Tek Kill (19 page)

“How long do you expect to get away with an idiotic story like that? My attorneys will eventually—”

“They've already been notified of your condition,” he said, smiling again. “As to how long you're going to be a guest on the island—not long at all.”

“You can't kill me, Rollo, without risking—”

“One of the symptoms of your unfortunate condition is an exaggerated feeling of persecution.” Rowland stood. “There's absolutely no need to kill you, Sis.”

“What then?”

“I intend to go ahead with our Tek venture,” he said evenly. “You tried to betray me to the International Drug Control Agency. Good thing Jean-Paul has been working for me for nearly a year. That's one of the main reasons we set up the clandestine Tek plant here.”

“I went along with the Tek idea, which was wrong and stupid. But killing people is—”

“Once that Dr. Stolzer works with you, you'll feel differently,” promised her brother. “You'll be, for the first time in many a long year, happy and cooperative.”

She glared at him. “You're not going to let that quack touch me?”

“Come, Becky, Stoker's highly respected,” said Rowland. “And once he gets through modifying your brain, you'll agree that he's a wonderful fellow.”

32

THE huge gunmetal guardbot blinked, which produced a metallic clacking sound. He scratched at his side with dark metal fingers, then rubbed his palm across his domed skull, then poked Gomez in the breastbone. “Say that again,
amigo
,” he requested.

“
Chihuahua
,” remarked Gomez, “a Mexican bot.
¿Qué pasa, hombre?
”

“Spare me the greaser lingo, Shorty,” requested the robot who was guarding the exec wing corridor deep inside the Tekelodeon complex. “Just simply repeat what you just now said to me.”

Gomez said, “
Sibben elf
.”

“So?”

After giving a perplexed look to Marney, who was standing a few feet behind him, Gomez leaned closer to the mechanical man. “It's the password,
cabrón
.”

The gunmetal head rattled slightly when the bot shook it. “It
was
the password,
pato
,” he told him. “Yesterday.”

“Oops,” observed Gomez.

The guardbot's arm, the one with the lazgun built in, started to swing up.

“Darn sakes, we got no more time for arguin'.” Marney whipped out a stungun and fired.

“
Madre de Dios
,” exclaimed the robot, going up on tiptoe for a few seconds before starting to topple over.

Gomez caught him, bicycling back as the full weight of the guardbot hit him. “This isn't,
chiquita
, the stealthy entry into Moyech's lair that I had in mind.”

“Stack him over yonder, darlin',” Marney suggested. “Then let's get movin'.”

JAKE WAS ALONE in his hotel room when the call came.

“Molly Fine calling,” announced the vidphone.

“Put her on.” Jake crossed to sit down in front of the phonescreen.

A very pale and agitated Molly popped up. “Jake, Dan's in trouble. I should have called you earlier except I thought it was best to—”

“Whoa now,” he advised. “Tell me what's happened to him.”

Molly took a breath, brought a plyochief up to her nose. “It happened last night sometime, but I didn't find out about it until this morning,” she began. “Dan was snatched out of your condo. By that bald man.”

“Summerson,” said Jake. “Any idea where Dan was taken?”

She gave a vigorous nod. “Yes, I got that from Sue Grossman.”

“We're talking about an extrasensory vision?”

“Initially, but I checked it out—as best I could, Jake.”

“Go ahead.”

“Susan saw Dan at a place called Junior Workers of America Camp 30.”

“Jesus, those camps are pestholes. Where's that one located?”

“Thirty is in the town of McClennan, Mississippi.”

“Do you have any evidence that Dan is actually—”

“Yes, Rex/GK-30 helped me on this,” she answered. “Very early this morning a young man named Henry Weiner arrived at 30. He answers Dan's description—I'm near certain it's him.”

“Damn it. They've probably mindwiped him.”

“I can meet you in McClennan and—”

“No, I'll take care of this.”

“You're sure you—”

“I'm sure,” he told her. “How'd you get this information from Susan?”

“It was very tough doing,” Molly said. “They tossed her in Dr. Stoker's setup and I had to fake my way in. I wanted to check on how she was doing, and while I was there—well, she had another vision. But before she could finish telling me about it, one of the goddamned android medics burst in on us.” She shrugged her left shoulder. “I sort of had to stungun the lout so I could get all the information from Sue.”

“You're doing terrific work, Molly,” he said. “I assume one of your lawyer uncles is going to be able to keep you out of the pokey.”

“Don't worry about that.”

“Where's Susan now?”

“She seems to have left there while the andy was out of commission,” she answered. “My uncle tells me not to admit I know where she is. But if she sees anything else, I'll contact you.” She leaned forward. “You will get Dan out of that damn work camp, won't you?”

“I will, yeah,” he assured her, and ended the call.

AVRAM MOYECH was neither tall nor thin. Standing now in the center of the scarlet room, his bare feet flexing on the thick scarlet carpeting, wearing a short, black sinsilk robe, he measured under five feet four and weighed something over two hundred pounds.

The tall blonde in the neoleather slax and halter was saying, “Of course you're handsome, Av. Gorgeous, to tell the truth.”

“You mean that, Francesca?”

“I could never lie to you, darling.” Smiling, she took one more step closer to him.

The scarlet drapes covering the high, narrow bedroom windows fluttered gently in a faint night breeze. The five globes of light floating up near the scarlet ceiling glowed a pale scarlet.

“In college, out in Greater Los Angeles,” the chubby, bearded man told her, “I had the idea you didn't much like me.”

“Ten years ago that was, Av dear.” She ran her fingers through his long blond hair, ruffling it, and moved slowly nearer and nearer. “I'm older, wiser. I appreciate you for what you are.”

“You told Sam Hollis you thought I was a schmuck. A fat little schmuck.”

“Obviously I don't think that now, darling.” Francesca stopped quite near to him. Her smile deepened as she put her hands on his pudgy shoulders and pulled him to her. “And we've got all night for me to prove it to you.”

“Back to reality,
pobrecito.
” Gomez was standing beside the blonde.

She grimaced, let go of Moyech, vanished. So did the scarlet bedroom.

Moyech shook his head from side to side, blinking. “How the hell did you get into—”

“I'm notorious for invading Tekheads' dreams,” explained the detective. He held the Tek gear he'd just yanked from the fat man's head.

Moyech, fully clothed, was sitting on a circular airbed. “Who the hell are you? How did you—”

“Actually,
mierdita
, I'm the one who asks the questions.” His stungun suddenly appeared in his hand. He fired it at Moyech.

The man's left hand swung out at his side, the fingers spread themselves wide and then closed into a fist as he passed out and fell back onto the bed.

Gomez hefted up the stungunned Moyech, managed to get him tossed over his shoulder. “
Ai
,” he remarked, “this guy is
muy grueso
.”

Marney, who was across the bedroom, yanked open a door. “Let's us skidaddle, darlin',” she suggested. “We got to vacate this joint real quick.”

“Lugging a two-hundred-fifty-pound technical expert around slows a feller down,
cara.
” As best he could, he made it over to the doorway.

They stepped into a dimlit corridor. “If I recall rightly, from the research I did before we invaded the Tekelodeon, this passway'll lead us to where we can sneak out into—”

“Trouble.”

A thickset gray-haired human guard had come around a bend about thirty feet down corridor. He reached for the lazgun in his belt holster.

But Marney was quite a bit faster. She snapped out a stungun, fired it, and hit the man in the midsection before he had his gun out of its holster. “Darn sakes, my shootin' has been top-notch this evenin',” she said, grinning. “This current lunkhead yonder makes my score three human beings, one bot, and one android so far.”

“Let's haul Moyech someplace where I can question the guy.”

“And let's get
me
somewheres where nobody can kill me graveyard dead.”

33

JAKE'S skycar, picking up speed, climbed up into the bright late-morning sky, circled out over the sea, and then headed toward the southern United States.

Once he'd punched out a flight pattern for Mississippi, Jake activated the vidphone. He used Walt Bascom's private agency number and in under a minute the Cosmos Detective Agency phone system had rerouted the call to the chief at a NorCal number.

Bascom appeared on the small rectangular screen. He eyed Jake, frowned, and asked, “Something wrong?”

“Dan's missing. I'm taking time off to find him.”

“Give me some details?”

Jake provided a concise account of what he knew and what he suspected. He concluded with, “I've been working on getting inside the San Peligro NewTown plant on the sly. Trouble's been, the first person who was set to help me has ceased to exist.”

“These are very rough folks we're up against.”

“When I get back I'll—”

“Your son comes first,” said the agency head. “Do you really feel you can put much faith in the Grossman girl? Seems to me, this kind of bunk is about one step above Tarot cards when—”

“I trust her, yeah. I can't explain what Susan Grossman does, but it seems to work.”

Bascom inquired, “Did my daughter show up down there?”

“She did. I assume you're the one who sicced Kacey on me.”

“Well, I might've provided her with a few helpful hints, extolled the wonderful weather in the Caribbean and so on,” admitted his boss. “It was either that, Jake, or have her tag along with me up here to Frisco.”

Nodding, Jake asked him, “What are you finding out up there?”

“That Zack Excoffon, noted Teklord, is one of the lads behind the murder frame-up. I've got a lead on somebody inside his organization who's willing to talk—for a hefty fee. Another day or so and I'll know.”

Jake asked, “Has anybody contacted the agency about Dan? Asking for ransom, warning us to lay off the case, wanting to contact me and make some kind of deal?”

“Not so far, Jake. And I got a report from your chum Roy Anselmo less than an hour ago,” said Bascom. “Nobody's contacted you, I take it?”

“Nope, I checked with my condo and no messages about Dan have come in,” he said. “I figure they took Dan to keep him from poking around into the Susan Grossman end of things. Which may mean that Molly Fine's in danger, too. Better put a watch on her.”

“Soon as we quit chatting.”

“Any news from Gomez?”

“Still in Sweetwater on the trail of the genius who rigged those very convincing sectapes of my debut as a crazed killer.”

“I'm going to get Dan out of that camp,” he said quietly. “And it probably won't be through legal channels, Walt.”

“I'll get you the names of some Mississippi locals who should be able to lend a hand in various ways, legal and otherwise,” Bascom promised. “Take me about an hour. I'll call you back.”

“Thanks.”

“Is Kacey still on the island?”

“Far as I know. I'll be calling her next.”

Bascom shook his head. “She's liable to walk into trouble.”

“She's pretty capable. Hard to take, but capable.”

“I'll see if I can provide some local backup for her so she won't know about it whilst you're away.”

Nodding, Jake ended the call. He punched out a new number.

“Where are you?” was the first thing Kacey asked after her image materialized on the phonescreen. “Up in a skycar it looks like,” she guessed, head tilted to the right. “So you're sneaking away from me again, huh?”

“If I were sneaking away, I sure as hell wouldn't call you to announce the fact.”

“There's something wrong. You look very upset,” the young woman said. “What is it? Has something happened to my father?”

Jake replied, “My son's been snatched. I think I know where they've taken him and I'm going there. It means postponing the island part of the investigation for a day or so.”

“Jake, that's terrible. Where are you heading? I can meet you there and help you.”

“Nope,” he told her. “Thanks, but this has nothing to do with you. I'll handle it, Kacey.”

Slowly, reluctantly, she said, “Okay. I'll keep working things here.”

“Fine, but don't go trying to solo—these guys are extremely nasty.”

“Oh, so it's perfectly okay for you to go off and play one-man army, but I'm not qualified to—”

“It's just that I'd hate to see you get killed.”

“Meaning you have some feeling for me?”

“Your dad would be annoyed with me if somebody knocked you off,” he explained.

She said, “You're an absolute—”

Jake ended the call.

THE PALE BLUE SKYVAN had T
EX
M
EX
C
ATERING
emblazoned on its side in golden letters. Gomez, hunched in the pilot seat, was flying it through the dusk in the general direction of Mexico. “Once we arrive in the land of my ancestors,
cara
,” he was saying, “I can arrange to have Señor Moyech shipped, very unobtrusively, up to Greater LA and into the arms of the Cosmos Detective Agency. From whence he'll be handed over to the minions of law and order. They in turn will persuade him to repeat the story he told me about rigging the Bascom sectapes. Of course, the cops probably won't use a trudisk, but they'll be able to persuade him to babble a bit.”