by Timothy Zahn
And then reached in and retrieved the recorder from under the armrest. “Unless this is something you aren’t supposed to have,” he continued, holding it up to the streetlight and peering at it. “What is it?”
“It’s mine,” Corwin said, again trying to open his door. “And unless you have a search and seizure order—”
Once again, the other Marine simply shoved the door closed. “Come on,” the first said, dropping the reader into his pocket and pulling Jody toward their car. “The colonel will sort it out.”
A minute later, they were back on the road, the two Marines in the front seat, Jody in the back.
Her pulse thudding in her neck.
There had to be a way out of this. She couldn’t let the Dominion get into her recorder and find the Qasama data.
Blinking back tears of anger and frustration, she gazed out at the cityscape rolling past. They were fifteen minutes from the Dome, she estimated, maybe twenty if the Marines weren’t familiar with the tangle of streets and the ramps that fed into Cavendish Boulevard.
She had that long to figure out what she was going to do.
CHAPTER THREE
They had just taken the ramp onto Cavendish Boulevard and were heading for central Capitalia when Lorne first realized they’d picked up a tail. “Dad?” he said into his parents’ quiet front-seat conversation. “Don’t look now, but we’re being followed.”
“I know,” his father said calmly. “The blue Savron two cars back with the overheating left headlight.”
Lorne keyed his infrareds and eased a look over his shoulder. Sure enough, the Savron back there was showing extra heat around its left headlight.
“Probably a couple of Gendreves’s people making sure I don’t leave town,” Paul added. “Just ignore them.”
“I’d love to,” Lorne said. “Problem is, that’s not the car I was talking about.”
Paul half turned, his forehead wrinkled in a frown. “It isn’t?”
“Nope,” Lorne said. “Mine’s three cars back from it, a green Max-7.”
“You’re sure they’re following us, too?” Jin asked.
“Positive,” Lorne told her. “He was parked around the corner when we first got to the Island. He, or they,” he amended. “I never saw who was in it.”
“Perhaps we should try to get another look,” Paul said, his voice going a little darker. “How’s your slingfrog technique these days?”
“Haven’t done one in years,” Lorne said, frowning as he looked around them. Out here in the open in the middle of a wide street, a slingfrog would be next to useless.
An instant later he grabbed at his restraints as his father abruptly veered off the boulevard onto an exit ramp. “Where are we going?” he managed.
“Aunt Thena’s old neighborhood,” Jin said. “She’s been driving through the area every time she goes to the Dome for the past twenty years. I’m guessing I know it a lot better than either of our friends back there.”
“Both of whom got off Cavendish along with us,” Paul reported, studying the image in the mirror. “They’re keeping their distance, but we’ve still got a parade going. Where do you want to do this?”
“Three blocks straight, then take a right,” Jin said, pointing ahead. “The hairdressers’ at that corner has a deep setback doorway—Lorne can duck in there after he jumps out.”
“Okay.” Paul looked over his shoulder at Lorne. “You game for this?”
“Sure,” Lorne said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. The slingfrog was one of the military tactics they’d practiced a few times back at the academy. While many of those techniques had been adaptable to the Cobras’ predator hunts, the slingfrog wasn’t one of them.
Still, the maneuver was pre-programmed into the nanocomputer nestled beneath his brain. As long as he keyed into it properly and let the computer and servos do their job, he should be all right.
“Almost there,” Jin called over the seat.
Unfastening his restraints, Lorne got a grip on the door release with his right hand and the edge of his mother’s seat with his left. Rolling onto his right hip, he bent his knees and braced both feet against the center storage console. “Ready.”
The soft click of the turn signal went on. Lorne took a deep breath. The car made a hard right around the corner—
And as the corner shop momentarily blocked the lines of sight from the pursuing vehicles, Lorne wrenched open the door and shoved it open, straightened his knees convulsively, and leaped out into the night.
The move would have been impossible for a normal human, fighting upstream against momentum and inertia as the car finished its turn. But the servos implanted in Lorne’s arms and legs had the strength, and the ceramic laminae made his bones strong enough to take the sudden stress. He shot out of the car in a shallow arc, the door edge nearly smashing into his shin as it slammed shut behind him. The angle of his jump had put him into a sideways position relative to the ground, but his nanocomputer was already on it, having added just the right amount of spin to his body as he pushed off the center console. Even as he reached the top of his arc and started down he found himself swiveling around, and by the time he landed on the walkway his feet were positioned to take the impact and turn him upright again.
The deep doorway his mother had described was ten meters straight ahead. Using the residual momentum of his jump, he sprinted into the shadowy alcove and braked to a halt, turning to face the opening and dropping into a crouch. As the sound of his parents’ car faded away, he heard the growing rumble of the first pursuing car. Keying his optical enhancers for light-amplification, he pressed against the side of the alcove and held his breath.
A second later, with a squeal of tires, the Savron with the bad headlight roared into view. There were two men in the front seat, he saw, with the passenger holding a set of night binoculars to his eyes. The engine roar changed pitch as the driver suddenly increased speed, and as the car disappeared past the other side of the alcove Lorne saw the passenger lower the binoculars.
And then they were gone. Lorne listened as their engine noise faded away, an eerie feeling creeping up his back.
Those weren’t just a couple of Nissa Gendreves’ warrant enforcers. They were Dominion Marines.
Had Nissa somehow persuaded Commodore Santores to take the treason investigation away from Chintawa? That could be good, or it could be very, very bad.
But there was no time to weigh the possibilities now. He’d had his look, and now he had to figure out what to do next.
Should he go into hiding somewhere? Or should he head back to the Dome on foot and play innocent if someone called him on the stunt he’d just pulled?
And someone would call him on it. The Marine with the binoculars had almost certainly spotted Lorne’s sudden disappearance. Their assumption might be that he’d merely ducked down in the seat, either to get something or just to mess with them. But that engine surge right at the end implied they were going to check it out anyway. Somewhere along the line they would pull his parents over, at which point they would discover that Lorne had indeed vanished.
If the Marines were following Paul and Jin, whether on orders from Nissa or Santores, that would probably be the end of it. They would most likely be annoyed by Lorne’s trick, as well as the fact that their surreptitious pursuit had been exposed. But there certainly weren’t any official charges they could bring.
But if they were following Lorne, someone was going to be very unhappy indeed.
He caught his breath, a sudden belated thought flooding in on him.
There had been two cars following them. Only one had continued the chase around the corner.
Where the hell was car number two?
Cursing his inattention, he keyed in his audio enhancements. The distant sounds of his parents’ and the Marines’ cars jumped in volume, along with the city’s other background noises. But there were no other engine sounds nearby. Had the car turned off somewhere else?
And then, he heard footsteps. Two sets, moving stealthily along the walkway.
Coming closer.
His right hand curled into stunner mode. Whoever was out there was about to take an unexpected nap. The footsteps were nearly to his doorway now…
“Lorne?”
Lorne felt the tension drain out of him, a combination of relief and annoyance taking its place as he straightened up. No Dominion Marines or legal annoyances this time—just Badger Werle, one of his teammates out in DeVegas province. He should have guessed that only another Cobra could have anticipated Lorne’s slingfrog maneuver. “Here, Badj,” he called back, and walked around the doorway wall.
It had only been a few weeks since Lorne had last seen Werle. But with all that had happened it felt more like a lifetime. It was therefore something of an odd shock to see that the man looked pretty much exactly the way Lorne remembered him.
That wasn’t the case with the second man. To Lorne’s shocked surprise, Dillon de Portola now had a long, ragged laser burn scar across his right cheek and up along the side of his head. “Hey, Dill,” he said. Even to himself his voice sounded strained and forced.
But if de Portola noticed the sudden stress, he ignored it. “Hey, Lorne,” he replied calmly. He tapped the backs of his fingers against Werle’s shoulder. “I told you he’d pulled a slingfrog.”
“Yes, you did,” Werle agreed, rolling his eyes. It was a game the two of them had been playing for years: de Portola pointing out a bit of his own brilliance, and Werle pretending that it irritated him. “What’s going on?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Lorne said. “How come you two were following us?”
“Mainly because they were,” Werle said, nodding down the street. “Dill and I came to your great uncle’s place looking for you and spotted them skulking around. We talked it over and decided we were intrigued, so we hunkered down out of their sight and waited to see what they were up to. When they took off after you—” He shrugged. “We decided to tag along.”
“So what does the Dominion want with you?” de Portola asked. “Ishikuma said you finished your testimony this afternoon.”
“Maybe Ishikuma was wrong,” Lorne said.
“Cobra commandants are never wrong,” de Portola said. “You know that.”
“He reminds us about it all the time,” Werle added. “He’s especially never wrong when his information comes from Chintawa himself. That’s actually why we’re here—Ishikuma send us to haul your butt back to Archway so you can, quote, do some actual Cobra work for a change, unquote.”
“Ah,” Lorne said, nodding. “Yes, I’m afraid I’ve been loafing lately.”
“And don’t think we haven’t noticed,” Werle said severely. “Out playing with Trofts when there are spine leopards that need killing.”
“Luckily, Ishikuma sent us by aircar, so you won’t have to worry about how to fill the long hours of a land drive.” De Portola raised his eyebrows. “Unless there’s some reason you want to stay here a few more days. We can always say we couldn’t find you.”
Lorne looked around. He’d grown up in Capitalia, and there were plenty of things he liked about the place. Ever since his assignment to the small towns and rural areas of DeVegas Province he’d looked on his occasional big-city trips with a kind of nostalgic anticipation.
But not anymore. From now on, the tall buildings and masses of steel and concrete would forever be associated in his mind with the Qasaman city of Azras, and the death and destruction he’d seen there.
Cities no longer felt like refuges. Cities felt like deathtraps. “No, I’m ready,” he assured de Portola. “The aircar’s at the field?”
“Ready and waiting,” de Portola confirmed. “Soon as we drop off this rental, we’ll be on our—”
“Hold it,” Lorne said as his comm signaled. He pulled it out, frowned briefly at the ID display, and keyed it on. “Hey, Uncle Corwin,” he said. “What’s up?”
“We’ve got trouble,” Corwin said grimly. “Jody’s been taken from our car by a pair of Dominion Marines.”
Lorne felt his mouth drop open. “What in the Worlds for?”
“I don’t know,” Corwin said. “But it has something to do with you—they wanted to know where you were. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Lorne said between clenched teeth, a red rage boiling up inside of him. So their response to his little escape prank had been to take it out on his sister? “Don’t worry—I’ll get straight over to the Dome and raise whatever hell is necessary to get her out.”
“You can’t wait that long,” Corwin said. “One of the Marines has her recorder. It’s absolutely vital you get it back before they get there.”
Lorne frowned. Her recorder? “Understood,” he said, wishing he actually did. “Any idea which way they’re going?”
“Last we saw, they were heading north on Appletree in a tan Celera, starting at the intersection with Mitchell,” Corwin told him. “But they may be heading back to Cavendish.”
“Got it,” Lorne said, visualizing the map of the city. That intersection was about six blocks behind them and two streets over. Even if the Marines were planning to get on Cavendish he should be able to intercept them before they reached the ramp. “Got to run—I’ll call you.”
He keyed off the comm. “Sorry—”
“Yeah, we heard,” de Portola said tightly, pointing the direction opposite from Appletree. “There’s a patroller station about two blocks that way.”
“I don’t have time for—”
“Shut up and listen,” de Portola cut him off. “Get to the station and get in their faces about your sister being snatched. Badj and I will go get Jody.”
“And there’s no time to argue, so don’t,” Werle added. “Make noise for ten or twelve minutes, then head over to Hollenvar Car Parts—we’ll meet you out back. Go.”
Without waiting for a response, he and de Portola took off, sprinting down the street toward Appletree with servo-enhanced speed.
For a second Lorne stared after them, his brain still trying to process everything that had been dumped on it in the past thirty seconds. Then, spinning on his heel, he headed toward the patroller station. There would be time later to sort it all out.
He hoped.
#
They had reached the intersection of Appletree and South, and Jody was working on her fifth ridiculously heroic and utterly impractical scheme to get her recorder back when there was the muffled thud of a blowout and the car suddenly swerved violently to the side. For a handful of seconds she hung onto her restraints until the driver wrestled the car to a halt.
The Marine in the passenger seat swore under his breath. “Damn backwater junk,” he growled, shoving open his door. “Stay here,” he ordered, and climbed out…
…slowly, Jody drifted back to consciousness, vaguely aware that she was cold and uncomfortable and that she shouldn’t, in fact, be waking up from anything.
A murmur in the back of her brain coalesced into voices. Two of them, male, somewhere nearby. The darkness around her grew lighter, and she realized she was lying on her back on a cold surface, her neck and head on something softer and not as cold. She opened her eyes.
And found herself looking up at two strangers. One was crouched over her looking off to his left, the other standing on her other side and looking in the other direction.
Apparently, she’d been kidnapped.
With an effort she forced her eyes away from the men and focused on her surroundings. She was in a service alley somewhere, she decided, with three- and four-story buildings to either side of her and the only illumination coming from a street light half a block away in both directions. Above her, the sky was a faint haze that blocked out all but the brightest stars.
Which meant she was still in the city. A quiet, semi-deserted part of the city, probably, but still Capitalia.
And being in the city meant she was surrounded by patrollers and ordinary citizens and maybe even a few
Cobras.
Carefully, she filled her lungs. She had no idea if anyone was even within earshot, but she had to try. And she would only have one shot at this. She opened her mouth—
Like a striking snake, the crouching man’s hand snapped up from his side and clamped solidly over her mouth. “Hey, none of that,” he admonished.
Jody grabbed at his arm, trying to wrench his hand away. She might as well have tried to lift her parents’ car. She tried to open her mouth far enough to bite him, but his palm was pressed too tightly against her lips. “Easy, there—easy,” the man said as she tried to twist her head away. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
“I’m Cobra Badger Werle,” the standing man added. “This is Cobra Dillon de Portola. We’re friends of your brother Lorne.”
Jody paused, peering more closely at the face leaning over her. Sure enough, she recognized them now from that single trip she’d made out to Archway to visit Lorne two years ago.
She nodded. Or rather, she tried to nod—de Portola’s grip was still holding her head immobile. But enough of the movement got through. He pulled his hand away, letting the nighttime air flow over her face again. “Sorry,” he apologized. “But we didn’t want you screaming. Someone might have heard.”
“And then we’d all be in trouble,” a new voice said.
And to Jody’s relief Lorne trotted up to the group. “Lorne!” she said, getting a hand under her and starting to get up.
“No—just stay there another minute,” Lorne said, squatting down beside de Portola and gently but firmly pushing Jody’s shoulders back onto the cold pavement. “You caught a sonic blast, and your balance is probably still shaky. You okay otherwise?”
“Yes, I think so,” Jody said. “I was—”
And suddenly, it all flooded back to her. “Lorne—my recorder!” she gasped. “The Marines have it.”
“No, it’s okay,” Werle said quickly. He dug the recorder out of his pocket and pressed it into her hand. “We got it back.”
“Thank you,” Jody breathed, closing her fingers tightly around the recorder, feeling the sudden spike in her heart rate start to slow down again.