Night's Pawn (8 page)

"I'll live with it." He listened to make sure the multi-gym was back in use, then turned away from the sound. "Any word on the detailed report?" he said softly.

"Information is being compiled and re-referenced. I anticipate completion and delivery within eight hours."

"Good. Thanks, Lachesis. I appreciate it."

Dead silence followed.

"Hello?"

"One moment."

He waited.

"You made a telecom call to Great Britain."

"What!"

"Your Manhattan Datacom account shows a message-unit overage charge associated with a call to the Nottingham region."

"Damn."

"There is evidence of a single-source trace that progressed as far as the UCAS-Northeast regional telecom grid before cessation of the call."

"What are the odds?"

"There is a forty-two percent probability, with a tolerance of two point two, that sufficient information was gained to identify your account."

"Any chance of backtracking the trace at this point?"

"None."

"All right. Finish giving me some kind of defense and then contact me as soon as you've got the detailed report."

"Understood." The line went dead without so much as a click.

Chase placed the handset back into the telecom unit as he heard Cara lightly enter the room from behind him.

"Anything?" she asked after a moment.

He stood and turned toward her. "Your friends are probably safe as long as they stay low and quiet."

She dropped down loosely onto one of his couches, her colorless body suit and pale skin becoming almost radiant against the dark leather. She buried her face in a towel for a moment, rubbing away the perspiration. "You really think they may be in danger?" she said, lifting her face to him.

He shrugged. "Hard to tell, but the assassination of a billion-dollar megacorporate official isn't something to be attempted with half-measures. If someone is looking for you, the band is the only link."

She blinked and pursed her lips. "Do you think they'll talk?"

"Odds are they already have." Chase lowered himself onto the arm of a chair across from her. "Your pals called Ernesto Best, and if you asked, I'd bet the spirits'd tell you that they told him you ran off with some joker."

Cara nodded. "Yeah, just the fact that
they
called him, and not me, would tip Ernie—"

A sudden high tone, followed by three loud beeps echoed through the room and cut her off. Chase leaned his head back and took a long, hard breath.

Cara's head whipped around. "What…"

A dry, artificial voice cut into the room from hidden speakers. "Building security systems report an unauthorized entry through the rear service entrance."

She stood up and looked at Chase. He stared at the ceiling.

"Building security systems report an attempt to overri—"

Cara looked around and scooped up her dropped towel. "What's happening?"

Chase shrugged. "Someone's in the building who shouldn't be. Probably more than one, I expect."

Her eyes widened and the towel bunched in her hands. "They're after me, right?"

He looked at her. "How could they be?" he said evenly. "Nobody knows you're here. The only ones who might have let anything slip are your band chummers, and they don't know where you are."

She looked at him.

"Right?" he finished.

"I…"

"You fucked up."

She flinched. "I had to tell her I was okay: she's the one who helped me sneak into England. She'd have been worried. I didn't tell her where—"

"You talked to her too long. They traced the call."

"Oh, god…"

Chase stood up. "You kept everything in your bag like I told you?"

She nodded.

"Grab it and anything else of yours that might be laying around. Check the bathroom. Then come back here."

She did, and met him again in the living room. He was studying a display on one of the telecom terminals. "The security system's been hacked, but there's nobody in it. Damn it, I should have had her secure the building too."

"Her?"

"Later. As near as I can tell, a group's come in the rear entrance and are making their way up the back stairs. The security alarms are off-line so I'm not sure if an alert got out or not."

"What're you going to do?"

"Hide mostly. There's no time to get out. Who knows where they are right now? Here, catch." He flipped her a small object. She missed it and it skittered a ways across the floor before she grabbed it, dropping half of what she'd been carrying.

"It's a lighter…"

"Light it and hold it near a heat sensor in the kitchen. Burn the sensor."

She did, searing the plastic, and the automatic sprinkler system exploded water into the cooking area. Cara jumped and barely escaped the deluge. "You drek, why didn't you…"

"If the sensor's melted, the sprinklers will stay on until somebody shuts them off. Our drek-for-brains intruders didn't bother to lock out the fire-alarm codes."

"Oh," she said, using her exercise towel to dry off some of her things that had gotten wet. "But shouldn't we…"

The telecom display changed, some words flashed red, and then it turned black. Chase sighed. "Well, somebody just opened the security door on this floor, then crashed the whole fragging system. Time to disappear, Cara." He moved across the room and motioned her to follow.

She did, and they stepped up into the day-lit dining area. "Here's hoping they didn't have time to pull the plans for this place."

Cara looked back toward the front door. "Why don't you just… I don't know…"

"Shoot it out with them?"

"Well .

"This isn't the sims, Cara." At the room's far wall he pulled a small black remote control from his pocket. "I don't know who they are or what kind of firepower they're packing. Plus, it's been a long damn time since I walked into a fight simply because I wanted to. I try to avoid that sort of thing these days."

As he pointed the device at the largest piece of furniture in the room, a barely audible click came from behind the breakfront, which shifted forward slightly. He reached out and pivoted it away from the wall, revealing the existence of a small dark room. A warning beep sounded from the other end of the apartment.

Cara turned. "What?" He grabbed her arm and pushed her into the hidden room. "Maglock on the front door; it must be tougher than they expected. Damn well should be."

Chase followed her in and pulled a lever on the wall. The breakfront closed behind them, sealing with a hiss.

Lights came on. The room was a mere three meters square, and contained only some monitors that Chase began to flip on, two small canisters mounted on the wall, and some weapons hanging on pegs. Cara's eyes widened as she looked at the submachine gun. "Don't touch," he warned.

Images of the apartment began to appear on the monitors. Chase listened to the audio feed on an earpiece.

Cara squirmed next to him. "Can I…?"

Chase gave her a hard look and then turned back to the monitors. The front door, finally defeated, was opening slowly. A black man in an equally dark long coat brandished a silenced Colt heavy pistol as he pushed the door open and surveyed the room. Cara hissed.

"Recognize him?" asked Chase.

"Yes, he was in London."

"Name?"

"I think they called him Victor."

Victor walked slowly into the room, sweeping the weapon to match his gaze. A red-haired woman in black leathers and a bulky jacket entered behind him. She carried a sound-suppressed Heckler and Koch submachine gun at the ready and covered him.

"They called her Roja," said Cara.

"All right, let's see how good—" He cut himself short as another figure entered behind the woman. Tall and slender, he had the distinctive bone structure and the decidedly pointed ears of the metahuman race of elves. His hair was long, white, and flashed with silver highlights. The elf moved forward carefully, letting his gaze wander over the room, but his eyes had an unfocused look. He kept his hands in the pockets of his gray long coat.

"I think we're screwed," said Chase.

Cara looked up at him sharply. "I didn't see him in London…"

"Odds he's a mage."

She made a noise at the back of her throat.

"I think he's surveying the room with his magical sight, or whatever, for some sign of us or magic."

She put her hand on his arm and he felt it tighten. "Then they'll find us and…"

He shook his head as he watched the front two move farther into the apartment. The elf hung back. "This room is supposed to be magically shielded," Chase said. "I paid a lot to have some hybrid bacterium or something sprayed into the surrounding walls. Supposedly a magician can astrally project—or whatever it is they do—something through almost anything
except
living things." He looked intently at the monitor. "I don't completely understand all this magic drek."

"Won't the mage realize the bacteria is there? I mean rats in the walls, maybe, but…"

Chase said nothing as he watched the elf mage blink a few times, then begin to move normally. "He's stopped whatever he was doing."

The elf went to join Victor in the main room. Roja had moved off into the adjoining rooms. Victor was looking down at the water-soaked carpet beneath him and then at the spray in the kitchen area. "It would appear that they've gone," said the elf, his voice high, almost musical.

Victor nodded. "Good and bad. We've probably got no more than five minutes before the fire department arrives. " His voice had a trace of German accent. "Roja!" he called out. "See if they were stupid enough to leave any clues to where they might have gone."

No reply came, but Chase could hear her moving things around in the other room.

"What are they saying?" asked Cara.

He motioned her to silence, then pointed at another earpiece hanging on the wall. She grabbed it and slipped it into her ear. Chase could clearly see the datajack implanted in her skull near that ear. It was a good one. Expensive and expertly installed.

Victor turned to the elf. "Can you find anything?"

The elf shrugged. "Unlikely, unless they're nearby. There is little to trace. I can try, though."

Chase winced. "Damn." He reached down and touched the pair of small canisters mounted on the wall. He pushed aside a panel cover and placed his fingers on two unlit buttons.

"What're those?" Cara asked.

"CNX II gas. It's nerve gas."

Cara stared.

"It's not lethal, barely more than tear gas, but it makes life hell. We're safe in here, but it should incapacitate them long enough for me to do something."

"How long will it last?" Cara's voice was very low.

"Less than a minute. It's
very
short persistence, breaks down right away, so there's no chance of it getting to the other apartments."

Cara grimaced, her hand tightening further on Chase's arm. "Do you think it's wi—"

Roja's arrival from the other room silenced her. The red-haired woman was smiling. "No worries, chums. I pulled lotsa hair out of the bathroom drains." She flipped a small plastic baggie to the elf. "We can trace them with magic."

Chase smashed his fist angrily against the wall. "
Damn
!" Victor's eyes flicked toward them, then back at the woman. "No choice now." Chase pressed down on the buttons.

The elf held the bag up to one of the windows and looked at the specimens. "I can't tell if it's both of them, or—"

A loud electronic squeal from beneath Victor's coat cut him off. "
Nerve gas
!" he howled. The elf let the bag drop and quickly traced something in the air in front of him. A faint trail of violet light followed his motions. Roja's eyes widened, then snapped shut as her body twitched. She looked like she'd smelled something horrible.

"
Damn
," whispered Chase. What the hell were they doing carrying gas-detection gear?

Victor stepped around the elf and grabbed Roja as she twitched again and went limp, gagging. The elf finished his motion and snapped his left hand opened. A sphere of misty, violet light expanded quickly outward from it and through the room as a radiant shock wave. The elf turned and grabbed both of his teammates. Victor had a stunned expression on his face. "Help her, Se'arlas," he said.

The elf nodded and took Roja from Victor, lowering her to the ground. "The toxin in the air has been neutralized. Now I must deal with what has already entered her bloodstream," said Se'arlas. He held his hand over the woman's chest as her body spasmed again and she continued to gag. "How do you feel?" he asked Victor without looking up. The strain was evident in his voice.

"Fine." Victor kept his eyes on Roja. "We must have triggered some security system."

"Perhaps," said the elf.

Chase could see that same violet glow strobing between Se'arlas' hand and the woman. Her body began to calm. Chase released his breath.