Soft Targets Page 15

  He hesitated, then shrugged. "I'll never get used to this," he said, motioning for her to go ahead.

  He watched her circle the cabin, aware that there were ways to locate and deactivate the Oracle sensors, ways to counter the most sophis­ticated passive system. Gina Vercours herself was the active system that must probe the site. She disappeared into the cabin then, finally emerging to scan the heights where he stood.

  At Gina's wave, Everett lurched forward in a shambling lope, traversing the steep declivity in a series of shallow zigzags. Exhalations con­densed in his wake, wafting upward in the still air, and as he trotted in, she was grinning. "You leave a contrail like a 747," she marveled.

  "Just out of condition," he puffed, hypervent­ilating. "Can't afford to inhale fast, it'd shrivel all those poor little alveoli."

  "I'll take your word for it," she said quickly. "No more lectures, please; whatever's bothering you, suffer in silence!"

  He unstrapped the snowshoes, amused, then followed her into the cabin. "Am I all that transparent? Well, humor me, babe; I just need time to get used to new ideas."

  She was heating water for instant coffee. "Such as?"

  "Such as undergoing cosmetic surgery," he said, and was grimly pleased to see that the no­tion disturbed her. By tacit agreement they eased onto separate sides of the bed, sitting side-by-­side, sipping coffee as they argued the problem out.

  At one point, Gina reached over to take the roll of fat at his waist between her thumb and forefinger. If he lost thirty pounds of suet, she joked, nobody would recognize him.

  "That's the crux of it," he objected. "I hate being forced to extremes because a half-dozen gangs of charlies want my hide on their walls."

  "Then repudiate your stand. You'd have all the media coverage you could want."

  He was damned if he would. The very fact of his being hunted, he said, implied that young Rhone Althouse had found an Achilles tendon in terrorism. But between repudiation and a new identity there was an alternative. He could con­tinue as always, but with tight security around him.

  That, Gina said flatly, was suicide. "And I won't be a party to it," she warned. "Get yourself another boy, fifteen of 'em. It might delay the inevitable but sooner or later—" she broke off, laid a hand on his arm, not looking at him. "You're not seriously considering that, are you?"

  Everett laid his big paw over her hand, turned to face her. "I considered it, yes. But General Patton was right: don't die for your country; make some other sonofabitch die for his. I'm no martyr, Gina." He withdrew his hand, powerfully conscious that she had made no move to retreat from this small evidence of a growing rapport.

  Gina levered herself up to sit cross-legged, facing him. The act somehow lent her a gamin charm; in other circumstances he would have worn a wide grin. "So you're damned if you'll repudiate, and you won't paint a bull's eye on your butt," she urged. "That leaves us with a new you. Any other alternatives?"

  "Only the choice between stories that I'm comatose, and stories that I'm dead. I like the coma; that, you can come back from. Only I'd have to come back with a different face."

  "Just thinking about it must be a downer, huh?"

  It was not so much a fear of surgery, he said; Fulton had hinted at temporary cosmetic techniques. The weight loss was a good idea in any event. He sighed, "I guess I'm just worried about the effects on the few people I care about."

  "Ah," she breathed; "relationships." They were silent for a time before she added, "You have a solid self-image, Maury. No matter who you see in the mirror, you'll still be you."

  He stared hard at her. "Tell me that when I have a new face."

  "I will—assuming you'll still need me." It was a clear request for clarification; even a bit wist­ful, he thought, his gaze softening as he sought the frank hazel eyes.

  To avoid making a fool of himself he swung from the bed. "That's your safest assumption of the day," he said. "I have a phone call to make."

  Will Fulton did not have every detail worked out, but Everett accepted the story they had con­cocted for the press. Severe head injury during a kidnap attempt, condition improved but still critical, under heavy guard at an undisclosed location. "We can take you to Beverly Hills, Tuc­son, or San Antonio for the plas—uh, cosmetic surgery," Fulton said.

  Everett glanced across the bed. "Tucson it is," he said, and exchanged slow smiles with Gina. "But why don't I just drive your Firebird down to Las Cruces and across?"

  He frowned at the answer. "Okay, then the lady can do the driving and I'll hide my wallet. That's the way I want to do it, Fulton . . . I'm not asking you to take the responsibility."

  There was more along this vein, the FBI loath to take chances on some accidental unmasking of Everett, and Everett determined to have his way. Everett finally terminated the call, met Gi­na's glance.

  "What now?" she asked. There was something in her query that was calculated, yet far from cold.

  "We head for Tucson tomorrow; and I start losing weight today. Get into your snowshoes," he smiled; "I'll tell you about it on the moun­tain."

  She lay back on the bed, flexing the long bare legs in languid sensuality. "Tell me here," she purred. "I can think of better ways to lose weight." Her invitation left no room for misunderstanding.

  Returning her smile: "I do believe your sense of duty is boundless." He took the hand that reached up for him, eased down beside her.

  "Never think that," she whispered, graceful fingers sliding along the muscles corded at his neck. "I told you I was selfish." She felt his hands on her, tremblingly tentative, gentle in their vitality. "I won't break," she laughed, and thrust her breasts against his cupped hands. Murmuring with pleasure, she kissed his throat and then, her eyes wide and unfocused on his own, traced the surface of his lips with her tongue.

  Maurice Everett, maltrained by a lifetime of cinema caresses, roamed weightless in the depths of the artless green-flecked eyes. It was a token of commitment, of sharing, that ravished him in its directness.

  "When did you decide this was what you wanted," he asked, his hand moving down the voluptuous swell of her hip.

  "When you called me `babe'." she murmured, lips fluttering against his, "and I didn't mind. Shut up and give me."

  That lesbian contralto had fooled him badly. The moon was well up before he thought of snowshoes again.

  Mr. and Mrs. Marks left their cabin on Monday, after defacing many kilometers of snow with their prints and breaking two slats in the bed. They found a motel in Socorro, New Mexico that night but were abashed into more quiescent love-making at two A.M. by the insomniac pounding on their wall. Tucson boasted a wealth of motels, at least one with a vibrating mattress and naughty movies on television. When Everett showed up Wednesday at the Tucson office of the FBI he was four kilos thinner, randy as a goat, and full of ideas for further weight reduction. Gina Vercours drove the Firebird on to Phoenix. En route, she saw the contrail of a commercial airliner at it lanced toward Los Angeles from El Paso. Gina stroked her thigh and smiled, think­ing of the contrails Maury Everett made when loping over snowdrifts. She did not consider the passengers of the aircraft, who included Hakim Arif and, several seats ahead, Leah Talith.

  Neither Bernal Guerrero nor Chaim Mardor were on the flight, having driven the little van earlier with its fresh Quebecois supplies. There was just no way to get surface-to-air missiles through a baggage inspection, not even the little shoulder-fired SAMs Hakim had earmarked for his war on media...

  SATURDAY, 27 DECEMBER, 1980:

  Charlie George's solution to the security prob­lem was outlandish. He had paid a slather of money to NBN's best sound stage architect and three slathers to several independent special ef­fects crews. The moving van that had backed up to his earth berm in Palm Springs contained twelve blue-tinted, shallow reinforced fiberglass trays, each nearly three meters across; enough structural aluminum to erect a small dirigible; and panel after panel of clear two-centimeter polycarbonate lying atop ultramodern furn
ish­ings.

  It had taken twelve days and over two hundred thousand dollars to put the materials in Palm Springs in holiday season. After another five days of furious labor by picked men, Charlie's atrium had disappeared. Now, in its place, was a pond formed by the interconnected trays, hold­ing eleven thousand kilos of water, complete with fountain and a ridiculous naked cherub for lagniappe. In the geometric center of the pond was a gorgeous rectangular dwelling, mostly clear polycarbonate and white aluminum, conforming to Charlie's idea of a three-holer by Mies van der Rohe. Anyone who climbed the new stairs over the berm could see, though not learn much from, the pair of armed churls who kept house there. He could not see into the fake fieldstone bathroom, which hid the stairs lead­ing down to Charlie's original lair.

  The pond and the bulletproof plastic house rested on tubular aluminum columns that rose here and there from the atrium floor. Since the house and pond also had translucent floors, Charlie still had some daylight in the place. The sight of the aluminum maze in his atrium only made him madder, more determined to press his peculiar attack on the shadowy bastards who made it all necessary.

  At least Charlie could feel secure behind rammed-earth walls, below the liquid armor, and beyond his stolid guards. He churned through his pre-opened mail alone on a warm Saturday afternoon in late December, fighting post-Christmas anomie, wishing there were some way he could tempt Rhone Althouse from his hideaway at Lake Arrowhead. The highly publicized fates of Maurice Everett and espe­cially of Dahl D'Este had reduced Althouse to something that approached paranoia. Surely, thought Charlie, I can jolly Rhone out of this mood. So far, he had been unsuccessful; even Charlie could not cheer a melancholy gagman.

  But Charlie found a way, beginning with the package from the office of Commissioner David Engels. It contained an individualized tele­phone scrambler, and a number with a six-oh­-two area code. He called the number. Two min­utes later he was struggling with tears of repressed joy, partly because he no longer felt guilt over the Everett affair. The voice on the other end had the right scrambler, and he asked if Charlie still lived in a vacant lot.

  "Maury, God damn, you sound terrific," Charlie stammered into the scrambler. He carried the wireless phone extension into his kitchen for a beer, knowing he sounded like a manic-depressive caught on the upswing, caring not a whit. "You weren't? It was all hype, the coma, the kidnapping, all of it?" He listened to the explanation, his expressions a barometer of his moods as he followed Everett's tale.

  After twenty minutes, a sobering thought began to nag him. "As much as I like knowing you're skinny and tan and full of garbanzos, why'd you tell me? I mean, how d'you know I'm not another jabbering D'Este, God rest him?" He took a swallow of beer and nearly choked on it. "A JOB? You mean a real, union-dues-paying, NBN-salaried job?" Long pause before, "Nobody has to know your function but me, Maury; hell, even I don't know what some of my retinue do. And if you really want to work for nothing, yeh, I see your point; it'd be legal. But don't blame me if you get zapped for conflict of interest, one day."

  The woman was another matter, but: "So long as NBN doesn't realize she's an armed guard. If I pass you off as a situations consultant, she can be your aide; carry a clipboard, gopher coffee, all that crap." He listened for another moment. Then, "I'll have to tell Althouse, you know. He'll see you on the sets anyhow and you won't fool him for long."

  Charlie listened again, starting to laugh. "I know what he'll say; having the FCC doing unpaid liaison is like having God cry at your wedding ... All right, then, private consulting; don't go bureaucratic on me now, for Christ's sake."

  When Charlie broke the connection, his cheeks ached from smiling. He immediately made a call to Lake Arrowhead, a two-hour drive away, and enticed Rhone Althouse to risk the trip. It was news, said Charlie, too heavy and too light to carry aver telephone lines.

  There was heavier news to be shared by the time Althouse drove up in his cover identity, carrying a five-gallon bottle of distilled water into the van der Rohe miniature. As Charlie had spoken with Maurice Everett, a traffic watch helicopter had exploded in midair over South Pasadena while airing its live remote broadcast on a Los Angeles station.

  The debris had fallen on a freeway cloverleaf to tangle in the clotted weekend traffic, with eight known fatalities and over thirty injuries, including the chain-reaction wrecks that resulted. Eyewitnesses had seen the faint scrawl of smoke that led from the ground to terminate in the aerial firebloom of metal, fuel, and flesh. Again, the group calling itself Fat'ah clamored for recognition of a direct hit with its SAM. But this time the news services reported no compet­ing claims. On the contrary, both the Palestine Liberation Organization and the more recent Chicano `Raza' group called to make specific denials.

  It was hideous news, Althouse agreed, dropping into his favorite chair in Charlie's living room. "But there's a meta-message under it," he said. "It says maybe there's hope now. Three months ago, every unshelled nut in California would've been jostling the others to claim responsibility. At least today they're making a show of clean hands for a pure civilian atrocity." He glanced sharply at Charlie. "Now for the good news I risked my ass for."

  Charlie told him.

  The Althouse reaction was mixed and thoughtful: "I'll be glad to see Maury when I wander onto the set, but—I dunno, Charlie, all of us eggs in one basket?" He lifted one hand, made it waver in the air.

  "If you're going to lay Cervantes on me, try Twain: he said put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket," Charlie retorted, pleased to recall his classics.

  "Twain was a lousy administrator," Althouse grunted. "It's getting pretty late in the game for aphorisms, Charlie. You and I and Maury Everett shouldn't even occupy the same hemisphere!"

  "Aw, Rhone, don't be skittish," Charlie said gently. "We've started a war, right?" He got an answering nod. "So think of this as a nonstop, floating summit meeting."

  "All right," Althouse flashed, jerking a thumb toward the sky, "and you can think of that SAM as a commando raid. We're all crowding into L.A. together, Charlie, and God protect us if this leaks to the wrong people." He donned a horrendous prissy smile, spoke in a nasal sac­charine falsetto, "What great big handsome nose-bobbed FCC Commissioner, initials M. E., is hiding out on the set with what terrorist-baiting NBN star? Are they just good friends, or is it one-on-one, fellas?" He dropped the sham and glowered, "That's all you need, bubbe."

  "If that should happen, we'd split," Charlie shrugged.

  Althouse drew an imaginary line with his forefinger from throat to groin. "You might get split, Charlie. That Fat'ah bunch is getting too close." He stared into the gloom at nothing in particular. "Too damn close," he muttered.

  Silently, Charlie scared up a pack of cards. He could think of no better answer.

  THURSDAY, 8 JANUARY, 1981:

  In the heyday of Paramount Studios it had been easier to locate watering troughs of the grips, gaffers, construction men and engineers who form an utterly indispensable lower eche­lon of the visual arts industry. Yet every shift of media brought shifting locations, and many a gaudy gin mill has passed through its own emi­nence to become musty and forgotten as techni­cians found work, and cheap bar whiskey, in other sections of Los Angeles.

  It was Chaim Mardor, moving quietly among the devotees of arts and crafts, who first learned the site of one after-hours bar in current vogue with Industry people. There are many industries north of Wilshire Boulevard, but only one capital-I Industry.

  Hakim's instructions to Leah Talith were explicit. "Call me from each location before you make inquiries, Talith. I must know your sequence. These people may have their own security elements and you could arouse interest."

  She applied a fresh layer of scarlet to her mouth, cinched her belt to pull the blouse more tightly over her breasts. "How well you put it, Hakim," she said, studying the image in her compact mirror.

  He swept his eyes over her body, impassive. "How readily you pose as a prostitute," he remarked.


  "A New York prostitute, Hakim. Here I will pass as a secretary. You will see."

  He would not argue. "Fat'ah is not interested in failure, Talith," he said. "Make certain your contact has access to the comedian's work."

  "It may take several evenings of my time."

  "Then you shall spend it," he said softly. "Spill no blood, but bring Fat'ah what you can, however you can."

  She put away the compact, adjusted her feet to the new high-heeled sandals. Then, subdued: "Pray that I do not have to charm another wom­an."

  "Fat'ah does not pray," he said, still more softly. "You will do what you must."

  "And repeat the details to you later?"

  "If you would arouse me," he answered obliquely, "learn where the comedian can be reached."

  She averted her face, nodding. Leah Talith sought the emotional tripwires of her leader in vain. She had no motive beyond the desire to cement Fat'ah together, which meant that she must please Hakim. Yet she knew his hostility against any prying into his own motives. Many of his actions seemed consistent with simple masochism, and she knew him to be jealous of her flesh. Yet he was able to cloister his desires with a dreadful efficiency. Classroom psychol­ogy, she reflected as she drove away from their Glendale site, was unequal to Hakim Arif.

  The bar on Ventura Boulevard was nearly a waste of time. She invented an acquaintance with NBN to cloak her questions in innocence, and heard of a spa on San Fernando Road. Curs­ing the endless urban protraction of Los Angeles, she drove to the suburb of Pacoima, and resumed her inquiry. At last, just north of Burbank, she found in a quintet of listless drinkers two men whose varicolored badges had the NBN imprimatur. They were quiet, middle-aged folk who found less charm in the girl than in their highball glasses, and Talith fought against frus­tration. But the bartender, defending the honor of his turf, claimed the young lady was much too late for interesting conversation. Most weekdays during happy hours, he said morosely, the place was acrawl with NBN hardhats.

  The young lady thanked him, nursed her ouzo while she listened to the quintet that steadily plastered itself into the booth. A carpenter from a cinema crew did his best to impress her. She was demure, cool, disinterested; he had nothing she needed.