F Paul Wilson - Sims 04 (5 page)

 
          
He
considered
Kek’s
muscular arms, sensed the power in
the thick shoulders bulging through the sleeveless coverall. Yes, power to
spare, more than enough to take out two hardened pros, especially if they
didn’t see him coming.

 
          
“I
guess I owe you big time,
Kek
,” Patrick said,
thrusting out his hand. He still didn’t know what kind of mutant monkey thing
stood before him, but he most definitely wanted
Kek
on his side. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for saving my life. Thank
you very much.”

 
          
Kek
pulled back his shoulders and puffed out his chest.
Finally he made eye contact. His hand was warm and dry as his long fingers
wrapped around Patrick’s. He bared his teeth, revealing those fangs.
An attempt at a smile?

 
          
“Does
he speak?” Patrick said.

 
          
“Not
more than a few syllables—one of them being ‘
Kek
.’
But he understands speech and he signs.”

 
          
Kek
released Patrick’s hand and turned to the two men on
the floor. Ponytail groaned and stirred.
Kek
bent,
grabbed the man’s hair, and slammed his head against the floor.

 
          
“Easy,
Kek
,”
Romy
said. “We don’t
want to scramble his brains.”

 
          
“What
do we want to do?” Patrick said.

 
          
Romy
said, “Zero,” to her PCA, then smiled. “That’s what
I’m about to find out.”

 
          
Every
muscle in Luca’s body wound tight as he let himself into the foyer of
Romy
Cadman’s apartment building. Something had gone wrong.
He didn’t know what, couldn’t imagine what, but Palmer and Jackson weren’t
answering his calls.

 
          
They’d
been flown in from the Idaho facility especially for this op—both of them
experienced men who’d return there immediately after they completed their work.
The chance of Cadman or Sullivan ever seeing either of them again was nil.
They’d called in when they’d set themselves up in the apartment; they’d
responded when the surveillance team in the car outside let them know that both
the woman and Sullivan were on their way up.

 
          
But
that had been over an hour ago. No one had heard from them since. No one had
entered or left the building since Cadman and Sullivan’s arrival.

 
          
He
couldn’t help remembering the first time he’d run an op against these two: a
humiliating failure and two of his men dead.

 
          
Not
again, he thought, almost a prayer. Please, not again.

 
          
But
the previous op had been a complicated outdoor job, with innumerable variables;
this one was in a small apartment, a limited, controlled field of operation
that Palmer and Jackson had secured beforehand. What was wrong? An hour was
more than enough for a pair of armed pros to deal with two unarmed civilians,
juice them up with
Totuus
, and record the answers to
a few questions. Like, who do you take instructions from, where do you get your
money, and so
on.

 
          
Luca
had wanted to be there, and would have been if termination had been in the
plan; but since Cadman and Sullivan were going to be released, he couldn’t risk
showing his face.

 
          
He
hurried up the stairs. Key in hand, he pressed his ear against the door to 3A
and knocked.
No sound from within, not a whisper, not a
rustle.
He knocked again, same result.

 
          
Steeling
himself for what might lie within—visions of Ricker’s and Green’s smashed
skulls from the last time flashed through his brain—Luca unlocked the door and
stepped inside.

 
          
Empty silence.
Quick dodges in and out of the rooms, another
circuit to check out the closets, and then back to the center of the front
room, to wander in a slow, baffled circle. Where the hell was everybody? Could
he be in the wrong apartment?

 
          
And
then he spotted white fragments and powder on the carpet in the corner. He
stepped closer and recognized it as plaster. A quick look up and he found a
deep pock in the wall.
Bullet hole.
Fresh
one.
Looked for more but came up empty.

 
          
He
felt his pulse kick up. Someone had got off a shot, but only one. That
confirmed that he was in the right place. But where did everybody go? He
stepped to the window and looked down at the small rear courtyard. No way out
here—the fire escape was in front. They had to be hiding in another
apartment—the only possible answer. He’d keep the building under surveillance.
Sooner or later they had to show themselves.

 
          
But
what if they weren’t here? What if they’d got away clean?

 
          
He
pulled out his PCA and called down to the surveillance car across the street.
“Anybody leave since I’ve been inside?”

 
          
“Negative.”
Snyder’s voice.
He and Lowery were on watch.
“Saw a grayish van pull out of an alley half a block down right
after you went in, but that’s about it.”

 
          
A van.
Could that be…?

 
          
“Did
you get the plate number?”

 
          
“Yep.
You want a read back?”

 
          
Luca
closed his eyes. Thank God for Snyder. At least someone was on the ball. “No.
But don’t lose it. It might be important.”

 
          
And
then again, it might not mean a goddamn thing.

 
          
Luca
Portero
dried his sweaty palms on his coat sleeves.
Two more men
gone,
and he knew no more now about who
was behind Cadman and Sullivan than he did before.

 
          
How
the hell was he going to tell Lister?

 
          
“You
know,” Patrick told Zero after they’d pulled into the
West Side
garage and the door had closed behind their
van, “I could get used to this. And that worries me.”

 
          
The
cascade of emotions from the threats and the violence had faded now, leaving
him oddly exhilarated. But it had been harrowing.

 
          
When
Romy
had called Zero they’d learned that he had an
escape route all worked out. Following his instructions, they’d taken the
stairs to the roof—
Romy
in the lead, Patrick bringing
up the rear,
Kek
in the middle carrying their two
attackers, one over each shoulder.
Romy’s
was the
second of four joined buildings. They’d walked across two neighboring roofs to
a ledge where a fire escape led down to an alley. After a short but
nerve-wracking wait, Zero’s battered
Econoline
pulled
up and they’d all climbed aboard.

 
          
Patrick
had handled the driving on the way back, with Zero in the passenger seat, and
Romy
in the middle. That was when his mood had begun to
change. They’d done it! They’d faced murderous opposition and—with no little
help from
Kek
—overcome it. They were wheeling away
with no one in pursuit, no one even aware that they’d turned the tables.

 
          
As
soon as they’d reached
Manhattan
they found a deserted spot under the
FDR Drive
where they leaned Duke’s corpse against a
steel support. Throughout the night anyone who saw him would think he was
passed out drunk; in the morning light they’d think differently. Patrick then
piloted the van across town with Duke’s unconscious partner.

 
          
Masked
as usual, Zero stepped out of the passenger door and regarded Patrick through
his dark glasses. “Yes. It’s the high of victory. Not a good thing to get too
used to. You can’t expect to win all the time.”

 
          
“I
know.” Patrick opened his door and hopped out. “But after all the bad news,
after being pushed around and running into wall after wall, this feels very,
very good. It’ll feel even better if it turns out that one of these two
poisoned my clients.

 
          
“And
maybe,”
Romy
said, taking the hand he offered to help
her out of the van, “he’s one of the
SLA
creeps
who butchered the globulin farm
sims
as well.”

 
          
“Wouldn’t
that be
sweet.
”

 
          
Zero
leaned back inside and spoke toward the darkened rear section.
“
Kek
.
Tape the man into the chair
by the wall.”

 
          
They’d
brought everything along—the tape, the
inoculator
kit,
the
silenced pistols. Neither man had carried any
identification.

 
          
Poetic
justice, Patrick thought as he watched
Kek
get to
work. Bound with
his own
tape, injected with his own
truth drug.

 
          
He
looked around, noticing how his senses felt heightened. Despite the low light
in the garage, he seemed to see everything with day-bright clarity. The tang of
gasoline and the heavier odor of DW-40 were sharp in the air; the ticking of
the van’s cooling engine was like a ball-peen hammer rapping an anvil.

 
          
Zero
was away from the van now, moving to the darker shadows of a corner. Why
wouldn’t he let anyone see his face? What was he afraid of?

 
          
Patrick
followed him, but not too closely. “What is he and where did you find him?” he
said, pointing to
Kek
.

 
          
“In
Idaho
.
Last year.”

 
          
“
Idaho
?”
Romy
said. “You
never told me that. I thought you’d found him around
SimGen
.”

 
          
Zero
shrugged. “Sorry. It never came up. And it didn’t seem to matter until you saw
that
Idaho
license plate on the
SimGen
campus.”

 
          
“I
wondered why you were so psyched about that.”

 
          
“How
do you just happen to ‘find’ something like him in
Idaho
?” Patrick asked.

 
          
“Don’t
you remember hearing reports of people claiming they’d spotted Bigfoot in
Idaho
last winter?”

 
          
“Vaguely.
I try not to devote too many memory cells to that
sort of thing.”

 
          
“I
do…if it sounds furry like a
sim
. I sent a couple of
volunteers out there to track down the sightings, and they returned with
Kek
, suffering from starvation, frostbite, and half dead
from exposure. Dr. Cannon and I nursed him back to health and—”

 
          
“Who’s
Dr. Cannon?”

 
          
“You
met her at Beacon Ridge,”
Romy
said. “She was the
woman doctor who tried to save the poisoned
sims
.”

 
          
“Right,”
Patrick said. “I remember her. But what is
Kek
? Where
did he come from?”

 
          
“I
don’t know,” Zero replied, watching as the creature taped the still unconscious
Ponytail into the chair. “But he’s obviously the product of a recombinant lab,
an advanced one. He looks to be part mandrill and part gorilla, and I’d be very
surprised if he didn’t have a fair amount of human DNA spliced into his genome
as well.”

 
          
Patrick
shook his head in wonder. “He’s scary looking.”

 
          
“I
doubt that’s by accident.
Nor his aggressiveness.”

 
          
“But why?”
Kek
had finished his
task and now squatted by the prisoner, his eyes fixed on Zero as he awaited
further instructions. “Who’d want to create something like that?”

 
          
Zero
walked back to the cab of the van and reached through the window. “I’ll show
you.” He withdrew one of the silenced pistols and held it up.
“A .45 caliber HK SOCOM.
Ever seen one before?”

 
          
“Never,”
Patrick said. “What’s ‘HK’ mean?
Hong Kong
?”

 
          
Zero
laughed.
“Hardly.”
He swiveled the pistol toward
Romy
. “
Romy
? Know it?”

 
          
“It’s
Heckler and Koch, but beyond that…sorry, no.”

 
          
“Heckler and Koch Mk 23 Special Operations Command model.
Its barrel comes threaded and suppresser ready.” Zero held it out to
Kek
.
“
Kek
?
Would you break this down for me please?”

 
          
“Are
you nuts?” Patrick whispered as
Kek
loped forward.
“That’s a loaded weapon!”

 
          
Zero
didn’t respond. He placed the pistol in
Kek’s
outstretched hand and said, “You can use that workbench over there.”

 
          
Kek
took the pistol and inspected it, turning it over in
his hands a few times before he ejected the clip and then worked the slide to
remove the chambered round.

 
          
“He
knows guns!” Patrick said
,
his voice hushed in awe.

 
          
“You
ain’t
seen
nuthin
yet,”
Romy
told him.

 
          
Kek
stepped over to the workbench and Patrick watched in
amazement as his long, nimble fingers removed the silencer and disassembled the
gun with practiced speed, then arranged its innards for inspection, all in less
than thirty seconds. When finished he took one step back and stood with his
hands behind his back, awaiting approval.

 
          
“He’s
military!” Patrick said.

 
          
“Or paramilitary.
Or perhaps intended as
some sort of semi-human mercenary.
Who can say? But he can break down
just about any weapon you hand him, and he knows no fear.”

 
          
“A perfect soldier.”

 
          
“Maybe
not perfect, but damn near.”

 
          
“What
happened to his left hand?” Patrick said as he noticed that
Kek’s
ring and pinkie fingers were missing a joint or two.

 
          
“Frostbite,”
Zero replied.

 
          
“So
he owes his life to you?”

 
          
“And
Kek
knows it,”
Romy
said.
“He’s totally devoted to Zero.”

 
          
“An
overstatement, I assure you,” Zero said.

 
          
Patrick
didn’t think so. He’d noticed that
Kek’s
eyes had
stayed focused on Zero since his arrival. Even now, as he awaited approval of
his breakdown of the pistol, his eyes never left Zero.

 
          
“I
believe he’s waiting for your okay,” Patrick said.

 
          
“Oh,
sorry,” Zero replied. He saluted
Kek
and said,
“Excellent job, my friend. Please reassemble it.”

 
          
Patrick
had no way to gauge this creature’s emotions, but he sensed a burst of pride
and pleasure in response to Zero’s approval. Oh, yes,
Kek
might be hell on wheels when it came to confronting an enemy, but he was Zero’s
kitty cat.

 
          
“Who
made him?” Patrick said as
Kek’s
flying fingers
clicked the pieces back into place.
“
SimGen
?”

 
          
“The
most likely suspect,” Zero said.

 
          
“But
if so, how did he get from
New Jersey
to
Idaho
?”

 
          
“Our
guess is he was put aboard a truck from the
SimGen
basic research facility; the truck was driven aboard a plane at the
SimGen
airstrip and flown to
Idaho
.”

 
          
“Why
Idaho
?”

 
          
“Because it’s largely empty.
Because you
can buy big parcels of land that allow you to operate in near absolute
privacy.”

 
          
“But who?”
Patrick said. “Who wants to operate in secrecy?
Who wants to stockpile a bunch of
Keks
?”

 
          
“
Kek
might be just one of many new species quartered in the
hinterlands.”