Kris Longknife Audacious

by Mike Shepherd

  “We don’t know,” Kris said.

  Martinez laughed bitterly. “I should know, but who’s going to tell me.”

  The conversation might have ended on that point, but Kris did a quick survey of Jack and Captain DeVar, and chose to toss some more information on the fire.

  “A friend of mine’s dad was a cop. She’s heading out in a few minutes to look over a few places we think just might have more guns. You want to go with her?”

  “And do some real police work for a change?” the cop said.

  Kris shrugged.

  “Count me in. I’ll call the office and sign for annual leave.”

  “And if they need you to look at any arms dump they find?” Jack asked.

  “They know my mobile number. But I’m betting they won’t call. Not me.”

  Jack left to connect Martinez with Penny. That left Kris staring at the pictures on the wall.

  “You decided what you’re going to do?” DeVar asked.

  “Would it surprise you to know that I often make these things up as I go along?”

  “What?” he said, shock in full fake. “You’re human like the rest of us?”

  “Oh so true. Well, at least one weapons dump is out of play,” Kris said with a sigh.

  “Are you sure?” Ruth said.

  “The cops have it.”

  “And I bet every one of those cops is carrying something as deadly as what I’m lugging. How would they stand against a full assault team that wants those guns for their screaming hordes?”

  “You think I made a mistake, Gramma? Not blowing it up.”

  “No, I think it looked like a good idea at the time. But keep an eye on it. It may not stay so good. Just keep an eye on that call.”

  “And everything else that isn’t hidden,” Kris sighed. “Did you have days like this, Gramma?”

  “Days, months, years, Kris. Some of the best things I thought I’d ever done went sour on me. And some of the worst things turned out a whole lot better than I had any right to.”

  Kris leaned back in her chair, mulling that over for a while. “Are you telling me that even movers and shakers don’t always get the moves and shakes they expected?”

  Ruth grinned. “And a smart one learns to be grateful for the help.”

  Further reflection on that ended as Abby came in.

  “The kids safe?” Kris asked.

  “Cara’s with her grandmum, so safe is not the word I’d use. Bronc had work he needed to do. Some gang hangs to sanitize.”

  “Does he know where his mom is?” Ruth asked.

  “No, and doesn’t want to. Not yet. He has a place he can crash for a few nights. He’s no dumb kid. If he’s survived this long in Five Corners, he couldn’t be.”

  For a minute, they sat around the table, Kris and Abby, Ruth and Captain DeVar. Then Kris said, “Vacation over. Back to work. What do we know now that we didn’t know yesterday?”

  “I am noticing a pattern, Kris” came from around her neck.

  “Talk to me, Nelly.”

  “The bugs at O’Heidi’s place were the same as the bugs on those two gang gals. Same types. Apparently the same make, though I can’t seem to match the manufacture’s mark to any in known space.”

  “Eden strikes again,” Jack said as he rejoined them.

  “And the ones at the warehouse?” Kris said.

  “I was getting to that. Similar design but more sophisticated. And no maker’s marks.”

  “Isn’t that illegal even on Eden?” Kris said.

  “I do believe so,” Ruth agreed.

  “Any similarity between those and the chip in that auto-gun yesterday?” Jack asked as he rejoined them.

  “No maker’s mark on those units, but they use the same manufacturing methods. I found the same ‘fingerprints’ on them. They are likely from the same chip foundry.”

  “I’d really like to meet Grant von Schrader,” Kris said.

  “Kris, I cannot find any home address for him, in either our databases or the Nuu reports.”

  “So let’s try a different approach,” Kris muttered. “That monster limo Vicky is being showboated around in. Captain, did your social intel researchers notice anything about it?”

  “I don’t know. Gunny?”

  A moment later a tech sergeant presented herself. “Betty, the princess here wonders if you found out anything about that limo Vicky Peterwald is using?” DeVar said.

  “Let me check my computer, sir.” It took only a minute. The screen on the wall began to flash with pictures of Vicky. Most were close-ups of her smiling self, boobs threatening to fall out of this dress or that, Kris noted.

  One showed her walking away from her limo. “There’s the plates for it, sir. Can that help you?”

  “I will need to buy another expensive database.” Nelly almost managed a sigh.

  “Abby, this assignment is putting a major dent in even my monthly allowance,” Kris said. “Could you put together a reimbursement voucher for Admiral Crossenshield?”

  “I could, but don’t bet on getting this much money out of that fussbudget.”

  “Maybe you can negotiate something halfway. The way things are going, I won’t be able to afford to replace that dress you cut off me. Or give Nelly her quarterly upgrade.”

  “You better get something out of Crossie,” Nelly said.

  Betty and the captain managed to swallow any reaction to this insight into the finances of one of human space’s wealthiest women. Or her computer’s familiar view of the head of Wardhaven’s intelligence community. Gunny just scowled.

  A moment later Nelly had the number of Prestige Travel.

  “Kris, what are you going to do?” Jack asked with alarm.

  “Why don’t you watch and see? Nelly, get ready to tap a phone line.”

  “If I can,” Nelly replied quickly.

  “Now make the call.”

  A moment later, “Prestige Travel. We get you there in comfort and awe.”

  “Oh, good. I hear tell you have this huge white limo,” Kris said, dripping hayseeds with every word. “The hugest on this here planet.”

  “Ah, yes we do.” The agent’s reply was carefully balanced, neither to inspire a penniless hick to go on, nor to frighten off a hick that had a lot of money she needed separating from.

  “Well, this is Print-cess Kristine Longknife from Wardhaven way. I’d like to rent that showboat of yours. I got someplace to be tonight and I’m tired of showing up second best.”

  “Let me see what we can do about that, Your Highness. Can I call you back in just a second?”

  “A second, maybe. A minute and I’ll be talking to someone about having my own limo built.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Er, Your Highness. I’ll be right back,” and the call ended.

  “I didn’t know you had a hillbilly voice,” Jack said. “Do you really think this guy is dumb enough to fall for it?”

  “So far he’s over the side and headed down,” Kris said through a grin. “I don’t think that fellow has any idea who I am and everyone here seemed to expect some kind of redneck from the Rim. So, let’s see what happens when I give ’em one.”

  “Kris, he’s calling a number. It’s another one of those nine-oh-nine numbers that don’t exist.”

  Kris didn’t like that.

  “Oh happy days,” Nelly almost shouted. “He didn’t pay for all that much encryption. I have him.”

  “Al, Al” came from Nelly in the Prestige Travel man’s voice. “Your tub hasn’t moved all afternoon. I thought that brat wanted to go places.”

  “She was right here, then suddenly, her bodyguard grabbed her and hustled her back in the house and I ain’t heard a squeak from them all afternoon. So I’m just sitting here watching the flowers grow at this place. And boy do they got flowers.”

  NELLY, CAN YOU GET A LOCATION ON THE PHONE RECEIVING THIS?

  I CAN AND DO HAVE IT.

  On the wall screen, a map replaced Vicky’s smiling face. The flashing gr
een dot was far out on the outskirts of town in a gated area of large twenty-acre plots.

  “Well, at least we know that much,” Captain DeVar said.

  That call ended and a second call opened, but not to the same area. This one managed to avoid giving out its location. It turned out the limo was no longer needed and would be available for the evening.

  And Kris got rung back.

  “Abby, I’m going to turn this over for you to negotiate. Are we going anywhere tonight?”

  “Not so far. No one seems interested in your gorgeous presence after that art show.”

  “Gee, I wonder why?” Jack said.

  “Try to rent the limo for tomorrow,” Kris said, and took the incoming call. “Howdy, I’m so glad you called back. Let my personal assistant take it from here.” Kris waved at Abby.

  “Abby Nightingale, how may I help you?” came as smooth as honey. “Ah, yes, the princess does occasionally make calls herself. It causes us no end of trouble.”

  Kris scrunched up a face at Abby and might have thrown something, but nothing was handy.

  “Oh dear, I’m afraid my employer is a mite bit addled where dates are concerned. That party is tomorrow night. She’s going to spend a quiet night drinking at home tonight.”

  Now Kris would have thrown something.

  “Very well. Send me the contract and I will return it with a payment voucher. Always glad to do business with a professional.” And the call ended.

  “Here’s hoping we have somewhere to go tomorrow,” Abby said.

  38

  While the problem of what to do with a limo tomorrow night hung ignored in the air, matters for today continued.

  Penny reported that the first three warehouses they looked at had only normal security, and apparently just normal contents. They had three more to check.

  Abby, with Sergeant Bruce tagging along to supervise a Marine tech, was dispatched to see how close they could get to Mr. von Schrader’s apparent residence and examine it as best they could. Nelly sent them off with several of her best experimental probes.

  Which left Kris with nothing better to do than immerse herself in the Nuu report on this fellow. She didn’t find anything she liked.

  “Where did this guy come from?” she said, surfacing a half hour later. “Ten years ago he shows up, loaded with money and starts buying up distressed companies, doing some kind of a hack job on them, then selling off the profitable parts and dumping the rest. Or not.”

  “What do you mean?” Captain DeVar said, looking over her shoulder.

  “My Grandfather Al would be laughing his head off at me,” Kris said. “He’s the moneybags in the family. He keeps wanting me to ditch the Navy and go into his business.”

  “Might be safer,” the Marine noted.

  “But where’s the fun in that,” Jack said before Kris could.

  She scowled at him, but he kept grinning.

  “Anyway, I took enough business courses and interned a few summers with Grampa Al when there wasn’t a pressing election to worry about, so I do have some kind of head for business.”

  “And what does it tell you that this blind Marine isn’t noticing?” Captain DeVar asked again.

  “Take this small electronics company,” Kris said, calling up a page she’d marked. “It was undercapitalized and losing money when he bought it. It needed to be folded into a larger company with access to more tools, more contracts. He closed down this software unit, sold the game design part of it to a competitor, but he kept the tiny chip foundry going.”

  “Chip foundry?” Captain DeVar’s eyes lit up.

  “Yep, a small boutique chip-printing shop. Hold it, Nelly, isn’t that the firm where he closed down the union and fired the entire workforce?”

  “The name is the same, but my report said it was a software company,” Nelly said.

  “There was a software portion, but Nuu says there was also this specialized chip section. But if he fired the entire workforce, who kept the thing going?”

  “I guess a new staff,” Jack said thoughtfully. “Maybe one that wouldn’t ask the boss why he needed a unique chip?”

  “Looks like that,” Kris said. “But that doesn’t answer any of my questions. Where did the Grant fellow come from? Who gave him start-up funds?”

  “He came from Earth,” Nelly said. “Or at least that is what it says in the records of his acquiring his residence.”

  “You can get your hands on that?” Jack said.

  “The plot ownership files are not up-do-date,” Nelly said, almost with an audible sniff, “but he did buy his place eight years ago. You can only stall a file clerk so long.”

  “So he came from Earth,” Kris said, not at all convinced.

  “I said that was what he said,” Nelly answered, “but I have the citizen rolls from Earth in my permanent data storage and he does not show up on any of them.”

  “So he’s not from Earth,” Jack said.

  “That may or may not be true,” Kris said. “Some regions of Earth aren’t all that careful about entering all their citizens on the rolls. If you’re a taxpayer, you’re on the list, but if you’re not paying taxes and haven’t registered to vote they get slipshod. At least a college friend I had from Earth said so.”

  “But where would a mere citizen get start-up money like this fellow was throwing around?” Gramma Ruth asked.

  “Any other planet and I’d have Nelly go into the bank records and follow it back.”

  “Not on Eden,” Ruth pointed out.

  “Should I buy the bank records datafile that I was offered,” Nelly asked.

  “The ones where you don’t get to see what’s in them until you’ve paid for them?” Kris said.

  “And having bought them, shown someone that you are a dumb enough optimist to think they might help you?” Gramma added.

  “There is that. It could just be a trap,” Jack said.

  “Let’s put that off for a while,” Kris concluded.

  And then Abby called in.

  “Kris, Cedar Estates is not a gated community,” began the maid’s recon report.

  “That’s nice to hear,” Jack said.

  “It’s more like a walled-and-moated fortress. I make the stone wall to be five, six meters high, with wire at the top, probably electrified. Cameras at regular intervals, and guys in pairs walking the outside.”

  “Real friendly, huh?” Kris said.

  “Don’t know, I ain’t about to stop and chat up one. I tried sending a couple of scouts over the wall. None got more than fifty feet inside. I haven’t tried any of Nelly’s specials. Not sure I want to give them away.”

  “I think she might be right,” Jack said. Kris nodded, along with Gramma Ruth.

  “Let’s keep some powder dry,” Kris said.

  “I’m going to drive around the place, as much as I can, see if it gets any easier. Kind of looking forward to a nice drive in the country with Bruce here.” It actually sounded like a smile might be attached to that statement.

  “Be careful. Don’t stay gone too long,” Kris said, and cut the link. “No surprise. Grant von Schrader likes his privacy.”

  Jack nodded, then rotated his shoulders, his mouth tight against the pain. “While we wait for Penny to report in, you mind if I do another soak in your tub?” he asked Kris.

  “Only if you don’t mind sharing it,” Kris said, realizing that she was due for more pain meds and another soak might let her get by on less.”

  “I think I still have my lifeguard certificate,” Gramma Ruth said. “I’ll keep an eye on you two. Call for Doc if things get out of hand.”

  “You going to be a duenna? Slap him down if he tries to kiss me?” Kris said.

  Jack gave her an ugly face, but it was too much fun teasing him at the moment for her to feel too penitent. Then she stood and stretched…as gently as she could. It still hurt.

  “Slap him? Lordy no, Miss Longknife. Remember me. I want”—and here Gramma Ruth held up her fingers and count
ed them off—“great, great, great, however many great-grandkids. You two start misbehaving and I’ll hitch up my skirt and run, cackling, for the door.”

  Now it was Jack’s turn to stand slowly and very carefully stretch. He winced at the pain. “I think your honor is safe with me. At least for the moment, Your Highness.”

  Captain DeVar shook his head. Whether at this verbal tripping of the line of fraternizing or some failure of Jack to uphold the masculine tradition of the Corps, he said not.

  Kris was just getting comfortable in the tub when Nelly spoke up from the dressing table where Kris had left her. “Call coming in from Penny.”

  Gramma Ruth had taken one look at the string bikini that Abby had left for Kris and whistled. “I’m not sure that’s better than nothing.” But she helped Kris into it and into the tub before Jack arrived.

  He had gotten a soft whistle from Kris’s gramma. Whether for the fine-looking man that he was or for all the pretty black and blue, yellow and brown that he sported, she said not.

  And Kris was just starting to feel the knots of pain unwind when duty called.

  “Yes, Penny?”

  “Is that you?” Penny seemed to shout back. “I can’t hear you over all the background noise. What’s going on?”

  Ruth killed the jets.

  “Oh, that’s better. We’re at the last of the warehouses. It’s wide open. Also empty. Someone got here before us and cleaned it out.”

  “Any leads about what was in there and where it went?”

  “I’ve got scouts covering the place, and my woman Marine volunteered to do a physical look around. She figured she could talk her way out of trouble better than her hardcase friend could shoot his way out.”

  That produced some reply in the background, but Kris ignored it.

  “I think we better assume that this is a dead end,” Penny said. “And someone got away with a lot of revolution in a box.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” Kris concluded. “We are running into a lot of dead ends at the moment. See if you can find anything, then come back.”

  “Will do, Kris.” And Penny rung off.

  “So no luck there,” Ruth said.

  “You know, with the jets off, there’s a lot of you to see,” Jack said.