The Puppet Master Read online

  The Puppet Master

  John Dalmas

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2001 by John Dalmas. "A Most Singular Murder" was first published in Analog, Vol. CXI, No. 5, April 1991.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 0-671-31842-X

  Cover art by Gary Ruddell

  First printing, October 2001

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

  Printed in the United States of America

  This book is dedicated to Herbert D. Clough, 30 years with the FBI who, with the collaboration of the originator, Leslie

  Charteris, resurrected the fabled SAINT magazine. Distribution problems shot her down, but for three wonderful months in 1984, she flew. A lovely project.

  BAEN BOOKS by JOHN DALMAS

  The Puppet Master

  Soldiers

  The Regiment

  |The Regiment's War

  The Three-Cornered War

  The Lion of Farside

  The Bavarian Gate

  The Lion Returns

  The Lizard War

  FOREWORD

  These stories are set in a time line that branched from yours and mine sometime after the close of World War Two. Much in it remains familiar; some things are very similar. But major differences have developed. The geogravitic power converter has energized economies while greatly easing energy, water, and pollution problems.

  But the blessing is mixed. The GPC has brought more than cheap, clean, abundant energy and the new physics: The resulting flood of scientific and technological innovations is accelerating changes in society, with outgrowths positive and negative, attractive and ugly, exciting and fearsome.

  Homo sapiens has major adjustments to make.

  A MOST SINGULAR MURDER

  a novella

  1

  My name is Martti Seppanen, and I work for Prudential Investigations and Security, Inc. Things had been slow, and I'd had nothing much to do for a day and a half—since I'd finished rounding up the collusion evidence against Funsch, Carillo, and Wallace. So I stood there in my two-by-four office—ten by ten feet, actually—looking westward across the L.A. basin toward the higher rises of Lower Wilshire. While drilling Spanish.

  I don't mind days like that. But there was the nagging worry that if business didn't pick up, Joe might have to lay people off. Me for example. Times like that you can wonder whether it had been a good idea when Joe leased the whole ninth floor of this high-rent high rise. Of course, the old building got sold out from under him and knocked down. The old buildings are disappearing.

  Besides, when I don't have a case, I get the munchies worse than usual, and I gain weight too easily.

  I kept drilling, using a question and answer program on intermediate spoken Spanish. The computer would voice a question in fairly simple Spanish, and I'd answer it. Or it would tell me to discuss some simple thing. Then it would critique my diction, grammar, and pronunciation, and we'd repeat it till the program was satisfied with my performance.

  ¿«Donde guardan los documentos financiales»? the computer asked me. ("Where do you keep your financial records?") The program is part of the department's advanced language training.

  «Debajo de la bañadera, I answered, donde nadie los buscaria». ("Under the bathtub, where no one would ever look for them.") You do enough of those drills, you learn what the program will accept.

  That's where things stood when Carlos looked in on me. "Come in my office," he said. "We've got something for you."

  "We" meant himself and Joe Keneely. Joe's the founder, principal shareholder, and CEO of Prudential. Carlos is the senior investigator, and I was his protégé, top of the list of junior investigators. And the something would be an assignment.

  I followed Carlos down the hall. His office was big enough for a small conference without people sitting in each other's laps. He sat down behind his desk, and I took the chair across from him. Fingering his computer, he turned on the wall screen. A picture formed and stopped. It showed Joe Keneely's office, with Joe and Carlos, and some guy I'd never seen before.

  "The client is Donald C. Pasco," Carlos said. "All the way down from Sacramento. Joe just signed a contract with him." He said it as if it tasted bad. I'd heard of Pasco. He was director of the Anti-Fraud Division of the California Department of Commerce, and had a reputation as an aye-aitch.

  The picture came to life, and I watched their conference. Actually I watched Pasco bitch and snarl. About three weeks earlier, an astronomer named Arthur Ashkenazi had read a paper to the California Section of the Astronomical Society of America, at the section's annual meeting. The paper was what had gotten Pasco upset. Pasco didn't have much presence, but he had rank and venom. After playing back the meeting with Pasco, Carlos ran Ashkenazi's talk for me. I'd been aware of it before, just barely. It had been written up in the papers, but I hadn't read it. I read fast, but the L.A. Times is thick, and the talk hadn't had any significance for me.

  Now, watching him deliver it, it turned out to be pretty interesting. It didn't offend me at all, but it had offended Ashkenazi's audience. He'd hardly gotten well underway when people started to leave. "Stalked out" is the best description.

  About halfway through his talk and three-quarters of the way through his audience, one of them got up and shouted that Ashkenazi should be thrown out. That what he was spieling was astrology, not astronomy. And another guy stood up then, apparently an officer of the meeting, and told the guy yelling that he'd either have to sit down and be quiet, or leave. The guy left, madder than hell, most of the remaining audience following him out in a bunch. Ashkenazi finished to a dozen listeners, probably mostly reporters, and didn't seem upset at the exodus. I suppose he wasn't surprised.

  Basically what Ashkenazi was reporting was, he'd run correlations of events of one sort and another against the positions of stars and planets. Which did amount to astrology, as far as I could see. And while I'm no statistical analyst, I do know that the kind of correlation coefficients he was claiming aren't the sort of thing you get by chance. Not in the real world.

  He'd done it the hard way, too, or that's how it looked. He hadn't picked a scattering of historical events that fitted his purpose. Over a period of almost thirty years he'd predicted events, supposedly from the positions of stars and planets, and published them in various newsletters put out by different astrology groups, New Age groups, and groups into psychic phenomena. And a lot of his predictions came out as forecast, his scores getting better as he improved his system. Predictions like droughts, major political shifts, uprisings, big stock market swings, major deaths . . . If the publications were real. In 1994 he'd even predicted that a then-unknown source of electrical power would be released in 1997 that would change the world. Which of course was Haugen's geogravitic power converter! That was uncanny.

  I could see why astronomers might get spooky about stuff like that. But why was Pasco so upset? Even if Ashkenazi made it all up, it wasn't illegal and it wasn't commerce. Which was what the Anti-Fraud Division was supposed to be concerned with—criminal fraud in commerce. This was something the astronomers could take care of themselves if they wanted to, by kicking Ashkenazi out of their society. Which in fact they had, for misrepresenting his talk to the
program committee.

  From the recording of the meeting with Pasco, I could see that Joe felt uncomfortable with the job, the same as I did. Because what Pasco wanted was a fishing expedition at taxpayers' expense. We were supposed to investigate every damned thing about Arthur Ashkenazi. Everything but his finances; the California Commerce Department's Audit Division would cover that. To quote Pasco: "Find something discreditable about this Ashkenazi, preferably something criminal."

  I asked Carlos why Joe had accepted the contract. I guess I knew, but Joe spelled it out for me: "A fair amount of our business comes from Commerce. We're their number one contractor in southern California, and we can't afford their turning to another investigation firm."

  2

  I could have turned the assignment down. Joe's used to my being a hardhead, and I'd earned enough points with him and Carlos that they wouldn't have been too mad at me. But somehow I took it.

  Back in my office, I sat down at my computer, accessed the L.A. library and called up what the media—print, Webworks, and TV—had said about Ashkenazi's talk. The professional media had had people there of course—probably stringers and junior staff. And since the news had been dull for a while, they'd played up the Ashkenazi flap pretty big. Mostly tongue in cheek, but pretty much without ridiculing it. The syndicates had gotten hold of it then, pontificating. Then Time magazine did a feature on it, treating it straight, and Ashkenazi made the talk show circuit.

  All of which had burned Pasco up, and he was using his position, and us, to try to punish Ashkenazi at pubic expense.

  Usually you start a case with evidence of a crime, and that gives you something to orient on. This one was different.

  Since it was almost five o'clock, I killed a few minutes, then left the office promptly at quitting time. It wasn't a workout day, and I had a date that evening, so I went straight home, showered, re-shaved, dressed semi-dressy, and picked up Tuuli. We took my car—hers is nicer, but she's considerate about things like that—and drove to Mr. Ethel's on North La Cienega. They specialize in health foods, especially low-fat foods, but the quality is excellent and the prices affordable. The waiters are a little strange, but they're at least as courteous as their customers.

  Tuuli doesn't worry about fat. That's my problem. She's the same age as me, thirty, but only five feet tall and fine-boned. She probably doesn't weigh more than 85 or 90 pounds, which is 40 percent of what I weigh. About a third of what I weigh, sometimes. She's the only Lapp immigrant I know; actually half-Lapp. Her father's a Finn, same as mine was. Born in the little mining town of Tuollivaara in Swedish Lapland, she grew up partly there, and partly on a backwoods farm near Koivujoki, in Finnish Lapland. Came to America when she turned eighteen. Her story is, she decided to emigrate when someone told her that in California women could be shamans, and all the shamans were rich.

  She's been psychic, she says, since she was a little kid. From what I've seen, it's easy to believe. Her great-great-grandfather had been one of the last active Lapp shamans; the state church pretty much shut shamanism down in Sweden a hundred and fifty years ago. The basic lore got passed down to Tuuli through her mother, even though they were females. How I got to know her is, she sometimes consults for police agencies and private investigation firms in greater Los Angeles. The police don't like to acknowledge it—bad for their image—and she doesn't publicize it. She just deposits their credit transfers in her bank account.

  But she built her reputation through the rich and famous. There's a lot of rich people around L.A., and most of her income is from them. It doesn't hurt that Tuuli Waanila's an interesting looking woman, either. Not just tiny. She has elfin features, sandy hair, and slanty hazel eyes. It especially helps with entertainment people. Looks mean a lot to them. Also she sounds good. She's got a light accent that sounds pretty much Finnish. She's well-named, too. Her full name is Tuulikki, which in Finnish means graceful. Her dad named her that when she was born, and it turned out to fit.

  Anyway, at Mr. Ethel's we got a booth in a corner, and while we waited, we drank coffee and talked. "What do you think of astrology?" I asked.

  Her eyes were direct, as usual. "Astrology? I'm not very informed about it. I don't practice it. But I usually look up my horoscope in the paper, in the morning."

  "Really?"

  "Sure. It's good to have a source of outside information. Psychics usually see better for others than for ourselves."

  I didn't leave it at that. I had to pump her a little. It goes with the profession. "But astrology!" I said. "I mean, I can imagine people getting information through the omega matrix maybe, but from the positions of the planets?"

  She shrugged. "You read the papers."

  "Not the horoscopes, I don't."

  "Did you read about the astronomer, Ashkenazi?"

  "Do you believe him?"

  "Nobody seemed anxious to try proving him wrong." She paused, looking pointedly at me. "Why don't you tell me why you brought this up?"

  So I did. "And now Ashkenazi's my job. Thanks to Mr. Paska. Oops, Pasco."

  She tried to grin and wrinkle her nose at the same time. The nose won out. "Paska is a good name for him."

  "You know Pasco?"

  "In my business, he has a reputation. He hates people like me. He's California's main agitator for laws to stop us from practicing our profession." Her eyes looked thoughtfully at me. "You've heard the saying, 'In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.' "

  "Yeah?"

  "The person who said it was mistaken. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is apt to be considered a liar and a fraud." She paused again. This time her eyes seemed to focus somewhere above and beyond my right shoulder. "You're likelier to find something criminal about Pasco than about Ashkenazi."

  "Are you serious?"

  "Yes I'm serious."

  "What should I look for?"

  Tuuli shrugged. "I don't know. If you're interested in Ashkenazi, look way back. To when he was young." She paused. "Ashkenazi's not his real name, his original name."

  "How do you know?" I assumed she'd read it somewhere. "What is his real name?"

  "I don't know. You should be able to find out. And it's something you really should look into. And find out about his twin. His twin brother. I'm pretty sure it's a brother."

  I didn't know how to take that—whether she'd read something, or if she was being psychic. "And you say I can find something criminal about Pasco if I try?"

  "I'm not sure. The feeling I get is a little confusing. It may be something he hasn't done yet."

  "Huh! I'll keep that in mind," I told her. "But tomorrow I start checking on Ashkenazi."

  3

  An investigation contract with a public agency gets you direct access to the confidential State Data Center through your computer. You call and enter your case ID. Their computer checks the ID and your face and thumbprint against their records, then you insert the contract card so they know what it's all about. After that you tell them what you want, with a brief oral justification. If it sounds reasonable to them, and if everything checks out, the information downloads into your computer for your temporary use.

  As for "temporary use," you're supposed to erase stuff within three business days of contract termination. Actually they give you a two-day grace period. The information is flagged in their computer when you get it, and they check contractor computers from Sacramento, to be sure the stuff has been erased. Obviously it's possible to hold out on them; make hard copies for example. But if you're caught, it can cost your license, as well as a fine and possible criminal charges.

  Joe's grace period is less than Sacramento's. On the morning of the third day, the company checks. Your first violation brings a reprimand. The second time you're fired, or if you're lucky as hell, put on probation. That's part of the orientation pack you get when he hires you. Plus Joe tells you himself, with his bushy black Irish-Cornish eyebrows drawn up in a knot to make sure you take him seriously. He fires your ass, and the reas
on will be on your employment references.

  So anyway, I called up all the information on Ashkenazi in the state's files, with the exception of tax and census data. Tax records are accessible only if your contract is with the California Franchise Tax Board. Census data isn't available under any contract, and I'm told if you even ask, the state investigates you.

  I learned a lot about Ashkenazi: His current address, past addresses with dates . . . all kinds of stuff. But the most interesting item was that Arthur Aaron Ashkenazi was an assumed name. Just like Tuuli said. He'd been born Aldon Arthur Ashley, and had legally changed it in 1973, seven years before I was born. There was no hint of why.

  There was nothing there to focus an investigation on except the name change, and offhand that didn't look very promising. So I decided to interview him. I'd present myself as a freelance writer doing an article on spec for the pop-science magazine Cutting Edge.

  I had his unlisted number from the state, but using it might bring questions I wouldn't care to answer, so I dialed his answering service, which was listed. The woman who answered had a face like a bulldog. I decided right away he didn't want calls from strangers.

  "I'd like to speak with Mr. Ashkenazi, please."

  "What may I tell him the call is about?"

  "It's confidential."

  "Mr. Ashkenazi doesn't accept confidential calls at this number."

  I'd only waste my time trying to cajole her. "Tell Mr. Ashkenazi I want to interview him. If I can't, I'll have to interview his twin. Tell him that. If you cut me off, he's going to be madder than hell at you."

  Her look almost melted my set. I wished I'd looked up his twin's name, if he actually had a twin. I shouldn't have overlooked that. Using a name would have been more convincing. After glaring for a couple of seconds, she put me on hold. A minute later, Ashkenazi's face appeared on my screen. He looked mildly annoyed, nothing worse.