21

February 16, 2024

Brian could not fall asleep. It was the excitement of the move, the new bed perhaps, all of the things that had happened that day conspired to keep him awake. At midnight he decided to stop twisting and turning and do something about it. He threw back the covers and got out of bed. The room circuitry detected this, checked the time, then turned on the dimmed lights that were just enough to enable him to walk without stumbling. The medicine chest was not as kind to him. It had been programmed not to let anyone take medicine in the dark—and he blinked in the sudden glare when he opened the door. If you can't sleep take two with a glass of water, the doctor had printed on the label. He did as instructed and made his way back to bed.

The dreams began as soon as he fell asleep. Confused happenings, bits of school, Paddy appeared in one of them, Texas sunshine, the glare of the sun on the Gulf. Blinking into its glare. Rising in the morning, setting in the evening. How beautiful, how wrong. Just an illusion. The sun stays where it is. The earth goes around the sun, around and around.

Darkness and stars. And the moon. Moving moon, spinning around the earth. Rising and setting like the sun. But not like the sun. Moon, sun, earth. Sometimes all three lined up and there was an eclipse. Moon in front of sun.

Brian had never seen a total eclipse. His father had, told him about it. Eclipse: La Paz, Mexico, in 1991. On July 11 the day became dark, moon in front of sun.

Brian stirred in his sleep, frowning into the darkness. He had never seen an eclipse. Would he ever? Would there ever be an eclipse here in the Anza-Borrego desert?

The equation to answer this should be a simple one. Just a basic application of Newton's laws. The acceleration is inverse to the square of the distance.

Each object pulled by the other two.

Sun, earth, moon. A simple differential equation.

With just eighteen variables.

Set up the coordinates.

Distances.

The earth was how far from the sun?

The Handbook of Astronautics, figures swimming before him, glowing in the dark.

The distance from the earth to the sun at its nearest point.

The axes and degrees of inclinations of the earth and the moon's orbits...

The precise elements of these orbits—their perihelions, velocities and eccentricities.

Figures and numbers clicked into place—and then it happened.

The differential equation began working itself out before him. Within him? Was he watching, living, experiencing? He murmured and twisted but it would not go away or stop.

Streaming by, number by number.

"November 14, 2031," he shouted hoarsely.

Brian found himself shouting, sitting up in bed and soaked with sweat, blinking as the lights came on. He fumbled for the glass of water on the night table, drained most of it and dropped back onto the crumpled bed. What had happened? The experience had been so strong, the racing figures so clear that he could still see them. Too strong to be a dream—

"The IPMC. The implant processors!" he said aloud.

Had that been it? Had he in the dreaming state somehow accessed the computer that had been planted in his brain? Could he possibly have commanded it to run some procedure? Some program for solving the problem? This seemed to be what had happened. It had apparently solved the problem, then fed the solution back to him. Is this what had happened? Why not? It was the most logical, plausible, least frightening explanation. He called out to his computer to turn on, then spoke a description of what had happened into its memory, adding his theory as well. After this he fell into a deep and apparently dreamless sleep. It was well after eight before he woke again. He turned the coffeemaker on, then phoned Dr. Snaresbrook. Her phone answered him and said that she would ring him back. Her call came as he was crunching into a second slice of toast.

"Morning, Doc. I have some interesting news for you." After he finished describing what had happened there was a long silence on the line. "You still there?"

"Yes, sorry, Brian, just thinking about what you said— and I believe you might very well be right.''

"Then it is good news?"

"Incredibly good. Look—I'm going to shift some appointments around and see if I can't get out there by noon. Is that all right with you?"

"Sounds great. I'll be in the lab."

He spent the morning skimming through his recovered backup notes, trying to get a feel for the work he had done, the research and construction—all of the memories the bullet had destroyed. It was a strange sensation reading what he had written, almost a message from the grave. Because the Brian who had written these notes was dead and would remain dead forever. He knew that there was no way that he at the age of fourteen would ever grow into the very same man of twenty who had written this first report, based on several years of research. In the end to build the world's first humanlike intelligence.

Nor could he understand any of the shorthand notes and bits of program that his twenty-year-old self had written. He smiled ruefully at this and turned back to the first page. The only way to proceed was to follow everything, step by step. He would read ahead, whenever he could, to avoid dead ends and false starts. But basically he would have to recreate everything that he had done, do it all over again.

Dr. Snaresbrook phoned him at twelve-thirty when she arrived: he shut down his work and joined her in the Megalobe clinic.

"Come in, Brian," she said, looking him up and down with a critical eye. "You're looking remarkably fit."

"I'm feeling that way as well. An hour or two reading in the sun every day—and a short walk like you said."

"Eating well?"

"You bet—the army rations are very good. And look at this..." He took off his cap and rubbed the fuzz growing there. "A mini crew cut. It'll be real hair one day soon."

"Any pain from the incisions?"

"None."

"Dizziness? Shortness of breath? Fatigue?"

"No, no and no."

"I'm immensely pleased. Now—I want you to tell me exactly what happened, every detail."

"Listen to this first," he said, passing over a disk. "I recorded this just after I had the dream. If I sound sort of stoned it's because I took that sleeping potion you gave me."

"That fact alone is interesting. It was a tranquilizer and that might have been one of the contributing factors to the incident."

Snaresbrook listened to the recording three times, making notes each time. Then she questioned Brian closely, going over the same ground again and again until she saw that he was tiring.

"Enough. Let's have a cup of coffee and I'll let you go."

"Aren't you going to see if I can do it again—but consciously this time?"

"Not today. Get some rest first—"

"I'm not tired! I was just falling asleep from saying the same things over and over again. Come on, Doc, be a sport. Let's try it now while the whole thing is fresh in my mind."

"You're right—strike while the iron is hot! All right— let's start with something simple. What would be the square of... of 123456?"

Brian visualized the number, tried to find somewhere to put it. He pulled and pushed mentally, twisting his thoughts about it. Tried harder, grunted aloud with the effort.

"15522411383936! That's the square, I'm sure of it!"

"Do you know how you did it?" she asked excitedly.

"Not really. It was sort of like groping for a memory, something like a word almost on the tip of one's tongue. Reaching and finding it."

"Can you do it again?"

"I hope so—yes, why not? I don't know how it worked in the dream, but I think that I can do it again. But I have no idea how I do it."

"I think I know what is happening. But in order to verify my diagnosis I'll have to hook you up to the connection machine again. See what is going on in your brain. Will that be all right?"

"Of course. I must find out how this is happening."

She turned on the connection machine while he settled into the chair. The delicate fingers made their adjustments and he leaned back, ordered his thoughts.

"Then here is what we will do." She moved the cursor through the menu on her screen. "Here is an article I downloaded into my computer yesterday from a journal. It's titled 'Protospecialist Intensities in Juvenile Development.' Do you know anything about the subject?"

"I know a bit about what protospecialists are. The nerve centers located in the brain stem that are responsible for most of our basic instincts. Hunger, rage, sex, sleep—things like that. But I don't think that I ever read any article like that."

"You couldn't have, it was only published a few months ago. Then I am going to load it into your implant CPU's memory—under that title." She quickly touched the keys, then turned back to him. "It should be there now. See if you are aware of it. Are you?"

"No, not really. I mean I can remember the title because I just heard it."

"Then try to do what you did a little while ago, what you did in the dream. Tell me about the article."

Brian's lip tightened as he frowned, struggling inside his brain with invisible effort.

"Something—I can't tell. I mean there is something there if I can only get close to it. Get a handle on it..." His eyes opened wide and he began to speak, the words tumbling from his lips.

"...as the child grows, each primitive protospecialist grows level after level of new memory and management machinery and, at the same time, each of them tends to find new ways to influence and exploit what the others can do. The result of this process is to make the older versions of those specialists less separate and distinct. Thus, as those different systems learn to share their cognitive attachments, the resulting cross-connections lead to the more complex mixtures of feelings characteristic of more adult emotions. And by the time we're adults, these systems have become too complicated even for ourselves to understand. By the time we've passed through all those stages of development, our grown-up minds have been rebuilt too many times to remember or understand much of how it felt to be an infant."

Brian clamped his lips shut, then spoke again, slowly and hesitantly. "Is that... it? What the article was about?"

Dr. Snaresbrook looked at her screen and nodded. "That is not what it was about—that is it word for word. You've done it, Brian! What sensations are connected with it?"

He frowned in concentration. "It's like a real memory, though not exactly. It's there but I don't know all about it. I sort of have to read through it in my thoughts before it is complete, understandable."

"Of course. That's because it is in the computer's memory, not yours. You can access it but you won't understand it until you have gone through it, paying attention to and thinking about what each sentence means. Making the proper sort of links with other things you already know. Only then will you have made the cross-connections that are true understanding."

"No instant plug-in knowledge in the head?"

"I'm afraid not. Memory is made of so many cross-connections, that can be accessed in so many ways, that it is not linear at all like a computer's memory. But once you have gone through it once or twice it will be part of your own memory, accessible at any time."

"It's fun," he said, then smiled. "My goodness, I even know the page numbers and footnotes! Do you think we could do it with a whole book—or an encyclopedia?"

"I don't see why not, since there is still plenty of memory available in the implant CPU. It would certainly speed up the process of relearning. But—this is such a wonderful thing! Direct access to a computer by thought alone. It is such a wide-open concept with such endless possibilities."

"And it could help my work. Is there any reason why I couldn't load in all my earlier research notes so I could access them just by thinking about it?"

"No reason that I can think of."

"Good. It would be nice to have everything there to digest. I'll do it now, upload all of the retrieved notes from my backup GRAM here—" He yawned. "No, I won't. Tomorrow will be soon enough. I want to think about this a bit in any case. It all takes some getting used to."

"I agree completely. But this is more than enough for one day. If you are thinking of going back to the lab—don't. You are now through with work."

Brian nodded agreement. "In all truth I had planned to take a walk, think this new thing out."

"A good idea—as long as you don't tire yourself."

He put on his sunglasses before he stepped out in the midday desert glare. An armed corporal opened the door for him, fell in a few paces behind as he spoke softly into his lapel microphone. Other soldiers were out on both flanks, another walking ahead. Brian was getting used to their constant presence, barely noticed it now as he strolled along the path to his favorite bench by the ornamental pool. The Megalobe executive buildings were on the other side of the water, but shielded from sight by the trees and shrubbery. He was the only one who ever seemed to come here and he enjoyed the silence and privacy. He scowled when his phone buzzed. He thought of not answering it, then sighed and undipped it from his belt.

"Delaney."

"Major Wood at reception. Captain Kahn is here. Says you weren't expecting her today but would it be okay to talk to you?"

"Yes, of course. Tell her I'm at..."

"I know where you are, sir.'' There was more than a hint of firmness in the Major's voice at the suggestion that he didn't know Brian's location down to the nearest millimeter. "I'll escort her to you."

They came down the path from the main entrance, the wide-shouldered bulk of the Major dwarfing Shelly's small but shapely figure. She wasn't in uniform today and was wearing a short white dress more suitable to the desert climate. Brian stood up when she came close; Woody turned sharply on his heel and left them alone.

"I'm not disturbing your work, am I?" There was a thin line of worry between her eyes.

"Not at all. Just taking a break as you see."

"I should have called first. But I just got back from L.A. and wanted to put you in the picture about progress. I have been working with some of the best investigators in the LAPD. With the kind of work you are doing I'm sure you know all about Expert Systems?"

CONTOUR MAP OF BORREGO, FROM USGS

SATELLITE SCAN DATA

"I wouldn't say all—and I am surely out of touch with work done in the last years. But tell me, what language do you write your programs in?"

"LAMA 3.5."

He smiled. "That's good news. My father was one of the team that developed LAMA, Language for Logic and Metaphor. Is your machine detective up and running?"

"Yes, it is in a working prototype stage. Works well enough to be interesting. I call it 'Dick Tracy.' "

"How does it work?"

"Basically, it is pretty straightforward. Three main sections. The first is a bunch of different Expert Systems, each with a specific job to do. These specialists are controlled by a fairly simple manager that looks for correlations and notices whenever several of them agree on anything. One of them has already searched through data bases all over the country, making lists of all transportation methods. Now it is compiling its own data bases about automobiles, trucks, air travel and so on. Even water transportation systems."

"Out here in the desert?"

"Well, the Salton Sea is not very far. Then I have a lot of other specialist programs compiling various kinds of geographic data, especially satellite scans in this area for the period of time we are interested in."

"Sounds good." Brian stood. "I'm getting stiff—want to walk a bit?"

"Of course." She looked about her as they strolled down the path. "Is this a military base? There seem to be an awful lot of soldiers about."

"All mine," he said, and smiled. "You notice how they keep pace with us?"

"I like that."

"I like it even more. As you might imagine I don't really look forward to a fourth attack on my life. Now the question is, can the system you've put together help us catch up with those crooks? Has Dick Tracy come up with hot leads yet?"

"Not really. It is still processing data."

"Then throw it onto a GRAM and bring it here. The big computer that I'm using will give you all the computational power that you could ever need."

"That would really speed things up. I'll need a day or two to pull all the loose ends together." She glanced up at the sun. "I think that I better go now. I am sure that I can get everything finalized by Wednesday, copy all my notes, and bring the GRAM out Thursday morning."

"Perfect. I'll walk you back to the guardhouse—I'm not allowed near the gate—and let Woody know what is happening."

After she had gone he realized that he should have asked her for a copy of LAMA 3.5—then laughed at his stupidity. The days of carrying programs around on disks, other than those that needed top security, were long gone. He headed for the lab. He probably had a copy of the program there on CD ROM. If not he could download from a data base.

This new-old world of 2024 still took some getting used to.

22

February 21, 2024

Benicoff and Evgeni were waiting in front of Brian's lab when he got there in the morning.

"This is Evgeni's last day here and we want to check you out on the whole system before he leaves."

"Back to Siberia, Evgeni?"

"Soon I hope—you got too hot a place here. But first I go to do a bunch of tutorials in Silicon Valley, finish technical instruction on latest hardware. USA make them, Russia buy them, I fix them. Help design next version. Plenty of rubles in Evgeni's future, bet my arse."

"Good luck—and plenty of rubles. What's the program, Ben?" He touched his thumb to the plate and the door clicked open.

"Troubleshooting. All the equipment has been set up and is operating—Evgeni is a great technician."

"Write that out on paper—recommendation worth plenty more rubles!"

"I will, don't worry. But when you go we don't want to have any more technicians around this place."

"Sounds a winner. But what if a massive crash knocks out the whole system?"

"There not one system—is network of couple systems. Each got copy of network program that contains all diagnostic material from every machine. On top of this every memory and diagnostic report is copied from each machine to a couple of others every few minutes."

"So whatever goes wrong, we should usually be able to recover all the functions. At the worst, we might only lose what was computed in the past few minutes."

"Da. And in most cases, lose nothing at all. "You got trouble, E-mail to me in..."

"Visitors at the front entrance," the security computer said.

Brian touched an ikon on the screen, and it displayed a view from the outside video pickup. Two soldiers were standing at attention, one on each side of Captain Kahn.

"Back in a minute," he said, then walked the length of the lab to the entrance and thumbed open the door for her.

"I hope I'm not too early? The Major told me that you were already here."

"No, perfect timing. Let me show you your terminal and get you set up. I guess you'll want to download your program and files first."

She took a GRAM out of her purse. "All in here. I didn't want to send them through public lines. This is now the only copy—the rest has been wiped from the police computer. There is an awful lot of classified material that we don't want anyone else looking at."

He led the way through the lab to a partitioned office at the far end.

"Just the terminal, desk and chair here now," he said. "Let me know if there is anything else you might need."

"This will be fine."

"Done," Ben said, standing and stretching. "I double-checked and Evgeni has done a great job. All the instructions for accessing and using the programs are right here in RAM."

"I want to see that—but can you wait half a mo'? Shelly just came in and we can talk to her as soon as she has downloaded her Expert Program. This is a good chance for us to find out how far she has gotten."

They walked Evgeni to the entrance, where he pumped their hands strenuously.

"Good equipment, good fun working here!"

"Good luck—and plenty rubles."

"Da!"

Shelly turned around in her chair when they came in and pointed to the empty office.

"Sorry about the hospitality."

"I'll get a couple of chairs," Ben said. "And some coffee. Anyone else interested? No? Two chairs then and one coffee."

"Any results to tell us about?" Brian said.

"Some. I have written the program to link the data-base manager with the discovery program and the human interface. It is mostly—I hope—debugged. I started it up with the goal of solving the Megalobe robbery. It has been running now for a couple of days. By now it might be ready to answer some questions. I held off until you were both here at the same time. This is your investigation, Ben. Do you want to go ahead?"

"Sure. How do I get into the program?"

"I started out using a working label of 'Dick Tracy'—and it stuck, I'm afraid. That and your name are all you need."

"All right." Ben turned to the terminal. "My name is Benicoff and I am looking for Dick Tracy."

"Program on line," the computer said.

"What is your objective?"

"To locate the criminals who committed the crime in the laboratory of Megalobe Industries on February 8, 2023."

"Have you located the criminals?"

"Negative. I have still not determined how exit was accomplished and how the stolen material was removed."

Brian listened in awe. "Are you sure that this is only a program? It sounds like a winner of the Turing test."

"Plug-in speech program," Shelly said. "Right off the shelf. Verbalizes and parses from the natural language section of the CYC system. These speech programs always seem more intelligent than they are because their grammar and intonation are so precise. But they don't really know that much about what the words mean." She turned back to Ben. "Keep querying it, Ben, see if it has come up with any answers. You can use ordinary language because it has a large lexicon of criminal justice idioms."

"Right. Tell me, Dick Tracy, what leads are you exploring?"

"I have reduced the search to three possibilities. One, that the stolen material was hidden nearby for later retrieval. Two, that is was removed by surface transportation. Three, that it was removed by air."

"Results?"

"Hidden nearby, very unlikely. Surface transportation more probable. However removal by air is the most likely when all factors are considered."

Benicoff shook his head and turned to Shelly. "What does it mean by most likely? Surely a computer can do better than that, give us a percentage or something."

"Why don't you ask it?"

"I will. Dick Tracy—be more precise. What is the probability of removal by air?"

"I prefer not to assign an unconditional probability to a situation with so many contingencies. For this kind of situation it is more appropriate to estimate by using fuzzy distributions rather than deceptively precise-seeming numbers. But plausibility summaries on a scale of one to one hundred can be provided if you insist."

"I insist."

"Hidden nearby—three. Removed by surface transportation— twenty-one. Removed by air—seventy-six."

Ben's jaw dropped. "But—suspend program." He turned to the others, who were as astonished as he was. "We've investigated the air theory very thoroughly and there is just no way they could have flown the stuff out of here."

"That's not what Dick Tracy says."

"Then it must know something that we don't know." He turned back to the computer. "Resume operation. What is basis for estimate of removed-by-air estimate?"

The computer was silent for a moment. Then, "No summary of basis is available. Conclusion based on weighted sum of twelve thousand intermediate units in discovery program's connectionist evaluation subsystem."

"That's a common deficiency of this type of program," Shelly explained. "It's almost impossible to find how it reaches its conclusions—because it adds up millions of small correlations between fragments of data. It's almost impossible to relate that to anything we might call reasoning.''

"It doesn't matter—because the answer is wrong." Benicoff was irritated. "Remember—I was in charge of the investigation. The airport here at the plant is completely automated. Most of the traffic is copters, though we get executive jets as well as cargo VTOLs and STOLs."

"How does an automatic airport work?" Brian asked. "Is it safe?"

"Safer than human control, I can assure you. It was finally realized back in the 1980s that more accidents were being caused by human error than were being prevented by human intervention. All aircraft must file flight plans before takeoff. The data goes right into the computer network so every airport knows just what traffic is going out or coming in—or even passing close by. When an aircraft is within radar range a signal identifies them by transponder and they are given clearance or instructions. Here at Megalobe all of the aircraft movements are of course monitored and recorded by security."

"But security was compromised for that vital hour."

"Doesn't matter—everything was also recorded at the Borrego airport control tower, as well as the regional FAA radar station. All three sets of records agree and the technical investigation proved that it would have been impossible to alter all of them. What we saw were true records of all aircraft movements that night."

"Were there any flights in or out of the airport during that hour?"

"Not one. The last flight was at least an hour before the blank period, a copter to La Jolla."

"How big an area does the radar cover?" Brian asked.

"A lot. It's a standard tower unit with a range of about one hundred and fifty miles. From Borrego it reaches out right to the Salton Sea to the east and across it to the hills beyond. Forty, fifty miles at least. Not as far in the other directions with all the hills and mountains that surround this valley."

"Dick Tracy, activate," Shelly said. "During the day in question, twenty-four hours, how many flights were recorded by the Megalobe radar?"

"Megalobe flights, eighteen. Borrego Springs Airport, twenty-seven. Passing flights, one hundred and thirty-one."

"Borrego Springs is just eight miles away," Shelly said, "but they had no flights in or out during the period in question, none that night at all. All three sets of radar records were identical, except for inconsequential minor differences, on all the passing flights. These are flights that are detected at the radar fringes that don't originate or end in the valley."

"There seems to be a lot of air traffic out here in the desert," Brian said. "One hundred and seventy-six in one day. Why?"

"Business flights to Megalobe we know about," Ben said. "Borrego Springs has a few commercial flights, the rest are private planes. The passing stuff is the same, plus some military. So we are back to zero again. Dick Tracy says that the stuff left by air. Yet there were no flights out of the valley. So how could it have got out of the valley? Answer that and you have the answer to the whole thing."

Ben had phrased the question clearly. How could it have got out of the valley? There was a paradox here; it had to go out by air, nothing went out by air. Brian heard the question.

His implanted CPU heard the question as well.

"Out of the valley by truck. Out of the area by air," Brian said.

"What do you mean?" Shelly asked.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I didn't say that, the CPU did." He tried not to smile at their blank expressions. "Look, we'll go into that some other time. Right now let's analyze this. How far could the truck have gone?"

"We worked out a computer model early in the investigation," Ben said. "The maximum number of men to have loaded the truck, without getting in each other's way, is eight. The variables are driving time from the gate to the lab, loading time, back to the gate. Once out of the gate the best figure we could come up with was twenty-five miles distance at fifty-five miles an hour. There were roadblocks up on every road out of here as soon as the crime was reported, well outside that twenty-mile zone. Radar covered the area as well, from copters and ground units, and after dawn the visual searches began. The truck could not have escaped."

"But it did," Shelly said. "Is there any way a truck and cargo could have been airlifted out? We don't know—but we are sure going to find out. Let me at the computer, Ben. I am going to have this program check every flight recorded that day within a hundred- then a two-hundred-mile radius."

"Couldn't the criminals have gotten records of that flight erased? So there would be no traces at the time of the crime?"

"No way. All the radar signals are maintained for a year in FAA archives, as well as screen-dumps from each air traffic controller's terminal. A good computer hacker can do many wonderful things, but the air traffic system is simply too complex and redundant. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of different kinds of records of every detected flight."

Shelly did not look up, was hard at work, oblivious of them as they left.

"Shelly doesn't know about the implant CPU," Ben said. "Was that what you were talking about?"

"Yes. I haven't had a chance to tell you, but Dr. Snaresbrook and I have had some success in my accessing the CPU by thought alone."

"That is—what can I say—incredible!"

"That's what we think. But it is early times yet. I have instructed it to do some math—that's how it started, in a dream, would you believe it? And I read data from its memory files. It is all exciting and a little frightening. Takes some getting used to. I have a strange head and I'm not sure I like it."

"But you're alive and well, Brian," Ben said grimly. "I saw what that bullet did to you..."

"Don't tell me about it! Someday, maybe. In fact I would like to forget this for a while, get on with AI. And you and Shelly get on with your Dick Tracy program. I don't like hiding—or the perpetual threat to my life. I'm beginning to feel like Salman Rushdie—and you remember what happened to him! I would like to, what can I say, rebuild my life. Be as normal as the rest of you. I'm beginning to feel like some kind of freak—"

"No, Brian—don't ever think that. You are a tough kid that has been through too much. Everyone who has worked with you admires your guts. We're on your side."

There was little more that could be said. Ben mumbled an excuse and left. Brian punched up yesterday's work where he had been transcribing his notes in more complete and readable form but it made no sense to him. He realized that he was both depressed and tired and could hear Dr. Snaresbrook's voice giving the obvious order. Right, message received, lie down. He told Shelly that he would be back later and went to his rooms.

He must have fallen asleep because the technical journal was lying on his chest and the sun was just dropping behind the mountains to the west. The black depression still possessed him and he wondered if he should call the doctor and report it. But it just didn't seem serious enough. Maybe it was the room that was getting him down—he was spending more time alone here than he had in the hospital. At least there someone was always popping in and out. Here he even had to eat his meals alone; the novelty of this had worn off quickly.

Shelly had finished for the day and she mumbled goodbye when she left, her thoughts involved in her work. He locked her out and went in the opposite direction. Maybe some fresh air would help. Or some food, since it was getting dark and he had forgotten to eat lunch again. He left the building and walked around the lake and toward the orderly room. He asked if the Major was in—and was taken at once to his office.

"Any complaints—or recommendations?" Woody asked as soon as they were alone.

"No complaints, and I think your troops are doing a tremendous job. They never seem to get in the way, but when I am out of the lab there always seem to be a few in sight."

"There are a lot more than a few, I assure you! But I'll tell them what you said. They are trying hard and doing damn well at this assignment."

"Tell the cooks that I like the food too."

"The chow hall will be delighted."

"Chow hall?"

"That's another name for the mess hall."

"Mess?"

Woody smiled. "You're a civilian at heart. We've got to teach you to talk like a dogface."

"Bark you mean?" They both laughed. "Woody, even though I'm not in the Army—is there a chance that a civilian dogface could have a meal in your chow hall?"

"You're more than welcome. Have all your meals there with the grunts if you like."

"But I'm not in the Army."

The Major's perpetual twisted grin widened at the thought. "Mister, you are the Army. You are the only reason that we are here and not jumping out of planes every day. And I know that a lot of the troops would like to meet you and talk to you." He glanced up at the time readout on the wall. "Do you drink beer?"

"Is there a Pope in Rome?"

"Come along, then. We'll have a brew in the club until the chow hall opens at six."

"There's a club here? That's the first I heard."

Woody stood and led the way. "A military secret which, I would appreciate, you didn't word about among the Megalobe civilian types. As far as I can find out the entire establishment is dry outside these walls. But this building right now is a military base for my paratroop unit. All army bases have an officer's club, separate ones for the NCOs and E.M. as well—" He saw Brian's eyes widen. "The military probably invented acronyms, they love them so much. Noncommissioned officers and enlisted men. This unit is too small for all that boozing discrimination—so we got this all-ranks club."

He opened the door marked security area—military personnel only and led the way inside. It wasn't a big room, but in the few weeks that the paratroopers had been here they had managed to add some personal touches. A dart board on one wall, some flags, guidons and photographs—a nude girl on a poster with impossibly large breasts—tables and chairs. And the bottle-filled, beer-pump-sporting bar at the far end.

"How about Tiger beer from Singapore?" Woody asked. "Just tapped a fresh keg."

"Never heard of it, much less tasted it. Draw away!"

The beer was cold and delicious, the bar itself fascinating. "Some of the troops will be coming in soon, they'll be happy to meet you," Woody said, drawing two more glasses. "There is only one thing that I'll ask of you—don't talk about your work. None of them will speak to you about what goes on in the laboratory—that order is out—so please don't volunteer. Hell, even I don't know what you are doing in there—nor do I want to know. Top Secret, we've been told, and that's all the orders we need. Other than that, shoot the breeze."

"Shoot the breeze! My vocabulary grows apace!"

Soldiers, some of whom he recognized from their guard duties, came in one by one. They seemed please to meet him personally at last, to shake his hand. He was their age, in fact older than most, and he listened with pleasure to their coarse military camaraderie—heard heroic bragging about sexual prowess and learned some fascinating vulgarities that he had never dreamed existed. And all the time he was listening he never let on that he was only fourteen years old. He was growing up faster every moment!

They told stories and old, familiar jokes. He was included in the talk and was asked what part of the States he came from, phrased politely but with the implication that they were puzzled about his brogue. The soldiers of Irish descent were full of questions and they all listened eagerly when he told them about growing up in Ireland. Later they went into dinner together—getting him a line tray and supplying him with plenty of advice on what to eat and what to avoid.

All in all it was an enjoyable evening and he resolved to eat in the mess hall again, whenever he could. What with all the talk and friendliness, what the Irish called good crack— not to forget all the beers either, he had pulled completely out of the glooms. The grunts were a great bunch of government-issue dogfaces. He would still start the day alone with coffee and toast, since he hated to talk to anyone first thing in the morning. And he had got into the habit of making himself a sandwich to take to the lab for lunch.

But he was going to join the human race for dinner just as often as he could. Or at least that portion of it represented by the 82d Airborne. Come to think of it the human race really was well represented there. White and black, Asian and Latin. They were all good guys.

He went to sleep smiling. The dreams did not bother him this night.

23

February 22, 2024

Brian was sitting on the edge of the decorative planter when Shelly came out of the Megalobe visitors' quarters the next morning.

"How is it in there?" he asked as they started toward the lab, the attendant bodyguards walking before and behind.

"Spartan but comfortable. The place was obviously designed for visiting salesmen and executives who manage to miss the last plane of the day. Fine for overnight—but a little grim by the second evening. Still, not too different from the first air force barracks I ever stayed in. I can stick it out for a few days at least."

"Have they found you a better place to stay?"

"Megalobe Housing Advisors is on the job. They are taking me to see an apartment right down the road. Three this afternoon."

"Good luck. How is Dick Tracy doing?"

"Keeping me busy. I had no idea before I started running this program that there were so many data bases in the country. I suppose it is Murphy's Law of computers. The more memory you have the more you fill it up."

"You'll have quite a job filling up this mini-mainframe here."

"I'm sure of that!"

He unlocked the lab door and held it so she could go by. "Will you have some time to work with me today?" he asked.

"Yes—if an hour from now is okay. I have to get permission to access some classified data bases that Dick Tracy wants to look at. Which will probably lead me to even more classified information."

"Right." He turned away and hadn't gone a dozen steps before she called after him.

"Brian! Come see this." She was studying the screen closely, touched a key and a copy emerged from the printer. She handed it to him. "Dick Tracy has been working all night. I found this displayed when I came in just now."

"What is it?"

"A construction site in Guatay. Someone was building prefabricated luxury apartments there. Dick T. has pointed out the interesting fact that this construction is taking place almost directly under the flight path for the planes landing at the San Diego Airport in Miramar."

"Am I being dumb? I don't see the connection..."

"You will in a second. First off, with that much air traffic, people in the area tend to treat aircraft sounds as if they were some kind of constant background noise—like surf breaking on the beach. After a while you just don't hear it. Secondly, because of the difficulty of getting to the building site—it's very scenic but is halfway up a cliff—the prefab sections were brought in by freight copter. One of those monster TS-69s. They can lift twenty tons."

"Or a loaded truck! Where's your contour map?"

"The program has access to a complete set of satellite and geodetic survey topographic data bases." She turned back to the terminal. "Dick Tracy—show me composite contour map and suspected route."

The color graphics were clear and crisp and so realistic they might have been filmed from the air. The program displayed an animation of a vehicle traversing the route, as seen from above, complete with compass headings and altitude. The dotted trace stretched across the screen and ended with a flickering Maltese cross in a flat field next to Highway S3.

"Let's have the radar view from Borrego Springs Airport." Another beautiful graphic, as good as a photograph, but this time seen from the ground. "Now superimpose the landing site."

The Maltese cross reappeared—apparently, deep inside the mountain.

"That is the suggested landing site. Anything further east would be detected by the Borrego Springs radar. This site is on the other side of the hills—in radar shadow. Now superimpose the flight path." The dotted line stretched out across the screen.

"And all of the suggested flight path is behind the mountains and hills!" Shelly said triumphantly. "The chopper could have left the building site and flown to that field, could have been waiting there when the truck arrived— picked it up and flown back along the same track with it."

"What about the radar at the airport here at Megalobe?"

The view of the mountains was slightly different on this display—but the computed track was the same; completely out of sight.

"The next and important question—how long would it take to drive from here to that pickup spot?"

"The program should be able to tell us—it has a data base of all the delivery vehicles in the area."

She touched the graphic image of the vehicle with her finger and a display window appeared beneath it. "Sixteen to twenty minutes driving time from here, the variable being the speed of the truck. Let's call it sixteen, then, because they would move as fast as they could without drawing attention."

"This could be it! I must call Benicoff."

"Done already. I had the computer get a call out with instructions to tell him that he is wanted here at once. Now let us find out how far the copter could have gone with the truck in those vital twenty minutes."

"You are going to have to check all the radar units on the other side of the mountains that might cover that area."

Shelly shook her head. "No need—Dick T. did that already. It is on the fringe of San Diego Miramar. There is a chance that their peripheral radar records would not be kept this long—but as you said about computer memory. Until it fills up no one seems to notice. The programs now never erase memory drastically. Instead, when a memory or data bank is nearly full the lowest-priority data is overwritten. So there is always a chance that some of the old stuff is retained."

Ben arrived forty minutes later; Brian let him in. "I think we may have found it, Ben. A way for the truck to get out of the valley inside that vital hour. Come look."

They ran the graphics again for him, all of them wrapped in silence while the possibilities were explored on the screen. Ben slammed his fist into his palm when they were done, jumped up and paced the room. "Yes, of course. This could certainly be the way that was done. The truck left here and went to that spot to meet the copter—which probably didn't even land. Shackles would have been mounted on the truck to fit the lifting gear. Drive up, click on—and lift off. Then a flight through these passes and out of the valley to a remote landing site on the other side of the mountains. Someplace where they wouldn't be seen—but close enough to a road of some kind that would lead them to a highway. Which means that instead of moving at road speed the truck would be doing a hundred forty miles an hour and they would be long gone from the search well before the roadblocks went down. Trundling along the freeway with thousands of other trucks. The ice-cold trail has suddenly warmed up."

"What do you do next?" Brian asked.

"There can't be too many places to set down so we should be able to find the one they used. Then we do two things—and both at the same time. The police will search along the entire area under the flight path, finger-search any possible landing sites. They will look for marks, tracks, witnesses who may have seen or heard something that night. They will search for any kind of evidence at all that this is what really happened. I'll supervise that myself."

"But this is a careful bunch of crooks. Surely, they would hide all the evidence, cover all the tracks."

"I don't think there'd be much chance of that. We're talking desert here, not well-developed real estate, and it's very fragile ecology. Even a scratch on the desert floor can take several decades to disappear. While that's being done, the FBI will be going through the building company records and those of the copter rental firm. Now that we know where to look—and if we are correct—we will be able to find signs, find a trail, and find something. Let me out, Brian."

"You betcha. Going to keep us informed—?"

"The instant we uncover anything at all your phone is going to ring. Both your phones." He patted the computer terminal. "You're a great dick, Dick Tracy."

"I'll leave the program running," Shelly said when Brian had locked Ben out and had returned. "It has taken us this far—but it probably can't go any further until we have some new input. You said earlier you had some work you wanted me to do with you today."

"I did, but it can wait. I am really going to have trouble concentrating until Ben calls back. What I can do is show you the basic setup that we will be assembling. I have most of the AI body here, but it's as brainless as a Second Lieutenant."

"Brian! Where on earth did you pick up a phrase like that?"

"Oh, television I guess. Come along." He turned quickly away so she would not see his face redden. He was going to have to be a bit more careful with his new G.I. expressions. In the excitement of the moment he had completely forgotten that Shelly was an Air Force officer. They went into Brian's lab.

"My goodness—what's that?" she said, pointing to the strange object standing on the workbench. "I've never seen anything like it before."

"It's easy to understand why. There can't be more than a half dozen in existence. The latest advance in microtechnology."

"Looks more like a tree pulled out of the ground—roots and all." It was a good description. The upper part really did resemble a bifurcated tree trunk with its two multiply jointed metal stalks, each about a foot long, sticking up into the air. Each stalk was tipped with a metal globe that looked very much like a Christmas tree ornament. The two lower stalks were far different. They each divided in two—and each half split in two again. Almost endlessly because with each division the branches became smaller until they were as thin as broom straws.

"Metal brooms?" Shelly asked.

"They do look like that, in a way, but it is something far more complex than that. This is the body that our AI will use. But I'm not too concerned about the AI's physical shape now. Robot technology is pretty modular, almost a matter of taking parts off the shelf. Even computer components are modular."

"Then software is your main concern."

"Exactly. And it's not like conventional programming but more like inventing the anatomy of a brain: which sections of cortex and midbrain are interconnected by which kinds and what size bundles. Truthfully, very much the same sorts of bundles that had to be restored in my own brain operation."

Shelly was aware of the pain behind his words, changed the subject quickly. "I don't see any wires. Does that mean you're sending the information directly to each joint?"

"Yup. All modules are linked into a wireless communication network. Plenty of channels and plenty of speed. The trick is that each joint is almost autonomous. Has its own motors and sensors. So each of them needs only a single power wire."

"I love it. Mechanically it looks amazingly simple. If any joint malfunctions, just replace that section—and nothing else has to be changed. But the software operating system must be awfully complicated."

"Well, yes and no. The code itself is truly horrible, but most of it is constructed automatically by the LAMA operating system. Watch this. I have a good part of that working already."

Brian went to the terminal on the bench and brought up the control program, then touched the keys. On the bench the telerobot stirred and hummed. There was a rustle as the circuitry activated the joints, causing them to straighten. Irises opened on the two metal spheres, revealing the lenses behind them. They moved back and forth in a test pattern, then were still. Shelly walked over and looked closely at the charge coupled pickups.

"It's just a suggestion—but I think that three eyes would be better than two."

"Why?"

"There are errors that two-eye stereo can make. The third eye adds error-checking ability. And it can see more of a subject, making it easier to locate and identify things." She walked around the machine. "Looks like you gave it everything here except a brain."

"Right—and that's what comes next."

"Great. Then where do we start?"

"At the very beginning. My plan is to follow the original notes. First we provide the system with a huge reservoir of preprogrammed commonsense knowledge. Then we'll add in all the additional programs it will need to do all its various jobs. And enough extra alternative units—including the managers—so that the system will continue to work even if some units fail. Designing an artificial mind is like evolving an animal—so my plan is to use the principles that evolved to manage the brain. That way, we'll end up with a system that is neither too centralized nor too diffusely distributed. In fact I'm already using some of those ideas right here with Robin-1."

"Why did you give it that name?"

"That's what it was called in the notes—apparently an acronym for 'robot intelligence.' "

"You said you already had some of your society-of-managers system on line. Could you show me more of how it works? Because the sub-programs in my Dick Tracy system have managers too—but never more than one manager for each program. With more than one manager I wouldn't know where to put the blame when anything fails. Won't it be almost impossible to make such a system work reliably?"

"On the contrary, it should make that easier to do, because each of the managers works closely with other alternative managers, so that when any one of them starts to fail another one can take over. It will be easier to explain after I finish repairing this connector. Would you please hand me that clipper?"

Shelly went over to the workbench and brought Brian the tool.

"What did you just do?" Brian asked her.

"I handed you the clipper. Why do you ask?"

"Because I want you to explain how you got it."

"What do you mean? I simply walked over to the workbench and brought it back to you."

"Simply, yes—but how did you know how far away it was?"

"Brian—are you trying to be difficult? I looked over and saw it on the bench."

"I'm not being difficult. I'm only making a point. How did you decide to walk, instead of simply reaching for it?"

"It was too far out of reach, that's why."

"And how did you know that?"

"Now you're being stupid. I could see how far it was. About two meters. Much too far to reach."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to seem obtuse. I meant to ask you for a theory of how you did it. That is, I'm asking what mechanism in your brain figured out the distance from your hand to the clipper."

"Well, I don't know, really. It was entirely unconscious. But I suppose I used both of my eyes for distance perception."

"Okay, but how does that actually work?"

"Stereoscopic distance perception."

"Are you sure that's how you judged the distance?"

"Not really. It could have been by its apparent size. And I know how far away the bench is as well."

"Exactly. So there are really lots of ways to judge distance. Robin's brain must work like yours, with managers and submanagers choosing the correct subsystems that apply."

"And you're using the system that's sketched in the notes."

"Yes, and I've managed to make some of it work."

"Have you actually got the agent-modules in your system to learn for themselves?"

"I have. Right now, most of the agents are just small rule-based systems, each with a few dozen rules for invoking the UCSD range-finding processes. The agents learn simply by adding new rules. And whenever agents disagree, the system tries to find a different way that produces less conflict."

The bleep of the telephone interrupted Brian and he put it to his ear.

"Brian here."

"Benicoff speaking, Mr. Delaney. If you are not busy could you join a meeting here in the executive building? Major Kahn as well. It is a matter of some importance."

Ben's voice was cold and impersonal. Someone was with him—and something was up.

"We'll be there." He hung up. "It was Ben, a meeting that he says is important. Sounded that way too the way he spoke. He wants us both there."

"Now?"

"Now. Let me power Robin down and we'll see what is going on."

Considering Ben's tone of voice, Brian was not surprised to see the silent figure, flanked by two high-ranking Army officers, sitting at the end of the conference table. When Brian spoke it was with the darkest Wicklow brogue.

"Is that yourself, General Schorcht? Sure and it is? What is a grand man like you wasting his time with the likes of us?"

The General had not forgotten their last meeting in the hospital room, for there was a mean glitter in his cold eyes. He turned back to Benicoff before he spoke.

"How secure is this room?"

"One hundred percent. It has all the built-in safeguards— plus it was swept by the security officer just before we came in."

"You will now explain why you are withholding information from me—and why you refused to explain yourself before these people were present."

"General Schorcht, every situation is not a confrontation," Ben said with studied calm. "We are both on the same side—rather all of us are on the same side. I regret that we have had differences in the past, but let us leave that in the past. You have met Brian before. This is Major Kahn, who is assisting me in my investigation. She wrote the Expert Program that produced the new information, the first breakthrough that we have had in this case. The Major has top security clearance, as I'm sure you will know, since you would have had her investigated as soon as she was attached to the work here. She will outline in detail all of the new developments—as soon as you have told us what you know about the attempts on Brian's life."

"I have told you all you need to know. Major—your report."

Shelly was sitting at attention, starting to speak, when Benicoff raised his hand.

"Just hold that report for a moment, Major. General, as I said before, this is not a confrontational situation. May I remind you of some highly relevant facts. The President himself has put me in charge of this investigation. I am sure that you don't want me to consult him about this—a second time."

General Schorcht remained silent—but his face was a mask of cold hatred.

"Good. I am glad that is clear. If you will check you will discover that Brian has also been cleared for all and any information relating to this case. He—and I—would like to know all of the facts that you have about the two recent attempts on his life. Would you please?" Ben sat back and smiled.

The General was a man of action and knew when he was outflanked and outfought. "Colonel—a full report on those aspects of Operation Touchstone as it relates to this investigation."

"Yes, General." The Colonel picked up the sheaf of papers that rested before him. "Operation Touchstone is a joint operation between the armed forces and the narcotic investigation divisions of a number of countries. It is the culmination of years of work. As you undoubtedly know, due to the reconstruction and development of the inner cities in the last decade, the lower and violent end of the international drug market has effectively been reduced if not eliminated. All of the smaller drug barons have been wiped out, which leaves only two of the largest international drug cartels, virtually governments of their own in their home countries. They have been investigated and penetrated by cooperating agents. We are in the final stages of finally eliminating them. However, completely incidental to this operation, we learned of an approach by a third party with great resources enlisting aid for what I believe is referred to as a 'hit.' "

"The attack on me in the hospital?" Brian said.

"That is correct, sir. Our agent put himself at great risk to warn us. He himself did not know who contacted the organization, he was just aware of the hit contract. Since that time nothing more has been learned relating to this particular situation."

"What do you know about the attack on us in Mexico?" Ben broke in.

"We are sure that the only connection between the two attacks was Mr. Delaney. Since the attackers were never found this is of course supposition. Also, the second attack is not within my jurisdiction..."

"I am in charge of that investigation," the second officer said, a grizzled and menacing-looking Colonel. "My name is Davis, Military Intelligence. This concerns us greatly because the leak appears to have originated from inside a military base. A Navy establishment." There was no doubt from his tone of voice how he felt about naval establishments.

"What has your progress been?" Benicoff asked.

"We have some leads that we are following up. However we have found no trace of any connection between the individuals who were in the first and second attacks."

"Let me sum up then," Ben said. "If you add up what the theft at Megalobe and the attacks on Brian have cost—it must be up in the millions. So we know that some very well heeled source hired the hopheads to kill Brian at the hospital. When they did not succeed there, this same source, we assume, tried again in Mexico. Is that correct, Colonel?"

"It conforms to our own estimates of the situation."

"So in reality all we know is that someone with a lot of money has tried to kill Brian twice and has failed both times. Can we assume that this source is also the same one that committed the original attack and theft?"

He waited in silence until he obtained two reluctant and brisk military nods; the General was as stolid as ever.

"Then it would appear that we are all investigating the same people. Therefore I will keep you appraised in the future of our progress—firm in the knowledge that you will be doing the same. Is that agreed, General?"

"Agreed." The word could not have been more reluctantly produced had it been squeezed from a rock. Ben smiled around the table.

"I am glad that we are all on the same side. Major Kahn, will you explain about your Expert Program and the results that it has produced?" Her report was succinct, clear and brief. When she was done they turned back to Benicoff.

"I took the investigation from there. The results so far are good. Firstly there was a flight at that time in that place. It was recorded by San Diego Miramar. The investigators found a cattle rancher who lives under the calculated flight path. He was disturbed by a low-flying chopper—he remembers it because it interfered with the end of a film he was watching on television at the time. We have a perfect time match from the program."

"You have located the helicopter?" the General snapped.

"Once we put all the bits and pieces together that was the easiest part. It had to be the TS-69 that was working on the construction site. Any machine from outside the area would have to have filed a flight plan and there was no record of one. The copter rental company's records reveal that on the afternoon of the evening in question there had been an electrical malfunction that temporarily grounded it. The machine did not return to Brown Field where it was based, but remained at the site in Guatay. The following morning mechanics were flown there and the fault, a minor electrical one, was repaired. So minor, I must add, that the pilot himself could have repaired it. A loose connection on one of the instruments."

"Was the machine flown that night?" the General asked.

"According to the records—no," Ben said. "That is the interesting part. Flight records are kept from the pilot's logbook since, unlike an automobile, there is no odometer on an aircraft, nothing to indicate how many miles the thing has flown. But every engine has an hour meter that records how many hours it has been on. And here we did find a discrepancy. The pilot reported no flight that night, that the machine was on the ground and never flew until the next day. That does not match the engine's records. So now we come to the interesting part. The FBI were into the company's records as soon as I reported this possibility to them. They had the pilot in custody within two hours—and this is a recording of an interview I had with him just before I came here."

There was absolute silence as Ben slipped the cassette into the built-in player in the desk. The screen slid down into position on the far wall and the room lights dimmed as he turned it on. The camera had been located behind his head, which could be seen in silhouette. Harsh lights revealed every detail of expression on the face of the man he was talking to.

"Your name is Orville Rhodes?" they heard Ben's voice ask.

"Sure. But nobody calls me that. Dusty, as in Dusty Rhodes, get it? And also, PS, I've told you all this a couple of times already—so how's about you telling me just what the hell I am doing here? Or even who you are. All I know is the FBI dragged me here without a word of explanation. I have my rights."

Dusty was young, strong, angry—good-looking. And he knew it too, a girl's dream the way he brushed his big blond mustache with the back of his hand, tossed his hair back with a quick motion of his head.

"I'll explain it all in a moment, Dusty. A few simple questions first. You are the helicopter pilot employed by SkyHigh Ltd.?"

"You've asked me that too."

"And in January and February of this year you were aiding in the construction of some buildings in Guatay, California."

"About that time, yes, I was working there."

"Good. Tell me about one specific day, Wednesday February 8. You remember that day?"

"Come on mister, whatever the hell your name is, how could I remember any one day in particular all these months later?" Dusty said it with anger—but he moved his eyes about quickly, no longer completely at ease.

"I'm sure you can remember that day. It was one of the three days you were not able to fly because of a sprained wrist."

"Oh, then, of course I remember it, why the hell didn't you say so in the first place? I was home drinking beer because the doc said I couldn't fly."

He said it quite sincerely—but a beading of sweat on his forehead could be clearly seen in the harsh lights.

"Who took your place for those three days?"

"Another pilot, company hired him. Why don't you ask them about it?"

"We did. They say that you knew this pilot, Ben Sawbridge, that you recommended him."

"They say that? Maybe they're right. It was a long time ago." He muttered the words, blinked into the lights. He was no longer brushing his sagging mustache. When Ben spoke again his voice was arctic cold.

"Listen to what I have to say, Dusty, before you answer my next question. The doctor's certificate about your sprained wrist was on file with the company. It is a forgery. It is also on record that over the weeks before and after the date in question you cleared up all the overdue payments on your car and made some large deposits in your checking account. These were traced to an out-of-state checking account where a deposit of twenty-five thousand dollars had been made on January 20. Although the account is in a different name the handwriting on the check matches yours. Now, two important questions—who gave you the bribe money and who was the pilot you recommended to take your place those three days?"

"I don't know from any bribery. And that was gambling money, from the off track betting in Tijuana. I sort of didn't want the IRS involved, you know. And the pilot—I already told you. Name of Ben Sawbridge."

"No flying license has ever been issued to a Ben Sawbridge. I want the truth about where the money came from. And I want to know who the pilot is—and you had better think carefully before you answer. This is not a criminal matter yet and no charges have been filed. If charges are filed you are in a very distressful position. That chopper was used in a very serious crime. There have been deaths. You will be indicted for complicity. At best you will be convicted of accepting bribes, lying, endangering life. You will lose your flying license, you will be fined and you will go to prison. That is the least that will happen to you. But if you refuse to cooperate I will see to it that you stand trial for murder as well."

"I don't know anything about any murder!"

"It doesn't matter. You were a willing accessory. But that is a worst-case scenario. If you will help me I will help you. If you cooperate completely there is a good chance that this matter might be dropped—if you can lead us to the people who bribed you. Again before you answer—think of this. They made no attempt to hide the bribe or the forged documents. Because they didn't care about you. They knew that this connection would be made sometime—and knew also that the trail would run cold with you."

Dusty's hair was plastered to his wet skin and he rubbed distractedly at his mustache, crumpling and disarraying it. "Can you really get me off?" he finally blurted out.

"Yes, a lesser charge—or perhaps no charge—in exchange for your full cooperation. This can be done. But only if you can tell us anything that could help us in this investigation."

Dusty grinned widely and sat back in his chair. "Well, I can do that for you, do that for certain. I didn't like the little shit who arranged the whole thing. I never met him but he had the smell of real dirty work. Called me and said the money would be deposited in this bank account if I helped him out. I didn't like it but I was but broke. The money was there, I got a signature card in the mail so I could get it out. Once I started using the money he was all over me and there was no way of getting out of it."

"Did he identify himself? Say what this was all about?"

"No. Just told me to follow instructions and not ask questions and the money was mine. One thing I can tell you about him though. He's Canadian."

"How do you know?"

"Christ—how the hell do you think I know? I worked two years in Canada and I know what a goddamned Canuck sounds like."

"Calm down," Benicoff said, an ominous grumble in his voice. "We'll get back to this man later. Now tell me about the pilot."

"You know I didn't want to get involved. I only went along with this whole thing because I really needed the cash. I had a lot of debts and my alimony was really killing me. So you help me—and I'll help you. Get me outta this thing whole and I'll tell you something that they didn't know, what I didn't even know myself until this pilot walked in. I was told to vouch for him and I did just as I had been told. He was a big arrogant old sonofabitoh, had gray hair—what was left of it. He had flown in Nam or the Gulf War, you could tell that just by the way that he walked. He looked at me, right through me, but at the same time making believe that he knew me so he could get to fly the chopper. That was the arrangement. I was to say I knew him, to recommend him. And I went along with the whole thing, I was really happy about it then."

Dusty smirked and stretched, touched his knuckle to his mustache. "We made believe that we knew each other because that was part of the deal. But I'll tell you something, the old fart had forgotten, but I had seen him once before. And I even remember his name because one of the guys afterwards was bullshitting my ear off about what a hotshot this old guy had been in the old days."

"You know his real name?"

"Yup. But we got to make a deal..."

Ben's chair crashed to the floor and he strode forward into the camera's view, seized the pilot by the collar and dragged him to his feet. "Listen you miserable piece of crap—the only deal I make is to send you to jail for life if you don't shout that name out loud—now!"

"You can't."

"I can—and I will!" The pilot's toes were dragging on the floor as Ben shook him like a great rag doll. "The name."

"Let me go—I'll help. A screwball foreign name, that's what it was. Sounded like Doth—or Both."

Ben dropped him slowly back into the chair, leaned forward until their faces were almost touching. Spoke with quiet menace.

"Could it have been Toth?"

"Yes—that's it! Do you know the guy? Toth. A funny name."

The tape ended, and when his recorded voice died away Benicoff spoke aloud.

"Toth. Arpad Toth was head of security here at Megalobe when the events occurred. I checked the Pentagon records at once.

"It appears that he has a brother, by the name of Alex Toth. A helicopter pilot who flew in Vietnam."