Superego (12 page)

“I've rarely gone wrong overestimating criminal stupidity.” I have almost died underestimating other people, but not the average idiot who ends up as a criminal. “That was their call for prayers we just heard, right? So they're in there.”

“That they are.”

“Let's go say hi.”

She held out a hand to stop me. “Give them a moment; let them finish their prayers.”

Being respectful of religion was the least of my concerns, but I didn't argue. After a minute more of waiting, Diane led the way. “I'll do the talking.”

“Good, you have a nicer voice.”

We barged through the doors and were soon in front of about sixty men (looked about all human) bowing in our direction. “Who here knows something about the bombing yesterday?”

Everyone glared. This area was apparently just for men, which I could only assume made the detective's intrusion all the more irritating. I scanned the crowd. There seemed to be more than a few people capable of murdering the detective, but I didn't think they were the ones we wanted. I hadn't really considered what I'd do if people did start attacking her. I assumed I should make some effort to save her, but I'd have to play that by ear.

An older, bearded man who I assumed was the leader strode toward Diane. “We're in the middle of prayers! And you're not even supposed to be near here! I will make sure you are fired for this!”

“I'm truly sorry for the interruption, Nakhai, but I didn't have time to wait.” Her tone was neither contrite nor mocking. “You probably heard about the terrorist attack, and we have reason to believe there are others planning more. I also have reason to believe they might be at Talbrook.”

“We have nothing to do with the Calabrai! That is not our religion!” Nakhai was a decent liar, but I'd certainly seen better. I could tell he had something to do with this; but he was also probably too smart for my purposes. I needed one of the dimwitted foot soldiers. So I kept watching the men behind him, looking for someone not just murderously angry but visibly nervous. Nakhai looked my way. “And who is this?”

“A tourist.” I kept looking around. I very much didn't want this to be a waste of time.

Nakhai looked back at Diane. “No one here has anything to do with the Calabrai, so leave this place now.”

Diane pressed right up into his face. “But you're a lot like them. You like to hide. You make threats, but you're unwilling to fight in the open. It really makes me wonder what sort of people would follow a coward like you.”

That made some of the men so angry they looked like they might attack, but I saw one who actually seemed to be restraining himself, as the words hit him more personally. He had something to hide. He was involved. He was mine.

Some men finally did start to move toward the detective, but I moved quicker, pushing through the crowd to grab my target, a young man a little smaller than me. “Hey, Skippy, we need to talk.”

“What, I—”

I pulled him toward the door. “Detective, I'm going to have a real quick chat with this guy outside. You stay and chat with your friends.”

Diane looked a bit perturbed by my initiative, but she quickly hid it. “Okay, have fun.”

I dragged Skippy outside, slamming him into the door on the way out to daze him a little. I figured I'd only have about a second before someone decided to come check on us, so I acted quickly. Now, I know many ways to get people to give me the information I need, but most of them would probably put the detective off me for good. So I tried to come up with an approach that would conform to normal societal rules.

I was unable to think of one.

Skippy was soon running back inside the building, yelling and spitting. “He forced me to swallow pig's blood.”

He quickly disappeared into the group of men, I assumed toward an alternate exit. Diane was not able to hide her surprise and started to go after him, but I gently grabbed her arm. “That guy is crazy. I did not force him to drink pig's blood.”

“What's that in your hand?!” Nakhai demanded.

I assumed he was talking about the vial. “I don't really know.” I tossed it aside. “I think we've taken enough of your time. We'll be going now.”

Nakhai was apoplectic. “This is the worst police abuse I've ever seen!”

“I'm not a police officer. I'm just a tourist,” I said.

Everyone had forgotten Diane for the moment, which gave her time to get over her bewilderment. “I'm very sorry for this disturbance. We'll be leaving now.”

“GET OUT!” Nakhai shrieked.

We quickly made our way out, and I led the detective to an alleyway out of view of the center's front door, in case anyone decided to come outside to glare at us. Or kill us.

Diane already had a handle on the angry glare, though. “What the hell?”

“That guy—he's who we're looking for.”

“So you made him drink pig's blood?” She wasn't smiling—I thought that was at least a little funny. Instead, it looked like I was close to seeing her dark side.

“Where would I get pig's blood? It was just some liquid dyed red.”

“Which you happened to have on you so you could threaten someone with it?”

I wasn't sure what the accusation was. “I knew a little about the Calabrai and the relation of its human adherents with Islam, and how they find pigs unclean, so…I planned ahead. Anyway, we're getting off topic. I have tags on my bags so I can track them if they get lost. They work on people, too. Figured we'd spook the guy and see where he goes.”

“You made him swallow a tracker?”

“I don't know if the tracker would work if swallowed. I put it on his clothes.”

“So making him drink the liquid…”

“…was so he wouldn't notice me putting the tracker on his clothes.”

She stared at me, still angry—but a little less so. “A heads-up would have been nice.”

“I figured this was the quickest way to go about it, and I was afraid you'd say no.”

“Of course I would've said no! I'm going to be fired in an extremely spectacular fashion when this is over! And with good cause!”

“He's going to lead us to the terrorists one way or another. Trust me on that.”

“I don't really have a choice. I'm all in at this point. So is this how you do things on Rikar?”

“We don't have the luxury of following proper etiquette there. I'm just trying to save lives.”

She sighed. “No more surprises. Will you promise me that?”

“I promise no more surprises.”

She stared at me a moment. “You're a good liar. Let's go.”

CHAPTER 14

“How is the terrorist hunting going, Officer Rico?”

“Dip, you should see one of my luggage trackers somewhere near me. I need you to direct me toward it.”

“I assume by ‘luggage tracker' you mean one of your standard bugs. Take the road ahead of you, going west. Twenty yards down on your right will be a building which records say is a store selling religious paraphernalia. Your ‘luggage' is in there. From the audio, there are seven other pieces of ‘luggage' around it who seem to be armed.”

I couldn't pass that last bit of information on to the detective, as I couldn't come up with a good excuse as to why a tracker for my luggage would have audio. I pointed down the street. “Our target is this way.”

“Who is Dip?”

“My computer.”

“What's the name stand for?”

“Huh?”

“D-I-P: What's it stand for?”

“Nothing. It's just what I call him.” I could see the store that looked to be an Islamic merchandise shop. “He's in there.” The smart thing seemed to be to go in and kill everybody—but save one or two for questioning. Of course, I wasn't even supposed to have guns, so at this point it was Diane's game. “What's the plan, Detective?”

“Out of secret plans that involve force-feeding people?”

“Hey, I led you to where I believe the terrorists are hiding out. I'm ready to leave it to the big city folk at this point.”

She stared for a moment at the store, and her hand casually brushed her jacket at about where I assumed her gun was. “Well, you seem pretty professional, Rico. I'm thinking we go in and see what we can see.”

“And if it is full of armed terrorists?”

“Then we have trouble.” She walked close to me, smiling oddly. Seductively? She pressed against me, her hand caressing my side, finally coming to a firm grip on one of the guns concealed under my jacket. “I'm guessing you have another secret for that occasion.”

I'm very good at concealing weapons, so I doubted she had spotted the guns. Perhaps she was just confirming some assumptions about me with that little maneuver. If she was beginning to think she knew me, though, that was probably to my advantage.

Diane backed a step away from me, not smiling but not looking angry. “I don't have anywhere near enough evidence to call in backup, but time is of the essence here, so let's head in there and do what we can. We can discuss you later.”

I shrugged innocently. “What's to discuss?”

She headed for the store. “Just be careful…and follow my lead.”

I was not going to be careful. Now that I didn't have to be secretive about my guns, my plan was to shoot everybody in there at the first opportunity. That was the quickest solution, and I really didn't want to spend more time on this terrorist nonsense than I needed to. Not to sound haughty, but going after amateurs like the Calabrai was beneath me.

Now, I was already quite certain the terrorists were in there, so I could just go ahead and open fire upon entering, and the correctness of my actions would be known soon after. But my understanding of legal and moral principles is that you don't shoot people before they are obvious threats. I'd have to get them to try to shoot me first if I didn't want it to be too obvious that I was just a “cold-blooded killer,” as they call people like me.

Alternatively, I could just shoot everyone and make sure Diane got killed in the crossfire so no one would be able to say what happened. She had been useful so far and perhaps would still be in the future, so I was labeling that “Plan B.”

We entered the store. The human female clerk watched us and I saw three others—two human males and one other species—pretending to shop. I've pretended to shop before, and they were doing it poorly. The non-human was a Ramber—a big gray-skinned being I didn't know much about, other than that they bled green. Since this was supposed to be a store devoted to Islam, which had few non-human adherents, his presence alone raised suspicion. Plus, I could see by the non-casual hand placements of the two human males that they were armed and ready to fight.

I just needed them to make my day.

“We saw someone run in here,” the detective said, using a cordial tone that wasn't going to exacerbate things quickly enough for my taste. “He's a suspect in a crime.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” The clerk was going for angry, but only managed to sound scared. “If you're just here to harass us, get out!”

Diane said, “Ma'am, we just need to look around. We have reason to believe there might be some terrorists hiding out here. Is that something you would know about?”

“You are not allowed to look around here!” one of the men yelled, getting right in Diane's face. “We know our rights, and you have no cause to be here!”

I shoved him away from Diane. “Back off of her, buddy.” This was hard to balance, angering these people into attacking me without making it obvious.

He looked angry but not angry enough to draw a gun. That made me angry.

“I can tell from the sounds I'm picking up that your luggage is below you,” Dip told me. “I also am hearing chatter about possible measures to blow up the building you are in…so you might want to be concerned about that.”

Just what I needed. Plan B was coming up soon.

“That was understatement, by the way,” Dip added. “That's a type of humor, though I'm not quite sure how appropriate humor is in this situation.”

“Please leave now,” the clerk said firmly.

“Let's all calm down,” Diane said. “We just want to have a look around. What could it hurt if there's nothing to hide?”

At the back of the store I noticed a door that I assumed led to the basement. I could just barge in and take on whoever was down there, but I wouldn't want to leave three or four armed people behind me and have to count on the detective to handle them. I decided to just head for that door, and if one of the terrorists made a move, I'd shoot him proper. If I reached the door and none of them made a move, I'd shoot them improper and probably have to deal with the detective. It would be a small mess, and I was already vowing I'd never try to work with law enforcement again. Too asinine and complicated.

“I'm going downstairs,” I said. “If there are any terrorists down there you care about, you'd better tell me now, because I shoot unclaimed terrorists.” I headed for the door, turning my back to most of the people there. This was their last opportunity to die fighting, and I sincerely hoped they'd take it and make things easier for everyone. A framed poster of some Arabic saying hung by the door, and in its reflection I could see one of the humans reach for a gun.

Now I was free to be me.

But there was a gunshot before I could draw, and for a moment I thought my arrogance had finally caught up with me. I spun around and saw that my target was already dead. It took me another moment to process that before I zeroed in on another target and shot the Ramber in the face and chest before he had fully drawn his gun.

Gunpowder-based firearms are very loud, which can be a little disconcerting. More so for the enemy, at least.

I very nearly shot the blonde woman who had a gun in her hand but stopped that instinct just in time and aimed at the other human male—but he was already dead. The clerk made an odd movement, and I shot her twice to be on the safe side—though maybe I jumped the gun on that one out of annoyance that I'd only gotten to shoot one person so far. I quickly realized that shooting the woman could have been a huge miscalculation if I were wrong about her going for a gun, but there was no time to worry about it at the moment.