Part 56 (1/2)
”Jack Killifer,” she repeated. ”He's hated me all these years... hated me enough to kill me.”
”You think his motivation was personal, then?” Ingersoll asked.
She glanced at Ras.h.i.+d before answering. The man looked puzzled. Of course, Joanna realized; Omar doesn't know anything about Killifer or his history.
”Yes,” she said to Ingersoll. ”Personal.”
”Can you tell me something about it?” the captain asked.
”Tomorrow,” Joanna said. ”Call me tomorrow, around noon.”
”Because we still got a problem here,” Ingersoll went on, slow, measured, not easily deterred.
”A problem?”
”The other security guard, Rodriguez.”
”The one who shot Killifer.”
”Yes'm. He's nowhere to be found. Apparently took off for parts unknown. We found the stutter gun he used, he left it on the kitchen table, nice and neat. But his car's gone and him with it.”
Ras.h.i.+d's brows knit. ”Why would he run away?”
”That's what I'd like to know,” said Ingersoll.
”Tomorrow,” Joanna said firmly.
Ingersoll seemed to think it over for a heartbeat or two, then nodded and walked back into the dining room.
”Omar, thanks for coming over,” Joanna said to Ras.h.i.+d. ”I'm sorry if it looked as if I suspected you. It's been... it's been a terrible few hours.”
Ras.h.i.+d knew he was being dismissed and he felt grateful for it. Getting to his feet, he asked, ”Will you be all right? Do you need anything?”
”My doctor's here,” she said, remaining seated on the sofa. ”He's already dosed me with tranquilizers and G.o.d knows what else. He'll stay here in the house and there are the servants, of course.”
”Of course,” Ras.h.i.+d murmured, eager to get away, glad that the burning fury of her suspicion had pa.s.sed over him.
Joanna summoned the butler, who accompanied Ras.h.i.+d to his car, then returned to the living room.
”What else can I do for you?” he asked.
”Nothing,” she said. ”That's all for now. Go get yourself some sleep.”
”And you...?”
”I'll sleep here,” Joanna said.
”I've had the guest suite prepared for you,” the butler suggested.
She shook her head. ”No, I don't want to go upstairs. Not just yet. I'll sleep here on the sofa. I'll be fine.”
The butler left, silent as a shadow, then returned a moment later with a downy white blanket and a flowered pillow. Joanna watched him place them on the end of the sofa, then leave the room again.
I should cry, she told herself. I should let it come out. Lev didn't deserve this. It was me he was after. Lev died trying to save my life.
Instead of crying, she reached over to the phone console and told its voice-recognition system, ”Get Seigo Yamagata for me. No intermediaries. This is an emergency call for him and no one else.”
It's time to end this war, Joanna told herself.
EDITING BOOTH
”Moonbase has survived the Peacekeepers' missile attack,” Edith was saying into her microphone. ”But not unscathed. The first missile destroyed Moonbase's backup power generator. That was a conventional explosive warhead and it hit the buried generator precisely.”
The display screens running across the top of the control board showed the quiet frenzy of Moonbase's control center, the crowd milling around in The Cave, a view of the crater floor where Wicksen and his crew were riding back to the main airlock in a jouncing tractor, and the scene from Mount Yeager showing the Peacekeeper a.s.sault force's vehicles trundling up toward Wodjohowitcz Pa.s.s.
Selecting the view of Wicksen's tractor, Edith continued without missing a beat, ”The U.N.'s second missile was a nuclear weapon, aimed to wipe out Moonbase's main electrical power solar panels, which are spread across the floor of the crater. The people here call them solar farms. Thanks to the brilliant work of a handful of scientists and technicians ...”
She praised Wicksen and his people, explained how the beam gun had deactivated the nuclear warhead and turned it into a dud.
But her eyes were pinned on the screen showing the Peacekeepers' vehicles creeping up the outer slope of the ringwall mountains.
Vince Falcone was watching the same view, sitting at a console in the control center. He was sweating, perspiration beading his upper lip and forehead, trickling down his swarthy cheeks.
This has gotta work, he kept telling himself. It's gotta work. Otherwise they'll be able to bring their missile launchers right up to our front door and blast it open.
For the twentieth time in the past half-hour he checked the circuitry to the microwave antennas atop Mount Yeager. One of the bright young short-timers had done a computer simulation that showed the microwaves would be reflected by the rock walls of Wodjo Pa.s.s and effectively reach all the foamgel goo they had spread there. The rock absorbed some of the microwave energy, of course, but reflected enough to get the job done.
Falcone hoped.
He looked across the row of consoles to where Doug Stavenger was sitting, deep in conversation with somebody on his screens. The kid's got all this responsibility on his shoulders, Falcone told himself. Least I can do is get this mother-lovin' foamgel to work.
He returned his attention to the screen showing the approaching Peacekeeper force. And felt a shock race through him.
They're splitting up! Falcone saw. The vehicles were dividing into two columns, one of them coming up toward Wodjo Pa.s.s, but the other snaking around the base of the ringwall mountains toward the steeper notch some two dozen kilometers farther away.
And it looked like a small party was starting out on foot to climb Mount Yeager, where the microwave antennas were.
Stupid s.h.i.+tfaced b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, Falcone raged, offering the a.s.sessment both to the Peacekeepers and his own shortsightedness. They're only sending part of their forces across Wodjo. The rest of 'em will get through without being stopped by the goo. And if they knock out the antennas up on Yeager the goo won't do us any f.u.c.king good at all.
The earphone of the headpiece clamped over his thickly curling hair suddenly crackled. ”Vince, this is Doug Stavenger. They've divided their force.”
”Yeah, I can see it.”
”It looks like that second group's heading for the northwest notch.”
”And they're sending a team up Yeager.”
”They're going to get through with no trouble, aren't they?”
Falcone nodded bitterly. ”Even if we could spray some goo over that pa.s.s the microwaves from Yeager couldn't reach it. a.s.suming they don't disable the antennas before we want to us 'em.”