Dragonfire: A Gulliver Swift Adventure

Young Love

Had Swift more confidence in his grasp of the latest developments in contemporary physics he would not have hesitated but, while he was up to date on plate tectonics, continental drift, climate change and the like, he was not comfortable with his comprehension of a science grounded almost exclusively on abstruse mathematics. Knowing that the laptop contained Tate's calculations for a new source of cheap energy didn't mean the archeologist wouldn't be the bull in the china shop when he showed up on campus.

But there wasn't time for a handy-dandy make-up course in the subject, not that he knew anyone who could give it. It was either the bull in the china shop or nothing, he sighed, pulling a windbreaker from the hall closet—

And stopping, struck by the plastic garment bag hanging adjacent—and the cracked leather bomber jacket with the black fleece collar inside.

The Fedora gathering dust on the shelf above.

What would Ivan make of this," Gulliver wondered, reaching for the hat. "Interesting," he'd say in that neutral little voice analysts like to use, "couldn't bring yourself to let it go, could you?"

He did let it go, though. Because he was missing something—something Isis had said suddenly resonating, one of those little off-the-cuff comments in one ear and out the other springing out of the woodwork. What, that was the question, and when. Recent, had to be. After graduation. Before Larrabee III was found dead in the Gowanus Canal.

The brunch reception in the Natural History Museum's Hall of Cretaceous Dinosaurs? The party crashed by Lloyd Robertson while Isis was conversing with Rachel and—right, right, Beatrix and Felix Caravalho. Her impression was that the reporter knew Caravalho at least by reputation and, better yet, was somewhat familiar with his research.

Closet door closed—it wasn't the first day of semester and Indiana Jones wasn't going directly to campus, after all. He was going to knock on the door of Robertson's Brooklyn apartment dressed like the aging academic he was, On Air sign be damned—

—Except it wasn't illuminated when he got there. It wasn't on its hook. Which meant Lloyd wasn't webcasting, frustrating in the extreme. Swift had deliberately timed it to arrive when the journalist was scheduled to go live.

Odd. Not like him. If Robertson was supposed to be On Air at six, he was On Air at six. Could he be out in the field chasing another story—or in trouble behind his own closed door? Some people don't appreciate crusading journalists on principle. Some of them want to knock some sense into their heads. Or worse.

He rapped on the door, tentatively at first and then all out in response to a muffled snuffling from within, visions of the reporter bloodied on the floor swimming into his head.

The metallic clatter of a security chain, the clacks of upper and lower locks released. Hinges creaked, the door cracking open, Lloyd tousle-haired and naked save for a pair of briefs donned in obvious haste peering out.

"Yeah, what? Who?"

Not a mark on him. Well, no, there was a fresh hickey on his neck just under the left ear.

"Aren't you supposed to be on the air?" Gulliver demanded, suddenly short-tempered.

"I am," Lloyd said. "It's called pre-taping, all about how it wasn't the museum canned your ass this time, it was Rowdy Rodam Rose. Go away, I'm in the middle."

"So I gather." Swift walked past him into the apartment. "But we have stuff we have to talk about."

"What stuff? I've got sources say you're off the case."

"Deputy Chief Vicar," the archeologist imagined—"or my daughter?"

"Little bit of both," Isis had to confess, appearing in the bedroom door wearing nothing but see-thru panties under one of Robertson's dress shirts, only one of the buttons buttoned. Grabbed on the fly, obviously. "Hi, dad. Surprise."

"Surprise, my eye." Did she really think he'd been blind to the looks the two of them had been giving each other, first time he saw them together? "Probably knew it before you did."

"You okay with it?"

"The daughter of a wash-up archeologist hooks up with a washed-up TV anchor? Match made in heaven." He looked at Lloyd. "Get dressed, I need you to talk to me about Felix Caravalho's research before we go nose around Morningside Heights."

"Caravalho? How would I know what a cosmologist like him is working on?"

"My daughter says it sure sounded like it."

"Brunch reception," Officer Swift reminded him. "Hall of Cretaceous Dinosaurs, you suggested his research could do with a little advance buzz—something about anti-matter and gravity, I think it was."

"Which is the sum total of my knowledge when it comes to theoretical physics. Really, professor," the reporter said. "I think you're barking up the wrong tree, it wasn't Caravalho's laptop got stolen."

"But it was his main Number One graduate student blew off his incipient doctorate mid-semester. James Hawtree—quit cold. Thought he could learn more traveling around the country in his VW bus; at least that's what's posted on his Facebook page."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Robertson shrugged—and even as he said it he got it: "The witness out on the Island, she said she saw a Volkswagen van rocket out the driveway just when the house was blowing up."

Isis made the leap. "You're saying this Number One grad student could be the killer."

"Other way around more likely," her father's opinion—"Victim Zero."

"Assuming Hawtree's not actually running around the USA in his Weekender," she said, yanking Lloyd's single-breasted off the hangers in the adjacent closet, eyes pinning the reporter to the wall. "If a 4.0 tells his Facebook friends he's dropping out and taking a cross-country trip what enterprising young reporter wouldn't want to ask his classmates why now, especially when he could stick around a couple of weeks and pick up his magna cum laude, no sweat."

"Caravalho could be the thesis advisor from hell," the enterprising young reporter conjectured, getting into his trousers.

"Or Hawtree considered the experiments Caravalho was working on so immoral he really couldn't take it anymore." Gulliver was willing to bet the last his fellow students had heard from him was, "I don't know, the week before Carlos Guiterrez was killed at Aqueduct? And if he's running silent it isn't because he's busy sending Xiuhcoatl out to kill people, you ask me."

"You think he's dead."

"Unless his classmates confirm he's alive. Or until the good doctor says, 'what're you talking, here he is; say hello'." The journalist could see why it'd be good if Swift knew more about advanced theoretical physics than was the case currently, "and apparently you know more than I do."

"Listen," Robertson said, knotting the tie Isis handed him, "whatever I said to Caravalho was based on what I managed to remember from a satellite interview I did with Stephen Hawking on the morning show. Jesus," he whistled. "That was the day before the shit hit the fan and the network showed me the door."

"It'll have to do," said the archeologist, dour.

"Maybe not," Robertson perked up, grabbing the JVC Digital-S, giving Isis a kiss, and herding the archeologist out the door. "I got somebody I can call on the way uptown, he's at NYU—administration—it's part of his job he keeps up on science and technology. My old college roommate Matt."

His features darkened.

"Except."

"Except what?" Swift asked.

"Except Matt's the guy who loaned Lloyd the Suzuki he wrecked," his daughter grinned from the top of the stairs, waving goodbye.