Splicer (28 page)

The underground maintenance tunnels, the study halls and student warrens, the washrooms, the undergraduate study spaces tucked up against plumbing stacks and water pipes, all converged at a series of stairs which rose into side doors at
the hub
. During a busy afternoon there was a steady procession of students pouring through first one set of doors and then another; some exiting into the mixed currents of the ground level traffic, others pouring into the lower levels like fish schooling for prey. Tonight though, the hub was empty. And Rusty would have said there was no sound. But when the main set of ventilation fans went down, the concrete floor of the hub seemed to vibrate and a low rumbling background noise began to climb down the register, lower and lower until it disappeared. Now the silence was absolute. A cliché line came to Rusty -
the calm before the storm
. But this wasn't a calming silence. It felt like his world had been chilled down to absolute zero. Even the molecules of the air seemed suspended.

Then the door, a steel blue slab, third from the right, slammed open. Into the silent hub poured Jayne McEwan, looking crumpled and staring suspiciously around her, followed by a limping Malcolm Grieves. From his vantage point outside the hub, behind a glass self-closing door in one of the hallways, he saw another man suddenly emerge, press up behind Grieves before he had a chance to react and almost with a movement that reminded him of a magician's slight-of-hand, disarmed him. Within seconds he was leading them away out of the same set of tunnels they entered a few hours before.

Sensing that they were headed for the parking lot to the east, Rusty pushed through the doors into the hub, this way making his way up into the stairwell that would take him to the surface. If he couldn't help Jayne at least he could follow her. As he crashed out onto the outdoor steps he realized that he had less time than he guessed. These men wanted Grieves. For whatever reason, with an image of Shay laying in her own fresh blood nagging at him, he sensed they were looking for the key that would turn on the damn
Splicer
.
If it was only a word or a string of letters and numbers, how close were they to it?
How long would it take to force it out of Grieves? And then when they had it, would they let him live? Why bother.
It was clear now. Jayne and Grieves were as good as dead. Months ago, he would have marveled at the kind of mind that could so boldly and cold-bloodedly construct this kind of killing ground. But the game they were playing was a dark and dangerous one - gene manipulation for the sake of money and power. Jeff must have known of the deep currents he was setting up, must have begun to feel it tugging on him during his first meetings with representatives of the military.  Maybe it was the quiet hunger in a General's eyes that first warned him. But he couldn't stop it, nobody could. Now Rusty felt completely overcome by the staggering forces around him. Like an ant braving a trek across a busy expressway.

He headed across the lawn feeling the dew soak into his tennis shoes.
Would they kill them right here on campus?
If they took Jayne and Grieves to another location it might give Rusty time to raise the police. But as he thought about it he realized waiting only reduced the odds. He could lose them in the traffic. They could roar off at high speed and his tired Cutlass would be no match. He had to do something now.

The team captain wondered what had happened to his two agents. They were known for speed. He had worked with them before. But no matter - he had the programmer. He would wait with these two at the van for Mohta or perhaps he would assassinate the woman in front of the man immediately. That would loosen the programmer’s tongue.

With any luck, he could have the password before the other two agents even arrived. He enjoyed that thought for a while, noting with satisfaction that both of his charges were now tired and docile, worn out by the chase. If he could make it back to their vehicle without being seen that would be a bonus, but not a necessity. His experience with the public was that they left well enough alone. He could probably carry out an execution of these two on the center lawn of the Campus Administration Building and not even raise an inquiring look. People were basically sheep and that suited him just fine.

He held the woman by one arm with the gun pressed up against her spine. The programmer was walking in front of her. He told him that if he ran, he would shoot her, then him, and it didn't matter if they had witnesses. He had killed in crowded street markets, hotel lobbies - once the balcony of a sold out theater. He didn't care. The programmer seemed resigned to his fate although he showed little fear or concern for the danger his female companion was facing. This troubled the hostage-taker only minutely. He was an excellent shot and the limping bulk of the little man would be an easy target.

Ahead of them, he could see the orange sodium lights of the sports arena spilling into the foyer. From those doors they would cross the lawn by the arena, then circle the large outdoor complex and head into the vast visitor parking lot. As they neared the set of double glass doors, three students entered from the outside. They were all uniformly large, but one, the center man, was over six feet six. He was broad shouldered, wore a blond crew cut - had the handsome features of a small town sports hero. All three wore green football jerseys - a bunch of jocks finishing up a late night practice. But instead of looking tired and ready to rest, they appeared wired and jumpy. The biggest man was flexing his fingers as if about to tackle the opposing team's quarterback and his eyes had an angry set to them. Behind the three stood a smaller man in a leather jacket, his red hair in his eyes and his hands in his pockets, the same man the team leader had seen earlier.

The professional realized immediately that something was wrong. His only concern though was the number of bullets he had in the chamber of his gun and how precisely he could place them. He had the added challenge of the programmer. He couldn't kill him yet. If necessary, he could fire into his lower legs. That might slow him down enough.

The football tackle, his eyes eager, stepped up in front of Grieves and barred his way. They stopped.

"Let the lady go," growled the student. The other two players flanked their teammate, looking anxious for a fight.

Using his strongest voice, the professional decided to take one stab at talking his way out.

"You've got the wrong guy, friend. We're just going for a stroll."

"That's not what I hear," answered the jock, cocking a thumb back at the redheaded man behind them, by the exit doors.  "I hear she doesn't want to go with you. Let's hear what she has to say!"

Jayne felt the hard end of the gun being pressed against the area low on her spine. The intrusion angered her. She squirmed, fully expecting to feel a blast against her back, then the concussion and the heat.
Would it hurt right away or would shock mask the awful destruction of her spine, her essential organs?
She had seen death reports on injuries of that sort. Survival meant living as a quadriplegic. But why worry about that, survival was the remotest possibility. So she tried the only thing she could think of, she pretended to faint.

The professional felt his hostage go limp and drop. He was tempted to end her life there but realized that she was of little value to him dead and only wasted a valuable bullet. Instead, he let her fall to the ground in a heap.

The sight of the falling woman seemed to enrage the three football players. The largest lowered his head and charged. The first bullet entered his chest and exploded out of his back with the force of a cannon. But his strength and his weight carried him forward with surprising speed.

The professional coolly fired again and again, already aware of his mistake. He was being tackled by three highly trained young men in their prime. The larger jock’s momentum was truly staggering. He folded into the killer like a big powerful lion hungry for a meal, almost unaware of his injuries. The three of them piled on the team leader who continued to fire into the assemblage of arms and legs.

The biggest man was already dead but his weight had pinned the assassin while the other two, both suffering gunshot wounds, punched at the struggling man repeatedly. Grieves had made a break for the door but froze when he saw Rusty standing outside on the step. Rusty's expression looked so haunted, so full of open revulsion, that Grieves was momentarily unsure of what to do. When he turned, he saw Jayne struggling to her feet. He knew now, by the look in her eyes, that the faint was not real. Did she realize how the sight of her collapsing to the floor had instantly thrown these young men to her rescue? She could have derived the same effect by screaming out or crying, but that may have precipitated a bullet in her back for her efforts.

The two shorter jocks in the football jerseys were standing now. They had wrestled the gun out of the killer’s hands, who lay either dead or unconscious, half under the imposing weight of their fallen team member. They were all in shock when Mohta rounded the corner of the long hallway, his arms and clothes covered in blood, his face full of rage.

The call was straight out of one of Rosenblatt's fantasies.

A mystery woman, slightly out of breath. He could see the film of perspiration on her forehead and above her finely drawn mouth. She needed to meet with him. Now. She couldn't talk on the phone. For a brief moment, he wasn't entirely sure if he had imagined the call or not. His shaking hand had scrawled something on his desk blotter. WOMAN IN RED. NIGHT MOVES. SIX. With all the death and mayhem going on in this city during the past few days, this felt bad. VERY BAD. But her voice made his heart race. His prick jumped once like it had just received a tiny electrical charge. The way she spoke to him was so ADULT.  So ...  DO IT TO ME BABY.  So ... ERICA JONG, the lady who wrote about strangers meeting and just getting it on, right there in the Men's washroom. In the third cubicle. Ever since he read that passage he had found Men's washrooms intriguingly sexual. She called it the
zipperless fuck
. He wasn't exactly sure what it meant but he wanted it badly.

He raced to
Night Moves Cabaret
in his baby Benz, smoothing down the thick hair at the back of his head that insisted on standing up erect after every new haircut. In the coatroom before the lounge he noticed his knees were wobbling. He wandered slowly into the nearly empty cabaret and scanned the room. There she was. Dressed in a red leather mini-dress, a black negligee top and a red leather jacket, sipping white wine.  He could tell even from a distance that she was the most blatantly sexual human being he had ever been in the same room with. And it had nothing to do with her being a woman. If she were a bearded lumberjack wearing muskeg-coated gumboots he would be just as mesmerized by this creatures animal energy.
Of course
he thought, she is
not
a man. She’s the essence of woman. A specialist, designed by nature’s hand for one key function and one key function only.
Built for speed, not for comfort
as they used to say in high school. Others may aspire to certain of the trappings - the full lips, the dark flashing eyes, full taut breasts and an eager ass. But this lady had all the options, and SHE KNEW IT.  When she looked up at Norman and smiled, he realized the instant stirrings of an erection.  He sat awkwardly.

"Can I get you a drink, Norman?"

He fidgeted with his car keys. "Why not! I'll have the same as you."

"You're a wine drinker," she said, smiling as if that made all the difference in the world. She looked like the farthest thing from an assassin that he could imagine, more like a
geisha
. A smiling, docile subservient whose every duty in life was to please him.
Didn't they learn the mastery of all forms of sexual conduct in order to fulfill their husband’s needs?
His face flushed in the dark cold air of the club and didn't cool until the waitress left with his order.

"You sounded very upset on the phone ... " he started.  She put her small hand on his and he stopped.

"I knew your friend, Jeffrey," she said, her eyes never leaving his. "I can't tell you how much I miss him." She pulled back a lock of dark hair from her eyes. "He spoke about you so much I feel like we're friends." She smiled again. There was only the barest hint of an accent. Her voice was husky and languid.

Norman nodded, waiting for more. "Then he ... when he was
killed
, I promised myself I would come to Toronto and do what I could. I need your help."

"The police have the murderer," he offered, disappointed in her interest in Jeffrey.

She bent across the table toward him. His eyes fell to the shadow between her breasts. "You don't really believe that, do you?" she said. "Don't you get the same feeling that I get about this whole business? That someone else is involved?" Now she grabbed both of his hands in hers. Anyone else doing this would console and relax him. In Kim Soo's hands his heart was beating erratically and his tongue felt thick and misguided. Her touch sent a jolt through his body. He felt as if he was wired up to jumper cables, his heart whining in his ears. Norman's Chardonnay came so he let her go and downed the glass quickly.

"Did you work with Jeffrey?" he asked, searching for words, searching for meaning, hoping fervently for a quick buzz from the house wine.

She smiled knowing innocence. "Norman. I know that you know Jeffrey and I had what you might call a
thing
. It was very innocent. We had fun. I confess I'm attracted to powerful men ...  like you.  I always have been. I can't help it so I just go with the flow.  It's my nature."

"I'd love to help you ..." struggled Rosenblatt.

"Kim!"

"Kim. I'd love to help you. But these murders? The police have said it’s Redfield. Who else ..."

"And the rapes."

"Rapes?" He swallowed loudly. "I hadn't heard ..."

"The Redfield woman was brutally raped. She was held down to the floor, tied up with wire, and then the killer proceeded to ...
well, do unspeakable things to her. "Rosenblatt flushed again. "Is that the kind of thing a
husband
does to his
wife
before he kills he
r
?" she asked.

Norman shook his head slowly. The way she described the rape, he could see it. But the person he saw was not Redfield.  She was right.
How could he have done that to his own wife? Had Grieves really snapped then?
Gone over the line?
  Grieves had seen him in some of his darkest moments in prison; he looked then like a man who could do anything.

"And the rumor around the courthouse is that Redfield couldn't have done it. That he was
with
his lawyer, if you know what I mean, when the murder took place"

Rosenblatt had heard that, or read it somewhere.
With his lawyer at two o'clock in the morning? Was there anyone besides him who wasn't getting it every day of the week?

"So you see ..." she started.

The wine was loosening his tongue. "How can I help you, Kim? You wouldn't believe the problems we've had with the company since Jeffrey's death. If we don't find a buyer soon, we'll be wiped out."

"I can help you there."

"You can?"

"I know the buyers."

He swallowed the last of his drink, slopping some of it on to his checkered tie. "You are full of surprises." He was beginning to feel more in control now. The wine was having its way with him.

She opened her jacket. "You know that a lot of the negotiations went on in Vegas.  And Jeffrey would tell me about them, in bed, late at night. Nothing confidential - just a sense of what was going on. I find it very exciting to hear men talk about their business conquests. I found out later that I knew the buyers. I can help you. I can help you in a lot of ways. We can help each other."

"What do you need from me?"

"You need to tell me who the loose canon is?"

He popped his head back.  His eyes had grown red-rimmed. "Huh?"

"You know what I mean, Norman. You can't tell the police. You're afraid it will get you involved. And XTech won't finish their sale with you, won't turn over the money, while this murder hangs over everyone's head. Where do you think I first heard that rumor about Redfield and his classy lawyer? From the police."

Rosenblatt was transfixed by her. "From the police?"

"I can solve all of your problems, Norman. And I mean
all
of them. Just tell me who it is. I'll feed the tip to the right people. And no one will ever know."

"Well, I hardly see how it matters now. A lawyer by the name of Quinn told me about a former employee his girlfriend saw ..." Then Rosenblatt stammered and froze, afraid for the first time. Quinn told him about Shay seeing Grieves. He told X-Tech about Shay. Three days later she was dead. What the hell was going on here? "Who are you anyway, Kim?"

She took one of his hands again, stroking the soft meaty inside of his palm with a long ruby fingernail. "I'm your fantasy come to life, Norman. I'm your fairy queen. I'm doing a good deed for some very wealthy folks, who are also very generous. They want to make this deal with you very badly. They told me to do what I had to do to make it happen. I've been asked to be especially nice to you." Rosenblatt frowned. "But I'll sleep with you because I think you're very attractive." Rosenblatt felt a prickly heat climb up his chest and groin. Then she moved as close to him across the table as she had been all night and whispered in a tiny voice full of energy. "And I'll give you the best oral sex you've ever had because, well, it's sort of a hobby of mine, and I'm very good at it. It has a special twist I think you’ll never forget."