Fade to Black (37 page)

She knew.

Bandit pondered how that could be.

"Would you trust a traitor?"

In the subdued light of the dilapidated warehouse office, Rico turned in the swivel chair to face the door. To his left, Piper sat in an armchair with her axe across her lap and a datacable jacked into her head.

In the shadows of the doorway before him stood Bandit, fingering his new flute...

Rico pointed with his chin. "Say again?"

"Would you trust a traitor?"

"Close the door."

Bandit stepped forward, swung the door shut.

"Who we talking about?" Rico asked.

"The woman. Marena Farris."

"She's a traitor?"

That's what she thinks."

"A traitor to who?"

"Perhaps Fuchi Multitronics."

"She told you that?"

A few moments passed. Bandit looked down at the flute in his hands. His expression, as usual, was unreadable. What he was thinking was anybody's guess. "I ascertained certain things. She is afraid for her life. She wishes Ansell Surikov to join a new organization. She fears you will not trust her. She views herself as a traitor. Some of what you know of her is false. She has not always worked for Fuchi Multitronics. Her name is not Marena Farris."

What the frag? Rico forced himself to keep cool, lean back in his chair. "What's her real name?"

"Pariah Moffit."

Rico searched his memory. The name meant nothing to him. "Who is she?"

"A former employee of Prometheus Engineering. Sent to Fuchi as a mole. Ten years ago a Fuchi joygirl named Marena Farris was quietly killed. Farrah Moffit took her place. She insinuated herself into the Special Administration and used this position to learn Fuchi secrets and transmit them to Prometheus. She believes she is now under suspicion. She did not willingly go on leave. She is afraid to return to Prometheus because she has transmitted no data since put on leave. She fears they may kill her. She believes that moving to Maas Intertech is her only way out."

Rico rubbed at his brow. Maybe a hundred or so questions should have come to mind by now. Maybe he was too tired to think that hard. Maybe the run was wearing him down. Only one thought came to mind.

"Why Intertech? Why would they trust her any more than anybody else?"

"Her contact is in a position of power. They met some years ago. If she could bring him someone of value, someone like Surikov, to Intertech, her contact will see she gets what she wants."

"What does she want?"

"She wants to counsel children."

"What?"

"She is a psychologist. She is disaffected with corporate intrigues. She wants to counsel children, perhaps have a child of her own. She wants out of the game."

"You believe that? All of it?"

"I believe she believes it."

Nothing was ever certain. "Who's her contact at Maas Intertech?"

Bandit gazed steadily at Rico a few moments, then said, "I didn't ask."

Rico clenched his teeth, drew a deep breath, then let it go.

What mattered most? That was the question that kept coming back to Rico's mind.

The problem with this run was that too many factors kept getting involved. You could get frizzed just thinking about it, just trying to keep all the details straight in your mind, just trying to work out everyone's angles.

All the scag about who Farrah Moffit really was and where she came from probably made no difference. Maybe she was just caught in the middle, stuck somewhere she didn't want to be, the victim of megacorps, no less than Rico and his team. Maybe she just wanted a way out. Rico realized at length that there was no way he could know for sure and that thinking about it so much was a waste of precious time.

You had to focus on the key points. What really mattered. What seemed to matter most Was the Ansell Surikov who Farrah Moffit kept talking about really the real Ansell Surikov? Rico tried to figure a way to answer that question for sure, then stopped himself. What was the point? His objective now was to get Farrah Moffit back on track. What difference did it make what she called this slag she wanted to get away from Fuchi, as long as the slag wanted to go.

Only three questions really seemed crucial: was Farrah Moffit's contact at Maas Intertech for real?
 
could she cut the deal she promised? and did Ansell Surikov, or whoever, really want to leave Fuchi?

First...

* * *

Piper opened her eyes. The display screen of the telecom on the wall beside her flickered and came to life. "Security at the Crystal Blossom Condominiums has been tightened,
jefe,
but the telecom lines are unaffected. I have a clean line direct to the apartment where we lifted Marena Farris."

"You mean Moffit."

"Yes, excuse me." Piper rolled her eyes, looking a little exasperated. "Where we lifted
Farrah
Moffit."

Rico stepped down the hall to the lounge. Dok sat there-cleaning his Ingram SMG-opposite Farrah Moffit Both he and Moffit looked up as Rico entered. Moffit looked about as anxious and forlorn as anyone Rico had ever seen. He guessed that was only natural. "Who's your contact at Maas Intertech?" said Rico, without preamble.

A timid look came into Moffit's eyes. "Must I... Must I give him a name?" she said hesitantly.

Dok cursed softly. Moffit glanced at him anxiously. Rico said, "We ain't going nowhere till you scan. Till we scan what you got. Till everything checks out.
Comprende?"

Moffit seemed to resign herself to it. She nodded, just faintly, then said softly, "His name is Osborne. That could be a corporate pseudonym. I don't know. He's the Vice President for Internal Policy and Review. He controls a kind of internal intelligence section, along with various resource units such as personnel."

"How do we make contact?"

"We've established a protocol."

"Let's hear it."

The proc wasn't very complex. When Moffit wanted to contact Osborne, she called his office via a public telecom, ID'ing herself as a personal friend. If Osborne wasn't available, Moffit left a particular message and called back later. If Osborne wanted to contact her, he followed much the same routine. The only sophisticated part was that they used portable voice-translation gear to prevent their voice prints from ever being matched to their corporate personnel files.

Rico motioned Moffit to her feet "Let's make a call."

Moffit seemed willing. Rico ushered her up the hall to the warehouse office and sat her down facing the telecom screen. He gave Piper the nod, she closed her eyes. The telecom screen flashed blue with the unit calling window of the local telecommunications grid. The words VIS PICKUP OFF appeared in the upper-right corner. The code for the telecom being called appeared in large numerals at center screen.

Moffit caught her breath, and looked up and around at Rico, her eyes wide with surprise. "That's my condo's call code."

"First we talk to Surikov."

Moffit's eyes flared enormous'. "No!" she exclaimed. "They'll pick up the call! They'll realize we're-!"

"Can it."

A slag who could have been Surikov's twin appeared on the screen. Rico looked closely but couldn't see any difference between this Surikov and the one who'd died at the Willow Brook Mall, Michael Travis.

Surikov opened his mouth as if to speak, then glanced downward. PRIVACY ON winked on and off at the bottom of the screen. Surikov compressed his lips, then reached to the side and drew a telecom handset up to his ear.

"Yes?" he said. "Who's this?"

"Dr. Surikov," Rico said.

Surikov nodded, now looking a bit impatient. "Yes, yes," he said. "Your vid's off. Who am I speaking to?"

Another message from Piper winked on the telecom screen: LINE SAFE.

One final check had been made. Surikov's telecom was clean, right down to the handset at his ear.

"You don't know me," Rico said. "I'm calling about something you wanna know about. Be careful what you say and how you react This line's clean, but your apartment may be monitored."

Surikov frowned puzzledly, maybe irritated. "I'm afraid I don't-"

Rico gave Moffit's shoulder a nudge. She jerked her head up and around to look at him, then looked back to Surikov when Rico motioned at the screen. She seemed nervous as hell, desperate. Definitely off-guard. As Rico intended.

The question was: how would she handle herself?

Moffit abruptly shifted in her seat, sitting up straight. Her fingers shook. She gasped. "Darling ...
 
darling, don't say anything,
don't say my name?"

That last came out in a rush. Surikov opened his mouth as if to interrupt, but then stopped.

"You'll give us away," Moffit continued, only pausing to gasp again. "Someone may be listening. Listening to what you say. Please don't say anything for a moment. I know this is hard. Just say ... say yes if you recognize my voice."

Surikov was gazing intently out of the telecom screen. Rico couldn't be sure if the slag was angry, incredulous, or both. "Do I-" he said, abruptly cutting himself off. "Well, of course. Of course I do."

"Darling, please be careful," Moffit said. "Be very, very careful. I'll explain everything that's happened as soon as we're together. Right now I need you to help me. Think carefully. Do you know what I mean when I refer to our special project?"

Surikov frowned, now seeming puzzled. "Well," he said, "yes. Certainly." He waved one hand vaguely.

"What else could you mean?"

Moffit nodded. Her eyes seemed riveted to the telecom screen. Her gaze seemed even more intense than Surikov's. "This is why I'm calling," she said. "This is what I'm working on. Our special project. I'm with people who are going to help. After we're done with this call, you must act as if nothing unusual's happened. Do you understand, darling?"

"Yes, obviously." Irritation rose suddenly into Surikov's face, but in an instant faded to nothing. He nodded. "Yes, yes, I understand. I'm just, well ... I didn't expect this."

"I understand, darling. Please listen. The people I'm with are very, very careful. They want confirmation from you that you're willing to go along with our project. You must say something to convince them, but you must assume someone's listening to you at your end."

Moments passed. Surikov pressed his hand back over his brow and his thinning hair. His eyes widened briefly, like a man struggling with the incomprehensible. Twice he opened his mouth as if to speak, then said nothing.

"Well," he said finally, "I don't know quite how to say this. I just want to be reunited with my wife.

Everything else is rather secondary. It's been, very difficult... difficult to concentrate on my work. I'm so used to her being here. I know she loves me very much, and she wants what's best for me. What more can I say? I trust her implicitly. She wants what I want. I want what she wants. Do you see?"

Farrah Moffit turned her head and met Rico's eyes. She looked scared, expectant, and hopeful all at the same time. Rico looked at the man on the screen, then back at Moffit, watched her a moment, then nodded. "Say bye. We'll be in touch."

Moffit said that, and then a few other things that only helped persuade Rico that the relationship between her and Surikov was real, or real enough that it didn't matter.

The slag wanted what Moffit wanted.

Likely, that was what he'd be getting.

34

Twenty minutes in the lavatory did slightly more for her psyche than for her looks. More than half that time Farrah spent seated on the toilet, face in her hands, eyes closed, struggling to regain her composure, and to reinforce it. The ploy by the runners' leader had caught her off-guard. She had walked into that little room at the top of the hall expecting to face Osborne, only to be confronted by Ansell. It had forced her to shift mind-sets very abruptly, in little more than a moment. With a man like Osborne, she could afford to be every bit the corporate woman, cool to the point of ruthless. In fact, she had to be like that. With Ansell, she couldn't afford to be anything less than the stereotypical woman, as defined by Ansell's own views.

Approaching the man in the wrong manner would have invited disaster. Failing to impress upon him the dangers of the situation would have invited so much greater a disaster. It had forced her to think very quickly, to make leaps of intuition she felt only half-able to make. It left her in a state-heart pounding, body shaking-practically on the verge of fainting. She needed time alone to recover, and to prepare for what was coming.

She felt as if things were beginning to rush past her too swiftly, slipping out of control. She told herself that wasn't so. Her plan was coming together. She would make it work.

She had to.

Before the grime-streaked mirror over the lavatory sink, she did what little she could to improve her appearance. There wasn't much. She had no supplies. She was lucky the runners had seen fit to provide her with a change of underwear. She washed her face, then combed her hair and tied it behind her head.