Drakon (19 page)
"I'm, ah, sorry for calling you so late."
God, that's inane.
It was seven-thirty, and neither of them worked regular hours. "But the same man called me here at home."
"What did he say?"
"The same
thing,
that he has to talk to me about Steven! Look, if he has my home number, he has my
address.
He knows where I
live.
"
"We're pretty sure this isn't the perpetrator in the Fischer case, Ms. Feinberg," the detective said soothingly. "But it might be an important lead."
"So
find
him!" she said, and hung up.
Thank God I'm leaving the country,
she thought. Three years and she'd
nearly
forgotten the murder. Then someone had to start phoning and reminding her of it, God.
For a few minutes she slumped, then sighed and got up to take off her coat and pour milk in the cat's bowl. She drew the curtains and turned on the CD player:
La Traviata.
"I should put on an exercise tape," she told herself.
She put her fingers on her stomach and looked at herself in the window.
That's not fat for a
woman my age.
Damn all models, anyway. They were mutants, and they unloaded a whole bargeload of guilt on normal people. She was only thirty-four.
The tea was soothing. She touched the answering machine again: "Jennifer, this is your—"
A little of the hot liquid spilled on her fingers as she zipped past the second message from her mother.
Still trying to set me up with accountants.
Marrying her mother had been the only really big mistake of her father's life. The next message was from the office—they must have sent it while she was in the middle of her commute. So much for office hours.
"This is Marlene, Jennifer." The managing director's executive assistant. She should be calling her Ms. Feinberg, but Jennifer didn't like to make a fuss about it. "The boss wants the last stuff on IngolfTech ready by Friday morning."
Oh, and why not forty days of rain while he's at it?
There went her evenings for the week.
"Jenny, it's Louisa. Are we still on for lunch Wednesday?"
Do I really want to listen to my best friend's man troubles?
Then again, it would be a chance to complain about the sexist pig of a managing director, the crank calls, and the fact that she
didn't
have any man problems right now.
"Okay, lunch with Louisa," she mumbled to herself.
"Ms. Feinberg, you're in danger and the police can't—"
"SHUT UP!" she screamed. The cat took off across the apartment in a tawny blur, and she hit the answering machine hard enough to make her hand hurt. "
Leave me alone!
"
The trip to the Bahamas couldn't come soon enough for her.
Her fingers shook as she punched the detective's number again.
***
"Ah," she said. "There they are." Upwind, and she could scent the metal and gun oil of the weapons under their coats. A tang of apprehension from the men, wary but determined. "Punctual."
"What do they want, really?" Dolores asked nervously.
"What we've got, essentially," Gwen replied.
Tom looked at his watch. "At least they didn't keep insisting on having the meeting on American territory."
Gwen nodded. "They're hungry. If we give them some of what they want—and dangle the rest—they'll jump through hoops. Just remember your briefings, and keep calm."
She led her party down the stairs to the statue. The two American agents stood to meet her. Tom looked them over rapidly.
"
Strongarm specialists,
" he said subvocally. "
Bad sign.
"
"Not necessarily," she replied. "They
do
have that little affray in the warehouse to worry about. It's natural to take precautions."
"John Andrews," the human said, when they stood face to face. "For the United States government."
"Gwendolyn Ingolfsson," she replied. "For IngolfTech."
And the Domination of the Draka.
He had quite good control, for a human, Gwen decided. He probably used that smile as part of it, immobilizing the small muscles around the mouth and eyes. She took his scent: fear, slight but definite. Not directed at her, so much, as at . . .
ah. He must be afraid of what he thinks I represent.
Gwen was dressed to throw the two Americans off-balance; Italian white-cotton tropical dress with a narrow gold belt, high-strap sandals, sunglasses, a broad straw hat tied with a silken handkerchief dangling in one hand.
"Well, shall we do that lunch thing?" she asked.
Tom strangled a chuckle, and Alice didn't bother. Andrews's answering expression looked painted-on for an instant, then puzzled.
Good,
Gwen thought. If the human didn't know what was going on, he'd fall back on pre-scripted versions of what
must
be happening.
The entrance to Greycliff was bustling, well-dressed parties arriving under the pillars of the veranda. She'd chosen it with malice aforethought; it was just across West Hill Street from Government House, and she knew the two American agents would spot the plainclothesmen from the Nassau police hovering in the background. That would probably keep them from trying anything drastic; the great powers of this world were absurdly solicitous of the little fish, by the standards of the history she'd learned and lived. She smiled graciously as they went through the wrought-iron gate in the whitewashed stone wall.
"My associate, Thomas Cairstens," she introduced. "My executive assistant, Alice Wayne; and Dolores Pastrana, personal secretary to the board."
Handshakes all around, and what the computer probe she'd launched told her were the agent's real names. Oddly incomplete files, but possibly the humans were keeping the important bits on hardcopy.
"Shall we go in?"
The maître d'hotel and his assistants were all attention; she and the rest of the IngolfTech staff from the Nassau headquarters were regulars, and exceedingly generous tippers, and she'd sent gifts around at Christmas and Easter.
All part of the process.
Bright sunlight leaked through the louvered shutters; there was a pleasant hum of conversation and the scent of food. Gwen left the conversation to her humans for the first few minutes, judging and analyzing. Andrews was the dominant of the pair, that was plain. He was looking at her more frequently, puzzled, trying to sense the hierarchy of her group. Cairstens's type he recognized.
Respect, combined
with underlying dislike,
she decided.
And he's realizing I really am in charge. He's surprised at that.
She finished her soup and began demolishing the seventeen-ounce pepper steak that followed it; his eyes widened slightly as she ate, and at the side orders of
pommes frites.
Then flicked down to her body and back again. He was having a salad.
Right, he's off-balance enough,
she decided, sipping at her wine.
"Thank you for agreeing to this meeting," she said. "I'm most anxious for a cooperative relationship with the American government."
Andrews nodded tightly. "You'll understand we're a bit anxious," he said. "With the current world situation . . ."
She smiled. "You can be fairly certain I'm not working for
Jihad al-Moghrebi,
" she pointed out gently. "And besides, isn't that mostly the Europeans' worry?"
Her human ancestors had mostly ground Islam out of existence, back in first century B.F.S. That it was allowed to flourish here was another sign of anarchic disorder. It was a wonder this bunch hadn't wiped themselves out long ago.
"Damned little they're doing about it, except turning back boatloads of refugees," he said. "Shall I be frank?"
"By all means."
And I can believe just as much as I please,
she added to herself.
"We don't know who and what you are, and who you're associated with," he said. "We do know that you have valuable information which shouldn't be allowed to fall into the wrong hands."
Gwen chuckled, a flash of white teeth against the olive tan of her face. "Well, that's all a matter of definition, now isn't it?"
The Americans' bodies tensed unconsciously, their pupils dilating. A fight-or-flight response; they expected bargaining.
"I'll lay my cards on the table," Gwen said.
And
you
can believe as much as you please.
"I'm not going to tell you my own identity. There are interests who'd be very glad to see me . . . out of the picture."
A fractional nod from Andrews, a subliminal grunt from Debrowski.
Ah. Interesting. That
confirmed
something they already thought they knew. I must look into that.
"However, you know my group has international participation."
"Mueller. And Singh. Not a recommendation, considering their records."
"The good doctors aren't in a political mode anymore," she said.
Quite true.
They were her serfs, her slaves, albeit favored ones.
"And in any case, this goes well beyond them. We—my group and I—have decided to tap the world of . . . nonconventional science. Outside the orthodox hierarchies, with their fixed ideas of what's possible and what isn't. There's an enormous amount of dross, but every now and then there's a pearl . . .
and the pearls have been going to waste for want of a systematic search. With modern information-processing methods and some imagination, such a search is possible."
Andrews ate a forkful of his salad. "Which leaves the question of motivations. Secret international associations interested in cutting-edge technologies, with members associated with dubious regimes and groups"—he glanced aside at Cairstens, who smiled back toothily—"or with no visible pasts at all, well . . ."
Gwen finished her steak.
Ah, just right.
Very faint touch of garlic, and slightly bloody in the middle. She remembered crouching over an elk in a winter storm . . . was it only three years ago, on her personal world-line? Cutting away at the flesh with her obsidian knife, breaking joints with a swift blow of her fist. The hot salt taste of the blood, and strength flowing back into her shivering body as the calories translated into warmth. It had taken her four days to strip the carcass bare; the wolves had shown up on the second, and provided her with a couple of warm furs. This was just as challenging, in its way.
"Our objectives are simple," she said. "Money, a great deal of money, and the power that goes with it." She held up a hand. "Nothing illegitimate. You'll have checked out our contacts with American businesses."
"Yes." Andrews nodded. "You seem to be concentrating on those."
"It's the only game in town," she replied. "Europe's too tightly tied up by established players, and besides, it's too close to the Middle East, and these days . . ." She shrugged. "Asia is xenophobic, and China is stirring that pot too enthusiastically. There are mutual interests."
Andrews moved in smoothly. "Mutual interests require mutual benefits," he said.
"Why, hasn't the United States benefited from IngolfTech's cooperative ventures?" she asked mildly, raising her eyebrows. She also raised a hand, and began to tick off points. "There's the ultradense memory chip we did with Texas Instruments, there's the oil-eating bacteria we're bringing forward with Exxon—if your FDA ever gets off its fat arse—there's the holographic projector . . ."
"Granted. However."
Gwen nodded.
Your government
—
more particularly your agency within that government
—
would like some things it could control personally.
It was startling how similar
drakensis
and human were, in some respects. Factionalism, for instance.
"I understand completely. On the other hand, a cooperative attitude on the part of your government would help immensely, particularly since IngolfTech is planning to move more and more onshore."
She leaned back, nibbling on a pastry, and made a small gesture with her free hand. Tom put his attache case on the table and snapped it open. With an understated flourish he produced a neatly bound folder.
"A token of our sincerity," she said. "Take a look."
Andrews did, with Debrowski leaning over his shoulder. After a moment he grunted, a sound that almost turned into a squeal.
"Is this
serious?
" he asked.
"Entirely. You'll find complete drawings and process data in the disks enclosed at the back. The hardcopy is an outline of the product and its applications."
"But
nobody's
been able to get a superconductor to operate at room temperature—"
"—and this operates up to the ferromagnetic transition temperatures at several hundred degrees, yes. Take a look at the energy densities, by the way."
Primitive stuff, invented about the time she was born, or a little earlier. Still, it would give this world some things it sadly lacked: a moderately efficient way to store electrical energy, for starters.
"For instance, besides transmission lines, you could use this to power electric vehicles with ranges of thousands of miles, and recharge times measured in seconds or minutes. The increased energy efficiencies would make the U.S. completely independent of imported oil. Superconductors could be used as replacements for capacitors, for applications needing surge power."
The agents twitched again, imperceptibly. Surge output was useful for many things; most importantly, lasers and other beam weapons.
Andrews was breathing hard as he read. Gwen amused herself with a daydream of exactly how she'd take him when the time came for the masks to come off.
I'll let him run,
she thought. The scent of his terror would be intoxicating.
Then leap on him.
He'd take a moment to realize just how helpless he was in her hands. Then—