Gameprey nfe-11

by Tom Clancy

  A message flared across the bottom of his vision. MARK, IT’S MAJ. NEED INFO. IN UNDERGROUND UTILITY TUNNELS UNDER CONVENTION CENTER. CAN YOU TRACK?

  Holding his position in the crashsuit, Mark lifted his arm and brought up the schematics he’d uncovered for the building, located the service tunnels, and sent them along. Then he added, DON’T GO ALONE.

  Maj ignored Mark’s final comment and sent a quick thank-you. She pulled up the schematics he’d sent and examined them for just a moment. The blood drips on the tunnel floor had gotten farther apart, as if the bleeding had slowed or Peter was traveling faster.

  After a moment spent orienting herself, Maj took off again. More confident now, and her vision adjusted to the dim lighting, she stepped up the pace to a trot.

  According to the schematic, the tunnel she presently followed opened up in a storage area that was right off the main lobby. From there it was just a short distance to the street in front of the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel.

  Gaspar monitored the building through the security sensors he’d rendered accessible only by him. Most of the network was devices Heavener had instructed her people to install. He stood inside the convention center, maintaining the holo as the chaos continued.

  When he punched the menu for the utility tunnels beneath the convention center, he was surprised to find an extra presence. He accessed the nearest vid buttoncam Heavener’s people had installed along their last-ditch escape route. The vid buttoncam had photo-multiplier capabilities and scanned through the dark easily.

  When the girl came into view, Gaspar easily recognized her as Maj Green. How did she find out about the tunnels? He didn’t let his mind dwell on the questions that filled it. He opened the audlink to Heavener.

  “One of the Net Force Explorers is in the tunnels,” he told her.

  “He will be taken care of.”

  “She,” Gaspar said automatically.

  Heavener’s only response was to shut down the audlink.

  Watching the girl run through the tunnels, Gaspar felt a pang of guilt. She was running to her doom, and he had no way to warn her. But what made him feel really guilty was not knowing if he’d try even if he had a way.

  In the Space Marine battlesuit, Andy waded through a stream, marking it instantly as an attack zone. The hillside on the other side of the stream went almost straight up. Even as skilled as he was in the battlesuit, Andy had trouble negotiating the climb. At the top, peering down sixty feet to the stream, he knew he was in a good place.

  “We’ve stopped,” Catie said.

  “Yeah,” Andy said. “These guys are creeps and amateurs, and I don’t have time for them. We need to get back to the convention center and figure out what’s going on. But we’re going on our terms, not theirs.”

  “It’s two against one.” Catie huddled against the bulkhead, compacted into a ball.

  Andy gave her a grin. “I know. I feel kind of guilty.” When the two pursuing Space Marines plunged into the stream, Andy fired his laser at the water, instantly creating huge clouds of steam. “I figure these guys more for line-of-sight operators rather than guys who are used to instrumentation.”

  The steam clouds rose from the stream, turning the world white, rising to cascade over the hill where Andy stood as well. He shifted over to thermal imaging, the scene suddenly shifting to a patchwork world of reds, oranges, and yellows with a few spots of blue and purple. The battlesuit’s interior cooling systems jerked into action, whining and rattling.

  “What’s that?” Catie asked.

  “We’re blowing up,” Andy teased.

  “What?”

  “Psych.” Andy tracked the two battlesuits stumbling through the streambed. Both of them acted as if they’d lost their way. He readied the short-range missiles and fired a salvo at each.

  The missiles struck the two Space Marines and started breaking them down at once. They shivered and shook like tin cans strung together.

  Andy opened the comm-channel. “And that’s all, Blue Leader. Game over. Thanks for playing.”

  The battlesuits exploded, showering the nearby terrain with shrapnel.

  Andy lifted the HUD helmet and glanced at Catie…“We’re about done here, I’d say. Ready to see if we can get off-line?”

  “Very,” Catie said.

  “Detective Holmes.”

  Maj glanced at the vidphone screen on her foilpack and saw that the LAPD detective was getting out of his car. The vid pickup swirled crazily, pulling the man and the alley into conflicting views as Holmes ran. “It’s Maj.”

  “I’m kind of busy here.”

  “Me, too,” she replied tautly. “I’m in an access tunnel under the convention center. The people who’ve got Peter Griffen are escaping through it.”

  “How’d you find that tunnel?”

  “History,” Maj said, her breath coming shorter from the excitement and the exertion. Her feet slapped against the tunnel’s stone floor. “We’re working on current events.”

  “Do you know where it lets out?”

  “The front lobby. There’s a storage area the tunnel accesses around the corner from the main desk. If they get out onto the street—”

  “They’re gone,” Holmes said in agreement. “Got it. Keep this connection open.”

  Maj ran harder. She leaned into the running, regretting the stale, still air around her because it wasn’t what her body needed for sustained effort. Her lungs started to burn.

  At the next corner turn Maj folded her arms protectively in front of her, bumped into the wall, then pushed off with her hands to change directions rapidly. Wounded or being carried, she didn’t think Peter could move along as quickly as she was. She was certain she was cutting his lead.

  The tunnel ended abruptly two turns later. Light glinted off the rungs of the ladder built into the wall. The hatch above was open. She scrambled up the rungs. The air felt cooler in the storage room.

  A woman screamed out in the lobby, quickly echoed by other screams and hoarse warning shouts.

  Maj opened the door and paused, looking through. The lobby was filled with people from the convention who looked lost and confused. But fear was catching on quick because three men drove a flying wedge through them, knocking bystanders aside with fists, knees, and elbows. Two more men trotted easily behind the wedge, holding Peter in a come-along grip.

  None of the men said a word, but the big black pistols in their gloved fists spoke volumes.

  “Detective Holmes,” Maj said over the foilpack. “They’re in the lobby.”

  “I’ve got men there,” Holmes promised.

  At that moment the crowd separated and four uniformed policemen ran toward the group with Peter. “Halt!” one of them ordered in a loud voice.

  The three men forming the flying wedge raised their pistols and fired without hesitation. Dulled splats like a hammer driving home a nail echoed in the hallway. The four policemen fell without firing a shot.

  Controlling her fear, Maj dashed forward. “Your officers are down, Detective Holmes!”

  “How many?”

  “All of them.” Maj pulled up short and looked at the bodies while the crowd continued to scatter around her. Natural light filtering in through the polarized windows fronting the hotel gave her plenty of illumination. Yellow-feathered tranquilizer darts stood out against the dark colors of the uniforms. The gunmen hadn’t fired for the center of their targets, choosing arms, legs, throats, and faces.

  “What kind of shape are they in?” Holmes asked. “I can’t get radio contact.”

  “They’ve been darted.” Maj kneeled beside one of the men and put her fingers on his neck. She felt the pulse beating sluggishly. “They’re still alive.” She pushed up and ran to the lobby doors, stepping over two more people who’d been darted.

  The doorman was dropping at the same time she reached the red carpet under the canopy. The doorman fell limply halfway out into the street. Traffic screeched to a halt in front of him, missing him by inches.
/>   “There’s the girl,” one of the men said. He aimed his pistol and fired.

  Maj ducked back around the door. Glass broke near her right ear, shattering with a double-clap of impact. Pulling away, she spotted the two yellow-feathered darts that had stabbed through the glass pane she’d hidden behind. Hairline cracks spread out from the darts.

  Horns honked indignantly out on the street.

  Maj watched through the fractured glass as a gleaming, light blue Dodge van barreled down the four-lane street. The driver laid on the horn, pulling out into the oncoming traffic lane, then cutting back in to pull to a rubber-eating stop twenty feet down from the hotel entrance.

  The black-suited men, with Peter in tow, rushed toward the Dodge van as the rear door opened. They threw Peter inside, then climbed in. The van took off before they could shut the door. Traffic ground to a halt in both directions, but the van roared down the middle of the street, careening occasionally from the stalled cars with a scream of tortured metal.

  Maj dashed after it, trying to spot its license plate. No luck — it was missing. She lifted the foilpack and gave the best description she could of the vehicle as it sped away. It turned right at the corner and disappeared.

  14

  “We lost them,” Detective John Holmes announced as he strode into the conference room.

  Maj had taken advantage of one of the implant chairs in the room and jumped into her own veeyar. She didn’t have access to all the investigation’s progress through the LAPD’s systems, but the local HoloNet servers were doing a good job.

  Logged into her own veeyar and taking advantage of the room’s holoprojector systems, she was able to be on hand and access the Net at the same time. She had nine windows opened up to different media servers at present. Several of the stations covering the gaming convention were already doing back-story pieces on Peter Griffen, and she copied those immediately, archiving them as files.

  Catie and Megan sat in one corner, engaged in their own conversation. Matt, Mark, and Leif, although actually still in-flight, occupied chairs at the main table with Captain Winters, who was really still back in his office as well. Andy had returned to the game room as the various services came back online.

  Holmes glanced at his watch. “Uniforms found the vehicle less than two miles from here. It had been abandoned at a bar.”

  “What about Peter?” Maj asked.

  “He wasn’t there.”

  “He was injured,” Maj said.

  Holmes shrugged. “The investigating officers reported there was blood in the back of the van, but said it wasn’t enough to cause any real concern.”

  “Other than the fact that Peter was forcibly kidnapped in front of thousands of witnesses.”

  “We’re investigating, Miss Green. But we’re also checking into the possibility that this is a publicity stunt.”

  “They wouldn’t have to do that,” Catie put in. “Did you see that dragon? That alone would sell millions of copies. And the presentation Peter did had the whole audience wanting more.”

  “That would seem a little extreme, don’t you think?” Winters asked. “If this was a staged event, Eisenhower Productions could be convicted of criminal charges.”

  “Look, Captain Winters,” Holmes said with a trace of fatigue in his voice, “this city is one wild ride after another. We’re home to Hollywood, a major portion of the gaming industry, and every vice you can name. With millions of people living here, working here, and visiting, you have to stand out from the crowd if you want to get noticed.”

  “Peter was already doing that,” Maj said.

  Holmes was quiet for a moment. “We’re following up on a lead that the kidnapping was staged.”

  “Who has given you that information?” Winters asked.

  “Sir,” Holmes said, “with all due respect, you’re out of your jurisdiction at the moment. The only reason I mention this at all is because your people got caught up in some nasty business last night, and I felt I owed that to you. But for now, we believe that the two events are unrelated.”

  “I hope you’re not forgetting they could be,” Winters said dryly.

  A nerve twitched at the corner of Holmes’s jaw. “No, sir. Not for a minute. But my CO is taking the stance that they’re not. I have to follow that line. For now.”

  “Understood, Detective. I appreciate your honesty.”

  Holmes turned to Maj. “Look, I know you’re worried about this guy. I am, too.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m getting subpoenas delivered now to different media branches to access their vid files as well as processing witnesses and accounting for people who were physically here as well as in holoform. That’s going to take time.”

  “I know,” Maj replied.

  “And if this is some kind of publicity stunt,” Holmes said grimly, “Griffen and Eisenhower Productions are going to need a battalion of lawyers to get out of this.”

  “Even then,” Megan said, “fines and court costs are going to be a drop in the bucket against the profits the game makes.”

  Holmes nodded and glanced around the room. “I don’t figure you people are much on listening when someone tells you to keep your nose out of things, but consider this that speech just the same. Because if you step too heavily around this investigation, you’re going to find out how downright unfriendly I can be. I hope we’re clear on that.”

  Maj nodded. Even as Net Force Explorers they didn’t have any official sanction.

  Holmes turned and headed for the door, stopping just short of exiting and looking back at the group. “If you do happen to find out something I should know, make sure I do. You’ve got the number.” He stepped back out into the hallway into a stream of people waiting to be processed through the police cordon.

  Maj closed the media feeds and logged off the Net. When she opened her eyes again, she was in the implant chair in the conference room. She sat up and looked at Winters. “Is Net Force going to get involved?”

  “Not at this point,” Winters told her. “The LAPD is convinced what they’re dealing with here is a publicity stunt aimed at increasing game sales. Net Force is in agreement. Personally, I think it wouldn’t hurt to take a look and run a few things down. However, there’s some political pressure to keep Net Force out. When we get involved, media coverage gets even more pronounced.”

  “But why keep Net Force out?” Maj asked. “Isn’t media exposure a bonus?”

  “Except that the gaming community doesn’t like the idea of Net Force acting like Big Brother. The gaming world taps into a lot of various conspiracy theories, and throwing Net Force into the mix would only be adding fuel to the fire.”

  “The other gaming corporations are also talking about suing Peter Griffen and Eisenhower Productions for infringing on their own game advertisements,” Leif said. “Apparently that dragon put in an appearance in nearly every game at the convention.”

  “And you know this how?” Catie asked.

  Leif gave a small smile. “I took a peek at my dad’s information research agency’s reports over what happened out here. Part of the potential profits being set up here involve stock portfolios. Potential liability in the form of civil suits against a corporation are big news in business.”

  “They may impact profits,” Matt said, “but sales of the game are still going to skyrocket, and that will impact profits, too.”

  Maj knew it was true. Even as the police had closed down the gaming area, there had been hundreds of people lined up, demanding to by the online package that would let them enter Realm of the Bright Waters when it went up on the Net.

  “If the profit is big enough,” Leif agreed, “lawsuits and litigation are written off as the price of doing business. The kidnapping has sent a tremor through the stock market. Eisenhower shares are presently down, but speculators are snapping them up.”

  “Is Eisenhower Productions publicly owned?” Winters asked.

  Leif closed his eyes for a moment. “Forty-three percent.”r />
  “Hold up,” Catie said. “Publicly owned doesn’t ring any bells for me.”

  “There are two kinds of stock,” Leif explained. “Actually, there are all kinds of stock options, but I’m going to hold it to two for a thumbnail overview. Public stock is shares that are sold to Joe Consumer, anyone who goes online and buys into corporations. Then there’s private stock, stock held back from public trading for special investors. Usually other friendly corporations or entrepreneurs.”

  “Keeping private stock private prevents hostile takeovers,” Megan said. “I remember that from the research my dad did on one of his mystery novels.”

  “True,” Leif said, “but you’d be amazed at how many buyouts still happen and no one knows who the players are until the last moment.”

  “How financially secure is Eisenhower Productions?” Winters asked.

  Leif shrugged. “I can look into it.”

  Winters nodded. “That might be a place to start. It would help to know—if they were involved in faking this kidnapping — if they were desperate or just plain greedy.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Winters called the meeting to an end and excused himself, his holoform winking out of existence a heartbeat later. Mark, Matt, and Leif said their good-byes as well.

  “We missed lunch,” Catie announced, standing up and stretching tiredly. “There’s supposed to be a great Chinese place around the corner. Want to find out?”

  Maj nodded distractedly. Her mind whirled, trying to make sense of the events that had happened. She didn’t doubt for a minute that last night’s raid on her hotel room and Peter Griffen’s kidnapping were connected. She just didn’t know how. But her intuition pinged the connection dead center, and it was something she’d learned to trust over the years.

  “—at the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel, where computer game design wizard Peter Griffen was believed kidnapped earlier today. Veronica, what can you tell us?”