The Credulity Nexus by Graham Storrs Read Free Book Online Page B

or someone –
my wives, maybe.”
    With a heavy
sigh, Shah sat down again. “OK. Fine. You don't want to tell me.
Let's move on. Elspeth Cordell. How do you know her?”
    “ I don't. We met that one time in Berlin.
She's my client. It was all arranged through a scum-sucking,
dickhead middle-man. I didn't even know what the job was until she
told me on the way to the lab.”
    “ And what was the job?”
    “ I'm sorry, that's confidential
information.”
    “ What's your relationship to Rodney
Preston?”
    “ Who?”
    “ The boy you visited in East
Ham.”
    “ You mean Skiver?”
    “ If you keep messing me about like this,
I'm going to have to change tactics.”
    Despite the
man's quiet tone, Rik did not take the threat lightly. “Honest, I
don't know the kid's real name. I don't know the kid at all. He was
squatting in my friend's house. I just needed to get some stuff I'd
left there.”
    “ The chip wrangler you used to change your
identity.”
    “ That's right. How did you guys find me
anyway?”
    Shah smiled.
“The old-fashioned way. We used a blood-hound. Cute little chap,
about the size of a large spider. Followed your scent from the
house to the station. After that, finding where you'd gone was
easy.”
    Rik nodded.
“Look... What was your name again?”
    “ Shah. Rajan Shah.”
    Rik grinned.
“Like 'Bond, James Bond', eh?”
    “ Wrong agency.”
    “ Yeah. Right. Look, Shah, I really need to
finish this job 'cause I really need the money. All these people
getting killed all around me is not exactly what I signed up for. I
don't like being used by people like Newton Cordell and his
charming wife, and I don't like being mixed up in something that's
likely to get me killed, or arrested, or both.”
    “ So tell us where the package is and we'll
take it from here.”
    “ You know, I'd really like to do that, but
I just can't. If I don't do what I was hired for, I don't get paid,
and I'll probably end up being killed anyway, either by Cordell's
people, or by the Turgu.”
    “ Who are these Turgu people you keep
talking about?”
    Rik shook his head wearily. “Turgu was a
13 th Century king of Babylon, or
some such crap. I don't know. There's a gang boss in Heinlein who
believes the 'spirit of Turgu' inhabits his little gang of
hoodlums, or something whacko like that. I helped someone out of a
jam who they thought shouldn't be helped. Turns out this guy owed
them money. He skipped. So now they say I owe them
instead.”
    “ What a sordid little life you
lead.”
    “ Well, you know, being shut up in here with
you isn't helping much. Look, can we get back to the point? Why
don't you tell me what's in this package of Cordell's so I can
understand why I'm suddenly target of the month for this transhuman
chick?”
    Shah sighed
heavily. “We don't know what it is. We think maybe it's a
bioweapon. GSG 9 – the German Federal Police anti-terrorism group –
got a tip-off from someone at the lab that a special project was
underway that had extraordinary security. Their informant didn't
know what was going on. Now she's dead.”
    “ Bioweapon, huh?” Of course, the idea had
occurred to Rik – how could it not? – but he'd suppressed it,
preferring to think he wasn't sending anything so deadly through
the post to his friend. “You're just assuming that,
right?”
    Shah caught
the anxiety in Rik's voice. “Bloody hell, man, what have you done
with it?”
    “ With what? I never said I had the
package.” Rik sank back into his seat, scowling at the table. He
had to find a way to make sure Blake didn't open the damned
thing.
    “ We need to get that package somewhere
safe, Rik.”
    “ I wish I could help you.” He kept on
scowling at the table until a thought struck him. “What the hell
would Cordell want with a bioweapon, anyway? He's a legit
businessman, as far as I know. Richest man in the system. Bit of a
God botherer, but not some whack-job terrorist.” For an instant he
actually felt better, then he