Count Zero
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Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Next page "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 sun- glasses from the pocket of the blue work shirt and put them on. He wore white deck shoes and a pair of tropical combat fatigues. The box of explosive shells went into one of the thigh pockets on the fatigues. He kept the gun in his right hand, the parka bundled under his left arm. "Head for the long building," Conroy said, over the engine. "They're ex- pecting you." He jumped down into the furnace glow of desert noon as Conroy revved the Fokker again and edged it back to the highway. He watched as it sped east, its receding image distorted through wrinkles of rising heat. When it was gone, there was no sound at all, no move- ment. He turned, facing the ruin. Something small and stone- gray darted between two rocks. Perhaps eighty meters from the highway the jagged walls began. The expanse between had once been a parking lot. Five steps forward and he stopped. He heard the sea, surf pounding, soft explosions as breakers fell. The gun was in his hand, too large, too real, its metal warming in the sun. No sea, no sea, he told himself, can't hear it He walked on, the deck shoes slipping in drifts of ancient window glass seasoned with brown and green shards of bottle. There were rusted discs that had been bottle caps, flattened rectangles that had been aluminum cans. Insects whirred up from low clumps of dry brush. Over. Done with. This place. No time. He stopped again, straining forward, as though he sought something that would help him name the thing that was rising in him. Something hollow . The mall was doubly dead. The beach hotel in Mexico had lived once, at least for a season Beyond the parking lot, the sunlit cinderblock, cheap and soulless, waiting. He found them crouched in the narrow strip of shade provided by a length of gray wall. Three of them; he smelled the coffee before he saw them, the fire-blackened enamel pot balanced precariously on the tiny Primus cooker. He was meant to smell it, of course; they were expecting him Other- wise, he'd have found the ruin empty, and then, somehow, very quietly and almost naturally, he would have died. Two men, a woman; cracked, dusty boots out of Texas, denim so shiny with grease that it would probably be water- proof. The men were bearded, their uncut hair bound up in sun-bleached topknots with lengths of rawhide, the woman's hair center-parted and pulled back tight from a seamed, wind- burnt face. An ancient BMW motorcycle was propped against the wall, flecked chrome and battered paintwork daubed with airbrush blobs of tan and gray desert camo. He released the Smith & Wesson's grip, letting it pivot around his index finger, so that the barrel pointed up and back. "Turner," one of the men said, rising, cheap metal flash- ing from his teeth. `Sutcliffe." Trace of an accent, probably Australian. "Point team?" He looked at the other two. "Point," Sutcliffe said, and probed his mouth with a tanned thumb and forefinger, coming away with a yellowed, steel- capped prostho. His own teeth were white and perfectly even. "You took Chauvet from IBM for Mitsu," he said, "and they say you took Semenov out of Tomsk." "Is that a question?" "I was security for IBM Marrakech when you blew the hotel." Turner met the man's eyes. They were blue, calm, very bright. "Is that a problem for you?" "No fear," Sutcliffe said. "Just to say I've seen you work." He snapped the prostho back in place. "Lynch" nodding toward the other man' `and Webber' `toward the woman. "Run it down to me," Turner said, and lowered himself into the scrap of shade. He squatted on his haunches, still holding the gun. "We came in three days ago," Webber said, "on two bikes. We arranged for one of them to snap its crankshaft, in case we had to make an excuse for camping here. There's a sparse transient population, gypsy bikers and cultists. Lynch walked an optics spool six kilos east and tapped into a phone . "Private?" "Pay," Lynch said. "We sent out a test squirt," the woman continued. "If it hadn't worked, you'd know it." Turner nodded. "Incoming traffic?" "Nothing. It's strictly for the big show, whatever that is." She raised her eyebrows. "It's a defection." "Bit obvious, that," Sutcliffe said, settling himself beside Webber, his back to the wall. "Though the general tone of the operation so far suggests that we hirelings aren't likely to even know who we're extracting. True, Mr. Turner? Or will we be able to read about it in the fax?" Turner ignored him. "Go on. Webber." "After our landline was in place, the rest of the crew filtered in, one or two at a time. The last one in primed us for the tankful of Japs "That was raw," Sutcliffe said, "bit too far up front." "You think it might have blown us?" Turner asked. Sutcliffe shrugged. "Could be, could be no. We hopped it pretty quick. Damned lucky we'd the roof to tuck it under." "What about the passengers?" "They only come out at night," Webber said. "And they know we'll kill them if they try to get more than five meters away from the thing." Turner glanced at Sutcliffe. "Conroy's orders," the man said. "Conroy's orders don't count now," Turner said. "But that one holds. What are these people like?" "Medicals,'~ Lynch said, "bent medicals." "You got it," Turner said. "What about the rest of the crew?" "We rigged some shade with mimetic tarps. They sleep in shifts. There's not enough water and we can't risk much in the way of cooking." Sutcliffe reached for the coffeepot. "We have sentries in place and we run periodic checks on the integrity of the landline." He splashed black coffee into a plastic mug that looked as though it had been chewed by a dog. "So when do we do our dance, Mr. Turner?" "I want to see your tank of pet medics. I want to see a command post. You haven't said anything about a command post." "All set," Lynch said. "Fine. Here." Turner passed Webber the revolver. "See if you can find me some sort of rig for this. Now I want Lynch to show me these medics." "He thought it would be you," Lynch said, scrambling effortlessly up a low incline of rubble. Turner followed `You've got quite a rep." The younger man glanced back at him from beneath a fringe of dirty, sun-streaked hair. "Too much of one," Turner said. "Any is too much. You worked with him before? Marrakech?" Lynch ducked side- ways through a gap in the cinderblock, and Turner was close behind. The desert plants smelled of tar; they stung and grabbed if you brushed them. Through a vacant, rectangular opening intended for a window, Turner glimpsed pink moun- taintops; then Lynch was loping down a slope of gravel. "Sure, I worked for him before," Lynch said, pausing at the base of the slide. An ancient-looking leather belt rode low on his hips, its heavy buckle a tarnished silver death's-head with a dorsal crest of blunt, pyramidal spikes. "Marrakech- that was before my time." "Connie, too, Lynch?" "How's that?" "Conroy. You work for him before? More to the point are you working for him now?" Turner came slowly, deliber- ately down the gravel as he spoke; it crunched and slid beneath his deck shoes, uneasy footing. He could see the delicate little fletcher holstered beneath Lynch's denim vest. Lynch licked dry lips, held his ground. "That's Sut's contact. I haven't met him." "Conroy has this problem, Lynch. Can't delegate respon- sibility. He likes to have his own man from the start, some- one to watch the watchers. Always. You the one, Lynch?" Lynch shook his head, the absolute minimum of movement required to convey the negative. Turner was close enough to smell his sweat above the tarry odor of the desert plants. "I've seen Conroy blow two extractions that way," Turner said. "Lizards and broken glass, Lynch? You feel like dying F here?" Turner raised his fist in front of Lynch's face and slowly extended the index finger, pointing straight up "We're in their footprint. If a plant of Conroy's bleeps the least fucking pulse out of here, they'll be on to us." "If they aren't already." F "That's right." "Sut's your man," Lynch said. "Not me, and I can't see it being Webber." Black-rimmed, broken nails came up to scratch abstractedly at his beard. "Now, did you get me back here exclusively for this little talk, or do you still wanna see our canful of Japs?" "Let's see it." Lynch. Lynch was the one. * * * Once, in Mexico, years before, Turner had chartered a portable vacation module, solar-powered and French-built, its seven-meter body like a wingless housefly sculpted in pol- ished alloy, its eyes twin hemispheres of tinted, photosensi- tive plastic; he sat behind them as an aged twin-prop Russian cargo lifter lumbered down the coast with the module in its |
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