Tek Money (16 page)

“Well, they must know by now that Jake's gone. They'll be sending out as many people as they can spare to track us.”

Jake said, “This isn't going to help your standing on the island much.”

“Nobody spotted me while Gomez got you out of there. It'll be safe for me to stay around awhile longer.”

They climbed in silence for several minutes.

Then from the darkness far below near the plantation came a faint chuffing sound.

“Skycars,” said Jake.

“At least two of them,” added Gomez.

Silveira halted. From a trouser pocket he took three small black squares of plaz. “Fix one of these to your clothes,” he told them, passing a square to each and slapping one to his jacket. “It'll block your aura and fool their sensors.”

“If they use litebeams, they may spot us anyhow,” said Jake.

“We'll have to make sure they don't.” Silveira sprinted across the roadway and into the tangle of jungle that stretched away beside it.

When they were in among the trees and flowering brush, Gomez said, “Maybe we should've tried to take back the skyliner.”

“Too many guards.” Silveira led them up through the night woodlands.

The sound of the skycar engines was growing louder. Looking back, Jake saw three of them drifting up through the darkness. The headlights bobbing like lanterns in the wind. From the belly of each craft came a wide beam of intense bluish light. The skycars were moving slowly at a height of about 200 feet, sweeping the ground below them with light.

The cars separated after a moment. Two of them headed inland and the third kept heading up toward Jake and his companions.

“That one'll be overhead in about a minute,” said the Pax agent. “We better flatten out under the brush.”

Gomez stretched out in a tangle of spiky bushes. “Oops,” he muttered. “I think I'm reclining amidst the remains of some animal friend's snack.”

Jake was ducked down a few feet from his partner.

In less than thirty seconds the skycar was directly above the three men.

The beam of glaring light slowly and methodically probed at the jungle all around them. The car seemed to hover there for a long time.

But then it moved on, flying uphill and away. Going very slowly, illuminating the jungle as it went.

Five minutes after it had flown out of sight, Silveira said quietly, “
Muito bem
. We can try for Castel' Branco now.” He rose up out of the tangle of brush he'd been hiding in.

Gomez stood, brushing at the front of his jacket with a handful of leaves. “I wonder if we can find a haberdasher open at this hour,” he said.

Showing no lights, Gomez guided the skyvan up into the darkness above the sleeping town.

The black craft rose quietly up and away from the island.

In the passenger seat Jake was hunched slightly and studying a scanner screen on the dash panel. “According to this, all three of those skycars are over on the other side of the island.”

“Let us attempt to sneak away without their tumbling to our departure.”

Gomez kept the skyvan at a low altitude until they were out over the dark Atlantic. Then he gradually climbed up to 10,000 feet.

Jake said, “Looks like we're away clear.”

Gomez turned on the flying lights. “Remind me to send Jose a faxcard next Xmas,” he said. “He was very helpful to the cause of Gomez preservation.”

“Find out anything new about the shipment of Devlin Guns?”

“He's of the opinion that several crates of them were routed through here.”

“Bound for Spain?”

“Far as he knows, which confirms what we've already been pretty sure of.”

“During my chat with Helton I played dumb and—”

“That must've required a heck of a lot of acting ability on your part,
amigo.
”

Jake grinned. “Good thing I'm aware that these jabs at my character are due to the stress you've been through recently,” he said. “The point is, I suggested that Zabicas Cartel was the destination for the Devlin Guns.”

“Did he confirm or deny?”

“He let slip that the guns went to somebody other than Zabicas.”

“Meaning that Natalie Dent's tip is probably right,” said Gomez. “The weapons went to Janeiro Martinez and his rebel outfit.”

“Probably, yeah. But since Almita works for Zabicas and has considerable interest in putting us out of business, we still have to figure that Zabicas is involved in whatever's coming up in Madrid and environs.”

“If our recent hosts weren't spoofing us, these events are due any day now,” speculated Gomez. “They implied they only wanted us sidelined for a week at most.”

Jake tapped the vidphone. “I'll contact Bascom,” he said. “Tell him we're back on the job and also where Quixote Airlines can pick up their missing skyliner.” He punched out the number of the Cosmos Detective Agency in Greater LA. “Then I'll let Dan know we're okay.”

“Our esteemed
jefe
may also want to alert certain DC cronies about this little island paradise OCO outpost.”

Jake shrugged. “Helton and his crew are probably packing already,” he said. “By the time those dimwits in Washington take action, there won't be anything at the banana plantation but bananas.”

Bascom's face appeared on the phonescreen. “Jake,” he said, giving a pleased smile. “I'm glad to see you. You've saved me from having to pay an informant four thousand bucks.”

30

I
T WAS RAINING
in Madrid. A heavy slanting rain that was hitting hard at the blue skycar.

“Considering all the expense Newz, Inc., went to in overhauling you, not that they aren't wading in money, since they never pay their crackerjack reporters anything near what—”

“Wallowing.”

“Hum?”

“Wallowing in money, not wading.”

Natalie Dent shifted slightly in the passenger seat, running her thumb knuckle along her freckled nose. “Now see? There you go again, Sidebar, exhibiting the caustic wit that I associate with a streetwise reprobate of the order of Sid Gomez and—”

“A putz.”

“I'd hoped, as I've been trying to convey, despite your constant snide interruptions, that being rebuilt and reconstructed would have modified your character some. It strikes me, and I am, afterall, perceptive enough to be considered one of the best, if not
the
best, investigative reporters in the vidnews business, that a robot such as yourself, Sidebar, ought to know his place and not be continually—”

“My place is to be an ace cameraman.” Sidebar was piloting the Newz, Inc., skycar through the rainswept Madrid afternoon. “Not to chauffeur you around this rinkydink town.”

“Madrid isn't, by any stretch of the imagination, rinkydink.” Natalie shook her head, causing her long red hair to brush her shoulders. “We are, afterall, comrades in arms, as it were, and you ought to be glad to do me a good turn now and then, especially since our regular pilot is laid up with some sort of rare virus.”

“Booze isn't a rare virus.” The robot punched out a landing pattern. “We're over the Calle Mayor. And there's the side street where that abysmal monstrosity the Hotel Condor aspires above the—”

“I think it's rather cute.”

“That it is.”

The car glided down through the rain and landed on Parking Lot Quatro, which was next to the towering silver metal and black plastiglass Hotel Condor.

“I trust, Sidebar, that you won't simply sit here and sulk while I'm in the Cafe Picasso talking to Secretary of State Torres. Use the time to improve your mind or to meditate, which, I understand, is as valuable for mechanical brains as it is for—”

“My calling in life is to take insightful pictures.” The robot tapped the vidcamera built into his chest. “Not sit on my toke and listen to the raindrops falling on—”

“Secretary Torres wants to talk to me privately. That's what he said when he called this morning.”

“Privately in a hotel restaurant?”

“We're operating, as I shouldn't have to point out, in the realm of the political intrigue here,” said the redhaired reporter. “Señor Torres wants this to look like a perfectly routine interview, yet he doesn't want any of it going on the record. I should think by now, having ably assisted me on a variety of highly complex and dangerous investigative reporting missions, Sidebar, you'd be in possession of a heck of a lot more political savvy.” Sighing, she unfastened the safety gear, tugged a small forcefield umbrella from her coat pocket and stepped out into the rainy afternoon.

“I'm suffering from a bad case of granulated eyeballs,” mentioned Gomez as he headed the skyvan down toward Parking Lot Quatro.

“Thought it was your ankle and your wrist that got bunged up on the island.”

“I'm suffering from those battle scars, too, now that you mention it. But lack of rest and sleep is also taking its toll.”

“I had the impression you were snoozing away while the van was on automatic en route here to Spain.”

“I slept fitfully,” explained Gomez as their vehicle settled down onto a landing space. “I've never stayed at the Hotel Condor before, but Bascom assures me it's a deluxe establishment.”

“Have to be to get away with that façade.”

Gomez asked, “You still going to concentrate on locating the multifaceted Janine?”

“Initially, yeah. While you start tracing the Devlin Guns.”

“First thing for me to do is make certain they ended up with Janeiro Martinez—and then find out where he's got them stashed.” Unhooking his safety gear, Gomez nudged the door open. He was halfway out into the rain, when he sat back down again, sideways, legs hanging out in the downpour. “Do my bleary eyes deceive me,
amigo
, or is that indeed a Newz, Inc., crate over yonder?”

Jake glanced in the direction his partner was pointing. “Looks to be.”

Gomez nodded forlornly. “I didn't think I'd be encountering my nemesis so soon,” he said. “But I recognize the smug camerabot sitting there in the car. It's Sidebar, known accomplice of Natalie Dent. That means, alas, that the lady herself must be in the vicinity.”

“You'll get soggy perched there, Sid. Let's get inside the damn hotel.”

“Fate is a peculiar thing,” observed Gomez as he stepped completely out of the skyvan. “It never throws me into the path of sweet-tempered and highly intelligent young women, but rather strews my uphill path with—”

“A highly intelligent young woman would head for shelter the moment you came within range.”

“Another nasty trick that fate plays on me,” said Gomez, “is to pair me with a partner who doesn't appreciate my immense charm.”

A few spaces to their right the pilotside window of the Newz, Inc., skycar opened a quarter. “Hi there, putz,” called the robot cameraman.

“Welcome to Madrid,” muttered Gomez, heading for the hotel entrance.

The Cafe Picasso was a large multilevel place adjacent to the vast soaring lobby of the Hotel Condor. Natalie and the short pudgy secretary of state had taken a table on the level that featured a replica of Pablo Picasso's studio built on a floating platform. An androidsim of an aged Picasso was at work at an easel, clad only in a pair of khaki shorts and sandals.

Turning away from watching the android, Secretary Torres said, “A very fascinating artist. Full of fire.”

“He's okay,” said Natalie.

“Before we leave, we'll go up to the top level of the cafe and see the animated
Guernica.
” From his breast pocket he took a bright orange plyochief and dabbed at his perspiring forehead. “I find myself, my dear, in an unpleasant position. Not merely unpleasant but dangerous.”

She rested one arm on the small table, which had a Picasso dove etched on its plastiglass surface. Leaning closer to the politician, Natalie said, “This has to do with what we talked about the other day, Señor Torres?”

He wiped his forehead. “
Sí
, my dear,” he replied. “The guns,
sí
. On that previous occasion I made light of your suggestions that the Garcia regime was going to be the target of an imminent coup.”

“You were perspiring a lot then, too, Mr. Secretary,” reminded Natalie, watching the pudgy man. “Being a seasoned reporter, I knew you weren't being absolutely honest and forthright with me.”

“
Es verdad
,” admitted Torres. “I already knew that weapons of some kind had been delivered to Janeiro Martinez, that he was planning to use them in an attempt to overthrow our government.”

“Does President Garcia know what you know? I assume, as a trusted member of his cabinet, you'd have—”

“The situation,
señorita
, is a complex one, very delicate,” he said, wiping at his forehead with the orange plyochief. “One has a loyalty to one's country, but also to oneself.”

“So you haven't discussed this with Garcia?”

“There are several factors to consider,” said Torres, glancing again at the android Picasso. “For one thing, your American government is involved.”

“I know about the Office of Clandestine Operations.”

“It goes somewhat higher than that. There is, I am fairly certain, someone high in the Interim Cabinet, which was established after your president was forced to resign. Someone in that cabinet who is active in what's going on.”

Natalie sat up. “I didn't know that. Who?”

“I am unable to say. However, I know that a certain segment of the United States government wants President Garcia out of power.” He wiped at his forehead with the orange plyochief. “I'll go, too. But I've been hoping to arrange a safe and comfortable retirement for myself.”

“And that's not possible anymore?”

He shook his head slowly and sadly. “I've learned that I won't be allowed to live should the coup succeed,” he said. “That is a very sobering reality to have to adjust to.”