Maggie would arrest the four zookeepers. She'd shave off time in exchange for them fingering one of the dead offworlders as the ringleader of the operation. The whole thing would be cinched up. Nobody would look any closer. There'd be no reason to. Yuri wasn't the only one who knew how to make a pile of bullshit look real.
I checked the uplink one more time. Yuri had set up all the equipment. I didn't want to leave room for somebody to call the vid a fake, especially anybody who knew about Yuri's holo work. Yuri had told me he could arrange for the feed to be beamed up to the Orbital so it could be digitally signed by a security authority. I grilled him about it, asking all kinds of questions he patiently answered. “No, the digital signature can't be faked.” “No, you couldn't feed them false footage for them to sign. We were using one of their own cams.” “No, you can't tamper with their cams. You can't even open up the case. Exposure to oxygen melts half the components.”
Yuri had no idea how completely I'd set him up. He was a damn fool to believe I'd ever set him free. I'd sentenced him to death. He just didn't know it yet.
There was a knock at the warehouse door. Yuri walked over to the cockeyed door and scraped it open. The crew came through, all five of them. Wu looked like the new de facto leader of the group. He took head-of-the-pack position, face to face with Yuri while Froelich, Lumbela, Kripsen, and Deluski fanned out behind.
Yuri greeted them. “Am I g-glad to see you,” he said nervously.
Wu's face was unreadable.
“I'm sorry I called you,” Yuri said. “I didn't know what else to do. Ian's dead. So is Hoshi. Those two cops you've been looking for raided the barge, and they killed them. I barely g-got away.”
“We know.”
Yuri's face screwed up. This wasn't going the way he thought. As far as he knew, the plan was that he would break the news to them that Ian was dead. They'd be shocked and panicked. The five of them would start arguing about what to do, and he'd just sit by and let them work it out. He'd let them bring up the barge murders. He'd listen while they talked about Horst and his offworld customers. He'd play along with them until I had enough evidence.
And, if he felt like he was in danger at any time, all he had to do was say, “I'm thirsty.” Say that, and I'd be there in a flash, ready to rescue him. So he thought.
Yuri had no idea that I'd already had Maggie call the barge scene in. He didn't know that the five cops he was facing had already been down to the barge. He didn't know that once they got there, Lieutenant Rusedski called them out, telling them he wanted to see them all in his office tomorrow morning. Yuri didn't know that Maggie put out an APB on him, stating he was a witness in a cop killing.
And here he was, trying to chat them up, unsuspecting of the fact that they'd already been searching for him when he called. He had no idea how desperate they were to save themselves. Ian was already dead, and so was Hoshi. And Maggie was closing in on them. Why else would Rusedski call them into a meeting? Just them and nobody else. They were under suspicion, and they knew it. But they hadn't been arrested yet. There was still time to cover their tracks. They had to find Yuri before Maggie did. If she found him first, he'd talk. She'd have all she needed to send them to the Zoo for life…
Wu pulled his piece.
Yuri choked on the words, “I'm thirsty. I'm thirsty!”
Wu bunched up his eyebrows, thinking that was a strange thing for Yuri to say at a time like this, and then he sizzled off the top of Yuri's head.
I checked the feed again and verified that it was still working.
Lumbela, Kripsen, and Deluski picked up the body and carried it to the door. So Wu was definitely the new leader, and those three were the grunts. That made sense. Wu and Froehlich were both homicide, while the others were just beat cops. I watched them finish the cleanup and move off, the camera rolling all the while.
Amateurs.
The grin on my face took a long time to evaporate in the rainy weather.
Then I called Liz. I still had to deal with Horst.
DECEMBER 6, 2788
I walked through the kitchen and climbed the stairs that were becoming too familiar. I rapped on the door.
Liz opened it. She was dressed like a normal person, in a set of whites with her hair pulled up off her shoulders, very domestic. She gave me a curt nod and ushered me in.
Horst was there. He'd come to the door to greet me. He shook my hand, his pale skin contrasting sharply with my own. “Mr. Mozambe,” he said, velvet-voiced. He gave me a bottomless gaze that made the hair on my arms stand up. He'd already scanned me. He knew I was unarmed. No weapons. No cameras. Nothing but me. Totally vulnerable.
I erased the nervousness from my voice before responding. “Mr. Jeffers.”
Liz led us into her kitchen and sat us at the table. They already had a bottle of brandy going, and Horst poured a glass for me. I took the seat opposite him.
Liz had something going on the stove. “Dinner will be ready in just a few minutes,” she said.
“It smells wonderful,” Horst said with a captivating, fangless smile. I still expected fangs every time I saw his teeth. It didn't make him any less dangerous. Fangs or no fangs, he was hardly toothless. He was an offworlder, and that meant his body was loaded with high-tech self-defense systems. He could kill me before I knew what happened.
“Thanks for meeting with me,” I said before taking a sip of brandy.
“I was surprised to hear from you, Mr. Mozambe. When Liz called and said you wanted to meet, I could hardly wait to hear what you had to say.”
Liz set a bowl of nuts on the table. Horst snatched up a couple and popped them in his mouth. “I love these nuts,” he said. “They grow them downriver, you know.”
“I know.”
“But do you know why they grow them downriver?”
“No.”
“It's the trees. They can't survive without regular sunlight, so they only grow down south. They can't survive the depths of Koba's winter, when it's nothing but darkness, twenty-two seven. Of course, the downside is that they don't get much rainwater down there because it's so much hotter and drier. That's why you only find them growing around lakes and on riverbanks. Even then, they don't get much water, so they generally have a small yield. A bowl like this is probably two tree's worth of nuts.”
“Spoken like a true tour guide.”
His smile was pure silk. “Have you ever been down to the deserts, Mr. Mozambe?”
“No.”
“You really should some time. It's harsh territory, but it is stunningly beautiful. Do you have any salt, Liz?”
She fished in a cupboard and pulled out a shaker.
Horst took the shaker and sprinkled the bowl. “Have some,” he said.
I thought it would look funny if I didn't, so I took two. I cupped them in my hand and shook them around like a pair of dice, stalling long enough for Horst to eat a salted nut before I tossed them in my mouth.
“Thanks for offering to host dinner,” Horst said to Liz.
“I didn't offer,” she responded.
“Dinner was my idea,” I said. “I thought this might be a nice neutral place for us to chat.”
“And a grand idea it was,” he said. “Liz is really quite the cook, so any excuse that gets her in the kitchen is fine by me. What do you say we get down to business?”
I nodded.
“Tell me what it is that you want to talk to me about.”
My heart kicked into a new gear. I could feel it pounding in my chest and pulsing through my temples. I'd rehearsed everything in my head, but I suddenly couldn't remember my damn lines. It was stupid to get so nervous. It didn't matter much what I said. All that mattered was that we kept talking until Liz served dinner. Just say something already!