by Mike Brooks
That didn’t mean that she wasn’t on a schedule, or potentially vulnerable. She had to assume that Orlov’s people would have at least some influence in the local politsiya. And she didn’t have time to procure a change of clothes, so she couldn’t afford to be spotted by a patrol. What she really needed was an aircar.
Which was why she was lurking in the shadows of a large garbage container next to an all-night grocery store. One city was much like another in many ways, and certain things were almost guaranteed to occur.
She’d been there for twenty-two minutes, judging by the clock in the store’s window, when she got what she’d been waiting for. An old Almaz A17, a few scratches down one side and the engine cover an unsprayed white instead of the burgundy red of the rest, pulled into the kerb. It was hardly the finest vehicle going, but she wasn’t in a position to be choosy. She tensed, ready to move.
A youth got out of the passenger’s door, his jacket unfastened and his hair a little dishevelled. He slouched across the pavement to the store, pushing open the door as he reached it. Supply run: getting the beers or the snacks, or whatever was needed for the night’s entertainment. She got up from her crouch and approached the car, scanning it as she did so. The driver appeared to be the only other occupant. Excellent.
She passed around the rear of the vehicle, looking both ways as though preparing to cross the road, then darted two steps to the driver’s door and hauled it open before the boy inside could do anything. There was a haze of soft narcotic smoke in the car, which probably hadn’t helped his reactions. She brought the gun up into his shocked, angry face and armed it.
“Get out.”
He froze for a moment, but any notion of defiance wilted in the face of the Kobel .45 a few inches from his nose. He hadn’t been wearing his safety restraints anyway, so there was no delay there: He scrabbled to obey, and a hand on his collar helped to send him spilling out onto the road in a way that prevented him from making any ill-judged attempt to interfere as she was climbing into the driver’s seat.
She shut the door, activated the locking systems, and quickly scanned her surroundings. Ignition card in place, no open windows, no previously unseen passengers in the rear seats . . . All in all, about as smooth a carjacking as she could hope for. She put the safety back on the Kobel, fed power to the drives, and pulled away with a whine, leaving her victim still scrambling to his feet behind her. She caught a glimpse in the mirrors of his friend emerging from the store at a run before she turned a corner and they were lost to view.
She only went three blocks before parking by the side of the road. Drug-hazed or not, she had to assume that her victims would call in her crime, and the two-tone colour of her ride made her more conspicuous than she’d have liked. She wound down the windows to get rid of the fug and bent to work on the control dash.
Higher-end makes and models would have been better designed, but the old Almaz’s panel was prised loose fairly easily with the assistance of a screwdriver she found in the storage compartment. Once that was out of the way, it didn’t take her long to disable the altitude limiter and the distress beacon, two tricks performed every day by joyriders on planets across the galaxy, and then she was back up and driving again.
She couldn’t deny, there was a certain thrill to this. She’d been a part of the Keiko’s crew for so long that she’d almost forgotten what it was like to be a lone agent, deep in a mission and forced to rely solely on her own resources. However, she wasn’t going to get nostalgic: The whole point of having a crew was so there were other people to pick up the slack, to watch your back while you slept, and to take over tasks that you yourself weren’t an expert at. She couldn’t match Jenna’s level of slicing expertise, or Jia’s piloting skills, or Kuai’s mechanical knowledge. For that matter, although she was a more skilled fighter than Apirana, sometimes you simply needed someone with the Māori’s sheer size and strength, or raw physical presence. And then there was Ichabod, with his almost uncanny people skills, disarming manner, and sometimes brilliant, sometimes ludicrous, brain for schemes and plans.
She really hoped they’d understand what she was about to do.
All aircar passengers were supposed to wear a slimline emergency parachute in case of catastrophic failure, but her quick survey of contents had showed no signs that this car carried any spares. That was going to make this harder, but she didn’t have the time or inclination to purchase one. Or even the money, for that matter: For a moment she regretted not hunting through Sacha’s pockets to get his wallet, but she’d been risking enough to get his pad and comm away from him. They now lay inert on the seat next to her. With any luck he wouldn’t be easily able to contact anyone without them, which might give her a little more time to do what she needed to.
She triggered the ascending blinkers and pulled the Almaz upwards, rising past the storied windows around her. There was little traffic about, and she quickly pulled level with the upper floors of the high-powered business headquarters and the shiny accommodation blocks. So much of the planet’s surface was given over to valuable arable land that the only place to build within the capital’s tightly controlled boundaries was upwards.
She was now at an altitude reserved for the richest. New Samara was the realm of the wealthy and powerful, of course, but they needed their servants and staff. Corporation heads might meet in their gleaming offices, but people had to be employed to keep those offices gleaming. No one wanted the riffraff in their cheap bangers cluttering the upper skyways, so your car’s permit dictated how high it could go. Unless you’d disabled the altitude limiter, of course, but that was an offence that carried a severe fine and possibly a custodial sentence, depending on what you did when you were up there.
For joyriders and fugitives, though, future consequences were a distant and secondary consideration compared to the needs of the present.
Rourke double-checked the homing setting on the Almaz and compared it to the holo-map of the city. If she engaged the emergency autopilot and told the vehicle to return to its registered address, it would do so, while obeying laws of altitude and traffic priority to the best of the computer’s ability. It was no true replacement for a competent driver, of course, so any activation of the homing protocol would contact the authorities to alert them to the potential medical or criminal issue that had necessitated that course of action. That was why she’d deactivated the distress beacon: Once she was done with it, this vehicle would fly in a silent and hopefully safe manner back to its owner, leaving no one the wiser of where it was or where it had been.
Right now, however, she aimed it for the roof of the Grand House. The huge building was the largest casino in New Samara, and also happened to be the location of Sergei Orlov’s penthouse. It loomed up out of the night like a great, dark-green ship in a sea of concrete, tarmac, and steel; not so tall as the surrounding skyscrapers, but with a much larger footprint. No name adorned its side, but it wasn’t needed. If you were in New Samara and you didn’t know what and where the Grand House was, you didn’t belong inside it.
One end of it rose upwards into the tower of the hotel connected to the casino, where Rourke and her crew had been staying only a few weeks before, prior to the Keiko’s ill-fated trip to Uragan. Half of the main building’s roof was taken up by a long, low structure lined with windows and studded with skylights: Orlov’s penthouse flat, with his luxury aircar parked on top and presumably secured with magnetic clamps in case of high winds. The other half, at the opposite end to the hotel tower, was paved and open to the air. It had a swimming pool in the middle, a few planted areas, including two lines of short, dark conifers, and what looked like a barbecue patio near the penthouse’s sliding doors.
A swimming pool. Well, that potentially made things easier.
She abandoned all pretence at sticking to the skyways and swung the Almaz into a turn that would take her directly across the Grand House’s roof. Timing was critical now. She stuffed Sacha’s pad and comm into her pocket, then double
-checked that the Kobel’s safety was on and tucked it into her belt.
Just as the Almaz passed over Sergei Orlov’s swimming pool, she hammered the autopilot activation and bailed out.
Aircars were not designed to be exited in midair. The vehicle pitched to one side and threw her leap off, and instead of dropping smoothly feet-first towards the water, she found herself falling forwards. She flailed instinctively for a second, but twenty feet or so wasn’t enough to have any chance of correcting her angle of entry.
It felt like a giant had swatted her with a huge, wet mattress. She was sinking, air blasted from her lungs, and her body reluctant to respond, but she managed to coax her limbs into some sort of sluggish movement. Her knees were protesting furiously—they must have hit fairly hard, and it wasn’t like they were getting younger in any case—and her arms felt suddenly weak. But she needed air. For a moment she couldn’t work out which way the surface lay, but then she managed to right herself and clawed upwards.
She broke the surface with as restrained a gasp as she could manage, blinked the water from her eyes, and started to stroke clumsily towards the nearest pool edge. As she did so, she silently cursed Andrei, Sacha, and Leon, and the overlarge clothing they’d provided for her. With the ballooning shirt and pants flapping around her, it was like trying to swim through a mass of wet tissue.
She seemed much, much heavier than usual as she hauled herself out, and could only manage to roll onto her side. Something dug painfully into her, which she was grateful to find was the Kobel: She’d probably have some hefty bruising where the water had slammed the metal firearm into the flesh over her hipbone, but at least she wouldn’t have to go back into the pool to recover it.
First things first. There was no sign of movement from what she could see of the penthouse, and no shouts of alarm or challenge. An aircar was noisy, but someone like Orlov would have good soundproofing on his city centre home. If he had the windows and doors shut, as he might on this fresh night, he may not have heard the Almaz’s thrusters or her clumsy arrival in his pool. So for now, she might still have the element of surprise.
She pushed herself up into a crouch and pulled out the Kobel, then slid the clip out and tilted the barrel downwards to drain. Most guns would fire even after being submerged in water, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Happily, it looked like the internal mechanisms were mainly dry, so she slapped the clip back in and readied it once more. Then she hurriedly unbuttoned the shirt and wrung it out, keeping a careful eye on the penthouse all the while. The wind at this height was sharp on her bare, wet skin, and there was nothing to be done about the pants, but trickles of water down her arms would make her grip even less reliable and would be distracting. Besides, she was damned if she was going to walk in on a crime boss looking any more like a contestant in an over-fifties wet T-shirt contest than she had to.
She towelled herself off as best she could with the half-dry shirt, wrung it out again, and put it back on, then ran one hand through her hair to squeeze as much water out as she could. It was longer than she liked it, having grown out to over a finger’s width, but there was nothing for that now. Time to move.
She crept through the garden, hugging the lines of conifers to get as close as possible to the penthouse. Soft fronds tickled her as she pressed past, but she ignored them and focused on her goal. No windows or doors open, as she’d hoped, but that now presented her with the problem of how to get inside.
Then again, this entire plan was based around the fact that Sergei Orlov had grown too used to being unchallenged. Would a gang boss who controlled most of this system and the neighbouring ones really think he needed to lock the door leading to his private garden atop his own casino?
She darted across the last stretch of paving tiles and pressed herself up against the wall next to the door. It was a full-glass affair apart from the frame, and although the room inside—a living room, by the looks of it—was dimly lit, she could see that there was no one present. She had to hope that Orlov was at home: If he was out, then there was no telling when he would get back.
She took hold of the door’s handle and applied pressure very, very carefully. For a moment nothing happened, but then it slid backwards a fraction. Perfect. She put one ear to the tiny gap she’d created and blocked the other one with her finger, trying to drown out the noise of the city at night.
Nothing at first. Then the slapping sound of flesh on flesh and a woman’s yelp. Rourke paused, but it came again after a second, and then again, then rising both in frequency and in the volume of the cries. Other sounds made themselves known, too: a man’s grunts, and the rhythmic knocking of what she quickly realised was a headboard against a wall.
Rourke smiled to herself. She’d never had much time for sex, but it served marvellously well as a distraction at times. She pushed the door open wide enough to admit her and slipped through, then closed it again behind her. It was smooth and nearly noiseless on its runnings, and any sounds that filtered in from the city outside didn’t seem to have penetrated through to where the coupling was taking place.
The flooring inside was thick carpet, which would at least prevent her from leaving such an obvious water trail as she might have done on floorboards or tiles. She headed towards a huge armchair, pretty much large enough to be the right size for Apirana, and ducked behind it to consider her next move. She didn’t want to involve any bystanders, but Orlov clearly had company. However, judging by the noises they were making, even she, amateur in such matters though she was, could take a guess that they were coming to the end of their activity.
There was a final frenzy of yelping, grunting, and banging, and then a momentary silence that was broken by a couple of heavy thumps, as though two people had slumped down onto a mattress. She heard a female voice saying something in a low, throaty chuckle, although Rourke couldn’t make out the words. The man coughed breathlessly, then responded in kind.
Rourke remained in her crouch for a few minutes, listening to the murmurs of conversation coming from the bedroom. Then there was a creak of the bed and the voices got a little louder, loud enough to be audible.
“. . . have to?” the woman was asking in Russian.
“I’m afraid so,” Sergei Orlov replied good-naturedly. “I need my sleep, woman! You’ll be the death of me, although I won’t deny that it would be a good way to go.”
“Don’t say such things!” the woman chided. It was meant to sound playful, Rourke could tell, but she thought she detected a genuine note there as well. “What would I do without you?”
“Mourn me, and then find a new client very nearly as wealthy?” Orlov suggested.
“I am going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
“It’s true! I can only thank the stars I’ve managed to keep you to myself for so long.”
“Well, you do pay me very well to have a client list of only one.” The bed shifted again, and Rourke thought she saw a movement of shadows suggesting clothes being pulled on. “You do know that you don’t have to, don’t you?”
“No!” Orlov’s response was surprisingly sharp, although his voice softened immediately afterwards. “What we have is business, Galina. It must be business. Were anyone to guess that you might be significant to me in some way beyond business, you would become a target for the people who would like to reach me, but can’t. So I pay you generously and openly, an obvious transaction, and you are seen by others as nothing more than a . . . a contractor. No matter how you are seen by me.”
There was a pause. Then the woman’s voice came again, slightly tremulous. “And if I am prepared to take that risk?”
“It makes no difference. I am not. You can be paid for the time you see me, and we live apart. Or we do not see each other at all. I will have no argument on this.”
There was a sigh, and a soft, wet noise that Rourke’s ears interpreted as a kiss. Then the woman spoke again, sounding sad. “I expected you to say that. I understand, although I don’t like it.”
> “Nor do I. But it’s necessary.”
“Very well. I’ll let myself out.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
A dark-skinned woman with hair in narrow plaits of black and white appeared in the bedroom doorway, clad in a formfitting, creaseless dress that emphasised the already generous curves of her body. She was rummaging in her bag, but still wended her way through the poorly lit living room with the casual air of someone who could probably navigate it in pitch blackness. She pressed something on the wall, and Rourke saw a door slide open, spilling warm light out across the carpet. The woman stepped through into . . . his private elevator, Rourke thought, remembering Ichabod’s description of his meeting with Orlov.
The door slid shut. Rourke waited long enough for the hum of machinery to suggest that the elevator had descended, then got to her feet and prowled quietly towards the bedroom. She was halfway across the floor when a shifting shadow gave her a moment of warning, and she brought her gun up just as Sergei Orlov appeared in the doorway wearing nothing but a sarong.
She armed the Kobel with a buzz.
“Freeze.”
THE OLD DANCE
Apirana pulled his right glove on and cinched it securely around his wrist, then repeated the action with the other hand. He wore slip-on shoes, ready to be removed when he got to the ring, a warm-up robe of plain red, and red-and-black trunks decorated with the double curl of the Tino Rangatiratanga flag. He’d had to get them custom made overnight, and Drift had protested at the cost, but Apirana had insisted. If he was going to step into a ring and fight, then he was going to do it properly.
Drift paced back and forth in front of him, nervous energy incarnate. “Remember,” the Captain said, “Kuang looks to be a slow starter based on what we’ve seen, so your best option is probably to rush him at the bell. He’s a good striker but takes a little while to settle into his rhythm; the thing is, most opponents are wary enough to give him time. His takedown defence is—”
