The Archimedes Effect Read online

  The first time he’d showed up, he’d apologized for cutting into her evenings.

  She’d laughed. Most evenings, her social life consisted of sitting in an overstuffed chair trying to read a book with her cat curled in her lap, she’d said.

  Kent said, “Fine.” In truth, the fingers on his left hand were all sore—the ends felt blistered, and his thumb ached from pressing too hard into the back of the guitar’s neck. He figured it would pass as he developed calluses and more specific strength in the hand. No point in making a big deal out of it.

  She grinned at him, and he enjoyed watching the smile lines form around her eyes and mouth. “Uh huh. Going to be stoic, huh?”

  He smiled in return. “Too late to change now,” he said.

  She took a black silk cloth and began to wipe the fretboard and body of her guitar. He had a similar scrap of cloth in his case, and he did the same for his instrument. Even with clean hands, there was a certain amount of natural oil and grit that worked their way into the strings, causing, she had said, corrosion. A quick wipe with a cloth after playing helped slow that down.

  Kent had learned about strings, tuners, humidifiers, all manner of esoterica connected to maintaining a classical guitar in some semblance of form, and he had no problem doing what was necessary. His grandfather had taught him how to sharpen a knife and keep it oiled when he’d been a boy; the old man had never had any patience for a man who didn’t take care of his tools.

  “You’re coming along pretty well,” Jen said.

  “It’s a lot harder than you make it look,” he said.

  She finished wiping her instrument, and tucked it into the case, then latched it shut. “Of course. Anybody with a little skill in anything makes it look easier to somebody just trying to learn.”

  “So, am I ever going to learn enough to justify owning this beast?” He held the guitar up in one hand, then lowered it into his case.

  “Truth? You probably aren’t ever going to sit on a concert stage and make people want to go home and toss out their Segovia recordings. But if you practice and keep learning, three or four years from now you’ll be able to play some very nice things that people will enjoy hearing—and you won’t have to worry that your instrument is holding you back.”

  He nodded. “Good enough. Though that’s hard to see after a fumbling rendition of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,’ or ‘Scales on an E-string.’ ”

  She laughed. “Everybody’s got to start somewhere. A few lessons ago, you didn’t know the names of the strings. Now, you can tune the guitar, and pick out simple melodies, plus you know a few basic chords. Most of what people play on acoustic rhythm guitar these days can be done with what they call ‘cowboy chords,’ maybe ten or fifteen or so.”

  “Odd name,” he said.

  “Think of those old cowboy movies you probably watched as a kid on late-night TV—Gene or Roy or whoever and his buddies sitting around the campfire, somebody with a guitar, somebody with a harmonica—I think that’s where the name came from.”

  Kent nodded. He could see it.

  “For a lot of blues,” she went on, “you can get by with three or four, and for most rock and roll you only really need half a dozen. You don’t have to be a world-class player to enjoy making music.”

  She stood. “Same time, Tuesday?”

  “Works for me. Walk you to your car?”

  “Think I can’t make it there on my own?”

  “I’m parked close to you,” he said. “In case I fall down, you can help me up.”

  She laughed again. He liked making her do that.

  “You used to be married, didn’t you?”

  He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. She passed away a while ago.”

  “I was married once myself. But my husband was more interested in work than me. Twenty years ago, he took off and went out to conquer the music world.”

  “Did he? Conquer the music world, I mean?”

  “He did, actually. His instrument is the cello. He can sit on the same stage and keep up with Yo-Yo Ma. Played first cello with a couple of major European orchestras, formed his own chamber group that puts out a recording now and then, usually goes pretty high up on the classical charts. Married three more times since we split. I believe his current wife is a twenty-six-year-old daughter of some German baron. Beautiful woman, and if I had to guess, probably can’t keep time in a waterproof basket—Armand prefers to be the only musician in a marriage.”

  Kent heard just a trace of bitterness, and a hint of ugly history, but then she laughed again, and that seemed real enough. “Lotta water under that bridge,” she said. She turned and headed for the shop’s exit. “No reason to go back there and fall in.”

  He didn’t speak to that, only followed her to the door. Maybe he would check on-line and see what he could find about this “Armand” character. Might be interesting to know what kind of man would leave a woman like Jennifer Hart. The more he was around her, the more relaxed he felt. That was interesting, too. . . .

  10

  Bramblett’s Cafe

  White Hope, Virginia

  Carruth knew he should get rid of his handgun. They’d recover the slugs, and ballistics would cook him if they ever got hold of the revolver. There probably weren’t that many fifty-caliber handguns kicking around, and fewer still of the custom-made Reeders. But the gun had cost almost three grand, and he liked it. And now there was certainly no doubt that it was effective. It had dropped the cops fast enough, even with vests.

  So the trick was to make sure the police didn’t get the gun until he could afford to buy a new one to replace it.

  The bored waitress, a skinny twenty-something with short hair, nine earrings in each ear, a nose stud, plus an eyebrow- and a lip-piercing, refilled his cup of bad coffee. She didn’t smile at him.

  Must be a lesbian, he figured. Or a doper. Or both.

  It had been a freak accident, the cops coming on him that way. What were the chances that would happen? What were the chances it would happen twice?

  Yeah, he’d left the rental car, but even while he was on the boogie in the police cruiser, he had called one of his men and had him haul butt there to fetch the rental before the cops had time to shut the whole neighborhood down, so no grief from that. The car had been leased under a shell-company name anyhow. He had never been to that neighborhood before, and God knew he was never going back there again.

  A first-class snafu, but he was clear.

  So, yeah, the gun would have to go away, eventually, but it ought to be safe enough for a while.

  He was rationalizing, he knew that, but he liked the piece a whole lot.

  It wasn’t as though he’d never shot anybody before. He’d knocked over a few “insurgents” as they called themselves—aka “terrorists” to the rest of the world—on his second tour, but never a civilian, and certainly not a cop. That was bad business. Cops pulled out all the stops to catch guys who took out one of their own, but even with their fire lit, they had to have some place to start, someone to focus all their righteous anger on, and they didn’t know to come looking for him.

  The big thing was, Lewis couldn’t know anything about any of this. Nada. She was twitchy enough as it was. If she had any idea he was the guy who had cooled two of D.C.’s finest and made the front page of the papers and the Six O’Clock News on every local channel, he’d be in a world of trouble. She couldn’t turn him over to the law, he knew too much about her and their mutual business, but she wouldn’t want him risking the project. And she would really have a heaving fit if she knew he hadn’t ditched the gun he’d used. . . .

  The cops, that had been a one-in-a-million thing, not his fault, there was no way you could have planned on it. It would never happen again. No point in worrying about it.

  He looked up and saw Lewis come in. This was another crappy mall cafe thirty miles away from the last place. She was careful—and he didn’t really mind that. No three-on-a-match business for her. You didn’t want to be worki
ng with somebody who wasn’t careful when it was your ass on the line. Carruth didn’t mind cowboys, as long as they didn’t shut off their brains when they went rodeo-romping.

  Lewis sat down. If the waitress were true to form, it would be ten minutes before she noticed enough to bring Lewis any of the crappy coffee. That’s how long he’d sat there waiting. Easy enough to see why the place was empty except for him and Lewis and an old guy sitting at the counter. Probably all the old guy’s taste buds were dead.

  “You look nervous,” Lewis said.

  “Nah, just tired. I worked out this morning, maybe pushed the weights a little hard.” That was actually true. Whenever he got himself into trouble, he’d hit the gym and try to burn out the tension. Sometimes it worked. Not this time, though. “What’s up?”

  “Our buyer wants a little more convincing. We need to fetch something that will make him drool.”

  “Yeah? What?”

  “I know just what will do the trick.”

  The pierced waitress hustled over. Hustled. Jeez, that hadn’t taken long.

  The waitress gave Lewis a big smile. “What can I get for you, hon?”

  Yep. Definitely a lesbian . . .

  When the waitress was gone, Lewis told him.

  “Damn, that’s ballsy. You think that will sell it?”

  “Oh, yeah. This guy is so macho he makes you look like a sissy. If we pull this off—meaning if you pull it off—then I think he’ll fall all over himself to make the deal.”

  “I’m up for it. When?”

  “Soon as we can. Plug the stats into your VR program and run it a couple times. Whenever you’re ready, we’ll go.”

  He nodded. It was good to have something to do. Take his mind off the other stuff. Dead cops and all . . .

  Net Force HQ

  Quantico, Virginia

  “Can you get off work, Tommy?”

  Thorn nodded at the image of Marissa on his desk’s phone screen. “I don’t see why not. The DoD can breathe down my neck just as easily over my virgil if I’m in Georgia as they can if I am here.”

  “Good. I’ll tell my grandparents we’re coming.”

  “You want to take the jet?”

  She laughed. “The jet? Oh, yeah, they get a lot of those landing on the red clay road running to the Pinehurst farm. Chickens would stop laying eggs for a year. Jet, right. We’ll take my car—I wouldn’t want your pilot or chauffeur to get lost. When can you leave? Tomorrow?”

  “No reason not to. Will the CIA let you take a vacation?”

  “I expect so. I could quit, given as how I’m about to marry a rich guy, but they owe me six weeks. Nothing I’m doing can’t wait a few days to finish. Pack warm—it’s chilly down there this time of year.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  When they discommed, Thorn called his assistant. “I’m going to be out of the office for a few days,” he told her. “Emergency calls can be routed to my virgil. I’ll check e-mail and messages while I’m gone.”

  “Yes, sir. Where are you going?”

  “Georgia. To meet Marissa’s grandparents.”

  Bugworld

  Bug Base #13

  Jay lay on a slope covered in tall and thick red grass, overlooking one of the alien bases. The sky was a swirly orange, with a dark blue sun and fluffy, electric-blue clouds. Down below this hillside was his target, and the alien base was itself mostly a study in bright green. The visual contrasts were stunning. There was an odd, ozonelike smell to the air, and strange sounds—creaks and cracks, and animals-but-not-as-we-know-them noises—added more layers to the illusion. Jay felt as if he really were on an alien world.

  It was just coming on dusk on this part of the planet. The blue sun cast long and eerie shadows. Given the local star’s hue, he wasn’t sure what the real colors would be, but that didn’t matter.

  Almost time.

  Jay had planned his attack for a hair after sunset. This would provide some cover, and the guards might be less wary, with it only just getting dark.

  He peered through the sniperscope, and zoomed in on the guard shack beside the gate. Almost two hundred meters away, the two dark-purple aliens stood there, creatures from a nightmare, each holding a futuristic carbinelike weapon. Their heads were huge, and reminded Jay of Venus flytraps—flat and slightly rounded with huge jaws. Bony ridges sat atop the heads, guarding three eyes—two in the front, and one in back. Sneaking up on them was a bitch.

  They were big suckers, too. Had to be at least two and a half meters tall, with three thick stumpy legs and three arms each.

  The bugs looked altogether wrong in a human biped’s view.

  Which was part of the fun of the game. After all, how hard would it be to want to knock off such creatures? It added to the immersion factor, the being-there aspect of a top computer game, by giving the player an attractive goal.

  Earthling versus the u-u-ugly monsters.

  Jay double-checked his own weapon. It was an Accuracy International AW-SP with a heavy barrel and suppressor, one of the most accurate of all sniper rifles.

  This was his third time at this base. He’d tried getting closer with shorter-range weapons, but he’d been unable to do so unseen by the guards.

  So this time he’d come up with a long-range attack.

  The War Against the Bugs had an extensive database of weapons built into the game, ranging from swords and knives to modern firearms. Anything that might be available on Earth to somebody trying on an Army base, you could use here. Which made sense.

  The game allowed for team play—either with other VR players or AI-bots—but Jay liked playing solo.

  This time he thought he had the gear and his strategy right.

  The trick was timing. Every twenty minutes roving guards cycled past the gate. Jay wanted to time his attack so that he’d have the maximum window before the dead gate guards were spotted by the rovers. He had tried to take out all the guards at once, but he hadn’t been fast enough—one of them had always managed to get a call for help out, and that was no good. Two at a time was his limit—they were fast for big bugs. . . .

  Once inside the base, his goal was to blow up the armory vault. He had all the explosives he’d need in his kit, but to destroy the target he’d have to break inside—it was protected by armor plate and a heavy steel door. One of his gadgets was an electronic code descrambler. Intelligence he’d gained on the alien base showed it to have a high-bit encryption lock. This meant it could take up to five minutes to break into the vault.

  The time factors—twenty minutes before the guard came back, minus the five through the door, plus the time required to get down the hill and to the armory—put him on a short clock. At least if he wanted to get back out again.

  He could take out the roving guard once he was inside, but there was no way to know how many other checkpoints that guard passed, or when he would be missed.

  There went the roving guard, his three legs moving him along at a solid thump-thump-thump.

  Jay waited until he had stepped out of sight, and counted to twenty. As he did so, he dialed the magnification up on the scope.

  There . . .

  Bammff! The gun wasn’t completely silent, but the noise wouldn’t carry far. Guard one went down, yellow blood spraying from his head.

  Guard two stood there in shock for a moment before turning toward the perimeter alarm button.

  But Jay had timed this carefully—the remaining guard was three meters away from the alarm, giving time for another shot—

  He got guard two in the upper chest, spinning him around—fortunately away from the alarm.

  But this guard was made of sterner stuff, because he still tried crawling toward the control panel.

  Jay fired again. The guard sprawled.

  And then Jay was up, running down the hill, the backpack with explosives slung over his shoulders—

  A countdown timer in his peripheral heads-up vision began running—

  18:50 . . . He was at t
he guard station. He ran past.

  The VR was flawless, maintaining a fluid frame rate so that everything stayed sharp and clear. Nothing on the left or right.

  Over the simple lift-arm that blocked the entrance . . .

  He looked to his right and could see the backs of the roving guards, hundreds of meters away. He slowed slightly, not wanting to draw attention to himself, but needing to keep his speed up—

  17:45 . . .

  He made his way past several buildings toward his target.

  No one in sight.

  He hadn’t made it this far before. He drank in every detail. Pale blue pole-mounted lights had begun coming on as the sun set, and he stayed in the pools of shadow surrounding each one as he moved toward the armory.

  Almost there.

  He readied the descrambler, pulling it off his belt and mashing the on button. His other hand held a silenced HK USP .45. An infrared laser sight provided an aiming point that, in theory, only he could see, the aliens having vision similar to men.

  16:10 . . .

  Jay’s heart pounded. It was often this way when he made a leap in a game. He might play a single level dozens of times, getting stuck at the same point over and over again, but sometimes he’d break past the bottleneck and make it the rest of the way on the next try.

  And it looked like that might happen. . . .

  He glanced right and left, scanning for trouble. The problem with getting so excited was that it made you sloppy. Still clear.

  He was at the armory.

  Go, go, go—!

  He slapped the descrambler onto the keypad lock and activated it. Ha!

  Bright flashes of light blossomed in his vision—

  Dammit!

  Jay watched as his VR viewpoint shifted backward from his body, rising to a point three meters overhead.

  An alien wearing a guard’s uniform popped out from behind a doorway twenty or thirty feet away. It was grinning. If that hideous expression could be called a grin.

  Crap.

  He hadn’t seen that one coming. Part of the problem with having never made it this far before. He’d gotten careless trying to beat the mission. Bright green letters from the VR menu popped up, accompanied by a deep bass techno theme: