“Landed the twenty-fifth of September, Mrs….? Could I know your name?”
“Simms. Nanci Simms. Now, you being who you are intrigues me. Get this one right, and you might even get to live in this new paradise a while longer. Understand?”
Jeff started to sputter about bloody poor timing for riddles, but one look from her silenced him, and he nodded.
“Operation Tempest.”
“Yeah?”
“Heard of it?”
“Maybe.”
The thin lips tightened into a carbon-steel line. “Don’t condescend to play games with me, Thomas. I hold your life balanced on my index finger. Life or death is nothing.”
“You see,” she continued, “in this post-Earthblood world of ours, life is the cheapest thing around.”
“Let us go, ma’am?” said the redhead.
“A moment more of your time,” she said, looking at Jeff Thomas. “Tempest. And General John Kennedy Zelig?”
“I know something about him.”
A nod of the head. “Good. There is a meeting place, is there not?”
“Yeah.”
“You probably know that there are two sorts of people interested in the project?”
“Not really.”
“Oh,” she said with a note in the voice that indicated that she thought Jeff was telling a lie but wasn’t that bothered about it.
“But I know about the meeting place.”
“Ah, now that I would like to hear. Tell me where and when.”
“No.”
“No?” Something crossed her face that would have been a smile if it had come within a hundred miles of her eyes. “Because you think I might then simply walk away and leave you to these degenerates?”
“Possibly. Only way to find out if I’m speaking the truth is for you to come with me. To the place I tell you about.”
Nanci Simms stared at him. “I never met a journalist who wasn’t a mindless, voracious and stupid piece of ordure. Perhaps you’re an exception. At least you don’t seem stupid.”
“If you save me, I’ll show you where to go. And I’ll come with you, all the way.”
This time the smile reached the eyes. “Well, I’m certain I’ll feel immeasurably safer for having you along, Jeff.”
“Can I pick up my knife and my pack?”
“Sure thing,” she said, waving the machine pistol in a warning gesture. “But take care not to get yourself between them and this.”
“Please…” moaned one of the boys, dropping to his knees in the broken glass, face as white as wind-washed bone.
She leveled the neat black pistol at him, not betraying any emotion.
“Listen to me, you gutter scum,” she said briskly. “This gentleman and I will shortly be departing from the Ghirardelli building. Before we go, I want all those knives thrown out of that window. Then you will remain here and count to ten thousand, quite slowly. After that I will remove any of you I might chance to see again.”
Nanci Simms pointed at the boy with the waistband of colorful condoms. “Throw away the blades.”
Jeff was now between the woman and the door, and it crossed his mind to make a run for it and get away from the blood-eyed old crazy. But he couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling that she would probably prove able to run much faster than him.
“Good decision, Jeff,” she said over her shoulder. “Would’ve been dead before you reached the stairs if you’d tried for it.”
NANCI TOPPED HIM by four inches, striding through the deserted streets of the city with a long, rangy step. The steel-tipped heels of her polished boots rang in the silence.
She’d asked him if he had any place to stay for a night. She rubbed a ruminative finger along the side of her nose when he mentioned his apartment on Jackson Street.
“Might be undamaged. Let’s go see.”
When they reached his apartment, they found the door kicked in, but there was little serious harm. The looters had been through the kitchen and took anything that could possibly be eaten, as well as all the knives. But they hadn’t stayed to trash the place.
Nanci was sprawled out on the sofa, legs crossed. She’d refused any of the trail food, pulling some jerky from her own, much smaller pack. Jeff had nibbled on a fruit-and-oats bar, finding he didn’t feel as hungry as he thought he would.