Floating City (32 page)

“The police are naturally interested in your case. There are officers outside this room, in fact. They seem very anxious to speak with you.”

There was sweat on Pavlov’s fat, white cheeks, but neither man made a move to wipe it off. “You can’t let them in here,” Pavlov said in a quavery voice.

“Don’t worry about that.” Nicholas patted the padded arm. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I worked too hard to save your life.”

Above them both, Tachi was shaking his head. “I don’t know. I’m getting a great deal of pressure from the chief inspector of the Saigon police. I don’t know if I can—”

“But you must!” Nicholas said it sharply, his head turned toward Tachi. Then he returned his gaze to the patient. “But you understand Dr. Van Kiet’s predicament.”

“What am I to do?” Pavlov whispered. “I can’t talk to the police.
I can’t.”

Tachi leaned menacingly over the bed. “But I’m afraid you will have no choice—”

“Wait!” Nicholas raised his hand. “Doctor, there may be a way. If Dr. Pavlov tells us what happened, perhaps we can work out a way to bypass the police. After all, his health is in the balance.”

Tachi was shaking his head. “I don’t know. The irregularity—”

“But I would tell you,” Pavlov whispered hastily. “If you can help me with the police.”

“You can trust us.” Nicholas smiled. “We have only your best interests in mind.”

“All right, then.” Pavlov was sweating again, his heart rate fluctuating frighteningly. Nicholas did not know how long they had. He extended his psyche, wrapping the Russian more tightly in warmth.

Pavlov licked his blue lips. “I never would have come here except that my institute needs money. I’m the head of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy in Moscow. That used to mean something. I led a life of privilege... a gleaming Chaika to take me to and from work, a beautiful dacha on the Baltic where my wife took the children in the summer, a large apartment in Moscow.” He paused to gather himself; even talking was an enormous effort for him. “All that changed when the Soviet Union died. Now I am reduced to the level of a simple mendicant, traveling thousands of miles in order to obtain money for the institute.”

“You came to Saigon for funding?” Tachi asked.

Pavlov tried to smile, but it turned into a grimace of pain. He paused for a moment, panting. Nicholas gave him more water.

“Saigon is where Abramanov is. He was to be my benefactor.” The Russian made an odd sound, somewhere between a gurgle and a cough. Perhaps it was meant to be a laugh. “He used to be my bête noire, Abramanov. Perhaps he still is, who knows? You see, he used to work for me at Kurchatov. Some said he was brilliant in his field of study, but I knew he had a mutinous mind and a disruptive personality. He’s a Jew, after all, and we all know about them.”

The Russian’s eyes closed, and Nicholas and Tachi exchanged glances. Nicholas said, “Just what was Abramanov’s specialty, Dr. Pavlov?”

The Russian let out a long sigh. “High-flux neutron fields.”

“What does that mean?” Tachi asked.

“You should know. You’re a doctor!” Some of what must have been Pavlov’s old fiery personality came briefly to the fore, before he subsided in a coughing fit. Nicholas was aware of a seepage of blood somewhere deep inside the Russian, and he knew what that meant. Death was waiting in the shadows, and no surgeon on earth could hold him at bay.

“Doctor, please,” he said, “you’ll do yourself no good. Calm down.”

“Yes, yes, I know. But after what’s happened to me... where was I? Oh, yes, high-flux neutron fields. As simply as possible, Abramanov was hell-bent on creating a stable transuranic isotope. His hope was to find an atomic substance that could be used as the ultimate fuel, cheap and virtually limitless.”

“Was he successful?” Nicholas asked.

“Not at Kurchatov. But after I exiled him to Arzamas-16, the atomic city, I lost track of him. But now... now I suspect that he has been successful. Because, you see, I came here to sell him something he needs very badly. He was supposed to pay me a great deal of money for it. Twenty-five million dollars.” Tears began to leak from Pavlov’s eyes. “Was I naive in believing I’d get it? Now it’s gone and I have nothing.”

A discreet knock on the door interrupted the interrogation. Van Kiet’s sergeant beckoned Tachi outside. Nicholas wanted to wait until Tachi returned, but he knew there was no time to spare.

“It was stolen?” Nicholas asked Pavlov.

“Yes, stolen. But I’ll tell you this, I blame Abramanov because whoever shot me and took it must have known its worth. He was waiting for me at the rendezvous point Abramanov himself gave me. No one else knew where I was going.”

Pavlov began to weep in earnest. “It was a usurious price, I know, but what was I to do? The institute needed the money and I knew Abramanov had nowhere else to go. Besides, that damn Jew... bolting the country. I got pleasure from the thought of squeezing so much money out of him.”

Tau-tau made Nicholas aware of the blood spilling inside Pavlov, filling him with his own fluids. The coughing fits were becoming more pronounced.

“What was stolen from you, Dr. Pavlov? What did Abramanov want so desperately?”

The Russian spasmed so badly that Nicholas could not hear what he said. Only the continued projection of Nicholas’s psyche had allowed him to live this long.

“It was part... part of a new type of contamination-control field to counteract the extreme toxicity of plutonium,” he managed to get out.

“Why was Abramanov so desperate to have it? Is he dealing with plutonium?”

“I believe it’s far worse. If... if he has created this transuranic isotope, it will no doubt be even more highly toxic than plutonium, both chemically in... in flaking particulates... ah, ah... and energetic gamma radiation.”

Tachi returned. He bent over, spoke urgently in Nicholas’s ear. “That was a messenger from Van Kiet. He wanted me to see the bullet they dug out of Pavlov’s spine. Van Kiet had never seen anything like it before, but I had. It’s a .308 caliber, and by the markings on it I can tell it was fired from a Styers rifle. That’s top-of-the-line sniper’s equipment, usually comes equipped with a scope with about a six-hundred-yard range.”

“Then the Russian was right,” Nicholas said. “He
was
set up.”

Pavlov’s head was lolling on his neck and sweat was streaking his face. His eyelids fluttered and blood began to leak from his nostrils. Nicholas tried to keep his grip on the Russian, but now not even Tau-tau was enough to keep him from slipping away.

“Dr. Pavlov, we need to get to Abramanov.” Nicholas gripped the Russian’s arm, digging his nails in. “He’s your enemy. Tell us how to get to him.”

There was a film across Pavlov’s eyes, the blue already glaucous. But the pupils were still focused on Nicholas.

“Pavlov, can you hear me?”

“Y-yes, I—” He began gasping for breath; blood was filling his mouth with pink bubbles. He was literally drowning.

“A name! We need a name!”

“Zao.”

“What’s he talking about?” Tachi said urgently. “That’s Japanese!”

Nicholas looked at him. “Remember what Van Kiet said about his passport? He came here via Bangkok... and Osaka.” He turned back to Pavlov. “Who is Zao?”

But the Russian’s eyes were fixed on a point far beyond Nicholas, far beyond the walls of this peeling hospital room.

Nicholas let go of Pavlov’s arm. “Christ, he’s gone.”

Rock rarely left Floating City these days; it was his sanctuary and he was its absolute monarch. When he did leave, it was for a good reason. He met Timothy Delacroix at one of the new Western-style restaurants that seemed to be popping up all over Saigon. Delacroix was one of a handful of the world’s successful middleman arms merchants dependent on Floating City for his matériel.

Delacroix was waiting for him. Rock had made certain of this by being forty minutes late. In fact, he had arrived early at the rendezvous point that he had insisted upon. Paranoid by nature, made even more so by the war and by his hard-won battle to found Floating City, he slowly and methodically reviewed every back alley, shadowed doorway, and open window overlooking the restaurant’s entrance, every parked car. Since he knew the restaurant’s owner, perhaps it was not necessary to vet every member of the staff, but he did it anyway. Rock was an exceedingly careful man. Before he went back into the street by the rear entrance, he handed a small package to the owner.

Though Delacroix was sitting at a table against a rear corner of the dimly lit restaurant, Rock picked him out immediately. Perhaps it was his eyes, which were so pale as to be virtually colorless. Delacroix had about him the air of an adventurer who had spent all his forty-odd years in the bush or the outback. His skin was like leather, lined and permanently reddened. His sandy hair was long and unruly. He licked his lips incessantly, as if he were always parched.

Rock could see Delacroix’s clever, colorless eyes scrutinizing every inch of him as he made his way around the clustered tables filled with diners in trendy Western clothes, and he was glad he had come in unarmed.

Delacroix was nursing a beer when Rock came up. They nodded to each other wordlessly. A female Vietnamese singer warbled a Jacques Brel tune, the French lyrics world-weary and death-conscious.

A whiskey was placed in front of Rock before he had a chance to order. Then the two men were left alone.

Rock took a sip of the liquor, then said, “How did that little piece of business I gave you work out?”

“Why ask me,” Delacroix said sullenly, “when you no doubt already know.”

“Oh, is that it?” Rock raised his eyebrows. “And you think I’m pissed that you didn’t blow Linnear to kingdom come?”

“That’s about the size of it from where I sit.”

Rock laughed. “I only wanted to put the fear of God into him.
This
god. The god of Floating City.”

“I think I did that, all right.” Delacroix seemed to relax somewhat.

“Good.” Rock appeared content to sip his whiskey. The singer was hitting her stride now, wailing over the percussion of the three-piece band. The sounds ricocheted off the walls like bullets. At last, he said, “You know, I was worried for a while. That sonuvabitch Vincent Tinh was running scam after scam while he was working for Sato International. He was buying weapons from me, posing as a middleman, then turning around, making a huge profit posing as a supplier to you and other arms merchants. And the fucker had the balls to claim he was an emissary of mine!” Rock grunted. “He claimed Floating City’s aegis once too often. I made an example of him, blew his brains all over that drug warehouse—but not before I dipped him in acid.” He chuckled. “Now there was a sight!”

Delacroix said nothing, but seemed to shrivel into the corner.

Rock, who was trained to pick up and analyze the slightest nuance, smirked. “What’s the matter, Tim, the real world too much for you? Christ, you’re part of it by your own choice, don’t be complaining now that your stomach’s weak. I won’t believe you anyway. You’ve been through too many microwars, seen too much blood spilled.” The smirk widened to a knowing, sardonic grin. “You know the contribution you’ve made to the way the world is today.”

Delacroix finished his beer. “I didn’t expect you to pay me yourself. The usual method would have sufficed.”

“But this is so much more pleasant.” Rock had to raise his voice in order to be heard over the music. “I rarely have the chance to get out these days. It’s good for me, you know? I sometimes have difficulty remembering what the world outside Floating City looks like. You’ve done me a favor.” He reached inside his jacket, pushed a white envelope across the table.

Delacroix picked it up, pocketed it without opening it.

“It’s good that you trust me, Tim. I like that in my independent contractors. It gives me confidence in the long-range nature of the relationship.” Rock turned and a waiter was at his side. He ordered dinner for both of them.

“I need some advice,” Rock said confidentially. “Recently, my partner’s becoming something of a pain in the ass. I think he’s getting ideas of a nature I can only describe as grandiose.”

“Grandiose?”

“Yeah, grandiose. What do you think I am, a fucking moron, sitting here with more money than you could ever imagine?”

“No, Rock, I was just... startled that there was any friction.”

Rock chuckled unpleasantly. “Yeah, well, shit, you know what marriages are like. Sooner or later you get stir-crazy and you gotta cheat.”

They each had another drink, and Delacroix offered some advice to which Rock barely listened. By that time the singer was into covering rockier up-to-date Mylene Farmer songs, and the food had come. “I hope you like the fare,” Rock said, spreading his hands. “It’s not as fancy as some of the places you eat at in Paris, but for this part of the world it’s first-rate.”

Halfway through the meal, Rock put his cutlery down and excused himself. He went back past the rest rooms into the kitchen where his friend, the owner, was staring into a pot of gazpacho.

“Too much heat for the people who come in here,” he said morosely. “Now what am I supposed to do?”

“Shoot the chef,” Rock said.

They both had a good laugh. Then, Rock held out his hand and the owner slipped a .25-caliber Colt pistol into it, along with a small ceramic cylinder. Rock screwed the Vitek-112 induction-coil silencer onto the end of the Colt’s barrel.

“What’s that going to sound like?” the owner said, nodding at the weapon.

“Just like a cork being pulled from a bottle.”

The owner nodded.

“Thanks for holding on to this stuff. I owe you.”

“What are friends for?”

Rock went back to his table. Keeping his hands beneath the table, he leaned forward. The singer was just hitting full stride; a couple of slender Vietnamese with electric guitars had joined her, raising the noise level considerably.

“Tim, I want to ask you a question.”

Delacroix leaned toward Rock, who pointed the pistol and fired three quick shots just as the music hit a protracted climax. There was thunderous applause. Tonight, as always, there would be an encore, Rock thought as he rose and went out the back of the restaurant, throwing the pistol in the trash. It seemed a shame that Delacroix wouldn’t get to enjoy it. Just as well. The moment he had hired on to lob the explosive at Nicholas Linnear, he had become a liability, a way to trace the attack back to Rock.