The Sum of Her Parts (21 page)

Molé’s curiosity concerning his new surroundings extended only to a characteristic need to map them in his head. He did not care what the facilities were used for, was uninterested in the motivations of the many Naturals and Melds who bustled around him. He was here on specific company business. The rest of company business did not concern him. Diversions were for when his task was done.

They descended one floor in a massive lift large enough to hold a dozen people and several vehicles. More walking and more corridors
brought them to a second lift. This one was considerably smaller and descended a good deal farther. Exiting down another hallway eventually brought them to a double door flanked by two guards. Both were large lods hefting large weapons. Molé identified the guns at a glance, casually noting with approval that both were powerful fast-firing contemporary models that would be well suited to defending a subterranean corridor. The escort identified himself to the guards, who in turn identified him to the door. A feminine voice responded via a speaker and the doors parted with a click to admit the visitors. The paired barriers were thick, fireproof, and probably capable of stopping anything up to and including an armor-piercing military round.

A curving desk in the reception area was staffed by a woman in her early thirties. She appeared to be a Natural, though Molé knew better than most how external appearances could be deceiving. Hovering off to one side between a pair of purple couches, a floating holovit whose volume had been turned way down was showing the most recent episode of a popular folk drama from Madagascar. The receptionist looked up from her box screen.

“Napun Molé?” He nodded and she smiled, showing none of the instinctive disdain that had initially been displayed by his younger escort. “You’re expected. Go right in.” A single door nearby slid aside and Molé stepped through the portal. As he did so it scanned him, even though he had long since been cleared through an assortment of checkpoints. When his escort moved to follow, the woman spoke pleasantly but firmly.

“Not you.”

It was a measure of the woman’s tone, or Kruger’s status, or perhaps both, that the formerly self-confident young man did not try to argue with her. Turning, he departed wordlessly back the way he had come. The outer doors slid silently shut behind him.

Kruger’s office featured one full vit wall that was presently displaying
a live three-dimensional projection from St. Mark’s Square. Excited tourists mingled with locals while a tenor outside the oldest café in Italy strove manfully to project Puccini above the babble of several dozen tongues. Beneath the transparent pavers that were part of Ascended Venice, the waters of the Grand Canal surged restlessly, stirred by passing vaporetto. Wandering into the foreground and indifferent to the presence of the global box or local police pickups, a pickpocket casually riffled a wallet from a woman’s purse. The unjudgmental Molé noted that the man wore a live fluctuator on his wrist. Disguised to look like a cheap chrono, its signal would cancel out the proximity alarm embedded in the stolen wallet, rendering it useless. So went the eternal war between the ever innocent and the always opportunistic.

Kruger noted the direction of his visitor’s gaze. “You’ve been to Venice?”

“Yes,” Molé murmured longingly, “I’ve been to Venice. I was once witness to a drowning that took place there. The poor fellow ended up in a canal and I was compelled to perform CPT on him.”

The security chief frowned. “Don’t you mean CPR?”

“No.” Molé smiled thinly. “CPT. Cardiopulmonary termination.” Without changing tone or expression he added, “I like cities in general. It is where I am most comfortable. City people are generally accommodating of the elderly.”

Kruger nodded without comment, tracking his guest carefully as the old man settled himself into the chair on the other side of the desk. “You don’t move like you need that cane you’re carrying.”

“Kind of you to say so. I manage my affairs well enough. Unlike you, it would seem.”

Kruger instantly dispensed with the false conviviality he was obliged to display toward visitors. From here onward their conversation would proceed on a purely professional plane. That suited him just fine.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Molé had draped the cane across his lap. “I was informed that you recently lost some of your people here.”

The security chief stiffened in his chair. “An unfortunate incident involving unexpected hostiles that took place far outside the facility. Procedures are in place to ensure it won’t happen again. It’s nothing that need concern an independent contractor like yourself—colleague.”

Molé smiled afresh. “I meant no offense.”

“You could’ve fooled me.”

“Seriously, I do not. I am merely curious from a professional standpoint. Speaking professionally, I am sure that you recall our conversation of some weeks ago.”

“Well enough.” Still only partly mollified, Kruger leaned back in his chair. “I replayed it when I was told that you were coming. I wish I could say that I was looking forward to this, but I dislike interruptions to routine.”

“Where that is concerned we are of the same mind—colleague.”

Kruger felt a bit better about his guest. “I was expecting someone …”

“Younger?” Molé finished for him.

Kruger nodded. “And larger.” His own smile was flat. “Merely from a ‘professional’ standpoint, you understand.” Without taking his eyes off his visitor he addressed a concealed pickup. “Danae, will you come in here a minute, please?”

Molé did not react as the door behind him slid open to admit the receptionist. When she stopped very close to his left side and leaned toward him he was compelled to take closer notice of her. Ylang-ylang-based perfume assailed his nostrils. Resting her hands on her knees, she locked pale blue eyes with his. Her voice was a trill composed to run up and down specific parts of a man’s body.

“Is there anything I can get you, Mr. Molé? Anything at all? In situations like this I am always at a guest’s disposal.” Watching from the other side of the desk Kruger said nothing, his expression unreadable.

Molé met her gaze without flinching, without blinking. “Tempted as I am by your practiced offer I believe you would find my personal predilections unpalatable, Ms. Danae. You are quite striking and you have excellent breasts and fine hips. I also note that the power mister situated between the former is doubtless loaded with a suitably potent soporific. I would suggest replacing it with a smaller and less prominent model.” Her expression fell and he smiled. “Less volume but less detectable is better. The same goes for the flistol strapped to your attractive and well-toned right thigh. Too much bulge.”

She straightened and her winsome smile vanished. “No one else ever noticed them.”

“No, that is not necessarily correct,” he challenged her. “What you mean to say is that no one else has commented on them. That does not mean they have gone unnoticed. Something not commented upon does not cease to exist. This, for example.” His hand shot out and grabbed her between the legs.

Shocked, she immediately brought her right hand down sharply, the edge aiming for his neck. Parrying the blow easily with his left hand, the right swung the cane upward. The tip, from which a needle now protruded, halted less than a centimeter from her left eye. She froze. It was dead silent in the room.

Folding his hands on the desk in front of him, Kruger said quietly, “That’ll be all for now, Danae.”

Backing away from the visitor, the receptionist grabbed her throbbing wrist with her other hand, nodded, and retreated to the outer reception area. While the door closed behind her, Molé
turned nonchalantly back to his host. As the monitors concealed beneath the top of the security chief’s desk indicated, the visitor’s respiration and heart rate were unchanged.

“She’s fast. And she is decorative. A useful tool, but she needs to learn how to deal with both criticism and the unexpected.”

Kruger shook his head. “I think, Mr. Molé, that you are a little more unexpected than anything she has encountered before. I’ll speak to her about the concealed weapons.”

Molé nodded. “As tests of my competency go, that was relatively unstressful. You must understand that at my age women are at best a diversion, not an inducement. I trust there will be no more games.”

“Why have you come here?”

“That’s better.” Pleased to have the discussion back on a purely professional level, Molé settled back into the chair. Nearly disappeared into it, Kruger thought. “I have come to await the conclusion of an assignment that has already taken far too long.”

Kruger remembered their phone conversation. “The two thieves you spoke about. The ones you said had stolen a small storage thread that belongs to the company. If I recall correctly you said you had reason to believe they might be in Southern Africa.” His eyes widened slightly. “You don’t mean to say that you think they’re somewhere around
here
?”

Molé nodded. “I mean to say exactly that.”

“
Wunderbaarlik
. Well, if they’re anywhere in the Sperrgebeit either my patrols or our programmed searchers will find them. I assure you that if they’re within two hundred kilometers of Nerens they’ll be located and picked up.”

“These are very resourceful people.”

“Because they’ve managed to avoid you for so long?” Molé twitched ever so faintly at the slight, but not so faintly that Kruger
failed to note the reaction.
Good
, he thought. That should even up the “nonoffensive” commentary a bit.

“It is astounding what the most ordinary people can do if sufficiently motivated,” the visitor responded calmly. “By subsist, by a desire for power, by sex. Although from what I have learned I do not think the last motivator applies in this instance. It is true that I thought I had successfully run these people to ground previously. Twice, in fact. On each occasion they managed to escape me. They will not this time.”

Kruger was on firm ground now. “Not if they come anywhere near my security perimeter they won’t.”

Molé leaned slightly forward. Despite himself Kruger’s right hand moved surreptitiously toward a desk drawer when the tip of the unprepossessing cane appeared to incline in his direction. Neither man commented on the security chief’s instinctive reaction. Indeed, Molé would have been disappointed had Kruger not reacted.

“Your confidence is reassuring but possibly misplaced. Belying their backgrounds, these two have managed to elude not only myself but others who would like to take possession of the storage thread. Its significance cannot be overemphasized nor its importance to the company overstressed.”

“All right, all right; I get it, Mr. Molé. This thread is important and these people are tricky.” His heavy eyebrows drew together slightly. “If you don’t mind my asking, if they’ve stolen something that’s so valuable to the company, why on Earth would they try to bring it here, where company security is as tight as anywhere on the planet?”

“Of that I am not sure. But having had more time than I wish to consider all the possibilities, I believe they are coming in hopes of learning what is on the thread. They cannot sell it, for example to
those other interested parties to whom I just referred, without knowing what it contains. I cannot imagine any other reason for taking such risks as they already have.”

Kruger nodded. “That makes a certain twisted sense. To a crazy person.”

“They are not crazy,” Molé assured his host. “They are driven. These are not always so very different.”

“Their motivation is immaterial to me. If they enter the Sperrgebeit they’ll be detected and picked up. And if their intent is to try and slip into Nerens itself, the closer they come the tighter they’ll find security.” He smiled, ready to relax. “Meanwhile, you must be tired from your trip. Bouncing all the way from the Cape to the Namib isn’t my idea of a peaceful journey.” He nodded suggestively toward the door that led to the reception area. “You sure you don’t want Danae to show you the ropes?”

Molé smiled back. It was different from his earlier smiles. “Not unless you already have someone else in mind for the vacancy she would leave.”

Het Kruger was not a man whose blood was easily chilled. But with a single expression the old man seated in the big chair before him had managed to lower the temperature in the office by several degrees.

From what Ingrid could remember of Ouspel’s map and directions Gwi followed a similar though not identical route. After days of struggling through the hostile desert landscape on their own it was almost relaxing to have an actual live guide. That he talked occasionally at night but hardly at all during the day had nothing to do with shyness.

“SICK searchers listen as well as look,” he told her when she inquired as to the reason for his persistent silences.

They were traveling almost due west now. Whenever Whispr would question if they were headed in the right direction Gwi would point out a landmark that was familiar to him. Most of what he singled out for attention did not look like landmarks to Ingrid: a twist in a dry riverbed, a single lonely kokerboom tree, the way two hillside slopes came together to form a particular angle: sometimes their guide’s “landmark” consisted of nothing more than a discoloration underfoot. All were road signs to the young San.

They were very close to Nerens when he bade them stop and crouch down behind a sandy hillock. A few twisted sprigs of
Sarcocaulon
pattersonii
, better known as bushmen’s candle, held forth against the wind from the crest of the sandy bulge. Ingrid looked around anxiously.

“I don’t see anything. What’s wrong?”

As he swung his small pack off his back and began fumbling within, Gwi put a finger to his lips. “Forget your eyes,” he told her. “Listen.”

She went silent. An irritated Whispr was about to say something when the sound of distant laughter made him pause. Hints of hilarity odd in timbre, it was deep and drawing near. Staying on his belly, he scrambled to the top of the hillock and peered into the distance, trying to locate the source of the ongoing incongruous merriment. Several minutes elapsed before he could, at the absolute limit of his vision, make out a dozen or so shapes running toward them. Not, not running, he corrected himself. Loping.