“You sure about that? Your strain was in there.”
“Then I’m positive they aren’t that valuable.”
“Well,” Ankari said, “these are the same people who sent a pilot off to die for a chance at a box of food.”
“It’s more than—”
“I know, I know. It’s at least a crate. Listen, Viktor, we’ll be careful here, and we’ll survive the week on our own. We have Sergeant Hazel and Zharkov to keep an eye out for us. Please, go off and do your mission and don’t worry about us.”
“I can send another shuttle with more armed men,” Mandrake said. “We won’t need the whole crew for a food pickup.”
“Jamie says she’ll have her robot run over your foot if you send Striker down here.”
“What?” Jamie protested from the other seat. “I didn’t say anything.” She lowered her voice to add, “But I agree with the sentiment.”
“We’ll be fine, Viktor,” Ankari repeated. “You’ve already got enough of your people babysitting us.”
“Just watching out for my twenty percent,” he grumbled.
“Naturally. Be careful. Love you.”
Mandrake grunted.
That must have been the end of the transmission, because Jamie asked, “Does he actually say it back when you’re alone?”
“You have to read between the grunts.”
“Romantic.”
“The man added a sofa to his cabin for me. That’s a testament to his adoration. Ugh, three calls came in while we were out.” Ankari raised her voice and said, “Doesn’t look like our microbiologist knows how to answer the comm.”
“Sales and marketing is your department,” Lauren replied.
“Maybe we can afford an assistant. Unless you’d like to take on some sales duties, Jamie.”
“Uh. Oh, look, is that the coolant alert? I better run a full engine diagnostic before we head to the next city.”
“I’ll take that as a no. Jamie, what happened when you and Zharkov disappeared in the hall? Is there something else I should be worried about?”
Sergei had been listening intently, but then spotted Sergeant Hazel in the crowd, making her way toward the shuttle. She wasn’t hurrying and looked like she was doing a patrol of the area, but she might say something about him standing inside and eavesdropping.
“Some bounty hunter was skulking around the halls, interested in you and the captain, I guess,” Jamie said. “Sergei drove him off.”
“Sergei?” Ankari sounded amused.
“That’s his name.”
“I didn’t know you two were on a first-name basis.”
Sergei would have smiled, but Hazel had turned toward the ramp, so he simply continued to lean against the hull, his arms over his chest, his face impassive as he alertly scanned the passersby. That was the look he was going for, anyway.
“That’s how he introduced himself to me,” Jamie said. “I think. Actually he just bowed. Maybe I presumed.” She hesitated. “Do you think he minds?”
Hell, no. Why would she even worry about it after he had shared his life story with her? He wanted her to use his first name. Whatever name she liked. He was just delighted that Jamie wasn’t sharing any of his babbling with her boss. And that she hadn’t said she had found anything suspicious about the way he “drove off” the bounty hunter.
Hazel frowned at Sergei as she walked up the ramp. She looked like she had a lecture on her lips. Maybe Sergei could forestall it—and draw attention away from the fact that he was listening in on conversations.
“The shuttle was unguarded when I returned, Sergeant,” Sergei said, making his tone cool.
Hazel’s eyebrows rose. She halted and propped her fists on her hips. “Dr. Keys asked me to walk her client home, since a sedative had been used. Neither she nor the shuttle is believed to be in danger, the last I heard.”
“We were attacked on the way back from the hospital. The business’s assets may indeed be in danger.”
“I’ll wait to hear from Ankari about that,” Hazel said stiffly.
Ankari had doubtlessly heard them, because she appeared then, looking curiously at Sergei. Wondering if he had been there the whole time? At least she didn’t look annoyed.
“It’s all right, Sergeant,” Ankari said. “Come on up, and I’ll tell you about it. Zharkov, I think Jamie has something for you.”
“Oh?”
Jamie brushed past Ankari with a tablet in her palm, a hologram floating above it. “A couple of things. Uh.” She looked around, but there weren’t chairs in the rear of the modified shuttle, just equipment. She settled for sitting on the floor, cross-legged in front of the ramp.
Sergei sat beside her, also crossing his legs. They had scarcely been back for twenty minutes. She couldn’t have found something already, could she have?
Jamie pointed at a fancy spreadsheet hovering over a map of the city with four green dots glowing. “My tracer program—actually, I got it from Ankari’s hacker friend. It has four possibilities listed for the origins of the camera. Unfortunately, it couldn’t narrow things down further, since the mainframe stopped sending data to the camera as soon as it was damaged. It was essentially cut out of the network. The good news is that there are only four systems in the city that employ the make and model number of the camera.” She grinned at him. “You’re lucky you didn’t melt off the side that held those.”
“Er, yes.” The grin flustered him—not to mention that there was scarcely an inch of space between his knee and hers—and that was all he could get out. Something clever and witty would have been more ideal, but she had already turned back to the display.
“Those are the locations of the mainframes, in case you want to skulk around tonight and check them out.”
“Skulk?”
“Isn’t that what assassins do?”
“I’m not a grammarian, but skulk implies cowardice, doesn’t it? I infiltrate. Bravely.” There, that sounded better than “er.” Sergei tried a smile to go along with his attempt at wit.
She rewarded him with another grin, one that lingered this time, as she met his gaze. Maybe she was noticing how handsome he was, what captivating eyes he had, what alluring lips he had… or maybe he was the one thinking those things about her. He needed to stop doing that. He was going to drive himself insane fantasizing about someone he couldn’t have, someone who had shown zero interest in him and was, quite possibly, horrified by the fact that he had spewed out all those gory details to her.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Jamie ducked her chin again, releasing him from her gaze, and swiped her finger through the hologram to change the display. “I also ran a couple of searches while Ankari was talking to the captain, to figure out who Lord Felgard’s most notable friends were, at least the ones in the public databases, to see if any of them live here. You said Mandrake’s bounty originated here, right? From one of the cloud cities? But you didn’t know which one?”
“No, I—” Sergei had still been thinking about alluring lips and captivating eyes, but he made himself focus on her words. “Who’s Lord Felgard?”
“The captain didn’t tell you about that? He and Ankari kind of… killed him.”
“Kind of?” Sergei asked.
“I wasn’t there for the final moment, but apparently, one of his carnivorous plants actually ate him. But he might have been shot and then had the plant thrown onto him. The captain and Ankari might have had something to do with that. It’s not their fault, you see. Felgard was after our business in the first place and had us kidnapped, and—oh, it’s a long story. I just figured that if you want to know who’s after Ankari and the captain now, it would make sense to start with friends of the recently deceased. And eaten.”
Sergei couldn’t help but smirk at her irreverence. “I see the deaths of finance lords distress you greatly.”
“Oh, yes. Greatly.”
“After both of them, you said? As far as I saw, Mandrake was the only one with a bounty on his head.”
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Jamie nodded. “I don’t think anyone actually saw what happened in the end. There was some pilot flying an escape shuttle for Felgard, but Lieutenant Sequoia blasted that out of the air before it got off the island. It’s natural that people think a mercenary would be responsible, I suppose. Ankari is just a sweet, innocent woman, after all.”
“Uh huh. I saw how sweet and innocent she was today when she was planting her heel in that downsider’s ribcage.”
Jamie had been alternating between grins and mischievous gleams in her eyes throughout the conversation, but her face faltered now. “Yes, she’s very competent. I wish…” She sighed, dropping her gaze.
Sergei groped for something reassuring to say. Not everyone had a combat background, and there was nothing wrong with that. She had proven she had other ways of taking care of herself. He was already impressed with all the skills she had learned at such a young age.
“Never mind,” Jamie said and turned the display toward him. “There are three people who came up as matches, a finance lord—er lady, I guess she would be—who owns a private city in the southern hemisphere, and two aspiring finance lords who also live on the planet. One is here in MountSky Central. He’s a real estate mogul who has a chain of luxury spas that operate throughout the system.”
Sergei propped his chin on his fist and studied the picture and bio for the local person, a fit man in his forties or fifties. “Fletcher Fergusson of New Ayr? Sounds pretentious. What was his connection to this Felgard?”
“According to the public record—and when Ankari was researching Felgard, she found out that the public record isn’t necessarily all that accurate—they share an accountant and have gone on safaris and alien ruins tours together. They own—owned—a corporation together.”
“Any chance any of those four mainframe security computers are located at this Fletcher Fergusson’s home or place of business?” Sergei asked.
“No, I already checked, but that doesn’t necessarily make him innocent.”
“And does Fergusson own that corporation outright now? The one they jointly held?”
Jamie flipped through a couple of screens. “It looks like it. Tantamount Tours, Inc.”
“So Fergusson gained something from Felgard’s death.”
“Yes, it seems so. But he might have lost the comforting presence of Felgard’s wit and friendship in his life.”
Sergei grunted. “You’ve got a sarcastic streak I didn’t see at first. You’re not quite as innocent as I thought.”
Jamie opened her mouth, as if she might protest this description, but she ended up shrugging sheepishly. “You’re here as a favor to the captain because you feel you owe him one,” she pointed out. “People do do things for purely emotional reasons, not because money or power is at stake.”
“Hm, I suppose. I tend not to think of these wealthy people as being… people.”
“If anything, they’re probably more likely to give into human nature than the rest of us, since they can buy their way out of repercussions.”
Sergei scratched his jaw, noting that his short beard was in need of a trim and also that his most recent observation was true, that Jamie wasn’t all that innocent in the ways of the world. Or maybe naive was the more appropriate word. She still struck him as innocent and inexperienced in a number of ways. Such as… had she ever been with a man? If her father was as protective as she had implied, and it hadn’t been that long since she left home, perhaps not. All the more reason for him to turn his mind away from such thoughts. She deserved some handsome young pup who adored her and would make sure her first time was pleasurable. Of course, he might be the perfect person to ensure that her needs were put first. After all, he knew what it was like to have a horrific first time. He would want to make sure she enjoyed hers, that she was treated like a queen.
He swallowed. He needed to stop thinking about her in sexual ways. What was wrong with him? It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been around attractive women before. He had always managed to keep his mind on work. Maybe it was the fact that every new layer she revealed simply amplified the attraction he had felt toward her from the beginning, including the fact that she had done all this research for him in twenty minutes and that she hadn’t felt any need to gossip about him to her friend, even when he had provided what had to be scintillating gossip material. She probably hadn’t gossiped about anyone in her life.
“You’re thinking about visiting him tonight, aren’t you?” Jamie gave him that heart-stopping grin again. “Skulking into his house? Or, excuse me, infiltrating it.”
Sergei cleared his throat and shifted his leg so it would block her view of something new that had come up. “I was thinking… Uhm, you’re right. Even if it’s unlikely that this man has anything to do with Mandrake, it might be worth checking him out.”
“If we take the information in the public record as trustworthy, the odds could be as good as one in three that he has something to do with the captain,” Jamie pointed out. “And if not him, one of the other men lives on one of the cities we’re slated to visit later in the week. And the finance lady… We would have to think up something clever to find a reason to dock on her private island. But Fergusson—look, his office is only a mile away. At the Blue Heron Day Spa. I wonder if it’s possible to get a meeting with him. I could go with you, maybe pretend to talk about something related to our business, and you could look around while he’s paying attention to me.”
Sergei didn’t want some lecherous business mogul paying attention to Jamie, but had she just offered to go along with him to check on the man? “Why… I mean, I can find out where he lives and go tonight. You don’t need to endanger yourself.”
“Hm, I don’t know. His home looks pretty secure.” She turned the display toward him again. When had she looked up the blueprint to Fergusson’s palace in the city? She was fast. “Might be easier to get to him in his office. Though we’d have to check. He might not take appointments, or he might be booked for months out. Maybe I could put on something sexy and give his assistant a sultry smile. I’m not very good at that, but I could probably manage it over the comm. What do you think? Does he look like the sort of man who would make time for a young woman?”
“Er, maybe?” His mind had hiccupped at her offer to put on “something sexy.” What exactly might that be?
“And if we get in, maybe you can talk straight to Fergusson. Act like you’re one of the people who’s hunting the captain and that you know you can get him…” She snapped her fingers. “On account of your shared past. That would mean that you can get close. There’s some verisimilitude there, eh? But you could tell him you want a hundred thousand aurums instead of fifty. Yes, if you try to bargain with him, he’ll bargain back if he’s the right man. And if he’s not, he’ll give you a blank look, and we’ll know he’s not the one. A couple of hours wasted, but nothing more. But I wouldn’t be surprised if all these people talk to each other. He might let slip a clue about who set the bounty even if he’s not the one responsible. What do you think?”
“That you’re…” Thinking faster than I do, Sergei thought. “That if you’re willing to go along with me, and if we can get an appointment to talk to him, I’d be foolish not to accept your offer.”
“Good,” Jamie said with enthusiasm that surprised him. Dare he hope she was excited at the idea of spending time with him? Going off on some adventure together? She glanced toward the front of the shuttle. “Ankari was trying to put me to work making comm calls for the business. Did you hear that? I know she was joking, but I’m really not that busy, and I feel bad saying no, but I don’t like administrative stuff. I’m much better with parts than people.”
“Me too,” Sergei said.
She cocked her head, and he realized he might have just implied he had some secret aptitude for mechanics.
“Parts of people,” he amended, though he immediately winced. That had been macabre. Even if it was true. Walking through a graveyard or a crematorium would bother h
im a lot less than dealing with crowds of people. He doubtlessly found the idea of performing customer service even more horrifying than Jamie did.
“That’s awful,” she said, but her smirk encouraged him. She stood up. “I’ll go see if I can make that appointment, shall I?”
“Yes, but wait—” Sergei jumped to his feet.
She arched her brows.
“I want you to know how much I appreciate your help with this. It would have taken me all day to do the research you did in a half hour.” Or all week. “Is there anything I can do to return the favor? Aside from getting you out of secretarial duties, that is?”
Jamie chuckled, then tapped her lip thoughtfully, gazing out at the promenade. One of the mechanical elephants was ambling past, no less than four children dangling from its back. She didn’t seem to see it. She turned her gaze toward him and looked him up and down. For a mortified second, he remembered the earlier problem that had come up—alas, his intermittent sexual thoughts had done nothing to deflate it—and started to shift his hips away from her, then decided a silhouette might be worse. He stood absolutely still, hoping her perusal had been brief enough that she hadn’t noticed anything untoward. Maybe she had even noticed something she liked. He knew he was being delusional, but she was taking her time responding, and for a moment, he allowed himself to wonder if her answer might be a request for him to show her the ways of love that she had only read about in books.
“Could you teach me to fight?” Jamie asked.
His dreams of tender lovemaking shattered. “Er, what?”
“Not to be a mashatui practitioner or anything fancy, but I’d like to be able to defend myself from attacking downsiders. And—” her eyes and her voice lowered, as if from shame, “—from groping mercenaries too.”
“Someone on the ship has groped you?” Sergei whispered, his voice harsh, almost hoarse with the surge of anger that filled him.
She winced at his tone, and he struggled to calm himself. He knew all about the shame that came from being a victim, but if someone was bothering her, he wanted to do something about it. Mandrake should have done something about it already. This wasn’t the Fleet where he had no power over superior officers; it was his own company, damn it.
The Assassin's Salvation (Mandrake Company) Page 8
