MANHATTAN

DECEMBER 13

Patrick paced his new office space, waiting for Romy. He'd asked her to show up early for their meeting with the Manassas Ventures attorneys. The prime reason was to offer her some coaching on how to respond to them. The second was to spring a little surprise.

He stopped next to an oblong table in the space that did double duty as his personal office and conference room, and looked around. The offices of Patrick Sullivan, Esq., occupied the fourth floor of an ancient, five-story Lower East Side building; gray carpet, just this side of industrial grade, white walls and ceiling - the latter still sporting its original hammered tin which he'd decided he liked. His degrees and sundry official documents peppered the walls between indifferent prints he'd picked up from the Metropolitan Museum store. And of course he had his books and journals scattered on shelves and in bookcases wherever there was room.

He heard the hall door open. Romy. He called out, "Back here!" but the woman who came through the door was not Romy.

"Mr. Sullivan?"

An older woman in an ancient tan raincoat, frayed at the sleeves and at least three sizes too big for her.

He recognized her: the space-alien-abducted-and-impregnated lady whose sim child had been stolen and given to Mercer Sinclair. He remembered everything about her except her name.

"Alice Fredericks," she said. "Remember?"

"Yes, of course. How are you, Miss Fredericks?"

"I could be better. I still haven't found a lawyer yet."

"To sue SimGen about the space aliens?"

"Yes. And for taking my sim child. I looked you up and learned you'd opened a new office, so I came straight here. Will you take my case now, Mister Sullivan?"

How to let this poor lady down easy?

He gave her an apologetic shrug. "I'm afraid my schedule's rather full now." He glanced at his watch. "And I'm expecting a client for an important conference in just a few minutes and - "

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I should have made an appointment."

"That's okay." He pushed a legal pad and a pen across the table to her. "But I'll tell you what. Leave me your number and I'll call you when my schedule opens up."

"Then you're not afraid?" she said, scribbling on the sheet.

"Of SimGen? Never."

"I meant the space aliens. You're not afraid of the space aliens?"

"Never met one I couldn't take with one hand."

"Thank you," she said, puddling up again. "You don't know what this means to me."

"I'm sure I don't."

"That's the number of the phone in the hall outside my room. Just ask for me and someone will get me."

Patrick nodded. He felt a little bad, giving her the brush like this, but it was the gentlest way he knew to get her out of his office.

Romy entered as Alice was leaving.

"Who was that?"

"A poor soul with a crazy story about SimGen." Patrick shook his head. "If she's representative of my future clientele, I'm in big trouble. But never mind her." He spread his arms. "What do you think of my new office?"

"Not bad," she said, looking around as she seated herself at the mini conference table.

She was being generous, he knew. "I know what you're thinking, and I agree: I need a decorator."

"Not really." She smiled faintly as she gazed up at the patterned ceiling. "I kind of like the anti- establishment air of the place."

"So do I. Gives me a feeling of kinship with the likes of Darrow and Kuntsler."

She smiled. "Darrow, Kuntsler and Sullivan. What a firm."

"Better than my old firm, Nasty, Brutish and Short."

He studied her across the table as she smiled. She looked good. The wicked shiners she'd developed after the Great Injury had faded from deep plum to sickly custard yellow. The sutures were gone from her scalp; she'd been able to hide the angry red seam by combing her short dark hair over it, but today she'd left it exposed for all the world to see.

"Want some coffee?" he said.

She shook her head. "I'm tense enough, thank you."

"How about decaf? I can have my legal assistant perk up a pot in no time."

"Assistant? I didn't know you'd hired anyone."

"You don't expect a high-powered attorney like me to stoop to filing my own papers, do you?" Patrick turned toward the file room and called out, "Assistant! Oh, assistant! Can you come here a minute?"

Tome, who'd been waiting quietly and patiently behind the door as instructed, said, "Yes, Mist Sulliman."

Romy's eyes fairly bulged. "That sounds like - "

And then Tome, ever so dapper in his new white shirt, clip-on tie, and baggy blue suit, stepped into the room.

"It is!" she cried. She leaped to her feet and crossed the room in three long-legged strides. She threw her arms around Tome and hugged him as she looked at Patrick with wonder-filled eyes. "But how? You couldn't...you didn't..."

"Kidnap him? Not quite."

She kept her arms around the old sim as Patrick explained Tome's post-traumatic depression and the arrangement with Beacon Ridge. Because she was taller than Tome, Romy's bear hug pressed his head between her breasts.

Hey, that's where I should be, Patrick thought as Tome grinned at him.

Nothing salacious or suggestive in that smile, just pure happiness. Being away from the barracks had worked wonders on the old sim. Within two days he was up and about, eating with gusto. And once Patrick had taught him the rudiments of filing, Tome took to the task with religious zeal.

Romy barraged Tome with questions about how he was feeling and what he'd been doing since the tragedy. Patrick had things he needed to discuss with Romy so he gave them a little time to catch up, then interrupted.

"Tome, would you mind doing some more filing before our guests arrive?"

"Yes, Mist Sulliman."

After Tome disappeared into the file room, Romy turned to him. "Does he bunk here?"

"No. We're roomies."

"Roomies?" She gave her head a slow shake. "Am I hearing and seeing things? I've heard hallucinations can be an aftereffect of head trauma."

"It's not so bad." The apartment he rented in an upgraded tenement not far from here was plenty of room for the two of them. "He keeps pretty much to himself. I got him one of those compact TV-DVD combinations for his bedroom and he spends most of his time there."

Her eyes were bright as she stared at him. "What a wonderful, wonderful thing to do."

"He's a riot," Patrick said, grinning. "I bought him that suit and he's absolutely in love with it. I had to go out and buy an iron and a board because he insists on ironing it every night." She was still staring at him. "Hey, no biggie. I figure it's only for a month or so, till he gets back on his feet."

"Still, I never would have imagined..."

"I'm told I'm full of surprises." He pulled a packet of folded sheets from an inside pocket of his jacket and slid them across the table to Romy. "But I'm not the only one."

"What's this?"

"A report from the Medical Examiner's office on the three floaters from the Hudson."

"The globulin farmers? How'd you get it?"

"It arrived by messenger this morning, no return address, but I can guess."

Romy nodded. "So can I." They'd decided not to mention Zero if there was any chance of a bug nearby. "He has contacts everywhere."

"I can save you the trouble of reading it," Patrick said as she unfolded the pages. "Remember how the bodies showed signs of torture? Well, toxin analysis revealed traces of a synthetic alkaloid in the tissues of all three. I won't try to tell you the chemical name - it's in there and it's a mile long - but the report says it's known in the intelligence community asTotuus ; developed in Finland as a sort of 'truth' drug, and supposedly very effective."

"Totuus," Romy said, her face a shade paler. "I wonder if that's what they planned to use on me."

"When?"

"When they drove us off the road. Remember I said one of them had a syringe and said something about 'dosing' me up and getting a recorder ready?"

"Right." The memory twisted his insides. "You think there's a connection between the SLA and - ?"

"I guess not. But listen to this: The report says the Totuus was administeredbefore they were tortured."

"I don't get it," Romy said. "Why use torture when you've got a truth drug?"

Patrick wandered to the window overlooking Henry Street and watched the traffic. The same question had been bothering him.

"Maybe for fun. I don't know what's driving these SLA characters, but it's pretty clear now they're a vicious bunch."

"And if they want to 'free the sims' as they say, where are the ones they 'liberated'?"

"I was wondering the same thing. If they - "

A black Mercedes limo stopped and double parked on the street below. In this neighborhood that could mean only one thing.

"They're here," he said. "Fashionably early."

He watched as two dark-suited, briefcase-toting figures emerged, one male, one female; he noticed the woman lean back into the car and speak to someone still in the back seat.

Three arrive but only two come up. Odd...

"All right," he said, clapping his hands. "Places, everyone. Tome, you know what to do; Romy, you know your part. We've got only one shot at this so let's get it right."

The two Manassas attorneys soon arrived, trying unsuccessfully to hide their astonishment at being welcomed by a sim. Introductions were made, cards exchanged. The woman, a redhead, thin and pale as a saltine, was Margaret Russo; the heavy, dark-haired man, who looked like he scarfed up all his associate's leftovers, was David Redstone.

Russo glanced around. "Well, I must say, your office is...unique."

"And that elevator," Redstone said. "What an antique."

"It's steam powered," Patrick told them. "Can't be replaced because this is an historic building." He had no idea if any of that were true but it sounded good. "Shall we get started?"

He led them the short distance to the conference table where Romy waited. He made the introductions, then indicated chairs across the table from Romy for the Manassas people. He sat next to Romy.

"What's he doing?" Russo said, pointing to Tome who had situated himself on a chair behind and to Patrick's left with a steno pad propped on his lap.

"Taking notes," Patrick tossed off. "Now, before we - "

Russo was still staring. "But he's a sim. Sims can't write."

"It's shorthand. He'll type it up later."

He watched Russo and Redstone exchange glances. Good. Get them off balance and keep them there. They didn't need to know that Tome would be making meaningless scribbles or that Patrick was recording the meeting. He was sure they had their own recorders running.

"We'd like to get right down to business," Redstone said, pulling a legal pad from his briefcase. "The nitty gritty, as it were. To expedite matters I propose that we drop all pretense and skip the verbal jousting."

"No trenchant legal repartee?" Patrick said. "Where's the fun?"

"Look, Mr. Sullivan," Russo said, "we all know what this is about. We know Ms. Cadman was injured, but we also know the incident was set up."

Patrick glowered at her. "You'd better be able to back that up with proof, Ms. Russo."

"No jousting, remember?" she said. "Whatever it is you want, other than money, you're not going to get. So let's just end this charade here and now. We are authorized to make the following offer: Name a figure. Tell us the magic number that will make you walk away from this, and we will pay it."

Patrick had been expecting an attempt to buy them off, but nothing this blatant. But if that was the way they wanted to play...

"A magic number," he said, tapping his chin and pretending to ponder the possibilities. "How does an even billion sound?"

Russo and Redstone blinked in unison.

Russo recovered first. She cleared her throat. "Are we going to have a serious discussion or not? Did you call us here to waste our time or - "

"Whoa," Patrick said. "First off, you called us. Secondly - let me check with my assistant here." He turned to Tome. "Didn't they say, 'Name a figure, any figure'?"

The sim consulted his steno pad and said, "Yes, Mist Sulliman."

Tome had been instructed to say that, no matter what Patrick asked him.

"There, you see? 'Name a figure.' And I believe a billion is a figure."

"You can't possibly expect a small company like Manassas Ventures to come up with a sum like that," Russo said.

"Why not? It owns billions worth of SimGen stock. But maybe it doesn't have the stock anymore. I've learned that it's a wholly owned subsidiary of MetaVentures, based in Atlanta, so maybe the stock went there. Or perhaps it traveled further up the ladder to MacroVentures, a Bahamian corporation. But MacroVentures is owned by MetroVentures in the Caymans. Maybe that's where the stock ended up. Wherever it is, we know one of these companies has the financial wherewithal to pay Ms. Cadman's 'magic number' in a heartbeat. So don't cry poverty to me."

"This is preposterous!" Redstone sputtered.

"Not as preposterous as you two trying to keep me from having my day in court," Romy said.

Patrick had instructed her to play it sincere, and she was doing fine, because she was genuinely outraged.

"Oh, please - " Russo began but Romy cut her off.

Here it comes, Patrick thought.

"All I wanted was a little information," Romy said. "Nothing complicated. I simply wanted someone to explain why a truck leased by Manassas Ventures in Idaho was driving around the SimGen campus in New Jersey."

He scrutinized the two attorneys, watching their reactions as Romy dropped her bomb.

Patrick had gone half crazy trying to ferret out the principals in all the subsidiaries behind Manassas. Only the discovery proceedings of a lawsuit would give him a chance to pierce their multiple walls of secrecy. But it still might take him years to reach the end of their corporate shell game, and even then he might well come up empty. So he'd decided to shake things up by tossing a live snake into Manassas's corporate lap.

But neither Russo nor Redstone showed even a hint of surprise or concern. They either were clueless or had nervous systems of stone.

Damn.

"Write that down," Patrick said irritably, pointing to Redstone's legal pad. "It's important."

"What?"

"Your clients will want to know about those trucks. Trust me."

As Redstone made a note with a gold mechanical pencil, Russo said, "Can we stop playing games? A billion is out of the question."

"Out of the question?" Patrick said. "Gee. And we haven't even discussed punitive damages yet. I was thinking at least another billion - "

Russo slammed her hand on the table and shot to her feet. "That's it. I see no point in prolonging this farce. You two have an opportunity to be set for life. You've been offered the moon, but you want the stars."

"Very poetic."

She glared at him. "When you and your client come to your senses, Mr. Sullivan, call us."

"It won't be a call, it will be a subpoena. Many subpoenas. A blizzard of them. The first are already on their way."

"Send as many as you wish," Redstone said, snapping his briefcase closed. "You won't see a dime."

Patrick smiled. "Perhaps not, but we'll get what we want."

They stormed out.

After the door slammed, Romy said, "Wow. They're taking this personally."

"I've got a feeling they were offered a big bonus if they got the job done." He headed for the door. "Excuse me."

"Where are you going?" Romy said.

"Down to the street. I'll only be a minute."

He took the stairs and beat the Manassas attorneys to the lobby. He waited until they were outside, then trailed them to the limo. When they opened the door he caught up and leaned between them.

"You folks forgot to take my card, so I brought one down for each of you." He peered into the dim backseat and looked into the startled blue eyes of a balding man, easily in his seventies, sporting a dapper pencil-line mustache. "Hello," Patrick said. "Have we met? I'm - "

"Get in!" the man said to the two attorneys. He turned his head away from Patrick and spoke to the driver. "Go! We're through here!"

The doors slammed and the limo moved off.

Who's the old guy? Patrick wondered as he took the stairs back up. He'd half-expected to see Mercer Sinclair or perhaps that Portero fellow, but he'd never seen this guy before. Whoever he was he hadn't seemed at all happy that Patrick had got a look at him.

When he reached the office Romy was just finishing a call. She snapped the PCA closed and turned to him.

"That was our mutual friend. I told him about the meeting and he's a little upset that we didn't clear your idea with him first."

"I'm not used to having a nanny," Patrick replied. "Besides, we're just stirring up the bottom of the pond to see what floats to the surface."

"He's worried that mentioning the Manassas-Idaho truck connection at this point might give them time to cover their tracks. Or worse, precipitate a rash response."

"You mean like running my car off the road again? I don't think so."

Patrick didn't think whoever was behind Manassas would risk hurting him or Romy. That would raise too many questions; might even prompt a Grand Jury investigation.

"Still, he suggested that you invest in a remote starter for your car. Just in case."

Patrick stared at her, his mouth dry.

Romy smiled. "Joking."

Patrick was about to tell her where Zero could store his remote starter when her PCA chirped again. He watched her face, expecting the usual lightup he'd noticed whenever she spoke to Zero, but instead her brow furrowed as she frowned.

"Have you got a car available?" she asked as she ended the call.

"I can get to it in about five minutes. Why?"

"Road trip." Her expression remained troubled.

"Something wrong?"

"One of my NYPD contacts. He gave me the address of a house in Brooklyn. Said they'd found something there that would interest me."

"He didn't say what?"

"No. He said I had to see it to believe it."