“They did not!” Nelly sniffed. “No one tags me.”
“But just the certificates that you tried would be enough to raise a red flag,” the colonel said as he turned left on a new road that kept them headed away from the Roost. “Your old certificates would tell them Kris was back in town.”
“I imagine so,” Nelly said. “I couldn’t get in even enough to erase that I’d tried to get in. It was a stone wall.”
Kris couldn’t stay out of the conversation any longer. She broke from her clinch with Jack, and said, “So Nelly’s effort to attach to the net alerted them we were here, and when we used an Eden gift credit chit, it was enough to get them after us?”
“That’s why I paid cash for our drinks,” Grampa Trouble said. “Your trail stops dead at the Roost.”
“Won’t the barkeep remember you?” Penny asked.
“We lucked out there. New hire. Never saw him in my life,” Trouble said. “And from the surly service we got, he definitely doesn’t know me.”
“Maybe he did recognize you and gave you the service he thought you deserved,” the colonel said as he headed up the on-ramp to a crosstown expressway.
“Can I ask where we’re headed?” Kris said.
“Yes. A rental place by a lake,” Grampa Trouble said. “I saw it advertised on the net. Used a Wardhaven gift card I bought with cash to rent it for the next couple of days. If anyone can trace us to it, they’re better bloodhounds than I’ve heard of.”
Jack raised an eyebrow at that.
A little place by a lake. Maybe even a beach.
Maybe they could have a few days to themselves. Time to talk.
Maybe.
22
Senior Chief Agent in Charge Foile didn’t much care for what he saw. He and his team, along with a small contingent from SWAT, had charged into the Smuggler’s Roost ready to kick butts and take names. The local denizens had looked up from their drinks, taken their measure, and gone back to their conversations.
Leslie and Mahomet had come in the rear, checked the bathrooms, and found them empty as well.
Of two little old ladies, there was neither hide nor hair.
“Stand down,” Foile ordered the SWAT boys, and they put their weapons back on safety, but they didn’t show any interest in leaving.
Good.
Foile sauntered up to the barkeep and produced a picture of Lieutenant Commander, Her Royal Highness, Kris Longknife. “Have you seen that woman?”
“Naw.”
“Are you sure?”
“Listen, if a looker like her came in here, I and everyone here would have noticed. We may be drunk, but we ain’t blind.”
“How about her?” Foile asked, offering the best take they had from the security cameras.
“Nope, never saw her,” was his answer.
“Sure.”
The bartender shrugged. “Would you give her a second look? Bother remembering her?” The guy had a point.
Foile had to give the princess points for her disguise. The agent chose a different approach. “Did anyone leave suddenly just before we got here?”
“Come to think of it, that table kind of emptied out when no one was looking,” he said, pointing at one of the back booths.
“How many were there?”
“Three, no five. Two old ladies came in, one with a cane. They joined the other three.”
“You got their tab?”
“Nope, old geezer paid cash.”
At some point in this unproductive interrogation, Leslie had joined them.
“May I, sir?” she asked.
“Go ahead. I’m not getting anywhere.” Foile took a step back.
“Was one of the first three fellows this guy?” she said, offering a picture of a Marine in full dress uniform.
“Yeah, that could have been the young one. He was kind of down, didn’t say much, just kind of hunkered down in the back and let his elders do all the talking. That guy’s in a bad way if you ask me.”
“Who is he?” Foile asked.
“Jack Montoya, the head of the princess’s security team, or at least he was until her whole team was busted up after the last cruise. All us girls in the princess’s fan club were just dying for him to kiss her. I mean, what kind of girl spends all her time around a guy like this and just argues with him?”
Foile found himself looking at a handsome man in a crisp uniform. “Arguing all the time. Marriages have been built on worse,” he muttered.
Leslie gave him one of those faces she reserved for when men were being Men!
“What do you have on this Jack Marine?”
“Not much. I know he was a Secret Service agent before Kris drafted him. Boy, was that a blowup. But he doesn’t give interviews.”
Foile turned to his boss, who had just entered the Roost. “I’m going to need information from our client.”
“You’ve got the number on your commlink.”
Foile wasn’t really surprised that he now did have a number for the Prime Minister’s office. He punched it.
“What can I do for you?” came immediately.
“I need full information on Jack Montoya, Marine,” Foile said crisply.
From the background came an, “Oh, Christ, are those two together again?” in what sounded like the Prime Minister’s voice.
“Tell him that we aren’t sure, but we need that information,” Foile said.
“It’s already coming your way,” was his answer.
The data streamed at him. He arranged for a copy to go directly to Leslie’s computer. Her eyes lit up with delight.
Then she got serious. “Boss, we need to talk.” Leslie led the way, and Foile quickly found himself in a staff meeting with all three of his team.
“Jack was reassigned to HellFrozeOver.”
That drew a whistle. You didn’t have to be Navy to know what that meant. Rumor had it that the Bureau had a small office on the place. Maybe it did, but no one admitted to ever having been assigned there.
“If he’s there,” Foile pointed out, “why do we have this report that he’s here?”
“Just a second, boss. Right. God, this new computer is good. He’s TDY to Wardhaven for a training course. Uh-oh. It’s on the new computer security system.”
“Has he finished it?” Mahomet asked.
“Three-day course, done today. His commanding officer came with him. A Colonel Hancock?”
“Not that Hancock,” Foile said. Then he thought again. Hancock was the CO of HellFrozeOver.
“What Hancock?” Rick asked.
“Never mind. He’s the Marines’ problem, not ours,” Foile said. “Where are those two supposed to be now?”
“They’ve got rooms at the Army Navy Club. They’re heading back tomorrow.”
“That should identify two of the three soldier types the bartender mentions.” Foile turned to his boss. “Could you have their rooms at the Army Navy Club checked? They’re likely empty, but . . .”
She was on the horn immediately.
“I think I know who the third guy is,” Leslie said, and offered a picture of a balding officer, also in Marine dress blue and reds. “This is General Tordon, otherwise known as Trouble. That’s darn near officially his name. You can ask his friends, enemies, superiors: He’s trouble.”
“And if we’ve got trouble brewing here,” Foile said, “he’s likely close to the bottom of it.”
“That’s a good bet,” his boss said, joining the circle. “He’s a legend.”
“And how does he figure into this case?” Rick asked.
“Trouble is the princess’s great-grandfather,” Leslie supplied.
“I thought King Raymond was her great-grandfather?” Mahomet put in.
“He is. Both of them are her great-grandfathers,” Leslie explained.
That drew a whistle from Foile’s boss. “The poor girl didn’t have a chance.”
“Genealogy has nothing to do with this case,” Foile pointed out. “Leslie, run Troubl
e’s picture by our bartender. Mahomet, if they aren’t here, they likely left in a hurry and in a car. Find it.”
“Already on that, boss. Two minutes before we got here, a car turned off the street behind this place onto a street we have under surveillance.”
“Did you get the license?”
“No, sir, the car’s plates were covered with one of those screens.”
The team groaned. Driving with no plates or obscured plates would get you stopped in a hurry. However, plate screens were still, despite three tries, legal.
Seen from directly behind by a police cruiser, the plates were readable. Seen from a security camera mounted up high, the screen made the plates totally unreadable. If you were going someplace you didn’t want your parents, spouse, or private investigator to know about, the plate screens provided privacy.
At a moment like this, it was a pure headache for the police.
Three times the parliament had taken up the topic, and three times the proposed law had been sent back to committee. Apparently, some lawmakers felt the need to be off the grid on occasions.
“Track the car as far as you can. See if you can locate a GPS that matches the travel it does.” It was a long shot, and considering who he was up against, Foile doubted these people would make a tyro’s mistake. Still, every option had to be examined.
“Rick, see if any of those three rented a car recently. If that’s a dead end, see who will admit to being a friend of those two. Anyone who might lend them a car. Someone provided that ride.”
“On it, boss.”
23
The cottage turned out to be a little place. A very little place.
The one small bedroom was given over to the general, both because of his seniority, and the report that he snored. A painfully accurate report as it turned out.
That left Kris, Penny, Jack, and the colonel sharing the living room/kitchen. Clearly, the cottage was intended for a couple. A young couple with no kids.
Kris left the two couches to the colonel and Penny. She and Jack settled down with a few blankets on the floor before a pretend fireplace. It offered little heat against the night cold and a flickering light that a blind person might mistake for a fireplace’s cheery glow.
Kris didn’t care.
“I’ve missed you,” she whispered to Jack as she got close to him under the blanket. A rather lengthy stay in the bathroom had shed her disguise. She had not shed her spider-silk armor. While she might want Jack close, she had to make sure the world kept its distance with things like bullets, explosives, and other nasty stuff.
“I’ve missed you, too,” Jack answered.
The dialogue seemed a bit trite to Kris, but it said what she felt. Likely a lot of people had felt what she felt and found no better way to express it.
“Penny said you made quite a fuss when they took me away.”
“Worse fool me,” Jack said with a scowl that seemed almost satanic in the faux firelight. “The thought of you without security drove me up the wall. I tried everything I could to follow you. Finally, they flat out told me I was not going to be stationed anywhere near you. That’s when I resigned.”
“That work any better for you than it did for me?” Kris said, snuggling closer.
“You tried to resign, too?”
“In front of King Ray and Field Marshal Mac and Crossie. That’s when they told me they wouldn’t let me and were dumping me in Siberia, or Madigan’s Rainbow, whichever was closer.”
“I got HellFrozeOver,” Jack said, with a shiver that Kris was only too glad to try curing by rubbing up against him. Which led to another kissing interruption.
A bit later, Kris came up for air, and a question. “So how’d you get here?”
“You’ve got to thank your grampa Al.”
Kris raised an eyebrow. “I can’t picture him doing me any favors. Not intentionally.”
“Well, his new cybersecurity system also extends to HellFrozeOver. All security types have to be retrained. I don’t know if anyone gave it any thought, but Hancock had no trouble bringing his deputy security chief along to Wardhaven for the training class.
“Strange.” Jack’s effort to look puzzled had a lot of grin in it. “We were scheduled for the first class but had to drop out. Colonel Hancock gave me thirty minutes to pack my bag and join him for the shuttle to Wardhaven for this class. What do you think of that?”
“I think that anyone who underestimates my gramma Ruth, Gramma Trouble to many, should know by now just how foolish that is.”
Jack’s fingers found a very nice place on Kris, and they settled back to enjoy it for a while, despite the spider-silk armor in the way.
Jack was the one who let the world interfere next. “Are you serious about trying to see your grampa Al and talk him out of whatever he’s up to?”
Kris raised a finger. “Yes, I want to see him.” Then she raised a second one. “Yes, I want to talk him out of whatever he thinks is a great idea.” Up came a third finger. “Because I’ve spent some time thinking about what that cockamamy idea might be, and I don’t see any good ones on tap.”
Kris paused for a moment to organize her thoughts. “Eden’s president says Grampa Ray is beating the drums to build a fleet that can face the alien raiders.”
“He is?” Jack interrupted. “It hasn’t hit the media. There’s been total silence. The story of what we did vanished from the news before they decided to scrap the Wasp, and that took less than seventy-two hours.”
“That long?”
“Three days. Day One we were crawling with newsies and cameras. By Day Three, there wasn’t one in sight. It was like someone turned off the switch.”
“Maybe someone did?” Kris whispered. “It would be interesting to know who. Anyway, the president of Eden told me that he was getting tired of King Ray talking about nothing but raising taxes for a new fleet. He may not be saying anything like that in public, but the word is out to those who matter.”
“Is it working?” Jack asked.
Kris shook her head. “Eden’s president sounds like he’d walk out on the U.S. rather than pay for a new Navy.”
“So if Grampa Ray is tacking in that direction,” Jack said, his fingers doing their best to distract Kris.
“Grampa Al must know about it and is pushing ahead with something quite different. If I know him, he’s all in a rush to open trade routes.”
Jack’s hand slapped his forehead, which, sadly, interrupted his distractions for Kris. “He’s not that stupid, is he?”
“I don’t know how he thinks he can open trade negotiations with monsters who shoot first and don’t talk later,” Kris said. Now it was her turn to shiver. “If Grampa Al sends out a fleet, it will be loaded to the gills with trade goods. It would be shot up, no questions asked, no quarters given. But will trading captains blow their reactors to destroy their nav computers as our battleships did?”
Somehow, Kris doubted that.
Jack shook his head. “No. If your Grampa Al sends a trade fleet, it will be shot to pieces, then those pieces would be combed through with eager anticipation. Those alien bastards will find all kinds of goodies they’d love to steal and easy directions on where to get them.”
Kris rolled over to stare at the fire. After a while, Jack started gently rubbing her back, working on the tension that knotted her spine.
The two of them stared into the faux fire silently for a long time. Kris found her head cradled in the crook of Jack’s arm. For the first time in her life, she drifted off to sleep in a man’s arms.
24
The cottage did have a beach. It took a walk through the trees to find it, and it was only one or two meters wide, but it was sandy.
It was also cold and rainy.
Fortunately, the folks who owned the cottage had several cheap rain slickers hanging on pegs by the door. So Jack and Kris went for an early-morning walk to clear their heads and see if the gray morning light offered them anything better than they had mulled over in th
e false light of the fake fire.
It didn’t.
They had been dealt out of the game, and some serious squeeze was being applied to keep them out of what was afoot. Both agreed that was beyond stupid since they were two of the few survivors of humanity’s first contact with the alien menace. Then again, both of them could point out historical precedents for stupidity being the frequent, even routine, response of humanity in crisis.
“And this time we’ve got a Longknife, wealthy as Crassus, leading the charge into stupid,” Kris said with a sigh.
They settled on a log and looked out over the lake. Clouds or morning fog limited their view to little past a swimming platform that was in easy reach of kids during the summer months. Literally and metaphorically, Kris was in a fog.
She’d been there before. This time was different; she had Jack’s arm around her.
“How did you know it was me last night?” Kris asked, suddenly changing the topic in her head from a rabbit run to something much less important for the salvation of worlds but quite important to her at the moment.
“You were ugly,” Jack said. “Will that be you when you’re old?”
“Not if I follow Gramma Ruth,” Kris said, and elbowed Jack in the ribs. “Answer my question or face further torture.”
Jack laughed, and locked one arm around the offending elbow and used the other hand to stroke the soft flesh of Kris’s lower arm.
“Ooh, I’ll give you a year to quit that,” Kris murmured.
“It was the steel spring inside you,” Jack murmured back.
“Steel spring?”
“Yes. You were puttering along beside Penny who was putting on an excellent display of limited mobility, and your pretty little nose was buried under a ton of misdirection, but I could still see, maybe ‘feel’ is a better word, the tightly wound steel spring in you, ready to uncoil with a snap at any moment. You were doing your best to hide the power in you, but you couldn’t hide it from me.”
Kris found she was purring like a kitten. “That’s probably the best compliment I’ve ever gotten, even if you did lie.”
Kris Longknife: Furious Page 11