“Nelly’s doing, I’ll bet you,” Leslie Chu whispered from beside Foile.
The tall man in the black uniform left the command desk and walked aside for a few steps, signaling Foile to join him.
“She may be brilliant, and her computer may be able to let her walk on water, but that damn princess is going to get herself killed.”
“How?” Foile asked.
“When we lost power, Alexander Longknife lifted off the penthouse in an armed helicopter. He is no longer in the building, so if this young woman wants to talk to him, she came to the wrong place.”
“Oh,” said Foile. So the princess had failed. That still didn’t kill her.
“When he abandoned the penthouse, the third, fourth, and fifth floors below him were flooded with Sarin gas. Is that princess of yours equipped for that?”
“She is not my princess, but, no, I doubt she is.” Foile also wanted to know what exception to the laws of war and civil matters gave Al Longknife access to such gas. That question would have to wait.
“I must talk to the Longknife princess,” Senior Chief Agent in Charge Foile said bluntly.
“Christian, do we have anything like a public-address system left to us?” the tall man asked the tall woman.
“We are supposed to, Karl, but nothing is working according to specs tonight.”
Both of them looked out over the work floor, and their eyes came to rest on the young woman who’d first insisted on their fallibility.
“My board says it’s available. I won’t know for sure until someone uses it.”
Karl handed Foile a mike. “Press the button on the side to talk. If you don’t want everyone in the building to hear what you’re saying, let up on the button.”
“Lets hope a certain determined young woman can hear what I’m saying.”
Foile took a deep breath and punched the button.
“Princess Kristine, I need to talk to you. This is Taylor Foile, I’m with the Wardhaven Bureau of Investigation, and if you and your friends want to be alive five minutes from now, you need to listen to what I have to say.”
36
Kris eyed Jack. “Do you know any Taylor Foile of the WBI?��� she asked him.
“Nope. Do you?” he asked Penny.
“Never heard of him.”
“Well, he seems to know me,” Kris said. “Nelly, how are you getting this? I thought you were off net.”
“I am, except for stuff I make myself or where I’m so close to a poor little brain that I can overpower it. This is coming in on a 911 channel. It’s open to everyone.”
“Do we want to talk to him?” Kris asked.
“It will give away our location,” Jack, Penny, and Nelly said, all at once.
“So, we wait to see if he goes on,” Kris concluded.
About that time, Taylor Foile must have gotten tired of waiting and went on. “Princess Kristine, your father asked me to find you before anyone got hurt. Specifically, before you got killed. I see that you are using the sleepy darts my assistant, Agent Leslie Chu, by the way, a major fan of yours, pried out of the wood beam you shot them into.”
“Fans everywhere,” Penny said with a sigh. “I hope she didn’t help.”
“Of course she did,” Jack said. “It’s her job.”
“Shush,” Kris said.
“None of the people you shot are in any danger,” the voice from Nelly went on. “The worse charges that might be placed against you are use of a false identity and being a public nuisance. A major public nuisance and a real pain in my rear end.”
“I don’t think he likes me,” Kris said.
“Would you like you if you’d been one step behind us since we landed?” Penny pointed out.
Kris nodded agreement.
“I’ve been one step behind you since you landed,” the WBI man admitted. “But you have got to stop running. Stop right now.”
“What does he know that we don’t?” Jack asked.
Kris frowned. What could Grampa Al have up his sleeve?
“You made a mistake turning off the lights, Princess Kristine,” the voice said. “When the building lost power, your grandfather had a helicopter lift him off from his penthouse. If my guess is right, and this entire affair is your effort to talk with your grandfather, it’s not going to happen.”
Jack started to punch STOP, but Kris stopped him.
“What is it about you Longknifes?” Penny drawled. “You’ll order anyone around, but a simple family talk, not so much.”
“Honey,” Jack whispered softly, “if he’s flown the coop, there’s no reason for us to keep going.”
“I’m not sure I believe him,” Kris snapped, and again pushed Jack’s hand away from the STOP button.
“Worst for you and your friends,” the voice went on, “when he left, he flooded three of the five floors below his penthouse with Sarin gas.”
Kris hit the STOP button. Jack and Penny’s hands slapped down on top of hers a fraction of a second later.
The elevator rumbled to a halt at floor 183.
“What’s your granddad doing throwing Sarin gas around in a public building?” Penny demanded.
“It’s a Longknife thing,” Jack scowled.
“I didn’t know anything about Sarin,” Kris said defensively. “I was prepared for tear gas, and even that stuff that makes you vomit.” She was. Among all their fake flab were breather hoods. They were wearing gloves. They were prepared for a lot. Just not a gas that killed you if a single drop got onto your skin.
“Princess Kristine,” the WBI man continued, “you’ve gotten through a lot. But it only means you now have to come down through even more. Everyone is ready for you. There are a lot of guns down here, and unlike yours, none of them shoot sleepy darts.” He paused to give that time to seep in.
“Please, for your father’s and mother’s sake, surrender yourselves. I have a warrant for your arrest. The judge must have owed your father quite a favor to sign something so unbelievably vague, but I do have a warrant. If you surrender to me, I can get you out of here, and very likely there’ll be a judge waiting for you. You can be released on your own recognizance and be having breakfast tomorrow, make that this morning, with your Grampa Trouble. I had a most unenlightening talk with the old guy. He told me nothing, except that he was pretty sure no one was going to kill you. I didn’t know about the Sarin gas then. I wonder what he’d say now.”
“He’d say no one should have any Sarin,” Jack snarled.
Kris took a deep breath. She’d never been face-to-face with defeat like this. Every brick wall she’d met before she’d managed go over, around, under, or turn to rubble.
This brick wall looked pretty solidly in her face.
Dejected like never before, she turned to Jack. “I wonder,” she said, “do you think they’d let us share a cell?”
“I don’t think it will matter,” Jack said with one of his lopsided grins. “I don’t perform well on camera, and I doubt they’ll ever let the three of us go anywhere where there weren’t two, no three people, watching us on security screens every second for the rest of our lives.”
“Face it, Kris,” Penny said, “unless you have some way for us to fly out of here, we’ve trapped ourselves.”
“We planned a break-in,” Jack pointed out. “We didn’t plan to break out.”
Kris nodded. She’d always figured that if they got to Grampa Al, that was all that mattered. That would change everything. What followed would depend on what she could talk him into or out of. Now it was blindingly clear. He didn’t want to talk to her, and he wasn’t going to listen to anything she had to say.
I have failed!
Kris didn’t like the feeling of that. Failure. It felt too much like straggling in with just one ship left out of a whole Fleet of Discovery.
Failure was not something she wanted to get into the habit of.
But face it, girl. You are not going to shoot your way out of this. Penny is right, you either fly out
of here or surrender.
One thing was clear, she was not going to get Jack killed. She’d spent her whole life waiting for him to come along, and getting him killed on the first date was not in the plan. Before she’d let any of them die, she’d surrender.
Strange, you never thought of surrender before Jack kissed you.
Damn it, I’m not calling it quits because I’ve fallen for Jack. I’m calling it quits because there’s nothing to fight for anymore, and I can’t fly out of here.
Can’t you?
Kris’s blood froze. She had to quit arguing with herself. Especially when she was right.
She hit the UP button.
“What?” Penny and Jack both shouted.
“Let’s fly out of here, folks,” Kris said.
37
“They’ve quit moving,” the person monitoring the nanos reported.
“Thank God,” Senor Chief Agent in Charge Foile breathed, careful to make sure his hand was off the button as he whispered his prayer.
Good. She wasn’t going up any farther. Now to talk her down. He began speaking into the mike, trying to lower the pressure on the young woman. Talk her down. After all, she had no place to go but down. Foile offered options he knew would never be allowed. Yes, he could get the Prime Minister’s daughter and her gallant team of ninja raiders out of Longknife Tower, but none of them would ever breathe free air again. Not unless someone pulled off a miracle, and while Foile might believe in prayer, his faith did not extend that far.
He talked, and the elevator stayed put. He kept talking, keeping his eye on the nano watcher’s nodding head. No movement. No movement. No movement. Well, no news might not be good news, but at least it wasn’t bad.
“They’re going up again!”
Foile almost bit his own tongue. “Kristine, you can’t go up any higher. There’s gas. Sarin gas. Trust me. I wouldn’t lie to you about that.”
He wouldn’t, but would the people in black uniforms lie? The WBI agent shot the tall man a look.
Wordlessly, the man mouthed, “It’s true. Sarin gas.”
“For God’s sake, Princess. You’re not stupid. Don’t go suicidal on us now.”
“They’ve stopped!” the nano herder shouted.
“Where?” Foile demanded.
“Floor 190, five floors below the gas,” the tall woman announced.
“What’s on the hundred and ninetieth floor?” Foile demanded.
The four of the command team stared at each other dumbly. The young woman who’d defied her betters stood. “I was following all the power users in the tower last month, familiarizing myself with anything that might cause a major fire.”
“Yes, yes, spit it out,” the tall woman demanded.
“There’s a huge electric capacitor up there.” That was greeted with more blank stares. “Think battery. Real big. Just what you’d need to power up an orbital shuttle. Make sure its matter/antimatter reactor didn’t run out of power no matter what.”
“Shuttle!” came from Foile and all four of the watch commanders.
“Good God, you can’t launch a shuttle from here,” the tall man in black said.
“By the same good God, no one should have Sarin gas in a public building, either,” Foile snapped. “Did the bozos who put a shuttle up there calculate what would happen if you launched the damn thing?”
No surprise, Foile’s question got more dumb nods. This time, even the smart young kid had nothing to say.
“Kris can’t fly the shuttle out of here.” These words came from Leslie Chu, agent and generally full-on fan of the Longknife princess. “She tried to steal Hank Peterwald’s yacht once. She had to get out of a mess she’d made and needed to do it real fast. Anyway, even with Nelly on her shoulder, she only managed to steal the thing after Hank gave her the access codes.”
Leslie looked none too happy at what she was saying. “That shuttle has to have access codes. Something to keep any kids from taking off for a joyride and getting themselves killed. Kris doesn’t have those codes.”
“Neither do I,” the tall man in black said.
Foile punched the mike. “Kristine, you can’t use the shuttle. You don’t have the access codes. You know that. I know that. You’re just fooling yourself.”
“Should we send a team up to capture her?” the tall woman asked.
“Would you want to be next to that damn thing when she lights it off?” the tall man answered.
“But I thought you said . . .”
“The young agent over there is not the only one who has been following the princess’s career,” the tall man said. “The Nelly Kris took to Turantic is not the Nelly Kris has up there. First, we give her a couple of hours to cool her heels. If she hasn’t taken off by then, yes, I’ll send you up there to haul her in.”
The tall woman didn’t look enthusiastic at the prospect.
“And if she’s taken off?” Foile asked.
“We’ll need a whole lot more than my guards and your Bureau to catch her.”
“But it’s just an orbital shuttle,” the tall woman said. “She can’t take it through a jump point.”
“I know that,” Leslie said, “and you know that. But do you think Kris Longknife will let that stop her?”
“May I suggest that you figure out how to turn your power back on and get the elevators working,” Foile said. “I, for one, would not want to be in this building when she takes that damn thing off.”
The command team began to issue orders. Repair personnel were ordered to the subbasement, but they weren’t needed. The power came on, both regular and emergency, a good fifteen minutes before the shuttle launched. The building was evacuated, and everyone was running long before the shuttle turned the night into day.
38
“Nelly, we really could use the last two codes,” Kris said as softly and as patiently as she could manage. Sitting on top of a half-operational shuttle was bad enough. Stuck like a sitting duck in a location where everybody and his brother, sister, cat, and dog knew where she was was the last place she needed to be.
“Keep your shirt on,” Nelly snapped. “I’ve got you three of the lockout codes. I’ll have the other two in plenty of time.”
“Time we don’t have,” Penny said, beating Kris to it.
“The gangplank is clear,” Penny announced from where she sat, toward the back of the shuttle, her automatic out and covering said plank, as well as the loading area. “Nobody in sight.”
“Nobody is dumb enough to storm a shuttle that’s about to take off?” Nelly said.
“Concentrate on the codes,” Kris said. “Let me worry about how courageous or smart these rent-a-cops are.” Kris truly hoped courage was not in their job description. It hadn’t been apparent in her hiring brief.
“Fourth code. Only one more left,” Nelly announced. “How’s your preflight checklist coming?”
With that jab, Kris turned back to Jack. “What’s next?”
The shuttle was kept at five minutes in its countdown. When Grampa Al chose to get out of Dodge, he didn’t want to have to wait. From the flight-deck log, a log that verified Kris’s worst nightmare . . . this shuttle was seven years old and had never flown an inch . . . it was apparent that a qualified pilot checked out the shuttle every week. Its last prelaunch check had been the day before yesterday.
Kris truly hoped that Grampa Al spent more on his “Get the hell out of here,” option than he did on the security of his outer perimeter.
Kris and Jack reached the end of their checklist. The matter/antimatter reactor was heating water. The controls were unlocked and moving. The electronics were awake and ready to fly. The hatch was sealed. Only the actual launch sequencer button was still refusing to let them in. Kris could push the button all day and get nothing for her effort.
“Nelly, we won. You’re the holdup.”
“Don’t joggle my elbow. This is an unbelievably long code. I’m getting there. I’m getting there. Yes! Push that button. We’re goin
g places,” Nelly crowed.
“Nelly, slight adjustment to the launch. I don’t want to wreck this place more than I have to. Can you give it the minimum burn that will get us a thousand meters up before you really kick us in the butt?”
“Good Lord, Kris, you want everything,” Penny growled.
“I warned you that I didn’t want to do any more damage to Grampa Al’s haunt than I had to.”
“Launch profile adjusted, Kris. Now can we get out of here? I don’t know what they have in store for me if you’re caught, but I strongly suspect it doesn’t involve hanging around your neck.”
Kris pushed the launch button.
And found herself holding her breath as she felt the roar of the engines beneath her . . . and watched the building slowly slide by her at a walking pace.
“Is this such a good idea?” Jack asked.
“I have no idea, but how many custodians and cleaning women do you want to crisp tonight?” Kris shot back.
Jack had no answer for that.
Slowly. Painfully slowly. The shuttle rose.
Outside Kris’s window, the night fled as the shuttle created its own dawn.
Kris forced herself to breathe. How long could it take a shuttle to get to a thousand meters? The mission timer crawled past ten seconds. Then fifteen.
Then the shuttle gave Kris a good kick in the rear and took off like God intended.
“You know, Kris,” Penny called on net, “I understand the first liquid-chemical rockets took forever to clear the launch tower, just like this.”
“They didn’t pay those guys enough,” Jack said through gritted teeth. The gees were climbing quickly as the shuttle eagerly made up for lost time.
Ten minutes later, they’d achieved low orbit.
“Now what?” Jack asked.
“My question entirely,” Nelly added.
“I have no idea,” Kris said.
Kris Longknife: Furious Page 18