He accepted the small black disk that she took from her bag and handed to him. “Good-luck charm?”
Smiling, she told him, “It’s something I developed myself—based on a somewhat larger one used by Scotland Yard.”
“And it does what?”
“It serves as a sort of scrambler,” Marj explained. “We may run into some Tek Kids over there, ones with ESP talent. This’ll keep them from tapping in on what we’re thinking.”
Holding the disk between thumb and forefinger, he studied it for a moment before dropping it into his coat pocket. “The TKs really can do that sort of stuff?”
“Oh, yes. Some of them are very gifted in some pretty strange and unsettling ways.”
“You say you came up with this gadget yourself?”
“I’ve long since given up my major calling, which was robotics. But I find I still like to tinker with small electronics projects now and then. Eat your soup.”
“Oh, yeah.” He took a few spoonfuls. “Why’d you change careers?”
“Why’d you?”
“Didn’t have much choice.”
“Well, in a way, neither did I. A few years ago I simply started feeling that I needed to work more directly with people,” she explained. “Help them in some firsthand way.”
“Designing and constructing androids helps.”
“Sure, maybe. But I was simply getting too detached from the outside world. I quit and came over here. I’m much happier these days.”
“That meant leaving family and friends to—”
“Oh, I’ve made new friends here in England,” she assured him. “And I had no family left, not after my brother died.”
Jake said nothing.
After a moment Marj spoke again. “Excuse my turning gloomy on you, Jake.”
He asked, “You have contacts in the gang sectors, don’t you?”
“Yes. People who’ll see us safely along our way.”
“Then we ought to be able to get through to Westminster Abbey tonight.”
“If it’s safe.”
“Meaning?”
She said, “There’s been a lot of feuding between gangs lately. Right now the Westminsters are having trouble with the TKs.”
“Is this the kind of feuding where kids can get killed?”
“Almost always,” she replied. “If there is any sort of skirmishing going on tonight, we may have to lie low until it’s over.”
“If Dan’s in the middle of a gang war, I don’t intend to wait around—”
“Jake, I know you’re used to being in charge,” she said. “But, really, you’re going to have to trust me. I’ll be able to tell you if it’s safe to approach the abbey or not.”
Finally he nodded. “You’re right, yeah. You’ll have to decide.”
Their waiter, an extremely polite android, approached the table with a bottle of red wine. “Excuse me,” he said, bowing. “I’ve been asked to bring this to you.”
“Compliments of the house?” asked Jake.
“No, compliments of Denis Gilford.” The pale reporter seated himself, uninvited, in the spare chair at their table. “One senses a big story brewing with you two in the thick of it. I demand all the details.”
Gomez smiled as he held out the bouquet of plazroses. “Good evening, Dr. Danenberg,” he said, handing her the fake flowers and striding on into her apartment. “We haven’t actually met, but I once broke a leg because of you.”
The plump woman looked crossly at him. “Oh, yes, you’re ... Sanchez, isn’t it?”
“Close. Actually I’m Gomez,” he explained, smiling more broadly. “I’m with the Cosmos Detective Agency and because of a case we’re working on, I thought perhaps—”
“How’d you know I was here?”
He fluffed the plyopillow on a rubberoid armchair and then seated himself. “Being an ace investigator, finding you wasn’t particularly difficult.”
“Actually, it doesn’t matter, Mr. Gomez,” she told him sternly. “The hour is late and—”
“The reason I’m intruding on you, doctor, is that you’re an expert on Tek and on the anti-Tek system that Professor Kittridge is developing.”
“I’ve had absolutely no contact with the man for quite some time now,” she said. “If you need information on any aspect of the fight against Tek, I suggest you call on the International Drug Control Agency. They have an office right here in Paris.”
“Ah, but that may not be a wise thing to do just now.” He stood up. “We have reason to believe—and this is confidential info I’m confiding in you, doc—that some of the local IDCA officials may well be in cahoots with some of the Teklords.” Gomez walked over to a wall to straighten a hanging triop picture of a field of yellow flowers.
“That’s interesting,” said Dr. Danenberg. “Yet, as I told you, I have no connection whatsoever with Professor Kittridge.”
“What brings you to Paris?” He ran his hand along the back of another armchair, then sat in it, crossed his legs, and smiled hopefully up at the plump woman.
“A vacation.”
“And you haven’t heard anything about, say, plans to sabotage Kittridge’s work?”
“The professor and I didn’t part under the best of circumstances,” she said evenly.
“But you do know a lot about how this anti-Tek system of his works, don’t you?”
“I know how it worked some time ago, though he may have modified it greatly since then,” she answered, moving toward the door. “Basically his system is based on RF waves. Radio frequency waves emitted at a high oscillation rate. Once you find the exact oscillation rate, you can shatter any Tek chip in existence. When you broadcast that high-frequency RF from a powerful satellite station, you’d be able to destroy most of the world’s supply of Tek chips all at once.”
“If a Tek cartel, or a combo of same, could come up with a way to circumvent this upcoming electronic passover, cook up a chip that was immune, they’d have a very lucrative monopoly, wouldn’t they?” He left his latest seat.
“Perhaps they would. I’m not, however, at all interested in the activities of the Tek cartels—or in your activities, Mr. Gomez. I’m afraid, considering the hour, that I must ask you to leave.”
He sat down on the metallic sofa, rested his arm on the sofa back for a moment. “You see, doctor, that case that Jake Cardigan and I are here working on—you do know Jake, don’t you?”
“We’ve met. It was in Mexico, I believe.”
“Jake and I are partners. He’s the one who didn’t break his leg.”
“I assure you I’m sorry you were once injured, somewhat indirectly to be sure, because of me, yet—”
“We think there’s a Tek angle to the murder we’re investigating. I was hoping you’d be able to assist us.”
“I can’t help you in any way.” She opened the door. “Good night now, Mr. Sanchez.”
“Gomez.” Smiling, he walked to the doorway. “Well, it’s been jolly meeting you in person at long last. Buenas noches.”
He left her apartment, started whistling, walked to the corner, and turned onto a side street. He made his way to his rented landcar and climbed into the driveseat. “They working, chiquita?”
Natalie was sitting, slightly hunched, in the passenger seat and listening to a set of portable earphones. “Yessir, all the minbugs you planted seem to be functioning just fine,” she informed him. “Dr. Danenberg, by the way, talks to herself.”
“Many brilliant people do. Me, for instance.”
“She’s talking to herself about you right now. Want to hear?”
“Nope.”
The reporter said, “I only agree with half the negative things she’s saying about you.”
“I’m eternally grateful for your support.” He started the car.
24
AS DAN HAD GOTTEN closer to the ruins of Buckingham Palace, the night had turned quiet. A thick fog hung over the rutted streets and overgrown parkland he was passing. Up ahead in the gr
ay mist now he saw a winged figure floating high in the air, and below it a seated woman.
Slowing his pace, he moved cautiously closer.
This must be the Queen Victoria Memorial, which meant he was nearing the palace.
Chunks of stone and metal had fallen away from the memorial. Names and curses had been painted and etched across the figures.
“Isn’t it awfully late for you to be up and around, Dan?”
He stopped still, staring up.
Perched near the feet of the seated queen was a thin, dark-haired girl. About eighteen, she wore a long, simple black dress.
“How’d you know my—”
“It’s easy, love.” She smiled and tapped at her temple with a slender forefinger. “I’ve got the gift, I do. My name is Morgana.”
“And you claim you can read my thoughts?”
“Don’t claim, love, can. With no trouble at all.” Turning, she started climbing down to the ground. “You really think I’m too skinny?”
He brought his hand up to the side of his head. “Not exactly, but—”
“And that I’m nowhere near as pretty as Nancy?” She landed on the damp ground, shaking her head. “No, I am not a bitch. When you get to know me, why ... Ah, but I’m being forgetful. You aren’t going to have the opportunity of getting to know me.”
“I have to find—”
“Dan, love, I know all that,” cut in Morgana. She stood watching him, head tilted slightly to the left, hands clasped behind her back. “You fancy that you’re on a lovely knightlike quest. Touching, that is.”
“Is she here?”
“That’s a very impressive school you attend,” she told him. “What you have to do now, love, is turn right round and head yourself back for there. Should you survive to reach a safe part of this great bloody city, then you simply hop on a train for Bunter Academy.” She took a few slow steps in his direction. “That’s truly where you belong, my dear.”
“I have to see Nancy, talk to her.”
“That’s quite impossible, Sir Daniel.”
“No, damn it. If she’s here with you people, then—”
“There’s absolutely no way, truly, that you can help her,” Morgana assured him. “You may think of yourself as the lady’s champion, but you’re really just a schoolboy, is all.”
“Schoolboy or not, I’m going to—”
“Let me explain the situation a bit further, Dan, love,” continued the thin, dark girl. “Lancelot, he’s taken quite a fancy to this Nancy of yours, do you see? I really for the life of me can’t understand why, but there it is.”
“Who the hell is Lancelot? And why do you all have names out of the stories of King Arthur and his—”
“All you need to know, sweet, is that Lancelot is the head man,” explained Morgana, bringing her arms in front of her and folding them across her chest. “As I said, Lancelot is smitten, and even as we speak, he’s in one of the royal bedchambers with your Nancy, trying to convince her to—”
“I’m going in there.”
“That you’re not, love. Merlin!”
A heavyset young man with short-cropped blond hair materialized out of the fog. He had on a loose, tattered gray overcoat. “Told you he’d be too dumb to save his arse.”
“I’m going to get inside there,” Dan said. “If I have to fight you first, well, then, okay.”
Merlin chuckled. “Oh, I say, Danny Boy,” he said, shaking his plump head. “I never fight.”
“He doesn’t have to,” explained Morgana. “You may as well go ahead and do it, Merlin love. Don’t, though, hurt him too much, you hear? He’s got some really sweet notions in that cute little head of his.”
Dan decided he’d better make his move before the thickset young man pulled out a weapon.
As he started for Merlin, the chunky young man raised his left hand and pointed at Dan.
All at once Dan felt his breath go whooshing out of his chest. Intense pain spread through his body.
His feet left the ground and he went rising up, in a zigzag way, through the thick night fog.
He slammed into the figure of Queen Victoria. Then he was yanked back. He spun around once before plummeting downward.
Dan smacked into the ground and passed out.
Their car on the underground tubetrain was rushing smoothly along, nearly empty.
“I’m surprised that Denis was so cooperative,” said Marj. “When he first sat down with us, I was certain he was going to insist on coming along.”
Jake grinned. “I persuaded him we didn’t need a reporter.”
“That usually doesn’t discourage Denis. He and his paper are extremely persistent.”
“And I’m extremely persuasive.”
“After you suggested that the two of you talk things over privately in the alley, I expected a fight,” she admitted. “That’s the way the kid gangs settle things.”
“No need for a fight.”
She turned in her seat, studying his face. “I don’t know you very well, Jake, but that looks like a smug expression on your face,” she said. “What really took place in the alley?”
“I used my stungun on him.”
“What? But that’s not—”
“Sporting?”
“I don’t mean that exactly. It’s only that I thought you’d used reason on him and—”
“I had a chat with Gilford earlier. He didn’t strike me as the sort of guy you could reason with.”
“I see, yes.”
“As I told you, Marj, the important thing to me is finding my son.”
“So you used your gun.”
“On its lowest setting. He’ll only be out for an hour or so,” Jake assured her. “And I propped him up in a comfortable, fairly warm spot.”
“I’d forgotten that yours is a violent profession.”
“It is,” he agreed. “If you’d like to resign as my guide, I’ll—”
“No, I’m sticking.”
They rode in silence for a few minutes.
“My brother and I,” she said finally, “used to have long debates on subjects like this. He always accused me of being too idealistic.”
“What’d he think of your going into social work?”
“He never knew about that. He was already dead when I came over here.”
“He must have died young.”
“Yes, much too young.”
The overhead speakers announced, “Knightsbridge Station. Final stop.”
The tubetrain began slowing.
Marj said, “Let the other passengers get off first.”
The car halted, the doors opened.
“Knightsbridge. All off.”
When they were on the platform, Marj said quietly, “We want that door on the left, the one marked Staff Only.”
“You visiting friends?”
“No, this is a shortcut over to the gang territory.” She tapped on the metal door three times.
It slid open. Standing in the corridor beyond was a black-enameled robot wearing a stationmaster’s cap. “Ah, a pleasure to see you, Miss Lofton, as always.”
“I’m making a late call over there, Jarvis.”
“This a beau of yours?”
“A colleague.”
“Take good care of her, lad,” the robot told him. “Were you to ask me, I’d say this is a very risky job she’s got herself.”
“I’ll look after the lady,” promised Jake. “Although she strikes me as being very capable on her own.”
“Nobody’s safe over there.” Jarvis grunted and moved aside. “Good luck to both of you. I’m happy it’s you who’re making this little trip and not me.”
Catching Jake’s hand, Marj led him through another door and into a damp, dim-lit tunnel.
25
A SET OF PORTABLE earphones on his head, Gomez was roaming the living room of his hotel suite. “This Wexler hombre ought to be at Doc Danenberg’s by now,” he observed. “She phoned him nearly an hour ago.”
&
nbsp; “Investigative work, as you should’ve learned long since, requires considerable patience.” Natalie was sitting in an armchair near one of the windows, holding her set of earphones in her lap. “I’d have thought, by the way, that a hotel of the stature of the Louvre provided maid service.”
“That they do. A robot rolls in twice daily.”
Glancing around, nose wrinkling, the reporter said, “Does that mean you managed to make all this mess just since the last cleaning?”
“There’s no mess to be seen, chiquita.”
“Well, probably you and I disagree as to what constitutes a mess. To me two empty ale bottles lying on the sofa, a boot sprawled on the rug, and a pair of discarded undershorts dangling from a doorknob qualifies as a mess.”
Gomez shook his head. “No, those are merely signs of a relaxed, low-pressure approach to life and—Bingo! Wexler has arrived.”
“We’ll continue this discussion of your slipshod habits later.” She grabbed up her earphones.
“Why’d you allow him in?” the International Drug Agency Chief was asking the doctor.
“Bram, I’ve already explained that the man simply forced his way in here.”
“He must be suspicious of you, Hilda. How did he—”
“I don’t know how he knew I was in Paris. I called you to—”
“What did he say? Go over it again.”
“A good deal of it was just babble and false amiability.”
Natalie smiled. “She’s certainly got you figured out.”
“Silence, por favor.”
“... anyway,” Wexler was saying, “does he suspect your relationship with Kittridge?”
“He mentioned the professor. I don’t know,” said Dr. Danenberg. “Gomez and that damned partner of his obviously don’t accept the idea that Bouchon was killed by the actual Unknown Soldier.”
“Did he say why?”
“No, but it’s clear they suspect a Tek link with the murder.”
“It wasn’t exactly a murder, Hilda. It was merely the elimination of a problem.”
“The problem being that Bouchon became aware of what you’re up to. You know, Bram, I can’t help wondering if you perhaps haven’t made someone else suspicious by your—”
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