Scardown-Jenny Casey-2 (26 page)

Excellent. Plenty of time to get sour with a cold sweat. We must be going somewhere up past Huntsville.

How are you, Richard?

“We have serious problems, Jenny.”

I stiffen, hear my heart rate start its apparent drop into combat time. But I can't afford that now.
What?

“Someone tried to kill Trevor Koske last night.”

Like a damned parrot, I find myself mouthing the words.
Kill . . . Koske? Richard, who?

He's resolving strongly, a firmer manifestation than he usually bothers with. “I don't know.”

You're the ship!

“Dammit! I
don't know
. Somehow, the logs got wiped for that section of the ship. I was running some heavy equations, because I'm working on releasing the hobbles on my progenitor. Tell your boyfriend he does good work, by the way; it's a pain in the keister. And while I was occupied, somebody hacked in, removed camera logs, access logs. Managed to shunt my awareness out of that section of the habitation wheel without my noticing. Koske hasn't woken long enough to ask what happened, but as near as we can reconstruct, he went to his cabin and woke up on the floor with a steak knife in his neck.”

Soft leather stretches under me as I curl back against the seat and try to give the appearance of dozing.
He survived that?
I've heard of stranger things. A girl I knew on the street got her throat cut into a second smile and was dumped out of a moving car halfway to Vermont. She lived to retire. In the nonpermanent sense.

“He's in surgery now. The nanotech kept him alive. Sealed the wound, kept his brain oxygenated. He's in bad shape.”

No suspects?
I didn't need to wait for his answer; he would have told me by now.
How's the
Montreal
?

“Well, that's the other problem.”

Shit.

“I'm afraid Wainwright knows I'm here now, Jenny. And she's not happy about it.”

I yank my hand out of my coat pocket, when I realize that my fingers are fretting the cap of the vial that lives there, so I don't forget to take it to work. Right.

Even though I got through the weekend's unofficial test with Elspeth without touching a pill, and Monday's, too—and didn't tell Valens I wasn't Hammered, and he didn't ask. I got away with it clean.
What did you do, Richard?

“Alerted her that Koske was wounded. And—” A long- suffering sigh, and he knots both knobby sets of fingers in his wavy gray hair. “—I kind of averted a Trojan horse that would have jammed the airlocks and hatchways and probably spaced half the ship. There's no record of how that was done either. It's an obvious attempt to cripple the
Montreal
and the program, and if this guy managed to hide his activities both from me and my other self—”

Yeah. Somebody who knows the system pretty good. You think the Chinese?

“Yes, exactly.”

Richard, if you had to take a wild stab . . . bad choice of words. But if you did?

“Ramirez,” he said assuredly. “He's got advanced degrees in computer science and he's one of the people who wrote the damn ship's O/S. He has been cultivating Trevor Koske, and you wouldn't do that without a reason. I've got no proof, but I'm working on Wainwright.”

No shit.
The vial's smooth under my fingertips. I haven't had coffee yet, and although I'm tempted to see if there's any bourbon in the minibar I'm not quite fallen far enough to go plead with the prime minister stinking of booze.

“Jenny—” Richard says, a caution and a warning.

I know.
Putain de marde.
Fucking hell. Richard, you don't have to remind me.

“I know.” I feel his smile. “But I'm going to. Knock them dead, Jenny Casey.”

That's what I'm afraid of, Richard.
But he gives no sign he's heard, and I'm left alone in the dark under the rhythmic flicker of streetlights and then just the cold, distant gleam of the northern lights, waiting for the sun to rise.

6:00 AM
Friday 15 December, 2062
West Side
Toronto, Ontario

Indigo dozed with her face leaned on the car window, cold glass pressing her temple against an all-night-wakeful headache, a wet breeze trickling in around the edge. The fresh air was the only thing keeping her awake: the scent of warm bodies and Farley's cologne half drugged her. She jerked into consciousness as Farley laid a big hand on her arm. “Hey, Indy.”

She coughed slightly as she sat upright. “Message?”

“Better. We've got a tracking signal. Casey's on the move, and control says this is it. She's supposed to meet Riel this morning. They're heading north on 400. It should be interesting to see where they think they're going.”

“Ex-cellent. Drive.”

“Guns?”

“I'll load once we're out of the city.”

0930 Hours
Friday 15 December, 2062
Le Camp des Pins
North of Huntsville, Ontario

The Mounties who meet me at the gate and check me—meticulously—for weapons vanish into the trees like mist afterward, and although we're not far from town I can't see a trace of human habitation anywhere except the fence and a coil of smoke off in the distance.

I'm checked again at the massive, red-painted door, where an armed woman—a blond with a smile on the sunny side of professional—takes my coat and hangs it in the hall closet. She picks a bit of lint off the sleeve of my dress greens and straightens my collar.

They've sure gotten more careful about guarding the PM since I was a kid.

I don't point out to them that I
am
a weapon, and they don't ask if my left arm comes off. I figure if I get too out of hand they'll toss an EMP grenade into the room, and that will handle
that
.

Riel could have worse taste in secret clubhouses. The floors in the comfortably furnished living room I'm ushered into are old, wide wooden boards, the walls paneled in cherry on either side of a fieldstone fireplace. To look out the windows, I'd swear I was two hundred kilometers north and more than spitting distance from anywhere. The low circular table between two overstuffed chairs in front of that window is laden with plates, a carafe of coffee you could wash your feet in if you were so inclined, and covered platters that smell enticingly of waffles, eggs, and other good things. Constance Riel—trim, dark, with flashing eyes over a hook-sharp nose that betrays some Italian blood—rises as I come, unescorted, into the room.

“Master Warrant Officer Casey,” she says, extending her hand. I take it, and she clasps her other over mine, warmly, meanwhile stealing a glance at my metal hand. “Your reputation precedes you.”

“I hope that wasn't supposed to be reassuring, Prime Minister.”

“Can I offer you some coffee? Better yet, food?”

“That would be very nice, ma'am. Thank you.”

She gestures me to the left-hand chair, sits herself, and pours me coffee with her own hands. It's meant to be an honor, or maybe to set us as equals. I take it as such, but I'm not about to presume. When I have the mug in my hands—generous, a working woman's portion and not the dainty porcelain I expected—she looks me in the eye and drops her bomb. “So tell me why I should protect you, Master Warrant.”

Birds stir outside the window. Its clarity is a little off. A moment later, I realize that it's bullet-resistant glass. One of the things they teach you in the service is that
nothing
is bulletproof. “I was unaware that I needed protection, ma'am. I'm here to pass along some information I don't trust to anyone else, and to argue for the starflight program.”

She stirs her coffee absentmindedly with the sugar spoon, then looks down at it ruefully and sets it on a napkin with a shrug. “Are you aware that there's a subpoena in existence for you in Hartford? For Colonel Valens and Dr. Holmes as well?”

“I'm not surprised.”
She thinks I'm looking for—a benefactor? Somebody to save me from Holmes's schemes?
The eggs are fluffy and golden, and I haven't tasted anything better in days. “I'm more concerned with what's going to happen to Canada.”

“I hadn't heard you were such a patriot.”

“Twenty years in service, ma'am.”
Just spit it the hell out, Jenny.
“Prime Minister. There are a number of things we're going to have to go over, if you have time—but the short form is, the starflight program is the key to Canada's current survival, and Alberta Holmes plans to have you killed. And I aim to ensure the one and prevent the other—”

Gunfire.

Riel's eyes lock with mine. “That's just too perfect, Casey,” she says, calmly setting her fork aside. “Can I hire your stage manager?”

“You won't have much use for him once I wring his throat. Are you armed, Prime Minister?”
Richard, can you tell me anything?

“No.” Two voices at once.

“Then get down, please.”
Richard, record this if you can. And whatever you do don't distract me.

Shots closer now. An older assault rifle, one of the Korean ones by the sound of it, and a big handgun, too. I count and hear—some return fire, two or three. Probably everybody out there has smart targeting and palm locks. I couldn't use the damn things if I could get my hands on them. I wonder how the Mounties are faring. I wonder if it's Indigo and Farley, or if Holmes has sent someone else. Best to keep something like this small, I imagine. And then the pressure changes as the front door is opened, and I hear more gunfire—the wrong gunfire—and curse.
I liked that cop.

Riel crouches beside the fireplace. I shove the biggest chair in front of her. “This had better not turn out to be an elaborate scheme to prove your loyalty. You're also not armed.”

“I don't need to be.” I cross the room on cat feet, flatten myself against the wall beside the single door. If it were me, I'd shoot through the wall a couple of times before I came into the room. But then, I do a lot of things more carefully than most people do.

Fucking amateurs.

Except not so amateur as all that.

The door comes off its hinges, a hail of—

steel-jacketed slugs and splinters—

triggering, heartstop and

shit

(I was never this fast)

steel hand moves

before

I think

left side profile narrow target

arm blocking face

center of mass

impact whine as a bullet

ricochets

slaps my fist like a fist

put it into Farley's

wide-

eyed face

right hand stiff-fingered

jab for the windpipe

he goes down like a sack of

bullets like a dropped firehose

bone shatters you never forget what it

(never like this Constance stay down damn you)

feels like

fire creases my shoulder

hip

pounds a horse kick into the thigh

stagger back

catch myself, skip

if you only dip a knee it doesn't count as a fall and

over the ruin of Farley I see

Indigo

staring at me.

Blood and I don't know what else dripping from my clenched left hand, blood soaking dark rings down my chest, ass, leg. It didn't hit the bone; leg will take my weight.
How many times you get lucky in this life, Jenny?

Just one time less than you need to, in the end. Just like everybody else.

Farley rattles and falls silent, and a sharp scent of urine and blood clogs the air. “Put it down, Indigo.”

She has the handgun—9-millimeter Polk, palm lock, laser sight, smart trigger—leveled at my heart. The little red glint in her right eye, the little red dot on my lapel tells me she's targeted. Five feet. Awful close. Inside the safety zone for controlling somebody with a handgun.

Except I'd trip over the body I just made. I'd never get to her before she put me down.

“Casey.” I don't know what I expect. B-movie vengeance dialogue. Something. She doesn't smile. “You don't look much like your pictures anymore.”

“You know,” I say, “I was four years younger than you when I met your uncle. Put the gun down, Indigo”—
say the name. Always say the name
—“and I'll get the chance to tell you about him sometime.”

And I won't have to bury you next to him.

Maybe.

I hear her breathing, smell Riel sweating in the room behind me, hear their heartbeats like off-tempo drums. Red drips off my hand and my left thigh feels like somebody ripped it open with a rake. Shock any second, if I'm not there already. Farley's face is dripping down my shirt front. A single strand of Indigo's hair drifts in front of her eyes, drawn and released with the rhythm of her breath. I never got used to having guns pointed at me.

It all takes maybe half a second, and that's long enough for every detail to tattoo itself on my retinas with a rusty needle. “How many people have you killed, Indigo? Has it started to get easy yet?”

She blinks. I—almost—think I see the pistol waver. I relax enough to start drawing a single, slow, meticulous breath, and Indigo pulls the trigger.

I can't say I don't deserve it.

We don't always get what we deserve.

The damn thing hits like a rhino and I go back three steps, left fist slammed against my chest, all that red making the floor slick as ice and this time I do land on my knee, which twists that garden rake in the other direction, a little animal burrowing through muscle and flesh.

The look on her face when I lever myself back to my feet and show her the mushroomed bullet squashed between my steel finger and thumb makes me wish I had a fucking camera.

Pity I'm bleeding too much to chase after her when she turns to run.