“Down in the Caribbean, huh?”
“So we believe. My daughter’s down there right now looking into this—and Jake Cardigan’ll be back with her today.”
“If anybody’s an expert on Tek, it’s that bastard Cardigan. A user and a convicted dealer.”
“C’mon, he was framed on that.”
“I know the guy was Tekhead.”
“For a while, long time ago. Not now, and he never worked for the cartels or sold as much as a single Tek chip.”
“Your opinion.”
A voxbox on his desk said, “Turn on the Newz Channel, Lieutenant Drexler.”
“Christ, now what?” He touched the control panel.
“… at least a third of the NewTown Pharmaceuticals plant here in this Caribbean paradise,” a beautiful red-haired newscaster was saying.
Behind her, glaring in the sun, the NewTown facility could be seen with flames and smoke rising out of one side of it.
“According to a spokesman for NewTown, the exact cause of the accident is unknown at this time,” she continued. “Most of the damage was apparently caused by a series of belowground explosions. The personnel in this seriously damaged wing was entirely robot and android, we are told. There are, at this moment, no confirmed reports of any human deaths.”
Old footage of Rowland and Rebecca Burdon, enjoying themselves at a vast party, replaced the picture of the burning plant.
“Neither Rowland Burdon nor his twin sister, Rebecca, socialite owners of the vast NewTown Pharmaceuticals organization, are available for comment. Indeed, the current whereabouts of either of the Burdons are unknown.”
“Going to be hard to prove the guy was bootlegging Tek,” said Drexler. “I’m nurturing a hunch that what blew up down there was the Tek lab.”
“I’d bet on that, too.” Bascom stood up. “I’ll leave you now, Lieutenant. I want to contact my daughter.”
“Think she had something to do with the fireworks?”
“No, but once in a while I feel a fatherly concern for her.”
JAKE WAS LEANING forward in the passenger seat of their skycar. “Damn, I can’t contact Kacey Bascom anywhere,” he said as he turned off the vidphone built into the dash.
“We’ll be on the island in about fifty minutes, amigo,” said Gomez. “Once there, we’ll track her down.”
“I’m wondering if she tried to go inside the NewTown plant alone.”
“She’s a capable mujer. Don’t fret.” He eyed his partner for a few seconds. “Are you developing an interest in her?”
“Avuncular maybe, not romantic.”
The phone buzzed. “Yeah?” answered Jake, activating it again.
Walt Bascom appeared on the screen. “You lads nearing San Peligro?”
“Less than an hour away,” answered Jake.
“Quite a few things have happened on that tropical paradise since you left town, Jake. Have you heard about the NewTown plant?”
“No. What happened?”
“They’re not letting out any details, but it sounds to me like the whole damn secret Tek lab Burdon was running there went flooey and blew up.”
“How the hell did that happen?”
Bascom smiled. “Well, in a way, my daughter had a hand in it.”
“So she did go in there alone.”
“She had to. She found out—from one of your informants, in fact—that Burdon had his sister locked up inside the place,” the chief of the Cosmos Agency informed him. “He was planning to have our chum Dr. Stolzer do a mindwipe on her and thus keep her from telling anybody about his many shady activities.”
“That son of a bitch Stolzer is probably the one who mindwiped Dan, too.”
“That sort of thing is a specialty with him,” said Bascom. “But look, you can get all the details from Kacey as to how she sprung Rebecca Burdon out of there and how Rebecca took care of the Tek lab. What I want you and Gomez to do is get her and the Burdon woman off the island and back here to Greater LA. Rebecca is eager to tell Drexler and any other lawman who wants to listen all about how her dear sibling set me up.”
Gomez inquired, “Where do we find them, jefe?”
“It’s a place called the Villa Sombra, way up in the hills on the north side of the island,” replied Bascom. “Contact of mine loaned it to them for me. I’ve got a half dozen local ops guarding it, but I need you two to help Kacey get this lady away safe.”
“We’ll do it,” promised Jake.
Gomez said, “Did Rowland Burdon blow up with the lab?”
“Informed sources don’t agree about that,” said Bascom. “Some say he was inside the place when it blew and that he’s now part of the debris. Other reports maintain he’s still above the ground.”
“We’ll have to assume he’s alive and watch out for him,” said Jake.
“Any other news items we ought to have, jefe?”
“Well, the International Weather Service is predicting a hurricane for midnight tonight. So it might be a good idea to get the hell off the island before then.” He left the screen.
“Muy bien,” said Gomez, smiling. “This is turning into the sort of case I enjoy. We’ve got damsels in distress, rascally villains, and a possible chance to battle nature itself.”
44
THE wind arrived earlier than anticipated. There was an intense clarity in the sky in the moments before sundown. The palms on the sharply slanting hillside outside the living room of the Villa Sombra began to rattle faintly, and gradually an odd sighing could be heard all around.
“The hurricane is definitely on the way,” observed Rebecca Burdon, stopping beside one of the viewindows.
“I just talked to Jake on the vidphone,” said Kacey, who was pacing the big living room. “He and his partner will be here in a few minutes. Then we’ll get off the island.”
Rebecca said, “Your feelings about Cardigan are mixed, aren’t they?”
Kacey stopped pacing. “I suppose so,” she answered after a few seconds. “He and I disagree on just about everything—but I don’t know. Right now, yes, I’m really looking forward to seeing him again.”
“That’s how I feel about most of the men I get seriously mixed up with.”
“Oh, I’m not really involved with Jake. It’s more—”
“Kacey!” Rebecca was staring out into the darkening night.
“What is it?” She hurried over to the window.
“One of the guards isn’t there anymore.” Rebecca pointed.
Down below, the trees and the brush were swaying with increasing intensity and the sound of the wind was growing.
“You mean the guy who was stationed in that stand of palm trees?” asked Kacey.
“There’s no sign of him. I just noticed.”
“Could be he’s taking a break.” Kacey started to reach her stungun out of its holster.
A shattergun roared outside. The next viewindow over from them exploded, and thousands of glittering fragments of plastiglass came cascading and spinning into the room.
Harsh wind came rushing in, too.
Next, two men leaped in through the fresh-made opening.
“What a happy occasion, Sis,” said one of them. “I imagine you thought, you conniving bitch, that I’d gone on to my reward after you destroyed the goddamn Tek laboratory. You figured we’d never meet again in this world.”
Taking a step back from her brother, Rebecca said, “I was sure as hell hoping you were dead, Rollo.”
“Let go the gun.” The bald man with the piping voice was prodding Kacey with the barrel of his lazrifle.
She complied, glaring at the man.
Burdon bowed in her direction. “What a pleasant surprise to find you at our party, Miss Bascom,” he said. “My fondness for any member of the Bascom family is almost as strong as my feelings for my dear sister.” He walked closer to Rebecca and, with the hand that wasn’t holding the lazgun, slapped her across the face. Hard, three times.
“Your pop hired lousy help
to guard you,” Summerson told Kacey. “Really easy to take out. A snap, actually, too easy to be much fun.”
Burdon hit his sister twice more. As she fell back onto a low white sofa, he told her, “I never have much liked you, Becky. But, Jesus, now that you’ve developed this rudimentary moral sense, you’re impossible.”
“Rollo, you’re not going to be able to salvage a damned thing,” Rebecca said, rubbing at her bleeding cheek. “The Tek plant is done for. Out in NorCal they’re probably already closing in on Zack Excoffon—and your name is starting to show up on a lot of police shit lists, dear.”
“Plus which,” added Kacey, “the SoCal cops are just about convinced you, and not my father, are responsible for the death of Dwight Grossman.”
Rowland laughed. “You ladies don’t understand the nature of revenge—the pure unadulterated kind,” he said. “I didn’t track you down and drop in tonight because I want to revive my fortunes.”
The wind was even stronger now. It was invading the room, rattling everything, howling.
Burdon laughed again. “No, I’m here simply to kill you both.”
THE WIND CAUGHT Gomez and gave him an immense shove.
He went sprawling and rolling down the hillside and came to rest close to where Jake was crouching and waiting for him.
“Chihuahua,” he said as Jake helped him get to a kneeling position.
“Are we set?” asked Jake.
“Sí. I just stungunned the last of the opposition guards. This damned wind makes it easy to sneak up on lunkheads and louts.”
“Then we can move on up to the villa.”
“Might as well, now that we’ve played our little game. They stun our guards, we arrive and stun theirs.” Gomez rose up. “Inefficient, if you think about it. If there was a moratorium on guards, then we’d both save a lot of—”
“Onward and upward,” suggested Jake, starting to climb the windswept hillside toward the beleaguered Villa Sombra.
THE WIND RUSHED into the living room, slapping at a floor lamp and toppling it.
Kacey dodged to keep from being hit by it.
She tried, as she lunged, to chop the lazrifle out of Summerson’s grip.
“No chance, honey.” He laughed a fluty laugh and easily avoided her.
She fell, her knee slamming into the carpeted floor.
As she started to get up, Kacey caught a flash of movement just outside the high, wide broken window.
Instead of continuing her rise, she dropped to the floor again and cried out in pain.
“What the hell’s bothering you?” Summerson wanted to know.
“My ribs.” She hugged herself, writhing on the floor and moaning. “I broke a couple of the damned things when I fell.”
Bending, the bald man grabbed the back of her jacket and yanked. “Get your butt up off there.”
At that same instant Gomez came diving into the room through the big opening where the window had been.
He landed on his side, went rolling across the floor, and came to his feet facing Burdon and with his stungun in his hand. He fired.
The first shot didn’t connect.
Jake arrived then, tackling the distracted Summerson from behind.
Getting an armlock on the big bald man, Jake jerked him back and away from Kacey.
As Burdon swung his lazgun up to use on Gomez, Rebecca jumped from the sofa and threw herself into him. Her left shoulder hit him in the chest.
Burdon’s lazgun went swinging way up in his hand, and the sizzling beam cut a sooty rut up the wall and partway across the ceiling.
Planting his legs wide, Gomez used his stungun again.
This time the beam took Burdon in the side. He gasped, staggered backwards. A strong blast of wind hit him in the back, shoving him forward again.
He seemed to freeze all at once, dropping his lazgun and falling over into a sparkling scatter of broken plastiglass.
Rebecca dived, grabbed up the lazgun, and aimed it at her brother.
“Don’t,” advised Gomez. “Not worth the trouble, señorita.”
She looked over at him, her mouth a thin angry line. Sighing, she said, “No, it isn’t.” She dropped the gun into her pocket.
Jake and Summerson meantime had ended up outside the living room. They were wrestling out in the brush on the hillside.
Summerson brought up his knee but failed to connect with Jake’s chin.
Jake spun clear, stood, grabbed up the bald man, and hit him in the face. He did that three more times.
“This is for hurting my son,” he said, hitting him yet again, hard, square in the face.
Summerson groaned, went slack.
Jake hit him twice more.
He let go and the big bald man dropped down into the high grass and the wind came roaring at him.
“You about finished up out there, amigo?” called Gomez from inside.
“Yeah. You?”
“Burdon’s down and out.”
Jake, none too carefully, dragged Summerson back into the living room and dropped him on the floor. “We can get out of here as soon as we dispose of these fellows.”
Kacey, smiling, came over to him. “You were very impressive, Jake,” she said, putting her arms around him and kissing him on the cheek. “Despite your narrow-minded views on politics, you’re not a bad guy.”
“Ah, then this was all worth it,” he said, grinning.
“What say,” put in Gomez, “we pack up and get off this island before the hurricane gets any worse?”
45
JAKE, alone, set his skycar down in the landing area of the Nutmeg Nature Preserve as twilight was beginning to fill the twenty-acre spread. It was an hour beyond closing time and there were no other vehicles on the lot.
He eased out of the car and went hurrying up a twisting gravel path that wound through a forest that was a blend of real and holographic trees, brush, and plants. Upon the branch of a real tree, a robot bird was singing.
“Welcome back to Connecticut, Mr. Cardigan,” said a long, lean man in a plaid jacket and gray trousers who was standing at the side of the path with a double-barreled lazrifle cradled in his arms.
“Evening, Jason.”
The caretaker nodded up the path. “Miss Pennoyer’s been expecting you.”
Nodding, Jake continued on his way.
There was a rural cabin at the path’s end, and sitting on the porch was a woman. She was a shade over four feet tall and when she, smiling, left the low rocker, you saw that on her left foot she wore a built-up shoe. “Jake, it’s been a while since you’ve dropped in on your lopsided friend.”
“Three years, Maggie.” He came up the real wood steps, took hold of both her hands, and bent to kiss her on the cheek. “You’re looking fine.”
“Fine as I’ll ever look.” Maggie Pennoyer led him into the front room of the cabin, where a real fire burned in a real fireplace. “Let me get rid of the basic stuff first off. My business is still thriving and the government doinks I used to work for still don’t know where I’m based. Right at the moment I’ve got four other customers in residence in my rural sanitarium here. And I’m still dedicated to renovating people who’ve been mindwiped, brainwashed, and otherwise neurologically diddled with.” She got herself seated on a plaid sofa. “Now you can ask me your questions.”
He grinned. “How’s my son?”
“That ham-handed Dr. Stolzer, you know, is a long way from being at the top of his class.” Maggie rested her hands on her knees. “I’ve worked on a few of his victims over the years. He’s a second-rate mindwiper, if that.”
“Meaning?”
“Suppose you give your son a call,” she suggested. “He’s a lot cuter than you, by the way. Of course, if he lives a few more decades of the life you lead, he may turn out as weather-beaten and woebegone as you.”
Jake crossed to the open doorway she was pointing at across the room. Stopping on the threshold, he called out, “Dan? It’s me.”
Dan ap
peared in the doorway. He hesitated, then came into the warm room. “It’s okay,” he said, smiling. “I know who I am, I know who you are. Maggie got me back.”
Jake put his arms around his son and hugged him. “Welcome back.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Over his shoulder, Jake said, “Thanks, Maggie.”
Turn the page to continue reading from the TekWar series
1
Just before they caught up with her on the grounds of the Hollywood Starwalk Park that night—less than five minutes before, actually—she made the call.
Not to her current husband, or her current lover.
On that chill, foggy evening in the late spring of the year 2122, Jill Bernardino vidphoned Sid Gomez. She hadn’t seen him or even talked to him in over three years, but she felt he was one of the few people in all of Greater Los Angeles who could help her.
A dark-haired woman in her late thirties, Jill wasn’t quite ready to turn to the SoCal Police. She had a couple of good reasons.
“But maybe I’ll have to anyway,” she told herself as she made her way, cautiously and uneasily, along the quirky, seemingly tree-lined passways of the mist-shrouded and nearly deserted park.
She’d initially expected to meet someone here tonight. An informant, a man who could supply her with information for the vidwall movie she was working on.
“Not so,” she’d realized a few moments ago.
This was a setup, just something to lure her here.
“So, obviously, somebody knows about what I know.”
Suddenly off to her right a row of holographic palm trees began sputtering. The noise made Jill flinch and dodge to her left, shivering.
The tall trees, over a dozen of them, crackled and vanished. The fog took their place.
Up ahead, beneath a large floating litesign that urged Walk Thru Movieland’s Past, stood three rusty androids. They represented famed Hollywood movie stars from an earlier century. The only one Jill recognized was, she was nearly certain, Clark Gable.
The andy was in need of repairs and the lazy salute he gave her as she approached was jerky. His grin was more a grimace and it locked into place and wouldn’t fade. “Welcome to bygone Hollywood, sweetheart,” he told her in a rattling, raspy voice.
Tek Kill Page 19
