Private Lives nfe-9 Read online

  That was the good part. Then he realized he had to get these signatures organized somehow and get them to Net Force and James Winters. Sorting the names against membership data, he got the signatures organized into local groups. Once he had the presentation problem licked, then there was the problem of delivery.

  Jay Gridley’s office was easy. All it took was a phone call to Mark to get that Net address. But Captain Winters was a tougher nut to crack. With the captain suspended, it didn’t seem very likely he’d be checking his office e-mail. And when Matt tracked down a personal Net address for a J. Winters that looked promising, he got no response. The captain didn’t answer his home phone, either.

  Matt couldn’t say he was exactly surprised. Since Tori Rush’s piece on Once Around the Clock, there had been a steadily growing media circus focused on the car bombings, both the recent one and the older ones. And the center ring of that circus was the alleged Alcista-Winters murder case. With reporters asking him repeatedly for comments and answers to questions, the captain probably had good reasons not to pick up when his phone bleated.

  But it also meant that Matt couldn’t warn Winters that a special message was on the way from the Explorers. And that meant he couldn’t depend on sending off the petition electronically.

  No, he would have to resort to a hard copy or a datascrip, delivered by hand. Matt spent a day reworking his document, decided how he wanted the final document to look, then tracked down a service bureau to print it out. The message was too massive to manage on his home system. He wanted the statement and signatures to appear in full color all on one piece of paper, and that meant finding a company that still used printers with paper rolls.

  David Gray helped in the search, and Matt finally found a place that could handle the job. A few hours later he headed off with the result of his efforts — a very bulky roll of paper — under his arm. As he came out of a suburban Metro station, Matt hailed a cab in the parking lot and gave the driver James Winters’s home address. He winced when he heard the fare. This hand-delivery stuff didn’t just take time out of his day. It meant shelling out some serious money, too. But Captain Winters was worth it. Besides, if costs got out of hand, Matt knew he could get Leif to foot some of the bill.

  He looked out the window as he rolled along en route to the captain’s house. It was a pleasant neighborhood, with good-sized houses spaced well apart. There was lots of room for front and back yards. Young kids were playing in several of those yards. Matt passed a little girl riding on a bicycle, and some guys shooting hoops on a backboard attached over a garage.

  Matt blinked. He hadn’t really given much thought to how the captain lived outside of work. Maybe it was Winters’s military facade. But Matt somehow thought of his mentor in relation to offices or barracks, not as a suburb-dweller.

  When he pulled up at the appropriate address, Matt didn’t expect to see the paneled Colonial-style house overlooking a good stretch of woods. But there was no mistaking the place. This was Captain Winters’s home, all right. The media vans parked across the street were a dead giveaway. Several vaguely official-looking vans were parked in the driveway. And James Winters stood in the driveway with Captain Hank Steadman of Net Force Internal Affairs.

  They both turned suspicious eyes on the cab as it pulled up to the place.

  They’re probably expecting some idiot reporter to pop out, Matt thought. He wished again he’d been able to call ahead. No way did he want to intrude on the investigation.

  But Captain Winters smiled in welcome when Matt emerged from his cab.

  “Matt!” he said in surprise. Then he turned to Steadman. “This is one of my Net Force Explorers, Matt Hunter. What brings you out here, Matt?”

  Steadman excused himself and headed for the garage as Matt presented his printout. Winters read the statement of support with his usual quiet, serious expression. But Matt thought there was a hint of mist in the captain’s eyes as he partially unrolled the paper to see the beginning of the list of signatures in three neat rows, then hefted the weight of the scroll in his hand to get some idea of how very long the list was.

  “Every current Net Force Explorer signed,” Matt said with pride, “as well as some kids who aren’t with the group anymore, either because they graduated from the program or went on to pursue other interests.”

  “Matt—” Winters had to clear his throat before he went on. “Thank you. This couldn’t have come at a better time. It’s not a pleasant experience to have your colleagues execute a search warrant on your house.”

  “It’s a nice-looking place,” Matt said.

  Winters glanced at him, a hint of a smile quirking his lips. “What? You were expecting a cave? Or maybe a bunker? What a disappointment! The captain lives in a house!” Winters shrugged. “I try to keep it neat. And I know it’s clean.”

  Matt sensed immediately that Winters wasn’t referring to his housekeeping skills.

  Hangman Hank Steadman came back out of the garage, his eyes hooded. “Captain,” he said formally, “you told us you hadn’t used the workshop back there for quite some time.”

  “It’s been months,” Winters replied. “I was cutting some wood during the summer to make repairs on the deck out back.”

  Steadman gave him a brief, almost ironic, nod. “In that case, can you explain why there’s no dust on any of the tools in there?” The IA man pressed on. “And why we found traces of plastic explosive on your workbench?”

  5

  Matt stepped into Captain Winters’s office — he still couldn’t think of it in any other way — and shook hands with Agent Dorpff.

  “Matt Hunter?” The youthful-looking agent smiled. “Good to start meeting some of the guys — and girls — in the organization,” he quickly added, obviously remembering his disastrous introduction to the Net Force Explorers. “Captain Winters specifically mentioned you as part of what he called ‘the local organizational cadre,’” Dorpff went on.

  “Really?” Matt said, a little flattered.

  Agent Dorpff nodded. “Looks like the captain was right,” he said. “Considering the job you did on that petition. A nationwide response in less than a week!”

  He gave an embarrassed shrug at Matt’s look of surprise. “Hey, it’s part of my job, checking out what’s happening on the Net Force Explorer Net.”

  Dorpff looked concerned. “I hope you weren’t too upset by what happened when you went to deliver the printout.”

  Matt couldn’t help himself. “How did you—”

  His answer was another shrug. “I may be the guy on the bottom of the organizational totem pole, but even I hear things,” Dorpff said.

  “And is this part of the job, too?” Matt asked. “Consoling the upset teenagers?”

  “It’s probably in the job description somewhere,” Dorpff said. “But even though I’m just starting out, I’m not stupid enough to think that you’ll forget Captain Winters.” He hesitated for a second. “I do want you to know that I’ll be there…if you need me.”

  “In case I’ve scarred my poor psyche?” Matt said. “Hey, all I did was see a bunch of lab nerds running around in the captain’s garage.”

  “So you actually got to see the workshop?” Dorpff said.

  “From the garage door,” Matt said. “It looked clean.”

  “Clean as a whistle, from what I heard.” The young agent frowned. “I always wondered, why would anyone consider a whistle particularly clean? It would be full of spit and germs—”

  Matt didn’t let him change the subject. “Maybe Winters has the world’s most fanatical cleaning lady.”

  “A suspicious mind would think in terms of an attempt to destroy evidence,” Dorpff replied. “Even so, those lab nerds found indications of Semtec, a fine, old-fashioned plastic explosive still used in some military munitions. And from the trace chemicals they put in the stuff — taggants, they’re called — it was linked to a batch of the stuff involved in one of the captain’s old cases.” Dorpff shrugged. “You he
ar about people taking their work home, but even so—”

  “Very funny,” Matt said.

  “Here’s something not so funny,” the young agent went on. “The same chemical tracers were found in the bomb that blew up Stefano Alcista.”

  Matt stared as if Dorpff had just punched him in the gut.

  “The captain said he hadn’t been in the workshop in months,” Matt said. “And knowing how busy the job keeps him, I have no problem believing that’s true. There’ve been times when kids have called this office late, or even on the weekend, and found him in—”

  “But, oddly, he wasn’t in the office most of the afternoon before the Alcista bombing,” Dorpff interrupted almost gently. “He claimed he’d gotten a call to meet an informant who never showed. But there’s no record of such a call. Captain Winters left at two P.M. and didn’t get back until four forty-five. Less than an hour later Steve the Bull decides to go for a car ride, and…boom!”

  “It’s not that much time,” Matt argued desperately. “In some companies that would be considered a long lunch hour.”

  Dorpff nodded. “And street informants have a pretty elastic sense of time — when they even bother to show. But there was no phone call on record here, either to the captain’s desk or to his foilpack.”

  The agent looked at Matt for a long moment. “Do you know about the MOM theory of crime?”

  “Um — what?” Matt said, expecting some bizarre psychological mumbo-jumbo about mother fixations. Frankly, he had a harder time imagining Winters with a mother than he did thinking of the captain as being married. The captain was so emotionally mature it was hard to think of him as a drooling toddler.

  “It’s an old acronym for the main elements in investigating a crime,” Dorpff explained. “Motive, Opportunity, and Means. M-O-M. Put your feelings for Captain Winters aside for a moment and consider how the elements line up in this case.”

  He ticked off one finger. “Motive — that’s pretty obvious. Alcista is believed to be behind the death of Captain Winters’s wife. And half the world has seen that news segment, showing the look on Winters’s face when he heard about Alcista getting out. I think we can take motive for granted.”

  Matt gave a stiff-necked nod.

  Dorpff held up a second finger. “Opportunity. Winters disappears from his office for several hours the day Alcista dies. The captain doesn’t have a satisfactory reason why he was missing. And the part of the story we can check out — the phone call from the informant — doesn’t check out.”

  “I bet a lot of people were out of the office,” Matt said. “And the call could have come in on a line other than the direct one to Winters’s desk and been forwarded. That happens all the time. Are they checking on that?”

  “Yes, but there’s no denying the captain had the opportunity to commit the crime. That’s where MOM comes in,” Dorpff pointed out. “We’re interested right now only in the people who have a motive for hurting Alcista.”

  He hesitated, then put up a third finger. “Finally — means. Steve the Bull was nailed by a Semtec bomb. Traces of the same batch of Semtec turn up in Captain Winters’s home workshop.”

  The young agent hesitated again. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but it will undoubtedly leak out soon enough. Internal Affairs ran a Net search of suspicious occurrences near the captain’s home. They found a police report in the next township. Somebody had complained about an explosion in a patch of woods two days before Alcista went to meet his maker. When Steadman’s techs checked the site, they found a crater — and the remains of a Semtec bomb. Sort of a trial run, you might say. Working out the bugs. And the bomb had definite problems. There were large fragments that hadn’t been vaporized. The lab boys think they can get fingerprints—”

  Dorpff broke off, giving Matt a look of what could only be interpreted as pity. “I know you admire Captain Winters, Matt. You and the other Net Force Explorers have shown a hundred-percent loyalty to the man. You’re all outraged that this should be happening to your friend and mentor.”

  The agent’s face looked even younger as he leaned across Captain Winters’s desk, his expression pained and earnest. “I didn’t know the man — we only had a brief meeting while he brought me up to speed on the Net Force Explorers. But I could see he thought the world of you kids.”

  Dorpff took a deep breath, then let it out as a sigh. “There’s a definite case against Captain Winters. Maybe it would be best for both sides if you at least considered the possibility that he might be guilty of the things he’s being accused of.”

  “Can you believe it?” Matt stormed. His figure went in and out of Leif Anderson’s sight as Matt strode back and forth in front of his holo pickup. “That jug-eared idiot was trying to break it to me gently that Captain Winters was guilty! Based on a case that’s completely — completely—” He broke off, searching for a word.

  “Circumstantial?” Leif suggested.

  “‘Lame’ is closer to an honest description,” Matt replied in exasperation. “I mean, the captain is supposed to be a top Net Force agent, right? He was apparently a legendary field man — one of the best. But he seems to have packed his brains in deep storage while he was planning this crime he’s accused of.”

  “You’d think the captain would know about this Motive, Opportunity, and Means stuff,” Leif agreed. “Dorpff isn’t bright enough to invent it on his own, so they must teach it at the Academy.”

  “So, knowing how Net Force will investigate, of course the first thing the captain would do is build a bomb in his garage, where traces are sure to be found,” Matt said angrily. “And then he’d test it the next town over, because of course he’d forget about any Net searches for suspicious connections. Finally he’d openly leave the office to attach the new, improved bomb to Alcista’s car — and not bother to give himself a respectable alibi.”

  “When you put it that way, it does sound pretty ridiculous,” Leif said. “But remember the look on the captain’s face. Could you be that angry and think clearly?”

  “I think any Net Force agent could. I certainly think the captain could. At the very least, he’d have to realize his appearance on that show painted a big ‘Motive’ sign on his forehead.”

  “So your theory boils down to this. If Winters killed this guy, he’d have done a smarter job of it,” Leif finally said.

  “Exactly,” Matt replied. When he realized what he’d said, he began rubbing his forehead. “But if I have to start convincing you…”

  “No, I see your point,” Leif interrupted. “And I agree with it.”

  “You’re about the only one.” Matt didn’t meet his friend’s eyes. “I couldn’t convince Agent Dork. And I got bad news from the Squirt. Mark says it feels as if someone died over at his house. His parents are both awfully upset, and they won’t talk about Captain Winters’s situation with him.”

  Leif nodded. “I’m sure Jay Gridley is getting enough of those sorts of discussions on the job,” he said. “Winters has always seemed to me to be very well-liked by his fellow agents. I have noticed lately that Gridley’s statements to the press have become progressively more careful.”

  “More cagey, you mean,” Matt spat the words. “Megan really called it this time. She said that as soon as the captain’s picture got spread all over the news, the case would become political. It must be getting really bad if Jay Gridley is picking his words.”

  He was silent for a moment, then looked at Leif. “Looks as if this will take a lot more than statements of support. Winters is in big trouble.”

  “Now I get it,” Leif said. “Things are getting out of hand, so you call in your pal the scamologist to see if he can’t come up with something — what? Clever? Devious? Certainly something that Captain Winters would never approve of — if he heard about it.”

  “Leif, we’ve got to do something,” Matt said in a small voice. “This whole trail of evidence…I’m convinced someone is trying to frame the captain.”

  “You may
be right. I’ll see what I can do,” Leif replied gruffly. “Call you soon.”

  The holographic link broke, and Leif sent a twisted grin in the direction of the pickup. He didn’t want to tell Matt, in case things didn’t work out.

  But he already had something in the works.

  The smoky room vibrated in time to the bass beat of the band’s pounding rock rhythm.

  Leif took a deep breath — and coughed. The place was called Club Retro, and it was one of the hottest spots in New York City right now. He wasn’t sure why. Virtual reality had created a world where, just by plumping down on a computer-link couch, you could become anybody and go anywhere. So, of course, everybody who was anybody was going to this dingy basement in real life. It was cool. It was different.

  Actually, in Leif’s opinion, it was hot and kind of choking. The pile-driver thump of the bass hit Leif like a physical attack. Could this stuff knock my implant circuitry loose from my skull? he thought.

  Spotlights located on the ceilings flashed on and off, and some sort of lasers flickered over the crowd. It looked just like a holo of an old 1990s club. Of course, that was what Club Retro was built to look like. The unpredictable lighting flashed down on a swirling crowd of dancers, turning their flesh a sort of icy blue.

  It wasn’t going to be easy to find the person he was looking for here.

  But Leif was lucky. He found Alexis de Courcy at the foot of the improbable silver staircase that led to the dance floor. Alexis was Leif’s height. But he had a couple of years on Leif, not to mention dark, carefully styled hair and deeply tanned, perfect features. Alexis often talked about the great days of “Eurotrash” and “the Jet Set” and he always wore the most extreme fashions, drove the hottest cars…and pursued the wildest adventures. When he saw Leif, Alexis took a sip from a glass that seemed to be smoking, and grinned.