Brain Storm (US Edition) (26 page)

She turned the terminal on at the power. The terminal had a touch screen display with a graphical representation of a standard keyboard taking up the lower portion of the screen. She was presented with a prompt to enter an access password to make the unit fully active. Sara drummed her fingers on the edge of the screen as she considered. This seemed to be a high end piece of equipment but most terminals followed a standard operating pattern. That meant that the terminal would probably give her three attempts at the password before it went into secure mode and shut her out completely. She couldn't just sit here and enter random words hoping to get lucky. If she tried that it would be just as unlikely that she would hit the right password in three tries as it would have been for her to guess the code for the alarm system before that went off.

Sara stopped drumming her fingers. "What's your birth date?"

"What?"

Sara turned from the terminal screen to Carla. "The code for his alarm system was your birth date so it's worth a try here."

"Okay." Carla told her and Sara entered the digits. The screen told her the password was denied and prompted her again. Sara tried again this time using the letters to enter Carla's name. Again she didn't gain access and the prompt returned.

Sara went back to her drumming. This was likely to be her last try and if she was to have any hopes of getting some information she had to get it right. Her fingers hovered next to the graphic keyboard and then she pulled them away. She had no clue what this man's password would be. He wasn't married, had no kids not even any pets. All Sara knew about him was his profession and that for some reason he was connected with what had happened to Carla and herself. Sara was reluctant just to guess now that this was her last try but if she didn't do something she'd never get access anyway.

Sara typed in the only other phrase she had heard in connection with Grosset. She was about to press enter to confirm that 'brainstorm' was her third try when Carla reached out and grabbed her arm.

"When you entered my name did you use my full name or just my first name?"

Sara looked at Carla's earnest face. "I used your first name."

Carla nodded. "Try both."

"This is the last try. Don't you think that if you were his password he would just use your first  name?"

Carla shrugged. "Maybe, or maybe that's what he would expect people to think." Carla stared into Sara's eyes her earnest expression was even more intense. "I really think you should try that instead of some stab in the dark."

Sara looked Carla up and down while she considered her options. After a few moments she deleted brainstorm and went with Carla's suggestion. She held her breath as she hit enter and for a moment even her heart seemed to stop beating. It seemed to take forever for the display to change.  Then a small rectangle appeared in the centre before the display went to a standard front-end image, in the rectangle it said; 'password accepted'.

Sara whirled away from the screen as soon as she saw that they had hit on the correct password. Her gun was in her hand the barrel pointed at Carla's head in the next instant. With a controlled movement she flicked the safety off.

"I want answers and I want them now."

Chapter
Twenty-one

Carla was literally taken aback by Sara's actions, taking a couple of steps away from the end of the gun. "What . . . what are you doing?"

Sara regarded the younger woman with professional detachment, she wasn't going to be conned yet again. "I'm getting myself some answers. I want to know what the hell is going on here and I want you to tell me."

Carla just stood there and plastered her scared expression over her face. Sara ignored it and pressed on. "Start talking."

Carla stared into her eyes waiting to see sympathy there. Sara kept her expression stony, her eyes were polished marble and betrayed as much emotion.

Carla worked moisture around her mouth, her eyes were still silently pleading. "I don't know what you expect from me."

"I expect you to start by telling me the truth. Who do you work for? Why are you trying to manipulate me?"

Tears leaked from the corner of Carla's eye. "You think I'm a part of this?"

Sara remained unmoved. "I do."

Tears were rolling freely down the younger woman's cheeks now. "I can't believe it. You really think this was all some sort of set up. That I'm a willing participant in this conspiracy."

"You haven't been honest with me. You've been too lucky for me to believe that you don't have some inside knowledge. First, in that prison you knew where there was a door and where the laser traps were, then you hit on the access code for this alarm system and the password for the computer just in the nick of time. It's all just too much for me to accept it as a coincidence."

Carla wiped the tears from her face. "I don't know what I can say to convince you but a coincidence is exactly what this is. And you were the one who tried my name as the password first. I only suggest a slight variation of it instead of some wholly speculative leap."

"That doesn't explain any of the other things."

"Well I'm sorry about that. I don't know how I knew to stop you before you walked into that laser trap, which saved your life by the way, I was just suddenly afraid. Guessing the code for the alarm system was just that, a guess. I can't offer you anything else to convince you that I'm just as much a victim of all this shit as you are. If you still think this is all some sort of game and that I'm involved in trying to play you then you might as well just get it over with and shoot me."

Carla ignored the weapon that was still pointing at her and walked over to a comfortable chair. She dropped down into the seat. "I guess in your line of work it pays not to trust anyone. Not to have friends in case you have to kill them someday. Well those of us in the real world don't live like that. We have feelings. We can make friends quickly, especially when we save each
other’s lives. It hurts us when we find out someone we thought was a friend doesn't trust us. That they'll pull a gun on us and demanded answers without giving it a second thought."

Sara wasn't used to feeling guilty. Sometimes there would be a
moment’s remorse following a job but nothing like this. The hurt and betrayal Carla displayed was a lot for Sara to take, but she did take it. She wasn't going to let herself be manipulated by her emotions. She had to decide whether she could trust what Carla said or whether she needed to ask her to explain more forcefully.

What decided her in the end was that she couldn't come up with any reason for somebody to be playing this sort of game. There were more subtle ways of manipulating her if they wanted to lead her in certain directions rather than going through this elaborate scheme. If they wanted her to go through Grosset's computer files then they could have gotten Ash to send her on an operation with that goal given that they had shown they could easily get to him. There would have been no need to set Sara up to save Carla, have their machinations revealed, capture Sara, and then orchestrate their escape. It just wasn't practical.

Sara flicked the safety back on on the pistol and returned it her pocket. "I'm sorry." The words had little effect on Carla. "I suppose that you're right. My whole life is spent lying and being lied to. I'm not used to being around real, honest people. Everyone I come across has some sort of a hidden agenda, so I don't trust easily."

Now it was Carla's turn to be unsympathetic. "That's an awful way to live, but you signed on for this sort of stuff
I didn't
. I'm not used to being shot at and imprisoned. I don't live in world of death and lies but I've been dragged into this all the same."

Sara couldn't think of any reply that would repair the damage she had just done so she said nothing. Instead she got back to the reason for them being there in the first place. She turned back to the touch-screen display and pressed the icon to initiate a link between the computer and communication terminals. The communications unit was activated and Sara went over to have a look in the doctor's inbox. There were no messages so Sara went to have a look through the files he kept saved on his computer terminal.

***************

The call was taken and the silhouetted figure appeared back on the screen. "Yes."

"We have a possible lead on the location of the two targets. Our data analysis people found records of a search for Karl Grosset's address. Given the connection between Grosset and the two women, Swift in particular, they have assigned a high probability to the scenario that the targets are investigating Grosset's residence."

"There is nothing more concrete?"

The speaker shook his head. "No, sir, but the probability index on this was search being made by out targets was quite high. Apparently the time of the search and geographical location of its origin are consistent with it being made by the targets."

The silhouette nodded. "Very well.
Dispatch a retrieval unit to investigate Karl's address, but continue your search via the computers. If this lead doesn't pan out I want us to have another three to replace it."

***************

There was a lot of stuff that was related to the doctor's work, all confusing medical and scientific words and diagrams, Sara didn't have a clue what any of it meant. She looked over at Carla whose blank expression indicated that the data being displayed meant nothing to her either.

Sara closed the files and waded through some more junk, a first draft of a medical textbook and some miscellaneous jokes and pictures from various sites, before she came to something a little more promising.

The file was untitled but after reading the first couple of lines it became apparent that it was some sort of a letter of confession by the doctor. It wasn't addressed but by the wording it  seemed to be for public reading. Had the doctor planned to send this letter out to the press?

The doctor started out by declaring how sorry he was and went on to prove it by going on and on about how remorseful he was for the next few paragraphs. He was sorry for ever taking part in
it
. He had been younger and more naïve when it started, he had thought that the work was important for the future stability of the Confederation, that the end justified the means. But he had become steadily more aware of the true nature of what he was involved with and the motivations of the people behind it. He claimed to have tried to help in a small way several years earlier but now he had to go public despite the risk to himself if he did so. He said that his death would be a small price to pay if it stopped the madness.

Sara wasn't interested in finding out how sorry the doctor was. She wanted to know what he was sorry for, what the
it
was that he referred to and why it was madness. She touched the screen on the right-hand side and dragged her finger down to scroll through onto the next page. It stopped scrolling after only a few more lines, it seemed the doctor hadn't had a chance to finish. Had he been going to after his visit to the statue in memorial park? Sara had to believe that this was why he had died there, that whoever he had been working for or with had killed him before he could go public and expose them.

"Did Grosset ever tell you anything about his work? You know, what sort of stuff he was doing and who it was for?"

Carla shook her head. "No. I get the feeling that he was ashamed of it somehow." She became introspective. "We never actually really talked that much. Now I think about it I can't understand why I felt so close to him in so short a space of time."

"Maybe you just aren't afraid to let your emotions guide you. You see the good qualities in people, their best qualities and you give them your friendship." Her voice went quieter. "Even if they don't deserve it."

She closed down the untitled file and looked for something else that could give her a clue who Grosset could have been working for and what their interest was in Carla. There were no more files. Sara wasn't going to give up yet. She used the terminal to set up a data transfer between  the doctor's terminal and her personal terminal. Then she set it up so her terminal would forward the data to other private sites where she could retrieve the information at a later date. After her terminal forwarded the information it would automatically erase the memory so that the transfers couldn't be traced. She transferred the doctor's half finished confession along with anything medical or scientific that she didn't fully understand, which in reality meant anything that was scientific or medical, in case she got a chance to hand the data over to somebody who could understand it in case it pointed to the area the doctor had been working in.

While that transfer was taking place Sara connected the terminal up to a public search engine and typed in the keyword; 'brainstorm'. Too quickly the reply; 'word(s) not found' came up on the screen. It was a more rapid response than Sara could believe. Intel-link search engines would have taken longer to fully scan the network before being sure there was no information to be found. This was a civilian system and the only way it would come back with a negative result that quickly was if the information was being blocked somehow and a false result transmitted back.

So much for still having options
. Once again they were basically back where they started. The doctor's confession had made her believe they were getting close but now getting to the truth seemed an even more remote possibility.