Death Match

THIRTY-SIX

Lash leaned back and stared at the ceiling. Even there, columns of numbers, names, dates seemed to stare back at him.

“Christ,” he groaned, shutting his eyes. “I’ve been staring at this stuff too long.”

He heard the shuffling of paper across the table. “Any luck?” he asked the ceiling.

“Not a bite,” came Tara Stapleton’s voice.

Lash opened his eyes, stretched. Despite the dark dreams and memories that had filled the previous night, he’d nevertheless awakened with a sense of purpose. The weekend had passed without any dread events. Driving in, he’d called Diana Mirren on his cell phone. The mere sound of her voice brought him a secret, almost adolescent thrill. They chatted briefly, ardently, and she’d agreed to have dinner at his place the coming Friday. He found himself so busy mentally preparing that he forgot the mortification he’d endured at Checkpoint III until he found himself standing before it once again. But the security officers were not the ones on duty last Friday, and he’d passed through without a hitch.

But now — midmorning — his excitement had drowned in an endless flood of data. There was simply too much material to comb through; it was like sifting a haystack without even being certain it contained a needle.

He sighed again, then pulled Lindsay Thorpe’s internal evaluations over and began leafing through them almost idly. “What’s the story on the third couple? The Connellys?”

“They’re leaving for Niagara Falls tomorrow.”

“Niagara Falls?”

“That’s where they spent their honeymoon.”

Niagara Falls, Lash thought. Great place for a murder. Or a suicide, for that matter.

“There’s not much we can do on the Canadian side,” Tara added. “I spent most of Saturday arranging the passive surveillance over there. We watch, and hope for the best.”

“At least you had something to keep you busy over the weekend.”

Tara smiled slyly. “It wasn’t as if you didn’t have your dance card filled.”

“You mean, my date?”

“How did it go?”

“She didn’t look at all the way I expected. Didn’t sound the way I expected. But you know what? Within ten minutes, it didn’t matter.”

“Our research has shown that we’re often attracted to the wrong people, for the wrong reasons. Maybe that’s why so many marriages don’t work.”

She fell silent.

“Look,” Lash said after a moment. “Why don’t you go through with meeting this guy they’ve matched you with? It isn’t too late. Talk to Mauchly about rescheduling the reservation.”

“I’ve already told you. How can I meet him, knowing what I know?”

“I met Diana Mirren, knowing what I know. And I’m seeing her again this Friday.”

“But I’m an Eden employee. I’ve told you—”

“I know. The ‘Oz effect.’ And you know what I say? Bullshit.”

“Is that your professional opinion, Doctor?”

“It is.” He leaned forward. “Tara, listen. Eden can match one person with another. Perfectly. But once you two make contact, there is no more Eden. It’s just you and him. If it feels right, you’ll know it.”

Tara looked at him, saying nothing.

“One way or another, we’ll solve this. And then it won’t matter anymore. It’ll just be a memory. The past. And any relationship requires an acceptance of the past. Would you begrudge him the cheerleaders he dated in college? This is the main chance, Tara. Take it from somebody who was in that restaurant two nights ago.”

Immediately, Lash realized he’d said enough. Back to work, he thought with a sigh.

Putting Lindsay Thorpe’s dossier aside, he began paging through her medical reports. Then he paused.

“Tara.”

She looked at him a little guardedly.

“About this return checkup of Ms. Thorpe’s.”

“You mean, class reunion?”

“No, this checkup. Is it common for your doctors to prescribe—”

“We don’t do that.”

For a moment, this did not register. Then Lash looked at her. “What did you say?”

“I said, we don’t do return checkups.”

“Then what’s this?” Lash pushed the medical report across the table.

Tara took the report. There was silence as she scanned the pages.

“I’ve only seen this a few times before,” she said.

“Seen what?”

“Remember, on your first tour inside the Wall, Mauchly explained about the long-term health analyses we run on prospective candidates? Checking genetic markers for inherited diseases, risk factors, that kind of thing?”

“Yes.”

“If there’s something seriously wrong, we reject their application. But if it’s minor, or of minimal long-term concern, we’ll process their application and bring them back for a secondary exam, later.”

“Under the pretext of standard operating procedure.”

“That’s right.”

“No point in turning away a paying client.” Lash took back the report, flipped the pages. “But Lindsay Thorpe had no such health issues. Yet she was scheduled for a follow-up examination, six months prior to her death.” He flipped more pages. “At this exam, Ms. Thorpe was given a prescription for scolipane. One milligram, once a day. I’m not familiar with that medication.”

“Me neither.”

“The physician in attendance was a Dr. Moffett. Could you contact him, ask the reason for the follow-up exam and prescription?”

“Sure.” Tara rose and walked to the phone.

Lash watched her. This was another clue, he felt certain; another piece of the puzzle.

“Dr. Moffett’s hours don’t begin until noon,” Tara said as she replaced the phone. “I’ll contact him then.”

“Would you do something else? Pull the medical records of Lewis Thorpe, the Wilners, and — and the third couple, the Connellys. See if they had any follow-up examinations.”

Lash waited as the office filled with the sound of keystrokes.

“Nothing,” Tara said. “None of the others had any follow-ups beyond the normal class reunions.”

“Nothing?”

Tara shook her head.

“Wouldn’t Lewis Thorpe think it strange his wife had a follow-up exam when he didn’t?”

“You know how secretive we are about procedures. Our clients come to accept them without question.”

Lash slumped in his chair. Despite everything, he found his thoughts returning to Diana Mirren, what she’d said about haiku.

They hint at things. They imply more than they say. Don’t search for an answer. Think instead of opening doors.

So what was implied here? What coincidences had taken place recently? And what did they hint at?

Edmund Wyre, the cop-hating assassin, granted parole. Wyre killed three women, two cops, and Lash’s brother-in-law. Lash’s wife then left him, and Lash himself — full of doubt and self-blame — had abruptly left the FBI, searching for an end to the sleepless nights.

By rights, Wyre should never have been paroled. Lash had no illusions: no matter what the parole board thought, Wyre would be gunning for him. Lash was the one he’d missed.

Was this coincidence?

Then there was his avatar being sent into the Tank. Tara had said such a mistake was impossible. If so, somebody had done it deliberately: It would have to be somebody very highly placed, somebody with world-class access. Me, for example. Or a grunt who’d somehow hacked the system.

His gaze fixed on Tara, who had returned to the table and was sorting papers.

Think of opening doors…

And, suddenly, the door opened.

Lash gasped, almost as if he’d been dealt a blow. He covered the sound with a yawn.

It seemed impossible. But there was no other answer.

There were two things he still needed to know before he was sure. Tara could answer one of them. But he had to appear calm — at least, until he had proof.

“Tara,” he said with exaggerated weariness. “Could you do something else for me?”

She nodded.

“Could you bring up a list of all the avatars in the Tank when the Thorpes were matched?”

“Why?”

“Just humor me.”

She walked once again toward the computer. Lash followed.

“Show me how it’s done,” he said.

“First, you have to access the avatar database.” She entered a transaction code at the menu screen and an explosion of nine-digit numbers appeared. “These are all the avatars.”

“All?”

“All clients to date. Almost two million.” She typed some additional commands. “Okay. I’ve created an SQL query you can run against this dataset. Type in the avatar’s identity code, and it will bring up all the others that were in the tank at the time of its match.”

“Show me, please.”

She lifted the piece of paper. “Here’s that sheet we printed out Friday, showing the dates the Thorpes and Wilners first submitted their applications.”

“Lewis Thorpe’s identity code is 000451823. You enter that into the query field.”

She typed it in and the screen refreshed again.

“Here are all the avatars in the Tank when Lewis was matched to Lindsay, indexed by their identity codes.” She scrolled quickly down to the bottom of the list:

Tara pointed at the bottom line. “In that time-slice, there were almost twenty-three thousand Avatars in the tank.”

“But it’s just a bunch of numbers.”

“This function key lets you toggle between names and identity codes.” Tara pressed a key and the numbers were replaced by names:

Shit, Lash thought. It’s still sorted by identity code, not last name. He considered asking Tara for an alphabetical sort, but decided against it: he wasn’t ready to explain. He began paging back through the names, one screen after another.

“What are you looking for?” Tara asked, gazing curiously over his shoulder.

“Just looking. Listen, would you do one more thing?”

“Just one more thing. Just one more thing. I wish I got paid by the errand.”

“I think we made a mistake, looking just at the records of supercouples.”

“Why?”

“Look at what we found out about Lindsay Thorpe and her surprise medical exam. Who knows what else we might find if we cross-check against a random sample of regular couples?”

“Makes sense.” Tara hesitated. “I’ll go requisition the records.”

“Hurry back.”

He watched her go. Although he was genuinely curious about the comparison he’d suggested, right now he was most interested in examining the screen without another pair of eyes beside him. He began once again scrolling up the names.

It took longer than he thought to go through them all, and it was almost eleven-thirty by the time he reached the top of the list. He slumped back, disappointed. But then again it would have been too easy: finding the name he was hoping for, just like that. Maybe it was a crazy idea. He cringed at the idea of plodding through another huge set of names. Still, he’d come this far: he might as well try the Wilners. Just in case.

He hit the function key Tara had pointed out. Instantly, the screen refreshed, showing the avatars in numerical order.

He straightened. What was that first code, 000000000, doing there?

He toggled the function key, but there was no corresponding name for the identity code: the field was blank.

He shrugged, reached for the paper Tara had left on the desk, and typed John Wilner’s code—000491003—in the query field.

When the screen refreshed, 000000000 was again at the top of the list. And once again, there was no name associated with the number.

Lash scratched his head. What was it? A start-of-array marker?

One more test. Rising from the chair and coming quickly around the desk, he rooted through the paper strewn across the table until he found a sheet with Kevin Connelly’s identity code. He returned to the computer, typed it in, stared at the fresh list of numbers.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathed.

The door opened and Tara stepped in, carrying a stack of reports. “I plucked out a dozen names at random,” she said. “I thought the evaluations would be enough to—”

Lash cut her off. “Come over here. Please.”

She dropped the folders on the table and approached the monitor.

Lash looked at her, no longer trying to conceal his rising excitement. “I want you to pull up one more list. Show me who’s in the Tank, now.”

She frowned. “What’s going on? What are you doing?”

“Tara, please. Just do this.”

She stared at him, hard, another moment. Then she bent over the keyboard and typed in a new query.

The screen cleared, and Lash looked at it eagerly. He nodded to himself, as if confirming some private suspicion.

Then, suddenly, he snapped off the power. The screen went dark.

“What the hell?” Tara said.

Without answering, Lash grabbed the phone, snugged it beneath his chin, dialed a long-distance number.

“Captain Tsosie’s desk, please,” he said. There was a brief wait. “Joe? It’s Chris Lash. Joe, is the Thorpe house still technically under police investigation? Thank God. Listen, I want you to send a field agent over there right away. You still have my cell number? Give it to the agent, have them call me the moment they’re on the premises. Yes, it’s that important. Thanks.”

He replaced the phone, looked at Tara. “There’s something I have to do. I can’t explain right now. I’ll be back soon.”

He grabbed his coat, made for the door. Then he turned back. Tara remained at the desk, staring after him, a strange expression on her face.

“Follow up with that doctor,” he said. “Dr. Moffett. Understand?”

Tara nodded. And Lash turned, tugged open the door, and was gone.