Doc Sidhe (23 page)

Harris cursed. Doc had the car. He looked up the street. There was no taxicab in sight, just a steady stream of oncoming traffic, and Moon's convertible would be out of sight in a matter of moments.

He sprinted after Moon's car. It trailed away, shrinking into a distinctive pair of taillights in the distance. Harris had to have a car, and fast.

He crossed into the roadway, glancing back. Two cars back was a low-slung roadster, a gleaming black. Harris put on a burst of speed, crossed the lane empty of oncoming traffic, and made a leap for the roadster.

He landed clean on the running board and grabbed the top of the door.

The car was filled with kids—they looked like they were barely in college years, two boys and three girls, ranging from very fair to nut-brown, all dressed up in eye-poking colors. They all wore identical straw hats with red hatbands and looked at him wide-eyed.

"I'm with the Sidhe Foundation," Harris said. The cliché was out of his mouth before he could check it: "Follow that car."

Their sudden, united cheer startled him; he almost fell off into the street.

Doc, in his roadster, kept two cars back from Angus Powrie's taxi. That massive green vehicle, shaped something like a giant scarab beetle, headed south on King's Road, keeping a steady pace. Then it turned left onto Island Way, the highway that crossed the Island Bridge, and put on a burst of speed.

Doc shook his head. Powrie, canny after decades in the criminal life, had to have spotted him. The redcap wouldn't be leading him anywhere. Doc pulled the too-warm blond wig off, dropping it on the seat beside him, then accelerated and whipped around the car ahead of him.

The cab's wheels screamed as it turned right, too sharply, and disappeared behind a long residential building. Doc sent his more maneuverable roadster into a tighter turn and got the cab in sight again. It was accelerating, a straight-line run past cross-street after cross-street.

Doc stood on the accelerator and gained on it. Within a block, he was on the taxi's bumper. He made sure his automatic pistol was still in the shoulder holster.

The driver gave up. He pulled to the curb and switched off the red light on the hood that said he was engaged. Doc pulled in beside him and jumped out, leveling his gun at the taxi's occupants.

Occupant. The streetlight showed only the taxi driver, a man with a lined face and a startled expression. The driver raised his hands.

"Where is he?"

"Most amazing thing I ever saw," said the driver. "Dropped me a full lib and said to keep going. Just off Island Way, he jumped clean out of the car! Hit so hard he bounced. Did you ever hear of such a thing?"

Doc sighed and holstered his gun. Well, at least Harris and Jean-Pierre still had Eamon Moon under observation.

"Are you really with the Sidhe Foundation?" asked the driver. She was tiny, blond, and naturally wide-eyed even after her composure returned.

"Yes, I—"

The boy beside her asked, "Are you after a gunman? A spy?"

"Well—"

"Do you know the prince? He's to swoon for."

"I think he's wearing makeup. Are you wearing makeup? Your face is running."

"How did you get so big?"

Harris stretched on tiptoe. Over the roof of the car in front he could still see the taillights of Moon's car. It was turning. He crouched again, holding tight. "Take a right at the next street."

The girl braked and turned expertly; the maneuver pressed Harris against the door. "How do you join?" she asked. "Is there a test?"

Suddenly there were no cars between the kids' and Moon's. Harris returned to a crouch. "Hell if I know. I just sort of fell into it."

"Well, that's not very helpful. You can't plan to fall into things, can you?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Is that the one, the red Bellweather?"

"Yeah. Is that what it is, a Bellweather?"

"Last year's."

"How do you know?"

"By the taillights."

"That's good, very good. You know a lot about cars?"

"I love cars. I plan to be very rich so I can have one for every day of the moon."

"Good plan." The car made another right turn; he held on tight as the girl followed. "That taillight thing is a good trick. Learn lots of neat stuff like that. It'll probably improve your odds with Doc."

"Truly?" She beamed a smile like a headlight at him.

The boy beside her asked, "He lets you call him Doc?"

They were on a broad four-lane that ran along the shore of what would have been the Hudson River. Between warehouses and dark businesses, Harris had frequent glimpses of the river and of the piers arrayed along it.

Ahead, the Bellweather turned left beside a large warehouse building. Harris said, "Stay on the road. But go slow, please."

They cruised past. Harris saw the Bellweather stopped in front of a big warehouse. The car honked. Just before the building hid them, Harris saw the big door begin to slide open, light shining from beyond.

They passed in front of the office building in front of the warehouse, a part of it. The painted sign above the main entrance, dimly lit by a small spotlight, read "Aremorcy Waterways." "Okay, can you stop here?"

She pulled the car to the side and braked. He stepped off, staring at the building. A heavy, monolithic thing of dark brick. Three stories. Shuttered windows on the upper stories. "What street are we on?"

She laughed at him. "Western High Road. How many roads do you think run along the river?"

"Oh."

"Are you carrying fire?" asked the older of the two girls in the backseat.

The boy in the middle asked, "Doesn't the Foundation give you an auto?"

"Can I drive you somewhere else?" the driver asked. "The guard-station?"

He smiled at her. "Sure." He stepped back up on the running board. "How about the Monarch Building?"

"Oh, good."

Back in the laboratory, Doc managed a derisive snort. "Perhaps if I'd enlisted the aid of a car full of university students, I'd not have been outmaneuvered so easily. No, you did very well, Harris." He turned to face everybody. "Harris, Gaby, the rest of us will be visiting this place in Morcymeath. It's likely to be the center of their activities in Neckerdam. This will be a raid, possibly very dangerous. The two of you will stay here."

Harris started to nod.

Gaby said, "No way in hell."

Everyone looked at her. Doc said, "Why not?"

She took a deep breath before answering. "Doc, I'm not going to let you all go out and risk your lives for me. Not while I stay safe on the top of your ivory tower. What if you got hurt? What if you got
killed
? How could I live with that?"

Doc shrugged. "It's what we've chosen to do."

"Well, it's what I—" She looked startled. "It's what I'm choosing to do."

Harris saw Doc's face brighten and Joseph's face fall. The taciturn giant looked as though he'd just come to the funeral of a friend.

In spite of his smile, Doc said, "You're not trained in it, Gabriela."

"So tell me where to go and what to do so I don't put any of you in danger."

Harris fumed. If she went, he had to go. He fought down the urge to strangle Gaby.

Doc looked at Harris. "Do you agree with her?"

"Oh, absolutely." Harris spoke the biggest lie of his life with utter conviction. Gaby turned her smile on him. That made it a lot better.

"Then you're a pair of fools. Make yourselves ready."

In the bouncing back of the Sidhe Foundation's delivery truck, Harris sat on a bench and unfolded one of Fergus' maps of Neckerdam. He saw that if this were Manhattan, Morcymeath would have been the entire southern tip of the island, and there were more piers here than in the corresponding area on the grim world.

He glanced around at the others arrayed on the two benches. Everyone but Doc and Jean-Pierre, who were in the truck's cab. Alastair had his Klapper autogun partially disassembled; as he put it back together again, Gaby watched in grim fascination. She held a tarnished bolt-action rifle; it looked incongruously big and old in her hands. There were wooden cabinets bolted to the truck walls above their heads; Harris had already seen the weapons racked inside them, had been given more firepower than he'd ever carried before. This was a primeval SWAT van.

Joseph, beside him, looked gloomier than ever. Harris nudged him with his knee. "Hey. What's eating you?"

"You and Gabriela should not be here."

"Tell me about it. What about you?"

"I am hard to hurt."

"You stand in front, then."

"I will."

"I was joking."

They all slid a few inches toward the cab as the truck slowed and stopped. The lightbulb against the van roof went dark.

A moment later, Doc pulled open the back doors of the truck. Atypically, he wore black clothes and his hair was tucked up under a black felt cap with earflaps; it looked hot. "Out, and quiet," he said.

They disembarked into the deep shadow cast by the monstrous skyscrapers of Morcymeath. Though a few of the buildings had windows lit, at this hour most of Neckerdam's businesses were closed for the night, and Doc had chosen a dark side street.

Two other trucks were parked behind Doc's. Harris saw people climbing out their rear doors. They seemed young but quietly professional, perhaps a dozen men and half a dozen women, all clad in uniforms made black by the night.

Doc waved one over. The burly, bearded man who approached was better dressed than the others; in addition to the uniform trousers, tunic, boots and holster belt, this man had elaborate gold trim on the tunic and a hip-length cloak. He saluted Doc—at least Harris assumed it was a salute; the man held his open palm on his breast for a moment as though he were listening to "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Doc returned the salute. "Good to work with you again, Lieutenant Athelstane," he said. He gestured at the hulk of a building down the block and across the intersecting street. "Position your men on the south, north, and west sides; my associates will be on the east. There's the chance that this is a legitimate business, so be cautious. But I think it's more likely this will be similar to any glitter-bright distillery raid."

"Meaning they'll fight like trapped rats."

Doc smiled sourly. "Rats with autoguns. You're to wait for my signal, but use your discretion. If you hear shouts or gunfire, don't bother to wait. Dismissed." They traded salutes, and Athelstane turned to rejoin his troops.

As the lieutenant led his people away into the darkness, the others clustered around Doc. Jean-Pierre was not in his usual elegant dress; he wore baggy workman's clothes and a cloth cap.

Doc said, "We have to assume the doors are watched. Noriko, you and I will creep up beside the front door and wait for Jean-Pierre. Alastair, I want you and your Klapper on the other side of the street on the north corner for fire support." He frowned at Harris. "You're not carrying a long arm."

"I've never fired a rifle. I took a couple of revolvers from the truck, on top of my usual." Harris patted his coat pockets, felt the reassuring weight of the weapons and ammunition they held.

"You'll need to be close, then. Like Alastair, but south corner. But you won't be entering; stay at that position and keep any gunmen from leaving the building."

"Sure."

Doc looked at Gaby. There was nothing but joyless resolve in her expression. "Jean-Pierre, how is she with that?"

"Straight and true."

"Gaby and Joseph, stay here with the truck. You're our final line of reinforcement on this flank. Don't act unless you have to. Any questions?"

There were none. Doc nodded at the rest of them, then he and Noriko melted away into the shadows.

Harris looked at Alastair. The doctor gestured for him to wait; then, after several seconds, pointed at the wall behind Harris. Harris moved there and walked in the deep shadow beside the wall, while Alastair matched him beside the building across the street.

Harris' heart pounded. Prefight jitters again. He concentrated on his breathing, tried to make it slow and even.

In a minute, because of Gaby's damned insistence that she come along, he might have to shoot somebody.

Kill somebody.

He reached the corner of the building, the closest approach to the cargo house, and stopped there within its shadow.

A few feet ahead, cars were parked along the sidewalk. Beyond them was the broad four-lane street, and beyond that was the combined warehouse and office he'd seen before. There were no cars parked in front of the office. Traffic was not heavy, but the cars that did pass were moving fast.

Across the side street to his right, Alastair had set up just short of the corner of his building. The doctor's attention was fixed on the front of the building they would soon be assaulting.

He took another look at the building, evaluating it in terms of what Doc planned for them to do. In the middle of the building face there was an inset a dozen feet deep; there, the steps of a stoop rose half a dozen feet to the heavy, round-topped wooden door that seemed to be the place's main entrance. There were shuttered windows above the entrance, and Harris could see another window on the right wall of the inset; if there was yet another window on the left wall of the inset, Alastair would be able to see it. Harris saw no street-level stairwells leading down to a basement entrance.

Doc appeared on the stoop as if by magic. He stood to the left of the door, back flat against the wall. Harris could see only his face—in profile, turned toward the door—and his left hand. Doc gestured, and Noriko appeared almost as suddenly, climbing up over the right concrete banister of the stoop. They flanked the door and froze into immobility.

From his pockets, Harris drew out the two pistols he'd been given in the truck. They were both bigger than the one he'd been carrying, the one he still wore just over his kidney. Instead of having swing-out cylinders, they were break-loaders, long-barrelled weapons, comfortingly heavy. He broke each one open to make sure it was loaded.

Jean-Pierre, carrying some sort of clipboard and a package wrapped in brown paper, breezed past him with a wink. He had copper-red hair and a bristly beard to match, courtesy of Harris and Siobhan Damvert's makeup case. "You'll do fine," he whispered.