“Nothing more to do here, then,” Grian concluded.

Rory blocked him as he attempted to climb the slope. “What about confirmation?”

“If he took a ride on a Water Horse, there isn’t going to be any body.”

“Then we’ll get credit for the kill?”

“More than likely.”

“So I guess there is nothing more to be done here,” Rory said cheerily.

Sam saw the sour look Grian gave the sorcerer as Rory started up the slope.

“All right, mark it and we’re done. We’ll let the regular patrol clean up in the morning.”

There were murmurs of approval from the Elves as they left off what they were doing and joined their leader. Bran tapped buttons on a shiny object he took from his backpack before dropping it near the burned-out van. While he was doing that, Rory spent some time staring at the marks his magic had made on the forest. He looked troubled, as though he couldn’t remember something that was important to him. When Grian called his name, the sorcerer shrugged and slowly turned away to follow the others. Sam watched the last Elf leave the clearing to follow his companions back to their transportation. They were heading well away from the direction that he had run. He was safe.

Exhaustion swept over Sam. He left the clearing, turning his eyes from the death and destruction again. He had no awareness of the walk to the tree that had felled him, but suddenly he was there again.

Something nagged at him, a sense of being watched. He stretched his senses pushing back the fatigue that dragged at him, dulling his perceptions. The woods were still peaceful. He caught a glimpse of shadowy shapes loping between the trees.

Dark beasts, canine and at least as big as wolves.

Then they were gone.

Strain as he might, he lost them among the trees. Were they coming closer? He didn’t know and almost didn’t care. He had pushed himself beyond his limits. His head drooped; he was tired beyond comprehension Lord, he was tired.

Once more, he felt the pain of the assault gun grinding into his back. All the aches of overused muscles and the small pains of scrapes and cuts swelled. It was deep in the third period of sudden-death overtime and he was an ice Brawl puck. If the beasts were coming to get him, they could have him. He already felt dead.

Intermittent puffs of hot air beat on the left side of his face and he smelled the fetid stink of a carnivore’s breath. Cautiously, he turned his head and opened his eyes. Two slanting, golden-green eyes stared into his.

19

Marushige was right. Sato considered it uneconomical to undertake a hunt for Verner and his doxy. Crenshaw’s lobbying for just such action had almost cost her all the good will she had been building up with the Kansayaku. The only good thing was that Sato had not directly forbidden her to look into the matter. Not that such a prohibition would have stopped her, despite the devastating consequences that disobeying could bring down. Crenshaw figured she had always been able to look after her own interests, arranging for any devastating consequences to fall on someone else, preferably an enemy.

Still her private investigation had not yielded much. Her network in Seattle was minute compared to the web of contacts and informants she had maintained in the Orient. What little word trickled in all came back negative. It was as though Verner had vanished from the face of the earth. Such cheap-hire runners couldn’t be that good. There had to be a connection with some high-rolling player in this shadow game. All she had to do was find it.

To do that, she needed time, time the Kansayaku wasn’t letting her have. Whenever she wasn’t acting as his bodyguard, he kept her running his errands. As though Akabo and Masamba weren’t enough mundane and magical muscle. As though he were trying to keep her from getting out and doing some of her own spadework.

That, she realized, was an angle she had overlooked. Might Sato be involved somehow? She didn’t see what he had to gain, but he certainly had enough clout to make a person vanish. A hidden interest in Verner would explain why Sato had gone along so easily with her suggestion about offering the wimp contact with his sister.

If she could just finish her little chore quickly enough, she could get in a call to a certain Tokyo fixer who might know something.

Impatiently, Crenshaw looked through the double panes of Xylan that separated her from the clean room where the AI team was conducting an experiment. Among the anonymous green-coated figures, the tall form of Vanessa Cliber stood out easily. After a few moments, Crenshaw identified the other team leaders among the capped and masked workers.

The strands of black hair escaping from a loosely tied cap and the constant bustle were characteristic of Sherman Huang, president of Renraku America and head of the operation. No one else would dare to be so casual about the room’s cleanliness restrictions while at the same time being so passionately involved in the process.

The other leader demonstrated a precision of movement and an economy of motion that Crenshaw admired. She had noted it two days ago while observing Konrad Hutten working in the data center. For a man whose specialty was abstruse microtronic engineering, he had a physical grace that Crenshaw found attractive. When this current business was wrapped up. she just might try to find out if he was equally attractive away from his work. She wondered if he liked aggressive women.

As she watched, the test seemed to conclude. The workers relaxed visibly and all the bustling stopped. Three figures left their associated knots of green coats and headed for the airlock door of the clean room. Only the team leaders would be free to leave before all systems were verified as secure. Crenshaw felt a smug satisfaction at having pegged all three correctly.

Huang was the first through the outer door. He had already stripped away his cap and mask and was trying to stuff them into a pocket. His mind, as usual, was on other things, and the objects fell to the floor.

“… for a whole hour. It’s not like she didn’t know there were going to be late nights on this project.”

“Even wives don’t like being stood up, Sherman,” Cliber said.

“It was just a little dinner party. Nobody important was there.” Huang shrugged. “She’ll get over it. She always does.”

“Perhaps if you took some time off,” Hutten suggested.

“Time?” Huang was clearly affronted. “That’s exactly the issue. Everybody wants my time. I don’t have enough for the project now that it’s reached this crucial stage. If they’d just leave us alone.” His eyes fixed on something only he could see and the muscles around them relaxed from their habitual squint. “Just a little more time and we’ll show them.”