Distant Friends and Other Stories

EXPANDED CHARTER

The summons to the Secret Service chiefs office had come with the kind of low-key urgency Alex Cord had long since learned to recognize, and from the look on Hale's face he knew the problem was indeed a big one. "Assassin?" he hazarded as he slid into a chair.

Hale nodded grimly. "The FBI called it in five minutes ago-CRIMESTOP gives it a ninety-eight percent probability. The full data pack should be-ah; here it comes."

One of the screens on his desk had lit up with a photo of a scrawny-looking man in his late twenties. Joe Crowly, the ID read. Cord raised his left wrist, pushed a button on the tiny computer strapped there, and felt the answering vibration as the device began recording the data the desktop unit was feeding it. "We know where and when this guy Crowly's going to try it?"

"Pretty sure." Hale pushed a button and Crowly's face was replaced by some names and numbers. "He was in Seattle this morning and somehow got access to the Bounzer Tube there. I guess he didn't realize the thing keeps records."

"Or didn't give a damn." Cord frowned. "Kansas City. The President's old school?"

"Bingo," Hale said heavily. "Some kind of big ceremony-not a dedication; I forget what it's called. The mayor will be there and I think the governor of Missouri, too."

"Election-year politicking."

"By any other name," Hale agreed. "CRIMESTOP thinks Crowly's going to claim he was actually aiming for the mayor and hit the President by mistake."

"You're sure he is after the President? That computer's been wrong before."

"I think it's pretty clear. That Welfare Reform Act he signed yesterday? Crowly's been fighting passionately against it for the past two years. We have a witness who says Crowly was acting like a madman last night, and was still going strong when he left her this morning."

Cord grimaced. "Great. Got a team in placer"

"Yes, but I want you to go there and take charge. You're one of the best there is at this kind of operation."

"Okay." Why, Cord thought, did the compliments always come glued to the real chestnut-roasters? "I'll do my best."

He stopped at the locker room to change and then picked up a gun from the armory on his way downstairs to the Bounzer Tube facilities. The techs there had already been given the proper coordinates, and he was able to step into the giant steel test-tube without delay. Three minutes later the curved wall vanished and he found himself across the street from a modest three-story brick building that was already beginning to collect a fair-sized crowd.

He stopped at the locker room to change and then picked up a gun from the armory on his way downstairs to the Bounzer Tube facilities. The techs there had already been given the proper coordinates, and he was able to step into the giant steel test-tube without delay. Three minutes later the curved wall vanished and he found himself across the street from a modest three-story brick building that was already beginning to collect a fair-sized crowd.

Cord turned to see a sloppy-looking man leaning against a street light a few feet away. "Right," he acknowledged, stepping closer.

"Dietrich. You bring us any good pictures?"

"Complete set." Cord held his wrist up and displayed the face he'd seen in Hole's office. "Didn't they send you any?"

"Yeah, but the transmission was lousy and I didn't want to trust it." The other reached down and tapped the record key on his own computer. "You cut things a little fine-we've got maybe five minutes before the motorcade arrives.

"I didn't have much of a choice," Cord glanced at the still-growing crowd. "Crowly's taking a chance on getting torn apart with that smokescreen about aiming for the mayor."

"Better than going up on a federal assassination charge." Dietrich nodded past the school building. "I've got my men positioned where they can theoretically see everywhere in the crowd and also watch all approaches. There's a robot scanner on the school roof keeping watch on the windows in the surrounding buildings. Two men are on the President directly, of course."

Cord nodded. "I think I'll start mingling, then; see if our man isn't standing quietly behind someone taller in the crowd. See you later-and make sure your men get that clearer picture."

"Already sent it. Beep if you need help."

Cord set off across the street, eyes giving the edges of the crowd a quick check. It was too bad that robot scanners weren't capable of good identification in crowds this densely packed; but they weren't, and there wasn't anything he could do about it. Pausing once, he surreptitiously raised his computer and had it rotate Crowly's picture for him, letting him see what the potential assassin looked like from all directions. Then, conscious of the pistol nestled beneath his left arm, he continued on.

Ahead, a car pulled to a rapid halt in front of the school building. Cord looked up, but it was just a TV

crew, running ahead of the main cars to get their mini-cams in position. He kept moving, forcing his eyes to maintain their methodical sweep. Panicking was the worst thing that an agent could do at a time like this.

There was a swell of anticipation from the crowd and a long black limousine pulled smoothly to the curb.

The mayor got out first, waving and smiling at the people as his bodyguards took positions flanking the door. Behind him the governor wriggled out of the seat, his bulk making the operation look awkward.

From the school's front door a group of children appeared-an honor guard of sorts, Cord decided-and walked two by two toward the waiting dignitaries. Cord craned his neck for one last sweep... and spotted Crowly.

Cord fired.

Nothing spectacular happened at his end, of course; Secret Service weapons were totally silent and flashless. At Crowly's end... well, someone paying close attention might have noticed the slight jerk caused by the impacting capsule, or the look of pure terror that erupted on the young man's face and was quickly frozen in place. The tiny jerking motions as he tried to tear free of the "living plastic" film that was rapidly overgrowing him were too small even to bother those standing beside him.

He was just starting to lose his balance when Dietrich's men appeared on either side of him and carried him quietly out of the crowd.

"Well, chalk up another one for the good guys," Dietrich commented as they watched Crowly being loaded into a car a hundred feet away from the unnoticing crowd. The plastic over Crowly's nose and around his rib cage had been removed to let him breathe, but even at their distance Cord could see that the terrified expression was still plastered across his face.

"I suppose so," he told Dietrich. "We got Crowly without causing any fuss, if that's what you mean. But if we were doing our jobs really properly he'd never have gotten to the Bounzer Tube in the first place."

Dietrich shrugged. "You can't hold back the tide with your hands," he said philosophically. "Progress is progress and you can't stop it. Who knows? If they ever get the fine-tune bugs worked out of the method, the Bounzer Tube might actually make our jobs easier."

Cord shrugged, and his eyes strayed to the ceremonies still taking place on the school's front walk. The mayor was shaking hands with each of the children in the honor guard now, and Cord couldn't help but notice the natural dignity one of the boys displayed, the ease with which he faced the politicians. Even at the age of nine he looks presidential, he thought. I wonder if he's decided yet on his life's ambition.

"Maybe it will, someday," he said aloud to Dietrich. "But it'll never be as easy as in the old days, when we only had to protect a President after he was elected." He shook his head. "I wish to hell Bounzer had never invented his damn time-travel machine."