Bug Park by James P. Hogan

“But Kevin has already told Taki about it, obviously,” Michelle pointed out. “Are you sure it hasn’t gone further?”

“Kevin says not, and I believe him. He and Taki have got this special . . . ‘thing.’ I guess he needed somebody to talk to . . . like we all do sometimes.”

Michelle sipped her coffee and ran over in her mind what had been said. “So when is Eric going up to Barrow’s Pass?” she asked finally. “The last time I heard, it was still either tonight or tomorrow morning.”

“Probably tomorrow, but that’s okay. He’ll leave by, oh, around ten at the latest. That’ll still give me plenty of time to pick Kev up and go on into town.”

“You’re planning on doing this in the middle of the day, in broad daylight?” Michelle sounded dubious.

“The best time,” Corfe replied. “Lots of activity and traffic. People about. Why wait until everything’s quiet and risk being conspicuous? And in any case, it might not be so straightforward. We could end up needing the whole weekend for all I know.”

Michelle thought it over one last time. Finally she looked up. “So I’d need to be where? In the van with you, I guess.”

Corfe stared at her for several seconds. “Am I hearing this right? Are you saying you’ll do it?” Despite it being the reason why he had come to her office, now that she had actually said it, he found it difficult to believe.

Michelle released a long sigh that acknowledged she was committed, at the same time shaking her head wearily in a way that seemed to say she couldn’t think why. “I’ll look at what’s on the screens and make suggestions,” she said. “I’m not sure I’ve had enough experience of driving mecs to be any more use than that.”

“I understand that. But I wouldn’t have asked more, anyway.” Corfe laid a hand lightly on her arm as she started to look away. “And look, if anything does mess up, then you’re out of it right there. If anybody ever needs to know, I’m acting strictly alone, on my own initiative. Kevin’s back in the lab; you’re out on the street. Neither of you had anything to do with it.” He shook his head before she could say anything. “That’s the number-one rule. This is my show this time, and I give the orders. I won’t have it any other way.”

Michelle started to say something, checked herself, and then nodded.

She picked up her cup again and went quiet as she ran over in her mind what would be entailed, searching for the snags. Corfe waited, saying nothing.

“Is this really going to be as straightforward as you seem to imagine?” she said finally. “For a start, what makes you think that Garsten will have obligingly left what we’re looking for there in his computer for us to find? Lawyers are notoriously conservative people, Doug. They use paper and file cabinets a lot as well, you know. How is some little bug-size mec going to deal with things like that?”

“We’ve got larger mecs too—earlier models,” Corfe replied. “You’d be surprised how powerful they can be at low speed. We use them for all kinds of tasks.”

“But isn’t getting larger ones like that inside going to be more of a problem?”

“How so?”

Michelle shrugged, frowning at the obvious. “You need to find a bigger hole,” she said. “Or make one. We’re getting closer to talking about breaking in again.”

Corfe shook his head. “I don’t think so. We’ve thought of a better way that won’t involve anything like that at all. Or rather, Kevin did. For some reason it always seems to take a kid to see an obvious way of doing something. Why go looking for ways of trying to get them inside after the place is closed, when you can take them in while it’s open?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The polished brass sign proclaiming the offices of phillip a. garsten, attorney at law was mounted on the wall by the door at the top of five stone steps leading up to what had formerly been a spacious, single-family town residence in the First Hill district, close to the Seattle University campus between Twelfth Avenue and Broadway. The house had been restored to an immaculate condition as a property investment, painted pale yellow with white trim and a red tile roof. It stood set back from the street behind a white picket fence and secluding screen of shrubbery, giving it an air of permanence and dependable confidentiality becoming of the profession.

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