The assassination had to be stopped.
Even if it cost the life of his only child.
Chapter Thirty
Pleasure Dome
Sunday, July 2
The 12:07 tubeway into Los Angeles was four minutes early. It shushed in on magnetic rails, gliding through vacuum tunnels, finally sliding to a halt in Santa Monica, dose enough to the ocean that Aubry could smell the salt as he emerged.
The crowd surrounded him, obscured him, gave him a welcome anonymity. He didn't touch Promise, hadn't for the last few minutes, although he had held her in the tube as it burrowed beneath the mountain, raced them toward the Pacific.
Even within their personal turmoil, there was comfort in knowing that they shared more than a common concern.
If they survived the next few days, they might, just might, have a life together.
The crowd parted for a moment, and Marina stood there, her face blank. She looked small to Aubry, and vulnerable, but with no acknowledgment of that vulnerability.
Aubry approached her, and her eyes blazed at him.
He stopped before he reached her. "Looks like you get another chance."
"To what?"
"Watch me die." The shadow of a smile flickered across her face, quickly dampened. "Son of a bitch. I thought maybe I'd kill you us you came out, but I still need you. Something is cooking, of course there is. Tomorrow is the rally at the convention center. Democratic National Convention. DeLacourte is making a personal appearance. That happens slightly less frequently than a solar eclipse."
Promise moved between them, taking Marina's arm. "Jenna is with the Scavengers. We have a vehicle waiting outside."
Quietly, trying not to attract any attention, Aubry and Promise and Marina moved through the crowd up to Sixth Street. There, a floater waited for them, air cushion humming. Aubry held the door for Promise and Marina, then slid in beside the driver.
"Quarry," he said heavily. His lieutenant smiled tightly and headed them off through the traffic. "I hope that I didn't leave things in too much of a state."
"Things can't be like they were. Maybe that's good— but it feels strange. They came and sorted through everything. Searched for you. We've lost use of a lot of the transport tunnel—the Los Angeles Transit System is starting up again in the central city.
"It was an excuse. They wanted it, they found it. I know what we own, and it's ours. We have the paperwork. I wish that things hadn't happened like this. ..."
"But they did."
"Aubry," Marina said. Her voice was tight and controlled. "What can you tell me now?"
"First—can you get into this convention thing?"
"I'll have to pull some strings, but yes."
"Good. Listen to me. Sometime during the convention, Sterling DeLacourte is going to be assassinated. It's a rogue operation. Quint and Ibumi had a cadre within Gorgon. They were the ones running Medusa. They're going to use the kids somehow. Bloodeagle and the rest of the Gorgons are coming in today and tomorrow, in varied transit. We need to coordinate things carefully."
"Aubry ... we have to tell the authorities."
"Just give me a chance to save my child," he said intensely. He gripped her arm with sudden, terrible strength. "DeLacourte has to be stopped, but we're still just guessing. Quint can destroy the evidence and get away free. If they corner him, the children will die. If they don't find out, the attempt goes on. If it fails, they die. If it succeeds, they probably die anyway. The only hope that I have is to find out where and when the attack is to take place, and try to throw the timetable off."
He sank back into the seat and closed his eyes. Marina pulled her arm away from him, and her eyes locked with Promise's.
"Just give us a chance," she said, and there was a plea in that voice.
"A chance." She stared out of the window, watching the buildings glide past.
"You like dangerous stories," Aubry said matter-of-factly. "Well, welcome to hell, lady."
Marina opened her mouth to protest, then found it closing again without sound.
Monday, July 3
Televisions and tridees and Omnivision receptors had been moved into the Scavenger planning room, surrounding a model of the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Onto the model was projected a holographic overlay. It showed the skimmers and helicopters coming and going, the security vehicles everywhere.
Bloodeagle stood next to Aubry. "I don't know what Quint has planned." His voice was bitter. "He hasn't been the same since Ibumi became his lover."
A sudden thought occurred to him. "Is Ibumi an American citizen?"
"Two generations back."
"Shit. Go on."
"I can tell you that he has a dozen of those children, but only three have been fully tested. I swear to you—we didn't know about this."
Aubry nodded his head sullenly. "All right. DeLacourte arrives tomorrow. Why would Quint, or Ibumi, want to kill him at the convention? Why not in transit? Or on his home turf? Maybe I'm a fool, but it looks as though security will actually be tighter here."
"A greater coup if they pull it off," Promise suggested.
"True—but no one is going to want to take credit for this."
"Look, Aubry," Marina said. "We don't know what or how. We're going to make a terrible mistake if we do. Second-guessing Quint or Ibumi's motivations and trying to extrapolate actions from them is a losing position."
Aubry nodded, then slammed his hand down on the model, rattling the houses. "Dammit. There is still something missing in the picture. What about this McMartin?"
Bloodeagle lowered his voice. "Quint purchased his fetuses. I know that."
Marina sounded disgusted. "McMartin seems to be playing every end against the middle. He deals with the Mercs. He buys fetuses from Ephesus, and sells them to the NewMan Nation."
"And he probably helped transport the Children up to Ephesus," Jenna said bitterly. "He killed my mother."
"We've got to find this man. Have you ever met him?"
Bloodeagle shook his head, wincing.
"Almost no one has," Marina said. "He's supposed to be a freak, an utter grotesquerie. A sybarite. I've never gotten specifics on it. The very few people who have seen him never talk."
"Where does he live?"
"Long Beach industrial district, a penthouse atop McMartin Cryogenics. He never leaves."
"Let's have the display," he said brusquely. Long Beach came up on the table, and they scrolled through the neighborhoods until Marina pointed her finger. "There."
The building was fourteen stories, and topped with a glass dome over what appeared to be an indoor swimming pool
Promise closed her eyes. " In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree . . .' " She shook herself out of it. "Sorry."
"No problem." Aubry laughed. "What can we do? Can we get a skimmer or helicopter in there?"
"Not without the civil air authorities picking us up."
"The building?"
Quarry examined the specs as they floated in the air before them, in rows of glowing insects.
"Don't know, Aub. McMartin Cryo looks pretty damned secure."
"Shit. We have no time. From underneath?"
"Negative. Private sewer lines. Specs say full security. If you want to do a soft-shoe, you'll need experts. We don't have that kind of talent on tap."
"Miles?"
"We can do it, given the specs. And the time. Need a day for recon."
"We don't have that. These buildings to the sides. How lull are they?"
"Ten stories, five, and twelve."
And the last side?
"Vacant ..." Quarry's fingers busied themselves at the console. "I think. Let me get an update. We haven't used this section in months—"
His face brightened. "We have a building going up. Twenty stories. Incomplete."
Bloodeagle stared from his one good eye. "That might work."
"Might?" Aubry asked. "It has to."
To turn on the
elevators in the abandoned skeleton of the building was to invite disaster. Aubry and Bloodeagle, and two of the other Gorgons, climbed the structure. The cables ran from one floor to the next. Wearing thick gloves, Aubry climbed. He still felt weakened from his ordeal in the desert, but that was just his body.
He swung himself over to the edge to rest for a minute.
Bloodeagle caught up with him. "Are you sure you're up to this?"
Aubry gritted his teeth and nodded, then rose. The pain in his shoulder and neck and side were still dull aches, but he floated above them, found in the climbing a rhythmic, healing satisfaction. Just grip with the hands, pull the legs up behind, and . . .
His lungs felt aflame. He wasn't completely healed, and if he wiped his hand across his forehead it came away sopping with sweat. He was running a temperature.
He had to keep going, and could. Not for himself. For Leslie.
The image was still bright in his mind. A burning building in Ephesus, and a tiny wraithlike figure moving like lightning. What a child! Son, daughter, both, neither, it hardly mattered. What mattered was that child needed him and, in a way that he barely understood, Aubry desperately needed that child.
The wind plucked at him, and as he looked down on the black, light-dotted street below him, he felt a moment's dizziness.
Bloodeagle came up behind him. From where they stood, Aubry could clearly see the greenish plastic dome of the hothouse. It was faceted like an emerald, and gleamed in the city light.
Bloodeagle unslung a harpoon rifle with an attached reel of kevlar filament. He aimed carefully.
"Here." He pointed. "Where in the structure do you want to land? You've got to land soft, then cut through the panels."
"Give me the middle. As close to the top as you can come." Bloodeagle nodded. He aimed carefully, and the rifle gave a slight phut. The reel began to hiss.
"Damn." He grimaced. "Let's try it again." He clipped the line free, and attached a new tip. "Here ..."
Phut.
Bloodeagle spit on the beam beneath his feet, his hawk face alight with pleasure. "Hah. That's the one."
He clipped the line and tied it in a loop to the stanchion next to him, attached a lever and pulled, taking up the slack.
"You're sure this is strong enough?"
"Plenty strong. Take five times your weight. Test it."
Aubry did, put all of his weight on the line as Bloodeagle took a small hand pulley and clamped it over the line.
"All right. This is your hand brake. You can slow descent if you want, by tightening your grip."
"You're sure this will hold?"
"Do you want one of us to go first?"
"No. And if anything goes wrong, don't follow unless I signal."
"You've got it."
"I'd better."
Aubry checked his backpack with the saw and drill bits.
He needed to slide down that line, braking to almost a complete stop at the bottom. He tested the hand brake. It seemed simple, a clamp of metal and plastic and some kind of synthetic asbestos.
"All right," he said. He peered down the line. It curved away, disappearing in a slow arc toward the roof of the building below them.
Unaccountably nervous, he borrowed the rifle scope for a minute. The tip seemed firmly anchored.
He clinched the brake, testing it a final time, nodded to Bloodeagle. "See you in a few minutes," and stepped off the beam.
The world dropped out from underneath him, and his stomach leapt into his mouth. Then he calmed, found his spiritual center and, a moment later, his physical. The long descent became almost a lark, a pleasure.
He was dropping quickly now, and he tightened his pressure on the handle—
And nothing happened. "Shit!" he cursed to himself.
He was dropping along the line, accelerating, the wind whipping at his face as he slid. Greater pressure on the clamp brought no response. The glass dome loomed up quickly now, and he cursed, cursed the defective apparatus, cursed—
His feet hit the plastic. He felt the jolt up his entire body as he smashed through, losing his grip on the hoist, and chunks of the roof collapsed behind him.
Then, with an impact that shocked him into insensibility, he hit the water.
Aubry rolled, swallowing filthy water, struggling to regain his bearings. Where? What . . . ?
A pale white form rolled against him, and he pushed it away automatically. His eyes burned horribly. When he managed to focus them, he saw that it was a woman's body, her hair plastered against her forehead, her eyes open and staring. He thrust it away frantically, gasping for air. Where in the hell was he?
A high-pitched wailing sound filled his ears, a sound which rose higher and higher, only vaguely recognizable as a human voice.
He had to clear his head. Leslie . . .
The thought sent adrenaline pumping into exhausted muscles. Leslie.
The water was erupting around him, and through blurry vision he saw a vast white shape thrashing clumsily toward the far end of the pool.
McMartin! He must have damn near landed on top of the monster! Screaming inarticulately, McMartin fled toward the shallows. He struggled to haul his bulk up and out of the pool, to no avail.
Aubry leapt on his back, digging his thumbs into McMartin's ears, his fingers in the fat man's eyes. The screams grew intolerably sharp, and then broke into sobs.
Aubry released him and rolled over onto his back, coughing slimy water.
He had opened tears above McMartin's eyes. The fat man was blinking slowly, painfully, blinded.
"Who . . . who are you? What do you want?"
"The man who will kill you if he doesn't get the truth.'
McMartin slid around the edges of the tank, blood drooling down his face. He was blinded in one eye.
"You set it up," Aubry said. "You set up the hit on Ephesus."
"You . . . you can't prove that."
"I don't want to prove anything. I'm not interested in taking you to court. We're holding court right now, and if I don't get answers from you, you're going to be dead."
"If I tell you anything I'm dead anyway. To hell with you.'
Aubry heaved again, spitting glycerin water, when there was a whirring noise above him. Bloodeagle and one of the other Gorgons slid down the line after him. They peered down into the pool area, and Bloodeagle towered himself to the deck.
With a rattling noise, a basket containing the terrified form of Jeffry Barathy trundled down, Jeffry screaming all the way. When he stopped, and was lowered down to Bloodeagle, Jeffry uncrossed his eyes and grinned. "Damn. That's the most fun I've had in months." He looked at McMartin. "Who is this toad?"
"Maybe nobody. Maybe the most dangerous man alive. Watch him. Jeffty, we have work."
Aubry stood in the lab, watching the playbacks.
"Christ," Jeffry said, shaking his head. "This asshole is dead tight with DeLacourte. Four of his transport vehicles were in Washington at the time of the Ephesus fire. He hit Ephesus, all right. And he supplied the fetuses to the New-Men, which means that he must be in on the DeLacourte hit."
"Why?"
He triggered another button, and regained the image of McMartin in the pool. Aubry took the microphone. "Why would you do it? It looks like this guy's your buddy."
McMartin glared at them balefully.
"Where are they? Where is Quint? For that matter, where is Killinger?"
McMartin said nothing.
"God. What is happening here?"
"I don't know," Bloodeagle said, "but we're running out of time. DeLacourte arrives in an hour and forty minutes."
In the pool, McMartin smiled tightly. "It's too late. You can't stop it, can you? You can't talk to the authorities, can you? You're dead, all of you."
Aubry punched the button, starting the pool drain. McMartin thrashed in alarm. "Are you sure you don't want to talk? We can wait."
Jeffry Barathy hummed to himself, fingers flying. "Nice system he has set up. Security
isn't for shit, but—"
The panel behind Moonman exploded, and a second shot took him in the shoulder. He gasped, clasping the wound, and fell back.
Bloodeagle reacted before Aubry. "Mercs!"
He gestured quickly, and half of his men sped down the corridor. "You stay here with Barathy. See what he can get."
Aubry nodded curtly. The sound of rapid-fire explosions shook the computer room. The floor thundered, and it took a moment for the computer display to restabilize.
"I'm not finished here," Jeffry said between his teeth, fighting his way back to the console.
"Christ," Aubry said, peering into the wound. He stripped away the cloth protecting the shoulder, and grimaced at what he saw. Jeffry's eyes were fixed on the screen before him, in a video trance.
"We ... let go of my arm."
"I've got to stop the bleeding." Jeffry looked down at the wound, and his mouth pursed in an O.
His left hand went to the keyboard and punched the function keys, throwing the mindlink parameters up to the screen.
Arrows flew, and in a few moments, he lifted the headband and attached the electrodes to his wrists and forehead, and the base of his skull.
The holo field in front of his face fluxed until it was virtually a mask, shielding his eyes. Information, coded to his brainwave patterns, flashed through the field in bits and bytes.
Aubry finished with the dressing. "Finished."
"Huh?"
"Never mind."
"I have . . . data feeds coming in. Medical. These are coded last week. Senator Thurmond. Rejuvenation treatments."
Jeffry's pudgy body stiffened. "Ephesus. Fetuses."
"I saw a vehicle collecting something from Ephesus. It seemed heavy and cold."
"Fetuses."
"There is . . ."
A grenade exploded in the passage outside the computer room, and for a minute Jeffry's eyes remained sealed, and his teeth clenched. Then he relaxed, as if giving up resistance to the computer input. "I can see it. Aubry—there's a pattern. Fetuses from Ephesus to the NewMen camp . . . McMartin and DeLacourte. McMartin to Killinger to . . . to Ibumi. I can see the lines. I can see them, but I don't understand ..."
Gorgon Child Page 28
