Fearful Symmetries

In the end Nohar decided that he had little choice but to trust Gilbertez enough to tell him. It was galling telling this all to a pink, and a pink cop at that. But, at the moment, Gilbertez was the only angle he had for getting on top of this situation. Nohar gave the cop a sanitized version of what had happened—he left out the names, and avoided telling him where Manuel and the others were supposed to be hiding out.

Gilbertez let him talk, even though silence seemed out of character for him. He flipped open his comm and typed notes as Nohar spoke. Nohar had spent an hour telling Gilbertez everything he felt he could.

Afterward, Gilbertez stared at the comm and nodded to himself. “Well, what do you know now? Your story had an advantage over the Feds’—over most of the stories I hear in here—it fits the facts. That’s good. Though you do sound like every other conspiracy-mongering nonhuman I’ve ever heard. Really too bad that you didn’t get a chance to copy that database you sneaked into.” Gilbertez gave him a knowing look, as if he knew that was one of the few points where Nohar had lied. “I’d like to see this ramcard you say started all this bullshit.”

“If you don’t tell me where these people are hiding out, it sort of limits my options here. I mean I got a suspect the Fed wants, and a wild shaggy-dog story about one of the most respected charity organizations dealing with nonhumans. I got to have more than just that if I’m going to do anything with this. Now I don’t want to hand you over to these Fed guys, especially if they aren’t FBI, but I gotta have something a little solid.”

“I know, I know. I am trying to work with you. Something sour’s going on here—not that I necessarily believe your doomsday scenario—and I’d like to know what these Fed guys are up to. I need something more than your story, though.”

“Where the fuck are you?” Bobby said as his image came into focus on the screen. He was sitting in a darkened room, and what was left of his hair was mussed and pointing out at odd angles.

From behind the comm Gilbertez shook his head. Nohar guessed that Gilbertez’s comm wasn’t quite explicit when it came to identifying itself. “I need that information.”

“Christ, you know what time it is over here?” Bobby reached off-screen for his glasses and a handheld computer. Bobby flipped open the small device, and Nohar could see a soft-green display reflected in his glasses. “Again, you got me wondering what you’re mixed up in.”

“—don’t want to know, right.” He glanced up from the little computer and at the comm he was talking into. “You know that comm you’re on isn’t secure?”

Bobby looked down at the handheld computer again. “We have a burst of net activity surrounding The Necron Avenger about six days ago. This wasn’t some kid with his first computer either. Someone with access to a super-computer was looking for him. There’re traces of this search everywhere on the net, and it all happened within the same five-minute period.”

“We traced it as far back as a Fed node on the net, a naval gateway we can’t get past. Whoever did the search did it through the Long Beach Naval Station.”

Bobby shook his head. “All this means is that was the point they accessed the civilian part of the net. The search could have started anywhere in the Fed’s net. Hell, it could have even originated outside the Fed net—they could have entered through some other gateway entirely, and have it routed through Long Beach. The fact is just that we can’t backtrack it past there.”

As Gilbertez looked on, Bobby gave Nohar a rundown on the Bensheim Foundation. All the time Dr. Bensheim was alive it had been run by an independent board based in Geneva. After the founder’s death, there was an internal struggle between the various arms of the organization and the board, ending with a multiple schism of the original Foundation. It split along international lines, so the Geneva Board still ran the Bensheim Foundation in Europe, but there were different Bensheim Foundations in the Far East, Africa, and in North America.

The Bensheim Foundation in North America struggled along by itself, near bankruptcy, for a couple of years until a corporate white knight came along to bail it out.

“Probably because of the congressional hearings back in ’62 over alleged government control of a company called VanDyne Enterprises. All of it had to do with aliens, corporate shell games, captured extraterrestrial technology, and the habitat on Alcatraz.”

“VanDyne was a Race front. The Fed took it over through Pacific Imports. Pacific Imports is an open secret, most likely run by the CIA.”

“Didn’t say that. Pacific Imports could have funneled money from just about any covert arm of the Fed. And there was no other record of any involvement with the Bensheim Foundation. As far as I could discover, the Bensheim Foundation is still an independent entity. Their headquarters happen to be in LA, Pasadena.”

Nohar’s talk with Bobby helped convince Gilbertez that there was something to Nohar’s story. Even so, Nohar didn’t feel good about it. The last thing he wanted was a confirmation that it was the Fed that was engineering what he had seen in the Bensheim database.

Gilbertez took him back to a holding cell. As they walked through the station, emptier now that it was on the night shift, Gilbertez talked nonstop. “You might have something here. I don’t know, but I got to check some things out myself. But if this does pan out, you have to take me to these people who’re sitting on this evidence you keep talking about. In the meantime you should think about whether or not I’m your friend. From your story you have reason to be paranoid, but I think that just means you really want me on your case rather than these Feds who’re waiting for me to turn you over.”

Gilbertez opened the cell for him and removed Nohar’s cuffs. Nohar rubbed his wrists as Gilbertez said, “Think about it.”

The door shut, leaving Nohar in the same cell with only a concrete bench. As Gilbertez asked, Nohar thought about it. He couldn’t decide if he was for real, or just a clever Fed plant trying to get the only real information Nohar had, the location of Manuel and the others. The location of the ramcards.

Even if he was legit, Nohar had no illusions about any local agency standing up to the Fed on any level. Gilbertez might get everything, but that didn’t mean he’d be able to do anything. Publicity was still their only hope. When the Fed no longer had a secret to protect, they might be safe.

Nohar lay down on the concrete floor of the holding cell. It was the only place he could rest, and even there he couldn’t recline fully. He needed to get the ramcards—the ones he sent to Culver City—into the hands of a reporter. As far as he knew, even if Gilbertez was a Fed agent, no one knew that the database ramcard existed.

All he needed was to contact a reporter on the outside, get one to pick up the ramcards. The database spoke for itself, loudly enough that the pink news would pick it up. The fact that the CIA—or whoever—was using biological warfare agents domestically, for whatever reason, would set off the alarms. It would remind people too much of what had happened in Africa.

Nohar closed his eyes and tried to sleep. He dreamed of his mother again. This time she wasn’t dying from Pakistani-engineered feline leukemia—this time the Fed had injected her with Ebola Niger.

Gilbertez didn’t return until early the next morning. Nohar only knew the time from the sense of activity beyond the holding cell door. Gilbertez was accompanied by a uniformed cop, and he looked as if he hadn’t had any sleep. He tossed a pair of cuffs on the floor next to Nohar.

Nohar looked up at Gilbertez and tried to get some clue as to what he was feeling. It wasn’t hard to pick up the scent of fear. Something had really disturbed him. The uniformed cop was wary, but Gilbertez was really scared.

“Somehow they got a judge. Someone’s walking downstairs with transfer orders for you. We have to be on our way before those Fed agents show up, or I’ll have to hand you over.” Gilbertez glanced at the watch on his wrist for emphasis. “We don’t have much time. If we don’t get a case put together fast, you’re going to disappear into the Federal machinery. You don’t want that to happen while you’re still an accused terrorist.”

Nohar put the cuffs on his wrists as loosely as their size would allow. “And him?” Nohar gestured to the uniformed cop with both hands.

“A concession to regulations. Suspects are escorted by at least two police officers. This has to be by the book, or anything that gets turned up’ll be tainted. You don’t need to worry about Ortega. I know his uncle.”

The uniform nodded, but the set of his expression did not inspire much trust in Nohar. He couldn’t help feeling as if this whole situation was some sort of setup.

Gilbertez and Ortega hustled him out of the holding cell and took him past the elevators and toward the fire stairs. They certainly gave the impression that they were sneaking out. Nohar kept an eye out for security cameras, and didn’t know whether to be reassured or dismayed by the fact that all the cameras they passed were inactive or pointing the wrong way.

They led him up the fire stairs to the rooftop parking area. In the rear, past the banks of black-and-white aircars, was an unmarked Plymouth Pegasus. Its sleek lines were at odds with the forced aerodynamics of the cop cars. The police cars were heavy-duty bubbles, where the Pegasus was a cream-colored arrowhead.

Hackles rose on Nohar’s neck as they approached the car. A car like the Pegasus was out of line for someone on a detective’s salary. That meant someone had provided the car. Nohar didn’t think the LAPD was in the habit of handing out sports cars as unmarked vehicles. He could see Beverly Hills detectives tooling around in a Pegasus; a Pasadena cop, no.

But Gilbertez pulled out a remote, pressed his thumb into the sensor, and the gull-wing doors swung open to accommodate them.

“Nohar better sit up front, more room there. You get in back, Ortega.” Ortega glanced at Nohar, and again his expression was less than reassuring.

Nohar slid into the passenger seat in front of Ortega, and he couldn’t help thinking that it gave the cop a perfect shot at the back of his head as he wedged himself in the tiny space in the front of the Pegasus.

Gilbertez slid into the driver’s seat and fired up the fans, and the Pegasus sluggishly rose. It was obviously overloaded with Nohar in it, and Nohar tried to avoid looking down as Gilbertez slid away from the garage and out over Pasadena.

The way tension was rolling off of Gilbertez, Nohar almost expected a troop of Fed agents to run out on the roof and attempt to shoot them out of the sky.

The Pegasus climbed, and Nohar watched the headsup display, a green vector map of the airspace corridors. A few lines in the display were a warning orange because the Pegasus was hugging the bottom of its legal flying space.

Strangely, Gilbertez was quiet through the whole ascent. It seemed unnatural to Nohar—the man seemed to run on nervous energy.

“Huh?” Gilbertez slid the Pegasus into the civilian air corridor above Pasadena. The Hollywood sign slid by the passenger window as the aircar turned for an approach on downtown Los Angeles.

You’re lying. Nohar could feel it. He wanted to look back at Ortega himself, but there was no way he could move his head in the small space provided by the Pegasus. I bet you don’t have any clue who Ortega’s uncle is.