Molehunt (32 page)

‘Oh, I wouldn't count on the Myotan attack if I were you.'

Anneke reacted, only slightly. She saw the mole picked up on it and cursed herself.

‘Well then, my backup plan better do instead,' she said smoothly.

‘I could be wrong,' Maximus continued, ‘but I think you don't have one. My sources suggest the Myotans decided to call it off until the RIM agents leave. By the way, have they anything to do with you?'

‘RIM agents are everything to do with me. I am a
loyal
RIM agent.'

‘So we wait for whatever will not happen?'

Anneke swallowed. Brown had an uncanny way of hitting her exposed nerves. But he could have been guessing about the attack. It made sense. The Myotans were going to attack at some point and any self-respecting RIM agent worth her name would no doubt try to take advantage of it. Why else would she be looking at her watch?

‘We'll wait.'

‘Suits me.'

She locked the doors, keeping a gun on the mole the whole time. ‘One move,' said Anneke, her voice filtered by the hologram field image surrounding her head, ‘and well, you know the drill. This is a spraygun. It fires absorbent nanocapsules. It's normally used for fires but it can also suck every little bit of oxygen from your body, leaving you insulated against flame but dead as well.'

‘Did you like my pets on the platform?'

‘Like all hyper-bright people, you surround yourself with stupid helpers.'

‘How did you escape? ”

‘I ran fast.'

He pondered that. ‘Possible, but unlikely. How –'

‘Turn away, shut up.'

‘Why?' asked Maximus, spreading his hands. ‘Can't you –'

The thinsword slashed out, stopping against his hand. Maximus froze.

Anneke smiled. ‘I said don't move.'

‘I thought you meant don't move in a hostile manner.'

‘Brown, or whatever your real name is, you are a hostile manner on two legs.'

‘You nicked my hand with that thing. I'm bleeding.'

‘Get used to bleeding, you are going to do a lot more of it soon,' she said. ‘Now shut up, turn around and don't move. Being forced to wait with you does not mean I have to talk to you or even look at you.'

Can't hurt him too much. I need him alive to clear me. Can antagonise him, though.

Wiping the drops of blood from her blade on her trouser leg, she then glanced around. The desk looked like it was worth checking. It probably had traps set for people trying to get into the drawers the proper way.

She slashed open the desk top with the thinsword, the blade cutting through the genuine Earth-grown wood as if it were Styrofoam. She pocketed several items, including his micro e-pad.

‘Great e-pad, Brown. I've always wanted one just like it.'

Anneke had the satisfaction of seeing the mole's shoulders twitch as she spoke.
So, the coordinates are in here. Thanks for telling me so easily.

A scrawled remark on an e-sheet made her stop and read it again. She looked at Maximus. ‘So you found the coordinates.'
And hopefully no self-destruct because you haven't copied them anywhere.

He said nothing. Probably mad at himself for twitching when she'd mentioned the e-pad.

‘You know where the second set is?'

Maximus neither moved nor spoke. Even that told her something. With a psych profile like his, he would never pass over a chance to gloat unless the stakes were very high.

‘So, you don't know. That puts me one set ahead of you. Actually, no. Make that two sets, now that I have your e-pad. Hope it's more encrypted than your last one.'

Anneke was buying insurance. She was fairly sure that he only had the first set. If he thought that she had the second lot, he might be slower to pull the trigger if things went bad later.

She continued to rummage in the ruins of his desk. At ten minutes to two there was a commotion in the building, then the sounds of pandemonium. Anneke relaxed visibly and immediately set off the other charges. Nothing like a good dose of confusion. She hung a pendant around Maximus's neck, placing it out of sight beneath his tunic.

‘One move, one word, and I'll detonate it,' she told him.

‘I promise to be well-behaved,' he said.

There was a sudden hammering on the door. Anneke opened it and a flunky rushed in. ‘Sir,' he started, ‘there's –'

‘Yes, I know. A Myotan attack.'

The flunky stared first at Maximus, then the ruined desk.

‘Security check,' explained Anneke, her voice oozing alien tones.

‘About the Myotan attack?' prompted Maximus.

‘Myotan? No, sir. There are no Myotans.'

Maximus frowned and turned to Anneke. ‘Then what's going on?'

‘Sentinels, sir,' the flunky answered. ‘
Sentinels!
They've blockaded Arcadia. And they're going through the whole city, building by building, room by room.'

M
AXIMUS had to play his cards exactly right. If he screwed up, one of two things could happen. First, Anneke Longshadow might escape with the e-pad that contained the first set of lost coordinates. For security reasons, he had not duplicated them. Secondly, he might get his head blown off by the explosive pendant Longshadow had hung around his neck.

Worse still, both things might happen.

Anneke, in her brilliant disguise as the Envoy, forced Maximus to stay two paces in front of her. Who else but the Envoy could have waltzed into Quesada's headquarters, virtually unchallenged? Maximus made a mental note to remember what made the Envoy so powerful, his spookily alien mystique. Anneke had enveloped Maximus in a low-level shackle-field, which she could activate with a word. Right now he could walk and move fairly naturally, occasioning no suspicion in those they met. Indeed, one look at who was coming down the passage was enough for most of his Quesadan employees to find a detour.

Dammit. Are they going to let her walk out of the building with me? Where's the Envoy? What's holding him up?
Maximus silently fumed.

Anneke, to her credit, kept to the main ramps. Nothing surreptitious or sneaky. Bold and in your face. Always the best way, though there was the risk of meeting the real Envoy.

As they descended, Maximus's brain went into hyperdrive.

He faced several problems. Apart from staying alive, avoiding incarceration by Anneke and getting the e-pad back, he also had to deflect any search by RIM agents or that quasi-religious bunch of galactic vigilantes, the Sentinels. Their interfering and mysterious agenda would brook no delaying tactics on his part. Known for their absolute indifference to rank or authority, they would push and pry into every aspect of his operations since coming to Arcadia. And Maximus's dealings could not withstand intense scrutiny.

He had to get off Arcadia. First, he had to break out of the Sentinels' interdiction. Right now undoubtedly a dozen or so Sentinel vessels were surrounding Arcadia, permitting no ship to leave or arrive. Things would stay like that until they had satisfied themselves that all was above suspicion or found what they were looking for, whatever that was. Maximus had a nasty feeling that
he
was it.

Ah, the Myotans, another gambit on their part. Set the Sentinels on him and see what happens. He admired the sheer bravado of it. Of course, if the Sentinels didn't find anything the Myotans would have to pay an exorbitant loser's fee, but the boldness of their move would endear lesser Clans and Companies to them. Perhaps they were planning to form a splinter cartel.

Anneke jabbed Maximus in the back. ‘Stop daydreaming and watch where you're going,' she hissed under her breath. ‘The main entrance is
that
way.'

‘So it is.' He hadn't been daydreaming, just hoping she might be. He veered left, taking the main thoroughfare, passing confused employees and detachments of guards that moved at the double, saluting him as they passed. He nodded back, hoping, despite his short time here, they might puzzle over the fact that he
never
acknowledged salutes.

Probably too much to expect from the kind of blockheads Quesada enlisted as cannon fodder.

Then his heart leapt. He had caught sight of something two levels down, climbing the spiralling central ramp. He moved slightly, blocking Anneke's view of the ascending Envoy.

Okay. This was it. Time for a brilliant ploy. One that left him in possession of the e-pad, terminated the accursed Rimmer once and for all, and allowed him to keep his head. Of course if he had to choose, one and three were more important than two.

‘So what are you going to do with me when you get me out of here?' Maximus asked, adding verbal distraction.

‘Shut up and keep moving,' said Anneke.

‘Just curious as to my fate,' he countered.

Anneke did not reply. As they moved Maximus manoeuvred his body so that it was between her and the ramp railing. He wanted the Envoy to have the element of surprise, not that such a deadly killer needed it, but it meant there was more chance that Maximus would survive the encounter. He was capo of Quesada and did not want to become de capo.

As he was doing this Maximus registered the ornamental projections lining the balustrade. They were miniature pirang-pikes, weapons used by ancient Quesadan pirates.

Without moving his head, Maximus glanced over the railing. Another half turn and the Envoy would come into view. Meaning he needed to create a distraction, however slight, and soon. He prayed Long-shadow would fail to see the Envoy for a moment longer.

He stumbled, lost balance, and fell against the railing. As he did so, two things happened. One, the pendant chain caught on one of the curled hooks of the pirang-pikes and two, Anneke muttered the activating word of the shackle-field.

Instantly, Maximus went rigid, unable to move a muscle other than breathing. As he fell he heard a satisfying
snip
as the pendant chain parted.

Then all hell broke loose.

Maximus could not see the action. He heard the Envoy's sudden deadly hiss, heard Anneke's muttered curse and the sound of her gun being lifted and loosing off a hiss of compressed spray. She muttered more slang.
Spiffle
? The thinsword flashed in a blur. There was a clambering noise and silence, followed by a blinding flash. Luckily for Maximus, the shackle-field blocked the debris from the exploding pendant chain.

Almost immediately he was turned over and found himself gazing into the inscrutable alien face of the Envoy. Yellow insect eyes stared back, devoid of any human-like emotion. Bits of foam adhered to its mandibles. The Envoy was not as full of oxygen as a human, but was not immune to a thinsword. How lucky could Longshadow get?

Sensation and movement returned to Maximus's limbs. Longshadow and her field generator must now be out of range. Damn.

As soon as his vocal cords were under his control Maximus shouted, ‘Get her! I'm fine. Get the e-pad!'

The Envoy was gone in a breathtaking blur of movement. Solicitous flunkies surrounded Maximus, helping him to his feet, supporting him till full neuro-muscular control returned. When it did he flung off his helpers with a scowl.

‘Seal the building! No one gets in, no one gets out! Move it!'

They scrambled to obey, or to get away from him and his towering rage.

Back in his office, Maximus brought himself up to date on the situation. As he suspected, the Sentinels had surrounded Arcadia. Not even a one-man flier could run their blockade. He would have to come up with a diversion.

But he had no maze of blind alleys, bureaucratic and electronic that he normally used to obscure his activities. He was too new here, too preoccupied with finding the lost coordinates. Apart from that, a routine examination would reveal he had been recently renovated, which would lead to an inevitable and immediate search for his true identity.

He was not ready to reveal to the galaxy that sub-lieutenant Maximus was now the official head of Quesada and the Cartel. No, he still had plans for Maximus, dedicated and rising RIM agent, and unofficial protégé of the recently murdered Commander Viktus.