The Knights of the Black Earth (20 page)

Harry reached into
his suit pocket and pulled out a small spray can. “Then there’s this product.
We’ve tried applying it to our skin, but the damn bugs actually seem to enjoy
the taste. Perhaps you’re familiar with the brand?”

He held the can
for the receptionist to see. As she leaned forward, peering intently at the
label, Harry sprayed the contents of the can directly into the woman’s face.
She gasped involuntarily, inhaling the spray. Not that inhalation was
necessary. As soon as Raoul’s hypno-spray made skin contact, the victim was
comatose.

The receptionist
flopped forward across the desk.

Harry lifted her,
propped her up in the chair, turned the chair away from both the hall and the
front door.

Jamil took a quick
glance out the door, locked it shut. “No one outside,” he reported. “But we
have company inside.”

A woman in a brown
suit was walking toward them. Jamil moved swiftly. “Good morning. I’m Kevin
Coleridge. This is my colleague, Jeff Fuqua.”

“How’dya do?”
Harry bobbed his head.

“Jeff, why don’t
you wait here for Mr. de Beausoleil?” Jamil glanced significantly at the front
door.

Ms. Kohli stared
at the cannon. “What’s that thing?”

“I’ll explain
later. We might even give you a demonstration. Where’s your office? Nice
building you have here. Such an interesting color.”

Jamil took hold of
Ms. Kohli by the arm, propelled her politely but firmly back down the hallway. “It
seems that our Mr. de Beausoleil is late. We’re operating on a rather strict
time schedule. If we could go ahead with our meeting . . .”

“Of course, Mr.
Coleridge. Come back to my office. I’ve sent for Mr. Darminderpal, our senior
technician. Oh, just a moment.

I forgot . ..”
Pausing, the woman turned to the receptionist. “Madeline?”

Harry was bending
over the desk, apparently having the most interesting conversation with the
receptionist and managing to block the view of anyone in the hallway.

“Madeline, please
hold my calls.” Ms. Kohli didn’t wait for a response.

She entered the
office, moved aside to let Jamil pass in front of her. A thin man, clad in
yellow coveralls, was standing at the window, staring with fixed intensity
outdoors in the direction of the tarmac.

“That’s odd . ..”
the man began.

Jamil gave a loud
and hacking cough.

Startled by the
sound, the man turned his head.

Jamil was on him
instantly, grabbing the technician’s hand and shaking it heartily. “How do you
do, sir? I’m Coleridge. Kevin Coleridge.”

“Darminderpal.”
The man gave his name vaguely. He turned his head, looked back out the window.

“What is it?”
Kohli asked.

“I thought I saw a
stranger out there—”

“My business card.”

Jamil reached into
his pocket, took out a can of hypno-spray and blasted Darminderpal in the face.
The man gagged, gargled. His eyes rolled. He slumped forward. Jamil caught the
flaccid body, lowered it to the floor.

“Don’t move or
make a sound,” Jamil ordered, holding the spray can in front of Ms. Kohli.

Gliding past her,
Jamil shut and locked the office door. Then, pocketing the spray can, he pulled
a .22-decawatt lasgun from a shoulder holster. He glanced at his watch. 0930.
They were running late.

“Keep very quiet
and no one will get hurt. Your friend on the floor is just taking a nice little
nap.”

“What do you want?”
the woman asked fearfully.

Jamil gestured
with the gun toward a wall safe. “Open it.”

Kohli shook her
head.

“Is the money
really worth your life?” Jamil demanded, his voice hard, gruff. “What about
his?” He turned the gun on the comatose technician.

“But—but.. . there
is
no money.” Kohli extended her hands in a pleading gesture. “You have to
believe me! We only k-keep cash on payroll day and this isn’t—”

“What? . . . Damn!”
Jamil blustered. “Raoul really screwed this up good. He said
this
was
payroll day!”

The woman just
stared helplessly at him.

Jamil waved the
gun. “Then if there’s no cash, you won’t mind opening the safe, will you? Or
would you rather see me open up your tech’s head?”

Kohli gulped,
mumbled, “No, please. Don’t hurt—”

“Move!”

She moved, opened
the safe with her hand print and a coded entry.

Jamil shoved her
roughly to one side. Peering in, he swore loudly. “My God! You’re telling the
truth. Nothing but plastic.” He snatched up the spaceplane’s code cards. “Let’s
see how much you have in your accounts.”

He thrust the card
into the computer.

“But those aren’t
credit cards. They only operate—”

“Operate what?”
Jamil demanded, though he knew perfectly well.

The woman bit her
lip, shut her mouth.

Muttering to
himself, pretending to be frustrated over his inability to discover a bank
account, Jamil was, in actuality, swiftly altering the code on the cards. This
done, he removed them from the computer, slid them into his pocket. “Ah, hell!
I’ll work on this later. Wait till I get my hands on that Adonian!”

He pulled the
aerosol can out of his pocket. “You’re going to take a little nap now, like
your friend. You might want to sit in the chair first.”

The woman sank
down in the plush chair behind the desk. Jamil sprayed her in the face. She
blinked once, and slumped forward.

Jamil slid the
lasgun back into the holster. Opening the office door, he glanced quickly up
and down the hall.

“Yes, I know the
way out, Ms. Kohli. Thanks. We’ll be in touch.”

Shutting the door,
Jamil walked swiftly down the hall.

“Any trouble?”

Harry rose to his
feet. “Nope, all quiet. You?”

“Their senior tech
spotted one of our guys out by the plane. I sprayed him before he got a good
look. Let’s get out of here. We’re already late.”

“Did you get the
cards, make the code change?”

“In here.” Jamil
slapped his pocket.

Harry unlocked the
front door. They both walked out into the bright sunshine.

“Keep me covered,”
Jamil ordered.

Harry posted
himself outside the front door.

Jamil opened his
briefcase, removed a large canister. On the way into the company, he had looked
for and found the building’s central air-conditioning unit, located on the
roof. Jamil climbed the maintenance ladder attached to the building’s exterior
wall. Once on the roof, he placed the canister beside the air intake system,
pulled the ring tab on the top of the canister. White smoke began to rise and
was immediately sucked into the system’s intake. Jamil climbed down, rejoined
his partner.

Harry was on the
comm. “Xris, we’ve got the code cards. We’re now leaving the building. Jamil’s
released the gas. Everyone inside should be sound asleep by now.”

“Good work. When
you come, bring the van. There’s been a change in plans. Out.”

The two exchanged
glances, then each looked at his watch.

0940. It was
rather late for a change in plans.

When the van
pulled up to the hangar, Xris was there to meet it. The cyborg yanked open the
door on Jamil’s side.

“I’m going to find
out what’s happened to Raoul. I’ll take Harry with me. You and the others load
the gear in the plane. Search through the company’s flight records—you’ll find
them in the hangar office. Find the latest codes and approach vectors for today’s
run.”

Jamil jumped out.
Xris, barely waiting for him, climbed inside the van. Tycho and Quong, wearing
bright yellow coveralls, stood near the spaceplane.

“What about the
clock?” Jamil shouted over the roar of the hover van’s engine.

“Screw the clock!”
Xris yelled. “We need Raoul and the empath! Don’t worry. We’ll make up the time
en route.”

He slammed shut
the door. Jamil backed hurriedly away.

Inside the van’s
cab, all was quiet. Harry was looking unhappy.

“Just drive, damn
it!” Xris said irritably.

Harry drove,
wheeling the vehicle around so swiftly that the blast from the air jets nearly
knocked Jamil off his feet.

“Where’s his
hotel? Near here, I hope.”

“Yeah, Xris. Not
far. But—”

Xris brought up
the computer map. “What’s the name? I’ll punch it in. Get the fastest route.”

Harry looked even
more unhappy. “Uh, that’s just it, Xris. I can’t remember the name of the
hotel. But”—he perked up—”I do remember his room number. Ten-nineteen.”

Xris removed the
twist from his mouth. “You what?”

“I don’t remember
the name of the hotel, Xris,” Harry said miserably. “I’m sorry. I’d had a few
drinks. It just didn’t register. But the room number. I know that.”

“That’s going to
be a fucking big help. Do you know how many hotels there are in this bloody
city?”

Xris didn’t often
swear. Harry’s hands tightened on the wheel. He stared straight ahead. A muscle
in his jaw twitched.

“I know about
where it is, Xris,” he said suddenly. “And I know what it looks like. It’s a fancy
building. I’ll know it when I get there.”

Xris drew in a
deep breath, let it out slowly. “All right. I guess that’ll have to do.”

“I’m sorry, Xris.
I didn’t think it would be important.”

“Just drive,
Harry. Just drive.”

0945.

Harry recognized
the hotel—the Grand Aurigan—easily. It was big and elegant. Valets swarmed
around the front entrance, eager to relieve travel-weary guests of all their
burdens, including their means of transportation.

“Valet parking,
Xris,” Harry said, slowing the van to a crawl about a block away from the
hotel.

“We can’t risk
that,” Xris replied. “We’re going to need to leave here fast. Drive around.”

They located a
side entrance, with only a doorman on duty. Vehicles of all types lined the
street. There was no place to park. Harry dropped the van to street level.

“Stay here. Keep
the engine running and your comm on,” Xris instructed, jumping out.

He had removed the
tool hand, replaced it with the flesh-foam hand, but had not bothered to change
out of his fatigues. The doorman glared at him.

“He can’t hover
there,” he said.

“I’ll only be a
minute,” Xris told him, heading for the door.

“But—” The doorman
started to argue.

Xris shoved the
man aside, yanked open the door. When the elevator didn’t arrive fast enough to
suit him, the cyborg found the stairs, took them two at a time to the tenth
floor.

He emerged through
a fire door, began scanning room numbers. A woman with a small child passed
him, both in swimsuits, evidently on their way to the pool. Otherwise, the
corridors were quiet, empty.

“No one around,”
Xris reported to Harry over the comm. “I was half expecting to find the hallway
jammed with cops. But nothing appears to be wrong.”

“The damn Loti
took an overdose,” Harry returned. “You’ll probably find him spaced out of his
mind. Or maybe he met someone in the bar last night. Or some
thing.
I
hate to think what you might be walking in on.”

It’s possible,
Xris agreed, just not probable. In all the years he’d worked with Raoul, the
Adonian had never let the team down. Xris halted in front of a large double
wooden door with 1019 in brass digits.

He listened. His
augmented hearing would have picked up the flutter of Raoul’s false eyelashes.

No sound.

Xris scanned the
hall. No one in sight except a cleaning ‘bot down at the far end. Removing his
lasgun from his shoulder holster, Xris lightly tapped on the door with the
barrel.

“Raoul!” he
called.

He hoped—hoped
like hell—the door would open. He’d find the embarrassed and apologetic Loti
trying to kiss him.

The door remained
closed.

“I’m going in,”
Xris told Harry.

Gun in hand, Xris
kicked his steel leg into the door, burst it open. Splinters flew. The lock
snapped. He dashed in, his gun moving in a tracking arc, looking for targets.
He saw nothing more alarming than one of Raoul’s hats.

The room was made
up. The beds hadn’t been slept in. Raoul’s luggage was open, clothes strewn
about—on the bed, on the floor. A red taffeta cloak was draped over the vid.
Xris might have concluded immediately that the place had been trashed, but
Raoul’s bedroom back home looked exactly the same, only worse. Even an
overturned lamp was nothing out of the ordinary, if Raoul happened to be
suffering through a bad hair day.

And then, “Damn it
all,” Xris said softly.

“What is it, Xris?”
Harry heard the cyborg’s ominous tone. “What’ve you found?”

Xris didn’t
answer. Walking over to a cream-colored wall, he examined the large wet
splotch, touched it. Then he swore.

“Blood. And it’s
fresh.”

“You need me up
there?”

“No. Stay with the
van.”

Xris found several
more red spots on the carpet, still more in front of the bathroom. Gun raised,
he slowly pushed open the bathroom door with the toe of his boot, looked in the
mirror on the wall to see if anyone was inside.

No one was. At
least not that he could see from this angle.

Xris shoved open
the door, whipped around it.

“Dear God in
heaven!” he said, appalled.

“Xris! What is it?
You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Xris
said bitterly. “It’s the Little One.”

The small figure
lay huddled in the bathtub. Blood was spattered all over the walls and the
sides of the tub; the raincoat was soaked red, especially around the collar.
The fedora was askew on the battered head.

Gently, Xris
removed the hat, to try to get a better look at the injuries. He recoiled in
revulsion and shock. Not from the sight of blood or the brutal punishment the
small body had taken; Xris had seen people beaten up before. It was the sight
of the small body itself.