“Good morning,” Kross said.
“Hello, Kross,” Bannickburn said, stretching as he tried to remember why he was sleeping on someone’s leather sofa.
Then it came to him, like a hangover when sunlight hits your eyes.
“I have good news for you,” Kross said, though he didn’t sound pleased to be delivering it.
“What’s that?” Bannickburn said.
“Murson Kader has not yet managed to get his hands on the footage implicating you. As a result, his associates have told him to call off the hit he ordered, as the information in the contract is far too vague. For the moment, you’re in the clear.”
“What a surprise,” Bannickburn said. “You work for an efficient organization.”
Kross stood up, pulling on the lapels of his jacket to make them exactly even. “First, I don’t work for the organization, I just often work with them. And second, yes, I work with an organization that knows how to get things done.”
“Right.” Bannickburn’s voice sounded dead.
“I have another piece of good news for you,” Kross said, sounding even more ill-tempered. “Sottocapo Martel has asked me to accompany you to Portland. I said I would.”
Great, thought Bannickburn. I get my own little spy to make the mission that much trickier.
“I’m sure they’ll love you in the Tir,” he said aloud. “Immigration officials there are big fans of organized crime.”
“I’m an ork,” he said. “A meta. They’ll like me more than they’d like the humans you surrounded yourself with on the Gates run.”
Bannickburn snapped his fingers. “Right. Thanks for reminding me. They’re the first matter of business today. Getting them on board.”
“Why on earth do you need them?”
“I’m not going into the Tir alone.” Bannickburn held up a hand before Kross could start to reply. “And I need more than you. Nothing personal.”
The expression on Kross’ face indicated that, despite Bannickburn’s assurance, he thought it was quite personal indeed.
But then the ork shrugged. “Go ahead. Try to convince them. Not too many humans look forward to a visit to the Tir.”
“I wasn’t exactly looking forward to a visit to the Tir,” Cayman said. “I got a nice haul—I can think of plenty of other places I’d rather spend it.”
“This will be an even nicer haul,” Bannickburn promised. “And an even better vacation.”
The water of Pine Lake that lapped at the stones near lheir feet left a stain every time it receded, oil and mercury and substances better left unnamed forming a glistening trail on top of the rocks. A few residents of the Barrens had an ongoing contest to see who could survive the longest in the lake, with the current record of eighty-live seconds being held by a man with no fingers and toes who now spent his days in a small closet of the Body Mall rocking back and forth on his misshapen feet. Opinions differed as to whether he’d been that way before he set the record or not.
Bannickburn had talked to Spindle first. Then he talked to X-Prime, who had recovered completely from the dose of Cold Slab, and was back among the living. Both of them expressed interest in the money, disinterest in the Tir. Both of them left Bannickburn with the idea that if he could get the right team together, then maybe they’d consider going along, too. Bannickburn understood that Cayman would likely be a prime component of “the right team.”
“I’m not looking for more at the moment,” Cayman said. “The first mission’s pay is plenty for the time being. You carry too much nuyen, you’re just asking to get robbed.”
“We can work that out. Jackie’s quite adept at finding places to store money, even for poor SINless souls such as ourselves. The pay for this one’s quite good—would buy you a fine vacation, indeed.”
“Just doesn’t sound like my kind of thing,” Cayman said.
“But I need you,” Bannickburn pressed. After the difficulty he had putting this team together in the first place, he’d be damned if he’d just let it fall by the wayside and start from scratch. “You sign on, I get Spindle and X-Prime, too. You’re the key. If you’re on, I’ve got all I need.”
“Yeah, that’s another thing. What do you need all these people for? Spindle I can see, sure—you need a rigger to get you there and back, fine. But why me? You’ve got the ork for muscle already. And why Alex? You’ve seen pretty much the full range of the boy’s limited skills, and it doesn’t sound like you need them in the Tir. You go in, grab some water, get out. What do you need so many people for?”
Because I don’t trust my bosses, Bannickburn thought. Because I can’t be sure if they’re setting me up on this mission. Because if I don’t trust them, I certainly can’t trust their ork lackey to help me in a pinch.
But he didn’t say any of this. Telling Cayman that he was worried about a Mafia double cross would not be likely to persuade him to join in. He tried to think of something, anything to say to convince Cayman, but he had no real ideas.
Except one.
He exhaled for a long time, hoping maybe he could come up with another approach, hoping he wouldn’t have to do what he’d just decided to do. But he had only the one idea, so Bannickburn reluctantly followed the path it laid out.
“You know I don’t want to do the mission, right?” he said.
“So you’ve said.”
“And I told you why I’m doing it anyway, right?
“The almighty persuasive powers of the mob. Yeah.”
“What do you think happens if I fail on this?” Bannickburn asked.
“Your body ends up slowly floating toward the Pacific?”
“Yes, most likely. But what happens to you?”
Cayman furrowed his brow, and his mouth twisted in confusion. “To me? What would happen to me?”
“What do you think happens if I fail on this?”
“Mob ices you.”
“Which one?”
Cayman looked puzzled. “Which one?” he repeated.
“Right. Which family?”
“Bailey’s family. Bigios.”
Bannickburn shook his head. “No. Since when did the Mafia get their own hands dirty on a job they could farm out to someone else? If I fail, all Bailey and Martel will do is turn over the footage of our activities at the casino. Then they’ll let Kader and his Finnigan friends do the dirty work.”
“Okay. So?”
“So they’ll look at the footage carefully. They’ll come after me, and anyone else they can implicate. They’ll see you wheeling X-Prime out of the casino. They’ll probably get footage of you with Prime the day before the run. They’ll get me first, then they’ll probably get Alex. Then you and Spindle. My neck’s not the only one on the line here.”
Cayman just glared. Bannickburn felt nauseous—he’d been angry when Shivers had blackmailed him into this job, and then he’d turned around and done the same thing to Cayman. Sometimes corruption was a slow creep, seeping from person to person. Other times it was a Hash flood.
“I could handle it,” Cayman finally said, fight burning in his eyes. “I’ve had plenty of people wanting to kill me. None of them have done it yet.” He took a breath. “Prime couldn’t, though. Kader would wave some frag-gin’ candy in his face and he’d follow him anywhere. They wouldn’t ever find any pieces of the poor guy. So if this is the way it is, then I guess I’m coming with you.”
Bannickburn fought the urge to let Cayman wriggle away, to acknowledge that this wasn’t any way to start what could be a trying mission. But he needed help, and he didn’t have time to find anyone else.
“Okay. Good. Thanks.” Unsurprisingly, Cayman didn’t say you’re welcome.
The excitement of working for the mob had pretty much worn off. It hadn’t helped Bannickburn that he’d just come from meeting with Twitch, Jackie’s mage friend. The bastard had raised his prices on Bannick-burn, gouging him mercilessly. He knew Bannickburn didn’t have much choice. Bannickburn resolved, then and there, to stay away from other mag
es as much as possible. He’d find other ways.
Which brought him to his next errand. Bailey was, naturally, interested in seeing the mission succeed, so he’d put Bannickburn in touch with his best pharmacist. Bannickburn figured he’d come away with some valuable resources.
This was not the type of professional who put out a shingle and waited for business to show up. This was the sort of professional who sat behind an armored door flanked by two guards with big guns and clawed cyberlimbs. To get to the door, Bannickburn had entered an elevator in a one-hundred-fifty-year-old office building in Tacoma. He had to get into an elevator by himself— meaning he loitered awkwardly in the lobby as several unshaven, odiferous folks passed by him and gave him curious looks. Finally, when he had his chance, he jumped into an elevator car, let the door close and, as instructed, used his fingernail to rotate a keyhole that read bsmt accs. That got him down to the cellar.
Once there, he had to step gingerly past some com-mandingly large piles of rat droppings, through a narrow shuttered door wedged behind the building’s boiler, and down a long corridor filled with echoing drops of water. Finally, the armored door was in front of him.
He smiled at the goons posted on either side of the door, but they gave no indication that they were aware of his presence. He shrugged and tapped on the narrow slot in the door.
He had to wait about a minute before the slot opened and a pair of bloodshot green eyes stared out at him. Or maybe they didn’t—they didn’t seem to actually focus on anything.
Bannickburn frowned at the eyes. He’d never liked the way red and green looked together.
“You Pharmley?”
“No. She’s next door,” the voice attached to the eyes said, then let out a long, high-pitched giggle.
Not a good sign, Bannickburn thought. Pharmacists who were too fond of their own product were not the most reliable chemists in the world.
Finally the woman stopped laughing at her own joke. “No, no, sorry. It’s me. Yeah. I’m me. And you’re what’s-his-name, from Bailey. Banklebum. Balindrome. Blunderbuss.”
“Yeah.”
“You got money?”
Bannickburn waved a black credstick in front of the slot.
“Then you got me. What can I get for you?”
Bannickburn held a list in front of the slot. “These.”
Two shaky fingers reached through the slot and pulled the list through. Pharmley went quiet, and Bannickburn saw her eyes looking down, doing her best to focus on what he’d written. Luckily, Bannickburn had been forewarned and had written in large, clear print.
Still, it took quite a while for Pharmley to take in the whole list. Finally, she spoke. “Hey! Most of the things on this list are illegal!” Then she started to giggle again.
Bannickburn waited patiently, and finally Pharmley got serious.
“Okay, number one is no problem. There’s a shortage of two—I’ll have to ask for a little extra if you want that. Three, no can do. Just got trendy among some ork gangers, they’re buying it faster than I can get it. Four, five six, sure, I can do for you, but you better know what you’re doing with those because the side effects and aftereffects are something wicked. Oh, and don’t mix any of those. With anything “Yeah, yeah.”
“The rest of your list—what are you, dreaming? I haven’t seen half of that stuff for most of a decade. And the other stuff is way too new and hot to be available to schlubs like you. But nice try.”
“I figured I’d take a shot.” Actually, getting five of the first six on his list was far better than he’d thought he’d be able to do. He’d be going into this run well equipped. Sure, he’d be about a tenth as powerful as he was at his prime, but the important thing was, he’d have a bigger bag of tricks available than he had now.
He hoped he wouldn’t need it. He had a good team, he had some hopefully unsuspecting dupes just waiting to have a bottle of water snatched from them, and he had a quick way to get in and out. Piece of cake.
Except Bailey had threatened his life to get him to do this job. And was willing to pay him far more than he had for the Kader job. Bannickburn was still a relative novice in working with the mob, but he was pretty sure they didn’t do those kinds of things for milk runs.
19
Appropriately, they would start their journey at Port Gamble. Across Puget Sound from Seattle, Port Gamble was Salish-Shidhe territory, but it was an easily overlooked town. Bremerton was bigger, Belfair got more traffic and lived richly off the proceeds from equipment seized at the checkpoint just to the south, but not much happened at Port Gamble. Not even gambling.
They took a ferry across the sound before dawn, once again taking advantage of Bailey’s numerous contacts. The boat ride wasn’t long, but there was at least enough time for the skipper, Bluebeard, to relate his tale of woe.
“I liked Bailey. I always considered him a pal. I still do, really—look at what he set me up with. There’s this boat, and he sends lubbers like you to me lots of times, so I still make a living. But I was doing better, once. Quinn was just a little guy back then, barely got made, and he let me run with him. I’d do anything for him. He usually used me as eyes, running around, telling him what I saw, giving him the heads-up on danger. We got through plenty—once stole a pile of orichalcum out from under the nose of this ugly troll mage. Wouldn’t have happened without me—I was the one that told Quinn when the stupid troll was getting drowsy.
“But then he took me out on a run once—three in the morning, just like now. And I wasn’t on my game.
Yeah, I admit it. I screwed up. I was watching the perimeter while Bailey was working on a safe, and I let someone by. I saw his back, and he was heading for where Quinn was working, I tried to get there to warn him, but I was too slow. Guy put a bullet in poor Quinn’s back. Good thing he was armored up.
“Well, a lot happened then, but we got away. I was just happy to be alive, but Quinn wasn’t. Once we were safe, he turned on me, fast like a cobra. His thumb went for my eye. ‘That’s for not being watchful.’ Then he whipped out his gun, made a line of shots just below my knee. ‘That’s for being slow.’ ’Course, they had to cut the whole thing off right after.
“Yeah, I know I should be mad. But I done him wrong—don’t he have a right to punish me for it? And look at how he treated me afterward. He saw me with my eye patch—couldn’t afford a new eye—and with my prosthetic, a thing barely more than a peg leg, and he smiled that smile of his, and he said, ‘You know what you look like now, Blue? You look like a pirate.’ And he set me up with my boat then and there.
“So he’s strict, yeah—I guess you could even say he’s ruthless—but he takes care of his people, don’t he?”
Yeah, Bannickburn thought. He takes care of people, all right. Bailey just couldn’t resist using this pathetic old sailor as a sad object lesson—a way to slip in one more warning before Bannickburn and his team headed out.
The boat chugged along, churning up enough water that Bannickburn was convinced every border patrol boat in the Sound would be on their tail. But he kept a regular watch as he leaned on a rusty rail on the starboard side, and he saw no trace of any boats. The bright lights of Seattle dominated his vision, flashing and sparkling even at this distance. The city seemed to suck in light from everything around it, leaving it gleaming in the middle of a dark void. Bannickburn felt a strange sensation in his gut as he watched the lights shrink, and he realized that even though he’d only be gone for a day or so, he’d miss the city. He’d spent most of his time there living in a room meant for packing crates, not humans; he’d been quite poor and often hungry; and quality cigars were tough to find and even more difficult to afford. But he had started to like the fragging place anyway.
He decided he’d be better off looking at Port Gamble, ahead. Not that there was anything to see. A few lights cut through the darkness, but there were no headlights of moving traffic, no blinking signs in front of a restaurant or club. It looked phenomenally boring, which made
it perfect.
Bluebeard followed Bannickburn’s gaze. “We’ll head a little west of the town. There’s a beach, rocky, ramps right up to a little meadow. There’s a dirt road there, kind of—not much, but a few worn, parallel tire tracks. Should be enough.”
“Spindle tells me she can go over any surface except water and possibly lava. The road should be fine.”
“Okay. Our approach will be pretty slow. I’ll cut the engine and we’ll drift in.”
Bannickburn nodded. He’d get to spend about twenty minutes on a dark boat watching for Salish patrols as he drifted into a useless, mostly empty town. Ah, the glamorous life.
“Gun it,” X-Prime said.
“Shut up,” Spindle said.
“Gun it!”
“Can it!” she snapped.
“I want to move!” he whined.
Bannickburn cringed. He was sitting next to Spindle in the front of the van. On the bench behind him were Kross and Jackie, while X-Prime and Cayman occupied the back bench. If the ork didn’t rip the kid’s head off before they reached Shelton, it would be a minor miracle.
“If you don’t shut up, I’m coming back there and helping the ork rip you in two,” Cayman said. X-Prime went quiet, but Bannickburn glanced back and saw a small smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. Bannickburn fervently hoped the younger man would find some other way to amuse himself on the journey besides baiting Cayman.
The van crept over the loose stones, quietly moving farther inland. The outside of the van was beautiful—a black paint job that seemed to suck in light at nighttime, moving across the land like a dark stain. During the day, it reflected enough light to give the paint a greenish tinge—it would blend in well in a forest or even tall grass. At least, as well as a Land Rover van could blend in anywhere. And Spindle assured Bannickburn that the van’s concealment abilities were more than skin deep, with a fine set of electronic warfare devices that let it see things far more often than anything could see it.
The unfortunate tradeoff for the high level of con-cealability was the lack of windows. Plugged into her vehicle with its many small cameras, Spindle had a full range of vision, but the five passengers could only look forward—unless they were content to eye the ripped upholstery of the van’s interior.
Shadowrun 44 - Drops of Corruption Page 16