by Timothy Zahn
There was another creak of wood from the office, a louder one this time. I motioned McMicking to go back to sleep as I headed around the end of the bar. Karim was just coming to the doorway as I reached it, one of the boxes cradled in his arms. "Behind the bar, you said?" Karim asked.
"Change of plan," I told him. "We're going to stack them in front of the bar."
Karim frowned. "In front of the bar?"
"All that metal, you know," I explained, taking the box from him and walking around to the front of the bar. Fifteen kilos, all right, if it was a gram. "Might as well give ourselves as much protection as we can."
Karim was still standing in the doorway. "Rebekah won't like this," he warned.
"I'm more interested in how much the Fillies won't like it," I said. "Go get the rest of them. While you do that, Bayta and I will move your sleeping customers over to the side wall where they'll be as far out of the line of fire as possible."
He still looked troubled, but he nodded and disappeared back into the office. "I take it I'm joining the drunks?" McMicking asked, lifting his head again.
"It's as good a cross-fire position as any," I said. "Grab a drunk and pick out your spot."
There were eleven sleeping men scattered around the room, all of them so drunk they didn't even wake up as we manhandled them out of their chairs and across the bar. That dilivin was potent stuff, all right.
We'd moved five of them, and McMicking had settled himself partially behind one where his hands would be out of sight, when Karim returned.
But this time he wasn't alone. "Mr. Compton, you can't put them here," Rebekah insisted, making a beeline for the box I'd set in front of the bar. Her eyes were red and puffy, as if she'd been crying, but the rest of her face was back under firm restraint again. Maybe it was just with Bayta that she let her vulnerable side leak out. "They could be damaged."
"Better them than us," I said, watching her closely. Behind the puffy eyes and controlled expression her concern for the boxes seemed genuine. "Besides, I get the impression the Modhri can't afford to destroy them."
"He can't afford to destroy all of them," she countered. "All he needs is to take one of them intact."
"Who is this Modhri?" Karim asked.
"The mastermind behind all of this," I told him, frowning at Rebekah. "Which one does he need?"
"Any of them," she said. With an effort, she lifted the box and staggered back behind the bar with it.
"What are they, duplicate records of some kind?" I asked.
"In a way," she said.
"That's great," I said. I'd never really believed she needed all twenty of the damn things in the first place. "Pick one out for yourself and we'll torch the rest."
"It's not like that," she said, giving me a cross look over her shoulder. "I need all of them."
"That makes no sense whatsoever," I growled. "What the hell's in them?"
"I can't tell you that," Rebekah said. She set down the box and turned back to face me, a stubbornly defiant look on her face.
"That bar may stop police thudwumpers, Rebekah," I said. "But it also might not. Are you willing to risk your life for what's in those boxes?"
"Yes," she said firmly.
"She already has risked her life," Karim added grimly. "She and Lorelei both."
I felt my stomach tighten, thinking back to how Lorelei had died. "Maybe I'm not ready to risk mine," I said.
"You're welcome to leave," Karim invited me tartly. Reaching beneath the bar, he produced an old RusFed P11 military handgun.
"We're not leaving," Bayta said firmly. Her face was flushed with emotion, her eyes hard and cold. Whoever Rebekah was, she'd clearly gotten under my partner's skin.
"Fine," I gave up with a sigh. "Maybe we can have it both ways."
Turning, I headed toward the door. "Where are you going?" Karim called after me.
"To plant a few seeds of doubt," I said over my shoulder. "Go bring up the rest of the boxes. Put them wherever Rebekah wants."
It took me a couple of minutes to move enough of the table barricade Karim and I had built so that I could get through. Unlocking the door, I opened it a crack. "Modhri?" I called. "You out there?"
My answer was the muffled crack of a low-power gunshot and the slap of a snoozer cartridge against the door beside my cheek. "I guess so," I said, hastily closing it a couple more centimeters. "I just wanted to tell you that the Abomination is here with us, right in your line of fire. You might want to think about that before you come charging in with guns blazing. Have a nice day."
I closed the door just as another pair of snoozers shattered themselves into shards against the heavy wood. I locked up again and backed out of the passage I'd created in the barricade. Bayta was waiting, and together we put everything back the way it had been. "Let's get the rest of the drunks out of the way," I said when we were finished.
By the time we'd finished and returned to the relative safety of the bar, Karim had finished stacking Rebekah's boxes behind it. Rebekah herself was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the boxes, a small carrybag beside her. "How are you doing?" I asked her.
"I'm all right," she said, her voice determined but with a little tremble to it. "That won't stop him, you know. I told you he only needs one of them."
"True, but it might slow him down a little," I said, running my eye over the boxes. "They're not alien sculptures, are they?"
She looked at me in astonishment. "Sculptures?"
"Just a thought," I said. "Skip it."
From the other end of the room came a sudden thud. I spun around, yanking my Beretta from its holster. "The window," Karim said. He was standing near the end of the bar, his P11 gripped in his hand. "They're seeing if they can break it without having to shoot it out."
"Can they?" I asked.
There was another thud, a louder one this time. "Probably not," he said. "It's glass, not plastic, but it's tempered."
There was a third thud, this time from one of the windows on the other side of the door. "Can't they just shoot them out?" Bayta asked tensely.
"Can, and probably will," I said. "But guns are noisy things. Not so much with snoozers, but very much with thud-wumpers or other killrounds. The Modhri can't afford to draw police attention until he's ready to move."
"When will that be?" Bayta asked. "It's already almost midnight."
"Maybe they're waiting until—" Karim started.
"Shh!" I hissed, holding up a hand.
The room fell silent. Faintly, in the distance, I heard the sound of multiple sirens. "There's your answer," I said grimly. "He's set up a diversion somewhere across town to keep the police busy."
"Sounds like paramed and fire sirens, too," Karim said, cupping his free hand behind his ear. "It's either a fire or a massive accident."
"Either of which would be easy enough for the Modhri to arrange," I said. "I think we can expect some action soon. Karim, better douse the lights in here. Leave any outside lights on.
He reached beneath the bar, and the dim lights around us flicked off. I took a deep breath, letting my eyes adjust to the faint glow coming through the windows and settling into combat mode.
The minutes dragged by. We crouched in silence behind the bar, except for Rebekah, who sat in silence in front of the boxes, and McMicking, who lay in silence at the side of the room. "What's he waiting for?" Karim muttered.
"It'll be at least another ten or fifteen minutes," I told him. "He'll want to make sure the cops are completely engaged in whatever diversion he's arranged for them before he makes his move."
Seconds later, the two windows on the far sides of the wall exploded inward.
ELEVEN :
Reflexively, I ducked low behind the top of the bar. "Ten minutes?" Karim shouted as a shot slammed into the wall above our heads through one of the shattered windows.
"More or less," I shouted back irritably. That was twice now, first Yandro and now here, that the Modhri had casually undercut a plan or predict
ion I'd just taken pains to explain to someone. If he was going to kill me, the least he could do was have the courtesy not to destroy my reputation first.
Another shot whizzed past overhead, this one coming from the other window. It was followed immediately by a third shot from the first window, then a fourth from the second window.
I frowned as the shots settled into a pattern, one shot at a time through alternating windows, each on the heels of the one before, all of them tearing through the wood and drywall at least half a meter above our heads. What was the Modhri up to?
Karim was apparently wondering that, too. "He must be trying to keep us pinned down," he shouted over the steady blam-blam-blam of the thudwumpers. "Probably trying to infiltrate."
"From both sides at once?" I shouted back.
"Maybe he's got more ammo than we thought."
I looked back and forth between the two windows. Standard infiltration technique was to pin your opponent down along the infiltration line, covering only one line at a time to conserve ammo.
But that was for open ground, not this kind of urban setting where you had buildings and convenient corners to hide around. He didn't need to cover any line, let alone two at once, until the infiltrators were ready to move.
And they clearly weren't ready. I couldn't see anyone moving out there, through either window. Was he just trying to spook us, then? Goad us into wasting our own shots firing at shadows and unseen enemies?
The shots continued, a steady blam-blam-blam. A steady blam-blam-blam, I noticed suddenly. Not a barrage designed to pin us down. Not even a volley, a group of shots followed by a lull where we were supposed to feel obligated to burn some ammo shooting back. A methodical, steady blam-blam-blam.
He wasn't covering up an infiltration. He was covering up something else.
Something he didn't want me to notice.
I fumbled out my comm. The incoming-call light wasn't glowing, or flashing with the message-waiting signal. No one was trying desperately to get in touch with me.
But maybe the Modhri was afraid someone was about to.
"Bayta—kick me if they start coming in," I called to her. Dropping behind the bar, I pulled up the city directory, found Veldrick's number, and punched it in.
He answered on the second ring. "Hello?"
"Mr. Veldrick, this is Frank Donaldson," I called. "I need to talk to you."
The words were barely out of my mouth when the steady blam-blam-blam of the Modhri's guns abruptly turned into a full battlefield cacophony. I was already surging back to my feet when Bayta's kick against my thigh confirmed the enemy was attacking.
I got an eye over the bar just in time to see a Filly leap in through each of the broken windows, their stolen police guns blazing away. For a second they faltered on the upended chairs we'd laid across their path, their shots going wild as they fought for balance.
I raised my gun over the bar to fire, but was forced to duck back down as a pair of shots gouged grooves in the bar and threw a handful of wooden splinters into my face. Before I could get back up into firing position, the entire bar began to come apart as the Fillies regained both their balance and their aim.
"Get down!" I yelled at Karim, ducking a little lower myself. He ignored me, his hand stretched up over the bar as he fired blindly in the general direction of our attackers. Bayta started to lift her hand, probably planning to do the same with her kwi. I grabbed her wrist before she could get there and pulled both the arm and Bayta herself low to the floor. The barrage was deafening, the rounds from Karim's military weapon adding a slightly deeper counterpoint to the Fillies' lighter police weapons.
And then, suddenly, Karim's gun was firing alone.
"Hold your fire!" I shouted. "Karim?"
Karim squeezed off two more rounds and then stopped. The silence seemed to ring in my ears as I carefully lifted my head above the bar.
The two Fillies were sprawled unmoving on the floor, bright red blood flowing across the floor from beneath their bodies, their guns still held loosely in their hands.
I looked at the side of the room. McMicking was still lying among the oblivious sleeping drunks, his gun and gun hand hidden behind one of the other men. His half-closed eyes rolled to catch mine, and his head nodded microscopically toward the guns.
I nodded back. "Stay here," I told Karim and Bayta, both of whom had risen cautiously to check out the situation. Squeezing past them, I circled around the end of the bar and headed for the Fillies.
I was still two steps away when the guns and gun hands suddenly twitched upward.
I jerked back, reflexively squeezing off a round into the nearest Filly's torso. But the guns weren't coming up in some last-gasp attempt by the Modhri to nail me. Before I could even shift my aim to the other Filly both guns broke free of their late owners' limp grips and skittered back toward the windows. For a moment the weapons bounced around and through the barricade chairs' legs, giving me just enough time to wonder what would happen if one of them bumped hard enough to go off Then, with one last bounce, they disappeared out their respective windows into the night.
Behind me, Karim spat something vile-sounding. "Tethered guns," he growled. "The favored ploy of those who value their weapons more than their men."
"That's the Modhri in a nutshell," I agreed. Cautiously, I stepped to the nearest window, hoping to see which direction the tethered guns had gone. But both weapons had vanished. Returning to the relative safety of the bar, I retrieved my comm from the floor where I'd dropped it. "Mr. Veldrick?" I called. "You still there?"
"Donaldson?" Veldrick's voice came back. "What the hell's going on there?"
"The more important question is what in hell's going on there," I countered.
There was a short pause. "What do you mean?" he asked warily.
"You know what I mean," I said, putting an ominous edge to my voice. I still wasn't a hundred percent sure I had the situation figured out, but I was sure enough to try playing the odds. "The situation with you and your illegal coral. You want to give me the details, or would you rather deal with the mess on your own?"
My hearing had recovered enough from the gun battle to pick up his long, sibilant sigh. "Someone's been in my house," he said. "He came to the door and shot me—snoozers—and then just walked right in."
"Did he steal anything?" I asked.
"No, but he was going to," Veldrick said grimly. "He had my shipping boxes out, the ones I used back when I brought in the coral."
"But he didn't actually take any of it?"
"You don't get it, do you?" he snapped. "You don't burgle someone's home and not even touch a fortune in illegal merchandise. Not unless you've decided it would be safer to turn in the owner and claim the reward."
"Maybe," I said, appreciating the irony of the whole situation. The last thing this particular home intruder wanted was for Veldrick and his eight million dollars' worth of Larry Hardin's coral to fall into official hands.
"Of course I'm right," Veldrick said. "So what do I do?"
"You start by not panicking," I told him. "For one thing, the police don't usually break their necks rushing to investigate anonymous tips. For another, they're all tied up at the moment with some kind of fire or something."
"An accident, actually," Veldrick corrected me. "At least, that's what Isantra Golovek says. He says we should have time to get the coral boxed up and hidden over at his place—"
"Wait a second," I said. "Who's Isantra Golovek? One of your Filiaelian business contacts?"
"You know any Juriani with Filiaelian titles?" he countered sarcastically. "He and Isantra Snievre are on their way now to give me a hand loading the coral."
A cold chill ran up my back. Earlier this evening, when the Modhri had had a murder frame-up planned for me, he'd been willing to sacrifice the coral outpost rather than risk losing track of Rebekah and her stack of boxes.
So why was he now apparently willing to pull his walkers away from his attack on us in order to protect t
hat same outpost?
Unless protecting the outpost wasn't his plan.
I looked out one of the broken windows. The Modhri's earlier murder frame-up of me had failed, leaving me alive and well and unjailed. And I was likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.
Unless the Fillies were on their way to Veldrick's to arrange another frame-up. Possibly for another murder.
Possibly Veldrick's.
"Listen carefully," I said to Veldrick, pitching my voice low and earnest. "Go lock your doors and windows—right now—and don't let anyone in. Understand? Anyone. Not Golovek, not the police—no one."
"What are you talking about?" Veldrick asked, his verbal tension level starting to rise, his voice bouncing a little as he headed off on a jogging tour of his house's entry points.
"I'm talking about barricading yourself inside your house," I said, thinking fast. "Don't you get it? Officially, that coral doesn't exist. They can walk right into your house and take it …provided you're not around to squawk to the police afterward."
"You mean …they'd actually kill me?"
"For eight million dollars in untraceable coral?" I countered, praying he would be too rattled to think straight. Since he couldn't complain to the cops without bringing a mandatory prison sentence down on his own head, there was no reason for a would-be thief to even rough him up, let alone kill him. "People kill for a lot less than that."
"But that's insane," he protested, sounding more bewildered than frightened. "These are well-respected, highly positioned Filiaelian businessmen."
"How do you know?" I asked. "You've only known them a few weeks." And he'd only known me a few hours. I hoped he wouldn't remember that. Or if he did, that the Hardin Industries security card I'd come in on would matter more than our length of acquaintanceship.
