Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan Page B

up and looked hard at him.
    “Anyway, where’s your gun, hotshot?”
    “At least it’s
loaded.
”
    “All right, old piece of folk wisdom coming up.” Chris gulped his breath back under control. “A gun in the hand is worth
half a fucking million locked in the car.
”
    “Yeah, you’re right.” Bryant’s grin flashed in the gloom. “But I wasn’t expecting this kind of trouble. We’re only a couple of klicks inside the zones. These guys are out of their territory.”
    “You think they know that?” Chris nodded out toward the street, where voices were coming back. Some of the jacker gang, at least, were retracing their steps. He jabbed an urgent finger upward, and Bryant took the creaking stairs into the darkness at the top. Chris slid back along the hallway toward the tiled room and sank into the shadows there. The stench enveloped him. The floor was slimy underfoot. He tried not to breathe.
    A moment later two of the jackers were standing where he had just been. Both were armed with long crowbars.
    “I don’t see why we need the keys anyway. Why not just smash the fucking window.”
    “Because, moron, this is a BMW Omega series.” The other jacker cast a doubtful glance up the stairs. “State-of-the-fucking-art corporate jam jar. These mothers have alarms, engine immobilization locks, and a broadcast scream to the nearest retrieval center. You’d never move it a hundred meters down the fucking street before they got you.”
    “We could still smash it, anyway. Rip it up.”
    “Ruf, you got no fucking ambition, man. If it weren’t for Molly, you’d still be smashing up telephone points and throwing stones at cabs. You got to think
bigger
than that. Come on, I don’t think they came in here. Too much chance of getting their suits dirty. Let’s—”
    Chris’s foot slipped. Knocked against something that rolled on the tiled floor. Clink of glass. Chris gritted his teeth and slinked one hand down to the butt of his empty gun. The two jackers had frozen by the door.
    “Hear that?” It was the ambitious member of the duo. Chris saw a silhouetted wrecking bar raised in the faint light from the doorway. “Okay, Mister Zek-tiv. Game over. Come out, give us your fucking keys, and maybe we’ll leave you some teeth.”
    The two jackers advanced down the hall. They were about halfway when Mike Bryant dropped through a gap in the banister rail above. He landed feetfirst on the head of the gangwit bringing up the rear. The two of them tumbled to the floor. The lead jacker whipped around at the noise and Chris exploded from his hiding place. He punched hard, high driving for the face and low for the guts. The jacker turned back too late. Chris’s high punch broke his nose and then he folded as the solid right hook sank into his midriff. Chris grabbed the gangwit’s shoulders and ran his shaven head sideways into the staircase wall. Up ahead, he saw Bryant reel to his feet and stamp down hard on the other jacker’s unprotected stomach. The gangwit moaned and curled up. Bryant kicked him again, in the head.
    “Mother
fucker
! Touch my car, you fucking piece of
shit
!”
    Chris laid a hand on his shoulder. Bryant hooked around, face taut.
    “Whoa, it’s all over.” Chris stood back, hands raised. “Game over, Mike. Come on. There’s only three left now. Let’s try for the car again.”
    Bryant’s face cleared of its fury.
    “Yeah, good. Let’s do it.”
    The street outside was quiet. They checked both ways, then slipped out and loped back toward the Falkland, Bryant navigating. Less than five minutes to relocate the corner pub, and the BMW sat gleaming pristinely under the street lamp as if nothing had happened.
    They circled the vehicle warily. Nothing.
    Bryant produced his keys and pressed a button. The alarm disarmed with a subdued squawk. He was about to open the door when the shaven-headed woman stepped out of the shadows of a doorway less than five meters away, a piece of iron railing raised in