The Assassin's Salvation (Mandrake Company) (31 page)

Buddies. That wasn’t quite the word for the relationship Ankari and the captain shared, but this wasn’t the time for such observations. “You got away, I assume? Are you still in the city over there? Or will we need to find another way back?” Maybe sending that shuttle off on its own private planet tour hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

“Given the state of the capital building here, I’m guessing we’re not welcome back in the city,” Ankari said. “Viktor and his men shot things up badly, and then there was the daring rescue by your pilot friend, Val. It also involved shooting. And cupolas catching on fire. I think a gazebo was blown up too.”

“Well, that’s what they get for messing with you, right?”

“Hm, perhaps. I may be wrong, but I got the impression that Microbacteriotherapy, Inc. was simply going to be asked to leave the planet—and to return the money the hospital paid us—but the fact that Viktor walked in at my side is what caused things to escalate. Apparently, the senator recognized him and was well aware that there’s a bounty on his head. That’s what started the little battle.”

“Uh oh.”

“Yes. Hence my warning. We didn’t give anything away in regard to your mission, but if the senator and Laframboise know each other, she may have sent word that Viktor has been spotted and that his shuttle is nearby. We’re flying around the city now, avoiding some police fighters that were sent to drive us out of the atmosphere, but Viktor has called down the
Albatross
for backup. We’re not planning to leave without you, but if you haven’t already made your move, you may need to soon. Laframboise is going to know Mandrake Company is in the area, and she’ll be able to take security measures, if she hasn’t already.”

“I understand.” Jamie would have to end this conversation quickly so she could warn Sergei. “Thanks.”

“Call me when you’re ready for a pickup. We’ll find a way to get you. But—” the sound of curses came through the channel, “—we are a little pressed here, so the sooner you’re ready, the better. Viktor said that if you have to abort, it’s fine. He’ll find another way to deal with Laframboise.”

“I understand,” Jamie said again.

“Call back when you can.”

“I will.” Jamie hung up, then immediately called Sergei’s comm unit. She bounced from foot to foot, waiting for him to answer.

How had this night turned so crazy so quickly? For both parties? They had underestimated their enemies, that was for sure, especially how closely connected everyone seemed to be down here.

She nibbled on her lip. Sergei wasn’t answering. He was probably hiding within hearing range of someone. She might need to find another way to communicate with him. Too bad she didn’t know what floor he was on. Maybe she could search for him with the computer system.
If
she could access the network.

Jamie stepped out of her tiny cubby and grabbed a few tools from the workbenches. Before long, two of the robots were powered up, turned on, and ready to cause some mayhem—or at least fumble around and bump into things. In the pot-rack and cabinet-filled kitchen, that was bound to attract attention.

Before she unleashed her unwitting helpers, she hunted around for someplace to hide. This room had plenty of open shelves, but nothing in the way of closets or even cabinet doors. Where would Sergei hide? He would just appear out of nowhere behind some unsuspecting soul. Or…

Jamie looked up, considering the ceiling. A small vent in the corner marked a heating duct. She didn’t think she could fit through it, but those utility shelves by the door nearly reached the ceiling. Because of their location, a person might walk in without glancing toward them. Walking out was a little more questionable, but she climbed up, anyway, checking out the top. She moved a couple of boxes to lower shelves and carved out a spot where she might curl up. She tossed a drop cloth up there, too, though she didn’t know if she would have time to artfully arrange herself before someone burst in.

She returned to the robots, put them into idle, and rolled them to the door. She listened for a quiet moment, then waved at the sensor to open it. When she released the robots, they rolled out into the big kitchen and began the floor-buffing program she had manually switched them to. She had also disabled the object sensor. They were soon crashing into racks and counters in their eagerness to clean the floor.

Within seconds, someone was shouting.

Jamie closed the door and climbed up the shelving unit. In her haste, she almost upended it. So much for finding inspiration from Sergei—he wouldn’t
crush
himself under a heavy rack of boxes and painting supplies. She slowed down and made it to the top, curling onto her side on the shelf. She tugged the drop cloth over her body, trying to make her form look more like paint containers than a person lying on her side.

The door opened before she had arranged everything as artfully as she would have liked. She froze.

Heavy footsteps clomped in, audible over the clatter of malfunctioning robots arising from the kitchen.

“I said hold it,” someone out there growled.

“I’m
trying
. These things weigh half a ton, and I have cake batter all over my hands.”

“I don’t want to know about your personal kinks; just keep it from knocking everything—” The words transitioned into curses.

A clank came from one of the benches in Jamie’s room. Someone grabbing a few tools? The footsteps sounded again, this time racing out of the room. She grimaced. If someone figured out that the robots could be fixed manually, her ruse would have been for naught. Not only that, it might make people start looking around to see who had tinkered with the machinery in the first place. If she ended up doing something that got Sergei in trouble…

She bit her lip. He had almost replaced her with a more experienced engineer and fighter. Maybe that would have been a better choice.

Footsteps sounded again, these the pinpoint clacks of heels. They entered her room and stopped near the far wall. Near the control box? Jamie couldn’t see with the drop cloth draped over her. She risked lifting up the flap high enough to peer out.

It was hard to see much from her elevated perch, her back pressed to the wall, but she could make out the back of a head full of long black hair. Yes, the woman had opened the control box, and she had breezed past the security measures to call up the program that controlled the household robots.

“Did that do anything?” she called over her shoulder.

Jamie lowered her flap, afraid she would be all too noticeable from the control-box side of the room.

The clatter of a heavy pan falling answered the woman.

“It just tried to sand the shoe off my foot,” someone said.

“Those are ugly shoes, anyway,” another kitchen worker commented.

“Ha ha.”

The woman inside the room grumbled something and returned to the control box. Jamie resisted the urge to fidget, though she did mentally will the woman to go out into the kitchen and check for herself, thus leaving that computer online but unattended for a couple of minutes.

“I’m getting Sasha,” the woman finally grumbled and walked out.

Jamie lifted her head. The robots were still giving the kitchen people trouble. “Best chance I’ll get,” she breathed and climbed down. The door had remained open, and she slid it shut, hoping nobody out there would think anything of it. She darted for the control box. The holodisplay remained active, and Jamie swiped a finger through the program, hoping it responded to her.

“Yes,” she whispered when the display changed.

She tapped on the penthouse map, hunting for robots she could use to search. There weren’t many on that floor, but she activated a cleaning robot stationed in a wall cubby next to what looked like a bedroom or perhaps an office. Unfortunately, there weren’t camera feeds that she could check out, not on any program she could see in the settings. The robot had a small camera, however. It would have to be her eyes. She ordered it out of its cubby, hoping nobody would think anything of it, if the robot ambled out to sweep the floor at an unscheduled hour.

Jamie winced at new sounds coming from the kitchen. Someone cried a triumphant, “Got it!” and she didn’t know how much longer she would have. That Sasha person might walk in at any moment, or someone might try to shove the robots back into this room.

The legs of a handmade ebony desk and richly upholstered chair came into view through the robot’s display. A light was on somewhere to the side, casting long shadows across the wooden floorboards. It took a moment for Jamie to identify a large brown suede box with elaborate gold stitching as a trash bin.

This wasn’t a tall robot—its “eyes” weren’t quite high enough to see the top of the desk. Just as well. Maybe the unit would be less likely to be noticed. Jamie turned it to polish mode, guessing that would be the quietest setting, and ordered it to turn a circle so she could see if anyone was in the room. Despite the light being on, the office was empty. Jamie directed the robot to an open door and into a wide hallway. Countless rooms opened up to either side, with the hint of larger rooms on either end and more halls beyond that. The robot rolled toward the next door. Actually, it inched along, determined to polish the floors, not simply traverse them. Its top speed was a quarter of a mile an hour.

“This going to take
forever
,” Jamie grumbled.

The din had settled down in the kitchen, and she feared she didn’t
have
forever.

“…coming,” a voice floated through the door.

Jamie punched in a few orders to direct the robot along a circuit that would take it through the next few rooms, but there wasn’t time to program in a message for Sergei if it happened to locate him. An, “I said I’ll take care of it,” sounded only a few feet from the door. She was out of time.

Jamie swiped a hand through the display to close the program, then sprinted for the shelves. She climbed up, wincing when she kicked a paint container. It wobbled precariously, but she dared not stop to make sure it didn’t fall. The door was sliding open. She lunged for the top shelf, drawing her knees in and yanking the drop cloth over her body again. She didn’t get herself completely covered, but someone was walking in, and she dared not fidget further. Her shelving unit was already trembling suspiciously, thanks to her hasty assent.

But the stocky, toolbox-carrying woman who stalked in was too busy looking at the far wall to notice. Before the cloth fell over her face, Jamie glimpsed the holodisplay and realized why. It was all she could do to keep from groaning. She must have been pulling away as she had swiped a finger through the program, ordering it to close. She had missed. The cleaning robot’s camera was still displaying the suite. It was now polishing the floor of a library full of books and reading chairs.

“What the hell?” the woman muttered, then raised her voice. “You said the problem was just with those kitchen robots?”

“That we know about, yeah,” someone said from the doorway.

Well aware that her butt and one of her shoes hadn’t made it under the drop cloth, Jamie held very still, hoping neither person would look up at her shelf.

“That’s the queen’s suite, isn’t it?” another voice asked from the doorway.

“How would I know?” the woman with the tools asked. “It’s not like she invites
me
up there.”

“Maybe we’ll catch her naked,” a man snickered.

“Ugh, who would
want
to? She’s like a hundred.”

“She’s not
that
old. She’s still sexy too.”

“A dozen surgeries will do that for you.”

“I don’t know why that robot is cleaning at this time of day, but I’m going to stop it,” the tool woman said.

“Wait, look.”

The robot had drifted out into the hallway again, then, per Jamie’s programming, turned into a massive bedroom with wrought iron fixtures and dark blue and maroon walls. The decor wasn’t what caught Jamie’s eye. Two men were holding someone against the wall, buckling the person into… were those
shackles
? A queasy sense of certainty moved into her stomach even before she could fully see the prisoner.

One man squatted down, and the victim came into view. He dangled by the wrists, his bare feet several inches off the floor. The squatting man grabbed one of those feet and locked the ankle into another shackle, then shifted to do the other leg. The victim hung limply through all of this, his chin to his chest. All of his clothing had been removed as had the facial disguise that should have been there. Even if it had still been in place, Jamie would have recognized Sergei by the scars on his torso alone.

A woman in a fur robe stepped into view, only her legs and part of her back visible from the robot’s point of view. She carried something in one hand, a metal truncheon with several buttons on the side. Jamie didn’t know what it was, but couldn’t imagine it was anything good. The woman—Laframboise?—stepped out of the view, and the clack of heels drifted over the robot’s audio pickup, then stopped.

The men turned toward the robot. “Poor bastard,” one of them muttered.

“Better him than me,” the other growled.

The men walked toward the door, and one frowned down at the robot. He stopped, moving to the side of it and out of view. Jamie wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved when the display winked out. The last thing she heard was the sound of those heels clacking back into the room.

Chapter 16

Sergei kept his eyes closed as consciousness returned to him. His first thought was to be relieved that he was waking up and that someone hadn’t shot him. His second was to be concerned that his wrists and ankles were bound with cold steel, and he was hanging against a wall. His third thought was to wonder what the hell was in his mouth, jammed back against the inside of his cheek. Then he remembered and allowed himself to feel a slight surge of triumph. They hadn’t searched his mouth, and the scalpel was still there. He wasn’t yet sure how that could help him, since he couldn’t get his hands free to pull it out, nor was that extremely strong glue likely to yield, even after sitting in his saliva for however long he had been knocked out. He would have to hope that he could change the situation somehow, find a way to free a hand. But for the moment, he needed to figure out where he was and whom he was dealing with. He was aware that he was naked, but the air didn’t have the chilly feel of some subterranean dungeon. Not that a subterranean dungeon was a possibility on a city floating in the clouds. A dank basement, perhaps.