by Mel Odom
"We can wait." Argent offered.
"Madame Fontaine." a man's voice called from inside, "don't hesitate to invite your next client in. I'm quite satisfied that we've done all we can with this visit."
"As you wish, Tajira-sara." Laveau stepped back into the well-furnished apartment, waving Argent and Archangel in behind her.
Stepping into the room, Argent automatically dimmed his olfactory sensors because of all the accumulated incense smoke. The decor reflected Laveau's shamanistic roots in Jamaican voodoo. Lit candles occupied nearly every flat space in the living room, glinting from ceramic and plastimetal surfaces.
A hand-woven tapestry representing Damballah Wedo, Laveau's chosen patron loa, hung above the synthfireplace against the opposite wall. Rendered in psychedelic colors, Damballah Wedo was a gleaming serpent winding through a tall forest to reach for the moon-kissed clouds above.
"I'm sorry to interrupt your time." Argent said, turning to face the man in the room.
"Arne Gemmell." Laveau said, introducing Argent as the alias he traveled under, "this is Hideo Tajira."
Argent kept his hands at his sides and performed a perfect bow. "Tajira-san, I'm honored to make your acquaintance."
"And I to make yours." Tajira answered.
Argent read the man as a corp exec at once. He was a half head shorter than Argent and moved with a smoothness that suggested a long familiarity with marital arts combined with boosted reflexes.
Tajira wore a black Armante and went smooth-shaven. His long hair, exceeding the specs of most corps, was pulled back in a ponytail. His green eyes glimmered for just an instant, registering more fully on Argent's face than was proper in the Japanese culture. "Madame Fontaine, you'll find your account credited properly. I thank you for your time." Tajira pulled on thin black gloves. "The evening has been most enlightening."
Laveau took his arm and moved him toward the door. "Shall I schedule you for the same time next week?"
"Of course. I'll look forward to it."
Argent took in the ashtrays containing the burning incense unleashing coiling smoke trails against the ceiling. His mind sped up, recognizing the danger they were suddenly in.
Tajira paused in the doorway, turning to take a final look inside the room. He locked eyes with Argent for just a moment.
Laveau closed the door, then turned to face Argent. When she spoke, her English took on the slurred tones of her native New Orleans. She didn't speak French to let the big shadowrunner know how upset she was with him. "Ever hear of a leetle thing called de telecom, cher? It takes all de inconvenience from dese messy meetings."
"It's about to get more inconvenient." Argent said, freeing the Savalette Guardian from his waistband and activating the smartlink. His vision blurred for the instant it took for the cross hairs to form. "Your client is with Asian Fuchi, right?"
"Yes, cher. But how you know that? You got bad juju between you?"
"I've never seen him before." Argent answered. "But he recognized me."
37
"They know we're coming."
Belted into the opulent comfort of the Agusta-Cierva Rotorcraft, Clay Ironaxe peered down into the purple twilight staining the city of Pueblo as night swept in over the desert. The plex had once been prosperous, not the darkened and dying husk it was now. The warehouse district lining the Arkansas River below was desolate.
"It doesn't matter." Ironaxe told Bearstalker. "They won't be able to run." He looked through the window and up, spotting the other two helos that accompanied the one he occupied.
Their espionage teams had born fruit. Only hours into his assignment, they'd turned up the fact that Nakatomi had a sec-force housed in one of the empty warehouses below through one of the spies he regularly employed. The Asian Fuchi CEO hadn't bothered to mention the presence of the team.
Even as the helos descended like hunting hawks, ground units poured in through the main entrance and swept toward the targeted warehouse. The Agusta-Cierva touched the pockmarked tarmac below with an audible thump. Its spotting lights centered on the warehouse doors as a large team of black-outfitted men circled them.
Fisting his Seco LD-120 pistol, Ironaxe stepped out of the helo. He put on the kevlar helmet Bearstalker offered as he strode toward the thriller graffiti covered warehouse doors. His sec forces moved to the walls of the warehouse. Chainsaws ripped through the thin sheet plastimetal skin into the rooms beyond. In seconds, Ares tear gas canisters were shoved through the holes, making the place look like it had been hit by a fumigator. Ironaxe breathed easily inside the kevlared helmet because it had a filter and a miniature air supply.
The small force inside put up only token resistance. They knew they were heavily outnumbered, and the tear gas took away the last of their resolve. The interior of the warehouse had been superficially changed to house the men inside. The electronic equipment was only rudimentary. Hammocks and sleeping bags littered the floor. The fifteen men and women lay scattered across the floor as well, all writhing painfully in the throes of the tear gas.
Ironaxe bent down and caught a young Japanese woman by the back of her blouse. She groaned in pain, her hands clawing at her eyes. He propped her against the wall near a work bench, then squatted down so she could see his eyes through the visor of the kevlared helmet. "You're working for Nakatomi, aren't you?"
The woman started to deny the accusation, but Ironaxe raised a big hand and scared her out of it. "Hai. I work for Nakatomi."
"Doing what?"
"He put us into place here to find the slotters that jacked your decks. We're trying to do you a fragging favor."
Ironaxe ignored the anger. "How were you going to help me?"
"We had DNA samples of the shadowrunners." the woman replied.
"How did he get the DNA samples?"
"I don't know. I think he managed to turn one of the runners against the others."
"Did you find them?"
She shook her head and wiped at her mouth again. "Not yet, but we know they have to be in this area somewhere. They've just dug in deep."
"How do you know that?"
"Because this is the last place we traced them to."
The medic arrived and Ironaxe left the woman to him. Then he joined Bearstalker in searching through the personal effects the Asian Fuchi team had. Bearstalker had already found the DNA samples. Ironaxe had a mage sent over. The female mage came over and sketched out the things the mage team had discovered.
"They were using ritual sorcery." the mage stated. "Very expensive and very time consuming. Evidently they weren't successful."
"Can we use the DNA samples?" Ironaxe asked.
"No." She shook her head. "Only the mages who began work on these can use them. Ritual sorcery is much more proprietary."
Ironaxe dismissed her, scowling.
"Having the DNA samples here could mean a number of things." Bearstalker said.
"I know." Ironaxe's mind was already leaping to the more obvious of solutions. "That Nakatomi really is trying to pin the blame rightfully on Villiers. That Nakatomi was running the operation from here and kept the DNA samples on hand so he wouldn't lose the group he'd put into LegacyTrax himself. That the DNA samples are fakes and the shadowrunners we're searching for have already buzzed turbo, taken out by Nakatomi." He glanced at the DNA samples spread across the corpmage's knees. "Or those DNA samples are fake and we were supposed to find them, then waste time looking for matches that don't exist."
One of the sec people came running up with a portable telecom. "Your office, sir." the man said. "They said it was important." He extended the handset. A cord connected it to the encrypted backpack commlink across his shoulders. The signal was relayed to the lead helo managing the satlink.
Ironaxe said his name into the handset, listening to the echo of the voices and the helos trapped on the open line.
"I do apologize for the deception." Shikei Nakatomi said without hesitation. "I'd truly planned in being in possession of those shadowrunne
rs before now."
"You should have told me you had the DNA samples." Ironaxe said.
"If I had informed you." Nakatomi pointed out, "we couldn't have been sure that Sencio and Villiers wouldn't have found out we had the DNA samples."
Ironaxe watched as his sec guards gathered the scouting team from the floor and marched them out into a waiting Roadmaster converted into a containment vehicle. "For all I know, these people are a support group for the runners who infiltrated LegacyTrax."
"If you believe that, you'll be making a mistake." Nakatomi assured him smoothly. "Also, I didn't just call you because you'd raided the team I had in place there. I just received word from an employee in Quebec City that Argent is there now. I have a team en route to his position. He'll be in our hands in minutes."
"You'll call me?"
"Immediately."
"I'll be waiting." Ironaxe punched the Disconnect and handed the phone back to the comm officer. His brain whirled, figuring all the angles. That Nakatomi hadn't told him about the team for the reasons he gave made sense, but he knew none of those were the real reason. If the team had pinpointed Sencio's group first, Nakatomi would have recovered all the data she'd stolen before killing her and turning her over to Ironaxe, regretful that he hadn't been able to bring her in alive.
Or Nakatomi might have had her killed because she could have fingered him for contracting her.
It was hard to know, or even guess, which was the truth.
38
Showing the professionalism that had marked everything she'd ever done, Laveau scrambled through the doss and grabbed only the things that were essential to her continued survival. It didn't prevent her, though, from hurling curses in Argent's direction and bemoaning the fact that she was leaving behind very expensive things.
Argent stood at the door to the doss, the Guardian tight in his fist.
"You never mentioned Asian Fuchi as being a problem, cher." Laveau said. "Else me, I would have had dat boy long gone from here, yes."
Archangel remained calm, sizing up the rest of the rooms in the doss. She was the first to think of removing the telecom and dialing out to a pay service so it couldn't be tapped into and used as a spy device inside the room.
Argent appreciated Archangel's thoroughness and calm. "The people you worked with must have been good." he said.
"The guy who ran the team was clever." she admitted. "There isn't much in the way of a run that gets by him."
"Was he the one?"
Archangel fixed Argent with a chill stare of her bronze and gold flecked eyes. "That question is out of place."
"Yes." But Argent knew they were both aware that she'd answered it all the same. Still, her own plight mirrored his to an extent and it made him more curious about her than he normally would have allowed himself to be. She had bailed on the guy she'd fallen for because she couldn't handle the emotions and still be as professional as she wanted to be. And Argent was being pulled into Sencio's problems because he hadn't been able to walk completely away from his own feelings. Nor would he have chosen to. Admitting those feelings existed would have been detrimental. The last person he needed to lie to was himself.
"Let's go, cher." Laveau said. She'd slung everything she could carry into a backpack, Argent noted with approval. The ork street shaman was as efficient as always. As a girl in New Orleans, she'd grown up in the streets, making her way as a thief before turning to magic. As a result, her lifestyle had never taken on more than the semblance of permanence. She carried a Colt Manhunter at her side. "I'm correct thinking dese men be wanting to flatline you dey catch you, cher?"
"Yes." Argent replied.
"Den we get out drekking quick and make no hesitation."
Argent took the lead, stepping out into the hallway while using the doorway as a shield. "The fire escape." he said. "They could already be tapped into the audlinks and vid-links in the elevators."
"They'll have them in the fire escapes as well." Archangel said.
"We'll have more room to move." Argent said. "Does Tajira come alone to these meetings?"
"He's a corpexec." Laveau said. "Ever know one of dem to come alone to anything? No way. He keeps men stationed in de bar downstairs."
Movement caught in his peripheral vision, sending him into motion. A hail of bullets slammed through the airspace where he'd just stood. The Guardian came up in his fist, spitting and snapping.
The bullets crunched through the face of the man standing at the corner at the other end of the hallway.
Before the body fell, Argent fired again as another man moved around the corpse. His second burst only succeeded in smashing against the second gunner's kevlar jacket, driving him back.
"Move!" Argent ordered.
Archangel and Laveau fired as well, keeping the gunner back while Argent reloaded.
The big shadowrunner streaked for the fire escape. His move-by-wire system kept everything flowing smoothly, taking in information in nanoseconds and making corrections. As always, even moving at full tilt his body felt like a greased bearing rolling through its tracks.
His infrared vision lit up the shadow through the window on the fire escape door. He brought the Guardian up in his fist, not breaking stride as he squeezed off two rounds in quick succession.
The bullets ripped through the plastiglass a heartbeat ahead of Argent. The big shadowrunner thought that both rounds had scored on their target, but he didn't take any chances. He spread a big hand out and caught the door against his palm.
With the enhanced weight the cyberware added to his body and the strength possible in his cyberlimbs, the reinforced door shrieked out of its moorings and exploded backward in a warped rush. The door smacked into the man and shoved him down the steps, over the top of two more men charging up after him.
Argent activated the electromagnet in his palm and slapped it against the wall beside the steps. The effect helped anchor him and brought him just short of making the same fall. The smartlink brought his gunhand up and fired the Guardian dry at the two men, targeting the exposed faces rather than the areas protected by bulletproof armor.
Archangel was at his heels, cradling her pistol in both hands. She didn't fire because it wasn't necessary.
All three men were geeked.
Without warning the whumpf of a set explosive shivered through the building and filled the halls with noise. Immediately afterward, klaxons screamed stridently.
Argent looked back at Laveau and spotted the remote control device in her hand.
"Just a precaution, cher." the ork shaman said. "You know I don't never figure on staying in any one place too long, me. Ol' Laveau, she knows she gonna be a traveler most of dis life." She smiled and dropped the detonator. "Firebomb in de apartment, dat explosion gonna give dem something to think about, yes?"
"Yes."
"Those fire alarms are also going to put everyone in the hotel out into the fire escapes." Archangel said.
"That's putting a lot of innocents in harm's way."
Argent was thinking the same thing. He'd worked with Laveau before and found her to be competent at her craft, but it was generally her neck she thought of first. He moved his estimation of Archangel up. He missed having Peg inside his head, but they'd agreed to keep the commlink silent unless necessary to cut down on the chances of them being picked up.
"Very few staying in dis place got any claim to innocence, dem." Laveau said.
Argent moved through the dead men, keeping a pace that he figured would keep the women stressed to match. Archangel seemed to flow along behind him, but Laveau was breathing hard after six stories. At least it was downhill all the way.
"Nakatomi's people should know they don't have to watch the elevators." Archangel said. "By now the fire alarms will have made them all return to the lobby floor."
"And they won't have found us on them." Argent said.
Dozens of people filled the fire escape now, all of them in varying degrees of panic and demanding to know what ha
d happened. "So the elevator shafts should be the safest place for us."
"Yes."
Argent had already thought of that but he didn't mention it. That Archangel was thinking as quickly and clearly as she was only impressed him more. Who had she been working with before that she thought so quickly on her feet?
He led the way down to the ninth floor, then apologized as he forced his way through the packed throng barring the way back into the hotel corridor. He jogged halfway down the hallway till he reached an elevator. The way he had it figured, the elevator would put them over the lobby and the underground garage below. It was on the right side of the underground garage that he'd left the rental car.
Slipping his fingers between the locked elevator doors, he leveraged them open. The interior of the shaft only held red warning lights advertising the absence of the elevator cage.
Operated by the maglev systems, the egg-shaped cage sat at the bottom of the shaft. There were no connecting cables, no infrastructure offering extra support. Only smooth sides of plastisteel for the next eight stories.
"Laveau." Argent said.
"Yes, cher." The ork shaman crowded close and peered down into the inky depths.
"Can you clear the way to the underground garage?"
"Through de floor?"
"Yes."
She shook her head. "You ask a lot, cher, but I think dese old bones up to de job." Chanting to herself, her voice rising, she gestured at the cage below.
With his infravision on, Argent thought he saw the waves of disruption spike from Laveau's fingertips. When they made contact with the elevator cage, the cage crumpled at once.
Continuing with her chanting, her voice hoarse with effort now, Laveau gestured again. This time the crumpled mass of the elevator cage exploded through the floor below, opening a hole almost two meters across.
"That'll do." Argent said.
"Good, cher, because dere was no much else dese old bones had to give, I tell you dat." Laveau's color had faded and perspiration covered her face. "Been living easy maybe too long, I have."
"That's eight stories." Archangel said.
