Makeda Red

by Jennifer Brozek

  A tall Spanish man with obvious cyberarms gestured wide. “Bonita! Si la belleza fuera delito, yo te hubiera dado cadena perpetua.”

  The jukebox came to life with the song, Alpha Ghoul. Imre turned and smiled at her. He was such a beautiful man. Makeda glanced at the man beside her. “I deserve to be in prison for a lot more than my beauty.”

  She left him there, clutching his chest, declaring to the world his heart was broken. He returned to the bar with his buddies laughing at him and clapping him on the back. Makeda kept half an ear out in that direction, just in case. Most rejected men dealt with it well enough. Some took the rejection as an invitation to attack.

  Imre opened his arms for a hug. Makeda slid into them, letting him hold her for a brief moment. He pressed his lips to her neck, just below the ear. “I like the new color. Red suits you.”

  “Same to you. I like your hair longer, but the black works so much better.” She pulled back. “We got trouble. Not just me. I think you, too.”

  Imre kept his smile, but his eyes hardened. Swaying his body to the music, he held her hands and leaned forward. “C’mon. I’ve got a place we can talk. Really talk.”

  “My team is with me.” Makeda tapped her temple before she slid her arm around his waist. Imre draped his arm over her shoulders as if they’d been friends and lovers for ages. The two of them walked to the “Employees Only” door. The sudden quiet of the soundproofed hallway told her all she needed to know about the bar. Nothing was ever what it seemed.

  He led her to a room with an unmarked door. It was an office. The desk was mostly cleared, with some knick-knacks on it and a small trid player. The walls were covered in photos of people who’d come through the bar—some of them famous, some not. A dented metal filing cabinet sat in one corner. A single, scruffy chair sat in front of the desk. Nothing sat behind it.

  She gestured to the room. “Yours?”

  Imre shook his head. “A friend’s. I’m just passing through. What’s the situation?”

  “Immediate, two injured, one dead.” “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.

  Makeda pressed her lips together and looked away, debating. She focused in on a black-and-white picture of a Spanish elven woman in a white dress. It was signed. She couldn’t read the signature. She turned and locked eyes with him. “I gotta ask. Did you blow up Tojo’s boat?”

  Imre blinked. Whatever he thought she was going to ask him, that wasn’t it. “Blow up Tojo’s boat?” His confusion cleared. “Ah. The explosion.” He shook his head. “No. My deal was to get the codes and nothing more. I didn’t have anything to do with the exploding boat. It’s a drek thing to have happen. I was rooting for him to make it to his new home. To leave all this behind.”

  If Imre was acting, he was doing a bang-up job of it. “Okay. I needed to know.” She paused. “Your team? Everyone get out?”

  Imre looked toward the door they’d come through. “No. Richter was too far gone. Pongolyn and Ollietronic disappeared off the map. They dropped Fatima off in one of our places, then faded. I want to say they’re fine, but they’re not answering messages. I know Ollie was shot, hurt bad. Could be that Pongo took him some place very safe. Fatima made her way here. She’s with me.”

  “We saw her pick you up from the airport. I hope Pongolyn and Ollietronic are safe.” Makeda sat on the edge of the desk. “Have you given your paydata to Herr Schmidt?”

  Imre hesitated. “No. We need to meet. That was part of the original deal.”

  She nodded. “Let me float a theory. This came from my hacker. How much are those codes worth in the shadows now?”

  “A lot. Hundreds of thousands. Probably more.”

  Makeda noted that. It might be a very good way to make money if she needed it. “How much if everyone associated with them were dead…and Saeder-Krupp, Thyssen-Krupp, Krupp Specialist Engineering had no idea they were taken, and no visible way they could’ve been taken?”

  Imre shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Tojo is dead. I’m wanted for kidnapping, murder, and probably causing the train wreck at this point. The only known person to have the codes is you. Not that Herr Schmidt is going to tell anyone. If he gets them and you die, they were never taken in the first place. Rumor of them never even hits the shadows. Now, how much are they worth to a corporation that isn’t Saeder-Krupp?” She watched the light of understanding blossom into a glint of anger.

  “Millions in corporate espionage alone. Maybe more.” He sat on the edge of the desk next to her and frowned. “You mean, all of this was to steal the paydata and cover it up with multiple runs, then kill everyone involved?” He shook his head. “Too complicated. Even for a Johnson like Herr Schmidt.”

  Makeda shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Corporate espionage is a very profitable business. Easier to steal from an employee than break into a corp. Also, I had nothing to do with the Saeder-Krupp executive, Nakamura. Haven’t even heard a whisper involving him in the shadows, and he’s as dead as Tojo.”

  “That’s a hell of a waste of resources to hide the real run within multiple runs.”

  She leaned back on her hands, feeling all her muscles complain. “Here’s another question for you: when’s the last time a Johnson insisted on an in-person meet for paydata that could be packaged, encrypted, and couriered or, hell, e-mailed through the Matrix?”

  Imre grimaced. “I know. I didn’t like it when I made the deal.”

  “Are you still going to meet with a person who not only set me up but also sent a wetwork team after me?”

  He stood and listened to his comms. “Speaking of which, we need to get your people out of that SUV. It just popped up on the radar as stolen. I’ll send Fatima out.”

  Makeda stood close to him, watching his lips. “Cameras?”

  “Mysteriously went out right after I got a particular e-mail.”

  “Great, I’m going to get blamed for that. Wish I was as talented and powerful as they’re making me out to be.” Makeda stood and faced him. “Ah well. Saladin, did you get that? Fatima’s coming out.”

  “Got it. I see her.”

  Imre watched her speak and didn’t move.

  “They’re ready for her.” Makeda drank in his handsome face.

  Damn, I want to kiss him again.

  As soon as the thought crossed her mind, Makeda threw caution to the wind and did exactly that. Imre was already reaching for her as their mouths met.

  They explored each others’ lips until Imre pulled back and glanced up as he spoke. “Take the Rover. We’ll be there in a moment.” He gave Makeda an apologetic shrug. “Gotta get moving. Get you and your people safe and figure out what to do with Herr Schmidt.”

  Makeda let the shiver of pleasure run through her before she shook it off. “I know. Did you catch the part of the broadcast where he set you up as either another one of my victims or my co-conspirator?”

  His face stilled into something neutral and flat. “Yeah. I did.”

  “He’s going to kill you at the meet… Unless we kill him first.”

  “I know.”

  “I want to be there. I owe him for HiddenPlath and Obscura.”

  Imre nodded. “I know.”

  “And for Tojo.” Makeda didn’t mean she wanted to revenge Tojo. She wanted vengeance for her damaged reputation. A small part of her also wanted revenge for the salaryman. Like Imre, she’d been rooting for the naïve fool.

  “I know.”

  “That’s not an answer on whether or not you’re going to kill Herr Schmidt. Or let me help you kill him.”

  Imre bared his teeth in the parody of a smile. “I know.”

  She returned it to him. “What else do you know?”

  “I know we need to get moving. Now.”

  Five minutes later, Imre, Fatima, Kraken—the tall Spanish man with the cyberarms from the bar—Makeda, MissTree, and Saladin were in the Rover, a modified Renault-Fiat Eurovan. All of them had lightly armored jackets on in varying degrees of
repair. It was what Imre’s team had on hand, and it was better than nothing.

  Kraken drove. MissTree rode shotgun while Fatima worked on Saladin’s sliced synth skin, repairing it and making it appear normal. Makeda and Imre sat in the back and talked. She handed him her credstick with its dwindling resources and refused to wince as he pulled half of what was left from it.

  “This will get the three of you out of Spain. It’s a good thing you contacted me both times. Your first warning let me push Herr Schmidt off. The second came as we were figuring out what to do with Herr Schmidt’s implied threat.”

  “Where are we headed?”

  “Same place I am and have always been headed: Rabat, Morocco.” Morocco. People who thought of Africa as some third-world backwater were wrong, but never so wrong as they were about Morocco. Anyone who’d been to Morocco could tell you it was as modern as Seattle. It also had the added benefit of being a safe haven to mercenary units since the Alliance for Allah and the Federation of

  Islam States tussled for control of the region.

  It had been a long time since she’d been to Morocco. Last time, she’d only passed through Casablanca. She’d never been to Morocco’s capital city of Rabat.

  “Are you going to kill Herr Schmidt? Let me kill him? Or help me do it?” Makeda watched Fatima and Saladin as they repaired his arm. “I noticed you still didn’t answer me.”

  Imre followed her gaze. “You’re used to running your own team.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I’m not part of your team. The way I do things is different than you. Also, I wanted to talk to my team first. Killing a Johnson is serious business. There will be consequences.”

  She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. “Any Johnson who pulls the drek this one has doesn’t deserve to live.”

  “I agree. But if we do this, we do it my way.” Imre sat back, watching her out of the corner of his eye.

  Makeda wanted to shout him down. Her people were dead and hurt. Her team’s reputation was in tatters. But none of that mattered. When it came down to it, Imre was the one with the resources, the local knowledge, and the means of getting Herr Schmidt into killing range. She had come to him and asked him for help. This was not an operation she could control.

  “I’m listening.” She uncrossed her arms and watched the moonlight on the water as they drove down the edge of the coast. As they passed by gated palatial homes of the ultra-rich, she figured they were going to a privately moored boat and would motor across the bay into Morocco, sidestepping customs and all other authority.

  Good thing, too. She had no non-terrorist SIN or passport. She curled her lip, just thinking about what Herr Schmidt had pulled.

  “First, there’s nothing guaranteeing that he’ll come to Morocco. If he doesn’t, I’m going to have to figure out what to do with the codes.”

  “I know some people…”

  Imre nodded. “I’m sure you do. If we need to sell the codes on our own, we’ll call them. Second, if he agrees to come and he is planning on killing me, I’m in charge. It’s my team. My plan. You work with me.”

  Makeda glanced at him and nodded. “Operative word: with.” She returned her gaze to the water.

  “Correct. No assumptions. We spell it out.” He raised his voice for the whole van to hear. “And no one else is required to be in on this. We pull this off, and there will be consequences. Bad ones.”

  “I will kill everyone I can responsible for Sylvia’s…HiddenPlath’s… death.” Makeda heard MissTree’s flat, angry voice over the comms, but from the way Kraken’s head snapped to the mage, she spoke aloud.

  “I got your back. No one should have to deal with a dirty Johnson.” Saladin didn’t look up. Neither did Fatima, but her sudden smile matched the one on Makeda’s face.

  “My team is in. And, yes, I agree, there’s only one leader. I’ll work with you.” She poked his arm. “But I won’t be ordered about without knowing the reason why.”

  Imre nodded. “Agreed. My team has also agreed. Our eye in the sky is Bobishere2. Once we get to where we’re going, you’ll be linked into the team comms. Then we’ll see if Herr Schmidt is ready to play ball.

  They turned down the gated driveway of a huge house on the water, and the gate swung open without challenge. The ornate, elegant decorations on the grounds and house gave it an elven feel. There were no lights on in the home, and no people around at all. Makeda side-eyed Imre. He didn’t look at the house. He only had eyes for the back where they were headed.

  “Who lives here?” she asked.

  “A friend.” The answer and his flat tone cut off all follow-up questions.

  Makeda gave a mental shrug. Imre was not one to talk about his past or his connections. At least, not yet. She studied the home. It was beautiful. Old architecture. The way he didn’t look at it in more than an automatic glance said that he was familiar with the place. Very familiar. She made note of it for a future investigation. She’d always cyber-stalked friends, interesting people, and other runners for amusement. It was amazing the things you could find out, especially on unsecured sites.

  They turned the corner and revealed the private dock. Its sixteen- meter yacht pulled Makeda’s attention from the house. The boat was sleek and huge. Tinted windows, plenty of space fore and aft, and even a canopy on top. Reina Verda was emblazoned on its side in green.

  “The Green Queen. Wow. What kind of boat is it?”

  “A Fairweather Phantom. She’s a nice yacht. I like her. It’ll take about three hours to get to where we’re going.”

  Makeda glanced at the soft smile on his face. She realized the Reina Verda was his boat. If not his, he was possessive of it. That meant there was a really good chance that the house belonged to him, too. Either he was a prime runner, or he was slumming from his very rich family. Maybe a bit of both. Then again, why would a German man have a Spanish villa? Maybe it belonged to his wife?

  Makeda shook her head. She was letting her imagination run wild. There were many reasons to love a boat—the love of sailing was only one.

  Giving the house one last look as she got out of the van, she turned toward the yacht. It was what was going to get her to relative safety.

  Assuming they weren’t blown out of the water on the way to Morocco.

  24

  Ten minutes into the voyage, Kraken called from above deck, “Policía.” Imre nodded to Fatima and walked up the stairs, closing the lower deck behind him. An eyeball-searing light pinned the Reina Verda in the water as Kraken cut the engine to an idle.

  Fatima herded Makeda, MissTree, and Saladin past the living/dining area into the back bedroom and closed the door after shushing them. The bedroom was small but luxurious, with enough seating for all of them and a dedicated bed space in the forward aft, hidden behind the couch with a small curtain.

  At the sound of boots on the upper deck, Saladin pointed at Makeda and made shooing motions for her to hide. The boots stomped down the boat and to the stairs. The lower-deck door opened with a soft thump. Saladin beckoned MissTree to him. He put an arm around her waist, murmured, “Hide your face in the crook of my neck if they open the door.”

  MissTree slid her arms about him in a warm hug. She tilted her head, listening to the movement outside the bedroom door. Her fingers twitched with readiness as she watched Saladin’s face. He gestured at Makeda with his chin and mouthed the words, “Move it.”

  Makeda climbed over the couch, through the curtain, to the far back of the bed, and hunkered down. If there was shooting, she’d have no place to go. She hated having Saladin and MissTree up front, but they were the ones who would survive best if there was a fight. She peeked out at her teammates through the small slit in the curtain, her Colt at her side. She still had four bullets. She would make them count.

  The rapid-fire Spanish sounded pleasant enough. Makeda caught a couple of words—dropped, found, no, yes, insist—but it was too muffled and fast for her to catch more of the conversation. There was a p
ause. Laughter. Then the boots stomped their way to the front of the boat and off. The blinding light disappeared from the windows, leaving the bedroom in total darkness, with all of them blinking away amorphous afterimages.

  Light returned in the form of glow-in-the-dark strips around the windows, the aisle, and the door. MissTree sat on the couch. A moment later, she announced, “No astral presences.”

  The Reina Verda started up again. Saladin waited by the door as Makeda poked her head out of the bedroom area. Someone knocked twice before slowly sliding the pocket door back.

  It was Imre, with a commlink in hand. “All is well.”

  Makeda clambered out of the bed and settled in on the couch. “What happened?” She put the pistol to the side.

  “The usual. Patrol came by to look at things. I found the credstick the officer dropped when he jumped over. He insisted it wasn’t his. I insisted it wasn’t mine. I forced it on him, asking him to take care of it since I never deal with certified credsticks. That I’d rather drop it into the ocean. He agreed it needed to be dealt with. He was an officer, and someone must be missing the credstick.” Imre blinked in an exaggeration of innocence and shrugged.

  Makeda grinned at him. “I’m sure.”

  MissTree stood with an abrupt jerk of her body. “I want to be close to the water.” She wormed her way by Saladin and Imre to disappear on deck.

  Saladin glanced between Imre and Makeda. “I should make sure she’s fine. She’s been depressed. You understand.” He didn’t wait for an answer and closed the door after himself.

  Makeda and Imre watched him go and then grinned at each other. “Was it something I said?” he asked.

  “Not in so many words, no.” Makeda felt her stomach tumble with butterflies as she glanced between Imre and the rest of the luxurious room. She knew what she wanted to do. She didn’t know what he wanted. All that foreplay on the run through the Alps could’ve been acting. The silence stretched out. “Alone at last. So, what now?”

  That broke them out of their not-staring-at-each-other moment. “Now, I call Herr Schmidt and set up the meet.” Imre made himself comfortable on the couch next to her. “You listen in.” He handed her an earpiece and put one in as well.