Daughter of Regals (30 page)

So I was feeling like I
knew what I was doing (which probably should’ve told me I was in trouble
already) when I left the duty room to go arrange for transportation and money.
But it didn’t last. Along the way I got one of those hot flashes, like an
inspiration or a premonition. So when I was done with Accounting I went back to
the computers and asked for a readout on any unsolved crimes in the area around
Sharon’s Point. The answer gave my so-called self-confidence a jolt.

Sharon’s Point was only
80 km. from the Procureton Arsenal, where a lot of old munitions (mostly from
the ‘60s and ‘70s) were stored. Two years ago, someone had broken into
Procureton (God knows how) and helped himself to a few odds and ends—like
fifty M-16 rifles (along with five thousand loaded clips), a hundred .22 Magnum
automatic handguns (and another five thousand clips), five hundred hand
grenades, and more than five hundred antipersonnel mines of various types. Enough
to supply a good-sized street mob.

Which made no sense at
all. Any street mob these days—or terrorist organization, or heist gang, for
that matter—that tried to use obsolete weaponry like M-16s would get cut to
shreds in minutes by cops using laser cannon. And who else would want the damn
stuff?

I didn’t believe I was
going to find any animals at Sharon’s Point at all. Just hunters picking each
other off.

Before I went home, I
spent an hour down in the range, practicing with my blaster. Just to be sure it
worked.

The next morning early I
went to Supply and got myself some “rich” clothes, along with a bunch of
hunting gear. Then I went to Weapons and checked out an old Winchester .30-06
carbine that looked to me like the kind of rifle a “true” (eccentric) sportsman
might use—takes a degree of skill, and fires plain old load slugs instead of
hypodarts or fragmentation bullets—sort of a way of giving the “game” a
chance. After that I checked the tape decks to be sure they had me on active
status. Then I went to Sharon’s Point.

I took the chute from
D.C. to St. Louis (actually, it’s an electrostatic shuttle, but it’s called “the
chute” because the early designs reminded some romantic of the old logging
chutes in the Northwest), but after that I had to rent a car. Which was
appropriate, since I was supposed to be rich. Only the rich can afford cars
these days—and Special Agents on assignment (fuel prices being what they are, the
only time most people see the inside of a car is at a subsidized track). But I
didn’t enjoy it much. Never mind that I wasn’t much of a driver (I hadn’t
exactly had a lot of practice). It was raining like hades in St. Louis, and I
had to drive 300 km. through the back hills of Missouri as if I were swimming.
That slowed me down so much I didn’t get near Sharon’s Point until after dark.

I stopped for the night
at the village of Sharon’s Point, which was about
5
km. shy of the
preserve. It was a dismal little town, too far from anywhere to have anything
going for it. But it did have one motel. When I splashed my way through the
rain and mud and went dripping into the lobby, I found that one motel was
doing. very well for itself. It was as plush as any motel I’d ever seen. And
expensive. The receptionist didn’t even blush when she told me the place cost a
thousand dollars a night.

So it was obvious this
motel didn’t get its business from local people and tourists. Probably it
catered to the hunters who came to and went from the preserve.
I 
might’ve
blushed if I hadn’t come prepared to handle situations like this. I had a
special credit card Accounting had given me. Made me look rich without saying
anything about where I got my money. I checked in as if I did this kind of
thing every day. The receptionist sent my stuff to my room, and I went into the
bar.

Hoping there might be
another hunter or two around. But except for the bartender the place was empty.
So I perched myself on one of the barstools and tried to find out if the
bartender liked to talk.

He did. I guess he didn’t
get a lot of opportunity. Probably people who didn’t mind paying a thousand
dollars a night for a room didn’t turn up too often. Once he got started, I
didn’t think I would be able to stop him from telling me everything he knew.

Which wasn’t a whole lot
more than I already knew-about the preserve, anyway. The people who went there
had money. They threw their weight around. They liked to drink—before and after
hunting. But maybe half of them didn’t stop by to celebrate on their way home.
After a while I asked him what kind of trophies the ones that did stop by got.

“Funny thing about that,”
he said. “They don’t bring anything back. Don’t even talk about what they got.
I used to do some hunting when I was a kid, and I never met a hunter who didn’t
like to show off what he shot. I’ve seen grown men act like God Almighty when
they dinged a rabbit. But not here. ‘Course”—he smiled— “I never went hunting
in a place as pricey as Sharon’s Point.”

But I wasn’t thinking
about the money. I was thinking about forty-five bodies. That was something
even rich hunters wouldn’t brag about. Probably those trophies had bullet holes
in them.

3

I promised myself I was going to find out
about those “trophies.” One way or another. It wasn’t that I was feeling
confident. Right then I don’t think I even knew what confidence was. No, it was
that confidence didn’t matter any more. I couldn’t afford to worry about it.
This case was too serious.

When I was sure I was
the only guest, I gave up the idea of getting any more information that night.
There was no cure for it—I was going to have to go up to the preserve and bluff
my way along until I got the answers I needed. Not a comforting thought. When I
went to bed, I spent a long time listening to the rain before I fell asleep.

In the morning it was
still raining, but that didn’t seem like a good enough reason to postpone what
I had to do. So I spent a while in the bathroom, running the shower to cover
the sound of my voice while I talked to the tape decks in the Bureau (via
microwave relays in St. Louis, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and God knows where
else). Then I had breakfast, and went and got soaked running through the rain
out to my car.

The drive to the
preserve was slow because of the rain. The road wound up and down hills between
walls of dark trees that seemed to be crouching there, waiting for me, but I
didn’t see anything else until my car began picking its way up a long slope
toward the outbuildings of Sharon’s Point.

They sat below the crest
of a long transverse ridge that blocked everything beyond it from sight. Right
ahead of me was a large squat complex; that was probably where the offices and
medical facilities were. To the right was a long building like a barracks that
probably housed the animal handlers. On the left was the landing area. Three
doughnut-shaped open-cockpit hovercraft stood there. (Most hunting preserves
used hovereraft for jobs like inspecting the fences and looking for missing
hunters.) They were covered by styrene sheets against the rain.

And behind all this,
stretching along the ridge like the promise of something deadly, was the fence.
It looked gray and bitter against the black clouds and the rain. The chain
steel was at least five meters high, curved inward and viciously barbed along
the top to keep certain kinds of animals from being able to climb out. But it
didn’t make me feel safe. Whatever was in there had killed forty-five people.
Five meters offence were either inadequate or irrelevant.

More for my own benefit
than for Inspector Morganstark’s, I said into my transceiver, “Relinquish all
hope, ye who enter here.” Then I drove up to the squat building, parked as
close as I could get to a door marked OFFICE, and ran through the rain as if I
couldn’t wait to take on Sharon’s Point single-handed.

I rushed into the
office, pulled the door shut behind me—and almost fell on my face. Pain as keen
as steel went through my head like a drill from somewhere be-hind my right ear.
For an instant I was blind and deaf with pain, and my knees were bending under
me.

It was coming from my
mastoid process.

Some kind of power
feedback in my transceiver.

It felt like one of the
monitors back at the Bureau was trying to kill me.

I knew that wasn’t it;
but right then I didn’t care what it was. I tongued the switch to cut off
reception. And shoved out one leg, caught myself with a jerk just before I
fell.

It was over. The pain
disappeared. Just like that.

I was woozy with relief.
There was a ringing in my ears that made it hard for me to keep my balance.
Seconds passed before I could focus well enough to look around. Not think—just
look.

I was in a bare office,
a place with no frills, not even any curtains on the windows to keep out the
dankness of the rain. I was almost in reach of a long counter.

Behind the counter stood
a man. He was tall and fat—not overweight-fat, but bloated-fat, as if he were
stuffing himself to feed some grotesque appetite. He had the face of a boar,
the cunning and malicious eyes of a boar, and he was looking at me as if he
were trying to decide where to use his tusks. But his voice was suave and kind.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “What happened?”

With a lurch, my brain
started working again.

Power feedback.
Something had caused a feedback in my transceiver. Must’ve been some kind of
electronic jamming device. The government used jammers for security—a way of
screening secret meetings. To protect against people like me.

Sharon’s Point was using
a security screen.

What were they trying to
hide?

But that was secondary.
I had a more immediate problem. The fat man had been watching me when the
jammer hit. He’d seen my reaction. He would know I had a transceiver in my
skull. Unless I did something about it. Fast.

He hadn’t even blinked. “What
happened’?”

I was sweating. My hands
were trembling. But I looked him straight in the eye and said, “It’ll pass. I’ll
be all right in a minute.”

Nothing could’ve been
kinder than the way he asked, “What is the matter?”

“Just a spasm,” I said
straight at him. “Comes and goes. Brain tumor. Inoperable. I’ll be dead in six
months. That’s why I’m here.”

“Ah,” he said without
moving. “That is why you are here.” His pudgy hands were folded and resting on
his gut. “I understand.” If he was suspicious of me, he didn’t let it ruffle
his composure. “I understand perfectly.”

“I don’t like hospitals,”
I said sternly, just to show him I was back in control of myself.

“Naturally not,” he
assented. “You have come to the right place, Mr.—?’.

“Browne,” I said. “Sam
Browne.”

“Mr. Browne.” He filed
my name away with a nod. Gave me the uncomfortable impression he was never
going to forget it. “We have what you want here.” For the first time, I saw him
blink. Then he said, “How did you hear of us, Mr. Browne?”

I was prepared for that.
I mentioned a couple names off the Preserve’s list of dead, and followed them
up by saying squarely, “You must be Ushre.”

He nodded again. “I am
Fritz Ushre.” He said it the same way he might’ve said, “I am the President of
the United States.” Nothing diffident about him.

Trying to match him, I
said, “Tell me about it.”

His boar eyes didn’t
waver, but he didn’t answer me directly. Instead, he said, “Mr. Browne, we
generally ask our patrons for payment in advance. Our standard fee is for a
week’s hunting. Forty thousand dollars.”

I certainly did admire
his composure. He was better at it than I was. I felt my face react before I
could stop it. Forty—! Well, so much for acting like I was rich. It was all I
could do to keep from cursing myself out loud.

“We run a costly
operation,” he said. He was as smooth as stainless steel. “Our facilities are
the best. And we breed our own animals. That way, we are able to maintain the
quality of what we offer. But for that reason we are required to have
veterinary as well as medical facilities. Since we receive no Federal money-and
submit to no Federal inspections”—he couldn’t have sounded less like he was
threatening me—”we cannot afford to be wasteful.”

He might’ve gone on—not
apologizing, just tactfully getting rid of me—but I cut him off. “Better be
worth it,” I said with all the toughness I could manage. “I didn’t get where I
am throwing my money away.” At the same time, I took out my credit card and set
it down with a snap on the counter.

“Your satisfaction is guaranteed.”
Ushre inspected my card briefly, then asked, “Will one week suffice, Mr.
Browne?”

“For a start.”

“I understand,” he said
as if he understood me completely. Then he turned away for a minute while he
ran my card through his accounting computer. The accomputer verified my credit
and printed out a receipt that Ushre presented to me for validation. After I’d
pressed my thumbprint onto the identiplate, he returned my card and filed the
receipt in the ac-computer.

In the meantime, I did
some glancing around, trying nonchalantly (I hoped I looked nonchalant) to spot
the jammer. But I didn’t find it. In fact, as an investigator I was getting
nowhere fast. If I didn’t start finding things out soon, I was going to have
real trouble explaining that forty-thousand-dollar bill to Accounting. Not to mention
staying alive.

So when Ushre turned
back to me, I said, “I don’t want to start in the rain. I’ll come back
tomorrow. But while I’m here I want to look at your facilities.” It wasn’t
much, but it was the best I could do without giving away that I really didn’t
know those two dead men I’d mentioned. I was supposed to know what I was
doing; I couldn’t very well just ask him right out what kind of animals he had.
Or didn’t have.