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them to their seats midway in the sky liner
After the luggage was stowed, Jenny settled into a window seat.
"There's something I'd like to discuss with you, Gomez."
He was rubbing at a spot low on his back. "Go ahead."
"It's about Cardigan."
"If you have any questions about Jake, ask Jake."
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"I simply don't think the man should be working on this case."
"The way I understand it, you don't think I should be either."
"But you're simply an annoying nitwit," she told him. "Cardigan though, is
much too emotionally upset to be at all objective about--"
"I've worked with Jake, off and on, for a long time," he told her.
"He's got a temper, sure, but he's a damn good investigator and--"
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:'
"You know it's standard practice to take an agent off a case that
Ii
":. has anything to do with someone he was closely involved with."
"That's not the way the Cosmos Agency does business," he said. "And now, in
the interest of smooth sailing, I suggest that you quit nagging and change the
topic."
"I'm not a nag," she argued. "Anyone with more than a peanut for a brain would
realize that. Making useful suggestions doesn't--"
"Cease this," said Gomez quietly.
Jenny eyed him for a few seconds, then turned away to stare out the window.
The gaunt young man in the long black overcoat stumbled.
Jake, the slip of paper clutched in his hand, was a half block behind him. He
slowed now, waiting for the young man to regain his balance
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and continue on his way.
The rain was growing heavier and immediately ahead of him a heavyset blonde
woman clicked on her force field umbrella.
Jake's quarry was moving again, hurrying in a longlegged, jittery way.
The skirt of his black overcoat flapped and billowed.
From a sausage shop on Jake's right a plump man came hurrying He clutched a
large plyowrapped parcel of soy wurst and engraved on his bald, polished head
was a bloodred swastika.
Up ahead the thin young man went scurrying around a corner.
Jake opened his hand and read the note again. "She's still alive."
He wanted that to be true. And if Beth were alive, he had to find her.
"But she can't be," he told himself.
He'd seen her die, seen the damn explosion on the damn vid screen.
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"That could' ye been faked," he reminded himself inside his head.
Unlikely, though. Just because you wanted something to be true, that
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sure as hell didn't mean it was. Beth's murder and the deaths of the others
had all been investigated. By the Berlin police and by several
United States agencies.
"But they haven't been investigated by me."
The young man in the black overcoat had entered a small park.
A rundown, weedy square with a rusted metallic arch rising up at its center.
Spelled out on the arch in dim, dusty plazbulbs was
UNTERGRUNDSTADI.
Jake could hear the rusty metal gate creak open from across the way.
The man he was following pushed through the old gate, headed down the shadowy
stairway beneath the arch.
When Jake reached the staircase, he heard footsteps come echoing up from
underground.
Easing his stun gun out of his shoulder holster, he slipped it into his jacket
pocket and kept his fingers around the grip.
The metallic steps were part of a non functioning escalator system that
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descended deep under the streets of Berlin. Every few yards a pale ball of
yellow light floated, barely pushing back the surrounding darkness.
There was a thick smell of damp earth all around and a prickly chill hanging
in the air.
Halting after he'd been climbing down for a few minutes, Jake listened.
He could still hear the footfalls down below him as someone moved deeper into
the rundown underground town.
After he'd dropped one more level down, he heard noise and saw lights off
beyond the stairway. People were laughing, a robopiano was playing. The German
words for food, sausage, beer and sex floated in the air, spelled out in
twisted tubes of colored light.
He caught a glimpse of the young man as he ducked into a narrow saloon.
The name scrawled over the neo brick entrance in glochalk was
M^uxwuRv
CI, UB.
His right hand clutching the stun gun in his pocket, Jake pushed the swing
doors open with his left.
The room beyond was small, cold, smelling of mold and decay. All but
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one of its ten small tables were empty and behind the bar stood a large robot
bartender who'd long ago been painted crimson.
There was no sign of the young man Jake had been trailing. Occupying the table
nearest the doorway was a pink faced moustached man in a grey suit. His
feathery blond hair was parted neatly in the middle and he wore a pair of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]