The Puppet Master

"That was his body."

"How could you tell?"

"You know or you don't. Besides, he was with it, so to speak. Not in it, but with it. Sort of surrounding the hearse. He's going along with it to the crematorium."

She'd said it as matter-of-factly as if discussing a trip to the supermarket. She started the van then and pulled back onto the highway. He wouldn't ask how she knew. She'd only say "you know or you don't."

"It's not so uncommon for someone to have an attachment to their body after it's died," she went on. "For a little while. That's one reason it's cruel to mutilate a corpse."

"What about cremation?"

"Formal cremation is all right. It's dignified and clean."

"And you say he won't attack one of us again."

"Right. We touched when he passed. Communicated. He's not interested in that game any longer. At all."

Neither spoke for a while. Tuuli drove well and fast, yet her eyes seemed to rove the countryside, drinking in what she saw. Finally Martti asked, "What kind of life is it that's lived subliminally? Wouldn't it be like going along for the ride? Being a spectator while your subliminal self does the driving in a closed-off compartment?"

"It's more like piloting a spacecraft," she said, "setting the course while the computer does most of the navigating and runs the systems. You can change your mind about where you're going, though. The main decisions are yours." She chuckled. "And the computer is part of you, anyway."

She glanced sideways at him. "That's how you walk, you know. Your leg movements, your eye-foot coordination, all those things are subliminally controlled. You tell your body where you want to go, and how fast, and it takes you."

He nodded, marveling as he often had at this quadrilingual person who'd grown up partly in an arctic mining town, and partly on a backwoods farm in Finnish Lapland. Who'd come alone to America at age eighteen to work as a domestic, with no one to turn to for help and counsel. And who, at age thirty-one, spoke American fluently, even colloquially, and made more money than lots of engineers.

He wondered what course she was flying, and what role he played in her trip. Or for that matter, he thought, what course I'm flying. Do I even have a destination? Inwardly he grunted. If I do, it's subliminal.

His thoughts went to the hearse. "The guy—the being in the hearse," he said, "with the hearse . . . What'll he do when his body's been cremated?"

"He'll leave. Go to the other side, the astral universe you might call it, and review his life and actions. That's probably the basis for the concept of purgatory. Eventually he'll recycle; be born as someone new."

"Why did he act like he did? Why did he try to kill me?"

"He was angry; psychotically angry. He'd controlled DeSmet, and Masters, and the one in charge of the hit team at the airport. And probably others. He'd taken them over." She glanced again at her husband. "You know who he was, of course."

Martti nodded. "I think so. Leif Haller."

It seemed to him there was no other explanation. If he was right about that, then in a way, Haller had been Christman's murderer, though it was beyond proof. He'd killed Christman and maybe Cloud Man, and all those people in the apartment house. Haller. So intelligent, so hard-working and charismatic, yet he'd failed. Pretty much all down the line, really.

Or had he? Even before he'd taken up murder, he'd had an impact on a lot of lives. Apparently a good impact in many cases. Like Christman had. And provided a place for people who were looking for one.

But that hadn't been much of a funeral procession. Back in '95, when his dad and mom had been buried, more than a thousand people had turned out, a sixth of Ojibwa County. The funeral service had been held on the courthouse lawn, because no church in Hemlock Harbor was nearly big enough. Even so, they'd spilled over into the parking lot. If his dad had known in advance, he'd have been embarrassed.

Martti wondered how Leif Haller would have felt, in the heyday of his Institute, if he'd known his funeral procession would be only four cars and a hearse. Of course, almost everyone thought he'd died in Wisconsin a dozen years earlier.

Ray Christman's memorial service drew thousands of the faithful, even though his dying, his murder, had broken his image and shown him fallibly human. They still thought of him as the inspired genius who'd given them the new gnosis. In the case report, Prudential hadn't included the role the Merlins had played in Christman's church. Martti had checked with them. Both had said no, and it wasn't actually pertinent to the case anyway.

Who would know when Vic Merlin died? Who outside his circle of friends? Not many. And the Merlins' wouldn't care, he felt sure of that.

Maybe, Martti thought, he should spend some time with the Merlins, or the Diaconos. They were obviously remarkable people with remarkable abilities. And good people. If he did spend some time with them, would he change the way Tuuli had changed? How changed was she, though? Now that he stopped to look at it, she wasn't basically changed. Just overhauled, tuned up. . . .

Maybe someday he'd do it, spend a couple of weeks with the Diaconos. A weekend with Vic, anyway. But just now he'd live his own way. Maybe that's what he was supposed to be doing. Anyway he was good at what he did.

Subliminal! Hmm!

He looked at fame again. Actually, he thought, I'm kind of famous. Semi-famous. A semi-famous detective. Dad and mom would have been proud. When I die, it'll probably even get mentioned in the newsfax—maybe even on television—unless there's a major earthquake that week, or a revolution somewhere.

He didn't give a damn about fame, though, he decided. Well, maybe a little bit; it was handy sometimes. He had friends—not a lot, but as many as he wanted—and an interesting job with lots of independence. And most of all, Tuuli loved him. She'd even killed for him, in a manner of speaking.

Tuuli reached over and patted his knee.

THE CASE OF THE

DUPLICATE BEAUTIES

a novelet

Prolog

The male presenter chuckled at a witticism, then announced: "And finally Elena Marquez, for her role as Lupe, in The Last Apache."

Abruptly center stage disappeared, displaced by a holo of the Chihuahuan Desert. Half a dozen Apache warriors stood in a loose row, moccasins over their calves, thighs and torsoes bare, stoic faces painted for war. Their hands held lever-action Winchester carbines. A large white man stood facing them, hands on cocked hips, inches from low-slung pistols. Beside him, face smudged with ashes, was a lovely, black-haired young woman of mixed race, her eyes defiant as she stared at the Indians. Her deerskin shift was tattered and revealing.

"Nana," the white man drawled, "there's only six of you left. The army's watching every waterhole from here to the Jornada del Muerto, and General Miles' Apache Scouts are hunting your tracks. The best thing for you to do is cross the border back into Mexico."

Old Nana spoke without gesture, without head movement. "She goes with us," he answered. His broad face was lined, eyes hard, unyielding. "For her father's treachery."

The white man opened his mouth as if to speak again, but the woman stilled him with a sharp gesture, and taking a step toward the chief, spoke in rapid, fluid Apache. Subtitles flowed across the base of the holo, but her imperious face, her expressive voice, her presence made them almost superfluous. When she finished, the scene froze on her for a moment, then the desert disappeared, the presenters applauding with the audience.

The man picked an envelope from the podium and held it up. "And now for the winner," he said, handing it to the woman. Smiling she took it. "The winner," she began, tearing open an end, "is . . ." She drew out a sheet of paper, unfolded it, then looked up as if with delight. "The winner is Elena Marquez, for her role as Lupe, in The Last Apache!"

The orchestra began to play the theme music from the film, and as heads turned and hands clapped, the cameras shifted to a gorgeous young woman rising to her feet in the audience. Smiling, sure of herself, she moved down the aisle, strides strong but feminine, and swept across the stage as the applause swelled.

She'd almost reached the podium when she stopped. More than three thousand viewers watched from the seats, and some 500 million more on holovision and television worldwide. Abruptly her eyes widened, her hands flew to her temples. Her mouth squared to scream, and the sound of it erupted, shocking in its raw horror. She fell writhing and thrashing to the stage, as if in an epileptic seizure. Her screams were answered from here and there in the audience, and guards ran onto the stage from the wings, tried to corral her flailing limbs. Seconds later a doctor hurried out, bag in hand.

Someone in the control booth had the presence of mind to key the curtains closed, and a moment later killed the backstage cameras. In a hundred million living rooms worldwide, the view switched to the stunned attendees in the auditorium, most with expressions of shock, horror, or fear.

Someone else had the presence of mind not to switch to a commercial message.

1

I'll start by saying it's good to put this case to bed after seven years of being threatened by it. I'm Principal Investigator Martti Seppanen, and this is Cube One of the closing debriefs for Investigation 1832, Prudential Investigations and Security. The date is 17 April 2020, the time is 1320 hours, and the debrief officer is Carlos Katagawa, with company president Joe Keneely sitting in, which makes it old-timers' night.

Excuse me. I don't ordinarily ramble, but this debrief is Veritas-assisted.

We got involved with crucial evidence—information that led to the solution—months before the first of the crimes took place. That's happened to me before, which is why Joe calls me an evidence attractor. In an article he wrote on it for The Journal of Forensic Psychology, he even said I inspired the theory.

I'm not sure how seriously he takes the idea. Joe's an image maestro. His conservative suit—even the eyeglasses on his nose—are promotional; he's had his eyes reconditioned to 20/15. And his occasional provocative articles in symposium proceedings or journals are good for the company image.

Sorry. Back to the subject. On the evening of October 19, 2012, the LAPD got word that Tran Ngo, a wanted felon, had just gone into a porn theater near Hollywood and Bronson, so they sent a squad to pick him up. It turned out to be a mistaken identity, but there was a ruckus, and some of the customers ducked out the rear exits. And the police covering the rear let them pass, because none of them was a five-foot-three Oriental.

One of them had left a torn Life-Tex mask in the theater, and when the cleaning crew cleaned up afterward, they found it and turned it in. The theater manager turned it over to the LAPD, but the department could see no reason to keep it; Tran Ngo hadn't been in the theater. It was a weird find, though, and for whatever reason, they passed it on to us. The only information that came with it, and it seemed meaningless, was the circumstances surrounding it, and the name of the film: In Hiding.

Having the mask, Joe asked for and got a contingency contract for the Ngo Case. You seldom get any money on a contingency contract unless you come up with evidence that leads to at least an indictment. But it doesn't cost anything either, and Joe operates on intuition at least as much as I do.

A few weeks later, Ngo was arrested in Salt Lake, but Properties hates to throw anything away, so the mask went into a drawer in what we call "the limbo files."

I never imagined it would mean anything to me, let alone how much.

2

Two days after Elena Marquez had her psychotic break at the Academy Awards ceremony, her husband, Bo Haugen, took her to the well-known psychic healer, Olaf Sigurdsson.

Haugen's worth a lot of money, a lot of it earned, but his seed money was inherited. He's a low-profile Hollywood producer—actually San Fernando Valley—specializing in biographies and other historical series and miniseries. He's a very private man.

Elena Marquez's doctor had her doped to the gills, but Ole got beneath the drug level and regressed her to the ceremonies. She told him that crossing the stage, she'd been struck by a crushing head pain. Which was followed instantly by what she called an assault of "memories," of things she said she'd never even dreamed, but were as real as life and unimaginably terrible. Along with the feeling that someone or something was taking over her body.

That's when she'd passed out and gone into convulsions.

Interestingly, she had bruises, lesions, abrasions, burns, that so far as anyone knew, had never actually been inflicted on her. Somatic hysteria, her doctor called them, which amounts more or less to saying she'd imagined them so strongly, they'd appeared on her body. Her blood also contained enzymes which metabolize a class of aphrodisiacs, but not the aphrodisiacs themselves, which was a chemical anomaly the lab couldn't explain.

The intruding "memories" were of waking up naked in a place she'd never been before, having no idea how she'd gotten there. There'd been a dark-complexioned female nurse who spoke a little English, who'd given her a shot and then fed her. After that—

After that she'd been a sex slave to someone she described as an oil sheikh. To Elena Marquez, any wealthy Arab who wears robes is an oil sheikh. She was injected with an aphrodisiac before each of his visits, and to intensify his kicks and keep himself going, he had a Harem Smoke fumer. He abused her pretty badly, and after a week or so had brought in other men. One she thought of as a general—he'd arrived wearing a uniform loaded with medals. The others she thought of as sheikhs. She had internal injuries from the abuse she took. Between times the nurse wept with her, and treated her with what were probably antibiotics.

After a couple of weeks, the repeated drugging and abuse broke her sanity. She started hallucinating like a drunk drying out from a week-long binge, shaking so badly she couldn't feed herself, and what the nurse fed her, she vomited back out. She'd cry even under the aphrodisiac. Which annoyed the sheikh, who quit coming to see her, sending soldiers instead, several at a time. They were the ones who'd burned her with cigarettes. After several days of that, her memories of it suddenly stopped, and that second persona had "burst into her skull" in the middle of the awards ceremony, with a headache she wouldn't have believed possible.

And to top it off, she knew—knew—she'd died in that bedroom. Knew it without any doubt at all.

* * *

Though Ole could get her into a trance, then locate the traumatic incidents and get her descriptions of them, he couldn't defuse them until the sedative was out of her body. So he'd called in a music therapist; the music was to function in place of the drug. After a few days of music and detoxifying, he defused the whole sequence of traumas; it took just one evening and the following afternoon. I got to talk with her the day after that, and she seemed as poised and matter-of-fact as you could want. Ole didn't doubt at all that what she'd described had somehow really happened, but I wasn't so sure, even after I talked with her. I couldn't even think of an unlikely explanation.

Bo Haugen told me privately he'd have liked to believe it was all hallucination, but he acted on the assumption that it had somehow derived from a criminal act—perhaps before they'd met. Maybe after she'd finished an overseas film, and she'd suppressed the memories afterward.

I couldn't buy that, although I didn't say so to Haugen. I know Ole, and with him helping, she'd have dredged up the rest of the story if there was one. He's a master at fishing up buried memories, and without hypnosis.

At any rate, Haugen contracted with Prudential to find out what had happened and who was behind it. And because I'd solved "The Case of the Twice-killed Astronomer," and what my wife Tuuli and I thought of as "The Puppetmaster Case"—both of them damn tough—I got the assignment.

* * *

The first thing I did was create a time track for Marquez, going back to high school, and there was no unaccounted-for period long enough to accommodate the set of horrors she'd described. I told Haugen that, but he wanted me to stay with it, so Joe had Elena Marquez swear out a criminal complaint against a person or persons unknown, for her "covert drugging." That got me second-level access to the California State Data Center.

The only approach I could think of was to treat the "memories" as if they really were—as if those things had actually happened—and try to place the events geographically. Judging from the few words she'd learned, that Ole fished from her subconscious, the language there was Arabic, probably the dialect spoken on the Arabian peninsula. And clearly the "sheikh" was someone important in government, perhaps a cabinet minister. Also it seemed to be one of the less secularized states, like Saudi Arabia, Ibadhan, or Yemen.

But we had no proof at all that any of it was real, and in whatever country it was, we'd probably have no legal standing anyway. I asked Haugen what good it would do him to find out who it was. He said it would be worth it just to know. Which may have been true, as far as it went, but I have no doubt he had thoughts of something more. It seemed to me, though, that there wasn't a chance in hell of having a murder contract carried out on some middle-eastern government minister.

* * *

I had Marquez work with a computer artist, Jamal Lodi, who turned out an iterative series of computer drawings of her captor. Then I turned to the web and checked the lifelike final result against pictures of wealthy or prominent Arabs. It was a close match with one of Rashid ibn Muhammed, the uncle, one-time regent for, and currently financial advisor of the Sultan of Ibadhan.

But Haugen also wanted to know how the crime had been committed, which promised to be a lot harder to learn. Impossible seemed more like it. Joe told him we'd go into fishing mode, and see what we found.

I used a computer program we called a "weasel," a tailored cyberbot that would search the web for anything that might correlate with things Marquez had told us and what we'd deduced from them. I also tried trolling, posting a request for information about beautiful women who'd suffered a recent psychotic break, another for information about anyone who'd been assaulted by a duplicate set of memories, and a third for women who'd hallucinated being a sex slave.

I hate trolling. It can bring a lot of useless replies, all of them requiring at least a little time.

3

For several days I got nothing worth more than a first look. Ironically, my first real lead was from Ole Sigurdsson, who'd just treated his gorgeous blond countrywoman, Ardis Halldórsdottir, the figure skater. Her experience was remarkably like Elena Marquez's, which of course she knew nothing about, even including the same villain, Rashid ibn Muhammed. The main differences were that her captivity had lasted only two days, until she'd kicked ibn Muhammed in the best possible place. His bodyguard had promptly shot her—killed her, she insisted—and she'd had her psychotic break in the privacy of the apartment she shared with her husband and skating partner, Peter Golovkin. What she'd done tickled hell out of me, but she provided no useful information except to validate Marquez's story. Neither Carlos nor I doubted now; somehow those things had actually happened.

* * *

The other lead was a lot different: I got a report of a woman who'd had what seemed to be hallucinations of being a sex slave. Nothing was said of any psychotic break. To talk to her, I was to call a certain number. It sounded fishy, but I called—and got a receptionist at a talent agency, who connected me with one of the agents. He sounded unfriendly, suspicious, and gay, but after asking a few questions, he told me to meet him that evening at seven, and gave me an address.

I said I'd be there, then called up the city directory. The occupant wasn't listed, so I used my access to the Data Center. It belonged to Misti Innocenza, Hollywood's most popular porn queen. I suspected some kind of PR hoax. Also I was chicken—I asked Carlos to go with me, and he said sure. I assumed she'd be built, but I was surprised how pretty she was, how sweetly innocent looking. Her real name, it turned out, was Lindi Hall. A girl friend had told her about my bulletin, and she'd had her agent follow up on it. Her story somewhat resembled the others, but her memories were of being held in what seemed to be a lodge, and her captor was someone she'd recognized: the prominent TV evangelist, Buddy Ballenger.

For more than two days there'd been two of her—one in a Simi Valley porn studio, or at home, or restaurants, or with girl friends. While entirely unknown to that Misti, another had awakened naked and handcuffed in an unfamiliar place. After injections, she'd spent two days and nights on a big bed surrounded by mirrors, with Ballenger and his bodyguard, whom Ballenger called "Billy." The two men took turns, and with breaks for showers, naps, and snacks, and injecting her repeatedly with aphrodisiacs, they'd gone at her pretty much the whole time! Hard to believe; Harem Smoke is notoriously hard on the heart. On the other hand, the aphrodisiacs effective on women are hard on the nervous system, and she was afraid they were killing her. So after the second day, she begged Ballenger to let her go. He'd excused himself and left the bedroom, "for just a minute," to "arrange transportation." Then the bodyguard had grabbed her and given her another injection, this time with something that "burned like fire."

And that was the end of that persona. The original Misti had just walked into her apartment when the godawful headache hit her, and the torrent of memories "burst" into her skull. Burst; the same word Elena Marquez had used. But Innocenza didn't go psychotic. Kinky sex with strangers was no great shock for her, and behind that sweet innocent face was a hardbitten survivor, so after taking a handful of headache pills, brewing a pot of coffee, and burning herself pouring it, she'd sat up trying to sort things out on tablet paper. She failed, of course.

There were three things she was positive of: one, it had really happened; two, she'd died there, been killed; and three, her captor was Ballenger, "who didn't have guts enough to kill me himself." Also, through the bathroom window she'd seen a sandy beach about a hundred yards away, and pine trees with really long needles. And Ballenger had said something about the mainland. I remembered a vacation tour with my dad and mom; Innocenza could have been describing the Sea Islands off the Georgia coast, and Ballenger was from Georgia. Later, checking an atlas, I found Marcellus only a few miles inland.

Then she asked me if I knew someone she could hire to kill him. I told her I hoped she'd cool it long enough for me to get the evidence needed to pull him into court. Actually I didn't see a way in hell we'd ever get that kind of evidence, but there's always a chance.

And now I knew absolutely that somehow, someone had done something really evil to all three women. Someone a lot more dangerous than Buddy Ballenger, or even Rashid ibn Muhammed.

* * *

That night I told Tuuli what I'd learned, hoping she'd have a suggestion. After all, she was "the Psychic of the Stars." But this time she didn't.

4

I spent the next morning learning all I could about Buddy Ballenger, the pride and embarrassment of Marcellus, Georgia. There was a lot, even leaving out the tabloid articles. Examples: He'd lost a patrimony suit, been badly beaten by an angry husband with a baseball bat, settled out of court in an embezzlement case. . . . He was big, blond, and apparently not very bright: a sort of caricature, more an over-sexed jerk than a menace. Though judging from Misti Innocenza's story, he could be dangerous. How a million or more born-again Christians could be his dedicated followers—his paying dedicated followers!—had to be a major mystery and a major human commentary.

Tuuli had a two o'clock appointment to exorcise a ghost in Beverly Hills, and the office wasn't far out of her way, so we'd made a luncheon date. And arriving a few minutes early, she waited in my office while I finished reading some stuff I'd called up.

Andy Lopez, from Properties, looked in. "Martti," he said, "any reason I should keep this? Joe wants me to cull the limbo files." He held an object out for my inspection.

"What is it?" Tuuli asked. Which surprised me. Ordinarily she'd have said nothing while I was working.

"Hi Tuuli," Andy said. "It's a torn Life-Tex mask."

"Who is it of?"

"Probably no one in particular. No one any of us recognized."

She frowned. "Who was it made for then?"

I answered this time, embarrassed that I hadn't wondered myself. Given the expert fitting necessary, a Life-Tex mask was expensive. "We don't know that, either," I said.

"Find out," she told me.

"Find out? Honey, that case is closed, and finding out would take time."

"Try. It could be important."

"Could be? You mean like, 'might possibly be'? Or do you think it is?"

"I think it may be."

"Leave it here, Andy," I said. She was, after all, a celebrity psychic and sometime crime consultant who got sizeable fees from her clients. "After lunch I'll talk to Skip," I told her, "and see what he can do with it."

* * *

She drove us to Mr. Ethel's, on North La Cienega. It wasn't far, and the food is excellent, even if the waiters are a bit overdone. I asked for a corner booth near the kitchen door: The noise would obscure our conversation if anyone sat down in the adjacent booth, and for the same reason, probably no one would. After we got our menus, she started on the questions, as I'd expected.

"What theater?" she asked.

"You mean where the mask was found? One of the Pussycat Theaters. On Hollywood, near Bronson."

"What was the picture?"

She was fishing. When she senses something psychically and can't come up with it, she'll try to get some real-world information to help it surface. "I've heard," I told her, "but I don't recall; it didn't mean anything to me. It'll be in the file though."

Her eyes went unfocused—I notice things like that—and I kept my mouth shut to avoid disturbing her. Then the waiter came and took our orders, and we turned to other subjects. The mask didn't come up again until we'd finished our sandwiches.

"In Hiding," I said.

"What?"

"That's the name of the movie. In Hiding."

I hadn't realized it, but the waiter had just come out with our desserts, and overheard me. "You see that flick?" he asked.

I looked up. "No," I told him, "but I heard about it."

"Some show! I mean . . ." He looked at Tuuli then, embarrassed. "That Misti Innocenza is something else." He paused defensively. "She can act, too. Good enough, she could be in big-time flicks."

I decided I'd misjudged Mr. Ethel's waiters; this one anyway.

"I'm sure she could," Tuuli told him. He put down our sundaes and hurried away. "My next question," she said, "was who's the actress. And we've got the answer."

Misti Innocenza. Okay, but so what? Still, I felt a stir of excitement.

5

Life-Tex masks are carefully molded to the wearer's face, otherwise they're useless. This one had thickened the brow ridge, and given the face a broad, high-bridged nose and neat, reddish blond beard. So the wearer's hair was probably more or less blond. And the mask had a well-tanned complexion, which suggested the original didn't. For the camouflage effect.

At the lab I told Skip what I wanted, and left the mask with him. An hour later he buzzed me, and I went over. Using the computer, he'd developed a facsimile of the wearer's own face, and had tried three hair styles with it, printing off each of the versions.

I knew it at once, from my recent research.

"I've seen this guy," Skip said, "but I don't recall who he is. Someone on a magazine cover." He paused. "Or a tabloid."

I nodded. "Buddy Ballenger."

"That's it." Reaching, he touched a key on his intercom. "Fidela," he said, "could you come to the lab a minute? This is Skip." Fidela, who read the tabloids, confirmed the identification at once. When she'd left, Skip looked curiously at me. "What's this all about?"

I shook my head. It looked like Ballenger might have had a sexual fixation on Misti Innocenza, a fixation strong enough, he'd gone to a porn theater to watch her perform. He could have called up the flick at home, if he'd wanted to. Maybe he liked the vibes and smell of a porn theater. And the mask would keep anyone from recognizing him. But why would he take it off before ducking out when the police arrived?

I'd been thinking out loud, and Skip answered. Life-Tex masks aren't as convincing in reality as they seem on the screen. In extreme close shots—shots that show little more than the face—even Life-Tex masks don't look lifelike when the actor is talking. In films and holos this is dealt with by a computer process, but live that doesn't help.

So apparently Ballenger, fearing he'd be questioned, got rid of the mask. His face wasn't that well known, except to people who watched his show or read the tabloids, and hopefully any cop who might stop him wouldn't be one of them. Of course, the odds of his being questioned had been next to zero—the police were looking for a small wiry Asian, not a big blond Caucasian—but Ballenger hadn't known that. He'd panicked, and left his mask behind.

Interesting. But being horny over Misti Innocenza wouldn't mean a thing in court, any more than her story would. Not by themselves. What I needed to learn was how it was done.

6

Back in my office, I phoned Ole Sigurdsson. He was tied up that afternoon, but as a personal friend, I got an appointment for eight that evening. Tuuli went with me.

We were having an early April rain, unusually hard, with thunder and lightning. Ole's place is on top of a steep ridge between two canyons in Bel Air, and the goat-trail street that zigzagged up the side flowed like a shallow creek, between ivy-covered banks that glistened wetly in the streetlights.

From the front, his house looks small for Bel Air—one story high and not particularly wide—but that's the uphill side. Seen from downhill, it's the second floor. It contains a large room with bar for entertaining, along with a small kitchen and one and a half baths. And Ole's office—a kind of smallish sitting room actually, with a long sofa where he naps when he feels like it. He's in his eighties, and doesn't take as many clients as he used to. Downstairs are their living quarters, and Laura's offices. His wife is Laura Wayne Walker, a producer of theater and TV films and holos. She's a lot younger than Ole—maybe sixty-five—but they suit each other. Besides being compatible and highly competent, they have a lot of mutual admiration.

Tuuli was my in-house psychic, but Ole has a different spectrum of talents, so I turn to him from time to time. What I wanted now was his viewpoint, which sometimes picks out things both Tuuli and I have missed.

I summarized the case for him, which didn't take long, then asked: "What actually happened, do you think? How did these assaults take place? Assuming it wasn't some kind of hypnosis."

He showed no sign of uncertainty. "They are real enough," he said. "Each of them lived two lives at vunce for a v'ile, as if they had parallel existences. Then something happened and vun of them died—and the memories of that self snapped back into the first vun."

"But how? How could something like that happen?"

He grunted. "That's your yob to find out. You're the detective. But these veren't no freaks of nature. Somevun made them happen, that's vun thing I'm sure of."

He had a small wood-burning brick stove, and had put on the same old-fashioned orange-red coffeepot I'd seen the first time I'd been there. It began to perk.

"Do you have any idea what kind of connection Ballenger might have with whoever—made these things happen?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe they both belong to a Misti Innocenza fan club on the Veb."

A fan club? I shuddered at the amount of work it would be to attack the case from that angle, though I might have to.

Ole got up and poured us coffee. He knew we took ours black, but he stirred cream and sugar into his until it had enough calories to feed the starving Sudanese. Then we sipped and talked some more. It was hard for me to accept parallel existences, even as part of quantum theory, and Ole had no more idea than I did how anyone could split a time line. Not at the level of particle integration that humans experience. But on the other hand, the breakthrough that produced the geogravitic power converter had given and continued to give rise to a whole spray of new developments, in both basic science and technology. A lot of us aren't as sure of what we know as people used to be.

Tuuli and I drove home without saying much. I didn't know whether the trip had been worthwhile or not.

7

I woke up in the morning with a decision, and when I got to the office, phoned Vic Merlin in Arizona. Vic and his wife were old friends of Ole's, that I got to know on the Puppetmaster Case. Vic is undoubtedly a higher powered psychic even than Ole. I gave him a rundown on what I was up against, then asked: "Can you think of any way someone could split a time line?"

Education, and decades spent away from rural west Texas, hadn't entirely erased his accent. "Not and transfer memories across like that," he said, then added what seemed like a total non sequitur. "But there's a guy named C.K.F. Linyetski in England, at the University of Birmingham, built an operating teleport a couple years ago. The only problem was, the block of iron he teleported arrived at the receiving plate as a little mound of fine dust—atoms of iron and assorted impurities in the same ratios as in the block."

I frowned. "What's the connection between that and splitting a time line?" I asked.

"I sure don't know; it just came to me." That definitely sounded like Vic. "I've got something else you might be interested in," he added.

* * * * * *

Vic's mainly a psychic researcher, but like Ole Sigurdsson, he's also a healer. He'd just treated an old friend named William Harford, who'd had a severe psychotic seizure and heart attack at his home in Los Alamos, New Mexico. When her husband's condition was upgraded to stable, Harford's wife had phoned Vic, and he'd flown to Los Alamos the next day. Vic had worked his way beneath the sedatives and Harford's severe confusion, and gotten a story that in important respects was like the others I'd heard. Harford worked for the government in weapons research—he did basic theoretical work in matrix physics—and his intrusive memories were of waking up in a clinic at a foreign laboratory, in India or Pakistan he thought. There he'd been grilled about his own research and related work. When he'd refused to cooperate, they'd tried drugs and psychological stress, and having a pre-existing heart condition, he'd had a coronary attack. And died. He was sure about that: as the duplicate Harford, he'd died.

And when the memories hit the original, he'd had a coronary of his own. But the "real" Harford didn't die.

* * *

It was an interesting report, but it didn't have the sort of information I needed. So I went to Gold's and worked out on the Nautilus equipment, then sat in the sauna and cooked out what remained of the tension. When I left, I knew what I was going to do next. I called Buddy Ballenger from a pay phone outside Morey's. I doubted he had a program he could trace the call with through our deadwall, but why take a chance?

A receptionist answered. "I need to speak with Reverend Ballenger personally," I told her.

Her sweetie-pie voice dripped Georgia honeysuckle. "Whom may I say is calling?"

"Mr. Smith." It wasn't a complete lie. In Finnish, a seppanen is a smith.

"And what may I tell him this concerns?"

"It concerns a young woman named Misti. And a Life-Tex mask in a Pussycat Theater. He'll know what I'm talking about."

She didn't answer, just put me on hold. The recorded music was of the McArdle family singing something about letting Jesus hold you in his loving arms. Love was foreign to the arms that had held Misti Innocenza. After a minute or so, Ballenger's appointments secretary came on the line, his voice challenging. I repeated what I'd told the receptionist, which got me Ballenger. I repeated myself again.

"I'm sorry," Ballenger said, "but I don't know anything about any Life-Tex mask, or anyone named Misti. If you're an attorney, I recommend you get in touch with my lawyer."

He didn't hang up though, which validated that he was our masked man. "Interesting," I said. "I have the mask. It was found in the Pussycat Theater on Hollywood Boulevard last October. The feature was In Hiding, starring Misti Innocenza. And I have a computer reconstruction of the face the mask was made for. Your face." I paused, then added, "Masks always pick up epidermal cells when they're worn; handy for DNA matches.

"But more important, I've spoken to Ms. Innocenza, and she knows you very well. Better than she wanted to."

There was a long lag before he answered. "That's impossible."

"You mean because she's dead? You're a religious man, reverend. You believe in souls. And some souls come back, looking for vengeance. If you're smart, you'll meet with me, and we'll talk about what it'll take to square things with her."

For about a minute, all I could hear was breathing. I think he hyperventilated. Finally he spoke again. "There's a restaurant at Marina del Rey, called Leon's, on Eton just west of the yacht club. We could meet there."

"What time?"

"I don't know your name."

"You don't need to. Not now, anyway. I'm six-one, 235 pounds, mean face, sandy hair. Thirty-two years old. You'll recognize me. What time?"

"Eight this evening," he said.

I told him fine, then hung up, walked to our building, and took the stairs to our floor, the ninth. It's a good leg/lung/heart workout, if you don't mind a damp tee shirt. I half expected Ballenger to unknowingly give me a lead that afternoon. If he did, I'd probably stand him up that evening. Let him sweat a little. He'd earned it.

8

I waited a bit, then used our case access to get into the Data Center's statewide phone records. It seemed to me Ballenger would have phoned someone after my call, asking for advice. At least. And sure as hell, immediately after we'd talked, he'd phoned someone named Charles A. Scheele.

The name meant nothing to me, but that was correctable. The California Data Center is Prudential's major information source, but its data are mostly in-state governmental and utilities records; stuff you don't find in libraries. Beyond that, virtually everything in paper libraries worldwide, along with an enormous amount of government and university information never otherwise published, has been scanned into the huge interlibrary public "Data Ocean." Some of it's restricted, requiring various authorizations and often cross-requirements for access, depending on the nature and degree of confidentiality. But a lot of what I found on Scheele was open—in newspapers for instance, and his high school and college yearbooks.

He was the son of a wealthy Bay Area corporate executive and his socialite wife, and like Ballenger, Scheele had grown up a caricature. In his case a caricature of a nerd. His IQ was 179, he'd gotten his BS in physics from Cal Tech at age eighteen, summa cum laude, and at twenty his MS from Stanford in electronics. Two years later he'd completed most of his work toward a Ph.D. in physics at Stanford, when he was accused of injecting a coed with an illegal aphrodisiac, Take Me. The drug hadn't worked as intended. Instead, interacting with psychological factors, it had filled the young woman with rage and strength, and she'd clawed, punched, and kicked the snot out of him—then knocked him unconscious with a heavy vase, and called 911. While waiting for the police, she'd trashed Scheele's living room.

The police lab verified the injection, and Scheele, in the hospital with his injuries, was charged with attempted chemical rape. Meanwhile the local and university media had a ball with the story, making him a laughingstock. Taking advantage of Scheele's injuries and humiliation, his lawyer had gotten him off with a suspended sentence and two hundred hours of community service. Scheele was already wealthy by ordinary standards, from playing the stock market with money his father had given him, and he'd paid the coed an unknown sum to settle her civil suit out of court.

He'd dropped out of school then, and over the years since, had gotten or applied for seven major patents for industrial processes. Which presumably added considerably to his wealth, because he'd built a home on five acres in a very expensive, high-security development near Montecito. I knew the area from the Arthur Ashkenazi murder case.

I couldn't help wondering what Scheele might have invented and kept secret.

* * *

So I sent a weasel into the Web again, to learn who Scheele communicated with besides Ballenger. I was particularly interested in scientists and engineers, but anything was welcome. The Web, of course, has botphages circulating constantly, to destroy bots in restricted areas, but they'd ignore my weasel with its instantly verifiable forensic code. Someone like Scheele, though, would probably post cyberpickets to detect, report, and/or destroy bots interested in him, at the same time letting Scheele know someone was snooping him. Really sophisticated pickets could even trace their origins.

On the other hand, if a picket did intercept my weasel, I'd know where, in the convoluted "space-time" of the cybermatrix, it had happened. Which would give me a good idea of whether the picket was actually Scheele's.

9

Meanwhile Scheele seemed to be the man who somehow or other could split time lines to order. Or whatever had been done; I had a real problem with the concept of splitting time lines, and memories jumping from one to the other. If I was susceptible to headaches, this case would give me one.

I went to Carlos' office and told him what I'd learned. Then he called Joe, and I went over it again. We didn't have anything either the police or Haugen could go to court with, and none of us could see any prospects, but you never know. So Joe applied to the Justice Department for a contingency contract, on the basis that the Defense Department's William Harford might have been the victim of a criminal conspiracy.

The department's regional director for California, along with the head of the FBI's LA office, arrived the next morning to examine the evidence. We didn't show what we'd learned from Innocenza, which might prejudice them against us. Even as it was, they acted as if we were shrink cases, but two days later, Washington faxed Joe a contract. Prudential's reputation had come through again. There was nothing in it for us, of course, unless we came up with something that contributed to an arrest, indictment, or conviction.

10

Charles Scheele sat back in his chair and stared at the monitor. When his picket had intercepted the bogie, his beeper had alerted him, and he'd sent out a highly advanced bot of his own design, which he called "the snake." Through it he'd learned not only that he was being investigated, but by whom, and even who the agent was.

The name Martti Seppanen had been vaguely familiar, and a brief search in the Web told him the man was sharp, very sharp. And clearly Seppanen knew something, but how much could it be? Ballenger didn't know much. How many targets had Seppanen found, besides Innocenza? Only Innocenza could have identified the customer, unless Harwood . . . Harwood would explain the Justice Department's interest.

It seemed to Scheele he needed to find out just what Seppanen knew, and where he'd learned it, making no mistakes. Then do whatever he needed to do.

He felt pumped. He loved challenges, and this one was unlike any he'd dealt with before.

11

The next couple of days I tried every approach I could think of to get a lead on how someone might do what Scheele had seemingly done. I talked to half a dozen big-name theoretical physicists, including a couple with a reputation for being over the edge. Telling them only that my interest was part of a criminal investigation. I even visited Winifred Sproule at the Hypernumbers Institute.

No one had anything to suggest.

Next I phoned Ballenger, again identifying myself as Mr. Smith. He seemed unlikely to know much, but anything would help. And whether he knew anything or not, he'd probably call Scheele again, which might break something loose.

Ballenger sounded wary, but didn't complain about my standing him up. We agreed to meet at the same place—Leon's, at Marina del Rey—this time at 9:00 p.m. When I asked why so late, he said he'd be in Santa Monica doing a television interview from 7 till 7:30.

I went armed, of course. Ballenger might be more dangerous than he seemed, and according to Misti he had a bodyguard who probably served as all-purpose muscle. But a public place like a restaurant was a poor choice for a hit.

It was a miserable evening, with soggy air rolling in off the ocean. As I drove down Santa Monica Boulevard, it began to drizzle, and by the time I reached Marina del Rey, it was thick, if fine, blowing in off the Pacific. Late in the year for it, but in L.A. you take your rain when you get it. Through the murk, the argon sign marking Leon's glowed fuzzy blue, and as I ran from my car to the restaurant, I thought what this was going to do to the press in my suit.

Leon's had a nautical motif, the aisle ropes rough manila instead of velvet. Pictures of yachts and racing sloops were scattered over the varnished walls. There were only two couples in the room; given the weather, I wasn't surprised. The host who met me wore a jacket you might find on the steward of a third-rate cruise ship. His name tag said Adolphe.

"Good evening M'sieur," he said, "smoking or nonsmoking?"

I hadn't heard enough Frenchmen to know if his accent was genuine. "I'm supposed to meet Reverend Buddy Ballenger," I told him. "He said he'd have reservations."

"Ah! M'sieur Ballenger! Of course. If you will follow me, please . . ." He turned away, and I tagged along down a short hall, where he showed me into a room maybe 15 by 20 feet in size, with a table that might seat six, set now for two. The floor was wide gray planks that looked like sand-smoothed driftwood, but the throw rug looked like a rice-straw mat from a dojo. On the walls were large pictures of nudes, eighteenth-century style, but showing more. The nudes were being carried off by large grinning satyrs, or over the shoulders of soldiers. One was disporting with a stallion. Along two walls were backless couches upholstered in velvet, too wide for comfortable sitting. I had no trouble at all understanding why the good reverend liked this place.

Adolphe gestured at a chair. "If you'd care to be seated, I expect Reverend Ballenger shortly. He phoned to say he would be a few minutes late." Then he left me with the menu.

This wasn't the situation I'd expected, so I rechecked my shoulder holster; its clip released easily as I drew. There was a side door that opened onto a dressing room with rods, hangers, and hooks. Connected with it were a shower room at one end and a toilet at the other. The shower room had wooden benches and four showerheads. Interesting restaurant.

I went back to the table and sat down. My chair was close to a window overlooking the marina, and through the thick drizzle, sloops and cabin cruisers were vaguely visible at their moorings. I wondered if anyone would be boating on a night like that. The menu was limited, featuring seafood and Mexican. Nothing was French but Adolphe, and I wasn't sure about him.

Ballenger arrived ten minutes later, led by Adolphe, who announced he'd be our waiter. Ballenger's suit was dry and neatly pressed, even the trouser legs, which raised my antennae right away. He asked if I'd eaten, and when I said it had been a few hours, he recommended the taco salad and tawny port. I took his advice.

Adolphe said it would be about five minutes, and missed by only two. Meanwhile Ballenger was in no hurry to talk business. Instead he told me how much he loved boating and the sea. I avoided asking if that included the Sea Islands. I could bring that up later, after we'd eaten.

Then Adolphe returned, put our salads and wine glasses in front of us, poured, and left again. The taco salad may or may not have been good, but the salsa was almost hot enough to numb your mouth, which may have been deliberate. After one bite, I turned to the wine, and hadn't much more than wet my upper lip when I realized two things, and put the glass down. First, my drink was doped. Adolphe had filled both glasses from the same bottle, so he must have put some powder in mine ahead of time. And that being true, Ballenger would have muscle standing by, probably with heat in a shoulder holster. Fortunately I'd barely tasted the wine.

"Watch out," I said. "That salsa is pure jalapeño." Then I picked up the glass again, pretended to drink, took another bite of the salad and sat blankly for a moment. "I believe," I said slowly, "that I had better go to the men's room. I don't feel good."

"You don't look good," Ballenger said. "Let me get someone to help you." He looked toward the door. "Billy!" he called.

Billy. The name Misti had mentioned. The door opened.

"Yessir, reverend?"

"Help my guest to the men's room, will you Billy? He's feelin' a little unsteady."

"Sure thing, reverend."

Billy was as big as Ballenger, and looked a lot more solid. Unsteady as I felt, he could no doubt take me. "Here," he said. "Y'all look green around the gills."

I felt weak, but for someone who'd behaved like a patsy, my wits seemed okay. I wondered if Good Old Billy was really southern, or faking it. I'd heard that "y'all" was only used for two or more people. He got a shoulder under my left arm, with his right arm around me; I could have walked, wobbled at least, but as he lifted, I let myself go limp. "Thank you, Billy," I said, deliberately slurring.

"Reverend," he said, "this is a heavy dude. I'm gonna need a hand with him."

"Set him back down on the chair then. Mr. Smith, just rest your head on the table and we'll help you in a minute."

I did, cradling my head on an arm. After a few seconds I opened one eye a slit. Ballenger was bent over, his head lower than the tabletop, with Billy half crouched beside him, his back to me. I switched wine glasses while Ballenger pulled the throw rug back, and Billy raised a trapdoor in the floor. The room was built over the water; with the trapdoor open, I could hear small waves chuckling on pilings. It didn't sound good at all.

Then they were back at the table. I lolled loosely while they got me to the trapdoor and laid me beside it. One of them fished out my wallet, and the Walther from my shoulder holster. Billy went partway down the ladder, grabbed my feet, and got me started after him, Ballenger working from above, till they had me laid out on a little dock, I guess you could call it—two planks side by side, about the width of a wide bench. A rowboat was tied to it.

From there they dumped me into the boat, fortunately in the bow. "Not now, Billy!" Ballenger said. "You know I can't stand violence! Take him out to the Simon Peter and do it on the fishin' deck; it gets blood on it all the time anyway. But please, no more blood than need be. Just hit him on the head." He paused. "You gonna need help gettin' him loaded?"

"No sir, reverend. It's only 'bout four feet. He's a heavy son of a bitch, but I got this length of rope . . ." He paused as if doing something—maybe bending and holding a rope up. "Everything's took care of. I'll tie it under his arms and just hoist him in."

"You get that anchor like I told you?"

"Yessir. No need to fret. Like I said, I took care of everything." Billy was starting to sound impatient.

The reverend sighed heavily. "I don't know why this had to come up," he complained, as if to the Lord. Nothing more was said then. After maybe ten seconds, I heard the trapdoor thump quietly shut; Ballenger had taken his sensitivities back into Leon's. I hoped the first thing he did was take a big drink. Through slitted eyes I saw Billy crouch and push off from the dock, then sit down with his back to me, seat the oars, and start to row. I took a deep quiet breath, exhaled, repeated it two or three times and took stock of how I felt. Mentally I seemed okay, but physically I felt out of sync.

There was a gaff beside me in the bottom, that I suspect was used as a small boathook. Along with the fact that Billy thought I was helpless, it gave me a promising chance, but I didn't have much time. When we got to the Simon Peter, good old Billy would come up front with me to tie the painter to a cleat; I needed to act while his back was to me, meanwhile avoiding any movement he might feel. Hopefully he wouldn't look back over his shoulder at the wrong time, correcting course. Very carefully I turned on my side, carefully drew up my legs, and carefully got the little Beretta out of the holster by my left calf, all while keeping my eyes on Billy. Holding the Beretta in my left hand, I carefully sat up and gripped the gaff with my right. He hadn't felt the movements at all.

Gathering myself, I got to my knees, and that movement he did feel. As he turned, I hit him hard with the gaff handle. He didn't make a sound, just fell backward. I pulled on him till his legs were off the rowing seat, then crawled over him and took his place. Hard as I'd hit him, I'd still rather have dragged him into the stern, where he'd be easier to watch. I wasn't up to it though, so I sat facing the bow and push-rowed. It was slow and awkward, but it kept Billy in front of me.

It occurred to me that Ballenger might not have drunk any more wine, might even be watching us through the window. Given all the city lights, the night was as dark as it gets in L.A., and thick with drizzle, but even so . . . With a gun, maybe my gun, could Adolphe serve as muscle? Instead of rowing back to Leon's, I tied to a wharf farther along the street. After rapping Billy again with the gaff handle, I frisked him and found my Walther, my wallet, and a Colt .32 he'd carried. The Colt and the gaff I threw in the marina. By then I was pretty bedraggled. Good Old Billy, though, would be soggy to the bone when he woke up. I hoped he got pneumonia.

Meanwhile the rowing had done me good; I was still a little unsteady, but had no real problem climbing onto the low wharf and up some steps to the sidewalk. It was abandoned, just me and the drizzle, but I had the Walther in my fist as I walked to the parking lot. My unmarked company car was still there. Powering up, I turned the heater on high to dry me out, and drove back to headquarters. I keyed open the garage beneath the building, and parked in the properly numbered space. Prudential had the security contract, and Ramon, the garage guard, had come over as I parked. "Bad night," he said, eyeing me as I climbed out. "Worse where you were, looks like. You need help?"

"Not now," I said, "but a while ago . . . Would you believe I got drugged and tossed in the bottom of a boat?"

His eyes were round. "Jesus!" he said. "Will I read about it in tomorrow's Times?"

"I hope not. I hope I didn't hit him that hard."

I really just wanted to get in my own car, which was parked outside in the rain, and drive home. But I made myself go to the elevator, key it, and go upstairs. There I summarized the evening into the computer, printed out a copy, and left it on Carlos' desk, along with my planned activities for the next day. I also checked something I should have checked sooner, and through the Data Center, learned that Leon's was owned by Robert Lee Ballenger. Buddy.

Then I went home. Tuuli was still up, and over a hot brandy I told her how my evening had gone. She knows how to comfort me after a tough day.

12

The next morning I slept late, then drove to the North Hollywood Shuttle Station and grabbed a flight to Santa Barbara. Frank Grady, from our office there, was waiting with the equipment I'd asked for. From there we drove to Montecito and out the Rhubarb Charley Road. Rhubarb Charley wouldn't recognize the area. His slab and tarpaper wickiup was torn down after he died in 1937, and the Rhubarb Canyon development is "vee double-X"—very expensive and very exclusive. And very secure, with a twelve-foot perimeter fence of expensive HardSteel mesh, electrified at the top. Except near the road, where it's reinforced concrete with stone facings. And like a lot of V-XX developments, it has a slim, HardSteel mast, with instruments that monitor floater and scooter overflights, recording the continuous identification signals, or the lack thereof.

Prudential had the security contract there, too, but the odds were that Scheele didn't know it. I didn't picture him interested in community affairs, and the Rhubarb Canyon Corporation required that our vehicles, equipment, and badges there all be marked "Rhubarb Canyon Security," not "Prudential." The car we were in had no markings at all, but the gate guards recognized Frank and waved us through.

Scheele's place had its own HardSteel fence—not that uncommon in the development. Signs and my instruments warned that the fence was electrified, and protected by alarm beams. Seen from the road, the large house was handsome, the external walls of sandstone slabs. Probably, I thought, overlying reinforced concrete.

What I'd hoped to find was radiation of unusual frequencies or intensities—something I could describe to engineers and physicists—and there wasn't a sign of anything like that. I said "hoped to find." I hadn't actually expected to, so I was surprised at how disappointed I felt. But I don't discourage as easily as I used to. I'd learned and relearned that a case can break when you wouldn't think there's a chance in the world.

* * *

With the fast and frequent shuttle flights, I was back at the North Hollywood Station before 1300 hours, and half an hour later, parked my car outside the office. I updated Carlos, and the only thing he could suggest was to keep groping till something broke. We could always cancel of course—tell Haugen it was hopeless. But it wasn't yet, and it wasn't what Haugen wanted to hear. It wasn't good PR, either. Giving up on cases buys bad word of mouth, and might get to be a habit.

My muse took over then, freewheeling. I could, I said, leak some hints into the Web, things that Scheele would pick up as worrisome but no one else would notice. The trick would be to make them convincing, which could be hard to do, knowing no more than I did. Or I might float Harford's name; I'd have to check with him. Or phone Scheele, tell him what had happened to Ballenger and good old Billy the night before, hinting they'd talked about him when they thought I was unconscious.

Carlos took it all in, then leaned back. "Martti," he said—speaking Spanish, something we often do for the practice, "I want you to be careful. Whatever he did to Harford and the women, he did without anyone knowing. Maybe he can do it to you, too."

Now there was a thought. "Maybe if he did," I answered, "I'd get a clue on how he did it."

"None of the others did."

"None of the others were looking for one, or had any idea what had happened to them. And maybe I can start wearing a transponder. How's that for an idea?"

It seemed to me that was the solution right there. With a transponder, all I needed was to get Scheele to do to me whatever it was he did to the others. I went down the hall and asked Skip if he could fit me with one. He said sure, but he and Sakata were both on a rush project for Torres. I told him the next morning would be fine.

* * *

I took compensatory time the rest of the afternoon, and went to Wu's for my first Choi Li Fut workout in more than a week. I don't go often enough to maintain the flexibility I should, but enough to keep me dangerous. Harve—that's Harvey Wu—had long since quit bawling me out about it, says I'm not a fighter at heart. He said maybe I should switch to Aikido, but I didn't feel like learning a new style from scratch.

Meanwhile, doing the forms relaxes me, a different relaxation than the deep tiredness I get from a Nautilus workout.

After an hour and a half, I went home and took a nap on the recliner, waking up when Tuuli came in. Talking Finnish for the practice, I told her about my discussion with Carlos, and that he was afraid Scheele would zap me like he'd done the others. She wasn't as worried as Carlos had been, but she pointed out that the memories might be ugly.

Then she said something else. "You know, it doesn't have to be two separate time lines. He may just duplicate people—make two of them. Like—what do they call them in plants?"

"Clones?"

"That's it. Maybe he makes clones. And when one of them dies, its soul snaps back into the other. That could explain the headache."

I opened my mouth to object, to ask how in the world anyone could do that without the original knowing. But the words died in my throat, because cloning sounded less extreme than splitting time lines in a way that memories could transfer back. Cloned! That had to be it. Or could be it. Maybe. Something had happened.

After we went to bed, I lay there thinking. Suppose Scheele did clone me in some undetectable way. It seemed to me I could handle it. And with a transponder, we'd have him by the short and curlies.

13

He'd been held up in traffic. An accident on Cahuenga Pass had blocked a lane on the southbound 101 Freeway, and he'd missed his first chance. Now, though, he stood behind his tripod, peering into the back of what looked like an ancient videocam, large and cumbersome. Briefly he'd pretended to shoot footage up and down Beverly Boulevard, occasionally panning on passersby, most of whom paid little or no attention. But he hadn't actually shot any of them, just pretended to.

What he was really interested in was across the street in Morey's Kosher Deli. Ferguson had gone over to check, and from the door had given him the high sign: Seppanen was inside eating breakfast.

One of the important parts of this work was to research your subject, learn his or her schedule, to the extent they had one. Another was to have a reliable assistant.

At last Ferguson came out, which meant that Seppanen had headed for the cash register. Scheele was so excited, he could taste it. The duplicator was ready, aimed and focused on the open door. With his right hand on the trigger and his left on the locking control, he stood in the mental posture of a leopard waiting to pounce.

Through the finder he could see someone moving toward the door. Seppanen stepped into the focus field, and in a single quick movement Scheele locked on him, framing him, clearing the field of everything else, then pressed the trigger switch. His target turned ninety degrees and started east down the sidewalk, the locked field holding on him. Scheele pressed the trigger twice more. I've got him! He rejoiced inwardly. I've got the sonofabitch! Three of him! It was all he could do not to dance on the sidewalk.

14

The rest of the story can be confusing, so I'll tell it from one viewpoint at a time, starting with one that woke up strapped to a gurney, in a small concrete cell with no window. I was naked, which meant I'd been stripped, because I knew from Harford's experience that clothes get cloned along with the wearer. Apparently they'd stripped me for the psychological effect: without clothes you feel more powerless, vulnerable.

Being strapped to a gurney does that pretty well by itself, in threatening situations.

I felt lousy: headache, queazy stomach, and an overall, unpleasant squirmy feeling. It seemed to me if someone let me loose, I wouldn't be able to stand up without help. Something held my head down, medical or duct tape I supposed; about all I could move was my eyes, and all I could see besides walls and ceiling was a small glass ball in a ceiling recess, that had to be part of a surveillance system.

I knew right away what had happened, and told myself I should have arranged for a transponder a day earlier. My jailers would have found it when they stripped me, but by then the company computer would have a fix on where I was.

The last thing I remembered before waking up was walking out of Morey's. What had happened must have happened on the sidewalk in front. No one had bumped me or spoken to me, but . . . There'd been a guy across the street with some kind of apparatus on a tripod, like a big old camera, aimed at Morey's. That had to be it.

But then how . . . The answer was unavoidable: I'd been transmitted! Like a radio beam! Jesus, I thought, what am I? Some kind of holo? That made no sense. A holo couldn't be raped, and a holo wouldn't have memories or feelings; it was nothing more than light.

But clone or holo, they'd duplicated me and transmitted the copy! Even though I didn't feel like a duplicate, that was more believable than splitting time, then looping memories from one time line to the other.

After spending maybe a minute on the question, I turned to something more meaningful: escape. I couldn't plan; didn't know enough about the situation. Presumably the original version of me wasn't out of action, and Scheele would know that. He'd cloned me to question me, find out what we knew and what we planned.

Or maybe to get even. I preferred not to look at that one, but there it was. Torture me in the worst way possible, then kill me-the-clone and visit those lovely memories on me-the-original. Ole could handle the situation, of course, or Vic or Tory or Bhiksu. Strip the pain and fear off, and the emotions, leaving just the unburdened memory. But even so, I'd be in for some God-awful hours or days, first here, then later.

I heard a door open, and a moment later a guy in a lab coat was looking down at me. He pressed a hypodermic against my chest and pulled the trigger. There was a hiss, a brief pause, then nothing.

* * *

Meanwhile the original me had gone from Morey's to the office without a notion that anything had happened. I checked the L.A. Times for anything about Ballenger, or anyone found unconscious in a rowboat in Marina del Rey. Nothing. Next I checked to see if Ballenger had phoned Scheele the last two days. He hadn't. So using my weasel, I checked for computer traffic between the two, and again came up with nothing. He'd probably used a pay phone.

There wasn't much I could do but wait, so I went to Carlos, who put me on the Pak Kyung So extortion case, helping Ernie Johnson. Routine digging that required patience and know-how, but no deep immersion—well suited to on-and-off work.

I hadn't left his office yet when the phone rang and Carlos picked it up. It was Tuuli. He poked the speakerphone switch so I could hear. She was telling him something was wrong with me, that I was in trouble.

"He looks okay to me," Carlos answered. "He's sitting about six feet away, looking fine."

"Then he's been cloned," she answered. "Somewhere there's another one of him, maybe more than one, on a table or—one of those wheeled tables. He's alive, but he can't move."

Carlos's lips puckered into an O, and his eyebrows raised halfway up his forehead. "Cloned," he said thoughtfully. It occurred to me I hadn't mentioned Tuuli's idea that Scheele cloned people instead of splitting time lines. "Do you know where he is?"

"I can guess," she told him.

So could I. So could Carlos. Was there really another me, or maybe more, at Scheele's place?

The upshot was that Carlos told her we'd get right on it, and buzzed Joe. Joe in turn got on the horn and called the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department, asking them to get and serve a search warrant for the property of Charles Scheele, in the Rhubarb Canyon development. The object of the search was detective Martti Seppanen, who'd disappeared while investigating Scheele in connection with a claim by actress Misti Innocenza. She claimed she'd been kidnaped, and Scheele was suspected. There was also evidence that Scheele might be involved in a possible kidnaping and abuse of Elena Marquez—Mrs. Bo Haugen—and of William Harford, and the denial of their civil liberties. We were carrying out the Harford investigation on a contract with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Sheriff Nyberg wanted to know more about the evidence; the judge would ask. Rather than tell him he'd gotten the information from a psychic, Joe took refuge in the confidential status of the Harford case. He didn't mention that I was sitting across the room from him just then, either.

The whole damned situation felt like something from Alice's rabbit hole. It was Joe who said that, after he'd hung up.

Nyberg pulled it off; he got the search warrant. Judge Santos had always been sympathetic toward the problems of law enforcement. And Prudential's reputation must have helped, and mine; he mentioned my work on the Ashkenazi murder case. Anyway, less than two hours after Tuuli's call, two sheriff's department floaters lifted from their pads, loaded with officers that included a SWAT team. And Carlos, who'd caught a shuttle for Santa Barbara at the Larchmont Station.

* * *

Needless to say, I stayed in L.A. But from another point of view—a clonal point of view—I know what happened, beginning with the next time I woke up. I was still on the gurney, had been drifting in and out of dreams I don't remember, until finally I was fully awake. I wondered if I was wired, maybe to an EEG, because a couple of minutes later the same guy came in. Taking out a pair of heavy scissors, he cut the tape that held my head down. "Congratulations," he said, "you won the wake-up lottery. Time to go for your interview."

While he wheeled me down a corridor, I asked myself what I'd do if they took me off the gurney. They wouldn't, but if they did . . . I got a brief image of kicking the seeds out of everyone there, starting with Scheele, and if they shot me, what the hell? I'd be back at Prudential or wherever the real me was. But I knew they wouldn't let me loose.

The room I got wheeled into was an office. Two guys were there waiting. One was Scheele; I recognized him from his college yearbook. His hairline had receded a bit, and he wore a ponytail now—they were back in style—but he was Charles Scheele. And grinning like someone pleased at how clever he was. The other was the muscle. He didn't look like anyone I'd care to mess with, even if I was at my best. Good Old Billy wasn't in the same league.

"Mr. Seppanen!" Scheele said. "Welcome! I've looked you up. You're quite the Sherlock Holmes."

"And you're quite the Arne Haugen," I told him.

He laughed. "I'm having more fun than Arne Haugen had."

"Not with me, I hope."

He laughed again. "Preferably not. I do want information from you though."

"I suppose we clones are sort of disposable, eh? Question us, then kill us. Ash the remains and fertilize the garden with them."

"My my, Mr. Seppanen. May I call you Martti? You have a creative imagination. No, there are no bodies to dispose of. Not clonal bodies at any rate. If you were to die, you'd simultaneously dematerialize. As a matter of fact, you'd dematerialize after a bit anyway, though with someone of your mass, it might take six or seven weeks."

"What am I then? Some kind of holo?"

Still grinning, he shook his head. "No, you're quite material."

"But—then how would I dematerialize?"

"I haven't worked out the details yet; it's not that important. Basically though, it's part of the process. Have you heard of Linyetski's work on teleportation?"

"C.K.F. Linyetski at the University of Birmingham? The guy who teleported a block of iron, sort of?"

Scheele looked surprised, and mentally I thanked Vic Merlin for bringing it up. Actually I had remembered, from when it made the news, but I hadn't remembered the name. And I wanted to interest Scheele, keep him talking. What I learned, I'd take home with me.

"Correct," he said, "and I'd been working on the same principle. As others had: Schöndienst's work on matrix theory had made it seem distinctly possible. But the actuation?" He laughed again. "Theory is the first challenge, actuation the second. Teleportation seems to result in problems of stability. With Linyetski's work—which still has practical applications, you know—the instability is immediate. With my work it is delayed, the lag period being a function of mass. A second and happier discovery is that the original is not displaced. As I believe you know. Instead, a duplicate is created at the reception point. I must confess that both developments were entirely unexpected, the serendipitous results of incomplete theory. I'd intended only a simple teleport.

"And when dematerialization occurs, whether by, ah, termination or due to time, the duplicate—you for example—is not reduced to its constituent atoms and molecules, as with Linyetski's block of iron. You simply—disappear! And I have no idea what becomes of you. There aren't even gases given off; I've checked. What I would never have expected is what I have named 'the snapback effect,' with the clonal consciousness returning to the original. I learned of it only after, ah, delivering a number of clones to customers. Had I been aware of it sooner, I'd have done things a bit differently."

He peered curiously at me. "A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Seppanen."

"That's more than they're worth," I said. Actually I was wondering why he'd tell me all this. He must know I'd take it with me. But it wasn't something I wanted to point out.

"Perhaps you're wondering why I'm telling you all this," he said, then laughed at my expression. "Ha! Caught you, didn't I? But believe me, you won't tell anyone, because your original will die while driving home this evening!"

My guts shriveled.

"Yes, Mr. Clonal Seppanen, your original will die on his way home, with a little help from—your humble servant. Among other things, I've made myself quite the expert in explosives." He made a sweeping bow. "And your memories will have no one to home on. They will cease to exist, just as your clonal body will. But if you are sufficiently cooperative, your remaining weeks can be more than pleasant. Would you like to spend some time with an attractive starlet clone? Or a porn queen like Miss Innocenza?" He laughed again. "The alternative is much less pleasant, I assure you. All you need do is answer my questions, all of them, accurately and completely. In an aura chamber and instrumented of course, so we can monitor your veracity.

"And do not imagine that silence is an option. If you'd like, I'll show you some of the implements Mr. Carver has at his disposal to ensure that." He gestured at the muscle.

Mr. Carver. I didn't like the name.

"Mr. Ferguson will perform the interrogation, and Mr. Carver will provide any necessary, ah, incentives. I prefer to be elsewhere."

Like Ballenger, I thought. "Why not just drug me?"

"Even the best truth drugs impair accuracy. Torture, or hopefully just the threat of torture, are preferable."

"What do you do if I die under torture?"

"That won't happen unless you have a cardiac condition. But if it should—" He smiled and pinched my cheek. "I have two more of you. Backups in storage, so to speak."

"You don't miss a bet, do you. And if I answer your questions, what happens to the other clones? Do you cut their throats?"

He chuckled. I wondered if he'd been watching mad scientist films from the 1920s. "Mr. Seppanen, we are not gauche here," he said, and turned. "Mr. Ferguson, do you have the, ah, quietus at hand?"

Ferguson put a hand in a lab coat pocket and came out with another hypodermic, a ring of orange tape on its cylinder.

"Put it on my desk, please," Scheele said, then turned back to me. "It is a quick poison. Struggles are unseemly. Now. I suppose you're willing to cooperate?"

"I guess I'd better. I don't care much for the alternative. But before you import any porn queens for me, how did you get a bomb in my car? I drove it to work this morning."

"Ah. I had a certain talented person kidnaped, replaced him with a clone, made other clones of him, each thinking it's the original, and gave them jobs to do. I then disposed of the original. And I did not, I hasten to add, use his ashes to fertilize the garden.

"But enough of that. We'll have time for your questions when I've gotten mine answered." He looked at Ferguson. "Mr. Ferguson, please inject Mr. Seppanen with the gamma-Alprazolam." He smiled at me. "It allows us to remove your restraints. The gurney doesn't fit in our aura chamber."

Ferguson took out another hypo, this one with blue tape, and injected me. I didn't feel much effect. "It will take a few seconds," Scheele added pleasantly. "Then you'll be able to get off the gurney and walk unassisted. You'll simply be weak and ill coordinated."

Ferguson released the strap across my knees, next the one across my belly, then the separate straps that held my arms. "Go ahead, Mr. Seppanen," Scheele said. "Sit up."

I did, slowly, testing my body. It didn't get a very high grade. Abruptly we were interrupted by an English-accented female voice from a speaker: "Mr. Scheele! There is a large van on the front lawn, and armed officers are coming onto the porch!"

Scheele's humor, poise, and jaw dropped like a rock, and for a moment he simply stared. Over the intercom I could hear door chimes, and pounding. Inside, someone with a Hispanic accent was talking excitedly.

"Jorge says there are more in back!"

Scheele snapped out of it, and turned to Ferguson. "Get rid of the others," he snapped. "They don't know anything."

"Yessir!" Ferguson answered, then turned and dashed out. Forgetting the hypo he'd put on the desk, as if he thought it was still in his pocket.

"What do you want to do with this one?" asked Carver.

I heard a muffled explosion over the intercom, as if someone had blown the lock in the front door, probably a heavy security door. That was followed by a scream, and someone shouted an order to spread through the house and search. Scheele stood with his face screwed in a tight frown, pressured by haste, searching for a solution. Neither man was paying any attention to me. I was about ten feet from the orange-taped hypodermic, as close as Carver and closer than Scheele, but wobbly.

Deliberately I staggered and fell, in the direction of the desk. Carver scowled at me, then turned back to Scheele, whose mind seemed still frozen. Taking hold of the desk, I pulled myself back to my feet. "The vent!" Scheele said suddenly. "We'll knock him out and stuff him in the vent!" Still leaning on the desk, I moved a step nearer the hypodermic, and heard voices, sounding as if they were coming downstairs to the cellar.

"The vent?!" Carver half shouted it. His pistol turned toward me, boomed, and a blow in the chest knocked me against the desk. For a moment I blacked out, the black rose-tinted, and I realized I was on the floor. Someone screamed, Scheele I think. "There's no goddamn time for the vent!" Carver continued, yelling now, and fired again. The second shot hit me in the face, with less pain than I'd have thought, followed by spreading numbness. "I'd need a ladder, for chrissake, and a screwdriver to take the damned grille off."

Martti, I thought, get ready. Here I come. There was a shout in the corridor—"This way! This way!"—and thudding feet. Carver's pistol boomed again. . . .

15

The others had told about being hit by a crushing headache. Mine was different, short and sharp, leaving little more than its shadow. For a moment the memories confused me, but they weren't horrifying, and the confusion eased as they sorted themselves out. After half a minute I got on the intercom with Frank Brunette, our bomb expert, and we went outside to the public lot, where my car was parked. I felt—weird is the word—but it wasn't really troublesome, beyond interfering with my mental focus. After a five-minute preliminary check for booby traps, it took Frank maybe half a minute to find the bomb, a kind that doesn't require wiring to the electrical system. It had batteries, and a timer that actuated when someone sat in the driver's seat. The bomber must have had a master key for that year's model Mercury Solano, and access to the parking lot wasn't restricted. We went back in then, and Frank called the LAPD for a bomb squad. He could have disarmed it, but the law restricted bomb disposal to authorized government agencies, and anyway, no one in their right mind is eager to mess with something like that.

* * *

Most of the rest I only know secondhand, but I'll review it. Carlos is retired now, but he's here from Hawaii for his debrief tomorrow. Joe, who's retired from day-to-day management, will debrief this evening. All of us were debriefed back in '13 by the feebs, but they didn't pass out copies. Too confidential.

Nyberg arrested all of Scheele's employees, including the household staff. My other two clones were taken into custody as evidence and material witnesses. The next day the feebs took them all from the county jail, apparently never to receive a public trial. The U.S. District Court had issued a confidential injunction to all of us peons at Prudential and the sheriff's department against anyone saying anything to anybody.

Meanwhile our security people at the Rhubarb Canyon Development had told us that immediately after the raid, a squad of feebs moved in by floater to guard the place, and that night a military floater had landed at the delivery dock behind the house, presumably to haul stuff away.

A week later, the company got an official statement from the Department of Justice, saying that the parties involved with the William Harford and Elena Marquez cases had been apprehended, as if we didn't know, and thanking Prudential for its "highly professional" services. It added that the case had national security implications, and no further information would be forthcoming. An accompanying document repeated the admonition not to mention this to anyone, under penalty of the Official Secrets Act, as amended 07/19/2006, except that we were authorized to show the statement to Haugen and Marquez as a basis for billing.

A few days afterward, the Justice Department, usually stingy and slow in dealing with private investigation firms, surprised Joe with a transfer of funds that qualified as generous—payment for information leading to solution of the Harford case.

My clones were never mentioned, but they were questioned exhaustively, without knowing each other existed. And held, still separately, till on the forty-fifth day they jumped me only minutes apart. I'd been expecting them.

Meanwhile I seined the open Web for a few months until nothing more seemed likely to show up, watching for anything about certain people and certain places. Carefully of course, so it wouldn't draw attention. It brought me some interesting information. Any items that hadn't made the major media, I hand-carried to Joe and Carlos, but none of us said anything about any of it, even to each other. I didn't even say anything to Tuuli. Now, though, with recent developments, the records have been opened, some of them anyway, adding to what we already knew.

A week after his transfer to the federal high security prison near Bitter Springs, Nevada, Charles Scheele suicided. So the records say; I doubt it to beat hell. Two days later, his attorney, along with four other passengers, died aboard a transatlantic airliner, of salmonella poisoning, supposedly from eating tainted whitefish. Ferguson, Scheele's lab assistant, was reported killed that same week in a prison fight, a matter of homosexual jealousy. Carver, Scheele's muscleman, was "shot to death while assaulting a guard with a knife." Could be.

The day after Scheele's arrest, Buddy Ballenger was confidentially pulled in, questioned, and released, a no doubt very sobered reverend. Two days later he died in a traffic accident, along with an employee, William Bradley. The "accident" made the papers.

Within six weeks, Ibadhan's Minister of Finance died when his home was bombed; Shiite terrorists were blamed. That one came from UPA wire services. Three weeks after that, a massive explosion destroyed a weapons research installation in northern India, virtually wiping out its staff, and getting a lot of media attention. I could guess how it got detonated.

It took a year before I stopped worrying about something happening to me, and even then I wasn't totally sure. The government didn't want even a whiff of a hint that anything like a cloner existed, and I didn't blame them.

* * *

Then, last August, a news item hit the Web, papers, newsfaxes, and TV news channels: A physics professor at the University of Bologna, in Italy, had undertaken the maiden test on his newly invented teleport. He'd put a stone on the sending plate and closed the switch—and the stone still sat there, so he assumed it hadn't worked. Then his assistant in the other room shouted, "It works! It works!" The prof went in to see what the guy was shouting about—and there was a duplicate of the stone on the receiving plate. So he tried it with his watch, and got two watches, both showing precisely the same time.

He'd hurried to the Biology Department, borrowed a white mouse, and duplicated it too. Less than an hour later, while showing the two mice to his department chairman, one of them disappeared before their eyes. Then he'd checked his desk drawer, and the duplicate watch was gone.

By suppertime, the entire physics department, a bunch of other professors and grad students, a TV camera crew, and all of Italy had been treated to demonstrations. The cat was very thoroughly out of the bag, and by now, of course, the whole world knows about it. Which, along with the latest reform of federal security agencies, is why we got clearance to debrief ourselves on this, though the debrief is confidential.

Myself, I wish none of it had happened. The country—the world!—is having a hard time adjusting to the continuous major changes that shake their whole reality. Joe says we'll adjust, that most of us already are, and in the process we'll become a wiser species. I hope to hell he's right.

THE END

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