ShaDOwMaSter iii. S t a r L i g h t, S t a r B r i g h t. e r i C S a F F L i n D

Transcription

1 ShaDOwMaSter iii S t a r L i g h t, S t a r B r i g h t e r i C S a F F L i n D

2 To BZS for her unflagging support, tireless editing, and gently made suggestions without which Shadowmaster never would have survived. To JLR for many hours of diligent and tireless proofreading and for being the world s best timeline detective. Copyright 2012 All rights reserved. ISBN: X ISBN 13: Library of Congress Control Number: CreateSpace, North Charleston, SC

3 C h a p t e r O n e September 1996, Monday Long and pleading and filled with terror, a man s scream flooded the sixty-yard corridor. I ran toward that cry for help. Startled faces hung in doorways. Worn incandescent globes shone down from above. They projected a broken yellow stripe on the polished marble floor. Follow the dotted line. It ended at an open doorway flanked by Texas and United States flags. I charged through. An anteroom it looked like any of a hundred others in the Cannon House Office Building. A slender brunette standing behind the only desk clutched a phone to her mouth. Her lips quivered. That piercing cry burst out of the adjacent office. Help me. Sweet Jesus. Please! Spinning left, I lunged toward the sound into a big, elegant room mahogany crown molding, wall-to-wall oriental rug, huge mahogany desk. The room held a barely perceptible scent, a little like the way air smells after a thunderstorm. I might not have noticed, but the adrenaline rush had jolted every sense into overdrive.

4 2 E r i c S a f f l i n d S h a d o w m a s t e r I I I S t a r L i g h t, S t a r B r i g h t 3 A slender, gray-haired six-footer in a carefully tailored charcoal suit stood behind the desk. His back was to me. He cried out again his voice now barely intelligible. His speech and body trembled. He turned. Blood streamed down his face. A silver letter opener protruded from his left eye. The blade had been fully buried. Its handle sported the Texas state seal. The man looked sixty. He had dark prominent eyebrows, pink skin, a few folds and wrinkles, gumdrop of a nose, and a mouth twisted in pain. His good eye jerked left and right, searching for help. It found me. His right hand reached out. He took a step. He staggered. He pitched forward. I sprang to the desk, leaned forward, and reached for his shoulders, but too much desk stood between us. His face struck the glass plate that guarded family snapshots. I heard a crunch. Glass cracked. That letter opener disappeared into the gray-haired skull. His body went absolutely rigid, a gangplank between desk and floor: I could have rolled a suitcase over him. The old man whimpered, twitched once, then crumpled. His face squeaked against the glass as it slid off the desk, its path marked by an ugly, red smear. Jagged offshoots of blood trickled outward, marking fissures in the glass. One ran to a black-and-white photo of a young boy. Grandson? Or maybe his son as a kid. My father had one of me like that, under the glass on his desk. He d had it until he died. This kid continued smiling, even as his old man s blood flowed through the crack in the glass and soaked into his face. I shuddered. A burly guy wearing a beige sports jacket burst through the doorway. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, had short dark hair and a small, tight mouth. He saw the blood. I m a doctor, he said. He rounded the desk, rolled the body onto its back, and knelt beside it. He saw the wound. I pointed at a flicker of silver, barely visible in the red ooze that bubbled around it. That s a letter opener. It s buried in his eye. The doctor studied it through his steel-rimmed glasses. Then he examined the other eye. It stared blankly. Then the pupil grew larger. He glanced across to me and shook his head. Shit. He leaned close, his right ear over his patient s mouth. He rested two fingers against the dying man s neck. He turned to me. Do you know CPR? Some. We need to try, he said. Get across from me. I ll breathe. You pump. He withdrew a key ring from his pants pocket. It held a one-and-ahalf-inch flat plastic box labeled, Ambu. The box snapped open, and a clear plastic resuscitation mask popped out. He extended his patient s chin, seated the mask, and then turned to me. Thirty pumps, call em out. Then I ll give two breaths. Then you pump again. Got it? I placed both my hands over the middle of the sternum and began pumping. He stopped me, moved my hands down slightly, and repositioned the top one. Use the heel of your hand. Keep your fingers off the chest. We began. A couple of times my hands slipped off the old man s sweatsoaked shirt. He smelled like a toilet stall in a locker room. I continued pumping. My own sweat ran down my neck and dripped off my forehead, spattering against the back of my hands. I don t remember how long we worked. My wrists burned. My arms ached. Can t stop. My spine felt like it was about to explode out of my back. He s dead if I stop. A pair of paramedics rushed into the room. The tall one rested a hand on my shoulder. We ll take over, he said. Still on my hands and knees, I crawled backward, out of their way. I heard a tearing sound as one of the paramedics ripped open the dying man s shirt. I collapsed onto my side. I probably looked like I d curled myself into the fetal position. I didn t care. I had to rest a moment before trying to stand. I felt myself shiver. I inhaled deeply, once, then again. That s when I became aware of it. The odor I d noticed on entering the room: it was here. It smelled stronger than before, now similar to the ozone scent from an electronic air cleaner. I pushed myself to my knees and looked around. I didn t see one. A bead of sweat ran down my forehead, onto the tip of my nose, then let go and fell to the rug. I shook my head, and more sweat spattered off my hair like a dog just in from the rain. One of the paramedics called out, He s got a pulse. Not ready to stand, still on hands and knees, I inched backward, around the side of the desk. Most people stay absolutely focused on the task at hand. I try, but sometimes my mind wanders. So do my eyes. They call it attention deficit disorder. A glimmer of blue came from under the corner of the desk. I reached out my hand and felt a slender, steel object. I snagged it with my index finger and drew it to me. My prize was a pair of stainless steel shears with

5 4 E r i c S a f f l i n d S h a d o w m a s t e r I I I S t a r L i g h t, S t a r B r i g h t 5 a jagged three-inch square of bright-blue fabric caught in its jaws. The dead man might have tried to defend himself with the shears, then lost his weapon. I pinned the shears under my knee, grasped the piece of cloth, and pulled it free. Its dominant color looked blue, but it shimmered with green and gold, yellow and red mesmerizing. I ran two fingers over it, and it made my skin tingle. I sniffed it, but it had no scent. With my fingernails, I pushed the scissors back underneath the desk. The room began to fill with people. I glanced around to make sure no one was looking in my direction. Then I removed evidence from a crime scene, stuffing the bluish swatch into my front left pants pocket. The paramedics demanded more space. Get ready for transport. Time to go. I backed farther away, then stood up. Excuse me. Sorry. I beg your pardon. I worked my way through the crowd to the anteroom. A muscular hand closed over my shoulder from behind. Caught! I pulled loose and spun around. My husky resuscitation partner let go and took a quick step backward. Thoughtful brown eyes behind steel-rimmed glasses looked me over. Sorry. Didn t mean to startle you. My name s Bob Haley. I wanted to thank you for the help. The poor bastard he ll probably be dead by the end of the day. For a moment I simply stared at him while I forced myself to take a long, slow breath. I d hoped we d do better, I said. We did the best we could. He sighed. God knows, I m in a best-youcan-manage profession. That s not always good enough. How d you get here so fast? I m in Washington to lobby my congressman. Flew in from Dallas this morning. I saw you running down the hall. Thank God for that lady who called the paramedics. I could breathe for him, but I m too old to compress for as long as you did. I m too stubborn to quit. And I guess being twenty-nine helped a little. Haley smiled broadly enough to show me the gold crown on his lower left molar. The sparkle in his eyes shone through his tinted lenses. Listen, Barry, there s nothing more we can do. Are you from around here? I nodded. Feel like a cup of coffee? A sandwich? My treat. You pick the restaurant. I felt myself gag. The doc read me immediately. Sorry. In my business you grow used to death. In my business A pair of cops interposed themselves between us and the anteroom s outer door. One stood straighter military bearing. The sergeant s badge on his chest shone as if polished an hour ago. He held up his hand. Capitol police, he said. No one leaves the building. There s been an attack on a congressman.

6 7 C h a p t e r T w o So what had begun as a short afternoon turned into a long one. I d driven to the Cannon House Office Building for a one o clock conference with Max Damron, chief aide to Anne Arundel County s congressman, Lowell Boyer. The drive from Rawlings Landing, just north of Annapolis, had taken only fifty-five minutes, mostly because there s not much traffic halfway between rush hours, which is why I d set the meeting for one o clock. My plan for the day had involved getting back on the road before three, a goal that began to look less and less attainable. Although the calendar read mid-september, August hadn t retired graciously. Summer heat and humidity still clung to the city. I d had to run the Corvette s air conditioner for the entire trip. I don t like my clothes to show sweat, especially when I m meeting with a politician. I work for Dr. Adrian Kahler, a former clinical psychologist. He runs Investigative Services Incorporated, an industrial counterespionage agency, or at least that s what the old man wants people to think. Max Damron had called ISI at nine this morning. He knows Kahler usually works until two or three in the morning and doesn t come down for breakfast until ten thirty, which meant Max intended to talk to me first. He d wanted to arrange a meeting with a potential client, the chief executive officer of

7 8 E r i c S a f f l i n d S h a d o w m a s t e r I I I S t a r L i g h t, S t a r B r i g h t 9 Baxter Chemical Corporation, who needed Kahler to plug a leak. According to Max, the guy was Congressman Boyer s personal friend, and a contributor. But whatever this CEO planned to pay would likely fall short of the million dollars we d picked up the last time Boyer steered a case our way. Max understands avarice well enough to know Kahler might not break with tradition easily. So he wanted to sound me out first. I d agreed, and we d settled on one o clock. When I d told Kahler about the meeting, he d smiled wryly and told me not to make him seem too reasonable. That game would need to be rescheduled. I d been in the process of shaking Max s dry, flabby hand when the screaming started never even laid eyes on the Baxter CEO. Too late now. Sergeant Roger Bogdanowicz led us to an office the Capitol police had temporarily appropriated. He told Doc Haley to go with the corporal, then led me into a small room that had one tiny desk, two wood chairs, and one window. He gestured for me to sit on one of the chairs, and I obeyed. He dragged the other from behind the desk, positioned it across from mine, and lowered himself onto it. Bogdanowicz looked about fifty six feet tall, athletic build, salt-and-pepper hair, soft-blue eyes, kindly expression. No offense, son, just routine. Everyone anywhere near Congressman Nolan gets debriefed. He turned up the corners of his mouth without showing too many teeth, a fatherly smile. This sort of thing simply isn t supposed to happen here. I inclined my head toward the window. Happens all the time out there. That smile flickered for a moment, but he reconstructed it almost instantly. He wouldn t rile easily. I wouldn t be able to make him lose track of the task at hand. I d need to be careful. Empty your pockets onto the table, son. Do it now. Yes, sir. I knew the drill. I began emptying pockets, item by item, at a leisurely pace. If you move slowly enough, some of them get bored. I presented him with everything I carried everything except that swatch of blue fabric. My heart raked a tin cup across the inside of my rib cage, but I kept that little piece of fabric flat against the seam of my pocket. Anyone with common sense would have just handed it over. I lost my head, sir, or I had to blow my nose and found this on the floor, sir. I couldn t do it. Somehow, I knew Adrian Kahler would want that scrap of cloth. He d want it badly. I extracted my loose change one coin at a time. Bogdanowicz watched me closely. When I d finished, he looked over the items on the table, then instructed me to stand with my hands against the wall. As he patted me down, I detected that ozone-like scent again. It hung in the air for a moment, then it was gone. After the frisk, we sat down. He put me through a twenty-minute interrogation, questioning and requestioning, checking my answers against driver s license and other ID cards. The hard part was hiding the tension that crept into my voice. I avoided lengthy answers. My skin felt cold, clammy. My shirt and hair were already soaked from the resuscitation, so the interrogation-induced sweating didn t show. Luck comes in peculiar ways. He snapped a fingernail against my Maryland and District of Columbia handgun carry permits but made no comment. I d left my gun at home. He used the phone on the table to call Max, spoke to him briefly, then hung up. You re free to go, Mr. Sandler. Thank you for your cooperation. He stood up and offered his hand. I pushed myself off the chair, wiped my palm against my pants, then gave him the firm handshake of an honest man. Two uniformed officers escorted me from the building. We stood waiting in the front lobby while the guard stationed beside the metal detector made a call to confirm my release. He wore the look of someone who d had a backward afternoon: up to now his job had been to scrutinize people on their way into the building. Once again I became aware of that peculiar ozone-like scent. The odor seemed stronger this time, as if the source were very close. I felt the hair bristle on the back of my neck. I spun left, then right, searching. I found nothing. I glanced at the people around me. None of them seemed to notice anything out of place.

8 1 1 C h a p t e r T h r e e The guards waved me out. I pushed open the heavy steel door and stepped into a warm summer rain. The metallic odor disappeared. I d crossed New Jersey Avenue before remembering the underground tram running to the Capitol, but I damn well wasn t walking back into the Cannon Building, not today. I raised my face to the clouds and invited the warm droplets of water to splatter against my skin. That helped. My heart rate drifted down toward normal. I d stolen evidence from a crime scene. There d been no good reason for doing it, simply a compulsion I d known my boss would want that peculiar scrap of fabric. Barry Sandler, temporarily insane. I jogged the rest of the way to the underground garage, found my black Corvette ZR-1, fired it up, and then crawled painstakingly out of the District, one tiny segment of a long, wet, rush hour worm. I made the Corvette s requisite first-to-third upshift too many times, always having to back it down into second a moment later. A couple of times I thought I spotted a car far behind me change lanes as I did. My mouth tasted as if I d been sucking on a penny. The morning s events had juiced my imagination. If anyone had seen me take the fabric, I d be in jail by now. I tried to calm down but couldn t keep myself from

9 1 2 E r i c S a f f l i n d 1 3 glancing behind. Then a warm mist descended on the city. It hugged the asphalt and rolled into swells of fog that obscured vehicles and road alike. I thought about the 104th Congress. It had been in session nine months, hadn t carried well through the heat of the summer, and was beginning to have early contractions. Congressman Chester Nolan was an old-school Democrat from Texas, one of 435 voting members of the House of Representatives. Had one vote out of 435 mattered so much that he d been killed because of it? Unlikely, but the power of one does increase in committee. Had he been sleeping with someone s wife? That wasn t his reputation. I pictured Chester Nolan half blind and consumed by fear. To stab a letter opener through his eye, someone must have been very, very angry. C h a p t e r F o u r The trip back to 202 Bay Drive required 115 minutes, par for rain and rush hour. My left leg ached from pumping the clutch, and by the time I quit Route 100 for the private road to Rawlings Landing, I began wondering if anyone could retrofit an automatic transmission to a ZR-1. Rawlings Landing is a private community, a peninsula that juts out into the Chesapeake Bay from Anne Arundel County. Adrian Kahler s little Tudor castle is made of timber, stucco, and brick over reinforced concrete. Every pane of glass is bulletproof. It sits at the apex, high above the water, overlooking the bay on three sides. There are many larger houses in the neighborhood, but not any nicer ones. Kahler runs Investigative Services Incorporated from his home, and the three of us live here as well. Number three is Stanley Egor forty-six years old, former Navy SEAL, onetime professional wrestler, retired engineer. He and I share the second floor of the house, each with our own suite of rooms as comfortable as any bachelor apartment in Baltimore or Washington. The old man keeps the third floor for himself. Bay Drive actually dead-ends at Kahler s property line, but Egor had the road extended slightly into the yard, then walled off. To enter the driveway, you must turn left at the wall. No vehicle can make the turn and

10 1 4 E r i c S a f f l i n d 1 5 retain sufficient momentum to breach the steel gate, and nothing short of an Abrams tank can break through that steel-reinforced stone-and-mortar wall and the thick growth of ninety-foot-tall white oak trees just beyond it. On a dry road, it s entertaining to punch the transmitter that opens the gate just as I complete a fast sliding turn, then rocket through. Today rain precluded fun. I didn t feel much like rocketing anyway, and I didn t have a female companion to amuse. I drove in slowly, turned the Corvette around in the recently widened part of the driveway, then backed into the garage. As soon as I entered the house, I punched the intercom button to Kahler s study and started to announce my return. But the rhythmic waxing and waning of The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo De Silos poured out of the little speaker with more than enough volume to drown me out. First Chant, then The Soul of Chant, next probably Son of Chant. Adrian Kahler, a citizen of the United States since childhood, is Russian by birth. He prefers Tchaikovsky to any other music on the planet, but his tastes are eclectic. Unfortunately for me, he s discovered the monks. Worse, that happened just after he d upgraded his stereo with a new McIntosh control center and amplifier. For the past week he d been playing with his new toys. His study is only twelve feet long by ten wide, and it s lined with floor-to-ceiling teak shelves crammed full of books. At one point he d fed enough wattage to his pair of B&W 801 loudspeakers to make one of the smaller books dance off its shelf. I yelled into the intercom. Turn down the monks. A delay followed long enough to help me understand that Kahler had no intention of taking orders. Finally, the chanting stopped. Adrian Kahler s authoritative baritone erupted from the white plastic box. You are late. I have things to report. A contract with Baxter Chemical Corporation? Not exactly. An emergency? No. Then it can wait. The intercom clicked off. I muttered a string of curses and slammed my hand against the wall. C h a p t e r F i v e I tramped into the hall and almost collided with the basement stairs door as Egor opened it from the other side. He became aware of my presence at the last moment and jerked back on the knob. Egor stands seven foot one and weighs 325 pounds sort of a Polish version of Shaquille O Neal. He could have squashed my five-foot-eleveninch, 175-pound frame into a fuzzy memory. I frowned up at his rainforest eyebrows and tried to locate the dark brown eyes beneath his heavy brow. Go ahead, slam it against my head a couple of times. It might be an improvement. A thin, upturned crescent took shape just below the nose in that flat, usually expressionless block of flesh Egor uses for a face. Another exposure to the monks? I opened my mouth, stuck out my tongue, and inserted an index finger. Your reaction seems to be worsening. Perhaps you ve developed an allergy. Cute. How long has the old man been at it? He raked a hand through his thick, tangled, dark brown hair. Adrian has been studying this piece for two hours now. He takes music seriously. Music, huh? I wasn t sure. Thanks for the clarification.

11 1 6 E r i c S a f f l i n d 1 7 Tastes differ. A single furrow took shape above his eyebrows. You must learn to be tolerant. Let me guess you learned that from a monk. I followed Egor through the den to the kitchen. He motioned for me to sit at the rectangular beech wood table, a polite way of inviting me to keep out of his hair. I flopped onto the beech wood chair and leaned back against the slats. I ran a hand over the smoothness of the tabletop, the grain of the wood barely perceptible. Slowly the tension drained out of me. Egor opened the refrigerator and went to work. He approaches cooking as forty percent artist and sixty percent engineer. Adrian Kahler suffers from insulin-dependent diabetes, and American Diabetic Association cooking is one way Egor manages to keep the old man out of trouble. If not for that, perhaps there d be more art. But Egor never forgets responsibilities, so precision rules. I smiled when I saw the red snapper and began to salivate in anticipation of Creole stew. But as Egor began to chop onions, my eyes began to tear. I prefer the aroma of a finished product to the smell of its ingredients. I left the kitchen, walked up the stairs to my suite, showered, and put on fresh clothes. I felt almost human again. Returning to the first floor, I stopped outside Adrian Kahler s study and listened. The room is soundproofed for conversation but not for three hundred watts per channel. No monks. Kahler almost always keeps his door closed, but he never bolts it anymore. The last time I d found it locked, he d been in the midst of a major depression and had come close to killing himself by subsisting on a gallon tub of chocolate mousse. I rapped on the frame. Come in. His voice sounded detached. When interrupted, Kahler s tone always gives the impression he s just been drawn away from solving the mysteries of the universe. When I d first moved in, I d interpreted this as an affectation, and it had taken me several months to figure out he was for real. The old man actually does spend a lot of his time unlost in thought. C h a p t e r S i x I entered the room, walked to the black leather easy chair across from his large teak desk, and sat down. Whereas Egor s kitchen is crafted in lightcolored woods that for most of the day are bathed in sunshine, Kahler s study always looks dark. Even the brightest day can t push much light through the little window behind his chair, and what does squeeze through is consumed by the book-lined walls. Kahler looked up from behind his desk. How was your meeting with Max? he asked in his precise, unhurried baritone. Brief. Oh? His bushy, white eyebrows knitted half a millimeter, his pink skin tightened almost imperceptibly, and his forehead creased ever so slightly beneath his thick, neatly combed white hair. His five-and-a-half-foot tall, 150-pound frame wore charcoal gray trousers, white-on-white shirt, navy blue blazer, and a striped tie. He sat straight. Though he s sixty-four and slightly stocky, something about him always seems hard rather than soft. At first I d thought it came from the deliberate way he moves, but his body conveys the same impression when seated. Today s tie was striped pink and gray. It s the only aspect of his clothing Kahler ever varies. Did our

12 1 8 E r i c S a f f l i n d S h a d o w m a s t e r I I I S t a r L i g h t, S t a r B r i g h t 1 9 prospective client fail to show up, or has your charm deteriorated even more than I feared? I glowered back. He was in Max s office, but I never saw him. Someone started screaming at the other end of the building. I found a congressman with a letter opener stuck in his eye looked as if it d been rammed in hard. When I left, he seemed pretty much dead, but the paramedics continued working on him. He had a pulse. Kahler s eyebrows crept in only another half millimeter, but his pink complexion reddened, and his penetrating blue-gray eyes turned steel gray. Congressman Boyer? No, Chester Nolan. Kahler momentarily shut his eyes, scanning his internal database. Nolan Texas. The very same. His eyes opened, then he leveled them at me. You had best report fully. I nodded and leaned back. Reporting fully is more like an interaction between psychologist and patient than between investigators. With a little help from the old man, I enter a trance that s at least ten steps beyond the meditation I do myself. Then I replay every input. Trance potentiates experiential states. He claims the detail is superior to anything I would report conversationally, and on several occasions he s mentioned things I d recounted in trance of which I had no conscious memory. Since I participate voluntarily, he doesn t need to use the power that can control men s minds. That s just as well : he s damaged a few. From my end, the experience is a lot more pleasant than being grilled, and it actually leaves me feeling refreshed. I inhaled and exhaled slowly relaxing breaths and listened to the familiar rumble of his voice, a freight train moving rhythmically along its track, always receding farther and farther away. Time seemed to stop. When Kahler s voice returned, his tone had changed. He sounded conversational. Did you have any difficulty on the drive home? What? I blinked myself back into the real world. The rain must have made traffic worse. You had best wash up for dinner. Right. I stretched, stood, and turned to go. Barry, one moment. You have forgotten something. I looked back at him and shrugged. My brain felt too rested to think. He rapped a knuckle on his desk two raps. The item you recovered I wish to lock it in the safe. Sure. I reached into my pocket and withdrew the shimmering blue fabric. It still tingled against my skin. Kahler held out his hand, and I draped the little swatch of material over his fingers. He smiled at the feel of it. Kahler doesn t smile often. I see, he said. Interesting. Your instincts remain correct. Kahler held the blue fabric up to the light and slowly turned it side to side. His eyes reflected its color exactly, and they gleamed with it. I shall place this in the safe for tonight. Tomorrow you will take it to the Applied Physics Laboratory for analysis. And you ll put up the money at my bail hearing. If the need should arise of course. He spoke absentmindedly, as if he d already forgotten the fact that I d broken the law. Actually, the man never loses information. He just pushes the less important data into his inactive file. To Kahler, the law, per se, isn t something that matters a whole lot.

13 2 1 C h a p t e r S e v e n At seven o clock we assembled for dinner. Egor handed Kahler a notepad with his calculations on it, and the old man set the appropriate number on his insulin pump. They both knew exactly how much of what Kahler would eat. The red snapper stew was wonderful: delicate flavors of saffron and thyme could still be identified beneath the Tabasco pepper sauce. The corn maque choux was another story, and I saved it for last, knowing I wouldn t taste much else for a while. We never eat dessert on Cajun food nights. After dinner Kahler and Egor took their accustomed seats in the den, Kahler reading Tennyson and Egor with one of his Louis L Amour novels. I chose the living room. I made myself comfortable in the old man s Eames chair, spun myself toward the TV, and surfed for something mindless anything but the news. The television in the den has a larger screen, but the two bibliophiles would crab if I turned it on. I d managed forty minutes of detachment from reality when the phone rang. I clicked off the TV, walked over to the small coffee table by the front window, and picked up the receiver. Kahler doesn t trust portable phones even coded, low-power transmissions can be overheard by someone with the right equipment.

14 2 2 E r i c S a f f l i n d S h a d o w m a s t e r I I I S t a r L i g h t, S t a r B r i g h t 2 3 Barry? I recognized Max Damron s voice immediately. What s up, Max? Congressman Boyer has a job for you. Tell me about it. Chester Nolan died fifteen minutes ago. Something about his brain being swollen. After two flat electroencephalograms, his family asked them to pull the plug and produced a living will backing up the request. Sorry to hear that. Congressman Boyer wants you to find out who killed Nolan, and, one way or the other, keep him from doing the same to Boyer. You guys have police for that. Sensing a long conversation, I grabbed one of the chairs between the coffee table and the window, pulled it to the other side of the table so that I could look out the window while I listened, then sat. Besides, what makes you think Boyer is next on the list or that there is a list? There are cops all over this place, plus guards, plus metal detectors. They were all here when someone perforated Chester Nolan s brain with his own letter opener. The way Boyer figures it, if you re not safe in the Cannon Building, what the hell are you supposed to do at home? This place should be almost as secure as the White House. If someone can commit a murder here, and then just disappear, he can probably do it anywhere. Presumably, that s part of the message. So you think the attack was some kind of warning. That s what has the congressman worried, that Nolan s murder was some kind of political execution. There s simply no other reason for anyone to kill Chester Nolan. The old guy really was what his campaign ads made him out to be, the original straight arrow. He lived on his salary, had no business deals, loved his wife and kids. Boyer s known him for years. Aside from his family, Nolan s had only one interest, the House of Representatives. Been here twenty years, practically a fixture, one of the few left who they all trusted. They called his word the CN guarantee. Once he promised to do something, he did it. Does Boyer figure ol CN made a promise that someone didn t like? Did your boss make the same bargain? Easier to say if we knew which deal got Nolan killed. This is the Congress, son. Promises are the fuel the engine runs on. I kicked off my loafers, stretched, and rested my heels on the glass tabletop. It felt hard and cool. Let s work on timing. Anything coming up in the next couple of weeks for which Nolan would have been critical? The Science Committee has some votes coming up. He was a member and chairman of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee. I don t think there s any major muscle supporting or opposing the bills they re working on right now. Max chuckled. It s not as if they write tax law. If they cut funding, they can still put people out of work. Maybe someone wants to keep his job wants to keep it a lot. Narrows our list of suspects to thousands. Max paused for a moment, then continued. The only project in which Nolan s been high profile already had its funding cut. He was working goddamn hard to restore it. Think the Council for Fiscal Responsibility put a contract out on him? Barry! Be serious. Sure love to. But we don t have any serious contenders. Max softened his voice. What do you know about the search for extraterrestrials? That one stopped me for a moment. I snickered into the phone. Gort! Klatu barada nickto. Stay with me, blockhead. This is for real. The Extraterrestrial Intelligence Project was Nolan s pet. He championed it from its beginning. That old Texan almost stopped speaking to Proxmire when he gave the ETI Project a Golden Fleece award. We have an official US government project that s looking for aliens? No we re listening for them. More precisely, we re searching for broadcasts that could be from alien civilizations, like picking up National Public Radio from a really long way off. Haven t found any yet. It s part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I pictured my last tax return. How much does this cost? A whole lot less than it used to. That s the point. In 1993, just as the program began to shape up, it was almost killed by Congressman David McArdale. Facing reelection, the schmuck needed to show the folks back home how well he was protecting their tax dollars. Nolan saved the ETI Project by putting together a private consortium that offered to foot seventy percent of the bill. It was a ten-year deal. For ten million the first

15 2 4 E r i c S a f f l i n d S h a d o w m a s t e r I I I S t a r L i g h t, S t a r B r i g h t 2 5 year and three million a year thereafter, the government can stay in as a player. Nolan was a crafty old guy. He argued that if a radio broadcast from an extraterrestrial civilization ever were identified, it would be the most important discovery since Columbus didn t fall off the edge of the world. If actual communication were established, even with a several-year time lag between message and reply, its value would be immeasurable. In that circumstance, Congress would look awfully stupid for not having participated in the effort. Furthermore, the government would have absolutely no control over the dialogue with our new acquaintances. Nolan appealed to a combination of paranoias. Besides, where else can this country get a one hundred and twenty-three-million-dollar bang for only thirty-seven million bucks? I considered for a moment, did a little math. If private investors had agreed to put up eighty-six million dollars, all this couldn t be as silly as I d thought. Sometimes I think the household tasks at 202 Bay Drive are misallocated. Kahler s the one with the infinitely open mind, but I screen the calls. I found myself tapping an index finger against the seat of the chair. If these private investors were willing to commit big bucks, why didn t they fund the whole thing and avoid government entanglement? They need some very special technology to make the project work. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has it. Nobody else does. The deal also gives the Extraterrestrial Intelligence Project links to the National Security Agency for encryption analysis. Okay, I said, let s assume all this isn t completely absurd. It certainly seems to make sense to somebody. How does it tie in with Nolan s murder? Last year the initial expenditure was approved One-Hundred-and- Third Congress last of the big spenders. That was the major chunk of change. They needed it to construct a new radio telescope. The thing s been built, and it s about to go on line. Now we have the One-Hundred-and- Fourth Congress fiscal conservatives, so the program wound up back on the chopping block. The private consortium could still take over the whole project and maybe accept some kind of federal oversight in trade for technical help from NASA, but so far they ve said if the government backs out of the deal, they ll take a tax write-off and let the new antenna rot. It may just be a game of chicken, but who knows? The most common natural disaster in this town is a clash of egos: that kind of storm destroys everything in its path. Nolan was able to push his funding bill through the Science Committee, but it won t reach the floor for another couple of weeks. It might not survive without him. Boyer wants to take over his memorial to a dead friend. With that approach he can probably line up enough votes to squeak it through. You think this Extraterrestrial Intelligence Project was the reason for Nolan s murder? It could be something else. Less visible deals get cooked up all the time. Some of them piss people off. But right now, the more I talk about it, the more I think this is the best bet. And backing it is going to make my boss highly visible. If it riled someone enough to murder Nolan, it might get Boyer killed too. Then I d be a congressional aide out of a job. So who wants to stop this thing? It s been caught up in the tide of fiscal conservatism. For people scanning lists of potential cuts, an item labeled extraterrestrial intelligence just sucks the yellow right out of their highlighter. But even McArdale is more interested in water rights and gaming laws, the things that make or cost his constituents real money. The only person on Capitol Hill who ever spoke passionately about the ETI Project just died. If anyone else cared enough to shove a pointed instrument through Nolan s eye, I don t know him. Around here, you learn to identify people who feel strongly about things. And there s nothing else going on up there that could have made Nolan an enemy? Nothing I can think of at the moment, nothing for which his support was crucial. If someone else winds up in the morgue tomorrow, that might point us in another direction. Boyer just doesn t want the next body to be his, which is why we re having this little conversation. Okay, I ll present this to Kahler, along with my recommendation that we take a look. With your ardent recommendation. Who s the paying customer? When the old man adds things up, currency will get punched into his mental calculator first. I ll find someone. You just be enthusiastic. Call me tomorrow. He hung up.

16 2 6 E r i c S a f f l i n d 2 7 I stood and wiggled my feet into my shoes. Max would never understand: enthusiasm didn t cut it with the old man. Cash value, on the other hand, would weigh heavily. Kahler rested Tennyson on his lap. He listened politely to my recap of the phone call. He generally limits trance reporting to once a day and didn t think anything in my conversation with Max justified breaking that convention. Business had slowed for the summer, so he didn t object to my spending a couple of days poking around on Congressman Boyer s behalf. I agreed to drop it the moment anything more lucrative came along. Fatigue engulfed me as quickly as fog rolls in from the sea. I dragged myself up the stairs to my suite on the second floor. By the time I got there, I couldn t remember where I d left my brain. I undressed, crawled into bed, closed my eyes, and fell into a black, dreamless sleep. Then a shrill, repetitive scream stabbed into my brain. C h a p t e r E i g h t Consciousness ripped through me like a blade of whetted ice. I shivered awake. Something had set off our house alarm. I grabbed my Sig Sauer P-220 and a spare magazine from the wall safe, leaped out of bed, and ran to the alarm console. A panel of light-emitting diodes showed the house remained secure, but one of the ultrasonic motion detectors in the front yard had registered an intruder. I buzzed Egor on the intercom as I pulled on my pants. Kahler would have heard the alarm too. He must have already checked his monitor. He wouldn t want me calling him for a breach outside the house. Reinforced concrete construction, vault-like doors, and bulletproof glass ensured nothing short of an antitank round could get through. I clicked the intercom. Egor, have you spotted anything? Not yet. His voice sounded the same as it would have if he d been standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes. I ve been watching the video monitor. A moment ago some bushes shuddered, but it must have been the wind. A good camouflage suit might not show up on the regular surveillance cameras, but it couldn t evade the infrared video. There s been nothing, not even a chipmunk.

17 2 8 E r i c S a f f l i n d S h a d o w m a s t e r I I I S t a r L i g h t, S t a r B r i g h t 2 9 I laid the gun on my desk and pulled on a sock. I m going outside to double-check. Absolutely not. If someone is out there, we ll track him, find him, and attack on our terms. His voice remained dispassionate, but I knew better than to argue. Insulting his manhood would accomplish nothing. Cowardice and bravery are foreign concepts to Egor. Whether basic to his personality or absorbed from the SEAL handbook, danger doesn t compute. He sees only the job, the assigned task, to be accomplished quickly and efficiently. To go out and wander the grounds before locating the trespasser was illogical. We had surveillance equipment that made reconnaissance unnecessary. End of discussion. I switched on my video monitor and then enabled the microphone array. As Egor had said, nothing much to see. The microphones detected no sound out of the ordinary. False alarm? I asked. Perhaps a large fox. There are several on the peninsula. It doesn t feel right, I said, then added, I ve had a spooky sort of a day. I glanced at the clock two a.m. Call me if either you or the alarm system turn up anything, he said. The intercom clicked off. He d be asleep in minutes. He wasn t unconcerned, but no danger had been found, and he wanted to be well rested in case real trouble started later. Sleep is as much a weapon to Egor as firepower. He once explained to me that more battles have been won by the alert than by the heavily armed. I stayed awake until five anyway, more out of stubbornness than sense. At three o clock one of the microphones picked up a scraping sound at the front door, and the ultrasonic detectors registered movement. Foxes don t come up and scratch at your door. My heart began pounding. I cycled the monitor from camera to camera but saw nothing. I don t have Kahler s ability to probe minds, but I sense emotion. The old man says I m a poorly controlled empath. From time to time, he s tried to teach me to regulate that combination gift and curse. Results have been spotty. I didn t know if I could detect anything from someone who had to be at least fifty feet away. I cleared my mind and tried like sitting in the dark, listening to the wind in the trees, waiting for a word to be whispered. Then I felt something as though I d crawled into a cold, dark cave where malevolence flowed along its walls like black water. I tried, but I couldn t focus on it. It made me shudder. Fifteen minutes later the scraping returned, now from outside one of the living room windows. I detected a weird mix of rage and insanity. It hovered at the edge of my consciousness, then disappeared. I continued to stare at the surveillance panel for two more hours. Finally I went to bed, but I kept my clothes on and put the gun under my pillow. I reset my alarm clock from seven to nine, telling myself Egor would want me to get the extra rest. I fell asleep. This time I dreamed fitfully. The same image formed and dissolved, over and over Chester Nolan on his back, letter opener protruding from his left orbit, right pupil getting wider in little, sequential jerks. I watched him die, over and over again. Each time, even after his brain had shut down, terror still clung to his face.

18 3 1 C h a p t e r N i n e Tuesday morning found me back in the Corvette, on Route 32, headed west toward Scagsville and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. I d dressed for success in navy blue blazer and light gray trousers, pink shirt and striped necktie. Egor and I had checked the grounds before breakfast. We d found nothing more than a few faint marks in the thin film of dirt along the edge of the front door and along the bottom of the living room window. They weren t even obviously manmade, and a small branch blown off a tree could have scraped against the house. Of course the chance of the same loose twig striking both spots was less than my winning the next Lotto jackpot, and there hadn t been enough wind to blow a goldfinch feather from the nearest tree to the house. Kahler came down from his third-floor suite at ten thirty as usual. The old man sat at the kitchen table, took one sip of Egor s dark-roast coffee, replaced his Wedgwood cup on its saucer, and then turned to me. Reaching into the right-hand pocket of his blazer, he withdrew a small Ziploc bag containing the fabric I d given him the night before and placed it on the table. Morning sunshine flooded Egor s kitchen, and the blue cloth spar-

19 3 2 E r i c S a f f l i n d S h a d o w m a s t e r I I I S t a r L i g h t, S t a r B r i g h t 3 3 kled. From some angles I almost lost sight of it behind myriad flashes of light. Your first order of business is to take this to the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Martin Pinder has agreed to analyze it for me. He glanced at Egor, then returned his gaze to me. I trust no one broke in last night. Right, I said, but I can t guarantee no one tried. Egor set a plate of oat bran Eggos in front of Kahler. The morning ration was two waffles, fat-free margarine or cream cheese, and jam. Someone might have probed our defenses, Egor said. If so, he was circumspect. In the absence of coincidence, we shall work on the hypothesis that someone is out to recover his property. Kahler forked a waffle and sliced off a corner. Impossible, I said. No one saw me take it. He smiled tightly. You saw no one see you take it. I felt my face heat up and knew it had reddened. The old man took another sip of his coffee, then wrapped both hands around the cup, warming them. Barry, he said, you are perhaps the best operative I know, but your pineal gland does not watch the world through the back of your head. It merely secretes melatonin, like everyone else s. I nodded and rephrased. It s highly unlikely anyone saw me. I agree, Kahler said. And when that likelihood reaches zero, I shall begin work on another hypothesis. For now, I want the object in question out of this house, and I want to know exactly what it is. How about a swatch sample from a tailor for Elvis impersonators, I said. They lobby congressmen too. The old man swallowed another mouthful of coffee, smiled at the cup, then replaced it on its saucer. He measured out exactly one tablespoon of cherry jam and spread it evenly over one of the waffles. Recognizing the end of a discussion when I face one, I picked up the package and walked to the garage. I held my prize up to the light once more before putting it in my trouser pocket. The little piece of blue fabric looked slightly smaller than before. Kahler folds neatly. I crumple. begun to surrender luster to the approaching fall. Aggregates of gray foam darkened the sky, yet columns of sunlight burnt through, and a rolling patchwork of bright and dark covered the landscape. Nature remained undecided. A gray Mercury Sable moved up behind me, first three cars back, then two, then one. It passed one car, immediately ducked back in line behind the next, then pulled out again a minute later. On a multilane highway like this like this one, you didn t need a Vette to go by four cars at once. It stayed with me as I turned right onto Johns Hopkins Road, then pulled out and began to pass. The driver held the wheel with his left hand. He wore a beige sport jacket. A crumpled brown fedora, large sunglasses, and shadow obscured his face. He was alone. The Sable s right front window slid down. I sensed hatred. A splash of sunlight glittered on silver. My right foot slammed the brake pedal as the barrel of a stainless steel revolver swung toward me. It exhaled fire. A horizontal gash appeared on the outer surface of the Corvette s windshield, level with my head. I blinked away frigid beads of sweat. My head pounded with fear and anger. I tried to concentrate. If you fire a gun inside a car, the noise from the blast will stun you stupid. Had to make my move before stupid recovered. The sudden braking had dropped my car behind his perfect. I swerved right, angled left, downshifted, and accelerated. The LT5 engine roared. I smashed the left corner of the Corvette s front bumper into the right rear quarter panel of the Sable. The gunman s car wobbled. I stabbed the brakes, backed off, then floored the accelerator. The Vette and I sprang at the Sable. We hit it like a blocker slamming a tackle. Then I stabbed the brakes. The rear end of the Sable lost its grip. Tires squealing in protest, it spun across the blacktop in front of me. It pirouetted into the breakdown lane, chewed through the adjacent grass, and slammed right-side-first into a large oak. Leaves and branches rained down. Driving along Route 32, I passed Fort Meade and the National Security Agency, then finally turned south onto the Columbia Pike. The oaks and maples bordering the road were still full and green, but their leaves had

20 3 5 C h a p t e r T e n I spun the wheel, pivoted the Vette, and rammed my bumper into the Sable s left front door. Cutting the engine, I grabbed my pistol and rolled out, ran to the front of the pinned car, and ducked behind its engine block. Bracing the.45 with both hands, I lifted it to eye level, raised my head above the hood, fired two quick shots through the Sable s windshield, then crouched down again. My ears rang from the gunshots. The odor of cordite blended with that of the rubber from the Sable s still-smoking tires. I glanced back toward the road. No cars passed by. The resonance subsided. Hearing returned. Fallen leaves rustled in the wind. The gods of war screamed to me, and I trembled with their power. The smart move would have been to sit tight and wait for the cops. But I leaped up, fired again into the Sable, and ran toward its right side. Its front door was caught against the tree, but the rear one lay partly open. I rolled into the underbrush, crawled behind the oak, stood, spun once, and ran to the open door. I leaned inside no one home. I crouched behind the right rear wheel and used it as a shield while I glanced under the car clear. Once again I noticed that faint, ozone-like scent. The heat of anger dissipated, and the chill of fear began to crawl up my spine. As I backed away from the Sable, a twig snapped behind me. I turned, leaped right, and fired at the