S
haleTech had its headquarters in Chicagoland’s Technology Corridor, which flanked Interstate 88 in DuPage and Kane Counties. It shared the general area with the likes of Argonne National Laboratory and Fermilab.It was a splendid fall afternoon. Maliha retrieved her car from the private garage she’d had built inside the building’s main garage. She drove a black McLaren F1, until recently the fastest street-legal car in the world with a top speed of 250 miles per hour. Although she knew the car’s speed record had been surpassed, she loved everything about it, from its elegant butterfly-wing doors to its center driver’s position. She’d had a number of customizations made by the British manufacturer. Several of them had to do with theft prevention, since the car was worth over a million dollars. The rest had served her well during pursuits.
She tossed her high heels on one of the passenger seats and slipped on the worn pair of athletic shoes she left on the floor. Driving a stick shift in heels wasn’t practical, and she didn’t do it if it was avoidable. Getting into the center seat shouldn’t have been easy in a dress, but Maliha made it look easy. Traffic on I–88 kept her from taking the McLaren on a real romp, but the time behind the wheel was enjoyable anyway.
She wore a long-sleeved black dress that ended modestly at the knee, but that was all that was modest about it. The silky material clung to her curves and the dress dipped low in front and back. Her red high heels would set her ass in motion with every step she took. Her black hair curled into luxurious waves that framed her face. Subtle makeup highlighted her great cheekbones and green eyes. It was an evening outfit, but she didn’t mind surprising Greg and putting him off balance. She was as much dressed to kill as when she went out with her black outfit and knives.
Maliha arrived early for her 1 P.M. appointment. The ShaleTech building didn’t go for aesthetics. It was a brick cube nine stories high, sparingly decorated with tall, slitlike windows. It looked like a Borg spaceship that had fallen to Earth. She pulled off the road and took a good look through binoculars. There was a double set of peripheral fences about thirty feet apart, with the land in between patrolled by pairs of guards with dogs.
Definitely a tougher nut to crack than PharmBots.
At the first gate, her car was checked by a bomb-sniffing dog and examined underneath with a mirror. She had the distinct impression that the guard wanted to examine underneath her with a mirror, too. At the second gate, her fingerprints were taken on a hand scanner and checked, along with her photo, against law-enforcement databases and against ShaleTech’s private list of personae non grata.
Maliha had accessorized her clothing with her Marsha Winters fingerprints today, collected from an unclaimed corpse eighty years ago. She had a large supply of prints from an era before their widespread use for identification that Amaro used to set up her identities.
Inside, her purse was hand-searched as she went through a metal detector under the watchful eye of the chief of security, an emotionless man whose badge simply said CHIEF CLARK. He looked like a man who, in other circumstances, would have been a torturer. Had probably been a torturer in his military stint. She knew the type.
Her cell phone was placed in a small wire basket and a tag was wired to it with the number from her visitor badge. If she wanted to make any calls, she’d have to use a company phone, and snapping photos was out of the question—at least, using the phone.
The slim purse Maliha carried had a tiny camera in its lining, and she was snapping away by squeezing a certain spot near the clasp. The camera showed up on X-rays in the shape of a cough drop, and she carried several real ones in her purse to confuse the issue. Her escort took her to the seventh floor. Greg met her outside his office, preventing her from getting a look at his workspace. He appraised her frankly with his eyes, and appeared to like what he saw.
“I’m glad you could come. It’s a pleasure to see you again.”
“The pleasure’s mutual. Shall we get settled in your office to talk?”
“I thought we’d talk over lunch.”
“How about we go out for lunch, then?” What she’d wanted was a good, long look at his office. A restaurant would be second choice, to get him out of the comfort zone of his home territory. “I’m in the mood for Italian.”
They walked a couple of doors down the hall to a small dining area with expansive views of the grounds.
There were a few late-lunch stragglers in the dining room, executives talking to their counterparts, one table of white-coated scientists in a vigorous, hand-waving conversation.
“Let’s sit with them,” Maliha said, indicating the scientists. “They look lively.”
Greg smiled and waved her ahead of him into a private room with a door that closed out the voices from the main room. There were no windows. The lighting was dramatic, pinpointing works of art on the walls and statuary on pedestals. On a table topped with black marble was a stand containing a traditional display of Samurai swords—the tanto, wakizashi, and katana—in their sheaths. Maliha wandered over to them. They were old, authentic.
Soul of the Samurai. I wonder whose soul this is in front of us.
Greg had followed, and was standing too close behind her. Any closer and his groin would be on a first-name basis with her ass.
She ran her hand over the curved sheath of the katana, doing her best to make it seem sensual. The catch in Greg’s breathing told her she’d succeeded.
“You’re a collector. Twelfth century?”
“Thirteenth. I never would have taken you for a sword expert.”
She turned around to face him, and Greg remained where he was, putting them very close together.
“I dabble in the martial arts,” she said.
Greg put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m a practitioner, too. I’ve been told I’m pretty good.”
She swiveled her hips slightly. “Really? Maybe you’d like to show me a few of your moves after lunch.” She almost winked at the innuendo, but refrained.
“I’d like nothing better. I have a dojo right in the building. I’m a strong believer in the mind-body connection, and I do my best work when my body’s needs are attended to.”
There was just a touch of a leer in the last part of what he said.
You’ll have to drink at another trough, Mr. Horny Stallion.
She filed the thought away to use as a line in A Lust for Murder.
A waiter entered. Greg told him to have the chef do something Italian, and asked for wine to start.
“I’ll send out the sommelier,” the waiter said. The word rolled off his tongue beautifully.
“I guess this isn’t the usual company cafeteria,” Maliha said, when the waiter had gone. “Not many of them have chefs, much less sommeliers.”
Greg made a gesture of dismissal with his hand. “I need a place like this. A lot of high-powered people come through here.”
“Is that what you consider me? A high-powered person to wine and dine and get concessions from?”
“I like the sound of that last part. We could put some offers on the table, so to speak.”
I think he’s saying we should do it on the table before the sommelier arrives.
A quick check of Greg’s aura revealed sharp spikes of dark crimson, representing sexual passion. She looked away to let the aura fade.
“Offers for the foundation?” She decided to play it straight. “I’m eager to hear what you have in mind.”
Mild disappointment showed in his eyes, but then they hardened, business-style.
“To put it simply, I have a public-relations problem. I need to soften the corporation’s image. You look around, everybody’s into philanthropy like it’s the flavor of the month. Your Vitality for Life Foundation fits the bill. It isn’t oversold in the market. Others are going for photo ops with sweet-faced kids. I’m going to do those photos with Grandma and Grandpa. A lot of folks out there are dealing with care of their elderly parents. It should strike a chord.”
“We don’t talk about it in such mercenary terms. But, yes, ‘striking a chord’ is an apt description. Caring for elderly parents is a common experience, and as more of the baby boomers come on line, thinking about aging issues is very popular. I think you’re making a forward-thinking decision to go with the old folks over the sweet-faced kids.”
She hadn’t been able to keep the sarcastic tone out of her voice entirely, but Greg didn’t pick it up.
“Forward-thinking. Good sell. I’ll use that with the board. That’s enough business for the day, don’t you think?”
She excused herself to freshen up before lunch. In the swanky restroom, she reached into her purse and took out a large compact. While powdering her nose, she pressed a button to take a reading on the GPS device built into the compact. She might not know where Greg’s office was, but at least she’d be able to find the restroom.
Lunch was delicious. Maliha ate lightly, remembering her appointment to do a little sparring after the meal. She asked for and received a tour of the seventh floor, which housed busy executive offices, with Greg showing off but keeping his own office off-limits. She took pictures, filed away her impressions and memorized the floor plan. Maliha turned heads wherever she went, but when the men saw she was with Greg, they turned back to their work. It wasn’t part of the corporate culture to lust after the boss’s new toy.
Outside the dojo, Greg sent her into a dressing room where she changed into a karate gi. An assortment of belts was available. She picked black and went to the dojo, where she bowed and entered. Greg was already inside, wearing a black belt. She gave him a courtesy bow.
Though he should be bowing to me, for both age and experience.
“I see you’re not wearing pads.” Greg was referring to the helmet and the chest, arm, and leg pads worn by students for sparring. “Sure that’s okay?”
“Not a problem. If you can do without, so can I. Open hand or weapons?” The dojo had a well-equipped weapon wall.
“No weapons. I wouldn’t want to hurt—”
She swept his leg, vaulted over him, punched a strike at his throat, stopping her hand a fraction of an inch away from his Adam’s apple, and ended up standing on the other side of him as if nothing had happened. She offered him a hand up from the floor, but he didn’t take it.
“Okay, let’s get serious.”
Yeah, let’s.
Maliha kept him on edge but didn’t dig deeply into her set of skills. It was clear he’d been trained by someone with an eclectic style similar to the way she fought: whatever works. They switched to eskrima sticks and then swords. Greg called a halt after twenty minutes of testing. He was red and sweating. Maliha’s heartbeat had barely ticked up a notch.
“You’re certainly a match for me,” he said, puffing a little. “I thought you said you dabbled in martial arts. How’d you get so good?”
“Years of practice, I guess. I started when I was a lot younger.”
“You must have started as a baby, then.” He laughed at his own joke. “What do you think about taking on someone with more experience? My trainer’s here today. I’m sure he’d love to work with a more advanced student than I am.”
I’ve got better things to do than this. Like carve a bar of soap into a dragon or something.
“Sure, I’m up for it.”
The trainer turned out to be a taciturn man from Central Asia who didn’t say a word. She placed him as Mongolian.
Wind howled outside the small ger. Inside, in the sweaty aftermath of fierce lovemaking, Susannah lounged naked in front of the fire. Wood smoke rose to the open hole in the ceiling. Snowflakes from the storm outside drifted down into the hole, met the rising column of smoke, and winked out of existence. She ran her hands across the furs beneath her and listened as her man sang and played the morin huur, a two-stringed fiddle with a carved horse’s head on the handle. The instrument produced the sounds of a horse galloping across the steppes, and his voice rose and fell to match the rhythm. He set the fiddle down and turned to her, his eyes hot with lust, hotter than the fire. Her smile was all the invitation he needed.
The trainer was a man about her height, well-muscled, compact, with a low center of gravity. He’d be harder to take down to the mat than Greg, but all that was needed was a feel for how much force to apply where, and she’d find that out the first time she tried.
She gave him a traditional bow, but he inclined his head slightly in return.
Arrogant son of a bitch. This is going to be fun.
Her first few attempts to throw him to the mat failed. She couldn’t seem to use his weight against him, so she adjusted her strategy to swift, powerful kicks and rapid punches. He blocked everything she did, and answered her attacks with more-effective ones. Tempting as it was, she didn’t want to get into it and show skills that were exceptional. She called it quits, admitting that he was too much for her.
Greg looked smug. A win by his trainer was a win by proxy for him, and it was apparent that Greg didn’t like to lose. He excused himself, saying that he had to make a few phone calls and would meet her after she changed clothes. He hinted that she should shower in the dressing room, and she wondered if he had a peephole in there.
As soon as he left the room, the trainer spoke for the first time.
“Shall we continue?”
The trainer’s voice was like a blast of cold air. She shivered and the hair rose on her forearms.
Before she could answer, he launched an attack that drove her back to the edge of the mat. In defense, she began to move faster, strike harder, use the walls as springboards. He was relentless, and the blows he used would be lethal if they connected. All pretense of a sparring exercise had vanished.
What is this? Who is this?
He came away from the weapon wall with a sword, leaving her no choice—she chose a sword, too. The pace of the fighting accelerated. He drove past her defenses and slashed her right arm, a stroke to weaken the muscles there. Instantly she spun to keep him from inflicting damage on her other arm, switching the sword to her left hand before her blood even hit the mat. She ended the spin in a crouch, an unusual position that she thought might take him off guard. His blade whistled above her head, a stroke that would have cut her in half if she’d been standing. She found an opening, and jabbed upward toward his armpit. It should disable him enough for her to put a stop to this contest. She had to stop it, because very soon she’d have to reveal skills that had taken more than one lifetime to acquire.
He blocked her unexpected jab, but a fraction of a second late. The blow was deflected downward into his arm. She was off balance, leaning forward into the movement, and struck harder than she meant to. The sword bit into his wrist, nearly severing his hand.
Horrified at what had happened, she pulled up on the next strike she’d launched, and stood motionless, as did he. He was bleeding profusely from the wrist, and his hand was hanging by thin band of skin.
Going to be hard to explain to Greg. I come for lunch and chop off somebody’s hand.
The Mongolian pushed his hand back into place and held it there. She stared as the bleeding stopped and the flesh rejoined. In a minute he flexed his wrist with no sign of damage except red stains on his clothing.
He’s Ageless.
The realization hit her hard. She was standing a few feet away from a being like she’d been, a servant of a demon. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. All the blood seemed to have left her limbs, leaving them cold and immobile. Like her first days as a martial-arts student, she was in the presence of someone who could strike her dead at any moment. Her heart thudded against her ribs with a force that had nothing to do with physical exertion and everything to do with fear.
“My name is Subedei. We’ll meet again on another battlefield.”
He was gone in a flash. Or was he? The dojo was silent and threatening. At any moment, he could reappear behind her and slash her throat, or in front of her and run her through with the sword. With a running leap from the edge of the room, he could decapitate her, and in that second she would enter Rabishu’s unending torment, her goals on Earth unfulfilled. The thought made her ill.
Subedei. S. My stalker, who put his initial on my photo like I belonged to him, who violated…
She pictured the black panties, then herself wearing them, and gasped. She didn’t know how she knew it, but she knew for certain that Subedei’s hand had rested on them between her legs. He’d done nothing more, but the touch was to claim her.
In the dressing room, still trembling, she stripped off her uniform. The wound on her arm wasn’t serious. She ran water over her arm to clean off the blood, then wrapped the area tightly with gauze she found in the room’s first-aid kit. She put her black dress back on, glad now for the long sleeves that hugged, and hid, her arms. As she stepped out into the hall and saw Greg walking toward her, she remembered that there was blood on the mats in the dojo, both hers and Subedei’s.
Let Subedei deal with it. He wouldn’t want it known, either.
On the way home, the pleasure of driving the McLaren forgotten, she pulled off the road and vomited into the grass when the fear of what could have happened in her encounter in the dojo hit her. Of what already had happened, some night in her home, his powerful hand resting on the most private of places.
She’d had better days.