by S J Hunter
“As far as Williams is concerned, it may have slipped away from him,” Chris said. “All of this, before Mickey died, could fit in with a rich man’s determination to preserve his personal hotlabs and relationship with Josephson. Even what he did to me could fit in with that. Williams may have some inkling now that it’s much more than an issue of some hotlabs, but feel he’s in too deep. He’s probably feeling like a tiger on a leash. I can fix that.”
“Jackal. That’s jackal on a leash,” Livvy said distractedly. “I know he’s LLE, but you have no idea how Williams will react. He may shoot you, really shoot you, not just with Stingers, on sight.”
“I’ve worked with him ten years.”
“He doesn’t even like you,” Livvy added, meeting his eyes.
“I’m aware. It’s mutual. But I know a little about what matters to him,” Chris said.
“Maybe less than you realize,” Livvy said, with a worried look on her face. “You don’t think like him.”
“Possibly,” Chris said, “but I’ve had a lot of experience trying to communicate with people who don’t think like me. I still need to talk to him. And since we can’t do an all-out two-pronged attack, we need the distraction. If I wasn’t already tagged and in no shape for running I’d flip you for it. Hell, you’re a walking billboard for distraction. Hopefully, we were successful at maintaining some secrecy at the Potomac Falls house and they won’t even be watching for you, even after I show up.”
“Billboard?” Livvy said distastefully, then noticed that Chris appeared to be staring at her chest.
“What?” she asked, annoyed, and looked down at her tunic, which she’d already toggled back to off-white. It should make her less visible than the black she’d used last night.
“I was just thinking. We’re too urban. You really should be in camouflage. I’m going to suggest you spend a few moments rolling in the mud before you get close to the farm,” Chris said. Livvy opened her mouth, but not a word came out.
“If Bedford succeeds, he’ll never let us live,” Chris continued without a pause. “We know too much and I suspect he’ll be unhappy with what happened in his home in the city. For the moment, he still wants to find out where his weaknesses and leaks are. He wants to know what we know and how we know it. For now, that’s leverage. But the longer we wait, the less protection it buys us, because he’ll see that nothing else is happening, and then he’ll realize the only people that may be able to tie anything to him are the two of us. The fact that it is unusable in court won’t matter. He’ll want us dead.”
“I’m beginning to understand,” Livvy said cryptically.
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Meanwhile, Jesse is in Josephson’s hands,” Chris added as the clincher after a very brief pause.
“All right,” Livvy said. “You drive in and poke at the lion and his dog – jackal – in his own den. I trot in cross-country. Just try to get me within trotting range, please, and don’t get killed until I finish dealing with the hired help.
“And McGregor, some advice,” Livvy added succinctly. “Don’t ever call a woman a walking billboard again, especially when you’re trying to get her to agree to something.”
*****
Livvy was furious. Her feet were soaked. Her 25 year-old-body, normally taken for granted, was sore and exhausted. And there was no one within range at whom she could vent her dissatisfaction. In thirty years experience, she had never faced this sort of ordeal. She was keen to find a target for her fury, and she had three in her figurative sights. Williams. Bedford. Josephson.
She had adroitly – she thought – slipped out of the car when Chris had done a quick stop about two kilometers from Bedford’s horse farm. She had climbed over the white rail fence, rolled in some handy mud, and started resolutely jogging, occasionally slogging, through the orchards and across the pastures. The terrain was soaked with dew and harboring low spots with shallow puddles from an overnight shower.
Their plan was to position her in the woods behind the farm, with the house between her and the road, while Chris drove up and walked up to the front door. He had made it sound simple and inevitable, which she supposed it was, especially since he was in no shape to be jogging and slogging and they probably knew exactly where he was at any time anyway. If he didn’t come to them now, they would eventually find him anyway.
No doubt Bedford had legions of ruthless assassins holed up in a secret basement. Chris believed that if he walked in voluntarily they not only wouldn’t kill him immediately, but that they would stop everything else to deal with him and find out what he was up to, especially if they thought he might be ready to give them the information they wanted. While she thought he was right in so far as Bedford and Williams were concerned, she doubted that the assassins would be all that interested in what he had to say. She suspected she was going to end up battering her way through a troop of them to find Jesse.
She was glad she was furious. Her fury was keeping her on her feet and moving quickly, although her mind was racing and she needed to focus. It had been years since she had experienced this sort of sustained adrenaline boost, but she remembered that it could be a tricky master. If she kept thinking about Jesse and Mickey, it should be enough to see her through.
Her first goal was directly ahead, a large building she’d been watching ever since she’d been dropped off. Given that it was huge, windowless and set back from the road behind an orchard, she figured it was a barn, which made it a good place to start. She and Chris had discussed the fact that they were going in blind as to the number of security personnel and extent of remote imaging, but they’d concluded that they had no real choice. As with the last skirmish, she had to go in fast and keep moving and hope they stayed lucky. Sprizter’n’smokes weren’t going to help them here in the open country during the day. At least she still had a tunic; Chris was going in, by choice, with only his vest.
Her approach brought her to the rear of the barn, and from there she eased around the corner to the side away from the house. It smelled of dried grass and dirt and seemed entirely too innocent for the evil she expected to confront somewhere ahead. There was the sound of a non-glassened vehicle getting louder, and when she stuck her head out away from the building she could see it approaching along a gravel road from the direction of the rest of the farm buildings. A small tractor pulling a wagon and driven by one man.
She pulled her head back. He didn’t look like security, and he didn’t seem to have noticed her. A civilian, then, but as Bruno had said, this was a “take-no-prisoners” operation, which meant that she had to treat this guy like anyone else she didn’t want behind her.
The tractor and wagon pulled into the barn and the engine noise stopped. Staying close to the side of the barn, she took her first step in a move to follow the tractor, only to pull up short without putting her full weight down. Her shoes emitted a loud squelching noise. She’d been listening to it since she’d hit that first puddle in her walk through the misty glades and fields, but out there it hadn’t seemed to echo so loudly. In the city, dry, her shoes were perfect. They were favorites, with grip and support and fit that facilitated climbing trees and scrambling across polished marble floors. Apparently, water was their weakness. Soaked, they were entirely inappropriate for a covert operation in the countryside.
She quietly kicked them off and pulled off her equally soaked stockings.
After that it was easy to tiptoe to the front of the barn and pause at the entrance. Muffled sounds of someone moving around inside reached her. She pivoted around the corner into the entrance and pointed her Stinger in the direction of the sounds. The poor man never knew what hit him, but at least he landed in clean straw. She checked the rest of the barn for people: nothing. It was, as far as she could tell, full of hay and straw and probably a few non-human rodents. Only a barn.
She moved on, leaving her shoes in the mud.
*****
So far Chris’ reception was all th
at he had expected. Two security guards relieved him, a little roughly, of the Stinger Livvy had given him and the knife he had appropriated from Bedford’s bunker kitchen. It had been a long shot but being thorough had been for so many years a matter of self-respect; now it was habit. For example, they let him keep his armored vest, which was a relief. He wasn’t looking forward to struggling out of it, and much less so in a hostile environment. Either they didn’t realize he was still wearing it or they didn’t care.
Escorted down the long hall to a library paneled in more of the beautiful woods Bedford favored, Chris considered that if he was going to design a traditional country haven for himself, this one would be close. Like Bedford’s Potomac Falls mansion, the house was at least two centuries old and full of antiques. It was even more elegant than the mansion, perhaps because it was less ostentatious and there were more books. Also, Chris liked horses and dogs, so he could appreciate the numerous oil paintings hung on the walls. He wandered around a little, examining the books, then selected one and sat down in an oversized leather armchair facing a wall of French doors that opened onto a flagstone terrace.
Beyond the terrace, magnificently dominating the center of the courtyard, a huge oak shaded some stone benches and a table. A gravel drive circled the oak and split off to a 2-story, six-car garage on the right, and on the left, some well-tended flower gardens divided the courtyard from the manicured front lawns of a pair of small cottages. A bunny hopping through would add to the serene imagery, but not much.
Looking beyond the oak Chris could see a man carrying feed buckets and armfuls of hay from a wagon to horses waiting in a long row of box stalls in the stable that formed the back boundary of the quadrangle.
Chris’ best guess was that the guard office was over the garage, and that there were acueyes all over the property. In such a setting guards might well be ordered to stay inconspicuous. He hoped that the beguiling summer morning, unmarred by alarm following his arrival, was lulling the guards as much as it was him.
As Chris watched, the stable-hand finished feeding the horses and drove the tractor and wagon back towards the right and around behind the stable.
“What in hell are you doing here, McGregor? How did you get out?” It was Bedford, entering the room with an impatient stride and standing over Chris.
“I came to take that boy out of here, Bedford, and to talk to Williams.” This was a bit of a risk. If Williams was watching, it tipped their hand, and he might decide Chris had become too much of a liability. Chris was counting on Williams’ essential dislike of authority and the fact that he had probably been chafing under Bedford’s self-importance. If Williams was watching, even if ordered to stay out of sight, Chris figured he wouldn’t be able to resist a small act of defiance especially if it meant facing Chris.
Bedford actually laughed. “You’re unbelievable. This is my home.”
“Believe it, Bedford. Give it a minute and it may sink in through that thick conceit of yours.”
The door opened again.
“So much for surprising you. When did you finally figure it out? And where’s Hutchins?” It was Williams, coming into the room and getting right to the crux of the matter.
“At City Central with a shattered knee. That last thug in the basement of Bedford’s Potomac Falls mansion got lucky. She made it through most of them but she won’t be walking for awhile,” Chris said, dividing his attention between the two men facing him, although he took care to appear as though he was ignoring Bedford.
Bedford had frowned when Williams came into the room but didn’t protest when he selected one of a pair of side chairs facing Chris’ armchair, turned it around and sat in it facing Chris over the back. Bedford sat in the other chair.
“Too bad,” Williams said. “But it will keep her out of trouble.”
“Not lucky enough,” Bedford said curtly. “I gave you your warning. Unless you’ve thought better of it, and come to discuss… “
“Are you impaired in some way, Bedford? I told you I didn’t come here to talk to you. I thought I made it clear the last time we met that I have nothing to say to you,” Chris interrupted. He held Bedford’s eyes just long enough, and then turned away from him as though dismissing him from consideration.
“You know what he’s doing here?” Chris asked Williams directly.
Williams stared at him without answering, although Chris thought he’d seen a flicker of approval at one point while Chris was addressing Bedford.
“Jesse Bradford is 18 years old. Is this guy your idea of a good choice for an immortal overlord? Is this the world you want, Williams?” Chris asked, looking around. “It’s a very pleasant one, I admit, if you ignore having to get froggy for a cold-blooded son of a bitch who’ll discard you like a worn muppet when he doesn’t want something from you.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“You always were a self-righteous bastard,” Williams finally said.
Bedford smiled. “Why shouldn’t those who can afford it and their friends have comfortable lives and as many children as they want, and give their families resets every year, and still live to 200 or even more?”
Chris ignored him. “How are Becca and Sonya?” he asked, staring at Williams, and only Williams. “You see, I know what drives you. It’s what the Laws were designed for, to at least grant everyone the opportunity to watch their youngest child grow up, and get to know their grandchildren. It’s the best people hoped for, what drove them for thousands of years before Longevity came along.
“Do you think Bedford cares about any of that?”
“Save your propaganda for someone who’s weak-minded enough to fall for it,” Bedford said. “It’s still about a commodity. One that some can purchase for themselves and their loved ones, and others can’t. We will never be able to make it available to everyone, nor should we. We live on a small planet with limited resources. That doesn’t mean the best and the brightest should be denied the benefits of what they’ve built.”
Chris ignored him; didn’t even glance at him. “He’s so far from human already, after only 100 years, that he can’t even remember where he came from. You heard about Jesse and Mickey. Is that what you bargained for? Is this the world you want, Williams?” Chris asked again. “Is it what you want for your children?”
“Better than the little mediocre world you’re trying to hang onto,” Bedford said.
Still focusing on Williams alone, Chris said, “I haven’t talked to the Chief about you. Hutchins knows, and Agnew suspects, but there is no reason your role can’t be resolved within LLE. You know it could be arranged.”
This was a risk. Admitting the extent to which Williams’ involvement was known gave Bedford a strong indication of the limits of his own exposure.
Bedford smiled again. “My friend here has been assuring me that without incontrovertible proof, LLE would be reluctant to arrest me no matter what happens. And you have no proof, do you?” He moved behind the gleaming wooden desk, opened a drawer, and brought out a large handgun. “I’ll give you one more chance to answer my questions. Otherwise, it’s time I stopped worrying about loose ends, and started eliminating them.”
*****
Leaving her first victim sleeping behind her, Livvy went back under cover of the orchard that bordered the road to the barn and moved from tree to tree. She felt a little silly, since this crude precaution wasn’t likely to achieve much except give Bedford’s security a good laugh if they had acueyes trained on the orchard. It was unnerving, but she and Chris had discussed her chances in the car as they approached her drop-off point.
“These guys are hirelings, not fanatics, and are assigned to a country estate. No doubt they have all the bells and whistles of an excellent surveillance setup, but not motion detectors or the local wildlife would be cast as the boy who called wolf. It’s human nature: they will let the equipment be vigilant for them, while they take themselves off watch and put themselves on call.”
“In other words
, you’re giving me better than 50:50 odds,” Livvy said. “I’m encouraged.”
“Closer to 70:30 if you add some good camouflage to that armor.”
Livvy had given him a withering look but followed his advice. It seemed to be paying off. Maybe a century of observing human nature did yield some useful insights.
The orchard ended, there was another fence to climb over, and then she took her fate in her hands and dashed for the back corner of a two-story building she suspected was the garage.
The stable was to her right. Most of the horses were at their stall doors on this lovely morning, and several of them turned their heads in her direction. They looked peaceful.
She couldn’t see the house but she knew it was beyond the garage and further to her left, towards the road. Ahead, across the open courtyard with its splendid oak centerpiece and driveway and gardens she could see two small cottages. For now, they became her ultimate goal, but she had to clear the garage first.
From above her, out of an open second-floor window, came raucous voices raised in conversation followed by a man hooting. She distinguished the voices of at least three men. Security or chauffeurs or mechanics, it didn’t matter. The longer she waited, the more likely she’d be discovered. So far, she’d been lucky, which probably meant that on this pristine country morning either someone wasn’t watching the acueye screens as diligently as they were supposed to, or they knew right where she was and they were waiting for her. If the latter, the men were doing a good job of covering it.
She reminded herself that these were men were hirelings. It was even possible that they didn’t like their boss, and weren’t above taking advantage of him on a Saturday morning.
There were convenient stairs to her left. She took them silently, two at a time while she formulated her first rule of engagement: no hesitation, especially when you are in an exposed position in enemy territory.
