The Mirror Maze Read online

  THE MIRROR MAZE

  James P. Hogan

  To GRACE and BILL,

  and in memory of NICKY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The help and advice of the following people is gratefully appreciated:

  David Robb, Lynx Crowe, and Rod Hyde, for thoughts on breaking and entering computer systems.

  Cheryl Robinson, who supports free enterprise and individualism.

  Steve Fairchild, for needing a lot of convincing.

  John J. Woods and Gary Dambacher, attorneys at law, Sonora, California.

  Kevin Magee, Lyn Hogan, Petr Beckmann, Larry Cornish, Ashley Grayson, Brent Warner, and Deborah Bigbee for help with local information and geographies.

  Kathleen Vlahakos of Sacramento, and Laura Synhorst of the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office.

  Juanita Leapheart, for help with languages.

  Ken Bell of NBC, New York, for clarifying some of the mysteries of the American electoral system.

  Andrew Corbett of Aer Lingus for information on airline practices and air traffic control.

  Jerry Fitzgerald of Dublin Airport, for aeronautical information.

  Shawna McCarthy of Bantam Books, for not being too easy to please.

  And Jackie and Dorothy, for letting me become the recluse I needed to be.

  PROLOGUE

  She was tall and slim, with silky, platinum hair sweeping across one side of her face to her shoulder. Her eyes were a vivid green, which in strong light seemed to take on an inner iridescence of their own, like those of a nocturnal predatory animal. Her penthouse looked down over Madison Avenue just south of New York’s Central Park. In the select, anonymous circles that engaged her professional services from time to time, she was known as “The Lynx.”

  Outside, the evening was cool. It had just turned November. The Lynx sat as she had for the last fifteen minutes, gazing at the eight-by-eleven-inch picture propped on the red leather top of the fitted desk unit at one end of the sunken lounge area. Around her lay the notes and instructions that she had studied, and to one side, the large yellow envelope that the dossier had arrived in earlier that day by special courier. She sat, slowly allowing her mind to blend the information with the face and to absorb the personality that she felt emerging. “Yes, now I think I’m starting to know you,” she murmured.

  She got up and crossed the room to mix herself a martini, very dry—just enough vermouth to wet the olive—at the bar by the window. Then she tapped a command for a Mahler symphony into the pad lying on the bar, and stood for a moment watching the evening traffic below as she took her first sip. As the opening bars of the music swelled to fill the room, she returned to the couch and sat down again to resume contemplating the face staring back at her from the photograph.

  It was a pretty face, of a girl in her mid-twenties, with long, straight, fair hair, lean, nicely proportioned features that showed her cheekbones and accentuated her straight nose, a wide mouth with soft outlines, and pale skin. “A pity,” the Lynx murmured aloud, and sipped her drink again. She took in the soft curve of the chin and innocent roundness of the eyes, brightening with the beginnings of a smile. “I think I would rather have enjoyed seducing you instead. Have you ever had a woman as a lover, I wonder?” The Lynx wondered idly who would pay fifty thousand dollars to kill a physicist, and why.

  Some people who didn’t understand the business thought that it wasn’t good to get involved emotionally with one’s assignments or to know too much about them. But the Lynx liked to know everything about them. Somehow the intimacy made the eventual finale not so much an execution as a consummation. The ability to keep the professional aspects of the job in a separate compartment of the mind was one reason why some of the best assassins were women. Another, of course, was the comparative ease with which they could lure many of their victims into secluded and vulnerable situations. But that was really ancillary. The main reason was that men were too emotional.

  Originally from East Germany, she had been trained and taught how to kill by the East German military intelligence service, in effect a local subsidiary of the KGB. By supplying her with false papers and a carefully prepared cover identity to reside in the West, they had provided the perfect opportunity for her to vanish and put as much distance between herself and the eastern frontier as possible. Now she was safely ensconced in the West under a new name and, following the precepts of her new host country, dutifully devoting her talents and her training to the cause of private enterprise.

  The phone rang. She stretched out an arm and lifted the handset. The video circuit was already switched out. “Hello.” “Hilda?”

  “This is Hilda.”

  “Hey, baby! It’s Max.”

  “Max, darling. So good to hear from you.”

  “Look, I’ve still got those tickets. I said I’d call you the day before the show, remember? So this is the night. How are you fixed?”

  “The show is tomorrow?”

  “Don’t tell me you forgot.”

  “No, I didn’t forget. But I must have got the weeks confused.”

  “You’re not saying you can’t make it? You’ll break my heart. I’ll jump off a bridge.”

  “Oh Max, you idiot!”

  “No, seriously, you’re not tied up, are you?”

  “Something has come up, I’m afraid. I have to go out of town for a few days, maybe a week.”

  “Oh no… What am I supposed to do?”

  “Come on. I’m sure you have a black book full of numbers of pretty girls who’d love to keep you company.”

  “There’s no way you can put it off?”

  “I’m sorry, Max. No, there isn’t.”

  “How about dinner next Friday, then?”

  “Make it the Friday after. I said I might be away for a week.”

  “That’s firm? No maybes.”

  “It’s firm. I promise.”

  “Okay. I’ll call in the meantime, just in case you get back sooner.”

  “You’re a sweetie.”

  “So long for now, then, eh, beautiful?”

  “I’ll see you in a week, Max. Behave yourself.”

  “Huh? What the hell for? What kind of a life would that be?”

  “Take care, then. Good-bye, Max.”

  The Lynx hung up the receiver, but kept her hand on it, thinking to herself for a few seconds and glancing at the papers from the dossier, strewn around her on the couch. Then she picked the receiver up again, called a directory page onto the screen facing the couch from beside the bureau, and tapped in a number.

  “United Airlines ticketing. This is Mavis. Can I help you?” a voice answered.

  “Hello, Mavis, yes. I’d like to book a flight to Denver as early tomorrow as you can manage, please.”

  CHAPTER 1

  “Mr. Bracey just called from downstairs, Mr. Gilman. The ILC people are leaving. He thought you might want to put in an appearance before they go.”

  “Oh, thanks, Ruth. Yes. Tell them I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.” Ed Gilman, president of the General Plasma Dynamics corporation of Denver, Colorado, flipped off the desk intercom and returned his attention to the correspondence that he had been checking over and signing.

  Regulations!

  He stared exasperatedly at the next sheet in the pile. Why did it require the permission of no fewer then five different branches of the federal government to install a couple of showers in a staff washroom? There had been a time when even a large-scale heavy industrial plant could be built and in production in less than two years. Now it took twice that time to get the permits—involving over twenty different agencies—just to begin breaking ground. The site across the river from GPD was bare, and would be for some time now. After four and a half years of battling,
and an outlay of five million dollars to obtain six of the eighty-two permits that would be required, the Hydroline company had abandoned its plans for an experimental plant to produce a hydrogen-based liquid synthetic fuel from the high-temperature “cracking” of water. It would have employed three thousand people and trained scores of invaluable engineers and technicians. Now they were either on the dole or pumping gas instead of creating it, and the venture was going ahead in Taiwan. The Energy Policy Implementation Agency, a reorganized and restructured version of the former DOE, now employed somewhere around forty thousand bureaucrats, busily compounding and contradicting the requirements of all the other agencies as well as each others’. Its annual budget of twenty-five billion dollars exceeded the earnings of the eight largest oil companies combined. The Federal Register, the official list of regulations, ran to well over one hundred thousand pages and took up thirty-two feet of shelf space—the Ten Commandments fitted easily onto a single sheet. As Gilman finished reading the final letter and signed it, he wondered how many army divisions the Soviets would have sacrificed readily to achieve the same results that America was inflicting upon itself.

  He carried the correspondence folder out to Ruth in the front office, where a babbling voice from a radio turned low by her elbow was bringing news of another election result. “Where’s this?” he asked her.

  “New York.”

  “Did the Constitutionals take it?”

  “Yes. A landslide.”

  Gilman raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips in a silent nod of approval, then left. Outside, he went down two stories to the conference room where the meeting with the people from the Industrial Liaison Commission had taken place. He didn’t expect to find the atmosphere particularly cordial. Why it should take four ILC officials to deliver a simple message or read a list of regulations was beyond Gilman. Only a government department could have afforded it. Perhaps numbers enhanced their power to intimidate.

  The meeting was just breaking up as Gilman entered. Gus Thornton, GPD’s vice president for administration and personnel, was sitting tight-lipped as he finished some notes, while beside him Stan Cray, from the legal department, tidied papers together. Heading the ILC group was a man called Roth from the local office, whom Gilman knew from previous encounters. They were already putting folders back into briefcases, standing, and making to leave. Gilman sensed that, as he had anticipated, the exchange had been acrimonious.

  “So, how are we doing?” he asked, resting his hands on the back of one of the unoccupied chairs at the table.

  Thornton answered without looking up. “They’re not going to ease up on the quotas. It’s national policy. Firm from Washington.”

  It was what Gilman had been expecting. “Don’t your people have any concept of what it takes to run a project like this profitably?” he asked Roth exasperatedly. “Look, we can’t simply stretch out a hand and dig deeper into the public s pocket if we go over the limit. We have to perform. What are we supposed to do with people we re forced to take on, who aren’t any good to us? We can’t even start up until we get the revised EPIA license, and they’ve just called another delay on that. Our stockholders are pulling out. Where do you imagine the money’s going to come from to pay them?”

  The answer, of course, was from the government. Mandatory hiring quotas had become an automatic prerequisite for receiving federal funding—a social obligation that industry owed society. Whether or not the company was owed anything in return was irrelevant, and the damage and losses caused by the incompetents force-hired in this way were its problem. In effect, it was a way of getting industry to pick up part of the unemployment tab, and smaller numbers needed to be admitted officially. Also, the government could point to its contribution as a “research grant.”

  Roth was a sharp-laced, gnomish little man with patches of wiry hair fringing a balding top. “We’ve been through all that before, Mr. Gilman,” he retorted. “I would have thought that the federal allocations to this establishment were more than sufficient to meet requirements.”

  “My understanding when that was agreed was that it was for research. Nobody told us it was a camouflaged welfare scam.”

  “I don’t think such terms are necessary.”

  “What would you call it?”

  “You can’t conduct research without people.”

  “I’d like to have some say in the kind of people I get.”

  Roth stood up and closed his briefcase with an air of finality. “There is a national situation of need which you seem unable or unwilling to acknowledge, Mr. Gilman,” he said. “I can only conclude that this company is not disposed to fulfill its obligations under the grant agreement, and I shall be forced to file my report accordingly.”

  Gilman’s color deepened. “Whatever the national situation is, it isn’t of my making. If you’re really interested in looking for a cause, I’d suggest that you examine your own policies. And I am not aware of having contracted any obligation to relieve you of the consequences of them. If the only purpose of the grant was to fund dole checks, then take it back. All of it. We ll make other arrangements.”

  “What other arrangements do you think you have left?” Roth sneered.

  “After three years of delays and harassment, not a lot,” Gilman replied candidly. “But that’s my problem and I’ll handle it. You’ve got problems of your own. Have you forgotten that there’s an election going on out there today? The Constitutionals are running away with it. When the twenty-eighth goes through, all this will be irrelevant history. Then, maybe, the only people in the dole lines will be washed-up bureaucrats.”

  “We ll see,” Roth replied acidly. “But for now the matter is pure conjecture. In the meantime, the department’s requirements are clearly spelled out, and they must be met. Good day.” With that, he led his delegation out of the room. Cray went with them to escort them from the building.

  Thornton tucked his folder of papers under his arm and moved over to join Gilman by the door. “There were a few other points, too, Ed. Want a rundown on them?”

  Gilman looked at his watch. “Oh, it’s late. Let’s do it tomorrow. Besides, it’s a big day. Things are happening in the big wide world out there.” They began walking back along the corridor toward the stairwell.

  “Were you serious about telling them to shove their funding and looking around?” Thornton asked.

  “Maybe. It’s a nice thought, isn’t it?”

  “Wonderful. What’s the latest on the election?”

  “Newell’s got New York and Florida.”

  “New York!” Thornton emitted a low whistle. “This is a big day. I mean, they’re going to do it. It’s going to happen.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  At the stairs, Thornton started to ascend. Gilman stopped by the elevator. “Not coming back up?” Thornton asked.

  “I think I’ll take a look around the rig.”

  “Well, I’ll be leaving in about ten minutes. Good night in case I don’t see you again. And let’s see those results keep rolling on in, eh?”

  “ ’Night, Gus. Yes. I’ll call you later this evening.”

  As Gilman stood waiting for the elevator to arrive, he thought about the excitement sweeping the country—Ruth had been updating him periodically with details since morning. This was not just another presidential election year, but presidential election year 2008—the year in which America would choose its first administration of the new millennium. The occasion was symbolic, and the nation—indeed the whole world—had been watching for a sign of changing tides and a fresh course being set into the new era. That made it all the more significant for a newly created party to have appeared out of nowhere to challenge the traditional two-sided balance. Ten years ago, nobody had heard of the Constitutionals. Now, seemingly, they were about to take over the country. Yes, times were a-changing…

  He took the elevator down to the basement level and emerged into a wide corridor with a concrete floor, yellow-painted brick walls,
and doors opening into rooms filled with electrical machinery and rows of instrumentation cubicles. As he began walking toward the reactor hall where the hybrid prototype was being constructed, two technicians who were finished for the day passed him, heading the other way.

  “Good night, Mr. Gilman,” one of them called. Gilman acknowledged with a nod and a feint smile.

  “Is the election good news for the company, from the way things are going?” the other inquired.

  “Hopefully. Let’s wait and see.”

  At the end of the corridor he went through a set of double doors and came out beneath a tangle of steel structural work built around pump housings, transformers, and banks of superconducting windings, with access ladders leading up to overhead catwalks. Beyond was a vaster space, lit by batteries of overhead lights and a line of window panels high in the building’s girder-braced walls. In the center stood the partially completed bulk of the prototype reactor itself—a curving, thirty-foot-high wall of stainless steel, supported by a sturdier framework and barely visible through the labyrinth of cabling and pipework clinging to its side.

  Gilman walked slowly through the clutter of equipment and test benches in the surrounding space, his eyes checking unconsciously for signs of sloppiness—tools not put away, equipment not switched off that should have been, spills that hadn’t been cleaned up. Everything that he could see was in order. He came to the base of the reactor housing and stood for a while looking up at it. It had cost him and the backers whom he had persuaded to come in on the venture all their liquid capital and credit, and over ten years of their lives. Here was a solution to most of the problems that the world had been cringing before in superstitious dread for over a quarter of a century. But the powers that were in control, it seemed, didn’t want solutions. Fear and insecurity produced more controllable populations than affluence and independence did.

  As he moved on around the reactor vessel, a light caught his eye from inside the partitioned room where the instrumentation computers were located. Through the window facing the reactor area, he glimpsed a white-coated figure with long, straight, fair hair, poring over a desk and tapping intermittently at a keyboard below a screen to one side. He shook his head. Typical: Stephanie was working late again. Gilman walked over and stuck his head through the door. “Hey, don’t you ever give it a break? Come on. Time to quit.”