Squid and Giselle just look at her.
It makes no sense that this man Dominick Freise would steal an incomplete file. Such an irrational idea suggests strongly that appearances are not to be trusted. Perhaps this man Freise did not know that the file was incomplete. Maybe this Freise, like Hogan, was also set up. Maybe he did not even steal the datapak at all, but was ordered killed, and the pak conveyed to the man Hogan by one impersonating Freise. Only now does she realize that she did not interrogate Hogan too closely on the matter of the pick-up. For all she knows, Hogan might have gotten the pak from some person who had nothing at all to do with Freise.
"Who would have access to this file?" she asks Squid. "Ones that could wipe out data. What are their names?" Squid taps a keyboard several times. One of the console displays blinks and biinks as endless lines of LED data leap upward. "Three people have access codes. Dominick Freise, project director. Emon Kuze, assistant director. Bernard Ohara, executive oversight."
"Tell me about Kuze and Ohara."
Squid must jack in again to do this, but within minutes, he begins to tell her all about Emon Kuze. The most essential fact is that he died in an automobile accident about three months ago, long before the contract on Freise. That seems to eliminate him from the puzzle. "Ohara’s a honcho for Seretech," Squid continues. "Vice President for Directed Research. Executive Oversight for Project Meta."
"What has this Seretech to do with it?"
"They owns BioDynamics."
Tikki puzzles over this. The corporate side of human affairs always confuses her, perhaps her greatest weakness. People go into their office buildings, and then they come out. Sometimes. she is waiting there for them. This is what she knows best. The rest is like a suspicion, a scent hanging in the breeze, taunting her with the tenuous trace-scents of prey, but elusive as a shadow. "What are you saying? This Seretech owns BioDynamics, and so this Ohara, who is vice president for one. can influence what happens at the other?"
Squid and Giselle both nod.
"What can you tell me about Ohara?"
Squid taps a keyboard. "Graduate of Tokyo University and the Harvard Business School. Top 10 percent of his class. Went straight to Orinoco International, big corporation. He's been a fast-tracker ever since. Always moving up, bigger salaries, bigger firms, higher and higher positions. According to the historical record, things in the media, he's something of a schemer. Ohara directed several hostile takeovers of profitable corporations. He also arranged a couple of extraterritorial deals that really shagged the people on the other side of the table. I guess you’d say he's not a nice person." Interesting.
This Ohara was not only in a position to alter the file on Project Meta, but might well have brought the man Conway into the picture. A middle manager, as Castillano described Dominick Freise. would be unlikely to have the necessary influence to involve a man like Conway in much of anything. This man Ohara sounded like he would have the requisite power.
"Is there any connection between this Ohara and a man called John Brandon Conway."
"The corporate negotiator?" Giselle asks.
Tikki nods.
Squid jacks in again and minutes turn slowly into an hour, then another hour, before Squid rejoins them. "There is a link," he says, "but it's not much."
"Ohara attended a finance convention in Toronto about six months ago. I have Conway pegged in Toronto at the same time. They were both in town. That’s definite. The only thing that might imply that they met is Ohara's fetish for Poriloff beluga caviar. A tin of that was delivered to Conway at his hotel right before he left town."
"This caviar is unusual?"
Squid shrugs. "Never heard of it before."
"I have," Giselle says. "You can’t get it anywhere for any price."
So this Ohara may have met Conway in Toronto, and was probably in a position to engage Conway’s services, and definitely had access to the Project Meta datafile and so could have set up Dominick Freise, and Hogan, and even herself.
"Who owns Global Security?"
Squid taps at one of his keyboards for a few minutes, then says. "The structure’s odd, but it looks like Seretech owns Global, along with a lot of other firms."
So, then, this Ohara could conceivably have ordered Global Security to chase her down.
She decides she will visit this Ohara. Find out what he knows . . .
* * *
Ohara lives in Regency Park, which is in Bellevue, very posh and very exclusive. With so many corporate daimyos living there, it is well-protected. A concrete wall rings the entire neighborhood. There are several gates, but no one gets through without proper clearance. The zonies are heavily armed and tend to be vicious in dealing with intruders. There are constant security patrols, attack dogs, and all kinds of alarms. No one but a professional has a chance of getting inside.
Tikki has a number of things in her favor, which make a run on the Park likely to succeed: determination, skill, experience, the right equipment, and a complete fold-out survey of all security systems currently on-site.
She starts her run after dark.
It is much like stalking prey in the wild, where a single misstep may snap a twig, disturb a stone, or upset some noisy little creature and thus alert the prey to the hunter’s approach.
She must choose each step with care, be sure of her ground. remember it is better to wait, keep to a position of concealment, even retreat, only to try again some other night, rather than risk discovery. Do anything to avoid alerting Ohara to her interest. She gives herself until midnight to reach his residence. That gives her adequate time to withdraw, whether she confronts the man or not.
Getting to the perimeter wall unseen costs her more time than actually getting over the wall and circumventing the alarms. This is as she expected.
The neighborhood is divided into "estates," each composed of a house, some quite large, and about a hectare of carefully sculptured terrain. Each of these estates has its own individual security system. In effect, she must work her way past a dozen redundant systems in order to reach her target undetected. Her course is less than direct because one cannot enter the Park just anywhere, and certain estates are better-defended than others. While evading detection by electronic means, she must also keep watch for zonies on patrol and remain alert for any residents who might happen to wander out of doors. There is plenty to keep her busy. She spends much time crouched in bushes, just looking, listening, and checking her detectors.
It is well past eleven by the time she reaches Ohara’s estate. The rear lawn is expansive and peppered with many beds of flowers and other purely decorative flora, which provide Tikki with some cover. She moves to the rear of the mansion along the stonework paths of a fragrant garden, then pauses beside a series of flimsy-looking doors, each composed of many windows, to observe.
The room just inside is vast and luxuriously appointed. The man Ohara is obviously very wealthy, more so than an address in the Park might imply. Several sparkling chandeliers provide illumination from high on the two-story tall ceiling. The walls are decorated with gold-framed paintings. Many glittering objects are scattered like gemstones throughout the room. The floor itself appears to be of marble, as in certain old museums Tikki has visited.
While she watches, a gaunt man in servant's uniform enters and heads toward the distant end of the room, directing her attention to another man, seated behind an enormous desk.
The portly man at the desk waves a hand without looking up, and the servant turns and departs.
This would be Ohara.
The one at the desk matches the Ohara description: middle-aged, short, dark-brown hair, a little flabby under the jaw, broad shoulders.
Tikki waits a few moments more, then slips inside, bringing up a 5mm submachine gun. This weapon was manufactured especially for her by the Thai known only as The Mechanic. It is light, compact, and exceedingly accurate. It is also extremely quiet. A quick burst sounds like nothing so much as the soft fluttering of a bird risin
g into the air.
Her target is some twenty or twenty-five meters away, but she has shot many times that distance with perfect accuracy.
Most people would be a little intimidated by the sight of Tikki, with her striped visage, rugged attire, and SMG, coming suddenly out of the dark at near midnight, but this Ohara is not. As she crosses the threshold, the man looks at her, and immediately reaches for a telecom console on the side of the desk. Even as his forefinger contacts the face of the console. Ohara gives her a sneer, a derisive little smile. Very audacious.
"I just hit the intruder alarm," he announces with utter assurance, motioning briefly at the console. "I don’t know who you are. but you better leave. Now."
"I don’t think so."
Unhurried, Tikki walks across the room to stand just a few meters in front of his desk. Ohara watches her intently, glances at the telecom, looks over the ruthless little weapon pointed generally at his nose, then looks again to the com. Moments pass. The orchestral music playing softly from speakers hidden around the room goes on without interruption. There comes no wailing of sirens, no gruff zonie voices uplifted in warning, no stamping of mock Death Ranger boots. The fact is that no one is coming to Ohara’s rescue. It is just the two of them.
Ohara frowns. "I don’t understand."
Understanding is a valuable thing, so Tikki steps around to the side of the desk and lifts the slim white wire leading down from the telecom console. This wire has been neatly sectioned into two parts by a concentrated grouping of hi-velocity flechettes. Apparently, Ohara did not notice the soft sputtering of the SMG as she came in. Tikki is anything but surprised.
Ohara draws back a little from the rear of his desk, seeming less than content. "What do you want?" he demands.
"Tell me about Dominick Freise."
"Freise is dead," Ohara replies.
Tikki nods. "Why did you want him that way?"
The question is intended to surprise, perhaps shock an answer out of the man, but Ohara’s most immediate response is subdued and difficult to interpret. The man has excellent self-control. "I don’t know what you’re talking about," he says.
"Drek!"
Before she can go any further, Tikki hears a soft click to her rear. Ohara’s eyes shift to her right. She is forced to turn and look. The man in servant’s uniform is back again. That is too bad for him. She is busy working to salvage her life and is at risk just being here. She cannot afford any interruptions that might lead to costly delays. The servant stops and gapes at her. A burst from the SMG tears at his fancy black jacket and frilly white shirt, spattering both with blood and spinning him back toward the floor.
She is thinking that perhaps this demonstration of resolve will make Ohara more willing to talk, when she hears a clatter and looks to see the man lifting a pistol from a desk drawer. This is revealing. Ohara does not try to warn the servant away or shout for her to leave the servant alone, which might draw attention to himself, but rather goes for his gun.
It is a Beretta slimline, silencer-equipped. Tikki wonders about a corporate executive who fits a handgun with a silencer, something more in the province of the professional killer.
The gun goes off. just once, with a discreet thump. The bullet pounds at her shoulder, which hurts, but has no other effect. Still holding her SMG, she is looking at the man like he is so much meat. The advantage of ballistic-insulated clothing such as her red leather jacket is that it makes her invulnerable without giving anything away.
Ohara’s eyes go wide, as Tikki triggers the SMG.
A quick burst makes Ohara’s shirt sleeve flutter. The man’s arm jerks out to his side, and the Beretta falls. Ohara exclaims and grabs at the arm, turning aside in his chair. "Bitch!" he snarls.
Scenting fear, Tikki smiles. She perches on the far corner of the desk, pointing the SMG generally at Ohara’s groin.
"If you don’t tell me what I want to know, if you lie. I'm going to kill you. Understand?"
Ohara is breathing heavily, clenching the wounded arm to his chest. The shirt sleeve is tattered, the arm bleeding freely.
The smell of his fear is quite tangible, but he is far from crumbling, as most people would be by now. Instead, Ohara glares at her and growls, "You’ll regret this."
"Doubtful."
The man does not respond to her stare in anything like a typical manner. "You don’t realize who you’re dealing with," Ohara blurts, now seeming a bit breathless. "I’ve got influence. Important connections."
To show him how little that is worth, she slips from the desktop and fires a burst across his feet. Ohara howls and does a spastic little dance right there in his chair. Tikki puts one hand to his shoulder and shoves him over backward, chair and all. Ohara tumbles and sprawls, rolls over onto his back. His face is bright red, contorted by rage or frustration. His smell is as much fear as pain, and he is bloodied from head to foot. Good signs all around. Maybe now he’ll behave like prey.
She crouches beside him. "I'm the one who did Freise," she tells him. "I also buffed the punks from Global. I also retired your friend over there in the fancy shirt. If you don’t start talking real soon. I’m gonna do you, too."
Ohara curses at her.
"Last chance."
"Idiot!" he explodes. "Why did I want him dead? What do you think? I was covering myself!"
"You ordered the hit."
"Of course!"
Sweet music to her ears. Her tenuous lead has paid off in full, her instincts confirmed.
She draws the Gerber fiberstee! knife from the sheath along her right thigh. This particular model is known as the "Man-Killer," a vicious-looking weapon nearly the size of a machete and with a serrated edge that can saw through bone or even steel.
"Now I want the rest of the story."
It comes in fits and starts and she must prod Ohara with the knife to get it all out. The plan was like an elaborate ruse, what Ohara describes as "P.R." Freise was supposed to look like a thief. Conway was hired to take delivery of the datapak from Freise, then let it slip away. Conway interfaced through various operatives with Castillano and Prince to get Freise killed and the pak stolen. The idea was that the pak should disappear into the criminal underworld. Some months or years from now, another corporation, not BioDynamics or Sere-tech, would use the data from Project Meta for its own purposes, such as turning a profit. It would be only coincidental that by then Ohara would occupy a position of power in this other corporation.
"You're trading the real datafile for a step up."
"Obviously!"
Tikki cannot restrain another smile. In creating the illusion that the Meta file had been stolen and might turn up anywhere. he has crossed too many of the wrong people: Castillano and Prince, to name just two.
At that moment, Tikki hears a soft footfall to her rear and catches a whiff of scents at once foreign and familiar. The next moment, a pair of large, powerful hands seize her by the shoulders and wrench her up like a doll, right off the floor. She glimpses bulging muscle, a spread of ebony skin, a leather vest and a broad leather belt, prodigious body hair, prominent fangs, leering demon eyes, and pointed ears. This is a monster, some incredible, unnatural thing that resembles an ork. but is built like a troll.
It grunts at her. "Dead meat."
When the monster flings her across the room, she tumbles over a table and crashes down over a chair, the shoulder strap of the SMG becoming like a noose threatening to strangle her. For an instant, she fears that she has split her skull wide open, but then the pain comes searing up through her left leg. To make matters worse, she loses the fibersteel knife.
Ohara is laughing uproariously, and shouting, "Yes! Yes! Kill it, Uruk-hai! KILL IT! KILL IT!"
Uruk-hai, Tikki recalls, is the name of the super-species.
It comes straight for her, hurling tables and other furniture from its path like so much cardboard. Struggling just to get up onto one knee, she has the SMG spouting rapid-fire but can’t see clearly enough to aim with any pre
cision. Her left lower leg is broken and healing rapidly, but it feels like a blowtorch blazing up through her knee. She can handle the pain, but can’t keep the water out of her eyes and can’t help gasping for breath. She makes it up onto her good leg, and manages to ram a fresh clip into the SMG and open fire again, but then the Uruk-hai runs her down.
She was hit by a truck in L.A. once, and this feels exactly the same. The SMG flies from her grip. The shoulder Strap lashes her neck, snaps and disappears. The Uruk-hai’s massive front swells up to obscure her view of the room, then a pair of arms like heavy steel bumpers come up, smashing into her chest and mid-section.
The leg is almost healed, but now several ribs let go.
The Uruk-hai roars—whether like a beast or like a human, she can’t decide. Hurled back off her feet, Tikki goes smashing through one of those flimsy-looking rear doors. Plaswood and plexiglass splinter around her. She lands on her chest, which costs her some wind, but the left leg is good again. Now that her body is really aroused, she is healing very swiftly—swift as any Were. Another few instants and her ribs will be mended solid and strong as ever. The water in her eyes is still a problem. She inherits this from her mother.
The Uruk-hai comes bashing through the ruined multi-paned door and clubs her in the head with a fist like a concrete block, toppling her over backward. Somewhere in the background. Ohara is laughing hysterically and shouting, "Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!" The Uruk-hai grabs her up and begins to crush her against its chest. Her ribs are good again, but about to snap en masse.
Breathing is an agony. Her arms are pinned to her sides. She can’t get any leverage, find any pressure points, exploit any vulnerable areas. In another few moments, she is likely to be dead.
Struggling in human guise is futile.
She changes. Nothing she has ever encountered could resist her transformation . . . Maybe nothing can. She throws back her head—and roars.
Her clothing bursts into tatters. The world takes on new meanings. She can hear the maniacal frenzy in Ohara's rising shouts. She can smell the sudden heat of exertion in the Uruk-hai’s noxious breath. The beast is staggering now and struggling to keep hold of her. Her hind paws touch the ground and she roars into the monster’s face with all the untamed savagery empowering her Were-form.
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