Tek Net (21 page)

“Okay, wear the hat.”

Nodding, Maybelle Kording tugged down on the brim of the hat, rubbed her gloved hands together and started the closed little car. “I've got all the two-way windows blanked so nobody can see inside,” she told the detective. “If you stay scrunched low in your seat, we'll be okay.”

“
Bueno
.”

The car rolled a hundred yards and then Maybelle stopped it. She slid her left hand out through a narrow flap in her side window, pressed her palm against a glowing panel on the wall. The wall voxbox said, “Cleared, proceed.”

Shortly, Gomez inquired, “You're certain that Natalie Dent is being held in a room off Tunnel 30?”

“I confirmed that right after Wolfe Bosco contacted me,” she answered.

“You'll be able to get me inside there?”

“Not a problem, Mr. Gomez,” assured Maybelle with a positive nod. “Hold on a sec.”

The railcar stopped again, she pressed her palm against another identification panel. “Cleared, proceed.”

“All the highest-ranking Interior Maintenance people can get into any of the rooms down here.”

“I have to get in and out,” he reminded.

“Well, I wouldn't have accepted the bribe, Mr. Gomez, if I wasn't sure I could deliver,” she said.

She stopped again, held out her hand.

“Cleared, proceed.”

Maybelle said, “Have you known Wolfe Bosco long?”

“Many a year,
sí
.”

“The poor man doesn't seem to enjoy his current job.”

“
I'm
not enjoying my current job all that much,” admitted Gomez, sinking lower in his seat.

37

Marriner glanced down through the one-way see-through floor as he went striding across the big room, accompanied by Lana Chen and Ramon Rodriguez.

Far below in the huge oval holostage area the towers and pedramps of Manhattan's Times Square section showed. Snaking through the center of the simulated section of the metropolis was a narrow see-through plastiglass tunnel, filled at the moment by more than two hundred tourists moving slowly, single-file, and gawking.

Flying in low between the towering buildings came a half-dozen silvery saucer craft. Crackling crimson beams came shooting from their underbellies. They sliced through the bodies of the civilians who seemed to be running along the ramps seeking shelter. Chunks of the buildings were bitten away, too, and went falling and tumbling.

“Hokum.” Marriner stopped, hands on hips, and frowned downward.

“It's one of our most popular attractions.” Rodriguez was a glossy, handsome man with considerable dark wavy hair.

“Just watch this bit now.” Marriner pointed with his boot toe at a saucer that was landing in the street.

A silvery side door flapped open and a squat greenish creature with a huge top-heavy head and four arms came hopping clear, brandishing several odd-looking lazrifles.

“God-awful,” observed Marriner.

“It's supposed,” explained Rodriguez, “to be a Martian invader.”

“I know what it's supposed to be, Ramon. But it's trite, much too close to the Martians they're using in the Invasion of Greater Los Angeles concession up on New Hollywood.”

“Ramon's right, though,” Lana said. “People love this one, much more than that crappy simulation on New Hollywood. I think it has to do with the fact that they can see New York City get devastated. Everybody—even rubes up from New York itself—enjoys that.”

“It's got to start being more sophisticated.” Marriner resumed walking toward a distant doorway.

“I have,” admitted Rodriguez, dropping to his hands and knees and staring down as more Martians started disembarking from the saucers, “been seriously thinking about upgrading them.”

Marriner asked Lana, “How much does that bitch know?”

“Natalie Dent, after some physical persuasion and a nudge from some powerful biochemicals, confided that she knows one hell of a lot.”

Rodriguez had caught up with them. “Somebody is wise to tonight's meeting?”

“Worry about the Martians,” advised Marriner. “Go on, Lana.”

They entered a twisting, down-slanting hallway. “She got her tip from a fellow associated with Anzelmo's London branch,” the Chinese woman continued. “I sent his name along to somebody in England.”

“How much does Newz, Inc., know?”

“They know that you and Anzelmo and the rest are meeting,” she said. “They have a fair idea of what it's all about.”

Marriner went rapidly down another curving ramp. “Can we arrange to have them forget about it?”

“I'm already looking into that,” said Lana.

He pressed his hand to an ID plate next to a grey door. “What about Dent?”

The door slid silently open and she followed him into a large domed meeting room. “We either have to kill her or do a very effective brainwipe.”

Stopping at the head of the big oval meeting table, Marriner rested a fist atop it and leaned forward. “Easier to kill her,” he concluded.

After he stepped through the wall, Gomez announced, “I'm wearing a false nose, but it's me, Gomez. The secsystem is turned off for approximately five minutes, Nat. Let's get you loose from that
catedra
and depart for someplace else.”

“I can't imagine, with all the noses to pick from, you chose that one.” The auburn-haired reporter straightened in the metal chair, straining against her bonds. “Even though you do seem to make a habit of rescuing me from messy scrapes in some of the most unlikely spots, I wasn't expecting you to come save me this time.”

Severing the cords that bound her, he said, “Actually,
cara
, Cosmos was hired by your bosses to come fetch you out of this latest mess.”

Sidebar came creaking to his feet. “Five minutes isn't that long a time,” he pointed out. “Suppose we save the rest of this tearful reunion till we get the hell clear of here.”

“
Bueno
,” agreed the detective, rubbing at Natalie's legs. “Think you can navigate yourself over to that opening in yonder wall?”

“You don't have to massage my limbs that high up, Gomez.” She pulled clear, tried a few hobbling steps in the direction of the wall, and then her legs failed, crumpled.

Gomez lunged and caught her around the waist. “Excuse this further untoward intimacy, Nat,” he said, pulling her upright and guiding her toward the escape opening.

“I guess, which isn't all that odd, considering what I've been through in the past few hours, that I'm a little fuzzy in my thinking,” she told him. “So forgive me, Gomez, if I sound unusually cranky or—”

“You don't sound
unusually
cranky at all, Nat,” he assured her.

“I just happened to notice those awful inflamed red marks on my arms,” she said, holding on to him. “They must've given me more than one shot then.”

“At least five,” he said. “Now, I've hired a railcar for this excursion. The thing's parked right outside and down the ramp.”

“Can we all fit into it?” asked the cambot as he followed them out through the panel in the wall.

“You and Nat will hunker in the storage area in the back,” he instructed, helping Natalie to make her way downramp toward the left-hand track.

“Are you going to drive this contraption?” she asked.

“I hired the driver along with it, a personable
mujer
name of Maybelle Kording.”

When they were less than five feet from the waiting railcar, the driver's-side door snapped open.

Gomez gave Natalie a hard shove that sent her falling. “Duck, gang,” he warned. “That ain't Maybelle in there.”

38

It took Jake two bribes, a threat and nearly two hours of time after he'd lost Austin Quadrill to locate where he was temporarily holed up on the Movie Palace.

“Make that after he ditched me,” Jake reminded himself as he made his away along a corridor in Shuttle Crew Dorm 3.

Jake was near certain Quadrill hadn't recognized him. Meaning the demolition man was being careful to ditch anyone who attempted to trail him.

It seemed highly likely that Quadrill was up here to plant some sort of bomb.

In fact, he may have planted it already in the time Jake had wasted trying to locate him again.

“I've got to find the guy damn quick,” Jake said. “Before he gets away from this satellite and leaves the whole damn thing to blow up.”

He slowed, stopped at the door marked
3/5
. He stepped forward to touch the visitor button below the spy hole.

There was no response. The eye in the door wasn't activated.

He gave the button another, more aggressive push.

Nothing happened.

Getting out his lock-picking gadget, Jake set it to match the make of door mechanism and clicked it on.

After a very faint murmur of protest the door whirred, swung open inward.

He drew his stungun out of his shoulder holster and paused, listening, to one side of the now open doorway.

Then he, carefully, crossed into the small shadowy parlor.

“Damn.”

Reaching back, Jake shut the door behind him before walking over to the dead man.

Gomez missed with his first shot.

“
Maldito
,” he observed as the silent beam of his stungun passed an inch to the right of the shoulder of the large, red-cheeked gunman who'd replaced Maybelle in the driveseat of the waiting railcar.

Immediately, even as he was muttering his disappointment, Gomez went rolling along the trackside passway.

The red-faced man lurched out of the compartment, lazgun gripped in both thick hands. He fired at the scooting detective the instant his wide feet slapped down on the passway surface.

The sizzling beam from the lazgun went flashing by a good yard or so to Gomez' left.

But the beam caught the sprawled camera robot, lopping off his left leg a couple inches below the knee.

“Fight back,” the crouching Natalie urged the injured bot.

“They disarmed me, if you'll recall.”

“Well, at least take some pictures, Sidebar. I can use some good action footage.”

Gomez, meantime, had gone dodging in another direction. He flipped to his feet and fired again.

This shot proved considerably more effective.

It hit the red-faced man in the lower rib cage. Doing a half spin, he performed a wobbly curtsy before smacking down flat out.

Gomez leaped over the settling body, taking hold of Natalie's hand. “We're going to have to come up with an alternative escape plan,
chiquita
,” he told her while helping her to arise. “Somebody seems to be aware of my advent.”

The wobbly reporter was glancing around her. “How far would we be from Tunnel 29?”

Pointing back along the tracks, he answered, “Entrance is back that way about a half-mile. Why?”

Sidebar opened a large compartment in his metallic chest. “I'm supposed to have a spare leg stowed in here someplace,” he said, starting to probe inside himself. “Unless they confiscated that too.”

“I have a map—purchased for a considerable fee, I might mention—that lays out most of the interior setup aboard the satellite,” continued Natalie, letting go of Gomez and attempting to remain standing unaided. She swayed considerably, yet managed to continue upright. “If we can get to Tunnel 29, I may yet be able to complete my assignment.”

“You're alluding to getting a scoop about the Marriner/Anzelmo conference?”

Natalie said, “I should've realized that a gumshoe of your proven abilities would've found out about even—”

“Hold it, be quiet for a moment,
bonita
.” He left her to ease nearer the parked railcar. “I think I heard something.”

“This thing's tarnished badly, but otherwise usable.” The cambot stood up, having replaced his damaged leg with the spare he'd been carrying within. “We better be up and doing, folks.”

Gomez leaned forward and thrust his upper body in through the open doorway of the car. “
Ay
, it's Maybelle, groaning as she returns to consciousness,” he said in the reporter's direction. “Her colleague apparently bopped her on the
cabeza
and stowed her in back prior to attempting to trap us.”

Natalie, unsteadily, made her way over to his side. “Can you trust her?”

“I find that bump on her head to be sufficiently convincing,” he answered. “If she's in any shape to run this car, she can get us back through the security checks a lot easier than I can.”

Natalie nodded. “Then let's get everybody loaded aboard and get the heck away.”

“
Sí, pronto
.”

As Jake walked closer, the small golden kitten that was lying on the carpeting came briefly to life. It took three tottering steps in the direction of the corpse of Austin Quadrill before giving out a tiny, forlorn meow and falling over.

It splashed in the blood and other things that had come spilling out of the dead man when the beam of a lazgun had gone knifing across his lower abdomen.

“What the hell led up to Quadrill's getting knocked off?” Jake asked himself, frowning.

If it was to stop him from planting a bomb, why close him up in his room again and leave the body there?

Taking out a sniffer gadget from his jacket pocket, Jake began exploring the parlor of the small apartment.

A man other than Quadrill had been in here with him a half hour ago.

“Wait now.” Jake touched the keypad of the detecting device. “Yeah, the other lad was in here before Quadrill came back.”

Meaning somebody had been waiting there for him.

He crossed over to the small silvery suitcase that sat a few feet from the body.

It lay open, only partially splattered.

There was nothing inside except another tiny clockwork kitten.

Jake knelt beside the case. “This must be what he was carrying his bomb materials in,” he reflected. “How the hell, though, did he get anything past their security system up here?”