The Fool's Run Read online

  Maggie introduced me as Mr. Lamb and told them I was cleared for all access. “What do you think?” she asked me.

  I walked around the instrument package and shook my head. “Beats the shit out of me,” I said.

  “We could give you the Bigshot show,” one of the engineers suggested. He had tape wrapped around the bridge of his glasses, which gave him a slightly crazed look. “It’d take about two minutes to rig up.”

  “Sure, why not?”

  The testing equipment was quickly disconnected. The two engineers rolled in a dolly that carried what looked like a cartoon fishbowl, except that it bristled with short metallic rods. At the end of each rod was a glassy bubble. The engineers fitted the fishbowl around the String package like a Plexiglas jacket, and plugged in a half dozen multicolored flat cables.

  “Okay,” said one of the engineers. There was a keypad with a tiny digital LED panel on the side of the package. He punched a few buttons and peered at the readout, punched a few more, and nodded.

  “Mr. Lamb, if you could stand right here.” He pointed at a spot on the floor and I stood there.

  “Okay. Now look at this screen.”

  He turned on a monitor. It showed what looked like a head as painted by a two-year-old.

  “That’s your head as interpreted by high-frequency audio waves, infrared sensors, radar and laser rangers. Right now we’re looking at the laser sensing. You can read it like a contour map. The brightest yellow part is your nose, then it moves through the red, green, and blue as it goes further back.

  “Now here,” he said, flipping on another monitor, “is a simulated three-dimensional readout of your head, and its direction, size, range, velocity, and probable identity shown down here in the corner of the screen.”

  Most of the numbers were meaningless unless you knew the code sequences, though under “identity” it said “head.”

  “We rigged it to say head,” said the engineer with the crazed look.

  “Now move around the room,” said the other one. I moved, and the readouts changed. “It’s following you,” he said.

  I stepped behind Maggie and looked over her head. It was still following me, and when I came out from behind her, continued to follow.

  “Your personal characteristics were read into the computer, so it followed only you. We have it programmed for a single target, or it would have picked up Ms. Kahn as a second target and started a separate reading on her, while registering that you were eclipsed behind her.”

  “Neat,” I said. “Listen, what is this audio thing, and what use can you make of audio pickups if you’ve got two planes on diverging courses, each at, say, Mach 2?”

  “Okay,” said one of the engineers, slipping into a professorial tone. “You have to understand . . .”

  Maggie and the director excused themselves after fifteen minutes of it. I stayed for another two hours looking at the machinery and talking about the software that would run the stuff. It was not my field at all, but I could see the concepts. If I started studying right away, it would only take six years to catch up with what they were doing. The AI and game-playing concepts were easier, and we got tangled in a complicated argument about gaming concepts.

  We gave up at lunchtime, and I went looking for Maggie. She was in the director’s office working with a business terminal. The director was hovering in the outer office, pretending to supervise a harassed-looking secretary.

  “Ah. There you are,” she said when I walked in. “All done?”

  “Yeah. We ought to get a cheeseburger or something.”

  The director fussed over her as we went out, and shook my hand. As he turned back and Maggie went out through the door, his face flattened in a distinct look of relief.

  “I think that guy was happy to see us go,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I scare him. Can’t think why.”

  AT ANSHISER’S WE went through the wait-in-the-sitting-room routine again, and I spent some more time looking at the Whistler. When she came and got me, I thought I’d figured out how he did it.

  “Maggie said you were a little worried that I might be nuts,” Anshiser said cheerfully, when we walked into his office.

  I glanced over at her and she grinned. “Yeah, a little.”

  “Good. If you didn’t, we’d be worried about your stability. But we want you to understand how strongly we feel about this. I think about it constantly. I can’t sleep, I can’t do business. It might be crazy. But we’ve talked it out and we don’t think so.”

  “So what do I do? Specifically?” I asked, dropping into his visitor’s chair.

  “First, we want your agreement that if you decide not to take the job, what we discuss never goes out of this office.”

  I wouldn’t talk anyway. Talk wouldn’t get me anything but a conspiracy indictment. I relaxed and crossed my legs. “Sure. If you want to take my word for it.”

  “Our research indicated that we could.”

  “I’d like to know about that research,” I said. “How did you find me?”

  “Dillon found you. Dillon is the best researcher in the United States. The Library of Congress calls him,” Anshiser said. “When we found out what had happened, that String had been stolen, we knew we’d probably lose the competition for the contract. Oh, we wriggled and turned and twisted, and talked to lawyers and patent specialists, and the answer kept coming up the same. So I assigned Dillon to the problem. I told him to forget any parameters at all—just find a solution. As it happens, there is one. Maybe. It just isn’t legal.”

  I glanced over at Dillon and the gray man smiled again. “That’s true,” he said.

  Anshiser continued. “To save ourselves, we have to put their ass in a sling. Then, maybe, I can work some kind of deal.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “We’ll have to see. An acquisition. Maybe we can buy them. Maybe a merger. I don’t know. But I need an edge.”

  “I thought these guys were your blood enemies?”

  “I can live with enemies. I just can’t watch the company go down. If I can hustle them into a merger, I can take care of them later. Right now, there’s no reason in the world they should talk to us. We need to give them a reason.”

  He turned back to the desk and picked up a black-bound typescript. “This is Dillon’s report. In general, it says the best way to stop Whitemark is through their computer systems—design systems, accounting systems, information systems, scheduling, and materials. Altering them, destroying them, faking them out.”

  “This is a defense industry,” I said. “If we’re caught, they’ll drop us in Leavenworth for the rest of time.”

  “Ah. Now that’s something Dillon’s report covers quite thoroughly,” said Anshiser. “I will give you a contract outlining the kind of attack I want. If you are arrested, you will present the authorities with a copy of the contract. I will voluntarily confirm that I hired you to do this work. You will instantly become a very small fry.”

  “And you join me at Leavenworth.”

  “No. I don’t think so. I’m not absolutely sure, of course, but I don’t think so. If I am arrested, or any of my people are arrested, I will publicly discuss the contributions I have given our president over the past ten years. He’s exceptionally popular, you know, and intends to run for reelection. The contributions I made were quite illegal, but they kept his political career alive at several critical junctures. I am confident that any investigation will be quashed.”

  “Blackmail.”

  “Exactly. You’ve been around politicians enough to know that it happens every day.”

  “It’s usually not quite so blunt.”

  “Oh, there won’t be anything blunt about it. If they get to me at the end of the investigation, they’ll punch me into their computers and a flag will pop up. Some flunky will run over to the White House, and the whole investigation will disappear.”

  I grunted and thought about it. It could work, but I didn’t intend to commit myself
without more thought. “It’s shaky. I’d have to think about it.”

  “Think about the fee when you’re thinking about the job,” Anshiser said. He leaned back and tented his fingers. “If you take the job and it doesn’t work out, one million dollars. If you take it and it does work, another million. I assume you would have to hire other people, buy equipment, whatever. When you sign the contract, Ms. Kahn will give you the first million in cash, plus one hundred thousand in expense money.”

  “Jesus,” I said. Now I was thinking furiously. “Why so much? If I was willing to do it, it wouldn’t take a million to convince me.”

  “Mr. Kidd,” he said quietly, “I’m eighty-three years old and supposedly have a billion dollars. Maybe two billion. If I gave away a million a week for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t keep up with accruing interest. I don’t care what I pay you—but I suspect you do. With two million, you’ll be free. Forever.”

  “Or in jail for eight to ten.”

  “Jail would protect you from distractions while you paint.” He sat and looked at me, smiling. I thought about it . . . two million dollars.

  “I might also mention that you seem to have precisely the right qualifications for the job. Not only are you able to do it, you have the will to do it. I had the most flattering report from our String engineers, by the way. They want to hire you to work on the AI software.”

  “That’s nice,” I said distractedly.

  Two million. I had to be missing something.

  “You need time to think,” he offered.

  “Yeah, I do. And the deal’s not quite right,” I said. “If I take the job, I’ll want a second contract. Two million for computer consulting work. Security or something. So if I declare it with the IRS, it’ll be clean.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And I want the Whistler.”

  “The what?” He seemed puzzled.

  “The Whistler pastel down in the sitting room.”

  Anshiser glanced at Maggie, who said, “It’s the one next to the mantel, to the right.”

  “Oh, that, the gray one,” he said, the wrinkles disappearing from his forehead. “My wife bought it years ago. That was the last time I looked at it. Sure. Two million and the Whistler.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said. “I have to do more research. On you, on Whitemark, on what we might do. I’ll get back.”

  “How long?”

  I shrugged. “A week.”

  He nodded. “A week, then. If you would go with Ms. Kahn, she will give you a copy of a report on Whitemark. And you can take this copy of Dillon’s report.” He pushed the black-bound typescript across the desk at me, stood, and rubbed his big wrinkled hands together. “Goddamn,” he said. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

  Maggie said, “Follow me, please.”

  Dillon, who hadn’t said a thing, followed us out of the office and turned the other way down the corridor, leaving Anshiser alone. Maggie led me to a smaller office and gestured at a chair as she settled behind her desk. There were two walls of bookshelves packed with texts and references, another window overlooking the lake, and a long oak table stacked with more books.

  “You need a painting in here,” I said.

  “Send me one.” She turned on her desk terminal, typed in a series of passwords, and punched a PRINT command. The Whitemark report churned out of a high-speed printer. In thirty seconds I had a sheaf of computer paper that ended with a list of names and job titles.

  “That’s as up-to-date as we can make it. It was good last week.” She looked a bit haggard. For the first time I noticed the fine lines near the corners of her eyes, incipient crow’s-feet.

  “Frightened?” I asked.

  “No, no. I’m a believer,” she said, looking up at me. “But there will be problems. They’re inevitable. We have a lot of complicated operations in our business. I’ve learned one thing about them: something will go wrong. Nothing ever works out quite the way you wanted it to. Nothing. With this operation, the consequences of error could be severe.”

  We talked for another minute, then she led the way back to the stairs and we circled down the staircase to the front entry. The chauffeur was waiting there with a package wrapped in brown paper.

  “What’s that?” Maggie asked.

  “A painting from the waiting room,” the chauffeur said. He handed it to me. “Mr. Anshiser said you should look at it while you think.” He spread his hands in a gesture of incomprehension. “I don’t know what it means. That’s just what he said.”

  The picture, even with the thick fruitwood frame, was light in my hands. A Whistler.

  Chapter 5

  WITH THE WHISTLER under my arm, I decided against another night in Chicago and had the chauffeur drop me at O’Hare. On the flight back to St. Paul I thumbed through Dillon’s report.

  Whitemark headquarters, which included design and research facilities, were in Virginia, outside Washington. The company’s main assembly plants were in North Carolina. If I took the job, we’d work out of a Washington suburb, so we’d be in the local call area of the Whitemark computer center. The report listed the names of the company’s top officers, manufacturing personnel, and engineers. I made a note to call Bobby with the list.

  Whitemark was founded by an eccentric electronics enthusiast named Harry Whitemark in the mid-twenties. Originally, the company manufactured radios. It barely survived the ’29 crash, and in the thirties went into avionics. During World War II, the company rebuilt civilian planes as specialized light observation aircraft. When Korea came along, it refitted helicopters with special radio gear needed for medivacs and the increasingly complex ground-air networks.

  Whitemark got into the fighter business almost by accident. In the seventies, the company found itself without a dominant stockholder, and Whitemark execs liked it that way. Nobody interfered with them, but there was one large fly in the soup.

  The company was undervalued and cash-heavy, a sitting duck for a takeover. They looked for a way out and found a lowbrowed ne’er-do-well named Winton Woormly IV.

  Woormly had inherited a majority holding in a medium-sized aviation company. The company specialized in jet trainers and small ground-support aircraft, marketing them in third world countries that couldn’t afford the big stuff. Woormly was smart enough to understand that, if he tried to run the company himself, he’d screw up and lose it. Besides, he wasn’t interested. He was interested in single-malt Scotch, ocean racers, polo, trout fishing, and young boys, in that order.

  Whitemark offered him a deal; they’d give him a big lump of cash, a special issue of stock, and a place on the Whitemark board. In return, Woormly would turn over his controlling interest in the aviation company. Woormly jumped at the deal. He wound up with a title and more money than he could spend. Whitemark got a major stockholder who wasn’t interested in running the company and whose stock holdings would scare off pirates. They’d also stripped themselves of excess cash, which made them a less inviting target.

  The Woormly buyout was a success from the start. The two companies matched up well. There was always a demand for the ground-support planes. Then came the Hellwolf concept. Whitemark started lifting its eyes to the big leagues.

  There was much more in the report: details on the Hellwolf, speculation about flight trials and cost overruns, arguments in the military press over the advantages and disadvantages of the Hellwolf versus the Sunfire.

  I was still reading when the wheels came down. Out the window, the dark ribbon of the Mississippi curled through the lights of the cities, separating St. Paul from Minneapolis, the red-brick East from the chrome-and-glass West. I caught a cab into St. Paul, the Whistler on my lap.

  The cat was out roaming the rooftops when I got home. I found a hammer, nails, and hangers, and hung the Whistler on the big interior wall of the studio, surrounded by the work of friends and personal heroes. The other work ranged from simple sketches in India ink to slashing Expressionist stuff in electric acrylics. The Whistler
, simple as it was, dominated them. Age and power. The shamans are right.

  I got a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and walked around and looked at it some more. I was still looking when Emily knocked at the door.

  “You’re back,” she said. Emily has steel-gray hair pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck, like a nineteenth-century English schoolteacher. She’s usually wrapped in a woolen shawl. If it weren’t for the flinty sparkles in her dark eyes, you might take her for Whistler’s aunt. “I thought you were gone until tomorrow. I heard the pounding and thought I should check.”

  “C’mere.” I crooked a finger at her. She followed me into the studio and spotted the new piece immediately. From where she stood she recognized it, and said, “Holy shit! Is it real?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What have you done?”

  “Nothing, yet.”

  “It must be pretty extreme, whatever it is,” she said. She grabbed my upper arm with a surprisingly strong hand. “I hope you don’t get hurt.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I said. “You want a beer?”

  “Sure.”

  When I came back from the kitchen with a longneck Leinenkugel, her nose was a quarter inch from the sketch. “Little Jimmy Whistler,” she said. “You know he learned to draw at West Point? Flunked out. Couldn’t pass chemistry. Years later he said, ‘If silicon was a gas, I’d be a general now.’ He was probably right. He was at West Point just before the Civil War. West Pointers got quick promotions.”

  We looked at the picture some more, and then she went back to her apartment, and I went into the study to call Bobby.

  What?

  Need everything available on Whitemark Aerospace. Top execs with personal data. Access control to all internal computer systems. Any trouble with the law, political connections, business connections. Need soonest; will pay big bux.