"Tark, what did he say there at the end? My ork let me catch your ‘I understand,’ but that’s it."
Tark shrugged off a direct answer to my question. "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
My eyes narrowed as Tark spun a crank and the lights came up. "What does that mean?"
Tark smiled in that slightly patronizing way that makes you feel dumber than the average pocket calculator. "It’s Latin, Wolf. It means ‘Who will guard the guards themselves?’ Juvenal asked this question in his Satires, but it applies here. Harry doesn’t like striking a deal with an outside group to clean his own house. By the same token, he doesn’t figure he has a whole lot of choice, which is why he wants to be in on the bust of the bad cops. He reminded me that those who have so little need their honor, and he needs the bust."
The look on Tark’s face told me that I really didn’t want to delve into orkish—or Roman—philosophy any further. Tark stepped into the lead and guided us through a veritable maze of tunnels. Even though time was of the essence, I know the route we took was not as direct as it could have been. Tark made no apologies for steering us around large portions of the ork realm, and the fact that we ran into no one made it clear our journey was being monitored.
During the hike, we managed to figure out a couple of things. We decided that the hits on Mirin and James Yoshimura had to be linked. Aside from both hits going down with Lone Stars nearby, the two gillettes nailed for the Yoshimura geek were not known for assassinations. Stealth noted that none of his sources had reported freelance contracts being handed out. Not that he takes them anymore, but he does keep his ear tuned to the airwaves. Coupling these privately contracted hits with bad cops and the Yakuza attack on Bob’s Cartage and Freight, which destroyed lots of Natural Vat product, it looked to us like a hostile takeover of NatVat.
"We're agreed then." I said. "The key to this mess is finding out who wanted Nadia Mirin dead, and why."
The orkish tunnels brought us out about two blocks from the brownstone Raven has appropriated as his new headquarters. We saw no Lone Stars on the streets, but we still went by way of back alleys to reach the building. Tark used the retinal scanner and opened the rear gate while Stealth looked around for something to kill. I ushered our guests into the backyard, then toward the rear entrance.
They both stopped dead in their tracks.
Dr. Richard Raven stepped from the shadows on the porch, partially silhouetted in the light coming through the door. If not for the tips of his pointed ears visible through his long, black hair, Raven might have been taken for a human Amerindian. Tall even for an elf, the symmetry of his muscular build gave him bulk most elves lacked. Clad in a white shirt, khaki pants, and elven boots, he moved with a casual grace that even the most jacked razorboy would have died to emulate.
Raven’s hair and high cheekbones sunk his eyes into pits of shadow, but they glowed with their own fire. A shimmering curtain of red and blue highlights wove through his eyes like an aurora undulating across the night sky. He watched us wordlessly as if seeing more than we were in these current three dimensions, then slowly smiled.
"I am glad to see you made it." The strength in his voice burned away some of the fatigue I had begun to feel.
"Doc, there’s whole bunches of stuff going on here, and lots of it is very bad." I looked over at our two charges. "We pulled Zig and Zag out of the middle of a Lone Star frame. The way we have it worked out. it has something to do with Natural Vat and the Yakuza. The key is figuring who splashed Nadia Mirin and why."
"Very good analysis, gentlemen." He opened the door to the kitchen, then led us through it and down the wood-paneled hallway into the front office. As we filed in. I saw two other people waiting there. The suit rose to his feet, fastening the middle button of his dark blazer as he did so. Of the other person, all I could see from behind the wing-back chair were legs, but they were such great legs, I could only hope the rest of her would match.
Raven smiled at his guests. "These are my associates:
Wolfgang Kies, Plutarch Graogrim, and Kid Stealth. I believe they have brought with them Iron Mike Morrissey and Tiger Jackson. "
Raven looked directly at me. "Gentlemen, I’d like you to meet Jarlath Drake and"—he gestured as the woman rose from the chair—"his friend, Nadia Mirin."
II
Tark tries to say that I stared at Nadia Mirin like a slack-jawed fool for a full fifteen seconds before I stammered out a greeting and offered her my hand. That isn't quite true, but not because she wasn’t worthy of that much ogling. Tall as women go, but just slightly smaller than me, her slender figure packed more curves than a box full of snakes. Her eyes had just a touch of almond-shape, hinting at some oriental branches in her family tree, but their green color was pure Irish fire. Her full lips begged to be kissed, as did her pert nose and the rest of her gorgeous face.
I should also note that this woman was not content to leave her allure to nature alone. While some people dress to kill, Nadia was dressed for mass murder. Her emerald-green blouse matched her eyes. Her tight-fitting black woolen skirt was cut midway between her knees and waist, and the lightweight, black leather jacket she wore had the sleeves pulled up to mid-forearm. Her legs, the same ones I mentioned before, were sheathed in black stockings and capped by floppy-top, black boots with spike heels and silver toe caps. She wore a malachite and silver pendant at her throat, a similarly fashioned bracelet on her left wrist, and malachite earrings to match. Her black hair had been cut short, tapered and styled to look business-like without being the least bit boyish.
A quick glance at the all-too-familiar amusement on Raven’s face snapped me out of carnal daydreams. "I am very glad to see, Ms. Mirin. that you weren’t redecorated along with your apartment." I offered her my hand and felt a tingle when our fingers touched. Her grip was firm, dry, and warm, all traits I like in women with whom I instantly fall in love.
When I looked back at my compatriots, I noticed Tark still appeared to be stunned, but far be it from me to suggest he was entranced by Nadia’s looks. Tark’s not like that, but he’s not like that, either. Actually, many of the orkish women he’s gone out with are darned close to pretty in my eyes, but that still puts them a couple of leagues below Nadia in looks. I’d even considered Tark’s offer to fix me up with one orkish knockout, but I changed my mind when I realized that with those tusks, an orkish love-bite could leave me needing stitches.
No, Tark, and me, to a certain extent, had yet to recover from the realization that Nadia Mirin was still alive. I had assumed, while running through the Underground, that the two unidentified bodies in the apartment had been Nadia and a guest. I now guessed that they were bombers whose device had detonated prematurely. That fit with our theory that knowing whoever wanted her dead would lead us to the person behind the Lone Star frame-up of Zig and Zag. Having her alive should make the job that much easier.
I extended my hand to Jarlath Drake. "I’m Wolf." He, too, had a firm grip, but as we touched, I heard the Old One howl. That meant, for reasons I could not fathom, that the Old One did not like this individual. Normally, that was enough for me to consider the person a bosom buddy. In this case, however, Jarlath’s protective hovering over Nadia was enough reason for me to hate him. "Jarlath’s a mouthful."
"Indeed." He answered in a bass voice it would have taken most folks buckets of testosterone to develop. He studied me intensely, as though wondering why or how I dared presume we should be on more familiar terms. The Old One growled, and I felt the hackles rising on the back of my neck. He definitely had a serious attitude problem. That might not be unusual among corporators, but down here, in the realm of shadowrunners, it was hardly a survival trait.
When Nadia glanced over at him, he relented. "Call me Lattie."
"Got it. " I turned to Nadia. "So, how did you happen to show up here?"
Raven surprised me by answering for her. Normally he lets clients tell their own stories, but on the past few occasions when he'd recounted their tales, it was becaus
e they'd been lying. I raised an eyebrow and got the barest of nods in return
"Ms. Mirin and her escort were heading out for a light repast before everything happened. As nearly as she can tell, the bombers went up in one elevator while the two of them descended in another. She said she and Lattie got trapped between the fifth and sixth floors when the bomb went off. He managed to help her out through the hatch in the top, then onto the sixth floor. From there, they took the stairs down to the basement garage, got into her car, and drove away from the Tower."
I shot a sidelong glance at Lattie. Tall, dark, and handsome summed him up, though I did find something decidedly creepy about the reddish-brown color of his eyes. His suit was tailored from black wool and tapered to fit his broad shoulders and narrow waist perfectly. The white shirt had french cuffs, buttoned with gold and diamond cuff links, and his blue and gray silk tie was twisted into a perfect knot. Aside from the golden bracelet, styled to resemble a dragon biting its own tail, encircling his wrist, the guy could have stepped straight from just about any romance simsense tape.
Yet another reason to hate him.
The one thing I was sure of from looking at him was that he hadn't crawled out of any elevator. He hadn’t a speck of dust on him. I could have asked the Old One to grant me his keen sense of smell, but I was sure I wouldn’t pick up even a hint of exertion or nerves that their little experience would have demanded. I knew Raven had observed everything I had, and probably a million other things as well.
"Once they left the Tower, Lattie called a fixer he knew, and a meet was arranged. I had Tom Electric bring them in while you were getting our compatriots. Ms. Mirin wants us to look into this attempt on her life and also the murder of James Yoshimura."
Raven smiled easily. "Did I present your case well, Ms. Mirin?"
"Nadia, please." Even though I only saw her smile in profile, my knees went weak. "Yes, Dr. Raven, you summarized all we told you very succinctly."
Hearing her speak, I knew some angel in Heaven had surrendered her voice for the duration of Nadia’s days on Earth.
Raven looked over at the five of us. "I should add, my friends, that this story is almost as counterfeit as Ms. Mirin’s identity." Raven's stare took on a hard edge as he turned back to Nadia. "Perhaps it would be better if you told us the whole truth. Dawn McGrath."
I’ll give Nadia credit. When Raven pops out with one of his seeming non sequiturs, there aren't many people who recover as quickly or well as she did. Most look like they’ve just been poleaxed, then either crumple or yell a hasty denial. Nadia blinked once, then her eyes flicked down toward Raven’s boots and back up to his eyes. "Dawn McGrath? I don’t believe I’ve heard the name before."
Raven gave her an appreciative nod, then smiled easily. "Very good. Mr. Drake's reaction was almost as guarded, but I know he shares your secret. In fact, it was through him that we cracked the puzzle of your identity." Before either of them could ask for an explanation, Raven waved us all toward the hallway. "I think we can better discuss this downstairs in the computer center."
I led the way down the stairs. The basement differs from the rest of the house, having been remodeled and decorated mainly in white tile and stainless steel. Turning left at the foot of the stairs, I pushed open the door to the computer room. Steel and white leather chairs formed a small conversation nook in the near end of the rectangular room, while computer equipment took up most of the long wall on the left and every square centimeter of the narrower one at the far end.
I smiled at the room’s only occupant. "Hi, Val. Miss me?" Her blue eyes flashed with a devilish light. "Wolf, did you go somewhere?"
I clasped both of my hands over my heart and staggered slightly, drawing a laugh from the woman who was, undeniably, the most beautiful member of Raven’s crew. Though not quite as tall as Nadia, Valerie Valkyrie had the same slender figure, albeit not quite as well-developed. Her café-au-lait skin and dark hair proclaimed her Afro-American roots, but the Matrix jack hidden behind her left ear also said she was not mired in the past.
Seated at the computer console, she wore a pair of red shorts and a gray jersey from the Seattle Seadogs, the town’s major-league team. Behind her was a small, portable television playing the game between the Seadogs and the Hila Haoles in Hawaii. An absolute fanatic about baseball, Valerie’s knowledge of the sport and devotion to it came second only to her ability at cracking computers and computer files.
As Zag entered the room, I saw him smile at Val, but she gave him another of the arctic gazes she’d used to blow him off when they first met. I kept a straight face when Zag looked over to see if I’d noticed her reaction. It did my heart good to see that as big and tough as Zag was, something of a human heart lurked inside his chest. Being as intense as he is can’t be good for you, and if something managed to keep him from becoming insufferably cocky, he might just turn out to be all right.
Raven introduced Valerie to Nadia, and the two greeted one another with the wariness of any two beautiful women surrounded by a group of men. Valerie conceded the contest to Nadia immediately, but scored some points by turning back to the computer and punching up a file that emblazoned the name Dawn McGrath on the screen in flashing letters.
Raven pointed to the computer and Valerie. "Valerie is the person who accomplished most of the work of determining your real identity. I hope you realize that nothing we did was out of malice toward you. Actions you have taken as Nadia Mirin have impressed me. Your intensification of the educational programs for the children of Natural Vat employees is a very good step, as is the testing and education of all children deemed capable of magic. In fact, it was because of your work and its effect in the Seattle area that I decided we should look into Natural Vat."
I drew a white leather chair away from the wall and scooted it over for Nadia. She thanked me with a smile that made me willing to become her love slave for the next hundred years. Lattie, on the other hand, glared at me with anger and frustration. as if I were an annoying insect he could not, for all his power, swat and kill. The look in his bloody eyes sent a chill down my spine, but I suppressed a full-body shudder and turned away.
Raven massaged the back of his own neck with his left hand. "There is a group of hackers who have earned the nickname ‘The Graverobbers.’ They gain access into a number of systems by using the terminals assigned to people who have recently died. Often they get into the office before the accounts have been officially flagged as closed, but these deckers are good, and not even a death designation is an insurmountable problem for them."
I smiled. The way Raven explained it to me. ail that happens when you die is that your SIN gets a D added on to it. Most folks assume that stands for deceased, but Raven said the "D" stands for Deactivated. The SIN is still used for tracking statistics and inheritance taxes and determining pensions for widows, and so on. Because the numbers must remain within the Matrix, the Graverobbers can use them to crack into other systems. Even if the Graverobbers are detected and traced, the Cops are left looking for a suspect who has been potted and shelved in a mausoleum.
"I have been trying to determine who the Graverobbers are for a number of different reasons, but they are craftier than I would have expected. I had Valerie let a program loose in the Matrix that monitored any transmissions it got near to determine if the typing speed and modulation were the same as in the other Graverobber jobs. It came up a blank while they were actually working, but another routine program noticed activity in James Yoshimura’s account after his death."
Raven sighed. "The pattern checker should have had them, but they disguised themselves as a very clumsy decker, wildly throwing off all the modulations."
Nadia steepled her fingers. "There were people in James’s office the day after he died. They were painting it. but they clearly were not painters ..."
Raven nodded. "Quite possibly them. In any event, whoever used Yoshimura's account left himself a backdoor into the Natural Vat system’s personnel files. Valerie locat
ed it with no trouble at all and we set up a sentinel program to watch it. Another decker, a man who styles himself Jack the Ripper, used that opening to get into that area and take a copy of your personnel file. We could not trace him at the time, though we did discern his identity later. However, assuming he had taken your file because it was important, we appropriated a copy and began an analysis."
Valerie swiveled around in her chair. "Mycroft did a fantastic job putting this file together, really. I don’t know what you paid him. but if it was less than an even million, you robbed him blind. He not only put in all the references needed to build your new history, but he even included traces of tampering, errors, and corrections. It really is a super piece of work."
"Valerie and I started from the assumption that if your file was stolen, it was because someone either wanted to learn about you, or they wanted to prove your file was hexed. Later feelers from the decker who’d stolen it confirmed the latter conclusion, but that had become our working hypothesis anyway. If someone were just out for information, he had it already.
"The reason for most faked files is that the person they describe really was someone else once, and wants to remain hidden. Valerie tried to crack your file in the normal manner, but it proved a bit too stout. As a result, we started a massive search that compared facts in your file with the files of missing persons and wanted individuals—both public and private. We started with your Bertillon measurements—the measurements of the long bones and other skeletal features that do not change after adulthood—and factored in other data such as the estimated cost of creating a perfect cover. That left us with approximately a thousand missing women, any one of whom could have been you."
Valerie leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. "We took those thousand files and cooked them down for unusual details. Then we started matching those little quirks to your file. It wasn’t an easy job. In fact, if not for the Burkingmen, I don’t think I could have stuck it out."
Into the Shadows Page 26
