Shibumi (3 page)

“To avenge the killing of Jewish athletes at the Munich Olympics. Specifically, to hunt down and kill the Palestinian terrorists involved. Not official. Nothing to do with the Israeli government.”

“I see.” Diamond turned his fingers toward Miss Swivven. “I’ll dine here tonight. Something quick and light, but I’ll need a protein shock. Make it brewer’s yeast, liquid vitamins, egg yolks, and eight ounces of raw calf’s liver. Do it up in a blender.”

Miss Swivven nodded. It was going to be a long night.

Diamond turned in his desk chair and stared sightlessly out toward the Washington Monument. Walking across the lawn near the base was the same group of schoolchildren that passed every day at exactly this time. Without turning from the window, he said over his shoulder, “Give me a data pull on this Munich Five.”

“What indices, sir?” the First Assistant asked.

“It’s a small organization. And recent. Let’s begin with history and membership.”

“At what depth do I scan?”

“You work that out. It’s what you do well.”

The First Assistant turned in his chair and began instructing Fat Boy. His face was immobile, but his eyes behind the round glasses sparkled with delight. Fat Boy contained a medley of information from all the computers in the Western World, together with a certain amount of satellite-stolen data from Eastern Bloc powers. It was a blend of top-secret military information and telephone-billing records; of CIA blackmail material and drivers’ permits from France, of names behind numbered Swiss bank accounts and mailing lists from direct advertising companies in Australia. It contained the most delicate information, and the most mundane. If you lived in the industrialized West, Fat Boy had you. He had your credit rating, your blood type, your political history, your sexual inclinations, your medical records, your school and university performance, random samplings of your personal telephone conversations, a copy of every telegram you ever sent or received, all purchases made on credit, full military or prison records, all magazines subscribed to, all income tax records, driving licenses, fingerprints, birth certificates—all this, if you were a private citizen in whom the Mother Company had no special interest. If, however, the Mother Company or any of her input subsidiaries, like CIA, NSA, and their counterparts in the other democratic nations, took particular notice of you, then Fat Boy knew much, much more than this about you.

Programming facts into Fat Boy was the constant work of an army of mechanics and technicians, but getting useful information out of Him was a task for an artist, a person with training, touch, and inspiration. The problem lay in the fact that Fat Boy knew too much. If one scanned a given subject too shallowly he might not discover what he wanted to know. If he scanned too deeply, he would be overwhelmed with an unreadable mass of minutia: results of former urine tests, boy scout merit badges won, predictions in high school annuals, preference in brand of toilet paper. The First Assistant’s unique gift was his delicate touch in asking just the right questions of Fat Boy, and of demanding response at just the right depth of scan. Experience and instinct combined to send him after the right indices, the right permutations, the right rubrics, the right depths. He played the instrument of the computer masterfully, and he loved it. Working at his console was to him what sex was to other men—that is to say, what he assumed sex was to other men.

Diamond spoke over his shoulder to Miss Swivven. “When I’m ready, I’ll want to talk to this Starr person, and to the Arab they call Mr. Haman. Have them kept on tap.”

Under the First Assistant’s manipulation, the console was warming and humming. The first responses were coming in; fragments were being stored in the local memory bank; the dialogue had begun. No two conversations with Fat Boy were alike; each took on its own patois, and the delights of the problem were beginning to stroke the First Assistant’s considerable, if exclusively frontal, intellect.

It would be twenty minutes before a full picture was available. Diamond decided not to waste this time. He would take a little exercise and sun, tune up his body and clear his mind for the long haul to come. He gestured with a fingertip for Miss Swivven to follow him into the small exercise room off the principal work area.

As he stripped down to his abbreviated shorts, Miss Swivven put on a pair of round, dark eyecups, handed him a similar pair, and turned on the bank of sunlamps installed along the walls. Diamond began doing sit-ups on an inclined platform, his ankles held by a loop of velvet-covered rope, while Miss Swivven pressed against the wall, keeping her vulnerably pale skin as far away from the intense glare of ultraviolet as possible. Diamond did his sit-ups slowly, getting the most work out of the fewest repetitions. He was in excellent shape for a man of his age, but the stomach required constant attention. “Listen,” he said, his voice tight with a withheld grunt as he rose and touched his right knee with his left elbow, “I’ll have to bring some CIA clout in on this. Alert whoever is left at the top after that last round of cosmetic administrative shakeups.”

The highest-ranking administrator below the political shills that came and went as sacrificial lambs to outraged public opinion was the Deputy International Liaison Duty Officer, who was typically referred to by his acronym. Miss Swivven informed her superior that he was still in the building.

“He’ll do. Order him to keep himself on tap. Oh—and cancel my tennis date for this weekend.”

Miss Swivven’s eyebrows lifted above her dark eyecups. This must be something very serious indeed.

Diamond began to work with the weights. “I’ll also want a 0-jump priority on Fat Boy for the rest of the afternoon, maybe longer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay. What do you have on your pad?”

“High protein input in liquid form. Alert and freeze Mr. Starr and Mr. Haman. Alert and freeze the Deputy. Request 0-jump priority on Fat Boy.”

“Good. Precede all that with a message to the Chairman.” Diamond was breathing heavily with the effort of exercise. “Message: Possible that Rome International spoiling raid was imperfect. Will seek, sort, and report alternatives.”

When Miss Swivven returned seven minutes later, she was carrying a large glass of thick, foamy, purplish liquid, the color lent by the pulverized raw liver. Diamond was in the last phase of his exercise routine, working isometrically against a fixed steel pipe. He stopped and accepted his dinner, as she pressed close to the wall, avoiding the sunlamps as best she could, but knowing perfectly well that she had already had enough exposure to burn her delicate skin. Although there were many advantages of her job with the Mother Company—overtime, good retirement plan, medical benefits, company vacation resort in the Canadian Rockies, Christmas parties—Miss Swivven regretted two aspects of her career: this getting sunburnt every week or so, and the occasional impersonal use Mr. Diamond made of her to relieve his tensions. Still, she was philosophic. No job is perfect.

“Note pad cleared?” Diamond asked, shuddering slightly as he finished his drink.

“Yes, sir.”

Disregarding her presence, Diamond stepped out of his shorts and into a glass-fronted shower stall, where he turned on a full spray of bracing cold water, over the noise of which he asked, “Did the Chairman respond to my message?”

“Yes, sir.”

After a short silence, Diamond said, “Please feel free to tell me what the response was, Miss Swivven.”

“Pardon me, sir?”

Diamond turned off the shower, stepped out, and began to dry off on the rough towels designed to heighten circulation.

“Do you want me to read the Chairman’s message to you, sir?”

Diamond sighed deeply. If this twit had not been the only attractive one in the over-100 wpm pool… “That would be nice, Miss Swivven.”

She referred to her note pad, squinting against the glare of the sunlamps. “Response: Chairman to Diamond, J.O.: ‘Failure in this matter not acceptable.’”

Diamond nodded as he dried his crotch meditatively. It was as he had expected.

When he returned to the work area, he was crispminded and prepared for decision-making, having changed into his working clothes, a jumpsuit of pale yellow that was loose and comfortable, and set his rotisserie tan off to advantage.

The First Assistant was working at the console with narrow concentration and physical exhilaration, as he tickled a cogent printout of data on the Munich Five out of Fat Boy.

Diamond sat in his swivel chair above the milky etched glass tabletop. “Punch up the RP,” he instructed. “Give me a roll-down rate of five hundred WPM.” He could not absorb information faster than this because the data came from half a dozen international sources, and Fat Boy’s mechanical translations into English were as stilted and unrefined of idiom as a Clint Eastwood film.

MUNICH FIVE, THE…

ORGANIZATION… UNOFFICIAL… SPLINTER… GOAL EQUALS TERMINATION OF BLACK SEPTEMBRISTS INVOLVED IN KILLING ISRAELI ATHLETES IN MUNICH OLYMPICS…

LEADER AND KEYMAN EQUALS STERN, ASA…

MEMBERS AND SATELLITES EQUAL LEVITSON, YOEL… YARIV, CHAIM… ZARMI, NEHEMIAH… STERN, HANNAH…

“Hold it,” Diamond said. “Let’s take a look at them one at a time. Just give me sketches.”

STERN, ASA

BORN APRIL 13, 1909… BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, USA… 1352 CLINTON AVENUE… APARTMENT 3B…

The First Assistant clenched his teeth. “Sorry, sir.” He was probing just a shade too deeply. No one wanted to know the number of the apartment in which Asa Stern was born. Not yet, anyway. He shallowed the probe a micron.

STERN EMIGRATES TO PALESTINE PROTECTORATE… 1931…

PROFESSION AND/OR COVER… FARMER, JOURNALIST, POET, HISTORIAN…

INVOLVED IN STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE… 1945-1947 (details available)…

IMPRISONED BY BRITISH OCCUPATION FORCES (details available)…

UPON RELEASE BECOMES CONTACT POINT FOR STERN ORGANIZATION AND OUTSIDE SYMPATHETIC GROUPS (details available)…

RETIRES TO FARM… 1956…

REACTIVATES WITH MUNICH OLYMPICS AFFAIR (details available)…

CURRENT IRRITANT POTENTIAL TO MOTHER COMPANY EQUALS COEFFICIENT.001…

REASON FOR LOW COEFFICIENT EQUALS:

THISMAN NOW DEAD, sub CANCER, sub THROAT

“That’s a surface scratch, sir,” the First Assistant said. “Shall I probe a little deeper? He’s obviously the pivot man.”

“Obviously. But dead. No, just store the rest of his stuff in the memory bank. I’ll come back to him later. Let’s have a look at the other members of his group.”

“It’s rolling up on your screen now, sir.”

LEVITSON, YOEL

BORN DECEMBER 25, 1954… NEGEV, ISRAEL…

FATHER KILLED… COMBAT… 6-DAY WAR… 1967…

JOINS MUNICH FIVE… OCTOBER 1972…

KILLED… DECEMBER 25, 1976… (IDENTITY BETWEEN BIRTH AND DEATH DATES NOTED AND CONSIDERED COINCIDENTAL)

“Hold that!” Diamond ordered. “Give me a little depth on this boy’s death.”

“Yes, sir.”

KILLED… DECEMBER 25, 1976… VICTIM (PROBABLY PRIMARY TARGET) OF TERRORIST BOMB…

SITE EQUALS CAFE IN JERUSALEM… BOMB ALSO KILLED SIX ARAB BYSTANDERS. TWO CHILDREN BLINDED…

“Okay, forget it. It’s unimportant. Return to the light scan.”

CURRENT IRRITANT POTENTIAL TO MOTHER COMPANY EQUALS COEFFICIENT.001…

REASON FOR LOW COEFFICIENT EQUALS:

THISMAN NOW DEAD, sub MULTIPLE FRACTURES, sub COLLAPSED LUNGS…

YARIV, CHAIM

BORN OCTOBER 11, 1952… ELATH, ISRAEL…

ORPHAN/KIBBUTZ BACKGROUND (details available)…

JOINS MUNICH FIVE… SEPTEMBER 7, 1972…

CURRENT IRRITANT POTENTIAL TO MOTHER COMPANY EQUALS COEFFICIENT.64±…

REASON FOR MEZZO-COEFFICIENT EQUALS:/p>

THISMAN CAUSE-DEVOTED, BUT NOT LEADERTYPE…

ZARMI, NEHEMIAH

BORN JUNE 11, 1948… ASHDOD, ISRAEL…

KIBBUTZ/UNIVERSITY/ARMY BACKGROUND (details available)…

ACTIVE GUERRILLA, sub NONSPONSORED (details of known/probable/possible actions available)…

JOINS MUNICH FIVE… SEPTEMBER 7, 1972…

CURRENT IRRITANT POTENTIAL TO MOTHER COMPANY EQUALS COEFFICIENT.96±

REASON FOR HIGH COEFFICIENT EQUALS:

THISMAN CAUSE-DEVOTED AND LEADERTYPE…

SEE THIS! SEE THIS! SEE THIS! SEE THIS! THISMAN MAY BE TERMINATED ON SIGHT.

STERN, HANNAH

BORN APRIL 1, 1952… SKOKIE, ILLINOIS, USA…

UNIVERSITY/SOCIOLOGY AND ROMANCE LANGUAGES/ACTIVE CAMPUS RADICAL (NSA/CIA DOSSIERS AVAILABLE)…

SAYAGAIN!SAYAGAIN!SAYAGAIN!SAYAGAIN!

Diamond looked up from the conference table screen.

“What’s the matter?”

“Something’s in error, sir. Fat Boy is correcting himself.”

“Well?”

“We’ll know in a minute, sir. Fat Boy’s cooking.”

Miss Swivven entered from the machine room. “Sir? I have requested telephotos of the members of the Munich Five.”

“Bring them as soon as they print out.”

“Yes, sir.”

The First Assistant lifted his hand for attention. “Here it comes. Fat Boy is correcting himself in terms of Starr’s report on the spoiling raid in Rome. He just digested the information.”

Diamond read the rear-projected roll-down.

NEGATE PRIOR, RE: YARIV, CHAIM sub CURRENT IRRITANT POTENTIAL TO MOTHER COMPANY…

CORRECTED COEFFICIENT EQUALS.001…

REASON FOR LOW COEFFICIENT EQUALS:

THISPERSON TERMINATED…

NEGATE PRIOR, RE: ZARMI, NEHEMIAH sub CURRENT IRRITANT POTENTIAL TO MOTHER COMPANY…

CORRECTED COEFFICIENT EQUALS.001…

REASON FOR LOW COEFFICIENT EQUALS:

THISPERSON TERMINATED…

Diamond leaned back and shook his head. “An eight-hour lag. That could hurt us someday.”

“It’s not Fat Boy’s fault, sir. It’s an effect of rising world population and our own information explosion. Sometimes I think we know
too
much about people!” The First Assistant chuckled at the very idea. “By the way, sir, did you notice the rephrase?”