Viking (40 page)

No response.

1291 could feel the cloud cover building overhead. If they didn’t leave soon, they’d
have to ride out a storm almost at ground level. None of them were small enough for
this to pose a danger, but still...

293’s summons reached her receptors.
We’re going. I want to get back before the
storm.

Can I...
1291 began.

Stay a little longer?
97 interrupted, sounding amused.
I suppose it’s
up to you. Maybe the earthbound will do something interesting during the storm. But
nobody’s going to wait for you when we cross the mountains, so you can’t stay
forever.

1291 beeped gratefully as the rest of her group skied away.

Julie looked up from her computer screen, tears streaming down her cheeks. She
didn’t really know or even like the woman who lay dying, but she’d saved her husband’s
life.

“It’s the pufferbellies!” Satler repeated, a note of awe in his voice.

“What?”

“Not one intelligent species, but two! Why did it take me so long? It was right
under my nose!” He resumed his restless pacing with renewed energy, looking like he was
ready to burst with excitement.

“What about the pufferbellies?” Julie struggled to shift mental gears. What did this
have to do with Rafa’s brush with death that was still replaying in her brain?

Satler finally made eye contact. A silly grin was plastered over his blunt features.
“The broadcasts are coming from the pufferbellies, Julie. Have you noticed how every
clip we get has pufferbellies in it?”

Julie stared wordlessly.

Satler opened his mouth, then closed it again as he became more aware of her
expression. “I’m sorry,” he said contritely. “This isn’t the time for a eureka
moment.”

The call button on the phone by the bed lit up. Satler looked over. “That’ll be your
page.”

For a moment Julie’s mind searched vainly for an explanation. Then she remembered.
“Oh! I can’t go now. Can you bring him up?”

“I think he’s looking for a cute redhead, not a big gorilla.”

“Well, I’m not going in the middle of a broadcast...” she began, but just then the
feed died and the screen went black. It had been up more and more consistently since
yesterday, but there were still periods of frustrating silence.

“Go now,” Satler urged. “I’ll feel a lot safer when you’ve got a bodyguard, and it’s
always down for two or three minutes when it goes out like this.”

Julie hesitated, gazing longingly at the screen, but when it remained unlit she
jumped up.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” she said, running to the door.

* * *

Ray Gregory gunned the engine of his skimmer and shot around a corner. He would have
been hard pressed to give an approvable reason for the speeding, had any bureau
busybody or traffic cop questioned him—but he didn’t care. In the old days, his tires
would have squealed; as it was, the groaning engines sent a pulsing curtain of air
pounding against a nearby building; its glass windows quivered slightly as he rocketed
by.

Ever since Julie’s call, he’d been in a hurry.

It had been a maddening search.

He’d stumbled onto Satler’s aunt by sheer persistence and dumb luck, after a talk
with Julie’s parents. Then it took an hour of careful groundwork before she opened up,
and another thirty minutes before he learned that the two fugitives were banking on the
elderly woman’s account.

After that it was easy.

He just hoped he was in time.

* * *

The man looked bored and just a shade sleepy to Julie, slumping behind sunglasses in
the hotel lobby. He wore a well tailored suit and immaculate white shirt, shiny Italian
shoes, and an expensive-looking wrist watch. He had the apple and the novel, but he
looked too tanned and fashionable to fit her idea of the FBI.

For some reason a prickly dread raised the hairs on Julie’s neck. Was someone else
there, watching the meeting? Would she be spied the minute she walked out from the
hallway where the elevator was?

She found herself bending over the drinking fountain, letting water run in and out
of her open lips while she debated. The agent made no indication that he’d seen
her.

This is ridiculous, she thought. Help’s finally arrived for Rafa, and no doubt
pandemonium reigns at MEEGO. They’d be crazy to come after her now. Besides, she had to
hurry back upstairs in case the video feed started up again.

Resolutely she squared her shoulders and approached the man seated casually on the
sofa.

The second ship’s arrival was masked by a series of pealing thunderclaps. Some of
the crew looked up, but most were still clustered around Chen’s pale body.

Rafa felt full of emotion: part pity and sorrow for Chen, part gratitude that she’d
been spared a more miserable finish, part astonishment at his own narrow escape. Heward
was not dead, just wounded, but Rafa felt no particular bitterness—just sorrow and
regret.

He straightened up and laid Chen’s hands on her chest, in time to see the first bolt
of lightning out over the sea. By then a couple of the vikings were staring pointedly
down the beach, where a detail of six suited figures was advancing from another
Earth-built spaceship.

Reinforcements? Surely they didn’t expect armed resistance from the vikings.

Welcome to the party, sir.
It was the leader of the first group who
spoke.

Put down the gun, Oristano. You’re under arrest.
The speaker, a grizzled,
leathery-faced man at the front of the new arrivals, looked angry. His gun was not
pointed at vikings. Rafa looked at his face intently.

Arrest?

Don’t play coy with me. I’m tired of it. You came here to cover up your own
shenanigans, not to serve justice.

I don’t know what you’re talking about, Geire.
Her backup had dropped his
gun, but she still held hers.

Besides trying to steal all the glory, you probably were going to cut in on the
smuggling, weren’t you?

Nonsense. I just want to make this bust and go home.

Oh, you’ll be going home soon enough. I’ll take you in handcuffs.

Come off it, Geire! This is just your ornery old temper talking. It’s all the
most fantastic sort of speculation. Drop it before we have to start talking defamation
or harassment.

You think I didn’t know about your calls to Bezovnik? You think I don’t have
records of where and when you got your payoffs? You think this sting was just about
catching MEEGO? I gave you just enough rope to hang yourself, and you did it quite
nicely. The raid on company headquarters gave us records of massive money transfers,
phone calls, the works—it all matches up perfectly with the log I kept of your
activity.

Suddenly Oristano’s gun swung toward Geire.
I’m not going.

What are you going to do, shoot me in front of all these witnesses?
His
voice was heavy with sarcasm.

I’ll shoot you all
, she shouted frantically.
I’ll say we met stiff
resistance and it turned into a bloodbath. Nobody’s watching at MEEGO anymore.

Geire just laughed.
If you believe that’ll fly, you’re crazy. You’d never get us
all. There’s always somebody who slips through the cracks and causes trouble later
on.

Slowly Oristano’s gun slumped. Then Geire gave a signal, and two of his men snapped
handcuffs around her suited wrists.

* * *

Orosco, right?

Rafa looked up to see a suited figure. Rain was beginning to fall, and the lightning
was worse. Overhead, a single massive pufferbelly hung like a cumulonimbus gone
solid.

“That’s right.”

Got a minute? I’d like to talk to you by yourself.
Geire tossed his plasma
pistol toward another agent, who picked it up with a nod.

Rafa followed Geire slowly back toward the ship, and the beginning of the stairway
carved in stone beyond.

You may not know this, but I’ve been following you for quite some time
,
Geire began.

“How’s that?”

Well, MEEGO’s been up to no good for a long while, and we were itching to get a
closer look. We happened to find out about your implants when you showed up on their
roster. It was a simple thing to have the surgeon set a second frequency when he
reactivated everything.

“So I was a spy.”

You were.

“A mole.”

If you want to call it that. But all in a good cause.

“I assume that’s why Heward tried to kill me.”

Probably.

“You put me in a dangerous position without asking.”

No more than you were before.

They passed the ship and walked for a time in silence. The surf and the wind and the
storm made turbulent swirl around them.

At the bottom step, Rafa stopped and looked steadily at Geire’s face.

“Before, you said.”

Before.
Then a shocked look, part fear, part confusion, crossed the
weathered features. Geire took a step back.

Rafa nodded. “Yes, I mean
that
before. How long have you been after me?
Did you kill Oberling just so you could set me up? Did you follow me all the way
here just to finish the job?”

Geire stared back wordlessly

“I'm guessing not. Your not brilliant—just a great opportunist. You want us
to believe you were on to what’s-her-name all along, but it's as much an act as your
righteous agent schtick. You’re only arresting her because you don’t think
you can horn in on the action and get away with it. Not with aliens in the
picture.”

Geire shrugged.
Believe what you want. I had to look; I knew you might still be
dangerous to me. But I only picked up the trail by chance, when you met Oberling. You
were a hard man to find, David.

“I could say the same for you. I wasn’t even sure which faces from the bureau to look for. I
just knew it had to be someone who didn’t make my official list. But when I saw you, I
knew.”

Then why did you come with me?

“I was going to kill you with my bare hands. Now I think not. I’m sick of fighting.
Go ahead and pull the gun. I see it in your pocket.”

Geire drew the gun.
You always were a bit too observant for your own
good.

“And hard to kill.”

Yes. I thought I had things fixed so you’d get the death penalty. But you
weaseled out of that and enlisted as a viking. I thought that would be okay, that you’d
bite the dust sooner or later. Thought you were dead in the stampede. Then I thought
you were dead when you got dumped in the jungle. But you just keep coming back to life.
I guess it’s time for a little direct intervention.

“Shoot. I doubt anyone will even care.”

Ah, David, you undervalue yourself. You should have heard your wife pleading for
me to send some protection.

“You’ve talked to Julie? When?” For the first time, Rafa’s voice took on an
urgency.

Oh, several times recently. It seems she found a key to a virtual safe in Mexico
City. She wondered if the FBI could tell her why you once lived in Quantico and went by
a different name.

Rafa paled. “What else did she say?”

Oh, she speculated a bit about what might be in the most secure part of the
files. The bank wouldn’t let her see them without your death certificate, you
know.

Rafa looked away.

It’s an interesting question, actually. What
is
in those files? It
would have to be something from your former life, of course. Something about seven
years old; I checked the date on the account. Something that uses a bureau-issue
encryption code.

“None of your business.”

I think maybe it is. In fact, my curiosity’s definitely piqued. But I’ve
resigned myself. Apparently the bank has a policy to destroy top-secret data if there’s
no legitimate claimant. If you die and Julie dies, that clears both names off the
account, and the information goes away forever. I guess I’ll never know.

Rafa hit him low and hard, driving his casted arm like a battering ram. The blow
knocked away the gun even as it discharged, carving a long searing blister through the
skin on Rafa’s back. It clattered off the sculpted granite and into the sand.

Geire turned green through his helmet, but he kept his feet. Somehow, from
somewhere, he had picked up a rock. As Rafa recoiled from the collision, he smashed it
down, striking a glancing blow behind one ear.

Rafa went down on one knee, vision black, suddenly unable to tell up from down. He
felt the whole world spinning wildly, saw Geire stumble over to the gun and raise it
slowly from the sand. Rain and flashing lightning and tremendous claps of thunder
melded into a gray fog.

Then the pufferbelly struck. Faster than the eye could follow, thirty meters of
sinuous, muscular tentacle whipped out, coiled around Geire’s neck and shoulders, and
jerked him up and cliffward. He rose like a missile, thudded brokenly
against the wall of rock, and then somersaulted down into the angry sea. No splash
marked his passing.

“Estrellita!”

Rafa’s lung-searing one-word prayer vanished into the chaos of the
storm.

“Nice looking apple,” said Julie, dropping into a chair near the sofa.

“You want it?” the man asked, extending a manicured hand. “I’m not hungry
anymore.”

“Thanks.” She took it, feeling rather silly. “Come on, I’ll show you where my room
is.”

“Room?” said the man. He had an odd sort of smile on his face. She saw that his
other hand held a gun. “I’d prefer to talk outside, where there are not so many
people.”

Julie was too stunned to think clearly. In a dream, she stood and walked arm in arm
toward the revolving door. This could not be happening.

“Call you a taxi?” asked the doorman. “Oh, never mind—here’s one now.” He pointed a
white-gloved hand.