THE QUEST
Chapter 8 Resolution?
"Who are you working for?" demanded the interrogator.
Joan thought that would be very difficult to answer. Naturally she couldn't say that she was sent on this mission by God. Nor could she simply make up a story. She had been separated from Adam, who was mostly likely being questioned at the same time. If their tales did not match up, the captors would know that at least one of them was lying. She was helplessly tied up in a chair; and vulnerable to whatever they chose to do to her. Her one advantage was that they seemed to be concentrating on Adam rather than her, mistaking him for the leader of the team. It gave her some reprieve, but she was terrified of what they might be doing to her beloved.
She had to figure out what her husband might say, and confirm it.
"Who are you working for?" he asked again.
"We don't know His real identity," she finally said. "We just deal with Him through intermediaries." That was nearly true, though the questioner would think she was describing some earthly bigwig.
"How do you contact him?"
"He usually takes the initiative."
"What if you had really crucial information to give him?"
The omnipotent God would know it and appear to Joan, but she couldn't say that. "There are several ways we could get his attention. If we wanted to do it tomorrow, we would stand outside the American History museum at 11:30." The history museum, the repository of such curiosities as one of the first American flags, a statue of Washington as a seminude Greek god, and the ruby slippers from WIZARD OF OZ, was one of the most visited places in Washington, it would be hard to keep the Girardi-Roves under control surrounded by a crowd.
Unfortunately, that was obvious to the questioner. "Name another way."
"You know, if you put out this much effort on something useful, you might not need a super computer program to get rich."
"Shut up. Name another way."
Joan made several suggestions, all equally useless. The questioner got up. "I'm going to report what you've told me. She's not likely to be pleased, so you better have a more useful suggestion by the time I get back." He went out through the door, and she heard a lock click. She was alone, in a windowless room of what seemed to be a warehouse.
Joan sat, immobilized and quite a bit scared, trying to figure out how much danger she was in. God had helped Adam escape last evening, but would He do it again? The record was not encouraging; God hated taking direct action. He had not cured Kevin, or Joan herself when they were seriously ill. He had not rescued little Rocky from death, nor Judith. And she remembered the last time she was kidnapped, a couple of months earlier.
Her captors on the previous occasion were Ryan Hunter, Ramsey, and a really bitchy girl named Lena. All three had vendettas against Joan. Hunter wanted to strike at God through his handymaid, Ramsey blamed Joan for getting him arrested three years ago, and Lena, who had lusted after Judith, thought Joan had "stolen her girlfriend". Joan had endured several days of terror, without divine intervention, and God's only excuse for nonaction had been that He foreknew that she would be rescued anyway.
This time the captors were not animated by any particular hatred of Joan. Their focus was on getting control of the Mephisto program, and Joan and Adam were simply in their way. They weren't vicious, but they might turn so if they didn't get their way.
It was at this point that Joan heard a commotion outside the door – shouting, without being able to make out the words. Suddenly the door opened and the questioner dashed in. Outside somebody was shouting "You're under arrest" and she realized that her captors were under attack by the police.
"You're coming with me," he said coldly. Slipping behind Joan, he somehow managed to free her from the chair while still keeping her hands helplessly bound. Then he seized her arm and dragged her out of the room.
They were now in the central part of the warehouse, an open area surrounded by boxes and shelves. Her captor started toward one of the doors, but before he could step more than a few steps, uniformed officers came through and pointed their weapons at him.
The man grabbed Joan and held her in front of him as a human shield, with one arm around her neck and the other pointing a gun pointed at her head. "Don't come any closer or I'll shoot her!"
The attackers froze. Joan herself stood still for several seconds, as if frightened into docility. But she carefully raised her leg and then thrust it back suddenly. The heel of her boot connected with the man's kneecap. It was remarkably lucky accuracy – or divine intervention?
The man yelled and lost his grip, and Joan tried to dodge forward. Would he retaliate by shooting her?
BLAM.
Joan froze in terror – then realized that she was unhurt and the sound of the shot had come from her side, several feet away. She turned around and saw her assailant crumple to the ground, bleeding from the head. Then she turned aside to see her rescuer was.
"DAD!"
The death of one of their team took the spirit out of the others, though certainly that had not been her Dad's purpose in shooting to kill. An arcane matter of stolen software had turned into a matter of life and death. There was a confused period as the group was rounded up, and Joan and Adam were unable to talk with her Dad for a time. Will Girardi himself seemed shaken by the fact that he had had to kill somebody.
The police – the FBI, it turned out - sat down in a warehouse room to review the case, and Joan learned about the proceedings from the government's point of view. The government already had some tips about a dangerous software project, though not firm enough to justify action. What finally galvanized them to act were three successive incidents: Lizzie going to an FBI office in Florida to ask for protection against a stalker, then Wagner's decision to turn himself in and tell the police his story, hoping for clemency for his role in it. The disappearance of the two "young detectives" who had captured Wagner clinched the matter. So apparently Joan and Adam had triggered a crisis and brought about a resolution while blundering around the country trying to figure out their mission. Good ripples, if you didn't count the dead guy.
The FBI was accompanied by an odd character, a rather handsome civilian whom they addressed as Professor Epps, or Charlie. Somebody asked Charlie if he thought the danger was over.
"The immediate danger, yes. We've rounded up the gang, and the programmers are more aware now of the sinister implications of their work. But the underlying problem is still there. Sooner or later somebody else will think of the Mephisto idea again, maybe under a different name. As programming tools become more powerful, somebody else will try to create a similar program. And a third person, and a fourth. Eventually somebody may succeed."
"And a madman will be in control of the internet," brooded the FBI leader.
"That's not even the worst that can happen," Charlie pointed out. "Imagine TWO Mephisto programs, put on the Internet by rival groups. They would battle each other, and at some point the Mephistos are likely to think of a scorched-earth policy – deliberately destroying data to keep the other side from getting it. That sort of thing could wreck the internet altogether, and when we consider how important the network is for the world economy – I doubt that this group were even thinking about that possibility. They just had visions of great power dancing in their head."
But God has foreseen it, and had deployed Adam and Joan to stir up the waters a bit. Joan hoped that, now that Lennie and Darry understood the dangers, far more serious than a matter of software ownership, they might get back together and work out a less ambitious version of their project.
"I don't want to sound unconcerned," said Will, "but this sort of cyber-threat is not my thing. My training is in protecting society against human adversaries. May I be excused from the meeting, with my daughter and son-in-law?"
"Go ahead," said the FBI leader. "There will be a hearing about the use of deadly force, but I'm sure you'll be cleared, since the culprit definitely threatened the girl. And the fact that it was your daughter will clinch the matter."
"Yes, I agree a hearing should be held," said Will. "We should never get casual about violent death."
Will, Joan, and Adam walked back into the central room, trying not to look at the yellow tape and outline marking where Joan's assailant had fallen. "Dad, what are you doing here?" asked Joan. "You're the Arcadia police chief, not FBI!"
"Consultant," said Will. "You see, the conspirators had an ally in the government, somebody I knew and could advise them how to handle. A lady named Lucy Preston." He scowled at the thought of Ms. Preston.
"That sounds familiar – wasn't she the lady who threatened to arrest Grace last year, thinking she was a terrorist?"
"Yes. And probably she was already involved in this scheme, the hypocrite. But I have a more important question, Joan. What are you two doing here?"
Joan had been asked similar questions for more than 3 years, and had usually come up with a white lie. Today, still stunned that she had nearly been murdered, she was weary of the charade. "I can't give you an explanation, Dad."
"You owe me an explanation, Joan! I killed a man because you put yourself in danger!" Her father looked angry. Joan didn't think he was mad at her though, but rather the situation.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, Dad."
"I – how can you say that when I've just saved your life, Joan? I love you, darling."
"Chief Girardi?" came the FBI leader's voice. "We need your advice. Ms Preston seems to have disappeared."
Will, devoted to duty, turned to answer the summons, leaving Joan alone with her husband.
"Damn," said Joan.
"Look on the bright side, Jane," said Adam. "At least we can go home now."
"Yeah," mumbled Joan bitterly. "Home to a Dad I can't communicate with. Merry Christmas to us. Maybe we'll be lucky and God will send us on another wild quest—"
THE END
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Charlie Epps is the mathematician-detective from the TV show NUMBERS. I had him appear in an earlier JOAN story, NOT WITH A BANG, the same one in which Lucy made Grace a suspect in a case of terrorism. I don't have any rights to use Epps, either, so the usual disclaimers apply.)
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Joan's previous captivity was described in an earlier story called IN THE MIDST OF MY ENEMIES)