Nohar didn't know much about human standards for such things, but he was pretty sure that this frank agent was the 'babe' the Fed sent to Bobby. He went with the agent quietly. He had no desire to test her capabilities.
Despite a probable resisting arrest charge, he could claim he'd pulled the circuit because he'd thought they were Zipheads out to kill him. Wouldn't convince the cops, but it was enough to keep the charges down to reckless endangerment, discharging a firearm, and whatever Autocab wanted to lay on him.
She called in on her throat-mike and wasted no time getting him to the surface. Despite the long walk alone with the agent, Nohar smelled nothing from her that made him think she was worried about him escaping. He noticed she put on a pair of chrome sunglasses as soon as they left the underground. They didn't seem to affect her vision at all, even though it was close to midnight. They came out by the shore of the Cuyahoga River, in the Flats close to Zero's. There was still a ghostly smell of carnage to the place.
The pink law was there, in force. A few dozen uniforms had scrambled down to the shore and taken up positions covering the exit from the tunnel. They seemed almost disappointed when Nohar didn't come out, gun blazing.
She led him up the rise next to the river, toward the congregation of parked black-and-whites. The pink cops gave her a wide birth and Nohar detected a slight
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odor of fear from them. He wondered if the uniforms knew the agent wasn't quite human.
She ignored the uniforms and headed right for the one puke-green Havier. Harsk was sitting on the hood, drinking a cup of coffee that smelled synthetic. She
smiled, first time her face showed something other than a hard, expressionless mask. It stopped short of being a sneer.
'Detective Harsk, when I say I have the target in custody—the target's in custody. I was assigned to this for a reason.'
Harsk grunted and got to his feet. 'Isham, don't dick me around. I don't tell the Fed how to blow its nose. Don't tell me how to wipe my ass.'
So her name was Isham. Nohar had thought he detected a slight Israeli accent. 'These men would be of better use elsewhere.'
Harsk was steaming. Isham's smile was widening. Nohar wouldn't be surprised if she could smell Harsk's irritation herself. Harsk grabbed Nohar by his good arm and addressed Isham in a tone of forced civility. 'I appreciate you helping us with your expertise.' That was a blatant lie, Nohar could tell.
'But I am still going to do things by the numbers. Especially with moreys. Especially after yesterday.'
For a brief moment they were both hanging on to his arm. Harsk had a firm grip. He was strong for a pink. But Isham's hand felt like a steel band. When her hand left—it didn't release his arm so much as vanish—there was an ache where it had been. He suspected she had left a deep bruise there.
Harsk squeezed him into the back of the unmarked Havier, algae and all, and slammed the door shut. Soon Nohar was headed to police headquarters.
The two DBA pinks had fallen into a good-cop, bad-cop routine and didn't seem to realize they were stuck in the middle of a cliche. The bad cop was the fat one. His name was Mclntyre. Good cop was a cadaverous FORESTS OF THE NIGHT 201
black man named Conrad. From every indication, both their first names were 'Agent.'
Nohar had already gone through the numbers with Harsk, who was, if not civil, at least businesslike and professional about things. These two acted like they were going for first prize at the annual asshole convention.
Mclntyre was into rant number five. 'We got you by the short-hairs, you morey fuck. There's over thirty grand in cash deposits to your account. You expect us to believe it ain't morey drug money? You suddenly get that kind of cash, in the middle of the burg with the biggest flush manufacturing center we've found to date—and you show up in a firefight with the biggest distributors. Tell us what's going down, tiger, because we're going to trace those bills no matter how well you laundered them.'
So far, Nohar had gotten more information from the pinks than they'd gotten from him. Apparently, somewhere in Cleveland was a major flush industry. Somewhere, the DEA didn't know where, was the lab, or labs, that manufactured the flush for the drug trade throughout the center of the country. The Zips were the major dealers of flush on the street level.
Conrad was doing his variation on being reasonable. 'We don't want you. We want the labs. Tell us where they are, or give us some names we can work with. We can intervene with the local judicial system, make it easy for you.'
He had already protested his ignorance. So he ignored them and studied the acoustic tiles, silently counting the holes that formed abstract patterns in the white rust-stained fiberglass. He wanted to go home, forget about Zips, Binder, MLI. Worse, he was beginning to worry about Stepnie. Someone torched Thomson. Of the people with access to the finance records, that only left Stephie and Harrison.
It was going to be a long night. At least he knew
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S. ANDREW SWANN
Mclntyre was blowing smoke out his ass about the cash. If the money was dirty, they'd know by now, and he wouldn't be in an interrogation room at police headquarters. He'd be in a cell in the federal building. As it was, all they had was the fact any morey with that much cash had to be guilty of something. When Nohar didn't respond, rant number six was on the horizon. Mclntyre never got to deliver on the steaming invective he must have been considering. Harsk
opened the off-white metal door and let in Is-ham, who was still wearing her mirrorshades. Harsk smelted angry. He pointed at the agents and hooked his thumb out the door. 'Mclntyre, Conrad, get out here. I have to talk to you.' Mclntyre wasn't impressed. 'We aren't done here.'
'Out, now!' Harsk was pissed. The DEA pinks obviously didn't expect this from someone they saw as a local functionary. They collected their recording equipment and left.
That left him alone in the room with I sham. She skidded a key ring at him across the formica table. It came to a stop right in front of him. She indicated his handcuffs.
'Take those off.'
She didn't wait for him. She turned around to face the large mirror on the wall opposite Nohar. She took off her sunglasses, knocked on it twice, and pointed back toward the door. 'I'm waiting.'
The comment wasn't addressed to him.
Nohar didn't want to be alone in a room with this woman.
He thought he heard a door open out in the hall. She had just dismissed the cops stationed behind the oneway mirror. By the way her head nodded and moved, he could tell she was watching the cops leave.
'Now we can talk in private.' She turned around to face him and smiled. He finally saw her eyes in the light. They looked like a pink's eyes at first, with round FORESTS OF THE NIGHT
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iris and visible whites. But there were few, if any, pinks with yellow irises, and none with slitted pupils.
'Aren't you going to remove those?'
He had forgotten about the cuffs. He picked up the keys and fumbled them off. 'What's a frank doing working for the FBI?'
She put her sunglasses back on. Now there was no visual cue to her nature. But she was still not a pink. For one thing, she didn't have a scent. For another, her breathing was silent. This woman could be behind him and he would never know she was there.
She paused a moment before she spoke. 'The executive isn't as picky about humanity as some people would like. If it wasn't for the domestic ban on macro gene engineering, they'd build their own agents.''
Nohar slid the cuffs and the keys back across the table. He tried not to let his nervousness show, but she could probably smell it as well as he could. 'So they pick up whatever trickles over the border? *'
'Let's get down to business. I want information.'
Nohar sighed. 'I told the DEA I knew jack—'
