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another.
Which may have been the reason that when the flight ended, she was too groggy
to disembark under her own power.
The airport had its own emergency medical facility, and although births, these
days, weren't among the most common types of emergencies, Moss delivered
safely within an hour of arrival: An XZ, the baby was, because the doctor
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said, "It's a boy."
For a time, then, her cognizance was more or less blurred. She came the
nearest to full waking late that evening, just as her roommate's small
Tri-V announced "the news, with Sandy Moran."
Moran, when she came onscreen, seemed considerably dis-pleased about
something. After a few moments, Moss realized what it was. But there wasn't
anything she could do about it. Or about the disturbing news
Moran did report.
Well before program time, Sandy gave up on her mystery caller. A
check with the airline confirmed that a Moss Frantz had flown from
Chicago to New York, but nothing more; at the airport the woman's trail seemed
to end.
Moran had held most of her air time open for this story; dammit, there had to
be something she could salvage. She punched up the recording of the call,
leaving the picture off, and listened. And after a few moments, "Well, all
rightl"
She could use the part about the FBI blockading the
Phoenix Foundation.
Better check first, though: Sandy put a call through to the Foundation.
On a hunch she made it voice only, no outgoing visual and sure enough, the
other end did the same. A man's voice said, "Keith here."
"Keith who?" Or maybe, Who Keith?
The voice sharpened. "Who's that? What's your badge number? Are you
Bureau, or local PD? Speak up!"
Lacking any real cause to resent the man's take-charge manner, somehow she
felt the impish urge to hang one on him. "
You're not the man who ordered the pizzas." While he was still sputtering, she
cut the circuit.
Now to confirm. Another try at Phoenix got her "Agent Greene, Liaison"; she
hung up. At Chicago's Channel 83, as soon as she mentioned the Foundation she
was connected to a man named Greenmain, who immediately said they had a bad
connection, he couldn't hear her. A stall is a stall is a stall; she didn't
bother to call back.
Over coffee she tried to figure an angle; after her second cup she thought she
might have one. The Chicago police operator didn't mind naming the three most
recent medal-winning sergeants: "Any extra publicity those guys get, it's good
for the whole department."
Right, and thanks. On her next call she got a different voice at CPD.
"Could I speak to Sergeant Williams, please?" Pause. "Oh if he's on the
Phoenix raid, with the FBI people, I could try again tomorrow. Or maybe ?" She
let it hang there.
"Well, he's uh, we're not supposed to now wait a minute! How do you know about
that?"
Just lucky, I guess
! But not to get a perfectly innocent sergeant in trouble, "Not from him."
Sandy hung up.
When her air spot came on, she hit it with everything she had. Except, of
course, no names; "FBI sources" and "Chicago police sources" were good enough
tags, she thought, to get this whole mess out in the open.
And just in case Moss Frantz might turn up later, no point in scaring her off,
either.
Working hard at it, Cogdill could now talk a little. Too slow and slurred,
though, for anyone but Laura and the doctors to cope with; now, accepting
Bardeen's phone call, he stayed at the keyboard. He was almost done explaining
why the Feen had to go public about the Mark Twos, plus the rationale to be
used in that disclosure, when two things happened.
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First his screen signaled another incoming call and split off a "window"
to display greetings from Troy dos Caras. He punched to make the call a
three-way, then typed HI TROY KNT BRDN ON HR TOO SO LTS TLK
FST KNT I
But then Laura ran in. "Thane, the police and FBI are on their way up here,
any second now! You "
He waved her to silence. "Lorrruh. Waaait müinn." On the keyboard he punched
TROY N KNT I GOT FUZZ CMNG HV TO CUT FM HR SO U
WRK TINGS OUT BTN U OK QQQ
He took his terminal out of the circuit, leaving the other two connected, then
blanked all text from his screen and punched LAURA DONT LET M
KNO I CAN TALK N TAKE TIS TING AWAY SO TY DONT KNO I TLK
TIS WAY EITHER OK QQQ And again blanked it.
When the FBI group came in, the terminal was out of sight. Cogdill lay,
deliberately slackfaced and trying to induce a bit of drool for best effect,
while Laura sat alongside him, looking worried.
Doing great, kid
! He squeezed her hand.
The little greyhaired dynamo was Annek Getzlor; the pale man bird-dogging for
her was some kind of flunkey. Given normal circumstances, those people might
have actually scared Thane Cogdill. As things were, he "answered" their
questions with raucous, uncouth sounds and hyped his breathing up, until Laura
got one of his doctors in to tell them to leave him alone.
As Getzlor and Company left, Cogdill was hard put to keep from laughing. Even
though, in the larger sense, nothing about the situation was even remotely
funny.
It wasn't that the President yelled very often, but when he did, L.
Travers Munro truly hated to be within range.
"Did you see this?" Once again Uther Stanton Archer replayed the NBS
late newsbreak, with the Moran woman blowing a whistle on the Federal
Bureau of Investigation.
"Yes, sir, I did. I came up to tell you, but you'd already "
"I'd already decided to have Annek Getzlor relieved of duty, arrested, and
brought up on charges!" Archer threw a bowl of candy across the room; the
pieces were hard-surfaced, Munro noted, and wouldn't stain the carpet. "I have
three perfectly good U.S. Marshals in that city, including
Hayes Tedrow who's probably the best in the business. But billy-bedamn if even
one of them can find a way into the Phoenix compound. All routes are
blockaded."
"Not all, sir. Getzlor got in."
"Tell me something I don't know. How did she do it?"
Out of a total blank, the idea came. Munro said, "Sir, may I make a call from
here? Right now?"
"To whom?"
"FAA, Chicago regional office."
One if by land, two if by sea
. But with land interdicted and no sea available, only air was left.
In less than ten minutes Munro had his answers. "After a number of recent
authorized copter flights into and out of the Phoenix compound, a rather large
unauthorized flight went in. Inquiries, up to now, have been fruitless."
"Getzlor." Archer's clenched fist swept down toward his desk but stopped short
of striking it. "So?"
"With your personal authorization, Marshal Tedrow and his colleagues might
take the same option. Would you like ?"
Headshake. "You make the call, Travers; it's your idea." And a few minutes [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]