path to conquest (16 page)

Rolling carefully, afraid to find that her center of equilibrium was nonfunctional, Sari brought herself to a sitting position. Not particularly steady, but no longer horizontal. “Gotta get dressed. ...”

But she was dressed—still wearing yesterday’s sweater and jeans. Panties were on, but no bra. Neville must have dressed her before carting her back to the cottage, but he hadn’t been
that
conscientious. “Besides, men may be bom knowing how to remove a woman’s bra, but try and find one who can stuff you back into the thing—hah!” It occurred to her that wool sweaters and no bra were not a comfortable combination. She reached under the sweater for a quick scratch.

“Oh, hell. ...” With a deft move—considering her condition—she slipped the sweater over her head, found a cotton oxford shirt draped over an adjacent chair, and put that on instead. “Much better,” she said, tucking it in. Then she got to her feet, swaying for a moment before stabilizing. “Not too bad. I’ve been worse, though I mercifully don’t recall the details of
those
mornings. Well, I think 1 should quit talking to myself and find someone else to talk to.”

Her watch was still on her wrist and she looked at it. “Whoa! Ten o’clock! Everybody’s gonna think I’m a decadent slut.”

She decided she was sound enough to hurry, and she left her room quickly.

Each small house contained four private bedrooms, and although all work was done in the underground complex, Donnenfeld had decided those who wanted less cramped sleeping quarters would be allowed to return to the cottages. Sari stood in the center hallway for a moment—the other rooms had their doors closed. Empty, or occupied by other decadent people? She knocked lightly. No answer.

She left the cottage for the lab facilities down below. When she descended the stairs and pushed open the heavy metal doors, she was surprised to see only a few of her colleagues at work. Mitchell darted out of Hannah Donnenfeld’s office, head down, and bumped solidly into Sari.

“Oh! Sorry,” he murmured, blushing in embarrassment. “Forget it,” she said, flexing the toe he’d stepped on. “Is Hannah mad because I overslept?”

“I don’t know—she’s not down here.”

“She’s not? She’s usually the first one at work.” Mitchell’s voice betrayed his concern. “I thought maybe she was out jogging with you.”

Sari snorted “I’m in no condition to jog. So if she went out, it wasn’t with me. I just woke up.”

“You look it. In fact, you look like something the cat dragged in.”

She arched her eyebrows ruefully. “More like Neville dragged me in. Is he down here?”

Mitchell shook his head. “Haven’t seen him either. But, then, I wasn’t looking.”

“You seem wide awake, Mitch. Didn’t you have any of that wine last night?”

“A little. You know I don’t drink much. Good thing I didn’t have more. The stuff really went right to my head.” “Yeah? Me, too. And I usually hold it pretty well.” Mitchell lowered his chin. “I, uh, slept a little late, too,” he said into his shirt collar.

“Hm. Maybe the wine got to Hannah, too, though she can usually drink like a sailor on shore leave. Let’s go see if she’s still asleep.”

They turned and rushed back up to ground level, then out the storage shed that sheltered the secret entryway to the lab complex, and across the compound to Donnenfeld’s cabin. Sari tried to roughly push away a thought that haunted her from time to time. She loved Hannah as a friend, as a sister, even as a mother figure. But Hannah Donnenfeld was more than seventy, and no one could know better than a biologist that old people eventually die. Over the years, generally for no reason, Sari had had a recurring nightmare—finding her mentor had passed away in her sleep. Could this be the morning that nightmare would become real?

The door was unlocked. Sari’s hand rested on the knob for a second. Mitchell sensed her hesitation. “Open it, Sari.” With a deep breath, she did. The bedroom was empty, the bedding askew, pillow on the floor, sheets hanging half off, as if they’d been pulled by a clenched hand.
Hannah’s hand?

Without a word, Sari spun and led the way to the cottage assigned to More during his stay. They were running now, hearts pounding. Sari wrenched the door open. The bed was made—it hadn’t been slept in. Mitchell sagged against the doorway; Sari slumped down onto the edge of the bed.

“Go ahead—say it, Mitch.”

“Say what?”

She glared at him, but tears were forming in her reddened eyes. “That Neville More kidnapped her.” Her voice was ragged.

“We don’t know that.”

“We can make a pretty goddamned good guess.” Mitchell fell silent, looking away. After a long moment, he said, “We better call Pete Forsythe. Then we better turn this place upside down for clues.” He gulped. “Then we better pray, because this means that you and I are the senior staff members and we’re in charge of Brook Cove Lab—unless we get Hannah back.”

"Until,"
Sari said savagely. She bolted from the cabin. Mitchell trotted after her.

Pete’s sleek Mercedes skidded slightly as it churned up Brook Cove’s long dirt-and-gravel driveway, a plume of dust fanning out behind the car. He had the door open and was clambering out before he’d even shut the ignition off. Sari and Mitchell ran to meet him. Panicked half sentences spilled out of both of them at the same time, overlapping to form a barely comprehensible mosaic of what had happened. On the rapid walk back to the cottages and then down to the lab, Pete managed to extract the major details.

“Well?” Mitchell demanded, standing over the seated Forsythe with his chubby arms crossing and uncrossing impatiently.

Pete shrugged. “Well what?”

“Do you think More kidnapped her?”

“For lack of any other plausible theory, yes, I do. But as for where he took her and why, I—1 don’t have any idea.” Mitchell spun away and began to pace, his hands pushed down into the pockets of his baggy jeans.    
“I’ve
got    an idea.”

“Yeah?” said Sari. “What?”

“I think Neville is working for    the Visitors,    and    I’d    bet Hannah’s on a lizard Mother Ship    right    now.”

Sari’s hands went to her hips and her voice grew annoyed and defensive. “Oh, Mitchell, gimme a break. Why would Neville be working for the Visitors?”

“I was hoping you might know. I mean, nobody here knows him better than you do, Sari. Certainly not in the biblical sense,” he said bitterly.

She whirled on him, her freckled nose wrinkled in pained anger. Before Mitchell could move or Pete could step in between, she lashed out with a solid punch to Mitchell’s chest. The blow made him stagger back a couple of steps. Sari’s right arm cocked for a roundhouse follow-up and halted only when Pete clamped a firm grip on her wrist, squeezing just tightly enough to make her wince.

“Ow! Let go of me!” She tried to wrench loose, but Pete wouldn’t release her.

“Knock it off, both of you.” Gently, Pete lowered Sari’s arm to her side and let it go. “Okay, I know why Sari feels guilty. I feel guilty myself. Maybe if I’d’ve stayed last night, this wouldn’t have happened. Why do
you
feel guilty, Mitchell?” “Me? I don’t feel guilty. ...”

“The hell you don’t. You wouldn’t have said what you said to Sari if you didn’t feel partly responsible yourself.” “Okay, okay! I feel guilty, but I have a good reason for being pissed at Sari.”

“Oh, geez,” she said sourly. “This I gotta hear.”

“I told you—I told all of you—that I didn’t trust Neville. Pete was the only one who agreed with me at all. The rest of you—you women—made me feel like the only reason I didn’t like him was because I was jealous of him. Neville More, the handsome, charming computer genius, versus Mitchell Loomis, the
szhlubb."

Pete made a cautionary face. “Mitchell, calm down. What the hell are you talking about?”

“1 didn’t care what everybody else said. That
wasn’t
why I didn’t trust him. So I started checking into his story. I wanted to know if he’s really been going around helping computer installations fight the Visitors.”

Sari stamped her foot. “Would you
please
get to the point?” “Don’t rush me,” he snapped.

“Hannah’s life is at stake!”
Sari screamed.

Pete pushed them apart again. “Mitchell, just talk. We can all clobber each other with baseball bats
after
we get Hannah back safe and sound. Did you find out anything about More?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact, I did. I called three of the places I remember he said he’d stopped at. Two confirmed that he did help them clear up their computers and get their operations geared toward fighting the Visitors.”

“Gee, that sure is incriminating,” said Sari mockingly. “Not so fast. The third place said things got totally screwed up within a week after your friend Neville left.”

Pete jumped in, hoping to head off another salvo from Sari. “Are they sure More was the cause of their problems?” “They said that thought hadn’t even occurred to them until I mentioned it. But now they can’t come up with any other reason for their computer system to go totally haywire.” Now it was Pete’s turn to pace. “Dammit, Mitchell. Why didn’t you tell this to somebody as soon as you knew?” “That was yesterday, and I did try. I tried to tell you before you left. But you were in such a big hurry.”

Sari’s eyes flashed angrily. “Hey, that’s not fair! Did you tell Pete
why
you wanted to talk to him, what was so goddamned important?”

“Well, no, but—”

“But nothing,” she countered. “What’re we supposed to do, read your fatheaded mind?”

“Oh, so now she’s making fat jokes,” Mitchell growled to the ceiling. “Very useful, considering—”

“About as useful as you keeping everything to yourself instead of—”

“HOLD IT!"
Pete shouted, so loudly he surprised even himself, the sound bouncing harshly off the walls of the small office. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Are
your
computers okay?”

“Well, they worked fine last night when we quit for dinner,” said Mitchell.

“Never mind last night. What about this morning?”

Sari shrugged. “We both got up late. Neither of us has used ’em today.”

“Then let’s see if More left us any calling cards,” said Pete. Mitchell led the way to the main computer room, where two younger scientists were huddled around the central terminal.

They parted when they heard Mitchell order, “Let us through.”

“It’s all yours, Mitchell,” said Donna, a short black woman with a compact Afro hairstyle. “But you may have a few problems.”

Mitchell froze, fingers touching the keyboard. “What do you mean, a few problems?”

“Kenny noticed it first,” Donna said, nodding at her coworker, a youthful Japanese fellow with a mop of straight black hair falling across his eyes.

“What was it doing?” Sari asked.

“More like what it wasn’t doing,” said Kenny, lips tight in frustration. “It wasn’t doing much of anything.”

“Oh, God, noooo!” Mitchell wailed, frantically pecking at the keys. “Oh, please, no ... no ... no. .. .”

“No
what?”
Pete wanted to know, but Mitchell’s attention was riveted to the computer screen.

Pete hadn’t had too much experience with computers, but he knew enough to recognize that something was seriously wrong with this one. Letters and numbers galloped across the CRT like single-file herds of horses that refused to be corralled into making sense.

The faces of the Brook Cove scientists confirmed for him that the situation was as bad as he suspected. For five minutes Mitchell’s fingers flew over the keys without letup. The only noises he made were an occasional grunt of effort and pitiful mewings that sounded entirely inappropriate coming from someone of Mitchell’s bulk.

Finally, without warning, he sank into the chair at the work station and covered his face with both hands. Preceding animosity forgotten now, Sari touched his shoulder lightly. “Mitch? What is it? You lost me.”

A strangled sound escaped from Mitchell’s throat.

“Mitchell, tell us,” Peter urged.

With a sluggishness bom of shock, Mitchell turned to the others. “That bastard planted a virus.”

Pete looked from face to face, seeking a clue. “A virus? I don’t get it.”

Through gritted teeth, Mitchell continued. “It’s . . . it’s a tiny program inserted into a computer system. The programmer who puts it in can set it to be triggered whenever he wants it to go off. Then it replicates itself and spreads all through the computer’s body, so to speak. Just like a virus in a living body. Only in a computer it waltzes along, merrily erasing and garbling memories. It spreads a kind of rapidly creeping paralysis. And since computer systems are sometimes linked automatically to other systems, the virus can spread that way, too.”

Pete considered the ramifications. “More must’ve been doing this same thing everyplace he supposedly stopped to help. That means some of those viruses have been out there for weeks. Is there any way to stop them from spreading?”

Kenny spoke up. “I did a paper on systems security for my master’s. Sometimes you can stop it—if you catch it early enough. Since the sabotage is a little like a timed-release cold capsule, if you can find it before it springs out of its hiding place, you can head off the damage. If you’re too late for that, maybe you can get lucky and cut off from interlocking systems before it spreads. But if we’re too late
altogether,
More’s viruses could wind up knocking out every major science and defense computer system in the country—maybe even the world,”

“Okay,” Pete said, his mind racing as it simultaneously tried to sort this new knowledge and think up a course of action. “Kenny, you seem to know a lot about this virus thing. Mitchell, give him the list of all the places we know Neville More worked at. Kenny, call ’em all up and tell them to do whatever they have to do, whatever they
can
do to fight the virus and stop any more infections. Tell ’em to spread the word to every computer system they know of to search for a hidden virus immediately.”

Mitchell reached into his shirt pocket and numbly handed a sheet of paper to Kenny, who grabbed it and ran out to make those critical calls.