Foile admitted that was a problem by allowing himself a shrug.
“She’s here now, somewhere on Wardhaven. Find her, Agent. I’m told you are the best bloodhound in the Bureau. Find my daughter. Find her before she gets herself killed, please. Hopefully, before she gets a lot of other people killed, too.”
Foile heard this as a father’s plea. As a father himself . . . who would not be putting his kids to bed again tonight . . . he accepted the assignment. No doubt some would question the right of the Prime Minister to have WBI chasing down his daughter, but to Foile it was a simple matter.
Some judge had approved an arrest warrant. That was enough for him.
“Do we know where her computer tried to hitch into the net?” Foile asked, starting the process.
“On High Wardhaven. I bet she just arrived. The failed attachment took place in the dock area.”
“Then she’s very likely still there. If she’d tried to pay for passage on the space elevator or crossed any of the security areas, she would have been identified.”
“She’s a Longknife, Agent. Never forget that. She’s a Longknife, and I’d bet the next election that she’s already down here, breathing the same air you and I are.”
“I’ll take that under consideration, sir. Sir, we will need all the information that we can get about her background.”
That brought a frown to the Prime Minister’s face. “I figured you’d say that. I’ve ordered the release of her files to your team. It goes without saying that I don’t want to see some of the more racy parts blown all over the media tomorrow morning.”
“It goes without saying, sir, that my team will respect her privacy.”
“Do you need anything else?”
“I can’t think of anything at this time, sir.”
“Then find my daughter. For God’s sake, find her before she gets herself killed.”
That was the second time Billy Longknife had forecast his daughter’s death. It raised a red flag. “Is there some specific danger I should be aware of, sir?”
For a moment, the Prime Minister considered the question. For a moment, Foile thought he might be about to say something, but when he spoke, he fell back on the generic. “No. Nothing you need to be aware of. Just find her.”
“Yes, sir,” Foile said, wondering what he didn’t need to be aware of and whether or not it might kill him or his team along with the peripatetic princess.
As the senior chief agent in charge left the Prime Minister’s office, he was already tapping his commlink.
“Rick, keep the team together. We’ve got an assignment. Pull all the security coverage of High Wardhaven’s dock area. And tell Leslie that she’s about to learn more about her Longknife princess than she ever wanted to know.”
19
It took all the willpower Kris could muster to stay at Penny’s side as she shuffled toward the back of the bar. But the slow pace didn’t mean she had to ignore Jack. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him. Since the other two men were watching them, Jack did, too.
At first, he seemed distracted, uninterested, maybe even depressed. But the more he watched her, the more intense his gaze grew. They were still five eternally long meters away when Jack’s eyes lit up, and he mouthed, “Kris!”
A moment later, he blew her a kiss.
From two meters out, Kris flew into his arms.
She couldn’t feel his cheeks on hers for all the junk she had on, but she could sure feel his lips. They were heavenly.
Then his arms were around her. Again, there were so many places she couldn’t feel him, but his hands danced on her back, and his arms enfolded her.
She was finally where she longed to be.
She hardly noted when Penny settled herself beside her, giving her some cover from any roving eyes. Kris didn’t care. Let them gawk. Still, as she hungrily devoured Jack’s lips, she couldn’t help but hear the table conversation.
“That Kris?” Colonel Hancock asked. “The years haven’t been kind to her.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t sure, either,” Grampa Trouble said. “But I think we can trust Jack on this.” That drew a chuckle from all three of them.
“And we worked so hard on our disguises,” Penny said with a sigh.
“You got this far,” Grampa Trouble said. “It must have fooled the security scans.”
“It fooled me,” the colonel admitted.
There was silence for a while, then the colonel began again. “Are they going for a record or something?”
“Nope, not even close,” Grampa Trouble said. “When Ruth and I got back together after the Iteeche dustup, we went a whole lot longer.” He paused before adding. “Of course, we were married by then, and there was a bed involved. Penny, has she already got a room?”
“We just got down the beanstalk. We came right here.”
“She got my message, then.”
“She got it, but she didn’t give me a hint where we were going until she told a cabby where to take us. Untrusting girl, if you ask me.”
“It’s kept her alive this long,” Trouble said.
Kris finally had to come up for air. One gulp and a whispered “Jack,” and she was ready to make up for more lost time.
“Can I have you two’s attention for a few seconds?” Grampa asked.
Kris nestled into Jack’s arms and turned front. Oh, if I could ditch all this junk I’m wearing. If I could feel Jack, she thought. Of course, that junk had got her through several security checkpoints without her being hauled off to jail.
Choices, choices. Someday, I’ll live with one choice and nothing else.
“Yes, Grampa,” Kris said, holding Jack’s hand tight.
“What’s your situation?” he asked softly.
With a sigh, Kris came back from the bliss of Jack’s arms. She didn’t move an inch away from him, still, that wonderful feeling of Jack’s being close and nothing else in the world mattering took quite a beating.
“We’re here,” Kris said the obvious. “We have no money. Nelly and her kids can’t access the Wardhaven net, and Grampa Al seems to have gone rogue. He’s definitely taking a back door into politics and maybe hatching some cockamamy plan to deal with the alien all on his own. We need to stop him, but I have no idea how.”
Kris glanced at Jack. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her. “Other than that, everything is great.” She kissed him again.
Grampa Trouble let them go on for a brutally short time, probably no more than a minute, before calling her back to the matters at hand.
“Your Gramma Ruth told me about the political play he made on Eden. She didn’t say anything about the alien thing.”
Kris sighed. “The political play was poorly done and left enough threads leading back to him. Nothing strong enough to take to court. The alien thing was a vague reference that likely would have been ignored, except that the guy who made it woke up with his throat slit next morning. That kind of makes people talk.”
“Even ones who aren’t as paranoid as you Longknifes,” Colonel Hancock said. “But no idea what it is, huh?”
“No idea at all,” Kris replied.
“Your Gramma Ruth tells me that someone tried to kill you before you’d been on Eden an hour.”
“Yes,” Kris admitted. “The shooters were hired. Who paid them was still being examined when I left Eden. Have you heard anything?”
“Nothing. But Ruth heard it might be someone in your Grampa Al’s pay.”
“Yes, I head that rumor, too,” Kris admitted. “But the short fuse doesn’t leave enough time for someone to get Grampa Al’s approval for it. My guess is someone was trying to get back into Grampa Al’s good graces and pulled the pin on that operation without approval.”
“Someone would think that killing his granddaughter would make his employer happy?” Colonel Hancock said with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s a Longknife thing,” Penny said.
“Now I’m starting to understand why you were so hot to trot t
o get away from the Longknife shadow. How’s that working?” Colonel Hancock asked.
“Not so well,” Kris admitted. “Some days better than others.”
Kris chose to change the topic. “Grampa Trouble, do you think there’s any chance I can get in to talk to Grampa Al? And if I do, is there any chance I could dissuade him from whatever it is he wants to do?”
“I figured you’d want to get in his Fortress of Security, so I did a little discreet nosing around. As to talking him out of anything.” Grampa shook his head. “He’s a stubborn old cuss, much like his dad, Ray, and not known for walking away from a business deal once he’s set his hat for it.”
“Yeah,” Kris nodded. “That’s pretty much what I heard, too.” Kris turned to lose herself in Jack’s eyes for a moment. “Damn, all I want to do is find some sunny beach with a nice small cottage and curl up with you.”
“That’s been in my thoughts a time or twenty,” Jack said. The first words she’d heard from him sounded wonderful. Of course, he’d had a hard time getting a word in; she’d kept her mouth on his pretty much since she first caught sight of him.
Kris sighed. “I really don’t want to go charging off to save the world again.”
“Spoken by someone who sounds resigned to doing just that,” Jack said.
“You up for another charge into the breach?”
“I’d prefer a beach,” Jack said with one of his lopsided smiles. “Do you honestly think we can find a breach in Al Longknife’s security wall?”
“What chances do we have?” Nelly asked. “Considering that right now, I can’t even catch the nightly news feed.”
“Jack told me that he hadn’t risked getting his computer in the net, what with the invasive tests and background checks the new security system requires,” Trouble said. “I had a hard time believing it, considering what Abby’s reports said about what you and Nelly and her kids had been doing in Peterwald space. Still, you’ve got to take a man at his word. And if Jack was blocked, I figured you were, too.”
“What have you managed to come up with?” Kris said. Hating herself for what she did, still, she found herself leaning forward, away from Jack, to better hear what Grampa Trouble whispered.
“When your aunt Trudy went off after alien relics, she left me a note. If I needed info-warfare help in her absence, I could talk to her sidekick from the old days of the Iteeche war, Sara Powers. A freethinker in those days, she caused a lot of people a lot of trouble. Some of it actually helped the war effort.”
“You’re complaining about someone causing you trouble?” Penny slipped in.
“She didn’t pay her dues to my troublemaker’s union, the scab,” Grampa said with a scowl that curled up too much at the edge of his lips. “I told her what I wanted, and she asked me no questions, just three days later dropped this mass storage chip in my hand after we’d gotten together for lunch to talk about old times.”
Kris noticed a storage chip between Grampa’s fingers. She thought of reaching for it, but didn’t. He’d pass it to her when he wanted her to have it, at a time and place of his choosing. There might be no visible security cameras in there, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any.
Suddenly, Colonel Hancock sat up even straighter. “I’m getting activity on the police band. Much of it’s coded, but it’s all addressed to this sector of town.”
Grampa Trouble frowned. “Nelly, did you try to connect to the net?”
“Yes. On the station I used all my certificates, including the secret ones.”
Grampa was already starting to stand. “Kris, did you use your credit chit to get down the beanstalk?”
“No, Grampa. The skipper of the Yellow Comet gave me some gift chits.”
“Bought here or on Eden?”
“I’d guess Eden.”
“We need to be gone,” Grampa said, standing. The softness of his words were countered by the urgency of his movements. “The rear exit is out past the loos.”
20
Senior Chief Agent in Charge Foile found his team already hard at work as he walked into the squad bay. His boss was also waiting for him.
“What’s this all about?” she demanded.
“Princess Kristine Longknife has returned to Wardhaven, and the Prime Minister wants us to apprehend her,” he said curtly. “Rick, did you get that security coverage?”
“Yes, sir, and based on what you told me to tell Leslie, I’ve already scanned for the princess. No joy. If she’s up there, she’s still on the ship that brought her.”
“Or she’s evaded us,” Mahomet, always the dour one, put in.
“The Prime Minister is betting with you,” Foile said.
Leslie looked up from her computer screen. “The last reported location, no, make that last rumored location for the princess was on New Eden. Did we have a ship from there dock recently?”
“One,” Rick reported. “The Yellow Comet. I’ve got the coverage of it. Only some crew and two old ladies left it.”
“Two old ladies?” echoed everyone in the room.
“Here’s the take,” Rick said, bringing up the two putative old ladies and the analysis of the recognition system. “Neither one of them is six feet tall. The way both of them walk, neither of them is a Navy officer. And the several looks we got at their faces. Ugly. Way ugly.”
“Two steamer trunks,” Leslie said.
“What about the steamer trunks?”
“Maybe nothing, but when you read a color report on the princess, or her maid, the better ones talk about the steamer trunks that follow them when they’re off on a mission. The maid, Abby, can pull the darnedest things out of those trunks.”
“Follow those two,” Foile ordered. “Recognition program, estimate height of the tallest one if she wasn’t all hunched over.”
The response 5'11" to 6'1" appeared on the screen.
“Get a security team from the station to search that ship,” Foile ordered.
His boss made the arrangements immediately.
“Rick, where’d those two nice old ladies go?”
“The space-elevator station. They paid, ah, with gift credit chits.”
“Bought where?”
“Eden.”
“Show me them at the downside station.”
Rick did.
“They’ve still got the two big trunks,” Leslie pointed out. “They can’t be too hard to follow with those things.”
The camera showed them storing the luggage.
“Or not,” Leslie added.
“Have a team collect those trunks,” Foile said, and his boss made it so.
“They caught a cab,” Rick pointed out.
“Mahomet, get me a list of all fares taken from the beanstalk station within five minutes of that time.”
“On it, boss. Got it,” Mahomet, shouted a second later. “Two women, from station to a place called the Smuggler’s Roost. It’s in a bad part of town. Why would two old ladies go there?”
“We need a full response team at that location,” Foile said, heading for the door. His team was up and following him as his boss called in the world on that little dive.
21
With no further urging from General Trouble, they were up and moving. Penny slowed them down a bit with her cane, but a little old lady racing out of there would be a clear giveaway.
Steeling her heart, Kris let go of Jack’s hand and got busy being elsewhere. It was easier since Jack was right behind her. In a moment, they were out the back. In the distance, a siren could be heard. Maybe that was normal in this part of town, but it seemed to be getting closer. Then it went silent.
“Ungood,” Grampa Trouble said. “Colonel, did you bring a car?”
“I borrowed one from a friend. I do still have a few of them.” He pointed at a beat-up coupe parked across the street, and they headed for it, Penny in the lead. Her cane was now held more as a club, no hobbling now.
The car chirped as the doors unlocked. Kris found herself with a wonder
ful excuse to cuddle up to Jack. The backseat was close for three, and the car was cold.
“Does this thing have a heater?” Grampa Trouble asked from the front passenger seat.
“Not that I’ve noticed,” Colonel Hancock said as he put it in gear and pulled away from the curb in one smooth motion.
And stopped at the first stop sign.
The colonel turned them onto a potholed four-lane road with a railroad track down the middle that took them away from the Smuggler’s Roost. He held his speed down to well below the limit.
“Good,” Grampa Trouble said.
“Mind filling us fugitives from the law of averages in on what’s going on?” Penny asked.
“I guess you deserve some words of warning,” Trouble said. “After Admiral Crossenshield heard about how you cracked into the Peterwald net, not once but for several planets, he kind of got obsessive about our own planetary net. Surprise of surprises, old Al Longknife was interested in it as well. Even had a security package ready to sell. It kind of makes me wonder if Al had something to do with the Peterwald problem.”
“Or knows the folks who are running the new emperor around in circles,” Penny observed before Kris could.
Then again, Kris was rather busy kissing Jack and only half paying attention to the conversation.
Which meant she was only half paying attention to Jack’s kiss.
Problem was, she strongly suspected Jack’s focus was split, too.
Drat!
“So we got an entire new security system. Every computer had to be recertified. Every one of them, even a kid’s first computer. You can imagine how that went down. Oh, and just for fun, some machines’ certifications evaporated overnight, for quite a few nights. There were threats to take the whole thing down, but things are getting better, and people are grumbling less.”
“But it screwed me out of my access,” Nelly grumbled.
“Too true, girl,” Grampa said. “Worse, they’ve got flags that go up whenever anyone tries to access the system without a certificate or starts to apply for one and drops out. Did they leave a tag with you?”
Kris Longknife: Furious Page 10