Audacious (23 page)

“The number you have dialed is no longer in service” came from several speakers in the room.

“Oh dear, I must have misdialed.”

“No he didn’t,” Nelly said from around Kris’s neck. The professor eyed Kris as if she was infested with a demon.

“Do you have another number for security?”

“No,” the professor said.

“Any way to get in touch with them?” Kris demanded.

“No ma’am, er, Your Highness. Security guilds contact you.”

“They don’t advertise?” Jack said.

“Oh no, no, no, my boy. If you need security, and security wants your business, they contact you.”

“And you came by that number how?” Kris asked.

“Oh, years ago. Someone approached me and offered me his card. You don’t buy security the same way you buy soap,” he said indignantly.

“We do on Wardhaven,” Kris said.

“Well, that’s the Rim. This is Eden,” he sniffed.

Kris did not like dead ends. But even she could see one when it slapped her in the face with a several-day-old fish.

The return trip down the stairs was at a slower pace. Jack stayed behind just long enough to advise the professor that he should not kill his squawker. The princess might want further words with him tonight. The professor huffed something about that being illegal. He never did anything like that.

Kris was back on the wide walkway in front of the administrative building before she turned to her team. “Anybody got any ideas, pipe up.”

Only the background rumble of college life answered her.

No, Abby was huddled together with the two youths. For several seconds they continued at a low hum. Then Abby looked up, a frown on her face. “We may have something here.”

Kris, Jack, and DeVar came close. The trigger pullers formed an outer circle looking out. The chief and his techs did things with their black boxes and the air lit up as several nearby bugs met their doom.

“Area’s secure,” Chief Beni announced.

“What do you know that we don’t?” Kris asked.

“I can back-trace phone numbers to addresses,” the boy said.

“On most planets, that’s quite easy,” Kris said. “Here, it seems to range from impossible to illegal.”

“Ah, yes, ma’am, I know. But you see, ma’am, I know some folks that do illegal things. For a fee, you know,” the boy said with an uncomfortable shrug.

“And how long can we get away with this illegal thing if we pay?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know. Mick and Trang, they pay their money and they get what they pay for, and nobody comes looking for them. Princess Kris here pays money, she’ll get what she paid for— I think— but some alarm is bound to go off. Someone’s likely to start something. Don’t know what it will be, but…”

Smart kid, Kris nodded in agreement. What might work for the locals was bound to get folks excited if a Longknife started poking around in it.

“Abby, you have a few credit chits that don’t have Longknife on them.”

“I have a few that might take the best of them a week or more to trace back to you. Shall I give one to Bronc?”

“Not here. Not now. I don’t want to make it any easier for them that aren’t making it easy for us. Let’s get moving.”

31

Five
minutes later, Kris was moving in a random pattern away from the university but not toward the embassy. Crammed into what had once seemed a huge rig were most of her usual crew, plus the two kids, Chief Beni, and several Marine techs.

Two Marine transports full of armed Marines followed them.

“Abby, give the kid, Bronc, right, a safe chit.”

A moment later, the kid had found a site on the net that offered the goods they wanted.

“That’s strange,” Nelly said. “I just ran those keywords using the best search engines Eden offers and I got no hits.”

“You wouldn’t,” the girl answered. “On Eden if you have to search for it, you won’t find it. That’s what I hear from Bronc all the time.”

The kid just said, “How good a system do you want to buy?”

“How good?” Kris asked.

“Micky, Trang, they just buy the basic, and you get only so much for that. They know that some folks pay to stay out of the basic list. You pay more, you get a bigger list, and you get more privacy about what you bought.”

“They sell the list of who’s bought the list?” Jack asked.

The kid gave Jack a funny look. “Well, of course.”

“When in Rome, wash your dirty linens at a Roman bath,” Kris said. “Okay, what’s the basic list cost? How many higher levels are there, and what do they cost?”

“There’s five,” Bronc said. He named a price for the first level that made even Kris cringe. The price doubled for the second level, then redoubled. The last level was high even for a major shareholder of Nuu Enterprises.

“If you buy that level,” Abby said, “I suspect the folks who buy the sixth level will know about it in five minutes or less.”

“Right, you’re from here,” Kris said. “Bronc, hit them for the fourth level.”

The boy did, though it was clear that he had trouble typing in that many zeros after the five. The girl beside him whistled.

“Even momma don’t spend money like that.”

“Momma don’t have as much trouble staying alive as this woman,” Abby said.

The girl’s eyes were wide as she watched Kris.

“I have an address to match the phone number,” Bronc said, a moment later. “At least it was active yesterday.”

“Somebody’s running,” Captain DeVar muttered. “Let’s see if they run into us on the way out.” He passed along the address to his drivers.

The rig accelerated fast enough to force Kris back into her seat.

Five minutes later, it was easy spotting the building they were interested in. It had a moving van out front.

Captain DeVar issued crisp orders. “Block in the van. I want to talk to its crew.”

That turned out to be easy. A burley fellow was screaming the moment they screeched to a halt in front of his van.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

With hardly a groan for her pain, Kris was first out of the rig. “Just need to ask you some questions,” she said.

“You and what army, pretty lady” was answered quickly as the Marines formed a circle around him.

The guy suddenly looked very chastened. “What do you want to know?” His tone was much more cooperative.

“Who are you moving?” Kris asked.

“Not moving anyone. Just taking back the rented furniture somebody just canceled his lease on. Guy in Suite 401.”

Which just happened to be where Kris was headed next.

“Van’s empty,” a Marine reported.

“Let’s see what 401 has to offer,” Kris said.

Without an order, a Marine took the driver aside. The civilian didn’t seem too happy, but a “What do you think of the Dodgers this year?” got him talking and they left him happy.

In the tiled foyer, there was a creaky elevator and stairs. While sergeants led Marines up the stairs, Kris waited with Jack and the rest.

“So you’re learning caution,” her security nanny said.

“I am not climbing those stairs. Not the way I feel.”

“Thank you,” was all Jack said.

“We’re holding just below deck four,” came from Captain DeVar’s commlink.

An elderly couple hobbled out of the elevator, eyed Kris and company, and quickly shuffled away. Inside, the elevator had room for just six. Chief Beni did his usual safety check, then happily held his techs for the next trip. Abby stayed with the kids though this was one time Kris would gladly have had the maid at her elbow.

Kris punched the elevator for the fourth floor. Noisily, it obeyed. The ride was interrupted at two. The young office worker took one look at them and backed away. “I’ll wait.”

On four, they stepped out into a hallway, the Marines from the stairs at their elbows. Captain DeVar silently signaled his team and they advanced before them to Suite 401.

Guns out, they slammed open the door and rushed the room.

To find themselves facing three very startled men in shirts identifying them as workers for George’s Careful Movers. Facing guns, their hands just naturally reached for the ceiling.

“What the…” came from the one that seemed to lead.

“I am Princess Kristine of Wardhaven,” Kris said, to cut him off. “The former occupants of this office may have been involved in murder and kidnapping. Please stand aside while our Marines search for evidence.”

“If this fellow wasn’t on the up-and-up, where are the cops?” the boss demanded.

“No doubt, they will be along shortly. Now, if you don’t mind, Chief Beni, this is your crime scene.”

He and the Marine techs began to search the room.

“Hey, Princess Whoever, me and my guys is paid by the hour. How much money is this going to cost us?”

“Who asked you to remove this furniture?” Jack asked.

“The guy that leased it. Quan Tre’s Best Office Rentals.”

“You have a phone number for this Quan Tre?”

“I don’t. Maybe the office.”

“Let’s you and me go out into the hall and call him,” Jack offered. The milk of human kindness flowing over the carpet.

The boss and his two men left.

“Chief, is this place bug infested?” Kris asked.

“I don’t know, Lieutenant. You kind of emphasized doing a crime walk-through.”

“Tell me about the bug situation first. I want to know what you find here. No need to let anyone listening know.”

“Yes, ma’am, Your Highness, boss lady.”

The Marines snickered, but the air began to sparkle as bugs died. Abby did her bit.

The boy at her elbow just shook his head. “I thought the place was clean.”

“It’s high-end stuff, Bronc,” Abby said. “We’re playing in the big leagues. Before you got hauled off, I suggested the chief add some stuff to your computer. Now it’s past time.”

“It is
so
time, Auntie Abby,” the girl said, holding on tight to the boy’s arm.

Fifteen minutes later, the room had given up absolutely nothing. “Not a thing, ma’am,” Chief Beni said.

“So go hit the trash cans out back,” Kris snapped.

“Had a Marine doing that, ma’am. Found three fresh trash bags. Media was wiped and fried. Flimsies were degaussed, blacked, and degaussed again. Not so much as a static charge left on them. Ma’am, whoever this fellow was, he bought the best security and he used it.”

“Blast it,” Kris snapped. “The bad guys are supposed to be dumb. Make mistakes. Haven’t these fellows read the rules?”

“Suspect not, Kris,” Jack said, now back from his talk with the movers. “Maybe they don’t think of themselves as the bad guys, so they don’t feel any need to be dumb.”

“You find anything?”

“The movers got their orders about an hour ago. They’d just got here. Quan got a quick call canceling the lease on this gear about two hours ago.”

“Who was that call from?”

“John Smith, Associates. I already checked. There’s about a million John Smith, Associates in the phone directory. This guy’s phone number wasn’t one of them.”

“And Johnny paid for this how?”

“From a limited bank account, now closed. I guess we could chase that end of it, but I doubt we’d get far on Eden.”

“Chase what?” came from Inspector Johnson.

Penny followed him into the room. “He called and asked where you were. Then offered me a ride,” she said.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing, Rim Princess?”

“Looking for things,” Kris said vaguely.

“That’s my job on Eden, you know,” he shot back.

“
I
hadn’t noticed,” Kris said, putting a solid bite into it.

“I am
doing
my job. Or at least I was before I was inundated with complaints about you. We’ve got a formal complaint from this moving company, and several complaints from private security firms about your burning their alarm systems.”

Somebody was moving fast.

“As I said, I’m looking for things.”

“And finding a lot of dead ends. And making me come out here to tell you to get your nose back to the embassy so real cops can do what we do best. Find criminals and free hostages.”

There were several million comebacks at the tip of Kris’s tongue… all explosive. She swallowed them all and chose honey… for the moment.

“I’m sorry we’ve caused these men trouble. Why don’t my Marines help them.”

The inspector frowned at Kris, but the moving boss was already issuing orders. A nod from Captain DeVar sent Marines to collect up the chairs. And with only slightly puzzled looks they headed for the elevator. Some helped the two workers push the desk toward the freight elevator. Others helped the boss get the credenza up on a dolly.

Inspector Johnson turned toward the door, encouraged on his way by Penny’s promise of keeping Kris on a tighter leash.

And Cara stooped to pick up a piece of trash revealed when the credenza was moved. She palmed it, but winked at Kris.

Kris winked back. No dumb bunnies in Abby’s family.

And that may be what I was looking for
. Kris had so wanted to throw a royal-size hissy fit. But she’d seen the treasures often found when furniture was moved around Nuu House. She’d once found a draft of one of Grampa Ray’s first speeches.

No, Kris was not leaving here until this room was down to the bare walls.

Well, maybe Kris was, now that she knew she could trust Cara… and her boy, Bronc, was prowling the place as well.

So Kris hurried to catch up with the inspector and made nice noises about being good. And doing anything that she could to help the inspector find Gramma Ruth.

Which he quickly declined.

His big mistake.

32

Kris
held her tongue— and acted like a good little princess— all the way back to the embassy.

The Marine transports had picked up all sorts of bugs while parked in front of the office building. Kris refrained from burning them lest the inspector have to peel more of his time away from the hunt for Gramma Ruth to chide her for destroying private property.

“Burn those bugs,” was her first order the moment they crossed onto the Embassy driveway.

“Ooo-Rah” answered that order.

“The ambassador wants to see you” greeted Kris the moment the rig’s door was opened.