Cog (8 page)

Chapter 8

The odor in the small motel lobby reminded Thia of the moldy shed at her grandmother’s house, where she was sent to retrieve various gardening tools when she was a child. She had been afraid of the dark, dank lean-to, but even more afraid of her grandmother.

The motel lobby held two stained chairs that formed a half square in the middle of the floor. The worn rug looked as if it hadn’t been vacuumed in a year. Clashing curtains topped with a layer of dust shielded the musty room from the glare of the neon sign outside. One bright light shone above the registration counter, casting gloomy shadows over the rest of the small lobby. A grinning jack-o’-lantern that sat next to an outmoded computer monitor greeted her from the edge of the counter.

“Can I help you?” The speaker was a burly man with terracotta skin and wispy hair. Either he couldn’t afford hair replacement therapy or he didn’t care that the top of his head looked like a moth-eaten mohair sweater.

“I’d like a room for the night. Smoking,” Thia said.

“No problem.” A tag bearing the name, Shiloham Zyan, was affixed to his shirt. “Where you from?” He flashed a bright smile as he began tapping on the monitor screen.

“North Carolina,” Thia replied. Which was true. A little truth went a long way in keeping aliases straight. She scanned him and sent the visual feed to the central imaging lab. The quick and dirty search yielded preliminary information, scrolling in orange on the edge of her vision: Shiloham Zyan was the owner/operator of a small motel on Route 301, born in Augusta, Georgia, married with five children, whose electronic transmissions showed no criminal activity. He was having an affair with a Ravi Benar from Odenton, looked at porn sites two to three times a week, and had a recent prostate infection, most likely caused by a prior case of c
hlamydia.

“Ah, I have a friend from North Carolina. How was the traffic coming up?”

“There was an accident on ninety-five, so I cut over to three-oh-one down by Richmond. Figured I could take ninety-seven up to Baltimore.” People became suspicious of those who refused to engage in small talk, so it was a skill Thia learned early on. The more details offered, the more believable the story.

“Oh, yes. Baltimore is just up the road.”

“Yeah, well, I was just about to fall asleep, so I figured I’d best stay the night somewhere. Better safe than sorry.”

“Oh, no question. Okay, just give me your national ID card, please, and sign the screen.” He turned the monitor toward her, proffering a stylus.

Thia did as she was bidden.

“Okie dokie. I have you in room number seven.”

“Ah, my lucky number.”

Shiloham grinned. “Mine, too.” He winked at Thia, who did her best to maintain her composure as she took the key card. He had some nerve, she thought. The door banged shut as she left the rancid lobby.

The pungent tang of stale sweat accosted her as she entered her room. She tossed her travel bag on the bed, then went to each window and opened it. A small ceiling fan hung over the bed and she turned it on full blast.

The modest room held a bed, a nightstand, and a dresser that looked as if it might fall in on itself. The bathroom boasted a toilet and a sonic cleaner so tiny she would have to kneel inside it. What were motels coming to now? In a few more years, guests would probably have to stay in coffin-sized rooms. They were already being offered at airports for those who missed their flights, or were snowed in.

Thia didn’t turn on the lights, but let her eyes grow accustomed to the dark. She sat on the bed and spiraled into Cog. Needles of color—red, purple, chartreuse—shot away from her, then coalesced into a helical whorl.

“Welcome to Cognition,” sounded in her head. She grabbed a pack of cigarettes from her bag, lit one, and sat down on the bed. Smoke spiraled and hung in the dark room within the translucent red menu. She took a drag and blew the spiral into an aura.

Nicholle hung out with the jet set, sometimes reported on in the society pages, usually seen with some designer or her man of the month. She seemed to change mates like she changed hairstyles.
Like her brother.

Thia didn’t have to look far. The front recto of the
Ynquirer
featured a dazzling picture of Nicholle in a red beaded evening gown, leaving the Kennedy Center. Stock photo, had to be. She was at least ten pounds heavier the last time Thia saw her. The headlines blared the news: A Family Affair! Company President Makes Off With $20 B! Brother Made Off With $50 B!

Thia scanned the article and found Nicholle had eluded the authorities, that the company techru was missing, and that she was once linked with the Quatrocellini heir, Marc.

“I remember him,” Thia said to herself.

So Nicholle was on the run, most likely with Chris Kappert, and not likely to turn up at any of her residences, knowing the boys in blue would be hounding her. Which meant she had gone underground. Thia tried to imagine Nicholle living anywhere that didn’t have golden faucets and fawning servants. She was probably driving Kappert crazy, poor guy.

But where were they? They could be anywhere, in some rundown building in the suburbs, a basement in the purlieus, a downtown apartment. If she could track Nicholle’s financial transactions, it would make it a hell of a lot easier. Thia punched up the DOI database and entered Nicholle’s name. The recto flooded with information, psychological profile—ENFP; employer—National Gallery of Art; places frequented—work, restaurants, designer stores, friends’ houses; bank, credit, investment accounts—zero balances.
Zero balances? What the—?

She must have drawn down her accounts. Maybe Kappert had transferred the money for her. If so, she was planning on staying underground for a while. Which meant Thia had better find her before she got good at it. She leaned back and stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray on the nightstand, then settled in for a long night of searching.

After a greasy hamburger and four hours of trawling through call records and security camera feeds at Nicholle’s favorite haunts, Thia came up with nothing. She was tired and bored, but if spycraft had taught her anything, it was that persistence paid off.

She decided to try battering nodes. Maybe Kappert’s friends knew something and had a penchant to talk. Thia ran down the usual rectos and found the usual chatter—advice on node programming, news articles on quantum theory, announcement of a batter death. Arn Trumblis. Apparently dead after a sortie into American Hologram, which apparently used illegal military sentinels. The announcement called for a blitz on the company. Any and all interested batters were told to try and compromise their systems.

Interesting.

Thia tapped into the admin privileges and accessed the WP address of the recto post. It would take no time at all to match the addy and locate the address.

Bingo. District Heights, 700 block. Addy belonged to a Cor Wynst, not Chris Kappert. Still, it looked promising.

Midnight. Thia would get three hours’ sleep, then leave to check on the address. Right now, she was tired. She spiraled out, then leaned back on the pillow and closed her eyes. As soon as she did, her incoming call light flashed, yellow cubes melding with red circles. Wu Ji. What did he want at this hour?

She winked open a line and the angular face of Wu Ji hovered over her. His usual brooding eyes held an unusual brightness, and a wry smile creased his face.

“This had better be good,” Thia said.

“Hello to you, too.”

“I’m on assignment, Ji.”

“And I thought weekends were for me.”

“Assignments take precedence.”

“This will just take a couple hours. A company representative wants to buy enzo chips from a Chinese supplier. I need you to negotiate the deal.”

“I don’t even know what an enzo chip is.”

“I’m hiring you for your negotiation skills, not scientific knowledge.”

“What is it, anyway?”

“It eliminates enzymes from DNA samples.”

“Whatever that means. Isn’t it kind of late for a business deal?”

“It’s under the radar.”

“Where is it?”

“Downtown, Clinton Building. Columbia conference room, fifth floor.”

“How much?”

“Five hundred thousand.”

“Seven.”

“All right. One a.m. I’ll have my attorney meet you there with the papers. His name’s Edor Fol. And be on time.” Then he was gone.

Either Ji was in a hurry or this deal was really important. He hadn’t even taken the time to try and bargain her price. Wasn’t like him. Her curiosity was definitely piqued, but it looked as if it would be an all-nighter.

Thia rolled out of bed and grabbed a protein bar, wolfing it down on the way to her car. She kept a suit and a gown in the trunk for unexpected events. They also doubled as personal body armor, which had saved her on more than one occasion.

b

The Clinton building boasted the city’s only zero-energy system. Glazed mirrors reflected the surfaces of the surrounding buildings, which lent an oppressive air to the structure.

Thia wriggled in her navy suit as she pressed the button for the fifth floor, trying to shrug off the extra ten pounds of body armor. She only wore it when she would be walking into an unfamiliar, potentially dangerous situation. She didn’t really want to be here, but the money was too good to pass up.

Not knowing the players, she was going in cold, but businessmen tended not to carry around heavy firepower—just their bodyguards, who were trained and predictable—so she felt relatively safe. But she’d rather be chasing down Nicholle, if nothing more than for the privilege of finding Wills and holding a pulser to his head. She could almost smell the fear in his sweat.

The elevator carried over the mirror theme, and she was treated to two full-length views of herself; the other two walls were decorated with faux green marble.

The doors opened and two beefy bodyguards stiffened. They flanked the entrance to the conference room, marked by a double faux green marble door. Thia calculated how she could take both of them with the bakepar shuriken hidden in her upswept hair, then smiled.

“I’m Tyra Thibodeaux,” Thia said. “Here to negotiate the enzo chip deal.”

“Mr. Zhao send you?” the guard on the left said.

“No, Mr. Ji.”

“I’ll need some ID.”

“No problem.” Thia opened her purse and rifled through her wallet, looking for the Thibodeaux ID card. It was nestled between Sanbora and Venat.

“Ah, here we go.” She handed it to the guard, who inspected it with the intensity of a bondage club bouncer, then handed it back.

“We’ll have to scan for weapons.”

“But I see you have two weapons,” Thia said, winking.

The guard looked away, but smirked as he pulled a metdet camera from his jacket and viewed her through the scope. She was wearing her chain mail underwear, and she enjoyed watching the guard’s reaction to the view. It also didn’t hurt that he didn’t notice the trace metal in her shoe.

“Am I clear?” she said.

“All clear, ma’am. Welcome.” He opened the door onto the proceedings and Thia stepped inside. The conference room was wood paneled, and the plush gold carpeting muted the voices of those inside. A rectangular wood table sat in the center of the room, flanked by eight chairs. A large translucent image of what Thia surmised was an enzo chip hung suspended in the air above the table
.

How cheesy, she thought.

There were two men and one woman in the room, making it look as if she were the last to arrive. But they probably hadn’t just gotten a phone call an hour ago telling them to show up. The woman was the first to approach. She had a confident stride, but she retained an air of malice about her.

“Hi, I’m Juna Hix. You must be Tyra Thibodeaux.” She reached through the holographic chip to offer her hand and Thia wanted to squeeze it until the smirk on her face disappeared, but took her hand and shook it firmly.

“Why, yes I am. So nice to meet you.” She affected a southern accent, which usually lulled people into thinking she was nice. “Can we turn this image off?”

“This is my partner, Ruyan Wexted, of Wexted, Hwan, and Chelo,” Juna said. She motioned to the man sitting at the table, who got up and reached over for a handshake. He was tall with a potato-shaped face, receding hairline, and a quiet confidence that made him attractive. Thia exchanged pleasantries, letting her hand linger in his a second longer than necessary. He didn’t seem in a hurry to let go.

She turned to meet the other man, who stood on the opposite side of the table. He had café au lait skin and shoulder-length dreadlocks, quite easy on the eye. If it weren’t for the skank in the grey suit, she’d have been in hog heaven.

“I’m Edor Fol, attorney for Kunver Enterprises,” he said.

“Pleased to meet you,” Thia said.

“Well, shall we start?” Juna said.

Juna was rushing the meeting, a bad sign. Thia slipped off her jacket and threw it on one of the chairs. It was hot in the room, a common tactic to make the other negotiators lethargic, in this case her and Edor. Juna didn’t know Thia had spent weeks in the Australian outback on survival training. She was going to have to do a lot better than this if she was going to fluster her.

“Just a moment to consult with Mr. Fol,” Thia said.

Juna gave her a tight-lipped smile, but said nothing. Thia took Edor to the back corner to discuss the deal.

“Notice how hot the room is, and that they didn’t even offer us anything to drink? They’re trying to play psychological warfare. What’s the maximum you want to pay for these enzo chips?” Thia said.

“They promised a deep discount, so we’re willing to go to ninety million.”

“How much are they usually?”

“About one hundred fifty million for a truck load.”

“A forty percent discount. Do you usually traffic in stolen goods?”

Edor straightened, an indignant look on his face. “Certainly not.”

“In denial, eh? Well, Wu Ji must like you because he sent me. Follow my lead and you’ll be paying seventy-five.”

“You seem rather confident.”

“It’s a rarefied air. Breathe deep and enjoy yourself.” Thia strolled to the table and sat down, then spoke in a loud voice, interrupting Juna and Ruyan.

“Let’s get started.”

Juna gave her another tight-lipped grin, put her hand on Ruyan and whispered something to him, then came to the table and sat down. She crossed her hands in front of her.

“Getting comfortable already? Let’s try to get this over with as soon as possible. I’m sure you’re tired,” Juna said.

Try staying up three days in downtown Copenhagen chasing some asshole terrorist, she thought. Tired was not being able to sleep because you had to hold a weapon on some lowlife scumbag all night to keep him from killing you.

“Not at all. In fact, I’m just getting warmed up. Now, you have some chips for sale. What’s your price?” Thia said.

“Hm, straight to the chase. I like that. We’re willing to sell at one hundred twenty million. And we can deliver on Friday or the following Monday. Which do you prefer?”

“That’s cute, the old double option close. Listen, we’re willing to pay fifty million for delivery on Friday. I think that’s a reasonable offer.”