Margaret Weis - Hung Out

HUNG OUT

MARGARET WEIS

& DON PERRIN

A ROC BOOK

ROC

Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York

10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England Penguin Books Australia Ltd,

Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario,

Canada M4V 3B2

Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand Penguin Books Ltd,

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Registered Offices:Harmondsworth , Middlesex, England First published by Roc, an imprint of Dutton

NAL, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.

First Printing, August, 1998

10 987654321

No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.

—William Blake, "Proverbs of Hell"

CHAPTER 1

The use of a trick or stratagem permits the intended victim to make his own mistakes.

Carl von Clausewitz,On War

The buzzing was annoying, seriously annoying. Annoying because the buzz was letting Jafar el Amadi

know there was something he should do and he didn't want to do it. He wished the buzz would stop, and

it did for a moment; then, just as he was starting to drift back to sleep, the buzz began again.

His wife, stretched out in the bed beside him, gave him a punch in the back. "It's the phone," she said

drowsily. "Answer the phone."

Amadi woke up, peered bleary-eyed at the phone on the nightstand beside his bed.

"What time's it?" his wife mumbled.

Amadi rubbed his eyes, brought the clock into focus. "Two in the morning."

The buzzing continued, insistent.

"It's probably a wrong number," he said.

"Uh-huh." His wife pulled the blanket over her head, rolled away from him. "Tell them you're retired."

Amadi lifted the phone. "Yeah?"

"I'm calling about that order you placed, sir," said a female voice at the other end.

"Do you know what time it is?" Amadi snapped. "It's two o'clock in the morning!"

"Sorry, sir. I just thought you'd want to know, sir, that the item you requested has been located."

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"What item? What the hell are we talking about? Is this some goddam vidalog company? Because if it

is—"

"I have the order here, sir. Your authorization: Delta 750-6711-9."

Good God! It was the Bureau.

"Oh." Amadi was now very awake. That was his authorization code, but what the hell were they talking

about? "What's it in regard to?"

"Body parts for a cyborg, sir. Would you like to go ahead and place your order, sir?"

"I need more details—color and sizeand all that."

"Very good, sir. I'll give you a number to call for customer service. Ask for order number 7/66/807/9.

Sorry I woke you, sir, but this was marked 'urgent.'"

The other end clicked. The connection was broken.

Amadi sat and frowned at the warm green glow of the clock for another moment,then he slid his feet into

his bedroom slippers and eased himself out of bed. His wife was used to late-night phone calls, used to

him roaming about the house at all hours, used to him leaving in the middle of the night. Of course, that

had been before he had retired, when he had still been with the Bureau.

It had been years since he'd received a late-night phone call, probably one reason it had taken him such

a long time to respond. In the old days, he would have been wide awake at the first buzz. But at age

seventy, he'd come to relish his warm bed and a good night's sleep.

Giving his wife a customary reassuring pat on the shoulder—a pat she probably didn't feel because she'd

gone back to sleep already—Amadi grabbed his robe, threw it on. Yawning, he left the bedroom, visited

the John,then went downstairs. The dog, lying with his back pressed up against the front door, opened

one eye, thumped his tail against the floor, and raised his head to see if he was needed.

"Go back to sleep, Charlie," Amadi said, moving through the hallway, heading to the kitchen.

The dog obeyed gladly. He was an old dog and he, too, appreciated his rest.

In the kitchen, Amadi brewed coffee, freshly ground, made the old-fashioned way in a drip pot; none of

that muddy water the replicator turned out. He mulled over the cyborg matter as the coffee brewed. The

risk was immense, but he had already considered and discounted all his other options. He cut himself a

piece of pound cake—gone were the days when he could drink six cups of coffee on an empty

stomach—then carried cake, a cup, and the coffeepot down another flight of stairs to the rec room.

Behind the vid, mounted on the wall, was a sensor device.

Amadi considered briefly attempting to juggle cake, cup, and pot in one hand while he activated the

sensor, but rejected the idea. His wife may have been patient with late-night phone calls and her husband

vanishing for weeks at a time on some secret assignment, but she took a dim view of coffee stains on the

rug. Amadi placed his breakfast on an end table, passed his hand twice over the sensor device, which

was no more than a tiny hole in the wall.

A door disguised to look like part of the oak paneling slid aside. Amadi retrieved his breakfast, making a

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

mental note to himself to bring the cup and coffeepot out of the room when he was finished. His wife

would be extremely irritated if one of her best china cups went missing, as it had upon one occasion, only

to turn up two weeks later with a fine growth of mold on what was left of the coffee.

The door slid shut behind Amadi.

The room was small, soundproofed, fireproofed. It contained a desk, a chair, a computer. Seating

himself in front of the computer, Amadi gave it his password. Once he and the Bureau were linked and

each had admitted that they knew the other, he went through more security procedures. At last, the

Bureau conceded that he had the right to be where he was and to acquire the information he needed. He

gave the "order" number, which he had—from habit— committed to memory as the agent rattled it off.

He munched cake while he waited, drank his coffee, and yawned.

A woman's face appeared on the screen. He didn't know her, but that wasn't unusual. He'd been retired

for ten years. He knew few people in the Bureau anymore.

She was human, mid-twenties, lean and mean, with skin the golden color of olive oil, short-cut black

hair, high cheekbones, an upturned nose, full lips. Adjectives came to Amadi's mind: new, pert, hungry.

The voice belonging to the face was the same voice that had spoken to him on the phone. She was

seated at a desk in an office cubicle, probably her own cubicle, for there were pictures stuck to the fabric

wall behind her. Family pictures. Mother and father. Three young men standing together grinning at the

cam with wide smiles. Probably brothers. A white fluffy cat.

"Agent Rizzoli, sir. Petronella Rizzoli."

"Rizzoli." Amadi nodded, swallowed pound cake. "What do you have for me?"

"We've located former agent Tambam ... Tampambulos, sir," she replied, stumbling over the name.

"Good work, Rizzoli. He's not an easy person to track down. You have the warrant? Is all in order?"

"A few local problems, sir."

Amadi frowned, displeased. "The reason I lured him to that planet was because the locals promised

there would be no trouble. Where's he staying?"

"Where you said he would stay. He's at the home of his ex-wife, MarjorieTambamp ... Tamp—damn

that's a hell of a name to pronounce. And any rate, that's where he is, sir. At her home."

"Excellent. That's where I was hoping he'd go."

"We could never have removed him from Olefsky's world," Rizzoli agreed. "Not without a fight."

"And they don't have the death penalty on Solgart," Amadi added. "So what's he doing with his time in

his ex-wife's house?"

"We intercepted several calls made to various parts of the galaxy. They were all encrypted, unbreakable,

but we believe that he's assembling the Mag Force 7 team. He's also been in contact with the Royal

Navy, one of the lord admiral's adjutants, a Commander Tusca."

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Probably doing a job for them."

"Will that present a problem, sir? When we arrest him?"

"The Navy won't like it, that's for damn sure, but they'll drop him like a hot rock if we threaten to go

public with the facts. Especially when they hear the charge. How does the warrant read?"

"Murder, sir. First degree. The murder of his former partner, Dalin Rowan."

Amadi closed his eyes. He wished he hadn't eaten the pound cake.

"Heis a murderer, after all," Rizzoli continued. "And while the Navy may hire murderers with impunity,

they don't want it broadcast on the six o'clock news."

"Is the Navy keeping an eye on him?"

"No, sir."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes, sir. It's a quiet neighborhood, sir. Our agents have him under surveillance, of course. We could

spot one of their agents easily."

"And I'll bet that Tampambulos has spotted you," Amadi observed. "He was a good agent, you know.

One of the best."

"I doubt it, sir." Rizzoli was confident. "We've never even been near the house. All visual surveillance has

been carried out by our system of satellites. We're monitoring everything going in and out of that house

from a base twenty-five kilometers away. We pick up every signal, every phone call. And if a mouse

crawls underneath the garage door, we see it on the satellite report.

"The new orbital spectral analysis system allows us to 'see' to a resolution of one centimeter, even

through solid objects, such as the roof. We could tell you if former Agent Tampambulous has a problem

with irregularity, sir. Which he doesn't. Every morning at around 0830, after he has his coffee, he takes

the morning paper into the John and—"

"Spare me the details," said Amadi. "I get the picture and, frankly, I wish I hadn't." He had seen Xris

when they'd first brought him to the hospital, seen what was left of him.

"If you want my advice, Rizzoli, you'll arrest him now, this minute. Don't wait until his friends show up.

They're a dangerous bunch."

"We'd like to, sir, but there's a problem with the warrant."

Amadi had forgotten. He was going to have to start doubling up on his old-age hormone injection shots.

"Local police force giving you grief?"

"No, sir. They're eager to cooperate. The chief wants to see her name on GNN. It's the legal system.

We can't arrest him on a Crown warrant alone; we have to have a local warrant as well."

Amadi dumped the remaining pound cake in the trash. "They want to review the case, I suppose."

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Yes, sir. We've provided them with all the files, but they're taking their own sweet time over it. The

chief is putting pressure on the prosecutor, though. She told us to expect the warrant by Monday."

"And when the hell is that? I'm half a universe away, you know."

"Sorry, sir. Twenty-four hours, sir."

"Twenty-four hours. Time enough for his whole blasted personal army to show up. Well, it can't be

helped."

"We plan to go in at about 0400, sir, when everyone's asleep. We'll use the standard flash-bang—"

"No, absolutely not!" Amadi said firmly. "These people are trained mercenaries. They're armed and

they're experts. What do you think they're going to do if they wake up to find they're under attack?

Especially if you surprise them!"

"Well, sir, what do you suggest?"

"It's a suburban neighborhood," said Amadi. "Upper middle class. Kids playing in the front yard next

door. Tampambulous won't want to endanger innocent civilians. He's not the type of person to start

gunning down toddlers. Go to the front door, ring the bell, hand him the warrant. He'll come along

peacefully. I guarantee it. I want him alive, Rizzoli. Alive. He's no good to me dead."

What was her first name? Amadi wondered. Petro-something. He'd forgotten that, too. Damn odd first

name.

"Yes, sir." Rizzoli was all business, cool and professional. "Don't worry, sir. We're taking extra care on

this one. He killed one of our own. We want to see him in the disrupter."

"Keep me posted." Amadi ended the meeting. .

He finished off the entire pot of coffee, then sent a memo to a man he knew well—Andrew Robison.

Formerly Amadi's boss in charge of the Hung investigation, Robison was now head of Internal Affairs for

the Bureau.

Robison was investigating Amadi, an interesting development and one that Amadi wasn't supposed to

know about.

The memo to Robison was headed,Tampambulos. Warrant issued. Arrest imminent.

"There," Amadi muttered to himself. "That should make the son of a bitch happy."

CHAPTER 2

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

…there is something about him, which even treachery cannot trust.

Public Advertiser, 22 June 1771, "Junius"

"So the message he sentme is accurate? Are you certain?"

"Yes, sir. I'm certain." Petronella smiled. "He assigned the grunt work to me: issuing the warrant, arguing

with the locals, all of that."

Head of Internal Affairs Andrew Robison frowned at the electronic notepad he held in his hand, a pad

that held all the details of a murder case. After almost ten years, there'd finally been an arrest.

"I recorded our conversation, sir," Petronella told him.

"Secure?"

"Yes, sir. Of course, sir," Petronella replied coolly. She was not accustomed to having her work

questioned.

Robison gave a grunt that was tantamount to an apology.

Petronella, knowing her boss, accepted the grunt and went on. "Here are the codes to the encryption."

Robison pulled up the encrypted file, observed the conversation with Amadi from Petronella's viewpoint.

Robison frowned most of the time during the conversation.

Petronella nodded. "Amadi thinks I'm a bumbling fool," she told Robison. "As do most of my

co-workers." She gave a sigh that, fortunately, Robison didn't hear. He was replaying the vid.

Petronella liked her co-workers and respected them. They were, for the most part, hardworking,

dedicated, and loyal. They liked Petronella, but they considered her young, inexperienced, and, on top of

all that, a Talisian who could not control the weird energy surges common to those born on her home

world. What they didn't know was that she could control them, but chose not to do so. The fact that

wherever Petronella Rizzoli went chaos followed added immeasurably to her cover and it was one reason

she'd been recruited to work for FISA Internal Affairs. With all the assignments she'd handled over the

past five years, no one had ever suspected she was a plant.

Petronella regarded Robison, her boss, with affection and a certain amount of sympathy, though she was

careful to reveal neither to him. Robison was strictly professional and he expected his people to be the

same. But she was aware that this particular assignment must be tough on him. He had once been Jafar el

Amadi's chief superintendent. Robison and Amadi had been close friends as well as co-workers. And

now Robison was placed in the position of exposing as a traitor a man whom he had once admired.

There could not be two more different men, Petronella thought idly, as she watched Robison watching

Amadi. Jafar el Amadi could trace his ancestors back to the Bedouins who had roamed the deserts of

Old Earth. Amadi was intensely proud of his heritage. His home was filled with Arabic artifacts,

decorated with paintings of men in flowing robes riding magnificent and long-extinct Arabian stallions.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Looking at Amadi's face, with its hawk nose and fierce black hawk eyes, Petronella could easily picture

him riding among the dunes and she thought it a pity that he should have betrayed such a noble lineage.

Robison, by contrast, was far more suited to an English tea room than the wind-blown desert. Blond,

with blue eyes and a thin face marked by a very handsome aquiline nose, Robison was younger than

Amadi by ten years—a fact that some men might have resented, considering that Robison had been

Amadi's boss. If Amadi did, he didn't show it, although perhaps that could have been the reason why

he'd gone over to the enemy camp.

Watching Amadi on the vid, listening to his voice, Petronella wondered again what had driven him to

commit such heinous crimes: marked his own agents for death, aided and abetted in the deaths of

thousands of innocents, worked for one of the most ferocious, cruel, murderous criminal organizations in

the history of the galaxy.

For what? Money? Jealousy? Ambition?

No one knew. No one had been able to prove Amadi's complicity, although, according to Robison, the

Bureau had long suspected him.

"Amadi was clever enough to lay low when his bosses were going to prison," Robison had told her at the

beginning of this investigation. "He took retirement soon after that. We could never prove anything. The

only person who might have been able to tie Amadi into the Hung was a roan named Dalin Rowan. The

victim of the murder."

"What I don't understand," Petronella said, after Robison had played through the vid a second time and

was sitting, frowning, at the frozen image of Amadi on the screen, "is why Amadi is risking exposure by

bringing this to light again after all these years."

Robison's thin lips, outlined by a pencil-thin mustache, tightened. He regarded her speculatively, as if

making up his mind whether to tell her or not. Petronella might have been offended at this seeming lack of

trust, but she had become accustomed to going into cases without knowing all the details. Andrew

Robison never fully trusted anyone. The joke among his staff was he entered data into his computer with

his eyes shut, so that he wouldn't reveal anything to anybody, himself included.

"I'll tell you why," Robison said finally.

Petronella regarded him in astonishment. She hadn't really expected an answer.

"Dalin Rowan isn't dead."

"He's not, sir?" Petronella was amazed.

"No, at least that's what we suspect. Why? Because the Hung are looking for him. We know that much

from our informant. And Amadi's looking for Rowan, too."

"But..." Petronella was momentarily speechless, gathering her thoughts. "But Amadi has a witness, a

nurse..."

"Fake. Phony."

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Then why is he having Tampambulos arrested for something he knows he didn't do?"

"Because Rowan's in hiding. Naturally enough," Robison said dryly. "The number of people who would

like to kill Dalin Rowan would fill a football stadium. Amadi hasn't been able to find him and neither have

the Hung. He figures this way he'll force Rowan to come out in the open."

"From what I've read about Xris Tampambulos, he's not that easily intimidated."

"He won't be. I can guarantee it I knew him in the old days. He was one of my agents. And Amadi

knows Xris as well or better than I do."

"So finding Rowan isn't the only thing Amadi's after?"

"That's what Amadi's going to make it look like. But I don't believe flushing out Rowan's the reason he's

after Xris. Here's the file on Dalin Rowan."

He passed over a disposable electronic file pad. Petronella activated it, scanned swiftly through the

contents until she reached the end.

"Good grief," she said, gasping.

"Yes." Robison had no need to ask what she'd come across.

"But he's ... she's..."

"Yes," Robison said again. "You see why it was so difficult to locate him. Her."

"Good grief," Petronella repeated, dazed.

"She's now going by the name of Darlene Mohini. Here are your instructions...."

CHAPTER 3

The family—that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape.

DodieSmith,Dear Octopus

Xris hadn't meant to sit down. He hadn't meant to sit down and he hadn't intended to remain sitting after

that. He hadn't meant to sit here doing nothing. Doing nothing when he had a hell of lot to do.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"It can wait," he said aloud, startling a seagull that had hopped up onto the patio in hopes of stale bread.

The bird gave a squawk of irritation, "then settled down on the edge of the deck, hope springing eternal.

Xris eyed the seagull, which was eyeing him, not the least bit afraid, confident in the possession of strong

wings and an offshore breeze. Xris knew this gull. It had only one foot, probably a congenital defect. The

lack of a foot didn't bother the gull, although the deformity made its landings real nose-bumpers, as Harry

Luck would say.

Beak-bumperswould be a better term, Xris decided. He had taken to feeding the one-footed gull,

though feeding one meant that twenty more always showed up and now the deck was covered with gull

shit. Marjorie wouldn't like that, not in the slightest. Xris would clean it up before he left.

"At least," he told the gull, "they didn't stick you with a metal foot." He looked down at his own metal

foot, propped out in front of him.

The bird didn't seem to appreciate its good fortune. It ruffled its feathers and turned its head rapidly from

side to side, as if as to say,Cutthe chatter, buddy, and bring on the bread. I got things to do, even if

you don't.

Xris had things to do. The house was a mess, for one, but he hadn't had time to clean. The Mag Force 7

team had been hired for a job, mercenary work. High pay, with only a moderate amount of risk. He had

decided on the basic plan, but he had to work out details. The rest of the team would be arrivingsoon,

traveling in from the various parts of the galaxy they called home, to hear his presentation. It had better

be complete. If Dr. Bill Quong asked a question Xris couldn't answer or if Jamil caught Xris in a

miscalculation, he'd never hear the end of it. And if Raoul discovered a wet towel on the bathroom floor

... well, Xris didn't even like to contemplate that eventuality. But it could wait. The plan. The

housekeeping. The grocery order.

It could all wait.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd done nothing. He was always doing something and he liked it

that way. He liked keeping his mind occupied. When it was thinking about useful things, interesting things,

it didn't have time to brood on things over which he had no control. Things such as the fact that he

couldn't sit and listen to his heart beat, like most people. He had to listen to his heart hum, like the

fine-tuned machine it was, which then reminded him that most of the rest of his body needed a lube job

and an oil change every fifteen thousand kilometers.

Xris lounged in a chair on the back deck and watched the sunlight ripple over the surface of the water.

He wouldn't think about his heart or anything. The ocean was calm today, almost flat, the offshore breeze

smoothing the waves. The teenage surfers stood around in gloomy knots on the beach, but the younger

children were happy, paddling in the gentle waves that washed up on the shore— waves that would

usually knock them over when the wind blew in from the sea.

Three pelicans flew in perfect formation, like a squadron of spaceplanes on maneuvers. The seagull, a

supremely independent bird with a mind of its own, cast the pelicans a scornful glance. Growing

impatient, it hopped over on its one foot to remind Xris of its presence.

He hadn't brought the bread with him, not having intended to stay out here in the hot afternoon sunshine.

He'd come out on the deck to rearrange the furniture in preparation for tonight's barbecue. Instead of

lifting a chair, he'd sat down in it.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Margaret Weis - Hung Out

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: