Tek Kill (24 page)

“I understand, sir.”

“Shawna and Menken are going to take you there, Dan,” he said. “I've already set everything up with Maggie. She'll work with you and—probably in just a few days—you'll have your mind and your real self back.”

“That would be terrific.”

Jake said, “Sid and I have to go back down to San Peligro Island in the Caribbean to finish up the case we're working on. Soon as I'm through there, I'll join you at Maggie's hideaway.”

Dan held out his hand and they shook. “Good-bye, sir.”

Jake watched while his son got into the skycar with Menken and the woman. The craft came to life, then went climbing up into the early afternoon.

Jake sighed. “I wish,” he said, “just once, he'd called me Dad.”

KACEY BASCOM BLUSHED. She brought her hand up to her mouth. “Gosh, don't I feel silly,” she said to Dr. Stolzer.

He pushed further into the room. “What precisely are you up to—and who the hell are you?”

She giggled, pressed her hand to her chest. “Oh, it's really a stupid sort of prank, Doctor,” she said. “See, I bet my …”

Her hand snapped to her shoulder holster and she was holding a stungun. She pressed it into the big doctor's chest and fired.

Stolzer made a surprised huffing sound. His mouth snapped open as his eyes suddenly shut. Each of his hands inscribed invisible circles in the air. Then he did a few steps of a tiptoe dance and dropped to his knees.

Kacey shut the door and booted him in the back.

The doctor fell over flat out. “I hope he's the last unexpected item we have to face today.”

Rebecca was staring at her. “You shot him very calmly, Kacey,” she said with admiration.

“Something I learned in the days I was a cop,” she said. “You still want to try to destroy the Tek lab?”

“I'd like to attempt it.”

Kacey moved over beside the sprawled Dr. Stolzer. “Wish I had time to give this guy a mindwipe.” She bent and dragged him across the room, leaving him behind the armchair. “We can leave now.”

“It's too bad you and I have such different political views,” remarked Rebecca. “Otherwise we could probably be close friends.”

“We can talk politics later.” Kacey opened the door, took a cautious glance out. “We can make our move now.”

THE LAB WAS long and low and mostly white. Forty white-enameled robots were working at rows of tables and desks, manufacturing Tek chips. The air was faintly scented with lemon.

Rowland Burdon escorted the android Deryk into the facility. “I think you'll enjoy seeing this”—he stopped immediately inside the doorway—“since you're involved in working with the mind. It's the best and most efficient Tek laboratory outside of Europe.”

“Very impressive,” commented the andy.

“And our chips can be manufactured at a much lower cost than those of most of the Tek cartels.”

Deryk moved further into the room, watching the nearest bots at their work. “Dr. Stolzer and I have found that most of the criticisms of Tek—the claim that it's so dangerously addictive and that it can cause seizures and brain damage—are considerably exaggerated,” he told his host, smiling. “Dr. Stolzer has long been an active supporter of the campaign to legalize Tek.”

“If Tek were legal, it would really screw up this part of our business.” From his pocket Burdon took a small NewTown needlegun.

“What's that you're using?”

While he searched for a place on his lower arm to place the tip of the gun, Burdon replied, “New product we're testing. Delivers a dose of euphoria serum that's completely effective yet totally non-addictive.”

“I notice, though, that this is the third time you've used it since we began our little tour of your plant,” mentioned Deryk. “Could it be, if not addictive, at least highly habit forming?”

“No, perfectly safe,” he said, dropping the gun back into his pocket. “I'm simply interested in giving it a very thorough test.”

“Are you more euphoric now than you were an hour ago?”

“Most certainly, of course. In fact, I feel—”

A faint tremor had begun underfoot. The lab floor had started vibrating.

“What's wrong?” Deryk was scowling down at the floor.

Burdon tugged out a handphone. “Central Control,” he demanded.

The floor increased its shaking and now the white walls of the lab were rattling.

The robots kept on working, even though the lab tables and the desks were shaking with increasing violence.

“Central Control, goddamn it!” shouted Burdon into his phone.

“Hadn't we better get out of here?” suggested the android.

“Not until I find out what the hell is going on.”

Instead of a voice, a harsh squealing sound was coming out of the earpiece.

Rumbling explosions began on the other side of one of the walls. Then a huge hole was blown in the wall and a gust of roaring flame came shooting in. It ate across tables and robots, burning up everything, turning everything black and crusty.

“Jesus!” cried Burdon. “Somebody's activated the destruct system.”

He turned and tried to run.

43

“MAY BE, possibly,” said Lieutenant Drexler, “I was wrong about you, Walt—or partially wrong, anyway. It's just possible you're not a conniving murderer after all.”

“I'm touched,” Bascom informed him.

“Maybe.”

They were in Lieutenant Drexler's large office at the SoCal Police Center in the Santa Monica Sector of Greater LA.

“My version of what happened to Dwight Grossman is starting to sound a shade more plausible, Lieutenant?”

The policeman gave a grudging nod. He was behind his desk, hand poised over a control panel. On the wall, one of the compscreens showed a head shot of the late Avram Moyech. “I'm ready to agree that this guy had the ability to turn out forged tapes good enough to fool us,” he said slowly. “And the information you got from that henchman of Zack Excoffon seems to make it clear that they did hire Moyech to do something for the Excoffon Tek cartel.”

“Drexler, old pal, I also showed you copies of Moyech's Banx records—decoded ones that indicate he did get dough from them.”

“Records don't say for what.”

Bascom, who was perched on the edge of the policeman's desk, said, “The gent was blown to glory last night—just before arriving at Cosmos. That ain't just a coincidence.”

“No, that's one of the things that makes your story convincing,” admitted the lieutenant. “Even you aren't duplicitous enough, Walt, to blow up a van full of people to frame Excoffon.”

“I'll come to you next time I need a character reference.”

“But this other stuff you're trying to pass off on me,” he said, shaking his head. “I mean, the Burdons are—”

“Yeah, upright citizens, pillars of society, a credit to the GLA community. Even so, Rowland is in cahoots with Excoffon to turn out Tek.”

“Down in the Caribbean, huh?”

“So we believe. My daughter's down there right now looking into this—and Jake Cardigan'll be back with her today.”

“If anybody's an expert on Tek, it's that bastard Cardigan. A user and a convicted dealer.”

“C'mon, he was framed on that.”

“I know the guy was Tekhead.”

“For a while, long time ago. Not now, and he never worked for the cartels or sold as much as a single Tek chip.”

“Your opinion.”

A voxbox on his desk said, “Turn on the Newz Channel, Lieutenant Drexler.”

“Christ, now what?” He touched the control panel.

“… at least a third of the NewTown Pharmaceuticals plant here in this Caribbean paradise,” a beautiful red-haired newscaster was saying.

Behind her, glaring in the sun, the NewTown facility could be seen with flames and smoke rising out of one side of it.

“According to a spokesman for NewTown, the exact cause of the accident is unknown at this time,” she continued. “Most of the damage was apparently caused by a series of belowground explosions. The personnel in this seriously damaged wing was entirely robot and android, we are told. There are, at this moment, no confirmed reports of any human deaths.”

Old footage of Rowland and Rebecca Burdon, enjoying themselves at a vast party, replaced the picture of the burning plant.

“Neither Rowland Burdon nor his twin sister, Rebecca, socialite owners of the vast NewTown Pharmaceuticals organization, are available for comment. Indeed, the current whereabouts of either of the Burdons are unknown.”

“Going to be hard to prove the guy was bootlegging Tek,” said Drexler. “I'm nurturing a hunch that what blew up down there was the Tek lab.”

“I'd bet on that, too.” Bascom stood up. “I'll leave you now, Lieutenant. I want to contact my daughter.”

“Think she had something to do with the fireworks?”

“No, but once in a while I feel a fatherly concern for her.”

JAKE WAS LEANING forward in the passenger seat of their skycar. “Damn, I can't contact Kacey Bascom anywhere,” he said as he turned off the vidphone built into the dash.

“We'll be on the island in about fifty minutes,
amigo
,” said Gomez. “Once there, we'll track her down.”

“I'm wondering if she tried to go inside the NewTown plant alone.”

“She's a capable
mujer
. Don't fret.” He eyed his partner for a few seconds. “Are you developing an interest in her?”

“Avuncular maybe, not romantic.”

The phone buzzed. “Yeah?” answered Jake, activating it again.

Walt Bascom appeared on the screen. “You lads nearing San Peligro?”

“Less than an hour away,” answered Jake.

“Quite a few things have happened on that tropical paradise since you left town, Jake. Have you heard about the NewTown plant?”

“No. What happened?”

“They're not letting out any details, but it sounds to me like the whole damn secret Tek lab Burdon was running there went flooey and blew up.”

“How the hell did that happen?”

Bascom smiled. “Well, in a way, my daughter had a hand in it.”

“So she did go in there alone.”

“She had to. She found out—from one of your informants, in fact—that Burdon had his sister locked up inside the place,” the chief of the Cosmos Agency informed him. “He was planning to have our chum Dr. Stolzer do a mindwipe on her and thus keep her from telling anybody about his many shady activities.”

“That son of a bitch Stolzer is probably the one who mindwiped Dan, too.”

“That sort of thing is a specialty with him,” said Bascom. “But look, you can get all the details from Kacey as to how she sprung Rebecca Burdon out of there and how Rebecca took care of the Tek lab. What I want you and Gomez to do is get her and the Burdon woman off the island and back here to Greater LA. Rebecca is eager to tell Drexler and any other lawman who wants to listen all about how her dear sibling set me up.”

Gomez inquired, “Where do we find
them, jefe?
”

“It's a place called the Villa Sombra, way up in the hills on the north side of the island,” replied Bascom. “Contact of mine loaned it to them for me. I've got a half dozen local ops guarding it, but I need you two to help Kacey get this lady away safe.”

“We'll do it,” promised Jake.

Gomez said, “Did Rowland Burdon blow up with the lab?”

“Informed sources don't agree about that,” said Bascom. “Some say he was inside the place when it blew and that he's now part of the debris. Other reports maintain he's still above the ground.”

“We'll have to assume he's alive and watch out for him,” said Jake.

“Any other news items we ought to have,
jefe?
”

“Well, the International Weather Service is predicting a hurricane for midnight tonight. So it might be a good idea to get the hell off the island before then.” He left the screen.

“
Muy bien
,” said Gomez, smiling. “This is turning into the sort of case I enjoy. We've got damsels in distress, rascally villains, and a possible chance to battle nature itself.”

44

THE wind arrived earlier than anticipated. There was an intense clarity in the sky in the moments before sundown. The palms on the sharply slanting hillside outside the living room of the Villa Sombra began to rattle faintly, and gradually an odd sighing could be heard all around.

“The hurricane is definitely on the way,” observed Rebecca Burdon, stopping beside one of the viewindows.

“I just talked to Jake on the vidphone,” said Kacey, who was pacing the big living room. “He and his partner will be here in a few minutes. Then we'll get off the island.”

Rebecca said, “Your feelings about Cardigan are mixed, aren't they?”

Kacey stopped pacing. “I suppose so,” she answered after a few seconds. “He and I disagree on just about everything—but I don't know. Right now, yes, I'm really looking forward to seeing him again.”

“That's how I feel about most of the men I get seriously mixed up with.”

“Oh, I'm not really involved with Jake. It's more—”

“Kacey!” Rebecca was staring out into the darkening night.

“What is it?” She hurried over to the window.

“One of the guards isn't there anymore.” Rebecca pointed.

Down below, the trees and the brush were swaying with increasing intensity and the sound of the wind was growing.

“You mean the guy who was stationed in that stand of palm trees?” asked Kacey.

“There's no sign of him. I just noticed.”

“Could be he's taking a break.” Kacey started to reach her stungun out of its holster.

A shattergun roared outside. The next viewindow over from them exploded, and thousands of glittering fragments of plastiglass came cascading and spinning into the room.