THE LEFT SLEEVE OF Sands’ jacket hung empty. He was a pale man, puffy-faced, and he continued to smile in a smug, self-satisfied way. “As I recall, Cardigan, you invaded my privacy once before.”
“Down in Mexico, yeah.”
“Thanks to you, and your IDCA friends, I lost an arm.”
“Hello, Father.” Nancy took a few steps away from Dan.
Not looking directly at his daughter, keeping his attention centered on Jake, Sands said, “I’ll be talking to you later, young lady. You’ve caused me one hell of a lot of trouble.”
“It’s mutual,” she said.
“We’ll discuss all this later, Nan.”
“After you murder Jake Cardigan, do you mean?”
“That’ll be quite enough,” he told her. “Now, Cardigan, I want you to walk over here to me.”
“Danny, don’t!” Kate suddenly cried out. She rushed at her son, throwing both arms tight around him. “Bennett—he’s got my gun.”
“Danny, I’m surprised at you.” Sands moved his lazgun so that it pointed at the boy. “Why, I’ve been a second father to you.”
“I still have my first father.” Dan let go of the lazgun he’d been trying to slip free of his jacket pocket. “I don’t need you, Bennett.”
“Wait—don’t try it, Cardigan.” Sands returned his attention to Jake.
Jake had been reaching for the stungun inside his coat. “You’re not too popular with the younger generation,” he remarked, putting both his hands, palms out, in front of him.
“When I get time, I’ll brood about that.”
Kate retrieved her weapon from her son’s pocket. “Don’t, please, try anything like that again, Danny.”
Jake asked, “You’re going to be running the SuperTek operation, are you, Sands?”
“I’m going to be one of several equal partners, rather.”
Nodding, Jake said, “And is Professor Kittridge one of the other partners?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Sands. “Yes, Cardigan, your current mistress’s father is in with us.”
“And you’re also active in this Excalibur Movement, huh?”
Laughing, Sands said, “Lunatic funds are as good as any,” he said. “They’ve financed a substantial part of things thus far.”
“Including your escape.” Nancy moved over beside Dan.
“Please don’t interrupt the conversation, young lady,” cautioned her father. “But, actually, now I think of it, the conversation’s over. Cardigan—very carefully hand over the weapons that you’re carrying.”
“He’s got a stungun,” Kate informed him. “I don’t know what else.”
Sands said, “All right, Cardigan. Let’s have the stungun—” He stopped speaking and his eyes went wide.
A red door across the corridor had suddenly opened. Richard Lofton, carrying a stungun and a lazgun, stepped through the doorway.
“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it, Bennett?” he said.
Dr. Danenberg touched her right palm to the recplate on the office door and it slid open. “In here,” she said in a sour, disgruntled voice. She remained standing in the chill corridor.
“You’re certainly grouchy,” observed Gomez, urging her into the room ahead of him and carefully scanning its interior as they crossed the threshold.
Three of the walls were of gray metal and the fourth was of one-way seethrough plastiglass. Out beyond that stretched a large lab, where roughly two dozen robots, a dozen androids, and seven or eight humans were all at work at long white tables.
“Bueno,” commented Gomez as the door whooshed shut behind them. “We’ve finally found the Teklab that we’ve been seeking, chiquita.”
Natalie walked up close to the seethrough wall. “I wish these dreadful nitwits hadn’t incapacitated Sidebar,” she said ruefully. “Some footage on this clandestine Tek chip factory, coupled with my usual insightful description of things, would make a darn nifty news segment.”
“Sit down in that chair yonder, doc,” suggested Gomez, gesturing with his stungun. “Fold your hands sedately in your lap, por favor.”
“I’m truly sorry it was your leg and not your neck that you broke.”
“Let’s see if we can’t maintain the chummy relationship we’ve had thus far.” He rested his backside against the edge of the rubberoid desk. “I take it that you and Prof Kittridge didn’t really split up?”
“You can assume any damn thing you wish, Mr. Sanchez.”
“Gomez,” he corrected, smiling. “I already know that you’ve been popping up to NorCal and sneaking visits with him. I figure somehow he managed to slip you some handy tips on how to manufacture SuperTek.” He pointed at the busy lab with a thumb.
Folding her arms, the doctor said nothing.
Natalie said, “Your interviewing technique, if you don’t mind my saying so, isn’t as smooth and efficient as it might be.”
“I know, si,” he admitted. “Sometimes, in my overzealous quest for information, I start slapping people around. It’s a definite character flaw, but there you are.” He smiled more broadly at Dr. Danenberg. “Now then—about Kittridge?”
“Yes, he is involved,” she answered in a low, tight-lipped way. “The idea for SuperTek is his. He and Sands were already planning this even before all that mess down in Mexico.”
“Muy triste.” Gomez shook his head slowly. “It’s sad to think that a man of his capabilities could be tempted by vast sums of loot to sell out his species.”
“Are we going to loiter hereabouts all the livelong day while you pontificate in Spanish?” Natalie turned away from the see-through wall.
“Patience, chiquita. A little moralizing now and then is good for the old alma.” Gomez eased over to the vidphone alcove. “I note they have a bugproof phone here. I’ll put through a satcall to the London office of the International Drug Control Agency and report our findings. They, in turn, will dispatch a paddy wagon up here to this den of thieves.”
“But can we trust the IDCA?”
Gomez replied, “I know an hombre in the London branch who’s true blue.” He sat down facing the phonescreen. “Soon as I finish, we’ll go rendezvous with Jake.”
“How do we determine just exactly where he is at the moment?”
“Dr. Danenberg is going to tell us,” he explained. “Or rather, she’ll inform us where Dan and Nancy are being kept. Jake should be somewhere in the vicinity.”