Tek Money (19 page)

“Trifle late? Is an hour and fifteen minutes your notion of a trifle?”

“Nat, this is not an ideal location for a spat,” cut in the detective. “However, you have my word that I'll seek you out at your posh hostelry as soon as—”

“You'll seek in vain, Gomez,” the Newz reporter told him. “I'm moving on in less than an hour. Which is, if you stop and reflect on the matter in that peanut brain of yours, ironic in that you stood me up and now I'm, more or less, doing the same to you.”

“Where are you heading in such a rush,
chiquita?
”

Natalie frowned. “I've been getting the feeling that you're not sharing information with me anymore. So I see no reason to continue cooperating with you.”

“Soon as I dig up anything, Natalie, I'll send it along to you, no matter where you are,” he vowed. “Right at the moment I'm en route to see a lady known as Sister Feliz, who does good works among the poor and also manages to be a nifty source of information on the Spanish underworld. Where can I send the insights I'm going to gain?”

After a few seconds Natalie replied, “I'm heading for Santa Francesca, it's a resort town in the mountains about forty miles from here.”

“Is Janeiro Martinez there?”

The rain was finding its way through the holes in the awning and hitting at him.

Natalie said, “If your investigations take you to that region, Gomez, look me up at the Encantadora Inn.” She gave him a smile of a very short duration and was gone from the screen.

Gomez pocketed the phone. The cats had ceased their contest and grown silent. In fact, a stillness seemed to have spread all across the rainy side street he was on. Slowly, he resumed walking.

Then from behind him he heard the sound of running.

He pivoted around, reaching for his stungun.

There was a slim girl of fifteen coming toward him along the narrow rutted sidewalk, clad in faded trousers and a ragged pullover, her long dark hair tied back with a circle of silvery wire.

“Hurry, get off the street,
señor
,” she warned, breathing hard, as she neared him.

“Any particular reason?”

She caught his arm, urging him to run. “Another raid. Los Cazadores are here.”

“
Cazadores
—hunters?” He started to jog beside the darkhaired girl. “What are they hunting?”

“Us,” she answered.

Three of the stone walls of the small church still stood and one of them held part of a large stained-glass window showing the Annunciation. The altar had long ago collapsed, but a large crucifix still hung from a wall and the night rain was drenching the figure of Christ.

“Down this way.” The girl, a wheeze sounding in her narrow chest, was pulling him along the side aisle of the ruined church.

Rats, disturbed by their advent, went scurrying away, skittering over the rubble and under the rotting pews.

“Explain in more detail why we're running,
cara.
”

“It's a Cazadores raid. Haven't you ever heard of them?”

“I'm a
turista.
”

They reached the doorway in the wall and she urged him to follow her down a shadowy stone staircase. “The Hunters haven't raided this
recinto
for nearly a month. It was overdue.”

“Who are these hunters?”

The girl slipped a small literod from beneath her pullover, clicked it on and illuminated the twisted stone staircase they were descending. “They come from outside the
recintos
,” she explained. “They believe, as do many in Madrid, that there are too many poor people.”

“But this isn't a charitable organization, huh?”

“They have a simple solution for poverty,
señor
. They thin out the number of poor people.”

“
Deus
—by killing them?”

They were deep below the ground now in what had once been a large crypt. The smell of damp earth, ancient dust and animal droppings was strong all around.

“
Sí
, killing us is their sport.”

There were several stone coffins down here. They'd long since been broken into, and yellowed bones and tatters of shrouds and vestments were strewn on the cracked stone floor.

Huddling in a corner, touched now by the thin beam of the girl's literod, were three ragged children. A jawless skull lay at their feet.

“
Pobrecitos
,” the girl said to the children. “You should be safe here.” She crossed to a long stone slab that had once held a coffin and seated herself atop it, inviting Gomez to join her with a gesture of her free hand.

He perched beside her, noting that he was sitting atop a memorial to an eighteenth-century bishop. “
Chiquita
, doesn't the government do anything to stop these huntsmen?”

She laughed, the wheeze rattling in her chest. “It's no secret that they encourage them,” she told him. “We think they would like to see us all dead and gone. Oh, President Garcia made a speech denouncing Los Cazadores last month. Our mayor appointed a committee to look into the appalling outbreak of lawless slaughter. What will result?
Nada
, not a damned thing.”

She clicked off the light and a thick, musty darkness closed in on them.

One of the children made a sad, whimpering sound.

“How many of these bastards,” asked Gomez, “come over here on a raid?”

“It varies, but never less than fifty men and women. More often over a hundred.”

“Nobody fights back?”

“A few try, but it's smarter to hide,” she answered. “They use lazguns, needleguns—some weapons I've never heard of before. They travel in armored sky-cars, land them in plazas and squares and disembark. Then they travel on foot through our streets, hunting us.”

“How many people do they kill in an evening?”

“Oh, usually at least seventy five or more. The children are the easiest to catch and we lose more of them. And the old people.”

Gomez asked, “How long does a raid last?”

“Two, maybe three hours. Depends on their mood—and if they've been drinking a lot. When they drink, they stay longer and … do worse things.”

He said, “Some of them were heading this way?”

“Yes, a group of a dozen or more of them set down in a square only a few blocks from where I met you.”

“You've hidden down here before?”

“
Sí
, and it's always been safe.” In the blackness she touched his arm. “But tonight, I'm not sure.”

“Why?”

“I think they have, this hunting party, tracking dogs with them,” she said quietly. “A pack of those, you know, robot hounds.”

“Yeah, I'm familiar with that type of
perro
. Only recently—”

“
Quidado!
” she whispered, gripping his arm. “There's someone upstairs in the church.”

The sound of heavy footfalls came drifting down into the crypt.

35

S
TRADDLING A CARVED
wooden chair, Jake was facing the tap-proof vidphone that rested atop the desk in the living room of the Hotel Condor suite. “It might be,” he said, “so long as it doesn't put you or Molly in danger, Dan.”

From the phonescreen his son said, “It may not lead anywhere. But since Rex came up with the information that there might be something odd about the reports of Devlin's death—or that the guy might not even be dead—Well, I thought we ought to look into it.”

“Go ahead, but be careful,” his father cautioned. “We're still not sure of all the factions involved in this gunrunning mess.”

“I can tell you somebody else who's connected.”

“Who?”

“That operative of Bev Kendricks's that you tangled with. Jabb Marx.”

“How'd you find that out?”

“Bev just phoned to ask how to contact you over there,” said his son. “She's going to be calling you, but she gave me the basic facts.”

“Pass 'em along now.”

“Have you ever heard of an OCO agent named Gardner Munsey?”

“Munsey, yeah. He's known as the pricks' prick,” answered Jake. “Marx is working for him?”

“That's what Bev thinks. Jabb was planted in her office to keep Munsey filled in on her work on the Flanders murder,” said Dan. “And also to incapacitate you if he got a chance.”

Jake grinned. “He let Munsey down on that chore.”

“Oh, and Bev is pretty sure Munsey is either over there in Spain or on his way.”

“Maybe we'll run into each other and exchange pleasantries.”

“I also—”

In the righthand corner of the phonescreen a tiny dot of red light appeared and started blinking.

“Another call coming in, Dan,” said Jake. “Could be Bev. I'll talk to you later.”

“Okay, Dad. Bye. Molly sends her best.”

Dan's image was replaced by that of Jimmy Bristol. “Me again,” she said.

“You have something already?”

“Sure. I'm not calling you for another of your pious pep talks.”

“No need for that anyway; one pep talk from me'll last you months,” he assured her. “What about the money Janine Kanter got from your old chum Mockridge?”

She smiled. “Is he still using that awful British accent?”

“He is.”

Jimmy shifted slightly in her wheelchair. “Do you want to view all the charts and graphics—or can I just verbally fill you in on what I've found out?”

“Talk to me, Jimmy.”

“Okay—Janine Kanter, using the name Jessica Colburn, deposited a million, eight hundred thousand in the First Bahaman Fidelity Organization yesterday morning.”

“Not in person?”

“Nope, from a trace-proof computer in the town of Santa Francesca, Spain.”

“You can trace a trace-proof transaction?”

“Easy.” Jimmy smiled. “Jessica Colborn is listed in the bank's nonaccessible files as the Executive Secretary of the Worldwide Pacifism Foundation. A good name for weapons smugglers, huh?”

Jake asked, “How much was in the account before her deposit?”

“Twenty-five thousand.”

“That's not much.”

“This gets more interesting.”

“So tell me.”

“Three hours—well, two hours and forty-seven minutes, to be exact—after the money was deposited, it was withdrawn again.”

“By Janine?”

“Ah, no, by a gentleman named Rafe Santos,” answered Jimmy. “He's the only other person, by the way, who can access the Worldwide account.”

“Where'd the dough go next?”

“Switzerland, Zurich Fidelity. It's now in Santos's private account, along with the three million, two hundred thousand that was already reposing there.”

“Where was this Santos guy when he played with the money?”

“Also in Santa Francesca, which isn't that far from Madrid, you know.”

Nodding, Jake said, “Any idea who he is?”

“Not so far, but I'm in the process of trying to find out.”

Resting his chin in the palm of his left hand, Jake eyed the ceiling for a few seconds. “Wonder if Janine knows the money isn't where she put it.”

“I can't tell you that.”

“I appreciate your efforts, Jimmy,” he told the girl. “Send Cosmos a bill and keep at it.”

Jimmy said, “This one is on the house.”

The robot dog made a metallic snuffling sound as it came clattering down the stone steps and into the crypt. Its plastiglass eyes glowed an intense red, filling the musty underground room with a crimson glare.

The dog halted at the bottom of the steps, legs planted wide and silvery head low. After scanning the crypt, it started producing a loud metallic bleating sound.

“He's found some of them,” shouted a woman's voice from up in the ruined church. “And none of them is armed.”

She came hurrying down the stone steps. She was a heavyset woman in her late thirties, dressed in a black skirtsuit and carrying a chunky lazrifle cradled in her muscular arms. “Only
niños
,” she said scornfully, frowning from the cowering darkhaired girl to the three children hunched in the corner.

The smallest kid jerked back in fright, accidentally kicking at the yellowed skull. When the skull rolled a few feet across the dusty floor, the robot dog snarled.

“Please
señora
,” pleaded the fifteen-year-old girl. “We are only poor innocent children. Don't hurt us.”

“What sort of prey?” called a harsh masculine voice from the top of the stairs.

“
Pequeños
,” answered the woman. “Three kids and a girl.”

“You can have them all, Rosa.”

Laughing, Rosa took two steps farther into the crypt. She aimed her lazrifle at the three huddled children. “The littlest first.”

“Oh, please,” pleaded the teen girl. “Spare them,
señora.
”

Rosa swung the gun barrel around, moving closer to the girl. “I'll take care of you first,
niña
,” she decided. “Then you won't annoy me while I bring down the others.”

“No more sport for tonight.” Gomez sat up in the stone coffin where he'd been hiding and fired his stungun twice. First at the startled Rosa and then at the snarling robot hunting dog.

Darting forward, the girl wrenched the lazgun out of the toppling Rosa's grasp.

Dust swirled upward and an ancient bone cracked when the huntress slammed into the floor.

Gomez rubbed at the disc he'd attached to his jacket, the one Silveira had given him on the island. “Still works, the hound didn't notice me at all,” he said, pleased. “You all did your parts well, my children. Now,
por favor
, let's move into the next phase of the operation.”

The girl hurried over and pressed her back to the wall near the entryway. She held the lazrifle against her chest. “
Señor
, oh, please,” she called up the stairs. “Quickly, come and help. The
señora
has had some kind of seizure and needs your help.”