THE WELL-LIT CHAMBER AT THE BOTTOM OF THE ramp was spacious and carefully laid out, the ceiling low but not uncomfortably so. Planar walls of taupe-tinted Hitach firecoat were devoid of the animated pictures and holovit that had decorated the office on the level above. Individual Suva-Shiva box stations were alive with lights, and the floor underfoot was pebbled and cool to the touch. At the far end of the room was a plain door flanked by a two-meter-wide slash of mirrored glass.
Movement. Off to his left. Drawing the shocker, he whirled and crouched-only to relax and drag the back of his other hand across his forehead, as if that could somehow erase the tension there.
A pair of identical half-meter-high robot cleaners trundled into view. Ignoring him, they proceeded to sweep and vacuum the composite tile floor. Designed to operate in office environments while work was in progress, they went about their business in eerie silence, as soundless as a pair of mechanical undertakers.
Relieved, he started to rise, when something else made him turn. Whether it was intuition, or a sound that did not quite belong, or a hint of shadow, he was not sure. He didn't have time to analyze it. Whirling, he saw a large, winged shape diving straight for his face. At the last possible instant he threw himself to one side. Only his extraordinary reflexes, honed by decades on the force and coupled with his unique training, saved him.
A seagull, one of the phlegmatic, roof-sitting trio that had observed his disembarkation at the passenger dock, smashed into the floor next to his feet, skidded several meters, and slammed into the wall. Rolling over just in time to witness the impact, Cardenas expected to hear bones snap and see feathers flying. Instead, bits and pieces of plastic and metal and teased glass flew in all directions as the synthetic Laridae shattered into a hundred or more pieces.
On hands and knees, keeping a wary eye out for any other unexpected arrivals, he crawled over to inspect the ruined apparatus. It was wonderfully, even imaginatively, made. Though twisted sharply to one side, the head was still largely intact, the tiny tracking cameras located behind the eye shields still locked in scanning position. The beak was cracked open, so he could see inside the mouth.
A sharp pinging emerged from the debris and he yanked his hand back. The extendable pressure dermic that occupied the place where a bird's tongue would be just missed making contact with his exploring fingers.
Rising, he brought his right foot down hard on the quivering head, and applied his weight. Struts and supports molded from finely wrought composite cracked noisily. Like the stinger of a dying wasp, the dermic stabbed wildly, seeking flesh to penetrate. Only when Cardenas was certain the device was utterly defunct did he draw back his foot, and only then did the dermic, nearly as long as his hand when fully extended, cease trying to impale him.
Breathing hard, he looked around warily, his gaze flicking from walls to ceiling, from the open doorway behind him that led to the facade of a bathroom to the darkened glass at the opposite end of the workplace. The attack had caught him almost completely off guard. Who needed human sentries? They were conspicuous, likely to draw suspicion to themselves, potentially corruptible, and expensive. The seemingly deserted annex was not so deserted after all.
Overhead, Taieesh Import and Export provided perfect camouflage. What better cover for a center of illicit operations than a legitimate business whose employees were utterly and honestly ignorant of the unlawful activities that were going on beneath their very feet? It was akin to running a counterfeiting operation from inside a bank vault.
His eyes continued to scrutinize the far corners of the chamber. There had been three of the birds. How the devil had they gotten in? It occurred to him that ventilators that brought in clean air could also admit other things. Things that had been programmed to navigate their way through tubes and conduits. To navigate-and to kill.
Lights glowing dimly behind the swath of dark glass hinted at the existence of still another room, accessible through the single rear door. There was no sign of movement save for the cleaning robots. Did The Mock and his underlings do their work only at night? That would go a long way toward explaining the emptiness in which he found himself. It did not mean that Mockerkin left his principal place of business unattended, relying for defense only on the sham reality of the import-export enterprise above. The shattered remains of the wrecked aerial assassin that lay in a still crackling and popping pile at his feet attested to that.
Standing in the middle of the room, he was too exposed. There was too much room for flying killers to maneuver. He wanted more cover.
Something told him not to try for the passageway that led to the surface. The short ramp that led to the storage closet and the bathroom beyond would be a perfect place to stage an ambush. Anyway, he wasn't ready to leave.
Keeping an eye on the temptingly vacant exit, he turned from where he was standing and strode briskly toward the rear door. Almost as soon as he turned his back on the exit, a second replicant gull came lunging in through the rear passage, having to turn sideways so that its wings would fit through the opening. A glance was sufficient to allow Cardenas to spot the fully extended dermic that was aimed right at him.
Pulling the shocker from his windbreaker pocket as he ran, he fired once, and missed. With only enough time for one more quick shot before the vacant-eyed assassin reached him, he stopped running, whirled, and dropped. Taking the best aim he could as he slid backward on the floor, he fired. The bird-thing erupted in a shower of sparks less than a meter from his face as he threw up his free hand and turned away from it. He felt the warmth of a secondary explosion as it banked sharply to the right and crashed into the floor behind him.
Panting, the shocker hanging from his fingers, he rose to his feet and assessed the damage. Thrashing and twitching like a live thing, the artificial gull spewed sparks and smoke for more than a minute before it finally stopped flailing its composite wings and lay still. He looked up.
No voices rang out challengingly. The cleaning robots continued to run their preprogrammed routines as though nothing had happened. One was already busy sweeping up the remains of the first gull. Otherwise, the chamber was as silent as the seabed on which it rested.
Where, he wondered as he cautiously resumed walking toward the back door, was the third bird?
Though it boasted only an ordinary plastic handle and no visible security, the door would not respond to his tug. Expression tight, keeping a cautious eye alert for mechanical sea birds, he pocketed the shocker and removed the compact instrument he had previously utilized to access the concealed doorway in the bathroom storage closet. Starting at the top of the door, just as he had done with the closet's rear wall, he began slowly and methodically running the device over the door. This time he would not neglect to check the floor.
"Hello there, son. Watcha doing?"
Swapping the sesame from his left hand to his right, Cardenas fumbled awkwardly for his pistol. At the sight of his questioner, he relaxed slightly. But he kept his hand near his chest, in the vicinity of the gun, as he pretended to scratch at the front of the windbreaker.
Framed in the entranceway at the bottom of the ramp that led to the bathroom storage closet was an old man. Too old, the Inspector knew instantly, to be The Mock. Although in an age of synthollagen injections and epidural neuron massage and skin replacement therapy it was difficult at a glance to tell anyone's age for certain, Cardenas was reasonably confident that the intruder who had surprised him was at least in his seventies, and quite possibly older.
The Inspector would also have been surprised if the man weighed much more than fifty kilos. He was considerably shorter than Cardenas. Amerind characteristics sharpened the highs and lows of his weather-worn face, the type of environmental facial sandblasting that began early in life in the kind of small villages that were scattered all through southern Namerica. Instead of weaponry or communications gear, the service belt encircling his waist contained janitorial supplies. Both hands clutched an electrostatic broom.
"Looking for someone," Cardenas finally thought to respond.
The old man flipped a switch on the broom and began to work it methodically back and forth in one corner, occasionally pausing to move a chair out of the way. The idling box terminals and busy floor robots ignored him, and he them. While adding an invigorating flow of ions to the air, the broom's charged fibers silently sucked from crevices, cracks, and other hiding places the dust and debris that the tunnel-visioned robot sweepers had missed.
"Ain't nobody here. Ain't been nobody here for a while. I reckon you belong, or you wouldn't have been able to find your way in."
Cardenas saw no reason to disabuse the elderly custodian of this useful assumption. He fell back on the same story he had recounted to the warehouse supervisor. "That's right. I have a special delivery from Agua Pri, for The Mock." Hesitating only briefly, he added, just to make certain, "You're not by any chance The Mock, are you? That's not a clever disguise?" Able to tell in most cases whether someone was lying or not, he waited expectantly for the custodian's reply.
It took the form of a quiet chuckle. "Me, The Mock? Why would you say something like that? C'mon, son; you're having fun with an old man." He flashed a smile replete with man-made teeth. "I'm Rodrigo. I do the cleaning."
Pointedly, Cardenas indicated the still-active floor robots. "What about them?"
"They need cleaning and maintenance, too. They are a big help to me, since the owners of this place seem to want as few people in here as possible. But they are not as good as a person. They miss some spots." He shook his head diffidently. "I don't know why. I could use some nonmechanical help, and it can get lonely down here." The smile returned. "But it pays well." And with that, he returned to his sweeping.
Still on the alert for murderous airborne mechanicals, Cardenas walked back to the ramp and peered upward. Nothing flew in at him, nor was there a downward charge of mataros, security guards, ninjacs, or anything else. Nor were representatives of the Inzini, the Ooze from Oz, or any other malevolent organization waiting in the bathroom to monitor and sponge off his progress. Except for the old man preoccupied with his cleaning and the meticulous floor robots, he was alone in the sanctum.
"Do you happen to know," he inquired carefully, "where I might find The Mock?"
Halting his sweeping, the grizzled senior leaned on his broom and regarded the visitor. "I guess you really do not know. Not if you are trying to make a personal delivery to him. Siryore Mockerkin died three months ago." His elderly expression wrinkled with remembrance. "I think it was three months." With a shrug, he resumed his sweeping. "It might have been three and a half."
Standing in the center of the underwater command center, surrounded by dynamic online consoles and multiple readouts burning bright, Cardenas gaped at the custodian. The old man's reply was, to say the least, not what he had expected to hear.
"What do you mean he's dead? He can't be dead."
Rodrigo kept working as he spoke. "We can all of us be dead, siryore. I was told about it by Ms. Larrimore, who worked in here. Mr. Mockerkin was coming out of the Brazos Mall in Harlingen after doing some shopping. He was with two other employees when they were hit by a bus that had gone out of control. Mr. Mockerkin and one of the other men were killed immediately. The other went to hospital." The maintenance man scratched at his thinning gray-brown hair. "I think he got out last month, but I am not sure."
Cardenas's thoughts were churning furiously. "Would Mr. Chanay, the supervisor of the warehouse upstairs, know about this?"
The custodian shrugged again. "I do not know. You would have to ask him. I never see the people who worked down here and the ones who work in the import-export place mix with each other. I believe they are different businesses. But I do not know. I am only a janitor." He smiled easily, Cardenas noted. "I do the cleaning."
"What about the other people who do work down here?" The Inspector indicated the empty chairs that faced the multiple consoles.
"I don't know, siryore. It's not my business. I don't concern myself with such things." He looked contemplative. "I suppose they are working when I am not here. Or maybe they were told to stay away for a while, after Mr. Mockerkin was killed. I really don't know."
Was killed, Cardenas found himself repeating. Months ago. This was crazy! It made no sense. If Cleator Mockerkin had really perished in an accident on the streets of Harlingen, then who the hell these past several months had been furiously, even ferociously, directing the ongoing effort to abduct Katla Mockerkin, and who had continued the hunt that had resulted in her mother's murder?
"Might someone besides yourself show up here today?"
Rodrigo was beginning to sound tired. "Please, siryore. I do not know. You would probably know better than I."
Cardenas nodded slowly. "All right. I won't bother you anymore, Go ahead and finish your work."
Rodrigo was patently grateful. Cardenas waited until the janitor had finished sweeping the floor and airdusting the softly humming electronics. As he was preparing to leave, the old man looked back at him from the bottom of the ramp.
"Are you going to wait here, siryore?"
"Yes," Cardenas told him. "Yes, I think I'll wait for a while longer, to see if anyone shows up. If you don't mind, that is." He smiled engagingly.
Rodrigo pushed out his lower lip. "Why should I mind? It's not my business. I'm a custodian, not a watchman." He started up the ramp.
"One more question," Cardenas called after him. The old man paused and looked back. "If what you're telling me is true, and your employer is dead, then why do you keep coming down here and cleaning this place?"
The old man eyed him tolerantly, as one would a child. "Because when I access my bank, the money is always there. I keep getting my pay."
Cardenas could not let it go. "Who pays you? One of the other employees, someone who's not here right now?"
The aged head swung slowly from side to side. Visibly tiring of the endless string of questions, Rodrigo injected a note of impatience into his reply. "Once again, siryore, I do not know. I just know that when I check my account, my pay is there. As long as that is so, I will keep doing my work. Until someone tells me to stop, or until the money stops being paid. I never thought much about it. I suppose it is a program of some kind, that pays me automatically." He shook his head again. "Often I think some things were better in the old days, when not so many things were automated." He winced slightly. "Do you have any more questions?"
"Just one." Turning, the Inspector indicated the single remaining door that stood next to the inset of mirror glass at the back of the room. "What's in here? Another storeroom?"
"I don't know. It is kept locked. I've never been asked to clean in there, if that's what you mean."
"Ever see anybody go in, or out?"
"No, siryore. I haven't."
That, Cardenas reflected, was interesting. In his mind, he had already dismissed the old man. "Thank you for your help."
The custodian nodded. "You are welcome, siryore. If you will excuse me, this is my last work of the day, and I want to go home now." Turning, he climbed slowly up the ramp. In his wake, the entryway remained open and clear.
If The Mock was dead, Cardenas reasoned restively, then someone else must have taken up his work. Some trusted lieutenant, or second-in-command. But who? He could understand an underling being intensely interested in the quantum theft project, however ephemeral its prospects, not to mention the complete records of The Mock's organization-either of which would explain the ongoing effort to abduct Katla. But why follow through with the obviously Mock-ordered revenge killing of Surtsey Mockerkin? The Montezuma Strip was not ancient Calabria, or Sicily, or even Moscow. Modern-day criminals were interested in vacuuming crunch and credit, not in pursuing another individual's personal vendettas. No matter how loyal a second-in-command might be to his former master The Mock, Cardenas could not see any reason for a subordinate to pursue a contract murder that he or she had no personal interest in seeing carried to fruition.
Unless, perhaps, Surtsey Mockerkin had covered her bets by dallying with another of The Mock's minions besides the unfortunate Wayne Brummel, and had then left them in the lurch along with her late husband.
It still didn't add up. Every time he pieced together a new scenario based on the facts as he knew them, it immediately fell victim to conspicuous flaws of internal logic. The obvious fix for the irritating conundrum lay in the acquisition of additional facts. The room in which he presently found himself was clearly the place to start searching for them.
While he pondered how and where best to begin, he kept a circumspect eye on the exit. Unless the old man was the greatest actor Cardenas had yet encountered in his long years on the force, the custodian was nothing more than the simple maintenance worker he claimed to be. Nevertheless, on the off chance the senior had patiently waited out the intruder's questions only to sound the alarm elsewhere, Cardenas periodically walked over to the bottom of the ramp to check the approach through the storage closet.
When not occupied in making sure his escape route remained clear, he contemplated the multiple work stations that lined the walls of the underwater chamber. Which mollysphere was most likely to be susceptible to a probe? What sort of booby-traps might he reasonably expect to encounter? He had done this sort of thing before, most recently when he had been assigned to probe the dangerously compromised corporate box at GenDyne's main research tank in Agua Pri. Invasive box sorties were inevitably fraught with treacherous surprises. The possibility that any of the mollys or the main box in a place like this would operate without some kind of integrated protection never once crossed his mind.
Eventually, as he had suspected they would, his thoughts returned once more to the door at the back of the room, and to what might lie behind it and the pane of thick mirror glass. If it was nothing more than a simple storeroom, why prohibit entry to the custodian already entrusted with the key code to this secluded chamber?
It would probably take only a few seconds of his time to check out. Alongside the door handle was a small vertical slot designed to accept a simple, straightforward coded key. From his belt he once more pulled out the sesame, slapped it over the slot, flicked it to life, and waited. In less than thirty seconds the device ascertained the combination and applied it. There was a click. Trying the handle a second time, he found that the door opened easily toward him.
Too easily.
He found himself looking into a small antechamber perhaps two meters square. There were a pair of storage cabinets, a small office-sized refrigerator, and on the wall a small holovit showing a pink tile-roofed house in a tropical setting. Within the holovit, the moon was slowly rising, casting golden glimmers on the stream that ran left to right in front of the house. To Cardenas's immediate right, another door beckoned, temptingly ajar. Twisting and bending while remaining outside the antechamber, he found he could not see very much of the room beyond through the limited gap thus presented.
Worms and artful lures were designed to attract fish. Open doors invariably drew curious people. He had no intention of ending up gaffed and gutted in the presence of an obvious hook.
There appeared to be nothing to hinder his entry, which was exactly why he held back. After studying the antechamber for several minutes, he turned and strode back through the larger outer workplace and up the ramp. Seizing on the pair of old-fashioned mops he had seen during his earlier sojourn in the bathroom storage closet, he returned with them to stand once more before the door he had just unlocked. It stood ajar, exactly as he had left it.
Setting one of the mops aside, he grasped the other with one hand at the top and the other near the bottom. Holding it vertically, he pitched it into the antechamber.
There was a sudden flash of light that left multiple afterimages dancing on his retinas. Instantly and effortlessly sliced into sections, four pieces of mop clattered metallically to the floor.
Had he stepped unthinkingly into the alcove, there would just as efficiently, but considerably more messily, have been four pieces of him.