explanation I can see for some of the things I’ve found out. If it was for the police, I can’t say who I was spying on, or why they haven’t contacted me, but it seems most likely that’s what I was doing with some of my off hours.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I just wish there was some way to delay the Vittoria.”

“Which implies there isn’t.”

“No,” Cal said. “The time window they plan to use is pretty narrow. They want just the right trajectory while they’re still in the solar system. Besides, who would listen to me? I don’t really know anything.”

Nikki began to pace. “We’ve got to do something.”

“We will. Why don’t you go see Dorothy?”

“While you—”

“While I try to figure out what to do next.”

Nikki nodded and started for the door. Halfway there she halted and turned. A few quick steps brought her back facing Cal, and she leaned down to give him a brief kiss on the cheek.

Cal didn’t know what to say. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to expect anything. Nikki drew back, winked at him, and left.

Cal was still sitting there several minutes later when he remembered his surroundings. “Vincent,” he said. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever been able to figure women out.”

“I’m probably not far behind you.”

“You’re saying I’m slow?” Cal asked, rising.

“I mean I don’t see much difference between men and women. It seems to me that it’s you who want to assign differences.”

“You think you’re any closer to the truth than the computer that decided ashtrays caused cancer?”

“No matter. You pay me to do the books and make telephone calls. Those I can understand.”

“Okay. Let’s talk to Michelle.”

“Is that the royal ‘we,’ the editorial ‘we,’ or the literal ‘we’?”

“I want to talk to her.”

A moment later Michelle’s face filled the screen.

“Anything new?” Cal asked.

“Nothing worth calling about yet. The building records show a maintenance call to your office yesterday. It could well have been Edmund, but there’s no way to tell.”

“That was fast.” Cal thanked her for the information and hung up.

Cal left the clinic. He had already decided on Galentine’s as the place to meet, but he soon realized that he had more than enough time to get there, so he detoured by his office.

The cleanup crew was still at work removing debris. The three interior walls had been cleared away, leaving a large pile of rubble where his office had been and two smaller concentrations in the neighboring offices. Cal assumed that by now the forensic experts would have come and gone.

He must have been right, for no one challenged him as he approached the office. He wrinkled his nose at the odor of melted plastic. The almost overwhelming feeling of sadness returned as he saw dark stains on the floor. He was aware, too, of the anger that had been building.

As far as he knew, he had never been one to settle issues physically, but, right at that moment, he strongly wished he had the person responsible right there in what was left of the office, walking on Tom’s blood. Maybe slamming him into one of the remaining walls to get his attention would be a good start.

Cal forced away the thoughts, trying to look at the area objectively. It was a struggle.

Near a heap of melted plastic in the corner, he found a small green pulp that was barely recognizable as part of a plant.

The desk wasn’t in the room. Or, more precisely, the desk as a whole object wasn’t. The explosive must have been inside it. Twisted metal pieces in the pile must have come from the desk.

In the corner lay the remains of Cal’s swivel chair. Maybe its rollers had allowed it to move with the tide of violently expanding gas and metal fragments until it collided with the wall.

Cal moved to examine the chair. After a moment he found attached to one of the legs a short segment of wire. That would have been the trigger.

Anger flared within him again as he thought back to the wire in his Vittoria office. So Edmund, or whoever had done this, hadn’t set up anything so sophisticated that it was guaranteed to blow only when Cal himself was there. Anyone at all could have set it off. Except that Tom was not just anyone.

Cal felt sick to his stomach.

The cleanup crew came back for another load, so he moved out of their way momentarily.

Once they were on their way again, he poked through the remaining pile, but had found nothing by the time Vincent told him he had a call.

“Just a minute,” said Cal. He found a nearby empty office and closed the door. He avoided the chair.

It was Michelle. “You were right,” she said.

“Right about what? I’ve been wrong so many times lately, that should narrow down the possibilities, but I can’t guess which one you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about Domingo. Another database search I requested turned up something. Fourteen years ago the name Angelo Gabriel Domingo was on a list of rookies. Police rookies.”

“You’re saying that swapping his first and middle name was all it took to obscure the record?”

“I don’t know if that’s all he did. But you’ve got to remember that fourteen years ago there were a lot more Domingos and Smiths. He’s the same man. There was a class picture in the files.”

“And it’s him?”

“Right. So the odds that he was still in the police, but undercover, have to be enormous.”

“Thanks, Michelle. You—”

“Another call,” said Vincent.

“Anything else, Michelle?”

She said no, so Cal thanked her and answered the other call. It was Nikki.

“I’m with Dorothy. She’s taken a sedative, so I can talk for a few minutes. I didn’t intend to ask her anything about you, but I did anyway.”

“And?”

“And there wasn’t much. But she did say that Tom was worried about you. It seems you had a talk with him, saying you might need to be out of your office occasionally. He was naturally curious, but you wouldn’t tell him why. You just asked for him not to tell anyone else.”

“But Dorothy didn’t know any more than that?”

“No. Tom told her he tried to find out more and couldn’t. In the end he decided the only thing he could do was just trust that you knew what you were doing, and you’d explain it to him eventually.”

“I hope I don’t die without knowing, too.”

“What?” Nikki asked sharply.

“I said I hope I find out soon.”

Nikki hesitated before she said, “I thought you were striving for more honesty lately.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just worried about all of this. Do you think Dorothy will be okay?”

“I think so. I’ll ask someone from the clinic to check in with her frequently.”

“Thanks for breaking the news to her. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”

“I was just lucky she hadn’t had the news on and heard about it before I got here. And that I made it ahead of the police.”

Cal said good-bye. The crew was still at work in the hallway as he left the building. He had planned on going directly to Galentine’s, but decided to be cautious and go instead to the place he had mentioned to Leroy. Fortunately, they were close to each other.

A few minutes later he stood in front of Angie’s, the bar he had named. “You’re still recording video, right, Vincent?” he asked.

“On target.”

“Then put a call in to Leroy Krantz.”

Cal was in luck. Judging by the background view, Leroy was in the shuttle on the way over. The view appeared to be from lower than his head, off to one side. He had to be using his wristcomp.

“How about if we make it another place?” Cal asked. “Angie’s is closed.”

“Okay. Where?”

“Galentine’s is close to here. You know it?”

“Sure. I’ll see you there.”

Cal hung up. He hadn’t been able to tell if the video defect he sought was present or not during the call. “Did you see anything?” he asked Vincent.

“You mean image defects?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, but they’re not in the same place.”

Cal didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. He hurried to Galentine’s and found an empty booth. “Okay. Show me one of the frames.”

Obediently Vincent brought up a picture of Leroy. His nose looked more hawklike from this angle. “I’m coloring the defective section red and enlarging it.”

Cal saw the red in the bottom half of the image. The dots in the picture of himself that he had found had been at the top. The bad section continued to grow until Cal could see that there were three significant dropouts in the picture. Three black dots.

“They look a lot like the ones in the other picture except for location,” Cal said. And then he knew the answer. “It was Leroy. If he’d had his arm down at his side when he took the picture of me, the bad section of image would have been swapped top for bottom. Retrieve the first picture, turn it upside down, and do a comparison.” Cal held his breath.

An instant later Vincent said, “Perfect match.”