Forests of the Night

by S. Andrew Swann

  Nohar wished he had a good argument for that. He didn't. "What do you mean, if the Fed knew?"

  "They don't, yet. I'll answer my first question for you. Perhaps a half-dozen people in the department know that Nohar is Datia's son. The DA's one. I'm another. All of us were at that last showdown at Musician's Towers. He held off a SWAT team with that gun." He motioned to that Vind. "When the Guard showed up, they torched the building to get him out."

  Nohar didn't want to hear this. He was grateful that Harsk was a pink and couldn't smell the emotions off him.

  "Datia was a dyed in the wool psycho who left about half his mind in Afghanistan. A lot of humans don't understand why hundreds of moreys followed the bullshit he spouted. Datia, at the end, didn't believe it either. Could've been anyone, though, That August was too tense, too hot, too unstable. Moreytown was primed, anyone could have touched the spark— A lot like it's been lately.''

  There was a silence in the room. It stretched out for a long time. "What are you getting at, Harsk?"

  Harsk shook his head. "You blind SOB. Do I need to spell it qut for you? Six people in the department and two National Guardsmen were with your dad when he croaked. He mentioned you. His ramblings are in the official transcripts. It's just that no one has cross-referenced them yet. It is only a matter of time before someone in the Fed is going to see how closely this Ziphead thing was engineered to look like the riots, and look up your dad. Poof, all hell breaks loose."

  Harsk stood up. "Does the word scapegoat mean anything to you? What you think Mclntyre and Conrad would do if they knew this?"

  Nohar felt the world slipping away from him. "They'd think I was . . ."

  "—running the show, you shithead. It's damn lucky me and the DA know different. Though, if it wasn't for two things, I'd lock you up just to be on the safe side."

  "What two things?"

  Harsk sat back down. "Me and the DA think you'd make a great martyr. If you get locked up, or shot, or anything, and word got out of your parentage, that could be the spark that blows everything up again. Right now, we have to deal with the rats—that's enough."

  Nohar could feel his own past bearing down on him. It felt like he had spent a decade running away from his own tail. "You said, 'two things.' "

  Harsk turned the chair away from Nohar. "The other reason is your typical interagency departmental screwup. Agent Isham seized your weapon and didn't turn it over to property. Somehow the Vind got lost in the shuffle and never got tagged as evidence. You can't have a weapons charge without a weapon—"

  Nohar looked at his gun, laid out on the table. He didn't need more of a hint. He bolstered the Vind and pocketed the magazines. "Is that it?"

  "Fucking enough, ain't it? Do me a favor and stop being one of my problems." Nohar left Harsk's office.

  When Nohar got to the lobby, dawn was breaking across a slate-gray sky. He was glad that they didn't make people pass through the weapons detectors on their way out.

  The public comms in the lobby of police headquarters were in better than average condition—which meant maintenance spent at least one day a week cleaning off the piss and graffiti.

  He called Manny collect, hoping to catch him before he left for work.

  Angel answered the phone. "Fuck you be, Kit?"

  "What the hell are you doing answering the phone? Nobody's supposed to know you're there—"

  "Chill, Kit." Angel looked chastened. "Whafuck happen to you? Pinky's been up all night—"

  Nohar felt guilty for the way his spirit lifted when he heard Stephie was worried about him. "—and Doc's been riding a pisser ever since he got back last— Speak of the devil."

  Manny came on the comm, pushing Angel aside. "Do you have any idea how lucky you are? I told myself I shouldn't ask where that hole in your hip came from—I was just about out the door to do more autopsies on rodents you shot—"

  "Sorry, only place I could go."

  Manny sighed. "I know, and I can't well turn you away. I hear that no one is pressing charges."

  "It was self defense."

  "Next time would you go through the process? Where are you? You look like hell."

  "Is that a professional diagnosis?" Nohar was still coated with algae. He probably smelled like the pit, but his nose had long ago gotten used to it.

  "When am I going to get the full story on what's going on?"

  "You don't want to know if you like to sleep nights. How's Stephie?"

  Manny shrugged. "Better than most humans around a group of moreaus. She's been asking me a tot of questions, about you mostly." Manny looked off to the side of the screen and lowered his voice. "Stupid question, but did you—"

  "Yes." And he'd do it again in a minute. Manny took a few seconds to respond.

  "Damn." There were a few more seconds of silence while Manny recovered. "Well, did you know that they've reopened the Daryl Johnson murder investigation? Internal Affairs got wind that the Shaker division dropped the ball on purpose. Congressman Binder might get called before the House Ethics committee. Half the cops involved rolled over on him. It's all over the vids."

  "I got some idea of that from Harsk."

  "My office is pissed. They've been given a court order to exhume Johnson's body, even if it wasn't the autopsy that got fugged."

  They talked for about ten more minutes. The rest of the conversation consisted mostly of Nohar's stories of the DEA, and Manny's inquiries after his injuries. Neither of them raised the subject of Stephie Weir again.

  Then Nohar called for a cab. He specified one with a driver.

  Fifteen minutes later, a familiar Nissan Tory pulled up in front of the building. Same driver as yesterday— Autocab probably only had the one.

  "'Spected it was you."

  Nohar climbed in the back and slipped his card into the meter. She pulled the cab away and started west toward the Main Avenue bridge. "Busy night. Clocked in this mornin' and, whoa, the rumors. Narcs bust into dispatch and take over a remote. They ain't no drivers. They trash the van with some poor fool inside it. Never trust those remotes ..."

  The patter went on and Nohar dozed off.

  She woke him up when they got there, probably after copping a few dollars from the timer. He didn't begrudge her and gave her a fifty dollar tip. "Thanks. Any time you call you can ask for me special. Tell 'em you want Ruby. Shit, you're not bad—for a moreau."

  Nohar stood in front of the whitewashed bar with no name and watched the Tory go. The heat was beginning to bake the early morning pavement, as well as the algae caked in his fur. But, for once—though clouds threatened—things were dry. He paused a moment where they had parked the Antaeus. The only trace of the car was one of his own bloody footprints on the asphalt.

  He walked to Manny's and had barely limped up to the door when Stephie yanked him inside. Nohar followed, stumbling slightly. He could smell fear and excitement as she pulled him into the living room. Angel was there. Manny had already left for work.

  Stephie was breathless. "They started broadcasting it five minutes ago. It's on all the stations. All over the comm—-"

  Angel pushed her away from in front of the comm. "Shhh-"

  Nohar watched the newscast. There was a pink commentator standing in front of the video feed. "We are now going to see exclusive footage of the disaster. Tad Updike, our Channel-N weatherman for the Cleveland area was on the scene. We now give you the uncut video as we received it."

  The commentator faded, leaving Tad Updike there, in a safari jacket. He looked like a weatherman, slick black hair, insincere smile. He seemed to be standing on top of one of the terminal buildings at Hopkins International Airport, on the far west side of Cleveland.

  "—it promises to be another record scorcher. Today, a high close to 33, and the National Weather Service is announcing the third UV hazard warning this sum—cut it." A plane was approaching, rendering Updike nearly inaudible, "[bleep] damn planes, didn't anyone look at the flight schedu—"

  The cameraman ha
d panned to the plane, over Updike's right shoulder. It was a 747 retrofit, the huge electric turbofans clung to the reinforced wing like goiters. Something streaked up from the ground and hit the plane, behind the front landing gear—

  A cherry-red ball of flame engulfed the lower front quarter of the aircraft. It was still over a hundred meters in the air. The nose of the 747 was briefly engulfed in a cloud of inky-black smoke. The right wing dipped and the camera started shaking as the cameraman tried to follow the plane. Updike was screaming. "My God, someone shot it! Someone shot the plane—''

  The wing crumpled into the runway, pulling the nose of the plane into the ground. It skidded like that for a half-second and the camera lost the plane off the right of the screen. The cameraman overcompensated and swept the picture back to the right, losing the tumbling plane off to the left.

  The picture caught the plane center frame again. The focus was fading in and out. In the meantime, the plane was skidding on its side down the runway. The left wing pointed straight up, reflecting the sun back at the camera. The image briefly resembled a chromed shark. The camera followed the plane as it twisted and started to roll. The left wing crumpled and the tail section separated, letting the body roll twice before it broke in two as well. The nose kept going the longest.

  Updike's voice over was useless, so the commentator took over for him as the camera panned over the trail of wreckage and bodies that was scattered over the length of the runway. "Casualty estimates are still coming in, but there are at least one hundred dead. It has been confirmed that among the dead is Ohio Congressman Joseph Binder—"

  Nohar felt like someone just kicked him in the stomach.

  "—Binder was returning to Cleveland from Columbus, where he was reorganizing his Senate campaign which has been in chaos ever since the assassination of campaign manager Daryl Johnson. Also, sources say Binder's return was to answer allegations that there was a cover-up involving the Shaker Heights police investigation of Johnson's death.

  "The FAA will not comment on the possibility that a surface to air missile was involved in the crash ..."

  Nohar slowly sat down. Someone, it had to be Hassan, had killed a few hundred people just to kill Binder. Nohar could feel that events had steamrollered way past him. Everyone who had any connection with the Binder finance records was dead now—

  With one exception.

  Nohar reached out for Stephie, and pulled her into his arms. They watched the plane explode a few dozen more times.

  * * * *

  Nohar turned off the water in the shower. He had finally gotten the baked algae out of his fur. He stepped out and unkinked his neck. Stephie was sitting on the John and drying her hair.

  Nohar faced her, dripping, and asked, "What do you mean, I've been too hard on Angel?"

  Stephie looked down, shaking her head. Nohar could tell she was smiling. She picked up a washcloth and cleaned off a streak of algae on the inside of her thigh that her shower had missed.

  Nohar was getting impatient. "Come on—"

  Stephie handed him a towel. "I just think you haven't seen how bad this has all been for her."

  Nohar started squeezing the water out of his fur, wishing for a dryer. "Stephie, this whole business has been bad for everyone."

  "I know. But she's taking it hard. I know she puts on a brave face—"

  You mean an irritating, obnoxious one, Nohar thought.

  "But she's scared, Nohar. Scared and alone." She stood up and helped him towel off. "She has nightmares."

  "Look, she should have known better than to answer Manny's comm. And I'm sorry if her wiseass attitude gets on my nerves."

  "She's only fourteen."

  Nohar sighed. "Stephie, for a morey, that's adult."

  "Physically adult. She's still just a kid. How do you think you’d handle her situation if you were her age?''

  That hit close to home. When he was that age, he was still with the Hellcats. Back then he was probably worse than Angel—

  ''What do you want me to do?'' He mentally added, fuck her? He congratulated himself on not actually saying that.

  "I think she needs some respect. She needs someone to show some confidence in her, reassure her. Most of all—" Stephie looked up at him, her hands knotted in a towel resting on his chest. "I think she needs you to like her."

  "I do like her, sort of."

  "She needs to know that."

  Nohar shook his head. He supposed he had been treating Angel like a liability. Angel didn't deserve that. He changed the subject. "Stephie, I think we better get both you and Angel out of town."

  She cocked her head to one side, "Is that necessary?"

  "You're not safe in Cleveland. You're the only one left from the campaign that could have seen those records. Hassan blew that plane just to take out Binder. God help you if Hassan, or the people he works for, finds out where you are."

  "Thought you were an atheist."

  Huh? Nohar mentally ran through what he'd just said. "Figure of speech. Anyway, we can't have you anywhere near me until this is over. I'll have Bobby reserve a car rental and a motel room somewhere. He can fudge the records so no one will see your name—"

  "Why me and Angel?"

  Nohar put his arm around her. "I want someone to be around to keep an eye out for you when I'm not there. Also, you pointed out, Angel needs a friend. You fit the bill better than I do."

  "When do I leave?"

  "Soon as possible. Sorry."

  She turned around and started wiping the condensation from the mirror. "Why is Hassan killing everyone in the campaign?"

  Nohar saw the two of them together in the mirror. She was so damn small. "I still think it's the campaign finance records—the Fed thinks some radical morey group is behind the killing. The target makes sense, but I'm not convinced."

  "Why?"

  "Daryl Johnson wasn't a terror hit. It was precise, to the point, with no collateral damage. Doesn't fit. There's a motive for Johnson's death beyond some ideology."

  Stephie shrugged. "You're the detective. You talk to Bobby and I'll try and see if any of Manny's clothes fit me—"

  She walked out of the bathroom, leaving behind the pile of her old clothes. He watched her naked back recede down the hallway and realized that she was adjusting well to living with a bunch of moreaus.

  Nohar limped downstairs and headed for the comm. Angel was still stationed in front of it. She seemed to have a growing addiction to the news channels. She was flipping through the stations with the keyboard.

  Morey this, morey that . . . The nonhuman population was getting top billing everywhere across the board. It wasn't just the Zipheads either now. Harsk was right about the summer being explosive. There were already reports of retaliatory human-morey violence from New York. A Bensheim clinic in the Bronx had been firebombed, killing three doctors and three pregnant moreaus.

  He thought about what Stephie had said about being curt with Angel. "Angel, I need to use the comm."

  Angel turned around, like she hadn't heard him approach. She looked a little surprised. "Sure, Kit."

  Angel got up and Nohar slid hi and started calling Bobby.

  "Nohar?"

  She called him Nohar? He turned around and Angel was looking at him, "What?"

  "Do you mind when I call you Kit?"

  Huh? "No, go right ahead-"

  The comm spoke up, "Budget Surplus."

  From behind Nohar heard Angel. "Thanks for not minding.''

  Angel left him alone with Bobby. Nohar watched her leave.

  "What do you want, Nohar?"

  Nohar turned to face Bobby and explained his problem.

  After he was done, Bobby nodded. "Simple enough. I'll get back to you in a few hours with some specific instructions. By the way—"

  "What?"

  "Are you ever going to want that data on Nugoya? It took a little effort to dig up . . ."

  Nohar had totally forgotten about that. "What could I possibly want out of that no
w. He's dead."

  "Well, Daryl Johnson's name pops up in it."

  Nohar sat bolt upright, ignoring the protests of his hip. "What?"

  Bobby displayed his evilest smile. "I knew that would get your attention."

  Chapter 21

  The wait while Bobby's electronic gears whirred into motion gave Nohar a chance to think. For the most part he thought about Daryl Johnson. He now had a connection, however tenuous, between Johnson and the Zipheads.

  But then, there was so much junk in Johnson's system when he died, he had to be hooked on something. It was too bad flush addiction didn't show up on an autopsy unless they looked for it. That's what it must mean—had to be flush.

  Bobby had traced one of Nugoya's financial threads and it led back to, of all people, Johnson. There were only two reasons why Nugoya would be receiving money from Johnson. Since Nugoya only pimped female morey ass, it probably wasn't sex.

  Nugoya was offed for reselling the flush he got from the Zips.

  Johnson was buying that flush.

  Was he? Nohar wondered. If he was, Young had taken all trace of that drug from Johnson's ranch. Bobby had only found three weekly payments—if it was the sign of an addict, it was a recent one. Blackmail? No, the deposits were much too small for Nugoya's taste had he known anything damaging. There was plenty of information that was damaging. It was another piece of the puzzle that didn't quite fit.

  The comm beeped. It was time for Bobby's ride to show up.

  A familiar Nissan Tory pulled in front of Manny's house, Ruby again. It would be a long time before Nohar would trust a remote van. Nohar opened the front door and waved at the cab. Then he turned to Angel and Stephie. Stephie had somehow made some of Manny's clean clothes fit her even when the proportions were all wrong.

  She still looked good in them.

  "You both know what you're supposed to do?"

  "Sure, Kit, no prob."

  Nohar shook his head. He was trusting the rabbit, but he wanted to be sure she got it right. "Let me hear it."