"Don"t be crazy," Matt replied. "You can"t shoot me in a car."
"Why not?" the old man demanded. "This sucker has tinted windows, and it"s soundproofed better than some places I"ve lived." He grinned, showing off a set of tobacco-stained teeth. "Besides, cars are always disposable-and replaceable."
"I guess, nowadays, that"s not as easy," Matt sniped back-the only thing he could do with his hands cuffed. "Not as easy, say, as ditching a red "65 Corvette in a wildlife sanctuary, and stealing a replacement."
Finch jumped as if he"d been stabbed, his red face going pale. He brought up the pistol. Matt had no doubt where he was about to aim. He stared at the stubby little weapon as it swung toward him.
But Finch"s gun arm suddenly twitched back the way it had come. The man"s whole body hunched forward, his hand like a claw on the b.u.t.t of the gun. The pistol went off, its discharge deafening in the small area of the closed car. A bullet tore into the upholstery of the car seat back in front of them.
Recoil sent the snub-nosed pistol flying from Clyde Finch"s hand. But he didn"t go for the gun. Instead, Finch slumped back in his seat, clutching at his chest, his breath coming in shallow, agonized pants.
17.
A heart attack, Matt thought, looking at Clyde Finch"s gray, sweaty face. The old man"s expression was a mask of terror as Matt reached for him. Finch heaved, and a small trickle of vomit leaked from the side of his mouth. He said something-at least his lips moved-but Matt"s ears, still stunned by the noise of the gun going off, couldn"t hear.
"Do you have pills?" Matt realized he was shouting, but he couldn"t help himself.
Finch nodded, fumbling his coat open. Matt went for tissues to wipe the old man"s mouth-and realized he was still handcuffed.
"Where are the keys for these?" Matt shouted.
The gray-faced man was picking feebly at a vest pocket. Matt reached over. His fingers felt like they belonged to someone else, half-starved for blood by the tightly locked cuffs. Finally he brought out an inch-long metal cylinder with a key chain attached.
Matt examined the cylinder. Apparently, it was supposed to open at a twist-some sort of airtight pillbox. "If I try to open this with my fingers feeling like sausages, we may lose the pills inside," he said, rattling the keys. "Will one of these open the cuffs? You"d better hope they do...."
Finch"s waxy lips formed an O as Matt struggled to unlock his cuffs.
Finally finding a small key that seemed to fit the locks on the cuffs, Matt wiggled it around until he had it firmly in the lock, then tried to turn it. He finally succeeded, leaving the cuffs dangling from one wrist while his free hand went for tissues. He managed to get Finch"s mouth clean, stretching the sick man full-length on the backseat. As he knelt over him, Matt"s knee landed on the snub-nosed pistol still lying on the floor. He kicked it under the front seat while he opened the pillbox, setting one of the tiny tablets inside under the stricken man"s tongue.
Matt didn"t know what effect the cold outside air would have on Finch, but it couldn"t be good for him to be breathing cordite fumes. He opened the door to clear the car interior, dug out his wallet-phone, and punched in 911.
Moments later Matt leaned against the car fender as paramedics trundled Finch into an ambulance. The emergency services people hadn"t said anything about the bullet hole in the front seat. Matt had no idea what the ER doctors would make of the empty shoulder holster Finch was wearing.
He tried to kill me, and I end up saving his life, Matt thought, still feeling sh.e.l.l-shocked. He headed up the walkway to his house, his feet moving faster and faster as he neared the door. By the time he got inside, Matt was running. He tore down the hallway to his room, one hand digging for his wallet and the card Nikki Callivant had given him.
Matt almost punched his computer console into life. Reading from the card, he barked out Nikki Callivant"s private communications code.
A moment later Nikki"s elegant face appeared in the holographic display. "Matt?" she said in surprise. He could still barely hear her.
"Does your Grandpa Clyde use a short-barreled Smith and Wesson?" he demanded.
"Why are you shouting? What"s-"
"I"m shouting because I"m half-deaf! Your dear great-grandfather kidnapped me-tried to use that gun on me. The only reason I"m here is because he had a heart attack."
"You"re not making any sense," Nicola Callivant said, but her expression was beginning to get frightened. "Grandpa Clyde-"
She suddenly looked over her shoulder, apparently holding a conversation with someone who"d come into her room. Matt couldn"t hear what they were saying. If the pickup was getting it, their voices were too soft for his abused ears to register. But he could imagine the news Nikki was receiving.
Her face was pale when she turned back to Matt. "What did you do to him?"
"It"s more what he did to me. Apparently, he was ready to kill if that would protect your family"s dirty little secrets."
"You"re crazy," she said flatly.
"Fine," Matt spat. "I"ll call my connections at Net Force, and let them find Grandpa Clyde"s gun. Let him explain what he was doing in that car in front of my house-"
"No!" Nikki cut in. She looked at her watch. "You"re at home?"
"Where else?"
"I can be there in forty-five minutes. Will you at least wait that long?"
Matt nodded.
She cut the connection.
Sagging back onto his bed, Matt took in a long breath. Forty-five minutes. It was a bad omen.
He staggered to his computer. This time he wasn"t leaving anything to chance. He was going to leave word for Leif and James Winters, telling them exactly what was going on, in case his plan to get the evidence for who was really responsible for all this mess didn"t pan out. One way or another, he was going to put a stop to this.
Nikki Callivant actually beat her estimated time of arrival, but even so, she cut it pretty fine. Matt"s parents were almost due back home. Matt had left a message for them, too.
He wanted them to know exactly where he was going.
Swinging round onto the expressway that would take them to Delaware, Nikki was tight-lipped and quiet. Finally she asked, "Are your ears any better?"
"Yeah. The ringing"s down to a mild roar. Looks like I didn"t bust an eardrum."
"When I was little, Grandpa Clyde sometimes took me to a firing range. He always made sure I wore these big plastic earm.u.f.fs. Even so, the noise was awful."
"I"ll tell you something. It"s even worse in a small s.p.a.ce like a car. Maybe because it"s so sealed in." As Matt spoke he cracked the window, letting a trickle of cold air play across his face. By this time he should be sitting down for supper with his folks.
He hoped the note he"d left didn"t scare them.
"You"re treating what-whatever happened like some big conspiracy," Nikki"s voice took on an odd note as she flashed him a look from behind the steering wheel. "My family-we"re not like that."
"Let"s see how your dad and the rest react to your new, lower-cla.s.s friend," Matt replied.
He suddenly understood her tone. Nikki wasn"t trying to convince him. She was trying to convince herself.
They rolled on, barely speaking, through suburbs and then a stretch of country. Matt glanced at his watch as they pulled up at a gated compound. Nikki had actually shaved a few minutes off her previous record.
A guy in a blue coat-obviously a guard-appeared from the gatehouse. He greeted Nikki respectfully, but kept his eyes on Matt.
"It"s all right, Marcus," Nikki said. "He"s a friend."
The gate opened, and they were in.
Matt supposed he must have seen pictures of the Callivant compound somewhere. In real life the place seemed smaller, less-well, rich- rich-than he expected. There was a big house, though, blazing with light. Nikki parked her car, got out, and took Matt"s arm.
Matt might have thought that was funny, but he was glad of the silent support as they went up the front steps. As they crossed the entrance hall, a man who was just a little too tight-faced to be handsome intercepted them.
"Nikki, Marcus said you"d just come in. I thought you said you were going to the hos-" The man suddenly realized there was a stranger present and shut up.
"This is my father, Daniel Callivant," Nikki said. "Dad, this is Matt Hunter. He"s the one who called the ambulance for Grandpa Clyde. That was pretty nice when you think about it. Matt says Grandpa Clyde was trying to shoot him at the time."
Daniel Callivant handled it pretty well, but he hadn"t expected any such confrontation in his own home. For an instant, just an instant, his unguarded expression revealed that he knew who Matt was-and what Clyde Finch had been doing off in Maryland.
Nikki caught it. Her breath sucked in, then she said, "I think we"d better see Grandfather Callivant."
"He"s working on a speech," her father objected.
"I think this is more important." Nikki began leading Matt deeper into the house.
"Nikki!" her father called after her.
"There"s a solarium in the back," Nikki told Matt as they skirted a formal dining room. "It sort of serves as a community den. We do a lot of living on this level because of the Senator-"
A door stood ajar ahead of them, and the sound of a national newscast leaked out. Then the door opened all the way, revealing a man in a wheelchair.
"Nikki, what are you doing here when Clyde needs you?"
Walter Callivant still looked like a senator, even though it had been years since he"d held the office. He had a mane of pure white hair, and a handsome, dignified face, with, as one political writer tried to put it poetically, "the look of eagles."
On closer examination, however, the eagle looked old. Callivant"s skin stretched tightly over his bones. A blanket covered him from the waist down, concealing legs that hadn"t been used almost as long as Matt had been alive.
The Senator"s cold blue eyes shifted from Nikki to Matt. From the look of contemptuous dislike, Matt suspected that Daniel Callivant had managed a quick briefing. Maybe a place this big had house phones.
"I have to see Grandfather," Nikki insisted.
"With this-person?" The Senator"s tone of voice would have been better suited if he"d said "worm."
The Callivant patriarch rolled his automated wheelchair nearer. "Do you realize what you"re doing, Nicola? You"re a Callivant. That means you have certain-family responsibilities. Your grandfather is inside, waiting to see the coverage of his announcement that he"s seeking the nomination."
He rounded on Matt. "And you bring this-what? This would-be muckraker-blackmailer into our house? Do you want to destroy your grandfather"s chances of getting back into the Senate? into our house? Do you want to destroy your grandfather"s chances of getting back into the Senate?
Anger overcame Matt"s sense of intimidation, and he finally found his voice. "Oh, sure," he said. "What are the lives of a few peons versus the chance of having a Callivant back where he belongs?"
"Shut your mouth, you miserable thief!" the Senator thundered nearly as well as Lucullus Marten. "I know your type only too well-and I"ve dealt with them over the years. You"re like the rats in the wall, emerging to nibble, nibble, nibble away at your betters, coming out to spread lies like some loathsome disease. You"re a ghoul, digging up the dead past to feed on it!"
It was quite a speech, even if the Senator wound up mixing his metaphors a bit. "So tell me, Senator. Did you send Clyde Finch out for a bit of pest control?"
"You don"t seem to realize your position, boy." The Senator"s face became downright sinister as he ran his wheelchair almost onto Matt"s feet. "You"re an intruder in my home."
"There are people who know where I am," Matt replied as steadily as he could. "Lots of them. And I have friends who know exactly what you"ve been doing. If anything happens to me, Net Force will be asking questions."
"I"ve deposed directors of the FBI," the elder Callivant sneered. "Do you think you can scare me with some low-level agent in a wash-and-wear suit?"
"I think that I"m here as an invited guest. And if you try anything stupid, you"ll discover you"re not above the law."
"I think you"re the stupid one. I"ve been arranging the laws as it seems fit to me since before your parents were born. You"ve got a nerve to lecture me. Not to mention a foolish streak. The truth is what we Callivants say it is. If we say you"re an intruder-"
"I invited him," Nikki ground out from between her clenched teeth.
"You are being just as foolish as he is, dear." The Senator aimed a cold look at her. "You"re not thinking clearly. Sadly, it"s a trait that runs in our female line."
"Don"t think you can do to me what you did to Aunt Rosaline," Nikki flared. "With that convenient "nervous breakdown.""
Walter Callivant"s cold eyes looked at his great-granddaughter as if she were some sort of lab specimen. "Yes," he said, "you"re very like Rosaline. But once she"d been committed and started on medication, she became much less of a problem."
A new voice came from the doorway. "That"s enough, Father."
Matt remembered Megan"s description of the pleasant Walter G. Callivant she"d met at that formal hoedown. But the gray-haired man who faced them now looked more like the hara.s.sed junior senator the comedians all made fun of. It was the hunted look in his eyes. "What"s this all about, Nikki?" Walter G. asked.
"It"s about Priscilla Hadding."
Nikki"s grandfather flinched, but he didn"t retreat. "It was an accident," he said softly. "But I"ve never been able to forget it. All these years, it"s stuck with me. We-I was just about your age. We"d gone to a party-a pretty rowdy affair. Silly and I-that"s what we called her, you know."
He took a deep breath. "Silly and I were out in the Corvette, arguing as usual. Then she was cursing at me, going to leave. I gunned the engine to drown out what she was saying. That Corvette-that was more car than I could handle. Somehow, it got into gear-"
Walter G. Callivant"s face was no longer b.u.mbling or vague as he looked back on that memory. "It almost flew down the road. By the time I got it stopped-Silly"s foot-it had been caught in the door-"
His eyes squeezed shut, and he brought up his hands to cover his face. "But it was an accident," his m.u.f.fled voice came from between his fingers.
"A bad-looking accident-especially for a Callivant," Walter Senior suddenly spoke. "He was my son. It would have reflected badly-"
"On you you," Nikki said angrily. "So you covered it up. Clyde Finch saw his chance. He got hold of a similar car and switched the license plates. It got him a new job, and, thanks to his daughter, he got into the family-sort of."
"At least Marcia knows how to keep her mouth shut!" Walter Callivant, Sr., didn"t look so senatorial all of a sudden.
But Nikki was far from shutting up. "You let Mrs. Hadding dangle all those years to protect your lie. How-"
"Angela Hadding is a typical example of what happens if you let a woman speak her mind," Walter Senior cut in.
I bet that att.i.tude must have gone over well with the women voters, Matt noted silently. Then he spoke. "But freezing out a childless widow wasn"t enough. You had to keep people away from those old court records. So you overreacted when your security system sent off hacker alarms. Clyde Finch managed to trace the hacker to the D.C. area. He must have spread his search pretty wide to come up with Ed Saunders"s mystery sim."
"I thought he was stretching things, too, when he came up with that scenario," the senator said. "But after our legal people sent the usual letters, we suffered a major hacker attack." He turned to Nikki. "The hacker erased our family history site, filling it with nasty questions about Priscilla Hadding. And he wanted to blackmail us."