Organic Future - Sparrowhawk Part 18

Emily stopped when she came to a door painted bright yellow. It bore both a knocker and a peephole, and Bernie was pressing a b.u.t.ton that jutted from the wood of the door's frame. She could hear the doorbell's buzz within Chowdhury's apartment.

When there was no response, and no sound of movement from behind the door, Emily called, loudly enough to be heard within, "Ralph?" They waited a moment, and then Emily was startled by the clearing of a throat close behind her.

She turned, and Mrs. Jasper said, "He's home. I saw him come in just a little while ago."

She backed up abruptly when Bernie motioned for the two women to get out of his way. Then he drew his gun, stepped back, raised one leg, and delivered a heavy kick to the door beside the latch.

The only result was a dark imprint of his shoe sole on the yellow paint.

He might as well have kicked a cement wall. "G.o.dd.a.m.n steel doors." He tried again, harder, and again. On the fifth try, the wood of the frame gave way and the door popped open, only to reveal the chain of a security lock. A sixth kick tore that loose, left Bernie panting, and let them in.

Bernie went first, the gun still in his hand. From behind him, Emily sniffed curry and seawater, saw bead curtains over the windows and grinning demons on the walls, and heard...nothing. Silence. Broken only by...

A heavy armchair faced one corner of the room so that whoever sat in itcould see both the wall on which the demon prints hung and a bookcase to the left. The bookcase carried photos, books, a small radio, and knickknacks.

Irrelevantly, Emily thought the veedo must be in the bedroom.

"There they are." Bernie's voice held a distinct note of satisfaction. His gun was pointing at a table to the right. On that table lay Chowdhury's gla.s.ses, one lens fallen from the frame. He must, thought Emily, have set them down hard. Beside them was the disk case Chowdhury had been carrying when he fled the lab. Presumably, she thought as Bernie took one long step to seize it, it held evidence.

On the floor at the foot of the bookcase was a tangle of tubing and apparatus that looked to Emily as if it had come from an aquarium. From the chair came the only sounds that broke the silence: the intermittent sough of breath, quietly hoa.r.s.e, growing quieter.

"What has Mr. Chowdhury done?" Mrs. Jasper tapped Emily on the shoulder.

Emily looked at her, wrinkled her nose at the stale, sour scent of a bathrobe--or a body--that needed was.h.i.+ng, and stepped into the apartment. She said, "Excuse me," and closed the door. Then, remembering the now-broken latch, she leaned back against it. Bernie glanced at her, grinned mirthlessly, and stepped around the chair.

"s.h.i.+t!"

Emily promptly left her post to see what he had found: Chowdhury, head back against the cus.h.i.+ons of the chair, mouth open, breath now losing its struggle for life, an aquarium on his lap, one hand in the aquarium. Bernie lifted the hand from the water. It was clenched on and covered by a gelatinous ma.s.s of pastel blue and pink.

There was a shriek behind them. He turned and pointed his gun at Mrs.

Jasper, who had seized her opportunity to see what was going on. "Out!"

She fled. Bernie turned back to Chowdhury and used the muzzle of his gun to pry the fingers open and sc.r.a.pe the jellyfish away from the human flesh.

"Call the department,' he told Emily. He recited the number. "Tell 'em we need medics. A heroin overdose."

"I made them," he was saying. His eyes were shut, and his face was beaded with droplets of sweat. He had to strain to speak, and his voice was hoa.r.s.e.

"Yes, I made them. They're mine. Mine. I made them. I'm a genius. They said so. They're mine!"

Siren wailing, the pair of medics, one male, one female, had arrived before Chowdhury's breath could gutter out. The younger medic had dashed up the stairs, a hypodermic in her hand, checked the signs, heard Bernie's report of what the jellyfish had been designed to produce, and administered the antidote. Then, when Chowdhury had begun to gasp and spasm, she had said, nodding, "He'll make it," and gone to help her partner. Now they stood aside, their equipment--stretcher, defibrillator, blood dialyser, IV stands and bottles, drugs, all that they might need--stacked in cases beside their feet.

Bernie had read Chowdhury his rights as soon as the dark-skinned man could respond to his name. Emily wondered whether he was in any state of mind to know what was going on, but there were witnesses to say that the formalities had been observed. She forced back tears of automatic, involuntary sympathy and told herself that, yes, he was a genius, she had said so herself, but...

"Why did you make them?" Bernie had produced a small recorder from a pocket as soon as Chowdhury could talk. Now he held the machine close to theman's lips, its microphone grill ready to capture whatever might emerge.

"I had to."

"Why?"

"Shoulda know' better." The voice tailed off, and the older, senior medic leaned forward, ready to intervene. But it strengthened again. "Owed 'em money. Lost 'tall."

"How?" Bernie's voice turned sympathetic.

"Gam'ling." His voice slurred, and his chin fell forward onto his chest.

Bernie gestured urgently, and the medic promptly slipped a needle into Chowdhury's arm. He gasped as the drug took hold, and Bernie said, "Gambling?"

Chowdhury gasped again. "They said, nettles...would pay it all. But then...wanted gen'als."

Genimals. Once, Bernie thought, that slurred word would have referred to the threat of agonizing torture. He nodded. "Why were you trying to kill Dr.

Gilman?"

There was a long pause. Chowdhury twisted in his seat. His face contorted.

Then, "'S white. Made funna, Armadons. But...wasn't my idea."

"Whose idea was it?"

He opened his eyes. When Emily and Bernie had first seen him that morning, they had been wide with panic. Now the pupils were contracted to pinpoints.

The whites showed in a ring all around the brown irises. He stared at Bernie, looked past him to Emily, and then to the medics. He groaned, s.h.i.+vering.

"a.s.sa.s.sin," he whispered. "Mack. Tortoise." He looked back at Bernie. "Hawk.

Wanted get rid of you. 'Fraid you'd get me." He paused. "Not Sparrow. He did that."

"Who?"

"Baas. My boss. Gave me...chips." The voice weakened again, and Emily laid a hand on Bernie's arm. "Can't this wait until he's fully conscious? There's no rush, is there?"

He shrugged the shoulder above her hand, as if to shake her off. He turned his head to meet her gaze. "Whoever it is could get away. Or destroy evidence.

Or try again, and this time he might be more successful. I wouldn't want that."

He aimed his attention at Chowdhury once more, and Emily felt her skin turn pink with embarra.s.sment, or shame. She had rejected him as too cruel, too hawkish, in favor of her meeker husband. She had not, perhaps, truly realized that there was a place for such personalities. And this was it. Only ruthless determination could possibly pry the truth from her erstwhile colleague, so nearly comatose, so nearly dead. If Bernie failed, then whoever was behind Chowdhury would indeed be free to try again. And next time she, Emily, might not survive. She shuddered at the thought.

"Who is he?"

"Had to ask for Hawk. Rest were...his idea."

"Who is your boss?" Bernie's voice was louder, more insistent, as if hehoped to break through whatever resistance might be keeping the name concealed.

Chowdhury's grin was a death's-head rictus. "Knew 'bout debts. Drugs. Gave me orders."

"Who is he?"

The grin faded as Chowdhury's eyes dropped closed. He was still breathing, but when Bernie gestured for another injection, the medic refused. "He's had it, Fischer. Save it for later."

"s.h.i.+t."

Chapter Twenty-Two.

BERNIE AND EMILY stood on the walk, watching the two medics maneuver Chowdhury, on the stretcher, through the building's doorway and into the Pigeon ambulance. The window of one second-story apartment was open now, its drapes pushed back to let Mrs. Jasper lean out, elbows on the sill, mouth half open in fascination. No one peered from the building's other apartments, presumably because their tenants were at work, but small knots of gawking pa.s.sersby had cl.u.s.tered near the mouths of the alleys to the stables.

"So who's the boss?" Bernie's expression was a dissatisfied frown.

Chowdhury had admitted that he was behind every case of sabotage except that of the Sparrow, though only under the duress of blackmail. Bernie recognized that the technique was cla.s.sic, and that Chowdhury, if he could be believed, thus had some extenuation, some excuse, for what he had done. Bernie did believe him. Chowdhury had been near death and, once revived, barely able to speak at all. But he had spoken, and with a convincing air of sincerity.

So perhaps Chowdhury had been as much a victim as anyone. That did not, could not, mean that the man would not stand trial. He remained responsible for what he had done, for whatever reason, whatever the consequences of refusing. Though the mystery boss's crimes had been far greater. He--or she--had impelled Chowdhury, and had personally, directly caused all the many deaths of the Sparrow incident. Chowdhury had only destroyed two aircraft, one of them police department property, and killed, with the sabotaged Mack, far too many bystanders. Bernie snorted. Chowdhury was hardly an innocent.

"Florin?"

When Emily asked, "Who's Florin?" he took a moment to explain. "He was at the party. Pink tux. Looked very self-important. And was talking to our man there." He gestured toward Chowdhury, whose feet were now disappearing into the ambulance pod. She nodded, and he added, "Runs a casino. G.o.d knows what else. Probably drugs, now."

The medics finished securing the gurney, climbed into the front of the ambulance pod, fired their twin jet engines, and boosted quickly into the air.

Their siren was silent, for the emergency was over. Chowdhury was no longer in medical danger, and there was no need to rush to get him to the cell that would hold him until a lawyer could pry him loose, or failing that, until his trial. When the Pigeon was out of sight, Emily said, "There's another possibility."

"What?"

"He has a real boss, you know, who was also at the party."

Bernie was still for a moment, thinking of locked doors, another Greenacres address, greenery once glimpsed behind a window, something Emily had told him before, that very morning, and the smell of money. "I'll need another warrant."

"So get one."

Within an hour, the Hawk had landed again at the Neoform lot and Bernie was telling Miss Carol that he needed to see Gelarean. The receptionist looked at Emily, who nodded and said, "Yes, we caught Ralph."

Miss Carol's eyes widened. "And he told you someone else was involved? Was it...?"

"Miss Carol!" Bernie's voice was firm.

"Well!" She pulsed her lips. "I am sorry. He's not here."

"Where is he?" asked Emily.

"He went home right after you left before. When you were chasing Ralph. He said he didn't feel very good. I offered him an aspirin, but..."

She had lost her audience. Bernie had turned and begun to run for the door and the Hawk as soon as she said Gelarean had gone home. Emily was right behind him, and minutes later they were in the air over Greenacres.

"There's his place." Bernie didn't bother to point. The upturned shape of the gengineered squash was unmistakable.

The Hawk swept closer, and the dome of Gelarean's tower study became distinguishable, the broad expanse of gla.s.s, the green of the plants he grew there, the brown smudge that must be his desk. Closer yet, and that smudge was indeed a desk, its edges overhung by plants, a chair drawn close to one edge, someone in the chair.

"That must be him." This time he pointed, and Emily, leaning over his shoulder, grunted in agreement. They drew closer, and they could make out small, white-bordered squares upon the desktop. Their centers were dark. They seemed about the size of the hands that lay beside them. "Photos," Bernie guessed. "But of what?"

As the Hawk landed on the lawn, Victoria Gelarean opened the front door to stand on the porch, her hands clasped before her and her birthmark far brighter than it had been at the party. Bernie guessed that its lividity meant that she was worried for her husband. The slacks and blouse she wore neither concealed her lumpy figure nor hid the blotch on her face as had the robe at the party. When they approached her, she said, "He told me to keep you out, but..." Bernie could almost read her mind: Her husband had worried her for years, now that was at an end, and locking the door would do no good at all.

He wondered whether she knew just what Gelarean had been up to, or cared.

She shrugged and gestured toward the interior of her home. "He's upstairs.

In the tower." Bernie put the badge he had had ready to display back in his pocket. The search warrant he had taken the time to obtain, and now held rolled in his right hand, was less easy to dispose of. He pa.s.sed it to Emily, said, "Thank you," to Gelarean's wife, and led the way into the house.

He paid no attention to the artworks on the walls or the comfortable furniture or the thick carpets that had impressed him at the party. He headed directly toward where he thought the entrance to the tower and Gelarean's den must be, letting himself be guided by Victoria Gelarean's small gestures. The entrance, when they came to it, was an ordinary-looking door at the end of a short hallway. It was, however, locked, and Victoria Gelarean did not have a key. "He keeps it to himself," she said. "He calls it his castle. This is his drawbridge." After a moment of awkward silence, she added, "It's up now."

When Bernie swore and tried to kick this door down too, as he had the one to Chowdhury's apartment, it shrugged him off. "Steel frame," he panted, drew his gun, and aimed its muzzle at the lock. The roar of the magnum was deafening in the confined s.p.a.ce of the hall, but it was effective. As the echoes died, they saw that the door was now ajar, revealing a narrow stairway.

"He always said that was the only way anyone would break that door down."

Gun still in his hand, he peered up the stairs. Green light, the hue of forest shade on a sunny day, spilled down to meet him and announced that there were no further obstacles between him and Gelarean. He turned to look at Victoria, said quietly, "You stay here," and went through the door. Emily followed him.

At the head of the stairs, they became part of a tableau of cla.s.sic simplicity: The room, Gelarean's den, was a ring of green in which they stood like lurking predators. Gelarean's desk sat in full sunlight, the only part of the room so illuminated, like a spotlit stage. A small oriental rug lay on the polished wooden floor to one side. Gelarean himself was a gray-haired, round-faced, beak-nosed figure, arms spread, hands flat on the empty desktop.

He might have been a medieval judge at his bench, a priest at the altar, a lord about to receive tribute.

He said, "It's all up then, is it?" and Bernie thought that resignation never sounded quite so final as when it was expressed in a British accent.

He pointed his gun at the man, stepped out of the green shadows, nodded, and said, "You are under arrest." Taking the warrant from Emily, he tossed it onto the desk. Then, drawing a small and tattered card from his s.h.i.+rt pocket, he added, "Anything you say may be used..."

Gelarean heard him out expressionlessly, his eyes fixed on the cop. When Bernie was done, he shrugged and said, "So much for tradition."

Emily pointed at the desk. "What happened to the photos?"

Gelarean's eyes s.h.i.+fted to her, and his expression grew dark and threatening. Bernie heard the woman step backward beside him, just far enough to tell him that she felt Gelarean's glare like a blow. "You!" he said. "You must have been born under a b.l.o.o.d.y lucky star."

He s.h.i.+fted his attention back to Bernie. "Nothing worked, did it? And I only wanted her out of the way."

"You wanted your name on my Bioblimps. You've done that before," said Emily. "I never had to kill for it."

"The photos?" asked Bernie.

"What photos?" He tried to pull himself closer to the desk, but Bernie was already leaning over him, pus.h.i.+ng him back with the muzzle of his magnum, pulling open the desk's central drawer.

The photos were there, face down, scattered as if they had been swept suddenly into hiding. Bernie picked them up and threw them on the desk, face up.

They were dim, shadowed, their colors off as colors can only be in instant photos of the sort taken to commemorate important occasions. But the subject was clear: Each one showed a woman, young and black and nude; the poses varied, as did what had been done to her.