THIRTY-FIVE

 

 

PIAJA PULLED HIS laser pistol and stepped forward. Julie caught his arm.

“Don’t,” she said.

It took him a moment to realize she spoke instead of sending him the message.

He moved his eyes so that he could see the suspect through the window of the coffee shop. The suspect was smiling.

The bastard.

Piaja was damned if he did anything; damned if he didn’t.

If Piaja didn’t go in, and the guy died or set off a bomb or killed himself, then everyone would ask why Piaja didn’t take the opportunity to talk to him. Same if the guy shut up and never spoke again.

But if Piaja did go in, and the guy suicided or set off a bomb or injured or killed Piaja, then Piaja would get blamed for inciting the guy.

There was less risk if Piaja went in right now. The others hadn’t arrived yet. If a bomb went off, it would only harm Piaja and the suspect. If the suspect killed himself, Piaja would have to live with that. If the suspect killed Piaja, then it would be news and little more. Unlike Julie, Piaja didn’t have family. No one would mourn him. His colleagues might miss him, but no one else.

He took another step forward.

“Isti, please. Don’t,” Julie said, her grip on his arm tightening.

“Make sure people leave the building in case there’s a bomb,” he said to her. Then he shook off her arm and pushed open the door.

The interior smelled of coffee, mixed bread and fresh baked goods. Piaja had expected to smell blood and vomit. He had expected dead employees, probably behind that counter. But it didn’t smell like anyone had died in here, and no one was moaning in pain.

Piaja kept his gaze on the damn suspect.

The suspect’s smile grew. Piaja’s stomach churned. He hated doing what the creeps wanted. But here he was.

“So,” he said, as he stood inside the door, “where are the employees?”

The suspect raised his eyebrows. “I’ve just seen a servo-tray.”

His voice was deeper than Piaja expected, richer, almost musical. Piaja had thought the voice would be nasal and harsh, not something liquid and mellifluous.

“Lie to me and I leave,” Piaja said.

The suspect’s smile faded. He didn’t like losing control. He nodded toward the counter. Exactly what Piaja thought. The only place he couldn’t see from the window, except for the bathrooms.

Piaja sent, You guys getting this? How come you didn’t let me know about the employees?

We’re not getting any readings of anyone in that coffee shop except you and the suspect, someone from headquarters sent back.

Piaja’s stomach clenched harder. He stood on his toes, peered, saw one gray arm leaning against the wall, hand up and open, defenseless. No readings because the employees had died just like Soseki had.

Piaja looked at the suspect. His smile was back. And in the seconds it took Piaja to look at the employees, the suspect had pulled a laser pistol.

Piaja started to back through the door, but the suspect shot beside him, the laser bouncing off the clear window and barely missing Piaja. Piaja’s heart was racing.

“I thought you were going to talk to me,” he said as he groped for the door.

“You do realize I’m going to kill you, too,” the suspect said.

A confession. Confessions were always nice. They made cases easier. But they made moments like this harder.

“So that’s why you brought me here?” Piaja asked, pleased that his voice didn’t shake. “To tell me that you’re going to kill me?”

The suspect shrugged.

“Then there’s no point in continuing this discussion, is there?” Piaja asked and pushed on the door. It didn’t budge. Something had sealed it.

What the hell’s with the door? he sent.

The suspect has control of part of the system, headquarters sent.

He’s in your system?

There was no answer, probably because the shop’s security had given the suspect a backdoor into police headquarters.

The suspect laughed softly. Then he shot at Piaja again, deliberately missing on the other side. The laser skittered along the floor, burning Piaja’s right shoe.

Piaja brought up his own weapon. “Stop this,” he said.

“We both know you’re not going to shoot me,” the suspect said.

“You might know that,” Piaja said. “I don’t.”

“You want to talk to me,” the suspect said. “You want my information.”

“Not so much anymore,” Piaja said. “You lied twice already in this conversation.”

“Not really,” the suspect said. “I told you that all I’ve seen is a servo-tray. That’s true for the last hour or so.”

“You said you had something to tell me,” Piaja said.

“So I do,” the suspect said. “And the nice thing about it is that I can tell you and then I can kill you and I get the best of both worlds. Because your people are watching this.”

Piaja’s mouth was dry. His grip on his laser pistol tightened, but he kept the weapon low. If he raised it just a bit, he could hit the bastard in the leg, and then the threat to Piaja would be gone.

“So tell me,” Piaja said.

The suspect raised his eyebrows, paused, and said, “These killings today. They’re just the beginning.”

“What do you mean?” Piaja asked.

But the suspect didn’t answer. Instead, he shot at Piaja and this time he hit Piaja’s right foot square on. The pain seared through Piaja’s system, and before he could think, he raised his own pistol, and took the shot he had planned.

The shot hit the suspect in the knee, but the laser didn’t flare red the way it was supposed to. Instead it expanded, moving up along the suspect’s body, spread out along the suspect’s stomach and then localized at his heart.

Piaja could see the man’s heart for just a second, and then it burst—the way a heart did when hit with a too-strong laser blast. But Piaja’s weapon was designed to injure, not kill. He’d never seen the use for a kill shot.

Yet the suspect tumbled backwards, his chest smoking, his blood everywhere.

“No,” Piaja said. He figured the guy might suicide. He figured he could stop it. He’d figured on a bomb, even. But he hadn’t planned for this.

He lifted his right foot, the pain so tremendous that his eyes had filled with tears. Behind him the door opened.

Too late, of course. It had all happened too late.