gaian consortium 05 - the titan trap (20 page)

Waite ignored the barb, steel-colored eyes fixed on her face. “Why’re you helping him? He’s a criminal.” A pause, and he added, almost in a snarl, “I get it — you think you’re in love with him or something, right?” A cool sidelong glance at Derek. “How many other women have fallen for that?”

She ignored the jab, seeing it as the gambit Waite meant it to be, just another way to mess with her head. Even so, she knew that “love” was a word she hadn’t allowed herself to think, to even whisper to herself. She was not in love with Derek Tagawa. She barely knew him. Anyway, Cassidy Evans did not fall in love. That was for other people, not her. All right, so she cared what happened to Derek, didn’t want to see him get hurt or caught. It was a far cry from that to love. She wouldn’t let her mind entertain the notion for even a second.

“Who said anything about love?” she returned, tone purposely light, brittle. “But he is a spectacular lay, which is more than I could probably say about you…if things had gotten that far.”

At that comment, Waite let out another one of those snarling sounds, and beside her Derek held back a chuckle, with only partial success.

“Another thing Derek and I have in common,” Cassidy went on, “is that we’re both very interested in the truth. And that’s really why we have you here.” She flicked a glance toward Derek. “Isn’t that right?”

“It is,” he replied calmly, pulling his handheld out of a jacket pocket, then setting it down on the coffee table. A green light glowed from one corner of the screen, indicating that it was recording.

Waite’s eyes went guarded, but a sneer still pulled at his lip. “I have nothing to say.”

“You might think that,” Derek said, something in his voice sending a shiver of unease down Cassidy’s spine, “but I’m fairly certain I can convince you otherwise.”

No reply. The hit man’s eyes were scanning Derek’s face, looking for something. What, Cassidy wasn’t sure. Maybe that he really had the guts to do whatever it took to get the truth out of Waite? She had to admit to herself that she wasn’t sure if Derek really had it in him. After all, the man was a scientist, not some Consortium interrogator. And she wasn’t stupid enough to think that Waite was the sort of man who would crack easily.

The silence was broken by Waite’s hoarse laughter. “You can try…amateur.”

Cassidy risked a quick sideways glance at her companion. His face was composed, still and quiet. If he’d had his eyes shut, she would’ve said he was meditating. His gaze never flickered.

“Are you sure about that, Waite? All you have to do is tell me what really happened in the GARP HQ in Hunan Province at approximately 2 p.m. local time on March 25, 2463.”

Waite’s gaze was steady as well. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. The spring of that year, I was working on a project in Capetown.”

A bit of truth mixed in with the lie there, as apparently Waite had headed to South Africa after he dispatched Theo Karras and framed Derek for the murder. Cassidy could tell Derek noted it as well, because his mouth tightened for just a fraction of a second before he asked,

“You sure about that?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“Funny, you look a little young to be having significant memory lapses.” Derek pushed himself off the couch and approached Waite, looming over him. In actuality, the two of them were similar in height, but at the moment Derek had the clear advantage. It was obvious that Waite felt it, too; Cassidy could see his hands straining against the sheets, knuckles turning white from the effort.

“I know they don’t look like much,” Derek said, “but they’re enough to hold you in place, Mr. Waite. So you might as well save yourself the effort. And in case you’ve forgotten the question…where were you on the afternoon of March 25, 2463?”

“I told you. I was in Cape Town. That’s in South Africa, in case you for — ”

Crack!
It happened so quickly that at first Cassidy wasn’t sure of what she’d actually seen. Then she realized Derek had reached out, taken the little finger of Waite’s left hand between his thumb and forefinger, then bent it backward until it snapped.

Their captive had gone white under his tan, and beads of perspiration stood out along his hairline, but he didn’t cry out. His jaw clenched, and he said in a hoarse whisper, “You’ll have to do better than that.”

“Not a problem,” Derek replied calmly. “You’ve got nine fingers to go. And toes after that, if you’re still not willing to talk. After that it might get a little dicey. Guess we’ll just have to see. But you can spare yourself a world of pain if you just talk now.”

“I have nothing to say.” The words were gritted out, his eyes glittering and defiant.

“Okay.” A pause as Derek seemed to consider the situation. “Would you like all the fingers of one hand broken in order, or would you prefer if I alternate?”

“Fuck you.”

Through all this, Cassidy could only look on in amazement mixed with some horror. Not that she thought Conrad Waite was deserving of any special consideration, not if he really had murdered Theo Karras and too many others to count. No, it was more that she couldn’t believe Derek Tagawa, a man of science and learning, was capable of such violence.

He spent two years in MaxSec,
she thought then.
That can do a lot to change a man. Who knows…maybe he’s thinking of all the days he lost in there while he’s working up the nerve to break one of Waite’s fingers. Anyway, he’s not causing any damage that can’t be fixed by a couple of hours in a bonesetter. I’m pretty sure Waite’s employers can afford that for him.

“Alternating, it is,” Derek said, and reached over and snapped the little finger of Waite’s right hand.

This time a sort of gargled sound of agony emerged from the man’s throat, but he clamped his lips together and otherwise remained silent.

“You really want to do this the hard way, don’t you?”

Waite remained silent, and Derek glanced over at Cassidy, something in his expression softening for a moment.

“Maybe you should wait in the other room.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m okay. It’s better if I’m here in case he somehow busts out of those sheets.”

“Oh, you definitely don’t want to be here when I get out of these sheets,” Waite snarled.

Ignoring him, Derek gave her the faintest of shrugs. “I’m not worried about it. If you’re sure you’re all right — ”

“I’m fine,” she said firmly, although she wasn’t sure if she was fine. Maybe it was the lingering traces of the champagne she’d drunk and the cocktail before that, but something about the whole situation felt completely surreal, as if this was another Cassidy Evans standing here and calmly discussing whether she should be hanging around to watch her current companion torture a man into revealing his secrets. Surely that was the sort of thing that only happened in the more surreal thriller vids?

“You’ll both get caught, you know,” Waite put in then, his voice tight with pain but still completely in control. His gaze flickered to Cassidy. “But you — I can put in a good word for you, make sure you don’t get charged with anything, if you just help me stop this mad — ”

Snap!
There went the ring finger of his left hand, and that time he did let out an audible howl, perspiration now streaming down the sides of his face.

“I’m pretty sure Ms. Evans isn’t interested in any of your propositions,” Derek said.

“Not at all,” she remarked, although inwardly she wasn’t sure how much more she could take of this, despite her earlier protestation that she was just fine with standing there and watching Derek break Waite’s fingers one by one.

“Bitch.”

Another of those lightning-fast moves, and there went the ring finger of Waite’s right hand.

“Cocksucker — ”

“I’ll hazard a guess that now you’re noticing the pain is cumulative, Mr. Waite. That’s only four fingers, and you have six to go. So tell me, where were you on the afternoon of March 25, 2463?”

“I was in Cape Town, South Africa, you crazy motherfucking bastard!”

This time Derek grasped both of Waite’s middle fingers at the same time and snapped them like twigs. Cassidy had to fight to keep herself from raising her hands to her ears to blot out the resulting howl.

“You sure about that, Mr. Waite?”

“All right, all right!”

“All right, what, Mr. Waite?”

Sweat dripping from his face had made large dark blotches on the expensive shirt Conrad Waite was wearing. “All right, I was in Hunan Province. I was informed we had a situation and that I needed to take care of it. So I did.”

Derek didn’t blink. “Can you please elaborate on what ‘taking care of it’ means?”

“Eliminate Theo Karras and make sure you were blamed for it.” Waite shot a look of such venom at Derek that Cassidy was surprised when he didn’t react at all. “Too bad I didn’t kill you and frame Karras instead. That little twink probably would’ve enjoyed getting pegged in MaxSec.”

At that remark, a look of such icy rage passed over Derek’s face that Cassidy couldn’t help taking a step backward. Waite obviously saw it, too, because he abruptly shut his mouth.

A long silence. Finally, Derek said, “He was worth a hundred of you.” Then he picked up his handheld, swiped his thumb across the screen, and put it back in his pocket. “All right, we have enough. Time to go.”

Thank God. Cassidy could feel the champagne and the lobster patties resting uneasily in her stomach, and she had the feeling she was probably going to vomit if she had to watch any more of this nightmare. “I’ll get my things,” she said, and hurried into the bedroom to grab her case.

Once there, she paused and ran a hand over her forehead, feeling her own brand of clammy sweat there. Could she ever look at Derek in the same way again?

Figure that out later,
she told herself.
For now, we need to get going.

When she returned to the main living area, she saw that Derek had his suitcase out as well. Waite was glaring at him. “You’re just going to leave me here like this?”

“Relax,” Derek replied, flicking a glance in Cassidy’s direction. “It could be worse. At least you’re trapped in a suite in a five-star hotel.”

And with that parting shot, he inclined his head toward the door, indicating that she should go first. She didn’t argue, but hurried out of the room, head down so the security cameras in the hallway wouldn’t get a good shot of her face. A moment later, Derek followed, shutting the door on Waite’s howls, which sounded curiously muffled. She realized he must have stopped long enough to gag the hit man, as otherwise the sounds he was making would surely have disturbed the other guests and caught the attention of hotel security.

“Let’s go,” Derek said briefly, and she knew she had no choice but to follow.

Now he had his evidence. She wondered what he was going to do with it.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Not even when they were in an autocab and being whisked across town to the maglev station would Derek allow himself to relax. He could feel Cassidy next to him, tense and silent, and he knew that he’d probably just ruined everything with her because of that display. But he’d have to push that aside for now. Either she’d come to understand why he’d done what he’d done, or she wouldn’t. And if she couldn’t understand that, well….

No, he wasn’t going to go there right now. Every muscle in his body ached, and he felt vaguely nauseated. Strange. He’d been dreaming of this day for the past two years, and now that he had the hard evidence he’d wanted so badly, all he could do was think about the woman sitting next to him, and what she must be thinking of him in that moment.

Better to stick to neutral subjects. “We’re taking the maglev because the security on the trains isn’t nearly as high. The strats require biometric check-in before boarding.”

“The what?” Cassidy asked, obviously confused. Those were the first two words she’d spoken since they’d left the suite.

Sometimes it was hard to remember that this was her first time on Gaia, that she’d spent her whole life on worlds with no atmosphere, in domed cities with artificial air and manufactured gravity, that the only real means of transport she’d ever known were spaceships of one kind or another, other than the underground rail lines on the Moon. “Sorry. The stratospheric liners.”

She appeared to consider that reply, then asked, “Why can’t we just go back to the spaceport and get our ship? It would be a lot faster than taking a train.”

So much she didn’t know about life here planet-side. But he couldn’t hold that against her. Despite the gaps in her knowledge, she was one of the most capable people he’d ever met. “You’ve never flown in and out of Gaia. Consortium regulations prohibit using interplanetary craft for intraplanetary use. Everything’s set up to make sure people use government-regulated transportation to get around. We could get in that ship and fly to the Moon or back out to Europa, or lay in a subspace course for Eridani if we wanted, but we can’t use it to fly from city to city here on Gaia. It’s either strats or maglevs, I’m afraid.”

Another silence as she appeared to digest that information. “So where are we going, if we don’t have to take a strat to get there?”

“Tucson.”

A nod as she seemed to process his reply. Later he’d need to get Waite’s confession in as wide distribution as possible, but before anything else, Derek wanted to get back home, show his parents that he was innocent.

All right, after torturing another human being, he supposed he wasn’t exactly deserving of that label. Innocent of the crime for which he’d been convicted, then. That part was true enough.

He also knew that the identities they’d been provided would be compromised just as soon as the cleaning staff opened the door to the room tomorrow and discovered the little care package he’d left behind. Sooner possibly, if Waite managed to free himself. That was a calculated risk, though. Derek figured they had some time, and he planned to get in contact with their benefactor as soon as they reached the maglev station. True, there was surveillance everywhere you looked there as well, but his chances of being overheard were far lower there than here in this autocab, where everything he and Cassidy said and did was being monitored. Eventually someone might track down the recordings from this particular cab and learn that the two of them had headed to Arizona, but he planned to be long gone by then.