The Turing Option

Brian slipped out and was waiting in the outer office when Woody came in.

“It’s from overseas, Brian, and personally addressed to you. Since you went off to Europe to launch your revolution I thought there might be some connection.”

“Might be. Where is it from?”

“The return address on this says Schweitzer Volksbank in St. Moritz.”

“I was there once, but didn’t go near any bank… St. Moritz — let me see that!”

He tore off the wrapping and a videocassette dropped onto the bench.

“That’s what it looked like in the X rays. Any message with it?”

“This is message enough. It says ‘play me’ loud and clear.” He weighed it in his hand, looked at Woody’s dark, stolid face. “I must look at this alone. Your suspicions were right — it is important. But I can’t break a promise so I can’t tell you why right now. But I will make another one. I’ll let you know what it is about just as soon as I can.”

“You do just that. Don’t see I have any choice.” Then he frowned. “Don’t do anything stupid, hear?”

“Loud and clear. Thanks.”

He went into the first empty office, closed the door and slipped the cassette into the machine. The screen flickered and cleared and showed a familiar book-lined study. Dr. Bociort was in his armchair. He raised a hand to the camera and spoke.

“I am saying good-bye, Brian. Or rather I have said good-bye sometime ago, since I made this recording soon after we met. I am an old man and filled with years — and mortal as the next. This recording has been left with my bank, which has instructions laid out in my will to post it to you after my demise. Therefore, you might say that I speak from the grave, as it were.

“When we met here I must now admit that I withheld one rather important bit of information from you. I do beg your forgiveness since it was done from pure selfishness. Had I revealed it, and had it led in turn to your discovering who your enemies are — that might have led in turn to my own death. We know they stop at nothing.

“I will talk no more about that. What I wish to tell you is that J. J. Beckworth is alive and living here in Switzerland. A country that specializes in anonymity and the keeping of secrets. It was only by accident that I saw him, coming out of a bank in Bern. Pure chance that he did not see me first. I of course no longer go to Bern, that is the reason I am here in St. Moritz. However, I did employ a firm of reliable investigators who located his residence. He is now living in a very expensive suburb of Bern under the name of Bigelow. I will read his address out to you and then I will say not au revoir, but a true and final good-bye.”

Brian broke the stunned silence that followed Bociort’s words with a cry of excitement.

“He’s alive — and I know where to find him!”

Beckworth alive — the thought cut through him like a knife. The one man who would know all the details, all the people behind the theft and murders, would know everything. They tried to kill me, tried more than once. Almost wiped out my brain, put me in the hospital, altered my life in every way.

He would find Beckworth, find who was behind him. Find them and make mem pay for what they had done to him. Brian paced the floor, forcing away the excitement and making himself think clearly — then reached for his telephone.

Benicoff would know what to do. He had started his investigation — now he was going to close it!

Ben was as elated by the news as Brian was — though he wasn’t happy about the terms forced upon him.

“This is really a matter for the police to take care of. Beckworth is a dangerous man.”

“The police can grab him after we have talked to him. I want to meet him face-to-face, Ben. I must do it. If you don’t want to come with me I just have to do it alone. I have his address and you don’t.”

“Blackmail!”

“Please don’t think that. It is just the way I have to go. You and I talk to him first and then the police grab him. We will take Sven along to record everything said. Okay?”

In the end Brian extracted reluctant agreement. Brian went back to the meeting but heard little of it. There was only a single thought in his mind now. Beckworth. As soon as possible he slipped out and went back to his apartment to pack a bag. Before he was done Sven knocked on the door.

“I was going to send for you as soon as the meeting ended. I have news—”

“I know. I listened to that video with great interest.”

“I should have known.”

“I was intrigued as you about the package. Will we be leaving soon?”

“Now. Let’s go.”

They met Ben at the Orbitport in Kansas in time for the evening flight to Europort in Hungary. The flight, out of the atmosphere and then back in, took less than half an hour. They spent ten times that amount of time on the sleeper train to Switzerland. Sven enjoyed the trip, enjoyed the attention he got. MIs in public were still a novelty.

The cabdriver passed the house, as instructed, and dropped them off at the next comer. Ben was still worried.