Valentine's Exile (43 page)

He tried to show the good half of his face through the strip of chained door. “A fistfight with Ski and a few hands. Can I come in?”

“It's eleven at night.”

“It's important enough.”

She shut the door and Valentine heard the chain slide. He looked around. The cool night air was empty.

She brought him into the tiled surgery and turned on a light. “What's so important, now?”

“I'm leaving the Ordnance. Going back to Kentucky.”

“Good for you.”

“I was wondering if your assistant might like to come. Anyone with veterinary training would be welcome there.”

“Pepsa? A rabbit-run? Why should she do that?”

“She's mute. I'm surprised she hasn't been culled out of the herd before this.”

“How dare—”

“Just cutting through the bullshit, Boothe. Or are you the type who only likes to see half the truth? I know people. We could get her somewhere safe from the Reapers, a lot safer than your dog kennels and dairy stalls.”

“We?”

“Me. Ahn-Kha. You. Someone on the outside. I don't want to say more.”

“You just offered your heart up, you know that. You'd be gone tonight if I told security. I'd get a seat at the head table at the next Ordnance Gratitude Banquet.”

Valentine didn't want to kill this woman. But if she moved to the phone— “If you're such a friend of security, why haven't our guns ever left your office? Or have they?”

She couldn't help but look over her shoulder at the corridor to her storage room.

Boothe seemed to be fighting with something lodged in her throat.

“You could come along,” Valentine continued. “Disappear into the tribelands, or relocate into Free Territory.”

She frowned. “Free Territory's a myth. Some clearing full of guerillas does not a nation make.”

“I've been there.”

“As if it's that easy.”

“I didn't say anything about it being easy.”

She lifted her chin. “Let me talk to Pepsa.”

Valentine followed her with his ears and listened from the surgery doorway as she went into a back room and spoke to Pepsa. The quiet conversation was one-sided; Valentine couldn't see what Pepsa communicated back on her kiddie magic tablet. This would be an all-or-nothing gamble. Every person added to a conspiracy doubled the risk.

Dr. Boothe, with Pepsa trailing behind in a robe, joined him in the surgery. Pepsa looked at him with new interest in her gentle eyes.

“You have people who can help us get all the way to Free Territory?”

Valentine thought it best to dodge the question. “There are plenty of animals to take care of there. Herds of horses.”

Pepsa wrote something on her board.

"But you do have people outside Xanadu to help us get away?”

“Absolutely.”

Boothe and Pepsa exchanged a look. Pepsa wrote again.

“What do you need us to do?” Boothe asked.

“We need some food that can be preserved. Pack some cold-weather clothing and camp-mats, and have it all ready by tomorrow afternoon. Make some excuse for not being available until November first or second. And one more thing. I need a quick look in your pharmacy.”

Valentine walked all the way back to the rec center to use the phone there. He could have used the phone in Boothe's office, but just in case she or Pepsa turned on him, he could warn Duvalier.

The phone rang fourteen times before a gravelly voice at the hostel answered it. “Yeah?”

Valentine asked to speak to Duvalier's Ordnance ID pseudonym.

“No calls after nine.”

“It's urgent. Could I leave a message?”

“She'll get it in the morning, Corporal.”

The attendant must have thought Valentine was Duvalier's would-be boyfriend, Corporal Thatcher.

“Tell her my migraine is back. I'll come by tomorrow night, then we can get to the party.”

“Migraine?”

Valentine spelled it.

“She'll get the message at a decent hour. Reread your phone protocols, Corporal—dating doesn't give you special privileges to disturb me.”

“Tell her some new friends will be along. We'll have transport.”

“I'm not a stenographer, son. Call her tomorrow.”

Valentine thanked him and replaced the receiver. Next he'd have to wake Ahn-Kha. He looked at the craft table with the Halloween costumes.

Xanadu had its share of children, and while it was still light out they paraded around in their costumes from building to building, collecting treats from the security staff at the doors.

The kids sang as they collected their candy.

Valentine, dressed in his Bulletproof “leathers” and carrying a large brown market bag full of costuming, was a little shocked to hear the realities of life in the Kurian Zone expressed in nursery-rhyme fashion. He watched one young child, dressed in the red-and-white stripes of a frightening, bloody-handed Uncle Sam, pull his cowgirl sister along as they sang. He'd been at sea during his other Halloween in the Kurian Zone, so he couldn't say if it was a widespread practice. Or maybe on this one night mention of the real duties of the Reapers was allowed.

Valentine passed in to Grand East and nodded to the security staff. They were used to him by now.

“Nice costume, Tar. You really rode those things?”

“Sure did,” Valentine said, trying to put a little Kentucky music into his voice.

Valentine went to the smaller of the elevators, the one that went to the top and garage floors, and rode up.

He couldn't help but pat the syringes stuck in the breast of his legworm-rider jacket. His .22 target pistol was tucked into the small of his back, held in place by three strips of surgical tape. Hopefully he wouldn't need it.

Fran Paoli just yelled “come in” at his knock. He hurried in, wondering just how—

And he had his answer when he saw her.

She stood in the doorway of her bedroom, a gothic queen spider in thigh-high boots thick with buckles. Black eyeliner, spider earrings, a temporary tattoo of a skull on one fleshy, corset-enclosed breast.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but leather and chains excite me,” she quoted.

“What on earth do you use boots like that for?” Valentine asked.

“Turning men on. Is it working?”

“I'll say. Come here, you naughty girl.”

She giggled, and came up and kissed him. She tested the hooks on his forearms, and looked down at the spurs.

“You're dangerous tonight,” Fran Paoli observed.

“You've no idea.”

He sat on the arm of her sofa and threw her across his knee, raising the torn, black-dyed taffeta miniskirt. A black thong divided her buttocks. He gave her backside an experimental slap.

“Ohhhh!” she cooed.

“I may just have to tie you up so other men don't get a chance to see this,” he said, snapping the thong. He hit her again, harder.

“Nothing I could do about it,” she said.

He hit her harder. She gave tiny giggle-gasps at each swat.

“My, what a strong arm you have,” she said, lifting her now-splotched buttocks a little. Valentine extracted the syringe from his jacket, pulled the plastic cap off with his teeth, and held it in his mouth while he spanked her again, even harder. He felt both ridiculous and a little aroused.

“Uhhh—” she gasped. He transferred the syringe to his hand and injected her, threw it across the room behind her, and struck her again.

Six more swats and she was limp and moaning. The largeanimal tranquilizers had their effect.

She slurred and tried to caress him as he transferred her to the bedroom. He kissed her several times, gagged her with her bathrobe belt, and tied her up in the closet using pairs of pantyhose and leather belts.

She offered no resistance save a dopey-eyed wink.

“Now you just wait there for a little while,” he said, and kissed her on the forehead. He shut the closet door.

Valentine took her keys from the dresser, and her blue ID card. He pocketed them and rode the elevator to the basement.

He'd worked out every move in his mind, gone over it so many times a sense of unreality persisted. Was he still lying in bed, planning this? Was it his real hand reaching for the big Lincoln's door, his bag he placed on the passenger seat, his foot on the accelerator as he backed toward the fuel pump?

The pump clattered loudly enough that he wondered that the whole building didn't come to investigate. He topped off the tank, and filled the two spare twenty-liter plastic containers she kept in the back. He climbed into the driver's seat, and put on the seat belt and com headset. He started the SUV and turned it toward the garage door.

“Two-one-six, leaving,” he said into her mouthpiece, pressing the com button on the dash.

“Dr. Paoli?”

“Tar Ayoob, running an errand,” he said.

“Two-one-six, leaving,” the voice acknowledged. “Enjoy the party.” The garage door rose.

Valentine pulled the SUV around to the west tower, parked it in plain sight under a roadside light, and trotted over to the basement door with his bag. He knocked, and Ahn-Kha, in his laundry overcoat, answered.

“Here,” Ahn-Kha said, and passed Valentine some blue scrubs.

The boots looked a little funny under them, but he'd pass. Once Ahn-Kha checked the basement hallway, thick with conduits and junction boxes, Valentine went to the larger, gurney-sized elevators and pressed the up button.

Ahn-Kha brought a wheelchair out from around a corner. They were easily found all over the building, but it never hurt to be prepared.

He pushed Fran's blue card in the slot and went up to the fourth floor.

Halloween decorations, traditional orange-and-black paper, festooned the hallway over the honor-in-childbearing propaganda. Vague noises of something that sounded like a Chevy with a bad starter came from the central common room. Valentine walked behind the wheelchair to Room 4105.

The outer cubicle was empty. A woman lay in the next bed, sleeping—but it wasn't Gail.

He knew Gail Post's schedule by heart. She'd already been fed, and it was getting to the point where the women were usually expected to be in their beds, asleep.

He crossed the building to the common room. Twenty-odd women watched spacecraft blow up a model of long-ago Los Angeles. Vacant, tired eyes reflected the sparking special effects.

Gail Foster sat right in the center.

A nurse popped up at the door. “Can I help?”

“Gail Foster. Follow-up X-ray.”

She glanced at Valentine's ID badge, but didn't examine it closely. “Follow-up to what?”

“Not sure. Dr. Kreml's orders. They should have called. She wants it taken tonight.”

“That one,” the nurse said, pointing.

Valentine tapped her on the shoulder. “Gail, I need you for a moment,” he said.

“Sure,” she said absently. Valentine helped her to the chair by the door. A few of the other patients exchanged looks, but most watched the movie.

The nurse who had questioned Valentine was at the center console, speaking into the phone.

No choice.

He wheeled Gail to the station. The nurse turned to watch him.

“Is there a problem?” Valentine asked.

“Just checking with central.”

“Should I wait?”

“If you don't mind.” She turned and checked a clipboard again.

Valentine hated to do it, but he took out the horse tranquilizer. With one quick step, he got behind her and jammed it into her neck. He pulled her down, one hand on her mouth, and waited until her legs quit kicking.

“You certainly got her cooperation,” Gail said.

“Let's not have any attitude tonight, okay, Gail?” Valentine asked as he pulled the nurse into a file room. He found a length of surgical tubing and tied the door shut.

Gail offered a
wheeeee
as he raced her down the hall to the elevator. On the ride down he stripped off his scrubs.

“I've never been here before,” Gail observed as they entered the basement corridor. Ahn-Kha helped her get dressed. “Oh, pretty,” she remarked, as Valentine slipped a feathered mask on her.

They walked her out to the Lincoln, Ahn-Kha half carrying her across the road. The Golden One climbed in the back cargo area where his disassembled puddler waited, along with Valentine's weapons.

“Keep her quiet back there, and out of sight,” Valentine said.

He drove the Lincoln around the building perimeter to the veterinary office. “Glad you remembered the heavy coat,” Valentine said as Dr. Boothe slipped into the passenger seat.

“You give good instruction. Is this Paoli's rig?”

“I like to make an exit,” Valentine said.

Pepsa's eyes widened as she saw Ahn-Kha in back.

Valentine passed out masks to Dr. Boothe and Pepsa. “Just on our way to a party, okay? Once we're past the gate, you'll be driving.”

As they rolled around the hospital the headlights illuminated a figure at the roadside in harsh black and white, gleam and shadow. A pale face, exaggerated and immobile as a theatrical mask, held them like a spotlight.

A Reaper.

Boothe sucked breath in through her teeth. Valentine's heart gave a triple thump. The Reaper could upend the Lincoln as easily as it might lift a wheelbarrow. Then what chance would they have, still within Xanadu's walls. If it moved he'd have to—