Ripping Time

by Robert Asprin

  Skeeter knew, all right.

  He had no intention of going one-on-one with Kit Carson under any circumstances. But thanks to Kit, Mike Benson grudgingly unlocked the handcuffs, freeing Skeeter’s wrists. He flexed them gingerly and rubbed the chafed skin.

  “Thanks.”

  Benson just glowered at him and retreated to a watchful stance between Skeeter and the elevator door. Ronisha slowly seated herself in Bull Morgan’s chair, studying Skeeter intently. “All right, Kit. He’s uncuffed. Now. You want to explain this mess, Skeeter? If I didn’t have my phones forwarded down to the war room, I’d have every reporter on station demanding to know why half-a-dozen construction workers were just murdered on a station totally out of control. Not to mention Senator Caddrick, who’s demanded to see me the minute he’s released from the infirmary, and I think we can all guess what he wants. This isn’t going to play well in the press, Skeeter. The station’s in very serious trouble, even without Caddrick on the warpath down in station medical.”

  “Yeah,” Skeeter muttered, “that’s old news, around here.” Kit’s unexpected support gave him the courage to say it right out. “Look, I’m not in any mood for games, either. Those bastards timed their hit perfectly, snatching Bergitta during the chaos at Primary. They knew Security would be run ragged, trying to control that mess, and frankly, they were counting on the fact that Bergitta’s only a down-timer. She’s not Ianira Cassondra, not somebody we’d tear the station apart to find, she’s just a worthless, down-timer ex-prostitute, a kid nobody’d miss. If you sit there and tell me you’d have pulled a single security officer off riot duty at Primary to hunt down those bastards or even mount a search for her, right in the middle of this mess, I’ll call you a liar, Ronisha Azzan.”

  Ronisha’s brows arched, but the deputy station manager said nothing, merely tapped long, elegant fingernails against the desktop and waited for Skeeter to finish.

  Skeeter shrugged. “I figured the only chance she had was the down-timers. It was the little ones, the Lost and Found Gang, who saw them snatch her out of the bathroom she was cleaning. They came for me, ran to warn the others. The kids heard those creeps boasting, talking about how they were going to beat her and rape her and then kill her in cold blood when they’d had their fun. When we went in, down there, it was twenty to seven. Twenty, dammit, all of them intent on committing murder. They’d already jumped their own foreman, knocked him out and locked him up along with anybody who disagreed with their idea of fun. And the minute they laid eyes on us, their ringleader started yelling at his men to kill all of us. You tell me what we should’ve done, under the circumstances. Let them rape to death an innocent girl? Let ‘em butcher those kids who led us down there? Tevel Gottlieb is only eight, for Chrissake. Folks around here may not think a helluva lot of me, but goddammit, if you think I was going to stand by with a finger in my ear and do nothing, you’re as crazy as those idiots out there worshiping Jack the Ripper!”

  Before Ronisha Azzan could do more than draw a single breath, Kit Carson said quietly, “I’d have done the same thing, Ronnie. In a second. And I’ve talked to Mr. Riyad. He supports Skeeter fully.”

  She glanced sharply at Shangri-La’s most famous, influential resident, then sighed and rapped her knuckles agitatedly against the desktop. “Huh. Frankly, if I’d been in Skeeter’s place, I might have done what he did, too. Mike, as far as I’m concerned, every one of these people acted in self-defense, saving the life of a station resident. And don’t quote up-time law at me, either! I know most of them are down-timers without rights. On this station,” she jabbed a finger downward for emphasis, “a resident is a resident. At least they are on my watch and I’m pretty sure Bull would back me up, if he weren’t in jail with those damned feds holding the keys. So . . . The question is, what to tell those vultures in the press, or that maniac, Caddrick?”

  Skeeter’s jaw dropped, trying to take in the fact that he wasn’t going to jail, after all. Then Skeeter realized he had another ace up his sleeve, one he knew for sure Ronisha Azzan would be interested in. “Well, you might try giving them the story of the week. We’ve got the key to destroying the Ansar Majlis, after all.”

  “What?” The word echoed in triplicate.

  Skeeter indulged a brief, satisfied grin. It wasn’t every day a guy could shock the likes of that trio. Skeeter leaned forward. “The guy who lost his hand? He offered to sing like a caged canary. And according to Hashim, part of what he’s offered to sing about is the Ansar Majlis. Namely, their plans to invade this station, break their riot-happy Brothers out of jail, and kill off every Security officer in their way and every Templar they can lay hands on, doing it. Their leaders came through Primary today.”

  Ronisha snatched up the telephone. “Azzan, here. Release every down-timer involved in that fight down in Arabian Nights. Yes, dammit, now. And ask that kid, Hashim, and Mr. Riyad to translate for us. Interrogate those construction workers Wally Klontz and Mr. Riyad brought in. I want to know everything they do about the Ansar Majlis.” Then, to Skeeter, “With a little luck, we may yet blow that terrorist group wide open. Good work, Skeeter. Damned good work, in fact. The station owes you. Go on, get out of here. Get over to the infirmary and see how she’s doing.”

  Skeeter was in such a state of shock, he could scarcely mumble out his thanks. He bolted for the elevator, gratified when Mike Benson merely stepped aside, his own jaw scraping the floor. The head of station security sent an unhappy scowl after him, but that was all. Good God, he thought on the way down to Commons, I’m not going to jail! None of us is going to jail! Because of Kit Carson. Or was it only that Ronisha Azzan was, in the final analysis, a fair woman, interested in justice? Even though she had to be tough, doing a job like hers, particularly with a whole new stack of corpses to explain to Senator John Caddrick? Skeeter wasn’t sure, but he certainly wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  When he reached the infirmary, he found Wally Klontz there ahead of him, along with Mr. Riyad and Hashim, taking statements from the injured construction workers. Wally glanced up when Skeeter came in. “Hey, Skeeter! Rachel said to tell you, Bergitta’s in surgery, but it looks like she’ll make it, after all. You got her up here just in time.” Skeeter had to lean against the nearest wall, the relief was so profound. “And these birds,” Wally nodded at the construction workers he was questioning, “are giving us enough information to arrest the whole up-time Ansar Majlis operation. We’ve already identified their ringleaders and sent out teams to arrest them at their hotels. Seems the leadership decided to come here and supervise the search for Ianira in person, after their underlings screwed up the mission. Once they’re in custody, it’ll just be a matter of mopping up the cells scattered in various up-time cities. Good work, Jackson.”

  He couldn’t quite believe his ears. Two ‘eighty-sixers in a row, thanking him!

  But the jubilant mood was short-lived. When Bergitta came out of surgery, and Rachel allowed him to step into the recovery room, Skeeter’s warm glow of accomplishment drained away so fast, he had to grip the door frame to steady himself. Bergitta was awake, but only just. Rachel had sedated her heavily for the emergency surgery and she was just coming out from under the anesthesia. The injuries looked even worse against the stark white of hospital bed and bandages than they had down in that nasty, half-finished warehouse in the basement. When Skeeter paused, stricken, beside her bed, Bergitta’s bruised and swollen eyes focused slowly on his face. “Skeeter . . .” Tears trickled down her blackened cheeks.

  “Shh, don’t try to talk. You’re safe, now. You’ve just come out of surgery, Bergitta. Rachel says you’re going to be all right, but you need to rest, save your strength.” Moving gingerly, he took her hand. Heavy bandages covered raw cuts from the wire. Her elbow trailed IV lines.

  “Thank you,” she whispered anyway, throat working to swallow past hideous bruises from more of their damned wire.

  “Don’t thank me,” he insisted quietly. “Thank the kids.
They spotted you, when those animals dragged you out of the bathroom. If it hadn’t been for the kids . . .” He forced a smile. “But they did see you, didn’t they? And sounded the alarm. So we got you out of there, thanks to the little ones. And some who aren’t so little,” he added with a watery smile. “Eigil Bjarneson sent a few to the gods, today.”

  Her fingers tightened around Skeeter’s.

  “Listen, you get some rest, okay? Nobody’s going to hurt you again, I promise. The ones who aren’t dead are under arrest. They’ll be kicked off station in handcuffs and tried for attempted murder and ties to the Ansar Majlis. You’re safe, Bergitta, I promise you are. And Molly wants you to move in with her, when you’re stronger, so you won’t have to live alone any more.” Over at the doorway, a nurse high-signed him. “I have to go now, the nurse says you need to sleep. Close your eyes, I’ll come back and see you when you’re feeling a little better.”

  By the time Skeeter extricated his fingers from hers, tucked her hand beneath the blankets, and reached the door, she was sound asleep. He stood in the doorway for a long moment, just watching her, then turned on his heel and headed out into the Commons once again. Bergitta was alive, thank all the Yakka gods of the upper air, and with a little luck, the Ansar Majlis wouldn’t ever threaten anybody again.

  But he still had to find a job, doing something to pay for his apartment and groceries, and he still intended to spot and turn in every pickpocket and confidence artist he could find. And somewhere, down one of the station’s gates, his dearest friends in the world were hiding for their very lives. Marcus and Ianira and their beautiful little girls . . .

  He didn’t yet know how, exactly.

  But Skeeter intended to find them.

  And bring them safely home once more.

  * * *

  Jenna Caddrick sat beside the window of her bedroom in the little house in Spitalfields, listening to the angry shouts in the streets outside, as word of the latest murder in Whitechapel spread through the East End. She’d sat in almost this same spot for a whole week, now, exhausted and trying to recover from the gunshot to her skull. Jenna could no longer doubt Ianira’s pronouncement that she was carrying a baby, either. Even with the stress of the past few days, she should’ve started her period by now and hadn’t. And she’d never felt so monstrously queasy in all her life, had been feeling nauseated for days, right through the pain medication Dr. Mendel had prescribed. She hadn’t wanted anything more than dry toast in days, had been forcing herself to eat, terrified that she’d lose the baby if she didn’t choke food down.

  Below her window, angry working men shouted at a police constable, demanding better patrols through the area, and frightened women huddled in doorways, clutching shawls about their shoulders and crying while they talked endlessly of the madman stalking these streets. Jenna brought her eyelids clenching down over wetness. What am I going to do? She was in disguise as a man, with fake mutton chops and moustaches which the time terminal’s cosmetologist had implanted. That false hair would require a cosmetic surgeon to remove. Not a single doctor anywhere in this city would begin to understand if a seemingly male individual showed up ready to deliver a baby, for God’s sake. Talk about attracting unwanted attention . . .

  And she couldn’t go home to deliver her baby, either, might never be able to go home. That was something else she’d been running away from, these last few days, sitting in this chair and staring out this window while her scalp wound healed. She didn’t want to face the knowledge that the faceless men her father worked with might never stop trying to kill her, even if Noah managed to destroy her father’s career and bring down the men paying him.

  None of them might ever be able to go home again, not Jenna or Noah Armstrong or Ianira’s beautiful, precious family . . . And they didn’t even know where Ianira was, or what had become of her in the hands of the lunatic who’d shot Jenna down in cold blood. Jenna’s lips trembled and tears came again, a flood of them as bitter anger threatened to choke her. Somehow, her father was going to pay for this. All of this . . . She didn’t hear the first knock at her door and only looked up when someone cleared a throat and said, “Hey, mind if I come in?”

  Jenna, eyes streaming, looked around. It was Noah Armstrong. The detective, still playing the role of Marcus’ sister, was dressed in a plain cotton skirt and worn bodice, leaving Armstrong’s gender even more a mystery than ever. Jenna couldn’t even bring herself to care. Noah lifted a tray with several slices of dried toast, a hot meat pie, and a steaming mug of tea. “I bought you something to eat.”

  Jenna swallowed against the nausea any smell of food brought. She wasn’t hungry, hadn’t been hungry in so long, she’d forgotten what hunger felt like. “Thanks,” she made herself say.

  Noah set the lunch tray on the table at Jenna’s elbow. As she choked down the first bites, the detective rested a hand on her brow. The gesture was so caring, Jenna’s eyes stung and the tears came again. She set down her fork and covered her face with her hands.

  “Hey,” Noah hunkered down beside her, grey eyes revealing a surprising depth of concern, “what’s this? I won’t let anyone hurt you, kid. Surely you know that?”

  Jenna bit her lip, then managed to choke out, “I . . . I know that. It’s why . . . I mean . . . everybody who ever cared about me died,” she gulped. “Noah, I’m so scared . . .”

  “Sure you are, kid,” Noah said quietly. “And you’ve got every right to be. But look at this another way, Jenna.” Noah traced the line of fake whiskers down her jaw, brushed limp hair back from her brow, the gesture curiously gentle. “As long as you’re alive, as long as your baby’s alive, then at least a part of Carl’s still aliv e, too. And that means they’ve lost. They’ve failed to destroy the witnesses, failed to destroy quite everything you love.” Noah took her hand, rubbed her fingers and palm with warm fingertips. “You’re not alone, hear? We’re all with you in this. And we’ll need your help, Jenna. To find Ianira.”

  Jenna looked up at that, met Noah Armstrong’s gaze. The concern, the steely determination to keep her alive gave Jenna a renewed sense of strength. She found herself drying her wet cheeks. “All right,” she said, voice low. “All right, Noah. I’ll do whatever it takes. Maybe we can try hunting the gentlemen’s clubs over in Pall Mall, find some trace of him that way. We have to find her.”

  “And we will.”

  “Noah . . .” She bit her lip, half afraid to broach the subject they’d all been avoiding.

  “What?” the detective asked gently.

  “When you go back up time with that evidence? I want you to do me a favor, will you?” The bitterness in her voice would have shocked her, once, long ago, at least a week previously, before her father had destroyed her entire world. “Don’t put a bullet between my father’s eyes for me.”

  Noah’s grey eyes showed surprise.

  She grated out harshly, “I want to do it, myself.”

  The lunch Noah had brought, forgotten on the table at her elbow, slowly cooled while Noah gathered her in and let her cry. One day, she didn’t yet know how, she would make her father pay. She had never been more certain of anything in her life.

  to be continued in:

  THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT