She flicked off the gla.s.ses and let them fall against her chest as she sorted the expensive folders in front of her.

Then one of her links activated. Her a.s.sistant, a slender dark-haired man, appeared in the lower corner of her left eye.

"I know you didn"t want to be disturbed," he said, "but I"m being told this is an emergency." The pa.s.sive construction was unusual for him. She was about to say that when someone knocked on her office"s frosted gla.s.s doors.

No one ever touched those doors. She had designed a system where the doors rose into the walls, revealing her private waiting room. Usually she kept the doors open, closing them only when she was doing something important or meeting with a client inside her office.

The doors looked fragile and expensive, and no one, not even her a.s.sistants, touched them without fear of breaking them.

"What the h.e.l.l is going on?" she asked her a.s.sistant as she stared at the shadow behind the opaque gla.s.s. He looked panicked. "I told him to wait. I"m sorry. It"s really important-"

"Doors open," she said as she severed the link. A man she had never seen before stood in the waiting room, his fist up as if he planned to knock again. He was stocky and balding. His clothing was dark and cheap, and, as far as she could tell, he had no enhancements. From his look alone, she could tell that he couldn"t afford her.

"I was told I should wait but I don"t think I should," he said, his voice shaking. "I figured you needed to know right away, Ms. Van Alen. I"m afraid maybe I listened to your a.s.sistant too long. It"s been over an hour. . . ."

His voice trailed off and he finally stopped talking. She grabbed the earpiece on her fake gla.s.ses and moved them to the edge of her nose again.

"Do I know you?" she asked.

"No, ma"am," he said, slowly bringing his fist to his side. He still stood outside the doors, which had long since disappeared.

"Then I"m not sure why you"re here," she said.

"My company was hired by your firm to run security for Ki Bowles." His voice started to shake again. Van Alen cursed. "Come in here."

"Yes, ma"am." He stepped across the invisible threshold as if the doors had vanished into the floor instead of the walls and ceiling.

"Doors down," she said, and stood as they eased back out of their pockets. She crossed to the front of her desk.

The man was so distracted he didn"t seem to notice her presence at all. That was unusual. Even the most upset clients always stopped to look at her.

"If there"s a problem," Van Alen said, "your boss should be talking to me."

"My boss is dead," he said. "I found him just before I came here."

She frowned. She"d worked with Roshdi Whitford for more than a dozen years. "What do you mean he"s dead?"

"Someone killed him," the man said. That shaking had grown worse.

"Someone killed the head of the best security firm in Armstrong?" she asked.

Then she activated her link. She sent a private urgent message to Whitford. Her link beeped, then went to an automated request to contact one of the other top members of Whitford Security.

In all her years of dealing with Whitford, she"d never been given a brush-off message before. "Yeah," the man in front of her was saying. "Someone killed him."

"Do the police know?" she asked.

"I thought it was more important to reach you," he said. "It might be related."

Related? She wasn"t sure what he meant. Related to what?

Still, before she got too deeply into this interview, she sent a message to her a.s.sistant. Get Roshdi Whitford for me. It"s an emergency. I need him and only him. If he doesn"t respond, send someone to find him. Get Roshdi Whitford for me. It"s an emergency. I need him and only him. If he doesn"t respond, send someone to find him.

"You thought what might be related?" she asked the man.

"His death and Ki Bowles"s death."

Van Alen leaned against her desk. "Ki Bowles is dead?"

"It"s not on the news yet?" The man let out a gusty sigh that sounded like relief. "Then I am here quick enough."

"I don"t know if it"s on the news," Van Alen said. "I don"t monitor the news while I"m working."

She rounded her desk, touched the top, and activated a search for the latest news stories on Ki Bowles. She got a written listing-something that the system defaulted to whenever someone was with her in the office-of all the current stories on Ki Bowles.

All of them were about the WSX piece that had run the day before.

"It"s not on the news," Van Alen said slowly. "You"d better tell me first exactly who you are and what"s going on."

He clasped his hands in front of him. He did seem to have a lot of muscles under those cheap dark clothes. Maybe she had underestimated him. Maybe he did have enhancements and maybe they were all for strength and agility instead of looks and grooming.

"My name is Pelham Monteith," he said. "I"ve worked for Whitford Securities for almost twelve years. You can check."

"I will," she said, and ran his name through one of her internal links. "Go on."

"I was a.s.signed to Ki Bowles," he said. "I was with her today."

"Yet you say she got killed?" Van Alen wasn"t quite following this. She wasn"t certain whether or not she was being conned-and if she was, why? How did this man know that she had professional ties with Bowles, unless he worked with Whitford Securities?

"It was such a mess." Monteith looked almost green. Would a professional security man become queasy when talking about a death?

"What do you mean?" Van Alen asked. Her a.s.sistant appeared in the lower corner of her left eye again. "I"m sorry to bother you," he said, "but no one seems able to find Roshdi Whitford."

"What?" Monteith had to have realized she was getting a message through her links-she probably had that glazed expression most people got when they were concentrating on the link instead of the person in front of them. "What"s happening?"

"That"s what I want you to tell me," she said as she sent a silent Just a minute Just a minute to her a.s.sistant. "Where did you see Roshdi Whitford?" to her a.s.sistant. "Where did you see Roshdi Whitford?"

"At his house. He"s inside his house." Monteith"s voice was shaking again. Have someone check his house, Have someone check his house, she sent silently to her a.s.sistant. she sent silently to her a.s.sistant. Now! Now! He vanished from her vision. He vanished from her vision.

"You said Bowles"s death was a mess? I don"t understand." Van Alen almost reminded him that today was the most important day of their contract, but if he was a fake, then she didn"t want to give him too much additional information.

Which reminded her to check the ident.i.ty confirmation through her links. The first layer of confirmation had been completed. On the surface, it seemed, he was Pelham Monteith and he had been a stellar employee at Whitford Security since his hire twelve years ago.

"Since that piece ran," Monteith said, "we"ve had large teams guarding her. We"d have some check out the places she was heading and clear them, others going with her to wherever she was supposed to be, and some trailing to make sure no one else was."

Van Alen crossed her arms. She stopped herself from nodding because that would confirm what he was saying, and she didn"t want to seem like she was agreeing with him, not yet.

"She went to InterDome Media this morning, and when she left-"

"InterDome?" Van Alen felt cold. Bowles wasn"t double-crossing them, was she? They had a deal, a legal contract that was as ironclad as entertainment and business contracts got.

Van Alen knew that for certain. She"d drawn up the doc.u.ment herself.

"I don"t know what she was doing there," Monteith said, "but she seemed happy when she left."

Van Alen frowned. Just then the search program ended. She got another confirmation, this one from more secure sources, that Monteith was exactly who he said he was.

"What happened next?" Van Alen asked.

"She wanted to have lunch at the Hunting Club. She wanted to show off, I think. That"s what she said when she let us know that was the next destination." "How did she let you know?" Van Alen asked. "Via link?" "We have a secure link. She used that."

Van Alen knew about the secure links. She also had the most tech-savvy person she knew, Miles Flint, try to break into Whitford Security"s secure links. He couldn"t, at least not on his first try.

"So you went to the Hunting Club," Van Alen said. "We sent a team ahead," Monteith said. "I wasn"t on the team that was with her. I was trailing." "And?" "She and one of the guards got slaughtered in the forest." "What?" Van Alen couldn"t stop herself from blurting out the word. "How is that possible?"

"I don"t know." He swallowed. "I really don"t. But she couldn"t send to us for help because the Hunting Club shuts down all link access."

"Not emergency," Van Alen said. "That"s illegal." "Even emergency." His voice was soft.

She felt the color leave her face. How many times had she eaten there? Dozens? A hundred? She never would have gone if she knew that she didn"t have emergency link access.

"They were attacked in the forest?" Van Alen asked. "How is that possible? Doesn"t the Hunting Club itself have security?"

"I don"t know," he said. "I entered the forest about five minutes after she did." He paused. He was even greener than he"d been before. He put a hand on his stomach. "I"m-I"m sorry," he said. "I"ve never lost anyone before. And now two-" "You were protecting Roshdi Whitford as well?" "No," he said. "I meant Ki Bowles and Enzio." "Enzio?" Van Alen asked. "Enzio Lamfier," he said. "He"s the guard who was killed." "You found them," she said. He nodded. "And what did you do?"

"I backtracked until my emergency links worked, then sent a help message. Some street cops were nearby. They showed up and I said something bad had happened in the forest."

"You didn"t tell them what it was?" He shook his head. "I went to tell Roshdi. I figured he had to know because there was a failure in the system somewhere and he would find it. He had to find it before the police even started to work on this."

She nodded. That was standard for a good security company. They didn"t want to be well known, especially to the authorities. But they also didn"t want to interfere with an investigation.

"But he wasn"t at the office," Monteith said. "And our system told me he hadn"t shown up yet, which wasn"t unusual. Sometimes he worked from home. So I headed there. I didn"t want to send anything on the links."

"Even though they were secure," Van Alen said. "I don"t know if they are." He sounded terrified. "I mean, Bowles told us where she"d be and now she"s dead, and that might"ve come through the links, right?"

Van Alen didn"t know. She could already think of a dozen ways the system could have been compromised.

Except for one. "You"ve never lost a client before, right?" Van Alen asked. "Not to my knowledge," Monteith said. "Shouldn"t her guards have kept her alive at all costs?" Van Alen asked. "That"s the thing," Monteith said. "We"re missing one guard." Van Alen let out a small breath. "Missing?"

"He might be deeper in that forest, but I don"t know. We"d cleared the area before she arrived. At least, that"s what I was told before we even sent her there. No one should have been in that forest with her, except her guards."

And now, if Van Alen could believe Monteith, one of those guards was dead and the other was missing. She didn"t like any of this.

Then her a.s.sistant appeared in the corner of her left eye.

"They found Roshdi Whitford," the a.s.sistant said.

She sighed. She had been expecting this.

"He"s dead," the a.s.sistant said. "Murdered. The police are on the way."

She held up a finger, stopping the conversation with Monteith. Then she bent her head so that she could concentrate on the conversation with her a.s.sistant.

Where is he? she asked. she asked.

"In his house."

Thanks, she sent as she severed the connection. she sent as she severed the connection.

She raised her head and looked directly at Monteith.

"So who killed Roshdi Whitford?" she asked. Monteith shrugged. "How did you know to come to me?"

"I headed the teams," he said. "My emergency contacts for this case were Whitford first, which is normal for all cases, and you second, which isn"t normal. Usually the secondary contact is some kind of money manager or something, not an attorney."

"And that made you a.s.sume I"m paying for the contract on Bowles?" "Aren"t you?" he asked. Van Alen didn"t answer. Instead she swept her right hand toward the nearest chair. "I"ve treated you poorly," she said. "Have a seat. I"ll be right back."

As she walked out of her office, she linked into her own security system and had barriers placed over her desk and on her computer systems. She also made certain that all of the links inside the office were shut down, so he couldn"t contact anyone.

She waved the opaque doors closed behind her and had them lock.

Then she walked through her waiting room, and down the corridors to her a.s.sistant"s desk. He was pacing behind it, a thin dark-haired man who"d always seemed a bit too nervous for her tastes. He jumped when he saw her. "Ms. Van Alen."

"Let me use your outside system," she said as she moved him away from his desk. She didn"t want to use an internal or external personal link in case Monteith had used some high-tech way of piggybacking on her system.

She knew such things were possible-she"d learned a lot in the six months she"d known Miles Flint-but she didn"t know whether men who worked for security outfits like Whitford"s were capable of it. She wasn"t going to take any chances, either.

She sat behind her a.s.sistant"s desk. He hovered over her, making her even more nervous than she was. "Go to my waiting room," she said. "Make sure nothing"s happening inside my office." "Should I go in?"

"No," she said. "Monitor it using the waiting room"s systems. And make sure he doesn"t leave."

"All right." The a.s.sistant walked around the desk, looking at her as he did so. He bobbed his head once, then hurried down the hall.

She tapped the system in front of her, going through several layers until she reached the address she wanted.

Even the Detective Division at the police station had its barriers. She got some sergeant who monitored all the higher ups" links.

"Maxine Van Alen for Andrea Gumiela," she said. "It"s an emergency."

"Chief Gumiela isn"t speaking to anyone right now," he said. "If it"s a true emergency, I can put you through to the help line."

"Tell her that I need to talk to her about Ki Bowles and the Hunting Club. Now." He blinked at Van Alen; then his image disappeared. Not five seconds later, Gumiela"s image appeared.

Van Alen had worked with Andrea Gumiela dozens of times, sometimes off the record. Gumiela was known as a hard-a.s.s particularly in her department, but she"d also helped half a dozen families Disappear by sending them to Van Alen on their way to the precinct to be booked.

Technically, Gumiela had broken the law she"d been sworn to uphold, but Van Alen never said anything and neither did Gumiela. In fact, Gumiela never asked after the families, either.

Van Alen admired that. She also admired Gumiela in court. The woman was ferocious on the witness stand, one of the few in the Detective Division that Van Alen couldn"t beat on cross.