Thank you," I told him.
The yakuza boss watched me as I seated myself. The oyabun never so much as glanced at Scott, I noted, as if the big chauffeur didn't even exist. (No, I corrected, as if Scott were as irrelevant to our discussion as a piece of furniture… or as his own aide.)
I pointedly scanned the room with my gaze, nodded approvingly. "Nice decor."
He smiled as if my opinion pleased him, as if it really mattered one way or the other. "Thank you." He gestured at the books. "A man needs a refuge where the great thoughts of the past shield him from the chaos of the world." He paused. "I apologize for…" He inclined his head toward the door to the anteroom. "Necessity. No dishonor was intended."
"None taken." I forced myself to relax, to wait him out. I never felt really comfortable with the initial meaningless protocol of high-level meetings. Why not just cut to the fragging chase and get on with things? But it was the oyabun's game, his rules.
"How is Mr. Barnard?" Tokudaiji asked after a moment.
'Tired," I responded, remembering the way the corporator had looked on the telecom screen. "But he's got a nice setup in Kyoto."
"A beautiful city," the oyabun said, inclining his head, "with much history and culture. Have you visited, Mr. Montgomery?"
Yet another high-powered suit wanting to know about my travel itinerary. What was this, a trend? I shook my head. "Never made it"
Again, the oyabun was silent for a few moments, regarding me steadily. Then something changed subtly in those sharp eyes, and I knew we were getting down to biz. "I understand that Mr. Barnard has a message for me," Tokudaiji said quietly, "something he was unwilling to commit to the Matrix."
"That's correct, sir."
The yak smiled gentiy. "What would it concern, do you suppose?"
I shook my head. "Do you really think Mr. Barnard would confide in a mere messenger?" Drek, I thought-hang around with people like this long enough and you start talking like them…
"Of course not, of course not." Tokudaiji extended his hand.
In response I reached into my pocket for the optical chip in its plastic holder.
And mat's when the drek dropped into the pot. I felt something happen behind me. It wasn't bearing, it wasn't seeing, it wasn't the sense of touch or smell-it was something else, but it was also totally undeniable. I felt it right down in the core of my being, sort of like the shivery feeling of an overpressure wave, but internal rather than external.
Magic. I knew that's what it was; somehow I knew.
I turned my head to the left. In my peripheral vision, I saw Scott move forward, reaching into his coat. The little pot-bellied guy on his lapel was glowing with a strange inner light, and I could feel mat shivery feeling emanating from it.
At that instant time seemed to change. Everything seemed to shift into slow motion, like in an old Sam Peckinpah flatfilm.
Tokudaiji's eyes widened in surprise and alarm. Behind him his aide was going for his heat. Even in slow-mo, the sammy's move was blindingly fast.
Not fast enough, though. The sammy's heavy pistol was barely clear of its shoulder holster when his face vanished in a wet red cloud and he went over backward. The concussion of a gunshot hammered my left ear, and I flinched away from the muzzle-plume of Scott's Roomsweeper. (Scott's Roomsweeper? How the frag had he smuggled a drek-eating Roomsweeper past the security check?)
Still in slow-mo, I felt my own body responding instinctively. I came out of the chair like I was on springs, right hand slapping ineffectually at my vacant left hip.
Tokudaiji was moving, too, one of his skeleton-thin hands plunging inside his thousand-nuyen jacket. His eyes met mine, and in a flash of instantaneous communication we both knew he was too late.
From the comer of my eye I saw Scott's Roomsweeper come to bear, saw it gout flame again. The blast-shot, not a single slug-took the yakuza boss full in the face, slamming what was left of his skull back into the leather chair, spattering blood and tissue across the room. My nose was filled with me smells of a shooting: cordite, blood, drek…
I was on my feet, turning, still reaching for me gun that wasn't there. Time clicked back into full-speed mode as Scott swung me smoking muzzle of the Roomsweeper to point direcdy between my eyes.
8
… And he said, "Get out of here, brah, I'll cover you as long as I can."
Through the door to the anteroom I heard the first sounds of alarm-muffled, but still audible. If I could hear that, then the sammies on the other side of the door would certainly have heard the two throaty booms from the Roomsweeper. Obviously the door was locked, and the normal release was somewhere in here-probably close to Ekei Tokudaiji's blood-spattered hand-otherwise Scott and I would already be absorbing high-velocity rounds.
"Get the frag out of here, ule," the ork barked again.
I didn't know whether to drek, go blind, or wind my watch. (Actually, I was down to two choices because I think I'd already done one of those three things when the first shot went off next to my head.) My mouth moved, and I think I said something cogent and pithy like, "Gaah?" My right hand was still pawing around somewhere down at my left hip-apparently searching for the Seco that was in the backseat of the Rolls-so I stopped it by clenching it into a fist.
"Kukae!" Scott swore in frustration. He pivoted and fired two ringing blasts into the nearest window. The first starred the reinforced glass; the second blew it out into the foliage beyond. (Mental note: Some kinds of reinforced glass don't work worth squat if the shot's coming from the inside.) "Get fragging goingl" Scott roared. He crouched, scooped up the pistol that the dead aide had been trying to draw and tossed it to me. Instinctively, I plucked it out of the air.
Finally my reflexes kicked into gear, and I got fragging going. Three running steps across me room, then a dive out the window, tucking into a smooth landing roll. Would have worked like a hot damn, too, if it hadn't been for the fragging hibiscus bush just outside the window. A silent tuck-and-roll became a loud rustle-and-crash, but at least the flowering bush absorbed my momentum and gave me a (relatively) soft landing.
I came up in a crouch and looked around wildly. Nobody coming for me, not yet. I worked the action on the pistol-a brutal-looking Browning automatic of an unfamiliar model-and checked the load. A full clip of fourteen rounds, according to the indicator, and one in the pipe. Feeling like I had a nasty big crosshairs painted on me back of my skull, I moved away from the blown-out window.
Just in time. Behind me I heard a smash, the sharp ripping of light autofire, then a godawful whump that felt like a troll had just boxed my ears for me. I hit the ground-not entirely my idea, as the pressure wave slammed into me-and out the corner of my eye I saw a dirty-red fireball lick momentarily out the window. On my belly I did the high-low crawl through the foliage as shrapnel, bits of wood, and assorted shreds of tissue spattered down around me. When I was what felt like a reasonable distance from the house, I bellied up and tried to calm myself.
Okay, just what the frag had happened? Scott had taken down my contact, mat's what had happened. And now he was dead.
He had to be dead, didn't he? When Tokudaiji's samurai tossed a grenade into the library…
No, that made no fragging sense at all. For all they knew, their boss-man, the oyabun. might still have been breathing. They wouldn't have fragged the room just in case.
Which meant bruddah Scon had done it himself, didn't it? Probably a belly-bomb of some kind. A suicide mission. He'd hung back to draw some more of Tokudaiji's troops in, men he'd suicided violently, taking at least some of them with him.
So why the frag was I still alive?