Second Contact Read online

  “All right,” said Roth with a shrug. He walked to the door, entered his personal code, and stepped back as Jaimie darted in.

  A moment later the three of them were inside.

  17.

  “Jaimie, check the place over while the general and I go into the living room.”

  She nodded and disappeared into the interior of the huge apartment, while Roth walked straight ahead.

  “Uh-uh, General,” said Becker. “The living room's to your right.”

  “I have 30 seconds to deactivate the alarm after entering,” answered the major. He walked into a room that was originally a bedroom but now seemed to be a study, entered a code on the alarm box that was neatly camouflaged behind some drapes, and then proceeded to the oversized and elegantly-appointed living room.

  “May I sit down?” asked Roth.

  “On any chair that doesn't have a cushion.”

  “Why that stipulation?”

  “Because I don't know what you have hidden beneath any of the cushions.”

  “This is an apartment, Major Becker, not an arsenal.”

  “And I'm a lawyer, not a fugitive.”

  Roth stared at him for a moment, then walked over to a high-backed wooden chair, and Becker seated himself about ten feet away on a love seat.

  “All right, Major Becker,” he said. “Why have you accosted me in my own home?”

  “Why are you trying to kill me?” demanded Becker.

  “I'm not trying to kill you,” said Roth coldly. “I've never seen you before today.”

  “But you ordered Covert Operations to kill me.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are a dangerous man, Major.”

  “I'm a lawyer!” snapped Becker. “You guys are supposed to be killing spies!”

  “There's a Code Red out on you.”

  “What's a Code Red?”

  “Kill on sight.”

  “Why did you issue it?”

  “I didn't.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It's quite true, Major Becker,” said Roth. “Someone in the space service determined you were a Code Red. My job is to carry out my orders, which are to terminate any Code Red.”

  “What the hell have I done to make me a Code Red?” demanded Becker.

  “I was rather hoping you might tell me.”

  “Stop playing games with me!”

  “I'm not playing games,” replied Roth. “I have no idea why you are a Code Red. I only know what I am compelled to do to Code Reds.”

  “This is crazy! You've got hundreds of your men hunting for me, and you don't even know why?”

  “I might ask the same question.”

  “I don't understand you,” said Becker.

  “How can you be a Code Red and not know why?”

  “I don't.”

  “You must. There have only been three other Code Reds in the past decade. Two of them were in the employ of our enemies, and the other was a homicidal maniac.”

  “Do I strike you as a homicidal maniac?” asked Becker.

  “You have accosted me at gunpoint and threatened to kill my wife,” said Roth. “What do you think?”

  “I wouldn't even be here if your men weren't trying to kill me!”

  “You asked me. I answered.”

  “Look,” said Becker. “I'm a lawyer. I've never been involved in a military action. I've never even met an Iraqi or a Paraguayan. I'm fourth-generation military, for God's sake! Why do my own people want me dead?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “But you could find out if you had to.”

  “I won't.”

  “It might save your life.”

  “Major Becker, I let you in here because the alternative was the murder of my wife. That was non-political: you wanted to talk, and I don't want my wife to die. But now you are asking me to betray my employer, which happens to be the United States of America, and I'm quite willing for both my wife and myself to die before I will do that.”

  “I'm not asking you to betray anyone!” snapped Becker. “I just want a name, someone who can tell me why they want me dead.”

  “So you can threaten him as you have threatened me?”

  “So I can explain to him that I am a loyal American and have never betrayed my service or my country. I am willing to turn myself in if I know that I'll get a fair hearing, that I won't be shot the second they see me.”

  “That doesn't seem unreasonable to me,” said Roth. “If you and your companion will surrender your arms to me, I'll do what I can to help you.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “I haven't lied to you yet,” said Roth. “I said I'd turn off the alarm system, and I did.”

  “Your life was at risk,” Becker pointed out. “If I give you our weapons, it won't be, and your orders are to kill me.”

  “Then you tell me: How can I convince you that I'm telling the truth?”

  Becker shrugged helplessly. “I don't know.”

  “You'd better make up your mind quickly, Major Becker,” said Roth. “I have appointments to keep, and if I'm late people will begin checking into my whereabouts.”

  “What do you know about the Jennings case?” asked Becker suddenly.

  “He just announced that he was going to plead temporary insanity,” answered Roth.

  “What else?”

  Roth frowned. “Just that he murdered two crewmen while on a deep space mission. Why?”

  “Because I was assigned the job of defending him,” said Becker. “A week ago I didn't have an enemy in the world. Now suddenly I'm a Code Red.”

  “And you think that it's because of Jennings?”

  “It has to be. Except that the only thing he told me is so ludicrous that no one could take it seriously.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “That the two men he killed were aliens.”

  “And he believed it?”

  “Yes.”

  Roth snorted. “Sounds like permanent insanity to me, not temporary.”

  “Except that every potential witness was suddenly transferred off the planet, and two days later I'm your most important assignment.”

  “It must be something else,” said Roth.

  “It isn't,” said Becker. “The space service even set up a phony drug ring and left it there for me to find, just to make sure I wouldn't believe him.”

  “Aliens don't look like humans,” said Roth. “They would have to pass medical tests, psychological tests, they would be fingerprinted and retinagrammed and...”

  “Don't you think I know that?” said Becker. “It's crazy.”

  “Absolutely right.”

  “Then why am I a Code Red?”

  “I told you: I have no idea.”

  “There can only be one reason.”

  “Suppose you tell me what it is?” said Roth.

  “If Jennings’ story was true—”

  “It isn't.”

  “But if it was, what would that imply to you?”

  “You tell me, Major.”

  “If there were aliens in the space service, they wouldn't all be operating at the lowest levels. Some of them would be high-ranking officers—and one of them doesn't want me to suggest that possibility to anyone else.”

  Roth snorted again. “It's a paranoid's fantasy.”

  “All right,” said Becker. “If I'm a paranoid, if there's absolutely no truth to Jennings story, if I bought it because I'm gullible or demented, why not lock me away? Why make me a Code Red?”

  “There must be some valid reason,” said Roth adamantly.

  “Let me offer an educated guess about something, General.”

  “About what?”

  “About the exact moment that I became a Code Red. It was 46 hours ago, wasn't it?”

  The general stared at him. “It was just after lunch two days ago,” he confirmed.

  “Do you know how I know that? Because that was the exact momen
t I let the space service know I didn't believe their drug ring story. And less than an hour later, somebody tried to kill me and blew away some innocent major who was having lunch in the restaurant I had just left.”

  Jaimie entered the living room just then.

  “There's nobody else here,” she said.

  Becker took a quick glance at his watch. He'd been alone with Roth for a little more than six minutes. He shot a questioning look at Jaimie, who nodded almost imperceptibly.

  He hoped to hell it meant what he thought it meant.

  “All right, general, you've heard my story. Am I crazy?”

  “No,” said Roth. “You're mistaken about why they want you dead—you have to be—but you're not crazy.”

  “Do I strike you as a killer?”

  “You strike me as a man who will kill if he has to.”

  “Does your offer still hold?”

  “What offer?”

  “If I give you my gun, will you take me into custody and personally guarantee my safety until I can speak to whoever put the Code Red on me?”

  “What about the young lady?” asked Roth.

  “She'll give you her weapon too.”

  Roth frowned for a long minute, and finally spoke. “I can't make that decision unilaterally.”

  “Why not?”

  “No Code Red has ever come in before. I'll have to speak to my superiors before I can accept your offer.”

  “What if they say no?”

  “Then I will have no choice but to kill you.”

  “Will you explain that I voluntarily placed myself in your custody after, in essence, taking you hostage.”

  “I will.”

  “Do I have your word on it?”

  “You have my word.”

  “You didn't ask the right question, Counselor,” interjected Jaimie.

  “And what would that be?” asked Roth.

  “Will your superiors honor your word?” she said. “They're the ones who know why they want him dead; you don't. They might be harder to convince.”

  “I'll see to it that they do,” said Roth firmly. “I won't speak to them by vidphone, but by computer, so that I can keep a record of their answers.”

  Becker breathed a sigh of relief.

  “All right, general,” he said, taking the clip out of his pistol, emptying the chamber, and tossing the weapon to the older man. “I'm your prisoner.”

  “And you?” asked Roth, turning to Jaimie.

  She, too, emptied her gun and laid it on a nearby table.

  “You've made a wise decision, Major,” said Roth. He got to his feet. “Wait here while I contact them.”

  “I'd rather accompany you to your computer, General,” said Becker. “If you get a weapon first, I want a fighting chance for my life.”

  “Son,” said Roth levelly, “if I decide to kill you, you're a dead man right now. I don't need a weapon.”

  “Just the same...”

  “Have it your way,” said the general with a shrug. He got to his feet and walked off toward his study.

  When they arrived he stopped and turned to Becker. “I don't want you any closer than the doorway.”

  “I want to see what you're saying to them.”

  “When we get to that part you can come in, but you can't watch me log on or the arrangement's off.”

  “All right,” said Becker, standing in the hallway just outside the office. He dropped to one knee and began fiddling with his shoelace as the general activated the computer, then carefully unwrapped the pistol that he had taped to his ankle earlier in the day as the general concentrated upon his complicated log-on procedure.

  “Ready,” said Roth. “You can come in now.”

  “No,” said Becker. “You can come out now.”

  Roth turned and found himself staring down the short barrel of Becker's gun.

  “What the hell is going on here?” he demanded.

  “I changed my mind.”

  “That gun is empty. You just took the bullets out of it.”

  Becker fired a shot into the wall.

  “Different gun, General. Please come back into the living room. You seem like a fair-minded man, but I'll still have to kill you if you disobey me.”

  Roth glared at him furiously, then walked back into the living room while Jaimie sat down at his computer.

  “Now what?” demanded Roth.

  “Now we wait.”

  “What for?”

  “For my friend.”

  “What's she doing?”

  “Well, to be perfectly frank, I hope she's saving my life.”

  “I was trying to do that,” said Roth coldly.

  “I believe you.”

  “Then why are you doing this?”

  “Because I don't trust whoever it was that you were trying to contact, and I don't want them to know where I am.”

  “They'll know ten seconds after you leave, if I'm still alive.”

  “Then we'll have to bind and gag you.”

  “I wish you'd try,” said Roth with a grim smile.

  Suddenly the vidphone rang, and Roth looked questioningly to Becker.

  “Let it be.”

  “My staff knows I'm here,” replied Roth.

  “But they don't know I'm here,” said Becker. “Let's keep it that way.”

  “They'll be suspicious if I don't answer the phone.”

  “They'll think you're in the bathroom, or out having lunch.”

  “They'll call back in five minutes,” said Roth as the ringing stopped, “and then they'll know something's wrong.”

  “I have high hopes that we'll be out of here in less than five minutes,” answered Becker.

  “Have you given any thought to how you're going to get off this floor?”

  “We managed to get on it,” said Becker with less confidence than he felt. “We'll get off it, too.”

  Jaimie emerged from the office and entered the living room.

  “Done?” asked Becker.

  She nodded, then turned to Roth. “General, I've destroyed your computer, as well your security alarm and every vidphone in the house except this one,” she said, walking over to the vidphone and cutting the cord. “At such time as you take the hit off of us, you'll receive full compensation in the mail.”

  Roth glared at her, but said nothing.

  “What about the general?” asked Becker.

  Jaimie looked thoughtfully at Roth. “I think the safest place for him is in the master bedroom closet. It's quite spacious, so he shouldn't feel cramped, and his wife was thoughtful enough to put a computer lock on it.”

  “You broke the code?” asked Becker.

  “What kind of goddamned genius do you think I am?” she asked. “The closet is open. It'll lock automatically when we close the door.”

  “All right, General,” said Becker. “On your feet. Jaimie, get out of his way.”

  Roth walked to the master bedroom while Becker was careful to stay considerably more than an arm's reach behind him. They approached the closet, and suddenly Roth stopped.

  “I'll give you once last chance to surrender yourself to my custody,” he said.

  “I thank you for the offer,” said Becker, “but the truth of the matter is that, while I'm sure you personally are an honest man, I don't trust the military to honor your word.” He paused. “Please enter the closet now, General.”

  “You're making a serious mistake, Major,” said Roth, walking into the huge closet.

  “Perhaps,” said Becker. “But every word I told you was the truth. And I want you to remember one thing.”

  “What?”

  “I could have killed you, and I didn't. Even though you still have hundreds of men out hunting for me, I didn't kill you.”

  Roth was about to reply when Becker shut the door and a tiny light verified that the lock had been activated.

  “Okay,” said Becker to Jaimie, “let's get the hell out of here.”

  “Right,” she said, heading down
the hallway that led to the front door.

  “By the way, what was all that shit about your not being able to crack a computer lock?”

  “Why let him know how good I am?” she said. “Better to let him guess what I did before I destroyed him computer.”

  “You got what you needed?”

  She nodded. “And I managed to extract his personal code for the elevator.”

  “I figured that, or you wouldn't have suggested locking him up.”

  They walked through the foyer and Jaimie entered the code. The elevator arrived thirty seconds later.

  “Now let's go back to the Regal,” she said, “and find out who it is that really wants you dead.”

  “And why,” added Becker grimly.

  18.

  Becker came out of the shower, dried himself vigorously, and donned a robe that the hotel supplied. He shaved, brushed his teeth, combed his hair, and feeling much refreshed, walked through his room and into Jaimie's.

  “How about something from room service?” he suggested.

  “If you're hungry,” she said absently, sitting cross-legged on the bed with her computer facing her atop a chair.

  “Aren't you?”

  “Not especially.”

  “I'm still pumping adrenaline,” he said. “Damn! We actually pulled it off! I feel great! Maybe I ought to give up the law and join the underworld.”

  “You'd be a flop, Counselor,” said Jaimie without looking up.

  “Nonsense.”

  “Now you're higher than a kite. Five minutes from now you'll be sure Roth and his people will find us before we check out of the hotel. Got to keep an even keel, Counselor.”

  “Well, I'm still hungry,” he said, suddenly deflated. “Do you want anything?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe a sandwich.”

  “What kind?”

  “Whatever they've got.”

  He walked back to his room, ordered a large lunch for himself and a ham sandwich for Jaimie, then started thumbing through the complimentary newspaper he had found outside his door when they got back to the Regal.

  With the trial barely more than a week away, the Jennings story got only two paragraphs on page 8. Somehow his press conference, such as it was, had dulled almost all interest in the forthcoming court case. The man had stepped up in front of a microphone, expressed shock and outrage at what he had done but added that he couldn't remember a thing and needed professional help, and suddenly half a hundred other unsolved and unrepented crimes took precedence.