15 - The Utopia Affair (11 page)

"So the secretary tells him he'll have to come back tomorrow, but by this time he's about fed up. Gimme the number three head....Huh! These kids sure don't take very good care of their trucks. Look at them rings. Disgrace. And then the phone rings and it's him, and she's got to dodge around 'cause if Danny figures it out, he's just as like to grab the phone and let him have it. That'll do. Wanna get started pulling the loom?"

Illya rose from the floor and wiped his grease-grimed hands on a filthy rag. "And this runaround means Dan may be on his way out as head of Design? Who's likely to replace him?"

Curley knew everyone in the Park, employees and guests, and had almost as much data on them as the Client Files. Illya had checked, carefully, on Leon Dodgson and found that he was head of some big foundation in the States. Good enough. The opportunity had not yet arisen to check out the two counterfeit gardeners Thrush had sent, but Illya could wait.

"Aw, who'd know? Front Office could pull somebody in from outside. If I was running things, I'd put Howie Montforte in. But I ain't. They'll take somebody like Rahman Sikhiri—that fake. Nearest he ever was to Nepal was Tel-Aviv."

"?"

"He's no more a Hindu artist than I am. Almost everybody's fooled by him. I may not know everything, but I've been enough places to know when somebody's never been there. I'm gonna have to talk to the boys in Security one of these days. See if these ringers belong to them and tell 'em to give the workers here credit for a little more brains. Guy I know in the Greens Department was telling me about a couple eight-balls they got. Come in when the ragweed was so bad. To hear him tell it, they've got all the recommendations in the world and they don't hardly know which end of a shovel to hold. Like the kids on these trucks." He gestured.

Illya's eyebrows hardly stirred. "Two men together? A team?"

"They come on like a team, anyway. Rooming together. A Jap and an Ayrab or something. Wiry cuss—I seen him at the staff pool. All over scars, and a mean look to him. If he was a tree surgeon I don't ever want to go into a forest. You gettin' that loom okay? Pair of dykes over on the bench."

"You haven't gone to Security yet?"

"Naw. If something happens I'll think about it. Feel like a fool if they're plants after all."

Illya grunted acknowledgment and changed the subject. Sometime he might need Curley's help, but better not to stimulate his curiosity unnecessarily.

Every night he monitored his bugs. It went faster as he developed his ear for high-speed chatter. He sat at the desk now for only a little over an hour every evening, light plastic earphones joined beneath his chin by a thin plastic tube, staring blankly into space as the fingers of his left hand rocked lightly back and forth across the motor switches of the little playback unit. Inside his head voices twittered as the tape sped by, then squawled to a stop and reversed. Two second's silence, and then…

A door opened.

"So the cottage is definitely out. Is his office invulnerable?" The voice spoke French; Illya followed it fluently.

"Of course not. He is often alone there with the maps and charts for that strange game they play. There are even potted plants to tend in that room."

"Noon break tomorrow? Our work will be near—we can enter quietly and meet him."

"If he is out?"

"Mmmmmm... Not a bomb... Pressure-sensitive gas capsule under the chair cushion? Symptoms of syncope, only a bit of plastic left? A pity it must be so remote and impersonal, though."

Their voices faded as they passed into the second room, and Illya boosted the gain. Nothing of interest— complaints about the work crew they were with, speculation about one of the messenger girls... His thumb rocked down and the voices rose an octave. A minute later the conversation ended. Illya's index finger pressed its key and the faint background roar of the shower rose to a whistle. Occasionally a word or two would chirp—nothing worth stopping for. A brief string of twitter brought his ring finger down and the tiny hysteresis motors strained their magnetic fields as they reversed. The middle finger descended and voices appeared.

"Set the alarm clock."

"Six fifteen."

"Right."

A pause. The index finger held down for a moment as vague sounds played past, then the thumb. Silence. At last the little finger rocked down and the sound stopped. His eyes focused for the first time as he looked down at the machine to see that it was rewinding properly. His first thought was
Well, there goes my lunch
.

Waverly and Silverthorne occasionally met for lunch when hostilities were relaxed, and on this day it happened that they did. They were served on the open balcony of the Main Lodge, looking over the grass towards the trees, while the warm Australian summer sun soaked down on them.

"Good day, Dodgson. I trust I find you well."

"Ah, Silverthorne—yes, quite well. Better than your defense around Sector Seven."

"Indeed. Your encirclement maneuver was masterfully executed, sir. I fear my flank has been broken. Never fear; I will have it re-formed in an equally vulnerable position by mid-afternoon." His dark face smiled leanly as he drew up a canvas chair and signaled a waiter. "I must thank you, sir, for an interesting game. Frankly, I had not expected the diversion to prove so challenging."

Waverly carefully and tenderly packed his noon pipe. He could easily nurse it along through the hour after lunch. His self-ordered rationing ensured his limited supply would last until his departure, but temptation sometimes twitched at his fingers. "I have you to thank for precisely the same reason, Silverthorne. And may I say I admire your familiarity with the techniques of small-scale warfare."

"A modest acquaintance. But after all, it is only a game. What of value is really at stake? A bit of pride perhaps. My interest is but loosely held, I fear.

"What of value did you have in mind? A sort of side bet?"

"Perhaps. I hadn't actually begun to consider it."

"Mmm. The madreleine looks rather good this afternoon. And the Chef's salad has been recommended."

The subject did not recur for nearly an hour. Waverly was half-reclining on the balcony, drawing deeply on his pipe as Silverthorne sipped a liqueur. "I'm handicapped by not knowing your background," the latter admitted at last. "What would you consider a reasonable side bet?"

Waverly thought through another long pull at his smoldering pipe. "What have we in common? We're both here. Each of us can afford the expense of this place—and each of us would prefer not to have to. Either of us could probably afford to cover the other's expenses."

The aristocratic black eyebrows arched. "My dear Dodgson!"

"A little steep?"

"Well, of course..."

"After all it
is
war." His eyes twinkled frostily for just a moment as he glanced sideways to the other man.

Silverthorne rolled a few molecules of Anisette between his tongue and palate, and considered for several seconds before swallowing. When he spoke, he said, "Done."

Chapter 10

"Our Old Fox Is Wily."

ILLYA STROLLED purposefully down a corridor where he really had no right to be, bearing a covered tray and looking to neither side. He moved around the vicinity of Waverly's command office until the halls were clear in both directions, then let himself in.

The room was empty, of course. Illya checked the chair cushion, found it untampered with, and looked around. A tall map-board compartment was outlined by cupboard doors in one wall; a glance revealed it to be available for immediate occupancy and Illya took quick advantage. Work the night before had made it habitable—twenty minutes of muffled carpentry and hardware work by the light of a shaded torch had put a wide-angle peephole in the door of the cabinet where it would pass unnoticed as a glass bead half-set in the wood. He produced from his covered tray a packet of sandwiches and a bottle of ginger beer, and placed the tray discreetly in the bathroom.

Everything else went as if he had choreographed it. The two trained killers entered the office stealthily at 12:13 after knocking twice. At 12:16 the Turk placed a plastic capsule gingerly within the springs of the large brown leather chair, moved it experimentally with his hand, and nodded. At 12:17 they cracked the door, looked around, and left. At 12:17:30 Illya had the bolt drawn on the inside of his hide-hole and was scrambling under the chair. At 12:24 he finished his interrupted lunch, and left the office exactly as clean as he had found it. Beneath the cover on the tray he bore rested a bulging packet of thin plastic with a lightly stenciled code number across one end. He passed unnoticed from the command room and down the hall, wondering quietly to himself how long his two pet demons would go unaware that their trap had misfired, and how soon they would begin to become suspicious of continuous failures.

Once again that night he had the dubious pleasure of hearing both ends of a telephone conversation and piecing them together mentally. He'd been scanning the bug in the Thrush suite, as he thought of the assassins' room, when the phone chimed.

"Yes?" Several seconds pause.

"If possible." Several more seconds. "You know the priorities. We will come if nothing interferes."

"Exactly, sir. Good evening." The phone clattered into its cradle and something very like a snort followed the sound closely.

Silverthorne's bug revealed what Illya had expected. It started with the click of the telephone buttons and continued thus:

"You know who this is. Come to my quarters at ten o'clock. I want your help."

"You're using that assignment a little too heavily as an excuse to get out of work I want you for."

"If anything interferes we may just take this whole matter up with the Council."

Four seconds passed, ending with a sudden slight indrawing of breath and the beginning of a muttered imprecation.

High-speed scan showed nothing as the tape sped forward several uneventful hours and stopped smoothly just past a door chime. Familiar voices greeted his tired ears.

The conversation was tiresome, circuitous and politely formal, but it boiled down to a demand by Silverthorne that the two trained Thrush assassins double as a spy service for him.

"I've more or less gone so far as to put money on you, in fact. Dodgson was awfully quick to accept the offer, and he placed the bet high. I'm certain he has some kind of plan he's relying on. It's only one week before the Game is due to conclude—he probably has prepared the outline for his final drive. I must have that outline, without his knowledge."

Silence, while Illya imagined sharp black eyes glancing back and forth, balancing factors and weighing choices.

"We are sincerely sorry sir, that we cannot help you in this. We beg you not to ask us again to depart from the path of duty. Our mission has met with minor setbacks, and we too work within a limited time. Please do not forget which is the game and which is real."

"In other words, sir, if we were caught in something like that, we would be discharged from the Park and our real work would be left undone. One of the Basic Directives is
Take No Unnecessary Chances
."

"You're experts; blast your mealy-mouthed modesty—you're two of the best in the world! Do you mean to tell me it would be at all dicey for you to do a little looking around in a man's room? He'll have it written down somewhere. I'm not asking you to kidnap him and torture a confession out of him!"

A longer pause, while faint sibilants indicated quiet conferral. "The best we can do, sir, is to promise you that as soon as our first duty has been accomplished we will be completely at your disposal."

"We also beg to remind you, sir, that interruptions delay our conscientious efforts towards this goal." The lighter voice picked up the cue like a trained actor—which in some senses he must have been.

Silverthorne cleared his throat roughly, and his voice itched with barely suppressed anger. "Very well. You will be free to move unencumbered until you finish whatever you're here to do. But I charge you now to report to me as soon as you are free."

The Turk's voice was calm as he said, "Perhaps tomorrow morning, sir. We must see what the day brings."

"So let it be, then. You may go."

They went, and Illya scanned briefly ahead to check that nothing further was said before his subject settled do for the night. His neck was stiff when he finally slipped the light plastic earphones from his head and rubbed his aching ears.

Silverthorne wasn't the type that took well to being frustrated. Would he keep after the Thrush assassins to do his spying, or might he even attempt it himself?

As a guest he had a freedom of movement outside which they, as employees, would be hard put to match. But would he be foolish (or confident) enough to risk the disastrous shame of being caught cheating?

It wasn't enough, Illya thought, that he had to keep two experts from killing Waverly; now he had to help him keep his military secrets. Idly, in the back of his mind, he started calculating time-and-a-half for two weeks, and wondering if it was really worth it.

Illya's suspicions were well founded. The following night his bug played him both ends of Silverthorne's casual afternoon call to Waverly inviting himself over for the evening, and he caught the tail end of a conversation on his last unit that put the last straw on a back-breaking day. The tape came up on the sound of a door opening and voices fading in.

"… to make another try. Perhaps the bungalow again."

"But the window alarms will not make it easy. There is no rush; we have yet eleven days. The food is good, the beds are soft, and the water is sweet."

"Mmmmmmm..."

"It is worth taking the time to do a professional job."

"It is. The bungalow again, then."

"But with care. Our old fox is wily, though he may be off his guard. And his good fortune exceeds my imagination! The disturbance around his cottage, which I insist we should have ignored—and whatever happened to the gas capsule?"