'Yes…no, I lie about the monorail. But it was in a volcano; for the geothermal energy.' His face sobered. 'Like this, it was a preparation for…something like Operation Trimback. That is why it is a Faraday cage, as well as having lab-level air filters. Proof against anything but a direct hit with a nuclear bunker buster.'
'Ouch.'
He cleared his throat. 'Come, let us return to the surface. The ragout will be ready soon, there is just enough time for me to do the asparagus. But we may well be sleeping down here for the next few days.'
'Why?' she said. 'It's comfy, but just a teensy bit…psychologically stuffy.'
'The silver, my love. If Michiko is really attending to the matter of these detectives herself, it will be very good concealment; she will be expecting the Wreakings I set and will not pay much attention to them. And according to that so-valuable file I lifted from the dead man's computer, his partner intended to come and have a look around here, and it would appeal to Michiko to kill him on my ground; but this underground section has many sheltered exits, some of which give excellent overwatch positions on the house, which we could reach without being detected. I am afraid we are using Salvador as a tethered goat to lure in the tiger.'
'Michiko prefers a snow leopard when she's night-walking,' Ellen said. 'She's a Gucci were-whatever. Has to be maximum pretty for the atrocity party.'
Adrian nodded. 'Another weakness. I suspect he will not mind being the goat, if things go badly for the beast. And he could be useful to us. You and I, together, with her distracted, might well put an end to her.'
'Ah,' Ellen said. A hot flush ran over her skin. 'Oh, I would so like to meet Michiko again under…different circumstances and show her that the fun-to-kill-you thing works both ways.'
Adrian made a tsk sound. 'You have been associating with me too much, my sweet.'
'Nope. It was associating with her that gave me the motivation. You've just shown me how. Lead on to the ragout.'
'I shall. And…I have a good feeling about this.'
'That's reassuring.'
'Unless Michiko is having one too. We shall have to see who grasps the world-lines with the Power more strongly.'
'You mean we have to make our own luck.'
His grin was slow and savage, and she answered it in kind.
'Literally,' he said. 'Quite literally.'
The road to Adrian Breze's house was ten miles north on the I-25 and then west. The empty highway stretched through the night, cool air flowing in through the open windows as the tires hummed. Eric Salvador knew he was going to his death-but maybe he'd learn something. Maybe the world would make sense again.
Since when has it made sense anyway? I'm thirty-two years old, no wife, no kids, and my best friend died because I couldn't figure out what was going on. The only thing I've ever been any good at was killing people and frightening them. Cesar had twice my brains and now he's dead and his girl's dead and I cant make myself think about what I think…I know really did it.
And maybe they're dead because I wouldn't say it, because I was afraid of being called a nut. Or actually being a nut… am I crazy? Or is the world?
West, and then north again on a dirt road. The Sangres low on the horizon in the light of the three-quarter moon. That and the stars were the only light as the last gas station fell away.
He hesitated for a moment, and then snapped off the car lights himself. That was a commitment, acknowledging to himself that the extra danger was justified by the value of surprise. Something at the back of his brain wanted to reach up and pull down the night-sight goggles on the helmet he wasn't wearing.
Only a few distant earthbound stars marked houses. The road turned winding in the pitch-dark night, and then there was a steep drop to his left, a hundred near-vertical feet; this was the edge of the plateau. He forced himself to stop when the wheels skidded and a spray of gravel fanned out and out of sight.
He clenched his hands on the wheel and made his breathing slow, smelling the sourness of his own sweat, tobacco and booze. Then he held one hand before his face until the trembling stopped. He was in shitty shape, not enough sleep or exercise and too many smokes and drinks.
'Am I trying to kill myself?' he murmured. Then: 'No. Not yet. I've got to find out what this all means. I just wish I was in better condition for a fight. Not twenty anymore, got to work harder at it.'
He did the next hundred yards with the engine off, rolling downhill dead slowly. After that, driving was too dangerous without lights. Instead he got out and walked down the last stretch of road, taking his time and placing his feet carefully, thanking his father and uncles for taking him hunting, and the corps for making him even more familiar with moving quietly through unlighted countryside after sunset. The night scents were strong, the sweaty leather of chamise, the strong resin of the bleeding pines. An owl went by overhead with a woot-woot-woot, and something that might be a coyote or just a big rabbit scrambled through the scrub downslope. Gravel crunched under his feet-it was nearly a year since Adrian Breze had vanished, and the housekeeper came in only once a month to clean, but there were a few more ruts than that would account for.
Someone's coming here. Just lately.
The house itself was built right into the edge of the cliff; the final dip in the road left him looking down on its fieldstone-and-adobe walls. It seemed to squat, as menacing as those huddles of cubes you saw in the stans, with a distant family resemblance to a pueblo. Then his experienced eye took in the dispositions.
Hey, whoever built this had a firefight in mind. You can't tell until you re up close, but it's a fucking fort. No big windows this side, no ground-level holes in the wall big enough to get through, the others right above a sheer cliff. Great, now I expect an MG to open up from a bunker.
He took his gun in his hand. That hadn't done Cesar any good at all, but it made him feel a little better down below logic. Closer, closer…it didn't feel as empty as it should. He got out his illegal forced-entry kit, kept for those rare unspoken occasions when you said, Fuck the rules; then something made him reach out a hand and push. The high copper-surfaced door swung open to his touch, and a few soft lights came on under the high metal ceiling. The floor was trendy polished concrete in a mottled beige color, with colorful Navajo rugs.
Yeah, about what I expected, he thought, tucking away the leather folder of tools and blinking as his dark- adapted eyes adjusted. Hombre, this is the OK Corral.
The whole of the opposite wall was glass, right at the edge of the cliff; very clear glass, and now that he thought about it, probably the laminated, bullet-resistant type. The land fell in crags and gullies washed pale by the moon, until the rolling surface of the semidesert stretched eastward to the edge of sight. There were a couple of pictures on the walls, ancient and beautiful even to an untrained eye. He drifted through the house, feeling like a ghost in its well-kept emptiness, and then took up a position by the big wall-size stone hearth opposite the windows, where he had maximum situational awareness.
'Why did I think I could find something here?' he said aloud, just barely moving his lips, as he waited and anticipation turned a little sour. 'Besides learning that the rich don't live like the rest of us. I have got to get my groove back. I wouldn't have lasted a week on the rock pile like this. But I was so sure-'
'Maybe a little bird told you.'
The voice seemed to come from behind him. He wheeled. Nothing. Back again…and the woman was there. A spurt of dreadful joy filled him. This wasn't a dream, or pixels. That was an actual person in front of him. Granted, she was naked and where nobody should be…
He raised the Glock in the regulation grip, left hand under right.
Crack. Crack.
The ten-millimeter bullets punched into her belly and she folded backwards.
Crack.
Two in the center of mass, one in the head; the last snapped her head around in a whirling of long black hair and a spray of blood and the bullet starred through the glass behind her. He felt his teeth begin to show as he walked towards her. The gold-flecked eyes were already beginning to glaze.
Then her head came up. 'Oooooh, that hurt,' she said. 'That can be sort of hot, you know? For starters. Then I get to hurt you. You like that, lover?'
Salvador leapt backwards, almost fell as he half sprawled against a malachite-surfaced table of rough-cast glass, then wrenched himself into a crouched firing position.
Crack. Crack. Crack -
Ten shots. Five hit. Five more punched the great window behind, starring it, then collapsing it out in a shatter
