The young black photographer, Kyle something or other. The second pilot, Turner. The electronics guy, Jed Herne. Nothing had been heard of them, and it didn’t look as if they were in either of the two groups on the West Coast. Which probably meant that they’d all died somewhere along the line.
An aide, greatly daring, had asked Margaret Tabor why the crew of the Aquila were so important. It had been his lucky day, as she’d nodded at the question and then given him a carefully considered answer.
“Aquila was the sharp edge of what we did best in the United States,” she’d said. “If they’d come back before Earthblood, they’d have been heroes to rival anyone in history. Each member of the crew was someone special. Those who survive are still special. That’s why we want them on our side.”
“But if they won’t come over to our side, Chief? What happens then?”
She’d tweaked his cheek, nearly making him piss himself. “Easy, son. If you aren’t for us, then you’re against us. And if you’re against us…” Margaret had drawn a forefinger across the young man’s throat, making the hissing sound of tumbling blood. And he had pissed himself.
ZELIG RECEIVED the update earlier than his enemy.
Partly because he was, geographically, just a little nearer to the scene of the action.
A young woman had been shot and killed on the beach where the ship and the boat had landed, so close together. Chronologically only three or four hours apart. Zelig guessed that it might be one of Jim Hilton’s daughters. The one who had survived the cholera outbreak in Hollywood.
“Heather,” he said, straightening his tie in the mirror. From outside his window came the sound of trucks warming up their engines. He pulled back the blind and looked out, seeing that it was still snowing steadily.
Or it might have been one of Henderson McGill’s girls. Zelig had lost track of who was living in the McGill family and who had taken the last train for the coast.
It didn’t much matter.
It was more interesting to read the report of the corpse that had been found on the bridge that carried 101 north, past the quake-wrecked regions.
Shot once at short range, smack between the eyes, with a 9 mm automatic, blowing most of the back of his skull onto the snow-clotted blacktop. And there’d been spent cases from a high-powered rifle alongside the corpse.
Surprisingly, apart from the badge of the gold arrow and the silver sun, the man had been carrying ID in his breast pocket. It turned out to be legitimate ID, as well.
Xavier Burnette.
Zelig had made a note on the outside of the buff file. “One of the best.”
Under it he’d written a woman’s name in green ink. Circled it. Put two question marks alongside and circled those.
To take out the best, coldcocking Xavier Burnette like that, took the best.
“Nanci Simms,” he wrote. And “??”
WITH ELEVEN PEOPLE in the ruined beach cabin, it had become uncomfortably crowded.
As Jim Hilton had stood still, his mind whirling with wild ideas about taking out the person stalking him in dark, Nanci Simms had stepped out of the shadows, surrounded by swirling snow. She looked fresh and energetic, the Port Royale machine pistol cocked at her hip.
“No point in keeping a watch if you’re not watching properly, Captain,” she’d said for openers, then followed up her comment. “In any case, the man you’re worried about is a ways back there, dead and stiffening.”
“It was a man.”
“Of course. What did you think was up on the bridge shooting at you? A pregnant giraffe?”
“Nearly killed Heather. Bullet missed by less than a foot. Who’s with you?”
She had hesitated for a moment. It was almost the first time that Jim Hilton had known her caught at all off balance.
“We landed near the same place as you in a ship we stole. Around three to four hours ago. The same marksman was in the same damn place. Killed Pamela McGill with a single shot.”
AT FIVE O’CLOCK the next morning, Jim Hilton was sitting up in his compact sleeping bag, looking into the dying embers of the fire in the middle of the dirt floor. Outside, the wind was rising, and an occasional flurry of snow would be blown in through the open doorway.