Skyhook

SEVENTEEN WEDNESDAY, DAY 3 ANCHORAGE

Schroedinger had spent all afternoon mulling the indignities of the morning and was unprepared for yet another assault on normalcy when Ben burst through the door hours ahead of the schedule.

There were no actual words formed in Schroedinger’s mind to define his discomfited response, merely a disgusted consciousness of the continued attack on the predictability of his world. He would need to find a way to demonstrate his displeasure to Ben, he decided. And there were many options available to a creature with claws in a house with furniture.

“Hi, fellow,” Ben said as he breezed through without so much as a session of ear scratching. Schroedinger watched him charge across the den and pull various things from a desk drawer, things Schroedinger had sniffed before and found uninteresting. Ben, it seemed, liked to pay far more attention to his things and his computer than to his cat, and in a feline frame of reference, such an attitude was simply inexplicable.

The 3,500-square-foot home Ben had purchased for Lisa and himself three months before her death was tucked into a new subdivision on the flanks of the Chugach Mountains bordering the east side of Anchorage. All the way back from the base Ben had been fighting the image of Lisa standing before the picture window in the upper-story den with their real estate agent, squealing with delight at the sweeping view of the city. The decision to buy had been made on the spot, and the night of delighted lovemaking that followed had been a thank-you of sorts.

Ben had tried repeatedly to get the image out of his mind. It inevitably triggered a deep sadness, and a feeling that had been growing precipitously of late, the simple longing for feminine companionship. It was the same disturbing instinct Lindsey had inadvertently twanged the day before.

So much for that, Ben thought, bitterness overlaying his thoughts of Lindsey. She’d used him, was using him, wagging her shapely tail to keep him under control.

That’s unfair, he corrected himself. She wasn’t making a pass. It was me who was thinking prurient thoughts.

Nonetheless, the sudden loss of trust in what had appeared to be a growing friendship hurt.

The refrigerator yielded a poor selection limited to bottled water and a few soft drinks, and he opted for the water before moving to the living room, aware that he couldn’t recall the details of the drive home. He plopped in the big easy chair Lisa had insisted he buy when they moved in, and wondered who would mourn him if he crashed on the upcoming test flight.

Phyllis, his only sibling, would be momentarily hysterical when the news reached her palatial North Dallas home. With their folks gone, Phyllis would arrange the funeral and make all the requisite noises, but in the end, they had never been close enough as adults for his passing to alter her life.

The flight! There was no doubt that whoever had contaminated the basic program would strike again, and this time succeed. Someone wanted the program to fail and Uniwave to go under. There was no doubt that he and the two pilots would die. And he would be condemning someone else to perish in his place if he elected to stay on the ground.

He glanced over at Schroedinger and smiled, puzzling the cat even more. He needed to make arrangements for Schroedinger, and that thought triggered an image of Nelson, who would be the only Alaskan genuinely saddened by his passing.

Dammit! Nelson had left a message the day before on his voice mail and he’d forgotten to get back to him. Ben came out of the chair with enough haste to startle Schroedinger. He found his handheld database PDA and located Nelson’s cell phone number, then punched it into the portable handset.

Nelson Oolokvit was contemptuous of the label “Eskimo.” Ben remembered his explosion one night at a clumsy question from a California tourist with a dilettante concern for Native Americans.

“If you call me an Eskimo one more time, sister, I’m gonna find an uulu and gut you!” he’d raged, waving a beer in the woman’s face. “Go find yourself a frozen Athabascan to patronize! I’m from Kotzebue. I’m Inupiat. I’ve never lived in a damned igloo, and I know better things to do with a female than rub noses with her, okay?”

“Who’s this?” a voice was saying on the other end of the phone as Ben snapped back to the present. The voice was slightly clipped and accented, the aftereffects of American English overlaid on a childhood of his native tongue.

“Nelson?”

“You called his phone and you’re surprised to get him?” Nelson said, chuckling. “At least I answer my phone, unlike some other people who let machines do it for them.” The sounds of a raucous bar filtered through from the background, voices talking loudly over an even higher volume of a country-and-western song. It was Shania Twain, her words coming through like a coda to the conversation.

“Okay, so you’ve got a car. That don’t impress me much!”

“Nelson, this is Ben.”

“What? It’s too damned loud in here. Who?”

“Ben. BEN COLE.”

“Oh. Ben. Hello. Where are you?”

“At home.”

“Well, get your scrawny computer geek ass down here to Charlie’s and join me for a few beers. I’ll even buy you a Guinness if you’ll actually drink it this time.”

“Charlie’s? Where’s that?”

“… don’t get me wrong, yeah, I think you’re all right…”

“Chilkoot Charlie’s on Spenard. Where the hell else can a guy find a good brawl and sawdust on the floor?”

“I thought you hated Chilkoot’s.”

“Yeah, but I have to check on ’em every now and then.”

“… but that won’t keep me warm on the long, cold, lonely night…”

The absence of Lisa and his own familiarity with cold, lonely nights momentarily eclipsed the image of Nelson waiting for a response.

“So whadda you think? You’re Elvis or something?”

“Ben? Are you still there?”

“Yes, Nelson. I just…”

“Something’s chewing on you. I can tell. Get in your car and pick me up here. My car’s in the shop.”

Ben knew better. Nelson’s car had been in the shop for the past decade, which meant up on blocks since a disgusted Anchorage judge had tired of his drunk driving convictions and created a new taxi patron by permanently revoking his driver’s license.

“Okay. I’m on the way, Nelson.”

“Whatever. That don’t impress me!”

It took less than twenty minutes to pull up in front of the infamous bar. Nelson was already on the sidewalk waiting, and he climbed in, smelling of peanuts and beer and pointing west.

“Turn around. Head for Lake Spenard.”

“Why?”

“We need to go boating.”

“Nelson, you don’t own a boat… do you?”

“Of course. Turn around.”

They reversed course and parked on the eastern side of the lake by a grassy bank where a ramshackle wooden rowboat sat chained and padlocked to a tree.

“Hey, I’m not going out in that thing.”

“What thing?” Nelson asked, following Ben’s index finger. “Oh. Of course not. I wouldn’t either.”

“So… where’s your boat?”

“In here,” Nelson replied, walking to an old toolshed standing at a slight angle some five feet from the shoreline. He worked with the padlock for a few seconds and pulled the creaking door open to take out what appeared to be a large blue duffel bag. He extracted a folded-up mass of vinyl from the bag and pulled a string, standing back as an inflatable boat took shape.

“I won that two years ago,” Nelson said proudly, pointing to the boat. “First thing I ever won. And I’m fifty-nine this year.”

“Really?”

“Or fifty-six. I’m not sure. Somedays, twenty-eight.”

Ben locked the car and gingerly lowered himself into the two-man craft, taking one of the aluminum paddles Nelson offered and following his lead as they pushed off.

“We have to hug the shoreline to stay away from the planes,” Nelson said, nodding toward a Cessna 180 on floats just beginning its takeoff run down the lake.

“How much daylight do we have left?” Ben asked.

“About an hour, I think.”

They paddled around the bend into a calm part of the waterway and Nelson shipped his paddle and turned around.

“Okay, Benjamin. What did you want to tell me?”

Ben laughed. “What makes you think I want to tell you something?”

“I know you, Ben Cole. As my people would say, you have a good heart, and it is heavy.”

Ben smiled. “And you, sir, have good insight.”

“I also sing well, but it’s never kept me fed. Now tell me. The doctor is in.”

“There are many things I can’t tell you, because of the place I work.”

“I know. Go on.”

Ben outlined the dilemma of trying to find a problem in the massive computer program he’d written, only to turn up evidence of sabotage that was then erased. Ben kept away from the specifics, holding back, he hoped, anything considered classified, but even mentioning the possibility of a secret project could still get him in extreme trouble. “Talking around” top secret information was forbidden.

His words tumbled out, quietly at first, but impassioned, about the betrayal of a woman he liked and respected, even though she was his boss; the shock of realizing that someone or some group wanted the project to fail; and the reality that if he flew the last test flight, he would probably not be coming home.

“Maybe that’s my destiny, Nelson,” he said after a long pause. “Maybe it’s time to join Lisa, you know? God knows I’ve just been using work as an excuse to avoid living again.”

“Or dating.”

“Yeah.”

“Or even recreational screwing, which you probably haven’t done for at least two years.”

“Thank you so much for pointing that out.”

“You’re not a monk, Ben. You’re not even Catholic, as I recall.”

Ben shook his head. “My family was mainstream Presbyterian, whatever that means.”

“And now you expect some ancient Inupiat wisdom from me, right?”

Ben laughed and sat back, inadvertently rocking the boat. “No, I just wanted to talk to a friend.”

“Well, that’s good, because I don’t dispense tribal wisdom. You have to be licensed to do that.”

“Aw, heck, Nelson,” Ben said, trying hard to grin, “I expected incense, rattles, drums, and a sweat lodge.”

“Sweat lodge?” Nelson replied, looking thoroughly alarmed. “Hollywood’s warped your mind, Ben. That’s American Indian! Down south. Your basic Blackfeet, Ogalala Sioux, Cheyenne, and such.” Nelson’s broad face broke into a huge smile. “I mean, we understand the concept, but I’m a card-carrying Inupiat, remember? The guy with the hooded parka and the long lance chasing polar bears and whales? Next you’ll be expecting me to don a feather headdress.”

Ben chuckled, the momentary flash of humor a transitory replacement for the sadness Nelson could see reflected in his eyes.

They let a long period of silence pass.

“Ben, you think you’ve given up, but you haven’t.”

“No?”

“You called me, right?”

“Maybe I called to say goodbye, Nelson, and to thank you for being a good friend. And while I’m on the subject, if anything does happen to me, would you please take care of poor old Schroedinger?”

“Sure. I like old man Schroedinger.”

Ben cocked his head. “Why do you always call him ‘old man’?”

“Very, very old soul in that cat’s body. Who knows? Could be Archimedes, Caesar, or even Elvis.”

Ben snorted. “Well, now that’s enough to give me nightmares.”

Nelson raised a finger, using the thickest native accent he could manage. “‘Dere are more tings in heaven and earth than you have dreamt of.’”

“Inupiat?”

“No. Shakespeare. Hamlet, to be precise. Act one, scene five.” Nelson’s eyes were on an approaching DeHavilland Beaver as the single-engine floatplane flared and merged ever so smoothly with the glassy surface of the lake, the resulting spray kicking up from both pontoons as it settled in and slowed. He was shaking his head. “Ben, you’re still looking for answers, and that’s the right thing to do, because you’re not a quitter. So don’t tell yourself to quit. There is an answer right in front of you somewhere, and even if you can’t find it, you can’t give up, because it will eventually find you.”

“Good words, Nelson, but…”

“There is always an answer, Ben. Keep looking. You’re the software master. You can create something that can unlock anything the program locks up, no matter how critical the moment.”

Ben nodded, his mind racing around the problem again, looking for a new perspective and finding nothing.

Nelson picked up an oar. “Time for you to get back to work.”

“Now, how do you know that?”

Nelson Oolokvit widened his eyes until they were about to pop out and raised both hands above his shoulders, flexing his fingers in a cartoonish attempt to look scary. “Ancient Eskimo wisdom!”

Ben chuckled. “I thought you weren’t licensed or Eskimo.”

“I’m not. It’s bootleg advice. And it’s worth exactly what you paid for it.”

It was past eight when Ben reached his front door, which had an etched-glass center panel. He stopped cold. The porch light was on, but he had no memory of throwing the switch before he’d left.

He tried the door and found it locked.

There was a back door and a side entrance through the garage, both alarmed with the security system he’d installed a year before, and inside, reflecting in a hall mirror, he could see a little red light indicating the system was still armed.

Ben looked around, spotting no one. Maybe, he thought, he’d actually thrown the switch before he’d left and forgotten. After all, he’d been very distracted. But just to be sure, he circled around the back of the house, stopping at the sight of what appeared to be a set of footprints just off the concrete walk.

Once again, small sparkles of fear began climbing his back as he knelt down to touch the muddy indentations. The ridges were soft, but that could mean anything. He could find no other tracks and no muddy traces on the walkway.

The back door and side doors were secure, and a search of the ground beneath every window turned up nothing. Ben returned to the front door and entered the hallway, canceling the alarm system and querying it for previous entries or alarms. The last reported event had been the time he’d left and armed the system.

So much for that, he concluded. Maybe I’m just getting paranoid.

He gave Schroedinger a quick pat on the head and went directly to his computer to upload the programs he’d hidden, suppressing another flash of anxiety as he waited to see if the renegade computer files were still there.

Thank God! The endless lines of computer code popped onto the screen, just as he had saved it. Mute evidence that he hadn’t imagined it.

Right in front of me, huh? Ben thought, recalling Nelson’s words. He could be right. I didn’t have time to fully examine this stuff. He thought for a few minutes before sketching out in his mind a methodical way of searching the thousands of lines of arcane code. First he’d look for lists, and then patterns, and if that failed, there were a host of other things he could try in an effort to decipher precisely what the author was trying to accomplish.

Ben entered the first of the search routines and pressed the “enter” key, matching the flurry of activity on the screen as the search routines began. He started to get to his feet when a message flashed into prominence: “Requested list found.”

A numbered list appeared on the screen, coalescing slowly as the computer translated the code into English, presenting him at last with a comprehensive listing of most of the airlines in North America, complete with their two-letter identification codes and what appeared to be the registration and serial numbers of each airplane in the respective airline fleets.

What the heck is this? Ben thought as he paged through the listings. This was a military program. Why were commercial airlines being referenced in a military computer program? He reminded himself that he was exploring an unauthorized addition to the main program.

Ben suppressed thoughts of more sinister possibilities and got to his feet, forcing himself to go to the kitchen and calmly fix a pot of coffee, while the search routines continued.

He was in the process of grinding the coffee beans when a snippet of the conversation in Nelson’s inflatable boat suddenly popped into his mind, and he lifted his hand from the grinder switch, restoring silence to the kitchen. Ben could hear the soft whirring sounds of the computer’s hard drive in the den as his thoughts rose to a dull roar in his head. Wait a minute. Wait just a minute! Nelson said something about the computer locking up… something about the program locking up. How on earth could he have guessed that? How could he know I was dealing with a program glitch that had locked up the computer in flight?

Ben felt the room undulating slightly. First the commercial airliner list, and now this. Had he said something, anything, that might have clued the affable Alaskan in to what had taken place two nights before? Of course, computers locked up all the time. But…

No! Ben concluded. There’s no way he could legitimately know that. He must have surmised it from something else I said.