“Do you have any idea who hit you?” Fred asked.

The question was phrased in an interesting way. Not “Did you get a look at the truck?” or “Did you get a look at the driver?” How much did Giganticorp know about him? Probably not as much as he imagined.

“It was a pickup truck. I didn’t get a look at the driver. I don’t even remember the color. It looked pretty much like any other pickup truck, except that I caught a glimpse of the front bumper before it hit us, and it appeared to be larger than usual-perhaps reinforced.”

“Hmmm.” Fred wiped his sweating face with a large handkerchief. “So you don’t have any idea who it was?”

It occurred to Drake that he’d better be careful in dealing with Fred. He might look like Humpty Dumpty, but looks could be deceiving. “I’m not on any list that I know about.”

“I understand that you used to work for the government on some sensitive projects…”

Fred made it an incomplete sentence that Drake would feel he had to complete. He resisted the impulse.

“Yeah. That was a while ago.”

“Do you want to file a police report?”

Drake hadn’t gotten that far in his thinking. The taxi driver was being taken care of. He was being taken care of. He wouldn’t be able to give the police enough information to help them find the culprit. If this were the work of a former enemy, the police would be powerless, anyway. But why would they come after him now? Because the race would undoubtedly generate publicity? Because his name might be in the papers? It didn’t make sense.