7th Sigma

The clerk looked at a series of cubby holes with message slips and said, “Sorry. Don’t have anything.…”

  “Here it is—DU O’Hara?” said the clerk at the back of the room emptying the boxes on the conveyor. “Just came down.”

  He passed the slip forward. “Right. Long one. That must’ve cost a pretty penny.” He entered the message number in his register. “Sign right there, please.”

  Kimble scrawled O’Hara on the line. He took a quick glance at the message and nodded. It was ostensibly about a series of medical procedures and their cost, the portion covered by the TMS, and the copayments.

  Code. He folded it away and put it in an inner pocket. “Thanks.” He stepped out the door into the street and turned sharply to the right.

  Steve Bickle was riding down the street and it was clear from the way he straightened in the saddle and turned his head that he’d seen Kimble.

  Amateurs.

  Kimble passed the alley entrance where Mrs. P waited, walked briskly to the corner and, once he turned it, sprinted to where a gap between two stores led back to the alley. There was a chest-high wall but he was over it and gone before Bickle reached the corner.

  He mounted Mrs. P and, back beside the helio office, looked out the alley entrance. Bickle had gone on around the corner. He turned Mrs. P in the opposite direction and trotted away, turning off the main road as soon as he could. He twisted through the smaller residential roads until he was back by the main irrigation ditch where it flowed back into the Pecos south of town.

  Here, under a willow on riverbank, he took Mrs. P’s hackamore off, pulled a worn, thin leather-bound edition of Departmental Ditties from his saddlebag and, while the mule cropped weeds, decoded the heliogram.

  Well, he thought, surprised. Colonel Q.

  * * *

  KIMBLE returned to town after dark, wearing his good clothes, dark suit, and a dark red shirt with a mandarin collar, and low boots. He wore his hair slicked down and large, dark-framed glasses with slightly tinted lens. By the time he got to town he was wearing a blister on his left heel.

  Damn boots.

  The suit was good in the shadows, but when he hit the oil-lamp-lit main road, the beggars came out. “Young sir, could you spare a bit for food. My children are hungry, my wife needs a doctor.” Kimble had passed by many of these people during the day, and they’d assessed his patched clothing and worn moccasins and let him walk on. But now they blocked his way and tugged at his sleeves.

  His money was in a hidden pocket in his jacket, so he wasn’t worried much, but as he neared the theater district, he felt a hand dip into his side jacket pocket and he took the wrist and turned quickly away, sinking. The man came stumbling around and Kimble turned again, taking the man’s fingers back over his own forearm hard. The man tumbled over in an awkward flop and Kimble swiveled again, forcing the man face down, his knee locking the arm.

  The beggars around him backed away. Kimble took a good look at the man’s face and laughed. It was Pierce, his would-be hijacker from back on the Puerco. He tried to struggle and Kimble leaned into the pin.

  “You’ll break it!”

  “No,” Kimble said quietly. “First the shoulder socket will tear. You won’t be able to use the arm without surgery and serious rehab. Not for feeding yourself, picking your nose, and definitely not picking any pockets. I thought you learned your lesson back on the Puerco, Pierce.”

  There was a stirring up the street and Kimble saw the beggars fading away as a city deputy pushed through a forming crowd. Kimble dropped the arm and stooped suddenly, lifting Pierce to his feet.

  The deputy pulled a billy club from a loop on his belt. “What’s going on here?”

  Pierce’s eyes widened as he saw the deputy and he glanced sideways at Kimble, then at the street, looking for a way out.

  Without taking his hand off Pierce’s arm, Kimble started brushing the dust off Pierce’s shirt. “You all right there, friend?” He turned toward the deputy as if just seeing him. “I’m afraid I wasn’t looking where I was going and I bumped this poor man clean off his feet.”

  The deputy raised his eyebrows. “You sure? This man’s a thief. Had him up before the magistrate just yesterday for suspicion. It could’ve been a setup, a distraction for one of his pals.”

  Kimble made a show of patting his pockets. “Nothing missing. Besides, I came up behind him and accidentally tangled his feet. Not like he targeted me.” Kimble leaned forward and sniffed. “Doesn’t smell like he’s been drinking.” Though Pierce could sure use a bath. “Really, Officer, just me being clumsy.” He let go of Pierce’s arm. “Isn’t that right, friend?”

  “I guess,” said Pierce. “I mean, I was walking across the road and the next thing I know I’m all sprawled in the dirt. He helped me up.”

  The deputy laughed and said to the pickpocket, “Maybe you should check your pockets.” He stepped back and said louder, “Nothing to see here. Get along with you.” He was staring at the more ragged beggars as he spoke and tapping the billy club meaningfully against the palm of his hand.

  Kimble let go of Pierce’s arm. “You’re sure you’re okay, there?”

  “I’m, uh, fine.” Pierce was staring at him with a perplexed expression on his face. “See you later?”

  He still doesn’t recognize me. It was the suit and glasses.

  Kimble gave him a big smile and said, “You can be sure of it.”

  * * *

  HE bought a ticket to the last showing of Blood and Laughter: “Episode 56.” There were plays and shows running he would have rather watched, but he wasn’t planning to watch the show. As soon as the houselights were shaded and the stage lights came up, he left his aisle seat before the audience’s eyes adjusted to the dark. He slipped up the stairway to the balcony and entered the third private box without knocking.

  It was a four-seat box. Colonel Q and a hooded person were sitting in the front two seats. The back two were empty. The person in the hood jerked when the door opened but Kimble heard the colonel say, “Eyes front. You’re watching the show.”

  Kimble dropped to the floor and crawled forward, sitting with his back to the solid balcony balustrade, facing Colonel Q. The man in the hood was Hodges.

  Christ!

  Before he said anything, the colonel said quietly, “Sorry, Hodges is a fuckup, but he knows more about this situation than I do. I can give you a précis, but if you have questions, I thought it better if you got the answers directly.”

  Kimble sat still. “Do you think you were followed?”

  “No. We left the fort in my wife’s buggy. Hodges wore her hooded cape. I stationed my aide-de-camp in town and we looped a couple of blocks. He signaled all clear the second and third time around. Also, I’m not an idiot.”

  Kimble grinned. “No, sir, you’re not.” He left unsaid who he thought was.

  “Our first hint of the problem,” the colonel said, “was an inquiry from a rancher in Texas, searching for his missing son. Roberto Mendez, the son, was headed for Pecosito with three wagons of territory-safe water-filtration units. It was his own venture. He’d borrowed the money from his parents. His drivers were schoolmates, fresh out of high school. They were going to leverage the investment for a year to pay for college.”

  “Were all the boys missing?”

  The colonel gestured at Hodges, who answered, “Yes. They hadn’t been heard from for three weeks when the family started asking. We have a record of them going through access control at Andrews, and they were remembered at two different water holes. But then nothing.” He was speaking quietly, but he was hunched slightly and his eyes darted sideways to the colonel as he talked.

  “Satellite archives?”

  “They looked, but there’s too many wagons in the territory. And three is a pretty common number. It was a dry spell, too, but our patrol didn’t find any sign of them leaving the road. Those filters don’t weigh much, but they piled them high.”

  “Unless the tracks were hidden,” Kimble a
dded.

  The colonel spoke. “That’s one possibility. The real problem is that while the boys weren’t heard from, some of those water filters did show up—at two different stores here in town.”

  “Other peddlers do carry water filters.”

  The colonel said simply, “Serial numbers.”

  “Ah. And what do the vendors say?”

  The colonel gestured to Hodges again, who said, “They bought them from an itinerant peddler and he is long gone.”

  “Fell off the back of a truck, no doubt. You believe them?”

  “Hard to say. They’re established vendors. Upstanding citizens and all.”

  “Still no sign of the boys, though?”

  “None. We considered they were just avoiding paying back the money, using this to get away from home, but one of them was engaged to be married. They were top of their class—not exactly the kind of boys you’d expect to rip off the parents who backed them.”

  “How about the wagons—anything special about them?”

  The colonel glanced at Hodges again.

  “Yes and no,” Hodges said. “They were boat-tight Conestogas—a little fancy, but common enough around here—but the father said the sides of the wagons had been marked with his ranch’s brand, both sides, right behind the driver’s box. Melted in good, then filled with contrasting paint.”

  “What brand?”

  “Rocking sunrise.”

  “I’m not picturing it. Semicircle below, the rocker, right?”

  “Yes. Joined by smaller half-circle above with three rays at ten, twelve, and two o’clock.”

  Obviously you couldn’t use a metal branding iron in the territory, but the marks were still used, whether applied with a ceramic “iron” or indelible dye writ large and renewed annually. Wire fencing was another casualty of the infestation, so open range grazing was common. Some form of tagging was necessary.

  “You’ve looked, obviously.”

  “Yes. We have a territorial alert out.”

  “And for the boys, of course,” added the colonel.

  “Of course.”

  “It’s not just that one time, though, right?”

  “Right. There’ve been three others,” said Hodges.

  The colonel added, “That we know about.”

  Hodges flinched. “Yes, sir.” He took a deep breath. “A party that was headed for the capital left from Midland-Odessa last month. We tracked them on the same route that Mendez took and further, to one more asequia where the keeper remembered them. But then nothing. Two of the women and one of the men were doctors going for a tour with the TMS. One of them was an internist who was bringing experimental diagnostic packs—metal-free biotech for blood work. The Medical Service launched that inquiry. We haven’t seen any of the medical gear resold, but a coat ended up at a local flea market.”

  “Identified how?”

  “A laundry mark. You only saw the writing if you pulled the hood out of its pocket.”

  “How many people?”

  “Six adults.”

  “Vehicles?”

  “Three horse-drawn FlyWeight buggies and a U-Haul wagon and team. No—no sign of them.”

  “Were those the ‘three’ you were talking about?”

  The colonel answered. “I wish. I meant three other incidents. The other two were both single peddlers hitting their suppliers at access control and then heading back out. We haven’t seen any of their stuff show up, but they disappeared in roughly the same area. The most recent one happened after Lujan was airlifted out.”

  “Okay. Let’s talk about Lujan.”

  “Lujan was following the merchandise. He was looking at the two merchants who had the water filters and the flea market vendor who was selling the coat. He’d been here a week and really had nothing to report, yet, but he said he’d been developing sources.”

  “Have you heard his status?”

  “He’s fine. They had to remove his spleen and he’ll have to be careful about infections. No more unpasteurized milk and all that. Your boss says he really hadn’t made any progress with the merchants.”

  “And the sources?”

  “Some street vendors and beggars. Sort of a Baker Street Irregulars, I gather,” the colonel said.

  Hodges looked puzzled at the reference, and Kimble said, “People he could use for low-level surveillance, messages, etc.” It took a conscious effort not to scream Sherlock Holmes, you illiterate idiot. “Where was he shot? And I don’t mean the spleen.”

  The colonel gestured to Hodges, who answered, “We were supposed to meet south of the barracks at our regular rendezvous. There’s a small seep coming out of a rocky outcropping overlooking the river valley where the farm road bends to the east. When I got there, Lujan’s horse was cropping grass, but there was fresh blood on the saddle and down the side. I’m not much of a tracker but the blood trail was clear. He was only a hundred yards away. I got him back to the barracks. The unit medic put him on IV fluids, glued him shut, and prepped him for airlift.”

  Badly injured casualties were sky-hooked off the ground in padded capsules connected to balloon-lifted lines stretching above the bugosphere. Special aircraft hooked them and reeled them in, getting them to the outside trauma centers within an hour of pickup.

  If you were important enough. Lujan was an undercover Ranger.

  Ordinary people would’ve had to take their chances with a local surgeon using glass scalpels and composite needles. No X-rays. No CAT scans. Minimal lab work. Respiration and heartbeat monitored the old-fashioned way. That is, if they were anywhere near a local doctor.

  “Did Lujan give Control any names?”

  “Yes, but considering he was shot sometime after that, shouldn’t they be avoided?”

  The colonel and Kimble both stared at Hodges, whose eyes widened. “You think I blew his cover.”

  “Why not? You blew mine.” But then Kimble shook his head. “I don’t know that. It was probably the airlift that connected them to you in the first place. My money is on the merchants. Not that they shot him but that they probably talked to whoever supplied them with the filters. But rest assured, I’m not interested in being a target. Still, I want those names and anything else he had.” Kimble stopped talking as the dialog from the stage stopped for a scene change. When the crowd began laughing a few minutes into the next scene, he asked, “Tell me why it wasn’t a Ranger that shot Lujan.”

  Colonel Anson handled this one. “Didn’t say it wasn’t a Ranger. What we know is that it wasn’t Ranger-issued ammo.”

  “But it was a gyro?”

  “Oh, yeah. Same kind of ammo. But they’re tagged, every one, and this serial number came out of a batch supposedly used at the factory test range.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Geneseo, Illinois. Nowhere near the territory, if that’s what you were wondering. The feds are checking that end.”

  “And the rifle?”

  “That part’s trickier. The rifles are really just graphite tubes with stocks and sights. The high-tech side is the self-stabilizing rockets. There’s no rifling to mark the projectile. The friction tag is pulled by the firing mechanism and stays with the rifle and, even if we recovered it, the mark left by the mechanism is generic.”

  “Is this the only time you’ve detected unauthorized gyros in the territory?”

  “So far. The bomb sniffers at access control have the rocket fuel’s chemical fingerprint. There have been smuggling attempts before, and accidental carries—Rangers on leave with ammo in a uniform pocket—but this is the only one we know about.” Colonel Anson sighed. “I’m wondering what we’ll find, though, if we locate the missing parties.”

  The episode below ended to applause. One of the ingénues came out and sang a song for the closing act, accompanied by a nylon-strung guitar and a gut bass.

  “Names from Lujan?”

  Hodges gave Kimble a sheet of paper.

  “Right. Let’s limit further communication to message dro
ps for now. There’s a loose brick at knee level to the right of this theater’s stage door. There’s a little hollow behind it and I plugged the space below with mud to keep any messages from falling down into the wall. The brick has a spot of dried paint on the face at one end. If the spot is closer to the stage door, there’s a message. If away—nothing. You leave a message, put the brick back in with the spot toward the door. You remove a message, leave it away. If I leave a message there will also be a piece of grass stuck in the cracks. That way you won’t be checking your own messages. Got it?”

  The colonel answered, “Sure. Toward the door and a piece of grass, ‘Ding—we’ve got mail!’ Toward the door and no grass—it’s for you.”

  “Hodges is being watched, so he stays away. Better if you can get someone in mufti to carry the messages, but be sure of them, okay? Rangers on the whole aren’t used to hiding things from normal citizens. They’re not the enemy after all. They drink with them, they buy from them, and they sure as hell try to sleep with them, so pick someone who can keep his mouth shut.” Kimble stopped talking abruptly and blushed. “Sorry, sir. Forgot who I was talking to.”

  The colonel laughed softly.

  Kimble continued. “There are no windows in the alley and you can get out at either end. Anything else? I want to leave in the first rush.”

  Hodges said, “What code? For the messages?”

  Reluctantly Kimble said, “Book code. You’ll find a sealed envelope on your codes shelf—it’s labeled L F underscore D D. Go ahead and open it.”

  Hodges repeated it. “Authorization?”

  “All the world.” Kimble repeated it slowly, making sure that Hodges was getting it. Colonel Quincy nodded, as well, so Kimble thought it would be all right.

  He touched his palms together to the colonel, then crept out of the box and sat on the stairs. When the first wave started out of the seats below, he merged into the crowd, walking as if he belonged to a family group. He left them two blocks later, turning off into one of the unlit residential streets.

  Five minutes later he was outside of town.

  20

  Stolen Wagons and Bible Verses

  Kimble found Pierce in the shantytown south of Pecosito, sleeping under a length of plastic roofing material supported by two sticks and a cinder block. His mattress was scraps of cardboard and his blanket was knotted together burlap sacking. A spare shirt was draped over his face to keep the mosquitoes away.