Kill Ratio

by David Drake

  They came up to her and whispered in her ear. They shook her hand. They showed their weapons and their documentation, because they didn't want any trouble with the locals.

  Nobody wanted any trouble, Yesilkov included. Yates had approached Ella five minutes earlier and said, “Relax. You look like you're expecting the roof to fall in on you any minute. Think of it as an OPEC or UAR staff meeting - all these guys you see are going to disappear as soon as the pit bulls show up.”

  “Pit bulls?” she'd asked.

  “The regular personal bodyguards. These are just low-level staffers. Once it's clear the place isn't going to blow up and these technical types have vetted the room, all of them will disappear - at least as far as the next corridor, where we've set up a hospitality suite for them. Then the real security types will show up ... the ones who sleep at the foot of Pleyal's bed, and the like.”

  “But what's all this for, then? If they'll be vulner -”

  “Don't say that. Don't even think it.” Yates was very severe today, in his Entry blues. “Watch and see if I'm right.”

  So she'd been watching, and she was beginning to realize that Yates and Yesilkov knew their business: the crowd in the hallway was starting to disperse.

  And through it, like Moses parting the waters, came the first of the alleged club members, a NATO general named Heidigger. Flanking him were two men with whom Ella would not want to tangle, men in impeccable suits with knife-sharp creases in their pants and heavy arms no amount of tailoring could disguise.

  Heidigger passed with only a nod to Yesilkov. As he approached Le Moulin Rouge's curtained glass door, the two personal bodyguards peeled off, standing at attention beside three men Ella hadn't noticed before, men holding plasma dischargers.

  Yates touched her arm and whispered, “Here comes the dragon lady.”

  She turned in time to see Madame Pleyal herself, with a complement of guards trailing behind. When the woman with the high-piled hair pinned with jewels had swept by her, Ella caught a whiff of lilac perfume. At the doorway Madame Pleyal's guards executed the same maneuver as the first pair had, waiting with their fellows.

  Then came Sakai, recognizable at first by his nut-brown tan and diminutive stature; then, if one knew how to look for it, by his glass eye. Then Lee, full of Oriental stealth, in a magnificent embroidered robe.

  There was a hiatus during which Yates brought her attention to the thinning guards in the corridor, saying, “See, off to the hospitality room,” with a satisfied smirk, as if he'd just planned a flawless cocktail party.

  Then more dignitaries - more Club members - arrived: Perilla, the Portuguese-bred Brazilian; Mahavishtu, whose lips were purple as the circles under his eyes; Blake, blond and Anglo-Saxon, another of the military men; and yet another general among men she didn't recognize, until fourteen guests had arrived.

  Down near the door to Le Moulin Rouge, the picked elite guards stood at parade rest, all but the three with the plasma dischargers, who were flanking the door.

  These three were ever watchful and didn't even blink when the rest of the guards, in what amounted to loose formation, headed up the corridor, past the waiting trio, on their way to the hospitality suite that the lunar colony had provided.

  “Jesus,” said Yates, looking at his watch, “what about al-Fahd? He's not here, and by the way those guards stampeded for their feed troughs, he's not coming.”

  “That can't be,” Ella said with an awful tightness in her throat. The Saudi, al-Fahd, was the only certain Club member on the list they'd taken from Pretorius' corpse. Without al-Fahd here, everything they'd planned was then baseless, precipitate action taken on a flimsy basis of supposition and ... “Well, what do we do?”

  “Do?” Yesilkov whispered without moving her lips. “We do just what we was gonna do before. What you think this is, the Cotillion?”

  “I think,” said Ella, edging closer to Yesilkov as the last of the bodyguards passed her, “that perhaps we should reconsider. It might be that al-Fahd just can't bring himself to have dinner where the virus was first released . . . after all, it's his bloodline that virus Was tailored for. But it could be something more - “

  “Ella,” Sam Yates broke in, “don't have second thoughts, okay? We're committed to this. We're going to record it for posterity starting in” - again he consulted his watch - “three minutes, if Sonya will kindly get her butt in gear. There's no use worrying now.”

  Ella met Yates' eyes, and they were as flat and shiny as armored panels. She shivered. Beside her, Yesilkov nodded and fished out her key.

  The security lieutenant opened the MAINTENANCE door and slipped inside. When she came out, she said, “Okay. We're go. Let's -”

  “Look, Sonya,” Yates said, “maybe Ella's right, maybe we ought to wait. If al-Fahd's just late - “

  “We'll worry about al-Fahd later, Sam.” Yesilkov's chest was rising and falling rapidly. Ella could almost see the pulse beating in the other woman's throat.

  “We can't risk,” Yesilkov continued, “this meeting breaking up - because they're spooked by al-Fahd's no-show or fer any other reason. Y'er just afraid t' take additional action - y' wanta be able to pretend it's all one event that happened and you just were sorta on the scene. Y'er afraid of gettin' al-Fahd on a one-ta-one basis, that's fine. I'm not. But we can't lose these—or else we'll be pickin' 'em off till we're old and gray. We gotta go now if we're gonna. Fourteen outa fifteen ain't half bad.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” said Yates. But his arms were crossed over his chest.

  Ella didn't blame Yates for hesitating: they'd conceived this as one fell swoop, a chance to take out the entire Club. Or the two security officers had. Ella was here primarily because they didn't trust what she might do if she weren't a party to this murderous scheme.

  The only thing they needed her for was protection - protection from the aftermath of what all three of them were about to do.

  Now that they were on the verge of taking this action, Ella staggered under an avalanche of doubts. But Yates didn't.

  He said, “Okay, Sonya. If you're all enabled in there, I'm going to push this thing and see what happens.”

  “Goddamn, Sam, just do it, okay?”

  Sam Yates reached down to touch what seemed to be a transceiver in a holster on his hip and depressed a red button there.

  Nothing happened. Not in the hallway, not visibly. But behind the closed and curtained glass door of Le Moulin Rouge, the phial that the Afrikaner maintenance man had wired into the lighting system above the inside door burst. Burst in a vacuum-sealed chamber that couldn't be opened until Yates pushed another button, a chamber that had been ' 'reconstructed'' to order by Sonya Yesilkov's compromised maintenance man, who left the Security seal mechanisms operational - controlled by the remote on Yates' hip.

  Ella bit her lip, envisioning in her mind's eye what was - or soon would be - going on behind the pretty pink curtains of Le Moulin Rouge.

  Yates shook Ella's arm. “Okay, let's move.”

  She'd been drilled in the scheme; she knew what she had to do. She resented terribly how Yates had involved her in this. He'd done it because she'd involved them with Taylor, he'd explained gently. Now that she was an accessory to imminent murder, she hated Sam Yates and Sonya Yesilkov and everything they stood for, hated them more than she'd thought it possible to hate.

  With wooden steps she paced Yates down the hall, toward the remaining guards.

  The trio faced the three men with plasma guns who were guarding the Club while it celebrated; Ella was certain that the hard eyes of the men facing them could see right through to her guilt. She began to sweat.

  Yesilkov said, “Okay, fellas. We're showing you ours; you show us yours.” Both Yesilkov and Yates had their ID folios out and open.

  One guard said, “Go, 'way, lady, we been through all this before.” Another elbowed the first and muttered in what Ella thought was German. The third peered over Ella's head as if there might be someone hostile approach
ing behind her.

  Then the first man sighed, “Okay, okay, officers, just hold on a minute,” and Ella realized that the fellow was not only jumpy, but having a hard time in the Moon's lower gravity: his motions were awkward, exaggerated.

  As he and his German compatriot got out their identification, the third guard was still watching the corridor down which Ella had come, watching warily; watching through narrowed eyes whose pupils were pinned.

  One false move, Ella realized, and that man's gun was going to go off. He already had his finger on its trigger, something she'd learned from Yates one wasn't supposed to do until one wanted to shoot something. Or someone.

  “You, too, cowboy,” said Yesilkov to the third guard as, down at the corridor's end, a carload of uniformed patrolmen pulled up and came racing toward them on foot.

  From behind the glass door of Le Moulin Rouge, muffled screams began.

  Ella could hear them, so the guards could too. She was just backing away from the Club guards when the one who'd never shown his ID raised his plasma discharger in one quick motion and fired.

  Over the heads of the patrolmen in the hall, the ball of heat and flame hissed, blackening ceiling panels. Beneath it the security patrol hit the deck.

  Closer to hand, everyone but the shooter froze: Yesilkov, Yates, the other two Club guards. All but Bradley, who threw herself against the corridor's far wall in uncontrollable terror.

  She didn't even know she crumpled down it, her knuckles jammed against her teeth. Her eyes were on the Club guards, and everything was happening in slow motion.

  The guard who had cleared his plasma discharger turned, stared at Ella for an instant, his eyes like shattered glass. Then he reached for the door, and Sonya Yesilkov put a needle from her stunner into the back of his neck.

  Beyond the shooter, as he fell forward, something moved in Le Moulin Rouge. A bloody hand clutched the pink curtain, tearing it away as the owner of that hand, staring blankly, fell against the glass and slowly down it in a smear of gore.

  After that everything moved at twice normal speed. Yesilkov was yelling at the two remaining guards to surrender their weapons and live to tell about it. Yates was reaching for those weapons and patting the men down for others they might be hiding. The English-speaking guard was protesting that they'd never get away with this, whatever the hell it was they thought they were doing.

  And Ella Bradley was sifting on the floor of the corridor, slumped against the wall, her knuckles still pressed against her teeth, trying to watch it all through her tears.

  Chapter 35 - SECURITY MEASURES

  The single remaining member of the Club was in his hotel suite when the lieutenant from Security came to call.

  For al-Fahd, who had had the good sense to miss the dinner party he'd paid for, the upcoming interview held no threat. He assumed, and rightly, that he'd be asked why he wasn't at his own celebration.

  So when Sonya Yesilkov, Lieutenant, UN Directorate of Security, Patrol Division, Company Four, strode in, a briefcase in hand, and introduced herself, al-Fahd could afford to be polite. Even accommodating.

  There was nothing this female Russian in jackboots could do or say that would threaten him. If she came close to implying anything, or intuiting anything, or deciding to launch some investigation, al-Fahd would simply have her summarily demoted and dismissed from her post on the Moon. On Earth, dealing with people of her sort was something requiring minimal effort.

  “Sit down, Lieutenant,” he offered, and gestured to a gilded chair. This was the Presidential suite, but it was fit for a man of nobler blood than presidents, a man such as al-Fahd. “This is my chief security officer,” he added, nodding to the silent man who stood in a corner, not bothering to introduce one flunky to the other. The names of these people were unimportant. “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

  “Well, sir, y' see, I got some questions about what happened at Le Moulin Rouge - “

  “We all do, Lieutenant, I assure you. We all do.” Best to let the meaning sink in. This woman might be stupid. Stupid people could be troublesome. Revising his estimate of the situation, al-Fahd continued: “What sort of questions could there be that I might answer?''

  “Well, sir, y' weren't there, and y'er on their guest list. Which is lucky for you an' all, but I gotta check everything out. Didya have some reason for skippin' that party? A threat y' took seriously and the others didn't? Some intelligence or other? Anything at all?”

  “A bad stomach, Lieutenant, was what I had. As a matter of fact, I called the hotel doctor to attend me. Some side-effect of your one-sixth gravity, he assured me. And, as you said, it was lucky that I was feeling unwell.”

  “Yeah, real lucky,” the lieutenant muttered as she took furious longhand notes. “D'ya think y' could gimme any leads - who'da done such a thing? Why? Enemies that group had in common? Somebody who - “

  “Lieutenant Yesilkova,” said al-Fahd with the sharp and yet gentle tone he used on his racehorses, “this is none of your affair, such questions. This is a matter for the intelligence agencies of the various nations who have lost luminaries. Surely you realize you have neither the rank nor the connections to embark upon this sort of investigation?” Translation: your career is on the line, and if you offend me I will see you in a work camp in North Yemen.

  “Yeah, well, I guess that's right. Turn it over to the big guys.” Yesilkov closed her notebook, stuffed it in a breast pocket already stressed by her bustline, and stood up. “Thanks for yer time, sir. I'll be going now.”

  “You're welcome, Lieutenant. I hope your trip here was worthwhile. And I'm sorry I couldn't give you more time, but I'm very busy. This horrible tragedy has put a strain on all of us.”

  “Yeah, I bet,” said Yesilkov, walking backward toward the hotel room's door. “I'll just see myself out. Sorry t' bother ya, sir.”

  The security lieutenant retreated hurriedly, fumbling for the door latch, then slipping out the door with a final, nervous wave.

  Five minutes later al-Fahd's British bodyguard said, “Excuse me, sir, but that woman from Security left her bleedin' briefcase - “ and reached for it. . . .

  The ensuing explosion rocked the entire floor of al-Fahd's hotel.

  EPILOGUE

  Sam Yates was exhausted. He'd spent four days covering his ass, and he'd done a good enough job of it. But his temper was real short.

  So when Yesilkov came by to see if he was ready to break for dinner, he left without a word to Echeverria, the third-shift receptionist, about where he'd be if anybody needed him.

  But Ella Bradley found him, eating pizza with Yesilkov on the Strip.

  She pulled up in a big, six-place car with USG plates that idled by the curb, and got out, flashing some leg as she did so. Right behind her came a guy nearly Yates' height but softer in build, a dark-haired man in loose clothing, which gave Yates a hint as to who the stranger might be.

  The fact that the car was chauffeured and didn't move from the curb, just sat there forcing traffic out and around it, was a good enough hint anyhow.

  Yates leaned over the table to Yesilkov, who was catching strings of pizza cheese with her tongue, and said, “Don't look now, but if that's not Peck Smith who's with Ella, lay you odds it's Taylor McLeod himself.”

  Yesilkov craned her neck and said around the mouthful she was chewing, “ 'S not Peck Smith.”

  “That's what I figured,” Yates said, and stretched with more insouciance than he felt as Ella and the man with the briefcase came toward their table.

  Bradley waved like she was at some embassy staff picnic, smiling broadly. The man beside her had perfectly cut dark, straight hair, a level gray-eyed gaze, and features that had probably reached the New World on the Mayflower.

  Yates detested him at first sight.

  “Hiya, Ella, what's shakin'?” he said, without getting up the way the big guy obviously thought he should. Beside Yates, Yesilkov nodded primly and slid down in her chair, hunching over the table as if she c
ould make herself a smaller target.

  “Samuel Yates, Sonya Yesilkov, I'd like you meet Taylor McLeod. May we join you?” Ella said.

  Dusting off your best manners for him, huh? Okay, any number can play. “Be our guests,” said Yates, waving openhandedly to the plastic chairs around the small, street-cafe tables.

  McLeod somehow met that hand with his and shook Yates' firmly. “I've been looking forward to this meeting, Supervisor,” McLeod's voice was low and devoid of r's, so Yates' rank sounded like “supahvisah.” “Both Ella and Peck Smith have told me some tall tales about you.”

  You mean you don't trust me either? Well, we 've got our cards on the table, then. “I bet. As far as Sonya and I are concerned, that's all they are - tales, rumors, baseless stories . . . kinda thing happens sometimes when people are jammed together like this with not a helluva lot to do. . . . “

  “Good.” McLeod nodded approvingly, as if Yates had just ridden his first bike with no training wheels. “Let's keep it that way, shall we?”

  “You don't have ta worry 'bout us, sir,” Yesilkov put in, nervously picking at pizza cheese going rubbery on the plastic plate between them. “Pizza?” she said brightly, shoving the half-eaten pie toward the two newcomers with one finger.

  “Ah, thanks no,” said McLeod, unbuttoning the single button on his suit jacket before leaning back in his chair. Ella, beside him, was peering at Yates with an imploring look.

  For the life of him, Sam Yates couldn't figure out what it was that Ella Bradley wanted him to say or do. But McLeod's fiddling with his suitcoat jogged Yates' memory. “You know, I owe you a suit, I guess.”

  “Think nothing of it,” said McLeod with a deprecatory wave. “You may well have saved Ella's life. A decent suit is the least you deserve.”

  A decent suit? In any other circumstances I'd find a way to let you know what a clown outfit that is you're wearing, you overranked butler. . . . Easy, Sam: she wants you to be nice.