Tek Power (13 page)

As she started down, Jake heard rats, a large quantity of them, go skittering away below.

Jake followed her down the ladder and pulled the door down. It closed with a dull thunk.

A little of the smoke from above had made its way below, but the dominant smell was of decay.

Pointing with the thin beam of her light, Janine said, “We have to travel along that ledge there. It's pretty damned narrow, but otherwise we'd have to slosh along in the drainage channel and that's full of all sorts of muck.”

Crossing to the ledge first, Jake held out his hand to her. She joined him on the ledge, which was about three feet wide.

“We're going to have to do this single file.” She edged around him to take the lead.

“Is there any alarm system up there—and sprinklers in place?” he asked.

She started making her way along the narrow passage. “Some sprinklers. The alarms have been on the fritz for years,” Janine answered. “Sprinklers might work, no way of telling. They do sometimes.”

“What usually happens when there's a serious fire?”

“Usually we're able to get it under control ourselves. Other times, though, it just blazes away until it dies out on its own.” She was walking slowly, counting off paces.

The further they went, the louder was the sound of the flames up above them. There were screams of pain, too.

Janine glanced upward. “I think the fire's in the newspaper storeroom,” she told him. “Maybe it hasn't spread to the magazine space yet.”

“Trouble is, we don't know which room Alicia is in.”

“No, but—hold it!” She stopped still, clicked off her light.

“What?” he whispered in the new darkness.

A rattling had begun almost directly above. Creaking followed, then a metal trapdoor opened in the ceiling.

Smoke came pouring and spilling down, along with the roar of flames.

“Get your ass down there, bitch,” ordered a raw male voice. “This fire is your fricking fault. I'm going to fix you fricking good before I turn you over.”

G
OMEZ PACED
.

The living room of the suite was wide, well suited to pacing.

“Time?” he said aloud.

“It's now seven minutes shy of one AM,” replied the voxbox overhead.

Puckering his cheek, Gomez said, “I'm getting worse than Timecheck.”

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“
Nada
.” He dropped into an armchair.

A moment later the suite computer announced, “Phone call.”

Gomez jumped up. “Who?”

“Walt Bascom, Greater Los Angeles.”

“I'll take it,” he said, moving into a chair that faced the vidwall.

“What the hell are you two dimwits up to?” began the head of the Cosmos Detective Agency.

“Can you give me a slight hint,
jefe
, as to the source of your ire?”

“You know damned well what I'm riled about, Sid,” he said, angry. “I specifically told you guys not to—Where's Jake, by the way? I want him in on this.”

Pointing at the floor with a thumb, Gomez said, “Under DC, far as I know. I was commencing to grow concerned just before you—”

“No matter. You can tell him what I had to say. When I sent you bumblers back there, didn't I—”

“
Momentito
,” interupted Gomez, holding up his hand. “You just been talking to your son, am I right?”

“You're right. Richard was damned upset,” said Bascom, scowling. “He told me he knew that Eve had been sleeping around and that he wasn't sure he could handle that. Why in the hell did you tell him?”

“Did Richard say we had?”

“No, but—hell, how else could he have found out?”

“Death is a great eye opener,” he suggested to his boss. “He's starting to see things differently now.”

“You're sure you didn't let something slip?”

“
Jefe
, you're letting personal stuff futz up your perspective,” Gomez said. “You ought to know that Jake and I wouldn't doublecross you.”

After a few seconds Bascom said, “Yeah, I guess that's so.”

Gomez stood up, walked a few steps away from the chair. “I can,” he offered, “fill you in on what we've been finding out.”

“Okay, you'd better,” said Bascom. “And excuse my calling you a halfwit.”

“It was dimwit, but who's counting.” He sat back down and started to make his report.

A
LICIA
B
OWER CAME
climbing down the rattling metal ladder into the drainage tunnel. Smoke and fire-tinted light came spilling down into the darkness with her. She climbed slowly, her auburn hair tangled and her face streaked with dirt and soot.

Following her down was a large, flabby man with dead-white hair. There was a lazgun tucked into his wide silvertrimmed belt.

“That's Rich,” whispered Janine in Jake's ear as they stood there watching.

He had his stungun drawn and now he took the handlite from the girl.

As soon as Alicia touched the ground, Jake took two steps ahead. He clicked on the light, aiming its beam at the descending Rich. “Okay, halt right where you are,” he advised. “Then, very slowly and carefully, pluck that gun out of your belt and drop it down here.”

Instead Rich yelled, “Frick you!” He leaped from the metal ladder and aimed his big falling body directly at the handlite Jake was holding.

Jake started to dodge, but wasn't fast enough.

The heavy young man hit hard against him and they both went falling, off the narrow ledge and smack into the water-filled drainage channel.

The scummy water was only about two feet deep here, but Jake was shoved below the surface by the weight of the Scavenger leader.

He twisted, struggling to get out from under and up to air.

Rich stayed atop him, jabbing him in the face and chest with both big fists.

Straining, Jake brought both knees up and then kicked out.

He managed to boot Rich in the midsection and the fat man groaned and flopped back off him.

Pushing at the rocky channel floor with both palms, Jake raised himself to a standing position. He stood, swaying, gasping in air, dripping foulsmelling water.

Rich was up, too. He'd kept his lazgun in his belt and he was tugging it out.

Jake lunged, butting him hard in the stomach.

The Scavenger gave out a tremendous pained gasp and sat down in the water.

Jake moved forward and kicked.

His booted foot connected with Rich's fat chin.

The force of the kick lifted him up, made him gnash his teeth together. He fell to the left, hitting his dead-white head against the stones. Passing over into unconsciousness, Rich slowly slid down the slimy side of them and sank into the dark water.

As Jake bent to pull him out of the water, a voice from above cried, “You goddamn buttjumper! You killed him.”

A lazgun crackled.

20

A
S
J
AKE TURNED
to look up, he saw a thin, darkhaired young woman come falling down from the opening above.

A coppery lazgun was spinning down through the smoky air, too. It hit the ledge, bounced into the water and sank. The body of the young woman followed it an instant later, splashing up scummy water and then sinking away.

Jake started to reach for her.

“Don't bother,” said Janine from the ledge. “She's dead and done for.” There was a snubnosed lazgun in her left hand. “That's Nancy, his woman. She was fixing to kill you.”

“Thanks.” He got the unconscious Rich up out of the water and stretched him out on the ledge.

Alicia was leaning back against the wall, one hand clutching her other arm. “I was hoping you'd find me, Jake,” she said quietly. “Though I didn't have much reason to believe you would.”

He grinned at her, then turned to Janine. “Can we get clear of the Catacombs if we stay down here?”

“Sure, but we'll have to travel another good mile or more.”

“You up to that?” he asked Alicia.

“I can do twice that to get away from this awful place,” she assured him.

T
HEIR PROGRESS ALONG
the ledge was slow. Janine, using her handlite, went first in the singlefile line. Alicia went next and finally Jake.

They'd outdistanced the smoke and the sounds of the blaze in the tunnels above.

Janine glanced back over her slim shoulder. “What'd Rich mean about you starting the fire?” she asked.

“In a way it was my fault,” answered Alicia. “They took me to one of those damn newspaper storage rooms—that was after they'd broken into my hotel suite and taken me, trussed up and gagged. When they untied me, I shoved into the nearest lout and tried to run. But I was wobbly and I fell. I knocked over another of them and he fell back into their cook fire. That sent flames and grease splashing all over. Some of the dry newspapers took fire and it just turned into a blaze before they could stop it.”

“Serves 'em right,” observed Janine.

Something made a sudden plopping splash in the drainage channel. Janine swung the light beam over and caught a large rat in the act of swimming by.

Jake asked, “Did they say why they'd grabbed you?”

“Not exactly, but it wasn't for ransom and they weren't planning to kill me.”

“What, then?”

“Rich—was that the fat one with white hair?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Rich implied they were going to hold me there until someone else came to collect me.”

“Any idea who the someone else was?”

“No, and I tried to wheedle that out of him,” she said. “He was not exactly, though, the sort you can cajole.”

“Where was he planning to take you when he forced you down here?”

“I'm not sure, Jake. After the fire got out of hand, he dragged me along with him,” said Alicia. “I imagine he was going to try to get me to a safe place, then contact whoever it was who hired him.”

After a moment Jake asked her, “Who knew you were going to be meeting with me?”

“Nobody.”

“That vidphone you called me from wasn't tapproof, was it?”

She said, “No, I guess not. But why—”

“Not sure. You didn't confide in anyone else?”

“I mentioned to my attorney, Kay Norwood, that I'd be contacting you when I got to DC. But she's a longtime friend.”

“What I'm trying to figure out is whether this has anything to do with the case we're working on,” he told her. “Or if it's just a coincidence that you were abducted right before I was due to drop in on you.”

“It might tie in with what you're investigating,” Alicia said. “That's why I wanted to see you. Does Surrogate 13 mean anything to you?”

He stopped. “It does, yeah,” he said.

T
HE SAFE HOUSE
was in Arlington, Virginia. Jake got Alicia there at a few minutes after three AM. As soon as they entered the small black-and-white living room, the auburnhaired young woman put her arms around Jake and kissed him.

Stepping back, she said, “Thanks.”

“You're welcome,” he said. “Cosmos will have operatives watching you while you're here and escorting you around DC on your Mechanix business. It's possible, though, if this does tie in with our case, that you'll be safe soon as they comprehend that you've told me what you know.”

“Or they might decide to kill us both.”

“That,” he conceded, “is another possibility, yeah.”

“Snug,” she remarked, glancing around the room. “Do you think there'd be any clothes here that'll fit me?”

“There are well-stocked wardrobe closets in both bedrooms,” he answered. “Take your pick. All part of the Cosmos service.”

“Then I'll go clean up and change,” she said, nodding at him. “And maybe you ought to as well, you think?”

Jake looked down at his soggy clothes and at the muddy footprints his waterlogged boots had made on the grey thermocarpet. “That's a terrific suggestion,” he said, grinning.

“Thanks for everything, Jake.” She moved close to him, kissed him again and then turned away. “Saving my miserable life is getting to be a habit with you.”

21

T
HE BEDSIDE VIDPHONE
buzzed.

Gomez, who'd been lightly dozing, sat up in bed. “Lights,” he requested.

The room obliged, soft light blossomed overhead.

“Time?”

“5:49.”

“
Gracias
,” said the tousled detective. “I'll take the call now.”

It wasn't Jake who appeared on the small phone-screen. “You look groggy,” observed the heavyset Sergeant Ramirez. “And you seem to be sleeping alone.
Porqué?
”

“You forget I'm a loyal husband,” said Gomez, smoothing down his tangled hair. “Is this call just a moral bedcheck or do you have some other reason for this unseemly invasion of my privacy?”

“I'm calling you on a tapfree phone,” said the Manhattan policeman. “Are things secure at your end?”

“
Sí
, I swept the whole suite before toddling off to bed.”

Nodding, Ramirez continued. “Couple hours ago I heard from Charley Charla, the famous informant. He claimed he had about five hundred bucks' worth of important information for you. Charley'd been trying to contact you, wasn't having any luck.”

“
Ay
, I forgot to put his name on the Cosmos call forwarding list. Any idea what Charley has for me?”

“Yeah, he passed it on to me, since he was planning to go on an immediate sabbatical.”

“He's in trouble, is he?”

“We'll come to that, Sid,” said the cop. “Charley suggested you contact an
hombre
named Dreamer Garcia, who's to be found in Managua, Nicaragua. Seems this Dreamer has some vital stuff about certain activities of the Joaquim Tek Cartel to pass along. The five hundred dollars was for Charley's tip—Dreamer Garcia wants an additional one thousand.”