Critical Space ak-5 Read online

  "I'm going to talk to the square badges once more, " Natalie radioed. "Make certain they know how to use the copies of the handout."

  We all radioed back confirmations.

  "Doors open in five minutes, " Corry said.

  Again, we radioed confirmations.

  Palmetto finished with Her Ladyship, and it seemed to have gone well, because he left her laughing, then stopped to speak with me before leaving the room.

  "Kodiak, right?" he asked, offering me his hand.

  "Right," I said, trying to decide what to do with the potential shake. If I took it, one of my hands would be busy. If I didn't, I'd be rude. I decided it was safe enough in the room to be polite. "Nice to meet you."

  "Hey, it's my pleasure." He smiled at me the same way he had at Lady Ainsley-Hunter. "Listen, you and your colleagues, you ought to do the show sometime, maybe next week, what do you think? We could do the whole hour with you guys, talk about your job, the work, Skye Van Brandt, stuff like that. We could even get that other writer, the journalist with the book. What do you think?"

  "We're busy through the month," I said.

  The soothe-the-celebrity smile didn't falter. "No problem. Tell you what, leave me a card or something, we'll get in touch, work it out."

  "I'll do that," I lied.

  He offered his hand again, and because I'd accepted the first time, I was obligated to once more. Then he went out into the hall, and I shut the door, turned back to see Lady Ainsley-Hunter saying something to Chester and the woman who was touching up her hair; both laughed. The hairdresser was gray-haired, very thin, and kept a long cigarette parked behind her ear.

  "Tinkerbell, " Dale said over the radio. "Two of the Lost Boys are here to see you."

  "Stand by," I said. "Hook, check six."

  "Check six, confirmed, " Moore said. "Be about a minute."

  Both Chester and Her Ladyship glanced my way.

  "Nothing serious," I told them. "Moore's going to spell me here. I've got to step out for a second."

  "Check six?" Chester asked.

  "It's a sneaky way of saying 'I need to step outside,' " I said. "Keeps anyone listening from knowing what we're up to."

  The hairdresser finished what she was doing and I let her out of the dressing room as Moore arrived. He took over my post, and I went down the long hallway to the back door, passing two security guards along the way. I stopped long enough to make certain both had the handout, asking them to each show me theirs, and they glared at me.

  "We know who we're looking for," the younger of the two said. "We've been doing this for a while."

  "Prove it to me," I said.

  "Just because we're not famous doesn't mean we don't know how to do our jobs," the other one complained. He had the shoulders and upper arms of a person who has spent too much time lifting weights to the neglect of everything below the waist and, apparently, above the neck.

  I smiled at the two of them, thanked them for their help, and continued out the back. Bridgett and Fowler were there, standing with Dale by the parked cars. Bridgett frowned when she saw me.

  "You're ill," she said.

  "And now cranky," I said. "Dale, get inside and have the two guards in the hall replaced with another set, please. They've got an attitude problem."

  Dale rolled his shoulders and pretended to crack his knuckles, as if preparing to hand out a beating. "Me go be mean now," he said.

  I turned back to Bridgett and Scott. "Keith's not in Newark?"

  "We tracked him to a Best Western in Nyack," Fowler said. "He was there last night, checked out this morning. We missed him by maybe an hour. Got a positive visual I.D., but nothing on his transportation and no idea where he went next. He didn't make any calls and he didn't leave anything behind."

  "But you two are here," I said.

  Bridgett put the back of her right hand to my forehead, and I moved my head back, irritated. "You've got a fever."

  "I feel fine. Why are you two here?"

  "Because there's a chance Keith's coming here," Bridgett said, squinting at me, as if trying to see the virus clambering about in my bloodstream. "And we don't know where else to look."

  "And we're both fans of the show," Scott said. "Where do you want us?"

  "If you'd like to head around the front and meet up with Corry, two extra pairs of eyes couldn't hurt."

  The door behind us opened and Dale emerged, grinning. "Taken care of," he reported. "I talked to Palmetto, he moved Heckle and Jeckle to the fire exits in the studio."

  I nodded, then radioed Corry to tell him that the Lost Boys would be coming around to join him. All posts radioed back a confirmation, and Scott and Bridgett followed me back inside. A new guard was in the hall, and before we had even reached him, he had produced his copy of the handout and held it up for me to see.

  "Thank you," I said.

  The guard grunted.

  When we reached the dressing room Scott and Bridgett kept going, but not before Bridgett stopped long enough to squeeze my hand and give me another kiss.

  "Midge wanted to know if we're still friends," I told her.

  "We're still friends."

  "I'm asking for her sake more than my own."

  "That perky bitch wants into your pants. If I sleep at your place tonight, I'll shoot her."

  "How do you know she's after me? Maybe she's hoping you're available."

  "The only thing that isn't straight about that woman is her perm," Bridgett said.

  ***

  At oh-nine-hundred, Natalie came on the net to let us know that the house doors were being opened. I passed the news along to Her Ladyship, and we all settled in to wait. After fifteen minutes, the stage manager came back to check on us, saying that if Her Ladyship wished to move backstage, that would be fine.

  I got on the radio again. "Wendy and Peter to station two."

  The confirmations came back in their normal order, and we headed down the hall toward the stage. The set for the show was designed to look like the living room in some lavish penthouse apartment, with a fake Manhattan skyline painted on the backdrop. The audience noise was muted backstage, but it sounded like a lot of people. We stood to one side while stagehands scrambled back and forth with final preparations, and then Palmetto came by once more, just to check on everything, before heading to his position just off the stage.

  "You'd think they'd introduce me to the hosts," Lady Ainsley-Hunter said.

  "It's American television," I said. "The assumption is that you already know them."

  "Is that really how it works?"

  "I have no clue. I don't watch much television."

  "Have you ever seen Talk New York!?"

  I nodded.

  "And?"

  It took me a moment to find something to say. "You're going to reach a very large audience."

  "Oh, my. That bad, is it?"

  "Depends on what you think about papier-mache centerpieces and fad diets."

  The lights in the studio dimmed, and the stage lights came up. The audience began applauding, and from the opposite side of the stage the hosts came out, a man and a woman. Both were well dressed and heavily made up, and each carried a mug, presumably full of coffee, that had the show's logo on its front. Both hosts were very white, very friendly, and they began by addressing the audience, telling them that it would be a terrific show, that their "very special guest" today was an actual member of the Royal Family, Lady Antonia Ainsley-Hunter, and that she'd be with them for the full hour. There was a burst of applause, and from the corner of my eye I saw Her Ladyship shaking her head slightly, amused. The host and hostess went on to say who the other guests were, and they mentioned the author's name, so I figured his being bumped wasn't a foregone conclusion.

  Then the stage manager announced that they were one minute from air, and everyone took positions, and the lights changed again. The theme came up over the speakers, then the announcer's voice, basically repeating what we'd already heard from the host and hostess. A
sign by my shoulder lit up announcing we were on the air.

  The crowd went wild.

  Chester and I watched from the edge of the set. Across from us, I could see Moore in position, scanning the audience. The radio traffic was almost nonexistent, with Natalie or Corry or Moore occasionally noting some movement or action, but nothing major.

  Lady Ainsley-Hunter went out on stage after the show returned from its first commercial break, and she got another thunderous round of applause, and she stopped when it began and faced the audience, giving them a good look and a modest bow. The host and hostess started with the obvious platitudes and questions, and she handled them gracefully and with self-effacing humor. After a couple of minutes they gave her the opening to talk about her work, and she explained why she was in New York, and she talked about Together Now, and the desperate plight of the world's children, and they put a tape up on the monitor, showing sweatshop conditions in Central America. The audience responded with the appropriate noises of sympathy, and when the clip was finished, the phone number, Web, and mail addresses of Together Now went on-screen. Then the show broke for another commercial, and when it resumed, the comedian came out and did a short routine, then joined the party around the table. He made a couple jokes about the English in general and got some laughs, and Lady Ainsley-Hunter was a good sport about it. After the next commercial break, the author came out and talked about his book – it was a cookbook – and everyone gathered in the faux kitchen to bake some low-calorie cookies and have a generally fine time.

  Then it was ending, and the host and hostess were thanking everyone for coming and promising that tomorrow's show would be just as fabulous as today's, and the theme music came up again. The crowd was jubilant, perhaps because they loved what they'd seen. Maybe they were just glad the show was over.

  Moore came around and got into position with me, and Lady Ainsley-Hunter came off the set. She was perspiring from the heat of the lights, and I took the lead as we made our way back down the hall to the green room, Chester following.

  "I could do with some water," Ainsley-Hunter said as we reached the door. "They stick you into a sauna and the only thing they offer you to drink is coffee."

  "We'll get you some water before we go," I said, and I opened the dressing room door to find Joseph Keith, the trousers of his new navy blue suit around his ankles, his penis erect and in his hand, masturbating furiously. The lights around the makeup mirror were on, and they lit him completely, and they spared no detail, and it was apparent he'd already climaxed once. His blue tie was flipped over his left shoulder, and around his neck hung a laminated card, and I realized it was a backstage pass at the same time that I realized he'd also brought with him a bouquet of flowers, a box of candy, and what looked like a short sword, all laid out on the table before him.

  "Shit," I said, pressing the button in my left palm and grabbing Lady Ainsley-Hunter with my free hand. I had already started into the room, and I pulled her with me and then pushed her back against the wall, covering her with my body.

  Chester swallowed a shriek, more of astonishment than of horror, and then Moore was past us. Keith had let go of himself and was now reaching with both hands for either the candy or the sword, but he never made it. Moore took him with a shoulder-check, knocking Keith back from the mirror and into the wall, and then grabbing his hair with one hand and his right wrist with the other. Keith howled in pain, then went quiet as Moore spun him about, and drove him headfirst into the wall.

  That was the last I saw of it, because by then I'd turned back to Lady Ainsley-Hunter and started hustling her back down the hall, calling into my radio that we were evacuating, that Timmy should get the car going, that Tinkerbell and Wendy were coming out. Confirmations came back, tumbling over one another, and we were at the exit when Natalie came sprinting around the corner, making for the Benz. Dale had the engine going and Natalie yanked the rear passenger door open, scanning the sides. A cluster of autograph-seekers started to surge forward at the sight of us, then balked when they sensed they weren't watching a traditional, post-show departure. I climbed in first, guiding Her Ladyship after me, and then Natalie tumbled in, and we were moving into traffic when Moore came over the line.

  "Hostile is down. Hostile is down and secure. Where's Wendy?"

  "Tink and Smee have Wendy," I radioed. "Timmy's leading us back to the treehouse. Suggest you and Peter meet with Lost Boys to help with hostile."

  "Confirmed. Advise John meet you at treehouse and unlock the door."

  "Confirmed, out," I said, and then to Dale, added, "Take the long way."

  "Way ahead of you," he replied.

  Lady Ainsley-Hunter had both hands over her mouth and was bent in her seat, her head down, and Natalie had a hand on her back, her expression pure concern. My first thought was that, once again, Her Ladyship was vomiting, but then I saw Natalie start to smile, and she looked at me over our principal, and I realized that I wasn't hearing sobs but laughter.

  "What the hell happened in there?" Natalie asked me.

  Lady Ainsley-Hunter tried to explain, but couldn't stop laughing long enough to do it, so I did. "Keith was beating off in the dressing room."

  Natalie's mouth opened in amazement. From the front, Dale coughed sharply.

  "He was in a suit and tie and he'd brought flowers!" Lady Ainsley-Hunter managed to say. "I know it's not funny, I know, but… I barely had a chance to see him, the next thing I know Atticus has me against the wall and then Robert is flying through the doorway and there's this tremendous crash, and this poor man is against the wall, trousers at his ankles."

  She covered her mouth again, unable to stop laughing.

  "There was a weapon," I told Natalie.

  That stopped Her Ladyship's giggles. "Was there?"

  "A sword."

  "Oh, dear. I suppose that makes a certain sense."

  "How do you figure?"

  "They had swords in ancient Sumer, didn't they?"

  "Point," I said.

  Her Ladyship sank back against the seat, and I took the opportunity to reach around her and get her seat belt fastened. She watched me, amused, and when I was finished she asked, "And what are we doing now?"

  "Taking you back to the hotel."

  "But it's over and done with, Atticus. Surely, Mr. Keith is not getting away from Robert, and I'm perfectly fine. I certainly don't need to go back to the hotel."

  "It's SOP," Natalie explained. "We need to get you back to a secure location, to make certain that nothing else is brewing. We're giving Corry time to get back to the hotel first, to check that there aren't any surprises waiting for us in the suite. Keith could have been a decoy."

  "A decoy?"

  Natalie looked across Her Ladyship at me. "He may not be the only one interested in you."

  Lady Ainsley-Hunter turned her attention to me. "What haven't you told me?"

  "Keith isn't the only potential threat. We've no reason to believe there's anything else brewing, but it pays to be careful."

  She started to ask again, then stopped and merely nodded. Then she started laughing again.

  "All that work," Lady Ainsley-Hunter said. "Just to show me his little sword…"

  Dale circled midtown until Corry radioed that he'd reached the suite and that all was secure. Natalie radioed back that we'd be there in five minutes, perhaps a little longer. When we reached the Edmonton, we debussed from the front, Natalie and I escorting Her Ladyship briskly through the lobby to the service elevator. When the car arrived, I keyed my transmitter.

  "Wendy's on her way up," I said.

  "Treehouse is cozy, " Corry radioed back.

  We got into the elevator, putting Her Ladyship at the back while Natalie pressed the button. I kept my eyes on the hall until the door was closed, and then the car started up.

  "This is going to make me late for the luncheon, won't it?" Lady Ainsley-Hunter asked.

  Natalie glanced at me, and I got as far as saying, "You shouldn't have to cancel but
…" when the elevator stopped so abruptly Lady Ainsley-Hunter lost her footing, pitching into me.

  "Motherfucker," Natalie said, and drew her weapon.

  I followed suit, moving to put my back against Her Ladyship, to push her into the far corner with my body. I keyed my transmitter, opened my mouth to put up the alarm, and there was a screaming burst of static in my ear, feedback that threatened to open a crack from between my eyes to the base of my skull.

  "We're being jammed," I told Natalie, and she started to curse again, but I never heard it, because the access hatch to the car was already opening, and just before the lights went out in the car I saw the grenade hit the ground between us, a flash-bang, and then another one. The darkness was complete, instant, and then it exploded into white, the light chasing after the concussion. The noise was incredible, disorienting, clogging my ears with echo and pain, and I felt Antonia's hands on my back, felt her fingers clinging to me as I went down. She had to be screaming, but I couldn't hear anything.

  Then the burn started, finding my eyes and my lungs and my skin, the racing flame of pepper gas, and I had enough sense left to understand that was the second grenade. The car vibrated beneath me as something fell to the floor, and Lady Ainsley-Hunter's fingers were pulling at my jacket, she had wrapped her arms around me, and then her grip was gone.

  Somehow, Natalie had managed to get her flashlight off her hip, the tiny Sure-Lite that we all wore, and the beam danced frantically for an instant, and I saw movement block the light. The car vibrated again and again, and the light fell to the floor, blinding me as it rolled free, and it caught Natalie's face as she hit the ground, the tears streaming from her closed eyes, the mucus and blood shining from her nose and mouth. Then the light rolled away again, and I saw a leg that wasn't Her Ladyship's, and I pushed off, bringing my gun up, and then my right arm went numb below the elbow and I lost the weapon.