"McKenzie may not even know about that part," Skater said. "He has Larisa's baby hanging over their heads." He still couldn't bring himself to say, his daughter. "McKenzie wouldn't need anything else."

"So that's how McKenzie got an easy in where we're concerned," Elvis said, rubbing his capped tusk thoughtfully. He shifted. In response, the troll's immense weight caused everything to shift.

"As we discovered, McKenzie was already working to make sure the NuGene branch opened in Seattle," Trey stated. "Business and crime often go hand in hand in this sprawl."

"It doesn't really matter," Skater said. "One led to the other, however it happened."

"She's an angle we can use," Duran stated.

"I know," Skater said. "But if we expose her, Silverstaff goes down the drekker. Part of the deal we made with Lofwyr was to hand Silverstaff over-intact." He turned the various scenarios over in his mind. "Attacking McKenzie outright isn't an option. And we don't know how, or even, if NuGene is dirty."

'There's another problem with taking NuGene down," Archangel said. "If we do, and manage to smear their name around, the dragon's stock won't be worth slot."

"He's not going to be a happy camper if that happens," Elvis said. "Personally, I don't want to leave Lofwyr holding the bag-or even any part of it"

Skater nodded, looking at the face on the display. "Agreed. What I do want to do is keep Ariadne Silverstaff out of the line of fire. And the baby as well."

"In the elven embassy, she's going to be guarded pretty fragging tight," Duran growled.

"But she's not going to be there all day," Archangel said. “Tomorrow morning, she's due at KTXX at ten o'clock in the morning for an interview with Perri Twyst."

Skater glanced at the time. It was four a.m. "That doesn't give us much time to get ready," he said. "Archangel, see if you can access some building plans. Duran, let's ride. I want to eyeball this place in person before we put this thing together." He was up and moving, feeling the soreness that was clinging to him, but knowing it would wear away as he stayed in motion. There was no way he wanted Larisa's child caught in the crossfire that he knew for certain was coming.”

The catnap he'd managed before the morning raid helped Skater make it through the waiting. Otherwise, he'd probably have been a basket case, worse than a BTL junkie coming down hard.

"Okay," Elvis called out over the commlink, "she's in the building."

"I read you," Skater said. He reached for the van's ignition, glancing at Duran as he keyed the engine.

The ork gave him a thumbs-up and shifted the Scorpion in his lap. Then he slid the Kevlar-lined mask over his features. With his wild hair and rough build, there was no mistaking that Duran was an ork, but hopefully their targets wouldn't know which ork he was until after the dust had settled.

Skater backed out into the underground parking garage. Security for the trideo station wasn't lax, but it wasn't anything like you'd find at a corp office building or arcology. Trid news dealt in secrets just like every other business in the sprawl, only the focus of the trideo companies was in giving those secrets away for public consumption, not using them for blackmail or to gain a favorable trade balance.

Rows of parked cars were on either side of them, interspersed with thick stone pillars that helped support the building above it. KTXX teased spaces out of an apartment and department store building, five floors up.

"If this doesn't go down right," Wheeler warned, "this could turn out to be a real cluster-frag. I've got her limo in sight."

"Stay on them," Skater said, pulling the wheel hard right and heading down into the lower stories of the parking garage. He was running with parking lights only, and they barely touched the gloom inside the garage. It was nine-thirty-one a.m. KTXX had arranged to meet Ariadne and her party on the third floor down at nine-forty-five.

The lady was arriving early.

Archangel had decked and sleazed her way into the building-security systems and retrieved the layout information before six that morning. Those systems had been easier to get into than the trideo corp's because the businesses they supported weren't corp-driven or financial institutions, and the info had been essentially the same.

"There're two Renault-Fiat Eurovans following the limo," Elvis said. "Figure a possibility of twelve guns added to the four aboard the limo."

Skater nodded to himself, it was all a matter of timing.

"Everybody stay chill," he said. "This one's got to come off by the numbers."

Duran reached down and checked the seat belt harness, then flipped the safety off the Scorpion. All their weapons were loaded with gel rounds designed to incapacitate rather than harm. Skater wanted zero bloodshed. They hadn't sorted out who was zooming who on the stock score yet.

Running a hand across the back of his neck, Skater was surprised to feel the sheen of perspiration there. His palm came away wet. He got himself in position, seeing the dark Mitsubishi Nightsky limousine sail sedately down the tunnel leading to the lower levels. The escort vans were barely more than a car length behind.

“Trey," Skater said, accessing his commlink, aiming the van at the gap in the parking wall that allowed cars on this level to get to the exits more quickly.

"I'm ready," the mage said over his external link.

Skater glanced at Duran and got a nod of confirmation. The limousine moved past him. "Now!" he yelled, and floored the van's accelerator. The van shivered as the engine responded. The front-wheel drive screamed against the plascrete floor as they scrambled for purchase.

Then the van was shooting forward, skidding off one of the immense pylons framing the exit ramp, narrowly missing the limo's tail.

Skater only had to pull the wheel a fraction to neatly cut off the lead van trailing the limousine. Rending metal screeched into mega-velocity, filling the underground garage with unrelenting carnage. The elven van locked its bumper into the side of Skater's vehicle and started pushing it along. Skater didn't take his foot off the accelerator until the van slammed into the unmoving wall across the tunnel.

As they'd planned, the impact released the collision airbags, which ballooned to cushion them and keep them from bouncing off the dashboard. His face swaddled in the inflated bag. Skater was blinded for a few seconds till he fought his way free. A blade flicked out, only centimeters from his eyes, then sank into the airbag. It deflated with a pronounced hiss.

"Move," Duran growled, putting away his Cougar knife and kicking open the door on his side of the van.

Skater spared only a short glance at the elves boiling out of the two wrecked vans on the other side of his door like angry wasps. A pair of bullets shattered the window on his side, then punched fist-sized holes through the cracked windshield.

The van had temporarily blocked the tunnel, cutting the sec-teams off from Ariadne Silverstaff. But it wouldn't keep them from climbing over.

Skater threw himself through the door Duran had just clambered out of. More bullets slammed into the van where he'd been sitting. He fisted the Predator and started running, less than two paces behind Duran's lead. Up ahead, he could see the brake lights of the limo flare into ruby glares nearly fifty meters away.

The limo driver veered sharply when Trey levitated into view from behind one of the support pylons, looking eerily impressive with the edge of his Kevlar cloak clutched in one hand at his side. In the dim light bouncing crazily through the underground garage, the mage's eyes seemed to glow from some inner source. As he gestured toward the limo with his free hand, the sleek, shining vehicle suddenly screeched to a stop, followed by an explosion that ripped the hood from the limo in a cloud of angry orange and black flames. The mage remained hovering, a target for the gunners onboard.