“Lilliputians,” Drakov said.
“What?”
“Lilliputians. They’re miniature people, about six inches. tall. I’m using the crates as troop transports.”
Manelli stared at him long and hard, the muscles in his jaw twitching. “All right, if that’s the way you want to play it, have it your way.”
He glanced from Savino to Drakov and pointed his index finger at them. “The club’s about to open and I don’t want any difficulties tonight, but I want you and whatever’s in those crates out of here first thing in the morning, you understand? And I want that cockamamie hi-tech lock off my goddamn door. You got till noon. And that’s more slack than you deserve. At one second after twelve, I’m going to have my boys bust down that door and crack open those crates. And if what’s in there is what I think is in there, the Network’s going to find out that the cost of doing business just went up. Way up. Kapish?”
He turned and went back to his table without waiting for a reply. Savino took a deep breath.
“He thinks we’re dealing arms,” he said. “Manelli always was a pain in the ass to keep under control. He’s going to be trouble. And trouble is something I don’t need right now.”
“Relax,” said Drakov, walking up to Manelli’s office door and pressing his palm against the flat metal plate. The lock clicked open. “After tonight, it will be finished. And what you do about Manelli will be entirely up to you.”
He entered the office and Savino shoved Andre in after him. The two large wooden crates stood open on the floor. They were empty. Manelli’s desk and chairs had been moved back against the wall and in the center of the floor, glowing faintly, was an activated chronoplate.
Chapter 11
Lucas huddled in the trunk of the Cadillac limo, feeling nauseous and trying to ignore the pounding pain in his temples. The trunk was roomy. so he wasn’t painfully cramped, but the motion of the car over the potholed streets didn’t do much for his disposition. Several times, the car stopped for traffic lights, but this last time. he felt the car pull over to the curb and after a moment heard the doors slam. He hesitated. and then he felt the engine start up once again and the car started to pull away. He tached.
Someone leaned on a car horn and Lucas quickly rolled underneath a parked truck as the yellow cab sped by, missing him by inches. Fighting the dizziness and the painful pressure in his temples and chest, he quickly scanned the
sidewalks from his shelter beneath the van and spotted Drakov and Savino shepherding Andre into the nightclub. His head was throbbing and he felt as if he were going to throw up. It was worse than the worst hangover he’d ever experienced, much worse. All he wanted to do was simply lie there on the filthy street and wait for it to go away.
His worst fear was that what had happened to Darkness would somehow happen to him. Although the process that each of them had undergone was different, the principles were essentially the same. Darkness had, inadvertently, permanently tachyonized himself with the result that his atomic structure was unstable. The particle-level telempathic chronocircuitry that had become a part of Lucas was designed to prevent tachyon translation from upsetting his atomic stability, at least that was what Darkness claimed, but there was no denying the side effects he was experiencing. And they seemed to be getting worse. What would he do if he eventually became permanently tachyonized, like Darkness? Would he be able to retain his sanity, knowing that he could discorporate at any moment? What the hell, thought Lucas, by rights I should have died back in the 19th Century. Any way you look at it, I’m on borrowed time.
He heard heavy footsteps above him in the truck, then the sound of something heavy being moved across the truckbed. Ignoring the stabbing pain in his head, he tried to focus on the booted feet that stepped down to the street from the rear of the truck.
“Easy… easy… okay, that’s got it. Go ahead, jump down, I’ll hold it. “
A moment later, another pair of feet, shod in running shoes. jumped down from the truck bed and Lucas watched as two leather-jacketed roadies manhandled a PA column speaker into the club. He listened for a moment, heard nothing more above him, then slid out from beneath the truck. He looked into the back and saw that the truck was just about completely unloaded. Nothing remained .except some tool boxes, several coils of cable hung up on the walls, and some spare mike stands. Lucas jumped up into the truck and grabbed several coils of insulated cable.
“Hey! What the hell are you doin’ in there?”
A spikey haired young man in a red leather jacket and black jeans stood at the back of the truck, a cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth.
“Get the fuck out there!”
“Hey, back off!” said Lucas, angrily. “I’m the club electrician, awright? There’s a problem with the fuckin’ wiring and they sent me out to get some more cable. Is this garbage the best you guys got?”
“What’s wrong with it?” the roadie said, defensively.
“What’s wrong with it?” Lucas echoed him, sarcastically. “It’s the wrong gauge, the damn insulation’s frayed, no wonder we’re shorting out in there. Ah, to hell with it, I’ll patch something up.” He jumped down from the truck. “You guys oughta be more careful about this stuff. Someone could get a nasty shock. It ain’t even code. Got a spare smoke?”
The roadie reached into the pocket of his jacket and took out a pack of Marlboros. He shook one out and offered. Lucas took it and the roadie lit it for him with a cheap, disposable lighter.
“Well, is it gonna be all right?” the roadie said.
“Yeah, if I get to it sometime tonight,” said Lucas. “Thanks for the smoke.”
He went into the club, carrying the coils of cable.
“You sure you know where you’re going?” Hunter asked Delaney.
“If darkness says Andre was taken to a place called Il Paradiso on West 11th Street, then that’s where she is,” Delaney said.
“Right, I understand that,” Hunter said. “What I don’t understand is how he knew that. “