A Gathering Evil

  "Why, Crowley, why?"

  The old man simply shook his head. "I don't know. Perhaps they want us for food or they feed on our mental energy. Maybe it has nothing to do with us, but that our planet appears to be a dimensional nexus. Fiddleback may just be using us as a stepping-off point for a war with the Draolings or he may be fleeing an invasion of his own homeland. The reasons are endless."

  Had I never been in the Draoling dimension, I would have assumed these two old men were drunk or senile or both. Having been there, having seen Leich survive clearly fatal wounds, I could believe what they had told me. "So you want a team of people to go in and pull Nerys out of this Plutonia?"

  Crowley nodded solemnly. "I can get you in very close to where she is being held. Nero had some things his daughter had treasured before the accident, so I have a feel for her nature. I can bring you within 100 meters."

  "A hundred meters inside an arachnoid nest, right?" I thought for a moment. "Are you two going?"

  They both nodded yes emphatically. "I know I told you Nero Loring would be unable to see outside our dimension, but, as I did with you, I can share my sight with others. This should help the rest of your team as well."

  "After we get her, we'll have to go to Lorica and kill the Witch. We'll also need to destroy the controlling mechanism for the dimensional gate. How close inside Lorica can you get us?"

  "Close. If you have a map you can pick your spot."

  I smiled, remembering the work Costapain had done with Marit to create a map of the facility. "Done. I'll have to round up Coyote's people, but we can do it. I trust you want it done soon?"

  "Tomorrow afternoon is the latest we dare wait." Crowley tapped a newspaper lying on the bed beside him. "The monsoons start tomorrow and the biggest lightning storm in the last hundred years is expected."

  I left Crowley's home and returned to Marit's apartment to pick up some things before heading out again. Roughly two hours later I arrived at Coyote's headquarters. I placed my aluminum case on the table, pulled out $20,000 in cash, then relocked the case. To that I added another $5000 in winnings from the dog track. I left my Krait beside it and noted with a smile that our purchases had been stacked on shelves in the antechamber.

  I walked into the conference room and slid the money across the table to Bat. I expected a reaction out of him, but I got none. Natch stood behind him massaging his shoulders while Marit and Costapain half-heartedly went over details on one of the maps. She looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes. "Thank God you're alive. Where have you been?"

  I frowned and pointed at the money. "I went to Greyhound Park and did some betting. I needed time to relax and think. What's happened?"

  "I was afraid they got you." Marit brushed a tear away from her cheek. "Rock's been hit."

  "What? When, where, how?"

  As if summoned by my questions, Jytte appeared in the doorway leading to her haven. "I have just recovered the phone company's records for Rock's mobile phone and the pay phone bank where he died. At 7 p.m. Rock got a call on his car phone. It lasted 30 seconds. From there he proceeded to the Circle K on the corner of 16th and Thomas. A phone call from another pay phone— one located in Wong Plaza across the street—came to that bank of phones. This new phone stands next to the one used to call Rock's car phone. It lasted for two minutes. Apparently, Rock immediately placed a call from there to a number I have listed as a front number for the Warriors of the Aryan World Alliance. That call lasted five minutes and was terminated when a single bullet punched through the handset and exploded in Rock's head."

  "Dammit! We needed him." I frowned and sat down. "Wait a minute, what was Rock doing calling Heinrich?"

  "It doesn't matter. He's dead." Marit looked at the empty chairs in the room. "Hal's in the hospital, his wife's dead, Alejandro is dead and now Rock. They've tried to kill you and me. Recovering your memory is suddenly a lot more dangerous than solving little problems for Coyote."

  "It's a lot more dangerous than that, but it's something I have to do. I have no choice and I need your help." I placed my hands flat against the tabletop. "More specifically, Marit, I need you to call Dottie. I need to find out where Sinclair MacNeal is right now. Bat, you and I will have to visit him to get him to pull back the reins on the Warriors. Jytte, I need you, Marit and Natch to find all of us some body armor—including helmets, if you an get them." I pointed at the money in front of Bat. "There should be enough left over from that to cover it. We need seven sets—one for each of us, a second roughly Marit's size and a second my size."

  Jytte's face froze as she shook her head. "I cannot leave."

  "I'm afraid you're going to have to. Without Rock, I need another gun, and I know from Bat that you can shoot. Moreover, what we have going down is going to need someone with the touch to handle a computer. You're elected." I stood and gently squeezed her shoulders. "I know you don't want to go, but you must. I have no other choice but to draft you. You can call Coyote, if you wish, but I don't think he will gainsay me."

  Jytte remained standing stock-still for 10 seconds and the tension in the room grew with each one of them. Here I was, the newcomer, the one they were helping, and I dared give orders to the group's coordinator. I'd even gone so far to tell her to call her boss and that he would support me in this decision. If she chose to oppose me, I'd have to operate alone in the future. If she went along with me, on the other hand, I'd be given free reign to structure what we were to do in the manner I felt would best allow us to accomplish it.

  Jytte nodded. "I will need an hour to set everything to handle itself in my absence. Is this satisfactory?"

  "More than. Thanks." I clapped my hands together. "Once Bat and I return from dealing with Mr. MacNeal, I'll burn the chips for the detonators, so I'll need to take a voice sample from everyone on the trigger words. If we have the body armor by midnight, we can get everyone outfitted, and I will brief you on what is happening."

  Phil Costapain looked over at me. "What do you want me to do, son?"

  "Just what you have been doing, sir. That map you've made of the Lorica tower is very valuable to us." I tapped it in the center of the elevators running up to Nerys' penthouse. "This is the key to our getting in and stopping the Witch."

  Marit came in from Jytte's sanctum with a phone in her hand and put it down on the conference table. "Dottie says Sinclair is hosting a very formal stag dinner party for some Japanese businessmen at his home. I called Roger—everyone on the guest list is Phoenix Forty material. You might rethink trying to see him tonight."

  I shot Bat a grin. "Wanna bet your old City Center friend is there?"

  He smiled and cracked his knuckles.

  "Don't worry, Marit, we'll be very careful." I sat back on the edge of the table. "If Bat stabs anyone I'll make sure he uses the correct fork."

  The phone on the table rang. Jytte picked up the handset, listened, nodded and handed it to me. "Caine, it's Coyote, for you."

  "I understand, Mr. Caine, the traitor problem no longer exists."

  I nodded. "I believe that is correct, sir."

  "Good. This gives you one less thing to worry about. I have been briefed on what you and Crowley discussed. It seems like the thing to do." Coyote's voice sounded distant, as if he were speaking from another dimension himself. "You can trust him."

  "I do, as much as anyone. This is likely to get bloody."

  "Take precautions, but do what you must. It is in your hands."

  I hesitated for a moment. "Do you mean you won't be with us?"

  "As difficult as it may seem to you, I am involved in something that precludes my participation in your operation. I am confident with it being in your hands, however. And don't worry. You and I have actually met before, and we will meet again after all this is over."

  The phone went dead before I could demand he explain his remark. It suddenly occurred to me that if we had met before, Coyote could have told me much more about myself than I had already pieced together. Was he lying, or has he be
en manipulating me all along? He needed me to separate the wheat from the chaff in his cell, and my skills were going to be useful here. Did he plan to tell me who I was after I took out Rock, but then decided to delay rewarding me because this thing with Nero Loring cropped up?

  Crowley had noted that he did what Coyote did, but in places Coyote could not go. The Loring problem was one that Coyote might not be able to handle. In return for the secret of my identity, he would have me act in his stead in a place he could not go. As with Alejandro, I was being coerced into acting for Coyote. Coyote would use whatever tools he had at his disposal to actually get done what he wanted accomplished.

  The bargain Coyote offered me was one I would have willingly accepted. The fact that he did not offer it to me up front however, reminded me that I was, in his eyes, a tool. I could be used and disposed of, much as I had set up and killed Rock with my phone calls to him. My announcing that Bat and I had procured the arms needed for a quick strike at Heinrich prompted Rock to warn the Aryans.

  A bullet in the head was kind.

  Coyote is good, I told myself, and has to be to play this way and survive. I smiled and motioned for Bat to follow me out. I wonder if I am that good?

  I had a sinking feeling I'd find out far sooner than I wished.

  Marit had said the dinner was formal, so I dressed for the occasion: I wore the silvery Krait. Aside from that, Bat and I dressed alike in boots, blue-jeans, T-shirts and black leather jackets. I bought the coat at the place across the City Center walkway from where Bat purchased his black "Hell's Belles" shirt.

  When we met outside I looked at the image of the blond female thrash guitarist in black leather with spiked boots stomping on someone who looked a lot like Watson Dodd and shook my head. "I'm not sure, Bat. Marit did say 'formal.'"

  "I know, that's why I bought this one." He started walking toward the Randolf Street

  maglev station."

  I caught up with him. "Ah, Bat, 'formal' means a bit more than 'clean.'"

  "I know. That's why Heidi Stiletto isn't naked." He bared his teeth in a fierce grin.

  "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

  "People stomp on ants all day, every day. Is it any wonder ants love picnics?"

  "Good point."

  We boarded the more crowded common-carrier section of the maglev train. We found enough room to get seats, but Bat seemed to enjoy roaming up and down the car we were in. He didn't say anything, but he glared at corporators who wore clothes similar to ours. Those poor individuals may once have thought themselves chic in dressing like folks from Eclipse, or brave for actually having ventured down below Frozen Shade, but their encounter with Bat doubtlessly gave them reason to question either idea.

  The Build-more citadel could have been dubbed "the Lobby Archipelago" because of the vast amounts of area given over to the intersection of corridors. Each lobby had at least one scale model of some building the company had produced somewhere in the world. I gathered, from a quick sampling, that the whole citadel had been laid out over a virtual map of the world and, as projects were completed, a scale model went up in the lobby that most closely corresponded to the construction site on the map.

  A model of the Sears Megalith in Rio dominated the lobby we wanted. The elevator went up to the floor just beneath the one on which MacNeal lived. Bat boosted me up through the ceiling hatchway, then pulled himself up onto the top of the cage. We climbed up the interior girder lattice, and Bat pried the elevator doors open.

  We found ourselves in another lobby, of course, but this level of the tower only had four apartments on it. We found MacNeal's, and Bat threw his shoulder against the double doors. They snapped open, and we sauntered in like guests who were mildly miffed at having been shut out. A butler tried his best to stop us in the hallway, but Bat just picked him up and carried him back into the room he had just left.

  Marit had not been wrong when she said everyone on the guest list was Phoenix Forty material. That informal group of business heavyweights had run the city since the 1960s, passing their positions in it from father to son or CEO to CEO. It had long since expanded beyond the original 40 members, but alliteration kept the name alive. Of the dozen men in the walnut-paneled room, I recognized seven from ads I'd seen on Marit's television. Four of the remaining men were Japanese and only the last person, an Anglo, was young enough to be the evening's host.

  Marit had mentioned the meeting was stag. The charming dozen young ladies seated beside some of the city's most powerful men probably had something to do with that decision. Their presence at the long mahogany table made me smile, and not just because they were very pretty to look at. Because they were there, no one would want to arouse official or media scrutiny of this gathering unless absolutely necessary.

  It was my job to make them think it wasn't. "Excuse the intrusion, ladies and gentlemen, but I need to speak with Mr. MacNeal." I motioned toward the door to Sinclair. "If you please, sir, I think privacy would be preferred."

  Sinclair started to get up, moving slowly and deliberately to show me he wasn't afraid, but his father clapped an iron fist over his wrist and pulled him back down in his chair. The white-haired MacNeal patriarch looked at me with fire in his blue eyes. "I remember you from the party the other night. If you have business with my corporation, you come see me during business hours. I can fit you in, say, in a month?"

  His little joke brought polite laughter from the other diners. Sinclair, on the other hand, was doing a slow burn. He played with a silver fork in his free hand, his blue eyes burning with the same fire as in his father's, but not directed at me. His left hand knotted into a fist and twisted slightly, but he could not pull it away from the old man without making a scene. Knowing the Japanese set great store by a son's respect for his father, I could see Sinclair restrain himself, and I admired the dark-haired man for that.

  I glanced at my associate. "Bat, clear the room."

  I had half expected him to throw the struggling butler at the table, scattering candelabra and shattering china soup bowls and plates. I didn't really want to see anyone get hurt, but I had no time to fool around, and there did have to be some sort of payback for Hal's injuries. Bat, I knew, liked to hurt people and was quite good at it, but never did I dream he had style as well.

  He dropped the waiter. "There's a bar down in Eclipse called the Lost Dutchman. In the corner it's got a spitoon that's been there since the days when the sun used to shine through the window and heat it up every day. Everything went into it—chaw, dribble, beer—everything, and no one ever cleaned it out."

  He slowly started to walk around the table and stopped at a big silver tureen of New England clam chowder.

  "Yeah, it was about this size. Anyway, last week, a guy came in. He said he was a prospector and he'd lived in the desert for the past 20 years and wanted a drink. He also said he didn't have a red Columbus on him. The bartender told him to get out, but the prospector said he'd do anything for a drink."

  Bat smiled in a way that I finally figured out his true nature: He didn't just like hurting folks, he liked being cruel. "The bartender pointed at the spitoon. He said, 'I'll give you all the beer you can drink if you take one swig from that spitoon.'"

  Bat was good at cruel.

  The women already started shifting uneasily in their seats. The men began to wince. The Japanese huddled together as one of their number translated the monologue. My palms began to sweat, and my mouth got dry.

  Bat slowly lifted the tureen in his hands and stared down into the creamy soup as if it were a long-fermented vat of saliva and used chewing tobacco. "The prospector picked the spitoon up. He looked at it, then looked at the bartender. Then he did it!"

  Bat lifted the big silver bowl to his lips and drank. He tipped it back, swallowing again and again, very loudly. Soup spilled out from around his mouth and splashed off his shoulders. Chunks of potatoes and cream-covered pieces of corn flew like shrapnel, flecking the diners, yet they watched him as if hypnotized
. Finally he tipped the tureen all the way up and captured the last drop on the tip of his tongue. His dark eyes filled with joy, Bat curled his tongue back into his mouth.

  His chin white from the liquid, his shirt dripping soup, he let the tureen crash to the floor. The bartender looked at the prospector unbelievingly. "You only had to take one swallow, old man!" He let the words bubble up through more soup as it spilled from his mouth.

  "'I know, I tried," Bat said in the prospector's voice, "but it was all...one piece.'"

  My stomach convulsed at the punchline, but unlike the other folks in the room, I was working on an empty stomach. MacNeal's American guests retched first, followed quickly by the Japanese when the translation was finished. Darius MacNeal pushed his chair back and hunched over, which allowed Sinclair to recover his arm and stand. He dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a napkin, then said nothing as his guests bolted from the room.

  Sinclair looked slender and quite dignified in his tuxedo. A good five inches shorter than me, he had an athletic build and enough control over himself to have sublimated any visceral reaction to the joke Bat had told. In fact, as everyone but his father filed out, he arched an eyebrow and looked at Bat. "I trust you found the soup to your liking?"

  Bat belched loudly.

  "I'll pass your compliments to the chef." He glanced at his father's pale face, then looked at me. "You have my undivided attention."

  "You're paying the Warriors of the Aryan World Alliance to start a gang war that will put pressure on your competitors in this city. I want you to stop."

  "No."

  I frowned at him. "You won't stop?"

  Sinclair picked up a glass of white wine and sipped it. "No, you're wrong in your assumption that I'm paying Heinrich and his boys to start a war. I know the technique, and I know how to stop it. I put them on retainer so they won't let themselves be used against us. That's all, nothing more."

  I listened carefully to him and while I half expected him to lie to me, I knew he was telling the truth. Even so, I couldn't believe it because Willem had been positive, and Sinclair was the only man who fit the profile. "You admit giving them money?"