“You fraggin’ son of a slitch.” She wanted to say so much more, but didn’t dare. The person on the other end of that red dot could take exception to her insults.
Imre shrugged. “That’s what some say. In any case, I would put your pistol down before Fatima gets antsy. Put it on the ground and kick it to me. We just want to have a conversation with Tojo.”
She did as she was told. “Tojo doesn’t know anything. Why do you want to talk with him?”
“Because we need the data we paid for.” He picked up the pistol and put it in one of the many duster pockets. “Come on in, everyone. Richter, you’re on watch.”
“But I gave it to your team.” Tojo frowned. “At least, I think I did. I gave it to Beauty. I watched her take it out of the safe.” He looked at Makeda. “You know. You saw. Well, you didn’t see. You were unconscious. But I told you. I did what I was supposed to do.”
Makeda nodded, her hands still in the air. She knew all right. She knew they were both in deep drek. Tojo had in fact handed over the paydata, and he had no idea she stole it from Beauty. Accidentally stole it—of course, details like that don’t matter a whole lot in the shadows.
How the hell was she going to get them out of this one?
14
Three more people joined them inside the barn—two humans and an elf. The elf woman, Pongolyn, was a hacker. Fatima was a street samurai, from the amount of weapons she had on her, and Ollietronic seemed to be a fixer or face of some kind. He was constantly on the comms after Pongolyn gave him the all-clear with a personal signal booster. Though it seemed like he was doing a lot more virtual typing than talking. Even with the booster, the Matrix signal sucked hoop.
Fatima stood next to Imre and kept an HK 227-X trained on Makeda. The last of Imre’s team, Richter9.0—“Because I’ll rock your world, baby!”—was the huge troll from the Party Train. He patrolled the outside. They’d been polite and firm, separating Tojo from Makeda to talk to him.
Makeda sat apart from the rest with her back to one of the barn’s support poles. They’d stripped her of her external gear and credsticks. She was lucky to keep her coat. Imre made sure he collected all of the nuyen. They made Tojo sit against another support beam. He’d also been stripped of all his gear and credsticks, leaving him in a sullen state.
While Imre’s team talked and glanced at her or Tojo from time to time, Makeda subvocalized, “Galen, got a problem here. Come in.”
Nothing.
She checked her e-mail. Two new e-mails had downloaded, with more in process. It seemed there was just enough signal here to get text through in sporadic bursts and not much else. Makeda locked down all of her accounts except one. She shifted until she could tap her fingers on her legs and bent her head to watch them. She didn’t want anyone to see her get that faraway look of a person working on the net.
She typed out and sent Galen an e-mail.
Trying not to curse, Makeda hit send again and waited to see if the e-mail would send or be rejected. It was slow going. While she hit send again and again, trying to get the e-mail to go through on the scant signal in the area, she listened to Imre and Tojo talk.
Imre hunkered down next to Tojo as he gave the man’s shoulder bag back. Tojo made a show of emptying it, then folding his clothing as neat as he could before putting it back in the bag. “Are you going to give me my nuyen back? I earned it.”
Makeda could’ve laughed at the question. It was something a person who lived in the light would ask, not knowing how futile it would be. Imre’s answer surprised her.
“Yes. Once you give us what we bought. We make a deal, we stick with it.”
“But I gave you the codes. To Beauty. I watched her put it in her bag.” Tojo hugged his shoulder bag again. It was an unconscious gesture of fear, trying to put something between him and Imre.
“See, here’s the problem. I found Beauty—LaFroideur— unconscious and bruised in her sleeper suite. There had been a fight. Someone had tried to clean the room. It was a rushed job. I woke her up. Just as the train crashed, she discovered her credsticks and the codes were missing.” Imre doodled in the dirt with a slender finger. “I’m going to need those codes again.”
Tojo shook his head.
“I’m afraid, I’m going to have to insist.”
“I can’t give them to you now. I don’t know them. I just downloaded them. I didn’t memorize them. I did what I was supposed to do. You’re the ones who messed it up.” Tojo scowled. “I earned my money. I did what I was supposed to do.” He repeated the words as if they were a spell that would make everything right again.
“We need them.” Imre’s voice was low and soothing.
“I can’t give you the codes.” Tojo started to stand. Imre pushed him back into his seated position. Tojo’s face crumbled into something desperate. “I didn’t keep a copy of them.”
Imre’s team shifted around them, looking more and more unfriendly.
Makeda knew she had to do something. Quick. She racked her brain for an idea.
Fatima shifted her submachine gun from Makeda to Tojo. “Why are we keeping him alive again?”
Bad cop, Makeda thought. Maybe, she added. Fatima seemed overeager to commit violence. She couldn’t be sure it was a tag team of bad cop, good cop going on.
Imre raised a hand to calm her. “Because he’s the man with what we need.”
Makeda saw her chance. It was a slim one, but when you lived on the edge, it was all you needed. “No, he’s not.” She stood in a smooth motion keeping her hands out. “I’m the one who has what you want. And you’re keeping Tojo alive because I need him alive. Also, because he really did sell you the codes. Too bad LaFroideur couldn’t keep hold of them. Where is she, by the way?”
The HK 227-X swiveled over to Makeda again. Fatima bared her teeth. “She’s dead.”
Makeda flicked a surprised glance at Imre and raised her hands higher. “Not by me. I left her asleep and unbound—as she did with me. Professional courtesy.” That explained Fatima’s want to hurt someone.
“It happened in the train wreck.” Imre stood and stepped between Fatima and Makeda. He leaned to his teammate and muttered, “Let me deal with this. That’s my job.”
She gave him a glare that could’ve peeled paint from a wall before she stalked over to Pongolyn and Ollietronic.
A firewall warning popped up as someone tried to hack into her PAN. Thanks to TechnoGalen’s programs, everything was immediately shut down, locked up, and put into private mode. Makeda scowled and pointed at Pongolyn. “You stop that right now. Otherwise there’ll be no deal. No codes. No nothing.”
The elf’s expression didn’t change, but she looked at Imre. Makeda waited. Everyone tilted their head or dropped their eyes to the ground in that listening pose. Imre stood between Makeda and the rest of his team. A quick confab, or argument, over their personal comm system ensued. She wished she could be a fly on the wall of it to gauge their mood. Though by the looks of it, it wasn’t friendly.
Tojo watched everyone with a wary, stubborn eye Makeda didn’t like, but understood. He even glared at her a couple of times, confused at her role in all this. She was his protector. She also had his codes, and he didn’t know how she’d done it or why she hadn’t told him about it.
Imre nodded and relaxed, satisfied with the results of the conversation. He gave her a half-smile and gestured for her to follow him. Makeda did, not looking at Tojo. She felt his eyes burning holes in her back as she and Imre walked to just outside the barn.
The clouds had rolled in dark grey and heavy. They promised rain. A lot of it. Makeda hoped they wouldn’t be walking in it. The way things were going, they would. Probably chased by a bear to boot.
“I need to know, do you actually have the codes? Or are you just trying to keep your client alive?” Imre stared at her with those big, dark eyes under a messy fringe of mint
-colored hair.
It was a ridiculous situation. She covered her mouth and tried not to laugh. His unstyled hair clashed with his sober manner. She felt like she was watching a telenova. His party-boy look conflicted with the very real danger he posed and thrilled her to her toes. Makeda couldn’t help it. She wished she had a holo of this moment with him looking so somber and ridiculous at the same time.
“This is serious,” he continued. “They want to cut their losses and run.”
Makeda stopped laughing. She did not like the sound of that. “Meaning?”
“Meaning they want to put a bullet in each of you, take the nuyen we have, and go.”
“You run with the kind of team that takes on wetwork?” She couldn’t keep her distaste hidden.
Imre made a face. “No. I mean, we will if we have to, but no. Not generally.”
“But shooting a couple of people in the back because of Beauty’s dumb mistake is just fine?”
“LaFroideur.” The correction was automatic. “You two get caught, and Tojo will crack. No doubts. We don’t know about you. So, answer the fraggin’ question. Do you actually have the codes? I’m trying to save your life here.”
Makeda nodded. “Yes. As soon as I found them, I uploaded them to a very safe place. Then I destroyed the data chip disguised as a credstick. I’m the one who has what your team needs, and you won’t get it if Tojo is hurt or killed.”
Imre opened his mouth to speak. He stopped when she raised a single finger to his lips. “I’m not done. I’m going to help both of us. Give you the exact solution you need.”
He gestured for her to continue.
“You want the codes. I want to get Tojo and me on my plane in Bern. I think your team escorting me and Tojo to the Bern airport is a suitable payment for a copy of the codes, don’t you think? Also, we—me and Tojo—get our credsticks back.”
“How do I know you aren’t lying to me?”
Makeda locked eyes with him and knew she’d already won. Just like she hadn’t wanted to kill him, he didn’t want to kill her. He believed her, and would believe her until she stabbed him in the back—something she did not plan on doing. At least, not yet.
“You don’t. But, that’s life in the shadows, Imre. You know that. You also know I helped you out of the train wreck. I didn’t hurt B— LaFroideur—I’m sorry about her, though. I liked her when she wasn’t tranqing, punching, or robbing me. Also, I didn’t shoot you the multiple times I could have, and I’m not lying to you. I do have your codes. I know what they’re worth.”
Imre shoved his hands in his duster pockets. He was quiet for a long time as he scanned the horizon. At one point, he got that faraway look of being on his comms. Then he shrugged and focused on Makeda again. “A full copy of the codes in exchange for an escort to the Bern airport.”
“We get our credsticks and gear back.”
“And your gear back.”
She put her hands on her hips. “And our credsticks.”
Imre grimaced. “Yes, but not the one with 242,500 nuyen on it. The one with 100,000 nuyen on it, like I originally bargained for. Tojo gets his, too. I am a man of my word.”
It was better than she expected. She’d been prepared to lose some of the nuyen. Makeda knew they must really need those codes, or have a hell of a lot of money on the line to make the deal. Her thought that the codes could be worth millions must be correct. Makeda made a show of thinking about his compromise for a count of twenty before she nodded. “Since I don’t have to pay for a seat for you on the plane or get you an alt ID, deal.”
He stuck out his hand. “Deal.”
The two of them shook on it. Imre handed her two certified credsticks. Each displayed 100,000 nuyen on them. “We were going to Bern airport anyway. What’s a couple more people?”
Makeda shrugged. “Then it all works out. I’ll need a private, secure way to contact you. The real you. Not the ‘Imre’ you. You’re the only one I’ll give a copy of the codes to. Since I know what they’re worth, I’m keeping a copy for my own use.”
“Imre is me.” Imre took his comms off private mode. “I’ll need the same from you.”
She shook her head. “I’m not opening myself up again. Not after the drek your hacker pulled.”
“Like yours wouldn’t have done the same thing.” He shook his head, thought for a moment, then dug out his datapad. “Write it down.”
Makeda gave him her secured contact information and paused as he wrote out his for her. She memorized it. “‘Rabenhaupt’? What does that mean?”
Imre eyed her, looking for the joke.
She shook her head. “I don’t know German. I know Spanish and Italian. When I’m in the civilized world, I use skillsofts or a translator app. Both are in short supply right now.”
“Raven’s head. It’s like the head of a household.” Imre shrugged.
“Ah. Right. I’ll remember that. Shall we tell your team that we’re working together now?”
“Technically, you two are our clients. You are paying us to escort you to the Bern airport, after all. Thus, we are not working together.”
“I—”
The rest of what Makeda had to say was lost to Richter’s surprised, “What the hell?” and Gregor’s furious roar.
15
Still bloody from Imre’s garrote and Makeda’s pistol shots, the mutant troll threw himself at Richter. Makeda saw his re-grown eye—as yellow as before, but now ringed with gore—and groped for a weapon she didn’t have. Richter got a three-round burst off from his HK MP-5 TX before Gregor was on top of him, bowling him over.
Imre’s entire team boiled out of the barn, weapons ready. No one fired as Gregor and Richter wrestled. It was too easy to hit the wrong troll.
Tojo hurried to Makeda’s side. “Now’s our chance.” He grabbed her arm and pulled.
She pulled back. “Chance for?”
“To escape.”
Makeda shook her head. “No need. I’ve just made a deal with Imre. They’re going to escort us to the Bern airport.”
Tojo looked at her as if she’d grown another head. “Have you lost your senses? You can’t trust them.”
“We can. Would you rather have them hunting us or protecting us?” She gestured to the heavily armed group.
“I don’t want either. I just want to get away. They’ll kill us.”
Makeda shook her head, keeping her voice low and patient. This was not how she wanted to deal with her extraction clients. Next time, friendly or not, she swore she’d drug them until they got to the hand-off. “I’ve got what they want. They won’t hurt me or you because of it.”
He scowled. “We need to talk about that, too.”
She watched the trolls punch each other. “No. We don’t. You were right, once the codes left your hands, they were no longer your business.”
“But you knew about the codes. You stole them from Beauty.”
She grimaced as Richter took a hard punch to the face. “Only after you told me about them. It was an opportunity, and I took it.”
“But—”
Makeda cut Tojo off with a sharp gesture. “Enough. This isn’t a discussion. They’re going to escort us to Bern, and that’s that.”
Tojo winced as if she’d slapped him. He whirled and stomped back into the barn. Makeda continued to watch the fight, wishing she had a weapon.
Richter threw Gregor off him. Every member of Imre’s team fired at almost the same time. The air filled with the echoes of gunfire that lasted a couple seconds after the shooting stopped. This time, after the mutant troll hit the dirt, Imre used his monofilament garrote to sever Gregor’s head from his body. “Regenerate from that. I dare you.”
Richter, bleeding from the nose and mouth, kicked his enemy’s head away. “Boss, I need five to get patched up.”
Imre nodded. “Fatima, on patrol.”
The Arabic woman shifted her weapons to a more comfortable carrying stance. She headed towards the other side of the barn. As she pas
sed, Makeda raised a hand to stop her. “Got an extra pistol for me?”
Fatima blinked at her. “What? You’ve got to be kidding. ”
“I need a weapon. We’re working together now. Better to have me working than not.” Makeda pointed at Gregor’s body. “That’s a perfect example.”
Fatima gave Imre a questioning look. Then shrugged at whatever he comm’d to her. “All right.” She pulled a Colt America L36 from an inner sheath. “Can you use this?”
Makeda nodded, familiar with the weapon. “Yep.”
“I’ll give you the holster when I’m off patrol.” Fatima shook her head. “You got nerves, woman.”
“Nerves of steel and brains of tofu, my team tells me.” Fatima didn’t look back, but Makeda caught the edge of the woman’s smile.
As she walked back into the barn to Tojo’s side, Makeda checked to make sure that the light pistol was loaded. It was. Eleven bullets in the magazine. Tojo watched her, frowning. Makeda sighed and gestured to Imre’s team. “It’s not perfect, but I’d rather have this group of runners on my side. Wouldn’t you?”
Tojo shrugged. “I see what you mean. I just don’t like it.” His face settled into discontent as he watched their new protectors.
Makeda shifted the pistol to her jacket then handed him his credstick. “You like it better now?”
Tojo smiled, his face lighting up with surprise and pleasure. “Yeah. I guess.” He stuffed it into his pants pocket. “How…? Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
“Know what?” Imre asked as he walked up.
Tojo looked away. Makeda half-shrugged. “He doesn’t want to know about the shadows. It’s better that way. He’s got a life in the light to return to.”
Imre clapped Tojo on the shoulder. “You’ve got the right of it. We’ll get you to the Bern airport. Makeda will get you to your new home.”
Tojo nodded then moved away from them. He found a comfortable spot to sit and all but collapsed to the ground. Imre and Makeda watched him for a couple of seconds before glancing at each other. They quickly found other things to look at.
Makeda Red Page 13