At Daniel’s insistence, Kenny let him off near dawn in the middle of nowhere, just road and sagebrush as far as you could see.
‘Look me up any time, man; I’ll be there,’ Kenny reminded him as Daniel got out.
‘Shoot straight,’ Daniel said.
Kenny raised a clenched fist. ‘Now you got the spirit. Semper fi, bro’.’ Daniel smiled and started to close the door. ‘Whoa, mofo! You forgot your bowling ball. Get your shit squared away, son. There’s a war on.’ He handed the bag out to Daniel with a wink. ‘How can you bowl ’em over without a fucking ball? That’d be like going questing without a lance.’
‘Indeed,’ Daniel said as he took the Diamond back. ‘Thanks again.’
Kenny swung the Trans-Am across the center divider and headed back to Las Vegas. The loss of Daniel’s company depressed him. In that vanished month as Death’s Chauffeur, Kenny had developed an acute sensitivity to the thin musky odor released in the breath of those who would die soon. Kenny shook his head dolefully. ‘You stupid jaw-jacking shithead, he was the best bait you’ve had in fifteen years and you fucked it up just like you’ve fucked up everything. Get your shit squared away, boy; there’s a war going down.’ He remembered saying the same thing to Daniel. When he thought about it, he realized those were the last words Foxworth had ever said to him. Fucking Foxworth. He started crying again.
Gurry Debritto smiled as he finished decoding the transmission. He put the message with the others his West Coast listeners had picked up. If the locations were accurate – his subcontractors were the best in the world – the Diamond had been flown to Seattle, driven by van to Coos Bay, Oregon, and was now on an unnamed ship seventy miles due west of the mouth of the Smith River, headed down the coast. He reread the last transmission:
SAIL AWAY. PROBLEMA. FIRST NEST FOULED. BACKUP SHAKY. SAME BAY AND DAY BUT SHIFT STORAGE OKIE TURF 107772400. SHINE ON HARVEST MOON. BLT T GO.
Gurry Debritto nodded. They were good, these people, but always the little problems and changes required adjustments. Evidently the original destination had been somehow fouled and the backup couldn’t be trusted, so they were shifting to a new place. He had a hunch where. The boat was headed south along the coast to the same bay as planned, and San Francisco Bay seemed a logical place to start, particularly in light of OKIE TURF – Oakland, if his hunch was right. He turned to the keyboard and punched up the Oakland Index, then the street directory. He assumed the time and address were contained in the numbers 107772400. He studied them for a moment, deciding to start with the obvious – 2400 as the time. He tapped out 107 77 Street on keyboard and there it was: CARDINAL LIGHT IMPORTS, twenty-one-thousand-square-foot warehouse, owned by Tao-Hihe Chemical, leased to Cardinal Light Imports in January. He punched in the access code for Langley Central Records, then the security clearance sequence that was one of the perks he’d insisted upon as a condition for his services.
Not much on Harvey Moon, but enough. President of Cardinal Light Imports, a board member of Tao-Hihe Chemicals, and an elder of the Breaking Wave Temple, a Taoist church that drew their religious inspiration from Lao-Tzu and their social analysis from Karl Marx. Suspected of smuggling arms for Mao (unconfirmed) and drugs for the Danish Provos (unconfirmed; perhaps disinformation). Lives aboard yacht [Susy-Q: Cayman Reg: LV967769]. Married seven times; thirty-one children…
Debritto read on. Thirty-one fucking kids. Didn’t these people understand that they had to quit breeding like dogs?
He repunched the Oakland street directory and jotted down the map file number for Seventy-seventh Street. If they were bringing the Diamond down on Moon’s yacht, it would be sweet to take it right there on the boat. But the yacht would be risky, too hard to secure. He’d have to hire help, and he’d always worked alone in close.
When he pulled the Seventy-seventh Street aerial from the map case and located the Cardinal Light warehouse, he dropped all consideration of hitting the yacht. The warehouse was perfect. One story, open ground all around it, a large skylight on the roof. He always appreciated skylights. He liked looking down. Perhaps Mr Moon would show up in person. So far, they’d been more than accommodating. They were bringing it right to him. He was in Berkeley, right next door. He could take the Nimitz and be there in twenty minutes.
He went down to the basement and opened the weapons locker. He would have at least a day to set up the warehouse. It was just past midnight, a perfect time to go take a look. He decided he could afford the extra weight and bulk of four grenades, a drag on stealth but nice to have if even half the Moon kids showed. In a way, he wished they would.
‘Thirty-one kids,’ he muttered, slipping the.380 in his ankle holster. ‘That’s a crime against humanity. This has to stop. If the idiots keep breeding and the intelligent wisely don’t, humans will devolve back to animals. Beasts. Goddamn cunts. Let’s make a baby. If the fucking women weren’t so weak we’d have a chance.’
As soon as he had the Diamond in his control, he’d brush up on his underwater demolition techniques and go slap a mine on Mr Moon’s floating pleasure dome.
Debritto rolled up over the roof gutter and came up in a crouch. The warehouse was just like in the picture: flat tar roof, skylight, three small vent pipes. He held himself motionless for a full minute, eyes scanning the roof, listening. Staying low, he moved to the edge of the skylight. He laid out flat and listened. He could hear muffled music inside, probably a radio. He slipped the silenced.357 from its shoulder holster and inched forward.
What he saw confused him. A man’s face stared up into his. In the instant he realized the warehouse floor was covered with mirrors, the dart hit an inch below his left ear. He tried to roll and snap off a shot but instead flopped onto his back. His body went rigid, the gun slipping from his hand as the fingers stiffened and spread until they were almost bent backward. His lungs were filling with ice. Just before he lost consciousness he saw a tall figure in a black cape and black nurse’s cap step from behind the closest ventilation pipe and raise the blowgun to his lips. The back of Debritto’s right hand stung.
He heard footsteps, a rustle of cloth, a burning sensation in one of his arms. His eyes were open but he couldn’t see. His body had turned to frozen glass. He was a fly in amber, paralyzed, senseless. But he could hear, he realized, had heard footsteps and a rustle of cloth.
A woman’s voice whispered in his ear, ‘Dimethyl tubocaine chloride, a neuromuscular blocking agent. To slow you down enough to listen. I suggest you listen as if your life depended on it. The second dart was a mixture of curare and datura. I gave you two injections a moment ago, both containing synergistic combinations. Belladonna. Tetraclorothane. Methyl iodide. Sodium acid sulfate. Plus a few others I’d lost the labels for. Oh, and some hallucinogens for color. I won’t bore you with the specific effects of each. You’ll know soon enough. And I can’t tell you the cumulative effects because I’ve never tried these combinations before. You’ll be the first to know. Maybe the only one who ever will. And you do deserve to know, don’t you, Mr Debritto? I think so. Information is the root of understanding, and compassion is its flower. I’m an understanding and compassionate woman, Mr Debritto. I am also a Raven, quicksilver’s daughter, the moon’s witness, a messenger between the dead and the living, and a dweller in both realms. I know you doubt my compassion as you lie here so pathetically trapped inside your senseless flesh. Doubt is a tribute to intelligence, as I’m sure you’d agree if you could. So let me prove my compassion, Mr Debritto, prove it with a promise and a gift. I promise I will call you an ambulance within twenty minutes. And the gift is a critical piece of information that could mean the difference between life and death. I’m not sure whether I’ve given you a lethal dose or not. Lucky, lucky you. Yet another adventure in self-discovery. Poor baby. Poor, poor baby.’ She paused, and though he couldn’t feel it, gently stroked his brow. When she spoke again, her voice seemed harsher and more intense: ‘He was able to steal the Diamond because he believed in the Diamond. Now we’ll find out what you believe in.’