Private Lives

9

Matt flashed in early for the special Net Force Explorers meeting. He wanted to be close to the stage tonight, even though the reason for the evening’s assembly wasn’t exactly a surprise anymore.

As he blinked into the virtual hall, he was surprised to see how many people had been inspired with the same idea. Matt was faced with a good-sized horde when he arrived. And the horde wasn’t in a good mood. Kids were actually snarling because the usually polite and easygoing attendees were anything but tonight.

“Nice group,” Andy Moore commented as he finally reached the D.C. bunch. His hair was even wilder than ever after a near-scuffle on the way to join Matt, Leif, Megan, and the others.

“When you’re happy, you want to share it,” Leif said bitterly. “I wonder who they have on hand to sugarcoat all this wonderful news.”

“I hope it’s not Steadman,” David Gray muttered. “It’s a good thing this meeting’s virtual. If Steadman turns up, I think the kids will storm the stage.”

That’s what this whole setup feels like, Matt suddenly realized. A lynch mob. Except it’s Captain Winters getting lynched, and we can’t seem to do anything about it.

By the time the meeting was supposed to start, just about every present Explorer — and maybe some past ones — had appeared in the room, waiting to hear the official explanation. Matt felt a bit claustrophobic. Even though the room’s walls were elastic, the crowd was determined to get as close as possible to the podium. Kids shoved forward, banging into people with their elbows as they unconsciously squeezed closer, and getting banged in return until they could barely move their arms. Matt found himself standing uncomfortably close to the girl in front of him.

It’s just a sim, he kept reminding himself. Just a sim. Even so, he found himself bothered by Andy Moore’s breath steaming against his ear.

Just when full-blown claustrophobia was about to roll through him, Matt felt a faint beeping from his wristwatch. Meeting time, he thought with relief. At least now we’ll know what’s going on.

But the virtual stage didn’t pop into existence. No one declared the meeting open. Neither Agent Dorpff nor whoever would join him in explaining the next move in the Winters case put in an appearance. A few minutes passed.

Then the sullen silence that had filled the room in expectation of the meeting time vanished in a confused outcry of pure fury. If the crowd had been unhappy a moment before, it was downright ugly now.

“What the hell is going on?” an especially piercing voice cut through the wall of noise. “This is like incompetent city. All of a sudden Net Force can’t keep its own information in its computers. And now they can’t even start a meeting on time!”

The noise cut off when the virtual stage at last began to appear. But the subdued roar came back, lower and more ominous, when the kids saw only Len Dorpff standing before them. Still, nobody was yelling — yet. The sound was more like a low growl. It made the hairs on the back of Matt’s neck stand up in some sort of caveman reaction.

Dorpff stepped forward like a man walking into an icy rain. “Welcome to this special meeting of the Net Force Explorers,” he said, using the traditional opening for a meeting. It only seemed to emphasize that Captain Winters wasn’t there.

“I apologize for holding things up. It can’t have been comfortable, but it couldn’t be helped, either. Jay Gridley was supposed to be here, to help explain this, ah—”

“Situation,” a voice sneered from somewhere in the crowd.

Dorpff ignored the heckler, plunging right ahead. “Unfortunately, he’s had to attend a press conference and hasn’t been able to get free—”

“So we could have found out more about what’s going on if we’d stayed home and watched HoloNews,” a female voice said.

Matt recognized the person behind that interruption. It was Megan O’Malley, and she was speaking loud enough to be heard over half the virtual room.

“Again, I regret the change of plans, the delay, everything,” Dorpff said.

I bet he especially regrets having to be out there all on his lonesome, Matt thought.

But Dorpff continued doggedly onward. “So it looks like it’s up to me alone to try and explain things.”

“So get on with it,” somebody called out from the crowd. “Is that stuff we saw on Once Around the Clock last night a lying load of crap from the actual report, or just a lying load of crap the network made up?”

“The unauthorized announcement of Captain Steadman’s findings was unfortunate and, I’m sure, distressing.” Dorpff was picking his words with the greatest care, but Matt could see the young agent’s effort wasn’t going to work.

“Yes or no?” The words were loud enough to make the people closest to the speaker wince. “Was Tori Rush’s report from the real deal, or did Steadman come up with something different?”

Dorpff was being pushed into a corner. He looked like a trapped rodent up there on the podium as he stood in silence, unwilling to answer. Then he finally responded to the shouted demand. “The news broadcast was only a summary of the report, presented in the most excessive language.” The young agent hesitated. “But, in general, yes, it did present the conclusions of the Internal Affairs investigation.”

A low, hollow moan greeted this announcement, as if every person in the room had been simultaneously stabbed. Matt recognized the feeling, even though he thought he’d been prepared to hear the bad news.

A second later, however, the room sounded as if the furies of hell had been released.

“Steadman must have a circuit cracked if he thinks he can just sell the captain down the river!” somebody yelled.

“Creep’s been so busy playing his little rat-scragging games, he can’t be straight with anyone,” another voice joined in.

“He’ll learn this time,” yet another voice threatened. “After he has a couple of thousand people red-line angry with him.”

“Yeah! Let’s flame Steadman!”

Other voices took up that cry.

Dorpff could see that the meeting was sliding out of his control. “You can’t be serious!” he cried. “That’s against the law.”

“So’s destroying an honest man. You’re getting rid of Winters. So who’s gonna stop us?” another Explorer wanted to know. “You gonna arrest us all?”

The room echoed with the shouts of angry young people.

“From the sounds of this, the guy will be lucky if he doesn’t get his house burned down.” Andy thought he was being funny, but Matt could hear the deadly promise in the kids’ threats. If some of these guys went ahead with what they were saying, Steadman would be lucky to have a computer left — and any electronic stuff near it. The situation in this room was not good, definitely not good.

Dorpff was getting angry now. “You’re talking about breaking a set of laws that Net Force takes very seriously,” he said. “Don’t think that shouting from the crowd will cover you. If anything happens, Captain Steadman will be reviewing the computer record of this meeting. His techs will track you down if it takes months!”

It was exactly the worst thing to say.

“Then they’ll be pretty busy,” one of the furious kids shot back, “because we all want to give Hangman Hank a taste of his own medicine!” Murmured agreement shot through the crowd.

Agent Dorpff stared around the room like a stag at bay…or like a man watching his career go down the toilet.

Then a truly surprising voice roared out, “Is this what Captain Winters taught you? Taught us?”

Matt twisted his head in astonishment. That was David Gray!

David poured it on. “The two biggest things I learned from the captain were his respect for people — and his respect for the law. That’s how I know he’s innocent.”

He glared around at the crowd. “I don’t know what you people learned, screaming at our liaison agent, planning to attack a Net Force Officer — and through the Net, at that!”

His words must have been getting through, because the noise level from the mob was dying down.

David went on in a slightly milder voice. “I don’t even see how doing what you were talking about would help the captain. And even if it did, even if it proved Captain Winters innocent, how would he feel, knowing you’d broken the law to do it?”

Now the other Net Force Explorers were silent, looking downright embarrassed.

“The captain wouldn’t want us to act like this — so let’s honor him here by listening to what Agent Dorpff has to say.”

Dorpff spoke up. “I can understand that feelings run high. Certainly, I don’t want to believe—” He broke off, as if afraid to stir up those feelings again. “But the proof is hard to contest.”

“How would we know?” a bitter voice asked. “All the Net Force Explorers have to go on is a summary of what the I.A. people found — as reported by a scandal-seeking news reporter. Nobody is telling us what’s in the report.”

“I’ve seen the report—” Dorpff began, then stopped again. “I can’t ask Internal Affairs to release the report to everyone. Nor can we discuss the report in full. Neither would be fair to Captain Winters. But I think, with Winters’s permission and the cooperation of Internal Affairs, someone might explain some of the more important specifics to a representative of the Net Force Explorers.”

The young agent ran an eye over the crowd. Then he stopped, pointing…at Matt.

“I know Captain Winters put a lot of trust in Matt Hunter,” Dorpff said. “He lives in the D.C. area, which should make arranging such a meeting easier.”

Only then did he seem to realize the enormity of what he’d promised. “Provided I can get Captain Steadman to agree.”

Matt walked the corridors of the Net Force operations center, following a different route than he usually took. But then, his destination wasn’t Captain Winters’s office — or, as things seemed now, his former office.

No, this afternoon Matt was heading for the lair of Hangman Hank Steadman.

The offices of Internal Affairs weren’t all that different from the other Net Force agents’ offices that Matt had visited.

What were you expecting? Matt asked himself. Thumbscrews? A torture rack?

Except for the fact that it didn’t have an outside view or a virtual window, Steadman’s office could have been a twin of any of them.

Hangman Hank jerked up from his desk, his face twisted in a sneer.

“I can’t believe I agreed to this,” he growled, his voice contemptuous. “I can’t believe Dorpff even suggested it. Right out of the academy, and he can’t handle a bunch of kids — caving in to them.”

“Agent Dorpff headed off what could have been a nasty wave of virtual and public sabotage.” With a big assist from David, Matt added silently. “I’m sure you heard about what happened to that local reporter, Jay-Jay McGuffin.”

“It would be different, trying that nonsense against a Net Force agent.” Steadman glanced at Matt and smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant expression. “And after you see some of what we’ve assembled, you might not be so gung-ho on Winters anymore.”

He introduced Matt to a member of his technical staff, who led them immediately to a well-equipped lab.

“Show him the spectrographic analysis of the blast debris,” Steadman ordered.

One of the technicians hustled over to a computer console.

Looks like Steadman runs a tight ship, Matt thought. Maybe a little too tight.

A couple of quick commands, and a holographic display sprang into existence. It showed several bands of light. “The top image is a spectrograph of the debris from the remains of Stefano Alcista’s car. It shows the chemical composition of the explosive that gave Steve the Bull such a blast.”

Steadman pointed to a smeared set of bands. “These here represent the trace agents used to tag the particular batch of Semtec, which was manufactured shortly after James Winters’s wife was killed.”

Another order, and a similar display appeared below the first.

“This is a spectrograph of the residue we found in Winters’s workshop.”

Matt had never considered himself a science superbrain, but even he could spot the same smear of light.

“The same tagging agents,” Steadman said.

At his order, a third spectrograph appeared. “This is from the blast crater in the next township from Winters’s house,” Steadman announced silkily. “Note—”

“I can see,” Matt said tersely.

“Shall we move on to your friend’s so-called alibi?” Hangman Hank asked.

“Captain Winters said he was contacted by a snitch—” Matt began.

“Well, if he was, it happened telepathically,” Steadman interjected sarcastically. “Call up the records,” he ordered his technicians. “Here’s the circuitry usage report from the local phone company. No calls directed to the circuitry node including Winters’s office phone. And just in case you ask, no calls to his wallet-phone, either.”

Another set of numbers came up. Steadman pointed. “Here’s the Net Force phone log, security sealed in our own computers. Do you see any incoming phone activity recorded for the captain’s office?”

“One thing hanging around Net Force has taught me is that records can be altered — even deleted,” Matt said stubbornly.

“Yeah,” Steadman replied with a sneer. “And some skell could steal the Declaration of Independence — just about as easily. I’ll grant that it’s possible to get in and mess with the phone company. But we’re talking Net Force security on our phone logs. If someone could infiltrate our systems like that, I’d hire them immediately as a specialist agent.”

He laughed and gave another set of orders. “Here’s the clincher. We found these partial prints on some of the debris from the crater in the next township.” He paused for a second. “Winters’s practice bomb.”

“You can’t—” Matt began.

“I can,” Steadman interrupted. “And here’s why.”

The image of a few twisted bits of metal and plastic appeared. A second later faint designs popped into view, loops and whorls — bits of fingerprints.

“This is a facsimile of James Winters’s fingerprints from his government records.” The explanation wasn’t really necessary. The captain’s name was right at the top of the form.

“Now, check this out.” Steadman couldn’t keep the smugness out of his voice.

The partial prints on the bomb debris suddenly turned bright red. They moved from their positions, rotating around in midair to align with the prints on Winters’s records. The fragmentary prints came to rest on the facsimiles. There was no doubt of a match.

“Myself, I’d say that was the most damning aspect of the case,” Steadman said.

“But people have known how to lift prints and transfer them for more than thirty years,” Matt argued desperately.

“And who’d have done the dirty deed? Evil agents from the twelfth dimension?” Steadman really didn’t like anyone questioning his findings.

“Anyone with the capability to pull off a decent black-bag job,” Matt retorted. “Not that it needed much in the way of criminal genius to break into Captain Winters’s garage. After all, he spends — or spent — most of his time here in his office.”

“Except for the afternoon Stefano Alcista was murdered,” Steadman pointed out.

Matt forced his voice to remain calm. “You’ve created quite a case, but it seems to ignore one fact.”

“Which is?”

“James Winters is a Net Force agent. But according to you, in carrying out this murder, he made a series of mistakes that even the rawest amateur could have avoided. For instance: If you’re going to blow someone up, why build the bomb in your own house and test it nearby where somebody’s sure to notice?”

Steadman shrugged. “It’s probably the most private workspace Winters could find on short notice.”

“Oh, that’s right. Winters had to rush everything. Except you’ve got him planning this caper for four years. That’s when he’d have had to get hold of the Semtec, when his wife was killed, isn’t it?”

Steadman only frowned.

“More important, Winters has no alibi. Think about it — he’s a Net Force agent about to commit a felony. You’d think he’d be able to phony up some sort of record to insert in the computers to put him in the clear.”

“Maybe he ran out of time,” Steadman suggested.

“He had days before your investigation even started,” Matt pointed out. “You’d think taking care of a detail like that would be on his mind in the days afterward, if not beforehand.”

“He could have been nervous about tripping alarms if he planted evidence. Why call attention to himself?”

“Yeah, that sure worked out like a charm,” Matt said sarcastically. “At least for your case. To me, the captain’s insistence that there was a call sounds like the testimony of an innocent man—”

“Who happened to leave his fingerprints all over a practice bomb,” Steadman cut Matt off.

“Exactly!” Matt nodded. “Captain Winters would have known he’d need to use rubber gloves while building the bombs for the trial run and the final one. He’s a trained investigator. He’d know how much information the lab people can pull of an exploded bomb. And when the first bomb didn’t turn out right, would he really have left all those pieces for your people to find? For all we know, they could have been planted—”

“We know the bomb exploded there.” Steadman’s gesture took in his assistants. “That blast brought a tree down. We needed a crane to shift it — and we found traces under the trunk.” He leaned his face into Matt’s. “The blast was real, the traces are real, the prints are real.”

He stepped back, obviously attempting to look reasonable. “I know you look up to this guy. But obviously he made mistakes. Maybe when you decide you’re bigger than the law, that’s just unavoidable.”

Matt clamped his jaw shut. Well, he thought, if anybody should know…