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.Despite having a good understanding of the tongue, she’d spent little enough time in America that her accent was still heavy.Most folks would mistake her for an Eastern European immigrant, but Iris didn’t feel like taking risks around this office—especially in view of the contents of her bag.As the doors slid shut, Iris reached for the fourth floor button.“On my word—but not a moment sooner,” she said in hochsprache, the underused words heavy in her mouth.“Yes, milady.”“You are about to be exposed to some of our most perilous secrets.If they confuse or dismay you, you may speak to me about them in private—but they must go no further.”They ascended the rest of the way in silence.The lift was unusually slow, and Iris spent the time trying to relax.Adrenaline makes fools of us all, she reminded herself, then blinked irritably as the elevator doors opened.Ah, well.The office suite was surprisingly quiet for this time of day, a few people moving between card-key-locked doors clutching mugs and papers.Iris rolled along the corridor, following memorized directions, until she found the correct door.She reached up with a card, swiped it, and pushed through as the lock clicked open.“Hey, you can’t come in—”“Cover,” she said in hochsprache.“Hello, Griben.Sit down, please.” The door clicked shut behind Mhara as she felt the weight of an empty leather shoulder bag land on one of her chair’s handles.Griben ven Hjalmar, plump and goateed, in a brown three-piece suit, sat down slowly, keeping his hands clearly visible.His face was expressionless.The other man sitting in the swivel chair behind the desk was frozen in surprise.“And Dr.Darling.What a pleasant surprise.”“Mrs.Beckstein? What’s the”—Darling swallowed convulsively—“what’s going on?”Iris smiled crookedly.“Griben, what a coincidence.I was just thinking about looking you up.What brings you here? Thinking about cleaning up some loose ends?”Dr.Darling—lean, middle-aged, the picture of a successful gynecologist—was looking between ven Hjalmar, Iris, and the muzzle of Mhara’s silenced Glock in slack-jawed surmise.“You—you—”“I’d like to thank you both for the little number you played on my daughter.It wasn’t quite what I had in mind when I suggested the arrangement.”Ven Hjalmar flushed beneath the force of her glare.“What did you expect us to do?” he demanded.“She was under house arrest! With an execution warrant on her head! You wanted the leverage—”“Nevertheless.” Iris shifted uncomfortably in her wheelchair.“This is neither the time nor the place for this discussion.”“Excuse me?” Three heads turned to stare at Dr.Darling.“What are you—”“Griben, do you mind?” Iris asked casually, speaking hochsprache.“If you absolutely must.I’d finished with him, anyway.”“Did you get the disks from him?” she added.“Of course.”“What do you want?” demanded Darling.In hochsprache: “Mhara, now.”Outside the office, the two muffled shots would be mistaken for a door banging.Darling dropped forward across his desk, spilling blood and fatty tissue onto the keyboard of his PC.Griben sighed.“Was that strictly necessary?”“Yes,” Iris said shortly.She glanced round.Mhara was standing, frozen, her pistol angled slightly upwards and a confused look in her eyes.“Mhara? Child?”The young woman shook her head.“I’m sorry.” She picked up the shoulder bag and carefully stowed her pistol inside, using hook-and-eye strips to secure it.“Never done that before.”“You’ve attended executions, surely.”“Yes, milady.But it’s different when you do it yourself.”“You’ll get used to it,” Iris reassured her.“Griben, he knew too damned much.Family Trade are on our tail and he’s not Outer Family or personal retainer.He had to go.You’ve got the disks.Mhara, the other device, please.”“Other—oh.” Ven Hjalmar looked at the PC in distaste.“You don’t expect me to”—“I surely do.” Iris held up a pair of latex gloves.“You’ll want these.”None of them were particularly experienced at black-bag jobs; it took them nearly ten minutes to unscrew the casing of the PC and position the bulk eraser’s electromagnet above the hard disk drive.Finally, Iris hit the power switch.“Ah, good,” she said, as the disk error warning came up on the blood-specked screen.“Mhara, you see the filing cabinets yonder? You take the right one, Griben can take the middle, and I shall take the left.Start at the top and work down.You are looking for anything pertaining to Applied Genomics Corporation, the W-316 clinical trial, Angbard Lofstrom, Griben ven Hjalmar here, or adoption papers relating to children.”“Adoption papers?” Mhara sounded confused.“Legal documents,” Iris said blandly.“Iris.” Griben looked worried.“This is going to take some time.What if someone—”Iris snorted.“You have your locket, yes? I had the site prepared.”“But we’re on the fourth floor!”“So there’s a net.Try not to break your nose with your kneecaps.It’ll be harder for me if we have to take it, so let us start searching right away, no?” She levered herself out of her wheelchair and shuffled cautiously towards the wall of cabinets.The office was overheated, and the smells of burned powder and spilled blood hung over them as they pored over the file drawers.After ten minutes Griben finally hit pay dirt.“He had a file on Applied Genomics,” he announced.“Ah, excellent.” Iris gestured at her wheelchair.“In there.”“Milady.” Mhara gestured politely at another drawer.“Is this important?”Iris leaned over to look.“Well, how interesting.” She lifted the fat, spiral-bound document out of its hanger.“Names and addresses.It seems you’re not the only doctor who doesn’t trust computers to remember everything for you, Griben [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]