by Timothy Zahn
And then, it clicked. Leaving Aksam's door open, I pulled out my comm and punched in McMicking's number.
The connection clicked. "Is something wrong?" McMicking asked.
"Pretty much everything's wrong," I said grimly. "I'm standing beside a car with a couple of dead cops in it. The same two cops, interestingly enough, who tried to spoil our dinner earlier."
"In front of a dozen witnesses," McMicking said. "I hope they weren't shot with your gun."
"No, our murderer was a little more creative than that," I said. "It looks like Aksam and Lasari were stabbed with a Filly contract pen."
I could hear his frown right over the comm. "That makes no sense," he said. "Contract pen ink is genetically linked to its owner. He might as well have left family photos at the scene."
"Which implies the murderer didn't care if he got caught," I said. "Which strongly implies in turn that our information about the Modhri and Fillies not working and playing well together is indeed out of date."
"Indeed," he agreed heavily. "You have a read?"
I looked back down the alley. In general, hanging around a murder scene wasn't the brightest thing a person could do.
On the other hand, I had more privacy here than I was likely to get anywhere else in the neighborhood at the moment. "The killer probably approached the car from the front, from near the tavern I told you about earlier," I said. "Both cops appear to have had time to get out to meet him. He approached them, probably asking for directions or some such, and when he was close enough he stabbed Sergeant Aksam. He then pulled the pen out of Aksam's chest and threw it across the hood into Officer Lasari's."
"Either man draw his sidearm?"
"That's a little hard to tell," I said. "Both their sidearms are missing."
He hissed into the comm. "Wonderful," he said. "You're sure the contract pen was thrown into the second vic?"
"Reasonably sure," I said. "Lasari's wound has the slightly ragged edges of a thrown weapon."
"Which may mean only one of the Fillies is a walker," he suggested. "It would have been safer to send in a pair of them, if he had a pair to work with."
"Possibly," I said. "I wouldn't bet the mortgage on it, though. Anyway, our murderer then shoved the bodies back into the car, retrieved his pen and their guns, and left."
"Any thoughts as to motive?"
"Oh, yes," I said sourly. I leaned back into the car and used my handkerchief to pick up the document sitting on the center console's fax. "They have a warrant here for the arrest of one Frank Abram Donaldson. A new one, with all the proper legal bells and whistles in place."
"That's handy," McMicking said heavily. "I hope you haven't left any evidence behind."
"It's pretty impossible not to leave something behind these days," I said. "But I haven't left anything they'll find without a detailed scan and sift. Besides, the pen residue should pretty well prove the killer was Filiaelian."
"No, it only proves the killing weapon was Filiaelian," he countered. "You could easily have stolen it from one of these six upstanding citizens."
"There's that," I conceded. "On the other hand, I could argue that neither of these cops would have just let me walk up to them this way."
"Try persuading an arraignment judge of that," McMicking said. "This doesn't make any sense. First the Modhri gives you free rein to track down this Abomination, whatever it is. Then he tries to get you thrown in jail, and now he kills a pair of cops so that they can't throw you in jail? How schizoid is this Modhri, anyway?"
"As schizoid as only a million different mind segments can get," I said. "But in this case, that's not the problem. I think what we have here is two entirely different entities working at cross-purposes to each other."
"The Modhri and who else?"
"Veldrick," I said. "His only concern is to keep Frank Donaldson and Hardin Industries from taking his precious coral away from him. He's almost certainly the one who tried to get me arrested earlier, and probably the one who then pushed for this new warrant. It's the Modhri, through his Filly walkers, who killed the cops."
"But why?" McMicking persisted.
"Because he needs me free to persuade Rebekah to come out of hiding. Any progress on the water records yet?"
"Yes," he said. "There aren't any unexplained spikes."
I frowned. "None?"
"None," he confirmed. "Not with the six Fillies, not with anyone else."
"That's impossible," I insisted. "We know Veldrick gave away chunks of his coral."
"Maybe the Fillies just dumped the coral in their fish tanks," McMicking suggested. "The coral doesn't need the water to be flowing, does it?"
"Not over the short haul," I said. "But after a while it starts going dormant if it doesn't have flow or at least some tidal fluctuation. It's sure not going to be at its best and brightest sitting in a fish tank."
"Maybe it didn't need its best and brightest to track down a ten-year-old girl."
And then, suddenly, it hit me. "Or else it needed to be mobile," I said. "Do you have access to car purchase or rental records?"
"I've got the city's licensing data," he said. "Looks like …huh. All six Fillies have rental cars."
"Do you have the locations of their parking spot?"
"They don't have parking permits here," McMicking said. "But the cars do all have locators. Let me pull up a map for you."
I pulled out my reader and keyed for a download. "Ready when you are."
"Here it comes," he said. "You haven't explained yet why the Modhri wants Veldrick to pass around pieces of his coral. Assuming the Modhri has a reason."
"Absolutely," I said, looking at the city map he'd just sent. One glance at the current positions of the Fillies' cars was all I needed. "Take a look at the placement of the Fillies' cars. Remind you of anything?"
"You mean like your basic more-or-less circle?"
"Exactly," I said. "Now think back to the search and surveillance classes you took back in your Marine days."
There was another pause. "I'll be damned," he breathed. "A detector array?"
"Sure looks like one to me," I said. "And, you'll note, currently centered squarely on Karim's tavern."
"Meaning what?"
"Meaning—I think—that our young friend Rebekah is a telepath," I said. "And that she's broadcasting on a frequency the Modhri can pick up."
"Wonderful," he growled. "And the Fillies? Just along to add cultural weight to the whole thing?"
"Or else it only works with a coral-plus-Filly combination," I said. "Probably Fillies genetically engineered nine ways from Sunday, come to think of it. There certainly would be no reason to drag in aliens from the other end of the galaxy if Halkan or Jurian walkers would work as well. Regardless, bottom line is that we need to eliminate or move either the coral or the Fillies before we can move Rebekah."
McMicking grunted. "The whole thing's crazy," he declared. "But that seems to be about par for this course. What's the plan?"
"Like I said, we have to take out the coral or the Fillies or both," I said. "And we might as well start with Veldrick's stash. Get yourself over to his house and figure out the best way in. I'll meet you there as soon as I can. Don't start the party without me."
"What about the bodies?"
I looked into the car. Ideally, I would have preferred to move the whole mess a few kilometers away from Rebekah's hiding place. But I didn't have the time or equipment to pull that off without leaving bits of my DNA everywhere. Not to mention the instant trouble I'd be in if someone caught me driving a car with two dead cops in it. "We leave them here," I told McMicking. "There's no time for anything else."
"All right," he said. "I'll see you soon. Watch yourself."
"You too."
I broke the connection and put my comm away. I started to close the door, then had a sudden thought. Reaching past Aksam, I forced my hand gingerly behind Officer Lasari's back.
The Glock they'd taken from me earlier was gone.
&nb
sp; Gently closing the car door, I headed back down the alley. It was, I reflected, just as well that Bayta and I had had a good dinner. It looked like it was going to be a very long night.
NINE :
Bayta wasn't at all happy with the plan. Neither was Karim. But they weren't in charge here. I gave them their orders, borrowed the keys to Karim's car, and headed out.
The garage behind the building where the car was parked was double-locked. Inside, the car itself was literally chained to the concrete floor. Apparently, auto theft was a major problem in Zumurrud District. Even with all the keys it took me a good ten minutes to get the car ready to go.
Maneuvering my way through streets filled with drunks and loiterers was the next challenge, and it cost me another ten minutes. But there was nothing I could do except ease my way forward through the wandering pedestrians and keep an eye out for drunk drivers. Finally, I was out of Zumurrud and back into the relative calm of Makarr. I picked up speed and headed for Veldrick's upscale neighborhood.
All seemed quiet as I pulled into Veldrick's street. I parked a block from his house and went the rest of the way on foot. "Things here were even quieter than they had been in Makarr pistrict. Imani City's rich and powerful were apparently finding their evening's entertainment in the comfort of their own homes.
Veldrick's house was well lit, with lights showing through the curtains in both the great room and one of the back rooms. I eyed the shrubbery and nearby buildings as I approached, but McMicking was nowhere in sight. Strolling past the house like an innocent pedestrian, I keyed my comm.
"Yes?" McMicking answered.
"I'm here," I said. "Where are you?"
"Inside," he said. "Hang on—I'll unlock the front door for you."
He keyed off. Muttering a curse, I reversed direction and went back to the house.
The front door opened as I approached. "About time," McMicking commented in greeting. The middle-aged jogger Bayta and I had had dinner with had been replaced by an elderly Oriental man with a small goatee and hair gathered high on the back of his head. "What did you do, walk the whole way?"
"I had to run the Zumurrud obstacle course," I growled as I brushed past him. "I thought I told you to wait for me."
"I'm on Mr. Hardin's clock here, not yours," he pointed out reasonably as he locked the door behind me. "Come on in and give me a hand."
I walked into the meditation room to find a half-dozen small Quadrail-style cargo crates lined up near Veldrick's artificial stream. On top of one of them were a pair of thick, elbow-length leather gloves. "Where did you get the crates?" I asked.
"Veldrick's storage room," McMicking told me, crossing to the boxes and pulling on the gloves. "I figured that however he moved the stuff in he would probably have kept the transport boxes. Turns out I was right."
"It'll certainly make it easier to move it back out again," I agreed, frowning. Something was nagging urgently at the back of my mind. "You have a story ready in case Veldrick walks in on us?
"Veldrick won't be walking in on anyone for a while," McMicking said. "He's sleeping off a snoozer in the master bedroom."
"You have any trouble getting in past the alarms?"
"Not a bit," he said. "I shot him as he opened the door for me.
I stared at him. "You knocked on the door?"
"Actually, I rang the bell." He gave me an innocent look. "You worried he's going to describe his assailant to the police when he wakes up?"
"That would be amusing," I growled, eyeing his Seven Samurai look. "How long have you been here?"
"Here in the house? About twenty minutes."
I frowned. "You made it all the way from downtown that fast?"
"Who says I started from downtown?" he asked, reaching into the flowing stream and working at a piece of coral. "It's as easy to tap into a computer system from one neighborhood as another."
"So you came here directly from the restaurant?" I asked. The urgent nagging in the back of my mind was getting stronger.
"More or less," he said, lifting out the coral and holding it gingerly at arm's length. "I did have to stop once along the way to change faces. You want to open that first crate for me?"
I moved toward the crate, staring at the coral. He'd been here twenty minutes …
And suddenly, the nagging in my mind blew into full-fledged certainty. "You know, these crates are going to be a bear to get out of here," I remarked, keeping my voice casual. "I've got some smaller ones in my car that we won't need a forklift to move."
Behind his makeup, McMicking's forehead creased slightly. "You have a car?"
"A borrowed one, yes," I said. "Smaller boxes will be easier to get through Customs, too."
"You may be right." He set the coral back into the flowing water, his eyes never leaving my face. "Where are you parked?"
"Two blocks away," I said, nodding the opposite direction to where I'd actually left the car. "Come on—you might as well give me a hand with them."
A minute later we were outside the house. "This way," I said, heading off at a fast walk toward my car. "Hurry."
"What's going on?" McMicking murmured as he caught up with me.
"Bayta once told me the polyps in Modhran coral could detect and interpret vibrations when they were underwater," I said. "In other words, the coral can hear."
"Yes, I remember her saying that," McMicking said. "So?"
"So you've been in the house for twenty minutes, getting ready to carve up the coral," I gritted out. "Not just attacking a major Modhran outpost, but also ruining his detector array. So why haven't the Filly walkers shown up in force to stop you?"
"Oh, hell," McMicking said, his voice soft but deadly.
"You got it," I said bitterly. "He doesn't need the array anymore.
"He's found Rebekah."
Ninety seconds later, we were in the car, barreling down Imani City's peaceful streets toward Zumurrud District.
"She says they're all right," McMicking said, his comm still at his ear as I took a corner way faster than either the laws of man or physics would have preferred. By a miracle of engineering, the car stayed on the pavement. "She can hear a lot of commotion going on in the bar, but so far no one's come poking around Karim's office."
I didn't answer, my stomach knotted with fury at my stupidity, my mind fogged with images of Bayta standing alone against the full strength of the Modhri.
"How did he figure it out?" McMicking asked.
"He didn't figure it out," I snarled. "I told him."
"How?"
No gasps of surprise, no blank stares, no time wasted with recriminations. Sometimes I forgot what it was like having a fellow professional like McMicking at my side.
And that reminder loosened the knots in my stomach a little. Together, we might still have a chance. "Because I was stupid," I told him. "I even said he was putting the damn coral in cars."
"You mean he had some in the police car?"
"Can you think of a better way to keep the local kids from taking it out for a spin than to stash it with a couple of dead cops?" I bit out. "It's either in the trunk or just sitting on the ground underneath the car. I never thought to look either place."
"I thought he also needed a Filly nearby to make this trick work," McMicking said.
"This particular chunk wasn't part of the tracking array," I said, a fresh wave of self-disgust washing over me. "It was put there to eavesdrop when I went to investigate the bodies. And I fell for it. I stood there feeling all safe and secure and unobserved and blabbed my stupid mouth off."
McMicking was silent for a few more blocks. "If you're right about the Modhri eavesdropping on you, he knew I was heading over to Veldrick's," he said at last. "But he didn't know what I was going to do to the coral once I got there."
"You're taking it home to Daddy, aren't you?"
"You miss my point," he said. "You and I know that, but the Modhri didn't. Neither of us said anything about it in that conversation, or any other he might have
listened in on. For all he knew, I was going to bring a sledgehammer and beat him to death."
He drew his gun and laid it ready on his lap. "But the Fillies still didn't show up," he continued. "That means he was willing to sacrifice an entire coral outpost if necessary in order to get at this girl."
Which was pretty much the same deal he'd offered me a couple of months ago, with those boxes of coral on the train from Ghonsilya to Bildim. He'd been willing to sacrifice all that in order to get his hands on the third Lynx sculpture.
I knew now why he'd considered that trade worth making. What the hell was Rebekah to him that he was offering to make the same trade for her?
I had no idea. I just hoped we would all live long enough to find out.
At first glance Karim's block looked pretty much the way I'd left it. There were still drunks and toughs all over the place, making navigation hazardous as they wandered onto and off of the street.
But on second glance I could see that something about the scene had changed. A lot of the drunks weren't wandering anymore, but were just lying or sitting along the sides of the buildings. Passed out, or else on their way there.
McMicking noticed it, too. "They crash and burn early around here, don't they?" he commented.
"Hardly seems worth the effort of going out," I agreed as I let the car roll quietly to a halt by the curb half a block from the bar. "Snoozers, you think?"
"That would be the simplest conclusion," he said. "But bystanders normally don't hang around when that much shooting starts."
A movement across the street to our left caught my eye, and I looked over to see Oved emerge from a doorway and hurry toward us. "Stay here," I told McMicking, and got out.
"Thank God you're back," Oved murmured tightly as we met in the middle of the street. "They're in there now—six of them—handing out drinks like—"
"Hold it, hold it," I interrupted. "Who is in where?"
"Six Filiaelians are in the bar," he said, stumbling a little over the name. "They came in right after you left and sat down at a couple of the tables. They're offering free drinks to anyone who can beat them at arm wrestling."