realized that there were several pairs of eyes watching her intently. Ignoring the stares,
she strolled casually across the lobby and took the elevator tube down to her room.
Garst had obviously decided to keep tabs on her, but it was a move she’d been
expecting–she’d have done the same thing in his position.
She stayed in her room for half an hour, freshening up and making phone calls, then went
out and spent the rest of the afternoon in innocuous activities like gambling and a
sensable show. She took great pains to be obvious about what she was doing-she didn’t
want to lose those tails. At least, not yet.
In the early evening she returned to her hotel and ate a leisurely dinner in the dining
room, then made no attempt to stifle a huge yawn as she descended the elevator tube to
her room once more. It should be readily apparent to anyone watching that she was
worn out and would be retiring for the night. Of course, that was not her intention at all.
Once safely inside the suite, there was no hint of fatigue as she set about her real
purpose with determination. Forty-five minutes in front of a mirror with her makeup kit
completely changed her face from that of the demure widow who had entered the room
such a short while before. A long blonde wig in a carefully planned state of divine
disarray added to her change in look. A skin-tight black leather jumpsuit-striking
contrasted to the more moderate outfits worn by Carmen Velasquez completed the
disguise. Only the shrewdest of observers would recognize her as the same woman who
had spent the day in such casual pursuits.
After a quick check to make sure she had all her equipment with her, she opened the
door and walked out of her suite. One of the men Garst had assigned to follow her was
seated on a bench by the elevator tubes at the end of the hallway. He looked up when
her door opened and stared for a moment at her disguise, not believing it. Then his
trained instincts came to the fore and he looked back at his newsroll, pretending not to
notice.
Yvette sauntered up to him, noticing as she did so that there was no one else in the
hallway at the moment. That would simplify things. As she reached into her bag, she
said, “Good evening,” then drew out Myerson’s stunner and casually shot the man at
point blank range before he could react. The number four stun would knock him out for at
least two hours-plenty of time for her to get away without anyone being the wiser.
She took the up tube to the lobby and strolled through it. Every male eye in the place
was on her as she swiveled her hips in sexy gyrations. Sometimes, she knew, the best
disguise was to be blatant. The men who’d been assigned to follow her were watching,
too, but they were seeing her as a sexual object, not as an assignment. She had an
impish urge to walk directly up to one of them and wink at him broadly, but managed to
resist the impulse. After all, there was no point in tempting fate.
Garst’s men made no attempt to tail her as she left the lobby and hailed a jit on the
street outside. They would have liked to, of course, but for entirely different reasons than
before.
She had had no trouble earlier that day finding out where Garst lived; a few discreet
phone calls from her room before she’d gone out gambling had gained her that
information. She had checked the location on a map and formulated a plan of attack from
that. Now she directed the driver of her jit to take her to the dome intersection that
contained the entrance to Garst’s house.
The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that Garst had to be the
man behind this whole conspiracy. It had been obvious from the meeting this afternoon
that he could wrap the Marchioness around his little finger and make her do anything he
wanted. He had the intelligence, the cunning and the coldness to set up an organization
like this and keep it running for two decades without detection.
As one of the top agents for the Service of the Empire, it was well within her authority to
declare him a traitor just on the basis of what she already knew and execute him on the
spot. Without his genius for organization, the conspiracy he had fostered so carefully
would struggle along and eventually break up into small cliques that could be dealt with
more efficiently by local agencies. Her assignment would be considered accomplished
and no one, not even the Head himself, would be able to criticize her handling of the
affair.
But that was not the way Yvette d’Alembert liked to work. She was well aware of the
responsibility that went with her authority over matters of life and death. She had to have
irrefutable proof that Garst was indeed behind this before she would act-and it was to
obtain such proof that she was now paying a visit to his house. Besides, she was hoping
to get enough information to crack the whole gang wide open immediately, rather than
waiting for it to fall apart on its own after Garst’s demise.
The jit reached her destination and Yvette got off and surveyed the area. The job would
be a little harder than she’d anticipated, as she realized that breaking and entering was a
much more hazardous occupation on Vesa than anywhere else in the Empire. Nearly all
houses were built underground, below street level, meaning that there were no windows
or upper stories to enter through. Also, being an underground settlement, the lights were
kept on round the clock, making it most difficult to skulk about in shadows.
The only way to break in, Yvette decided, would be to confront the problem directly. The
hour she bad chosen for her break-in was technically nighttime, though that meant little
on Vesa. People could be-and were-awake at all hours, but she was hoping that Garst
would not be at home. Walking boldly up to the door, she tried pushing down the latch. It
would not move, indicating the door was locked. That usually meant either no one was
home or the occupants were asleep, and that was an encouraging sign.
Reaching into her purse, Yvette pulled out a small passkey kit. The door lock was a
standard one that could be opened by the right combination of electronic impulses. The
passkey device she held was an extremely intricate and expensive piece of equipment.
An ultra miniature computer, it systematically ran through billions of possible
combinations in a matter of seconds, making an almost untamperable lock passable. In
less than a minute, Yvette heard the click informing her that the lock mechanism had
been turned off and the door could be opened.
She replaced the passkey in her purse and removed now the current detector. Far and
away the most common burglar alarm in use was one that would go off if an electrical
circuit were broken-by, for instance, opening the door while the alarm was turned on.
Sure enough, a quick check with her sensor revealed that Garst’s door was wired with
just such a system. The detector allowed Yvette to trace the circuit around the door
frame; then, with a pinpoint laser drill, she bored through the wooden frame at specific
sites and was able to jump the system with some cables she had brought herself. Then,
after another check to make sure there were no other alarms attached, she quietly
opened the door and slipped inside.
The interior of the house was dark, but Yvette had come prepared for that eventuality.
She slipped on a pair of specially treated goggles and pulled a small infrared flashlight
out of her purse. The glow it gave the house was an eerie one, but it was good enough
for Yvette to see by without alarming anyone who might be inside. Thus equipped, she
set off to explore Garst’s mansion.
The long hallway contained just a few chairs, a small table and a clock hanging on the
wall. The closet was just that, a place to hang cloaks and hats; she rapped lightly on the
walls, floor and ceiling, but could detect no hiding places within it.
She moved on to the first room, which was a living room. Yvette noticed that Garst had
top-quality furniture, better than the Marchioness’s though less flashy; obviously, he was
a man of some taste. There were a lot of places for her to check, particularly two rows
of bookcases against the far wall, but she went through them with the efficiency of the
professional that she was. The next room, the dining room, was more sparsely furnished,
and it too checked out clean.