Kris Longknife's Bloodhound, a novella by Mike Shepherd Page A

the business of talking about fishing and the weather than in making money.  Taylor often considered that he might work at the shop one day a week when he retired.  His wife would likely appreciate the break.
    For the next hour, he cast his lot to the sea, and got little back in return but empty hooks.  He suspected the fish around the pier were getting too smart for the usual lures.  He was just starting to consider using something from the bottom of his tackle box, something with an official suggestion that it be used in fast running mountain streams.  After all, why was it in the box in the first place, and how many fish around the pier had ever passed through a fast running mountain stream?
    “Hey, boss, I got something for you,” said Special Agent Leslie Chu as she came up beside him and leaned on the rail.
    “A fish?” he said, not looking her way.
    “Nope, you’re supposed to be the fisherman today, how’s it going?” she said, her own eyes on the water lapping the pier supports.
    “Not a bite.”
    “Sorry about that.  I’ve got a few things that might interest you.”
    “In return for that autographed picture of Princess Kris Longknife?”
    “Partial payment, at best.  Did she really mean that she was sorry she missed me?”
    “With a sparkle in her eye as she wrote it.”
    “Damn, I wish I could have been there,” one of the charter members, no doubt, of the Kris Longknife fan club said with a sigh.
    “It might was better that you were not,” Taylor said.  “She was not having one of her better days.”
    “Yeah.  Sarin gas for God’s sake.”
    As they talked, Taylor had been changing his lure from the official ocean one to the not recommended mountain stream one.  He tried a fly fisherman’s toss to get it well away from the pier and saw it drop nicely between waves.
    “You said you had something for me?”
    Leslie held her wrist unit close to his left hand where his own computer sat.  He heard a very soft series of tones as their two computers shared access codes and then synced.  “There are those merchant marine types you asked about.  All of them have worked for Nuu shipping lines but are on the beach at the moment.”
    “Did you include their height, weight and age?”
    Leslie made a face at the ocean.  It would not make a dent in her cuteness quotient for the day.  “I know Kris Longknife.  I know how she knocks her boats around.  She damn near disability retired an entire planet’s Navy when she was in Training Command and getting folks up to speed on the fast attack boats.  Of course I gave you that stuff.  I don’t know what you’re up to, boss, but if it includes ships trying to keep up with Kris Longknife, they better be crewed for a fast and wild ride.”
    “Very good of you, Agent, but please limit your speculation as to what I’m up to, if you will.  It’s bad enough that I am risking my pension.  I do not want you risking yours.”
    “Understood boss.  By the way, I’ve put a tracer on most of the folks on that list.  I skipped the older types, anyone over forty.  Let me know when you lose interest in any of them or decide some old fart like yourself can keep up with my princess.”
    “Youngster, you are impertinent, and are staying at least one step ahead of your mentor.  Yes, I want to know if any of these folks stop by Alex’s Tower of Insecurity or the shipyards topside.”
    “You going to fish tomorrow?”
    “I don’t know.  It all depends on how my other lures and hooks are working.”
    “I’ll drop by when I have something.  I might even rent some gear and give you a run for your fish.”
    “I’m sure they would find you far more attractive than I,” Taylor said, with a fatherly smile.
    “You bet they would,” she said, and headed up the pier without looking back.
    Why do you young agents make me feel so old? Taylor thought as he turned back to the ocean.  For a long moment, he meditated on it, enjoyed drawing in deep