The Ramal Extraction (28 page)

“How are you feeling, Sid?” Wink asked.

“I feel fucking great!”

“Good, good. My friend Jo here wants to ask you some questions, how would that be?”

“That would be fucking great! She is fucking gorgeous. I’d like to see her naked!”

Wink smiled. “All yours.”

Jo shook her head. “Let’s talk about the Rajah’s daughter, Indira.”

“Sure!”

“Do you know where she is?”

“Nope.”

“Do you know who kidnapped her?”

“Un-uh.”

“Do you know how a file that speaks to this got into your accounting records?”

“Yeah, sure!”

“And how did that happen?”

“I put it there.”

“Why?”

“Because Larro told me I should.”

“And who is Larro?”

“Larro is my best old friend from forever! We go waaaaaaay back.”

“And does Larro have another name?”

“Yes!”

Jo glanced up at Wink, who shrugged. “The chem tends to make them literal.”

“What is Larro’s other name?”

“Vattack. Would you take your clothes off so I can see you naked?”

“Not right now. Where might we find Larro?”

“Can’t find him.” He shook his head. His demeanor changed from giddy to sad.

“Why not?”

“He’s dead. And cremated.”

Jo and Wink exchanged glances.

“How did he die?”

“Hopper accident. It crashed. Poor Larro.” He started to cry.

Wink said, “Don’t cry, Sid. Think of seeing Jo here naked.”

Sid stopped crying. He smiled.

Wink’s earbud popped: “Got it,” came Gramps voice. “Larro Vattack, age fifty-one, killed in a one-hopper crash three days ago off the southern shore of Lake Dep.

“Police reports indicate that the main repeller blew, and the safety couldn’t keep the craft from landing in the water. Emergency floats deployed, but the hopper leaked, filled with water, and Vattack drowned before help could get there. Attempts to revive him were unsuccessful. I’m digging into his background now.”

Wink shook his head. Vattack was dead and it looked as if that would kill their lead, too. Fuck!

Jo said, “Did Larro tell you why he wanted you to put that file about Indira into your accounting record?”

“Yes!”

“What did he say was the reason?”

“He said that it would be good for business.”

“Did he say how?”

“Yes!”

“And what did he say about that?”

“That there were people who would be more disposed to loosen regulations up if the Rajah was gone.”

Jo frowned.

“And how was this supposed to help the Rajah to, ah, go?”

“Larro didn’t say.” He paused, his face going sad again. “Larro’s dead now.”

“Don’t cry,” Wink said. “Jo is thinking about taking her clothes off.”

Sid went back to his happy face.

“Jo is also thinking about slapping that shit-eating grin right off Dr. Wink’s face,” she said.

“That would be fun to watch!” Sid allowed. “Especially if she is naked!”

Wink chuckled.

“How is Indira’s kidnapping connected to the Rajah’s leaving?”

“I don’t know.”

Jo asked several more questions, circling around the subject, but it was apparent that Sid didn’t have anything else of substance to offer. He’d done a favor for a friend that he thought would benefit them both.

Wink shook his head. Well. So much for this road. Zeth the Rel was dead. His brother Booterik was dead. The guy who had augmented Booterik was dead. The guy Sid could give them, Larro, was also dead.

It seemed an awfully convenient set of coincidences.

“So, what do we do with Sid in there?” Gunny said. “We gonna turn him over to the Rajah’s security?”

“He’s guilty of something,” Cutter said, “but I’d rather keep him to ourselves for now. No point in risking any more intel leaks than we already have out there.”

Gramps said, “So we are now looking at a conspiracy to kill the Rajah as part of the kidnapping?”

Cutter shrugged. “Maybe. We seem to be looking at something pretty convoluted, being run by somebody who isn’t taking any chances it will come to public light, and who is rich and ruthless enough to eliminate anybody who might try to do that.”

Gramps said, “Incoming call from XTJC for the colonel.”

Cutter smiled. “Put it on speaker, no visual.

“Cutter here.”

“Hatachi here.”

“Good evening, Colonel Hatachi.”

“You think so? I’m looking at a report regarding a major disturbance at the TotalMart upcountry in Dep-by-the-Sea. Something about a missing manager and an EMP bath that scrambled the entire store’s comnet.”

“I think I heard something about that.”

“Imagine my surprise.”

“Why would this concern J-Corps? Wouldn’t it be a local police matter?”

“Unless it was an attempt to screw with interplanetary commerce, which would put it into my jurisdiction. Big store goes down, it can cause a ripple effect.”

“That’s true.”

“Somebody footprinted the store with a warbird’s tuned EMP and bollixed the com and cam circuits. By the time security got it all sorted out, the store’s manager was gone and a cart driver and a couple of bodyguards woke up with trank-dart hangovers. Somebody with pretty good strategy and tactical skills shut the sucker down and waltzed the manager out.”

“Interesting,” Cutter said.

“Just before they went down, the store and parking-lot cams got good images of some particular customers coming and going, and they sure did look like military.”

“In uniform? You have IDs on them?”

“No, of course not. Facial recogware doesn’t match them to anybody we know, and I’d guess skinmasks made that so. Which is good; otherwise, I might have to make some arrests.”

Cutter waited.

“Look, we both know you did it. We also know it had the Rajah’s blessing, or you wouldn’t have gotten access to that satellite. And TotalMart doesn’t want to piss off the Rajah, so while local security is screaming, TM Corporate is not making waves. Nobody will back me up on this, but I don’t
like it, Cutter, not a deminoodle’s worth. You are perilously close to stepping over the line, and if you do, I am going to hammer you into the ground like a piton.”

“Always good to know that the XTJC is on the job,” Cutter said. “Maybe once our contract here is over, you and I can get together and have a drink. I have a bottle of Hiram Connery’s White Label that’s about ready to open.”

There was a pause, then a chuckle. “White Label? You can afford that? If you aren’t in the stockade when you get done, I’d be pleased to raise a glass with you.”

Cutter smiled.

After the disconnect, Gramps said, “Scotch? You’re a bourbon man.”

“Yep. But Hatachi drinks scotch, and a bottle of White Label would cost him three months’ pay,” he said. “Probably be a good idea to buy some—TotalMart will have it in the locked liquor room. Be sure to get our discount.”

“‘Know your enemy,’” Jo said. “
The Art of War
.”

Cutter nodded. “Yep.”

Outside, with a rainstorm threatening to cool off the still-hot twilight, Jo approached Kay. “How was it with Gee?”

Kay knew she was asking about the fight. “He was armed, fast, and strong, but relatively unskilled. The end was never in doubt.”

Jo nodded.

Kay knew what she really wanted to know. “You would have defeated him.”

“You think?”

“It might have taken you a little longer than it took me.”

Both fems grinned at that.

In the com room, Gramps tuned the screen so Gunny could see it. He said, “I have chapter and verse on one Vattack, Larro
Herome, and none of it tells us why he would have planted false information about the kidnapping. He was a businessman, he owned a string of warehouses up and down the coast in three countries, from Westwood, in Pahal, to Long Port in Depal, most of ’em in Dep or the capital, and used mostly for agricultural storage. Guy was worth eight or nine million.”

“Another rich guy who ought not be involved with kidnapping for money,” Gunny said. “Anything else in common?”

“Nothing that seems to matter,” Gramps said. He sniffed. “Is that perfume you are wearing?”

“No. Body wash. Quartermaster said they were out of unscented.”

“Uh-huh. Wouldn’t have anything to do with that hot young bouncer you’ve been working, hey?”

“No more than your new haircut has to do with the businesswoman you’ve been talking to.”

“My, my. Spying on me?”

“You got room to talk.”

Gramps smiled.

Formentara leaned back from the subspace com and pondered what zhe had learned. Gee had gone to TAU. He had been a rising star on the biggest Venusian wheelworld, Vesta, he’d had fast hands and new ideas, according to hir sources, and was making good money in the Solar System as a backup augmentor. He’d space in, do something tricky, and move on. If you were good and willing to travel, you could always find work.

He was too fond of sampling his own product, and that was going to kill him eventually, but on a scale of one to ten, with most of the augmentors here being a one and Formentara hirself being a ten, Gee would have rated a four, maybe a five. He could have make a good living staying in-system and ghost-programming for others.

So the money to come halfway across the known galaxy to fiddle with Rel must have been pretty attractive.

Zhe put in a call to a professor zhe knew at TAU on Earth, and waited for the SSC to make the FTL links.

SSC was an expensive way to do research. The units cost a small fortune, they didn’t always make the connections right, and they dropped coms frequently. Charges for bandwidth were spendy, even if piggybacked on a larger carrier. Cutter didn’t like them to use the things much; even with scrambled and encrypted stuff, the pipes were easy to break into, and while you surely didn’t want anybody knowing
what
you were talking about, sometimes you didn’t want them to know you were talking at
all
.

Zhe needed, however, to find out about this kid.

And somebody on the team needed to find out something that gave them more to go on PDQ. The longer a kidnapping ran, the more likely it was the victim wouldn’t come back alive.

Zhe waited for the SSC.
Come on, you piece of GU shit, connect the call!