The Dead Reckoner : Volume Two: Urban Underworld

and a half wide by three or four inches tall by three feet deep. Several humming fans were blowing warm air out of circular vents in the back and front. The front panel also featured a display dense with rows of scrolling a numbers.

  A girl stood on top of this box, dressed in a simple blue gown. It was the girl from the photo on Steven's desk. Beyond the girl and her electronic podium there was a man with his back turned to them. He was rifling through a file cabinet. The burglar turned when the other two entered. It was Lieutenant Keller.

  The assistant department chari entered a code on the display with all the scrolling numbers and the girl disappeared.

  “It's a hologram.” said Ruth to herself.

  Steve charged at the lieutenant and the latter showed his badge.

  Ruth said, “What in the hell are you doing?”

  “I don't know Sergeant.” said Keller. “What's your story?”

  Steven said to Ruth. “You're a cop too? Why didn't you say so?”

  “She's not a cop.” said Keller. “Not now.”

  “Keller.” said Ruth. She stepped closer to her boss. “Is something wrong?”

  “There's something I need.”

  “Something you want to steal.”

  Keller passed Ruth and came to within a couple feet of Steven.

  He said, “I want Kevin Nagel's files.”

  Steven said, “I don't think that's something I can just give you without a warrant.”

  “What's happened?” said Ruth. “Something's happened at Polymath?”

  She found her phone and Keller held out his hand.

  “Don't talk to them.” he said. “You don't know how it will react.”

  “It? The Sorter?”

  Keller turned back to Steven and said, “I know Kevin Nagel used to work here. And I know he worked on some stuff related to the Sorter because the department made a stink of it. You claimed he'd stolen it and that property belonged to the university. If the university believes it's theirs, then they would never destroy it.”

  “You wouldn't find it in an unlocked cabinet.” said Steven.

  “Where would I find it?”

  Ruth said, “What happened over there? Keller, what's going on? My son -”

  “Shut up about your son.”

  Keller lunged for Steven and grabbed him. Though the professor was a bit taller, he was startled by the move and peddled backwards. He tripped and fell out of Keller's grasp, sprawling on the floor. His cell phone fell from somewhere on his body and slid across the linoleum. It hit the leg of the table on which the holographic projector had stood. Keller leaned over the man, placing one shoe between the man's knees and the other on the outside of his legs. The lieutenant pulled his weapon from its holster and held it in front of him with two hands.

  He said, “Where can I find it?”

  Ruth was standing behind Keller when she brought her Beretta out. Then she popped off a shot. It was a single shot and then she let the gun down, but it was enough. She couldn't have been more than five feet away. Her bullet hit Keller in the right shoulder and he fell on top of Steven. The professor shoved the lieutenant off him and the latter lay on the floor, on his left shoulder. He managed to wrap that arm around his body and hold the other shoulder, the one that was spilling blood all over the floor.

  Keller fixed his eyes on Ruth. He held them on her and said, “You shot me.”

  “I'll do it again.”

  Without another word, Keller scrambled to his feet and ran away. Ruth went up to Steven, who seemed reluctant to stand again. Detective Holland till had her weapon out and he didn't seem sure what to make of her. With her free hand she ran her fingers though her hair and looked at the tiles on the ceiling.

  “I shouldn't have shot him.” she said. Then she looked at Steven. “He never told me what was going on.”

  Steven pushed himself up into a sitting position and held his palms out, saying, “Can I stand?”

  Ruth said, “I really need to know who made that purchase.”

  “I see. It's no different with you.”

  “My son is inside Polymath's office.” Her voice was soft, exhausted. “Everyone else in the building has evacuated because there's a bomb threat. It appears that this box I've been talking about is the bomb. I went to Sylvan Labs and they said the order originated here.”

  “Not many people can make that purchase. Just me and Mike Newell, the department chair.”

  “And Kevin Nagel used to work here?”

  “He was friends with Mike, but he left before I came here. My only encounter with him was when he convinced Mike to interview this friend of his for a technical assistant position. Mike asked me to interview the guy. It was someone from Polymath and the whole thing was fiasco.”

  “Who was this guy?”

  “I can't talk to you about these things. I hope you understand better than the other one.”

  “My understanding isn't the problem. My son standing on top of your bomb is the problem.”

  Steven's phone rang. They both looked at where it lay, next the table leg. Ruth saw that the caller Id presented a photo that looked like the one on Steven's desk, of the girl who's effigy had been projected in this room.

  “It's my daughter.” said Steven. “I'm late.”

  “Then you better answer my question.”

  “She's in the hospital. She has lymphoma, for Christ's sake.”

  “And my son is about to explode.” said Ruth. “To each his own.”

  When Steven didn't answer her, Ruth knelt down, still pointing the gun at him, and pressed the talk button on the phone.

  “Daddy?” said a little girl's voice.

  “Don't.” said Steven.

  Ruth said, “Your daddy's here, sweetie. He's going to come see you after he answers some questions.” She turned back to Steven. “Your girl's waiting for you.”

  “Daddy? Who's that?”

  “The man's name was George Simon.” said Steven. “Can I go?”

  “Why was the interview a fiasco? Why risk your life for this information?”

  “Daddy, what's happening? What's going on?”

  “When George came all he did was complain about Nagel setting him up. I thought maybe Nagel was trying to push him out of Polymath. And maybe he didn't want to fire the guy and pay severance. So he tried to find him a better offer. But this is MIT; what was he thinking?”

  “And that was the fiasco?”

  Steven nodded.

  “You're lying.” said Ruth. “Why wouldn't you have said that in the beginning?”

  “I'm just frightened, that's all. You've got your name; can I go?”

  “What happened, professor? Did George gain access to your system? Did he place an order with your credentials? Did you let it happen?”

  “I could loose my job. I could go to prison,”

  “You'll die right here and your daughter will hear it happen.” Ruth stepped closer. “Does this George Simon still work at Polymath? Did Nagel send him here to create this bomb and purchase it using your credentials?”

  “It's possible.”

  “What's your opinion? Did he do it or not?” She turned her head to point her face at the phone and said, “Sweetie, dad's going to loose his head in a moment if he doesn't answer this so you tell daddy to answer the question.” To Steven she said, “You know what happened. There's no maybe about it. You know and you've been hiding it so tell me what happened.”

  The little girl screamed.

  Steven said, “He did. Fine, he did. Everything you said was right.”

  “What's inside?”

  “What?”

  “Is it a bomb?”

  “I don't know. I tried to figure it out, but it's damn near impossible. You can have the code if you want it. It's in my office. A yellow colored USB stick stuck into my docking station.”

  “I'll be getting it.”

  Ruth walked away. She heard Ste
ven scrambling on the floor and grabbing his phone. As she left the room she heard him murmuring to her. Ruth found the memory stick where he'd said she'd find it. Then she found a ladies room and locked herself in a stall. She crouched on the floor and hugged her knees to her chest and pressed her forehead against those knees and cried.

  THIRTY

  The Atlantic Mall stood on the waterfront and its peaceful reflection floated on the surface of Boston Harbor. On the street side, a semi-circle of police equipment and personnel penned in hundreds of civilians along the building's wall. It's difficult to know how how a crowd will react to confinement or under what conditions it will turn into a mob. At that moment, the authorities were lucky. Their charges were quieter now than when the trouble broke out. Most people paced or huddled, according to each one's typical way of resigning himself or herself to uncertainty. It was not that they were unafraid. Rather, they had become accustomed to fear and were conserving their energy for the catastrophe that was sure to come. They calmed themselves, tamed by nothing more than an idle threat from a computer.

  On the inside, an atrium stood in near silence, save for a babbling waterfall and the shushing air vents. A few rows of leafy trees lined the marble floor. A grand staircase rose to an upper balcony an a row of offices. All except for the last in the row were empty. In one room of that office suite, a man with a gun chased another up against a wall. Two more men and two women watched and waited.

  A third woman appeared and said, “You have to stop or the child will destroy me.”

  She disappeared. Reginald Binder knew that the object of his love was slipping through his fingers. Since the death of his wife, Reggie had spent all of his waking moments and many of his sleeping ones dreaming of a machine with