They'd been lucky, she knew. If Leol had thought about it, planned it out instead of letting his instincts rule…
"Tactical retreat," Greg said. "None of us is in any fit state to do anything. I've lost track of the observer. And chasing after the one back in the well is a definite no. Besides, if you're right about Reiger, our lead over Fielder is getting narrower by the second. Bugger, but I wanted to know who else we were up against."
At the end of the walkway they took a lift up to the next floor, then switched. Malcolm slumped against the steel-panel wall, sucking down shallow breaths. Suzi was getting worried about the amount of blood he was losing. It was dripping steadily off his jacket, soaking the floor. He was muttering something in a slurred voice.
Greg tugged his cybofax out as the lift doors slid shut. "Rachel, we're in shaft A1 7, lift five. Bring the Pegasus as close to it as you can, and come and get us. It's hit the fan, OK?"
"On our way, Greg," Rachel's voice said out of the wafer.
Suzi's cybofax bleeped. She pulled it out of her top pocket with stiff fingers, knowing who it would be.
Leol Reiger's face filled the little screen. His corpse flesh was actually coloured, cheeks red. She could see one of Baronski's porno art paintings on the wall behind him.
"Two of my team, Suzi bitch. You snuffed two of them."
There was a woman's scream in the background, Suzi thought it might be Iol. Leol Reiger never paid it any attention.
"You fucking well brought them here, Leol. You ordered them to open fire when there were civilians around, you paranoid rat prick. They were sitting ducks in that lift. Your screw-up tactics. Your fault."
"I've got a deal to close right now, Suzi. But afterwards, you and I are going to say hello. First I'm gonna sprain your mind, show you a scene that'll make you scream; then I'm gonna snap your little kiddy body in two. You read me, bitch?"
"Bollocks. You're on the wrong side of this deal, Leol. I've got the fucking English Army behind me." She savoured the momentary flash of puzzlement on his face, then said, "Say hi to the SWAT squad for me, Leol," and flipped him off. The tremble in her legs was nothing to do with the glass fragments.
The lift opened into a passenger lounge, plastic chairs arranged in a zigzag pattern, hologram adverts of civil hypersonics slicing through clean sunny skies, departure information screens, a children's play area. An echoic tannoy voice was announcing a flight arrival. The first thing Suzi saw when the lift doors opened was Rachel and Pearse racing towards them, Tokarevs held ready. Waiting passengers scrambled out of the way.
Rachel's eyes widened in surprise when she saw them. "Lord hellfire, anything serious?"
"Malcolm's out, can't walk," Greg said.
"I got him," Pearse said. He pulled Malcolm's arms around over his chest, and lifted him piggyback style. Suzi didn't notice any drop in speed as he began to jog for the lounge door.
The Pegasus was taxiing towards the lounge as they came out into the hangar. Greg went up the belly-hatch stairs first, then Pearse, Suzi followed with Rachel bringing up the rear.
Malcolm had been lowered into one of the chairs at the front of the cabin. A couple of wall lockers were open, aluminium first aid cases on the floor. Pearse was easing his colleague's tattered soggy jacket off. "We'll have to cut the trousers," he said. It was all very tight and professional, she thought.
"Fine," Greg muttered, raiding the first aid kits for a diagnostic sensor and antiseptic sprays. He handed Pearse an infuser tube, which the hardliner pressed against Malcolm's neck
The belly hatch slid shut.
"Where to?" Rachel asked.
"Out," Suzi said. "Now. We should have some co-ordinates coming from Julia in a little while. But just get us out."
Rachel snatched up the handset.
Suzi started worrying about Leol Reiger's transport. Himself, a psychic, and at least six hardliners; whatever he'd arrived in it had to be big, and probably loaded with defence hardware, knowing Leol.
"Grab hold of something," Rachel called.
The flatscreen showed the Pegasus turning towards one of the lift platforms. Suzi could hear the compressors surging. With a rush of childish delight she knew what the pilot was going to do. She sank quickly into one of the chairs. Her knee was giving her hell.
There was a push of acceleration, and the Pegasus began its run for the platform. Hangar staff rushed to get clear. She felt the drop as they shot over the edge, her belly suddenly freefalling. The grassy valley floor with its railway lines and twin autobahns filled the flatscreen. Then they were bottoming out, swooping up again above the Prezda's dome.
"Is this plane fitted with an ECM system?" she asked.
Rachel looked up from the handset. "Yes."
"Tell the pilot to use it, and fly an evasion pattern through the mountains. We might be followed."
"Right."
"Suzi!" Greg called. "Take over from me, will you?"
She rose from the chair, the pain in her knee more acute. Malcolm was unconscious; Pearse had got his jacket and shirt off, and was spraying the wounds with antiseptic. The clear oily liquid mixed with blood, forming runnels across Malcolm's ribs, splashing on the chair fabric.
Suzi checked the data the diagnostic was displaying on its screen. Her guess about the blood had been right, he was losing too much. She found a plasma bladder, and pulled out its bioware leech patch. The patch resembled a flattened snail, a hard carapace with a soft spongy underside, connected to the plasma bladder with a plastic tube. She held Malcolm's forearm and pressed the leech pad against his skin. There was a soft sucking sound as it adhered. The pattern of yellow and green LED on the bladder's pump changed as the leech patch inserted its needle probes into his blood vessels, then it began feeding plasma into him.
Greg sat down gingerly in one of the chairs, and gave Victor Tyo's number to his cybofax.
Suzi heard the security chief say, "Bloody hell, what happened to you?"
"Tell you, we're not the only people looking for Charlotte Fielder." He started to fill Victor in on the events in the Prezda.
Suzi began spraying dermal seal on Malcolm's lacerations; the foam sizzled as it touched the skin, rapidly solidifying into a pale blue membrane. She was continually bracing herself as the plane banked and rose. Malcolm's back had been badly slashed by the flying glass. She had to use flesh tape on the wider cuts. Pearse was working on his legs, using a small sensor pad to find any buried glass fragments.
"Hey," she said quietly. "He did all right, your mate. Stopped those tekmercs dead."
"Reason he was chosen," Pearse grunted.
"Yeah, right." Suzi heard Greg rounding up, and asked Rachel to finish for her. She limped back to where Greg was sitting. A glance at the bulkhead flatscreen showed a continual blur of rock
"You too?" Victor asked when Greg handed her the cybofax.
Suzi sat heavily in one of the chairs, grimacing. The hand she was holding the cybofax with was filmed in dried blood, and not all of it was Malcolm's. "Yeah. But you should see the opposition."
"I know, Greg told me."
"Listen, Leol Reiger, I know him. He's a prize turd, but the bastard's good."
"I'm reviewing his profile now, Suzi. But I was aware of the name. Have you got any idea who employed him, any rumours?"
"Nope, sorry. Gave me a fuck of a shock seeing him there." She stared at Victor's concerned young-seeming face, her instincts rebelling against confiding in him. Security man. But she had hardlined with him once, seventeen years ago, some weird case Greg was working on for Julia. It was just she hated opening herself to anyone. "Victor, there's this girl. Name's Andria Landon. She's in my apartment at the Soreyheath condominium; not a hardliner, not even tekmerc. Means she can't look out for herself. So if Leol Reiger wants to hit me, she's the obvious choice. You got a safehouse she can stay at till I get back?"