Soft Targets

  Soft Targets

  Dean Ing

  For my parents

  SOFT TARGETS

  Copyright © 1979 by Dean Ing.

  ". . . I found fear a mean, overrated motive; no deterrent and, though a stimulant, a poisonous stimulant whose every injection served to con­sume more of the system ..."

  —T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom

  FRIDAY, 19 SEPTEMBER, 1980:

  Still naked and sleep-fogged after his morning coffee, the wire-muscled little man retrieved his attaché case from his pillowslip and placed it with reverence on the apartment's sleazy table. He touched the case in a necessary spot, then traded regal glances with Elizabeth II of England, whose likeness faced him from predom­inantly brown engravings. As an eye-opener, he reflected, caffeine was no match for cash.

  The twenty-five thousand was in hundreds, all Canadian money. There would be more soon, if his sources were sufficiently pleased with his Buffalo broadcast of the previous night. Next to the money was his Hewlett-Packard hand cal­culator; American, modified in France. His German passport, tucked into a flap, had been faked in Italy. The Spanish automatic with its armpit holster took up most of the remaining space; he had obtained the piece in Quebec while killing time—among other things. He flicked his great dark eyes to the note pad flank­ing his passport, deciphering his personal shorthand which was by Arabic out of Gregg. Altogether, he thought contentedly, a cosmo­politan survival kit.

  He grasped the little HP calculator and queried it. 9:37 A FRI, the alphanumeric display read. He could easily have programmed it to add, 19 SEP 80 TORONTO; or perhaps 6 DAYS TO BORDER. Even among HP units, it was a very special gadget. He winked—a signal Americans usually misread as harmless duplicity—at the stacks of Elizabeths, closed the case, and stood. There would be time for calisthenics before mak­ing the buy.

  He began with simple hand and foot exercises, progressed to ritual defensive maneuvers, then dervished through a repertoire of offensive moves, breathing easily in marvelous silence as he negotiated the furniture. No surplus flesh masked the tendons that slid just beneath the skin. The knee was solid again, so he covertly eyed the pencil mark he had made chin-high on the door moulding. He took one bare-footed step as if to flee but rebounded, the other leg sweep­ing up flexed, then extended in a vicious slant­ing blur.

  The ball of the foot gently swept within cen­timeters of his target, then thrust away. He landed quietly and rolled, to freeze into a crouch, mouth open to quiet his breathing. His weaknesses in martial arts were philosophical ones. He knew few peers in the prime requisites for unarmed combat: speed, silence, ferocity.

  Not once had he made enough noise to excite comment from the next apartment. He was pleased with himself but he was not smiling. In his apparatus of deceit, the smile was a favored tool. He essayed two more flying side kicks, test­ing his eyes, his precision, his right shin's peroneus longus muscle that really made the move so murderous, and stopped only because of a creaky board in the floor. Satisfied, he ta­pered off with mild arm and leg flexures before his shower. The cold water sent blades of pain twisting up his limbs. Now he smiled, and turned the water on full force.

  His scrub disturbed the flexible cobbler's ce­ment on his fingertips and he applied a fresh coating. When dry, its sheen was unseen as it filled the tiny whorls of flesh. Now his touch was anonymous, matching the prosthetic tip of his left small finger.

  He dressed quickly, choosing the ice-blue silk dress shirt and the deeper blue conservative jacket above dove-gray trousers. He shrugged into the harness, placed his piece carefully in the holster against spring pressure, and decided he would have time to find chemicals at supply houses enroute to the big buy. He flipped through the thick yellow-page Toronto direc­tory, made several notations, and checked the window telltales. Then, taking the attache case, he paused to emplace a telltale on the bottom door hinge before sliding out to the hall.

  The garage attendant wheeled his rented Toyota to him, proof that no unfriendly hands had dallied under the car. Then he drove down Bathurst on his shopping foray. At the paint store, paying for the aluminum powder, he asked to use a telephone.

  A young woman's voice tinned through the earpiece, "Salon du Nord," making it sound like a beauty parlor.

  "Monsieur Pelletier, s'il vous plait," he replied. His accent gave away less in French than in English. There were advantages to operating in a bilingual country.

  Pelletier was in, Pelletier was oozing charm. Pelletier had the stuff. "But of course," he said, "packaged as you requested, Mr. Trnka."

  "Quality assurance tests?"

  "Of course. I believe your appointment was this morning."

  "Precisely," said the little man, pronouncing his favorite English word. Though fluent in En­glish, he had chosen the name 'Trnka' because so few people could say whether his accent was truly Czech. Once he had preferred the Turkish 'Jemil,' but no longer. Turkish was too close. He reaffirmed the appointment and minutes later drove into an area of new light industry.

  Salon du Nord occupied half of a two-story building. Its logo phrase, "Electronique—Recherche et Perfectionnement" had its English equivalent below: "Electronic R & D." He had dealt with the firm only through an intermediary, but Pelletier was known as a useful source.

  He was immediately shown to Pelletier's of­fice. Pelletier was short, scarcely taller than his visitor but heavier by a good twenty kilos, all smiles and reeking of bonhomie. 'Trnka' smiled, detesting him on sight. "I trust you're enjoying your stay in Toronto, Mr. Trnka," Pelletier be­gan.

  "Very much; but I am pressed for time," the little man replied, placing the attache case in his lap.

  Pelletier sighed. "Of course." His soft hands reached into his desk, reappeared with a plastic belt. Aligned like cartridges along the belt were twenty black oblongs, somewhat more slender than dominoes. "Unusual packaging," Pelletier said, offering the belt. "But, ah, very practical." Again the smile like an oil slick, bright and wide. And thin.

  The visitor nodded and detached one of the black oblongs. The tiny microprocessor boasted eighteen gold-plated prongs down its length on each side, giving it the look of a centipede by Mondrian. "Certified for all functions, you say," he prompted.

  "Yes indeed. But there's an exceedingly smart little computer in each one, Mr. Trnka. We can't test every one for every function although I per­sonally supervised random sampling of the entire lot."

  "Random? You are telling me that most of the microprocessors are untested," the visitor replied softly.

  "On such short notice, and for such a price . . ." Pelletier displayed his palms.

  "Fortunately," said 'Trnka,' "I can test them myself." He took the HP unit from his case, withdrew a tiny circuit board with a flimsy cable and IC socket. Pelletier gaped in silence as the HP, the test circuit board, and the microproces­sor were assembled. Lastly, `Trnka' energized the HP and fed it a slender tongue of ferrite tape. They watched the alphanumeric display flicker for perhaps twenty seconds.

  Pelletier smiled engagingly. "Forgive my curiosity," he wheedled. "It occurred to me that your circuitry could have—unusual applica­tions."

  "Games," was the reply. "We hope to give the Atari people a rude shock."

  "I see," said Pelletier, unconvinced. "Something like war games." He flinched at the re­sponding glance. It softened in a flash, but for one harrowing instant Pelletier felt that he gazed into the eyes of a Comanche warrior.

  At length the HP display stabilized on CONFORME. Silently, `Trnka' substituted another microprocessor. "Sixty-three seconds," he said to the restive Pelletier. "It would have taken you just twenty-one minutes to run exhaustive func­tion checks on this group." He was not pleased.

  "Mr. Trnka, it will take you seven hours to check
them all. May I suggest you simply return any you find faulty?"

  "Like this one?" The HP display read OP AMP X.

  "It is not easy or conventional to include that operational amplifier in a unit of that size," Pel­letier reminded.

  He was answered by a grunt. The faulty cen­tipede was pocketed while another took its place. Pelletier fidgeted as two more microprocessors were tucked away. At last the belt was reassembled with its seventeen conforming units. `Trnka' snorted softly. "It will be neces­sary to use your telephone."

  Pelletier indicated his desk phone and wad­dled out to give the illusion of privacy. `Trnka' was certain his call would be recorded. He had no other reason for the call.

  He reached McEvoy with the phone's third buzz. Mr. Trnka was unavoidably detained. No, nothing serious. Yes, he was still interested but must delay his trip a few days. Still, they might meet today as planned. Two o'clock? Fine; Slip Three.

  Pelletier, in his photoreduction lab, listened to the call while querying his own system at his lab computer terminal. The detectors built into his entryway insisted that Mr. Trnka carried roughly a kilogram of some dense metallic arti­cle near his left armpit. Pelletier was not sur­prised, but he was perspiring lightly now. How could he have known the salaud would have such a test rig? He considered the alarm button, then the money, which Trnka had promised would be in cash. If Trnka paid fifty cents on the dollar for such faulty units, Pelletier and his partner would lose little. If Pelletier got more, he could still claim it was fifty, and then Pelletier alone would profit very well indeed.

  And the damned Czech expected to be in To­ronto a few more days. Pelletier wondered why, and then heard the conversation end. He allowed the little foreigner, still grafted to his attaché case, to find him slurping coffee from a foam cup in the hall. Then—insultingly—he was ushered back into his own office.

  "I am prepared to discount the entire lot of four hundred microprocessors, Mr. Trnka, by fifteen per cent," Pelletier said blandly.

  "I need four hundred units, twenty of the belts. And I shall take delivery of four hundred," the smaller man lied. "With such a high failure rate we must test them all. Do you agree?" A glum nod from the fat man. "It is my intention to pay you in cash for half of them now, discounted as you suggest, and to test them. You, meanwhile, will test the rest—all of them—and man­ufacture a sufficient number that I will have," he paused, closed his eyes and said as though to a child, "four hundred microprocessors."

  Pelletier's mental circuits flickered. Eighty-five hundred dollars in the raw, today, and an equal amount to come later. He debated the ways in which he could profit from this frightening little Czech. "I could have them in a week," he offered.

  "Tuesday," the man said. Pelletier did not like even a little piece of the smile that accompanied the ultimatum.

  "I will do what I can." To see the last of you, he added to himself.

  The attache case opened and the visitor counted out eighty-five brown Elizabeths. He pushed them across the desk. "You will want to count them."

  "I trust you," said Pelletier, his voice quaver­ing as he stroked the cash. He watched the swar­thy little man walk to a small sedan, the attache case burdened with nearly two hundred micro-processors. Then Pelletier counted the money. Next he replayed the telephone call. The number was that of a fly-for-hire outfit located at Island Airport just south of Toronto. McEvoy did not seem to know Trnka well, and Slip Threesuggested a boat rather than an aircraft. Pelletier knew little of such things and did not much care. It was enough to know that Trnka would be good for another eighty-five hundred, after which Pel­letier could pay his respects to the police in return for a certain latitude they allowed him in business. Trnka was a fool, thought Pelletier, to deal directly in cash. Even though his micro-processors were very, very smart.

  `Trnka' did not assume that Pelletier was a fool. He drove directly to the new bridge over the Western Gap and onto the seaplane slips on To­ronto Island. At one o'clock he found the de­crepit old Republic Seabee wallowing in its slip, its high wing seesawing gently. The amiable curmudgeon pumping water from the fuselage bilge turned out to be Ian McEvoy, and soon they were sharing lunch at a counter with a view. The little man could spot anyone approaching the aircraft, the better to learn if Pelletier really wanted his anonymous cash more than he wanted to inform. He had seen Pelletier tremble like a pointer while raking the money in; but he had not come this far by trusting nuances.

  McEvoy accepted the stranger at face value: a sinewy little Czech given to expensive clothes, on the long side of thirty and able to pay for eccentric notions. Between bites of his sandwich, McEvoy said, "Sure she'll get you and the lady to Lake Chautauqua, Mr. Trnka. It's maybe an hour's flight time, but there isn't much to do when you get there." He brightened. "For a little more I could take you to the Finger Lakes. They're in New York State too. A little more action."

  A pause, as though genuinely pondering the idea; as though there really was a woman. Then, "She humors me, Mr. McEvoy, and I shall humor her. She tells me that Lake Chautauqua is a good location for the film and I need to take some footage along the shoreline for study. You are famil­iar with cine cameras?"

  "Just home movie stuff." McEvoy held a hunk of bread to his face. "Clickety-click, and off to be developed. Nothin' like an honest-to-God movie. You mean you aren't interested in land­ing at all?"

  "We hadn't considered it. Why?"

  A shrug of the narrow shoulders. "Just makes it simpler. If we land, I hafta notify Customs when I file my flight plan. They say it's recip­rocal clearance, I say it's a hassle." A twinkle in the moist blue eyes as McEvoy studied his client's tailoring. "But you don't look like a shit-runner to me." He took another mouthful of his monte cristo.

  'Trnka' assembled a smile for the pilot. "I am merely combining business with pleasure, Mr. McEvoy." He watched two people stroll toward the seaplane in the distance, spied the cameras, noted that the woman was stout, the man clum­sy. He continued talking with McEvoy, discussing fees and weather, increasingly sure that the pair at the slip were only tourists. The couple continued their stroll and presently passed beyond the slips. Pressed for a time estimate by McEvoy, he said, "Wednesday or Thursday. We may pay you a visit before that." He left the buried implication that he would be somewhere in Toronto.

  "Speaking of pay," McEvoy put in slyly. The little man's blue jacket yielded a slender envelope which McEvoy inspected. He withdrew the three hundred dollars, then absently stuffed the bank notes into his oil-stained leather jacket. "Half of that would've done it, Mr. Tee," he grinned. "This retainer just bought me a fathometer."

  "And your silence," said the smaller man. "Film companies have their little secrets. There is one more thing ..."

  "I thought there might be," McEvoy mumbled. He seemed ready to give back the retainer.

  "You can stow some equipment for me un­til then. Just a piece of luggage; camera, film, clothing. But my car is very small and the suitcase is both a bother and a temptation to thieves." He saw strain lines disappearing from McEvoy's face and continued, "A pilot of your years must be a careful man. I think the cine camera equipment may be safer in your care than in mine. I have a tendency to forget things." He delivered this last phrase sadly, tentatively, the confession of one ill-equipped to deal with details.

  McEvoy sealed his agreement by paying for lunch, then walked with his client to the Toyota. If he had any lingering worry, it evaporated when `Trnka' opened the suitcase, poked among the clothing and equipment. These were not the actions of a guy running heavy shit, McEvoy thought; the thing wasn't even locked. He hefted the suitcase and shook the small man's hand. "What you need is a bigger car," he joked.

  "And struggle to fuel and steer and park it? How I loathe the American product," said `Trnka,' frowning, pleased to wedge more mis­direction in as he climbed into the Toyota.

  Ian McEvoy trudged back to his Seabee, pleased with an honest negotiation, cudgeling his memory to recall where he had see
n Trnka before. Movies? He had heard that voice somewhere, for sure. Maybe on the TV ...

  The telltales in the apartment were undis­turbed, the weather report optimistic. He left the clothes on their hangers but applied more ce­ment to his fingertips, scrubbing glassware and fingers meticulously as he had the Toyota's in­terior. Then he turned his attention to the telephones. First there was the microprocessor, which passed an on-the-spot function check before he installed it on a circuit board and patched the tiny rig into the automatic answering device. He disconnected the smoke alarm in his kitchen, then placed the answering device, connected to both telephones, in the sink. He dumped his small potted plant on the floor, cleared the hole in the pot's bottom only to cover the hole with tape, and twisted coat hangers into a sling that suspended the empty clay pot over the circuit board.

  Next he mixed a cupful of magnetite and aluminum powder, pouring the potent stuff into the clay pot. He used squibs and an igniter com­mon to model rocketry though he always, always employed them in threes, wired in parallel for reliability. Finally, though its crudeness irri­tated him, he deployed the twenty-meter exten­sion cord and connected its bared wires directly to the squib circuit. He knotted the free end of the extension cord around a chair leg near a wall socket and spent several minutes taping the mousetrap firmly to the chair. Adhesive tape was so damnably adhesive it could take a faint impression of a fingerprint even through the protective cement. He had plenty of time, and he knew how to use it.

  After he wired one leg of the extension cord to the trap, arranging it to complete the circuit when triggered, he deformed another coat hanger and taped it, centered vertically, to the inside door knob. He measured a length of cord with great care, tying a loop in its exact center and securing the loop over the mousetrap's trig­ger. Each end of the cord was then loop-knotted to an extremity of the coat hanger. The cord was very slightly slack. He turned the door knob sev­eral times. Either way the knob turned, the lengthened arm of the coat hanger would assure triggering, completed circuit, squib ignition—and a few more gray hairs for the apartment manager.