“If you bite me again or do the head-whip,” I warned, “I’m going to squeeze until you’re unconscious.”
Rita panted in my arms, and I could feel her hatred. I could feel her desire to kill me.
“I can ask the questions while holding you, or I can let you go and we can sit down like adults. If you come at me again, I’m going to play rough.”
Rita snarled, tried another head-whip and struggled furiously.
Sometimes it pays to follow through with a threat. This was going to be one of those times. I squeezed. She struggled furiously, making grunting noises, and soon enough she slumped, losing consciousness.
I carried her to the living room and laid her on the sofa. Then I shut off the TV and wondered what I should do next. Rita struck me as a fanatic, which only made sense, as she was Mike Stone’s playmate.
I went to the kitchen, lay on my stomach and retrieved the silver pistol. It was heavier than it looked. I popped the clip and extracted a bullet. It was much too heavy. I wondered if the bullet was made of high density depleted uranium. Certain tank shells were made of that, a nasty piece of business.
I extracted all the bullets, shoved the clip back into the gun and set it one the living room table, right next to a stack of varnished coasters.
Rita made small noises in the back of her throat. Her eyelids fluttered and her head jerked upright.
“Relax,” I said.
Rita sat upright too fast and she almost fainted. She held her head low, and she must have spied the silver gun on the table. She didn’t say a word, just grabbed it, raised and clicked seven times before she realized it was empty. Her scowl was eloquent. She weighed the gun in her hands and I suppose she wondered about hurling it at my head. Finally, she set it back on the table.
“You lied,” she said in a harsh voice. “You said you weren’t going to get up off the chair.”
If I’d thought she was making a joke, I would have smiled. But I realized that Rita was an unimaginative literalist.
“What are you on?” I asked.
She sneered, which meant I wasn’t going to learn anything that way.
“I’d think a person pumped full of silicon nanoparticle chips would have a better sense of humor,” I said.
She told me where I could go.
“How many injections did you have to take?” I asked.
Her lips compressed as a mulish look hardened her features.
“Did Stone tell you to shock me?” I asked.
Her sullen hostility built with each question.
I took a bullet from my coat pocket. “What are these made of, depleted uranium?” Like hardening cement, her features took on a fixed cast. I pocketed the bullet. “I bet the cops would be interested in what you people load your guns with. You must have broken several State and Federal laws with them.”
“The phone’s in the kitchen,” she said.
“Feeling better, eh?”
Again, she told me where I could go.
“I’m here to find Kay’s killer. Do you happen to know who did it?”
“There was no killer,” Rita said, “unless you’re talking about the laundry truck driver. It was a traffic accident.”
It was such a bald-faced lie on her part that it shocked me. “Why did you kill her?”
Rita shook her head.
“Who did it, Stone?”
Rita laughed harshly. “They said you were smart and tricky. The only true thing they said was that you never quit.”
“You fight pretty good for a girl,” I said.
Rita sneered. “If you weren’t accelerated, I would have trashed you.”
“Let me give you a piece of advice, “I said. “Whenever you fib, your eyes light up and I think about bending you over a table.”
She shot to her feet. I stood up just as fast and pushed her back onto the sofa. I stayed standing.
“It’s round two,” I said. “And I’m tired of being a gentleman. So I’m only going to give you one more chance. Or…” I decided on a different tactic. “Did you hate Kay?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But Rita dropped her gaze.
“Did Stone lust after her?”
Rita ground her molars together so the muscles hinging her jaws bulged. “You ask a lot of stupid questions.”
“Maybe it’s because I talk to a lot of stupid people.”
Rita’s sneer was almost a snarl as she glared at me. “You wait. Next time we’ll put you on the stretcher. Doctor Cheng won’t be there to rescue you, either. Then Mike will let me do the questioning. You’re going to scream for me, and you’re going to wish you’d never invaded my house.”
“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re beautiful when you say such savage things?”
“When I’m done with the neural whip,” she hissed, “I’ll castrate you and make you eat your—”
“Hey, easy,” I said, holding up my hands. “Lighten up.”
“Are you frightened?”
“Trembling.”
“No one touches me and gets away with it.”
I sat down and idly toyed with the silver gun. “Who picked up Kay’s corpse from the morgue?”
She shook her head.
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“It means these are the last words you’re hearing from me.”
I leaned back. Maybe it was time to let her escape and see what she did. I stood, put the silver gun in my waistband and began to pace in front of the living room table.
“You don’t strike me as someone who makes idle threats,” I said. “This idea of your strapping me to a table at Polarity Magnetics—maybe I should just take you out now. That way I don’t have to worry about you getting revenge. What do you think about that?”
Rita stared at me.
“I think I’ll hug you to death. First, I’ll rip off all your clothes, though. Yeah, and before I kill you we’ll get to know each other better. If you’re really good—”
She screamed, hurling a sofa pillow at me. Then she was up, moving fast. I made a half-hearted grab at her. She broke free, dashed for the kitchen and then went out the back door. I sped up. Was she going to the garage? No, she ran to the front yard.
I hadn’t thought she would want to attract attention, not with depleted uranium bullets I could bring to the Fed’s notice. But Rita didn’t start screaming, as I’d feared. Instead, she sprinted for her hybrid.
I paused. If she fled, that would give me a chance to do a quick search of the house. She might have a cell phone in her car, however. If I was lucky, she might have to drive awhile before reaching Stone.
I took the gamble and let her go. She dove into the hybrid and zoomed away, looking back to see if I’d come running.
I gave myself seven minutes.
***
I took ten and found a clue, one I hadn’t expected. It was in the garage. It was big and heavy, with tires that could withstand bullets. It had plate-armored windows and extra-thick steel armor siding.
It was a Mercedes Benz, an armored vehicle. It was the limo that Juan Ortega had seen.
I jimmied a lock and searched the car. There was dried blood under a carpet in the back. I found a lock of long hair stuck to a bolt at the back bottom of the front seat. I’d seen strands of Kay’s red hair before. This was hers. I had no doubt that a savage struggle had taken place here. Then her killer or killers had parked the car and hurled her at Dan Lee’s laundry truck.
Whoever had killed her had tried to hide the evidence. They’d done a less than thorough job.
Did Rita own the car? Had she killed Kay? Or had it been Mike Stone and her, Stone driving while Rita outfought Kay? No wonder Rita had been so uncooperative. My threats—
Even hardened criminals have a guilty conscience, if only about being caught. Rita must have been wondering the entire time if I knew about her part in the murder.
I climbed out of the car, wiped off my prints and locked the door. It was dusk and would s
oon be dark.
As I called Ed in Frisco to get a run on the license, I knew that tonight I’d have to break into Polarity Magnetics. I was going to have one more talk with Rita and with Stone. Had Doctor Cheng been in on the murder? I was going to find out.
-21-
One of the truisms they taught us in the Green Berets was that no battle plan survived contact with the enemy. The enemy reacted to your plan and you reacted to their reaction. There was also a thing called friction. Like Murphy’s Law. It could be a thousand different occurrences: a flat tire, a dead battery for your cell, the flu bug hitting you, misinformation or a wrong turn. Each of those hurt a battle plan, causing friction that either slowed down the plan or derailed it.
I hit friction almost right away.
I sat in a coffee shop on Dells Lane, eight blocks from Polarity Magnetics. I’d left a message in Ed’s voicemail. For some reason, no one had picked up at Lamplight Investigations. That was more than strange—to me it indicated Shop interference. It was the reason I was sitting here instead of heading straight for Polarity Magnetics.
The coffee shop had big art pieces—paintings—hanging from the walls. It was from local talent, I suspected. It showed surfer scenes in almost photographic likeness. There were young and old in the coffee shop, a good crowd and many exuberant conversations. The drive-through window looked busy as a cute waitress with a stunning rear handed out orders.
My cell buzzed. I took it out and said, “Hello?”
“This is the last time I’m taking your call,” Ed said. “You’ve become radioactive.”
Radioactive was our code word for eavesdroppers on the line. Ed must have detected something. It had to be the Shop, which meant I’d guessed right.
“Okay,” I said.
“The limo belongs to a company in Texas: a supplier of nanotech processors. The parent company is headquartered in Argentina.”
“You couldn’t find any names?” I asked.
“Not yet, and I’m done looking. Got it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Keep your nose clean.” Then Ed hung up.
I put my cell on the chair next to me and got up, leaving my coffee and donut on the table. I strode out a side entrance, crossing the parking lot to the street. I glanced both ways and darted across, soon stepping onto a lawn and then moving into the darkness beside a Rico’s Pizza, which was in the Dells Lane Shopping Center.
Ed had answered part of my question, the one I’d left in his voicemail. Who owned the armored Mercedes Benz? I didn’t have names yet. And except for Argentina, it sounded like a Polarity Magnetics vehicle.
I didn’t have long to wait as I hid in the darkness of the pizza place.
A tan van stopped on the street near the coffee shop. I couldn’t see a side door open, but soon I spied the Shop assassin with slicked-back hair and his partner. They moved toward the back of the coffee shop, and they had PDW pistols in their hands.
At almost the same time, I saw Shop snipers on top of the tattoo parlor across the parking lot of the coffee shop. There were four of them, two with rifles and two spotters.
The assassins were flanking one side, the snipers were up there watching the other side. I assumed there were more Euro personnel on the coffee shop’s side I couldn’t see. That left my side.
I saw a Cadillac limousine coming down the street. Instead of heading into the coffee shop’s lot, it turned into the Dells Lane Shopping Center. It parked near the pizza place, and Jagiello got out. He pulled out a long rifle from the limo and shouldered a power pack. There was a line attached to the pack that ran to the rifle. I was willing to bet it was the laser weapon the Chief had boasted about in San Francisco.
Jagiello put one knee on the blacktop, lifting the laser, tucking the butt against his shoulder. Through a scope, he aimed at the coffee shop.
There was a whirr of sound as the Chief lowered his window. He poked out night vision binoculars.
Seeing Jagiello kneeling on the blacktop surprised me. Seeing the Chief here on a hit surprised me even more.
The lighted stores in the shopping center were behind them to the north. The limo and Jagiello were in a darkened and comparatively lonely area of the big parking area. Still, a kid on his bike or a woman in her car could show up at any moment, compromising them. They must want me pretty badly.
“I’m ready,” Jagiello told the Chief, as he continued to peer through his scope.
“I don’t see him,” the Chief whispered. “He must be in the restroom.”
I moved then, using the darkness and deep shadows. I crossed the distance between the pizza shop and the limo. Jagiello must have heard something. He lowered the rifle, and his eyes widened as he saw me. Then the butt of my borrowed gun smashed against his forehead. He dropped onto the blacktop and his laser rifle clattered.
The Chief lowered his night vision binoculars, but he was far too late. I opened his door, grabbed his suit and yanked him outside with me.
“We’re taking a walk,” I said, propelling him from the limo.
The little man with the wire-rim glasses and reptilian eyes gave away nothing. His features were as expressionless as an ancient Roman bust. He never even looked at Jagiello.
“You are making a mistake, Herr Kiel.”
“By letting Jagiello live?” I asked. “You’re probably right. Now keep walking.”
He straightened his suit and began walking toward a sidewalk that led to an auto part’s store. He glanced at me, at the gun in my hand. Then he began to talk: “I wish the Director had listened to me years ago. We should have liquidated everyone involved in the collider incident. You are arrogant technological freaks. Your mere presence goads others into reckless experimentation.”
“You’re fixing old mistakes, is that it?” I asked.
“You had sanctuary until now, Herr Kiel. I had orders concerning you, instructing me to let you live. But that was before you started killing my people. You have finally overstepped yourself.”
“I don’t see how I had much choice in the killing, as I defended myself. Shop snipers ringed Neil’s Grill. Several even shot at me as I stood in the doorway. When I confronted one of your teams, the spotter went for his gun. I shot him in self-defense.”
“There is no need to lie to me. You have hunted my men, slain those near the marina watching your boats.”
“Harris killed those three, not me.”
“Words,” the Chief said.
“I can prove it. Harris sliced them into neat little packages, storing them inside his freezer on his yacht.”
The Chief shook his head. “You surprise me, and act as if I’m ignorant. It is an insult.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Doctor Harris and you have been working together from the beginning.”
“How did you reach that conclusion?” I asked.
“His men aided you in San Francisco.”
“Wrong!” I said. “His men boarded my boat in San Francisco. I was forced to kill them: another act of self-defense.”
The Chief shook his head. “How do you think Kay Durant was able to reach your vessel? Because my operatives died, the ones I’d sent to intercept her.”
“You’re saying Harris’s men did that?”
“Last night, I finally received permission to capture or kill Doctor Harris. Who then did I find with him, developing their plans together?”
“If you mean Neil’s Grill,” I said, “that was the first time I’ve seen or spoken with Harris since the accident.”
“Is that why you aided his escape?”
“Harris didn’t escape. He just got up and left.”
“You killed my agent in the bar,” the Chief said. “Then you killed one of my commandos outside. No, Herr Kiel, the facts align perfectly. If you are not confederates, why did you bring your boats together in the marina here? Why did you murder my operatives watching the boats? I have warned the Director and the proctors on th
e board that sooner or later you ‘accelerated’ would begin to cooperate against the rest of us. Now at last the restrictions have been lifted.”
“What restrictions?” I asked. “You’ve hunted me for years.”
“I’ve done nothing of the kind.”
“Who sent the hit teams after me then? The ones that struck in Manila in the Philippines, in Bangkok and Johannesburg?”
“Clearly, the Shop did not make these attempts. Otherwise, you would be dead. If this is true, however, that others hunt you, it cheers to me to realize that these others understand the danger your kind represents.”
If the Shop hadn’t been hunting me, who had? “We don’t represent any danger,” I said. “You’re the danger.”
“You are an ignorant man, Herr Kiel. And I use the term man loosely. In truth, you are a hormagaunt, a soulless simulacrum. You should have remained in your American Army where you belonged.”
“You’re the one who came to me, remember? You taught me what I know, and this little operation you just tried to pull tonight, it was sloppy in the extreme.”
He stopped and faced me. “I will bargain with you. Give me the coordinates to the cube and I will allow you to live as long as you sink back into obscurity and keep yourself hidden.”
“What does the cube do?” I asked. “Why is it so important?”
His nostrils flared the barest fraction. “You may drop the pretense. You are well aware of its potential.”
“Why don’t you humor me? Pretend that you’re wrong about me, that Harris and I are enemies instead of partners in villainy.”
“You have the gun. Why lie to me now? I do not fathom your motives.”
“That’s because you can’t conceive of yourself as being wrong. I’m also beginning to think that hatred has blinded you.”
He frowned. I don’t think he liked the idea. “The cube is a dangerous device. It must never be used by anyone.”
“Then console yourself by knowing it will stay right where it is.”
“That is incorrect, as you are about to relay to me the coordinates.”
I glanced around, but couldn’t spot any of his operatives attempting to rush us. If nothing else, he was a nervy bastard. “What does it do?”
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