Dan Simmons - Darwin's Blade

Deputy DA Weid brought the meeting to order. “You all know why we’re here today. For those of you who may have been on duty and missed the news yesterday or this morning, a copy of Mr. Darwin Minor’s statement should be in front of you…and we’ve got this tape.”

Shit, thought Dar as the assistant’s assistant pulled the standard media cart with a half-inch VHS VCR and old monitor out of the corner and moved it to a place of pride next to the deputy DA’s chair. The assistant popped in the tape and Dick Weid wielded the remote.

Dar had not seen the news video the night before. Now he watched the Channel Five live coverage of the chase from the interstate exit, up the winding road above Lake Elsinore, ending in amazing footage as the news chopper—hovering a hundred feet out from The Lookout Restaurant’s patio—was almost hit by the Mercedes E 340 as it came barreling out into midair as if trying to leap to safety onto the skids of the helicopter. Mercifully, Deputy DA Weid kept the reporters’ wild narration muted. Unmercifully, the Steadicam zoomed in on the faces of the two men—both their heads and shoulders protruding now from the driver’s-side window as if they were trying to climb out to safety—and Dar could clearly see the shooter’s lips moving in a shout, although he could not make out the words.

When the Mercedes fell out of the camera’s view, the Channel Five pilot immediately put the chopper into a spiraling dive so that the gyro-stabilized camera could unblinkingly and unmercifully stay on the plummeting vehicle all the way down until the E 340 struck the hillside, upside down, at least five hundred feet below The Lookout’s patio. The wreckage bounced through trees and shrubs for another hundred feet, the body of the Mercedes staying amazingly intact but with wheels, bumpers, mirrors, axles, muffler, hubcaps, windshield, suspension, catalytic converter, and the humans inside flying amazingly apart, until finally the wreck disappeared into its own cloud of dust, rubble, and smashed trees in a steep ravine on the cliffside.

Deputy DA Weid used the reverse control on the remote to run the wreckage backward. The pieces of car leaped together and the car levitated back into the air, and then Weid stopped on a freeze-frame of the two men’s faces, one of them in the act of shouting at the helicopter in what appeared to be a cry of supplication. Dar saw every head in the room swivel toward him—even Lawrence’s and Trudy’s—and he felt the weight of every gaze. He considered asking, Didn’t their air bags save them? but decided to keep his mouth shut. Besides, three of the four front-seat air bags had deployed and deflated by the time the vehicle was airborne, making the front of the passenger compartment all the more pitiful in the video, as if it were draped inside with huge, empty condoms.

Two men were dead and he had caused it. Dar felt the vertigo of the video leave him and a heaviness descend again on his spirit, but it was not regret. He clearly remembered the sound of the Mac-10’s slugs shattering his driver’s-side window and whizzing by his head. He remembered the anger from yesterday as a distant thing, but he remembered it clearly enough to know that if those two bastards had survived the fall, he would have happily climbed down the mountain and beaten them to death with a stick. He kept his mouth shut and his face neutral, and eventually the others at the table turned their gazes away from him.

“Before we go any further,” said Deputy DA Weid into the thick silence, “I should say that we’ve had expert lip-readers from the San Diego School for the Deaf analyze this gentleman’s last cry”—he pointed the remote at the freeze-frame where the mustached shooter was still frozen in time, mouth wide open in the act of shouting his final words—“but as close as our lip-reading experts can determine, the man was saying…ah…‘gave nooky.’”

Everyone stared except for Sydney, who laughed out loud. “Gavnuki,” she said, still chuckling to herself and pronouncing it quite differently than Dick Weid had. “It’s Russian for ‘shitheads.’ I think the guy was stating his opinion of Channel Five.”

“All right,” the deputy DA said, and clicked off the TV image.

“That would confirm the Bureau’s identification of the two men,” said the handsome man in the FBI haircut. “The Mercedes was stolen in Las Vegas two days ago. We have identified the two deceased occupants of the stolen vehicle as Russian nationals. The driver, Vasily Plavinksy, has been in the country for three months on a temporary visa. The other man—”

“The one who tried to kill my client with an automatic weapon,” interjected Attorney Du Bois smoothly.

The FBI man frowned. “The other man, also Russian, entered the country through New York just five days ago. His name is Kliment Ritko.”

“That might be an alias,” said Dar.

“Why do you say that?” asked the FBI special agent, his voice tinged with condescension. “In your deposition, you claimed you had never seen these two men before. Are you now saying that you have some personal knowledge of the identity of these two…ah…victims?”

“Would-be murderers,” said W.D.D. Du Bois instantly. “Hired killers.”

Dar said, “I just suggest it might be an alias because there was an infamous Russian painter named Kliment Ritko. His 1924 painting Uprising foretold Stalin’s reign of terror. He even painted Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Bukharin, and the rest of the Bolshevik leaders against a blood-red background, surrounded by troops shooting defenseless people in the street.”

There was a full thirty seconds of silence—an embarrassed silence—as if Dar’s display of pedantry had been equal to him jumping up and peeing on the table. Dar resolved to keep his mouth shut through the rest of the proceedings unless asked a direct question. He turned his head slightly and saw Sydney, whoever she was, give him a frank stare of appraisal.

“Let me introduce everyone at the table,” said the deputy DA quickly, trying to take control of the meeting again.

“Most of you know Special Agent James Warren, agent in charge of the San Diego branch of the Bureau. Captain Bill Reinhardt is LAPD, their liaison with Operation SouthCal Clean Sweep. Captain Frank Hernandez is from our own San Diego Police Department. Next to Captain Hernandez…and thanks for coming in today, Tom, on such short notice, I know you had a conference to attend in Vegas…is Captain Tom Sutton of the California Highway Patrol. Next to Tom is Sheriff Paul Fields from Riverside County, whose cooperation has been fantastic in this operation. Most of us know Sheriff Buzz McCall from right here in San Diego County. And at the end there…hi, Marlena…is Sheriff Marlena Schultz from Orange County.”

Deputy DA Weid took a breath and turned to his left.

“Some of you have met Robert…Bob, isn’t it?…Bob Gauss from the State Division of Insurance Fraud. Welcome, Bob. Next to Bob is Washington-based attorney Jeanette Poulsen from the National Insurance Crime Bureau. To Ms. Poulsen’s left is Bill Whitney from the California Department of Insurance. And beyond Bill is…ah…” Deputy DA Weid had to glance at his notes. It had been a flawless performance up to that point.

“Lester Greenspan,” said the rumpled, bureaucratic-looking man. “Chief attorney for the citizen’s group Coalition Against Insurance Fraud. Also out of Washington, officially liaising with your Operation SouthCal Clean Sweep.”

Dar winced. Liaising.

“Next to Mr. Greenspan is someone whom we all know and love,” said Deputy DA Weid, obviously intending to inject some energy and bonhomie into the sagging proceedings. “Our deservedly renowned and very lucky Los Angeles–based defense counselor W.D.D. Du Bois.”