“So,” said Caro, when the door shut behind him. “What the fuck?”
I stared at her tiredly and shrugged.
“Who’s just tried to kill you, Ginny?”
“I don’t know. Truly.”
“When you get the ID on the guy, let me know. I’ll do some digging around for you.”
Caro had sources and then some. Years of building up a strong network of field specialists meant she knew people who could hack most databases and analyse any substance. I’d never asked her to use her contacts before. There’d never been a need.
“Thanks. But there’s something else,” I said.
She dropped her pizza crust onto the cardboard and wiped greasy fingers on my tea towel. “What’s that?”
“I saw Aquila tonight.”
Caro and I had first met in the reception area of a psychiatrist’s rooms. She’d been getting treatment for PTSD after some time in a political hotspot, and I was seeking some explanations for the wedge-tailed eagle following me around.
It wasn’t the kind of place you struck up conversations with strangers, but Caro was the most inquisitive person on the face of the earth, and she didn’t make any exceptions for my leave-me-alone expression. Her scattergun approach to getting to know a person overwhelmed even my solid defences, and next thing I knew, we were having drinks on Friday nights at the Wild Turkey saloon in the Western quarter.
“Shit.” Caro’s mouth pursed and her smooth brow crinkled, making her look more her age. Most of the time her petite, blond-haired, blue-eyed innocent beauty passed for nineteen despite the fact she was two years older than me.
“Saw her when I took Sixkiller out to dinner at Yum Fat. I left and went home. When I got here, she was on the lamp shade outside here. I ignored her and opened my door. That’s when the guy jumped me. While he was threatening me, Aquila was battling this huge bloody crow. I’m surprised there aren’t feathers everywhere.” I pulled a face at Caro. “Except, of course, she isn’t real.”
“Concerning,” she said.
A wave of tiredness took me. “Yeah. But listen, I need to get some sleep. Have to take Sixkiller into work first thing.”
“You want me to stay?”
I glanced at the fluorescent markings on the floor. “I’m fine. But tomorrow, if you’ve got any theories on why Aquila’s back, I’d like to hear them.”
She leaned across the breakfast bar and hugged me. I wasn’t the demonstrative kind, but Caro was. It came as naturally to her as being suspicious came to me. I’d had to school myself to not be bothered by it. Occasionally, these days, it was even a comfort. Like now.
“It’ll be OK, Ginny. Just get some sleep.”
I let her out, then I went into my bedroom, where I pushed my chest of drawer across the door. After checking the window was locked and doing a half-hearted scan for Totes’ Peeping Tom microphones, I decided I didn’t care. I slipped my pistol under my pillow and flaked right out.
FOUR
Nate Sixkiller had clearly been waiting for me. The door opened on my second knock and he stood there, immaculately groomed, hair long and straight, curling just the tiniest bit where it touched his shoulders.
In spite of my annoyance at him acting as if I was late, I noticed how shiny his boots were and that he’d added a set of chaps over the top of his denims. His shirt was plain black and buttoned through, showing a glimpse of the tan flesh at his neck. It pulled a little tight in spots, as though a half size too small. Blokes with muscles always liked that.
“You want to catch breakfast on the way?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I had mine earlier.”
Earlier? It was only fricking 6am! “Well, I didn’t.”
We walked to the nearest Park bus pickup spot, and I bought a coffee and Danish from a street vendor while Sixkiller watched the traffic and those waiting in the queue.
They reciprocated, curious about his chaps and his Stetson but not surprised. We were too close to the Park perimeter and the Western Quarter for his garb to truly raise eyebrows. They probably figured him as just another waiter on his way to one of the saloons. Or maybe even an entertainer.
Their unworried glances told me that none of them realised that the six-guns in his holsters were the original Peacemaker series, loaded with live ammunition.
My revolver – a modern nine-shot– was inside my jacket. I never strapped it on my hip unless I was about to head into the park. Mine was a highly functional double-action Smith & Wesson. It didn’t have a name. I didn’t spin romance around it. It was protection, that’s all.
The transit bus arrived and we climbed aboard. It was an express plunging resolutely out onto the ring road and stopping only at the park entries and exits. All the seats were taken, forcing Sixkiller and me to stand separately, something that didn’t worry me too much. It gave me a chance to observe him for a bit. He wasn’t short of admiring glances from both sexes, but he didn’t seem to notice. His impassive expression and motionless stance, despite the rocking of the bus, were kind of eerie and mesmerizing.
I signalled at him that we’d be getting off at the next stop, and he followed me out and up into the hi-rise building opposite the entrance.
The Parks Southern office occupied all of a fifty-eight story high building – other than the thirteenth and twenty-third levels, which were given over to food courts and mini malls, and the thirty-third level, which was fitted with compact one-bedroom apartments and gym for execs on quick business trips. I’d tried to get Hunt to put Sixkiller up in them, but he’d insisted he’d be better off near me.
As we rode the lift to Bull Hunt’s cubbyhole on the twenty-ninth, I wondered again if that had been a good idea.
Sixkiller wasn’t saying much, but I got the feeling that was nothing unusual. At least he wasn’t turning out to be a prattler. That, I couldn’t stand.
Hunt’s assistant, Jethro, led us through to his office. My boss was standing by the window, speaking into his cell phone. Tall, bald-headed and big-bellied with thick arms and shoulders that were still strong despite his middle years. I had no doubt Hunt could throw a horse if he had to. Bodies like his shouldn’t be confined to offices.
“Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes. Yes. Goodbye,” muttered Hunt.
He hung up and didn’t speak for a moment, continuing to stare at the city vista so starkly divided by the park wall. Even from this height, it was impossible to see clearly into the park, which appeared as a massive splash of red and purple through the heart of the city’s grey.
Sixkiller walked over to stand by Hunt. “Breathtaking, Director Hunt,” he said. “I thought the Mojave was impressive until now…”
It was the closest thing to emotion I’d seen in him since we’d met. Even killing my attacker hadn’t caused this much of a reaction.
Hunt held out his hand. “Pleasure to have you on our team, Nate. I’d like to thank you for protecting Virgin last night and apologise for the–”
“Protect me?” The words exploded out of my mouth as Sixkiller accepted his handshake.
Both men froze. Hunt uncomfortable, Sixkiller with curiosity.
“Now, Virgin–” Bull began.
But I wasn’t going to let him get going on one of his monologues.
“For the record, I don’t need nor will ever need protecting. I would have dealt with it myself. More importantly, though, why did it happen? This guy wasn’t a random burglar, Bull. Have the cops identified him yet?”
“We expect a briefing from the police today. Until then, let’s put this conversation on ice and discuss yesterday’s body… in the park.”
I frowned and glanced at Sixkiller, whose attentive, aloof expression had settled back into place.
“Nate is now one of our rangers, so he should hear what’s going on,” added Hunt.
Reluctantly, I recounted my version of last evening in the Park, leaving out the fact that the second guy appeared to turn into a crow that attacked me and then disappeared. I left it at two g
uys, one who killed the other then got away.
Hunt interrupted me here and there to clarify a few points. I knew he was recording our conversation; Hunt was the king of recording information. It’s what helped him keep his butt so firmly on the eco-fence.
“And you’ve got no idea where the second person went and how they both got missed in the sweep?”
“None. Totes had done the sat scan, and I’d finished my visual rounds. The head count checked out – bodies in, bodies out. They shouldn’t have been in there, Bull, unless–”
“Unless they’d been in there for a while,” Hunt finished my sentence for me.
I nodded at the only explanation. “It’s possible, I guess. We changed over sat systems a month ago. They could have slipped in then. But that doesn’t make sense. How could they have survived and stayed off our radar? And why do that, anyway? Unless they got dropped in last night on closing.”
“You know that can’t happen.”
I did. It was part of the reason you couldn’t see the park properly even from Hunt’s window. The company’s technology division had devised a security filter that distorted the aerial view and restricted access to the park from above. No one could land a helicopter or plane in there on account of the electromagnetic field in operation. Top-level park security could switch the field off but not without a whole set of checks and balances. And Totes had clearance to do it to allow Emergency Services in. That was it.
Hunt ran his large meaty hand over his bald pate. I was fond of my boss, but he ticked me off when he started playing politics.
Right now, though, he was batting for me. I could tell.
“The carrion crew is in there with the police. Cops’ll want to interview you about it, Virgin. Why don’t you take Nate out on your rounds and be back here by mid-afternoon? I’ll keep them at bay until then. We need some answers. An unexplained death in the Park will play havoc with tourist numbers… If there’s even a whiff of murder...” Hunt drew his finger slowly across his throat in a dramatic gesture. “Visitors want to feel exposed to the elements in there but safe. Murder, Virgin, is not safe!”
FIVE
Sixkiller and I took the lift to the basement and walked the company subway beneath the ring road to the Park side, climbing the stairs to the stables entrance.
Totes was at his command post in the stall next to Benny and gave us a wave.
Calling Totes’ cubicle a stall was a joke, really. Other than having the same basic configuration of the horse stalls, and the odd bit of straw that strayed in, there was no comparison.
Totes had some unidentifiably advanced geek gear going on in his nook: all dust-, vibration- and motion-proof. And mobile. If things got short-staffed, he could slide the whole desk console out into the doorway and watch the gate and the stables. If he needed quiet, he could shut the sliding bombproof door and forget the real world.
Usually, he and I shared a heart-starting coffee, but today I was too pissed with him, and anxious as hell to get out it in the park before the cops tied me up in interviews.
Totes had other things on his mind, too. “Virgin?”
“What?”
“Leecey’s not here.”
“Where is she?” I asked, looking around for our overly body-pierced stable hand.
“She’s gone with the carrion crew and the cops to the morgue.”
“Was it the eyelid studs?”
“Yeah. The cops took one look at her and decided she should go along for the ride and answer some questions, even though she was on a day off yesterday.”
I sighed. Prejudice was stupid in so many ways. If anyone in the company could murder someone and leave no clues, it was Totes. But he looked so white-collar respectable and incapable of violence that no one would give him a second look. Leecey, on the other hand, was a punk throwback who favoured body art over clothes, perfect suspected-criminal fodder.
“I’m taking the Marshal on rounds. Back at the usual time.”
“Hi, Mr… er… Marshal,” said Totes a little nervously.
Sixkiller had done a circuit of the stables and had returned to stand at my side. “Is the horse in the last stable spoken for?”
“If you mean is he engaged to be married, not that anyone’s told me,” I said with a straight face.
“I’d like to take him.”
Totes shook his head. “Uh-uh. Sorry, man. He’s being shipped back to the trainer.”
I squared up on Sixkiller. “He’s dangerous. Threw me onto a pile of rocks and tried to stomp me. Chemical neutering failed big time.” Sombre Vol didn’t seem to understand he was supposed to have lost his man potency.
“May I?”He pointed to the tack room.
I looked at Totes and we both shrugged. Just what I needed, a guy that had to prove he could ride.
“You insured? I don’t want Bull all over me with Workplace Safety,” I said.
He ignored me and proceeded to gather a bridle and saddle in his arms. As he disappeared into #137 Geld’s (Sombre Vol was the name we’d given the wild horse) stall, I grabbed Benny’s lead and walked her out toward the gate.
The horses whinnied at each other and Benny flicked her tail. She rather fancied Vol.
I left the gates open and went through, not waiting for Sixkiller, seeking a few moments to myself in the Park.
Summer was no longer just hinting its arrival. The sun burned the sand already, causing me to blink away the reflected heat and light. From across to the palm line to where I stood was a mess of boot indentations and drag marks. The carrion crew wasn’t allowed to bring a vehicle into the park, and they’d had to carry the body out by foot.
I mounted up and walked Benny across to the palms. In the daylight, my experience with the crow seemed so impossible that I wondered if I’d imagined it.
Maybe Aquila being back meant I was having a breakdown of some kind?
A whoop in my earbud caused me to wince. The shout was from Totes, but the action was all Sixkiller and Sombre Vol as they burst through the stable gate into the park.
Vol was a magnificent young horse, a burning red chestnut with an untamed temperament to match. I was commonly accepted as the best rider among the rangers, and even I was no match for this wild bastard.
Sixkiller, on the other hand, was a picture of calm as Vol tried to rid himself of the pesky rider. The cowboy didn’t hold the reins but gripped the pommel like a rodeo rider, letting the horse have its head. With powerful, angry bucks, Vol sprang around the trough area on stiff legs, squealing with annoyance.
When the first of the horse’s rage was spent, he barrelled over to Benny and ran circles around her, urging her out into the open country away from the palms and the murder site, past the windmill, giving Sixkiller and Vol room to move.
A short distance away, the tourist bus entry was a mere black outline in the graphene-reinforced Park walls.
To the north and west, though, aside from the buttes, there was only spinifex and dirt for as far as you could see. Vol sniffed freedom and went for it, galloping away. I followed at a canter, wondering at what point the cowboy would part company from the horse.
Benny kicked up dust and I settled in to enjoy the rhythm of her movement. Somehow, the graphene walls managed to extract the worst of the city smog, but it couldn’t control the temperature, and by the time I caught up with the runaway and her rider, I was sweating hard.
Sixkiller was still upright on the heaving horse, leaning forward, patting his side, talking to him. Vol seemed to be listening, ears flicking back as he drooled into the sand. The horse would need a drink before we went much further.
Vol had run the Marshal out almost to the eastern butte, an unexpected granite outcrop shaped like upright fingers in amongst the iron stone. The other rangers called it sandhenge but I thought of it as Big Hand. Its official name on the park map name was Los Tribos.
The shadows from the rocks told me it was only about 8am.We had plenty of time to ride the local grid and be back by lun
chtime. I pointed Sixkiller to the rock shadows.
“There’s a trough over there. Best give him a drink.” If he was expecting admiration for riding the wild horse, then he’d picked the wrong person. I didn’t do performances.
I nudged Benny towards Los Tribos. When we reached the trough, I dismounted, leaving her to drink. She was trained not to wander, so I took the opportunity to walk among the rocky fingers. Other than some subtle erosion and the shifting levels of sand at its base, the Hand changed little. Not like other places in the park, which, like a beach, altered with the weather conditions.
Normally, I used the largest rock protrusion – the index finger–as my scouting post, but today, I climbed the middle finger because if offered a better view in the direction I’d left Sixkiller and Sombre Vol. It was hard going, with dry moss making the granite slippery. Halfway up, I stopped for a breather and to clear the flies from my face with a spray of repellent from my hip bag.
From what I could see in the distance, Sombre Vol had come to a standstill, head down, refusing to move, and Sixkiller had dismounted.
A smirk found my lips. He might have stayed on Vol’s back, but what now, Mr Fancy Cowboy? Horses could be as stubborn as they could be wild.
I leaned back against the rock face, indulging in a flash of childish satisfaction while I swatted flies. But as I moved position, something sharp stuck into my hip, distracting me from the moment of satisfaction. Thinking it a loose rock, I reached around to brush it away, and my fingers connected something smooth.
I grasped hold of it and pulled it from its hiding place so I could see. It was a square black box with a dirty crystal lens.
“What the…?”
I twisted and slotted it gently back into the resting place that had been carved for it.
Getting my body totally turned around took a few minutes of careful maneuvering. When I was finally facing the rock, I studied the cavity the box had come from and the area around it. No doubt it was deliberately carved to fit. A camera of some kind, I thought, but nothing I recognized.
Peacemaker Page 3
