“She already fooled Cardigan, even before I polished her,” said the plump greyhaired woman who was sitting at the nearby image console.
“This time she’s got to look convincing up close, Irma,” said Munsey. “This isn’t a simple phone call.”
“Once the son of a bitch steps into the room,” reminded Irma Bomgarner, “we’ve got him. It won’t matter if he tumbles that she’s only a holo projection and not the true and authentic Janine Kanter.”
“He may have as much as five seconds to back off and get the hell out of there before the door shuts completely and he’s secured.”
Irma touched a keypad.
Out in the other room the image of Janine turned to smile at Munsey. She waved at him. “You’re much too critical, Gardy,” she said in Janine’s voice. “Cardigan is going to walk right into this.”
Turning his back to the observation window, the OCO agent said, “I’ve found, Irma, that overconfidence never pays off.”
She laughed, resting back in her chromeplated chair. “I’m an expert at creating holographic images like this one,” she reminded him. “The best on the damned OCO payroll, in fact. The image he saw on the phone was flawless, and this one is even better since I slicked it up. Besides, you know he’s already on his way here.”
“All I know for certain is that Jake Cardigan left his hotel approximately one half hour ago.”
“Don’t you have someone tailing him?”
“He shook the tail.”
She raised her shaggy grey eyebrows. “Haven’t they picked him up with aura-tracking gear?”
“He’s using something that allows him to elude all our tracking hardware, Irma.”
She laughed again. “Right now, then, my part of this operation is going a hell of a lot better than yours.”
Munsey returned to the window.
Out in the red chair the image of Janine leaned back and crossed her slim legs. Smiling, she raised a hand in the air and gave him the finger.
“Taste this,” urged the short, chubby man.
Very reluctantly, Gomez forked a small chunk of the brownish stuff into his mouth and started chewing.
“What’s it taste like to you?”
After swallowing twice and blinking, Gomez answered, “Old fish, soybeans and—is it glue?”
“No, you’re paying attention to the basic ingredients. You should be tasting London Broil.”
“London Broil, Padre, doesn’t have glue as one of its ingredients.”
Father Romero shook his head. “That’s the SinVita, Señor Gomez,” he explained. “The wonderful vitamin supplement that we add to all our Comidas, Inc., meals.”
“Don’t your customers notice it, too?”
“You apparently have an exceptional and abnormal sense of taste.”
“It smells like old fish, too,” put in Gomez. “Now then, Father Romero, can we move on to—”
“Of course, of course, sí. There’s no earthly reason why you should want to share in my joy of discovery,” the blackclad priest said, sounding somewhat disappointed. “The fact that we’ve been able to come up with a completely believable London Broil that is totally synthetic is a cause of great satisfaction to us.” He picked up a slice of imitation beef between thumb and forefinger and took a bite. “Mmm, delicious. That’s London Broil, for a fact.”
They were standing in a vast white kitchen next to one of the several long white worktables. The synthetic meal, in a white plate, sat on a white tray.
Gomez swallowed again, noticing that his eyes were starting to water. “Sister Feliz suggested that you could tell me about certain activities at the Monasterio Tek Clinic.”
“I know a good deal about what’s going on up there,” replied the portly priest. “We used to own the monastery, back in the days when we were still in the liqueur business.” He gestured at the dozen white stoves and the dozen or more white-enameled chefbots at work all around them. “That was before we got into the more lucrative business of mock food manufacture and catering.”
“My partner and I came to Santa Francesca on the trail of a shipment of illegal weapons,” Gomez told him. “Now, though, it looks like a friend of mine’s been kidnapped and taken there.”
“You can forget trying the local law for help,” said Romero. “They have been persuaded to look the other way when it comes to the activities at the clinic.”
“I figured that was the case. So what I need from you is some tips on how to get inside the damn place unobtrusively to—”
“You’d look all right in black.”
“Possibly. So?”
“The Tek Clinic is one of our biggest catering customers. We deliver two hundred nourishing meals there every day, señor.”
Gomez brightened. “I could go in as one of your priests when the next delivery is made?”
Taking a step back, the priest scrutinized Gomez. “You don’t look like the sort of fellow who’d profane the cloth,” he decided. “I’m not at all pleased with what’s been going on at that place of late. Is it possible, however, that in extricating your friend and locating these illicit weapons of destruction, you can refrain from putting the clinic totally out of business? Two hundred meals a day is—”
“I’ll make every effort to leave the monastery standing when I’m finished,” he promised. “Do you know for certain that the weapons are there?”
“I am nearly certain, Señor Gomez.” He indicated the plate of mock food. “Want another bite?”
“Not at this time, gracias.”
“Then I’ll take you into our Data Room. I actually have floor plans of the entire monastery printed on real paper,” said the priest. “Plus, of course, all the most recent modifications stored in our computer.”
“That would be most helpful.”
After pausing to pick up another piece of imitation London Broil, Father Romero led the detective out of the mammoth kitchen.
Pacing the observation room, Munsey said, “That’s a surprising vice, Irma.”
“It isn’t a vice, Gardner, merely a mild bad habit.” She was sitting at the console smoking a cigarette.
“Tobacco is illegal, has been for—”
“It’s nowhere near as bad as Tek.”
“True, but that doesn’t mean—”
Out in the other room the holo projection of Janine Kanter had cried out.
Turning to face the oneway window, the OCO agent saw the figure rise up off the red chair.
Janine brought one hand to her breast, slumped and started to pitch forward. She vanished before she reached the floor.
All the lights in her room died.
“Damn.” Irma was struggling with the keypad and the other controls.
“What’s wrong?”
“Some kind of power outage, I’d guess.”
From another part of the winery warehouse alarms started bleating.
The aircirc system was commencing to produce shuddering, rasping noises. Thin yellowish smoke started seeping into the room.
Irma pushed back and jumped free of the chair. “Some sort of massive breakdown is happening.” She went trotting toward the doorway. “We’ve got to get the hell outside.”
Munsey coughed, kept coughing. The whole room was taking on a yellowish tinge.
“This goddamn door.” The heavyset woman was pushing at the neowood door while trying to twist the handle. “Stuck.”
Munsey hit the door with his shoulder, pushing hard. “Keep trying.”
All at once the door went flapping open.
Irma stumbled out into the corridor, which was filling with yellow smoke and the sound of running feet.
Munsey, coughing again, started running. The nearest exit to the outside was several hundred yards from here.
As he passed the open doorway of an office, someone reached out and caught hold of his arm.
Munsey was yanked into the office and the door was shut.
“Gardner Munsey, huh?” said Cardigan, poking him
with his stungun barrel. “I’d like to have a chat with you.”
40
MUNSEY SAID, “APPARENTLY you didn’t find the bait credible.” He was sitting in the chair Jake had shoved him into.
From outside in the corridor you could still hear people hurrying out of the warehouse.
“A simulated holo never quite convinces me,” he said. “I spotted that image of Janine as fake. I double-checked by asking her about something that never happened.”
“The drunk with the Spanish wine?”
Jake nodded. “But I dropped in to find out who wanted to lure me here and why.”
“How’d you break in here unnoticed and do all this damage?”
“It’s a knack I picked up, initially while I was a cop in Greater LA,” he answered. “I’ve only got a few minutes to talk to you, so let’s cut the—”
“Interfering with a United States government agent in—”
“I imagine that officially the OCO would never admit that you’re even in Spain,” cut in Jake. “Fact is, it’s possible that your splinter group within the agency is acting on its own. There won’t be any official repercussions.”
“Even so, old man, it wouldn’t be smart to treat me badly.”
“Oh, so? What’ll you do—use a holo projection to lure me into a trap?” Jake took a small circle of blackish metal from his jacket pocket. “You know what this is. Outlawed in all civilized countries, but handy. It’s a truthdisc. Once I attach it to you. Munsey, it sinks four little needles into you. You get a dose of some very powerful truth drugs and, equally important, you are hooked up to receive some very painful jolts if you fight against the drugs and don’t tell the complete and absolute truth.”
Munsey’s tan face grew pale. “No, don’t try that on me, Cardigan,” he pleaded. “Please.”
“Okay, then tell me where the Devlin Guns are stashed.”
“I can’t do that.”
Keeping his stungun aimed at the agent, Jake leaned closer. “I have to know about those guns.”
“You don’t understand.” Munsey’s voice rose in pitch and he began to perspire. “Listen, I’ve got a skull implant that will react to the truthdisc.” His left hand, which was shaking, reached up to tap at his temple. “The OCO makes sure that none of its agents will ever give away secrets. Please, don’t use that. Once those damn needles break my skin—Jesus, it’ll trigger the implant and I’ll die within sixty seconds. You can’t do it, Cardigan.”
“Death before dishonor, huh?”
“Exactly, yes. You know how the OCO operates. They don’t care if—”
“Let’s hope you’re lying.” Jake slapped the disc against Munsey’s tanned neck.
The blonde nurse inquired, “What did you say this stuff was, Father?”
“London Broil, my child,” Gomez informed the tall, thin woman.
She tried another bite. “Has a fishy taste, don’t you think?”
“I never sample our wonderful Comidas, Inc., meals.” He was sharing the small office just off the clinic’s large kitchen with her while two real priests carted in the two hundred meal containers. “I took a vow to eat only fresh vegetables and drink spring water.”
“It hasn’t done much for you.” The nurse pushed aside the meal she’d chosen to sample. “I still think London Broil shouldn’t be fishy.”
“Well, London is a seaport afterall.” Smiling beatifically, Gomez took a few backward steps. “If you’ll excuse me, my dear, I must return to oversee the unloading of the rest of our healthful, nourishing meals for your poor unfortunate patients.”
“You’re new.”
“New to you, but a longtime defender of the faith,” he said. “I was only recently transferred to Santa Francesca from a quaint little church in Majorca.”
Nodding, the nurse said, “The Tamale Pie last night tasted fishy, too, now that I think of it.”
“I shall speak to Father Romero, God bless his loving heart, as soon as I return to the office.” Smiling further, he hurried out of her office.
Once out of sight of the nurse, Gomez went hurrying along a side corridor. According to what he’d figured out after talking to Father Romero about the clinic, Janine was probably being held in the East Wing of the old monastery. He’d brought along a pocket-sized tracking device and once over there he ought to be able to pick up her aura. The maps he’d looked at had given him a pretty good idea of the layout of the place.
Gomez was wearing a black clerical suit, and the set of plastiglass Rosary beads in his coat jingled as he made his way rapidly along the twisting stone corridors.
The halls in the East Wing weren’t as well lit, and a chill dampness hung in the air.
From the pocket that held the Rosary beads Gomez drew out the copperplated tracking device. It had become entangled with the beads and they came out with it and fell free.
Gomez knelt to retrieve them off the stone floor.
“I don’t wish to interrupt you in your prayers, Father,” said a deep voice close behind him. “But perhaps you’d better get up and tell me what in the bloody hell you’re doing here.”
Natalie woke up, very slowly.
She was still feeling the painful aftereffects of being stungunned this morning.
Or whenever the heck it was.
She had ceased to be anywhere near certain what time it was. What day, for that matter.
Sitting on the edge of the uncomfortable cot, bare legs dangling, she rubbed at the upper part of her left arm.
They’d shot something into her.
“That obnoxious medibot has an injection gun built into one of his fingers,” she remembered. “They gave me something that … What? Put me to sleep, for one thing. But I’m very much afraid it also made me talk.”
She placed her hands beside her thighs and gripped the edge of the cot. After a painful moment she was able to push herself to a standing position.
“Wouldn’t you think by now that Newz, Inc., would know I was missing and come looking? Sidebar should have alerted them that I was abducted.”
She took a few steps, feeling extremely unsteady and unsure.
But maybe they’d done something to the cambot. After they’d stungunned her. Used a disabler on him. Dragged him along to the clinic.
“Well, there’s still Gomez. He did, afterall, have an appointment with me this morning, or whatever morning it was. Although he’s got a history of standing me up, I’m pretty sure he would’ve dropped by this time because I know more about the Devlin Guns than he probably does. If he showed up at the hotel and I wasn’t there, then he—Gomez!”
The door to her room had come swinging open inward and Gomez had entered. Smiling, he said, “That’s not an especially fetching getup, chiquita. Not what’s being worn for escapes this season. Where are your clothes?”
“I haven’t even the vaguest notion as to …” Frowning, narrowing her eyes, she took a backward step. “This is worse than the last one.”
“Beg pardon, cara?”
“Now you’re a priest. What sort of perverse mind could choreograph a Tek fantasy in which you are—”
“Momentito, Nat.” Gomez came across the room to her. “I am clad in priestly garb, it’s not an illusion. It’s all part of the disguise I used to get inside the walls.”
“I suppose you’re going to tell me you’ve fritzed the secsystem in this part of the clinic.”
“I did do that, with the help of kindly Dr. Ortega.”
“That’s a new touch. Ortega wasn’t in the last hallucination.”
Gomez took hold of her arms. “Have they been forcing Tek on you?”
“Yes, and they’re doing it again right now. Programming my hallucinations so I experience the most awful things.”
“Listen to me, Nat. I got into this rascally institution by posing as one of the priests delivering tonight’s catered meals.”
“Well, there. There’s a silly notion that could only show up in a Tek-induced fantasy or—”
“Are you going to fondle me next?”
“Ai, caramba!” He let go of her and jumped a couple of feet away. “Was that part of your Tek dream?”
“Yes, it was awful.”
“Awful,” he agreed. “Pay attention, Nat. I am not a hallucination, but the one and only authentic Gomez come to spring you. We have to make haste out of this joint before the slumbering Dr. Ortega is missed or discovered where I deposited him. I can bop you on the coco and carry you out over my shoulder, but it will be lots simpler if you could trot along beside me.”
“You are Gomez,” she decided, scanning his face. “Yes, that nasty undertone to your voice was missing in the nightmare version, along with those age wrinkles all around your squinty eyes.”
“We have to make a brief stop to locate the Devlin Guns,” he said, pulling her in the direction of the door.
“Oh, I know where those are,” she said as she followed him into the stone corridor.
41
“PEPPERMINT,” SAID GOMEZ, sniffing.
“Spearmint actually.” Shivering, the barefoot Natalie crossed the threshold of the low-ceilinged stone room. “The monks used to brew that vile liqueur of theirs down here.”
The large room had big neowood vats lined up across it. On shelves along one shadowy wall hundreds of empty, pale green plastiglass flasks sat, dusty.
After carefully closing the heavy door, Gomez scanned the room. “Would that be the Devlin Guns over against the far wall, Nat?”
When the reporter nodded, the back of her hospital gown snapped open. “I really wish we’d had time to locate my clothes.” She refastened the gown.
Gomez, weaving his way among the minty vats, headed for the several dozen neowood crates stacked at the back of the room. “Been considerable activity down here of late, judging by all the footprints, smudges and drag marks in the dust of the centuries.”
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