Ben Bova - The Multiple Man

I never found those links. They just weren’t there. Halliday was his own man, as fiercely independent and tough-minded as his hero father. Despite myself, I liked the man. I wound up working for him, of course. And the relationship between James and his father reminded me of the relationship between the ancient conqueror Alexander the Great and his father, Philip of Macedon: pride, love, competition, maybe envy. Philip had been assassinated, probably on order of his son.

Now the General stood before me, saber-straight and lean. He fixed me with his eyes as I was about to take a bite of my half-finished sandwich. I felt like a very small mouse that had just been spotted by a very hungry cat.

“Just what in hell is going on?” he said. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. There was enough iron even in his calmest tones to swing a compass needle around.

A slice of tomato oozed out of my sandwich as I replied, “Good afternoon, General.” Dazzling comeback.

He strode over to our table. Wyatt got up and fetched a chair for him. I got to my feet.

As we all sat down, the General asked me, “Are you supposed to be the President’s press secretary, or some amateur detective out of a lousy TV show?”

I let the rest of my sandwich drop into the plate. “Is that a riddle or do you want a serious answer?”

He glared at Wyatt, as if it were his fault, then returned to me. “Listen, sonny, you’re supposed to be working in Washington. What in the name of hell are you doing running around the country-side to Minnesota and up here?”

“I’m trying to find out what’s going on, and who’s attempting to kill your son.”

“We have the whole mother-thumping FBI and Secret Service available for that. Plus the Army, Navy, and Aerospace Force, if we need ’em. Who the hell gave you a sheriff’s badge?”

I took a deep breath. His bark’s worse than his bite, I told myself, even though I didn’t believe it. “General Halliday… sir. It may come as a shock to you, but I cannot, and will not, try to keep this story away from the news hounds unless I know exactly what the story is. I’m not going to operate in the dark.”

Wyatt smirked. “And how much have you found out by running up to Minnesota?”

“At least I know as much about what killed those duplicates as Dr. Peña does.”

“You met Peña?” the General snapped.

“Yes.”

“And what did he tell you?”

“Not a helluva lot. Said he can’t determine what killed the duplicates. Apparently they just keeled over and died.”

“That’s the same report we got,” Wyatt said. “And the same information you would have gotten, if you’d been in your office this morning.”

“Really?” I asked.

His Holiness clenched his teeth and said nothing. I turned back to the General. “Why was McMurtrie here? Did he bring Dr. Klienerman with him?”

Now it was the General’s turn to keep his mouth clamped shut. He looked at Wyatt and cocked an eyebrow.

“The first… body,” Wyatt said, his voice chokingly strained, “was found in Denver. McMurtrie figured as long as he was coming that close, he might as well drop in here and tell us what was going on.”

“He knew you were here?” I asked Wyatt.

“We were in constant communication all the time,” he answered.

“What’s Dr. Klienerman have to say about all this?”

“Nothing,” the General snapped. “Not a damned thing.”

“He and Dr. Peña didn’t get along very well,” Wyatt explained. “You know how it is when two prima donnas get under the same roof.”

“What do you mean?”

Wyatt looked even more uncomfortable. “Peña wouldn’t allow Klienerman to see the bodies of the duplicates.”

“What? But he’s the President’s personal physician! If one of those bodies is the President…”

“They’re not,” said the General.

“How can you be certain?”

“Peña’s satisfied…”

“Dr. Peña told me they were exactly alike, for Chrissake!” I knew I was shouting, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. “He can’t tell one from the other, and he can’t tell either one from the President’s medical profile.”

“They are not the President,” the General insisted.

I took a good look at him. Arguing with him on that point would have been like trying to tear down Red Peak with a soggy toothpick. He had made up his mind and that was that.

Wyatt said, “Meric, you really ought to get back to Washington and stay close to your office. We’ll keep you informed.”

“I still want to see McMurtrie,” I said.

“That will be impossible,” the General said.

“Why can’t—”

“McMurtrie’s helicopter crashed between here and Mt. Evans. I got the word just before I came in here.”

I couldn’t move. Not even my mouth would work. It was like being paralyzed.

Wyatt seemed stunned, too. But only for a moment. He asked, “McMurtrie…?”

“Dead. Everybody on board was killed. McMurtrie, Klienerman and the pilot.”

“They’re sure?”

The General’s voice was stony. “State police helicopter flew over the crash site. Heard a distress call and went to investigate. By the time they got there, there was nothing to see but burning wreckage. No survivors.”

“Jesus-suffering-Christ,” said Wyatt.

I still couldn’t utter a word. But my brain was racing at hyperkinetic speed. McMurtrie was killed. Murdered. Either he or Klienerman had found something, and they were both killed before they could tell anyone. Murdered by somebody here in the General’s household.

It was around midnight when my flight landed at Washington National. Home of the brave, I told myself. It was an effort just to pull myself out of the seat and trudge past the weary stewardesses standing at the plane’s main hatch. Even their conditioned-reflex smiles looked bedraggled. I felt as if that helicopter of the General’s had landed on my back. Utterly tired. Not just physically. The kind of nothing-left feeling when you’ve burned up the last of your adrenalin and the monster you were facing is still there, bigger than ever, breathing fire and reaching out to clutch you.

The airport was just about deserted. They stopped flights into National after midnight. The official reason was the noise; it bothered people living in the area. The real reason was security. Ever since the National Vigilance Society had tried to seize the Government and the city a dozen years ago, the airport had been kept under very tight security guard.

The damned corridor out to the main terminal building seemed endless. It was like a surrealistic nightmare; I was walking alone up this gradually sloping bare white-tiled corridor, scared to look behind me for fear that whoever got McMurtrie would be coming after me, scared to push ahead because I knew there were things in that city out there that I’d rather not face up to.

But as I went past the deserted passenger inspection station, with its X-ray cameras for searching baggage and its magnetic detectors for finding metal on passengers, the whole gloomy airport lit up for me. Vickie was sitting there, reading a magazine.

I was the first of the half-dozen passengers coming out of the plane, and she hadn’t looked up yet to notice anyone approaching. Her golden hair was a touch of sun warmth in the impersonal coldness of the terminal building. She was dressed casually in slacks and sweater, but she looked grand to me.

“You don’t get paid overtime, you know,” I said.

She looked up, startled momentarily, and then grinned. “I happened to be in the neighborhood…” She got up and stuffed the magazine into her shoulder bag.