Harry Harrison - The Turing Option

Brian was looking at the lead car when it suddenly swerved; what appeared to be white dots appeared on the rear window. “ Down!” Ray shouted, his hand on Brian’s shoulder pushing him painfully to the floor. Their own car swerved and the tires shrieked as they accelerated around the corner. There were two loud crashing sounds and a thud in the seat behind him. Followed by an ear-destroying series of explosions as the handgun fired through the open window. They shrieked a turn in the opposite direction and Dermod shouted back over his shoulder.

“Anyone in trouble back there?”

Ray glanced quickly at the other two. “We’re okay. What happened to the other car?”

“Rammed into a lamp pole. Did you hit anything?”

“Probably not. Just wanted to keep his head down. I saw someone leaning out of a window. Firing a rifle of some kind. High-velocity, the sort of a gun that can punch right through this kind of glass.”

He pointed to the rear window of the car, to the neatly drilled hole there. Brian looked on, horrified, as Ray poked his finger into a hole in the seat cushion. Where he had been sitting.

They rocketed around another corner, accelerated down the boulevard beyond. “Any tails?” Dermod called out.

“Negative. I think they had just enough time to set up the trap. Counted on that. Close too.”

“Then we change the route here,” Dermod said, braking hard and heading into a side street. Turning corners apparently at random through the quiet suburb.

“Sorry to push you, Brian — but you see why.” Ray’s gun was back in the holster and he gave Brian a tug back into the seat.

“There’s been a leak,” Benicoff said with cold anger. “They were waiting, followed us from the marina.”

“That’s the way I read it,” Ray agreed. “How many people know about our return plans?”

“Myself. You two. And the two FBI men who will be meeting us at the border.”

“Then we should be all right. How long, Dermod?”

“Five minutes more. I don’t think Saldana walked away from that one. Must have been two guns shooting at us at least.”

“I only saw the one.”

“One for the backseat passenger, one for the driver. I’ve got a nice little hole up here as well. Would have been centered if I hadn’t pulled the wheel when I saw the lead car hit. That Daniel Saldana was a good man.”

There was nothing that could be added to that. They drove in silence the rest of the brief trip. Some alarm must have gone out because when they came closer to the border they passed a motorcycle policeman who waved them on, then spoke into his radio when they had passed.

A few blocks further on they were picked up by a motorcycle escort which, with flashing lights and loud sirens, cleared a path through the traffic waiting to cross into the United States. Behind the customs buildings was a parking lot with an open gate through the fence, the entire area overlooked only by blank walls.

“Wait here,” Ray said. He and Dermod exited the car quickly, weapons drawn and pointed, looking slowly and carefully in all directions. “You can cross the lot now — and we’ll be right behind you.”

And they were, bodies between Brian and any possible threat.

“There’s our transportation,” Benicoff said. The only vehicle in the lot was an armored Brinks delivery truck; the back door opened when they approached and a uniformed guard got out.

“Get yourselves safely away from here,” Dermod said.

“You’re supposed to come with us,” Benicoff said.

“You won’t need us now. The President will want a complete report on this. Would you call our office, tell them what has happened? Tell them to let the plane know that we will be there by six at the latest.”

“It’ll be done.”

The two guardians did not wait around for thanks, were in the car and gone before anything more could be said. They turned and walked toward the armored truck.

“Afternoon, gentlemen,” the guard said. “It’s all yours.” He hadn’t seen the bullet holes in the car, did not know anything had happened. Benicoff started to explain, then realized there was no point to it.

“Good to see you,” he said. “We would like to get out of here.”

“On the way now.” After they had climbed in, the guard closed the door behind them, then went to the cab and took a seat next to the driver.

“That was pretty close,” Brian said.

“Too close,” Benicoff said grimly. “There must be a leak from the base, that’s all I can think of. The FBI had really better get cracking on this one. I’m sorry this happened, Brian. I can only blame myself.”

“You shouldn’t. You did everything you could. I’m sorry about your friend back there.”

“He was doing his job. A very good man. And we accomplished what we came here to do. You did find what you were looking for? Those GRAMs, are they copies of your work?”

Brian nodded his head slowly, finding it hard to forget what had just happened. “Yes, I’m pretty Sure of it. They looked like it when I flipped through, but there wasn’t enough time to be completely certain.”

Ben pulled out his phone. “Can I call this through? I can’t begin to tell you how many people are chewing their fingernails and waiting for the news.” He tapped in a number and waited for the electronic bleep that told him he was connected. “Statue of Liberty,” he said, and hung up.

“The code for success?” Ben nodded. “What would you have said if the records hadn’t been there?”

“Grant’s Tomb. The computer is now making seventeen simultaneous calls to pass on the good news. You’re making an awful lot of people happy today. I can’t say that I was positive it would turn out like this — just very hopeful.” He reached under the seat and took out a parcel. “So I had this loaded aboard, just in case.”

The black plastic case inside was about the size of a large wallet. Ben touched the latch and the screen flipped open and glowed whitely, illuminating the keyboard below it.

“A computer,” Brian said admiringly. “And I suppose you are going to tell me this little thing will handle all my notes, spreadsheets, maths and graphics?”

“I am. Holographics too. Fifteen years ago you wouldn’t have imagined how much could be put in a gadget like this. It also contains a phone-net transceiver and a satellite-based location system, so that you can always tell where it is. The entire surface of this black case is an extremely efficient photovoltaic coating for recharging itself — and…watch this!”

Benicoff pulled firmly on the latch-button, which came out with a whining sound on a length of cord.

“You can also charge it by hand with this built-in generator. It will do anything you want. And before we left I made sure to turn on its phone-net cutoff so that no one, not even General Schorcht, could track where you are, or take a look at what you are doing. Why don’t you plug in one of the GRAMs and see what you have there?”

Brian had no problem at all in getting access to the records. Pretty soon he looked up at Ben. “No doubt about it. The earliest stuff there I can recognize, remember it well. It is the LAMA development I worked on with my father. Then, look here, we can jump ahead to some later developmental work. It seems sort of familiar, but I certainly don’t remember it clearly. And all this later stuff, I feel sure that I’ve never seen it before. This last entry, made some months ago. It is only a few days before the raid on the lab!”

“That’s fantastic. Better than we could have hoped for. Now let’s go. Snaresbrook wants you right back in a hospital bed after this day’s excursion. She didn’t think that you would mind. I agreed — particularly if you had this computer in the room with you. And I also want you under guard where I won’t have to worry about you while I turn over everyone in security.”