Damn that girl! She was a twenty-year-old, wet-behind-the-ears rich man's brat, with her head stuck in a bunch of history books. Even her boyfriend had played dress-up cowboy, for God's sake, when he hadn't been cozying up to Jenna's film-making friends. But the little bitch had slipped right through their fingers, thanks to Noah Armstrong, and now Caddrick had gone ballistic. The suicidal idiot! Trying to play to the press and gain voter sympathy, when the very last thing they needed was Caddrick on any warpath.
Once again, Caddrick had failed to use the few brains God had given him, leaving Gideon no choice but to wade in and try to salvage the mess. Therefore, Mr. Sid Kaederman, detective with the world-famous, globe-spanning Wardmann Wolfe agency, would be taking an unplanned time tour. Gideon's lips twisted in a sardonic smile at the notion of posing as a detective from Noah Armstrong's own agency. But he did not find the idea of taking a time tour amusing. He was a fastidious man by nature, fond of his creature comforts, of up-time luxuries. He hadn't done real fieldwork in fifteen years and had vowed never to set foot down a time touring gate, where filth and disease and accident could rob him of everything he'd built over his career.
God, time touring!
The only question was, which of Shangri-La Station's gates would Mr. Sid Kaederman be touring? Which one, exactly, had Jenna Caddrick disappeared down, and which had Ianira Cassondra and her family gone through? Denver? Or London?
He intended to find out.
With that promise to himself foremost in his mind, Gideon Guthrie started reviewing methods by which he would slowly dismember Ms. Jenna Nicole Caddrick, and began packing his luggage. He was still reviewing delightfully bloodthirsty methods, up to the ninety-ninth and counting, when he snatched up a pre-prepared portfolio with Sid Kaederman's identification, medical records, and credit cards, and headed grimly out the door.
Chapter Fifteen
Skeeter knew they didn't have much time. The men who'd kidnapped Bergitta would kill her if they weren't stopped, and stopped fast. Making use of what he had ready at hand, Skeeter deployed part of his forces—the closest thing he possessed to shock troops—in an ambush where the corridor turned, forming a blind corner with a partially constructed apartment along one approach and a storage room along the other, providing two doorways strategically positioned for attack.
Skeeter then led his light, mobile infantry—such as it was—back toward the preoccupied construction crew, in what he hoped would be a maneuver worthy of Yesukai the Valiant himself, or maybe Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox. Having selected the least threatening of his troops to accompany him, Skeeter jogged straight into the big open bay warehouse, with Molly and the two kids from the Lost and Found gang hard on his heels.
"There they are!" Skeeter yelled. "Molly, quick! Go call Security!"
Eight-year-old Tevel, playing his role with enthusiasm, taunted, "Boy, are you gonna get yours! They'll throw away the key! Drop you down an unstable gate! Nyah-nyah, you're all going to jail! Come on, Molly, let's tell on ‘em!"
Hashim, not to be outdone, was shouting something that sounded scurrilous. Whether it was the teenager's Arabic taunts or Tevel's threats or Skeeter's shout for Molly to call Security, six of the burliest, nastiest, angriest members of the construction crew charged right at them. Screwdrivers and wicked knives glinted in the work lights dangling from the unfinished ceiling. The man in the lead was shouting, "Don't let them get away! Kill them all!"
Skeeter whipped around, bolting back the way they'd come. "Run!"
Hashim was still yelling taunts in Arabic as they pounded through a series of twists and turns in the corridor. Molly passed Skeeter, as planned, while eight-year-old Tevel shot into the lead, on a mission of his own. When they plunged through the blind corner, Skeeter turned on his heel and waited, claw hammer clutched in one hand. He could hear the pounding of their feet, could smell the stench of their sweat—
All six of them piled into the blind corner, running full tilt.
"NOW!"
Kynan Rhys Gower lunged through an open doorway, war hammer gripped over his head for a striking blow. The heavy wooden mallet whistled in a short arc. The lead man ran full tilt into it. His skull caved in with a sickening crunch. The man behind him screamed and tripped over the body, trying to dig a heavy Egyptian hunting dart out of his left kidney. A rock whizzed from the doorway nearest Skeeter. It stuck the throat of the man next to the pincushion. The man gave out a gurgling scream and went down, clutching his crushed trachea. Eigil Bjarneson's screaming war cry sent one man racing in retreat—straight onto Alfonzo's pike. Another man screamed and fell to his knees when Eigil severed his hand with a single blow of his sword. A sharpened screwdriver clattered to the floor from the twitching, disconnected fingers. The final man was hit with double blows in the chest, once from a spinning rock, once when a heavy hunting dart embedded itself between ribs.
When Eigil would have finished off the man whose hand lay beside him on the concrete, Skeeter rushed in. "Wait! I want one of ‘em alive!"
The man on the floor was pleading for mercy, promising anything, if only they would let him live, if only they'd bring medical help to reattach his hand... Rushing footfalls from behind brought Skeeter around in a crouch. But it wasn't an enemy, it was more down-timers, six of them, and the enraged construction foreman, whose face was bruised and scabbed with dried blood.
"How can I help?" Riyad snarled.
"Find out what that bastard knows about the Ansar Majlis. Their leaders arrived through Primary today. I want to know everything he knows about the Ansar Majlis and their plans to invade the station!"
"With pleasure! Get a tourniquet on that arm!" Then he switched to Arabic and Skeeter switched his attention to the rest of his war party.
"Kynan, Eigil, Alfonzo, get moving! Frontal assault. Corydon, Molly, Chenzira, back them up! And somebody get Security down here! Hashim, you're with me!" He scooped up a heavy concrete trowel from one of the dead men. With a blade like a hoe, one which stuck straight out from the handle, rather than bending down at an angle, its edge had been sharpened wickedly. It made a conveniently lethal weapon to back up his claw hammer.
Skeeter sent his troops into the open bay warehouse. He put Molly in the lead, since she had the only pistol, with Corydon and Chenzira Umi backing her up with the other two projectile weapons. Skeeter charged past the open bay's door and raced down the corridor toward the unfinished section of wall where Bergitta lay bound to the uprights. Hashim, too, had confiscated an abandoned weapon: a sharpened screwdriver. They crept past the last of the drywall, then crouched low to peer into the warehouse beyond.
About half of the fourteen remaining men had run toward the doorway, shouting obscenities at Skeeter's attacking troops and charging to the attack. Several others had taken refuge behind stacked supplies, wailing—or so Hashim whispered—that they should never have attacked the crew foreman and brought the woman down here, that they hadn't counted on killing so many people, couldn't they just abandon the whore and run? Only two men had been left behind to guard Bergitta. She was barely conscious, face swollen and bruised, mouth and nose bleeding where they'd hit her repeatedly. Neither guard was paying any attention to her, which meant they weren't looking at the open "wall" behind her, either.
Hashim slipped through first, easing past the two-by-fours on Bergitta's left, while Skeeter edged past on her right. When Molly started shooting, the guards left with Bergitta moved even further away. That gave Skeeter and Hashim the chance they needed. The down-time boy struck first. He drove the sharpened screwdriver into the nearest guard's back with a snarl of hatred. The man screamed. The other guard whirled, bringing up a knife—