On the dock there was activity. Customs had cleared the ship. Longshoremen moved here and there. The process went fairly fast, cargo being offloaded with a speed that surprised him, it being 1935 and all.
He periodically checked the meter. The signal strength didn’t move. Were they going to take all night to get to his box?
As if his thoughts had provoked them, the meters on his receiver jumped. The distant one gained strength, and the closer one lost a bit.
He stared at the cargo neatly stacked on the dock in front of him. If the box was among the items there, the signal on the closer meter should have gotten stronger instead of weaker.
They’re moving it in the other direction — away from the dock!
But there was nothing there — no, wait, there was another ship at anchor a short way off, not yet docked.
This one was Portuguese.
Aha!
Quickly Jay fumbled in the bag near the transmitter for the goggles he’d placed there. He pulled them out, huge fish-eye things that covered his eyes completely, making him look like a mad scientist. He flicked a switch on the goggles and the world suddenly stood out in sharp shades of red. He scanned the other ship—
There! The crate glowed brightly in his field of view. The clear solution he’d sprayed it with contained faintly radioactive particles that would only show up when wearing goggles like his. He could see that a quartet of sailors was moving the crate to the other ship.
CyberNation was slick, he had to give them that. Here in VR they were simply moving the crate to another ship. In reality they were sending the money on another trip around the world. It wouldn’t actually hit the U.S. until this Portuguese ship reached the docks. Once there, though, Jay would be able to trace the package easily.
He bet they would transfer it again. Maybe several more times, to further cloud the trail.
Jay left his post at the edge of the rooftop and went to the aircraft he’d stashed deeper in the shadows. In 1935 they didn’t have helicopters — they had the autogyro. Like a helicopter, the autogyro used rotors for lift. Unlike it, however, it was driven by a propeller, like a plane. The push from the propeller made the rotors spin, generating lift. A Spanish mathematician, Juan de la Cierva, had made the first successful flight in 1923. The autogyro didn’t make a true vertical takeoff and landing — it did have to be pushed forward a little before lifting off, unless there was a stiff wind blowing — but it was good enough for his purposes. Gridley’s model was a Pitcairn-Cierva PCA-2, the same kind used for mail delivery by some of the post offices of the era.
God, he loved research!
He fired up the tightly muffled Wright R-975-E2 Whirl-wind engine and the craft lurched forward, its thirty-foot rotors beginning to spin. It worked best into the wind, the stiffer the better, but with fog you didn’t get much breeze.
Within seconds he was airborne, tracking the crate.
It was easy with the goggles, and he used the transmitter every now and then to confirm its route. These guys were good. The crate went to a Libyan freighter next, then a French steamer, followed by one out of Rio, and then to one from Greece.
Then, at last, it was placed on the docks.
Jay used a feature of the goggles to magnify the crate. A clear destination was now imprinted on the box: Washington, D.C. There was an account number, and even the name of the bank branch.
He laughed, a low chuckle building to a sinister rumble: Moohoohahaaaaaaa!
He had them now.
5
Three blocks from home, Toni watched Little Alex toddle down the sidewalk, his lurching run just a hair short of a fall with each step that he took. He was fearless, her son. Every time he tripped and went to his hands and knees on the concrete, scraping himself bloody, he got right back up and charged off again. Well, usually after a few tears, just to make sure she was paying attention.
At the moment, the object of his attention was a sparrow. The small bird was cautious enough to keep hopping away as the boy lumbered toward it, but not frightened enough to take wing.
Toni smiled. Somewhere in the back of an old photo album, there was a picture of her as a small child, maybe two or a little younger, sitting on the steps of her parents’ place in the Bronx. Sitting perched on the stoop in front of her, not six inches away, was a bird — it had looked like a blue jay — easily within her reach. How had that bird come to be there? Why hadn’t it been afraid of her?
When she’d first seen the picture and asked her father about it, he had laughed and said it was a stuffed bird. Mama told her different, though. Mama was the one who had taken the picture, and she said the bird had just dropped down and alighted next to her, watching her. Toni hadn’t tried to catch it, and it had stayed there for a long time. Mama was convinced that animals knew when there was a threat and when there wasn’t, and believed that the bird had known that little Toni meant it no harm.
Alex shambled off the sidewalk onto the lawn, and the sparrow did its little two-foot hop three or four times to one side and turned to look at him again. It wasn’t as if the bird seemed to be afraid, except maybe about being accidentally stepped on — which was a real enough danger. It seemed more like it was curious.
A mutual thing, that.
Her virgil beeped at her. She unbelted it and saw it was Alex calling.
“Hey, hon,” she said. “What’s up?”
“Not much. Just calling to see how your day is going.”
“Great. I got home, and now the baby and I are out for a walk. Guru has gone to a movie.”
“Really?” Alex laughed. “What did she go to — some action-adventure thing with exploding heads?”
“No, the new Tanya Clements romantic comedy.”
“Our Guru? The old lady who can beat up three Marines and a pro boxer at the same time?”
“The very same.”
“I’m amazed. Mm.” He paused, then changed the subject. “Listen, hon, I’m going to be running a little late. I have to be deposed by the lawyers on that CyberNation lawsuit. What did you have in mind for supper?”
Toni smiled. “Whatever you were planning on bringing home from takeout.”
“Ah, I see. How’s Indian?”
“Sounds good. Get me the Chicken Masala. And don’t forget the dal and nan.”
“Your wish is my command, O mistress. Kiss our boy for me. I should be there around seven thirty.”
“Good. Love you.”
“I love you, too, Toni.”
After he discommed, Toni stuck the com back onto her belt and watched as the sparrow took off, having finally decided this monster about to fall on it might best be avoided at a greater distance. The bird flew into a tree, landing on a branch about ten feet up.
Little Alex turned to look at her, his face clouding up. He pointed at the tree. “Mama! Bird! Get bird! Get bird!”
As if she could. And as if he had every right to ask. He wanted it, therefore he should have it.
She laughed. “Sorry, baboo, but Mama can’t fly.”
He shook his head and looked very determined. “Mama. Get bird.”
She laughed again. What a wonderful child he was. Utterly convinced that he was the center of the universe. And why not? she thought. After all, she hadn’t done much to disabuse him of the notion. She’d have to start doing that at some point. Otherwise, he was going to have problems when he ran into the other two-year-olds who were just as convinced that they were the sun around which all worlds revolved.
More amazing, maybe, was that the boy had become the center of her universe. A career woman, marital artist, take-no-prisoners gal who now got mushy whenever her little baboo smiled at her. Who would have thought it?