An Encounter in Atlanta Part 7

He disconnected and Mandi sat staring at the phone. Had Cade lost his mind?

Chapter Eight

The last commercial ended and the fanfare intro music for the top-of-the-hour news began as a camera zoomed in on the head and shoulders of a smiling brunette anchorwoman who introduced herself as Wendy Swale.

When the first quarter of the hour dealt only with the usual sorts of news and issues of the day, Mandi began to feel as if she'd been worried for nothing.

After all, John had the full weight of the US government behind him, and...

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Wendy, "We've just been informed that the following footage, taken with a digital camera in downtown Atlanta earlier this afternoon, has been sent anonymously to more than one hundred news organizations worldwide. With more on the story, here's David Thrush, our news director."

Thrush's head and shoulders were full-screen as he greeted the audience, then he was quickly reduced to quarter-screen as a second camera feed filled the rest of the screen.

Mandi's fists clenched and her heart sank as she watched herself leap over the taxi, lift the front end of it, and launch skyward. The camera rather belatedly elevated to follow her upward and stayed focused on her until the taxi exploded.

Car horns sounded, the camera swiveled and lowered to come to rest on a rapidly approaching wall of traffic, and then there was a brief break of blackness before the entire sequence of events was repeated.

As the scene replayed a few more times to his left, Thrush explained that the pictures appeared to be genuine. He nodded to someone off-screen and the repet.i.tions of Mandi taking off with the car were replaced by a blow-up of her face.

The expanded view wasn't very clear, but at that moment Mandi wasn't really in the mood to critique photographic skills. Her face had just appeared on national television.

In the name of the people of Atlanta, Thrush thanked the 'mysterious superwoman' for her heroic deed, hoped aloud that she'd somehow survived the explosion, and begged her to come forward to receive the thanks of a grateful public.

He then said that there'd be further discussion of the pictures on a later news-related show and relinquished the screen to Wendy, who echoed his sentiments that the superwoman come forward in an apparently heartfelt manner before she glibly continued reading from the teleprompter about other news of the day.

Mandi stood up as she stared at the screen, then strode to the closet and took out her two suitcases. As she opened them on the bed, her cell phone chirped. She ignored it, returning to the closet for an armload of clothes.

There was a knock at the door as she laid the clothes on the bed. She almost ignored that, too, but her glance in that direction noticed a sheet of paper being shoved under the door.

She went to pick it up. It read, 'Come to my room. Door is open. Cade."

Opening the door, she found him leaning on the doorframe, a bottle of beer in one hand and a cell phone in the other.

"Why would I want to go to your room?" she asked.

Pulling an Ice House beer from under his jacket, Cade opened it and handed it to her as he said, "Here, I smuggled this out of the bar for you. Frank and everybody else on the teams have probably dropped their forks and are most likely on their way back up here. I'd say you have about five minutes to be elsewhere."

Taking the beer, Mandi wryly said, "Gee, thanks, mister, but Timbuctu and Borneo are considered 'elsewhere' too. Why should I go to your room in particular?"

"So you won't be in your room when they get here, that's all. Turn off your phone. Kick off your shoes and relax. We can ring John and Alan on my phone and tell them to settle the herd, then talk about what to do next."

Laughing, Mandi asked, "Next? Next I head back to Vegas."

She took a long hit from her beer as Cade said, "Uh, huh. I've heard they even have TV's in Vegas nowadays, ma'am. John said that there are still four terrorists unaccounted for. Do you really want to be way out West if they try something else this weekend? We still don't know why they chose this time and place. Could be it isn't over yet."

"He didn't say anything to me about four more of them."

"Well, he didn't tell the rest of us about you, either, so it could be he just doesn't communicate very well, y'know?"

Levering himself off the door frame, Cade said, "I'll leave my door open, just in case. Later, milady," and swigged his beer as he headed for his room.

Some guy with a phone to his ear opened the temporary ops room's door across the hall, saw Mandi, and spoke to someone as he stood there. Cade veered across the corridor and noddingly pushed past him into the room.

The guy followed, protesting, but his objections ceased as Cade showed him his ID.

"Where's Frank?" asked Cade.

"Uh, downstairs, at dinner. Which group are you with?"

"I'm on John's B-team. We worked with the cops today. You guys got any loaner laptops in here?"

"No, they're two doors down. See Mitch.e.l.l or Gray."

"Will do. Thanks," said Cade, heading for the door.

Some twenty steps later he had to use his keycard on his door, which hadn't been closed when he'd left the room. Letting himself in, he closed the door securely and turned to see Mandi step from behind the hallway corner by the bed.

With a grin, Cade said, "Hi, there. You're as quick as ever. Should I send out for more beer?"

Waving her half-full bottle, Mandi smiled and said, "Oh, not just yet, I think. I didn't really come here to party. Thanks for running interference for me."

Looking enlightened, Cade said, "I knew there was a name for that," and handed her his phone. "Might as well call John and see what he has to say about what happened."

Mandi put the phone on the desk and pulled the chair out to sit down, then said, "In a little while. First I'd like to hear what you think about what happened."

Cade sat on the end of the bed and sipped his beer, then shrugged.

"I can think of a few possibilities. One; a kid named Jeremy sandbagged a copy of the pictures and sent them to news outfits all over the place. Two; some news guy may have set up a way around the ban. If the pix really were sent to a hundred unaffiliated stations -- and I think they probably were -- some of those stations would have put them on the air."

He sipped again, then said, "Three; the same unnamed people who are running this op -- or those above them -- may have decided to spill the beans about our new, no-longer-secret weapon. You know; to cheer up the voters and give the terrorists the finger at the same time. They wouldn't necessarily have felt the need to tell John he was wasting his time trying to corral all the pictures. I'm sure this thought has occurred to John, as well, and that he's checking into who had access to the pix every step of the way."

Shrugging, Cade sipped again, then said, "Whatever; we can chase down that end of things later. As I said, you're no longer a secret. You're also noticeably beautiful and you have distinctive features. Since plastic surgery probably isn't a realistic option, I'll suggest that we use what's available downstairs -- a science fiction convention with 25,000 registered attendees -- to toss together a look-alike contest."

After a moment, Mandi sipped her beer, then shook her head as she quietly said, "You don't look insane, you know. You don't usually sound insane, either.

Did you skip your dinnertime meds or something?"

Chuckling, Cade said, "Maybe I'm just all fl.u.s.tered at being in the same room with you, Miz Superlady, ma'am."

Mandi returned his grin as his cell phone rang and he answered it. She heard John instantly ask, "Cade, have you seen Mandi?"

"She isn't in her room?" asked Cade. "I saw her there a little while ago."

"She isn't answering her phone and if she's in there, she isn't answering her door, either."

"Huh. Got any idea why she'd be avoiding people, John?"

There was a pause before John very quietly said, "We really need to talk to her, Cade. Is she in your room?"

"The official word is 'no', John, but why don't you come here alone and have a look? Repeat; alone."

Another short pause ensued, then John said, "Alone it is."

John disconnected and Mandi regarded Cade for some moments in silence, then said, "You could have asked me before you invited him."

"Do you want to try to find out what's going on? I do."

"Do you think John will know who released the pictures?"

"I think that's not the most important issue right now. Done is done. Now it's time to try to fix things a bit."

Standing up and pacing, Mandi asked, "The contest? How the h.e.l.l is a lookalike contest going to make things better? If anything, it'll call even more attention down on me."

"It'll call more attention to the superwoman, yes, but it'll only get you second or third place as a runner-up."

Stopping her pacing and staring at him with open irritation, Mandi said, "Okay, Ed. It's time to explain what you've got in mind -- and explain it well -- or drop it."

Tossing his empty beer bottle at the trash can, Cade said, "You got it.

Agent Phyllis Morey can make anybody look like just about anybody else and she has her kit with her. At the contest you'd fly in..."

"I'd fly in?!"

"It's the easiest way to instantly prove that you're you, right? You'd get an intro, do a trick or two, a bunch of people would take a bazillion pictures of you, and then you'd see or hear an emergency and excuse yourself to fly out and deal with it. The contest would go on in your honor, but without you, 'cause you'd be busy having your makeup removed."

"Makeup."

"Yup. At your first public appearance, you wouldn't quite look like you. A bit more ear, nose, and chin. Wider cheeks. A slightly different skin tone. A birthmark or a mole. Like that. Then you lose the makeup and get on stage later as one of the many contestants. You might come close, but you probably won't win. Sorry 'bout that."

Mandi noticed the way he'd switched from sounding speculative to sounding rather definite in his last sentence, but she didn't challenge him on it. In fact, the idea didn't sound quite so insane, after all.

"Of course, you might want to give some more thought to wearing some kind of a mask when you're on duty," said Cade. "And it probably wouldn't hurt to..."

A rap on the door interrupted whatever he'd been about to say. Cade rose to go to the door, checked the peephole, and let John into the room.

John nodded to Cade as he hurried toward Mandi, but he stopped well short of her as he saw her tight expression.

"Well, John?" she asked. "What happened?"

For the first time in the thirty-odd years Cade had known John, the guy actually looked apologetic.

"Mandi," said John, "We tried. We really did. My people picked up nine copies and warned everybody, but somebody pulled an end run. A hundred or so international TV stations and newspapers received an anonymous email that contained a download link to a website on a Dutch server."

Her expression unchanged, Mandi asked, "And now?"

Shrugging slightly, John said, "We can try to find out who did it and prosecute him. Or her."

Setting her empty bottle on the desk, Mandi said, "Which helps me not one d.a.m.ned little bit."

With a sigh, John said, "It's about all we can do."

"Not quite," said Cade. "I told her about my idea for a contest. If we can provide her some cover, we owe her the effort, and this is a perfect place and time to test the idea."

"It's pretty short notice for a schedule revision, Cade."

"That's my problem. If we start the ball rolling here, will the agency help us organize similar events in other cities?"

Shrugging again, John said, "Can't see why not, if we use cutouts to handle the details."

"Cutouts?" asked Mandi.

"Go-betweens," said John. "With anonymous seed money."

"Aw, dammit!" said Mandi, "Speak English."

Cade laughed at John's expression and said, "They'd set someone up with a few bucks and an office. That someone would find local advertiser-sponsors who'd supply the place, the bleachers or whatever, the refreshments, crowd control, security, and all the other stuff an event needs."

With a little grin, he added, "All you'd have to do is show up, show off a bit, and smile a lot for the cameras. Think you could handle that, ma'am?"

Mandi gave him a mock glare and smilingly asked, "How would you like to be dropped from ten thousand feet?"

"No sweat. Been there. Dunnit."

With a saccharine-sweet little smile, Mandi asked, "Without a parachute?"

"Yup."

Glancing disbelievingly at John, Mandi said, "Bulls.h.i.+t."

"Nope," said Cade. "You said 'without a parachute'. We'll stop at my house so I can change into my flight suit."

Her gaze narrowed as her head canted slightly.

"You have a flight suit?"

"Sure do. Got it to use with my Falcon 195."

Again glancing at John, Mandi said, "Okay, I'll ask. What's a Falcon 195?"

"A hang glider."