Merkiaari Wars: 02 - What Price Honour (14 page)

Why?

Kate was hetero of course, but even she could appreciate the woman’s beauty. The girl was tall and slender. What she could see of the woman’s body looked firm and decently muscled. A woman any man would go for. Why then was she disliked? It was a puzzle, and an interesting one.

“Gimme a drink,” the girl said in a hard but sober sounding voice.

The barkeep continued polishing non-existent dust from her bar. “You’ve had enough. Go home.”

“I’ve as much right to drink here as… as
she
does!”

“She’s drinking ice water.”

“Really?” the girl said in surprise and turned to look. “That’s a first.”

“I’m Cherry—” Kate began to say.

“I just
bet
you are,” the girl said snorting laughter.

Kate ground her teeth and kept a smile fixed to her face. “And your name is…?”

“Bobbi Lemmington.”

The barkeep rolled her eyes at something. Was there something Kate was missing? The barkeep was definitely amused about something.

“Nice to meet you. Am I supposed to know that name?”

“Everyone knows my
father
,” Bobbi spat.

“Oh?”

“You really don’t know who I am?”

Kate clamped her mouth shut and counted to three under her breath. “I really don’t,” she said with a grin more like a grimace of pain.

“Good.”

Kate’s eyes blazed and she clenched a fist out of sight. She turned to the barkeep. “Who is Lemmington?”

The barkeep glanced at Bobbi and then shrugged. “The President’s minister of finance.”

Jackpot! The minister of finance must know all there is to know about Sanderson and his dealings. He had probably visited the President at his retreat. What chance he had taken his daughter with him? My God, she had hit the mother load. Bobbi Lemmington was her ticket to Sanderson.

 “Give me that bottle there, would you?” Kate said.

“This?” the barkeep said pointing to a bottle of faintly green coloured liquid. “It’s expensive. The best we have.”

“I know. Yantai from Alizon’s Chayton valley.”

“You
do
know,” the barkeep said in surprise and carefully lifted the bottle down.

Kate didn’t say anything further. She knew Cherry looked like a dizzy tourist. She was meant to. It was good that people fell for it. She pulled out her credit wand and paid for the bottle. The price was astronomical, she noted gleefully. It was a good thing that her wand came with her forged ID. It was ironic that Whitby’s money was paying for this little extra mission.

She put her wand away and turned to Bobbi. “Would you like to come up for a drink?”

The barkeep’s eyes widened. Her speculation slowly turned to the mistaken realisation that Cherry was trying to pick up Bobbi. Cherry was hetero just as Kate was, but it served a purpose for the barkeep to assume otherwise.

Kate smiled. “Would you like that?”

Bobbi stared into her eyes and nodded silently.

“Come along then,” Kate said and gave the barkeep a challenging look. The woman smiled in amusement and shook her head.

* * *

The Tigris Mayflower Hotel

Once safely up in Kate’s room, she let Bobbi wander around the suite while she went to fetch some glasses from the mini-bar. The girl checked out the holocentre and suddenly the entire suite was filled with music. Kate found herself tapping a toe and humming in time with it, while she carefully poured two large glasses of Yantai. The girl had good taste in music.

The thing to do with Yantai was to take your time. Pour very slowly, and the sediment at the bottom would stay put allowing the full flavour and strength of the liquor to come through. Poured quickly, it would be sour and undrinkable. She poured very slowly, and then held the glass up to the light. The emerald green colour of the Yantai was pure and free of cloudiness. Perfect. A glass this size would make a Marine try to hump his rifle—not that hard to do actually. She grinned at the image that popped into her head. Two glasses of it, and he would be incapable of anything but snoring.

“Dance with me,” Bobbi said coming up behind Kate and draping her arms over her shoulders.

Kate turned holding the drinks. “Drink first, dance later.”

Bobbi pouted but she took the offered glass. She took a long swallow and her eyes bugged. She coughed and gasped. “What the hell is it?”

“Yantai.” Kate raised her glass and pretended to drink.

“
This
is Yantai? I’ve had it before, but it didn’t have a kick like this.” Bobbi took another swallow. “Yum.”

Kate raised an amused eyebrow. “You’ve had it before?”

“Hmmm,” Bobbi said whirling around the room. She stopped and swayed a little. “Yours is better.” She finished the glass and tossed it over her shoulder where it bounced and rolled under the table. “Let’s dance.”

“I have to finish my drink. You go ahead and I’ll watch.”

Bobbi grinned mischievously and began a sensuous dance full of suggestive movements and casual caresses. She turned away and began undressing, making the movements a game. She turned back with her top gaping open and revealing small pert breasts and froze.

Kate smiled.

“What… I don’t understand,” Bobbi said staring at the pulser in Kate’s fist.

Kate gestured with the gun. “Sit and drink this.”

“I don’t want anymore…”

“Take it!”

Bobbi jumped a little and took the glass. She stepped back, not taking her eyes off the pulser, and fumbled for the couch behind her. She sat and took a small sip of Yantai. She coughed and Kate waved away the fumes. The girl smelled like a damn brewery.

“You won’t kill me… will you?” Bobbi said trembling with fear.

Kate didn’t answer the obvious. The girl wasn’t stupid. If she said she would let her go, Bobbi would know she was lying. She sat on the table and prodded the girl between the breasts with the gun.

“Sit back,” she said and Bobbi complied. “Drink your Yantai. You said you liked it.”

Tears spilled over Bobbi’s cheeks as she drank.

“Good girl. Throw the glass—
carefully!
” Bobbi lowered the glass. “Throw it
behind
you, there’s a good girl.” The glass landed and shattered into a million fragments. “Now then Bobbi Lemmington the finance minister’s daughter, I have some questions for you.”

“Please… please don’t hurt me… I’ll do anything. I’ll be good,” Bobbi said reaching tentatively toward Kate.

“You will tell me everything you know about Sanderson. Where the mountain retreat is, what it’s like, how it is guarded. Everything.”

“You’re going to kill him. Kill Sanderson?”

“That’s not your concern.”

“I’ll help, I will,” Bobbi said suddenly excited. “Everyone hates him. With him gone, people will like me again.”

Kate shook her head. They wouldn’t forget her father’s place in Sanderson’s schemes that easily. The best thing for her would be to book passage to another world where no one knew her, but that was Bobbi’s problem and none of hers.

“I don’t need help. What I need is information, and you’re going to give it to me. Understand?”

“Yes,” Bobbi whispered in fright and began to detail what she knew of the set up at the retreat.

Ten minutes later, Bobbi was flagging as the Yantai had its way with her, but Kate had what she needed. She watched the drowsy woman for a time debating the pros and cons of the situation, but finally she fetched her other pistol. The slug thrower was better for this. Quieter.

Bobbi struggled to rouse herself just as Kate returned. “Can we, you know… can we still do it?” she said ignoring the pistol pointed at her.

Kate goggled at the stupidity of the woman. “I don’t swing that way.”

“Pity, I do like you…” Bobbi began and fell back unconscious.

Kate sighed and put up her gun. It was a risk, but Bobbi was too stupid to kill. She carried the unconscious girl into the bedroom, and dumped her on the bed before turning to leave.

“Oh hell,” she growled and turned back.

She stripped Bobbi out of her clothes and tucked her in properly so that she would have a good sleep. Some people were like puppies. They needed someone to look after them. Bobbi was the biggest puppy she had ever seen. After folding the girl’s clothes neatly on a nearby chair, she retrieved her kit and left illuminating the do not disturb sign as she did so.

The dining room was her destination. She couldn’t chance going out the front after her meeting with Fairhead. She had no doubt he meant what he said, but she was hoping he would underestimate her. She was counting on it actually. She rode the elevator down to the ground floor. The receptionist was busy with new guests checking in, and didn’t see her walk by.

The dining room was dark with chairs stacked upon the tables. Kate looked around briefly and located the service way. She hurried across the room and ducked through the doors. A short corridor led into the kitchens, which were also dark. At first she couldn’t find what she was looking for, but a little scouting revealed another door leading to the stores tucked away behind a huge industrial sized autochef. A service elevator led from the stores deep into the bowels of the hotel. She rode it down three levels to the sub basement and took the opportunity to change into her sneaksuit.

The darkness of the basement was relieved here and there by maintenance lighting, and winking lights on the unfathomable controls of humming machinery. She guessed that most of this junk supplied the hotel with clean water and heating. She recognised some of it as air conditioning units by the ducting attached to it.

The light was at such a low level, she decided to pull on her goggles. Setting them at low power, she explored her surroundings. When Robert first brought her to the Mayflower, he had explained that the two towers, one of which had been converted into the Mayflower Hotel, had been owned by McPherson and Dermot—a now defunct drive coil manufacturer. It had been nothing but trivia at the time, but now it gave her a possible escape route. Both towers were identical in design on the outside (except for those horrendous balconies) and would have similar support needs. She was betting that both towers were linked together by maintenance tunnels.

Kate looked up at the ducting and pipes overhead and grinned. “Damn, I’m good.”

She traced the pipes from one of the machines, which registered brightly on thermal imaging. She guessed it was the source for some of the hotel’s hot water. She trotted along following a huge pipe that glowed hotly on her display, until she reached a T junction and two huge valves. One pipe was hot, the other cold—the valve was shut. She followed the cold pipe into the darkness.

As she had hoped, the pipe she followed was joined by many other ducts and pipes that eventually led her into a tunnel. If not for the occasional lamp embedded in the floor or wall, she would have been in complete darkness. Her goggles were excellent tech, but they did need something to work with. The pipes were cold and the ambient temperature low. Thermal was useless, and low light amplification nearly so. Nearly was good enough. With her goggles set at maximum amplification, she emerged into a basement similar to the Mayflower’s sub basement. The machines were silent, the only sound was her echoing footfalls raising miniature dust storms. No one had been in here for years.

Kate quickly located the elevator, but cursed when she realised it had been shut down. The entire building was on power down. She would need another way up. Scouting around the basement, she found the emergency stairs, but the door was locked. Typical. She supposed some lucky guy had received a bonus for realising the stairway was a security risk for the hotel, but she couldn’t work up much enthusiasm for his lucky break. She dropped her kit bag and rummaged through its contents until she found what she needed. Inserting the compad’s probe into the card reader, she quickly broke its code and unlocked the door.

She trotted up the stairs the now open door revealed.

The reception area was dusty and abandoned. A dead potted plant was the only witness to her emergence from the stairwell. She quickly crossed the empty space to the main doors and crouched to check outside. No one was in sight. She could see an occasional vehicle coming or going on the road, and the hotel was clearly visible on the other side, but she couldn’t see any of Fairhead’s…

Her eyes narrowed. “There you are.”

Parked in the hotel’s lot were a pair of hoverjeeps. They were sitting hull down on their skirts, but she knew they could be quickly powered up for a chase. She didn’t plan on giving them one and had no intention of going near the hotel. She broke the glass in the door and slipped out into the night.

Finding a vehicle was easy. A woman alone at night, and looking like Cherry did, attracted the wrong sort quite easily. She had only been walking along a side street for a couple of minutes when a car pulled up. It was wheeled, which might be important, and quite new, which wasn’t. It didn’t have four wheel drive, and that was annoying, but the guy leering out the window at her clinched it. She didn’t like him. She quickly lowered the zip on her sneaksuit.