Chapter 3

Friday, August 10, 2035, PM

As Al turned into the short dead end street where Sam's family lived, his heart leaped into his throat. He took the car out of gear and let it roll to a stop. He could see the porch light was on, and a single lamp burned in the living room. The grief Al was feeling became too much for him, knowing what he had to do was beyond anything he'd ever done before in his life. A new onslaught of tears began, his body was wracking with sobs. He couldn't stand the thought of going into this house knowing that Sam would never be there again. They had shared so much there. They had worked on the place together when Sam and Linda first bought it. It had been in pretty bad shape, but it was all the newlyweds could afford. Sam and Al made it into a home anyone could be proud of. They had come there after the birth of each of Sam's girls for a single drink and to relive their own childhood.

Finally the sobs abated and the tears subsided. Al reminded himself he had to be strong to support Sam's family. He couldn't delay what he had to do any longer...

Linda was out of the house and half way to the car before Al had his door open. He could tell that she'd been crying. The blue azure eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot. "Have you heard anything from Sam?" she asked. "He was due home hours ago, and I haven't been able to get an answer in his office or lab."

Al tried to speak, but his throat was so tight all he could do was nod.

Linda saw the way he looked and his tear stained face. "Oh, God. Has he been in an accident? Is he in the hospital?"

Again, he couldn't speak. He shook his head and the tears started rolling down his face.

Linda looked as if she had just run into a wall. She stumbled, then caught herself on the hood of the car. Realization without words hitting her like a bolt of lightening. "No! It can't be! This isn't possible!" Grief taking over, she began hitting the hood of the car with the edge of her fist. Al watched as her fists pounded the top of his car, Gently he put his arms around her and drew her to him. "God," he sobbed, his eyes raised heavenward. "How could you let this happen?"

"Mommy, what's wrong?"

Startled, Al and Linda looked up and saw Stacy leaning out her bedroom window. Before looking at the child, she straightened, cleared her eyes of tears. "Go back to bed, honey," Linda said in a voice that was almost calm. "Uncle Al just came over to say goodnight."

"G'night, Uncle Al." she smiled, her cherub face breaking his heart.

"Good night Sweetheart." Al watched as Stacy waved then disappeared inside her window. As he turned back to Linda, he could see a firmer set to her shoulders. "Let's go in the house," he said, noticing the rain dripping off both of them for the first time. He took Linda's hand as he lead her into the living room. Linda took her usual overstuffed chair, while Al sat on one end of the couch, where he had in better days romped with the girls.

"How did it happen?" she asked, calmly.

"Linda, honey, I'm not sure. The police called me about two hours ago and wanted me to come and identify him." He waited, there was no easy way to say it. "It wasn't an accident. Someone murdered him."

Linda jerked back as if she had touched an open flame. "Murder? Murdered him? That can't be. Sam didn't have an enemy in the world."

Al watched her with growing respect. The shock and hurt in her face were gradually being replaced by anger. She was going to make it. Sam had picked right when he and Linda got together. "What about the police? What are they doing about finding out who killed my husband? Did they say anything?"

Linda's questions bombarded Al. He took her trembling hand into his, squeezing it gently, reassuringly. "First things first Linda. Did Sam say anything to you about the Japanese who were trying to buy him out?"

Again Linda looked startled. "He did say some rather strange Japanese businessmen wanted to buy the company, or at least the rights to the new processes on the polyhedrons. Do you think there might be a connection?"

Al thought for a moment before deciding to tell her all he knew, then decided that Linda not only had a right to know, but might herself be in danger. He told her about the conversation he had with Sam the previous Saturday and the veiled threats the Japanese businessmen had made. "I know it's not much to go on, but it's the only thing that makes sense. I'm going to the police tomorrow and see what they have to say."

Linda looked thoughtful for a moment. In her heart she knew Sam's death hadn't hit her yet. The worse was yet to come. She looked at Al, grief written everywhere in her face. "Did you know they called the office again Monday?" Without waiting for a reply she went on. "When they called, Marge wouldn't let them talk to Sam. They told her they were going to see him on Wednesday and to let him know they'd be there. She told them he wouldn't be available, but the guy just laughed and hung up."

"Did Sam give you any names, or the company these guys represented?"

"No, but he did say he'd found out why they wanted to buy him out so badly. He said they were from a subsidiary of the biggest manufacturer of dihedrons. He said that his new process would drive them out of business."

They were both quiet for a minute. Each lost in his own thoughts. Then Linda spoke up again. "You know, Sam was acting a little strange all week. He didn't want to answer the phone, and I saw him looking out the window through a slit in the drapes several times. He even gave me a large envelope and said that I should give it to you if anything happened to him. I didn't think much about it... he made a big joke about it. He said you were investing in his new process and I thought it had something to do with that."

"Do you still have the envelope?" Al asked.

Linda got up without saying anything and left the room. She was back in a few minutes with a large manila envelope with Alís name written in Sam's neat hand.

"Let's go in the dining room where we can spread this out and take a look at it," Al sighed.

When they were seated, side by side, and Al had accepted Linda's offer of a cup of coffee, the busier she was now, the later her collapse would be. Al opened the envelope and slid the entire contents out in a single stack. On top was a typed letter with Sam's signature below.

Dear Al,

If you are reading this, it means that my suspicions of the Japanese guys I was talking to you about on Saturday were correct. I found out that they work for a company called Hiroshima LTD. This is a subsidiary of Mitsutronics, the largest manufacturer of dihedrons in the world.

If I bring out the new polyhedrons, I could run them out of business. Even though I don't have the manufacturing capacity to take over the market, I can license the manufacturing to other crystal manufacturers and make a profit on every one sold. Mitsutronics would either have to pay me for the right to make polyhedrons or have to reduce the price of their dihedrons to the point they would no longer be profitable to make.

Al, I changed my will this week. I am leaving you 25% of the business. Linda has the business savvy to run the company as well as or better than I did, but I want you involved. I don't want the company I've worked so hard on to get away from the family. I want Linda to be in charge, but I want you to be there to help her. I know that you would be there anyway, but this way you can have a seat on the board of directors. Linda has 41% of the business and the other 34% is divided up among the three key people who have been with me from the beginning. All of them have their own money in the company.

Al, you know I love you more than most brothers ever do. Please take care of Linda and the girls. You know how much they mean to me. I never thought I would be writing something like this, and I feel a little foolish doing it. I'll probably be sheepishly tearing this up in a few weeks and I hope I am.

The enclosed papers are the key elements of the new polyhedron process. There are no other copies of the important parts, and no employee at Modern has the knowledge to duplicate it. Guard these carefully. They are my family's future.

Give Linda and the girls my love.

Sam

Al was so choked up when he finished the letter he could hardly breathe and Linda looked like he felt. Rising from the table, AL took Linda's hand, and gently pulled her out of her chair. As they held each other sobbing, Al thought of all the responsibility that Sam had given him. One part of him was dismayed at the amount of freedom he would have to give up to carry out his brother's wishes. When he thought about Linda and the girls, that part of him seemed small and mean.

"Are you going to be all right for the rest of the night? Do you need me here when you tell the girls?"

"I'll be fine," she answered mechanically. Then she smiled and said, "Now that I know what Sam wants, I'll just have to prove that I'm as capable a person as he thought I was. I'll tell the girls. I don't know how, but I'll tell them. Give me a call in the morning after you have seen the police."

The rain soaked streets splashed his prized sports car with mud. Any other time, Al would have been swerving and turning to avoid the potholes in the road, but not tonight. As Al drove back to his apartment, his anger began to build. Who did these bastards think they were, anyway? This is the United States, and you just can't get away with that kind of thing here. But, in his heart he knew it was possible. The good old US of A had gone through a lot of changes over the last fifty years. Criminals were protected to the point that they could literally get away with murder. Even if he could prove that the Japanese businessmen murdered his brother, they probably had diplomatic passports, which meant they couldn't be prosecuted for any crime they committed.

Al's mood was black when he walked into his apartment. Normally he could look at the big sprawling open spaces and feel contentment. Tonight it just looked forbidding. The first thing he did was find a hiding place for the documents Sam had entrusted to him. In his apartment it wasn't difficult to find a place that the papers wouldn't be easily found, but he wanted to be absolutely sure no one could find them. As his eyes swept the room, his gaze fell on his collection of computers. One of them was an old IBM 486 from the mid 1990s. He got out his screwdriver and removed the five screws from the back of the tower. He slid the case off, and smiled at all the open space inside. He carefully folded the papers and slid them into the place an expansion board would inhabit if it were installed. He put the computer back together and turned it on to check it out. It booted up with no problem, as he knew it would.

Rather than turn the computer off, Al decided to go on line for a while to see if he could find anything out about the two companies Sam had mentioned in his letter. As the ancient modem was connecting to the web, Al smiled. Not many people would bother keeping an old boat anchor around, much less use it, but Al was a different breed of computer nut. He had a collection of computers that was probably more extensive than in any museum. He had models ranging from the late 1970s to the most modern pocket computer manufactured today. The one he was using now had to actually use a phone line to establish communications with the web. Sure he could connect an external satellite modem to it, but that would somehow seem like a desecration.

When the web server came up, he checked his in box out of habit. Sure enough there was a message from HAK-N-SAK dated less than an hour ago. He opened the mail and was surprised to see that it was a message of condolences. "How the hell could he know about Sam already?" Al wondered. Out of curiosity Al tried sending an immediate message to HAK-N-SAK.

>>HAK-N-SAK@CYBERNET.COM>>Hey, Hak are you on line? >>

After a brief pause a message came back:

<<HAK-N-SAK@CYBERNET.COM>>GAMESMAN@GAMESNET.NET>>Yeah, Man, I'm on. :-( sorry to hear about your brother.>>

>>HAK-N-SAK@CYBERNET.COM>>How did you hear about it so soon? >>

<<HAK-N-SAK@CYBERNET.COM>>GAMESMAN@GAMESNET.NET>>Well, you know, I was kinda cruising the police net and saw the report. Musta been pretty bad, huh? >>