by P. R. Adams
“You can’t get away with this, Heidi.”
“I’m dead either way,” she hissed. Tremors ran through her face.
Something moved in the shadows behind her. Ichi. Blade out.
I couldn’t let her suffer that. Not so young. “Put the gun down, Heidi.”
“I can’t do that.” Her eyes said as much. A tear rolled down her cheek.
Ichi moved closer, blade drawn back.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Heidi nodded.
I whispered, “Danny.”
The rifle fired, and a hole appeared in Heidi’s forehead. Blood spattered the countertops and floor, and she fell, lifeless.
Chapter 13
Stone walls, wrought-iron gates, manicured lawns, towering hedges—they all flew past in the gauzy morning light, as we worked our way into the moneyed territory north of Falls Church. Just beyond a small, wooded area, cars breezed past on the Beltway, so close but a lifestyle away. I yawned, checked my pistol’s magazine, and imagined what it must be like to have the life these people did. Most of them had been born into money, had the best education, a support network etched into their DNA. They only knew sweet, clean air and tennis courts, swimming pools and elite boarding schools, servants and sports cars.
Huiyin glanced at me, eyes hidden behind mirror shades, pinched face sporting a goose egg on the left cheek that seemed to be shrinking quickly. “You having second thoughts?”
Second thoughts would have required thinking at all. With Heidi dead, we were running blind. The computing device I’d taken from the corpse outside Denver seemed to be the key, and Chan couldn’t figure it out, not without some hint of the cryptography involved. I was down to relying on Huiyin and her connections, something I wasn’t comfortable with, given her reckless nature. “You’re sure she’s here?”
“Visiting her son.” She pulled the car to the side of the road, coming to a stop in the shade of a tall pine.
A brick wall rose ten or twelve feet high, most of it shielded by some sort of thick evergreen that grew low to the ground. Bronze spikes rose from a gray concrete shelf running the length of the wall. A black gate was barely visible behind two reinforced square columns. In front of the gate, black teeth poked six inches out of the ground.
I pointed at the closest section of wall. “That wall probably cost more to put up than I ever made in a year of service.”
“At the Agency?”
“In the military, at the Agency—all of the dirty work, none of the money.”
She seemed to consider the wall for real. “But someone made good money on it.”
“Not the people who did the actual work.” The dirty work. Like us.
She turned back to the road. Her head was tilted in a way that said she was skimming through data on the inside of her glasses or studying imagery.
I lowered my window and caught the sharp notes of a bird’s song on the cool wind. “What about you? You make good money in service?”
Huiyin cocked her head in the other direction. “Is that what you want in life? Money?”
“I don’t know what I want in life. Not anymore.” Maybe I never had. Somehow, going home to Emmett had seemed appealing once I saw Margo again. But that had been illusory. “I do know I don’t like the idea of people profiting off my sweat. I mean profiting outrageously. It’s not right.”
Once again, she seemed to turn inward, focusing on something inside her glasses, then she looked down and said, “There will always be people with more. Hard work should have great rewards.”
“Like Dong? He was a pretty senior guy, right? He had good money. Great rewards.”
Her lips pinched tight. “You have a data device?”
Was Dong really her angle? I pulled my banged-up one out of my coat and connected to it. “Give me something to connect to.”
A ring. Her name flashed on the screen along with a very complimentary image of her. Younger, maybe. Happier, definitely. I accepted the connection information and the data push that followed. A high-definition security video showed a polished black limousine driving through the gate. The timestamp was from fifty minutes earlier.
More images popped up: A slender woman with styled, black hair lightened by a few streaks of silver walking out of some sort of theater in a fur coat. The same woman on a golf course wearing shorts and a polo shirt. The same woman on a white-sand beach splashed by teal-colored waves. The same woman laughing as she raced along in some sort of roadster with its top off.
I flipped back to the beach picture. She wore a bikini, which seemed odd for someone her apparent age.
I drilled down, admiring the fullness of her flesh and smoothness of her skin.
Huiyin craned her neck and stared at the display. “She’s sixty-three.”
“Yeah. How much work has she had done? That’s the body of a thirty-year-old. A thirty-year-old who never had a kid.”
Huiyin shrugged. “Money buys a lot of things.”
I brought up the dossier on the woman who had our interest. Coleen Elle Fanon. Acting head of the US Chamber of Commerce. Former executive at three different corporations, member of several boards of directors. Her father had been a billionaire in construction, inherited from his father. The family’s original money came from connections with Arab oil interests. One child—Douglas. Law degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Married into money. Lobbying firm. Elite lobbying.
I asked, “Is she here to see Dougie for a quick hug, or is this about his lobbying connections?”
“He has a child now.” As Huiyin spoke, another file came through, this one presenting images of Douglas, his wife, and their child. The perfect wealthy family dressed for yachting in white sweaters with embossed sigils, blue slacks, and bright smiles. The boy was five, maybe six, and looked more like his mother—gold hair, round cheeks, and crystal blue eyes.
I pulled up another file, this with imagery of the mansion and details on the security. “Two bodyguards. Shit. And Coleen has two of her own now.”
“You’re frightened?”
That brought a wry smile to my face. Huiyin knew better. “I say we take her when they leave. Blow out the tires, try to—”
“The odds go down in a scenario like that. You know our best chance is to go in there now.”
Best chance to get an innocent hurt. Bodyguards knew what they signed on for. A kid?
Huiyin pulled a ski mask on, then tossed another to me before she opened her door. “I’m going in.”
I pulled the mask on and climbed out, and we ran across the road. Getting onto the wall would be easy enough for me. I didn’t know the extent of her training, but I’d seen her fight. When I sprinted for the wall, she followed. She leaped at it a few steps after me and managed to get a hand on the shelf; I grabbed the brass spikes.
She took my hand once I was on top of the wall, and we both jumped over the spikes and into the yard. There were dogs, but they would be inside the house so early. Watching over the child.
I sprinted toward the western side of the main building, heading for what looked like a sunroom. Thick, dark-brown, wood-framed glass walls that slanted in to form an almost dome-like roof. Dew-soaked grass was slick beneath my shoes. I pushed hard enough that my back felt ready to blow out a disc; Huiyin kept pace. Something moved beyond the glass walls.
“The dogs,” Huiyin hissed.
They were thick and brown, with short fur. Pit bulls. They were barking, going crazy. It was too late to turn back.
Another form came into view as we closed: a human. One of the bodyguards. He opened the door.
The dogs charged out.
Huiyin drew her pistol and fired. Glass shattered, then the guard fell in a bloody heap. She charged at the dogs, then tucked into a leap that took her ten feet into the air at the highest point and landed an easy fifteen feet behind the farthest dog.
Modified. Cybernetics like mine?
I jumped, a little later, not quite so high and graceful, but beyond t
he dogs.
She dashed through the door, leaving it to me to kick the dying bodyguard away and seal the door shut. The pit bulls threw themselves at the shattered glass walls, smearing the blood and adding some of their own.
Huiyin was already through the far door, into the house. I followed.
A long hallway, dark wood on the floors, my wet shoes slick on the polished surface. I bounced off a wall of the same sort of dark wood, recovered my balance, and stayed on her heat trail. Voices—shouting—from off to the right, toward the center of the house.
Gunfire—heavy caliber—followed by bullets cracking into solid materials. Her gun spoke—a rapid brap—and the screaming turned into shrieks.
I cut into a large room with white rugs and furniture spattered crimson. Huiyin stood behind a round column gouged by gunfire. High above, the column supported a balcony on the third floor. The room had no west wall, instead opening onto stairs. To the north, I thought there might be another hallway paralleling the one I’d just burst out of, but a majestic fireplace with crisp, white stonework partially blocked my view.
Someone popped from around the corner of that hallway, gun leveling at Huiyin. It was a big man, bald, with dark bronze skin.
She’d missed the threat!
I jumped, hooking her around the chest and pulling her down as shots filled the open space. We slid behind a couch, right into the corpse of the bodyguard she’d already killed. Two left, one unaccounted for.
She peeled my hand off her and rose, firing again—brap!
Shots came from the west, one cracking against the couch, another slamming into the marble tiled floor.
I scanned, spotted the shooter: the unaccounted-for bodyguard, on the stairs. I squeezed off two shots, the first one catching him in the right shoulder.
He managed to get off a final shot, which ricocheted.
Someone groaned nearby.
Huiyin ran from behind the couch and kicked the bodyguard who had been hiding. He was leaning against the wall, bloody, but he grunted and slumped to the floor after the kick.
There were two people lying on the white rug—Douglas Fanon’s wife and son. They wore tan sweaters and dark pants.
The boy was bleeding. Bad.
I dropped to a knee. The wound was in his right side. Low. The sweater was damp and dark above the hip. I pulled the material up, then pulled up his shirt. His mother screamed and slapped at me. Harmless.
I grabbed her by the wrist and said, “The bullet’s passed through. Call emergency services. Hurry.”
She froze, then nodded and pulled a data device out of her pants pocket.
More gunfire: Huiyin’s. Somewhere down the hall.
I left the boy with his mother and ran past the bodyguard who had nearly gotten Huiyin. A door was open and light was coming out, reflecting off the polished, dark wood of the wall, floor, and furnishings. Bookshelves lined the wall to my left; a fireplace dominated the opposite wall. A mahogany desk with brass lamps occupied the space closest to the bookshelves. Leather high-backed chairs faced each other on dark rugs closer to the fireplace. Douglas Fanon was curled on the floor near the desk, clutching a gory thigh. A pistol lay a foot away on a brown rug with intricate patterns of gold and garnet. Huiyin straddled Coleen Fanon, who sat rigid in the leather high-backed chair closest to the fireplace.
Douglas would survive if the emergency response team got to him soon enough. Coleen wouldn’t, not if Huiyin pulled the trigger of the gun pressed against the older woman’s throat. No wrinkles, no sign of wear and strain. Like Margo had.
After I kicked the pistol farther from Douglas’s reach, I started a stopwatch and said, “Two minutes. Emergency response is en route. Miss Fanon, there’s no need for more bloodshed.”
Her eyes—a pale green—turned, but she didn’t move otherwise. “What do you want?”
I pulled the ski mask off. “Your predecessor and his cohort hired me to kill Senator Kelly Weaver. They wouldn’t take no for an answer, so…”
“You killed them,” she said, still rigid in the chair. “I know.”
“And now I’ve got people trying to kill me. Who? Why?”
Coleen smiled. “To an outside observer, it seems that you’ve made some enemies, Mr. Mendoza.”
Huiyin squeezed the older woman’s cheek. “They don’t work for you?”
The threat in Huiyin’s voice apparently wasn’t lost on Coleen, who didn’t protest or resist the abuse. “My predecessors had a very specific need. That was satisfied through a fortunate opportunity, an opportunity your former employer offered them, Mr. Mendoza. I’ve kept myself clear of such questionable activities. If you look, you’ll find there is nothing connecting me or the rest of my team with anything illegal.”
The Metacorporate Initiative. How much money had really been at stake over that? Enough to kill a presidential candidate, apparently. The stopwatch buzzed in my head. Our time was almost up. “So you have no idea at all who these people are?”
Disdain showed in the older woman’s eyes as she jerked her head free of Huiyin’s grip. “There will always be people who operate independently. Corporations compete. They’re not monolithic. I would suggest you focus on whoever it is you angered the worst with your bloodletting. Perhaps your former employer considers you problematic. I could certainly understand that.”
We were out of time. The mask went back on. “Let’s go.”
I sprinted back out to the living room, then out the front door and angled for the point on the wall where we’d come over. Sirens were a distant cry, drawing closer. Clearing the structure was easier from the inside. I didn’t wait for Huiyin. She was just reaching the top of the wall when I settled behind the steering wheel. I pulled onto the road as she pulled the passenger door shut.
She pulled her ski mask off and scowled. “That was a waste of time.”
“We’ll see.”
I connected to Chan. “Chan, what’s the Grid traffic like now?”
“Emergency services. Mostly.”
“Outbound traffic from the mansion?”
“Nothing.”
That was disappointing. We’d been counting on—
Chan said, “Wait. Just now. Outgoing. Encrypted.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Capture it. That’s what we need. Content, destination—this is the break we’ve been waiting for.”
“On it.”
An emergency services vehicle sped past, lights flashing.
I disconnected.
Huiyin tilted her head. “You think she contacted the people trying to kill you?”
“Let’s hope so. Without a lead, we’re going to be stuck reacting, and the way their attacks keep escalating, they’ll eventually get us.”
Chapter 14
Wallpaper bulged above faded and scraped paneling, the colors changing in the flicker of a dying lamp. Sticky carpeting that might once have been beige or gold or some other bad idea tried to cling to my sneakers. It registered as modest pressure on the top of my feet as I searched for a place where the stench of urine and who knew what else wasn’t so strong. Somehow, Chan remained oblivious to the smell, and to the chill let in by the window to the left of the door. A good third of the lower pane was gone, and the rumble of nearby traffic was a reminder of just how desperate our situation was.
We had maybe another hour before the sun set, then we would have to find a place to stay for the night. The abandoned motel wasn’t fit for a night.
Ichi squatted on the seat of one of the chairs we’d dragged into the room, arms wrapped around bunched legs. She wore her black hoodie, but still seemed to be shivering. She stared at Huiyin, who was rooted in the corner near the broken window. The Chinese agent seemed focused on Chan, never moving, eyes locked either on the array of devices spread in a semicircle on top of a stained and torn mattress, or on the Gridhound’s hair. The glow of the devices shifted the magenta dye I was growing used to from the red of security data to the yellow of Grid-search operations.
/> The door opened with a groan and Danny slipped in. He searched for a place to set his rifle down, winced, then gently balanced it in the window frame to the right of the door. Dust billowed from the grungy drapes—once sheer, now gray and opaque. He met my eyes and signaled with a glance at the door that we needed to talk.
I tapped Ichi on the shoulder and said, “I’m going to walk the parking lot with Danny.”
She nodded, but there seemed to be protest in her eyes. We would have to chat later.
Sixteen individual units surrounded the weed-choked, asphalt-and-dirt parking lot, which was buried in a shallow pool of melted snow. We hopped along raised asphalt clumps, stopping and scanning the other buildings and the surrounding woods—oaks whose leaves now littered the ground or sat beneath the water, pines bent by recent storms. The other units stared back at us with black eyes.
The vehicles we’d acquired were in those woods, about two hundred feet off the dirt trail that led up to the highway where robot trucks sped by.
Danny jumped to the steps of one of the other units and cocked his head, listening.
I couldn’t hear anything but the trucks and the grumble of my gut. “You don’t like it?”
“It? This place?” He shrugged. “If they come in from the woods, we’re probably dead.”
“We won’t be here for them to find.”
“Chan’s got something?”
“Not yet. We’ll cut the search off in another thirty minutes.”
Danny hooked his index fingers inside the belt loops of his jeans. “This isn’t good.”
It wasn’t. “We’re outside our comfort zone.”
“Uh, outside our capabilities, more like? Chan was cracking before you contacted us. Staying off the drugs, yeah but just barely. Ichi wasn’t much better.”
Heat rushed through my neck and face. “I’ve been wanting to thank you for taking care of them.”
He shook his head. “They thought you were dead. I wasn’t even sure myself.”