Freedom Incorporated (57 page)

Damn
Jackie.
She wondered whether Jackie would
check the logs. She’d need an exceedingly good reason to leave the
office during a company emergency, especially since Jackie had
charged her with the responsibility of handling the situation. And
Michele wasn’t good at fabricating excuses so she had little choice
but to stay put. She knew she’d get away with it if she were to
seduce Jackie again, but the memory of the last time still left a
bad taste in her mouth. It was somehow worse than the horde of men
she’d been with, Jackie’s crotch tasted like swamp.

She shook her perfume
bottle and watched the froth at the top split the light into its
spectrum. It entertained her for close to quarter of an hour before
a voice rudely interrupted her.

“
Funny I
should find you here.”

She leaned forward and
twisted to the door, surprise registering on her face when she
stared into the barrel of a pistol. Dan had closed the door and
taken five paces into her office without her noticing. She wondered
how, and in her fatigued state, that was about all she could ask.
“How’d you get in here?”

“
If I were
you, I’d be more concerned about how you’re going to get
out
of here,” Dan replied
dryly. “We’re going to play a game.”

“
Of what?”
Michele asked, her big eyes betraying her stupidity.

“
Twenty
questions.” Dan pulled up a chair and straddled it, keeping his aim
in the middle of Michele’s forehead. “But before we start, I want
you to put the perfume down and place your hands on the table where
I can see them.” He waited for her to comply. “Good, now, number
one, where is Esteban?”

“
I don’t
know,” she said as a reflex.

“
Wrong
answer,” Dan snapped. “That’s one strike, and you only get three.
Do you understand me?”

She nodded.

“
So where is
Esteban?”

“
I really
don’t know. All I know is that he left looking for you, and that
was… like… hours ago.” Michele looked flustered, though not for any
of the reasons Dan might have guessed.

“
Hours? How
many hours?” Dan pressed, trying to decide whether she was telling
the truth.

“
Maybe, uh,
three o’clock yesterday afternoon?”

Dan did the
maths in his head.
That’d be about
right.

“
I haven’t
seen him since, honest.”

“
And you have
no idea where he went?”

She shook her head. “No,
none.”

“
Question two:
the Raven. Why’s he always turning up at my targets?” It was a test
question. He already knew the answer; he wanted to check whether
she was telling him the truth.

She paused and lowering
her eyes to her hands, a sign that warned Dan she might be about to
lie. “We found a clerical error in the system. I’d like to be the
first to apologise sincerely for the mistake. We’ve been selling
exclusive lists to both of you.”

Smooth, very
smooth… but still a lie.
He consoled himself
with the fact that he now knew what to look for. If she lowered her
eyes, he’d have to push harder for the truth. “I don’t believe
you.”

“
But it’s the
truth!” she said indignantly.

“
Clerical
error? Come on Roche, I’m not stupid. How much have you made so
far?”

She looked dejected but
still harboured the slim hope that she’d get away with it. “A few
million. Half is Esteban’s.”

Ah, that
makes more sense.
Dan turned the thought
over in his mind, examining it from every angle.
So he’s been doing his utmost to fuck with my
life for a while. Vindictive bastard.
“All
right, what do you know about Esteban’s murders?”

“
You mean
assassinations, there’s a difference.” Michele wanted to show how
clever she was with the finer points of language, but came across
as an airhead instead. The tone of her voice was so irritating it
set Dan on edge and her pompous expectation that he should treat
her as an intellectual boiled his blood.

“
No.” Dan was
firm. “I mean murders. You’re right about there being a difference,
but you’re wrong to call them assassinations.”

“
Well, in any
case, I don’t know anything.”

Dan’s patience was
stretching thin and he felt the pressure of a ticking clock. He
reached inside his coat and drew the Ka-Bar from its sheath. With
one fluid arc, he swept an arm through the air and buried the blade
an inch into Michele’s hardwood table. The ferocity of the sudden
action made Michele recoil. Dan’s white-knuckled fist still gripped
the handle and she could see the light dancing along the
razor-sharp blade. One side was serrated, designed to cause maximum
damage when plunged into someone’s torso.

His voice was level and
an even icier chill had settled in his eyes. They’d lost their
greenish hue and taken a shade of grey. He flexed his forearm and
eased the knife free. “Put your hands back on the
table.”

She refused.

“
If you don’t
want me to gut you like a pig, you’ll put your hands on the damn
table before I reach zero: five… four…”

Her hands were back on
the table.

“
Now, if I
shoot you I won’t get much useful information.” A wicked smile
twisted his lips. It was mostly bluff, but a malignant shadow in
his mind urged him to carry out his threats if she didn’t
cooperate. “So if I think you’re lying again I’m going to de-glove
one of your fingers. Do you understand me? I’ll cut the flesh off
so you can see the bone. It’s therefore in your best interest to
convince me you’re telling the truth.” He watched the fear swelling
in her face.
Okay she’s taken the
bait.
“Now, once again, we’re going to talk
about Esteban’s
murders
. Where does he take his abductees?”

Michele shook her head
and said, “If I knew I’d tell you.”

“
Would
you?”

“
Yes.” She
vigorously nodded. “I like my fingers.”

He paused briefly to
examine her expression before continuing with the questions. “Did
you know my wife was murdered?”

She replied reluctantly.
“Yes.”

“
Did you know
by whom?”

Michele
nodded.

“
Why didn’t
you tell me?”

She thought about that
question for a while. “I’m not allowed to divulge company
information. All our clients demand strict discretion.” She
shrugged. “Besides, who are you? What did it matter to me if you
knew or not? There’re plenty of victims in this business, if I went
around telling their families what really happened we’d be snowed
under with lawsuits in a week.”

Fucking
callous don’t you think?
Dan hated her with
as much passion as he’d loved his wife, which he thought was
dangerous. Holding a knife to an object of hatred was a recipe for
disaster. “Did you know about the operation against my wife?” The
answer to this question would determine whether he considered her
life forfeit.

She shook her head. “No,
not until afterward.”

“
Why should I
believe you?”

“
I only found
out when you came for your interview and I read your file. Why
would Esteban tell me about every assassination that-”

“
Murder.”

“
Whatever. Why
should he tell me about them? It’s none of my business, I’m the
bounty co-ordinator, I have nothing to do with
assassinations.”

“
Look, I’m
only going to say this once more. If you use the word
‘assassination’ again during this conversation, you’ll lose a
finger. I’m only giving you
another
warning because you’re so obviously stupid. What
happened to my wife was
not
assassination – it was rape and
murder. Esteban and two of his cronies tortured her for hours
before finally ending it.” His lower lip quivered and he barred the
emotion before it could swell to the surface.
Now’s not the time.
But Michele hadn’t
noticed; she was too busy watching the knife dance in front of her
eyes.

“
Now…” Dan had
decided to believe her, so she’d live another day if she
co-operated. “Why was she a target?”

Michele shrugged as
innocently as she could. “I assumed it was to get back at you for
ruining his life. He always says how much he loved being an
assassin and you were the one that took that from him. He’s still
pissed.”

It wasn’t the
truth, but Michele believed it so Dan couldn’t fault her for
lying.
I was so naïve and stupid.
If he could undo one thing in his life, it would
be his pursuit of Esteban. No good had come of it.
Why didn’t I listen? Katherine, Slime and my
Superintendent all warned me to drop the case. Why am I so
stubborn? Now Jen’s paying for it too.
“Tell
me everything you know about Jen’s apprehension.”

Michele didn’t hesitate;
she was already committed to spewing her guts. “Jackie ordered all
of you dead when we found out you’d used the Raven to kill Mr
Savage.”

So that was
my fault too.
“He’s dead then?”

She nodded. “Why did you
do that anyway?”

“
It was an
accident,” he said, willing himself to believe it. “The Raven
wasn’t supposed to actually do it.”

“
Well he did.”
Michele looked at him dispassionately. “And Jackie wants him dead
too.”

“
Who’s
Jackie?” Dan frowned at the name; she’d mentioned it twice.
She must be important.

“
Our
CEO.”

“
There’s
already a new one?” Dan had the mental image of a hydra – cut off
one head and the beast grows two more.

But Michele shook her
head, her hair spilling in front of her eyes. She briefly removed a
hand from the table to brush it away. “No, Mr Savage was only the
public CEO, Jackie’s the one that really runs things.”

Clever.
He was starting to piece
together what was happening and it didn’t bode well for Jen’s
safety.
Esteban will have his
revenge.
He grimaced at the logical
conclusion.
And it will only stop when
he’s dead.
“Tell me everything you know
about Esteban’s friends.”

Michele shrugged. “I
don’t know very much. Sometimes he talks about them after we’ve…
uh…” She had the grace to flush bright red. “You know… made love.”
She squirmed in her seat, even more uncomfortable when she saw Dan
staring at her unemotionally. She wondered whether he’d kill her
anyway. It was a sobering thought. “Anyway, I know they went to
college together, but I don’t know which one.” She looked at the
ceiling, pouting with the effort of remembering the snippets of
information she hadn’t considered importance at the time. “He has
lots of friends, but he only talks about two of them as if they’re
close. They do favours for each other and hang out after work.
Sometimes he phones them when he’s going to be late for poker. I
think one works for Global Integrated Systems and the other one for
PortaNet.” Her pout deepened while she dredged her memory for
anything to add, preferably something useful to appease the man
holding the knife. She knew he was capable of killing her; she’d
read his file, all of it. And he terrified her. “One has a name
like Henry, but different, Andrew maybe? The other he just calls
Junior.”

Dan etched
every detail in his mind for later analysis. But a vibration at his
hip was an unwelcome distraction and he held up a finger,
indicating Michele should pause while he attended to his pager. He
had an unlisted number and he’d only distributed it to a few key
people, so he couldn’t imagine it was spam.
Simon?
He wondered what was so
important. He pressed the acknowledge button and it stopped
vibrating. “Go on.”

“
I was
finished,” Michele replied. “That’s all I know.”

“
Okay… you
don’t know where Esteban is, but do you know how to contact
him?”

She thought about that
for a moment. “His mobile number?”

“
Perfect.”

She scratched a few
numbers onto a scrap of paper and slid it across the desk, her
fingers brushing the slit Dan’s knife had gouged in the surface.
“It’s a free-talk phone.” Which meant Echelon would not sift
through Esteban’s conversations.

“
I figured as
much,” Dan said bitterly. He remembered their conversation in
Australia – nobody in their right mind would say such things for
Echelon to hear. “If you’re dicking with me and this isn’t his
phone, I’ll hunt you down and peel you like an orange.”

She paled. “That’s it, I
swear.”

Dan stuffed the paper
into his coat. “Now, where’s his office?”

“
Upstairs.”

“
Let’s go.”
Dan stood, indicating with his knife that she should follow. “If
you make any sudden moves I’ll skewer you, understood?”