The Second Coming of Lucas Brokaw Page 3

  Why, indeed?

  A few minutes later, Tanner entered a suite of offices on the second floor of the institute. The plaque on the door bore a simple inscription—Brokaw Foundation—but the waiting room was hardly what he'd expected.

  Several of the office staff were gathered near the coffee bar, while a girl at the reception desk struggled to maintain her composure. Opposite her, waving a bird cage over the desk, was an elderly woman who appeared on the verge of tears. She wore a nondescript raincoat, wedgie shoes, and perched atop her head was a hat that vaguely resembled a fruit salad. While she talked, thrusting the cage in the girl's face, a huge green parrot vented his outrage with a stream of raucous, earsplitting squawks.

  "You're not fooling me. Not for a minute! Oooh no, dearie, not me. I've got rights just like everybody else, and I won't stand for it, d'you hear? I won't stand for it!"

  "Of course you have rights, Mrs. Zackowski." The girl managed a look of genuine concern. "All I'm saying is that there are procedures to be followed. Your case will be taken under advisement, and the director himself will personally review it. And he'll give it every consideration, Mrs. Zackowski. I assure you he will."

  "Then I want to see the director, right now. I demand to see the director! And don't try to soft-soap me. I won't budge from his spot till he hears what Tommy has to say with his very own ears."

  "I'm sorry, Mrs. Zackowski, but that's quite impossible. The director is a very busy man, and his calendar is filled for the rest of the week. If you care to call me, perhaps we could arrange something for a later date."

  "But why won't you believe me? Tommy is him, I tell you!" The old lady rattled the cage and a blast from the parrot momentarily drowned out her words. "Just give him a chance. Listen to him. He'll convince you himself if you'll only let him speak his piece."

  Tanner remained just inside the door, amused but inscrutable, observing the exchange with professional curiosity. The old woman was quickly catalogued—a harmless crank—and dismissed. The girl, on the other hand, held his attention. There was something about her . . . a wisp of recollection he couldn't quite identify. She was small and compact, with a kind of bustling vitality, and she had extraordinary eyes. Dark sable hair cascaded over her shoulders, accentuating her high cheekbones, and he caught a hint of something puckish beneath her expression, minxlike and slyly impudent. Yet to all outward appearances she was cool and crisp, quite obviously in control of both herself and the situation—which included Tommy and his keeper.

  Then he listened more closely, zeroing in on her voice, and it came to him. She was no receptionist. This was the girl he'd spoken with yesterday to arrange the appointment. The director's executive assistant, which implied something more than a secretary. Though he had forgotten her name, he remembered the voice, soft and sibilant, yet surprisingly forceful for a woman. An altogether rare combination that immediately stoked his interest. Brains and beauty seldom came in the same package.

  At the desk the seriocomic debate suddenly ended. The girl's manner was guileless but firm; with perfect aplomb, she maneuvered the old lady toward the door, all the while assuring Mrs. Zackowski that it was merely a matter of time. Tommy would definitely have his chance! Just as soon as it could be fitted into the director's schedule. An instant later, smiling earnestly, she waved good-bye to the parrot and his mistress and closed the door with a small sigh of relief.

  Nothing if not resilient, she collected herself and turned to meet his gaze. "You must be Warren Tanner."

  "That's correct. And as I recall, you're Mr. Knox's assistant."

  "Executive assistant." The distinction noted, she stuck out her hand. "I'm Stacey Cameron."

  Her grip was firm and her appraisal deliberate. She looked him up and down, scrupulously impersonal, as though the assessment was de rigueur to any interview. What she saw was a tall man, lithe and muscular, built along deceptive lines. Bronzed by the sun, his hair burned a lively chestnut, probably an outdoorsman. Not a handsome man, although certain women would be fascinated by the squared jaw and chiseled features and whatever lay hidden behind that sardonic gaze. But a determined man, quietly arrogant.

  Tanner wasn't in the least uncomfortable under her scrutiny. But it led him to a quick-felt insight of his own. While she was friendly enough, there was an aloof quality about her, something very unyielding and businesslike. Clearly a woman whose approval and confidence must be won, and the place to start was within her own orbit. Not on the personal level but within the job, where she lived.

  "If you don't mind my saying so"—his expression was deadpan, one pro to another—"I thought you handled Mrs. Zackowski very tactfully."

  "All in a day's work, Mr. Tanner." She gave him an odd look, intrigued but skeptical, and then stepped back, indicating a hallway. "Shall we join the director? I believe he's expecting you."

  "By all means. But first, let me ask you a question." He cocked one eyebrow and jerked his thumb toward the door. "Call it morbid curiosity, but I was wondering about the old woman. Was it a con, or do you think she was really serious?"

  "Oh, yes indeed." A tinge of mockery crept into her voice. "Mrs. Zackowski was very serious."

  "Evidently I asked something amusing. Is it a private joke, or can anybody play?"

  Stacey Cameron laughed a droll little laugh. "Mr. Tanner, the one certainty in a very uncertain world is that Lucas Brokaw would never come back as a parrot."

  II

  "Allow me to say that your credentials are impeccable, Mr. Tanner. Most impressive."

  Tanner was seated across the desk from Hamilton Knox, director of the Brokaw Foundation. At the moment Knox was scanning a telex report, nodding to himself as if immersed in some lofty abstraction. Stacey Cameron had taken a chair at the end of the desk, a strategic gambit that wasn't lost on Tanner. Hers was the role of observer, and she was positioned to catch the slightest nuance of reaction during the interview. It was a transparent device, one he considered rather amateurish, but the report in Knox's hand was an altogether different matter. That aroused his interest.

  Feigning indifference, Tanner lit a cigarette. "Don't believe everything you read, Mr. Knox. The credit bureau is notorious for supplying inaccurate information."

  "You underestimate our resources, my boy," Knox admonished him with a sly look. "This report came from a bureau well enough, but it's from a bureau based in Washington."

  "And you managed to get it overnight?"

  "As a matter of fact, that's precisely what we managed to do." Adjusting his glasses, Knox peered intently at the report. "Now as to accuracy, let's see what it has to say. Warren Tanner. Age thirty. Unmarried. Parents deceased. Graduate of Stanford and Stanford Law—incidentally, that's a point in your favor—and immediately thereafter joined the FBI. Spent two years in Tulsa, followed by two years in Denver, and last year was assigned to the regional office in San Francisco. Rated a top-notch investigator. Has a particular gift for undercover work. Currently in line for promotion."

  Knox paused, eyes darting over the telex sheet, then he shrugged and glanced up. "Well, I daresay that's enough. Suppose you judge for yourself. Accurate or not?"

  Tanner conceded the point. "Apparently somebody up there likes me."

  "Apparently so. Which brings us to the pertinent question." Knox frowned over the top of his glasses. "With a record such as this, what prompts your sudden decision to leave the FBI?"

  It was the very question Tanner had been asking himself. Yet even now, confronted with it openly, he had no ready answer. A leaden silence settled over the room, and be was aware of Stacey watching him intently. At last, unwilling to fabricate some flimsy pretext, he stubbed out his cigarette and simply told them the truth.

  "To be perfectly frank about it, I don't know. Since yesterday, I've been mulling it over, and as yet I haven't come up with an explanation. All I can tell you is that I saw your ad and ten minutes later I was on the phone. Perhaps it was subliminal. I can't really say."

  "Th
at's it?" Knox demanded skeptically. "Some sort of irresistible impulse?"

  "Curious as it sounds, that same phrase occurred to me.”

  "You're not disillusioned with the government? All those disclosures about the FBI being involved in dirty tricks? The political corruption?"

  "Perhaps. But no more than anyone else. I'm hardly an idealist."

  "Could it be the opportunity?" Knox persisted. "Perhaps you're more ambitious than you realized. I daresay every man views the future with a different perspective once he turns thirty."

  "I've thought of that. And I can't wholly discount it. But again, I'm not sure it's what prompted me to pick up the telephone yesterday."

  "So we're back to your subliminal stimulus. The irresistible impulse?"

  "At the risk of repeating myself, I don't know." Tanner glanced at Stacey, who appeared a bit bemused, and then looked back at the director. "I'm here, and I presume I wouldn't be if I was altogether satisfied with my job. But right now that's the best I can offer you." Tanner leaned forward as if to stand. "If it isn't good enough, then just say so and I'll be on my way."

  Hamilton Knox gave him a sharp, appraising look and gestured for him to take his seat again. The director had no particular skill in unraveling the tangled skein of human emotions. His insights were extremely analytical; seldom in his life had he experienced a quick, intuitive perception. Invariably dressed in tweeds, with glasses fixed low on the bridge of his nose, he resembled a kindly baffled owl. Yet he was a member of one of California's oldest families, and his heritage, along with a lifetime of exposure to campus intelligentsia, gave him a patrician manner that required little affectation. He was properly indulgent, moderately tolerant, and while his own life was as neatly mounted as a butterfly collection, he nonetheless made allowance for the flaws and frailties of those who inhabited what he considered to be a highly imperfect world.

  As director of the foundation, ever vigilant to the avarice of that outside world, he had devoted nearly thirty years to preserving Brokaw's millions. Administering the foundation, however, was a monumental task. All the more so since Knox had shrewdly unloaded the Brokaw industrial empire during the boom economy of the 1960s.

  Lucas Brokaw's fortune was now calculated in excess of $512,000,000.

  To Knox's everlasting grief, the burden of his stewardship was compounded by a steady parade of claimants. Scarcely a day passed without one or more persons—each claiming to be Lucas Brokaw reincarnated—appearing in the foundation offices. Stacey Cameron had become his indispensable surrogate, a buffer of sorts, and he relied on her to contend with the worrisome details of day-to-day operations. But he was in need of an investigator, a replacement for his old and trusted friend Harry Atkins, who was retiring at the end of the month. Acting as watchdog over the Brokaw millions was no small chore in itself, for it entailed guarding what was perhaps the world's most vulnerable fortune.

  The job called for a man of experience and resourcefulness, with that blend of congenital skepticism peculiar to all first-rate detectives. Of equal significance, it required a dedicated man, someone whose sense of pride and self-esteem were so compelling that the mere suggestion of defeat was anathema to his nature.

  Now, despite certain qualms, the director was forced to the conclusion that he'd found his man. The record spoke for itself. Warren Tanner was a skilled investigator, unmatched by anyone he'd interviewed yet. Perhaps his motives were a trifle cloudy, but of course personal aspirations weren't the point at issue. What was at issue were his qualifications, and on the basis of past performance, logic dictated that Tanner was the man for the job.

  The decision made, Knox steepled his fingers and peered thoughtfully across the desk. "Since you're a Stanford man, I presume you have more than a passing acquaintance with the foundation and its rather unique background."

  "That's an understatement," Tanner replied. "Introduction to the ghost of Lucas Brokaw is considered part of the freshman initiation rite."

  "Quite so. Nevertheless, suppose I give you a thumbnail sketch of the foundation and how it operates. With that as a focal point, assuming, our interests are mutual, we might then proceed to a discussion of the job itself."

  "Yes, I'd like that very much. To tell you the truth, I've always wondered where fact left off and fiction began.”

  "In the case of Lucas Brokaw I believe you'll find they're inseparable. If you're a student of mythology, by any chance, then the reason will become self-evident."

  "You're not suggesting they're the same . . . the man and the myth?"

  "Exactly. All the world loves a good fable, and in this case, time simply blurred reality somewhat faster than normal. Usually it takes centuries to create a myth. Lucas Brokaw did it in thirty years."

  "Pardon me, but I get the feeling . . . that's not altogether speculation, is it?"

  "Hardly. It's based on personal knowledge."

  "You actually knew Brokaw?"

  "Oh, yes, quite well. He and my father worked rather closely together, mainly in politics. So I was around him a good deal in those days, and I must say, we got along famously."

  "Then you liked him?"

  "Nooo. I suspect no one ever really liked Lucas Brokaw. But he was a man of great vigor, very dynamic. It was impossible not to admire him, and in all honesty, I learned more from him than I did from my own father. You see, he had no children, so he always considered me as something of a protégé."

  "Of course, and that explains . . . or maybe I'm jumping to conclusions. Are you saying Brokaw himself appointed you to the foundation?"

  "Not exactly, although he did make his wishes known. But that's a mere anecdote, quite apart from our discussion here today. Suppose we concentrate on the foundation . . . there's the real story."

  Hamilton Knox leaned back in his chair, collecting his thoughts, like an old and wrinkled thespian contemplating some cherished soliloquy.

  Then he began to talk.

  III

  By the terms of his will, Lucas Brokaw had directed that all revenues from the foundation would go to Stanford University. This arrangement was to remain in effect until the day his future incarnation appeared to claim the fortune.

  Hamilton Knox had been selected by a board of trustees to administer the foundation and, further, was charged with the responsibility of protecting the fortune from false claimants. It was also stipulated that certain funds would be used to publicize the terms of the will on a regular basis. Presumably this was meant to alert Brokaw's reincarnated self, so that he would eventually come forward and demonstrate valid claim to his legacy. The test to determine that validity was, if anything, more bizarre than the will itself.

  One of Brokaw's firms was a company that had pioneered the development of cryptography machines. In utter secrecy, working with a select staff of engineers, he had constructed the ultimate cryptography device. It was one of a kind, and Brokaw had personally destroyed the blueprints. After devising a code known only to himself, he had programmed a single sentence into the machine and burned the cipher.

  The properly encoded sentence, when fed into the cryptography machine, would produce a plaintext message: THIS IS THE REAL LUCAS BROKAW. However, the machine was merely a hurdle, intended to weed out cranks and con artists. Its primary function, as indicated quite clearly in the will, was to serve as the first step in a series of tests to determine the validity of claimants.

  The second step was somewhat more hazardous.

  Brokaw had built a subterranean vault beneath his mansion, and within this vault were two wall safes. He had placed a list of questions in one safe and the corresponding answers in the second safe; afterward he wired the safes with explosives that would detonate if an incorrect combination was used. The safe containing the list of answers had also been rigged to explode if it was opened first. Brokaw had then committed to memory the combinations to the vault door and the safes and, as he had stressed repeatedly in the will, only Lucas Brokaw reincarnated could negotiate this per
ilous maze without triggering the booby traps. Anyone else would blow himself to Kingdom Come.

  In the event a claimant should pass the cryptography test and gain entry to the vault, he was to be escorted inside by the director. After the first wall safe was opened, the claimant would be required to answer the questions. Only then was the second safe to be opened, so that the director could check his answers against the answer list. If be passed all these tests—cryptography, explosive safes, and secret questions—he would have proven himself to be Lucas Brokaw reincarnated. And at that point, by the terms of the will, the entire fortune automatically passed from the foundation into his hands. This in itself was yet another safeguard, for Brokaw knew that the foundation, at the risk of losing vast revenues, would jealously guard his estate against false claimants.

  To bolster that effort, the will contained several additional clauses.

  The foremost condition was one directed specifically at con artists and charlatans. In the event anyone successfully claimed the fortune there was a $10,000,000 reward for the person who proved the claimant to be an imposter. A calculated hedge, it indicated Lucas Brokaw had forseen the possibility of fraud and was willing to pay handsomely to expose anyone who passed himself off as the legitimate heir. Also, he had directed that the mansion was to be preserved exactly as he'd left it on the eve of his death, and the foundation was to maintain a security force to guard the estate night and day. While the reason for this was never actually stated, it was clear that Brokaw had been afflicted with extreme paranoia concerning his underground crypt.

  There was one final stipulation in the will, not only curiously vague, but couched in veiled terms. Stripped of legalese it stated that "should disaster occur" while a claimant was attempting to pass the tests, there was an unrevealed test—a secret known only to Brokaw—and whoever later uncovered this secret would be acknowledged as Lucas Brokaw reincarnated.