April 4: A Different Perspective (10 page)

"President Wiggen, there
was
no shot."

"Well there was one hell of a bang!"

"Yes and it was all from the window having a hole blown in it. It's a very advanced technique to keep the bullet from acquiring a slight deflection piercing the glass. Frankly at two-hundred meters with a .416 it wouldn't be necessary. But the weapon found in the room had a bullet lodged in the barrel. It was deliberately sabotaged, so if someone tried to use it there would be a nasty explosion and a burst barrel."

"Perhaps it was intended for me, but it was a bad round and lodged in the barrel?"

"There was no empty brass cartridge in the chamber. Nor ejected in the room. There were two magazines of ten shots each in the case, not even inserted in the rifle. They were fully loaded with Hornady Match ammunition. If I had to bet between a round of Match ammo failing to ignite, or Air Force One failing to deliver you safely to your next stop, I'd bet on the Hornady round working every time," he told her.

"Oh."

"However that is not a factor, because the bullet was from an entirely different manufacturer. It was military/police ammo and far too common and widespread to track. That just affirms it was lodged there
deliberately
. There was also no hole or impact crater anywhere near where you were entering the rear of that building. and just to frost the cake, the computer which directs the advanced sight on the weapon had extractable memory. It was altered to make the weapon shoot wildly off target from the previous unrecoverable settings. Someone left the weapon there, only after making very sure it couldn't be used to harm you."

"So who was this man?"

"We are 99% sure this it was this fellow," he produced a photo of Otis Dugan dressed as a Chief Warrant Officer. He had an impressive rack of citations on his chest, a big smile and he was holding an elaborate silver loving cup in the crook of one arm and a target in the other hand, with a group of holes that were all in the smallest circle.

"Just out of curiosity, how far away was he to shoot that target?"

"A thousand meters.
That
man didn't miss you at two hundred meters."

"So why him?" Wiggen asked, bewildered.

"Otis Dugan flew into LA on the same flight from Atlanta as this fellow," he produced a photo of  Polzinsky. "This fellow was deemed so dangerous he was not allowed off the same flight. We are still holding him in connection with a number of possible crimes under a half dozen names. He seems to have a fondness for Polish names though."

"What does one have to do with the other? Was Dugan a
back-up
for Polzinsky?"

"This is what strains credulity," the agent admitted. "It appears Dugan had to know of Polzinsky's mission. At least three weeks ago, going by his reservations. He had a perfectly legitimate business appointment for the security company employing him, which he kept. However it also appears he was booked into the same hotel," he said, lifting a dubious eyebrow. He did not believe in coincidences. Not at all.

 "He met a limo and rode off with three men and a driver. He had made no arrangements for a rental car, or a pickup from his company for himself. We have video of him walking out of the terminal following a man who met him. A man who knew a null spot in the terminal video coverage. So if they exchanged tokens, or pass words, or signs, we will never know. But they accepted him."

Wiggen looked at the photos. "They're close but not
that
close," she decided. "You might look at him and take him as the fellow's younger brother."

"And the spacer ID doesn't fit
anything
. They've stopped using them, so why would he have one? Was it his pass to ID himself? Polzinsky didn't have one on him. Why didn't he destroy it? I can't imagine any way the man would
lift
it off Polzinsky on the plane. It would be worth your life to try."

"It seems like it would be worth your life to pass yourself off as a professional assassin to a bunch of crazed fanatics and ride off with them too."

"Well yes, there's that too."

"So why didn't we have people waiting to pick up the people meeting him?" Wiggen asked.

"We didn't
know
anyone was meeting him. and if we had the situation was so thick with peril we wouldn't have risked an agent to approach them like Dugan did. It would be suicidal unless we had the manpower there to surround and overwhelm an armed group. We've been stretched too thin for that sort of contingency with," he grimaced, "other recent events."

"So, whoever Dugan was working for had better intelligence than my own security?" she asked and managed not to sound accusing.

"That's the size of it, no matter how much it hurts me to agree and stepped in and impersonated a world class assassin, made sure his plot could not be carried out and we strongly suspect faxed pix of the people who picked him up to the FBI, before the whole thing went down. I
hate
people doing my job for me. He was visited in his hotel room the night before by the FBI, who searched the room and found neither the spacer ID, nor the key-cards to the shooting. He brazened it out with them, gave them a hard time actually and read a book while they searched his room."

"But
you
found the stuff later?"

"Yes, but in fairness it took a much higher level search. It took eight expert agents over an hour to find them both and they spent another three hours before quitting. We knew by then
something
had to be there, so not to give up."

"What about the pictures he sent? Any leads on them?"

"We can't tie him to the pix directly. The one fellow we still have no ID on him. The vehicle he was picked up with is either a duplicate vehicle, or a duplicate plate of a legitimate limo owned by a transportation company. It was provably in Sacramento all day. Two of the men in the art work were eventually pulled over by State Highway Patrol assisted by county sheriffs. When they pulled off on the shoulder the car blew up with injury to the deputy and damage to both patrol cars. The explosion was massive enough to crater the roadway and cause a pile up."

"What about the security company you say he works for? Surely they had to be involved in this. They made all his reservations and chose him to be there at this time?"

"I agree, but I can't make a thing
stick
to them. We interrogated them and the business in LA hiring them. It appears to be a perfectly legitimate business decision. We pressed it to the point they threatened a defamation suit, if we caused their new customer to withdraw. They insist Dugan made no special request to be assigned the California deal. What am I supposed to charge them with?" he asked, spreading his hands, "preventing your assassination?"

"Where is Mr. Dugan now? Is he in custody for questioning, or did you allow him to return to Atlanta?"

"That's the kicker. He bought a lift ticket for Home with his company credit card. He was in the air before the slime balls blew up. His boss informs us, that being meticulously honest, he has already paid them back for using the card for personal expenses and apologized for quitting without notice. The owner said he'd hire the guy again in a New York minute and to hell with anybody who doesn't like it."

"Home just saved my bacon, didn't they?" Wiggen asked. She didn't say
again
.

"I can't
prove
it, I can't prove much of anything here," he said frustrated, "but it sure looks like it. and it all tells me that Home militia has an effective and extensive intelligence network, likely with sleepers and support people in North America. If you'd asked me a week ago I'd have told you they didn't have
any
intelligence assets in North America, maybe not even on Earth."

"The militia? No, Jon has been Spox for them, but he wouldn't lift a finger to save me. All the Home people ever involved with me, have revolved around April Lewis as a fixed point. That group is quite different than their militia."

Wiggen paused and looked thoughtful. "How about the possibility he just stumbled into the situation and brazened his way through?"

"Please, don't insult my intelligence. He's a visual match and has the means to be accepted and then has every skill and device to systematically thwart their plot at hand? I supposed he just happened to want to emigrate anyway and grabbed the opportunity without a thought to abandoning all his possessions? He didn't clear
anything
out of his Atlanta apartment. It's beyond coincidence. That's not all that has been happening," he said and drew a deep breath. "Remember the former agent whose file you had pulled, Santos, who hosted Miss Lewis in Hawaii?"

"Yes, he was drowned in the Drake passage, wasn't he? His yacht went down."

"Well,  he seems to have lifted for Home from the Canary Islands spaceport since his drowning, along with his wife and an agent the Chinese government seems to want very badly right now. On the same flight was a woman who also appears to be on our State Department detain and question list and several others we are trying to identify."

"Do they run special bargain charters for defecting spies? Free champagne if you show your agency credentials?" she asked, incredulous.

"I know. If you wrote all these improbables up as a spy thriller, the editor would chuck it in the waste basket, as too farfetched and silly to ask readers to suspend disbelief. But tell me, who else right now wants you to remain in office more than Home? You're the only one right now who isn't hot to blow them out of the sky the first chance they get."

"If any of this gets out, it will look like I've only survived by being protected by a foreign power," Wiggen predicted. "My polls are bad enough, that would
kill
me and I have to deal with this lawsuit in the world court. I can't afford to look weak to the voters in any of it."

"Then if you can't reach an accommodation with them to settle the suit, I'd recommend  you move very aggressively to rein in the lunar colony. Bold action looks better, even if it isn't the bold action you'd prefer," Wainwright suggested.

"I've already put the executive, the surviving one, under arrest and issued orders to resolve most of the issues brought up by this legal action. It was a can of worms up there, I admit."

"And are you getting independent confirmation those orders are being
followed
?" he asked pointedly. "They have a history of ignoring them, so I wouldn't assume it is fixed."

Wiggen looked funny at Mel, getting a slowly twisted smile. "I think you have a point there. I'll try to settle, but if it can't be done I'll make sure the public sees me arrest them and that their actions were not what I wanted or ordered. I'll appoint a special investigator today. One with enough power to get the job done. I wanted to say they wouldn't dare, but they
did
dare."

"People do understand, underlings don't always do what you wish," Wainwright asserted.

"You know, speaking of underlings doing the unexpected, the bodyguard I forced on Miss Lewis decided to accompany her back to Home."

"You mean he agreed to emigrate?" he asked genuinely surprised. "Who did you send her? If you'd sent one of my active duty men, scheduled to your own guard roster, I'd have known about it."

"She insisted on a single guard and wanted somebody older and asked for an expert shooter, somebody really good. So I sent her Master Sergeant Tindal, Gunny they called him."

"You sent somebody to her who knows every detail of your personal security? Who trained my men and knows their strengths and weaknesses and helped write the very procedures and manuals they use?" he was clearly outraged.

"Why so upset Mel? Didn't we just conclude they moved Heaven and Earth to keep me from being assassinated? She'll hardly turn about and use him against me, right?"

"Of course not, but as you said your polls are looking poorly. In two years it may be my unpleasant duty to guard one of those Home hating politicians. What if she and the Master Sergeant aren't as fond of the people's choice then, as they are you now?"

"Oh."

"I do believe I shall resign if you fail to win the election."

"Mel, the opposition is talking criminal sanctions against my whole administration if they win. You may need to worry about running for your life instead of resignation letters."

Chapter 16

"It isn't much volume, can't you fit another ten kilos on the manifest?" Jeff asked.

"I'm not going to play this game," Ross told him, "it kills you. If you add ten kilograms, that becomes the new maximum gross lift weight. Then in a couple weeks you'll want to add another couple kilograms. They never ask you to lift ten kilos lighter. It nibbles away at your margin for error, until one day you have what should be a minor problem and find yourself fifty meters off the landing pad and out of juice."

"OK, what can we strip off the ship that is ten kilos and unimportant? I'm riding this thing too and want to live just as bad as you."

"
You
designed it. Are you telling me you left ten kilos of dead weight on her somewhere, that doesn't matter? When we repaired the
Happy
after it was shot up you redid all the braces and mounts to pull higher G. Run it like that to take advantage of the higher efficiency."

"I don't want to let anybody know we can do over nine G, unless we need to do so. Let's keep that little secret in reserve. How about if we fly with a half load of missiles? We seem to be in a lull action wise."

"How about if you ride with no p-suit?" Ross counter offered. "Since things are so peaceful you won't miss it."

"I won't change the gross weight," Jeff agreed. "We have a big load-out of fresh food. I'll substitute some freeze dried this trip. We're running a surplus of water anyway."

"What is so important you'll eat dried stuff to get it to the moon?"

"As pilot you have to know the manifest, but this is confidential. We have a client who is depositing metal with our bank and I'm reminting it. We want to spread it out for security. Some will go to other stations and some will be buried in the Moon. This load is four hundred new gold Solars. Twenty-five gram coins. It has to go next load because of client expectations. We just started doing business and it would look bad if we couldn't do what we promised."