Rani had paid the tab at Mohsin’s and got a bagful of goodies for her hard-haggled nuyen: a couple of medkits and some slap patches. She'd been lucky to get those, and they had cost her dearly. There was no time to get any cyberware. Besides, Geraint hadn’t given her the money for that. Her bag was bulging and she was happy except for one problem still lurking on the horizon.

That problem was her family. She'd been ready to make the trip back to Chelsea when she’d spotted two cousins heading determinedly toward her flophouse. Sneaking out via the remains of the fire escape was a real risk, but she’d just made it. Hurriedly, she phoned Geraint and left a message, then scurried off along the streets to look for a safe place. She’d have to get away from the old neighborhood, away from the family determined to drag her back to her old life, just hide out for tonight, girl. Get over there later. A few hours won’t matter.

Rani did not know, could never have dreamed, what the next few hours would bring.

29

Wednesday afternoon was crisp and clear, the watery winter sunshine showing the M4 motorway in all its tawdry gray glory, a succession of roadworks, graffiti-covered overpasses, and potholes. Driving through the latest in a succession of ugly outlying suburban sprawlzones, Geraint cursed imaginatively but anatomically impossibly. What set him off was another snarl of traffic fifteen miles beyond the outer orbital, a tailback from one of the ubiquitous road repairs that had the highway down to one lane of traffic in either direction. Francesca sat beside him with fingers flying, dumping notes into her laptop.

“An interesting yield, Geraint,” she said without looking up. She had not heard his curse. “Serrin’s going to positively adore what we got on Kuranita.”

Geraint was in a foul mood, hands gripping the steering wheel tightly, staring grimly along the column of slow-moving traffic before him.

“That was the cleanest download,” Francesca was saying. “We could have done with more on Smith and Jones, but at least now we know who’s employing them. Finally.”

“But that degrading IC,” he said. “Sneaky bastards. I wasn’t expecting anything like that. The file we got was only a fragment, but I’m confident the probability program can reconstruct it. We won’t be too far off. And as you say, now we know who Smith and Jones are working for.”

Geraint craned his head and sighed as the column of vehicles ahead of them stopped again. “No way of getting at them, though. Nothing to tell us where they are or what they might do next. Nothing on the Ripper, either.” Geraint turned to read the expression on Francesca’s face, but she seemed to be recovering well from her ordeal.

“They may have been too fast for that. That inforination might very well have been scrambled. Hey, we’re moving again…” Francesca broke off speaking as Geraint accelerated to more normal speed. The traffic had begun to flow normally, at last. Beyond the bottleneck, however, they hit another line of indicator cones fencing off another deep hole in the plascrete. Geraint wanted to pass up some of the other traffic, but was stymied by a series of cars in the fast lane. He vented his impatience in an uncharacteristic expression of anger.

“Move over, you tosser!” he exploded, then turned sheepishly to his companion. “Sorry. Fran. I'm just eager to get home again, and this traffic is really beginning to get to me. Wonder what Serrin and Rani have been up to.”

“If they did as well as we did, they’ll be… Geraint, what’s wrong?”

It was a single shot, probably armor-piercing. The sound of the hit should have been lost among the honking horns of the snarled traffic, but the Saab’s internal security systems went active, alerting Geraint. From the flashing alert panels he saw that the bullet had only passed through the main chassis, hitting nothing important.

“Clazz, Fran. someone’s just taken a shot at us!” They were passing under an expressway overpass when the car behind them veered crazily and swung into the next lane. Glancing into the rearview mirror, Geraint saw a shattered windscreen and a splash of red blur across the fragmented plasglass before the other car veered off and plunged into the embankment. He floored the gas pedal, sending the Saab screaming out from the other side of the bridge, lane-dodging to the sound of other drivers angrily sounding their horns in protest.

The grenade burst hit just to their rear, a spray of tarmac and stone splashing up over the hood of the Rolls traveling behind them. The windshield didn’t break, but suddenly the driver could see nothing.

As the Saab raced away. Geraint saw the Rolls screech to a stop, creating a very messy pile-up among the cars trailing behind it. The Saab’s systems had already alerted him to the second bullet hit. He kept his head down and his pedal to the metal. Taking the next exit he put some distance between them and the expressway.

Deciding to lie low, they took a room in a cheap motel, where Geraint accessed his telecom’s answer message and reprogrammed it. No way was he going to risk returning to London tonight. Francesca was more philosophical; snipers on the freeway were almost an old California tradition. Geraint was definitely the more shaken up of the pair. In Britain such things didn’t happen.

“I think we should try to meet Serrin at the airport when he arrives” he said.

Francesca looked at him sharply. “But we don’t know when his plane gets in.”

“It doesn’t matter. Well just be there to collect him when it does. He may be a target, too. Rani should be all right where she is.”

Even so, Geraint called the code she’d given him. He got an angry-looking male Indian ork who refused to answer his urgent questions and then abruptly cut off the connection.

“Oh great. Can’t locate her. Let’s hope she calls me as planned. She’ll get the new message. Now for Serrin. Let's cover the angles.” He began phoning again furiously.

By the time they got to Heathrow, Geraint had guards from Risk Minimizers PLC crawling all over his flat. He also had more private security waiting for them and Serrin at the airport, but he was still uncomfortable.

They didn’t even get out of the car, but just sat and watched as a phalanx of bodyguards hustled the bewildered elf mage carefully and securely toward a waiting limo. When Geraint and Francesca emerged from the Saab, another crew of secguards ferried them with the same finesse over to the same limo. As the Saab was whisked away by the security team, the limo glided off into the late evening. Serrin turned to them, pure astonishment on his face.

“Don’t worry,” Geraint said smoothly. “It’s just that somebody decided to make our car ride home a little more interesting by setting a sniper and a grenade launcher on us. We thought they might come after you too. Tried to get Rani earlier but no luck. She’s supposed to be calling me at home, though. and I left her a warning. Security is scouring my flat right now, and we’re not going back there until they’ve worked it over from top to bottom.”

The nobleman was terse, edgy. His lifestyle didn’t normally include being shot at while behind the wheel of his car. He used the portacom to access the telecom in his flat, and was relieved to pick up a message from Rani. She mumbled rather incoherently that she was on the run, but that they shouldn’t worry, she’d get to them soon.

“Spirits, what have you two been stirring up?” Serrin was alarmed, his head full of fantasies about their decking exploits.

“Nothing really staggering. but it’s beginning to fall into place. We got something on you and certain employees of the company. I think you’ll like it.” Francesca told him.