Night's Pawn (7 page)

"He became my lover that night," she continued quietly. "He was one of the leaders of Alte Welt, the eco-terrorist group."

Chase shifted and leaned in slightly. Lachesis' report had related rumors that Cara Villiers had radical German policlub connections, but none of the media reports had named names.

"I never participated in any of their actions, but I was always there afterward to congratulate them. They were always careful not to hurt people."

"But they weren't always successful."

"No." Her left hand clenched and relaxed. "Those were accidents."

Accidents, thought Chase, the deaths of innocents, no matter how deliberate, were always "accidents." He knew a lot about those kinds of "accidents."

"Of course," he said. "How did your father get involved?"

"Last year, Alte Welt was involved in a campaign against Hanburg-Stein, a heavy industries corp that was polluting the Eder River and the surrounding town. The problem was that Hanburg-Stein fought back. They hired a group of local criminals to kill as many members of Alte Welt as they could find."

Chase nearly smiled. "You play the game, you live by the rules."

"It was bad," she said. "They knew how to blow things up and all, but they didn't know how to fight. There were maybe twelve people in the group at its peak, but suddenly there were only five. Most of them wanted to get out, to disappear and maybe try to start something again in a few months. Adler wouldn't let them. He'd lost—we'd all lost—some good friends, and he didn't want to let H-S get away with it. But he didn't know what to do."

She was silent for a long time.

"I suggested that they get the support of a rival corporation. We'd turned up some valuable pay data on H-S, but it wasn't anything that was immediately valuable to us. I thought maybe we could use it as collateral to pry something out of the rival corp. Adler agreed."

"He went to Fuchi. He went to your father," said Chase.

She shook her head slightly. "He went to Fuchi, but not to my father. A few days later we were met by a woman, Katrina Demarque. She worked for Fuchi, but not for my father's part of the company. She's an agent for the Nakatomis."

Chase nodded. Fuchi Industrial Electronics was owned by a consortium of three families. Two of them were Japanese, the Nakatomis and the Yamanas. The other third was headed by Richard Villiers, Cara's father. Even when Chase had worked for the family, the relationships within the triad had been tense and volatile. Despite that, Fuchi had become one of the most powerful megacorporations in the world under their joint leadership.

Cara took a deep breath. "I was upset."

"I can imagine."

"I told Adler I didn't want them dealing with Fuchi. But he liked the way Demarque treated him, like he and his organization were important. She claimed that the data we had was actually very, very valuable and that Fuchi was willing to pay well for it.

"It started to feel like I was home again, and I hated it." She closed her eyes. "I ran away. I don't think Adler really noticed: she treated him well."

Chase waited, and fixed her another drink. She took it without a word, sipped it, and then continued.

"I went to France for a while; that's where I met L'Infame. I traveled with them, even sang a little, played some keyboards. They hate the corps and anyone associated with them. They didn't know who I was.

"We were in southern Spain, near Berja not far from the Mediterranean, when I got a message from Nicholas Issan, one of the surviving Alte Welt. I agreed to meet him in Madrid, but when I got there I learned that he'd been killed the night before in a street robbery. His throat had been slashed.

"I went back to Berja and found a letter waiting for me. It was from Nicholas. He'd written it just before he was killed; I think he was expecting it to happen."

Chase was surprised, but Cara's voice actually got stronger. He'd been expecting her to lose her composure at some point during the tale, but it hadn't happened. Her trials of fire had apparently hardened her more than he'd have expected. She went on.

"In the letter, he told me that Adler and Alte Welt's relationship with Fuchi had become more complex, darker, since I'd left. I wasn't surprised. Fuchi had actually taken over and broken up Hanburg-Stein, and Alte Welt had profited enormously. In the process, however, Adler had sold himself to the company. Again, I wasn't surprised."

She took another sip from the drink. "Nicholas' letter said that Demarque had quietly recruited Adler and some of his more radical friends to kill my father while he was in Frankfurt for an economic conference next month."

"You've got to be joking."

"I'm not." She looked down into her drink. "I may not like my father, but I don't want him dead."

"Why don't you just call him?"

"I can't. I don't have access anymore. After he and my mother divorced I made some nasty comments that got repeated in the press. That was when I ran away the last time. The Japanese insisted that he disassociate himself from me. If I couldn't be controlled, then he should let me go. Any messages from me are destroyed without being read."

Chase stood up and began to pace. "What about your mother? I heard that she and your father stayed somewhat friendly after the divorce."

Cara winced. "I tried, last week in London, but I glitched up. Nicholas' letter said that some of my father's own people would be feeding Adler and his friends security information related to my father's itinerary while in Frankfurt. It didn't occur to me that they might have spies in other places, too.

"My mother was in London on business last week and I went there after the… problems."

"The two L'Infame boys trying to kill each other."

She closed her eyes and nodded. "I told them I was leaving, but didn't want to say why. Alain and Gerard blamed each other, or something. They were wired."

"Dreamchips?"

She looked up at him. "What?"

"Dreamchips? BTLs? Better Than Life?"

She looked confused.

"Illegal simsense chips," he said.

She nodded. "Yes… I forgot what they're called over here."

"Go on."

"I… she was in a meeting or something, so I left a message with one of her people. I left my hotel room number. They told me to wait for her call.

"About an hour later I had visitors—a man and a woman. They had guns and forced me outside, but I got lucky. There were some London police rousting a bunch of punks on the corner, so I started to make a scene. They got really nervous and let me get away."

"So you came here. How?"

"With the help of a friend," she sighed, "but under my own passport codes. I used the last of my money to grab a transorbital from Heathrow to here. I hoped that if I moved fast enough they wouldn't have started really trying to track me yet."

"What did you plan to do here?"

"My uncle Martin runs what's left of the actual family business from here. I thought maybe I could get him to call my father."

"Last I remember, Martin would have hired people to kill his brother himself. Has that changed?"

She shook her head. "Not that I know of, but I hoped he might see things my way, and not really want him dead."

"Martin's company, Villiers International, has been trying to build an arcology up in the Bronx for years now," said Chase. "It's billions over budget and years behind. Strong rumors have it that Fuchi, alias your father, has been behind the sabotage. It's said that Richard wants to drive his brother out of business so that Fuchi can buy up the rest of Villiers International, the part Martin walked away with when he wouldn't go along with your father's deal with the Japanese."

Cara looked down. "I hadn't heard any of that until I got here."

"There's also another problem. Your cousin Darren."

She nodded. "Yes, but I thought that might be a reason for my uncle to help me. Beyond all the other troubles, I
know
he's mad at the Nakatomis for recruiting Darren into Fuchi. I thought he might do it just to crash them."

Chase leaned against the side of a bookcase. "You'd be right, except Darren was transferred to Tokyo. He's going to be running some secret project for the Nakatomis. Your mother's been given his old job as VP of Fuchi Northwest, as well as staying head of Fuchi Systems Design."

Cara's eyes were wide. "She's working directly with my father?"

"Some. The Fuchi Northwest VP pretty much runs the show, but answers to your father. He's almost always in Tokyo now. Guess he wants to keep an eye on things."

Her left arm clenched again and she stared at him. "How do you know all this?"

Chase shrugged. "I did some research last night."

Cara slid deeper into the pile of the couch and closed her eyes. "We could still talk to my uncle…"

"Bad idea. With Darren in Tokyo, directly under the control of the Nakatomis, your uncle's been checked. If he gets involved, anything could happen to Darren."

"But they're brothers."

Chase sighed. "That doesn't mean anything Cara. Family doesn't automatically mean friend. You can take that from me, but I think you know it too."

She pulled her legs up onto the couch, and then under her. She turned slightly to look at him, all the composure she'd held while telling her story gone. "Then what can we do?"

"We, Cara?"

"Please… you've got to help me."

He thought about it only for a moment; the last twelve years had never happened.

"All right," Chase said. "I will."

6

The Rouge Angels listened to reason, and money, and were gone from the Caina by early the next morning. Cyanide Tiger could find no signs that the flat was under surveillance, and the band told Cara they hadn't spoken to anyone since she'd left. Chase, however, didn't believe them.

Lachesis' voice was digitally clear over the telecom. For whatever reason, she was audio only. Instead of her face Chase watched the gray morning clouds through the skylight. The only other sounds in the apartment were of Cara's exertions on his multi-use gym in another room.

"Any luck?" he asked.

"I have found two items of immediate worth," Lachesis replied. "The first is that two phone calls were made from the band's flat. Both were local. One was to the Soy Palace. The call lasted three and one-half minutes. I have verified the establishment and have no reason to believe it to be anything other than an Oriental food enterprise."

"Me either; the food sucks. What else?"

"The second phone call was to an Ernesto Gavillon, who works as a music promoter under the alias Ernesto Best. The call lasted fifty-seven minutes. I have found records of numerous calls from the Caina apartment to Ernesto Best over the last few weeks. The records of Ernesto Best also indicate numerous calls to the Caina number."

"Cara," Chase called out, "know anyone named Ernesto Best?"

The gym noises stopped. "Yeah, he's the band's agent." Her voice sounded strained, but Chase wasn't surprised. He'd seen the settings she was using on the gym equipment.

"Did he know you?"

"Only as their manager."

"Thanks!" he uncovered the mouthpiece. "Best is the ban-"

"I heard."

"If nothing else, we can assume they told him Cara'd left."

"You may assume what you wish."

"Thanks. What was the second item of immediate worth?"

"The Caina computer system shows signs of intrusion."

Chase sat up. "Other than your own?"

"Of course."

"Any signatures or style you could recognize?" *

"None. The Caina system barely qualifies as such. A child with a Radio Shack deck could penetrate it without leaving a signature."

"But you noticed evidence of tampering."

"Subtle, but present."

Chase nodded. "All right, can you put a watch on my system? I want to know if anyone does any probing."

"I can program a small construct to act as a watchdog. I can also link it to a tag on your telecom account to recognize tampering. Your system's performance will be degraded."