Doctor Who_ Blue Box - Kate Orman [39]
We stared at her: Bob and Peri and me, looking guilty as hell with our mouths hanging open. Swan looking guilty in her own way, her face forming a protective blank mask.
I expected a sarcastic remark, the sort of thing passed in the hallways in high school, a little flourish of superiority. She had found us again. She had proved her electronic omniscience and caught us with our computational trousers down. At the least she could have given us a knowing smile before floating out of the building.
Nothing. Just that blank stare. The personality she had shown in cyberspace stopped there.
‘Come on,’ I muttered to my partners in crime. We backed into the elevator, its doors still yawning open as though in surprise. They slid shut, cutting off Swan’s empty glance.
‘The Doctor,’ said Peri, as the lift slid silently upwards.
‘Do you think Swan knows where he’s going?’
‘She’s not following him, that’s for sure,’ said Bob.
‘She found us again. Maybe she found out where he’s headed, too. That could mean the Eridani are in big trouble.’
‘We’ll call them,’ said Bob.
‘But what if Swan is listening in!’
‘What difference is it gonna make?’ Bob leaned his forehead against the elevator’s mirrored wall, looking squashed. ‘Man, she knows everything. It doesn’t matter what we do. She knows it all.’
60
One
‘ ¿Hola? ’
‘Luis? It’s Sarah.’
‘Sarah! I have some wonderful news for you.’
‘Don’t tell me just now. I need an eyeball, en seguida.’
‘No problem. Let’s go to the park, like spies. I’ll be carrying a red rose.’
‘How about the Mall? Lots of people around.’
‘OK, opposite the Smithsonian Castle. I’ll bet my news is bigger than yours.’
‘I’ll see you there in an hour, if the traffic is merciful.’
Luis Perez was ten years older than Swan, a greying Mexican who had met her on the conference calls when he first emigrated to California. They had hung out together on the phone system for years, never meeting in the flesh until this moved to DC to be closer to his relatives.
Luis worked in a library in Adams Morgan. For him, computers and phones were still just a hobby, while they’d become a career for Swan. He still used his phreaking skills to place free long-distance calls to his garrulous abuela in Puebla. But these days his main interest was collecting. His flat rivalled Swan’s own home museum of things electronic.
Litis was waiting for her on the well-trodden grass of the Mall, wrapped tight in a grey wool coat, a single baby rose clutched in a gloved hand. The National Mall is a two-and-a-half-mile line of sight between the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol, with the Washington Monument sticking out of the middle like a stray nuke. Half a million people line the Mall each year for the Fourth of July fireworks.
DC is low, with long lines of sight, boxy classical architecture mixed with weird sixties curves. Driving around in it you go from pompous to funky, wealth to poverty, business to tourism. The whole thing is very slowly sinking into the swamp plain it was built on.
Luis gave Swan a mock bow and handed her the flower.
She looked at it. ‘I gotta talk to you about that thing I got in western Maryland that time,’ she said
Luis looked at her in surprise. ‘I also want to talk to you about “western Maryland”.’
‘Well, I hope you’re having more luck than I am. I’ve got a bunch of smartasses on my tail who ripped me off. I’ve just set the police on them.’
Luis was getting more surprised by the moment. ‘The police?’ he said, looking around.
‘I told them it was a sculpture. Worth a fortune. If they can’t get it back I might just strangle the little bastards with my bare hands. They’re good, Luis, really good for a change.
We’ve been playing cat and mouse for days and I’m not sure whether I’m the cat or the mouse.’
‘What can I do?’
Swan looked at him. ‘I didn’t call you to ask for help. I wanted to warn you. They might come looking for you.’
Luis nodded. The great Sarah Swan never asked for help; she only made bargains, collected favours. He put a gloved hand on her arm. ‘Yes, I have been having more luck than