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Apocalypse to Go

Page 30

by Katharine Kerr


  “Very well, gentlemen.” Hafner holstered the Colt at last. When his officers did the same, the tension in the room eased.

  “We’ve received some interesting information about this gang,” Spare14 said. “Are you aware they’re planning a strike on your position?”

  “I’ve heard rumors but no real evidence. Is it true?”

  “Very true. If you’d care to sit down, I’ll explain. Oh, by the way, Agent Nathan has discovered the addresses of their two safe houses.”

  Hafner looked at Ari and smiled, an expression that made him look more murderous than ever, thanks to his very white strong teeth. “Good job,” he said. “I think we’ve got some planning to do. Assuming, of course, that the CBI will agree to a joint operation.”

  “We’d like nothing better,” Spare14 said. “After all, Chief, this is your territory, not ours, though we would like to have custody of the Maculate.” He paused and gave Hafner a glance loaded with meaning. “Should he survive the raids, that is, which may not be possible.”

  “If he survives, of course I’ll remand.” Hafner smiled again. “But I’m afraid these raids are a dangerous business.”

  “Understood.” Spare14 nodded and passed a death sentence on Claw with the gesture. “Now then, would you care to sit down?”

  The police contingent stayed for a good hour while Hafner and Spare14 planned out a complicated operation. Hafner and his lieutenant would lead coordinated raids on the two safe houses while the TWIXT team—or the CBI men as the Chief thought of them—would control the Playland operation. Hafner would supply extra officers, however, as reinforcements.

  “Timing’s everything,” Hafner said. “We also need to plant a leak about the safe house raids in advance. We want to draw as many gunners off the Playland site as possible. I don’t want any dead hostages.”

  “Neither do we,” Spare14 said dryly. “I quite agree about the plant.”

  They returned to discussing details. While I listened, I continued to feel the sense of dread that had woken me. Yet it never coalesced into an ASTA or SAWM. I could judge, therefore, that I was in no particular danger personally, not at the moment, anyway. By concentrating, I managed to extend the field, as it were, to the men in the room. No, none of them were in danger, either, nor did it apply to my father. Who? I sat very still and let images rise into my consciousness.

  Major Grace. I felt a cold chill around my heart when I saw a memory image of her open office door. Anyone could have been in the hallway when she told us about the safe houses.

  I pulled myself back to the moment. The men had fallen silent to allow the tall blond sergeant to write notes. He sat at Spare14’s desk, his head bent as he worked in a notebook with a fountain pen. Now that I was no longer terrified that the cops were going to shoot us all, I recognized him, a doppelgänger of Lawrence Grampian. Werewolves, for sure!

  “You don’t need a plant,” I said. “Storm Blue already knows about the safe house leak. They’ve got a spy in Mission House.” I turned to Ari. “They’re going to send someone after Major Grace.”

  Ari swore in Hebrew. Jan laid an automatic hand on his shoulder holster. Spare14 glanced at his watch.

  “Nearly noon,” he said. “They’ll be serving lunch at the mission. The doors will be open to anyone.”

  “I’ll go over and warn her,” Ari said. “If that’s acceptable. I don’t want to trust a phone call. The spy could be listening to her end of the conversation.”

  “Quite true, and she’s a stubborn woman when it comes to trusting in her God. Very well. The Chief and I will finish up the last few details here. O’Grady, go with Nathan. You’ll be able to persuade her of the danger better than the rest of us can.”

  As we walked over to Mission House, I gathered Qi. With every stride closer we took, the sense of danger increased. I began to wrap Qi around itself into a loose skein, ready to be tightened into a sphere once we stopped walking and I could concentrate.

  At a side door of the grim gray building a line had already formed for the meal: mostly women and children again, but even the men were all thin, ragged, and oddly quiet. The children leaned against their mothers or sat down on the ground to wait. Few smiled. Neither did any of the adults.

  “Can we go straight in?” I said.

  “I’d rather not attract attention,” Ari said. “Is she in immediate danger?”

  I ran a quick Personnel scan. “No. She’s in some kind of a meeting with other people around her.”

  We got in line just behind a handful of young men, all of whom looked ill: scrawny, pale, and exhausted. The sun shone in a flood of the orange light through the perennial dust clouds. In that glare everyone looked as flushed as if we’d been caught in an epidemic of fever. One of the men in front of us started coughing, a rasping deep cough that ended when he spat up into a scrap of cloth.

  “That’s blood,” another guy said to him.

  “Just a little,” he said.

  The other guy shrugged, and neither spoke again.

  The side door opened. The line began to file into a long, low-ceilinged room crammed with oblong plank tables, each covered with clean butcher paper. At the far end stood a long cafeteria-style counter, where young men in the black-and-maroon uniform of their army were filling bowls with soup. Each person got a plate with a bowl of soup and a chunk of white bread. Everyone said thank you and looked glad to get it.

  Ari and I exchanged a glance and stepped out of line. “Let’s go upstairs,” Ari murmured. “Is that where she is?”

  I was about to agree when a door behind the counter opened and Major Grace walked out. The danger warning stabbed at me.

  “No,” I said. “She’s right here.”

  We took a few steps away from the line and stood up against the cheerfully yellow wall of the dining room. I gathered more Qi, wound and wrapped it tighter and tighter. The young men who’d been in front of us went through the line and brought their trays to a table off to one side. The guy with the cough took a mouthful of warm soup and began to hack stuff up again. His friends ignored him.

  The tables filled up with oddly silent diners. Occasionally, a child cried or called out. Even more rarely an adult said something to the person next to them. Major Grace walked through the room, stopping at every table to greet the diners, smiling at the children, conversing briefly with the adults she knew.

  Eventually, she reached the guy with the bad cough. He’d finished eating and slumped down in his chair. When Major Grace stopped and spoke to him, he raised his head and tried to smile. The effort brought on the racking cough. He twisted, choked, and fell out of his chair sidewise onto the floor. Someone shouted. The Major called out for help. The diners at the nearby tables turned in their chairs to look. Several people rose to see what was causing the confusion. Behind her, I saw a man with a shaved head stand up and pull a knife from his boot.

  I hurled the Qi like a fastball, overhand and straight into his chest. It hit with a flash of silver enveloping light. The knife flew into the air, then clattered on the floor. He screamed, twitched, gibbered, and fell forward onto his face. Women screamed, and children wailed in terror. The friends of the man who’d fainted grabbed him and pulled him out of the way. Ari ran to the Major’s side with the Beretta drawn and ready.

  I made my way through a thinning, noisy crowd, but I noticed that even as the diners pulled away from the tables where the incident had taken place, they carried their food with them. Ari lunged forward and grabbed a pale, heavyset man by the collar. He swung him around and whacked him across the face with the Beretta. The guy howled in pain as blood spurted from his nose and lips. A second knife clattered to the floor.

  Major Grace knelt by the man I’d rendered harmless and stared into his face. He smiled at her, the usual mindless gape of the ensorcelled. His wide-open eyes displayed less intelligence than your average sheep. His fingers twitched to some unheard rhythm, and he giggled. I knelt down beside her.

  “All right,” Maj
or Grace said. “Rose, what are you?”

  “A certified police psychic.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Are you a human being?”

  “Huh? Yes, of course I am.”

  “Can you tell me outright that you’re not a demon? They have to answer when you ask them, or so I’ve been told.”

  “No problem.” I made the sign of the cross for good measure. “I am neither demon nor angel, only a human weirdo.”

  Major Grace managed a smile at that. “What did you do to this fellow to make him have that fit?”

  “Ensorcelled him with extra Qi. You can call it ‘life force,’ if you prefer. Nothing more than that. He’ll be back to normal in a couple of hours.”

  “Nothing more, hum?” Major Grace shook her head and laughed under her breath. “All right, if you say so.” She gave me a wry smile. “Thank you. It was obvious what he had in mind.”

  “Yeah, he must be from Storm Blue. That’s who we’re tracking. Eric is a CBI agent. Or I should say, his name’s not Eric. It’s Ari Nathan.”

  “You two should be on the stage. I was totally taken in.” She sighed and glanced away. “That’s hard to do.”

  “I hated lying to you.” Which was true, even though I’d just fudged a few more facts. “Storm Blue really is holding my brother Sean prisoner, if that’s any consolation.”

  “It is, yes. Thank you.”

  We stood up. Ari had holstered the gun. He’d also bound the accomplice’s hands behind his back with the guy’s own belt and made him lie facedown on the floor. He stood nearby and talked into his TWIXT communicator. Major Grace looked the prisoner over.

  “Jason, a new recruit,” she said, “or so we thought.”

  With the incident under control, the diners in the room went on eating. No doubt they’d seen worse.

  A small group of Army personnel rushed into the dining room. They clustered around Major Grace and all began to talk. One of the women was weeping with a run of silent tears down her face. I felt a trace of ASTA at the door and spun around in time to see a familiar blonde girl slipping out of the room. I’d seen her before, sitting in Mike’s lap and sleeping in his bed.

  “Ari,” I said, “A Storm Blue girl just ran. The news is going to get back to the Axeman.”

  “Good.” He slipped the communicator back into his shirt pocket. “We want the gang members off the Playland site, don’t we? Defending the safe houses, running for their sodding lives, I don’t care which.” He turned to Major Grace. “Chief Hafner’s on his way. He’ll post a man as your bodyguard for the remainder of today and tonight. Maybe longer, if necessary.”

  “My dear Eric!” She smiled. “I mean, Agent Nathan. I appreciate the thought, but I have the best bodyguard in the world. And if He should decide that it’s my time to join Him in the world of light, then I will, no matter who stands guard here.”

  “Maybe so,” Ari said. “But I’d just as soon he had some backup.”

  The backup arrived in a few minutes when Chief Hafner and two patrolmen strode into the dining room. The few people who hadn’t gobbled their lunch and left got up and hurried out. I looked the ordinary cops over carefully, but none of them displayed any lycanthropic tendencies. It seemed logical that the wolves would lead the hierarchy.

  The Chief nodded at me and the Major to acknowledge us, then took Ari to one side. While they stood talking, the patrolmen took charge of the pair of would-be assassins. One cop substituted handcuffs for the conscious guy’s belt, then hauled him to his feet and held him at gunpoint. The other patrol officer cuffed the ensorcellment victim.

  “What happened here?” he said to me.

  “He hit his head when he fell.”

  The cop glanced at Major Grace, who smiled in fake helplessness. “I had my back to him,” she said.

  “Okay. Hit his head will do, then.”

  Ari hurried over to join us.

  “The Chief wants to speak with you, Major,” Ari said. “O’Grady, let’s go.”

  As we left Mission House, we met the police lieutenant, who told us that the Chief had ordered a wagon brought for our transportation out to the beach. He handed Ari the keys and indicated a black vehicle sitting at the curb. When we inspected it, we saw that it had been cobbled together out of several different trucks. Under its off-kilter roof it would seat eight people on tattered bench seats.

  “Good, it’s got an engine,” I said to Ari. “I was afraid it would have horses.” I started to say more, then realized that a smear of blood decorated the front of his shirt. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.” He glanced down. “That’s where I cleaned off the Beretta.”

  “Right. After pistol-whipping that guy.”

  “No need to exaggerate! I only hit him once.”

  “Whatever. I’d better drive.”

  Ari glanced into the front seat. “It’s a manual transmission.”

  “Damn! Okay, you drive, but please, try to not kill anyone on the way.”

  CHAPTER 17

  WE RETURNED TO SPARE14’S OFFICE to find Sergeant Grampian and the two patrol officers still present, waiting with Spare14 and Hendriks. As soon as we walked in, Spare14 told me that Dad had never come back.

  “He will,” I said. “You can’t blame him for not wanting to hang out with a bunch of cops.”

  Spare14 gave me an odd look. I could have sworn he felt guilty about having arrested my father in the first place, though I couldn’t see why he would. I flopped down on the couch to grab a few minutes’ rest. My Qi badly needed to recharge.

  “Is there a long gun available?” Ari said. “I wish now that I’d brought mine.”

  “I have some in the kitchen,” Spare14 said. “In that narrow little cupboard. I think it used to hold an ironing board.”

  Jan grinned and trotted into the kitchen. He brought back two rifles that reminded me of guns from Western movies. He handed one to Ari, who smiled and ran loving fingertips over the wooden stock. Spare14 opened one of his desk drawers, rummaged through it, and gave each man a leather sack of cartridges.

  “Bolt-action Winchesters,” Ari said. “Solid, but I hope they reload quickly.”

  “Let’s hope you don’t need more than six shots,” Grampian said. “Hendriks, you and I need to get on the road. These two men—” he pointed at the regular officers, “—are staying with Agent Spare.”

  “Right,” Jan said. “Nathan, you’ve got a chrono, I see.”

  They actually did coordinate their watches, just like the movies. I was impressed. The final plan required precise timing. Hafner’s two squads would begin their raids on the safe houses precisely at 14:30, a time chosen to fall after the working people’s lunch breaks but before rush hour. The safe houses were located on the stretch of Mission Street that ran parallel to Market, right downtown.

  “We can’t risk harming pedestrians and bystanders,” Grampian said. “It’s not our job to kill innocent people.”

  I would have been surprised by this attack of morality had I not remembered that wolves were the original breeding stock for herd dogs. Apparently, Hafner and his top level personnel were evolving toward domestication.

  Jan and Grampian would move their men into Playland from the east side at 15:00 sharp. Ari, Dad, and I would sneak into the complex from the west five minutes later. With luck, I could find Michael and Sean immediately. Dad would walk them out of the hidden rooms. The Playland squads would meet in the middle of the ruins. With luck, again—lots of it. “Where is your father?” Spare14 sounded irritable. “I never even saw him leave.”

  “Right behind you,” Dad said.

  Spare14 yelped and spun around. None of us had seen him return.

  “One good ambush deserves another,” Dad said.

  To give him credit, Spare14 managed to smile. “Only fair, yes. May I ask where you were?”

  “Up in Old Sutro’s front yard. I had a look at that statue of Diana.” Dad grinned at me. “You saw something worth seeing, Noodles. She’s gu
arding a gate.”

  “Ye gods!” Spare14 said. “A trans-world gate?”

  I caught my breath with a hiss.

  “Just that. Now, I don’t know what lies on the other side of it. It’s out of balance somehow. I’m not sure what’s wrong with it, but since I wasn’t sure I could get back, I didn’t try it out.”

  “Wise of you. Very useful information, that. Thank you.”

  “Well, the Public Solicitor back on Five made the terms of my release clear enough.” Dad looked at Spare14 with an unreadable expression. “I gave my word I’d help you with this. Damned if I’ll break it.”

  Spare14’s SPP oozed a peculiar kind of guilty feeling. Later, I reminded myself, I was going to ask both men what lay between them. At the moment we had a few other things to attend to.

  “As far as I could tell,” Dad continued, “there’s some sort of tunnel been dug nearby, leading up to the statue’s position. I don’t have the talents for spying out that sort of thing, but I could hear the hollowness when I walked over it. Our Nola might be able to tell us more.”

  “Very well,” Spare14 said. “We’ll go have a walk around the gardens first. It’s only thirteen hundred now. We have time for a look. That tunnel might lead us to the Axeman.”

  “It could also be his escape route,” Ari said. “We’d best make sure it’s blocked.”

  “Hang on a minute, then,” Dad said. “I’d better collect an orb or two, just in case.”

  He hurried into the bedroom. I could hear him rummaging around in the luggage, but when he returned, he didn’t seem to be carrying anything. I figured that the orbs could shrink or slide into one of those curly dimensions Willa had mentioned.

  “Shall we go, gentlemen?” Spare said. “Nathan, if you’d drive—”

  “No,” I interrupted. “We don’t want to turn into the Keystone Kops, do we? I think my father had better drive.”

  Ari shot me a scowl.

  “I can get you there a bit faster,” Dad said. “Especially with an orb right to hand.”

  “Quite.” Spare14 looked rueful. “I tend to forget.”

 

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