Linda Evans - Time Scout 4 - The House That Jack Built.pdf - Linda Evans - margozap

Chapter One

Skeeter Jackson wasn't in jail.

And that was so overwhelming a shock, he wasn't entirely sure what to

do with himself. The one thing he didn't want to do was hang around the

infirmary, where Bergitta lay in the recovery room after emergency

surgery and where Senator John Caddrick sat bellowing like a wounded

musk-ox, threatening to shut down the station around their ears. So he

ducked past crowds of shaken tourists, wounded in the riot at Primary,

slithered past news crews and the irate, fuming senator -- who was

still taking up a valuable medical technician's time to wash tear gas

out of his eyes -- and headed out into the vast crowds thronging the

Commons.

He didn't really know where he was going or what he intended to do,

once he got there. He didn't have a job any longer, and wasn't likely

to find a soul on station to hire him, particularly not with the kind

of trouble Time Terminal Eighty-Six had brewing. Skeeter threaded his

way through the jostling crowds, ignoring the shocked gossip flying

loose through Commons, and wondered for perhaps the fifteen millionth

time what had become of his friends, young Julius, who'd been born in

ancient Rome, and -- far more devastatingly -- down-time refugees

Ianira and Marcus and both their little girls. Ianira was the leader of

the entire community of down-timers stranded on the time terminal,

Speaker for the Found Ones' Council, and the inspiration for the

fastest-growing up-time religion in the world.

Not only major VIPs in anybody's book, but very nearly the only friends

Skeeter possessed. They'd all disappeared in the middle of a riot, the

first of many to hit Shangri-La Station during the past week, and

despite massive searches, not a trace of them had been found. Either

they'd managed to escape down one of the open time-touring gates or

they'd been kidnapped and smuggled out. Or -- and he had to swallow

hard, at the thought -- somebody'd cut them into small pieces and

dropped them down an unstable gate. Like the Bermuda Triangle, maybe .

. .

"Skeeter!"

He looked around, startled, and found Kit Carson homing in.

Panic struck.

"Don't bolt!" The retired time scout held up a hand as he hurried

through the crowd. "I just want to talk."

Skeeter paused, gauging the expression in Kit's eyes -- a surprisingly

friendly look -- and decided not to run. "Okay," he shrugged, waiting.

After all, Kit had stood up for him in the station manager's office

high above Commons floor, when Security Chief Mike Benson had been

chomping at the bit to toss him into the nearest jail cell -- or maybe

through the aerie's glass window-walls. A long shiver caught Skeeter's

spine at that too-recent memory. Mike Benson had dragged him up from

the station's subbasement battleground in cuffs, facing murder charges.

Neither he nor the station's down-timer refugees had really had any

choice but fight to the death, trying to wrest Bergitta away from her

kidnappers, a group of Islamic jihad fighters.

The Ansar Majlis had styled themselves after the original Ansar, the

religiously motivated nineteenth-century "dervishes" of the Sudan,

famed for routing British forces and killing General Gordon at

Khartoum. The terrorist members of the Ansar Majlis had dragged

Bergitta down into the station's sub-basement, where they would've

beaten her to death, after raping her. But that hadn't mattered a damn

to Mike Benson.

If not for Kit's support . . .

He didn't even know why Kit had come to his rescue.

So he shoved his hands into his pockets, suppressing a wince where the

cuffs had dug into his flesh, and waited for Kit to catch up. The

world-famous time scout actually clapped him on the shoulder, startling

Skeeter considerably.

"Come down to Edo Castletown with me," Kit said over the roar of voices

on Commons. "I need your help."

Skeeter blinked. "My help? What for?"

Kit grinned at his tone, but the smile faded too quickly. "After you

left the aerie, Ronisha ran computer records checks for everyone who

entered the station today. I'm afraid the databanks are a mess, thanks

to that riot Caddrick started." Kit shook his head and made a derisive

sound of disgust. "Half the arriving tourists haven't even scanned

their records in properly yet. But Ronisha thinks she's got a line on

the Ansar Majlis leadership. A couple of businessmen, seemed legit

enough. Came to open up a new outfitter's shop for the Arabian Nights

sector. They checked into their hotel, nice and quiet, then tried

to contact some of your pals from that murderous construction crew. By

radio, mind."

Skeeter's brows rose. "Don't tell me, they tried to contact those

little radio handsets Benson took off those bodies we left downstairs?"

One corner of Kit's mouth twitched. "You got it. Mike intercepted the

call. That down-time kid, Hashim, who helped you with the rescue? He

helped us out again, in a big way. He answered the transmission, told

them there'd been trouble, but he'd meet them, bring them up to date."

Kit thinned his lips. "They're in my hotel, Skeeter. I want them out."

"Alive?" Skeeter asked softly.

Kit's eyes blazed, giving Skeeter a dangerous, top-to-toes assessment

that left Skeeter sweating despite the bravado of his return stare.

"Preferably," Kit said in a low growl. "With as little damage to young

Hashim as possible."

"No argument, there. Where'd he agree to meet them? At the Neo Edo?"

Kit nodded.

"When?"

The retired time scout checked his watch. "About fifteen minutes from

now."

Skeeter swore. "I'll need a good disguise. Get me somebody's

headdress. And a tool belt." He paused. "You're sure you've got the

right assholes? Not just a couple of innocent Arab businessmen looking

for long-lost relatives?"

"We're sure," Kit said grimly. "They asked Hashim to bring schematics

of the station's brig, so they could plan an attack. They aim to break

their buddies out of jail."

Skeeter whistled. "That's bad."

"You're not kidding, that's bad. Right now, they're in room Four

Twenty-Three, waiting for Hashim to show up with his pals."

Skeeter nodded. "All right, let's get this over with."

A quarter of an hour later, Skeeter and young Hashim ibn Fahd were

walking softly down a carpeted corridor on the fourth floor of the Neo

Edo hotel, the latter in Neo Edo livery. Skeeter wore a long headdress

shrugged down across his shoulders and a toolbelt at his hips. The

toolbelt hid an eight-inch Bowie knife and a snub-nosed revolver shoved

into a paddle holster inside his trousers. Kit, too, wore a disguising

headdress and tool belt, and carried a sleek little semiautomatic

pistol. Security had closed off the corridor at either end, stationing

officers in the stairwells and elevator.

The fourth floor was as secure as they could make it without evacuating

innocents from adjoining rooms, which they couldn't do, not and keep

the element of surprise. A bad situation to be sure, but letting

terrorists like the Ansar Majlis continue to operate was a good deal

worse. Five minutes earlier, security had reported the arrival of three

additional men from the Time Tripper Hotel, also newcomers to the

station. At a guess, the leadership of the Ansar Majlis had gathered

for a high-level pow-wow. Once inside the room, Skeeter and Kit would

probably have only moments before the leadership realized they were

meeting with decoys. As Kit knocked, Skeeter told his hands to stop

shaking.

The door to room 423 opened just a crack and a low voice spoke in

Arabic. Skeeter's heart was pounding. He hoped like hell those

incarcerated construction workers in the brig had given Hashim the

correct code word to respond with. Hashim answered the challenge, his

stance cocky and belligerent. A chain rattled, then the door opened

wider. Hashim slipped to one side, out of the line of fire. Kit shoved

the door open and strode in. Skeeter followed at his heels, raking the

room with his gaze. He found only three men in sight. The door to the

bathroom was partially closed. At least one in there, maybe another in

the closet . . .

A well-dressed man of about fifty stared at them through narrowed eyes.

He spat out something that Kit responded to with a gutteral

monosyllable. At the doorway, Hashim let loose a voluble flood of

Arabic, drawing attention to himself. Then the closet door opened and a

new voice spoke sharply. The effect was electrifying. Weapons appeared

with terrifying swiftness. The man in the closet grabbed Kit by the

arm, clearly demanding to know who the hell he was.

The next instant, he was airborne, flipping arse about head past the

end of one bed. A gunshot cracked as Skeeter dove toward the bathroom

door, drawing his Bowie knife and slamming it into the unprotected

thigh of the man between him and Kit. The man screamed. Another gunshot

blasted loose, but Kit wasn't where the bullets impacted. He was across

the room, then somebody else screamed and went flying into the mirrored

closet. Skeeter kicked in the bathroom door, coming in low to the

floor, and heard a yell of pain just as bullets tore through the

doorway at head height. The door caught the shooter full in the face

and sent him reeling back against the john. Skeeter kicked his feet out

from under him. The man went down hard, struck his head against the

toilet tank, reeled face-first into the shower stall and lay still.

Skeeter disarmed him swiftly, then lunged back out into the hotel room.

Hashim stood on top of the man Skeeter had stabbed, grinding his wrist

into the carpet and holding a gun he'd clearly just liberated. Out in

the main room, the fight was over. Three men, dazed and bleeding, lay

in crumpled heaps where Kit had tossed them. Kit was breathing hard,

eyes narrowed down into slits, then let out a bellow that shook dust

loose. "Security!"

Officers flooded into the room.

Kit stepped aside as handcuffs appeared and dazed men were wrestled

into restraints. "Check the room next door," Kit said curtly. "Make

sure nobody was hurt. Bastards got off several shots that went through

the wall."

Skeeter stood breathing hard in the bathroom doorway, hardly able to

believe it was over so quickly. He turned over his own prisoner from

the shower stall, gratefully stripped off the headdress and tool belt,

handed over the borrowed weapons, and gave Security his statement. "Do

me a favor, will you?" he asked in a tight, controlled voice. "Find out

what they know about Ianira's disappearance." Then, far too wound up

from the adrenaline rush to just hang around, he headed out into the

corridor, away from the stink of gunpowder and blood, wishing mightily

for a glass of something cold to swallow.

"Skeeter."

He glanced up and found Kit heading his way, sans disguise. The

prisoners were being dragged -- or carried -- out of room 423. The door

to room 425 was open as officers checked the frightened occupants for

injuries and reassured a sobbing woman that the danger was over.

"Security will take it from here," Kit told Skeeter. "Hashim's going

down with them to translate. Good work. If you hadn't taken those two

out, I might've ended up with a bullet in my back. I don't know

about you, but I could do with a good, stiff drink and a plateful of

hot food. How about I treat you to supper at the Silkworm Caterpillar

while we talk?"

Skeeter swallowed surprise -- and an involuntary rush of saliva -- and

was overwhelmed by a sudden flood of hunger, accompanied by a spreading

sense of euphoria that he was still alive to be hungry. He couldn't

recall when he'd eaten his last real meal and didn't want to remember

too closely what it had consisted of, either.

"Okay," Skeeter nodded, meeting Kit's gaze. "Thanks."

He wondered what the retired time scout had in mind as they crossed the

world-famous Neo Edo lobby, heading for the Kaiko no Kemushi, the

Silkworm Caterpillar. Kit's restaurant, at least, appeared to have

survived the riot at Primary intact, but the hotel lobby bore mute

testament to the tear gas and the panic. Hotel employees sponged down

silk wallpaper in an attempt to remove the residues. The snarl of an

industrial carpet shampooer broke the elegant hush. Workers were masked

against fume exposure to the whitish, powdery film of chemical

irritants left behind. What the cleanup would cost . . .

Beyond the lobby, decorative bridges across Edo Castletown's ornate

goldfish ponds had been shattered, their railings smashed to splinters

during the riot Senator Caddrick and his goons in uniform had

instigated. Before the infamous politician's arrival, Edo Castletown

had been one of TT-86's most picturesque sectors, with its Shinto

Shrine and graceful pagoda-style rooflines. Skeeter clamped his lips as

he traced the path of battle scars, broken shrubbery, and smashed ruin

that had marred Edo Castletown's fragile beauty.

Too many of his few friends were missing, as a result of station riots.

Kit stood at Skeeter's shoulder, silent and grim as they watched

cleanup crews trying to clear away the debris. Shopkeepers sorted

through the wreckage of their merchandise. Rachel Eisenstein's medical

triage teams, staffed mostly by volunteers since the trained medical

personnel were all down at the infirmary, treating the seriously

wounded, ministered to those suffering from tear gas exposure and minor

injuries. Sue Fritchey's Pest Control crews huddled over a few small,

dark shapes lying on the floor, trying to keep prehistoric birds and

pterodactyls alive where they'd been teargassed, trampled, and almost

drowned in the goldfish ponds. Sue, tears streaming down both cheeks,

was setting the broken wing bones of a crow-sized flying reptile while

one assistant held the wing carefully stretched taut and another

administered anesthesia and monitored the animal's life signs.

"Zigsi," Skeeter muttered under his breath, using one of his favorate

Mongolian curses. "Doesn't Caddrick know it's against the law for

anybody to discharge tear gas on a time terminal? Even law enforcement

agents?"

Kit shot him a sidewise glance, mouth hard as marble. "Men like John

Caddrick don't care what the law says. And neither do the kind of

agents who'd come to Shangri-La with him."

Skeeter shivered, afraid of Senator John Caddrick in spite of -- or

maybe due to -- his rough Mongol upbringing. He recalled with

satisfaction trading assaults with Caddrick, back at the leading edge

of that riot, but . . . One of these days, Caddrick was going to calm

down enough to remember what Skeeter had said and done.

Linda Evans - Time Scout 4 - The House That Jack Built.pdf

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