Duplicate Effort Part 30

"But he probably hadn't counted on Bowles being news." Nyquist grinned. "Let's give his image to the press."

"That results in so many bad leads," Romey said. "You have a better idea?" Nyquist asked. She frowned for a moment. "Let's just call him a potential witness." "Then the press might try to interview him first."

"And he's going to what? Admit he killed her?" Romey grinned back at him. "We'll hear about it no matter what."

"We'll have someone monitoring the news nets." "And taking any tips." She put a hand on Nyquist's arm. "See? I told you this interview would be important."

He nodded. "It just might be the break we needed," he said.

46.

Flint didn't want to be in Wagner's office, but he saw no other choice. Those thugs Wagner had sent still had a laser pistol to Talia's head, and they had a jammer.

Had Flint been alone, he could have knocked the pistol away and tossed himself out of the air car, using his emergency links on the way to the ground to let the authorities know where he was.

He would have risked injury to himself.

He couldn't risk any injury to Talia.

So he let these four guys drag him and Talia into Wagner's office. Fittingly, the office was in the middle of the building that housed WSX. Wagner tried to hide the office's location with fancy elevator tricks and some floating corridors, but Flint wasn't fooled.

He also knew that even if the thugs left, it would be nearly impossible to get out of WSX alive. Of course, if Wagner had wanted Flint dead, he wouldn't have dragged him to the office. Especially in such a public way.

The office itself was wide and s.p.a.cious, with a skylight that was open to the dome. Flint only looked at the skylight as a possible escape route.

But everything he could think of wouldn't work for Talia. She had given the thugs as good as she'd gotten-the one was limping because she had managed a well-placed kick, and the who held her was missing part of his ear and probably had a major infection growing in there-but she looked a bit worn herself, and Flint didn't want that.

He didn't want any of this.

So he told Talia to stop fighting and to come along. She had given him an anger-filled look, but she had stopped.

And then she seemed close to tears.

"You may go," the voice came from darkness near the back of the office.

Flint recognized the voice. It belonged to Justinian Wagner.

"I'd love to go," Flint said, "but it seems your goons are holding my daughter."

"You mean a clone of your daughter, don't you?" Wagner asked. "You can always replace her." Flint clenched his fists so that he wouldn't lunge at the man.

"Besides, I wasn't talking to you, Flint. I was talking to my men. They can leave. Take the clone with you."

"She stays." Flint wasn't going to let her out of his sight.

Wagner stepped into the light pouring from the dome opening. He looked tired. Flint had never seen the man look tired before.

"We're going to be talking business," Wagner said. "No child needs to hear that."

"I'm not a child," Talia said.

"Technically," Wagner said, "you're barely a person."

Flint didn't like the fact that Wagner knew that Talia was a clone. "Leave her alone, Wagner. She's more human than you are."

Wagner stared at Flint for a moment, then inclined his head slightly to one side. "By your definition of human, that might actually be true," Wagner said. Then he waved a hand at the thugs. "Get out. Leave the clone, the child, whatever Flint here calls her."

"My daughter," Flint snapped.

"Well, technically, I suppose she is. If you claim all your random DNA," Wagner said.

One of the thugs shoved Flint forward. The one holding Talia didn't let go until he was almost through the door.

They left the room, closing the door behind them.

Talia wiped a hand over her face. The look she gave Flint was one part defiance and two parts terror.

"What do you want, Wagner?" Flint needed to know what this was about before he could figure out how to leave.

He also checked his links. Even though the portable jammer was gone, the links still weren't working. "I want to know why you're trying to destroy me," Wagner said.

Flint smiled. "Destroy you? Don't you think that's a bit dramatic?"

Talia came up beside him and stuck her hand through his arm. She was shaking. He put it around her shoulder, pulling her close.

She continued to stand straight, though. She clearly wasn't going to let Wagner see how he had frightened her.

Wagner took a step toward them. "You sicced that reporter on me. You gave her protection and files. Then you arranged to have her killed so that everyone will blame me."

The man's clothing was in disarray. His hair was slightly messy.

Flint guessed that was what pa.s.sed for distraught in Wagner's universe.

"You're telling me you didn't order her killed?" Flint asked.

"I've never ordered anyone killed in my life," Wagner snapped.

Flint made a sound of disgust. "Don't lie, Justinian."

"I'm not," Wagner said.

"Maybe you didn't order your parents' deaths," Flint said, "but you sure as h.e.l.l guaranteed it. I know you let the Bixian government know how to find your parents. And I also know you're smart enough to know that once the Bixian government could find them, the a.s.sa.s.sins would come to kill them."

Wagner's face had turned waxy. His eyes glittered.

"I never ordered anyone killed," he said. "Why should I? I own the largest law firm in the Earth Alliance. I can destroy my enemies with lawsuits and motions and court cases that would last decades." Wagner's voice was shrill. Talia leaned closer to Flint. He tightened his grip on her.

"You didn't want anyone to know about the ESI lawsuits," Flint said. "You didn't want anyone to know that it was WSX's advice that got people killed, not negligence."

This time, Wagner made the sound of disgust. "That was my parents' problem," he said. "I can and did disavow any culpability there. I wasn't even a lawyer when all that happened. I was a boy."

"There are other things in the files," Flint said. "Things you did."

"Yes," Wagner said. "The files. I thought you returned those to me untouched, Miles." "You can think whatever you want, Justinian. Amazing how trusting you are, for a lawyer." Wagner's eyes narrowed. "I still don't see why you had to kill Bowles. I can prove I was here. I can prove that I hadn't hired anyone. Nothing will hold up in a court of law, not even if you made up evidence."

Flint was feeling uneasy, and it wasn't just because he was in Wagner's office. "You didn't have Ki Bowles killed?"

"I've been spending all day trying to hold on to clients. Why the h.e.l.l would I hire a killer in the middle of all that? And how would I? I barely have time to talk to you."

Flint said, "Yet you managed to hire some goons to kidnap me and my daughter." "Kidnap is a harsh word. Besides, it only applies to legal humans. I'm sure you and I can come to some agreement where we concede that I brought you here for a meeting. I'm sure we can work that out."

Flint ignored the second part of that statement and focused on the first part. "Talia is legal. She's legally my child. You can check the records, Justinian. Any of those witness in the law school cafeteria will testify to the fact Talia left the cafeteria with a laser pistol to her head. You had no reason to meet with her."

Wagner waved a hand in dismissal. "If I'd summoned you, you wouldn't have come here." "Probably not," Flint said. "But I might have met you in a neutral place."

"Without protection? Thinking I had killed Ki Bowles?"

"I can protect myself," Flint said.

"That's clear," Wagner said with great sarcasm.

Flint didn't answer that. He wasn't going to say that the only reason he'd come had been Talia. He didn't want to give Wagner that much ammunition, even if Wagner was smart enough to figure it out himself. "Besides," Wagner said, "why would I kill you? I'd sue your a.s.s for my files. The ones you have illegally. The ones that you turned over to a reporter for no real reason."

"Prove that I have the files," Flint said. "There were witnesses to the fact I returned them." "Because," Wagner said, "there's no way Bowles could have known about ESI and Aleyd and Gramming. Not in the detail she was promising."

Talia had tensed. Flint wondered what she saw. He looked out of the corner of his eye but saw nothing. "Promised," he said. "You never waited to see if she'd deliver. It's Ki Bowles we're talking about here. She could have had only innuendo."

"Possibly," Wagner said. "But not even innuendo could have dug up Gramming."

"Gramming," Talia said softly.

Flint turned toward her.

"Gramming is on my certificate, Dad." She was whispering. "It's all over my research." "Research?" Wagner asked.

Talia flushed.

"What research?" Flint narrowed his eyes. Wagner seemed fl.u.s.tered. Something about Gramming bothered him. "Talia wanted her day of creation certificate," Flint said. "It took some work to get it." "I'll bet," Wagner said, "considering creatures like you are owned by the corporations that created you." "What?" Talia asked. "Enough," Flint said.

"And the corporation that created you would be . . . what? Aleyd? Isn't that who your wife worked for, Flint?"

The attack surprised Flint. And Wagner's knowledge. The man had been keeping an eye on Flint, just like Flint had kept an eye on him.

"Talia is legally my child," Flint said. "She's not owned by anyone." Although he couldn't say she never had been. If he hadn't taken her off Callisto, she would have become property of Aleyd Corporation.

"Why don't we call a truce, Flint?" Wagner said. "You stop trying to destroy me and I'll leave your so-called daughter alone."

"That's blackmail," Flint said. Wagner waved that hand again. "Kidnapping, blackmail, murder. You seem to think I'm capable of all of it."

"Because you've done it all," Flint said. "To say that you represent the law is a joke, Justinian. You're a power-mad egomaniac who seems to believe he's above the law."

"Dad," Talia whispered warningly.

"You're in my office," Wagner said. "Do you realize how easy it would be to make you vanish? All I have to do is tell your friends that you've Disappeared with that daughter of yours. They'd think it was inevitable, given the kinds of trouble you've been in over the years."

"They wouldn't believe anything you say," Flint snapped. "Sure they would," Wagner said. "You helped my brother Disappear. I know that. I'm sure your lawyer, Van Alen, does, too. She'd believe. If she believes, so would everyone else."

"Threatening me does you no good, Justinian," Flint said. "Ki Bowles was doing her own reports from materials she gathered."

Which was true enough. Just because he had jump-started her with tidbits of information from confidential files didn't make it any less true.

"When you killed her," Flint said, "you made sure that the source of that information went with her." "I didn't kill her!" "I didn't kill her!" Wagner sprayed spit as he yelled. "I didn't order her killed and I didn't do it. You'd think I'd destroy my law firm like that? You did it." Wagner sprayed spit as he yelled. "I didn't order her killed and I didn't do it. You'd think I'd destroy my law firm like that? You did it."

"No, he didn't," Talia said. "My dad would never kill anyone." Wagner stared at her. Then he looked at Flint. "Is that true?" Wagner asked in a completely different tone.

Flint wasn't going to answer the implied second question. He had killed, more than once, but only when he had no other choice.

"I didn't kill Ki Bowles. And I certainly would never have killed anyone to frame you." He put all the hatred he felt toward Wagner in his voice.

"Interesting," Wagner said. He sank into a nearby chair as if all the fight had gone out of him. "If one of us didn't kill her, then who the h.e.l.l did?"

47.

Nyquist and Romey left the interrogation area. Romey wanted to ask Monteith more questions, but Nyquist felt that first, they needed to get officers tracking Illiyitch.

"I'll contact the team still at Whitford," Romey said. "I'm sure they have holoimages and descriptions. He had to have had a resume or-"

A piercing shriek resounded in the corridor. Nyquist put a hand to his ear.

"You all right?" Romey asked.

He started to say, "Didn't you hear that?" but before he could, static filled his ears, followed by: "Ki Bowles's killers have come for me."

And then, silence.

Nyquist had a sudden headache. The sounds were so loud he'd actually thought they were inside the building, not coming from his links.

Normally links had filters to protect the receiver from things like that.

Only in cases of emergency did those filters sometimes malfunction.