“I wondered if you happened to receive an invitation to a special auction recently,” Nuris said.
Monserrat pursed his lips. “Several of them, in fact. Which one interests you?”
“The one involving the Forrest family,” Grier stated blandly.
Monserrat’s brows lifted, and his eyes settled back on Jimmy. “Ah,” he said.
They sat in silence for several minutes, Monserrat staring thoughtfully at Grier.
“I did not choose to participate,” Monserrat said finally. Inside, Jimmy was struggling to contain his excitement. Monserrat had received information about the auction! He could lead them to the kidnappers. This was exactly the break they needed.
“I assume this,” he nodded Jimmy’s direction, “is Mr. Forrest?”
“It is his family,” confirmed Grier. There was another agonizing minute of silence. Jimmy wanted to plead with the old man for help, but Grier had made him promise to keep his mouth shut. He ground his teeth instead. Come on, Grier, convince him to help us!
“If I help you, I will burn bridges with my contacts. I do not wish to do that,” Monserrat said flatly. “I may find myself overlooked for auctions more to my liking in the future.”
“What if you could help us without compromising your contact? Perhaps you could change your mind about participating and bid on the whole family? Mr. Jay Forrest will certainly supply the needed funds,” Grier offered. Jimmy had told Grier to offer it. He didn’t know if it was true. His father’s philosophy was that if you paid a ransom you would only become a target for repeated attacks, but he would plead on bended knee, do anything his father asked. All he wanted was his family back, whatever it took.
Monserrat spoke again. “If I choose to help you, I will do it only on condition that you will not trace my contacts through me. Also, I want compensation beyond the bid.”
Jimmy wanted to shout, Anything! but bit his tongue. Grier could handle this.
“What did you have in mind?” Grier asked.
“I believe James Forrest the Second possesses a set of extremely valuable crowns from the last monarch on Terra. I would consider a gift of such to be adequate,” Monserrat offered, a greedy gleam in his eyes. Jimmy blanched. He knew exactly what crowns Monserrat was speaking of. They had been handed down in his family for several generations. His father was going to kill him. But what else could he do? He nodded to Grier.
Grier’s eyes grew steely. “Since the starting bid for each member of the family is ten thousand senines, we will automatically authorize up to fifty thousand senines, with a bonus of five thousand senines directly to you for winning the auction. However, to encourage you to bargain hard, for every five thousand senines over the floor bid your winning bid reaches, we will deduct five hundred senines from your bonus. If the total bid to ransom the family reaches one hundred thousand senines, you will lose your entire bonus. In addition, on safe delivery of each member of the Forrest family, including Mrs. Smitz, we will arrange for both Terran crowns to be transferred to you.”
The haggling began from there.
In the end, they agreed that Monserrat would earn a ten thousand–senine bonus, with a similar kind of deduction scheme to that Grier had originally proposed. In addition, Monserrat would earn one of the crowns for safe delivery of any members of the family, but would only receive the set if he managed to get them all. Grier raised his eyebrows, waiting for a final confirmation from Jimmy. For a moment he felt sick inside. His father could end up paying out enough senines to terraform a planet, depending on whether Monserrat got into a bidding war. But surely the bidders didn’t have pockets that deep?
He hoped not. He inclined his head at Grier, giving him permission to go forward.
Grier confirmed the agreement.
“The bidding started yesterday, but I will do what I can. I will be in touch,” Monserrat said simply. Then his chair hovered back out of the rooms.
●●●
Back outside, Jimmy stared at the empty street. They had arrived in a taxi—paying the exorbitant “added risk” fee for traveling into the Red Zone—but he knew that no taxi would come to pick them up here. They had quite a long walk ahead of them. But even that couldn’t dampen his spirits. For the first time in days, he felt hope. There was a chance to get his family back. They had a lead at last!
“Your father is going to be quite a bit poorer when this is all over,” noted Grier.
“Yeah, I think he’s going to skin me alive for all the promises I’m making. But if we get Jenna and Mrs. Smitz and the kids back, it will be worth every senine,” Jimmy said, his voice brightening at the thought. “At least I don’t have to break the news to my father in person. I need to send a deep-space comm as soon as we get back, though.” Jimmy ran a hand through his hair. “We’ll need the money right away if Monserrat wins the auction. Not to mention that we’ll have to arrange shipment of those Swazi crowns.” He groaned at the thought. “My father really is going to lock me in an outgoing freighter and deep space me for this.”
Suddenly his flipcom signaled a high-priority comm.
“Aw, hell.” Jimmy stared at his flipcom in dismay.
“What?” Grier asked, only half paying attention. He was staring around the street, on high alert again now that they were back outside.
“My father’s on Zenith,” Jimmy groaned. “He wants me to meet with him at the Quintan Edge in one hour. So much for not having to break the news in person.”
That got Grier’s attention. “Mr. Forrest is here?” His voice was incredulous. Jimmy understood the feeling. In the eight years that Jimmy had lived on Zenith, his father had never once set foot on the planet. All his meetings with Lev Quintan took place on space cruisers in orbit around Terra. Lev went to him, not the other way around.
“Looks like it.” Jimmy sighed, glancing around at the deserted street. “We’d better head back to the QE.”
Grier nodded without question, and the two men started back to the resort. The Quintan Edge, as its name described, was on the very edge of the Red Zone. It would probably take them a whole hour just to walk back to it, assuming of course that they didn’t run into any trouble.
Grier set a brisk pace, and Jimmy struggled to keep up with him. Apparently retirement hadn’t gotten in the way of staying in top physical shape. Jimmy gritted his teeth and pushed on, determined to keep up with him. But days of little sleep and no appetite had taken a toll. Eventually he started to fall behind. Grier had just turned a corner a few meters ahead of him when a pair of young men materialized from a nearby stoop and dropped down in front of him, blocking his path.
Jimmy didn’t hesitate. His gun was up before they had time to speak.
“Just back away,” he ordered firmly. “I’m not worth your time.”
One of the thugs raised his hands. “Hey, hey, man, we ain’t doing nothin’ but standin’ here.” The other one had twitchy hands. Jimmy wondered if he was about to pull a weapon of his own.
“Then move aside, and I can get on my way, and you can go back to standing here. Works out for all of us,” Jimmy advised, making his voice as hard as possible. He had learned a few things in the last few years, and one of them was that sometimes a man had to be a cold-hearted berk.
Twitchy boy reached into his jacket, and Jimmy fired, hitting him in the stomach and knocking him backward. The other man rushed him, knocking Jimmy to the ground before he could get off another shot. He grabbed at Jimmy’s gun, trying to yank it from his hands, and Jimmy fired two more times. The man collapsed on top of him. There was the sound of a scuffle and a thud, and then the heavy form of his assailant was dragged off him.
Grier shoved the unmoving body unceremoniously to the side and offered a hand, helping Jimmy back up. “You OK?” he asked as he scanned their surroundings again.
“Yeah,” Jimmy wheezed, checking his gun. He looked around for Twit
chy and saw him rolling around on the ground a few feet away, moaning as he clutched his midsection.
“Keep watch for a second, I’m going to mark the corner,” Grier ordered calmly. Jimmy scanned their surroundings but could see nothing moving. The street had emptied as soon as the fight started. Apparently the thugs had no friends waiting to jump in on their side—or their friends had seen Grier wade into the fray and decided to abandon them.
Grier tapped at his flipcom.
“What are you doing, Grier?” Jimmy asked, pleased that his voice came out calm. In fact, he was far less shaky after shooting someone than he would have expected. Though he avoided looking at the body lying in the street.
“Marking the location for pickup. Done.” He waved Jimmy forward, and they started to walk again, though this time Grier stuck right next to Jimmy’s side.
“Pickup?” Jimmy repeated, curiously. He was still trying not to think of the dead weight of the body on top of him.
“Even in the Red Zone, people recognize that it’s better if corpses aren’t left to rot in the streets. There is a pickup service. Anyone can mark a spot in the Red Zone, and they come by and pick up the body. Sometimes it’s already gone—either friends and family have retrieved the remains or the person wasn’t really dead in the first place. All the collected bodies are cremated. Nobody ever bothers the collection truck, and Mr. Quintan and several of the other local bosses contribute every month to the service. It’s not in their interest to have plagues sweeping the zone,” Grier explained, his voice gruff.
Jimmy listened thoughtfully. Of course, if people were killed or just died of natural causes in the Red Zone, there were no emergency services to call. It had never occurred to him how that was dealt with. Of course, anyone with means could probably find a way to transport the body of a loved one outside the zone for a regular funeral. But for many people living in the Red Zone, that probably wasn’t an option. Some enterprising soul had made a business out of filling that need. What kind of person went around collecting abandoned dead bodies as a career?
Speculating about that subject kept Jimmy occupied all the way back to the Quintan Edge.
●●●
They reached the back entrance to the security complex a little more than an hour later.
The Quintan Edge security officers who admitted them clearly recognized Grier, though the sideways glances at Jimmy indicated that they thought he was a little shifty. Jimmy glanced down and realized that he was still holding his gun and had a big splotch of dried blood in the middle of his shirt. He holstered the gun, grinning a bit wryly, and gave his name to the waiting officer. The guard’s eyes widened—even if he wasn’t sure who Jimmy was exactly, they all knew the name James Forrest—and then he dipped his head respectfully.
“If you’ll follow me into the waiting room and make yourself comfortable, I’ll notify Ms. Moriel that you are here,” he invited politely.
They’d hardly had time to settle into the waiting room before the officer returned. His eyes were wide with curiosity. “They are expecting you. I’ll take you over.”
Jimmy dragged himself out of his chair. His legs were starting to shake from fatigue, and his knees ached. Even with his frequent walking down to the town center and back in Tarentino, his body hadn’t been quite prepared for the amount of walking he’d done in the Red Zone the past few days. Either that or his body was finally processing the fact that he had been attacked. Grier shot him a sidelong glance, hovering close. Jimmy refrained from rolling his eyes. Grier could be such a worrier. He was as bad as Mrs. Smitz in his own way. Stifling a groan, he staggered after the officer, hoping that they would get him a hovercart. If he remembered right, the executive offices were on the other side of the resort, a distance of several blocks.
Luckily, it turned out the security complex had its own tube station. A quick bounce took them to the same station where the tube from Quintan Tower ended. Jimmy wondered why he had never noticed the other tube. Had he been that oblivious when he’d lived here? Or had it just been so long ago that he’d forgotten? Of course, he’d never gone to the security offices before. He’d never had a reason to. For a second he missed the carefree young man he’d been back then. He’d spent his days playing around in the resort and plotting ways to spend time with Jenna. Then the moment of nostalgia was gone in a flash. He wouldn’t trade his family and his life in Tarentino for anything.
His gut twisted at the thought of his family again. Where were they? Were they still unconscious in the medical capsules, waiting for someone to purchase the right to ransom them? What if Monserrat was too late to join the auction? He pushed away the thought. There was nothing he could do about that now, and he chose to think positively. They would get them back. All five of them.
The security guard led them all the way to Lev Quintan’s personal office. At the desk Ivan rose to greet them.
“Mr. James, Mr. Nuris, welcome back,” he said crisply. “Mr. Nuris, if you would wait outside, Mr. Quintan would like to speak to you in a few minutes. Mr. James, please go on in. They are expecting you.” His voice held just the slightest tone of reproach, as if Jimmy had been keeping everyone waiting on purpose. He wondered what his father would have done if he had been back in Tarentino Bay. Still given him an hour’s notice and expected him to be in Omphalos at his command? It’s not like there was a gate between Jimmy’s house and the QE.
He exchanged a quick glance with Grier and tried to straighten his rumpled shirt. It was a meaningless gesture, considering that it was blood spattered. Plus his pants were coated in dust from the street, and he still hadn’t remembered to shave. He grinned quickly to himself and strode to the office door. Might as well shock the old man. His father had been a stickler about appearance.
The door slid open before him, and he entered slowly. He saw Lev Quintan first, seated at his desk opposite the door. His face didn’t change expression as Jimmy walked into the room. To his side sat Zane and Moriel. Zane looked acutely uncomfortable, and Moriel glared at Jimmy. He wondered if that was for the deal they’d made with Rawle or if she was angry with him about something else. His eyes stopped on the woman sitting next to Moriel. Lilah? What was Lilah doing here? She didn’t look any happier than Moriel, though it didn’t seem directed at Jimmy. Then turning to the side, he faced the man sitting opposite Lev Quintan.
His father’s face was just as unlined and his hair was just as dark as it had been eight years ago, the last time Jimmy had seen him in person. Their final parting hadn’t been exactly friendly. Jimmy had been simmering over the orders to go to Zenith; he’d thought that they should bring Jax back home to Terra instead. His father had been inflexibly decided. Now his father eyed him thoughtfully, his eyes traveling from Jimmy’s scuffed boots to his dusty pants to his ruined shirt before settling on his face.
“James,” he greeted, his voice solemn.
Then he did something that caught Jimmy completely by surprise. He rose from his chair and engulfed Jimmy in a tight hug. Jimmy stood there awkwardly for a second before raising his arms and returning the hug briefly.
His father stepped back and searched his face. “Are you well?” he asked, his deep voice concerned.
Jimmy didn’t quite know how to answer that. His wife and children were in the hands of extortionists who might sell them to torturers, he hadn’t slept or eaten well in days, and he’d shot a man to death less than an hour earlier. Finally, he just gave an abrupt nod. His father accepted that and returned to his seat. Jimmy sank into the empty seat between his father and Lilah, still trying to process his father’s unexpected show of emotion.
“Jay?” Lev Quintan began. “Would you like to speak?”
Jimmy’s father waved dismissively. “No, Lev, you handle it. You know everyone involved the best.”
Lev nodded, pushed back his chair and stood. “We have a serious problem,” he declared. Jimmy just barely refrained
from rolling his eyes. That was the understatement of the year. “We do not have a chance of retrieving James’s family if you will not work together.”
Surprised, Jimmy glanced around at the others. Zane slumped, his eyes on the floor. Moriel studied her fingernails, refusing to look at her father. Lilah was trying to keep her face expressionless, but Jimmy still caught the angry fire in her eyes as she flicked her eyes at Zane. He knew that they weren’t the most cohesive group, but were they supposed to be working together? More than they already were? After all, Grier had shared some of the information he’d learned with Zane. Not all of it, true, but no matter what Lev said, Jimmy was not going to risk his family on the hope that Zane had changed.
It was as if Lev was reading his mind. He pointed directly at Jimmy. “You need to trust us to help you get your family back. That means you need to work with us—all of us—even Zane,” he ordered.
“Easy to say,” muttered Jimmy, feeling like a reprimanded child. He shot a sideways look at his father, wondering what he thought about this, but his father was merely watching him with sorrowful eyes. Jimmy crossed his arms over his chest and stared back at Lev.
Lev sighed deeply and moved to stand directly in front of Zane.
“You need to let go of the fear and guilt from the past. Yes, you messed up on a spectacular level before. However, you are not that man anymore.” Zane glanced up at his father and then back down at the floor. Jimmy frowned. How could Lev Quintan have so much faith in Zane? It seemed too much to ask the same faith of Jimmy.
Next, Lev moved in front of Moriel, waiting until she looked up.
“You,” he directed, his voice exasperated, “need to get over the fact that James chose Jenna.” Moriel’s cheeks reddened but she didn’t reply. “Do not let bitterness over a past broken heart interfere in doing what’s best for our family.”
Jimmy stared at her open-mouthed. A broken heart? Because he had married Jenna? He squirmed in his seat. He’d almost rather not have known that about Moriel.
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