Part 5 (2/2)
Richter took back the FBI card and handed over the correct one. He wished that he could simply kill the two policeman, but to do that would be to allow his mistake to have consequences.
The shorter officer sneered as he looked at the new card. ”I suppose you're CIA too, ain't you?”
Richter allowed himself a frown, but he said nothing. He put his hands into the pockets of his gray overcoat to keep them from the policeman's throat.
The taller officer reentered the cruiser. ”I'm gonna have to call this in for confirmation, Mr.
FBI-FCC-CIA.”.
”Very well,” Richter said, imagining the two policemen's headless bodies spurting blood onto the ground.
He stood silent while the taller officer drawled into a microphone and listened to the squawks that answered.
”Awright, ten-four on that,” the taller officer said at last. He stepped out of the cruiser and squinted at Richter. ”Go on in. Dispatcher said he just got word you were comin'.” The shorter officer gave Richter a glare, then walked around the cruiser to the pa.s.senger door.
Richter held out a hand. ”Key,” he said.
The taller officer handed him a key to the house. ”Dispatcher says you can pick up a hard copy of our investigation progress report at the sheriff's office, but we don't have much yet. There's nothing here, unless the KBI boys found something.” He joined his companion in the cruiser and shut the door.
Richter turned his back on them and walked up the driveway to the house, his shoes crunching gravel.
As he walked, he took latex gloves from his pockets and pulled them on. The locals had probably ruined all but the most obvious pieces of physical evidence, but it didn't hurt to be careful. He was determined that his mistake with the ID card would be his last.
The lights were on in the living room, as was the television set. Buddy Holly was hiccupping and strumming his guitar on the screen. Richter gave the image a cursory glance. It didn't vary in any significant aspect from what he had already seen on his bedroom wall.
A greasy plastic bowl lay on the floor beside a brown recliner, and popped popcorn kernels were scattered on the carpet. Richter picked up a kernel and sniffed it. It seemed ordinary, but he would order a chemical a.n.a.lysis anyway. For now, the only thing the bowl and the scattered kernels told him was that Vale had left the house in a hurry. The rest of the room was tidy.
The items on the coffee table in front of the recliner drew his attention: The latest issue ofRolling Stone.
A water pistol shaped like an electric guitar. A ten-inch crescent wrench. A paperback novel ent.i.tled Power Chord, by an author he had never heard of. A cordless combination telephone/answering machine. A liquor-bottle statue of Elvis Presley. A lucite photo cube containing trimmed magazine pictures of Buddy Holly, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, and John Lennon. The sixth s.p.a.ce on the cube contained a snapshot of a dark-haired, sad-eyed woman standing in front of a satellite dish.
Richter knew from the fact sheet that this was Vale's deceased mother. Next he examined the telephone. A piece of white tape on the receiver cradle read ”Sharon S.: Speed Dial 01, or 234-0793.” The fact sheet had said that Vale was a client of a psychologist named Sharon Sharpston, but the piece of tape put a new light on the relations.h.i.+p. Vale was either totally dependent upon Sharpston's counseling, or he was in love with her... which perhaps amounted to the same thing. He would keep her in mind.
Upon playing the answering-machine message, Richter decided that Clear Lake, Iowa, was a possible destination for the fugitive. If Vale had scattered his mother's ashes near there, it was obviously an important place to him, notwithstanding his a.s.sertion that it was ”just a field.”
Richter went through the rest of the house quickly but methodically. In the living room, dining room, and largest bedroom he found state-of-the-art stereo systems and libraries of record alb.u.ms, tapes, and compact discs. In one of the two smaller bedrooms he found a microcomputer, a laser printer, and shelves containing hundreds of books, many of them devoted to rock 'n' roll history and criticism. In the third bedroom (the windowless one, with a mussed bed) he found posters, concert paraphernalia, a black Fender Stratocaster and amplifier, and a worn hardbound biography of Buddy Holly. Richter let the book fall open three times, and each time it opened to a page containing a photograph of Holly's gravestone. Then, flipping through the book, he came across a photo of the snowy Clear Lake crash site in which hunch-shouldered men stood around the wreckage of the Beechcraft. In the margin someone had written,Why seek ye the living among the dead?
Also in this room, Richter found seven notebooks with stickers listing volume numbers and dates on their spines. The first page of the first volume was signed ”Mich.e.l.le Renee Cranston,” but each of the others was signed ”Mich.e.l.le Vale.” Richter skimmed the volumes for thirty minutes.
In the kitchen he found only appliances, utensils, dishes, and food. In the utility room he found only a washer and dryer. In the attic he found only pink insulation. In the garage he found only a lawnmower and a box of tools that looked new. In the bas.e.m.e.nt he found more rock 'n' roll alb.u.ms and memorabilia, including a computer-generated rendering of Buddy Holly and the Crickets and a black-velvet painting of a fat Elvis wearing a fringed jumpsuit and rings the size of hand grenades.
Richter stared at the painting. It struck him as sad that a man who had once had so much talent had tried to keep on going past his prime. Maybe Holly had been lucky. He hadn't had the chance to become a bloated caricature of himself.
Outside, Richter found a brown lawn, leafless trees, and a satellite dish that looked like the scores of others he had seen during the drive from Kansas City. Upon close inspection he discovered that the aluminum sh.e.l.l that housed the dish's electronics was covered with dents.
He went back into the house and tapped and pounded the walls, searching for secret panels. There were none.
He was finished. In his opinion, this house did not contain sufficient equipment to override either terrestrial or satellite video transmissions. He would recommend that the earth station and microcomputer be dismantled and examined by a technical team, and he would also recommend that the compact discs be scanned for codes, but he didn't think that such measures would yield results. He had smashed the guitar and amplifier himself and had found nothing out of the ordinary.
Also in Richter's opinion, Oliver Vale was not a genius and therefore was not the person responsible for the worldwide TV disruption. However, it was clear that Vale was obsessed with Buddy Holly, so it was possible that he was acquainted with whoeverwas responsible. That was all Richter needed to know fornow, because he was eighty percent certain that he knew where Vale was going.
He left the house, locking it, and walked past the police cruiser without returning the house key to the officers. They glowered at him, and he ignored them.
Once inside the Jaguar, he picked up the phone receiver and punched a long sequence of numbers. His call was answered by the voice that had given him his orders that morning.
”Richter?” The voice sounded agitated.
”Yes,” Richter said. ”No macroscopic clues as to the how of it, although a tech team should examine household electronics. But I have an idea of where he's gone.” Richter's throat began to hurt. For him, this was a long speech.
”Then go get him, and hurry. Circ.u.mstances dictate that you act alone if possible.”
Richter wanted to shatter the phone. He had been hoping that he would be ordered back to D.C. ”Sir, I think it best that another operative retrieve him. He's fleeing several hundred miles, en route to-”
”Cla.s.sify it!” his superior cried. ”This satellite channel may be monitored, and we donot want the Bad Guys getting to Vale first. We had believed that he was nothing more than a hacker, but we were wrong.”
”Yes?” Richter prompted.
He heard a rasp of breath. ”Richter,” his superior said, ”preliminary radio telescope data indicate that the primary source of the Buddy Holly broadcast is indeed located on Ganymede. They're picking up pulses that translate into a dork playing an electric guitar. Do you have any idea of the implications of this?”
”Yes,” Richter said, starting the Jaguar. He was tired of talking, and of listening.
”It means that an extraterrestrial intelligence has infiltrated our solar system.”
”Yes,” Richter said. He held the phone wedged between his cheek and shoulder as he put the Jaguar into reverse and backed onto the street.
”And since these aliens-G.o.d,aliens!- have fingered Vale as their contact, then he's either an alien himself or he's been chosen to-Well, h.e.l.l, you saw all those Spielberg movies. So get to him fast, and request backup only if you're in danger of failing. In that event, use a pay phone with a command sequence to keep the information on earthbound lines.” The voice paused, then said, ”Any reason to think you can't handle this by yourself, old pal?”
”No,” Richter said stonily, pivoting the Jaguar so that it faced south.
”Good. Don't fly, whatever you do; too conspicuous. But drive like a demon was chomping at your b.u.t.t.
a.s.sume that this conversation has been overheard. And by the way, there's to be no elimination of Vale.
Understood?”
”Yes,” Richter said. He put the Jaguar into first and stepped on the accelerator. The automobile sped forward smoothly.
”Unless he's about to be taken by the Bad Guys, of course.” Richter said nothing.
”My G.o.d, Richter, just think of it!Little green men. A tech squad's on its way to examine every molecule in Vale's house, and who knows what we'll find? I don't know about you, but I'm excited!” The phone clicked dead.
Richter hung up the receiver, s.h.i.+fted to second, and switched on the police-band scanner. He wasn't excited. A hacker who could take over satellite transmissions might also be able to generate spurious radio-telescope data.
Richter didn't believe in little green men.
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