"Who is this Modhri?" Karim asked.
"The mastermind behind all of this," I told him, frowning at Rebekah. "Which one does he need?"
"Any of them," she said. With an effort, she lifted the box and staggered back behind the bar with it.
"What are they, duplicate records of some kind?" I asked.
"In a way," she said.
"That's great," I said. I'd never really believed she needed all twenty of the damn things in the first place. "Pick one out for yourself and we'll torch the rest."
"It's not like that," she said, giving me a cross look over her shoulder. "I need all of them."
"That makes no sense whatsoever," I growled. "What the hell's in them?"
"I can't tell you that," Rebekah said. She set down the box and turned back to face me, a stubbornly defiant look on her face.
"That bar may stop police thudwumpers, Rebekah," I said. "But it also might not. Are you willing to risk your life for what's in those boxes?"
"Yes," she said firmly.
"She already has risked her life," Karim added grimly. "She and Lorelei both."
I felt my stomach tighten, thinking back to how Lorelei had died. "Maybe I'm not ready to risk mine," I said.
"You're welcome to leave," Karim invited me tartly. Reaching beneath the bar, he produced an old RusFed P11 military handgun.
"We're not leaving," Bayta said firmly. Her face was flushed with emotion, her eyes hard and cold. Whoever Rebekah was, she'd clearly gotten under my partner's skin.
"Fine," I gave up with a sigh. "Maybe we can have it both ways."
Turning, I headed toward the door. "Where are you going?" Karim called after me.
"To plant a few seeds of doubt," I said over my shoulder. "Go bring up the rest of the boxes. Put them wherever Rebekah wants."
It took me a couple of minutes to move enough of the table barricade Karim and I had built so that I could get through. Unlocking the door, I opened it a crack. "Modhri?" I called. "You out there?"
My answer was the muffled crack of a low-power gunshot and the slap of a snoozer cartridge against the door beside my cheek. "I guess so," I said, hastily closing it a couple more centimeters. "I just wanted to tell you that the Abomination is here with us, right in your line of fire. You might want to think about that before you come charging in with guns blazing. Have a nice day."
I closed the door just as another pair of snoozers shattered themselves into shards against the heavy wood. I locked up again and backed out of the passage I'd created in the barricade. Bayta was waiting, and together we put everything back the way it had been. "Let's get the rest of the drunks out of the way," I said when we were finished.
By the time we'd finished and returned to the relative safety of the bar, Karim had finished stacking Rebekah's boxes behind it. Rebekah herself was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the boxes, a small carrybag beside her. "How are you doing?" I asked her.
"I'm all right," she said, her voice determined but with a little tremble to it. "That won't stop him, you know. I told you he only needs one of them."
"True, but it might slow him down a little," I said, running my eye over the boxes. "They're not alien sculptures, are they?"
She looked at me in astonishment. "Sculptures?"
"Just a thought," I said. "Skip it."
From the other end of the room came a sudden thud. I spun around, yanking my Beretta from its holster. "The window," Karim said. He was standing near the end of the bar, his P11 gripped in his hand. "They're seeing if they can break it without having to shoot it out."
"Can they?" I asked.
There was another thud, a louder one this time. "Probably not," he said. "It's glass, not plastic, but it's tempered."
There was a third thud, this time from one of the windows on the other side of the door. "Can't they just shoot them out?" Bayta asked tensely.
"Can, and probably will," I said. "But guns are noisy things. Not so much with snoozers, but very much with thud-wumpers or other killrounds. The Modhri can't afford to draw police attention until he's ready to move."
"When will that be?" Bayta asked. "It's already almost midnight."
"Maybe they're waiting until—" Karim started.
"Shh!" I hissed, holding up a hand.
The room fell silent. Faintly, in the distance, I heard the sound of multiple sirens. "There's your answer," I said grimly. "He's set up a diversion somewhere across town to keep the police busy."
"Sounds like paramed and fire sirens, too," Karim said, cupping his free hand behind his ear. "It's either a fire or a massive accident."
"Either of which would be easy enough for the Modhri to arrange," I said. "I think we can expect some action soon. Karim, better douse the lights in here. Leave any outside lights on.
He reached beneath the bar, and the dim lights around us flicked off. I took a deep breath, letting my eyes adjust to the faint glow coming through the windows and settling into combat mode.
The minutes dragged by. We crouched in silence behind the bar, except for Rebekah, who sat in silence in front of the boxes, and McMicking, who lay in silence at the side of the room. "What's he waiting for?" Karim muttered.
"It'll be at least another ten or fifteen minutes," I told him. "He'll want to make sure the cops are completely engaged in whatever diversion he's arranged for them before he makes his move."
Seconds later, the two windows on the far sides of the wall exploded inward.
ELEVEN :
Reflexively, I ducked low behind the top of the bar. "Ten minutes?" Karim shouted as a shot slammed into the wall above our heads through one of the shattered windows.
"More or less," I shouted back irritably. That was twice now, first Yandro and now here, that the Modhri had casually undercut a plan or prediction I'd just taken pains to explain to someone. If he was going to kill me, the least he could do was have the courtesy not to destroy my reputation first.
Another shot whizzed past overhead, this one coming from the other window. It was followed immediately by a third shot from the first window, then a fourth from the second window.
I frowned as the shots settled into a pattern, one shot at a time through alternating windows, each on the heels of the one before, all of them tearing through the wood and drywall at least half a meter above our heads. What was the Modhri up to?
Karim was apparently wondering that, too. "He must be trying to keep us pinned down," he shouted over the steady blam-blam-blam of the thudwumpers. "Probably trying to infiltrate."
"From both sides at once?" I shouted back.
"Maybe he's got more ammo than we thought."
I looked back and forth between the two windows. Standard infiltration technique was to pin your opponent down along the infiltration line, covering only one line at a time to conserve ammo.
But that was for open ground, not this kind of urban setting where you had buildings and convenient corners to hide around. He didn't need to cover any line, let alone two at once, until the infiltrators were ready to move.
And they clearly weren't ready. I couldn't see anyone moving out there, through either window. Was he just trying to spook us, then? Goad us into wasting our own shots firing at shadows and unseen enemies?
The shots continued, a steady blam-blam-blam. A steady blam-blam-blam, I noticed suddenly. Not a barrage designed to pin us down. Not even a volley, a group of shots followed by a lull where we were supposed to feel obligated to burn some ammo shooting back. A methodical, steady blam-blam-blam.
He wasn't covering up an infiltration. He was covering up something else.
Something he didn't want me to notice.
I fumbled out my comm. The incoming-call light wasn't glowing, or flashing with the message-waiting signal. No one was trying desperately to get in touch with me.
But maybe the Modhri was afraid someone was about to.