She couldn’t risk hiding the disk. They might take this ship down to the waterline for all she knew, and if they found it, CyberNation would suffer a major, maybe even a killing blow. The files were damning—names, dates, places, a criminal prosecutor’s dream. She had done it to protect herself in case CyberNation decided she was no longer worth having around, but now she needed their help, and anything that hurt them might hurt her.
It wasn’t enough just to break the disk. Supposedly there were recovery devices now that could get information from fragmented DVDs. It could be glued back together, and while some of it would be lost, much could be salvaged. She couldn’t afford the risk.
No, she had to make sure there was nothing left to recover.
There was a cigarette lighter on her desk, a fancy thing of carved jade and semiprecious stones, a gift from a former lover. She would burn the disk. The pistol would make sure nobody would get to her before the disk was destroyed, if need be. A few shots fired into the floor or ceiling would make anybody heading her way cautious. She’d only need a minute or two. After that, she would surrender. Sooner or later, she would make bail.
She hurried down the corridor toward her office.
39
Toni came out of the room; she looked carefully up and down the corridors. There were people milling about, a score of tourists who were puzzled and upset, but none of them were Santos or any of his guards that she could tell.
“What’s going on?” somebody said.
“Pirates!” a fat man answered. “We’ve been taken over by hijackers!”
Toni smiled.
“What’s funny, lady?” a bald man with a bad complexion said. “You think being hijacked by pirates is funny?”
“It’s not pirates,” she said. “It’s just my husband, come to rescue me.”
The man stared at her as if she had turned into a giant snake. She smiled again and started toward the stairs.
Boy, this was gonna be a great story to tell Little Alex someday. Maybe when he was forty or fifty . . .
40
“I never saw anybody move like that!” Jay said.
“Did you hit him?” the boss asked.
John Howard shook his head. “Not so you’d notice. I didn’t think a man could be that fast, rolling and all. He a gymnast?”
“Capoeira,” the boss said. “South American fighting art.”
“We’ll get him,” Howard said. “We have the ship. The more important thing is, our people control the computer room, and they’ve pulled the plug. Jay here can have a field day.” He pulled a pistol from his belt and threw it to Michaels. “But just in case we run into your friend along the way, here. If you see him, shoot him.”
Michaels nodded. “Oh, yeah.”
As they were heading toward the stairs, Toni appeared.
Michaels nearly knocked her down he grabbed her so hard. They hugged, spun in a circle. Jay could feel the relief coming off both of them like heat off a fireplace. And he had to admit, he felt a lot better himself. He had been worried a little.
Toni held up a mini-DVD. “The plans for the attack on the net,” she said. “They ramped things up. You need to get these locations to the appropriate authorities,” she said.
Howard took the disc. “Yes, ma’am. Although they won’t be doing anything from here. We control this vessel.”
“You collected Santos and Jasmine Chance?”
“Not yet. But we will.”
“He’s a dangerous man,” she said.
“Tell me about it,” the boss said.
Santos saw that the door to Missy’s office was closed, and when he got to it, he found it locked. She wasn’t in her room, and he didn’t think she would be trying to hide on the ship, she was too smart not to know they’d find her. No, she’d be here, and likely working on some scheme to save her beautiful ass. That was the thing about Missy, she always had a backup plan.
He touched the door, nodded once, and stepped back. He hit it with his shoulder and slammed it open, recovered his balance, and moved through the atrium to the inner office.
“Roberto! What are you doing?”
She had a cigarette lighter in one hand, a small pistol in the other. Something was burning in the ashtray on her desk.
“Come to pay my respects, Missy. Leaving you a little gift before I retire.”
“What are you talking about? We don’t have time for this!”
“Your left leg, I think,” he said. “Just above the knee. I think that would balance us. I wasn’t so rough on Jackson, but it wasn’t really his fault, was it? When your woman screws another man, if it isn’t rape, then she is the one who is responsible. All she has to do is say ‘No.’ You will have plenty of time to think on it when you are propped up in the cast waiting to heal.”
She raised the gun. “You’ve lost your mind. I’m not going to just stand here and let you break my leg!”
He grinned. “Easier on you if you do. You think that little gun is enough? You sinned, you know it. It’s only justice.”
“You talk about justice?! You were humping every waitress and change girl on the ship! You think I didn’t know? Get out!”
“Men are men,” he said. “It’s not the same. You can’t understand that.” He took a step forward.
She dropped the cigarette lighter and grabbed the pistol with her other hand. Aimed right at his chest.
“If you shoot, I will break your neck instead. A leg is not so bad.”
He took another step.
She shot him. The noise didn’t seem all that loud, and the impact of the bullet, high and to his right, didn’t hurt. It was like being hit with a finger-poke, nothing, really. He leaped—
Chance pulled the trigger, again and again, until the pistol clicked empty. She saw the holes appear in Santos’s body, his chest, belly, one in his outstretched hand, but he kept coming!
She tried to leap out of the way, but he snagged her with one big arm, caught her around the waist—
She hammered at his head with the butt of the pistol, saw the skin tear on his scalp, watched the bright red blood gush, but he wouldn’t let go . . .
He dragged her down, knocked the chair behind her away, slammed her back against the floor
“Roberto! Don’t—!”
She kept hammering at his head. Saw him grinning through the blood streaming down his face. He slid his hand up her body, caught her by the throat. He squeezed, his big fingers biting into the vessels of her neck. Her sight went gray.
“Please! Don’t!”
“Good-bye, Missy,” he said. He leaned down and kissed her. His blood dripped into her face. She tried to blink it away. Then it all faded. His smile was the last thing she saw.
Santos held his grip on her neck for a long time after her eyes rolled back in their sockets, until they settled back and the pupils dilated and stayed that way. When he finally let go, he was sure she was gone.
Too bad for her.
He tried to push himself up and away from her, but found that his strength had gone, too. He had never felt so weak. He inched forward a hair, but that was it. He could no longer support himself on his wounded hand. He collapsed across her body, his face next to hers. Who would get all his gold? he wondered.
That was his last thought.
In the bowels of the ship, the CyberNation programmers and security people had panicked. They hadn’t done as good a job as they had on the train and barge. The men spraying puke foam and blasting flashbangs had moved too fast. There would be evidence here.
“Jay?”
“Already on it,” Jay said. He moved to an undamaged console and sat. Toni stood behind him, watching. “I’ve got a freezer here. Let me get it slotted. That should kill their autowipe . . .”
From behind them, Julio Fernandez said, “General?” He came in, leading a couple of troopers.
“Been taking a nap, Lieutenant?”
“Something I think you and the commander want to take a look at. Hey, Toni
, nice to see you’re okay.”
“Nice to be okay, Julio.”
Howard nodded. “Keep an eye on things here,” he told his troops. “Lead on, Lieutenant.”
Michaels and Toni followed Howard and Fernandez up a short flight of stairs and down a corridor. In an office on the floor were two dead people: Jasmine Chance and Roberto Santos.
Michaels shook his head. “Lord. What happened?”
Julio said, “From the marks on her neck and the little hemorrhages in her eyes, I’d say she was strangled. He’s got six bullet holes in him and cuts all over his head from where somebody hit him with that little .380 PPK over there. There’s blood all over her hand and a pattern in it that matches the butt of the pistol. Way I see it is, he came at her, she blasted him, he lived long enough to choke her out. Ai-uchi, the Japanese call it—mutual slaying.”
“My God,” Howard said. “Mean people.”
“Not anymore,” Michaels said.
EPILOGUE
The wedding had been beautiful. Now, at the reception, Saji had gone to change into her traveling clothes. Jay had already shed his tux and dressed in his usual laid-back style. Toni stood next to Alex, who looked very James Bondish in his black tuxedo. John Howard and his wife, Nadine, were nearby, as were Julio Fernandez and his wife, Joanna. Julio held his squirming son, who apparently wanted to get down and destroy the place in a terrible-two frenzy. Something Toni could look forward to with Little Alex . . .
Saji’s mother hugged her sister, crying. Jay’s parents wiped away tears and beamed at their son from across the room.
Jay came over to shake Alex’s hand. He said, “Thanks for everything, boss.”
“You feeling better about this now?” Toni said, waving at the interior of the church’s reception area.
“Oh, yeah. Just cold feet was all. I love her. I can’t see that stopping. My parents are already talking about grandchildren. Can you imagine me being a father?”
“I think you’d do well at it,” Toni said. “But there’s no hurry.”
“Off to Bali, right?” Alex said.
“Yep. Sun, sand, drinks with fruits and flowers in them, the whole enchilada. We’re gonna make a pass by Thailand on the trip back, see some of my distant relatives, too.”
“That’s great, Jay.”
“If you’re sure you can get by without me, that is.”
“We’ll manage. With the train, barge, and boat out of commission, I don’t think those folks will be causing us any more trouble for at least a little while,” Alex said.
“But they were only wounded, not killed. They can blame somebody, offer him up as a scapegoat, keep going,” Jay said.
Alex shrugged. “You take what you can.”
“You sorry you didn’t get a chance to go head-to-head with Keller?” Toni asked.
He shrugged. “Yes and no. It would have been great for the old ego to kick his ass up and down the block. But he lost, any way you want to cut it. He’s in jail, an emotional wreck. Not much point in pouring water on a drowning man, is there? Besides, what could I do that would make him feel worse than getting the bejeezus beat out of him by a girl?”
She smiled. She looked up and saw Guru, dressed in a formal sarong and sandals, carrying the baby, who was in a cute little baseball uniform, complete with a darling little Baltimore Orioles cap. Guru came over and stood next to Jay as Saji reappeared, dressed in her traveling suit. She smiled at Jay.
“I think that’s my cue,” Jay said.
They left, amidst a hail of tossed birdseed—better than rice, because it wouldn’t hurt the birds to eat any that didn’t get swept up. As the limo drove away, Toni turned to Alex. “So romantic, a trip to Bali, don’t you think?”
“Hey, we had Hawaii. Just as nice, and they speak the same language. You complaining?”
“Not me,” she said. She took his arm. “Now we’re at the good part.”
“Oh?”
“Yep. And they lived happily ever after.”
He laughed and she joined him in it.
Cybernation (2001) Page 32