The Forever Drug (17 page)

Hunt would be piloting the hydrofoil through his vehicle control rig—plugged into the Seacop via datajack and "feeling" every wave and current. He was already jacked in when we climbed into the closed cabin of the boat. "Buckle up!" he shouted over the roar of the jet turbines. "It's going to be a rough ride."

Then he winked a chromed eye at me. "Hey, Romulus! This beats chasing cats, eh?"

I grinned back at him.

He was right about the rough ride. Although it was
a clear night with only patches of fog, a wind was blowing up and the sea was choppy. An ordinary boat would have plowed its way through the waves, but the hydrofoil had too much speed, too much lift. It "porpoised" from one crest to the next, skipping across the tops of the waves with a series of bone-jarring crashes and stomach-churning leaps.

Had there been a siren going I would have been howling by now. I wished I could have hung my head out a porthole to feel the harsh wind and salt spray on my face. I loved every minute of the ride. But Dass, who was sitting in the front seat next to Hunt, was having a tough time of it. I didn't think it was possible for skin as dark as hers to look green, but somehow Dass managed it. I hoped she wasn't going to be sick. In the closed confines of the hydrofoil and with my keen sense of smell, that would have been difficult to take.

Dass swallowed hard, then turned her seat to brief us as we made the run out to Short Beach. "Surveillance has spotted a boat approaching the freighter," she shouted as she hung tightly onto her restraining straps. "It's disguised as a lobster boat, with a capstan and lobster traps on the deck, but it has a gasoline engine. All of the lobster boats around here use diesel, so the mage on astral surveillance went in for a closer look. He spotted paranormals on board: four Merlin hawks in cages hidden among the lobster traps, under tarps on the deck."

Dass paused to fight down her nausea. "The Merlin hawk is an endangered species," she cautioned the team. "We've been instructed not to allow any harm to come to them, if at all possible.
Kufahamu
— understood?"

The three combat mages glanced sidelong at each other. They understood that this was an order, but it was clear to me that they weren't going to put themselves in danger for the sake of mere
animals
. I growled softly to myself.

Dass gulped as the hydrofoil launched itself off another wave. I wondered if the ride would be better or worse for her if she were to leave her body and enter the astral plane. Probably better: I'd heard that while the consciousness is jandering about in astral space, the physical body is almost comatose. But Dass had a briefing to give, so she soldiered on between hard swallows.

"There are three individuals on board the boat," she continued. "Two males, one female, all armed with submachine guns. There's also an assault cannon mounted on a firmpoint that's hidden inside the cabin.

"We're going to intercept the smugglers as they're offloading their contraband onto the derelict freighter. That's when they'll be the most vulnerable. They'll be busy with the cages, and we can approach from a direction that won't allow them to use the assault cannon. Lim, McKenzie, and I will concentrate on the three smugglers, disabling them with spells. Once they're down, Berthiaume and Romulus will board the freighter and perform a sweep for other smugglers."

The combat mage named Berthiaume—the larger of the two males, the one who'd made the "dog" crack earlier—gave me a look that told me exactly what he thought of going in with an unarmored partner who didn't even carry a handgun, let alone cast spells. But he was too professional and well disciplined to protest.

"Once the smugglers are under arrest, Romulus's job will be to sniff out any paras on board so we can prepare them for containment," Dass continued. "If the lobster boat makes a break for it, we'll pursue it in the Seacop and call in backup as necessary.

"
Swalima?
Any questions?"

We shook our heads.

As we neared Short Beach, Hunt launched the Sea-cop's drone. The high-speed surveillance drone looked like a flying manta ray as it whizzed off into the night. Its low-light and thermographic video cameras would keep a bead on the smugglers, giving Hunt an eye in the sky as he piloted the hydrofoil in. He was plugged into the drone's sensors directly, getting a datafeed through his jack even as he piloted the boat. But there was also a small monitor screen beside the helm. Dass kept an eye on this, and gave us a running update as we approached the freighter.

"The lobster boat is tying up over freighter's aft deck," she said in a tense voice. "The tide is high and the deck of freighter is slightly awash. A hatch over rear cargo hold is opening—it looks like that's their entry point. There are two persons inside—too far away for details. The smugglers are getting ready to lower the contraband through hatch. We should be there in less than a min—"

Dass leaned against her restraining straps, trying to get closer to the monitor.

At the same time, Hunt tensed. "Drek! Who the frig is
that?
" he said.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Someone else has crashed the smugglers's party," Dass said quickly. "On a jetski, no less. He's armed and is mixing it up with the smugglers. The two in the hold are down and—uh-oh. The lobster boat has untied and is leaving. Who the frig
is
that guy?"

I was as baffled as Dass. Was this an attack by a rival smuggling operation? Just how much did a Merlin hawk sell for?

"Get on the radio," Dass told Hunt. "
Upesi
—be quick! Find out if Drug Enforcement has anyone in the area. Officially or unofficially."

Now
that
was an unwelcome possibility. The attacker on a jetski could be an irregular asset from Drug

Enforcement who'd heard there might be corpselights on board the freighter and hoped to make a drug bust. The DED paid its stringers by the amount of drug seized, just as the DPI paid per paranormal animal contained. Seizing a shipment of corpselights—the "drug" Halo—would net an irregular asset a credstick full of nuyen. Assuming he lived to make the seizure.

By using an irregular asset as their front man, the DED could deny
intentionally
getting in the way of our arrest. And at the same time, they could frig up the DPI's bust and make us look bad—payback for stealing a potentially high-profile case away from them.

The fellow on the jetski could be friend or foe. There was no way to tell. But either way, he wouldn't be happy to see us.

Hunt whispered into his subdermal microphone, then shook his head. "He's not DED."

"Right," Dass said. "Slight change of plans. We'll drop Berthiaume and Romulus on board the freighter to deal with the intruder and keep the hatch open, then we'll pursue the smugglers."

Dass turned to me. "We'll be back as soon as we can, Rom."

I nodded. "Don't worry," I told her. "I'm getting the easy job." I thought of the assault cannon on the smugglers's boat. I had faith in Hunt's ability to out-maneuver the lobster boat; with the hydrofoil's speed and ability to make tight turns, it would run rings around a conventional boat. But there was always the chance of a lucky shot. While the hydrofoil had enough armor to stop a machine gun bullet, a round from an assault cannon would punch a hole the size of a window in it, sending it to the bottom pretty quickly.

"Good luck, Dass," I added.

Then we were at the freighter. The smugglers's boat had already sped away—we saw red and green running lights heading rapidly up the coast through the fog. Then these blinked out.

The hydrofoil skidded to a stop as Hunt suddenly cut the jet turbines and threw the blades into a turn, allowing them to dig deep into the waves and build up water resistance. His aim was dead on—the open hatch of the freighter was right beside us as we coasted to a stop. Hunt flooded the area with light and aimed a camera that was mounted on the side of the hydrofoil down into the cargo well. A closed-circuit video monitor sprang to life, showing a roomsized space whose floor was maybe three meters below deck level. Water was slopping in over the edges of the open hatch, and had filled this space to a depth of a few centimeters. Two bodies floated facedown, in the water, trailing streams of red. The only way out of the space was through a large hatch on one wall, currently dogged shut.

The jetski had been abandoned up on the water-covered deck; the waves nudged it against the hydrofoil with dull thumps. The fellow who'd ridden it to the freighter was nowhere to be seen. But it was a safe bet that, since he wasn't floating in the water beside the corpses of the two smugglers he'd shot, he was somewhere behind that hatch.

It took only a second or two to take all of this in via the video monitor. While we were doing this, I pulled off my clothes so they wouldn't impede me when I shifted. Berthiaume flicked a glance my way, half rolled his eyes, then returned his focus to the monitor.

"Ready?" Hunt shouted.

"Ready!" Berthiaume and I answered at once.

Berthiaume snapped his visor down and pulled out a spell fetish.

Hunt opened the door.

Berthiaume's posture told me that he'd muscle me out of the way if I tried to go first. I normally would have challenged him with a growl and exposed teeth, but there wasn't time. Instead I stepped aside, shivering slightly as the night wind whipped fog into the hydrofoil's open door.

Berthiaume leaped down into the open space below the freighter's cargo hatch, landing with a splash beside the bodies, and immediately began casting a spell. I had switched to astral vision and saw it spreading out from him like an expanding aura, tendrils of magical energy fingering their way in through the cracks around the closed hatch to whatever lay beyond it. I guessed that he was using magic to get a sense of whether any threats lay inside the ship.

"Clear!" he yelled back up at the hydrofoil.

I jumped.

I landed with a splash beside Berthiaume as he undogged the hatch. He waved me to the side and I crouched low, making the shift into wolf form. Even though a ship is a tough place for a wolf to get around in—too many handles and ladders—I wanted my sense of smell as an early warning system. I could always switch back to human form if I had to.

In wolf form, the water level was at my knees, soaking my fur. It wasn't rising, though, even though more water was slopping down into the cargo well all the time. I heard a faint gurgling noise, and guessed that pumps were clearing water from the area.

I paused just long enough to sniff at the blood from the two dead bodies—both were male, and both had Native American features. The blood smelled hot and fresh, and my mouth filled with saliva. I licked my lips and sniffed again.... Then I tore myself away and followed Berthiaume inside, leaving the hatch open behind me.

Leaving it undogged was a gamble; if the pumps cut off, the cargo well would fill with water, which would flood down into the ship itself. Judging by the watertight hatch, the smugglers probably kept the cargo well filled with water when they weren't loading or offloading contraband, as a barrier to astral intrusion. But leaving the hatch open was the only way we'd be able to bring in astral backup quickly—the only form of backup we were likely to get with Dass and the others in the hydrofoil busy chasing down the smugglers. And if the water started flooding in, we'd know it was time to turn back.

We were in a wide corridor that led toward the stem. Doors on either side of the corridor had been welded shut. They were rusted solid, slimed with seaweed, and obviously hadn't been opened in decades. Halogen lights in the ceiling provided a brilliant glare.

Outside, I heard the receding roar of jet turbines as the hydrofoil set off in pursuit of the smugglers's boat. Then all was quiet, save for the churning of the waves and the sound of the wind outside—and the creak of Berthiaume's armored jacket as he crept down the corridor, Uzi in one hand and his spell fetish in the other.

I sniffed.

The air, which was being circulated into the corridor from somewhere else in the vessel, was full of scents. I could smell grassy manure—probably the droppings of a pegasus—and a dry reptilian scent that was probably snake. I also caught the unmistakable stench of cat urine and the wild musk of a paranormal dog of some kind. The last one made me stop and leave my mark, just on general principle.

But all of these scents were old. I didn't think any of these animals had been on board for weeks.

There were fresh scents, however. Those of the two men who lay dead in the cargo well—and one that was all too familiar: the elf Galdenistal Tathem.

So
that
was who had shot his way past the smugglers and into the freighter. But why? Did that mean Jane was on board? Was golden boy once again trying to take her back home to the Tir? But I couldn't smell Jane's scent anywhere.

The corridor we were following came to a
T
-junction. Berthiaume peered in both directions, then motioned for me to wait. I couldn't see his face behind the visor of his helmet, but I guessed that he was radioing back to the hydrofoil, filling Dass in on our progress. I wondered how she was doing. Seasick still, at the very least. But hopefully all right.

The corridor we had come to was short, with a door at either end. Both were open, but just a crack. We couldn't see what lay beyond them. I put my nose to the floor of the intersection and sniffed: Golden boy had gone left—but then he'd doubled back again and headed in the opposite direction, to the right. There was also a scent I didn't recognize—human male—to the left. Probably a smuggler, somewhere behind the door at the end of the corridor.