Chapter 14

Kat stepped out of the boarding tube into the Bougainville space port on Clerc, and scanned the crowd. She was adept at spotting security types, her livelihood had depended on staying under the radar, after all. She cataloged three overt and two covert watchers as she strolled through the concourse. The three, dressed in identical blue blazers and gray slacks, had the appearance of spaceport security. For all their studied casualness, they stood out from the crowd specifically because they were acting casual when the rest of the crowd was moving purposefully from one location to another.

The covert security was a little harder to spot. One was dressed in a maintenance uniform and was sweeping the floor outside the baggage area. He was just too fit, too athletic, and he moved with a fluid grace that only came from years of training. The second was a woman who was dressed in an understated, but obviously tailored, business suit. She was sitting at a small table, data pad in front of her and a half-full beverage at her elbow. One hand was pecking away at the pad while the other was making fitful gestures as she talked the air in front of her. She was having an animated discussion with someone and had engaged a hush field. Everything looked normal, except for her shoes. She was wearing a pair of comfortable shoes, the kind that offered plenty of arch support and that seem to be almost a uniform for cops everywhere. No self-respecting business woman would wear that expensive suit with those shoes.

Kat smiled and kept moving, strolling casually out the door and grabbed the first available taxi. It was nice to know some things never changed. As the taxi pulled away from the curb, she spotted another covert watcher, but this one was not security. He had the tell-tale signs of a thug for hire. The loud patterned shirt, the flash chrono, a bulge at his waistline and mirrored shades. He wasn't scanning the crowd, he was watching her.

Kat sat back and pulled a makeup compact from her bag. Using the little mirror, she watched as the man gestured to a vehicle parked across from the taxi stand. The car slewed across the street, eliciting honks from other drivers and the squeal of brakes from a taxi. The thug-type flung himself into the passenger seat.

Kat tapped on the control panel for the cab and wiped the destination she had set, a local hotel. Instead, she directed the cab to take her to the largest retail shopping center in the area, then sat back to wait. Unless this was a hit squad, they should be content to follow her, see where she went and who she contacted. That was fine with her; she would see how they liked a relaxing afternoon of shopping.

The shopping center would not have looked out of place on any of a hundred worlds. Kat often wondered if there were not a master set of plans that every developer followed. She was sure it was something that had been calculated to the nth degree, crowd patterns, consumer spending habits and so on, but it all seemed so boringly familiar.

Inside, Kat took advantage of the reflective surfaces on displays, storefronts and the numerous mirrors to track her new friends. More than once she had to stifle a laugh as they would blunder into objects, pretend to seriously examine women's lingerie and, once, when a salesperson tried to engage them in a discussion on the merits of one form of depilatory cream over another.

Her opportunity came when browsing through designer purses in a little boutique near the lifts to the upper floors. A store employee was trundling along with a cart laden with boxes of inventory. Her tail's view was obscured for a second or two, just enough time for her to duck between displays and slip out of her jacket. A new jacket, purchased a couple of stores back along with a bright new hat guaranteed to draw the eye away from the face and to the headgear, completed her hasty disguise. Sauntering the opposite way with a jaunty step, as if she didn't have a care in the world, she was able to enter the lifts unobserved. Through the store window, she could see the troublesome duo rushing back and forth, searching the displays in a panic. She had forgotten how much fun this could be!

A quick stop at a public Comm terminal, and with the use of her the issued Comm unit's hidden circuitry, she was able to activate another of her aliases and walk away with a new name and bio. She deactivated the override and used the kiosk to book a second reservation in a suite across town.

Kat had the name and address of the informant that Pan was to have contacted, and a list of locations that he had been planning on visiting. It was time to start tracing his steps, to see if she could figure out where he was last seen.

The first address was a housing tower in the center of Bougainville. It was a fifty story block of uninspired plascrete, exactly like its neighbors on either side. The textured gray surface was broken by rows of small windows, but was otherwise featureless and would have been almost impossible to distinguish from the neighboring buildings but for a small sign that read "Tansin Tower" over the main entrance.

The building was depressingly similar to the ones she had grown up in, lacking only the barred windows and the armed guard stationed inside. The lobby was threadbare and dingy, the reception desk unmanned. To her left, as she entered, was a row of call buttons, ten to a row and fifty rows high. Each was labeled with a small plastic tag on which was printed the name of the apartment's occupant.

Not bothering with the call buttons, she headed for the elevators and selected the 28th floor. A lurch and a flicker of the lights gave her a moment's pause, concerned about the safety of this obviously ill-maintained elevator, but the rest of the ride was smoother, if slow. The elevator opened onto a hallway that was dimly lit. Situated along the building's center line, the elevator had doors on both sides and the occupant could exit in either direction. Peering out, she was able to determine that the numbers on that side were on the upper end of the spectrum for this floor. She reversed course, exiting the other side and followed the rising number to her left.

Apartment 28-4 looked, from the outside, exactly like apartment 28-3 on one side and 28-5 on the other. Standing to one side of the door, just in case, she keyed the call function and spoke the pass phrase into the microphone. "I am here about the flyer."

After a tense minute, a scratchy voice could be heard over the speaker. "The door is open."

Keying the door, she remained to one side of the opening as it slid aside. Peering around the edge of the frame, she could clearly see its sole occupant, a corpulent older man with thinning, wispy hair. He gestured to her, waving her into the apartment.

Entering, she found herself in an apartment just a touch larger than her suite at the Citadel. Scanning the room, she thought that since there were ten apartments per floor, at least some of the others must have been much larger. The layout was very similar to her suite as well, with the exception of the bathroom which was a door off the living area instead of being part of the bedroom.

The apartment was spare, but clean. The furniture old and a touch threadbare, but looked comfortable. The air was redolent with the smell of fried foods and sweat. The fat man was sitting in a powered chair of the type you see most often used by invalids and was watching her. Kat felt a little tremble of fear, mixed with distaste, as his beady eyes, buried in his plump cheeks, brought back memories of spurting blood and a knife buried in an eye socket.

Kat stepped forward, allowing the door to close behind her and took out her Comm unit. Keying the scanner functions, she walked slowly around the apartment, eyes darting from the display, to the fat man, and back again. Other than the Comm circuit for the building and a personal Comm unit that appeared to be built into his chair, there were no other listening or video devices she could find. Setting the unit to block all incoming and outgoing signals, she perched herself on the arm of a chair across from the tenant.