“Yes.”
“Send it.”
“Will do.”
With the skylink’s cellular narrowcasting and active message routing, every personal receiver sent regular updates to Central Addressing, so that the net would know where to “forward” the owner’s messages. Trace queries—ordinarily not processed without a court’s “order to locate”—retrieved the current address in the system.
“For whatever it’s worth, the tracer’s still pointing here,” Dru announced a few seconds later.
Dryke nodded grimly. “Let’s go find out if it’s worth anything.”
Like chrome hummingbirds waking to the dawn, the team’s three cars rose from the muddy track of Lawrence Road and fanned out over the forested slopes.
Loren and Liviya’s skimmers stayed at treetop level, swinging north and west in snaking arcs that kept them below Fort Jesus’ horizon. Dryke took the Pursuit straight up along the slope of Hoffman Hill and exploded skyward, clawing for the altitude he would need in a look-down shoot-down scenario, showing Fort J only the armored underbelly of the flyer.
But there was no response from Peterson Ridge—not when the skimmers flashed over the boundary fences, not even when the Pursuit’s climb flattened out and turned over into a heart-stopping dive.
“No delta,” said Dru, watching the comline traffic. A burst coder carried her words to all three vehicles. “Repeat, no delta, nothing to squash.”
As the double dome of the house grew larger before him, Dryke saw the two skimmers slow and drop down into invisible gaps in the trees and disappear.
“Unit Four on station, all clear,” said Loren. A breath later, Liviya logged in a near-echo.
Still there was no response.
The purr of the Pursuit’s engines climbed to an annoyed whine as it braked for touchdown. With a last-second sideslip, Dryke dropped it on the concrete scorch pad in front of the garage, blocking the middle half of the double-wide door.
“System lock,” he said. “Code Eben-Emael.”
“Locked,” said the autopilot AIP.
Dryke flipped down his own bug-head and climbed out on the left side of the flyer, keeping its bulk between him and the house. He looked to see if Loren had come up the road into position and was answered with a wave.
“Liviya?”
“Ready.”
“Going in.”
Crossing the yard to the front door under the gaze of the house’s many windows was an act best done without thinking. Once on the porch, Dryke waved Loren forward and waited until the black man was alongside the Pursuit.
“Dru?” asked Dryke.
“No change.”
“What?”
“No change?”
“Ramond?”
“Nothing is happening here, Mr. Dryke.”
“This is bad. This is very bad,” warned Loren. “Maybe we ought to wait until we know it’s clean.”
“Goddamm it, he’s gone,” Dryke fumed, reaching for the door. “We’re too late.”
“Oh, man—”
Dryke touched the controls and received a shock—the door was unlocked.
“Son of a bitch,” he said, staring. “Dru?”
“No change.”
“Not even a fagging burglar alarm?”
“Nothing.”
Dryke puffed out a breath. “No one else comes in,” he said, and stepped through the doorway.
Inside the Fuller were the ordinary private places of a man of some means, but few affectations. A gentleman’s kitchen, tidy and highly automated. A morning-facing breakfast nook, with a hummingbird feeder hanging outside the windows. A working study dotted with motion toys and engineering models. A dark bedroom with an empty, neatly made bed.
Stinger in hand, Dryke moved warily from room to room, wrestling with a mixture of heart-thumping fear and squeamish embarrassment, waiting for a nasty surprise and fearing he had already received it. The house felt empty, like a set piece, a fabrication.
“Nothing yet,” he said. “Loren—check the garage.”
In a moment he had his answer. “Got one Avanti Eagle and one Honda SD-50, as registered.”
Dryke swore. “Then where is he? Does anyone have anything?”
“Could have been picked up by someone,” Loren said. “You want some company in there?”
Frowning, Dryke tipped the shield of his helmet halfway up. “I suppose. Liviya, baby-sit the Pursuit, will you?”
While he waited, Dryke drifted back to the study, the most interesting room. When Loren joined him, he was sitting in the chair at the comsole, playing with a model of a self-lifting crane.
“Bastard got away from me again,” he said, his voice almost emotionless.
“I did a space inventory on the way through—not a very good house for playing hide-and-seek.”
“No. And I’m tired of that game.” Frowning, Dryke discarded the model on the desk. “I guess we can have Dru take a look at this, anyway.”
“Somebody’s going to have to come pick me up,” Dru reminded.
Under the weight of Dryke’s disappointment, it seemed like a major decision. “Liviya—no, better keep the flyer here. Ah, who’s in Unit Four?”
“Zabricki.”
“Just a moment.” Loren leaned closer and peered at the com-sole. “Dru? You still showing traffic on the lines into here?”
“Sure,” she answered. “The same background stuff—ad frames, financials, junk fax. Intermittent but steady.”
Puzzled, Loren swung his head toward Dryke. “Where’s it going to? This system’s not logging anything.”
“What? There must be an AIP trashing it.”
“Even that would show as activity.”
Loren and Dryke stared at each other for a long moment. Then Dryke stood and flipped his shield back down into place.
“Zabricki, Dru, stay put,” Dryke said. He raised a questioning eyebrow at Loren. “Where?”
“Down,” said Loren. “Has to be down.”
“Let’s find it.”
“Look for natural seams, inside corners. I don’t think there’s any wall volume unaccounted for. Probably in the floor.”
“Kitchen,” said Dryke, his eyes lighting up. “Parquet floor. Come on.”
The seams were almost perfect, the door almost invisible. It filled the rectangular space between the pedestal counter and the sink cabinets along one wall. Dryke stood looking down at it with hands on hips, chewing on his lower lip.
“How much do you want to bet there’s another way in?” Loren asked. “Tunnel to the woods? To the garage?”
Dryke shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. He’s not here.” He sighed. “What do you think, voice command? Through the house AIP?”
“Probably.”
“And what else?” Dryke scanned the kitchen. “A lot of control contacts here. Some unlikely combination—”
“I can’t imagine them taking the chance of someone trying to make some toast and raising the door instead.”
“And I can’t imagine him not building in a safety net. AIPs can be corrupted.”
“We can force this,” Loren said. “There’s a power chisel in my skimmer.”
“No,” Dryke said, walking to the sink at the middle of the rectangle. “If we force it, the files are sure to be dumped.” He turned on the cold water and splashed a double handful on his face. “It wouldn’t be anything you could do by accident.”
“It wouldn’t be anything that would open it while you’re standing on it,” Loren said with a grin.
The water still running, his face still wet, Dryke stared sideways at the other man. “No, it wouldn’t,” he said slowly. He touched the sweep contact on the wall behind the sink and watched as the faucet head swiveled in a circle to sweep away particles loosened by the ultrasonics. “But all you’d need is a little interlock, a pressure sensor—”
As the sweep cycle ended, Dryke stepped back from the sink, retreating past the edge of the door. From there, stretching out across the countertop, he could barely reach the contact behind the sink. But he could reach it.