Unfortunately, that was my logic, which wasn't necessarily the Modhri's. I might be facing a single shooter here, or two, or maybe even three, depending on how much trouble he was expecting from me and how badly he wanted to permanently remove me from the game.
The shooter behind the tree fired again, this shot taking out the front left tire. I rose from behind the car high enough to squeeze off a round at him, stayed there just long enough to persuade any second or third shooters that I was presenting a good target, then ducked down again.
But if there were any others, they didn't avail themselves of the golden opportunity. The Filly behind the tree was the only one who fired as I dropped back into cover. This time his shot hit the pavement two meters to the left of the car and ricocheted off into the darkness.
I looked around some more, feeling the clock ticking down with each passing second. Sooner or later, no matter how messy the Modhri's diversion was, the cops were going to free up enough personnel to come find out what all the shooting was about. Even if they didn't, there might be someone in the neighborhood with a hunting rifle. I needed to get into Veldrick's house, and fast.
But I didn't dare try a sprint across that much open ground until I knew how many opponents I was facing and their approximate positions. The shooter fired again, this shot burying itself somewhere in the front of the car. The engine's idle sputtered a bit, then recovered, and I waited for the second shot that would silence it for good.
But the shot never came. Instead, the tree-based shooter fired again to the side, bouncing the shot off the pavement a couple of meters to my right.
It was a shot that made no tactical sense whatsoever. He wasn't trying to kill me—those side shots hadn't even grazed the car. He might be trying to keep me pinned down while a partner worked his way behind me, but even then the shots should have been much closer to me.
Unless he was already shooting as close to me as he dared.
I looked sideways at the trunk I was leaning against. Back in Karim's bar, the Filly walkers had gone paralytic when McMicking torched that police car half a block away, a police car that had contained a chunk of Modhran coral.
The trunk release was inside the car, directly in my attacker's line of fire. Fortunately, a carefully placed round into the trunk's lock worked just as well. The lid popped open, and I caught a glimpse of a metallic box about the size of one of Rebekah's cargo boxes in the center of the trunk.
An instant later, all hell broke loose.
The Filly behind the tree shifted to quick-fire, his shots suddenly screaming past my head with the desperation of someone with nothing to lose. Simultaneously, a second fusillade began, this one coming from inside Veldrick's open door. Forcing back the reflex to throw myself on the pavement and scramble for the safety of the far side of the car, I lifted my Beretta and fired two rounds into the box.
Abruptly, the gunfire stopped. I fired one more round into the box and then took off at full Olympic sprint toward the house, shifting to the snoozer half of the Beretta's clip as I ran. Halfway across the lawn, I came within sight of the Filly who'd been shooting at me from behind the tree, now standing stiff and shaking, his gun clenched uselessly in his hand. I fired two snoozer rounds into him on the fly, and charged full tilt into the house.
The Filly inside the foyer was just starting to recover. I sent another pair of snoozers into his torso, dropping him to the floor before he could get his hand under enough control to bring his gun to bear. I glanced at the door, saw that it was undamaged, and closed and locked it behind me. Then, striding past the crumpled Filly, I headed into the meditation room.
Veldrick was lying on the floor near his coral display area, marinating in a pool of his own blood. The coral itself was gone, as were two of the six Quadrail shipping crates McMicking had pulled out earlier. The other four boxes were still here, sealed for travel.
I checked Veldrick's pulse, just to make sure, then got out my multitool and pried off the top of one of the crates. There was a chunk of coral inside, resting in a few centimeters of water. That wasn't enough water to keep the coral happy for any serious length of time, I knew, but it would be enough for me to get it to the spaceport and aboard McMicking's torchyacht. Once it was there, he could fill the crates the rest of the way to the top and head out for the Quadrail and, ultimately, his rendezvous with Hardin's buyer.
A quick search of the house took me to Veldrick's garage, where I found a fancy sport van with its rear loading door open and the other two Quadrail crates inside. Returning to the meditation room, I lugged the other four crates to the garage and loaded them aboard. Then, climbing in behind the wheel, I opened the garage and headed into the night.
I waited until I was driving north on Broadway toward the spaceport before I called McMicking. "What's your status?" I asked when he came on.
"No trouble so far," he said. "They've gone to ground and are holding."
"Good," I said, freshly conscious of the crates of coral bouncing along behind me. I didn't know whether the polyp colonies could hear me when the coral wasn't completely submerged, but this was no time to take chances. "I've got Veldrick's coral here in the car with me."
"Good," McMicking said, the subtle change in his voice telling me that he'd caught the implication. "Any trouble?"
"Plenty," I told him. "The good news is that I snoozed both of my Fillies, which should leave us only two to deal with. Have they shown their faces recently, by the way?"
"Not that I've seen," McMicking said. "Probably won't, either. Why scour the countryside when there's a perfectly good choke point at the end of the line?"
"Why, indeed?" I agreed grimly. "The bad news is that they got to Veldrick before I did. He's dead."
There was a soft hiss from the comm. "That's not going to go down well at the head office."
"At this point the head office is the least of my concerns," I said bluntly. "The Modhri's already tried to frame me once for murder. I have a bad feeling this is attempt number two."
"Meaning we need to get you off the planet before the balloon goes up," McMicking said. "Okay. Get to the spaceport as fast as you can and wait there for me. I've got a few resources I can pull together, but it'll take some time."
"Got it," I said, frowning down the softly lit street ahead of me. Did he really have some trick up his sleeve, or had that last comment been solely for the Modhri's benefit?
At this point, though, it hardly mattered. Getting off New Tigris with Bayta and Rebekah in tow was still the plan du jour, and whatever McMicking had planned would have to work around that. "Just make it snappy," I warned. "The timeline is running a little thin."
"I'll be as fast as I can," he promised. "Hang in there."
"Right."
I keyed off, then punched in Bayta's number. "Everything all right?" I asked when she answered.
"So far," she said. "What about you?"
"A couple of small problems, but nothing I can't handle," I told her. No point in telling her about Veldrick now. "I'm on my way. Give me a few minutes to check things out, and I'll let you know when it's safe to come in, the way I did on Veerstu."
"Veerstu?" she asked, sounding puzzled.
"Yes, Veerstu," I said, leaning a little on the last word.
"Oh—right," she said. "Be careful."
"You, too."
I didn't know how sensitive the Modhran coral's hearing Was back there in the rear of my van, so just to be on the safe side I tapped the edge of my comm right beside the off button, hopefully making the same sound as I would if I'd actually turned the thing off. Then, with the comm still transmitting, I closed it and put it back into my jacket. On Veerstu, I'd done things a bit differently, but the effect here would be much the same, allowing Bayta to eavesdrop on whatever happened from now on. If and when the Modhri decided to get cute, at least this way she and Karim would instantly know about it.