THE NEW VAUXHALL MALL rose up twenty stories beside a safe stretch of the Thames. The seethrough elevator carried Jake and Marj up past the bright-lit twenty-four-hour shops and restaurants toward the quieter commercial tiers.
“Is this Edwin Bozwell likely to be here this late?” asked Jake as they rose slowly upward.
“Far as I know, Bozwell just about lives in his offices.”
“What business does he pretend to be in?”
“He calls himself a theatrical agent,” she replied. “He does book an occasional act, mostly mechanical stuff. Andy strippers, roboxers, programmed puppets and the like.”
“But his real vocation is providing sluggers and stormtroopers?”
Nodding, Marj said, “Nobody’s been able to prove it, but Bozwell’s the major supplier of mercenaries in England.”
“The dead girl was one of his, huh?”
“Yes, another runaway who graduated to better things.”
The elevator halted at Level 37, the doors moved aside.
The office they sought had an opaque plastiglass door with bozwell talent agency etched on it in gilt.
Marj tapped the door and it slid open.
The office was small and cluttered, reeking of spicy food and machine oil. Bozwell himself, a puffy dark man of thirty-five, was sitting behind a small neowood desk and eating something green out of a plazcarton with a pair of thin metallic chopsticks. All around him rose stacks of old-fashioned costume trunks, storage bins, massive packing crates, and spills and tangles of spangled clothes.
“Marjie, Marjie,” he said in his croaking voice. “It’s a frigging pleasure to see you once again. Who’s the John?”
Smiling, Marj pushed aside a pile that was a mix of faxscripts and vidcassettes. “You’re losing weight, Edwin.” She perched on the desk edge.
Carefully, Bozwell sealed the carton and set it aside. Then he wiped the chopsticks, thoroughly, on a plyochief and returned them to their neoleather case. “Actually, Marjie honey, I’m down almost eleven ounces this past week alone. So who did you say this guy is?”
“A friend,” she said.
“That’s nice you got a few frigging friends,” the fat agent said. “Being a loner, let me tell you, can drive you bughouse.”
“Guess who I just saw over on the gangside, Edwin?”
“I haven’t the faintest frigging idea.”
“Annie Kettleman.”
“That name doesn’t ring a single chime with me, Marjie honey.”
Marj leaned closer to him. “Annie worked for you.”
“Nope, wrong. I don’t represent any talent named Annie Kellerman.”
“Annie Kettleman—and, sure, you do,” she said. “She’s been a mercenary on your list for over a year. I know, because I’ve been trying to persuade her to quit for almost that long.”
“C’mon, Marjie,” complained Bozwell, annoyed. “You’re babbling like a frigging bobby. I am, pure and simple, a theatrical agent. I know, yeah, there have been dirty rumors circulating that I book mercenaries, killers, and all sorts of unsavory types.” He reached for the chopstick case. “It’s been truly swell seeing you again, but now, honey, I got other—”
“Edwin, I can be, as you know, awfully nasty,” she reminded him as, smiling, she took hold of his coat collar. “And my friend here—he’s even worse. So what say you tell us all about who contracted for two dozen or so of your prize mercenaries to raid the Tek Kids’ hideout?”
“I don’t know a frigging thing about—”
“Edwin, I wish you’d be serious.” Swinging out with her right hand, she slapped the fat man hard across the face.
He glared up at her. “Good thing you’re a dame, honey,” he said in his croaking voice. “Otherwise, it’d be your bum in a sling about now.”
She slapped him again, even harder. “I know damn well you sent Annie over there to get killed,” she said. “Tell me who—”
“All I’ve got to tell you is to get the hell out of my frigging office.” Bozwell got suddenly to his feet, making a sweeping movement with his left arm that knocked Marj off the desk and against a tower of cartons. Stumbling, her ankle turned under her and she fell to the floor. She landed on her side and cried out in pain.
Jake was reaching for his stungun.
Behind the angry agent a panel in the opaque office wall whipped open.
Two large and formidable androids came charging into the room.
Dan had awakened with the sun shining brightly in his face.
He was sitting in a high-backed wicker chair, slumped against a collection of colorful pillows. The high, wide window a few feet in front of him showed a stretch of empty yellow beach. Beyond that was nothing but intensely blue water.
A lone gull came swooping down through the bright, clear afternoon sky. It made a slow, lazy circle close to the surface of the sea. All at once its left wing fell off its body.
The gull, wobbling, tried to climb higher. Instead, though, it fell, hitting the surface with a splash and swiftly sinking.
“That’s the third one today,” said someone behind him. “They’re obviously not buying top-of-the-line botbirds.”
“Nancy!” Dan started to get up, but neither of his legs went along with the idea. Feeling suddenly dizzy, he sank into the chair. It creaked loudly.
The girl, who’d been standing just behind his chair, moved up to take hold of his hand. “They used a stungun on you, Dan,” she told him. “You’d better take it easy for a while.”
“Let me ask a few questions.” He held on tightly to her hand.
She rested one hip against the arm of the chair. “Go ahead, but don’t try to get up and walk around just yet.”
“I remember coming to after that asshole—Excuse me, after Merlin used his telek abilities on me and knocked me out.”
“I met Merlin. He was an asshole.”
“Okay, then I woke up inside Buckingham Palace. You were there, and that guy named Lancelot.”
“Yes. When I heard you’d been captured, I insisted that Lancelot let me see you.”
“Did he ... I mean, they told me that he—”
“We can talk about that later.”
Dan looked up at her face. “Right after you got there, almost one whole wall of the room we were in seemed to explode away and—” He shook his head slowly. “That’s about all I can remember, Nancy. Except that a couple of big guys in black suits started to grab you.”
“When you tried to stop them, one of them used his stungun on you.”
“And they brought us here?”
She nodded. “They killed quite a few of the others.”
“Why’d they spare us?”
“Me they spared because of my father,” she explained. “You they brought along because they’re not sure how much I may’ve confided in you. And they’re curious about what you may have told to somebody else.”
“Where the hell are we exactly?”
“We’re up in an orbiting resort satellite,” she answered. “It’s a place called the Caribbean Colony. Very exclusive and expensive, despite the defective gulls.”
“Obviously, huh, it’s more than just a resort?”
“They’ve got a very efficient Teklab hidden away in the innards of this thing.”
“Okay, now tell me who they are—some of the big Tek cartels?”
Letting go of his hand, she walked closer to the window. “I’d better explain why I ran away,” she said, watching the bright simulated afternoon. “I overheard the McCays talking.”
“I know. You hinted to me that you’d learned things about them.”
“I didn’t want to tell you everything back then,” she said. “Mostly because I didn’t want to believe what was really going on. Instead, I ran away, planning to spend a few days with Sally. I had the childish idea that I’d be able to get everything sorted out.”
“This has to do with your father, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, it does. Very much to do with Bennett Sands, noted industrialist and jailbird.” She turned to face him again. “He’s right here in the satellite with us. I haven’t seen him yet, but—”
“Hey, wait. The last time I heard, he was in that maxsec prison near Bunter Academy.”
“He escaped, with a lot of outside help,” she said. “That happened while you were hunting for me.”
“The escape—that’s one of the things you heard them talking about, isn’t it?”
“One of the things,” she admitted quietly.
“Why is he here?”
“Well, my father is practically running this whole damned operation.” Very quietly, the girl began to cry.
This time Dan was able to stand. He made it to Nancy’s side and put an arm around her. “It’s okay,” he assured her. “We’re together now and—”
“No, Dan, nothing is okay, nothing at all,” she said. “Go back and sit down. I’m going to have to try to tell you as much as I know and—hell, I’m sorry, but some of it isn’t going to be very pleasant for you to hear.”