Captain Winters responded to the look on Matt’s face with a lopsided smile. “I can still add two and two and get some sort of answer, Matt. And you can tell Laird I’d better not see a bill with your cab fare on it. What can he stick it under? ‘Restoring the client’s spirits?’”
Winters carefully moved the scroll off the couch, put it on the coffee table, and sank down onto the cushions. “Sit. I really am glad to see you. However, since Laird was checking you out just hours ago, I must believe that he didn’t search for you. Which means you came to him. Or to take it further, it means you’re acting as a respectable front for whoever dug up the information that I’m being represented by Mitchell, Liddy, and Laird. So who’s behind it, Matt? The crafty Mr. Anderson or the impetuous Ms. O’Malley?”
Matt had to hide a grin. Certainly, events hadn’t robbed Captain Winters of his investigative talent.
“I’m afraid it’s the worst-case scenario,” he responded. “Both of them, aided and abetted along the way by most of the familiar faces in the D.C. group.”
For just a second the old Captain Winters was present with the quick flash of a grin. “Figures,” he said.
Matt chose his words carefully. “We’ve been trying to help you.”
Matt went into some of what they had attempted: Leif’s penetration of HoloNews, Megan’s talks with The Fifth Estate, and Matt’s own effort to back up Winters’s alibi by hacking into the security camera files.
The captain’s wry expression turned a bit more serious when he heard of this. “Agent Dorpff has a lot to learn about controlling his charges,” Winters said. “Or am I just now learning about how much I’ve failed over the years?”
“Ummm, there’s more,” Matt pushed on. “Things we, uh, discovered about the earlier Alcista case that never made the news.”
“Meaning those discoveries had to come from Net Force records,” Winters rumbled. “Which would get a certain young hacker in severe trouble if his parents and Net Force ever found out.”
Winters was more his old, stern self as he glared at Matt.
“Given the hacker, I think that discovery’s unlikely, sir,” Matt said.
“You’ve been taking quite an interest in my private business, it seems.” Captain Winters looked at Matt searchingly. But then it seemed as though something inside him collapsed.
The captain’s shoulders sank. “But you still didn’t get the whole story,” he said. “There are bits that even Net Force never got into the record. But I’ll tell you everything, if you’d like. I guess sitting shut up in here has put me in a talkative mood.”
Winters leaned back against the overstuffed back of the couch, but his tight muscles belied his casual pose. “Four years ago, my brilliant partner and I were hot on the trail of a piece of human garbage who offered computer services, and then used his access to steal people’s businesses or whatever worthwhile assets they had. We were closing in on the guy, just shy of dropping the net on him. One rather gray April morning my wife’s car wouldn’t start, so she borrowed mine.”
“To go to the doctor,” Matt said.
Winters looked at him, his face as hard — and gray — as stone. “To be precise, she was going to our obstetrician. We were expecting…our son would have been born—”
He broke off, and Matt sat in horrified silence. Captain James Winters hadn’t suffered one loss, but two — Mrs. Winters and their unborn child. Matt couldn’t even begin to imagine what that had been like.
“Mike Steele was supposed to be the godfather. He’d already given us a baby present. Cynthia — my wife — had scolded him, saying it was bad luck….”
Winters ran a hand over his face, but he at least looked calmer when he met Matt’s eyes again. “I can understand why Mike did what he did. It wasn’t just because Alcista had placed a bomb in his car. But when I learned the truth about the evidence he’d supposedly uncovered, I couldn’t let the trial go on. I had to turn in my best friend. And let my wife’s killer walk. Alcista’s very expensive lawyers jumped in. By the time they were finished, Steve the Bull got a sentence that was more like a four-year vacation — three years and change — than a prison term. And I ended up with this huge hole where my life had been.”
The captain’s expression softened as he looked at his young listener. “Then came a bit of luck. Jay Gridley had me come in to his office for a talk. I told him I was burnt out as a field agent, and I didn’t want to drive a desk in the administrative section. He said he had a special job that needed doing, and that he thought I was just the man for it. I became the liaison for the Net Force Explorers.”
Matt cleared his throat. “We always suspected it was more than a job for you.”
Winters nodded. “It was a lifeline during terrible times. You guys were so young, so enthusiastic, so…spirited.”
“You mean out of control, don’t you?”
“Maybe.”
Matt seemed to see his mentor through completely new eyes. Now he understood why the captain was so tough when the Net Force Explorers bent the law in the cases where they’d become involved. Matt also understood why Winters took every Net Force Explorer so seriously when they came to him for advice. In a very real sense, he treated them like family. Maybe they were his family, the only family he had.
The captain gave Matt a surprisingly shy smile. “It’s like that guy in the old book. I didn’t have one child — I had thousands.”
Then the captain’s smile faded away. “But I’ve lost even that. I can almost laugh at how things turned out…almost. Just before the toilet flushed on me, Net Force asked me if I wanted to go back full-time on active duty. I turned the offer down because I was happy doing what I was doing. Now, even if by some miracle I beat the charges they’re preparing against me, I’ll be finished in Net Force. Which means I’m finished with the Net Force Explorers.”
Slowly James Winters got control of his face and became the apathetic stranger who had answered the door. “I guess I feel betrayed.” He sighed. “What goes around, comes around. I still remember the look in Iron Mike’s eyes when he realized who had turned him in. Now I can understand it better.”
His lips curved in a bleak smile. “You know, if anybody could have done this job on me, it would have been Iron Mike Steele…. Of course, he’s not alive. But he’s the only person it would make sense would be responsible.”
Moving almost as though they had a will of their own, Matt’s fingers went to the pocket that held Leif Anderson’s datascrip.
“What—” Matt had to clear his throat to get the words out. “What if Mike Steele were still alive?”
“He died down in the Caribbean, on his boat.” Winters shook his head. “Mike loved his boats. I used to kid him that that was why he stayed single — he couldn’t afford a boat and a family, too. The baby gift he gave us — it was a custom-made sterling silver rattle in the shape of an anchor.”
“Let’s go to a room that still has a working computer system,” Matt interrupted the flow of reminiscence. “Leif has worked up a file that I think you should see.”
After a brief explanation as to who Marcus Kovacs was, and why he was a factor in James Winters’s life, Matt ran Leif Anderson’s dog-and-pony show. At first Winters shook his head, unbelieving. But as Leif continued fighting for his case, Winters’s face subtly changed. By the time the file finished its run, the tough-minded Net Force agent that Matt knew well was looking out of James Winters’s eyes.
“This theory of Leif’s is by no means conclusive,” Captain Winters said. “It could be wishful thinking. On the other hand, it’s the first explanation I’ve heard that works for this nightmare I’ve been living. And I’ve been racking my brains for any reason that made sense.”