The Centauri Conspiracy Page 7

Chapter Five

  Preparing for the Bakman Report

  On Duncan Bakman’s wall of computer screens in his smaller office next to Harry’s much larger space, one wall-screen marked “Com” buzzes before it pops on displaying Emmert’s face. Bakman looks away from a map of New Dallas’s first-level causeway system that he is studying building names on, turns his face to look, and speaks.

  "Yeah M."

  "Chondrin doesn't want to have any part in our group. Says he won't be a member and won't be chairman. The man’s a womanizing . . . well I won’t say it, but the good Doctor is extremely knowledgeable. Chondrin is a well-known name on human fertility on three levels. Chondrin owns and operates a fertility laboratory, is well-known on the lecture circuit, and has written six well-received books on the subject. The doctor is a widely known name."

  "Send me the stuff about him."

  "Already sent it . . . Zee has it."

  "I’ll give him a friendly visit. See you." Bakman touches the white “off” button on the internal building secure channel. Twists his head around to yell at Zee, but she is standing behind him with a disk in her hand.

  Nodding in appreciation Bakman slides the disk into the viewer and fast forwards through scenes of a chubby man with thinning brown hair kissing several dozen fully dressed and partially clothed women. After each woman is a series of scenes of both of them together in ways that neither one’s spouse or boyfriend would appreciate. Nodding, Bakman removes the disk from the viewer, places it in his pocket, and rises. When Bakman walks toward the elevator, Zee walks along with him carrying a large flat pink purse.

  "Where are you going?" asks Bakman with a curious tone and a puzzled frown over her carrying a pink purse. Never before had Bakman seen a companion with a purse, nor had he seen any woman carry one so large.

  "Mister Bakman, I’m going with you."

  "Why?"

  "I'm your bodyguard."

  "Do I need protecting?"

  "All of your former associates are in prison. They are where your testimony and evidence put them. Anyone of them, their relatives or friends of theirs, might have hired an assassin to get revenge. Harry knows they plan to kill you."

  "You're serious about this."

  "Yes. Everyone on the planet knows where you are, or knows where you have to be each day for ten months. In fact, Harry worried for days about you even getting here alive. On the day of your release Harry had Breen put out his full crew shadowing and protecting you."

  Suddenly, the opening elevator door that first day made sense and so did the elevator ascending without him pushing a level number. "Okay, let’s go down to the Seventh Causeway and take a public hover sixteen buildings down."

  "Nineteen is better . . . less traffic and too windy today to go higher."

  "All right . . . Nineteen it is," replies Bakman and pushes a finger at the elevator panel. The door closes behind them. On the way down neither speaks; Bakman thinks about the best way to approach Chondrin. On the ride down Zee does move closer, changes her purse to her right-hand, and her left-hand takes his arm.

  When the elevator car stops at level number nineteen, they step outside just like a man out for a pleasant stroll on the causeway with his favorite companion. They walk along a busy long and wide roadway nineteen floors up with men and women stopping to stare at his very attractive companion for many different reasons.

  The sun is shining with a modest warm gusty breeze and that pleases Bakman after being indoors so much. He stares down the wide Nineteenth Causeway running between and along tall and wide buildings for several miles with shops along both sides and partially filled with people moving about shopping, looking, or just strolling.

  Pleased to be outside Bakman does not mind a few men shoppers stopping and staring a little too long and openly at his tall shapely companion on his arm. However, their glaring wives or girlfriends do and shake their heads and yank on arms. Using his plastic card now with a balance of ten thousand Bakman rents a hover; they both step aboard. His fingers touch the control panel.

  Aloud Bakman orders, "Anders Building."

  Their public hover moves out into the center of the long causeway, increases speed as it follows the right side of a white centerline south. The hover’s speed reaches a maximum of twelve miles per hour and Bakman enjoys himself staring at every young pretty girl and shapely woman window shopping or just strolling along the causeway.

  Danger strikes as Bakman’s eyes are busy staring at a particularly curvaceous and graceful long legged, slender-bodied, busty redhead in a size-to-small very tight bright maroon bookkeeper tunic. His hover passes the easy to look at woman, his eyes admire her generous profile, and when passed Bakman’s head turns to stare back at the captivating redhead.

  The busty redhead pleased with his looking, smiles, and starts an exaggerated swaying of her hips just for him.

  Barely more than three minutes into their trip while Bakman stares back at the redhead Zee suddenly shouts, "Decrease to eight."

  The hover almost jerks as it suddenly slows four miles per hour, and Bakman steps forward with one foot to keep from going down. Zee’s strong left arm grabs him as if she is trying to keep Bakman from falling and pushes her large flat pink purse in front of Bakman’s back.

  Duncan hears a soft “thunk.”

  Quickly, Zee twists her purse backward to point the bottom edge toward a dark doorway and squeezes the top fold of her bag. It makes a single puff sound and in a shadowy doorway an instant later a faint muffled crack.

  Sharply Zee orders, "Resume speed." After the hover resumes full speed and when Bakman is steady again, Zee removes her left arm.

  Still looking back after the hover jerks back to maximum speed Bakman sees a short slender assassin wearing a black hooded tunic fold limply out on his face. The fetching redhead walks on past the fallen figure, the corpse, without screaming or creating a scene. Her pace remains the same but the shapely woman’s walk is less exaggerated now.

  Suddenly, Bakman is no longer charmed. He is instantly suspicious. Thinking that’s strange Bakman’s head turns to watch Zee speaks into the upper left top corner of her purse.

  "Vee, M, 109, L12, Hv172-398-756-model 18," Zee quickly reports.

  From the purse comes a faint female voice, Vee’s voice, "Acknowledged."

  Zee looks down at the outside of her purse, which doubles as a projectile shield and a weapon among other things. Carefully Zee's fingers pull-out a dart; she slips it into a purse compartment. A small section of the purse’s top lights up and Zee studies a tiny screen.

  After a half minute, Zee tells him unemotionally, "Poison dart . . . almost instant paralysis . . . time to live two minutes more or less . . . no known cure."

  Looking at Zee in a new way, a new appreciation of his bodyguard, Bakman now looks everywhere for assassins instead at every pretty female in a tight tunic. The short and exciting trip down the causeway strangely becomes long and dangerous. The incident makes Bakman remember Vanskiver’s warning that he hoped Bakman lived a month.

  The rest of the watchful trip is without incident; the hover stops at the Anders building. After they step off, Zee works a moment at the control panel of the hover and off it goes. Anyone watching would think it was sent off for maintenance. Bakman starts to ask a question, but Zee shakes her head not too.

  Inside the building they take the elevator down to the fourth floor and walk along a hallway looking for Chondrin's New Dallas DNA Testing and Fertility Lab office. In Chondrin's office, Bakman gives his name and asks an old white-headed chubby female clerk at the front-desk if he may speak to Doctor Chondrin. The clerk presses a button on a panel and points toward several empty chairs. They sit down in the waiting room to wait.

  In seven and a half minutes, a short chunky almost fat man dressed in white steps into the waiting room and motions them to follow him. The over-weight aid waddles down an inner hallway to open a door for them, and Bakman and Zee step into Doctor Chondrin's office. The chubby
man behind the desk has the same thinning brown hair as on the disk and is wearing his nametag.

  The chubby average height Doctor in a white coat stands to show a thick waist and is overweight to the point of almost being flabby. The Doctor had been talking to a fetching petite black-haired young woman in a white lab coat. She smiles at them, at the doctor, and walks quickly to the door. Bakman’s suspicious eyes notices that her cheeks are a little flushed, emotional either from talking to her favorite doctor or from strangers interrupting their quiet private moment.

  The Doctor’s double chin vibrates as the chubby man speaks in an irritated tone. "Who are you and what do you want?"

  While he waits for his answer, Doctor Chondrin’s brown eyes openly stare at Zee's tight pink companion tunic.

  From the expression on Bakman’s face, it is obvious that he does not like the tone of Chondrin’s voice, and he is certain Doctor Chondrin has recognized him. Bakman simply hands the rude double chinned chubby man a disk.

  The Doctor frowns, stares at the gold-colored disk, and his face communicates that this was not what he expected. Doctor Chondrin expected Bakman, whom he recognizes from Information Screens as a recent criminal, to plead and beg for a job or a handout. Bakman's actions have confused him. Doctor Chondrin slips the disk into a viewer, holds down the rapid scan button, and his face takes on a flushed angry look as the view-screen fills with images of him with various women flash past quickly. Doctor Chondrin turns back to Bakman with an angry glare expecting a blackmail amount.

  Before the angry double chin man can bluster, Bakman speaks in the tone of a boss talking to an underling.

  "Doctor Chondrin. We came to thank you for joining our committee and to doubly thank you for accepting the Chair."

  "Or what . . .?"

  Without changing his tone Bakman replies, "Or in an hour all of this and more, seven disks more with many more scenes, long full embarrassing scenes, will be sent to your wife, children, every family member down to fourth cousins. Every friend or associate of yours that we know about, people you work with, and all Information and Entertainment Screens that we think might use the material will all get a full disk set. You might even end up for months and years on some ReRun Screens. After that, we will send it to all the family, friends, and associates of each of the women you see on that disk. Then, my good doctor we send copies to every one of your more distant relatives, your patients, and every person living in the two buildings you own and their relatives. Anyone that knows you or we think knows you, or should know about you in this city and a dozen of the nearest cities gets a set. We will send a set to every listed licensed nurse and doctor that deal with your specialty; all will get a full disk set.”

  Doctor Chondrin’s red angry face looked dangerous to his health. After a long minute of silent glaring his bluster collapses, his shoulders droop, and he nods.

  "Tomorrow, ten o'clock, twelfth level OpDyke Building, and Mister Taud will return with your special book in an hour."

  Speaking to the beaten man pleasantly Bakman reaches out to shake the man's limp hand, and turns to leave. At the door, Bakman stops to speak to the slumping Doctor back over his shoulder.

  "When the report is finished we will destroy all that we have—no release of information or charges. Oh! . . . By the way, you can keep that disk. We have others."