Warrior (Freelancer Book 2) (22 page)

Eps had his head in the refrigerator. "I've been teaching her to play Tactics Two. The other day, she holed up on that island and pulled off a parachute assault that almost had my supply lines blown to hell. You should have heard her; she was dancing around pretending to be a gunfighter, blowing smoke off her finger."

Rick said, "You're a bunch of emotional morons, you know that?"

"Yep."

"Sure am."

Steve said, "I think that's an accurate assessment."

He turned to the other two. "Shall I consider the motion moved and seconded?"

Scotty nodded and Eps stuck an upright thumb out from behind the refrigerator door.

The bearded computer genius turned back to Rick. "OK, Sage and Kristee are officially full-share housemates with all the rights and privileges."

At Rick's questioning look, he explained. "They're part of the family, and we're going to keep them safe."

Scotty turned off the burner under the whistling teapot and said, "I guess I'll teach Sage all the other exits."

Eps closed the refrigerator and sat at the table with what turned out to be cooked bacon wrapped in a paper towel. "I'll put her through the explosives course and show her how to set the mantraps."

"Of course, there are 'other' exits, mantraps, and explosives. Why am I not surprised?" Rick shook his head, finally smiling.

"Thanks, guys."

Two days later, a battered blue Ford Galaxy with a white top that showed every mile of dirt road it had covered in a decade of driving on reservation roads swung into the driveway and blew its horn, two short beeps. Sage and Scotty, who had been waiting in the computer room, opened the garage door, and the old beater pulled in as they closed the door behind it.

The driver was wearing a button-down blue shirt and striped tie but, when he got out of the car, they could see that they were matched with well-worn jeans and cracked and creased cowboy boots. He looked at them and grinned. "You're wondering about the outfit? Well…" He turned and pointed to where his braided hair disappeared into his shirt collar. "The pigs kept stopping me for DWI—that's 'driving while Indian'—so I put on my 'innocent white boy' disguise where they could see it. Amazing how my driving improved."

He led them to the back and popped the trunk, revealing five cardboard boxes filled with a mix of files, computer printouts, and ledgers. "I'm Ted Rousseau, and I brought the records Eve wanted. It's everything we liberated from the BIA that concerned the Northern Cheyenne."

In a demonstration of strength, he pulled two boxes up—one on each shoulder. Scotty struggled to lift the third, Sage ran to open the door to the computer room and then ran back to help Scotty whose box was giving way on one side and threatening to spill its contents all over the garage.

Once the boxes were dumped in a corner of the computer room, the young Indian looked curiously at the PDP-6 on the opposite wall. "What the hell is that?"

"It's a computer," Scotty answered dryly.

"Yeah, but who has a computer in their house?" he asked. "What the hell do you do with it?"

"Look, look. I'll show you." Sage ran to the cathode ray tube and pointed in clear pride. "Right now, we're playing Spacewar. See, these two little rockets are going around this circle. Well, that's the sun, and you have to shoot the other rocket without falling in and burning up in the sun. Eps taught me how to write the program, and now Scotty has been teaching me how to play."

She puffed out her chest, "I've been beating him all afternoon."

Scotty turned a bit so Sage couldn't see his face and gave Rousseau a quick wink. "Yep, she has been clobbering me."

Turning and pointing at the young girl, he said in a stern tone, "But our agreement was that we could play Spacewar until the documents arrived, and then it's cardpunching for you."

Sage's face fell briefly and then her smile returned. "Cardpunching is OK." She pointed back at the computer tech. "You're going to have to get the RIM drive to work, and my mom said you aren't allowed to use bad words like last time." She stuck out her tongue.

"OK, I can see that you have a serious labor detail going here." Rousseau laughed. "I'm going to get out before she puts me to work, and I'd like to avoid the Feebs." He turned and headed for the car, "I've had hot-and-cold-running FBI agents following me for the past month. They finally got bored and took a day off, so I grabbed this stuff from the cache and ran it over while I had the chance."

With a stuttering growl, the Ford engine came to life, and, as soon as Scotty pulled up the door, the car swung out and backed into the street. Rousseau waved at Scotty, shot a forefinger and thumb pistol at Sage, and drove down the narrow street.

Scotty looked at the front porch and raised his eyebrows. Rick, who was sitting on a rocking chair observing the street, gave him an "OK" sign. Scotty and Sage went back in, closing the garage door and bolting the heavy door to the computer room.

They could hear Rick's boots on the floor above and, in a moment, they heard his knock. Sage ran up the steps to trip the catches that opened the metal-clad door. They gave each other intentionally goofy "black power" fists and then she led him downstairs.

"How's Gidget today?" Rick asked. "I'm still not sure exactly what you're doing."

Scotty started to answer, but Sage interrupted. "It's so cool. We're going to take all these documents and transfer all the information to cards. Well, as soon as Scotty and Eps figure out a system to…trick?"

She looked at Scotty who said, "Track."

"Right. A system to track everything."

"Just the money figures from the contracts," Scotty said.

Sage barely paused in her explanation. "Right. And then we'll punch in the cards, transfer all the…" She paused and then said very slowly and carefully,"…the input data…"

Scotty nodded approval, and she smiled and rushed on, "…onto the tape reels, and then we'll create a…ooh, I can never remember this one."

Scotty prompted, "a multi-dimensional matrix."

"Right, a moldy-dimensional mattress and then we can see where all the money went as easy as pie," she finished triumphantly.

Rick had no idea what either of them was talking about, but he tried to look as if all this were perfectly clear. "Cool. Is there anything I can do to help?"

Scotty shook his head, but Sage said, "No. Steve said you weren't allowed to help after you looped the processor last week."

Scotty turned to the computer's keyboard so Rick couldn't see his face but his shoulders appeared to be shaking. Rick said, "That seems reasonable. I'll be upstairs if you need anything."

Sage ran around him and started up the stairs. "I need a snack before I start punching cards. You can pour the juice."

"I couldn't tell if he saw me or not."

Eve had just gotten home and was taking off her work clothes. Rick was resting on pillows against the headboard and putting about half his attention to listening to her talk about her day.

No, less than half.

Most of his attention was concentrated on Eve herself.

"He might have missed me," she continued. "I was sitting in back of the deli, eating one of their sandwiches."

"The ones with four inches of pastrami?"

She smiled as she unbuttoned her white linen shirt and carefully put it on a hanger. "Yeah, you liked those, didn't you?"

"Almost worth spending the day reading about toothpaste." Rick responded. "Not quite. But almost."

"Why?" Eve asked. "You aren't interested in finding the meaning of a word?"

"Reading studies of toothpaste advertising for eight hours is more than should be expected of anyone. By six hours, I'd completely forgotten what we were looking for."

She took off her pantyhose, balled them up, and threw them at the bureau with distaste. "God, I hate these things! They make me hot, and they itch!" She threw herself on the bed beside Rick. "You'll see, when women take over, all these instruments of torture will be outlawed."

Rick nodded solemnly. "I couldn't agree more."

"What do you know? You won't even wear a tie."

She snuggled closer to him and demanded, "Ooh, scratch my back, please."

Beginning a thorough back scratch at the top of her shoulders, Rick said, "Hey what do you want? I bought a shirt with a collar, didn't I?"

Her voice was muffled by the pillow. "Sure. From the Goodwill store."

"It's the best place to get classic styling." He changed the subject but continued to run his fingernails over her back, "So, did he see you or not?"

"Who?" Eve said dreamily. "Oh. Gary." "Right."

She turned her head toward him. "I really don't know. He was yelling at a bunch of kids who were panhandling outside that weird computer place with the painted-over windows when I came out, and I kept my head turned the other way until I was across the street and back inside the Federal Trade Commission."

"But you’re sure it was Gary, right?"

"I remember him from college. I never liked him, but he was around Kristee all the time, so I had to spend quite a bit of time with him." She shook her head and ended up face down in the pillow again. "No, it was Gary."

"But you didn't see him after that?"

"I don't think so," Eve said, "I was in the Reading Room for another couple of hours, and, frankly, the torture of reading complaint letters about mail order almost drove everything else right out of my head; but I did watch for him on the way back to the firm or on the bus heading home. Didn't see him."

Rick bent over, lifted the heavy braid, and began to kiss the back of her neck. In between kisses, he mumbled, "It's probably OK. Nothing we can do about it now, anyway."

Eve rolled over and put her arms around him, and all conversation ended.

It wasn't until much later that Rick remembered Kristee's husband.

He was alone, sitting and smoking on the second floor porch in the late summer twilight. He felt relaxed. They'd made love and then napped entwined and cooled by the breeze coming in the open windows.

After that, everyone sat down for an excellent dinner. It had been Kristee's turn, and she'd cooked a massive lasagna with chorizo sausage and seafood.

Sage was playing catch with a bunch of the neighborhood kids in the narrow street. With the parked cars and the thick trees providing shade, Rick wondered at how parts of Washington could feel so much like the suburbs when they were only a few miles from the center of the city.

Rick heard a scream of tires.

He looked over, puzzled that a car was coming fast the wrong way on the one-way street in reverse. It took him a crucial extra second to recognize the Firebird from the rear, and then he was running for the stairs.

He slammed through the front door and down the steep steps to the sidewalk. The Pontiac was already accelerating forward, tires smoking. Kristee was running right behind the bumper, screaming Sage's name and repeating, "Damn you Gary! God damn you, Gary!"

The car sped out of her reach, but Kristee—with Rick close behind—kept running to the end of the block. Then she collapsed, sobbing and cursing. Without a bike, Rick knew he could never catch the muscle car, already vanished around two turns and headed for Wisconsin Avenue.

He felt helpless and clumsy as he stood over the weeping young woman. Eve ran up and knelt next to her friend, squeezing her in a fierce embrace. She looked up at Rick, a question in her eyes.

"Yeah, we're going to get her back," he said. "No fucking doubt about it."

Suddenly, he heard the car's tires braking hard and then the slam of what he knew was a gunshot. He ran up the street and around the corner; but, by the time he turned into Harrison Street, the Firebird's rear lights were turning left onto Wisconsin. Under the yellow streetlights, he could see a body in the street.

As he ran up, he felt relief; it was clearly an adult and not a child.

Not Sage.

Suddenly Rick felt as if one of his nightmares had turned real. Gary was lying in a growing puddle of blood with most of the back of his head gone, replaced by a gaping red gash. Rick could see the horrible white contours of bone and brain, the things inside a person that no one should see.

A scream behind him and Kristee whipped past, slipped in the blood, and continued to scream as she fell next to the body, cradling the head.

"Oh, Gary, Gary. You asshole. Oh, Gary." She screamed in a mixture of anger and terrible grief. "You stupid stupid asshole."

Rick thought, "The guy must have finally remembered he was a father and not just a follower. It could have been Kristee or Sage, but someone had gotten through to the man who had been buried under all the conditioning. He'd tried to stop the kidnap and paid the price."

He reached down and pulled the sobbing woman to her feet. "Leave him. The cops will be here in a minute. We need to think about Sage. Come on."

He felt Eve on Kristee's other side, and they both half-pushed, half-carried the incoherent woman in a stumbling run down the block. When they were turning the corner to Ingomar, he heard the sirens coming up Reno Road.