The screen lit up with the image of Jocasta Yzerman. Her hair shone like burnished copper, set off perfectly by her ivory jacket and jade-green eye make-up. She looked like a million nuyen. Her brow furrowed as she stared into what I knew was a blank screen. I hurriedly cut in ray video pickup, and she looked relieved. "Mr. Montgomery," she said formally. "Call me Derek," I suggested. "Or Dirk." She hesitated. I could see her trying to decide between being too informal or too rude. She solved the problem by doing neither. "Have you found out anything?"
My turn to hesitate. William Sutcliffe's name was a lead, but I didn't know if it would pan out. "Not really," I told her. She clouded up instantly. An impatient woman, Ms. Yzerman. "I'm checking out some possibilities." I added quickly.
But she wasn't listening. "I've got something," she said irritably. "But I don't know if I should bother telling you."
Great. I ground my teeth, but kept my voice disinterested. "Your call. If you want to run with it alone,"
I said with a shrug, "tell me where to send flowers."
She bit her lip. I could tell she'd shaken off the shock of the bombing as fast as she'd shaken off Lolly's death, and she was ice-cold in control of herself. She didn't want me involved: didn't trust me and she didn't like me (there's no accounting for taste). On the other hand, she needed help. Otherwise she wouldn't have called in the first place. I forced myself to keep still and waited her out. Finally the hard line of her body relented. "Somebody's been trying to reach me," she began. "I don't know who, but he's been leaving messages all over-"
"Where?" I cut in.
She shrugged. "At work, at the university. Don't worry," she snapped. "I haven't been there. I retrieved the messages remotely. I'm not that dumb."
I was about to tell her about the various trace routines you pick up at just about any deckers' hangout, then remembered she was in the communications biz, if only peripherally. Maybe she had done it right after all "Okay," I allowed. "Go-on."
"He wants to meet with me," she continued. "He said he knows what Lolita was working on before she was killed. He says he's got a copy of the tap record." A copy of the tap Lolly was "washing"? That would give us a lot of background, if it wasn't a set-up . . which it was, of course. "So he set a time and a nice safe place for the meet, right?" I said sarcastically.
"Yo, drekhead," she snapped back. "I said I never talked to him, and he didn't say anything about a meet I'm supposed to phone him tonight so we can discuss it."
Now that made me sit up and take notice. "He left at LTG number?"
"If I'm supposed to call him, he'd have to, wouldn't be?"
I ignored the sarcasm in her voice. "Give it to me." She thought about it for a moment, then yielded. I opened a data window on the telecom and keyed in the digits as she recited them. She opened her mouth to say something else, but I cut her off. "Give me a few ticks." I put her on hold and expanded the data window to fill the screen. This could be something big. I fired up one of my grossly illegal search utilities and fed in the LTG number. The utility chewed on it for ten seconds, then spat up a wad of text onto my screen. "Paydata!" I crowed. I stashed my find in memory, and brought Jocasta back from electronic limbo.
"Okay," I told her briskly. "I'm going to meet with your mysterious benefactor. What time are you supposed to call him?"
"Midnight," she said. "But I told you, we haven't set up a meet-"
"He doesn't think so," I gloated, and stuffed the data my search routine had retrieved down the line to Jocasta's telecom. "See that address? The LTG number he gave you is for a hard-wired phone, and that's where it's jacked into the wall. At midnight tonight, there's a good chance your nameless friend's going to be sitting at that phone waiting for you to call. And I'll be paying him a visit." Her gaze was steady. Those gray eyes showed some grudging approval, but they showed steel-hard determination as well. I knew what she was going to say before she opened her mouth. "We'll be paying him a visit," she said flatly. "It was my sister who was killed."
And it's my neck that's on the block for it, I wanted to shoot back. But I'd already decided to let her win this one. If she wanted to put her shapely body at risk, so be it. I wasn't responsible for her safety. On the other hand, if tonight's phone call was intended to lead Jocasta into a trap-which I figured was close to a certainty-then our surprise party was a reversal of that trap, and it made sense to bring along an extra body and an extra gun. So, "Okay, omae," I told her. "You're coming. Where do I pick you up?"
She shook her head. "We'll take my car. Somebody might have seen yours outside my place in Tacoma."
I blinked. "You've got a car?" . "Of course. I didn't take it when ... on that first night . . ."-When I came to kill you, is what she meant-"so nobody could trace me."
So you took a cab instead, I thought. Real smart, Jocasta. I didn't let any of that show on my face, of course. I just nodded agreeably. "You drive, then. Pick me up at the Redmond Center Mall at twenty-three fifteen. I'll be wearing a white carnation."
She snorted. Humor-impaired, I decided. "Where are we going?" she asked.
I grinned. "Downtown."
I let myself sink into the upholstery of the passenger seat, and smiled. I'd been playing guess-the-car with myself while waiting, and felt smug that I'd pegged it right on. Jocasta drove a Hyundai-AMC Harmony, a good entry-level exec luxury car. I'd blown out on the color, though. I'd figured a stolid corporate black, not candy-apple red. Maybe there was some spark to Jocasta's personality that I hadn't seen yet. Or maybe it was just that the red model was on sale.
Jocasta herself was wearing another slate-gray tailored suit in synthleather, accessorized in brushed steel and hematite, and she looked like something out of Corporate Woman magazine. Her matching purse was at my feet, and I'd already confirmed that her Colt America L36-the laser-sighted pistol with which I'd become personally acquainted-was inside.
My own garb was a marked contrast to hers: a black "business suit" consisting of close-fitting roll-neck shirt and black pants that could almost qualify as tights, topped with my trusty duster. The only accessory I carried was my Colt Manhunter, and it wasn't color-coordinated with the rest of my outfit, so sorry. As she pulled to a stop to let me in, I noted Jocasta's look of distaste. Well, okay, sure, I looked like some piece of street drek the rat dragged in. But my duster could stop a round that would core Jocasta front-to-back, and I was also fragging sure that jangling jewelry wouldn't give me away or get caught in a door or some other such drek.
I'd told Jocasta we were going downtown, so she'd immediately navigated us onto Route 520 heading west. Now she glanced over at me and asked, "Where are we going?"
"Deepest darkest downtown," I told her. "Westlake Center. Suite 4210."
The traffic was almost nonexistent as we hummed over the floating bridge and into the sky-raking lights of central Seattle. Jocasta knew downtown, I was glad to see, so I didn't have to direct her onto the fastest routes. We followed I-5 south, then swung off the freeway and cruised along Fifth Avenue toward Seattle Center.
Westlake Center has been around for over sixty years, but it's undergone some significant changes during that time. When it was built in the late 1980s, it replaced the old south terminus of the monorail line.
(This was back when the monorail ran only from the corner of Westlake Avenue and Olive Way to Seattle Center and back, before being extended into the circle route it is today.) It was originally a three-story shopping complex, with the monorail terminal incorporated into its upper floor.
Things have changed since then. At about the same time that the monorail route was extended and the obsolete Alweg wheel-driven monorail replaced by state-of-the-art maglev technology, some developer realized how inefficient was the use of space at Westlake Center. Only three stories? In downtown Seattle? Give me a fragging break. And that's when Westlake Tower began its rise into the smoggy sky.
With the newly renovated Westlake Center as its base, the Tower became a sixty-story magnet for members
of the mid-to-upper corporate executive strata. For a yuk, I dressed up in my best and showed up at the rental office when the Tower first opened. They wouldn't even let me in to see the show suite unless I could prove my credstick had the credit balance to make it worth their while-which I declined to do, of course. As I was leaving, though, I heard some bona fide customers yakking about the rates. A small suite on the fourth floor-the one right above the monorail station and obviously in the low-rent district-was renting for thirty-K nuyen per month. Jocasta's mysterious "benefactor" was on the forty-second floor, high enough to have a view, and no doubt also with a rent high enough to bankrupt many a small company. Kinda makes you think, doesn't it?
Jocasta tooled her Symphony around onto Stewart Street and down into the parking lot underneath the Tower. The security guard looked into the car, his face showing some doubt when he scanned me. But he opened the gate and let us head down. Jocasta and I exchanged a quick grin over the guard's geeky-looking black gloves and Zorro-style hat, but my amusement was tempered by the word on Westlake Center security. Death on two legs, is what I'd heard, dorky outfit notwithstanding. And those effete black gloves were actually shock-gloves with enough juice to make even a troll lose interest in the proceedings.
It was a little after 2330 hours, and all the stores in the Center above would be closed. Some of the restaurants and the brew-pub called Noggins would be open for another hour or two yet, and a number of cars were still in the transient parking levels. (The residents' cars were, I knew, nice and secure a couple of levels down.) Jocasta followed the glowing signs reading Elevator To Westlake Tower Lobby, and parked as near to the elevator block as she could.
She killed the engine. "We're here," she said, "but how are we going to get upstairs? There's got to be security in the lobby."
I smiled to cover the fact that I didn't have the answer ... yet. I was pretty confident we'd somehow find a way past any kind of security. Maybe it's my air of childlike innocence (like drek). "Trust me," I said ingenuously. She didn't even dignify that with a snort of derision.
We were out of the car and Jocasta was just setting the alarm when I first heard it: the explosive roar of large-bike engines, ricocheting around the concrete confines of the underground lot. Multiple engines, which didn't make me feel particularly comfortable. A full-on go-gang wouldn't waste their time cruising Westlake Center's underground lot, but I wasn't in the mood to deal with even some wannabes. I grabbed Jocasta's right elbow and hustled her toward the elevator block.
We didn't make it in time. The big blocks were still concussing their way closer when the first of the bikes glided to a stop in front of us. With the noise of the hogs in my ears, there was no way I could have heard this bike. It was one of the newest-generation Japanese crotch-rockets, driven by a turbine engine that even when cracked wide open didn't get much louder than an electric fan. The bike looked fast and mean and had a rider to match.
He was the classic elf phenotype-tall and slender, high cheekbones, slightly pointed ears-and wore mahogany leathers a shade lighter than his skin. Around his right wrist was some kind of bulky bracelet. I didn't recognize it, but it looked vaguely familiar. His tight curls were cropped short, forming a red-dyed skullcap. When he grinned at us, at first I didn't get why he seemed to radiate such a palpable sense of menace . . . then I saw that his teeth had been filed to sharp points. Charming gentleman. I tried to spot the colors on the back of his jacket, but his stance hid it from view.
The rider released the throttle and flexed his hand as if to work cramps out of his fingers. The razor-studs on his fingerless gloves caught the light perfectly. It was almost theatrical, but I was feeling a little too overly stressed to enjoy his performance.
"Good evening, worthies," the elf said in a voice like velvet. "Going upstairs, are we? Well, perhaps you'd like to, er, chat with my friends and me before you depart." On cue, the other bikes arrived. Three of them, two Harley hogs and another quiet rice-rocket. The hog-riders were human, the guy on the Suzuki Aurora was an ork running for troll. All three wore the same mahogany leathers as their leader. The roar of the harleys was a physical pain in my ears and a thudding concussion in my chest. When one of the hog-riders revved his engine just for the frag of it, I felt Jocasta flinch beside me. My ears rang like gongs.
The leader was talking again. At least, his mouth was moving, but I couldn't hear word one over the blast still echoing around the confined area. I shook my head to clear it...
And my gaze fell on the ork riding the Aurora. He had something cupped in the palm of his hand, and his eyes flicked back and forth between he and us. Then he nodded almost imperceptibly to the leader.
Fear was suddenly in my belly, like a ball of dirty ice. Even though I couldn't see it, I knew what the ork had in his hand: a holo of one or both of us. Setup!
With all my strength, I shoved Jocasta to her left, between two parked cars, then flung myself after her. As I did, I saw the elfs machine pistol clearing his holster. Time seemed to kick into overdrive, and everything suddenly seemed to move at a slow crawl. I saw the machine pistol barrel coming up, saw the elf clamp down on the trigger. The first rounds spattered off the floor as he let the recoil drag the barrel up toward me.
Then I was behind the car, slamming into Jocasta, bringing us both to the ground. Bullets tore into the car's bodywork, but none penetrated. I grabbed Jocasta and scrabbled my way under the next car in line, dragging her after me. Her eyes were wide and her face pale, but she seemed to be holding it together. I judged that she wasn't likely to fall apart and get us both geeked. Then came an echoing concussion that I felt down to my bones, and the first car that had sheltered us depreciated in resale value somewhat drastically. One of the bikers was packing heavy ordnance or-pray it wasn't true-was magically active.
Well, one thing at a time. While fragments of car were still rattling to the ground, covering the sound of our movements, I dragged Jocasta another car down and one car over. The tactical decision was simple: put as much distance-and heavy metal-between as and the bikers as fast as possible.
Of course, the bikers knew that just as well as I did, and they had the edge when it came to speed.
The advantage was with us only so long as we could keep between or under the parked cars, where they couldn't easily follow. Unfortunately, that meant we were more or less pinned down. The double row of cars we were sheltering among was maybe twenty cars long, but we'd be cut down as soon as we left their cover, to head for the elevator, for example, or to cut across to Jocasta's car, which was in another row. I had to find a way of evening things up a bit. Darkness, maybe. I looked up, considering shooting out the overhead lights. But there were too many of them, I saw immediately. I didn't have enough ammunition to get them all, and the bikers wouldn't give me enough time. As soon as I revealed our location, they'd be on us.
The concrete space echoed with engine noise. The bikes were moving, no doubt splitting up to flank or surround us. I let go of Jocasta and drew my pistol, thumbing off the safety. The two-and-a-quarter kilos of heavy metal were reassuring in my hand. I clutched the weapon like a talisman and rose to a crouch, ready to sneak a quick peek over the hood of the car beside me. The bikes were moving, and the noise gave me some clue as to their disposition. But the echoes were deceptive enough that I had to check by eye. I gripped my pistol tighter and psyched myself up.
Just as I started to raise my head, I caught a flash of movement out the corner of my eye. I turned.
It was the ork on his turbine-driven Aurora. With the Harley hogs revving their engines, I could never have heard his approach, which, of course, was exactly what the ork had counted on. He was grinning nastily, one hand on his bike's throttle, the other cocked back as though ready to throw a baseball. But that wasn't a baseball in his hand. It was a ball of twisting, glowing energy, some kind of spell, and he was all ready to hurl it at us. I spun as fast as I could, bringing my big Man-hunter around to bear. My time sense was still in turbo mod
e, so I had plenty of time to see the ork's filthy grin get even wider. We both knew I wasn't going to make it. His muscles tensed as he prepared to throw the spell.
And that's when the tiny spot of red blinked on between this eyes. His eyes widened as a neat hole punched itself into his brow and his head snapped back. The spell-whatever it was-discharged, rocketing up and away, then glancing back down off the low ceiling to explode a car two rows over. Ork plus bike toppled over and landed with a thud.
I looked down at Jocasta. She still had her Colt America lined up on where the ork's face had been, her finger on the trigger with enough pressure to keep the sighting laser burning. She was rock-steady, as if carved out of marble. Then I saw her hand begin to shake. The pistol wavered and the laser cut out. I grabbed her shoulder, felt her jump from my touch. She looked at me, her eyes dazed. I knew what was going on in her mind. First kill: she was comfortable with her weapon, and she was probably a hot damn at blowing away targets on the pistol range. But she'd never shot anything that was alive, had never seen up close and personal what her little pistol could do to flesh and bone. I squeezed her shoulder and gave her my best reassuring, frag-the-world smile, all the time railing mentally at her to shake it off and get with the program. I was much relieved when her lips curled in the faintest of smiles. "Stay here," I said, then moved forward in a knee-cracking duck walk, keeping my head below the level of the car.
I moved over one car and popped my head up to see what was happening with the other bikers. As I'd guessed from the sounds, the Harleys were buzzing around the car-still burning happily-that the ork's spell had demolished. It was the leader who really worried me, though. With that bloody quiet bike of his, he could be anywhere and I wouldn't know it until he cut me in half with his machine pistol. I looked around quickly.
And there he was, one row over and moving our way at walking speed. Like a good general, he'd sent his troops off to check on the commotion while he cruised elsewhere, in case the toasted car was a diversion. (Which it was, albeit not a purposeful one.) I ducked back down and considered my options. The downed ork's bike was a tempting option, but I discarded it after a moment's thought. I can ride a bike but I'm not the best, nowhere near in the same class as the typical go-gang jockey.
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