The Moreau Quartet: Volume One: 1

by S. Andrew Swann

  But Gilbertez pulled out a remote, pressed his thumb into the sensor, and the gull-wing doors swung open to accommodate them.

  “Nohar better sit up front, more room there. You get in back, Ortega.” Ortega glanced at Nohar, and again his expression was less than reassuring.

  Nohar slid into the passenger seat in front of Ortega, and he couldn’t help thinking that it gave the cop a perfect shot at the back of his head as he wedged himself in the tiny space in the front of the Pegasus.

  The fact was, there wasn’t any way they could’ve fit Nohar in the back anyway.

  Gilbertez slid into the driver’s seat and fired up the fans, and the Pegasus sluggishly rose. It was obviously overloaded with Nohar in it, and Nohar tried to avoid looking down as Gilbertez slid away from the garage and out over Pasadena.

  The way tension was rolling off of Gilbertez, Nohar almost expected a troop of Fed agents to run out on the roof and attempt to shoot them out of the sky.

  The Pegasus climbed, and Nohar watched the headsup display, a green vector map of the airspace corridors. A few lines in the display were a warning orange because the Pegasus was hugging the bottom of its legal flying space.

  Strangely, Gilbertez was quiet through the whole ascent. It seemed unnatural to Nohar—the man seemed to run on nervous energy.

  Nohar looked across at Gilbertez and asked, “So what did you find out?”

  “Huh?” Gilbertez slid the Pegasus into the civilian air corridor above Pasadena. The Hollywood sign slid by the passenger window as the aircar turned for an approach on downtown Los Angeles.

  “You said you were going to check things out. Did you find out anything more about these people?”

  Gilbertez glanced back at Ortega before he answered. “No, nothing more than you told me.”

  You’re lying. Nohar could feel it. He wanted to look back at Ortega himself, but there was no way he could move his head in the small space provided by the Pegasus. I bet you don’t have any clue who Ortega’s uncle is.

  “Okay,” Gilbertez said. “Where are we going?”

  Nohar started talking, uncomfortably aware of Ortega’s presence behind him.

  Chapter 23

  The aircar banked over the Santa Monica Mountains and Nohar could see the surface of the Hollywood Reservoir shimmering green in the dawn light. “Down there?” Nohar heard Ortega say, the first words he had spoken in Nohar’s presence. It wasn’t a voice that inspired trust.

  “Yes,” Nohar lied.

  Gilbertez was nervous. Nohar could feel it, but the mood didn’t make it into his voice. “This was where you ditched Royd’s car. The police and the Fed have combed this place with a fine-toothed comb.”

  “That’s why I picked it. Why look somewhere you’ve already searched thoroughly?”

  No one expressed any further doubts. Nohar knew that his story stretched belief, but he hoped that it was plausible enough to get them clear on the ground.

  “Land near the harvesting pylons,” Nohar said. He peered through the window, trying to make out details on the ground. There was a fuzzy patch in a clearing and he pointed toward it. “There.”

  Gilbertez obligingly aimed the Pegasus for a landing in that clearing. He looked across at him and said, “Are you sure?”

  Nohar nodded, wondering exactly what was going to happen when they landed and found nobody there.

  • • •

  The Pegasus put down in a clearing about twenty meters from the tree line. Opposite the trees was the edge of the reservoir, alive with shimmering engineered algae and the rotating booms. Near the edge of the water sat a squat little cinder-block building. It was windowless, and only had a single steel door.

  Gilbertez got out first, then Nohar. He stood looking over at the building, shaking his head. “They’re in there?”

  It did look bigger when we were in the air. Nohar nodded. “Let me show you.”

  Nohar took a few steps toward the structure.

  Ortega’s voice came from behind them. “Why don’t you stop right there?”

  Nohar turned around, slowly. Gilbertez was already facing Ortega. He didn’t seem very surprised by seeing his uniformed cop holding a gun on them.

  Ortega held his automatic, covering both of them. Nohar noticed that he’d waited until he’d walked far enough away from the car. There was now no way that he could clear the distance between them before Ortega fired.

  “I don’t think there’s anything in there,” Ortega said.

  “Why don’t we just look—”

  “We will.” Ortega pulled a card-sized radio from his pocket, flipped it open. “As soon as my backup arrives.” Not too surprisingly, the radio Ortega started talking into wasn’t police issue.

  Nohar glanced across at Gilbertez and said, “He’s not talking about LAPD.”

  Gilbertez shook his head.

  “This was all a setup,” Nohar said.

  “Only so much I could do with a gun to my head.”

  Nohar looked back at Ortega, watching him, waiting for his attention to shift. “You found out more than you told me.” Come on, start talking, Gilbertez. It’s what you’re good at.

  “I made the mistake of checking up on the credentials of the two Feds who showed up for you. Didn’t have fingerprints, but I had their pictures from when I scanned their ID. Now the ID turns out to be legit, there are two FBI agents with those names and ID numbers—” Gilbertez turned to look at Nohar, “—but the FBI says that they’re on assignment in Orlando, Florida.”

  “So they’re not FBI agents?”

  Gilbertez looked back at Ortega, who was putting away his radio. “It gets better. I ran their pictures through a half-dozen criminal databases, including Interpol. The one with the scar is a native of South Africa, named Tabara Krisoijn. He’s a mercenary wanted by a half-dozen countries from the UAS north.”

  “They’ll be here in a few minutes. Just keep talking.” Ortega had a nasty grin.

  “What’s he wanted for?” Nohar asked, hoping for something in the conversation to agitate or distract Ortega. From the look of Ortega standing there and holding the gun, Nohar doubted that he was going to let that happen. He was too damn confident having the upper hand like this.

  “It amounts to terrorism under the guise of antiterrorism. He’s worked for a number of governments within the UAS, the Islamic Axis, and even Europe, but the folks he’s hired to hunt down are usually outside the nation’s borders—civilians, too.”

  Nohar nodded. Ortega was unmoved. That probably meant that he didn’t care what information he had. And that meant that he was probably not meant to survive whatever was going to happen.

  Nohar kept thinking of how he found Royd. . . .

  Gilbertez was still talking. “The other guy is in the terrorist database for involvement in extreme humanist activities. He’s ex-Navy, ex-Special Forces. Name’s Frank Trinity.”

  Nohar’s attention was caught by a familiar scent. The algae covered every scent in the area like a shroud, but he could still make out a vaguely canine subtext to the air. He listened carefully, tuning out Gilbertez, who was going on about Trinity’s history in the military.

  Beyond Gilbertez’s voice, and beyond the constant whir of the pylons behind him, Nohar could hear rustling in the woods. Four or five large animals pushing their way through the brush.

  “. . . this guy.” Gilbertez gestured at Ortega. “I don’t know who he is, other than he works for the same people. The only thing I found out about the antiterrorism unit at Long Beach was that it was supposed to be decommissioned by Congress a few years ago.”

  Ortega spat, for the first time reacting to what Gilbertez was saying. “Those shitheads on the Hill didn’t know what they were doing.”

  Nohar jumped on Ortega’s reaction. “You’re part of that unit?”

  Ortega gave Nohar
a stony expression. “I don’t talk to fucking animals.”

  “You are part of it, aren’t you?” Gilbertez asked, seeming to clue in on what Nohar was doing.

  Keep him distracted.

  “You make me sick, you know that? Sticking your neck out for a furball like this pile of garbage.” Ortega shifted the gun a little toward Gilbertez.

  “There’s a murder here, and this furball didn’t do it.”

  Ortega shook his head. “Fuck Royd. He was no better than these engineered things. Killing him didn’t mean any more than killing one of them.”

  “Is the Fed behind this?” Gilbertez asked. Nohar didn’t know if Gilbertez could see the mixed Rottweiler slip out of the woods behind Ortega. It was Blackie, from Elijah’s pack.

  Ortega chuckled. “This government doesn’t have the balls.” There were three or four dogs behind him now, approaching with a deliberateness that was out of sync with their appearance. “They set up an operation to take care of a threat, and they didn’t have the will to see it through.”

  “What threat?” Gilbertez had to see the dogs now. Nohar was impressed with his ability to stay focused on Ortega.

  “If you can’t see the threat, you’re part of it. Nothing worse than a traitor to your own species.” Ortega raised the automatic and leveled it at Gilbertez. “You know, we don’t even need you anymore.”

  It was the distraction that Nohar had been waiting for. He dove for Ortega. Gilbertez ducked. And Blackie came out of nowhere to seize Ortega’s wrist. He fired a wild shot, then Nohar had his arms over the bogus cop’s head, and the handcuff chain around his neck.

  Blackie shook Ortega’s wrist until the gun fell. Gilbertez took a step to recover the gun, but Blackie placed a possessive paw on the weapon and growled at him.

  Ortega stopped struggling, and Nohar dropped his limp body to the ground. He checked his neck for a pulse.

  “Is he still alive?” Gilbertez asked.

  “Yes.” Nohar was unnerved to realize that there was slight disappointment in his answer. He fished around for a few minutes until he found some handcuff keys on Ortega.

  Gilbertez kept turning, looking at the pack of dogs that surrounded them.

  Nohar fumbled with the handcuffs until he got them open. He flipped Ortega over and handcuffed his hands behind him. Nohar had to close them all the way to get them to fit.

  “What are they doing?”

  “Watching us.” Nohar carefully reached for the gun, and this time Blackie backed away from him. “Be careful. They have no love of humans.”

  “What are they doing here?”

  “we return the help that no-har gives us.” Elijah’s electronic monotone came from the rear of the pack. The others parted to let Elijah’s brown form through. He focused his good eye on Gilbertez. “more men come. we watch men approach, land. see no-har threatened.”

  Nohar nodded as he began manhandling Ortega back to the Pegasus. Gilbertez looked toward Nohar. “What are you doing?”

  “We both have to get out of here before Ortega’s backup arrives. We only have a few minutes.” They had less than that. Nohar was beginning to hear the resonant hum of approaching aircraft.

  “They have a tracking device on the Pegasus,” Gilbertez objected.

  “You aren’t taking the Pegasus.” Nohar’s mind was leaping ahead, coming up with some sort of workable plan. He turned to Elijah. “Can you get this man down to the city? He’s going to help me expose the men who gave you the sickness.”

  “this man.” Elijah’s monotone spoke. The whole pack started in on a chorus of staccato barking.

  Gilbertez backed away from the sudden canine debate. “What are you talking about?”

  Nohar wedged Ortega in the passenger seat. “Ortega’s people infected them with an engineered form of hepatitis.”

  “I’m going to help you—how?”

  “I’ll fly decoy in this thing. You get back to Hollywood and get a cab to Culver City.”

  “Culver City?”

  Nohar wedged himself into the driver’s seat in the Pegasus. Now that his hands were free, he could ram the seat back as far as it would go. If he’d had the time, he would have liked to rip out the seat and sit in the back seat, that would give him just about enough leg room.

  “A Doctor Brian Reynolds is getting a package from the Bensheim Foundation. Inside it are two ramcards, information detailing everything they’re responsible for.”

  “But I need a warrant—”

  “Don’t arrest anyone. Get it to the media. The ramcards, and the story I told you. If this is a rogue operation, that will be enough to shut these people down.”

  Nohar fired up the fans on the Pegasus, and the grass ripped around the pack’s feet as the engine powered up.

  “we will escort this man.” Elijah’s electronic voice was barely audible over the sound of the Pegasus’ fans. He turned his good eye to Nohar.

  Gilbertez looked from the brown dog to the closing doors of the Pegasus, as if events were moving too fast for him. “What about—” the closing door cut off the rest of Gilbertez’s question.

  Nohar shook his head as much as the cramped space would allow. “No time.”

  The Pegasus lifted off from the clearing and Nohar kept an eye on the rear video as the pack led Gilbertez back into the woods. That was it, then. He had made his decision. He was the decoy. His job was to distract these people long enough for Gilbertez to get the information to the media.

  He couldn’t help regretting the fact that this meant that he was probably never going to see his son again. But his son was probably better off without him. . . .

  He eased the Pegasus into the civilian air corridor, the vector display on the headsup flashing yellow, orange, and red at him. He had only flown an aircar twice in his life—and once was into the reservoir beneath him—and he wasn’t terribly good at it, especially in a sports car that was overburdened with his weight. His presence shifted the aircar’s whole center of gravity, and the nose kept dipping on him.

  He cleared the trees, and the proximity radar began beeping all sorts of warnings at him. He looked for the radar display, but before he found it on the dash, a huge shadow shot over the top of the Pegasus. A matte-black helicopter flew across the Pegasus’ path, barely ten meters above him. He had to pull the aircar all the way to the right and down to avoid a collision.

  At that point, Nohar ignored air corridors, gaining altitude, or even leveling out the Pegasus. All that mattered was speed, and being pointed away from the helicopter.

  He shot north, the belly of the aircar almost brushing the tree line, and flew right under another black helicopter, just like the one that had been at the assault on Pastoria Towers. Might even be the same one.

  The two helicopters flanked him, easily matching the Pegasus’ top speed.

  The mountains dropped away and Nohar could see Burbank ahead of him. He had the feeling that he would never make it there. A pair of red dots appeared on the windshield and made vibrating independent journeys across the headsup display, across the hood of the car, ending at each of the forward fans.

  The Pegasus shook as two shots, fifty-cal or better, pounded into the forward fans of the Pegasus. The air in front of Nohar was alive now with flying chunks of fiberglass. Part of the fan housing smashed into the windshield, fragmenting the headsup into a million emerald-and-ruby pieces. The front of the car dropped while the rear stayed under power.

  The Pegasus did a somersault.

  Nohar tried to control the crash, cutting power to the rear fans. Trees tore at the car, the left side of the Pegasus smashing against the side of a tree and bouncing off. Branches crashed through the windows as the aircar tore through the cover. Nohar had barely shallowed out the angle of descent as the aircar plowed into the ground, throwing up showers of topsoil and setting off the airbags. Nohar fe
lt the car roll once before he lost consciousness.

  Chapter 24

  The first sensation that Nohar was aware of was agonizing pain in his left arm. His awareness filled out, cataloging each pain as it came to him. His neck, the base of his tail, every joint in his legs, even the muscles in his jaw ached.

  Water splashed across his face. He sneezed and opened his eyes. He expected to see the wreckage of the Pegasus around him. The last thing he remembered was the airbag deploying.

  He didn’t see the Pegasus when he opened his eyes. His upper body was taped to a heavy chair. He couldn’t see much, because a bright light was focused on his eyes. What he could see of the room was a concrete floor, and he could smell the must and damp, as though they were in a basement. There were two people here. He could smell their confidence. The fear and tension he smelled was his own.

  “Time to finish.” The voice had a faint accent. It took a while before Nohar recognized it as Afrikaans. The speaker moved near Nohar, close enough for Nohar to make out his face past the light. He was a light-skinned black man, with a large scar on his right cheek.

  “Krisoijn,” Nohar whispered. It even hurt to talk.

  The man reached out and grabbed his face, clenching Nohar’s jaw shut. Nohar was too weak to resist, and his neck hurt too much for him to turn away. Krisoijn’s muscles stood out like steel cables on his arm.

  “You’ll only speak now to answer my questions.” Krisoijn leaned in. “You fancy yourself a hunter—but man is still the most dangerous predator on this planet. Your ancestors only survived because man permitted them to live. Your kind exists now only because man permits them to live. You only live now because I permit you to live. Do we understand each other?” He withdrew his hand.

  Nohar wanted to rage at the man, but he knew that there was little point in antagonizing him. He consoled himself with the thought that Gilbertez was talking to some reporters even as Krisoijn was talking to him.