his shoes. ‘Unless, that is, he’s trying to intimidate her. Or draw attention to her. Does he know her? Have they ever worked together on the same project?’
Welch sighed theatrically. ‘You read everything in the file?’
‘Cover to cover.’
‘Then you know as much about that as me. And all I know is that the Company has decided that we don’t need to know. Maybe her work is classified, and we aren’t on the bigot list. Maybe the DCI’s office is trying to limit blowback. The point is, Tom is hiding out somewhere in this sheaf. You’re here to help find him. To help bring him in alive. Don’t get sidetracked by trying to figure out his motivation, or every angle of the operation.’
‘His motivation might lead him to me. She’s a scientist. A mathematician, ’ Stone said, shrugging into his shoulder rig. ‘In the Real, and in all the sheaves where she was killed. That has to have something to do with why Tom has been doing this.’
‘I guess that’s one of the first things they’ll want to ask him after you find him.’
Stone stood up and pulled on the suit jacket. ‘Maybe it’s one of the first things I should ask him.’
‘That’s the spirit. How’s the fit?’
‘A little tight around the shoulders, but otherwise not bad. I’ve never met Ralph Kohler, but he has to be a confident son of a bitch, setting this up before he knew I’d agree to help.’
‘Was there any question you wouldn’t?’
‘How do I get to the murder scene? Can I use the limo?’
Welch mashed his cigarette in the empty whiskey glass. ‘If you’re ready to go, I’ll ride down with you to the lobby.’
In the elevator, Welch examined the knot of his tie in a mirror and said, ‘While I head off to cooperate with General Grover, you can go find the ride I arranged for you. Walk over to Madison Avenue and go a block north to the corner of East 60th Street. There’ll be a yellow taxi parked with its sign unlit, a woman driver. Climb in, she’ll take you where you want to go.’
‘A taxi? That’s cute, David.’
‘Wait until you see the driver,’ Welch said, and blew into his cupped hand and sniffed his palm to check his breath.
‘As long as she keeps out of my way while I check the scene.’
‘She’ll do whatever you ask her to do. It goes without saying, by the way, that if you do find anything the locals missed, I want to hear about it before the locals do.’
The elevator stopped and its door slid open to reveal the marble-floored lobby.
Stone said, ‘Why would I want to tell the locals anything?’
‘I think I’m going to enjoy working with you again, Adam. You’re still a cowboy at heart, aren’t you?’
Was he?
Stone thought about that he walked toward his rendezvous. Like all of Dick Knightly’s cowboy angels, he’d been trained to work in deep cover in pre-contact sheaves, to blend in, to live as invisibly as possible while accumulating data for historical, political and economic profiles. Once, in the early days of Special Ops, before the first overt contact with the government of an alternate America, a woman at a party in Washington, DC, had walked up to Stone and said that she’d just bet fifty dollars with a girlfriend that he was a spy, and Stone had told her, no lie, that he spent most of his time in libraries. That was exactly what he’d done, back in the day. He’d gone through the mirror and ransacked libraries for all kinds of data - the failure rate of start-up companies, price and wage inflation, the ratio of the highest and lowest salaries in key companies, unemployment rates amongst white males between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, the annual yields of cotton crops, winter wheat, soy beans. He’d tabulated prison terms for a variety of crimes, compared school-leaving ages of urban and rural whites and blacks, used fake academic or journalistic credentials to obtain interviews with CEOs and Ivy League professors about the state of the economy,
Welch sighed theatrically. ‘You read everything in the file?’
‘Cover to cover.’
‘Then you know as much about that as me. And all I know is that the Company has decided that we don’t need to know. Maybe her work is classified, and we aren’t on the bigot list. Maybe the DCI’s office is trying to limit blowback. The point is, Tom is hiding out somewhere in this sheaf. You’re here to help find him. To help bring him in alive. Don’t get sidetracked by trying to figure out his motivation, or every angle of the operation.’
‘His motivation might lead him to me. She’s a scientist. A mathematician, ’ Stone said, shrugging into his shoulder rig. ‘In the Real, and in all the sheaves where she was killed. That has to have something to do with why Tom has been doing this.’
‘I guess that’s one of the first things they’ll want to ask him after you find him.’
Stone stood up and pulled on the suit jacket. ‘Maybe it’s one of the first things I should ask him.’
‘That’s the spirit. How’s the fit?’
‘A little tight around the shoulders, but otherwise not bad. I’ve never met Ralph Kohler, but he has to be a confident son of a bitch, setting this up before he knew I’d agree to help.’
‘Was there any question you wouldn’t?’
‘How do I get to the murder scene? Can I use the limo?’
Welch mashed his cigarette in the empty whiskey glass. ‘If you’re ready to go, I’ll ride down with you to the lobby.’
In the elevator, Welch examined the knot of his tie in a mirror and said, ‘While I head off to cooperate with General Grover, you can go find the ride I arranged for you. Walk over to Madison Avenue and go a block north to the corner of East 60th Street. There’ll be a yellow taxi parked with its sign unlit, a woman driver. Climb in, she’ll take you where you want to go.’
‘A taxi? That’s cute, David.’
‘Wait until you see the driver,’ Welch said, and blew into his cupped hand and sniffed his palm to check his breath.
‘As long as she keeps out of my way while I check the scene.’
‘She’ll do whatever you ask her to do. It goes without saying, by the way, that if you do find anything the locals missed, I want to hear about it before the locals do.’
The elevator stopped and its door slid open to reveal the marble-floored lobby.
Stone said, ‘Why would I want to tell the locals anything?’
‘I think I’m going to enjoy working with you again, Adam. You’re still a cowboy at heart, aren’t you?’
Was he?
Stone thought about that he walked toward his rendezvous. Like all of Dick Knightly’s cowboy angels, he’d been trained to work in deep cover in pre-contact sheaves, to blend in, to live as invisibly as possible while accumulating data for historical, political and economic profiles. Once, in the early days of Special Ops, before the first overt contact with the government of an alternate America, a woman at a party in Washington, DC, had walked up to Stone and said that she’d just bet fifty dollars with a girlfriend that he was a spy, and Stone had told her, no lie, that he spent most of his time in libraries. That was exactly what he’d done, back in the day. He’d gone through the mirror and ransacked libraries for all kinds of data - the failure rate of start-up companies, price and wage inflation, the ratio of the highest and lowest salaries in key companies, unemployment rates amongst white males between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, the annual yields of cotton crops, winter wheat, soy beans. He’d tabulated prison terms for a variety of crimes, compared school-leaving ages of urban and rural whites and blacks, used fake academic or journalistic credentials to obtain interviews with CEOs and Ivy League professors about the state of the economy,
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