“Hold on just a minute, pet,” cautioned her uncle as he scanned the hotel lobby through the one-way plastiglass side of the booth. “Are you completely certain you’re on a tap-proof phone on your end?”
“Of course, I’m calling from the academy.”
“The SoCal State Policy Academy, you mean? Oh, I don’t know if I want to—”
“Please, calm down, Uncle Jerry. This is darned important to—”
“Explain who that is standing immediately behind you.”
“Dan Cardigan. Dan, my uncle.”
“Good evening, sir.”
“Jake Cardigan’s boy? Oh, I don’t know about this, honey. Having direct contact with—”
“You’re having direct contact with me,” his niece told him. “Now, about that warning you gave me about—”
“I shouldn’t have done that.” He shook his head. “That’s the trouble with still having a vestige of conscience.”
“Something has happened to the skyliner Jake and his partner were traveling on,” she said. “Do you know any more details, Uncle Jerry—more than you told me?”
“I told you too much as it was, pet. These people don’t like informers.”
“What people?” asked Dan.
“I don’t want to be seen talking directly to Cardigan’s kid.”
“Tell me, then, darn it. Who, specifically, rigged this?”
“A very powerful Tek cartel, for one.”
“Zabicas?” asked Dan.
After a few seconds of waiting, Molly asked, “Uncle Jerry, is it the Carlos Zabicas cartel in Madrid?”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Who else?”
Fine studied the lobby again, watched a robot bellhop in a bright serape go hurrying up a ramp. “There’s an element inside the OCO—a rogue group that doesn’t always toe the line when it comes to official policy,” he said. “They have had something to do with this as well.”
“What exactly did they do?”
“Molly, I told you to suggest to Cardigan that he didn’t take that flight. You—”
“It was too late to stop him. You have to tell me what’s happened to the Quixote skyliner.”
“This is all very dangerous, pet. The more I tell you, the—”
“Did it crash?” asked Dan anxiously. “Did they destroy the skyliner?”
“Tell him,” said Molly’s uncle, growing increasingly uneasy, “that they weren’t planning, based on the limited information I have, to destroy the ship or cause it any serious damage.”
Molly asked him, “What then?”
“A forced landing is what was planned. They’ve got some very powerful equipment, outlaw stuff, that’s powerful enough to take over the control of the skyliner from a distance,” explained Uncle Jerry.
“Where,” asked his niece, “did they plan to land it?”
“I don’t know, pet,” he said. “My guess would be an island. There are a lot of the damned things scattered all across the Atlantic.”
“Can you—”
“Who the hell are you?”
The door of the booth had been yanked open and a hand holding a gun thrust in.
“Uncle Jerry?”
“Goodbye, pet,” he said quietly.
22
LUNDEN GESTURED AGAIN with his Stungun. “It’s not our intention to hurt any of you,” he announced. “As soon as our routine search is complete, your skyliner will—”
“What the hell kind of routine search do you call this?” demanded a large, heavyset passenger who was standing, scowling, in the doorway of Cabin 11. “You force our damned ship down on this uncivilized island and—”
“The sooner we complete our business,” said Helton, “the sooner you’ll all continue on your way.”
The pair of Office of Clandestine Operations agents had lined up all the 1st Class passengers—there were nine of them in the corridor. There was also still a frozen Quixote attendant standing stiffly there. Almita had gone on to explore another section of the downed skyliner.
“We’re interested in the two men who were in Cabin 14,” continued Lunden. “We have to know where they are.”
The other agent jabbed his stungun into the drooping midsection of the belligerent man in 11. “You must know where they went,” he said.
“How would I know a goddamn thing? I was stuck in this cabin until you bastards busted in.”
Moving down the corridor, Lunden stopped in front of an elderly woman. “You seem awfully agitated, ma’am.”
“Who wouldn’t be?” she said. “This has been an outrageous—”
“Hold on, now.” The black OCO agent put a hand on her thin shoulder. “Look at me, ma’am, if you would. Now tell me you have no idea where either of those men is.”
“I don’t,” she insisted. But her eyes swung inadvertently to her left.
“The andy,” realized Lunden. He shoved her back against the wall and swung his stungun up.
Gomez, who’d been standing there in the android’s uniform, unfroze and dived for the floor. As he dropped, he yanked out his own stungun.
He and Lunden fired at just about the same instant.
Almita Santos pushed at the luggage compartment door with the hand that wasn’t holding the stungun. The metal door swung open inward and remained that way.
She stood, listening, on the threshold for roughly twenty seconds before crossing into the dimlit room.
Atop the nearest stack of baggage was a white cat in a plastiglass carrying case. It began a mournful meowing the moment the young woman entered.
“Shut up, gatito,” she suggested.
The cat ignored the request, wailing louder and clawing at the side of its container.
“Pendejo!” She fired the stungun and its beam struck the wailing animal.
The cat dropped, suddenly stiff, to the floor of the plastiglass case.
“If you’re through playing with that gun, miss, I’d like you to toss it on the floor.” Jake had stepped out from behind the open door and had his stungun touching the small, dark young woman’s back.
She, muttering, dropped her weapon. “Which one are you?”
“How many others are there?” Jake asked.
“You must be Cardigan. From what I hear of Gomez, he isn’t smart enough to get the drop on me.”
“How many?”
“You go find out, cabrón.” Almita moved her right hand to her left side, as though she was about to scratch herself.
Jake chopped at her wrist with the side of his hand. “I’m the smart one, remember?” He tugged the small lazgun out of the pocket she’d been aiming for.
“They didn’t want me to bring a lazgun with me,” she said disdainfully.
“So we’re dealing with humane highjackers, huh?”
“Humane assholes. If I had my way, we—”
“Congratulations, Mr. Cardigan. I see you’ve been successful.”
“Thus far,” he said as the greyhaired woman who was the pilot of the skyliner stepped into the baggage room. “How come nobody’s nabbed you yet?”
“Probably,” she said as she, smiling, pointed a lazgun at him, “because I’m on their side.”
Gomez had been a few seconds faster. The beam of his stungun hit Lunden square in the chest, causing the OCO agent to go staggering back. The stungun shot he’d aimed at the detective went wild, just missing the elderly woman.
She started screaming.
Lunden toppled over sideways and lay, stiff, on the corridor floor.
Helton, meantime, had gone diving through the open doorway of Cabin 14.
The heavyset, angry passenger called to Gomez, “The other son of a bitch is in your old cabin, buddy.”
“Gracias.” Gomez, watchful, got to his feet. He pried the weapon from Lunden’s stiff fingers and thrust it into a side pocket of the borrowed uniform. “You all right, señora?”
“Not at all, young man. But I wasn’t hit by any stray shots, if that’s what you mean.”<
br />
Nodding, Gomez called out, “Hey, hombre, we’ve got us a standoff here. Suppose you chuck your gun out into—”
“To hell with you, Gomez,” answered the OCO man from within the cabin.
“By now my partner has taken care of the feisty señorita,” said Gomez as he inched closer to the doorway of 14. “So you’re going to be alone in … Si, here they come now.”
Jake had entered the corridor, followed by Almita and the pilot. “This isn’t a victory parade, Sid.”
Frowning, his partner inquired, “Que pase?”
“Well, it turns out our pilot is in cahoots with them.”
The heavyset passenger complained, “Damn, this gets worse and worse. You can be damned sure Quixote is going to hear about—”
“Be quiet,” ordered the greyhaired pilot, “or you’ll be in no position to complain about anything.”
“Are you threatening me?”
Helton emerged, gun in hand, from Cabin 14. “Shut up—now!”
“You certainly haven’t handled this at all well,” the pilot told the OCO agent.
“You can shut up, too, dear lady.” He pointed his stungun in Gomez’s direction. “Put down all your weapons.”
Sighing, Gomez did as instructed. “Up until now, Jake, I really was doing great,” he said ruefully.
23
THEY CLIMBED, SLOWLY, up the twisting hillside path. On their right rose a thick tropical forest, filled with a humid darkness and with the sounds of restless unseen animals and night birds. On the left was a dark, deep and brush-filled ravine. Gomez, still in the uniform he’d borrowed from the skyliner android, was at the head of the single-file procession. Behind him trudged Helton, the blond OCO agent, and then came Jake. The fourth member of the ascending group was Almita.
“I’ve got both my lazguns back now, cabrón,” she informed Jake as she stuck the barrel of one of the guns into his back. “Try something smartass now, why don’t you?”
“I’m conserving my strength,” he said over his shoulder. “For my next assault on you.”
“Do it right now, c’mon.”
Helton said, “That will be quite enough of that, dear.”
“You should have let me change back into my clothes again,” complained Gomez, stumbling again. “These trousers are too long.”
“Be thankful you’re not wearing a shroud.”
“At least a shroud wouldn’t have legs that are several inches too long.” He tripped over one of the dragging pants cuffs.
“Speaking of shrouds,” said Jake. “Are you planning to arrange a fatal accident for us?”
“I’d like to do something fatal,” put in Almita, poking him with the other gun. “It wouldn’t be an accident, either.”
“Keep in mind,” Helton told her, “that I’m in charge of this soiree.” He swung the literod he was carrying in his left hand around, touching her with its wide, intense beam. “As to your inquiry, Cardigan—you’re simply going to be detained here for a spell.”
“How long a spell?”
He used the literod to illuminate the narrow uphill trail. “No more than a few days.”
“That means that whatever’s going to be happening in Spain will happen within the next few days.”
The OCO man chuckled. “I don’t know anything about Spain,” he answered.
“You hold us here for a while—then what?”
“You’ll be released,” he answered. “Provided you haven’t succeeded in annoying anyone too much.”
“Really? And suppose I report you to—”
“You’ll find that I don’t exist, Cardigan. None of us do,” explained Helton. “Well, except for Almita, and I really doubt you’ll be able to track her down.”
“The Office of Clandestine Operations will deny you’re on the payroll, huh?”
“I’m not on anybody’s—”
“Caramba.” Gomez had tripped once more, this time sprawling facedown on the trail.
“Get up.” Helton turned the light on him. “Very slowly, and without a single try at a trick, get on your feet.”
“Trick? Dios, I nearly break my favorite leg and you accuse me of—”
“Pay careful attention to me, Gomez,” cut in the agent, angry. “I’m very tired of this. Should you slip or stumble once more—I’ll stungun you. Then your partner can carry you the rest of the way.”
“Behave, Sid,” urged Jake. “I’m not up to lugging you.”
“I’ll try not to fall over, amigo. But these baggy pants—”
“We’ll continue on our travels,” ordered Helton. “We’ve only got two miles to go.”
“That’s a long way to trek in pants that don’t fit.”
After they’d climbed a few minutes in silence, with the beam of Helton’s literod illuminating the pathway ahead, Jake inquired, “How’d you get the skyliner to set down here?”
“That’s a trade secret.”
“The equipment here on the island?”
Helton chuckled. “If it was, it wouldn’t be by the time you can get back with anybody official,” he said. “Actually, though, it’s elsewhere, considerably elsewhere.”
“And you got us here without leaving a trace?”
“To the outside world, Cardigan, your disappearance is a mystery. The vanishing skyliner is probably a thirty-second vidnews squib just about now.”
“Eventually, I figure—”
“Ai, caramba!” Gomez took a new, violent fall. He toppled off the path completely. Crying out once, he went rolling down into the dark foliage-filled ravine on their left.
You could hear him rolling and tumbling down through the darkness.
Helton stepped to the edge of the trail and shined the beam into the gap. There was no sign of Gomez and no sound came up from below.
“That cabrón. I’ll fix him.” Almita, a lazgun in each hand, pivoted and moved to the trail edge.
Jake moved to her side and bumped against her just as she fired. Both shots went up into the humid darkness and not into the ravine where Gomez had vanished.
“Bastard!”
“That’ll be enough shooting,” ordered Helton. He turned the light on the pathway again.
“Let me go down and find him.”
“No, no, dear. We’ll deliver Cardigan now.”
“What about that asshole running around loose down there?”
“This is a very short-term escape,” Helton assured her. “I’ll send some people to bring him back later on.” He nodded at Jake. “They’ll probably have to hurt him. But it can’t be helped.”
24
GARDNER MUNSEY’S SKYCAR didn’t warn him at all. It landed on the misty two A.M. landing area atop his apartment building on the fashionable edge of New Baltimore and told him, “Area secure, sir.”
“Thank you.” He activated the door, ducked out of the skycar and onto the roof.
All the lights died and he was surrounded by darkness.
“Why’d you kill him?”
The door had shut behind him and now the skycar ceased to function.
Munsey narrowed his eyes, squinting into the darkness. He couldn’t make out the figure standing over by the ebony skyvan.
“You’ll have to be more specific, I’m afraid. Who am I supposed to have shuffled off?”
“Dennis Barragray.”
Munsey took a few steps toward the figure. “Is that you, LeeAnn? Why all this—”
“You’re supposed to be cooperating with my branch of OCO, Gardner,” said LeeAnn Rhymer.
“I am, although my people don’t know it.” He glanced around the darkened roof. “Very impressive, this. You took care of the secsystems, the lights, my—”
“Why was Barragray killed?”
“I haven’t the faintest notion, old girl. It wasn’t my work, nor that of any of my people out there in Greater LA.”
“You didn’t take the money?”
“Which money?”
“The two million dollars in antique
paper money he had set aside.”
Munsey shook his head. “Did you catch that? I’m shaking my head negatively,” he announced into the darkness.
“Barragray was essential to getting all the Devlin Guns shipped to—”
“All the guns have been delivered. So, actually, he was of no further use to—”
“It’s not good policy to assassinate people on his level after they’ve helped us.”
“My feelings too, old girl. Which is why I had nothing to do with the poor fellow’s demise.” He coughed into his hand. “Ought you be here—it’s not exactly discreet?”
“Who did kill him?”
“At the moment I can only guess.”
“Who?”
“The young woman he was living with off and on at the posh hideaway.”
“No, that doesn’t make sense. She was working with Zabicas’s people to make certain the guns were delivered to—”
“Was she, now?”
“You know that, Gardner.”
“What I actually know, old girl, it that she convinced you, and some of those halfwits you work for, that such was the case.”
“You don’t believe her? Her story checked out completely.”
He shrugged. “Did you see that? I shrugged,” he said. “She’s an actor, and I never trust actors.”
“I don’t believe she killed him.”
“Even if she didn’t, she may well have made off with the loot. It’s only two million, yet—”
“I’d like it located.”
Munsey said, “I’m planning to hop over to Spain tomorrow. I believe she’s back in Madrid by now.”
“Look her up, Gardner, and retrieve the money.”
“For the agency?”
“Deliver it to me, then we’ll talk about its final destination.”
He smiled thinly. “I’m smiling a skeptical smile, old girl,” he told her. “Are you really certain that you trust me?”
“This’ll be a way of finding out.”
Munsey coughed again. “What about that oaf Sam Trinity? I’m getting awfully weary of having to report to him and take orders from—”
“He won’t be with us much longer.”
“Yes, so you promised when I initially agreed to participate in this farrago. Sam, however, continues to flourish and is still bossing me. He continues to insist that I rendezvous with him at the offensive whorehouse he—”
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