Kirsty Winters watched as Maria cleared customs and collected her bags. They had said a fond farewell just ten minutes ago, after which Kirsty had changed the colours and pattern of her smartfabric jacket, and changed her wig colour from grey to brown, all through her cogplus garment interface.
Sticking close to Maria all the way from Florida to Heinlein had been a long, tedious assignment, and it was supposed to be over.
“What do you mean, 'stand by'?” she said through her cogplus.
“I mean,” a man's voice told her, “keep your eyes on the target and shut your whining.”
“This wasn't the deal. I've finished the job. Transfer the money and don't give me any more of that ‘stand by’ crap.”
The man made no reply, and she fumed to herself. “This is an extension to the contract,” she said. “Whatever the hell this is.”
Across the arrivals lounge, Maria took her suitcase key and clipped it to her belt. The bag oriented itself to the key and began rolling after her as she walked towards the exit. She was clumsy and stumbling, moving along in little hops and skips, the way all Earthers were on their first trip to the Moon. Kirsty Winters moved along behind her with the easy, gliding strides of a well-travelled woman.
She had to do something soon or Maria would be out of the spaceport and into a taxi. She needed an excuse, some kind of emergency that would require Maria's help. She cursed as she closed the gap between them. Anything she came up with would sound lame. Maria wasn't stupid. She would be bound to be suspicious.
“Are you there?” the man asked in her head.
“Yes. I'm going to have to make contact again.”
“You should be prepared to take her out.”
Kirsty stopped dead. “Do what?”
“You may be required to eliminate the target.”
“You want me to kill her?”
“Perhaps. If it becomes necessary. Meanwhile, we'd like you to search her person and her belongings, and retain anything you find.”
“You are joking, aren't you?”
“I'm authorised to offer twice the agreed fee.”
The old woman cursed. “It'll cost you five times the original price if you want a hit. Take it or leave it.”
“I am authorised to take it.”
She cursed again, knowing she could have asked for more.
“I want half up front. I don't trust you any more. You'd better hurry. She's getting away.”
In fact, Kirsty had begun following Maria again the moment the client agreed the price. She might still get to Maria in time to get in a taxi with her, spin her some yarn.
“The money has been transferred. Don't let us down, Kirsty.”
The voice in her head hung up, and she was alone with her thoughts. She hadn't expected a kill. She wasn't prepared. No weapon. Nothing lethal, anyway. No location picked out. No escape planned to get her off the Moon. It was a nightmare, but it could be done. The target was an easy one, trusting and naïve. She just needed to be a bit careful, that was all.
She increased her pace, changing her jacket and her hair back as she went. As the distance between them closed, she began to notice things; other people moving with her, matching her pace; two men standing by the exit – tough, watchful men – and an absence of airport security, as if they'd been told to keep clear.
She slowed down, let Maria pull ahead.
In a quick burst of activity, the two men by the door stepped forward, blocking Maria's way. Another two came up behind her and boxed her in. Kirsty changed course, developing a sudden interest in an advertising display. Maria looked frightened and tried to push her way through, but they held her arms and moved quickly with her, out of the building and away. It was a slick, well-coordinated action, competent and professional.
Kirsty drifted away from the jabbering adverts and stepped outside, pulling a small dart gun from her bag and feeding a tracker dart into the chamber. She was just in time to see the last of the kidnappers climb into a waiting vehicle. She watched it slide out of the parking bay and into a transit tube, disappearing at speed, her tracker already attached to its body.
A man and a woman were standing where the vehicle had been, looking around intently. Kirsty saw the man's eyes pause on her, then move on. She fussed with her bag, looking for something; a confused, elderly lady, trying to cope with the complexities of a busy spaceport.
After a while, an airport security officer approached the two. They exchanged a few words. They were brief and businesslike. Cops, Kirsty realised. Maria had been picked up by the cops. What the hell was going on here? She bitterly regretted accepting the contract on the woman now, although she really hadn't had much choice. The people she was working for were not the sort you could refuse.
-oOo-
“So, tell me about the mysterious Mr. Drew.”
Maria eyed the big policeman nervously. “Why can't I see a lawyer?” she asked.
Lieutenant Lincoln Eugene Burleigh beamed reassuringly. “You are in no need of one, I assure you, madam. I just want to ask you a few questions about your ex-husband.”
“Am I under arrest?” She looked around at the room she was in. It was sparsely furnished, but not uncomfortable. It looked more like someone's living room than a police interview room.
“You are a guest in my home, Ms. Dunlop.” The man made an expansive gesture that included a sofa and a couple of armchairs, a few picture frames on the walls which rotated through a small collection of Twentieth Century cowboy film posters, and a set of shelves without much on them.
“Why?” Maria asked. She tried not to move in her chair. In the lunar gravity, it felt as if she might bounce herself right out of it at any moment.
Burleigh smiled and put down the two cups of coffee he had fetched from the little kitchen. He settled himself into one of the armchairs. “That, if I may say so, is an excellent question. The thing is, Maria – may I call you Maria? The thing is, if I hadn't brought you here, we'd have had to go to the UNPF office for our chat. And if we'd done that, those two gentlemen from the CIA would have started asking questions.”
Maria's general sense of alarm ratcheted itself up a notch. “Why is the CIA interested in me?”
Burleigh shrugged. “Who knows? But probably for the same reason I'm interested in you, Maria; because of your ex-husband, the famous Rik Sylver 1 Drew.”
Maria felt despair wash over her. The UN cops and now the CIA, too. Did they know she had the package? No-one had asked her about it. No-one had tried to search her. If only she had-
Then the policeman's words struck her.
“One? Sylver 1 Drew?”
Burleigh was watching her every reaction with minute interest. “Yes, unless it's just plain Rik Sylver again. I'm afraid both his wives were killed in a gunfight several days ago.” His face suddenly hardened. “The people who shot them were also looking for your ex-husband. As were the people who shot Blake Bonomi and his wife.”
“Blake? And Brie? They're...?”
“Mr Bonomi is in intensive care. His wife was only slightly wounded, and is in FBI protective custody.”
“Oh my God.” Along with her former boyfriend, that made three people dead and two wounded. What on Earth was going on?
“I have orders to arrest Rik and hand him over to the CIA, Maria. Before I do that, I want to know what is going on and why he has become such a dangerous man to know.”
“I–” She thought about telling him about the package. There was something reassuring about the big cop. He seemed like a good man, someone she could probably trust. Yet she daren't do anything that might upset Rik's plans, whatever they might be, even though he seemed to be in as much trouble as one man could stir up.
“I don't know anything,” she said, instantly regretting it. Only people who knew something said they didn't know anything. She blushed, certain the big man could see right through her. “I came here to look for Rik. When I saw them kill David, I just panicked and ran. I've been running for days now.”
“David was the man you lived with, yes? And who did you see kill him?”
Maria shook her head. What was she saying? “I didn't see anyone. I just saw flashes at the window, like gunshots.”
“And yet you didn't go to the police. You just took off and came here.” Maria said nothing, so Burleigh went on. “That would explain it, I suppose.”
“Explain what?”
“It would explain why, when I found your name as a known associate of Mr. Drew's, you were already flagged as a person of interest. You are wanted for questioning by the FBI.” He let Maria absorb that for a moment. “Do you think there's a single police agency this side of Saturn that isn't looking for you or your ex?”
Her need to get out of there was like a physical itch. She squirmed under it. “Are you going to turn me over?”
“Are you going to stop fooling around and start answering my questions?”
“Look, I don't know what any of this is about. I really don't.” It wasn't quite a lie. “All I know is that Rik was on Earth. He came to see me – something he hasn't done for nearly two years. He seemed upset. The next thing I know, he's gone missing, and somebody has murdered my boyfriend.”
“You think Rik did it?”
“What?” The idea was so preposterous it hadn't even occurred to her. “No! Rik wouldn't hurt anybody.”
The big policeman nodded. “Yet your neighbour says she saw someone fitting Rik’s description throw your boyfriend to the ground and nearly break his arm.”
Maria's temper was finally kicking in. “Did the nosy cow also say that David was getting heavy with Rik, and he was only defending himself? And did she say where she was when armed men arrived at my house, broke in, killed David and then waited to kill me?”
Burleigh smiled. “Nope. The good lady must have been taking a nap.”
A silence fell.
“So you're looking for Rik too?” the Lieutenant asked.
“I wanted to find out what was going on.” It sounded feeble, so she threw in a bit of truth. “I wanted to get this sorted – whatever it is – so I could get my life back. So I could go home without anybody trying to shoot me.”
“Well, he's not here.” His tone was regretful, but his eyes were still watching every nuance of Maria's expression. Maria supposed she must have looked as surprised as she felt.
“But he has to be here!”
“Really? Why's that?”
“Just... Because I need him, that's why. Someone tried to kill me. People I know are dead. I'm scared.”
And she was, no doubt about it.
“Why would Rik be in the company of a British spy, Maria?”
“A what?”
“An MI6 field agent called Fariba Freymann. They entered the US together a few days ago under false identities. A short time later, they were involved in a firefight with FBI agents at the Cedars-Sinai hospital in LA, possibly in the company of an unidentified upload and two hired guns. Three FBI agents dead, four wounded. The gunmen, by the way, are known felons with ties to the Chicago Mob. Both are now deceased. After that, Rik and the upload appear to have left the country together, present whereabouts unknown.”
Maria's head was spinning. This was all way too much for her to handle on her own. FBI agents dead, gangsters and zombies... She felt the slight weight of the package in her pocket as if it was a house brick.
She stood up, too quickly. Her feet left the ground, and for a moment she was off-balance and flailing. But Burleigh was there to steady her and save her from falling. She gave him a quick smile of thanks and took a deep breath. Then she reached into her pocket for the metal box.
“I think I might know what this is all about,” she said. “At least, what's at the root of it.”
A voice from the doorway made her jump. “You can tell me all about it later, honey.”
“Kirsty?”
The woman didn't seem quite as old as she had before. What had looked like fragility and infirmity now looked like a wiry slenderness. The biggest change in Maria's erstwhile travelling companion, however, was not her improved posture, nor the change of hairstyle and clothing. It was the small-calibre dart gun she held in her right hand. The one that was pointing at Lieutenant Burleigh's chest.
Burleigh looked at the woman sadly and shook his head. “Another day in the wild, wild West,” he said cryptically.