funeral of the Cleveland Yakusa boss. Strictly trad. They all carried black umbrellas.
He’d lived all his life in 503, A Block.
That enormous thing, leaning in, to stomp Marsha Newmark and her Hitachi flat. And of course it had been meant for him.
“There’s somebody doesn’t mess around,” he heard himself say.
“Hey! My man! Count! You dusted, bro? Hey! Where you headin’!”
The eyes of two Deans twisting to follow him in the course of his headlong panic.
7
THE MALL
C ONROY SWUNG THE blue Fokker off the eroded ribbon of prewar highway and throttled down. The long rooster tail of pale dust that had followed them from Needles began to settle; the hovercraft sank into its inflated apron bag as they came to a halt.
“Here’s the venue, Turner.”
“What hit it?” Rectangular expanse of concrete spreading to uneven walls of weathered cinderblock.
“Economics,” Conroy said. “Before the war. They never finished it. Ten klicks west of here and there’s whole subdivisions, just pavement grids, no houses, nothing.”
“How big a site team?”
“Nine, not counting you. And the medics.”
“What medics?”
“Hosaka’s. Maas is biologicals, right? No telling how they might have our boy kinked. So Hosaka’s built a regular little neurosurgery and staffed it with three hotshots. Two of them are company men, the third’s a Korean who knows black medicine from both ends. The medical pod’s in that long one there”—he pointed—“gotta partial section of roof.”
“How’d you get it on site?”
“Brought it from Tucson inside a tanker. Faked a breakdown. Got it out, rolled it in. Took all hands. Maybe three minutes.”
“Maas,” Turner said.
“Sure.” Conroy killed the engines. “Chance you take,” he said in the abrupt silence. “Maybe they missed it. Our guyin the tanker sat there and bitched to his dispatcher in Tucson on the CB, all about his shit-eating heat exchanger and how long it was going to take to fix it. Figure they picked that up. You think of a better way to do it?”
“No. Given that the client wants the thing on the site. But we’re sitting here now in the middle of their recon footprint . . .”
“Sweetheart”—and Conroy snorted—“maybe we just stopped for a screw. Break up our trip to Tucson, right? It’s that kind of place. People stop here to piss, you know?” He checked his black Porsche watch. “I’m due there in an hour, get a copter back to the coast.”
“The rig?”
“No. Your fucking jet. Figured I handle that myself.”
“Good.”
“I’d go for a Dornier System ground-effect plane myself. Have it wait down the road until we see Mitchell heading in. It could get here by the time the medics clean him up; we toss him in and take off for the Sonora border . . .”
“At subsonic speeds,” Turner said. “No way. You’re on your way to California to buy me that jump jet. Our boy’s going out of here in a multimission combat aircraft that’s barely even obsolete.”
“You got a pilot in mind?”
“Me,” Turner said, and tapped the socket behind his ear. “It’s a fully integrated interactive system. They’ll sell you the interface software and I’ll jack straight in.”
“Didn’t know you could fly.”
“I can’t. You don’t need hands-on to haul ass for Mexico City.”
“Still the wild boy, Turner? You know the rumor’s that somebody blew your dick off, back there in New Delhi?” Conroy swung around to face him, his grin cold and clean.
Turner dug the parka from behind the seat and took out the pistol and the box of ammunition. He was stuffing the parka back again when Conroy said, “Keep it. It gets cold as hell here, at night.”
Turner reached for the canopy latch, and Conroy revved the engines. The hovercraft rose a few centimeters, swaying slightly as Turner popped the canopy and climbed out. White-out sun and air like hot velvet. He took his Mexican sunglasses from the pocket of the blue work shirt
He’d lived all his life in 503, A Block.
That enormous thing, leaning in, to stomp Marsha Newmark and her Hitachi flat. And of course it had been meant for him.
“There’s somebody doesn’t mess around,” he heard himself say.
“Hey! My man! Count! You dusted, bro? Hey! Where you headin’!”
The eyes of two Deans twisting to follow him in the course of his headlong panic.
7
THE MALL
C ONROY SWUNG THE blue Fokker off the eroded ribbon of prewar highway and throttled down. The long rooster tail of pale dust that had followed them from Needles began to settle; the hovercraft sank into its inflated apron bag as they came to a halt.
“Here’s the venue, Turner.”
“What hit it?” Rectangular expanse of concrete spreading to uneven walls of weathered cinderblock.
“Economics,” Conroy said. “Before the war. They never finished it. Ten klicks west of here and there’s whole subdivisions, just pavement grids, no houses, nothing.”
“How big a site team?”
“Nine, not counting you. And the medics.”
“What medics?”
“Hosaka’s. Maas is biologicals, right? No telling how they might have our boy kinked. So Hosaka’s built a regular little neurosurgery and staffed it with three hotshots. Two of them are company men, the third’s a Korean who knows black medicine from both ends. The medical pod’s in that long one there”—he pointed—“gotta partial section of roof.”
“How’d you get it on site?”
“Brought it from Tucson inside a tanker. Faked a breakdown. Got it out, rolled it in. Took all hands. Maybe three minutes.”
“Maas,” Turner said.
“Sure.” Conroy killed the engines. “Chance you take,” he said in the abrupt silence. “Maybe they missed it. Our guyin the tanker sat there and bitched to his dispatcher in Tucson on the CB, all about his shit-eating heat exchanger and how long it was going to take to fix it. Figure they picked that up. You think of a better way to do it?”
“No. Given that the client wants the thing on the site. But we’re sitting here now in the middle of their recon footprint . . .”
“Sweetheart”—and Conroy snorted—“maybe we just stopped for a screw. Break up our trip to Tucson, right? It’s that kind of place. People stop here to piss, you know?” He checked his black Porsche watch. “I’m due there in an hour, get a copter back to the coast.”
“The rig?”
“No. Your fucking jet. Figured I handle that myself.”
“Good.”
“I’d go for a Dornier System ground-effect plane myself. Have it wait down the road until we see Mitchell heading in. It could get here by the time the medics clean him up; we toss him in and take off for the Sonora border . . .”
“At subsonic speeds,” Turner said. “No way. You’re on your way to California to buy me that jump jet. Our boy’s going out of here in a multimission combat aircraft that’s barely even obsolete.”
“You got a pilot in mind?”
“Me,” Turner said, and tapped the socket behind his ear. “It’s a fully integrated interactive system. They’ll sell you the interface software and I’ll jack straight in.”
“Didn’t know you could fly.”
“I can’t. You don’t need hands-on to haul ass for Mexico City.”
“Still the wild boy, Turner? You know the rumor’s that somebody blew your dick off, back there in New Delhi?” Conroy swung around to face him, his grin cold and clean.
Turner dug the parka from behind the seat and took out the pistol and the box of ammunition. He was stuffing the parka back again when Conroy said, “Keep it. It gets cold as hell here, at night.”
Turner reached for the canopy latch, and Conroy revved the engines. The hovercraft rose a few centimeters, swaying slightly as Turner popped the canopy and climbed out. White-out sun and air like hot velvet. He took his Mexican sunglasses from the pocket of the blue work shirt
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