Firestarter (52 page)

Cap, what the fuck are you up to?

He spent the rest of that night and the early hours of Tuesday morning at a computer console, calling up every scrap of information he could think of on Charlie McGee, trying to make out some kind of pattern. And there was nothing. His head began to ache from eyestrain.

He was getting up to shut off the lights when a sudden thought, a totally off-the-wall connection, occurred to him. It had to do not with Charlie but with the portly, drugged-out cipher that was her father.

Pynchot. Pynchot had been in charge of Andy McGee, and last week Herman Pynchot had killed himself in one of the most grisly ways Rainbird could imagine. Obviously unbalanced. Crackers. Toys in the attic. Cap takes Andy to the funeral—maybe a little strange when you really stopped to think about it, but in no way remarkable.

Then Cap starts to act a little weird—talking about golf and passing notes.

That's ridiculous. He's tipped over.

Rainbird stood with his hand on the light switches. The computer-console screen glowed a dull green, the color of a freshly dug emerald.

Who says he's tipped over? Him?

There was another strange thing here as well, Rainbird suddenly realized. Pynchot had given up on Andy, had decided to send him to the Maui compound. If there was nothing Andy could do that would demonstrate what Lot Six was capable of, there was no reason to keep him around at all … and it would be safer to separate him from Charlie.
Fine. But then Pynchot abruptly changes his mind and decides to schedule another run of tests.

Then Pynchot decides to clean out the garbage disposal … while it's still running.

Rainbird walked back to the computer console. He paused, thinking, then tapped
HELLO COMPUTER/QUERY STATUS ANDREW MCGEE
14112
/FURTHER TESTING/MAUI INSTALLATION/Q
4

PROCESS
, the computer flashed. And a moment later:
HELLO RAINBIRD/ANDREW MCGEE
14112
NO FURTHER TESTING/AUTHORIZATION “STARLING”/SCHEDULED DEPARTURE FOR MAUI
1500
HOURS OCTOBER
9
/AUTHORIZATION “STARLING”/ANDREWS AFB-DURBAN [ILL] AFB-KALAMI AIRFIELD [HI]/ BREAK

Rainbird glanced at his watch. October 9 was Wednesday. Andy was leaving Longmont for Hawaii tomorrow afternoon. Who said so? Authorization Starling said so, and that was Cap himself. But this was the first Rainbird knew of it.

His fingers danced over the keys again.

QUERY PROBABILITY ANDREW MCGEE
14112
/SUPPOSED MENTAL DOMINATION ABILITY/CROSS-REF HERMAN PYNCHOT

He had to pause to look up Pynchot's code number in the battered and sweat-stained code book he had folded into his back pocket before coming down here.

14409
Q
4

PROCESS
, the computer replied, and then remained blank so long that Rainbird began to think that he had misprogrammed and would end up with nothing but a “609” for his trouble.

Then the computer flashed
ANDREW MCGEE
14112
/MENTAL DOMINATION PROBABILITY
35%
/CROSS-REF HERMAN PYNCHOT/BREAK

Thirty-five percent?

How was that possible?

All right, Rainbird thought. Let's leave Pynchot out of the goddam equation and see what happens.

He tapped out
QUERY PROBABILITY ANDREW MCGEE
14112
/SUPPOSED MENTAL DOMINATION ABILITY Q
4

PROCESS
, the computer flashed, and this time its response came within a space of fifteen seconds.
ANDREW MCGEE
14112
/MENTAL DOMINATION PROBABILITY
2%
/BREAK

Rainbird leaned back and closed his good eye and felt a kind of triumph through the sour thud in his head. He had asked the important questions backward, but that was the
price humans paid for their intuitive leaps, leaps a computer knew nothing about, even though it had been programmed to say “Hello” “Good-bye,” “I am sorry [programmer's name],” “That is too bad,” and “Oh Shit.”

The computer didn't believe there was much of a probability Andy had retained his mental-domination ability … until you added in the Pynchot factor. Then the percent jumped halfway to the moon.

He tapped
QUERY WHY SUPPOSED MENTAL DOMINATION ABILITY ANDREW MCGEE
14112
[PROBABILITY] RISES FROM
2%
TO
35%
WHEN CROSS-REFERENCED W/HERMAN PYNCHOT
14409
Q
4

PROCESS
, the computer answered, and then:
HERMAN PYNCHOT
14409
ADJUDGED SUICIDE/PROBABILITY TAKES INTO ACCOUNT ANDREW MCGEE
14112
MAY HAVE CAUSED SUICIDE/MENTAL DOMINATION/BREAK

There it was, right here in the banks of the biggest and most sophisticated computer in the Western Hemisphere. Only waiting for someone to ask it the right questions.

Suppose I feed it what I suspect about Cap as a certainty? Rainbird wondered, and decided to go ahead and do it. He dragged out his code book again and looked up Cap's number.

FILE
, he tapped.
CAPTAIN JAMES HOLLISTER
16040
/ATTENDED FUNERAL OF HERMAN PYNCHOT
14409
W/ANDREW MCGEE
14112
F
4

FILED
, the computer returned.

FILE
, Rainbird tapped back,
CAPTAIN JAMES HOLLISTER
16040
/CURRENTLY SHOWING SIGNS OF GREAT MENTAL STRESS F
4

609, the computer returned. It apparently didn't know “mental stress” from “Shinola.”

“Bite my bag,” Rainbird muttered, and tried again.

FILE/CAPTAIN JAMES HOLLISTER
16040
/CURRENTLY BEHAVING COUNTER TO DIRECTIVES REF CHARLENE MCGEE
14111
F
4

FILED

“File it, you whore,” Rainbird said. “Let's see about this.” His fingers went back to the keys.

QUERY PROBABILITY ANDREW MCGEE
14112
/SUPPOSED MENTAL DOMINATION ABILITY/CROSS-REF HERMAN PYNCHOT
14409
/CROSS-REF CAPTAIN JAMES HOLLISTER
16040
Q
4

PROCESS
, the computer showed, and Rainbird sat back to wait, watching the screen. Two percent was too low. Thirty-five percent was still not betting odds. But—

The computer now flashed this: A
NDREW MCGEE
14112
/ MENTAL DOMINATION PROBABILITY
90%
/CROSS-REF HERMAN PYNCHOT
14409
/CROSS-REF CAPTAIN JAMES HOLLISTER
16040
BREAK

Now it was up to ninety percent. And those
were
betting odds.

And two other things that John Rainbird would have bet on were, one, that what Cap had handed to the girl was indeed a note to Charlie from her father and, two, that it contained some sort of escape plan.

“You dirty old son of a bitch,” John Rainbird murmured—not without admiration.

Pulling himself to the computer again, Rainbird tapped

600
GOODBYE COMPUTER
600

604
GOODBYE RAINBIRD
604

Rainbird turned off the keyboard and began to chuckle.

Rainbird went back to the house where he was staying and fell asleep with his clothes on. He woke up just after noon on Tuesday and called Cap to tell him he wouldn't be in that afternoon. He had come down with a bad cold, possibly the onset of the grippe, and he didn't want to chance passing it on to Charlie.

“Hope that won't keep you from going to San Diego tomorrow,” Cap said briskly.

“San Diego?”

“Three files,” Cap said. “Top secret. I need a courier. You're it. Your plane leaves from Andrews at oh-seven-hundred tomorrow.”

Rainbird thought fast. This was more of Andy McGee's work. McGee knew about him. Of course he did. That had been in the note to Charlie, along with whatever crazy escape plan McGee had concocted. And that explained why the girl had acted so strangely yesterday. Either going to Herman Pynchot's funeral or coming back, Andy had given Cap a good hard shove and Cap had spilled his guts about everything. McGee was scheduled to fly out of Andrews tomorrow afternoon; now Cap told him that he, Rainbird, was going tomorrow morning. McGee was using Cap to get him safely out of the way first. He was—

“Rainbird? Are you there?”

“I'm here,” he said. “Can you send someone else? I feel pretty punky, Cap.”

“No one I trust as well as you,” Cap replied. “This stuff is dynamite. We wouldn't want … any snake in the grass to … to get it.”

“Did you say ‘snakes'?” Rainbird asked.

“Yes! Snakes!” Cap fairly screamed.

McGee had pushed him, all right, and some sort of slowmotion avalanche was going on inside of Cap Hollister. Rainbird suddenly had the feeling—no, the intuitive certainty—that if he refused Cap and just kept hammering away, Cap would blow up … the way Pynchot had blown up.

Did he want to do that?

He decided he did not.

“All right,” he said. “I'll be on the plane. Oh-seven-hundred. And all the goddam antibiotics I can swallow. You're a bastard, Cap.”

“I can prove my parentage beyond a shadow of a doubt,” Cap said, but the badinage was forced and hollow. He sounded relieved and shaky.

“Yeah, I'll bet.”

“Maybe you'll get in a round of golf while you're out there.”

“I don't play—” Golf. He had mentioned golf to Charlie as well—golf and snakes. Somehow those two things were part of the weird merry-go-round McGee had set in motion in Cap's brain. “Yeah, maybe I will,” he said.

“Get to Andrews by oh-six-thirty,” Cap said, “and ask for Dick Folsom. He's Major Puckeridge's aide.”

“All right,” Rainbird said. He had no intention of being anywhere near Andrews Air Force Base tomorrow. “Goodbye, Cap.”

He hung up, then sat on the bed. He pulled on his old desert boots and started planning.

HELLO COMPUTER/QUERY STATUS JOHN RAINBIRD
14222
/ANDREWS AFB [DC] TO SAN DIEGO [CA] FINAL DESTINATION/Q
9

HELLO CAP/STATUS JOHN RAINBIRD
14222
/ANDREWS [DC]
TO SAN DIEGO [CA] FINAL DESTINATION/LEAVES ANDREWS AFB
0700
HRS EST/STATUS OK/BREAK.

Computers are children, Rainbird thought, reading this message. He had simply punched in Cap's new code—which Cap would have been stunned to know he had—and as far as the computer was concerned, he was Cap. He began to whistle tunelessly. It was just after sunset, and the Shop moved somnolently along the channels of routine.

FILE TOP SECRET

CODE PLEASE

CODE
19180

CODE
19180, the computer returned, ready to file top secret

Rainbird hesitated only briefly and then tapped
FILE/JOHN RAINBIRD
14222/
ANDREWS [DC] TO SAN DIEGO [CA] FINAL DESTINATION/CANCEL/CANCEL/CANCEL F
9 [19180]

FILED
.

Then, using the code book, Rainbird told the computer whom to inform of the cancellation: Victor Puckeridge and his aide, Richard Folsom. These new instructions would be in the midnight telex to Andrews, and the plane on which he was to hitch a ride would simply take off without him. No one would know a thing, including Cap.

600
GOODBYE COMPUTER
600

604
GOODBYE CAP
604

Rainbird pushed back from the keyboard. It would be perfectly possible to put a stop to the whole thing tonight, of course. But that would not be conclusive. The computer would back him up to a certain degree, but computer probabilities do not butter any bread. Better to stop them after the thing had begun, with everything hanging out. More amusing, too.

The whole thing was amusing. While they had been watching the girl, the man had regained his ability or had successfully hidden it from them all along. He was likely ditching his medication. Now he was running Cap as well, which meant that he was only one step away from running the organization that had taken him prisoner in the first place. It really was quite funny; Rainbird had learned that endgames often were.

He didn't know exactly what McGee had planned, but he could guess. They would go to Andrews, all right, only Charlie would be with them. Cap could get her off the Shop grounds without much trouble—Cap and probably no one
else on earth. They would go to Andrews, but not to Hawaii. It might be that Andy had planned for them to disappear into Washington, D.C. Or maybe they would get off the plane at Durban and Cap would be programmed to ask for a staff car. In that case it would be Shytown they would disappear into—only to reappear in screaming Chicago
Tribune
headlines a few days later.

He had played briefly with the idea of not standing in their way at all. That would be amusing, too. He guessed that Cap would end up in a mental institution, raving about golf clubs and snakes in the grass, or dead by his own hand. As for the Shop: might as well imagine what would happen to an anthill with a quart jar of nitroglycerine planted beneath it. Rainbird guessed that no more than five months after the press got its first whiff of the Strange Ordeal of the Andrew McGee Family, the Shop would cease to exist. He felt no fealty to the Shop and never had. He was his own man, crippled soldier of fortune, copper-skinned angel of death, and the status quo here didn't mean bullrag in a pasture to him. It was not the Shop that owned his loyalty at this point.

It was Charlie.

The two of them had an appointment. He was going to look into her eyes, and she was going to look into his … and it might well be that they would step out together, in flames. The fact that he might be saving the world from some almost unimaginable armageddon by killing her had not played a part in his calculations, either. He owed the world no more fealty than he did the Shop. It was the world as much as the Shop that had cast him rootless from a closed desert society that might have been his only salvation … or, lacking that, have turned him into a harmless Sterno-guzzling Injun Joe pumping gas at a 76 station or selling fake kachina dolls at a shitty little roadside stand somewhere along the highway between Flagstaff and Phoenix.