"Excellent."
    "We took the liberty of contacting Maggie and taking out a small loan in order to get the equipment we were going to need for it."
    "I don't want to know this, do I?" How an amorphous liquid silver blob can convey a wince I still don't understand, but he did it.
    "Her money is perfectly legitimate," Oliver assured him blandly.
    "I know her money is legitimate, I don't want to know how much I owe her."
    "Pish-tosh," was the brisk response. "I'm sure if need be, the money will materialize somewhere, money always does. Oh, and Stephanie? If my wife calls, I'm out." He smiled. "I'm always out."
    "Even if you're right here?"
    "My dear, even if I'm nibbling on your ear, I'm out."
    "Okay." Another bright smile.
    "So, is a life of crime fun and rewarding?" I asked Muse. "I might be up for a career change next week." If the Globe blows what's left of my cover, there won't be too many places to go. Although I suppose there's always Bolivia. Drug smugglers need good pilots, right?
    He should need a license for that smoldering look. "Crime, my dear, does not pay. All the money comes from style."
    "I could work on that."
    "I agree," Albert stated grandly. "You are criminals?"
    "No! We are honest businessmen. With somewhat spotty pasts," he conceded gracefully. "Yourself?"
    Albert drew himself up to his full four feet, eleven inches. "I am one of the greatest minds of our time."
    "It is always a pleasure to meet one of the greatest minds of our time."
    "Scott, may we borrow the conference room?" I asked. "I think we need to have a meeting, regroup a little."
    "Shall we contact the German and the young lady?" Albert inquired.
    "I'll call Lucky."
    "And I will contact Hans. I need to brush up on my German."

[Perspective switch: Hans, then Lucky]

    There was some question as to whether or not we ought to meet at the office, as Scott was pretty sure Hans would not react positively to his new employees; given his statements after the Lepidopterist fiasco I was forced to agree.
    "I have a suggestion," Muse spoke up after a moment. "It is getting on toward noon, aren't you feeling a trifle peckish?" he asked Sphinx.
    "Huh? Damn, I could have sworn that election wasn't rigged... yeah, sure." They exited, both very graceful in their different ways.
    I dialed one of our absent teammates.
    "Lucky," she answered.
    "Hey. I talked to Winters. Her advice is to keep your head down, consider your sentence in abeyance for the moment until the senate figures out what they're going to do with us. And I think it's time we had a meeting to try to regroup a little, if you're OK with that."
    "I'm fine. Where are you?"
    "Over at what used to be Dr. Scott's apartment."
    "I'll be there in twenty minutes."
    "Be careful."
    She showed up a while later, at about the same time Hans did. Stephanie let them in. They both gave the place the same surprised look the rest of us had. Lucky gave Stephanie an appreciative one.
    "Oh, hi, they're in the back meeting room."
    "Hi," Lucky said, smiling much like the Muse had.
    "Would you like coffee?" Stephanie inquired.
    "Yeah."
    "Sir? Coffee?"
    "No."
    "Tea?"
    "No, thank you."
    "Where did you say they were?" Lucky asked.
    "In the back conference room."
    "OK."
    I was pacing fretfully while we waited, looked up as the door opened.
    "Who is that?" Lucky asked, dropping her helmet on the table.
    "The secretary."
    "The secretary?"
    "Ask him." I pointed at Scott.
    "Yes?" he replied ingenuously.
    "Since when do you need bipedal life forms to do work for you?"
    Stephanie entered with a mug for Lucky and glanced at me. "I'm just going to leave this here." She set the pot on the table and left. The door closed behind her, leaving us alone in a mostly bare room.
    "Now that we are all here, you wanted a meeting?" Albert spoke up inquiringly. Newton had worked the catch on his cage loose and started exploring the room. I shooed him out gently; he immediately jumped up on Sphinx's desk. He rubbed the cat's ears absently, still absorbed in his research. The general mood seemed somewhat grim as I closed the door again.
    "So, team leader?" Lucky asked.
    "Stop doing that." Taurus, Winters, now her. Fact is, we could really use a good leader right now, and it sure as hell isn't me.
    "Our situation does not look good," Albert observed.
    "Chandler's advice is, find whoever did this and take them out," she told us.
    "That's damn fine advice," I agreed. "My personal thinking: this has got to be the same people. Otherwise we are left with a ridiculous string of coincidences that all tie back to Felix Javelin. I'm not going to buy that." Felix just happens to go on a killing spree that just happens to include Ellis and Washington, two weeks after Lucky's trial? No way. He was ready and waiting when we went down there, and while he may be crazy as advertised he's been hiding a considerable cunning under that rambling facade.
    "There are reasons why, if the WCL is behind this, they would want me taken out as a vendetta, and they would want something to happen to you for some reason, apparently. For some reason I don't think they want... I don't know," she changed her mind from whatever she had been about to say.
    "But if we conclude that the World Crime League is behind this, isn't that worse than useless?" Hans questioned. "It's not as if we know anyone who is in the World Crime League."
    "At least we're not looking in all the wrong places," I pointed out.
    "As far as tangible evidence goes," Albert said, "I have looked into the makeup of the materials that Javelin used. Ordinarily, the chemicals required to do what he did are not present in that facility, at least not all of them. The vast majority of them are there, it's amazing how much he would be able to cobble together from the crude materials, but it is possible, if we ascribe a certain degree of cunning and experience to the gentleman which I think, judging from what we have seen, he probably deserves. This is, however, one rare and critical component out of what was required that is not normally available. However, some of it was shipped there to deal with a particularly unruly patient who was transferred out three days after the shipment was made."
    "Who's it made by?" Lucky asked.
    He looked up the name of the company; not one that rang any bells. "The problem is that, when he moved, the remainder of this material was simply left in their pharmaceuticals room. That might have been why he felt so pressured to act, why he felt he only had four people. He didn't know when they would notice that they still had these materials, yet it is an extreme coincidence that just at this time..."

| Top |