by Greg Rucka
“Then you can suck this up without my help.”
“Core-Mantis will crush us!”
Now it was Sexton’s turn to shrug. “R-C/Bowman will survive. DataFlow will survive. Patmos will probably survive. It’ll only be pharmaDyne that crashes and burns.”
Doctor Murray said nothing.
“Be reasonable, Fred,” Sexton said. “You want me to initiate and launch a hostile takeover of Core-Mantis Solomon Islands, and you want me to do it sooner rather than later. You’re asking me to fund the operation from my own branch, you’re asking me to task troops from R-C/Bowman to do this, and you’re asking me to take the hit if it goes wrong.”
“But if it goes right then it does nothing but help you.” Doctor Murray seemed to vibrate with his agitation. “If it goes right you get the credit, and the Board will certainly take that into consideration when making its choice. It will guarantee your appointment.”
Sexton nodded slightly, confirming what they already both knew. “It’s your choice.”
“I can take this to Sato,” Doctor Murray said unconvincingly. “He has the financials, he could launch the takeover.”
“He could. He doesn’t have the manpower, he’d have to hire mercs, but it might get the job done. Hell, Sato might even succeed. And the Board might think that would make him a brilliant, bold, and courageous CEO. But then Takahata Sato would be CEO of dataDyne, and there’s a reason he’s not being seriously considered. The man’s a liability, he’s indiscreet in his personal habits. Beck-Yama or CMO would have him blackmailed and controlled in no time.”
“DeVries,” Doctor Murray said. “If she could be convinced—”
“Now you’re just wasting my time, Fred.”
Sexton leaned down, tapped the coffee table, and the window display winked out, the opaque glass along the side of the room slowly regaining its translucence. The sun had passed over the house, and now shadows were beginning to fall on the finely cut grass that led to the water.
“Your choice,” Sexton said.
“You’ll move quickly?” Doctor Murray asked.
“My people can have a battle plan completed in twenty-four hours,” Sexton assured him. “We can move troops and equipment into position within another seventy-two. Give me four days, I’ll have the cure for cancer in your hands.”
“I’ll need the research, all of it.” Doctor Murray was insistent. “And as many of the scientists working there captured alive as possible. Everyone else has to die, all the support staff. This must be a full assault, and a complete sanitization of the site.”
“We have a deal, then?”
Doctor Murray looked to his son, and Hayes took the cue, speaking to his lifeCard once more.
“Decrypt and transmit,” he said softly. “Solomon Islands, all files and information. Include all records and reports designated ‘Felix.’”
The lifeCard chimed, turning warmer in his hand as it delivered terabyte after terabyte of data to Sexton’s console. It completed the transfer with another tone, this one a descending scale of three major chords.
Sexton smiled broadly at the two of them, then stuck out his hand to Doctor Murray. “Pleasure doing business with you, Doctor.”
Doctor Murray needed a moment, as if the thought of another handshake atop everything else would be one too many insults to bear, then accepted the offered hand.
“A pleasure doing business with you,” Hayes’s father echoed, and then, after a second’s thought, added, “Doctor Sexton.”
CHAPTER 23
The Money Pit—337 West 78th Street, New York City, New York October 10th, 2020
The place wasn’t so much a pub and it wasn’t so much a bar, but rather an executive’s fantasy of a synthesis of the two, recreated as a high-end restaurant.
Everything within was pristine and new, as if the furnishings, the fixtures, even the glassware served from the lacquered bar were fresh from their packaging. The shine extended to the decor on the walls, where artistically designed relief sculptures of profit-and-loss graphs and pie charts and stock listings hung at regularly spaced intervals. The waitstaff promoted the illusion, all of them young and pretty from the bartenders to the hostesses, all of them dressed as executive assistants in tight and sexy pseudo-business attire. Even the menu was in keeping, listing drinks called the “Mantis Martini” and the “Backroom Deal.”
It was honestly the last place in the world Jo would have wanted to spend time, but what she wanted didn’t matter. Carrington had given her a job, and the job had taken her here, and she wasn’t going to back down now.
The brief had been straightforward, but with a wrinkle at the end. Straightforward was the fact that the CEO of pharmaDyne was coming to meet the CEO of Royce-Chamberlain /Bowman Motors at his home in Grosse Pointe. Carrington was certain the only possible reason for such a meeting could be Doctor Murray’s desire to find Rose, which in turn forced the conclusion that, one way or another, Sexton was a part of that. Part one of Jo’s assignment had been to confirm the meeting.
“You won’t be able to get close enough to overhear them,” Carrington had said. “And the security around the estate is too tight to risk deploying camspy. Just take a stand-off position and verify that Murray is, in fact, meeting with Sexton.”
“You don’t need to send me to the States for that,” Jo had said. “Certainly you’ve got at least two dozen operatives at your disposal closer to the site who can do exactly the same thing.”
Carrington had nodded in agreement, and then motioned at Grimshaw, seated at a workstation in the briefing room, with his walking stick. “Grim, if you please.”
Grimshaw had been staring at Jo with what she’d only been able to describe as a stupid grin, and Carrington had been forced to repeat himself before the man spun in his seat and began slapping at the keyboard in front of him. Almost instantly, the graphics displayed over the briefing room map table had vanished, to be replaced with a pixelated and color-desaturated image of a man who Jo immediately recognized.
“That’s the one who tried to carve me up in Vancouver,” she had said.
“Steinberg thought so, as well,” Carrington had said. “His name is Laurent, and he’s Doctor Murray’s son, adopted in November 2017, as best as we can determine. And, apparently, he’s Doctor Murray’s legman, Joanna. He’s his thug, and has been … thugging … his way around the world for the last week or so in zealous pursuit of the elusive Doctor Thaddeus Rose. He’s a killer, Jo, not a soldier, and he makes me more than a little nervous.”
Jo rose from her seat, examining the image more closely. The man, Laurent, was young, perhaps her age, perhaps a little older, his hair worn long and loose, falling to midback. In the image, he wore a designer business suit, one of the current season’s sleek fashions, and it made him appear longer and leaner than Jo remembered.
“If Laurent is present at the meeting, he is your priority target,” Carrington had said. “I have no doubt that as soon as Rose’s whereabouts are determined, Doctor Murray will dispatch Laurent to kill the man. We mustn’t let that happen. For that reason, you are to follow Laurent in the hopes that he will lead you to Rose, and then—and only then, Joanna—are you to engage him.”
Without looking from the image, Jo had said, “I understand.”
“Avoid him if at all possible. Only act if Rose’s life, or your own, is in immediate danger.”
She’d grinned, glanced to Carrington then, and said, “You don’t think I can take him?”
“I’d rather not have to find out,” Carrington had said.
Doing the job in Grosse Pointe had been simple, albeit tedious and frustrating. Murray and his son had arrived at Sexton’s estate via old-style limousine. Jo had waited nearly ninety minutes before they’d emerged once more, departing as they had come, and she had followed in her Instituteprovided car, frustrated by the vehicle’s handling as well as the traffic. While the rest of the world seemed to be embracing null-G travel, Detroit still gamely maintained i
ts love of the automobile.
She’d followed them to the airport, then been forced to abandon her vehicle in a loading lane when she saw Laurent exit the limousine alone, heading into the terminal. She had a moment of alarm once inside, afraid she’d lost him, then caught sight of him again purchasing a first-class ticket on the next transport to New York. Jo had waited until he’d moved off toward the boarding gates before purchasing one herself, for coach class.
The flight itself had taken twenty-three minutes, and Jo had ended up seated beside an overweight middle-aged woman in a floral print dress who spent the entire trip wearing a dataDyne entertainMe VR set, speaking softly to people who weren’t there. Jo had watched Laurent, seated seven rows ahead of her, on the aisle. Hayes kept fidgeting, glancing around nervously, and Jo thought that she’d tipped her hand somehow, that he’d made her. She buried her face in the slick in-flight magazine as Hayes left his seat just before landing, heading for the forward lavatory.
When he returned, she braced herself for an attack, but to her surprise he’d seemed much calmer, and far less agitated.
He’s on something, she realized. Her father had apprehended enough addicts that the signs were easy for her to spot.
Then they’d landed and Jo had engaged in a game of follow-that-cab from Kennedy into the City, finally arriving at the Money Pit late in the evening, and faced the dilemma of heading inside herself or again taking a static post outside. But there wasn’t really a choice, she had to go in after him. If Laurent was closing in on Rose, she needed to stay close, and whether or not she was welcome, or even comfortable, inside a place like the Money Pit didn’t matter.
A young, blonde, and far too pretty hostess greeted her as Jo came off the stairs and onto the main floor, looking her over with a frown. Jo knew what she was seeing, the combination of youth and inappropriate attire, and she could easily guess what the hostess was thinking as a result. Jo hadn’t dressed to play this game, but rather to remain comfortable during the surveillance, wearing cargo pants, a jacket, trainers, and a T-shirt with a graphic of the earth on its center, with the word COEXIST printed beneath it.
No one in the world was going to mistake Jo for a hypercorp shark, or even a person who wished to become one, on the basis of how she looked.
“Can I help you?” the hostess sniffed.
“I doubt it,” Jo snapped, looking past her at the room, surveying the clientele at their tables. It was crowded enough that she wasn’t immediately worried about being spotted by Laurent, but at the same time, she was having trouble finding him herself. Aside from the field of diners, most of the clientele seemed to be clustered around the bar. At the far end of the room, she could make out two sets of doors, one leading to the kitchen, another presumably leading to the restrooms.
“This is an exclusive establishment,” the hostess said. “Corporate membership is—”
“Do I look lost?” Jo moved her gaze from the room to the woman, putting as much contempt as she could muster into it. “Do I? Or are you so linear that you think we all have to wear three-pieces even after work?”
It was the attitude that did it, the holier-than-thou-I-cancrush-you-with-my-bank-account manner, and the hostess appeared taken completely aback for an instant before managing to recover. When she did, she combined obsequious with apologetic in a flawless blend.
“I’m terribly sorry, miss—”
“You’re talking to me,” Jo said just as quickly, and just as cattily. “Don’t talk to me. Unless you’re NPD for the Delta Four, or you’re sleeping with someone who is, don’t talk to me, because I really don’t want to talk to you.”
The hostess stammered. “NPD?”
“God! New Product Development!” Jo glared at her, as if waiting to hear the hostess’s excuse for her incompetence. When none came, she added, “You didn’t land the meet-andgreet post because of your brains, did you, love?”
“I’m terribly sorry, miss—”
“You’re still talking to me.” Jo waved the hostess away in disgust, striding forward onto the floor, on a beeline for the bar. Behind her, she heard the hostess calling her a bitch, her voice barely audible against the wash of conversation and the sound of business reports broadcast from hidden speakers.
She elbowed her way to the bar, using the color-mad mirrors to scan the room, finally spotting Laurent. He stood near the back of the space, between the doors to the kitchen and the restrooms, a drink in his hand, untouched, and she realized that he was doing the same as she was, searching the crowd. Jo turned her attention to the man beside her, used a smile that showed him her teeth, and asked him to buy her a drink.
“Sure, beautiful. What’re you having?”
“The day I’ve had, something with a kick,” Jo said.
“Tell me about it! Those bastards at Core-Mantis—oh, hell, you’re not Core-Mantis, are you?”
Jo laughed, still keeping half an eye on the mirrors, still keeping Laurent in view. “Perish the thought.”
“Zentek,” the man said. “Mergers and Acquisitions. Which means I’m spending most of my days trying to keep us from being merged or acquired, rather than doing it myself, you know?”
Jo nodded, keeping her smile in place, encouraging the conversation to continue. The man took the cue up, eager to talk, though whether it was because he wanted the company or because he was passionate about his work, Jo didn’t know, and didn’t much care. She’d seen Laurent’s posture shift, seen him straighten up, focusing on someone in the crowd, and for a moment Jo was afraid it was her.
Then she saw him move forward, intercepting a woman in her early thirties, black-haired and dark-skinned, wearing the kind of business suit that said she was less interested in Mergers and Acquisitions than in another kind of transaction. Laurent put his mouth to her ear for a moment, then straightened again, meeting her gaze, and the woman returned it without a smile, then brushed past him, to the doors that presumably led to the private rooms.
Mistress? Jo wondered. Lover?
Laurent made another scan of the main floor, then turned to follow the woman.
The man at her elbow was still bemoaning the state of Zentek’s affairs, and Jo nodded again, then pitched forward into him, wrapping her right arm around her middle. The man jerked, nearly sliding off his own bar stool, spilling the drink in his hand.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m going to puke,” Jo said, and covering her mouth with her other hand, lurched away from the bar. She forced her way across the floor, narrowly avoiding a collision with a waiter and his heavily laden tray, then went through the same door she’d seen Laurent take without hesitating, then doubled over, hands on her thighs, until she heard it click shut behind her, blocking the noise of the adjacent room. She waited a second longer, in case anyone was watching, then wiped at her mouth with the back of a hand, straightening up once more, hearing the distant sounds of a kitchen. The aroma of steaks broiling was strong, and made her stomach tighten with hunger. She hadn’t eaten since she’d started the tail on Laurent.
She was in a short hallway with doors to the restrooms on her left, then a bend about three meters ahead on her right. She could hear voices, the sounds of pots and pans and cooking, and around the bend she saw a side door, partially ajar, leading into the kitchen. Jo hesitated for a moment. It was just possible they’d ducked into one of the bathrooms, but she doubted that; there’d be too much risk of being overheard, there simply wasn’t enough privacy.
After another second’s thought, Jo reached into one of her jacket pockets, pulling out a small molded plastic case and snapping it quickly open. Resting inside, cushioned in foam, were a pair of small, thin eyeglasses, and a Ping-Pong ball-sized metal orb. Jo slipped the glasses on, removed the orb from its container, then tucked the case back into her pocket. She ran her thumb along the surface of the ball as Potts had shown her, felt the device vibrate slightly in her hand, then released it to the air and, despite knowing that it wouldn’t, fully expected
the ball to fall to the floor.
It didn’t, hovering at chest level where she’d let it go. On the lenses of her glasses, an interface appeared, the word INITIALIZING blinking in luminescent green across her field of vision. Then the word faded, and she was seeing the world through the camspy’s eyes, shimmering and distorted. Using the glasses as the interface, Jo directed the camspy forward through the door and into the kitchen.
It was busy inside, too busy for either the four cooks or the two impatient waiters or the one dishwasher to notice the camspy. Jo engaged the audio, felt more than heard the crackle of the camspy’s microphone switching on, feeding the audio to her through the earpieces of her eyeglasses. She rotated the camspy, looking around the kitchen, feeling nervous and exposed, afraid she’d lost the trail. There was no sign of either the woman or of Laurent.
There was, however, another door near the side of a walkin freezer, and like the door into the kitchen, this one was open as well, presumably to allow fresh air from outside to circulate. Jo dropped the camspy low, guiding it past the corner of one stove, narrowly missing a collision with one of the chefs as she turned abruptly to dump the contents of her skillet onto a plate. Jo had to put a hand out to steady herself with the wall, to keep from becoming utterly disoriented.
I hate these damn things, she thought.
She guided the camspy through the open door and into the alleyway behind the restaurant. For a second, the image projected onto her lenses flared, growing brighter as the camspy’s computerized filtering system adjusted to the change in lighting. She could hear street noises crackling into her ears, and then new voices, unintelligible. The camspy continued to glide silently forward, low to the ground, and Jo saw a Dumpster, and shadows being cast onto the ground beyond it.
When she saw them, the relief she felt surprised her. She hadn’t wanted to lose them. She hadn’t wanted to fail.
They were speaking quietly, each of them looking in the opposite direction from the other, in an attempt to keep from being overseen or overheard. On the interface in her glasses, Jo tried raising the directional mike, but either their voices were too soft or the ambient noise around them too great, and she still couldn’t make out what was being said.