“It’s his head or yours,” Humphries growled.
Grigor nodded, looking more morose than usual, and practically bowed as he backed away toward the door.
The doctor stood uncertainly in the center of the sitting room, a remote sensing unit in his hand. “I should take your blood pressure, Mr. Humphries.”
“Get OUT!”
The doctor scampered to the door.
Humphries plopped himself down on the wide, deep sofa and glowered at the covered plates arranged on the wheeled table. A bottle of wine stood in a chiller, already uncorked.
He looked up and saw that everybody had left. Everybody except the blonde, who stood at the door watching him.
“Do you want me to leave, too?” she asked, with a warm smile.
Humphries laughed. “No.” He patted the sofa cushion beside him. “You come and sit here.”
She was slim, elfin, wearing a one-piece tunic that ended halfway down her thighs. Humphries saw a tattoo on her left ankle: a twining thorned stem that bore a red rose.
“The doctor said you should rest,” she said, with an impish smile.
“He also said I need a tranquillizer.”
“And a good night’s sleep.”
“Maybe you can help me with that,” he said.
“I’ll do my best.”
He discovered that her name was Tatiana Oparin, that she worked in his personnel department, that she was ambitious, and that she would be delighted to replace the late Victoria Ferrer as his personal aide. He also discovered that the rose around her ankle was not her only tattoo.
Grigor Malenkovich noted, in his silent but keen-eyed way, that Tatiana stayed behind in Humphries’s suite. Good, he thought. She is serving her purpose. While she keeps Humphries occupied I can start the search for Fuchs without his hounding me.
The place to start is the hospital, he told himself. All four of the intruders have been brought there. They are under guard. One of them is undoubtedly Fuchs himself. Or, if not, then he knows where Fuchs is.
He went directly to the hospital, only to be told by Selene’s security officers that all the people taken from the fire scene were under protective custody.
“I want to ask them a few questions,” said Grigor.
The woman in the coral red Selene coveralls smiled patiently at him. “Tomorrow, Mr. Malenkovich. You can be present when we interrogate them.”
Grigor hesitated a moment, then asked, “Why not now? Why wait?”
“The medics say they need a night’s rest. One of them was wounded, you know, and all of them have had a pretty rugged time of it.”
“All the better. Question them while they are tired, worn down.”
The woman smiled again, but it seemed forced. “Tomorrow, Mr. Malenkovich. Once the medics okay it. We’ll talk to them tomorrow.”
Grigor thought it over. No sense getting into a quarrel with Selene security, he decided. Besides, Humphries is busy enjoying a good night’s rest—or something of the kind.
“You can’t take patients out of the hospital without authorization,” said the doctor. He was young, with a boyish thatch of dark brown hair flopping over his forehead. Wanamaker thought he probably made out pretty well with the female hospital staffers.
He kept his thoughts to himself, though, and put on his sternest, darkest scowl.
“This is an Astro Corporation security matter,” he insisted, his voice low but iron-hard.
They were standing at the hospital’s admittance center, little more than a waist-high counter with a computer terminal atop it. The doctor had been summoned by the computer, which normally ran the center without human intervention. Wanamaker had waited until midnight to fetch Fuchs and his people out of the hospital. Minimal staff on duty. He had brought six of the biggest, toughest-looking Astro employees he could find. Two of them actually worked in the security department. The other four consisted of two mechanics, one physical fitness instructor from Astro’s private spa, and a woman cook from the executive dining room.
The doctor looked uncertainly at the identification chip Wanamaker held out rigidly at arm’s length. He had already run it through the admittance center’s computer terminal and it had verified that Jacob Wanamaker was an executive of Astro Corporation’s security department.