Michael Kube-McDowell - The Quiet Pools

“Yes. If you could arrange that when we’re done, I’d appreciate it,” Dryke said.

“What else is there to do?”

All that was left was all that there had ever really been—the quest for Jeremiah. “Silverman’s home,” Dryke said.

“Being searched and inventoried now.”

“What about his comlogs, his library, his personals? There could be important information in them—information that could finally give us a chance to take apart the Homeworld network. I have access to technical experts who can disarm any security traps Silverman might have left.”

“What are you suggesting?”

Shrugging, Dryke said, “Mutual cooperation—our expertise in exchange for access to whatever’s dug out.”

Norwood frowned and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t see what standing you have to ask for access to criminal evidence. And we have our own hackers and crackers.”

“If Silverman really is working with Jeremiah, I promise you, you’ll need more than a password engine and a wipe mask to get into his file library,” warned Dryke.

“We’re not amateurs, Mr. Dryke. We do this all the time,” Norwood said with evident annoyance. “And again, I don’t see how I can justify making you a partner in our investigation.”

“Can I inject something here?” asked Alvarez.

“Go ahead,” said Norwood.

“I’m looking at a work load of seventy-one open property crimes against Allied facilities—which may or may not involve Jeremiah or members of the Homeworld movement. Total damage and losses runs about fourteen million dollars,” said Alvarez. “Will that earn me a look at Silverman’s personals?”

“Yah,” said Norwood. “We’ll work with you on that.”

“Then you may as well let Mr. Dryke have it as well. We’ve got a co-op agreement with corporate security, and they’ll see anything we see.”

Norwood cocked his head and pursed his lips. “All right, Mr. Dryke,” he said finally. “Bring on your experts.”

“I’ll go make the call.”

“Wait,” said Norwood, turning to face his wallscreen. “V-mail, forward till acknowledged: Norwood to Unit Six. We’re going to get an outside assist on Silverman’s personals. Let’s keep our hands off all data storage media and devices until then. Catalog in place. End.”

“Sending, sir,” said the comsole’s voice.

Reaching out to his left, Norwood touched several desktop sensors, and a list of files came up on the screen. “Unlock fourteen through twenty-two, one viewing, sequenced, then re-lock.”

“Done, sir.”

Finally, Norwood turned back toward the others and rose from his chair. “Okay. You can call from here,” he said, making his way toward the door. “When you’re done, ask for file fourteen.”

“We didn’t mean to chase you out—” Alvarez began.

“You didn’t. I’m due in the tank to testify in another case.” He squinted toward Dryke. “Let me know when you can have your people here.”

“I will. Thank you, Captain.”

As the door closed, Dryke thumbed off his recorder and turned to Alvarez wearing an openly puzzled expression. “What’s going on?”

“I want Silverman’s personals,” she said. “I don’t want blank logs and a brainwashed AIP. Your texperts are insurance.”

“That’s not what I mean. There’s no co-op agreement between us. Or am I missing something?”

“There is now,” she said. “Unless you don’t want it.”

“I’ll take it. But I still don’t understand. You can’t have forgotten about Brian White since you told Norwood about it half an hour ago.”

“I only told him how I knew you,” she said. “I didn’t tell him what I thought of your ethics. And I won’t, unless you try to see Silverman.”

Dryke looked at her wonderingly. “Stand still. I can’t track a moving target.”

“This one’s different than the last one,” Alvarez said quietly. “White was petty stuff, a classic bad boy. We know how to handle his kind. But Silverman’s a hard-wired freakoid. And he scares the pee out of me.”

“He’s in lockup. Norwood’s not going to let him walk.”

“Not that kind of scared. But how many more are out there?” she asked. “You’ve got fifteen hundred employees in the compound and three thousand more outside for the next Silverman to pick from. There’s no way that you can lock them all up safely out of reach.”

“I know,” said Dryke.

She shook her head. “I don’t know how to get inside Silverman’s mind. I don’t even know if I want to.”

“You don’t want to,” said Dryke grimly.

“Is he crazy? Cerebral function deficiency?”

“Was Hitler crazy?” Dryke asked rhetorically. “I don’t know. I’ll bet he doesn’t come up CFD. He’s worse. A bad combination of hate and intelligence.”

“And calculated viciousness.”

“That’s what you get when you put those two together,” said Dryke. He gestured at the screen. “Are you ready?”

“I suppose.”

Dryke nodded. “File fourteen, display,” he said, thumbing his recorder to on.

Larger than life, Evan Eric Silverman sat calmly in the back of the Ranger cruiser, talking to the officers in the front seats.

“This is just the beginning,” he was saying. “Number one. Somebody keep score. We’re going to stop them. We’re going to push them right to the edge—”

It was midnight in Prainha, 4 a.m. in Northumberland, and 1 p.m. the previous day on Takara and Memphis , orbiting high above the mid-Pacific. But technology and the wishes of Hiroko Sasaki had erased the differences that night. The four people waiting with Sasaki in her garden meeting room were all sharing the same moment with the five skylinked to the gathering, all waiting on the same report.

“We are ready, Mr. Dryke,” said Sasaki, consulting the digital slate resting on her lap. “You may begin.”

“Thank you, Director,” said Dryke from the tank in Houston. “I won’t belabor this. We got into Evan Silverman’s library about seven hours ago. The only defenses in his system were commercial repellents, which were taken down without damage to the files. About four hours ago, the Texas State Police handed over image copies of all the libraries, including Silverman’s contact logs. We’ve parsed them six ways to November, and there’s no evidence he was working with anyone else or at anyone’s direction.”

“Let me be certain I understand,” said Sasaki. “There is no evidence of Mr. Silverman having contact with any person or organization on our Homeworld watch lists.”

“That’s correct.”

“There is no evidence of any communication or contact with Jeremiah.”

“That’s correct. Understand, though, that no evidence means just that. The files could have been purged before Silverman went out that night—a good wipe utility wouldn’t have left us anything.”

“Was there an AIP which could be questioned?” Sasaki said each letter individually, eschewing the acronym.

“No. Silverman lived alone.”

“Do you have any conclusions?”

Dryke frowned. “One thing we did find in the library was a clip file on Jeremiah—all of his pirate speeches, coverage of the tank truck gag here a few months back, and the like. I’m inclined to think that anyone who would take the trouble to wipe out damning evidence would probably get rid of the merely suspicious as well. So I expect that the reason we didn’t find anything was that there wasn’t anything to find. We’ll run the files for embedded code, of course, before we close the book.”

“It is your judgment, then, that Mr. Silverman acted alone, and on his own initiative.”

“Yes. Based on what I’ve seen today.”

“There has been speculation by the media that Mr. Silverman may in fact be Jeremiah,” said Sasaki. “Is there any reason to give this speculation credence?”