Joe Haldeman: Worlds

At the top of the spiral staircase was a man in a black jumpsuit with a mirror helmet Jeff gave him a signal with his thumb. He opened a door and shouted Go! I was surprised to see that it was night.

We got to the roof in time to see that man jump into a single-seat floater. There were three other small ones; they rose a few meters and took off rapidly in four different directions. One of them drew some hand-laser fire from the ground, but it didn’t seem to have any effect.

Jeff’s floater was larger, with two seats. We stepped aboard and he helped me strap in, a complicated net that slipped over the head and attached itself to the seat at hip level.

The transparent canopy slipped into place and, with a hydraulic sigh, the seats unfolded themselves into beds. I started to say something lewd, but Jeff snapped “Keep your arms in!” and we were suddenly roaring straight up, with much greater acceleration than the kidnapper’s floater had managed. My ears popped loudly and I saw purple blotches and bright blinking stars. It was hard to breathe and I had aches in places where I never felt pain before or since. I was barely conscious when the acceleration abruptly stopped, and the beds became chairs again.

“You all right?” I nodded. I didn’t think anything was broken. He touched his throat and said, “Well done, boys. All units return to Denver.”

We were at a high enough altitude that the Earth’s curvature was obvious. Las Vegas was a beautiful splash of light, slowly receding. The snow-capped mountains glowed faintly under a gibbous moon.

“I don’t know what to say. They were going to cut off my ears.”

He patted my hand. “What good is a husband who won’t look after his wife’s ears?”

“I’ll never say anything bad abut the FBI again.”

“Don’t count on it” He looked suddenly grim. “This was not an FBI job. Strictly private enterprise.”

“Oh, I understand. The FBI can’t work in foreign countries.”

“Actually, we do, under various guises. We certainly have a lot of people in Nevada, which is how I found you so easily. But when it gets back to the Bureau therein be hell to pay.

“What happened, I told my squad I was going to borrow some of the Bureau’s equipment and try to come un-snatch you. I asked whether one of them might want to come along, as a friend not a subagent, and protect my back. All of them volunteered. Good bunch.

“So I checked out the vehicles and weapons from the Denver office, supposedly for a training exercise in assault tactics. The vehicles are all ‘ghosts’; they look like commercial sport floaters. We painted over the license numbers. Right now we’re headed for a rendezvous point in a Denver suburb, a private garage where well scrub the paint off.”

“You’ve taken an awful lot of chances. With your career, I mean, as well as the danger.”

“I’m not going to have a career with the Bureau much longer.”

“It may be some time before you can get to New New.”

“That’s not what I mean. When I got back from New Orleans, I tried to pull the file on Benny. Couldn’t It was tagged ‘Secrecy Class Five,’ which means it’s only accessible to a couple of dozen people.

“I’m good up to Class Three; if Benny had been just a double agent, I could have gotten his file. There’s a lot more going on. I think that farmer was right: the Bureau killed him.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But there’s the clincher. I looked to see if there’s a file on you. There is; it’s Class Five, too.

“This morning my supervisor called me in. There was a woman with him, from Internal Security. She asked me about you and Benny. I gave her a mixture of truth and bullshit. Evidently they don’t yet know we’re married, and I don’t think they know I called in about Benny from Geneva. It must be part of his file, but the thing is almost a hundred thousand words long. It’s not likely she read it all. But she might, now.”

“What will they do to you?”

“I don’t know. What I should do is go back to Vegas and get a dryclean, then go down to the Cape and wait But I don’t have the hush money. That’s what got Benny. A straight dryclean and the Bureau has a file on you in five minutes.”

“How much does it cost?”

“Oh, hell. Twenty-five, thirty thousand.”

“I’ve got it” I picked up my bag and ripped out the bottom lining. I held out a handful of gold coins. “Take it” He hefted them. “I’ve never seen so much gold.”

“They told me it was the best thing I could bring back to New New. Credit per se isn’t worth much, with the embargo on. The gold is valuable as a metal, for electronics.”

“How much is this worth?” I told him, $38,000. He handed back two coins and put the rest in his pocket “Looks like we’re making a hobby out of saving each other’s life.”

“You think the FBI would have you killed?”

“I don’t know anymore.”

The radio chimed. “Ground yourself,” a bored voice said. “Arizona State Police.”

He put his hand on the stick. “I could outrun them…” Instead, he touched this throat. “You guys have vision?”

“Channel Nine.”

Jeff punched something on the dash, took out his wallet and held it open in front of a lens. “FBI business, all right?”

The radar became a flatscreen, a man in uniform peering intently. “You’re coming out of Nevada. Is it that kidnapping?”

He used a voice I’d never heard. “Do you want to have your job tomorrow?”

The man stared for a second. “Understood. I didn’t see you.”

“Four other vehicles without numbers. Some of them may come into your airspace.”

He smiled. “I sure don’t see them on the scope.”

“Thanks. Endit.”

“Good hunting.”

Jeff switched the screen back to radar. “No love lost between Arizona and Nevada.” He punched some more buttons and let go of the wheel. “Game plan. When we get to the garage, we call a cab for you. You go straight to the tube station and take the first one out. Anywhere. Then transfer to Atlanta.”

“I don’t want to desert you.”

“You won’t be. Don’t worry. I’ll get my squad straight, have my second turn in the equipment, and then go back to Vegas. Take me six, maybe eight hours for the dry clean. No surgery, just a wig and a beard. I’ll meet you at Cape Town, sovereign territory, should be safe for both of us.

“You’ve been in the news, so you might be recognized. Play dumb—‘A lot of people say I look like her’-but if you get cornered, say you were rescued by five people who said they’d been hired by the New New York Corporation. I don’t think New New York would deny it.”

“All right. But isn’t it dangerous for you to be going back to Denver? If the FBI’s after your hide in New York, don’t you think the word may have spread?”

“There’s a chance,” he admitted. “But there’s no big staff in Denver, and only one person on night duty. No one in New York knows I’m gone, though I’m supposed to meet with my supervisor in about twelve hours. I’ll be on my way to Cape Town by then.”

“You don’t expect any trouble in Las Vegas?”

“Well, I did kill a man there, which is something they don’t like outsiders to do.”

“He was an outsider himself, if that makes any difference.”

“It might But it’s not really worth worrying about. The only people who could link me to that murder are your bodyguard, who has troubles of his own by now, and my informer, who’s an FBI agent herself.”

“Does the murder bother you?”

He shook his head. “Just a little. I tiptoed down the staircase with a gas grenade in my left hand and laser in my right. When I saw the man in the hall I tossed the gas grenade, but I was never any good with my left hand. It bunced off the wall and fell short The guy jumped out of his chair and drew two guns.