Kill Ratio

by David Drake

  The lieutenant pulled a folded piece of paper out of her breast pocket and leaned forward. The movement of her hand to her breast, the widely crossed legs which gave him a view of her inner thighs, and the slight wince as Yesilkov leaned forward to hand him the piece of paper that she and Peck Smith had found in Karel Pretorius' pocket when they searched the corpse - all of these reminded him of Yesilkov taped to the chair in Spenser's lab while de Kuyper . . .

  Yates ran a hand over his jaw before he took the paper Sonya Yesilkov held out with something like wry pride.

  He understood how she felt. It had cost them enough. They'd gotten lucky. If the slip of paper hadn't happened to be in Pretorius' pocket, the search for the Club would have dead-ended as soon as Sonya pulled the trigger.

  It was bothering the hell out of him, in retrospect, that Peck Smith hadn't tried to stop her from doing that. He'd asked Sonya about it, and she'd said it was her judgment call, and none of Smith's business.

  But their eyes had met, and he saw in Yesilkov's a mirror of his own doubts: why hadn't Smith tried to stop Yesilkov from killing their only remaining link to the conspirators?

  Nobody had an answer for that one, and all three of them were still alive, so maybe Yates was paranoid. Or maybe, if McLeod's USIA office covered what Yates thought it did, McLeod wanted a quiet resolution to this thing more than he wanted the instigators. For all Yates could prove, McLeod and his peers might have known about the Plan and the Club all along, and just hadn't found a diplomatic way to stop it. Which Yates and Yesilkov had neatly provided, being low types whose actions couldn't be predicted.

  So maybe it didn't matter to McLeod and his people whether there was a living link to the Club - maybe what Yates and the two women had done was perceived to be sufficiently disturbing to cause the Club to table the Plan.

  Or maybe Taylor McLeod's office didn't really give a damn, beyond protecting a personal friend - Ella Bradley. God knows, I've seen that before - government types sitting back and letting something illegal and immoral happen because there wasn't a polite way to stop it, and the victims weren't a valuable constituency.

  Yates shelved supposition with an effort - all it was doing was giving him gooseflesh. But he got that way every time he looked at Bradley, who was so damned controlled and seemed almost hostile.

  He unfolded the paper Yesilkov handed him. It was the original, in Pretorius' spidery hand, dotted with food stains and feathered at the fold marks. And then he whistled. And blinked. And read the list again. And wondered if maybe he hadn't been a little hard on McLeod's man Peck, and Ella, and even the guy he'd never met whose suit he still had.

  ' 'These are some heavyweight players,” he said, his voice scratchy.

  “Tell me somethin' I don't know,” said Yesilkov from her chair.

  “Let me see,” said Ella from the desk.

  Yates was beside the holotank without remembering how he'd come there. He leaned one elbow against it and said, “Come take a look. We might be glad we've got those friends of yours. ...”

  “Yeah, they'll send us fruit baskets once a month the whole time we're in Leavenworth. Or maybe it'll be the prison asteroids. . .” Yesilkov bared her teeth at him cynically.

  Bradley hadn't moved from her perch on his desk, so Yates took a chance and read the names out loud. His office was pretty secure - if it wasn't, they were screwed whether he read the names or not. And he wanted to somehow burn the list into reality, make himself believe it by speaking the names out loud.

  “What this is,” he said for Bradley's benefit, “Is a list Pretorius made of who he knew - and thought - he was working for. Says 'the Plan' in retraced letters. Then, 'the Club.' Then it says: CERTAIN: al Fahd. LIKELY: Blake/ Lee/ Heidigger. ADDITIONAL: eleven. MORE: ?? with two question marks. Seems to me, half of those would be enough - too much, in fact.”

  And Bradley looked him straight in the eye and murmured, “I told you that Taylor thought you might be out of your depth when you found the instigators. What do you want me to do?”

  “Nothin', fer Chrissake!” blurted Yesilkov. “Y've done enough.”

  Bradley's gaze didn't even flicker, but held steady in his. Yates said, “Well, guess we've got to check this out, somehow - check if they're all going somewhere. If I was them, I'd get the hell off Earth before that virus is released - and they probably planned for it. For all we know, they still think the Plan's operational. Or there could be a whole redundant crew of flunkies - another Spenser, another de Kuyper, another Pretorius, another lab, and another batch of virus.”

  “Jesus,” breathed Yesilkov, aghast.

  “I agree,” said Bradley. “Let's find out if any or all of them have booked extraterrestrial vacations. After all, there's the UN anniversary celebration coming up. . . .”

  Yates stared back at the woman who ought not to be this calm, this clever, or this connected, and wondered how he'd ever thought anything involving Ella Bradley could be simple. He flashed that night in her apartment for an instant, and closed his eyes.

  When he opened them, she was again watching her own hands fiddle with the mess on his desktop.

  Damn good idea, to check the lunar dignitary list for the upcoming bash. And then he asked himself not just why he hadn't thought of it himself, but how come Bradley had beat him to it.

  He'd have given anything he owned, right then, to have had a copy of the message that Taylor McLeod had left on Ella Bradley's answering machine.

  When he folded the paper he was holding and looked up, Yesilkov was already striding over to the desk, telling Bradley to “Move, honey. We gotta call in the data pulls for here: who's comin' to the party's definitely a question for Entry Division.”

  Chapter 32 - CLUB OUTING

  Mahavishtu called Sakai and the two of them conference-called Heidigger, who in turn phoned Madame Pleyal, the Undersecretary: “The twentieth anniversary commemoration at United Nations Headquarters on Luna demands a prefestivities dinner, Madame. Just the fifteen of us, of course. Al-Fahd suggests that we have that dinner - at his expense, of course - in the best French restaurant on the Moon . . . Le Moulin Rouge. There aren't many vacancies suitable for fifteen people, especially on such short notice. Do you agree and accept?”

  Everyone on the conference line held his breath. Then Madame Pleyal's modulated chuckle sounded. “A fine idea, Heidigger. Apt, even. Do thank al-Fahd in my behalf. Say eightish on Monday night?” She rang off.

  Over the conference line expelled breaths mingled into a communal sigh of relief. They couldn't have booked a meeting earlier - they were too cautious. Something impromptu, something that seemed like a last-minute proposition, was what was called for. They had much to discuss, the fifteen of them.

  And everyone repaired to his own boudoir, in fifteen different earthly nations, to pack for the Club meeting they'd hold at Le Moulin Rouge on the very evening that the virus was to be released on Earth.

  All was prepared, or their agent Pretorius would have called. All was in readiness. They packed extensively and for protracted stays.

  Some took jewelry, some took gold coinage, some took bearer bonds. All took whatever they might need to ride out any unforeseen repercussions, sure in the knowledge that the Earth they were leaving was a very different place from the Earth to which they'd return in two weeks - after the virus had done its work.

  “I don't believe the nerve of these fuckers,” Sonya Yesilkov said, sprawled over both the chairs opposite Yates' desk, gnawing on a stylus and holding the flimsy that had been sent from her office.

  The big man was watching her closely; Bradley had gone home to “take a shower.” Yesilkov was acutely aware both of her physical position, legs spread, and of Yates, behind his desk.

  She'd felt better in her life, but sometimes a little hair of the dog was just the thing. And she needed some warmth, some human touch to chase away the chill that the message she was holding exuded as if it were vacuum frozen. She slid her fingernail down the closure of her b
louse, opening it to mid-chest before she continued, “Says here that the Honorable Undersecretary, Madame Pleyal, and her party of fourteen, wants the Moulin Rouge freed from its Security seal.” She winked at Yates and stretched provocatively, lacing her hands behind her head.

  “And since you're the investigating officer,” Yates guessed, “they're asking you to vet and free the room.”

  “That's right, buddy,” Yesilkov said, hooking one booted foot on the edge of a chair. Come on, fella. Take the hint. Or do I have to come to you? “Want me to let 'em have the room? Strong stomachs, this bunch, if they're who we think - wantin' to have dinner there where they tested the virus in the first place.”

  “Proves to me that they're the right jokers - anybody else would pick someplace else. And Madame Pleyal can pick anyplace she wants. Only somebody who knew there wasn't any contamination at Le Moulin Rouge would ask for it to be opened up special. ...”

  “Ain't many places'll hold fifteen hotshots up here . . . could be just coincidence.” End my career, and yours, buddy boy, if we jump wrong on this one. Only Bradley'11 walk out of it no-fault. “Excuse me, Madame Undersecretary, but you're under arrest for conspiracy ...”

  If Yates was going to get her killed, or worse - demoted - the least he could do was fuck her again first. Prove it meant something, beyond line-of-duty. Because they were both way beyond the line of duty. If it hadn't been for Bradley's friend Smith (though Sonya Yesilkov wouldn't admit it on her deathbed), she might have come home from Sky Devon in a body bag. Or still be in jail there, in the hands of the “proper authorities.” Of whom, if you wanted to crane your neck hard enough and squint into the sun to boot, Undersecretary Pleyal and her playmates were members in good standing. The Club.

  You fucking bet your balls, Yates, they named it right. Come persuade me I'm not as scared as I ought to be.

  But Yates just stared off into space, thinking, his face grim. He wasn't a bit cute when he looked like that. His hard face got positively mean looking, what with all those channels there deepening. He must've been hell on wheels when he was younger, before he got all broke down, all right. He was one bad sucker still. . . .

  Yesilkov got tired of waiting for Yates to take her hint, and slid down in her chair. She could get with somebody else, no sweat, she could. She didn't need Yates, playing her off against that bubble-bath bimbo. She'd go see what the guy from—

  Yates got up and strode purposefully toward her.

  She didn't move to straighten up.

  When he stood over her, he didn't reach for her. He said, “I want you to give them their clearance, Sonya - clear the room for them, break the Security seal. Then you and I are going to make sure that they get just the reception they deserve.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. One that Taylor McLeod's boys aren't going to be able to use against us, or anybody else. One that's going to be so hush-hush that any file Bradley got us into is going to disappear like it never existed.”

  Pique forgotten, Yesilkov sat upright. “Okay, smart guy, tell me how.”

  Sam Yates smiled and his face softened marginally. “You know, not that I don't trust my own office, but what Bradley said about takin' a shower's left me with a real urge to see how you look wet. And then we can say anything we want, what with the water running, and we'll be sure beyond doubt that nobody's takin' a transcript.”

  Oh boy! “You've convinced me, Supervisor.” Yesilkov chuckled. “Purely on security grounds, y' understand. What'll it be, your shower or mine?”

  Yates laughed. “Last time I looked,” he said, “my wife was back on Earth. Let's go t' my place, okay?” He held out his hand. She took it and he helped her up. She didn't really need the help, but she appreciated the gentlemanly aspects of Sam Yates.

  Appreciated them so much that she said coyly as he let his hand drift to her waist, “Since y'er bein' so nice an' egalitarian an' all, I'm gonna give you this little souvenir I picked up at Sky Devon. Nothin' heavy, y' see, but some-thin' I thought I'd hold on to in case old Pecker-Smith got any ideas of usin' what happened to muscle me inta some-thin' I'd rather not do. So we'll share it, all right? And what we do with it?”

  Yates' hand fell away. He stepped a pace back and regarded her narrowly, the corners of his mouth tight. “What you got, Sonya?”

  “I got,” she said, reaching beneath the loosened placket of her blouse, “this piece a' jewelry Spenser had on - the one de Kuyper was talkin' about, I'm bettin'. Y' know, the one with the virus inside?”

  And she pulled out the crystal phial that hung from her neck on Spenser's gold chain.

  Chapter 33 - PARTY FAVOR

  When he finally got the maintenance supervisor on the phone, Sam Yates' mouth went dry. Guilt by association wasn't good investigative technique. This maintenance supervisor was an Afrikaner, all right; but it didn't necessarily follow that, because of van Zell and de Kuyper and van Rooyan and Malan, every Afrikaner on the Moon had to be involved in the Plan.

  Still, it was worth a shot. And Yates had to get this work done by somebody. So he said to the Afrikaner from maintenance, “Supervisor, I'm speaking for Karel Pretorius.”

  The voice on the other end of the line didn't say “For who?” or “Whozzat?” or even “Who're you?”

  The man said, “I see,” very cautiously. And waited.

  Yates was prayerfully glad he'd decided to do this on the phone rather than in person. He hadn't any idea how these men had communicated their orders, but he couldn't risk being recognized as a hostile player by this one - if the man was part of the Plan.

  He couldn't risk it because not only was he Sam Yates from Entry, he was the guy who'd been in that firefight on MM corridor. If the man on the other end of the line happened to have been privy to the kidnapping attempt, he might recognize Yates if he saw him; And then the shit would really hit the fan.

  The Afrikaner from Maintenance cleared his throat, a cautious prompt.

  Yates said, “Yes. You must pick up a package in the transit lounge - in locker three-niner-niner. The contents must be wired into Le Moulin Rouge's circuitry. There's a diagram and a schematic. The Plan requires this. Van Rooyan was supposed to do it, but . . .” he let his voice trail off, hoping the other man couldn't hear his heart pound.

  If he wasn't talking to a principle, he was going to hang up on lots of unanswerable questions.

  But the man said, “By when must this be done? And how dangerous is it? The Moulin Rouge, she is unsealed? I want double, yes? Delivered in the usual way, after twenty-four hours?”

  Those questions, Yates was prepared to handle. All except the last, which wasn't really a question as much as a bargaining position. He didn't barter with the maintenance supervisor. And he didn't sweat the amount he'd agreed to pay or the method of delivery. Within twenty minutes after the job was done, the man would be picked up by Yesilkov's patrols on some trumped-up charge. He told the maintenance supervisor what the Afrikaner needed to know and rang off before he blew it with some slip or other.

  Then he put his head in his hands and listened to his heart beat. So far, so good. The maintenance supervisor wasn't a problem. In fact he was, as far as Yates and Yesilkov were concerned, a weapon of sorts. They were going to hold the guy incommunicado, on a drunk & disorderly if they had to, until everything was over. They needed a hole card, somebody alive who knew something about what had happened, in case Taylor McLeod's office decided that anybody who knew about the Plan was too dangerous to stay alive.

  He'd tried to explain that to Bradley - that she couldn't trust somebody like McLeod just because he was her friend, when international security was at stake.

  She'd laughed in his face.

  Well, there was always Yesilkov.

  Chapter 34 - LE MOULIN ROUGE REDUX

  Dressed in the unifrom of one of Yesilkov's patrol officers, Ella Bradley stood stiffly by the security lieutenant and Sam Yates at the head of the corridor leading to Le Moulin Rouge.

  Hide
in plain sight. Well, Yates could have been right; it just might work. Among the lunar security detail and private bodyguards here to protect the Undersecretary and her guests, the trio was unremarkable. Part of the status quo. Yesilkov's office had been asked to provide “supplementary” coverage.

  At the time the request came in, Yates had wanted to know what they were supplementing.

  Now, watching the dignitaries arrive, Yesilkov's answering quip seemed prophetic: “Buncha Saudi hirelings with gold-plated needle stunners - Brits and Frogs and such.”

  There were plenty of English and French speakers among the plain-clothed security men coming and going down the hall. Some had come very early, to “check out” the preparations and the room in which Pleyal and her guests would meet - check it for bugs, check it for unfriendlies, check it for the right silverware and the right sort of help.

  Terrorism was what the bodyguards were looking for. Yesilkov had gone to some pains to make sure they wouldn't find anything even mildly troubling. The last thing the trio needed was some overzealous private security chief deciding he had to get into the switching panels.

  So they were standing there, before the door marked

  MAINTENANCE: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

  They'd co-opted the room behind that door and thrown together an improvised security headquarters.

  But the men in the corridor didn't know that. Only Yesil-kov, Yates, and Ella knew that they had monitors in there and virtually undetectable bugging equipment - undetecta-ble because it wasn't powered up, wouldn't be until all the Club members had entered Le Moulin Rouge and the bodyguards were-safely locked outside.

  For now and for some time to come, it was Yesilkov's show. In her lieutenant's uniform she was the ranking officer in the corridor. The private muscle was trained to interface with people like Yesilkov.