Then there was Cash's expression. He looked at Mateo with a fixed grin, but there was a gleam in his eyes. He let Mateo ramble on purpose. To see what he knew. To try and figure him out. It seemed like Cash was smarter than he let on, too. Maybe they were all wearing masks.
Cash rubbed his hands together. "That'll fetch a great price when we hawk it." He grinned at her. "You're just a regular gold mine, aren't you? And we haven't even gotten to your bounty yet. What did Beckett say it was? The size of Texas?"
She answered with a smile of her own. "You know what they say about something being too good to be true, don't you?"
"Yeah, better grab it before someone realizes their mistake."
"That's how the saying goes, idiota."
"It's how my saying goes. Deejay, you contact the sponsor yet?"
"I'm waiting on a response."
"The call didn't go right through?"
"No. The line is completely encrypted. Whoever these people are, they're super careful about traceability."
Cash gave Jinx a wary look. "Huh."
She grinned. "Not too late to let me go and walk away clean. Obviously you boys are over your head. This is a lot of trouble to go through for a little misunderstanding."
"I'll take my chances. Hey Deejay, how about getting us out of here? I want to put as much distance between us and TJ as possible."
"Gotcha."
The Battle-Cat lurched as the thrusters activated, propelling the vehicle into hover mode and moving forward. Jinx grabbed hold of the cell bars to keep from being thrown to the floor.
Mateo placed a hand against the wall for support. "I thought this thing was a floater."
Cash looked wounded. "It is."
"Your gyro drives are off balance. Makes the thrusters all wonky."
"You don't say?"
Mateo grinned. "Don't worry — I can fix it."
Deejay's face flashed on the screen again. "Got a reply."
"Not a live response?"
"Nope. A message."
Her image winked out as the recording played. A red-haired woman in all-black leather stared from the monitor with a severe expression; eyes glinting like emerald chips, lips red as blood.
"Bounty hunters. You have the privilege of speaking to Kelly Crimson, emissary of Selene. Congratulations on the capture of the criminal Jinx la Fox. If you are to collect the reward of five million in bullion, you will deliver her to us at the designated point in the Everglades. I will secure your passage to New Haven where you will deliver your bounty and collect your reward. Failure to deliver will result in severe consequences for you and everyone in your Nimrod squad. You have exactly one week. Call back when you're at the locale."
The screen winked off. Jinx studied Cash, whose response was an exaggerated yawn. But his eyes were too sharp for boredom. She knew he was putting the information together. Figuring things out.
Mateo just looked confused. "Did she just threaten to kill us?"
"Only if we don't deliver, kid. Don't worry; most sponsors make those kinds of veiled threats. Comes with the territory. The real issue is Selene."
"Selene who?"
"That's the thing. If this is the Selene I've heard about, she doesn't need a last name. She's a legend. Some say she's a vampire, that she's lived for ages. Before the Cataclysm. Or that she practices sorcery and talks to wolves. Or that she's a high-profile member of a secret society called Gestalt. Or she runs an underground organization of women operatives called the Gutter Girls. Or all of the above."
He glanced at Jinx. "Well, she obviously wants you pretty bad. Guess you're not gonna tell us what she's like or what you did to get on her bad side."
Jinx gave an offhanded shrug. "What did you say this person's name was?"
"Selene."
Jinx put on her best innocent smile. "Never heard of her before in my life. Must be some kind of mistake."
"Yeah, okay. Have it your way. Hope you still have that smug look when we hand you over. Deejay, set a course for the location Ms. Kelly Crimson sent over."
Her face flickered back on the screen. "Already done. Headed for the Everglades now."
Mateo's face lit up. "The Everglades? That's clear on the other side of the country. Road trip!"
Cash hung his duster on a peg that slid out of the wall. "Yeah, about twenty-three hundred miles. The Battle-Cat can get us there in sixteen hours. Twenty hours tops if you include stops. So even if things get real screwed up, we can still make the deadline no problem. The problem is New Haven."
"Never heard of it."
Cash paused. "You never heard of New Haven?"
"Should I have?"
"Jeez, where did you grow up, kid? New Haven is where you go if you want to be a ghost. It's the only Haven that's off the grid. No one knows where it is. Which means it's either deep underground or underwater in the ocean somewhere. Hell, could even be on the moon. There's all kinds of stories about it, but one thing I know for sure: it's a Nimrod's wet dream come true. Because everyone inside is a fugitive from somewhere. The most wanted men and women in the world, all in one location. That also makes it the deadliest place in the world."
"Wow." Mateo glanced at Jinx. "Wait — so does that mean you were there once? Is that how you got a five-mil bounty on your head?"
She gave him a scornful look. "New Haven? That's just a story. You guys are gonna be mighty disappointed when you find out you're going all the way to the Glades for nada."
Cash clapped Mateo on the back. "Forget it, kid. You're not getting anything out of her. Let's head to the front. I got a little nook with a pull-out bed that's all yours. If you fix the toilet, that is."
Their voices faded as the door shut behind them. Jinx exhaled, dropping her forehead against the metal bars of the cell. The sensation of claustrophobia closed in as the main lights clicked off, leaving a single corner light to illuminate the hangar.
New Haven. I can't go back there.
The gambit in New Haven was the worst mistake on a pile of bad mistakes, and she'd been on the run ever since. Selene was relentless, her influence widespread, her agents everywhere. And with the bounty out, Jinx hadn't gotten a moment's rest no matter where she went.
Could be worse. At least you ended up here with these dummies.
She didn’t know what their story was, but Cash and Mateo seemed to be pretty bad at their jobs. Of the crew, only Deejay seemed to have an ounce of intelligence. And if Jinx's hunch was correct, Deejay wasn't even human. She was just a program, and Jinx knew programs like no one else.
She lay back on the hard, uncomfortable cot and ran her fingers through her thick, curly Afro, pausing when she touched the small comb planted near the scalp. Made entirely of non-metallic alloy, it passed the security scanners undetected. But it could be broken down into lockpicks and a microdrive that carried her best jacking programs. She'd free herself, crash the transport's systems, reclaim her property and leave Cash and his crew in the dust. She had to do it in less than twenty hours, but she felt pretty good about her chances.
I'll play along until we get away from TJ. This clown is bound to make a stop somewhere. And when he does, it will be adiós, idiotas.
A scraping sound interrupted her thoughts. She edged backward when a metal panel on the floor moved, slowly raising. A silhouetted head followed, one eye flashing when the light struck it.
Jinx inched as close as the cell bars allowed, squinting at the shadowed figure. "Who the hell are you?"
Chapter 4
"We have a problem, Cash."
The nook kitchen was tiny, barely enough room for Cash to move around. The microstove and fridge took most of the room, with a small round table filling out the remainder. He paused in the act of biting into a roast beef sandwich to glance at the wall monitor, where Deejay's face was displayed.