Jezebel's Ladder (26 page)

“Well someone threw them on the
other side of the hot tub.”

He tingled with the memory again,
smiling against his will. “Hey, are you manipulating me?”

She smiled. “I can’t use the talent
like you can. I just distract people to other things they’re interested in.
It’s kind of like the doctor smacking someone on the knee to see it jerk. I can
also detect regular people from a distance if I try.”

“How? You didn’t read the Empathy
page.”

“Empathy is contagious through our,
ahem, contact, courtesy of the Collective page. I think any of the mental
abilities might be transmitted this way.”

“Interesting,” he noted. “What
about the robe?”

“I washed the blood out with the
peroxide in my kit you made fun of me for. It’s still drying,” she admitted.
When he reacted, she explained, “There was a gunfight, but I didn’t get hurt.”

He smiled. “You know you can’t just
slip the word gunfight in like that and move on just because you’re cute.”

She sketched the series of events
out for him, finishing with the plan of action, “I need you to take Daniel to
the plane. Get him within range of his lady before he freaks out. I sent
Claudette by commercial flight to warn Sedna.”

“That’s dangerous,” he said,
alarmed.

“I have a feeling all our actives
will be tied up for the near future. Nobody will see Starlet coming or track
her in the confusion. Plus, we really need her to get the goodwill for this
one. She’s not exempt from assassination in our deal, and she killed Sedna’s
big sister. Starlet needs all the fence-mending she can get. She’s already
talked to Ragnar and is running down a lead on Sedna’s location. If anything
happens to my matron of honor, Virus knows I’ll come down on him like the wrath
of God.”

“What did Sedna steal?”

“I’m guessing it was a new page—the
Fossils or a government. It doesn’t matter which. The Fossils want it and are
willing to kill to get it,” she summarized.

“Why didn’t I wake up?” he
complained.

She smiled and traced her finger
along his chest. “Either you were really relaxed from last night or you caught
something from one of my pages that knocked you flat.”

He nodded. “So how do we get rid of
all these agents?”

“It’s all a case of mistaken
identity that Mr. Tannenbaum is clearing up for us. Trina should be safe by
dinner time. Daniel can lead you straight to her. It was all I could do to keep
him from shouting out her compass bearing and distance.”

“That’s two we owe the Midas Project.”

Jez nodded. “Well, I have to start
payment today. I’ll be heading to Nellis Air Force Base with him. It’s only
about ten minutes away.”

“I want to hear from you every
hour,” he demanded.

She swallowed. “As often as they
let me.”

He looked into her eyes, calmed
himself, and put his forehead against hers. It wasn’t fair; this was supposed
to be their weekend. Looking down, he had to ask, “Why not clean the bunny
slippers, too? They look like refugees from some horror film.”

Her eyes glanced down toward her
missing toe and her glow turned to shame. Raising her chin, he said, “I’m
sorry. You never told me how it made you feel.”

She was timid for the first time
since they’d met. “You didn’t say anything about it. It was like the moose on
the table. The doctors said you sent what Maverick had cut off along with us on
the helicopter, but they couldn’t reattach it. You never visited after that…I
assumed you didn’t want to see it.”

“Didn’t you listen to the tape in
your debrief?” he asked.

She shook her head. “It was
private.” Tears were starting.

“I
dictated
it to you,” he
insisted. When she wrinkled her brow, he wrapped his arms around her and
continued, “I apologized to you for not getting there sooner. I told you how
brave you were to stand up to that sadistic butcher. I admired you for giving
up a part of your life you loved so much just to buy time for a friend. That
knife had my name on it, and you stepped in front of it. I promise that every
time I see the damage he did, that’s what I’ll be thinking of—one of the
biggest demonstrations of guts I’ve heard of in my life.”

She kissed him. The tears made her
lips soft and her mouth was unbelievably hot. He squeaked, “That touch sharing
you do, can you do that with anyone?”

She shook her head. “Only with you.”

He stroked her hair. A thrill like
buying a new pair of sandals washed over her. “Hey, did you just do that?”

He didn’t answer, but kissed her
hard. They were still kissing when Carl opened the door to check. “Oops. Sorry,
boss.”

Tannenbaum and Agent Normandy were both career investigators
and developed an instant rapport. The gray-haired military officer reminisced
as he polished his bifocals, “I came out of school with an aeronautics degree.
There were no jobs in the seventies; PhDs were pushing brooms. So, I switched
to journalism. Nobody wanted to pay me to do that for the first year. Then, I
decided to serve my country in order to eat. The Air Force had no idea what to
do with me. I got my start in Project Blue Book doing interviews for people
who’d seen UFOs.”

The older man waved his hands in
the air and made a warbling sound. Normandy laughed. “Half the guys I talked to
were the type who lose their driver’s license and have to ride the lawn tractor
to the bar. The Office of Special Investigations kept me on because I could
talk to geeks about the science and then explain it in terms the brass
understood. These days, I mainly provide an interface between the Sandia think
tanks and the NASA folks. You know, connecting ideas to people who do the
implementation. I know Mrs. Hollis through a colleague, an inventor I worked
with, Dr. Weiss. He gives her the highest marks for moral fiber.”

Normandy nodded. “So I’ve noticed.”

“Since then, I’ve developed a
relationship with her coterie of scientists. Fortune’s recruits do a lot of DoD
research NASA doesn’t have the funding for anymore. Space is being privatized.
That, unfortunately, is part of my job too.”

“What’s Project Midas?” the FBI
agent demanded.

Tannenbaum looked like he had just
smelled an outhouse. “Classified.”

“She let my primary suspect go
free, stalled me, and arranged for me to shoot the only source I had to find
her.”

“While handcuffed in a bathrobe? I
wouldn’t put that in my report. Did you ask her why?”

“She gave me some story about the
thief being her friend’s sister, but she also pointed out holes in the Nena
Horvath identity.”

“Hellfire. She always talks too
much,” the gray-haired man lamented.

“Ms. Hollis was right! This Nena
character is a very well-constructed legend, probably deep cover for an agent
of some foreign power. We have to follow up on this. It’s a threat to national
security,” said the FBI agent, his voice rising in volume with his passion.

“You have to let this go. The girls
were… identical twins with a unified cover identity to provide an air-tight
alibi. The one they call Trina fell in love with an American, Fortune’s boy
over there. She turned state’s evidence and has cooperated with my office every
step of the way.”

“Then we should follow Trina and
see if she can lead us to her sister.”

Tannenbaum raised his voice more
than he should have. “The Horvath girl was trained by ex-KGB agents. She should
be considered armed and dangerous.” He calmed himself before continuing. “Sedna
has abilities you cannot imagine. You couldn’t even protect yourself against a
washed-up ex-athlete when a civilian told you what he was going to do.”

“That’s another thing,” Normandy added. “We watched those security tapes. Ms. Hollis
knew
we were coming and
gave the suspect weapons and money to escape. Explain that to me.”

Tannenbaum called over one of his
technicians. “Grab the security tape for the foyer and Ms. Hollis’s phone.”

“This is my case,” the FBI agent
insisted. “I need those for my incident report. I need these witnesses.”

“Daniel Fortune is a minor, and
Jezebel Hollis is his guardian. She’ll never agree to your questioning him when
he’s in this condition. Carl over there would take a bullet for her. He’ll have
a severe memory lapse. You have no evidence this suspect of yours even exists.
Elias Fortune’s tech crew is already scrubbing servers of the video that led
you here. In my file it says Ms. Hollis used to work in this hotel; they’re
probably the ones that warned her. That leaves you with just the lady herself.”

The Homeland Security officer
paused for effect. “She’s already told you more than you’re allowed to know,
and she’s leaving with me real soon. You’ve got nothing.”

“I have one dead, one in the
hospital, and a case that will never see the light of day.”

“Tell Washington the felon lied to
get to see a pinup in person. It’s all a case of mistaken identity,” Tannenbaum
offered. “We’ll back you on that. Write one word of these cockamamie theories
of yours, and I will make sure you get lumped in with those Area-51 nuts.”

Normandy was seconds away from
violence. When Carl saw the room polarizing for a rumble, the bodyguard ran to
the bedroom. After apologizing to the boss, he said, “Someone started a pissing
contest and we’re going to be the ones getting wet unless you guys separate
them.”

Benny grabbed a sheet and wrapped
it around himself. By unspoken agreement, Jez took the older man, and the actor
intervened with the FBI. “Where are your clothes?” asked the agent.

“Um, you broke into my honeymoon
with this gorgeous, young thing,” Benny blurted. He gestured back so the man
could see how great his young wife looked just standing there. “And you’re the
one who should be upset?”

 “Okay, you’ve got a point.” Normandy tried to keep a straight face. Then he recognized the groom. “I loved that
high-school movie you did.”

“Thanks.”

“The last two sucked,” Normandy said, trying to shake him.

“I know,” Benny admitted. Then he
felt compelled to tell the whole truth so the man wouldn’t blame anyone else
for the failure. “I was so drunk most of the time I could barely stand, but I
got the job because I partied with all the casting agents.” Now, Benny knew he
was infected by Ethics. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

The admission made Carl laugh. “You’re
all right, Hollis. Do you ever worry she married you for your money?”

Benny shook his head. “No, about
the only thing I own is my house and a small IRA. She makes more than I do.
After our first date, I told her my worst secret and she still came back. A
woman like that, you never let go.”

“Especially in show business,” Normandy agreed. “So what do you do these days?”

“Right now I’m the front man for an
advanced think tank, real Buck Rogers stuff. I used to recruit quality people,
but I sort of put myself out of a job when I hired Jez. Nowadays my main
responsibility is to get the masses ready for the changes that are coming. It’s
all happening so fast.”

Everything about the pages was
struggling to come out, like flood waters behind a dam. Benny grabbed the
bodyguard and said, “Could you help me look for my underwear over by that tub?”

The bodyguard raised an eyebrow. “Are
you feeling okay, Mr. H?”

Benny’s head was tingling with
fever and the change was still going on. “I’m standing here naked in front of
all these guests, and I need to get dressed
now
. Tell Jez I’m going to
need her help.”

His wife stepped away from her
negotiations when she heard her name mentioned. When she saw Benny lurch for
the bedroom door, clutching his forehead, she crouched beside him for support.

Normandy laughed. “A close group
you have here. What was the secret you told her?”

The FBI man could only be
distracted by one thing at this point. Jez shouted, “Everyone out of the room.
Now!” Half the agents obeyed even before the two lead agents nodded their
agreement.

When it was just Jez, Benny,
Tannenbaum, and Normandy left in the hotel living room, she said, “Read him in.”

Tannenbaum blustered, “I can’t just
tell people willy nilly.”

“You tell him or I will. Benny’s
infected. Who knows what he told. I need this man under seal of State Secrets,”
she insisted. “Your cases obviously overlap. Put him on your team.”

The gray-haired man nodded slowly.
Debts were adding up fast for her. “Raise your right hand.”

While Jez led Benny to the bedroom
and got him a cold compress, Tannenbaum swore in his new team member. He told
the agent just enough about the pages to make the assignment permanent, but not
enough that anyone else would believe the story. Then, he looked at his watch. “Ms.
Hollis, we’re leaving now. Normandy, you stick with that security-risk actor
and make sure he doesn’t talk to anyone until we get back.”

“I’m not a babysitter!” Normandy complained.

“That man is boiling over with Top
Secret information, and right now, he can’t even find his own boxers. Twice in
the past two months, enemy agents have attempted to capture and interrogate
him. There won’t be a third attempt on my watch. If there is, his wife might
not help save us from our own stupidity. Trust me, your problems are nothing
compared to the ones I’ve been stuck with.”

Claudette walked down the first-floor hall of the cheap
hotel while Steve waited in the car. Ragnar had told her to enter alone. The
brown carpet had worn through to the wood in places. The only illumination came
from the window at the far end. There were no lights. She swore she could see
rats through holes in the plaster-and-horsehair lathe walls. The wealthy
starlet couldn’t imagine sleeping here. Her skin crawled considering the
insects and vagrants that might end up sharing the bed.

She waved to the pen-sized camera
in the ceiling and then knocked on the door to 113. Claudette heard the
sickening sound of a machine-pistol, slide-action bolt from the other side of
the door.

“Give me one good reason not to
pull this trigger,” a woman’s voice said through the wood.

Claudette held up her hands. “Momma
Bear sent me with a message, Goldilocks. Men in suits are coming down hard on
the whole family after your latest B and E.”

The latch opened. “Inside,” snapped
the assassin.

Hand trembling, Claudette pushed
the door open slowly.

Sedna had black hair and was
wearing Goth, bar-hopping clothes. “Close them behind you.”

There were actually two doors. She
obeyed. The second one was metal and closed with a lever handle. The whole
interior wall had been lined with soundproofing tiles and wire mesh. The floor
here was raised and clean. Air conditioners hummed and racks of equipment
blinked with LEDs. “Is this one of the Virus’s safe houses?”

“Not anymore,” Sedna remarked. She
stood by a cot, tossing spare clips and lipstick into an already-full duffel
bag. She smelled of gourmet coffee, cigarettes of questionable content, and
vanilla sweat. She checked the edge on a dagger idly. “Thirty seconds.”

Claudette was extremely
uncomfortable. “Jez put herself in the middle of a firefight to cover your
butt. Trina got away clean. The boys should pick her up soon.”

Sedna snorted. “The Brownie Troop
can’t follow me down this hole. I know why Goody Two Shoes is doing this, but
why do you care?”

“Trina won’t rest till you’re safe.
Daniel won’t rest till Trina’s safe. Daniel…is probably the only kid I’m going
to have. I guess I’m doing it for him. And the last thing Jez did as the Feds
hauled her away was ask me to help you,” she explained, hugging herself for
warmth. She was still in a sleeveless Dior dress that showed her navel.

“You think we’re freaks,” accused
the woman in black.

“I can’t fathom how your little
sister can screw that often, but you want what everybody wants,” Claudette
said, her voice cracking slightly.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” said
the assassin, approaching with menace in her stride. The starlet backed against
the wall. The pert beauty contestant had been a thin disguise for Sedna, one
she had shed long ago. Sedna leaned forward until her lips almost touched
Claudette’s nose. In terror, she watched the words as they formed. “I can’t
have you following me. Maybe it’s time you found out how the other half lives.”

“I don’t…” Claudette began. The
pain lanced through her as the weighted fist pounded into her midsection. She
slumped to the floor.

“Stay down,” the assassin threatened.
“Or I’ll make it hurt more.”

The victim whimpered as a Velcro
pouch opened. “Are you killing me? I came to save you.”

“You’ll provide the necessary
distraction,” the attractive Goth said as she removed a cool slip of golden
paper. “This is about freeing you from constraints and expanding your narrow
mind.”

Ice stung her forehead. The ceiling
became a doorway of light, and Claudette couldn’t close her eyes. Her synapses
opened to the information.

“Enter your new incarnation,”
whispered the dark lips.

****

Twenty minutes after Starlet went
in, the guard, Steve, received a phone call from her. He heard a distorted cry for
help before the connection was severed. He ran up the stairs and tried to kick
down the door. His first, failed attempt caused the delicately balanced grenade
to drop onto the drum of ether. There was a tremendous explosion, and neighbors
called the fire department.

In the confusion, Sedna left the
unconscious Claudette in a shopping cart a block away and stole Steve’s car.

****

By the time Benny got clothes on,
Jez was gone. His head was buzzing. “Carl, get us to the jet. Where’s Tan?”

“Ms. Johnson sent him to follow in
a car, in case…”

“We didn’t survive or got captured.
I know my girl. And that’s Ms.
Hollis
to you,” Benny bragged as he
opened the door to his room and found the lone FBI agent. “I’m sorry, were you
expecting a tip?”

Normandy smiled. “I’ve been
transferred. I’m stuck following you till further notice.”

“The boss was kinda worried about
you,” Carl admitted, pushing Daniel toward the elevator.

“Whoa, when did
she
become
boss?” Benny exclaimed.

Normandy chuckled, “The Colonel was
right, you’ve got no filter.”

Carl raised an eyebrow, but said
nothing. Daniel was staring at a point on the horizon.

When they got to the front desk,
Benny had to check everyone out, then sign Jezebel’s credit slip. His own
wouldn’t cover the bill. “Maybe you should sign that Mr. Johnson,” joked Normandy.

“Were you always a prick, or did
they make you take classes in it?” asked Benny while they waited for Carl to
get the car.

Normandy laughed. “This is going to
be a hell of a weekend.”

When the car arrived, Daniel sat in
front with the partition raised. That left Benny sitting next to Normandy. The agent said, “What was that secret your wife wanted to keep safe?”

Without skipping a beat, Benny
said, “I accidentally hit a girl with my car during a monsoon in Thailand.”

“Happens. Can’t see your hand in
front of your face in that downpour they have.”

“I was drunk off my ass, and she
died on the way to the hospital.”

“But the locals cleared you?”

“Because of studio money,” Benny
clarified with disgust. “Are you going to arrest me now?”

Normandy shook his head. “Nah. I
couldn’t do a thing to you, even if I wanted to.” After a few minutes, he
couldn’t restrain his curiosity any longer, “So you quit show business and
dedicated yourself to charities, saving the world from things the rest of us
have never seen?”

“Something like that.”

“I used to read about guys like you
in comics. I don’t see a whole lot of your type in my business,” the agent said
with grudging admiration. “I shot a fourteen-year-old my first year on the job.”

“Toy gun?”

“Gang initiation gone bad,” said
the agent. “Still, you never get over it.”

After a minute of silence, the
airport could be seen in the distance. Normandy asked, “Anything else you’re
busting to tell me?”

Benny’s first impulse was to tell
him about the clone debacle but pictured Trina splayed out on a dissection
table as a result. “Maybe Carl can tell you a few of our war stories.”

****

A convoy drove Jez to meet a
military transport at Nellis Air Force Base for the five-hour-plus flight to Miami. Tannenbaum slid in beside her and clipped into his seatbelt. A tall,
African-American man in uniform sat in the front seat. “Hi, I’m Jezebel. People
call me Jez.” She held out a hand, but the newcomer didn’t take it.

“My name is Talos,” he rumbled. “People
call me when it’s too late, and the shit hits the fan.” The man stared at her
slippers.

She started explaining rapidly. “I
left my sneakers in a friend’s bag. I wasn’t supposed to need them this
weekend. And an over-enthusiastic husband snapped the heel of my wedding shoes.
They were these gorgeous, ivory Louis…”

The large man held up a hand. “I’ll
talk with a cute blonde all day about lingerie, but I don’t do shoes.” To
Tannenbaum, he said, “
This
is your expert?”

She ignored the insult and asked, “So
what is this favor that couldn’t wait long enough for Benny to carry me over
the threshold of our own home?”

Years of weariness straddled the
colonel’s shoulders as he asked her, “Do you have a dossier on Nicholas
Cassavettis?”

“Dr. Reuter’s prize pupil from Stanford?
We lost track of him when you picked him for your team in kickball.”

“I want you to know that I had nothing
to do with most of this,” the older man prefaced. “Like my esteemed colleague,
the defense department only calls me when there’s a problem. I’m sure you know
that Cassavettis inherited a slip of paper from the good professor with ten
equations.” Jez noted that Tannenbaum was avoiding any direct mention of the
pages. That meant Talos was still in the dark. “Reuter had them for years but
always took Einstein’s advice about being a watchmaker to heart. Reuter was a
consultant to presidents but never got involved with weapons research.” He went
on to describe the basic idea of the Icarus transformation and the resulting
force field.

“You don’t seem surprised,” rumbled
Talos when the briefing was complete.

“It takes a great deal to shock me
these days,” she noted.

“Well, after incidents surrounding
the prototype, I mothballed the whole concept. Then, the Pentagon moved forward
on a production model without my knowledge or approval,” Tannenbaum complained.
“Wanting to avoid notice, early this morning, the satellite team did a test
fire.”

“Only need to know,” snapped the
man in the front seat.

“Her clearance is higher than
yours! Anyway, this discharge was erroneously viewed by the control software as
an attack, triggering the field that was never supposed to deploy.”

“What’s the catch? Why am I here?”
asked Jez.

The dark-skinned man answered, “The
device won’t shut off.”

Jez raised her eyebrows. “That’s
not good.”

“The theory is that the field gets
bigger in space because gravity is so much lower there. We think it’s big
enough now that it interferes with radio-wavelength communication, controls and
telemetry,” Tannenbaum explained.

“You
think
it’s bigger?” she
said.

Tannenbaum admitted, “We can’t
observe it directly because the field is invisible.”

After considering for a minute, she
said, “If it bends radio, we can see it that way. I have time on two radio
telescope arrays this week plus a couple observatories. I’ll get you updated
stats on the field in a few hours. We’ll also check other wavelengths to see if
the force field is affecting power to the solar panels.”

“
That
is my expert,” crowed
Tannenbaum as Jez whipped out her phone.

“Carl, give your phone to tall,
dark, and handsome. Hi, babe. This is my hourly check-in. Are you using the
radio arrays today? How much? Sure, I’ll clear it with Quan. Get some rest
after you find our runaway bunny.”

She dialed another number, “Mr.
Quan, I apologize for raining on your barbeque. We have to pull you in to track
an unfortunate mistake on the part of your former employers. We’ll need you to
coordinate. He’ll give you the details.” She handed the phone to the man from
Homeland Security.

“Adam Quan from NASA?” he asked the
phone. “This is Phil Tannenbaum from Sandia. Well, you’re being reactivated.
Same rank, same pay until this is resolved. Get to a secure line as soon as
possible and contact me.”

Hanging up and returning the cell
phone, Tannenbaum said, “I didn’t even know he was gone. Why did you recruit
one of our senior astronauts?”

“For our Brazilian shuttle launch
Monday,” she said. “You needed me to look over some math?”

“Nobody but Cassavettis really
understands how this Icarus field works. We’re sending someone to interview
that nutcase, but don’t expect much,” said Talos.

“Give it here, and I’ll try while
the observers are taking their measurements,” offered Jez. The older man beside
her brought up an encrypted laptop and handed it to her. She scanned the first few
pages of data. “Uh, you have a bigger problem. The corrective thrusters aren’t
firing.”

The man beside her shrugged. “All
part of the interference.”

“The satellite hasn’t even made a
complete revolution around the earth yet. Without corrections, it’s coming back
down,” Jez explained.

Tannenbaum turned white and rubbed
his left arm. “How long? Two weeks? One?”

She blinked, performing
calculations that only slightly stretched her normal abilities. “About 70 hours
until impact. Quan can tell you to the minute; I don’t have all the…”

Tannenbaum slumped over in his
seat. Jez screamed, “He’s having a heart attack. Pull over!”