Tek Money

by William Shatner

  She clicked off the light and a thick, musty darkness closed in on them.

  One of the children made a sad, whimpering sound.

  “How many of these bastards,” asked Gomez, “come over here on a raid?”

  “It varies, but never less than fifty men and women. More often over a hundred.”

  “Nobody fights back?”

  “A few try, but it’s smarter to hide,” she answered. “They use lazguns, needleguns—some weapons I’ve never heard of before. They travel in armored sky-cars, land them in plazas and squares and disembark. Then they travel on foot through our streets, hunting us.”

  “How many people do they kill in an evening?”

  “Oh, usually at least seventy five or more. The children are the easiest to catch and we lose more of them. And the old people.”

  Gomez asked, “How long does a raid last?”

  “Two, maybe three hours. Depends on their mood—and if they’ve been drinking a lot. When they drink, they stay longer and … do worse things.”

  He said, “Some of them were heading this way?”

  “Yes, a group of a dozen or more of them set down in a square only a few blocks from where I met you.”

  “You’ve hidden down here before?”

  “Sí, and it’s always been safe.” In the blackness she touched his arm. “But tonight, I’m not sure.”

  “Why?”

  “I think they have, this hunting party, tracking dogs with them,” she said quietly. “A pack of those, you know, robot hounds.”

  “Yeah, I’m familiar with that type of perro. Only recently—”

  “Quidado!” she whispered, gripping his arm. “There’s someone upstairs in the church.”

  The sound of heavy footfalls came drifting down into the crypt.

  35

  STRADDLING A CARVED wooden chair, Jake was facing the tap-proof vidphone that rested atop the desk in the living room of the Hotel Condor suite. “It might be,” he said, “so long as it doesn’t put you or Molly in danger, Dan.”

  From the phonescreen his son said, “It may not lead anywhere. But since Rex came up with the information that there might be something odd about the reports of Devlin’s death—or that the guy might not even be dead—Well, I thought we ought to look into it.”

  “Go ahead, but be careful,” his father cautioned. “We’re still not sure of all the factions involved in this gunrunning mess.”

  “I can tell you somebody else who’s connected.”

  “Who?”

  “That operative of Bev Kendricks’s that you tangled with. Jabb Marx.”

  “How’d you find that out?”

  “Bev just phoned to ask how to contact you over there,” said his son. “She’s going to be calling you, but she gave me the basic facts.”

  “Pass ’em along now.”

  “Have you ever heard of an OCO agent named Gardner Munsey?”

  “Munsey, yeah. He’s known as the pricks’ prick,” answered Jake. “Marx is working for him?”

  “That’s what Bev thinks. Jabb was planted in her office to keep Munsey filled in on her work on the Flanders murder,” said Dan. “And also to incapacitate you if he got a chance.”

  Jake grinned. “He let Munsey down on that chore.”

  “Oh, and Bev is pretty sure Munsey is either over there in Spain or on his way.”

  “Maybe we’ll run into each other and exchange pleasantries.”

  “I also—”

  In the righthand corner of the phonescreen a tiny dot of red light appeared and started blinking.

  “Another call coming in, Dan,” said Jake. “Could be Bev. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay, Dad. Bye. Molly sends her best.”

  Dan’s image was replaced by that of Jimmy Bristol. “Me again,” she said.

  “You have something already?”

  “Sure. I’m not calling you for another of your pious pep talks.”

  “No need for that anyway; one pep talk from me’ll last you months,” he assured her. “What about the money Janine Kanter got from your old chum Mockridge?”

  She smiled. “Is he still using that awful British accent?”

  “He is.”

  Jimmy shifted slightly in her wheelchair. “Do you want to view all the charts and graphics—or can I just verbally fill you in on what I’ve found out?”

  “Talk to me, Jimmy.”

  “Okay—Janine Kanter, using the name Jessica Colburn, deposited a million, eight hundred thousand in the First Bahaman Fidelity Organization yesterday morning.”

  “Not in person?”

  “Nope, from a trace-proof computer in the town of Santa Francesca, Spain.”

  “You can trace a trace-proof transaction?”

  “Easy.” Jimmy smiled. “Jessica Colborn is listed in the bank’s nonaccessible files as the Executive Secretary of the Worldwide Pacifism Foundation. A good name for weapons smugglers, huh?”

  Jake asked, “How much was in the account before her deposit?”

  “Twenty-five thousand.”

  “That’s not much.”

  “This gets more interesting.”

  “So tell me.”

  “Three hours—well, two hours and forty-seven minutes, to be exact—after the money was deposited, it was withdrawn again.”

  “By Janine?”

  “Ah, no, by a gentleman named Rafe Santos,” answered Jimmy. “He’s the only other person, by the way, who can access the Worldwide account.”

  “Where’d the dough go next?”

  “Switzerland, Zurich Fidelity. It’s now in Santos’s private account, along with the three million, two hundred thousand that was already reposing there.”

  “Where was this Santos guy when he played with the money?”

  “Also in Santa Francesca, which isn’t that far from Madrid, you know.”

  Nodding, Jake said, “Any idea who he is?”

  “Not so far, but I’m in the process of trying to find out.”

  Resting his chin in the palm of his left hand, Jake eyed the ceiling for a few seconds. “Wonder if Janine knows the money isn’t where she put it.”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “I appreciate your efforts, Jimmy,” he told the girl. “Send Cosmos a bill and keep at it.”

  Jimmy said, “This one is on the house.”

  The robot dog made a metallic snuffling sound as it came clattering down the stone steps and into the crypt. Its plastiglass eyes glowed an intense red, filling the musty underground room with a crimson glare.

  The dog halted at the bottom of the steps, legs planted wide and silvery head low. After scanning the crypt, it started producing a loud metallic bleating sound.

  “He’s found some of them,” shouted a woman’s voice from up in the ruined church. “And none of them is armed.”

  She came hurrying down the stone steps. She was a heavyset woman in her late thirties, dressed in a black skirtsuit and carrying a chunky lazrifle cradled in her muscular arms. “Only niños,” she said scornfully, frowning from the cowering darkhaired girl to the three children hunched in the corner.

  The smallest kid jerked back in fright, accidentally kicking at the yellowed skull. When the skull rolled a few feet across the dusty floor, the robot dog snarled.

  “Please señora,” pleaded the fifteen-year-old girl. “We are only poor innocent children. Don’t hurt us.”

  “What sort of prey?” called a harsh masculine voice from the top of the stairs.

  “Pequeños,” answered the woman. “Three kids and a girl.”

  “You can have them all, Rosa.”

  Laughing, Rosa took two steps farther into the crypt. She aimed her lazrifle at the three huddled children. “The littlest first.”

  “Oh, please,” pleaded the teen girl. “Spare them, señora.”

  Rosa swung the gun barrel around, moving closer to the girl. “I’ll take care of you first, niña,” she decided. “Then you won’t annoy me whil
e I bring down the others.”

  “No more sport for tonight.” Gomez sat up in the stone coffin where he’d been hiding and fired his stungun twice. First at the startled Rosa and then at the snarling robot hunting dog.

  Darting forward, the girl wrenched the lazgun out of the toppling Rosa’s grasp.

  Dust swirled upward and an ancient bone cracked when the huntress slammed into the floor.

  Gomez rubbed at the disc he’d attached to his jacket, the one Silveira had given him on the island. “Still works, the hound didn’t notice me at all,” he said, pleased. “You all did your parts well, my children. Now, por favor, let’s move into the next phase of the operation.”

  The girl hurried over and pressed her back to the wall near the entryway. She held the lazrifle against her chest. “Señor, oh, please,” she called up the stairs. “Quickly, come and help. The señora has had some kind of seizure and needs your help.”

  After a few seconds a man called, “What are you talking about?”

  “A fit, she’s had a fit and has fallen to the floor. Please, I fear she’s dying.”

  “I’m coming down,” he said. “Don’t try anything.”

  “Oh, no,” she promised.

  36

  THUNDER RUMBLED THROUGH the dark mountains that rose up outside the windows of Session Room #5. The lanky black man raised his hand. “I’m Leon,” he said in a low nervous voice, “and I’m a Tek addict.”

  “Hello, Leon,” said the other five people in the stonewalled room. They were seated in straightback metal chairs around a small holo stage.

  Leon rubbed his left hand along his left side a few times before standing up. “I’m a little uneasy, Dr. Ortega.”

  Ortega was a large, wide man of fifty. He occupied the chair nearest the white bench at the edge of the platform. “You’re doing fine, Leon. This is, afterall, only your second visit to our Monasterio Tek Clinic.”

  The black man walked, slowly, around the platform, stopping at the bench.

  A chromeplated robot came over from where he’d been standing near the windows. “Just get comfortable, Leon,” he suggested in his rumbling metallic voice.

  As Leon sat on the bench, lightning crackled suddenly out in the night. The black man jumped up.

  The robot put a hand on his shoulder and guided him back down. “Only the storm, Leon.” He attached a headset that looked like a piece of modified Tek headgear to the man’s head. “Not too tight, is it?”

  Reaching up, Leon tapped at the headpiece. “No, it feels fine.”

  “Tell him if it hurts, Leon,” said a plump blonde woman from the other side of the platform.

  “No, it’s okay, Georgine.”

  The robot backed off. “All ready, doctor.”

  Dr. Ortega said, “You’ve seen the others go through this, Leon. It isn’t, really, difficult.”

  “I know. I do want to try it.” He touched the headpiece again. “The topic tonight—people that you’ve hurt and how you feel about it now—that’s something that I still have problems with. I want to talk about my wife—my former wife.”

  “Concentrate on her, Leon,” instructed the doctor.

  “Her name is Anne.”

  Very dimly on the holostage appeared the image of a slim blonde woman of thirty. When Leon looked up and saw her, he inhaled sharply.

  The woman faded away.

  “Relax, Leon.” Dr. Ortega patted him on the shoulder. “You’re doing very well. Bring her back now, concentrate on that.”

  Leon leaned forward, resting his palms on his knees and breathing in and out through his mouth.

  Anne returned, her image sharper and clearer. Anger showed in her face and sounded in her voice. “I don’t want to hear any more of this shit from you,” she said. “You keep accusing me of things I haven’t done, Leon.”

  An image of Leon joined her on the stage, but a Leon at least ten years younger and twenty pounds heavier. “Jesus, Annie, I followed you there this time,” he shouted. “I saw you with that bastard.”

  “Who the hell gave you the right to trail around after me?”

  Dr. Ortega left his chair, patting Leon on the shoulder again. “I’ve just been summoned,” he said, touching at his wristband. “You go right on, Leon. I’ll be back very soon. You’re doing fine.”

  The younger Leon said, “You’re my wife. That gives me …”

  Out in the stonewalled corridor Dr. Ortega hurried through the old monastery. His office was on the next level down.

  When he entered, he found Gardner Munsey seated behind his desk and consulting his desk computer. “It seems,” said the OCO agent, “that I arrived none too soon, doctor.”

  Saying nothing, the large Dr. Ortega moved around behind his desk and took hold of the lean, tanned man by the armpits. He pulled him clean out of the chair and deposited him a few feet from his desk. Taking possession of his desk chair, he said, “I don’t allow anyone to use my desk in my absence, Gardner.”

  “That’s an odd quirk,” said Munsey, smiling thinly. “Perhaps some group therapy is called for.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “I’m looking after, as always, my country’s best interests, old man.” Munsey seated himself in the visitor’s chair.

  Ortega chuckled. “Looking after Munsey’s best interests.” He frowned at the monitor screen. “I don’t like anyone to go over my appointment schedule, Gardner.”

  “Come now, doctor. The fees we pay you allow me all sorts of rude and intrusive perks.” He fluttered his right hand in the direction of the monitor. “You have an appointment tomorrow morning with a young woman named Natalie Dent.”

  “That has nothing to do with anything that you and I—”

  “Ah, but it does, doctor. She’s a reporter with Newz, Inc. And a very inquisitive little bitch.”

  “I know she’s a reporter, Gardner,” said Dr. Ortega, scowling at him. “She’s going to interview me for that Science Celebrities segment of the nightly—”

  “Natalie Dent is working on only one story at the moment,” cut in the Office of Clandestine Operations agent. “It has to do with the whereabouts of some hijacked Devlin Guns.”

  Ortega leaned back in his chair. “You’re certain?”

  Munsey allowed a very fleeting smile to touch his deeply tanned face. “I rarely make mistakes,” he reminded. “And I certainly haven’t in this instance, doctor. When the young lady calls on you, see that something nasty happens to her.”

  After a few seconds, the doctor nodded. “Yes, I’ll have to.”

  When the lightning flashed, the domed living room of the mountainside villa was fleetingly illuminated. He saw her then in the intense blue glare, sitting straight and stiff in a black armchair, legs pressed together and arms folded.

  From the wide arched doorway he said, “I’ll turn on the lights.”

  “Don’t, Rafe.”

  Darkness had taken over the room again, hiding her from him.

  “Since you came back, Janine,” said Rafe Santos, “you’ve been a pain in the ass to get along with.”

  “I’m always a pain in the ass, dear heart; you just never noticed before.”

  Lightning flashed again.

  Janine was sitting exactly as she had been.

  “Everything worked out in Greater Los Angeles,” Santos reminded her.

  “Not everything.”

  Santos, very carefully, came farther into the big dark living room. “Don’t tell me you’re mourning Dennis Barragray?”

  “He wasn’t supposed to be killed.”

  “Don’t blame me. I didn’t make that decision.”

  “Oh, I know, darling, it was an OCO decision,” Janine said. “One they never bothered to tell me about.”

  “Barragray helped set up the gun transfer. He suggested that Peter Traynor be taken care of because he was getting too close to what was going on,” said Santos, moving farther into the darkness. “He siphoned off a couple million dollars for himself and turned
it into antique currency. The hombre wasn’t what you’d call a pillar of virtue, Janine.”

  “They didn’t have to kill him.”

  “Listen, all you had to do was hang around him and make sure the gun deal went through smoothly,” he told her. “And once that was set up for certain, you were through with your job.” He laughed. “Taking that two million in collectible currency was a bonus for us, something the OCO didn’t know about. We came out ahead, and that money will help Martinez and the revolution.”

  “It had better.”

  “What do you mean?”

  When the lightning came again, Janine was no longer in the armchair.

  “Janine?” He whirled, trying to spot her before the blackness came back.

  “Would you mind leaving me alone for a while longer, Rafe?” Her voice came from the far side of the room.

  “I would mind, damn you. You sound like you’re accusing me of something.”

  “Nothing,” she said. “I’m not accusing you of a damn thing, Rafe, not yet.”

  “We both believe in Martinez and what he’s doing. Everything I do is for that.”

  “What he and the Teklords are doing.”

  “A little more Tek on the market is better than more weeks and months of President Garcia,” said Santos into the darkness. “I’ve been his trusted lieutenant for over three years now, working diligently for the day that is almost here. I don’t like to hear you hint that—”

  “I never noticed it before, Rafe dear, but there’s a vidpreacher note that slips into your voice when you talk about Martinez and the cause.”

  Angry, he went stalking across the black room to where he figured she was. “Now I’m a fraud?” he slapped out with his hands, trying to locate her. “You pretend to be all kinds of different women, you sleep with anybody they order you to, and then you come and tell me that I’m the one who’s a fake.”

  “Nobody ordered me to sleep with you.”

  His right hand found her and he grabbed hold of her arm. “Didn’t they? How do I know it wasn’t Munsey or one of those other OCO bastards who put you into my life in the first place?”

  “Let go,” she asked quietly.

  He caught hold of her other arm and yanked her up off the sofa she’d been sitting on. “Maybe the only one you loved was Barragray. That’s why you’ve been so damned—”