Up Against It - M. J. Locke [161]
He paused. Jane did not reply. Ogilvie said, “I am not a patient man, Ms. Navio. You will do this without further argument, or your husband dies tonight. Speak now.”
Jane drew a calming breath. “Very well. At this moment, I am recording and beaming to a safe location everything that has happened to me, including Nathan Glease’s confession a few moments ago that he killed my aide, Marty Graham, and your threat just now to kill my husband if I don’t cooperate with your attempt to cover up that murder.
“I have a dead man’s switch. If anything happens to me, this recording will immediately be beamed to local news organizations, as well as public Earth tourism wavesites regularly trawled by ‘Stroiders.’”
Glease’s eyes widened. “She’s lying!” he told Ogilvie. “We have the best antiwave security money can buy. This office is in a silent zone. No way she could be recording anything, much less beaming a signal out.”
“Very well,” Jane said. “I will prove it.”
She called up her software, grabbed the snippet of video of Ogilvie saying, “You will call a press conference first thing in the morning and announce that you falsified evidence implicating Nathan in the murder of your man Martin Graham, or I will order your husband killed,” and transmitted the video to Ogilvie. A few seconds later, he frowned, and gestured inwave. His eyes widened as he focused on something unseen. Then he pursed his lips. “I’m afraid she’s telling the truth, Nate.”
Glease gestured to the guard, who grabbed Jane and pinned her arms. She did not resist. Glease gripped her chin and turned her head, and eyed the processor in her ear. “I think we should just pull it right out,” he said. “Rip out the wiring. See how much brain matter comes with it.”
“You could. But DeadMan is about to trigger a request for a code, and if I don’t respond promptly, the recording goes out automatically.”
“Let her go,” Ogilvie said. “Don’t be foolish, Nate.”
Glease had gone pale, and now red. Jane could see the rage in his eyes. He gained control, gestured for the young man to release her. DeadMan asked for the input and she gave it. Meanwhile, Glease spun and ordered Thondu, “Track her signal. Crack her face. Shut off the switch!”
Jane looked at Thondu and held her breath; ze could almost certainly break into her waveface and disable DeadMan—and might just, to protect the feral.
The Viridian spent a couple of minutes doing something in hir waveface. A bead of sweat trickled down hir cheek. Ze turned to Glease, avoiding a glance at Jane. “I’m afraid I can’t. She’s masked with some security tech. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’d need my lab and several hours of uninterrupted time to penetrate it.”
Glease eyed Thondu. A muscle jumped in his jaw. He opened the safe and pointed his gun at the thing inside it. Jane realized it was the biocrystalline backup of the feral sapient.
“I’ll count to three,” he said. “One … two…”
Thondu went ashen. “I can’t!”
“Too bad,” Glease said. “Three.”
“No!” Thondu launched hirself at Glease. The lawyer’s hireling intervened, pinning Thondu to the wall. Glease fired, and an explosion released a puff of mist. Bits of bioglass went everywhere. They all ducked. Jane covered her mouth and nose till the ventilation sucked the mist away.
“I hope that made you feel better,” she said.
“I should just shoot you and be done with it,” he told her, aiming the gun at her. “That would definitely make me feel better.”
“You could. And the police commissioner gets a recording of the murder in his inbox, with coordinates. There’s only one way off Zekeston, and they can get to the surface lifts before you do.”
He lowered the gun.
“So here is my counterproposal,” she said to Ogilvie, watching impassively via wave. “I will wait exactly an hour to release my recording. That might give Mr. Grease here enough