Headhunters

by Mel Odom

  Octavius shifted his bulk in the back seat. “What I’m thinking, with the way Bellevue is pretty much bordered by Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish, that leaves the Intercity Five-Twenty and Intercity Ninety bridges as the primary routes to get out of the district. If things get tight, Lone Star could close those down in minutes, maybe trap us in here.”

  Luppas nodded.

  “And if we attempt to use air support,” Octavius said, “we run the risk of becoming high-profile and trackable. If the blue crews don’t make us, Fuchi will.”

  “I’d say that leaves the waterways, wouldn’t you?”

  “It’s 02:57:38,” Octavius said. “That gives us nearly fourteen hours to set this up before the woman expects a call, according to the intel you stripped from the Johnson back at that bar.”

  “If the woman doesn’t get wise to us,” Luppas said, “or simply get cold feet.” Either was possible. In the meantime, everything they were doing was subject to discovery by Fuchi. Fishbein was burning up the bandwidths trying to tap into their covert-ops frequencies. Kossuth had them cycling everything on a chaotic template, constantly shifting the illegal taps into the Matrix and into the low-orbit satellites Fuchi had helped fund for them. Fishbein had tried to shut them down; Kossuth had kept them open.

  “The good thing I see is that the runners are nowhere in the scan,” Octavius said.

  “Possibly,” Luppas said. “They don’t have to show up to know this is a public telecom.” Kossuth had tapped into the telecommunications nerve center array and informed them of that fact even before they’d regrouped from the bar.

  “That’s assuming the man lived long enough to give them the LTG.”

  “For the moment,” Luppas said, “I’d rather assume he did. Those people have provided enough unpleasant surprises.” He reached down for the telecom wired into the limousine’s satlink. “Time to rattle Fishbein’s cage.” He punched in the private LTG number for the Fuchi operations manager. “Before she gets lucky enough to get a lead on us.”

  On the second ring, Fishbein opened the telecom channel. “What?”

  “It’s me,” Luppas said. “I thought it was time to talk.”

  “Where the frag are you?” Fishbein demanded. “I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.”

  “I’ve been aware of that. I didn’t want to be reached.”

  “I want you to report in immediately.”

  Luppas laughed. “You’re hardly in a position to make demands, Ramona.”

  She opened the vid at her end, showing him her face. She looked iron-hard and merciless. “You’re forgetting who I represent. You’re—”

  Luppas cut her off in mid-threat. “No. It’s only because of who you’re working for that I’m even calling you.”

  “If I put the word out, you’re dead,” Fishbein said.

  “Is that what Villiers says?”

  “He’s leaving the decision in my hands.”

  “Somehow I have trouble believing that.”

  “Let me make you a believer.”

  “Even if that were true, it’s the wrong decision.”

  “Not from where I’m sitting.”

  “I think you should have another talk with Villiers.”

  “I think you should go frag yourself till you’re raw at both ends,” Fishbein said. “Then I think you should rub salt into those—”

  “Very descriptive,” Luppas interrupted.

  “I’ve barely gotten started,” Fishbein said.

  “No,” Luppas replied. “You’re finished. And let me tell you why.”

  “You’re signing your own death warrant, Luppas. This corp doesn’t tolerate betrayal.”

  “This isn’t betrayal,” Luppas said. “What I’m doing is renegotiating my cut of the pie. From a much safer position, I might add. As a business exec, you should understand that.”

  “You’re overestimating your own worth,” Fishbein told him. “I know about Ripley Falkenhayne, and I know about the corp-exec extractions she and Caber were doing under Fuchi’s nose. I know that Falkenhayne’s program will allow the corp who has it to raid other megacorps with impunity, and with a much quicker turnaround than has ever been possible before.”

  “A little knowledge can be dangerous,” Fishbein said. “But especially to the person who has it but shouldn’t. That’s you, Luppas. You’ve flatlined yourself and your whole team because you thought you were big enough to handle this, but you’re not.”

  “Wrong,” Luppas responded. “If you make a move against us, Ramona, the first thing that’ll happen will be delivery of the files on Falkenhayne, her program, and Fuchi’s own involvement in this to the other megacorps. Unless you can guarantee that you can geek us and take Falkenhayne into your custody, I’d suggest you back off.”

  Fishbein’s face hardened. She was quiet for a long beat. “You’re a disgusting slotter.”

  “Talk to Villiers and tell him what I just said. He won’t let this get personal the way you have. I’m willing to bet he’ll treat it as another piece of biz where the bottom line shifted but hasn’t pushed a healthy profit out of the picture. He’ll see there’s still plenty of money for him to make. I’ll get back to you.” He hit the Disconnect. A confrontation with a megacorp like Fuchi was risky, but—all things considered—Luppas thought it was much better than trusting one.

  And hopefully much more profitable.

  47

  “Jack, there’s an announcement on the trid I thought you might want to watch,” Wheeler said.

  Struggling out from under Emma without waking her, wrapped in the blanket he’d used to cover them both while they slept on the sagging couch in the safehouse, Skater checked the time. It was 06:26:14 a.m. He’d gotten little more than two hours’ sleep.

  “What is it?” he asked Wheeler as he made his daughter comfortable on the couch. For a moment, he thought Emma was going to wake. Gently, he tucked one of her fists into her mouth. She sucked on it a couple times, then drifted right back to sleep. A button in the shape of a teddy bear head lay on the couch beside her, evidently pulled from her nightgown during the night. He took it and pocketed it so she wouldn’t pick it up and put it into her mouth. Watching for things like that had become automatic.

  “You know who Nadja Daviar is?” Wheeler led the way back to the kitchen.

  Skater racked his brain, trying to grasp all the fleeting thoughts cycling through his head. “One of Dunkelzahn’s advisors.” That stray fact he nailed down from a media show he’d cruised through in the last few days since the assassination.

  “Not to mention the UCAS vice-presidential appointee.”

  Elvis, Archangel, and Duran sat around the small kitchen table, hunkered down over steaming cups of soykaf. The trid showed images taken inside the lobby of an imposing building. The footer across the bottom of the screen said WATERGATE HOTEL, 9:29 a.m. EST. LIVE SATLINK repeatedly blinked into focus in the lower left corner.

  “—be joining Ms. Daviar shortly,” a media anchor stated in a whispering voice that Skater thought sounded more suited to a golf announcer. The buzz of other conversations was barely muted in the background.

  The camera played around the pomp and splendor of the hotel, while a small window opened up and began showing footage of Dunkelzahn’s inaugural ball only six days ago. The small section didn’t do the great dragon justice, making him seem small against the backdrop of the hotel.

  Duran pressed a hot cup of soykaf into Skater’s hands. “You look like you need this, kid.”

  “Thanks,” Skater said, holding the cup in both hands so it warmed his chilled flesh. He sipped the coffee and looked his team over, measuring them and what they had to offer. Cullen Trey was missing from their ranks, and only Duran looked like he was ready to meet the day head-on.

  “Hold on,” the anchor said. “We’re joining Ms. Daviar now live from the Watergate Hotel.”

  The scene on the trid tightened on the striking woman stepping into the focus of the cameras. Skater
remembered her features from all the media coverage. The additional inset screen popped out of existence, leaving full attention on Daviar.

  “I, Dunkelzahn, being of sound mind and body, do hereby declare this to be my last will and testament,” Daviar read.

  Skater found his chest tightening as the woman spoke, knowing a whole world was about to be affected by her words, that even the megacorporations weren’t going to be safe from repercussions from the dragon’s death. It was a moment he was sure everyone would remember. Dunkelzahn’s coffers—and the great dragon’s secrets, at least some of them—were about to come spilling out.

  “The media blitz you were hoping to hit Fuchi with by relaying information to Lone Star and the trid snoops,” Duran growled, “has just been replaced with the following program.” Skater knew it was true. All the light he’d hoped to shine on Fuchi and Luppas was going to be eclipsed by the mad scramble to get to the truths behind the great dragon’s bequests.

  Their movements would be the media’s least concerns for the time being. Fuchi and Luppas could move with impunity.

  “Hello all,” Cullen Trey called in a sleepy voice. “It appears I’ve arrived precipitously, judging from the long faces.”

  Skater turned to him.

  “At least you’re back from the dead,” Elvis said. “And frag, chummer, I’ve never heard you snore like that before.” Trey self-consciously ran a hand through his tousled hair. “I assure you, you’re mistaken about the author of those noises.”

  “I don’t think so,” Wheeler replied.

  Skater didn’t begrudge the others their light-hearted banter, but he felt no pull to join in. He peered over Trey’s shoulder at Emma sleeping on the couch. An ache filled his heart. All he wanted to do was take her to a house where they could doss down decently and not share space with a dead man. Spirits, it wasn’t too much to ask.

  Trey chose to ignore the comments. Bags hung under his eyes. “I assume we’re still going to try to make contact with the woman the late Mr. Johnson said hired him.”

  “Yes,” Skater said. “We’re in too deep to walk away without a score.” None of them could afford the loss, and all of them were sure they’d have to fade the heat possibly for months.

  “I trust that no headway has been made as to who the woman might be,” Trey said.

  “No,” Skater replied. In the background, Daviar’s strong voice read the will, doling out gifts and riches line by line.

  “I suspect that we have the only person we might ask concerning her identity,” Trey said. “That is within our humble access, at any rate.”

  “He’s dead,” Duran growled.

  “True.” Trey helped himself to the soykaf with shaking hands. “I propose a possible answer that shall push your incredulity to the limit, and mayhap even strain the constrictions of the arcane.” He blew on his soykaf and peered over the rim. “If I’m permitted, of course.”

  “I don’t see,” Skater replied, “that we have a choice.”

  * * *

  Kylar Luppas lay in bed in one of the executive suites at the Greenwoods Inn on the 116th Avenue NE in the Bellevue District of Seattle. The room had been rented last night under one of the false SINs Kossuth had kept on hand since the unit had migrated to Seattle. A half-dozen other rooms kept other members of the unit, taking control of the hotel’s whole ninth floor.

  Gunther Octavius stood just inside the room, dressed in trousers only, the doors to the adjoining room open behind him. His attention, like that of Luppas, was riveted on the trid recessed in what appeared to be a hand-crafted shelf that fit in with the opulence of the room. Everything in the adjoining suites reflected a heavy Victorian influence that Luppas found suited his present mood. He’d definitely moved into king territory with the declaration to Fishbein.

  Nadja Daviar’s voice came in clearly over the surround-sound speakers hidden inside the room. “—Matthew Taylor, I leave my vintage 2017 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe. May it amuse—”

  “How long has this been going on?” Luppas asked. “Minutes,” Octavius replied. “Kossuth is recording it.”

  “—leave the Maltese Falcon, in gratitude for having introduced me to the film of the same name. I also leave thirty thousand nuyen—”

  “Has there been any mention of the Falkenhayne woman?” Luppas asked. “Or of Dulce Tech?”

  “No,” his second in command replied. “But something like this, with the dragon being so close to this piece of biz, I thought maybe you’d want to see this for yourself.”

  “You’re right, of course.” The headache had lessened while Luppas had slept. Only the heavy, sodden ashes of it remained inside his skull. He swung his legs from the bed, his skin prickling in reaction to the coolness inside the room. He poured a glass of mineral water from the pitcher on the night stand and drank. His eyes never left the trid.

  “To Miles Lanier, head of Fuchi Internal Security, I leave four million shares of stock in Renraku Corporation,” Daviar read, “plus the board seat to which said shares entitle him.”

  “And that,” Luppas said, feeling some of Fuchi’s omnipresent pressure lift from his shoulders, “explains the mystery of why Villiers made the change in Fuchi’s security systems. Villiers got wind of the bequest early.”

  “It also means Lanier’s clear of this action,” Octavius said. “It’ll be interesting to see what Renraku has to say about their new board member, and how Villiers is ultimately going to handle Lanier’s windfall.”

  “Possibly a very exploitable situation,” Luppas said. “For someone else. I’m satisfied in knowing that our present field of engagement is so open. Of all of Villier’s manpower resources, it’s Lanier I’d have feared the most.”

  Octavius nodded silent agreement.

  Luppas watched in amazement as the list steadily continued to grow. With the chaos the will could conceivably cause, he’d picked a very good time to get clear of the sprawl. The rabble, including the moneyed and affluent, were going to be battling for the right to pick the dragon’s bones.

  * * *

  “His name’s Papa DeBit,” Cullen Trey said as he stepped out of the old Ford flatbed truck the team had boosted for the operation. Wheeler and Elvis had set up an abbreviated canvas top over the flatbed that covered most of it.

  “Debit?” Skater asked, crawling out from the rear seats in the truck’s cab. The second row of seats was only centimeters behind the first row, and his legs had nearly gone to sleep during the rough ride. He flexed them as he dropped to the cracked sidewalk at the curb beside the flatbed truck. Pain shot through his knees as circulation returned. “Is that a joke?”

  Trey smiled. “Maybe, but people down here take the name seriously.” He looked more like his old self now, jocular again, and jaunty in his Kevlar cape. He also looked out of place in the rundown section of Puyallup. As the southernmost region of the outlying area around Seattle and away from any port accessibility, the suburb had dire economical problems with no solutions in sight.

  The Loveland District was part of the Puyallup Barrens, filled with ruins of buildings and houses. Even tenements that looked abandoned often held whole families who survived on whatever—or whoever—they could find in nearby Fort Lewis. Skater knew the populace consisted primarily of chip-pushers, thieves, squatters, and prostitutes, all of whom lived off the military personnel and support units stationed at the fort. It wasn’t a place to come to do shadow biz, or any other kind. At 8:46 a.m., the neighborhood looked deserted. The people who were awake and living on the semblance of a diurnal lifestyle were afraid to come out and potentially end up as prey for others who were stronger or more desperate.

  Elvis and Wheeler stayed with the flatbed. Norris Caber’s body, covered in bags of ice and economy-size containers of Kwik-Kold chemical coolant, reposed in the scarred synthwood-paneled crate they’d fashioned earlier that sat mostly concealed by the sagging canvas over the flatbed.

  Trey led the way up a rickety set of plastiboard steps that vibr
ated underfoot as they went. Feeling the weak support beneath him, Skater’s confidence in the plan sank.

  “Are you sure DeBit’s going to be here?” he asked Trey. “Papa DeBit never leaves,” Trey said. “He’s not an overly endowed person when it comes to friends.”

  “Terrific,” Skater replied. “What do you say the chances are that we’ll get geeked by someone out to flatline DeBit while we’re here?”

  “Ah, so cynical, Jack. That attitude ill becomes you.”

  “I don’t think we’re exactly sitting in the clover patch at this point,” Skater said.

  Trey reached a landing on the third floor. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “I checked it at the funeral home when we decided to go ahead and snag the corpse,” Skater said, “and haven’t bothered to go back after it.” He scanned the door in front of them, his feelings of unease rising as he took in the chaotic scene.

  The bas-relief on the synthwood door was amateurish, maybe even intentionally so, but the images trapped there were still easily made out. Snakes twisted around skulls and sometimes through them, coiling beside beaches facing dark water, which had been rendered by the artist or artists burning the necessary area with a low-level flame to provide the depthless color. Handmade drums and large alligators were represented in the hellish mix as well. Men and women wearing frightened faces bowed before impossibly figured gigantic beings that showed no trace of mercy and little humanity of any sort.

  “What the frag is this?” Skater asked, and he was irritated at himself that he felt the need to whisper. But there was a primitive part of him that wanted nothing, not even his voice, to go past the barrier of the door.

  “Ever heard of voodoo. Jack?” Trey asked.

  Skater nodded. “Sure. Some special kind of magic from down in New Orleans.” His memory kindled enough stories to raise goose bumps.