“They didn’t work.”
“Just give them a few seconds longer. The chains will wrap themselves around an axle, and drag the stars through the rubber—”
Romy saw a puff of dust as the front left tire blew out.
“—tearing the tire to shreds.”
The Jeep swerved on the gravel and then another tire blew. The van left it behind in the dark, eating dust.
“Back to that 78 sign, Patrick,” Zero called, “and please don’t miss it this time.”
Romy gazed at Zero and tried to sort through the strange mix of emotions scattering through her at that moment. They were warm—no, they were hot—and if this wasn’t love, it should be.
Luca thumbed theSEND button on his ringing PCA. It was Stritch.
“I’m in the crib now,” he said. “Our buddy Benny here is in charge of forty-two sims, and that’s how many I count.”
“Count again. You made a mistake.”
“I’ve counted three times already. There’s forty-two sims here; not forty-three, not forty-one. Forty-two.”
“Then he’s lying about the number.”
“That’s what I thought so I made him show me his records. Sure enough: forty-two.”
Portero growled and hung up. All sims accounted for? Then where did the sim in the van come from?
The PCA rang again. Snyder this time. His voice sounded strange…nasal.
“Give me some good news.”
“We lost them.”
Luca’s car swerved when he heard the words and he didn’t trust himself to drive. He pulled over and listened to Snyder’s long-winded, jumbled, broken-nosed, ass-covering version of whatever really happened, blaming it on a guy in a ski mask or some such shit. When it was over Luca broke the connection and sat with his forehead resting on the steering wheel. For the first time in his adult life, Luca Portero wanted to cry.
9
NEWARK, NJ
DECEMBER 23
“All right,” Zero said, peering through the pre-dawn light at the McDonald’s four blocks ahead. “Let’s stop here.”
He sat with Tome and Kek in the rear of the van. Patrick had the wheel as usual, Romy at his side.
Zero yawned. Tired. They all were tired. And they should be. A long night that he, Romy, and Patrick had spent spray-painting the van. He’d had no way of finding a new one on such short notice, so now the old one sported a glossy black coat and New Jersey tags he’d picked from a pile of old plates he’d found in a Staten Island junkyard.
He glanced at his watch: 6:45A .M. and still no sun. Not due to rise for another half hour. Newark hadn’t risen yet either, most of it still asleep on this cold Sunday morning. He’d wrestled all night with the timing of his approach to Meerm. Assuming he could find her, it would be safer for all concerned to make contact under cover of darkness. But he was sure Meerm would be frightened of anyone she couldn’t see. That necessitated a daylight approach, multiplying the risks of being spotted.
He stared at the McDonald’s, Beece’s key landmark. He’d told Tome he’d been able to see its golden arches over a fence near Meerm’s hiding place. Beece had made no mention of crossing the avenue, which meant Meerm was hiding someplace behind the McDonald’s.
A detailed aerial reconnaissance photo would have told him all he needed to know, but since he didn’t have one of those, he’d have to proceed by trial and error.
“Okay,” he told Patrick. “Let’s make this first right up here and see if you can position us a couple of blocks behind the McDonald’s. We’ll work our way back toward it from there.”
“Gotcha,” Patrick said, and put the van in gear.
“Everyone keep an eye out for Portero’s people.”
“If you see a green Taurus,” Romy said, grinning at Zero over her shoulder, “it won’t be them.”
Patrick laughed. “Right! I’ll bet it’ll be next week before anyone can see through that windshield again.”
Zero grinned beneath his ski mask. Fortunately no shots had been traded. Romy’s pistol last night had unsettled him. Their pursuers undoubtedly had seen Tome get into the van—why else would they have followed?—and so Zero guessed they’d want the sim alive as a lead to Meerm. He’d figured—hoped was more like it—that they wouldn’t fire unless fired upon. He was glad he’d brought along some alternative weaponry.
However, if they ran into any of Portero’s men today, they’d be edgy, might shoot first and worry later about who they hit. That was why he’d brought Kek along. He glanced back at the gorilla-mandrill hybrid crouched by the rear door. He wore black coveralls cinched with the belt that held his Special Forces knife. His snout was a cool blue and he seemed relaxed, but Zero knew if provoked he could explode into violence in the blink of an eye.
As Zero turned forward again, he caught Romy staring at him, her eyes almost luminous in the dimness. She’d been doing that a lot since their time together in the rear of the van last night. He sensed it was more than combat bonding, feared it might be infatuation. That sort of look from Romy should have made him giddy, but instead it weighed on Zero. A look was the limit, the most he could ever hope for.
After zigzagging through the narrow streets, Patrick stopped the van by the mouth of an alley running between a rundown tenement and an abandoned brick building that might have been a factory once. Pigeons clustered in its broken window frames, cooing and watching.
“Unless my sense of direction is completely out of whack,” Patrick said, pointing down the alley, “the McDonald’s is two blocks that-a-way.”
“All right then, Tome,” Zero said. “It’s up to you and me now. Let’s go find Meerm.”
The old sim looked at Patrick and Zero could sense the bond between them. Patrick nodded. “Go ahead, Tome. You can do it.”
“Yes, Mist Sulliman. Tome try best.”
Patrick rolled down his window and checked the street. “All clear.”
Zero pushed open a rear door and hopped down. As soon as Tome was out he started to push it closed and found Romy staring at him again.
“Be careful,” she said.
Zero could only nod.
He hurried Tome off the sidewalk and into the narrow alley. As they moved through the litter and the rubble, their breath steaming in the frigid air, Zero glanced up and was surprised to see a number of clotheslines stretching above them; one sported a bra and a very large set of white panties. Apparently the tenement wasn’t as deserted as it looked.
“If you were Meerm,” Zero said to Tome, keeping his voice low, “and you were in here and frightened, and looking for a place to hide, which way would you go?”
“Tome not Meerm.”
“Yes, but imagine you were.”
“What is ’magine?”
How to explain that? Maybe Tome wasn’t capable of imagining. But he’d imagined starting a sim union, hadn’t he. Imagining a solution to a problem, though, wasn’t the same as pretending to be someone else.
But if I can do it, why can’t Tome?
“We can talk about imagining later,” Zero told him. “Right now we need to find a spot where we can see the golden arches over a fence, isn’t that what Beece said?”
“Yes. Say Meerm in metal door with red write.”
A metal door with red writing…that was their best clue. If they had a big search party, and unlimited time, and could comb the area openly without fear of being attacked, Zero had no doubt they’d find Meerm before the morning was out. But with just him and Tome…
They arrived in a small quadrangular courtyard that once must have served as a dump for the surrounding buildings. No fence, no McDonald’s arches, no metal door with red writing.
They moved on into another alley, misaligned with the one they’d just left. They were halfway to the next street when Zero noticed a low passage, five feet high at most, cutting away through the wall of the building to their left. He stooped and saw daylight at the far end.