It had been the usual routine: concentrating on his magical masking and camouflage, perceiving astrally from a safe distance, prowling around the seamless magical barriers, testing gently for any unusual responses or activities. But nothing unusual ever turned up. No combat mages returning the astral surveillance, no body-armored goons roaring forth in APVs. But then, this was England, nothing like what Serrin was used to back home.
Just for the hell of it, he decided to break the speed limit on the flat, straight road back to the heart of the sprawl. Roaring along the riverbank, he seriously startled some students poling flat-bottomed punts along the River Cam, but none actually fell into the stinking water. Serrin had read in his guidebook that ingesting a mouthful of the river water gave you a flat 10 percent chance of death by chemistry, while sometimes a puntful of students got swallowed by one of the paranimals that wandered downstream from the Stinkfens to the east. But the students still went on punting, as if the simple tradition of it all could defy the realities of a ravaged earth. People just went on: punting on rivers of filth, buying demitech that’d kill them more times than it’d work, going to butchers to get questionable cyberware implanted in street clinics, believing in another green guru with a smile on his face and a corporate credstick stuck up his ass.
Serrin had not been feeling his best that afternoon, but getting away with speeding had lifted his spirits some. Wandering into the hotel foyer, distinctly more grimy and unappealing than most of the clientele, he grinned in spite of himself. Maybe it was time for some late lunch and a decent bit of protein.
Striding toward the maitre d’ in the restaurant overlooking Parker’s Piece, the one patch of parkland left in Cambridge’s central zone, Serrin saw the first of the suits and goons arriving for the weekend seminar. Credsticks were flashing at the reception desk, and the troll chauffeurs looked stereotyped to perfection in their light gray uniforms and visors. Every bulge was in the right place, from the biceps to the licensed pistols secreted at hip and armpit.
Heading up the stairs toward the Churchill Suite were a pair of elves, their spell fetishes in plain view. Security was going to be obvious and strict. Serrin could understand why his employers had asked him to do a little tailing out of town if he was supposed to be checking out a couple of the participants here. From a purely logical point of view, he’d never doubt that this was the real purpose of his expensive jaunt at his anonymous employer’s expense. But that unknown something that hovered beyond logic wouldn’t let him rest with that.
He picked at his food, gripped by restlessness. He hated having a definite job to do and then having to wait around to do it. He amused himself with crazy ideas of bluffing his way into one of the laboratories by claiming to be a corporate exec or some university science whiz, or of rustling up a fake ID and doing something outrageous purely for the hell of it. Not that he ever did such things, but fantasizing about it passed the time.
He was staring gloomily down the hallway, dawdling over the remains of a creme brulee that had resolutely failed to ignite his appetite, when he saw the hint of a face vanish into the elevator. His heart missed a beat, damn nearly missed a second, and he had to swallow hard to keep from throwing up right there in the middle of the restaurant.
Mustering as much nonchalance as he could in his shaken state, Serrin strolled to the reception desk. Having dressed for lunch, and looking more respectable than usual, he thought he just might get away with it. Besides, he was booked for the whole weekend, so he really was the part, whether he looked it or not.
“Excuse me. The gentleman who just arrived,” he breezed to the receptionist, “he’s an old friend of mine. Which is his suite?" He took a chance that Kuranita wouldn’t have taken an ordinary room. The receptionist might be fooled by that little touch, and thus give it away.
She was cooler than that, and she didn’t. “I’m sorry, sir. We cannot provide room numbers of guests without their express permission.”
“Of course, I understand. I’ll catch up with him later." He smiled politely, but he’d seen all he needed to. The ID was still flickering on the vidscreen. James Kuruyama, Communication Management Associates, Chiltern Suite. So it was a false ID, although the company seemed to be plausible enough. Serrin dimly recalled CMA as a subsidiary of the great megacorporation that actually employed Kuranita these days.
But what the hell was Paul Kuranita, Deputy Head of Active Security for Fuchi Switzerland, doing here under this alias?
Back in his room, Serrin had a lot to think about as he took his fetishes and focuses from their silk wraps. Next he unfolded the outer casing of his attache case, drew out the components of the Ingram, and began to assemble them, screwing and clipping the gun together. When he had finished, he hefted its weight in his left hand for a few moments before slamming a clip of ammunition home with a pleasing click.
In all the years since his parents had been murdered, the missile striking down the Renraku chopper with unerring accuracy, Serrin had never been able to get more than a lead on a single name.
Paul Kuranita.
The man had been untouchable, a brilliant freelance samurai whose movements were untraceable, until the troll in Jo’burg had left him so badly burned that all the reconstructive surgery and spare parts his millions could buy had not been able to put him back together. For six years, Kuranita had worked his way up the ladder of the Fuchi organization. Deputy Head of Active Security for Switzerland sounded like a joke, unless one knew that the Head was hopelessly senile and no more than a figurehead. The joke was even less amusing because of how powerful the Swiss division was in coordinating all of Fuchi’s European activities.
Serrin had never been a hundred percent sure of Kuranita’s complicity in his parents’ deaths. The evidence was only circumstantial, but then it could never be more than that with someone like Kuranita. Now, however, fortune had brought the assassin to Serrin, and he wasn’t going to pass up his chance.
He began to plan carefully. Immediate magical surveillance would be a mistake, of course, but perhaps some nuyen thrown to the garage attendant for information on Kuranita’s limo would be good for starters.
By the time the mage had made his plans, the world beyond his room had fallen dark. Passing through the lobby and down the emergency stairs to the garage, he did not see the nobleman gawking almost stupidly at him from the reception desk.
Geraint had no time to chase after the elf, as he was immediately stopped in his tracks by a relieved Earl of Smethwick. The earl was delighted to see him again and would really love to introduce Geraint to some distinctly tipsy young woman from OzNet who was digging up bits for a trid feature on the seminar. The pressure of Smethwick’s hand gripping his forearm unerringly conveyed the message, "Get this gopping bimbo off my tail and I’ll owe you a massive favor, friend,” with pressing urgency.
With just the hint of a sigh, Geraint decided to do Smethwick a good turn and turned to the woman, a blowsy type who clearly favored applying her make-up with a troweL Geraint’s first few applications of insincere Celtic charm seemed to be received with an almost devotional eagerness by the tridjock. She’d probably been given the cold shoulder by almost everyone else here that evening, and there was something almost touching about her relief at finding someone willing to talk to her. Hell, maybe her job was on the line; she was obviously only a junior. At least I can buy her dinner, Geraint thought, and make sure I don’t let anything slip.
He took her arm in his and headed for the flambee.
“It is not really predictable. I don’t think this is such a well-planned step.”