Dan Simmons - Darwin's Blade

“Why else?” said Dar.

“Oh, I think it was Trudy who made the point that the swerve to the left after entering the tunnel—the swerve that sent them directly into the pillar—almost certainly had to be an evasive maneuver and that any competent driver—or sober driver—could have made it at sixty-five miles per hour without losing control of that make of Mercedes. After all, the car was trying to help the driver keep control.”

“So the three of us were right about all of the particulars of the accident, even down to the hypothetical extra car involved,” said Dar. “But do you remember any other reaction on our part?”

“Oh, I remember keeping a watch on the Net and the professional journals for a while,” said Lawrence. “The facts came trickling in that way—through comments by other insurance investigators—long before the networks or news services figured it out.”

“Do you remember us crying?” said Dar.

Lawrence took his eyes off the traffic and looked at Dar for what seemed like a long time. Then he looked back at the road. “Are you shitting me?”

“No, I’m trying to remember our emotional reaction.”

“Everybody else in the world went apeshit,” said Lawrence in obvious disgust. “Remember the TV views of the long lines of sobbing people—grown-ups—outside the British consulate in L.A.? There were church services up the wazoo and more blubbering on television idiot-on-the-street interviews than I’ve seen since Kennedy was shot. More than Kennedy. It was like everyone’s favorite aunt, wife, mother, sister, and girlfriend had died. It was crazy. It was absolutely nuts.”

“Yes,” said Dar, “but how did the three of us react?”

Lawrence shrugged again. “I guess Trudy and I were sorry the lady was dead. It’s sad when any young person dies. But Christ, Dar, it wasn’t personal . I mean, we didn’t know the woman. Besides, there was a certain irritation at their carelessness—hers and the boyfriend, Dodi—at letting a drunk drive, at playing games driving that fast just to get rid of a few fucking photographers, and for thinking that they were so above the laws of physics that they didn’t need their belts on.”

“Yes,” Dar said, and was quiet a moment. “Do you remember when the conspiracy theories began about her death?”

Lawrence laughed. “Yeah…about ten minutes after the first news reports were aired. I remember after you did the kinetic equations, we went onto the Internet to find some more facts and already people were yapping about how the CIA killed them or the British secret service or the Israelis. Morons.”

“Yes,” said Dar. “But our reaction was just one of…what?”

Lawrence frowned at Dar again. “Professional interest,” he said. “Is there a problem with that? It was an interesting accident and the media got the details all wrong, as they usually do. It was fun figuring out what really happened. We were right…right down to the phantom car, the alcohol, and the speed of impact. We didn’t get involved with the orgy of mourning going on everywhere because that was media-hype celebrity-cult bullshit. If I want to weep for the dead, I’ll visit the graveyard in Illinois where my parents are buried. Is there a problem with any of that, Dar? Did we react wrong? Is that what you’re saying?”

Dar shook his head. “No,” he said. And a moment later, he said it again. “No, we didn’t react wrong at all.”

Back at his condo loft that evening, Dar could not concentrate. None of the accidents he and Lawrence had investigated that day would take much reconstruction. The gunshot accidents had been a little out of the ordinary, but not that much. Three weeks earlier, Dar and Lawrence had investigated a claim in which an inner-city teenager had shoved a loaded revolver into his waistband and blown off most of his genitals. The family was suing the school district, even though the ninth-grader had skipped school that day. The mother and live-in boyfriend were arguing in the $2 million claim that the school was responsible for making sure the sixteen-year-old was in school.

Dar had twenty other projects he could work on, but he found himself wandering the apartment, pulling books off the shelves and putting them back, checking his e-mail and updating his chess games. Of the twenty-three games he had going, only two required any real concentration. A mathematics student in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and a mathematician/financial planner in Moscow—financial planner in Moscow!—were giving him real problems. His Moscow friend, Dmitry, had beaten him twice and played him to a stalemate once. Dar looked at the e-mail, went to the physical chess board he kept set up for that game, moved Dmitry’s white knight, and frowned at the result. This would take some thought.

Dar was surprised when Sydney called.

“Hey, I was hoping to catch you home. Would you mind some company?”

Dar hesitated only a fraction of a second. “No…I mean, sure. Where are you?”

“In the hall outside your apartment,” said Syd. “Your police protection didn’t even notice us when we came in the back way…carrying a suspicious package.”

“Us?” said Dar.

“I brought a friend,” said Syd. “Shall I knock?”

“Why don’t I just open the door,” said Dar.

Syd was indeed carrying a suspicious package. Dar guessed that it was a rifle or shotgun wrapped in canvas. Her friend was a strikingly handsome Latino a few years younger than Syd or Dar. The man was only of medium height, but he had the muscular presence of a long-ball hitter. His wavy black hair was brushed straight back, he looked lean and comfortable in khaki pants, a khaki windbreaker, and a gray polo shirt, and although he wore cowboy boots, the effect was natural—as if he belonged in them—exactly the opposite of the costume effect that Dallas Trace’s boots had created. He introduced himself as Tom Santana and his handshake was also the opposite of Dallas Trace’s: where Trace had attempted to impress with his bonecrushing intensity, Santana was obviously a very powerful man with the restraint of a gentleman.

“I’ve heard of you, Dr. Minor,” said Tom. “Your reconstruction work is much admired. I’m surprised we haven’t met before.”

“Dar,” said Dar. “And I don’t get out much. But I do know the name Tom Santana…You started out with the CHP Staged Collison Unit and shifted over to the Fraud Division in ninety-two…working undercover. You were the one who blew open the Cambodian and Vietnamese capper gangs in ninety-five and put those two attorneys in jail.”

Santana grinned. He had the smile of a movie star but none of the self-consciousness. “And before that, the Hungarians who literally wrote the book on capping in California,” he said with a laugh. “As long as the Hungarians and the Vietnamese and the Cambodians stayed within their own ethnic group, we couldn’t get to them. But once they started recruiting Mexicans as el toros y la vacas —then I could go undercover.”

“But you’re not undercover anymore,” said Dar.

Tom shook his head. “Too well known for that now. Last couple of years I’ve been heading up FIST…The last year, I’ve been working on and off with Syd here.”

Dar knew that FIST was a Fraud Division acronymic cuteness standing for Fraud Intelligence Specialist Team. And the way this man and Syd acted around each other…just stood so easily together…sat so comfortably on his leather couch next to one another, not too close, not too far apart…Dar did not know what the hell it meant, but he was irritated at himself for feeling some pang about it. How long had he known Chief Investigator Olson anyway? Five days? Did he expect her not to have a life before that? Before what?