Soulminder (34 page)

“It wasn’t a surprise, Nic,” Rosabel murmured. “The plastic surgery—it predated the torture, remember? They planned to sell his body from the very beginning.”

“She’s right,” Blanchard said, nodding. “They did just enough work on the face to keep anyone who’d known him from recognizing him if they saw him on the street.”

“And our government’s just going along with this?” Nic asked.

“There are a lot of injured vets,” Blanchard said. “As you said: political brownie points.”

“So what if I refuse to play the game?”

Blanchard looked him straight in the eye. “Then you die,” she said bluntly. “Your old body’s long since gone. If you decline this one, it’ll be given to someone else.”

“Nic, please,” Rosabel said, her hand wrapping around his in a death grip. “You can’t … you just can’t.”

“Take it easy, Hon,” Nic said, squeezing her hand reassuringly. “I’m not talking about dying just to make some kind of useless statement. I’m talking about the
whole
game. This whole damn body-switching, body-
stealing
game.”

Abruptly, he stood up. “Fair warning, Dr. Blanchard,” he said. “I appreciate what you did for me. But it’s over now. I’m going to fight you on this one, just as hard as I can.”

Blanchard shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“And you think that
why
?”

“Because,” Blanchard said calmly, “I’m on your side.”

Nic blinked. “What?” he asked cautiously.

“Yes,” Blanchard confirmed. “So is Frank Everly. And so is Director Sommer.”

Nic looked at Rosabel. “The guy who invented Soulminder?”

“The very same,” Blanchard said. “He’s just as angry as you and I are about what his creation has been turned into. And he’s promised to stop it.”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” Blanchard said. “I don’t think he does, either. Not yet.” She cocked her head, studying him. “I understand you’re still looking for a job. You want to work for us?”

“Doing what?” Nic asked.

“I don’t know that yet, either,” Blanchard said. “Let’s figure it out together.”

Nic looked at Rosabel. Then, slowly, he sat down again. “Yes,” he said. “Let’s.”

“The purpose of this meeting,” the Assistant District Attorney said briskly, peering at his tablet, “is to ascertain the parameters of a plea bargain between the State of California and Daniel Reginald Lydekker, of the city of Los Angeles.”

Lydekker squeezed his hands into fists under the table. His lawyer had assured him that a first-time offense like this would probably result in nothing worse than probation.

But his lawyer had apparently missed the latest statutes on the class of drugs Lydekker had been caught buying. Those particular drugs were chewing a swath through the sons and daughters of the elite, and the State of California had apparently decided that was where they would draw a line in the long-neglected sand.

A line that was now positioned directly beneath Lydekker’s feet.

“A conviction on all counts could bring a sentence of five to seven years in prison,” the ADA read from his tablet. “Our offer, in exchange for a guilty plea, is six months, plus five years’ probation.”

Lydekker tightened his fists even harder. Six months. Six
months
.

He couldn’t do six months. He’d barely survived the twenty hours he’d been in the county lockup before his lawyer had been maneuvered through the legal hoops and gotten him bailed out.

Six months would kill him. It would absolutely kill him.

“Or,” the ADA continued, “the State is prepared to offer one year of being on call to a licensed office for recreational body-sharing.”

Lydekker stared at him. “What was that?” he asked carefully.

“One year of being on call for recreational body-sharing,” the other repeated, looking at Lydekker with an odd expression on his face. “It’s considered a form of high-level probation these days. Tell me, do you have any sports abilities? A lot of people are looking for that. Or artistic expertise, or anything else someone might want to experience?”

“You’re joking,” Lydekker said, the words coming out like pieces of sandpaper. In his mind’s eye he saw himself racing down that snow-covered hill … saw the blazingly beautiful alleyway … felt the hammering agony of the drug withdrawal …

“It’s perfectly safe,” the ADA assured him. “The contract provides for the client to pay any medical bills should there be an injury—”

“Yes, I read the damn contract,” Lydekker gritted out. “This is insane.”

The ADA shrugged. “As I said, it’s just an offer,” he said, closing down his tablet and putting it back in its case. “Feel free to discuss it with your attorney. If you decide not to deal, contact my office and we’ll set a court date.”

He stood up and headed for the door. “Wait,” Lydekker said.

The ADA turned back. “Yes?”

Lydekker took a deep breath. Six months. Maybe even seven years … “Motocross,” he said bitterly. “I can do motocross.”

CHAPTER 7

End Game

It wasn’t the biggest
fraud trial in New York history. Bernie Madoff still held the record on that one. It wasn’t the most notorious, either. There were a goodly number of high-profile murder, terrorist, and crime boss cases that future chroniclers would have to choose among for that dubious honor.

But Marvin Chernov had duped his clients of over twenty billion dollars, and many of those clients had been Manhattan’s most powerful, famous, and supposedly sophisticated movers and shakers.

Those embarrassed movers and shakers wanted his head on a platter. Figuratively, literally, or some combination of the two.

That was where Adam Jacobi came in.

And where Marvin Chernov went out.

The rooftop Jacobi had chosen for the job was a long block away from the courthouse where Chernov was currently basting the judge and jury in his oh-so-sincere smile and probably not sweating in the slightest. Certainly not visibly. The man hadn’t convinced all those investors that he was as pure as Vermont maple syrup by showing the slightest molecule of doubt or hesitation.

But for all of Chernov’s external confidence, Jacobi had no doubt that the jury would hang him out to dry.

Leaning forward, Jacobi peered through the scope attached to his FN Special Police sniper rifle, resting on its bipod at the edge of the roof. Briefly, he wondered if he should double-check his ranging calculations, then dismissed the thought. He’d run all the distance, drop, and windage numbers and zeroed the crosshairs for those stats, and he never made mistakes. All the hard work was done, and all that was left was to line up the crosshairs on Chernov’s forehead. The .300 Winchester short magnum round and the laws of physics would do the rest.

He was wondering idly how long the sunlight would last before the afternoon clouds that had been forecast rolled in when there was a sudden flurry of activity on the courthouse steps. A single glance through the scope at the shirtsleeved cameramen and overpolished and microphone-laden news babes was all he needed.

The trial was over for the day, and Marvin Chernov was about to head back to his temporary quarters on Rikers Island.

Setting the butt of the rifle stock against his shoulder, Jacobi set his eye to the scope, and his finger against the trigger guard, and waited.

The wait wasn’t long. Three minutes later, surrounded by a phalanx of cops and lawyers, Chernov walked through the doors and headed for the mob of reporters.

Jacobi shifted his finger from the guard to the trigger.

The past four sessions of the trial had established a pattern. Each time Chernov emerged from the courthouse he would stop on the top step, deliver a short harangue on the eminent unfairness of the charges and his total innocence, then take a few questions.

Today was no exception. The silver-haired man stopped at his usual place, his entourage stopping more or less patiently with him, and through his scope Jacobi saw his mouth begin moving as he launched into today’s speech.

He was just getting warmed up when Jacobi’s .300 magnum blew out the back of his head.

He’d had another name once, the name his mother had given him and, he assumed, the blurry succession of foster parents had used when yelling at him. But it had been years since he’d left the last of those hellholes, enough years that he’d stopped even bothering to remember it.
Shrill
was what the other street people called him, and Shrill was who he was. He was Shrill the street person, the meth addict, the one you didn’t pick on if you didn’t want your ears turned inside out.

But even more important, he was Shrill the guy with a secret.

Sometimes one of the others asked how he got by without hitting up the tourists and bleeding hearts for loose change. Sometimes, when he was feeling good and on a hit, he would drop hints about a relative who kept him in food and drugs. Other times, when he wasn’t feeling so good, he would drop even bigger hints that he took the money from those same tourists directly, without asking, leaving them bleeding in some alley. That usually shut off the questions and gained him a little space.

Which was how he liked it. The last thing he wanted them to know was that he was renting out his body. Not like a hooker rented just the fun parts, but literally renting his whole body.

Thank God for Soulminder. And thank God, too, that more of the druggies didn’t know about it. If they did, they’d all want a piece of the gold mine, and he
would
have to shake down the tourists.

He was in the first stages of withdrawal as he slipped inside the special side entrance that Soulminder had set up for this sort of transaction. He stopped at the desk, gave his name—the people here only knew him as Shrill, too—and was led back to a small room that was nothing but a hospital bed and a buttload of fancy gadgets with wires, tubes, and shiny lights.

And, of course, there was the helmet.

The tech got him settled on the bed and adjusted the helmet around his head. Sometimes the techs asked if he was on something, but this one didn’t. Probably he could tell just by looking that Shrill was coming down.

That was how it was supposed to be. No one borrowed a druggie’s body just to feel the middle of a high. They borrowed it because they wanted the whole package, from the first whiff of smoke or tingle of the needle, right through the high and to the start of the crash.

Only the start, of course. At the first hint the stuff was wearing off, they scurried back to Soulminder and got their own bodies back.

For Shrill, that meant going from one crash straight to another, without any of the high in between. That part sucked. Really sucked.

But the money was good. Very good. And he had to admit that floating like a ghost in the Soulminder machine was pretty peaceful.

Maybe if he ever got enough money he’d see if it was possible to take vacations in there. Surely that was where the rich people spent their time when they got bored with their big boats.

He was daydreaming about living in a sea of calm peacefulness when the tech tingled his arm with the hypo.

A minute later, he was dead.

The face at the hotel room door was exactly as Jacobi had expected. The body, though—or rather, that body’s current encasement—definitely wasn’t.

“What the hell is
this
?” he demanded as the young man strode past him into the room.

“It’s called a suit,” the man replied coolly. “What, haven’t you ever seen a suit before?”

“I told you I had a wardrobe already put away for you,” Jacobi said, not nearly so coolly.

“And I wanted to get out of those damn filthy druggie rags,” the other retorted. “What are you worried about? It’s not coming out of your pocket.”

“Damn right it isn’t. So whose pocket
did
it come from?”

“Whose do you think? The rich kid left two hundred to buy his hit. I just bought something that would last longer than a three-hour high, that’s all. Maybe he’ll learn a little about lasting value this way.”

Jacobi ground his teeth. This was not the plan, and the only way he’d survived as long as he had in this business was because he always followed the plan. “And what do you think they’re going to say at the rehab center when you show up in a brand-new suit?”

“They’re not going to say a thing,” the man said, “because I’m not going.”

Jacobi felt his eyes narrow. “What?” he asked in a low, ominous voice.

“Oh, don’t worry,” the man assured him with a grin full of stained teeth. “I’m not going to drop into this body’s old habits. I figure I can kick his addictions on my own, that’s all.”

“You think you can do that, do you?” Jacobi asked patiently. “Did you even
do
the reading I recommended?”

“Of course I did,” the man said, his cocky bravado switching to soothing humility in an instant. It was the kind of emotional dexterity that separated a good con man from a great one, Jacobi knew. Probably why he’d been one of the best. “I know a person’s brain and body retains some of their habits and muscle memory, no matter whose soul is in it.” He lifted a finger like a grade-school teacher making a point to a particularly slow student. “But I
also
know that even meth can be kicked provided the addict is motivated.” He looked down at his body. “Believe me, brother—I’m
extremely
motivated.”

Jacobi ground his teeth even harder. But there was nothing he could do. Even the best plans required the client’s cooperation, and in this case the arrogant S.O.B. was clearly determined to do things
his
way. “Fine,” he said, crossing to the coffee table and opening the satchel lying there. “Come here.”

He dug beneath the neatly folded clothing in the satchel and retrieved the wallet tucked away in the middle. “Pay attention.” He opened the wallet and ran a finger down the assortment of cards in the slots. “Driver’s license in your new name of Gabriel Vance. Visa and MasterCard, ten thousand dollar credit limit on each. That should hold you until you can get to your own stash. Social Security, Safeway Preferred Customer, Staples, and Best Buy—”

“Best
Buy
?” the other interrupted, sounding aghast.

“You want to flaunt your billions with designer electronics, be my guest,” Jacobi said. “Just be aware that that’s exactly the kind of trail FBI agents love to dig out.”

The man sniffed. “Like they’ll have a snowball’s chance.”

“You don’t want my advice, don’t take it,” Jacobi said, suddenly tired of this man and this conversation. “No skin off my nose either way. You have my money?”

“You have a pencil?”

Silently, Jacobi wiggled his fingers in invitation.

The man rattled off a series of numbers. “You need me to repeat that?”

“No,” Jacobi said. “I trust all fifty million is there?”

“All fifty, plus a ten-million bonus.” The man grinned again. “I figure you earned it.”

“Okay, then,” Jacobi said. For a moment he considered reminding the client what would happen if his fee was not, in fact, in that account. But it really wasn’t worth the effort. “Take the satchel and get going. I’ll follow in about ten minutes.”

“Better idea,” the man said. “You go, and I go take a shower. I’m thinking room service, and a good night’s sleep.”

Jacobi cocked an eyebrow. “You’re staying here? Even though they’re looking for you out there?”

“Exactly. They’re looking for me out
there
. They’re
not
looking for me in here.”

“Good,” Jacobi said, his estimation of the man going up a reluctant notch. Most of the time people on the run did just that—run—often too fast or too obviously. It took discipline and cool-headedness to stay put in a potentially risky place. “I’d skip the room service, though. There’s leftover pizza in the fridge.”

“Good enough,” the man said. “I might need the credit card you checked in with.”

“I already put it down for the charges.”

“Yes, I assumed that,” the man said. “But sometimes they want to see the card again. I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Fine.” Jacobi pulled out the card and handed it over. “I checked in at ten in the evening, so as long as you check out before noon you shouldn’t run into anyone who might remember the face that went with that name. Destroy it as soon as you’re out the door, of course.”

“Got it,” the man said as he glanced at the card and then slipped it into his pocket.

“I mean
destroy
it, not just throw it away.”

“I said I got it,” the man said, a bit testily. “Any other words of wisdom?”

“Yes,” Jacobi said, gesturing to the satchel. “Until you get a haircut, I’d suggest you stick to the black shirt and jeans.”

“The Greenwich Village disaffected artist outfit,” the man said, nodding sagely as he ran his fingers through his long, greasy hair. “Going to be different having hair again, instead of that silly silver toupee. Well, as you can probably tell, I need a shower. Don’t let me keep you.”

“Yeah,” Jacobi said, heading for the door. “Enjoy your twenty billion.”

“Ten, actually,” the other corrected. “The press always blows things way out of proportion.”

“Yeah.” Like at that stratospheric level a few billion here or there really mattered. “Enjoy. See you never.”

“Right,” the man who had once been a con artist called Marvin Chernov said from the mouth that had once belonged to a man called Shrill. “See you never.”

The low phone conversation that had been going on across the Global 6000’s lounge finally came to an end. “Well?” Dr. Adrian Sommer asked, raising his voice enough to be heard over the rumbling drone of the jet’s engines.

“It’s still a horrific mess,” Frank Everly growled, his eyes looking ready to flash-vaporize tungsten. “But some of the threads are starting to work out around the edges.” He picked up the notebook he’d been scribbling in during the conversation. “It looks like Chernov entered a trap in the Manhattan South office at three-seventeen. Four minutes earlier, at three-thirteen, a drug addict in one of Walkabout USA’s body-swapping programs entered the same office. At three-twenty he was euthed and entered his own trap. His body was supposed to then have been entered by a Blaine Kaplan, who was already in a trap awaiting transfer.”

“Only he never made it,” Sommer said.

“Nope,” Everly confirmed. “Somehow, and we still don’t know how it happened, Chernov’s soul was transferred into the druggie instead. The druggie walked out and, of course, never came back.” His lip twisted. “Oh, and Kaplan had conveniently left two hundred dollars for the druggie to buy some meth with.”

Sommer frowned. He despised everything about Walkabout, but he’d nevertheless taken care to learn every part of their routine, especially the parts that directly involved the Soulminder facilities. Waiting to accept and sign for the money would have taken Chernov another five to ten minutes. “And with twenty billion dollars of his own stashed away, he actually waited around to collect it?”

Everly shrugged. “Traveling money is traveling money,” he pointed out. “And no one’s ever accused Chernov of being chutzpah-challenged.”