Odd Girl Out

'No,' he said firmly. 'This is my bar, and Rebekah is my friend. What do you want me to do?'

'For starters, we move some of those tables in front of the door,' I said, heading across the floor. 'No point in making it easy for them.'

A few minutes later we had the door barricaded as best we could and had set up some obstacles to anyone who tried coming in through one of the windows. 'That won't hold anyone very long,' Karim warned as we surveyed our handiwork. 'Maybe we should consider calling Lieutenant Bhatami and asking for that protective custody he was offering.'

'And what happens to Rebekah while we're sitting around our nice safe jail cell?' I asked.

'Why can't he protect her, too?'

'Where, at his house?' I asked. 'The Imani City Police Department isn't running a hotel, you know. Besides, you heard Bhatami—he wants names and evidence. I haven't got the latter, and I'm not ready to give up the former.'

'Even if it means getting all of us killed?'

'No one's going to get killed,' I said, hoping fervently that it was true. 'Go tell Rebekah to get herself ready to travel. If we get an opening, we'll need to grab it.'

'What about her boxes?' he asked. 'She won't leave without them.'

'She may have to,' I told him bluntly. 'If it comes to her life or—' I broke off, as a sudden thought occurred to me. 'Tell her we'll do what we can,' I told him. 'While she's getting ready, start bringing the boxes up here. You can stack them behind the bar.'

'All right.' He headed back into the office.

'If it comes to her life or what?' Bayta asked quietly.

I held up a finger, listening. A few seconds later I heard the telltale sounds of Karim heading down into Rebekah's hideaway. 'Okay, now we can talk,' I said. 'By the way, say hello to McMicking.'

She jumped as McMicking again lifted his head from his pillowed arms. 'Oh,' she said. 'Hello.'

'I suddenly realized something,' I told them. 'Ever since Yandro the Modhri has been insisting the Abomination has to be destroyed. Right?'

'Right,' Bayta said, glancing again at the front door.

'So why hasn't he made his move?' I said. 'It's been twenty minutes since Bhatami and the cops pulled out. Why hasn't he had his walkers steal a car, drive it through the front door, unload his guns at anything that moves, and torch the bar and everything in it?'

'I presume you have an answer?' McMicking invited.

'Because he doesn't want the Abomination destroyed,' I said. 'At least, not right away. There's something he needs to do first, and he needs the Abomination intact and unharmed to do it.'

'Like they did with Lorelei,' McMicking said, nodding. 'The walkers started by using snoozers on her.'

'Exactly,' I said. 'He has to handle this with finesse, or the whole thing will have been for nothing.'

'Which gives us a lever,' McMicking said thoughtfully. 'We can threaten to destroy the Abomination and leave him with a draw.'

'He'll never believe it,' Bayta said. 'He knows we'd never hurt Rebekah.'

'Which is probably why he offered us the Yandro deal in the first place,' I said. 'He figured we'd be able to flush Rebekah into the open, but we wouldn't hurt her. At least, not until we'd figured out what kind of Abomination she was.'

'She's not any kind of Abomination,' Bayta said firmly. 'She's a scared little ten-year-old Human girl.'

'Is she?' I countered. 'Up to now she hasn't looked all that scared to me.'

'You weren't down there just now,' Bayta said coldly. 'I don't know what the Modhri wants with her, but that Abomination tag is just an excuse.'

'You may be right,' I said, sending a warning look at McMicking. Now was not the time to tell Bayta that Rebekah might not be nearly as Human as she looked. 'In which case, maybe the Abomination is what's in all those boxes of hers. Either way, it's obvious now why the Modhri's switched from letting me run free to trying to get me arrested for cop-killing. Now that he knows where Rebekah is, he figures that with me out of the picture he can get in here, overpower Karim, and do whatever unseemly things he has in mind.'

There was another creak of wood from the office, a louder one this time. I motioned McMicking to go back to sleep as I headed around the end of the bar. Karim was just coming to the doorway as I reached it, one of the boxes cradled in his arms. 'Behind the bar, you said?' Karim asked.

'Change of plan,' I told him. 'We're going to stack them in front of the bar.'

Karim frowned. 'In front of the bar?'

'All that metal, you know,' I explained, taking the box from him and walking around to the front of the bar. Fifteen kilos, all right, if it was a gram. 'Might as well give ourselves as much protection as we can.'

Karim was still standing in the doorway. 'Rebekah won't like this,' he warned.

'I'm more interested in how much the Fillies won't like it,' I said. 'Go get the rest of them. While you do that, Bayta and I will move your sleeping customers over to the side wall where they'll be as far out of the line of fire as possible.'

He still looked troubled, but he nodded and disappeared back into the office. 'I take it I'm joining the drunks?' McMicking asked, lifting his head again.

'It's as good a cross-fire position as any,' I said. 'Grab a drunk and pick out your spot.'

There were eleven sleeping men scattered around the room, all of them so drunk they didn't even wake up as we manhandled them out of their chairs and across the bar. That dilivin was potent stuff, all right.

We'd moved five of them, and McMicking had settled himself partially behind one where his hands would be out of sight, when Karim returned.

But this time he wasn't alone. 'Mr. Compton, you can't put them here,' Rebekah insisted, making a beeline for the box I'd set in front of the bar. Her eyes were red and puffy, as if she'd been crying, but the rest of her face was back under firm restraint again. Maybe it was just with Bayta that she let her vulnerable side leak out. 'They could be damaged.'

'Better them than us,' I said, watching her closely. Behind the puffy eyes and controlled expression her concern for the boxes seemed genuine. 'Besides, I get the impression the Modhri can't afford to destroy them.'

'He can't afford to destroy all of them,' she countered. 'All he needs is to take one of them intact.'

'Who is this Modhri?' Karim asked.

'The mastermind behind all of this,' I told him, frowning at Rebekah. 'Which one does he need?'

'Any of them,' she said. With an effort, she lifted the box and staggered back behind the bar with it.

'What are they, duplicate records of some kind?' I asked.

'In a way,' she said.

'That's great,' I said. I'd never really believed she needed all twenty of the damn things in the first place. 'Pick one out for yourself and we'll torch the rest.'

'It's not like that,' she said, giving me a cross look over her shoulder. 'I need all of them.'

'That makes no sense whatsoever,' I growled. 'What the hell's in them?'

'I can't tell you that,' Rebekah said. She set down the box and turned back to face me, a stubbornly defiant look on her face.

'That bar may stop police thudwumpers, Rebekah,' I said. 'But it also might not. Are you willing to risk your life for what's in those boxes?'

'Yes,' she said firmly.

'She already has risked her life,' Karim added grimly. 'She and Lorelei both.'

I felt my stomach tighten, thinking back to how Lorelei had died. 'Maybe I'm not ready to risk mine,' I said.

'You're welcome to leave,' Karim invited me tartly. Reaching beneath the bar, he produced an old RusFed P11 military handgun.

'We're not leaving,' Bayta said firmly. Her face was flushed with emotion, her eyes hard and cold. Whoever Rebekah was, she'd clearly gotten under my partner's skin.