(eng) Mike Shepherd - Kris Longknife 08 by Redoubtable

Author:Redoubtable [Redoubtable]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

21

Sevastopol was built around a series of bays. The minor bay that served as the fishing port was the closest, so that was where Kris aimed her team first. If Doc Maggie had caught a fishing boat to Sevastopol, and if she’d left behind some sort of record, and if that helped them find her . . . then maybe she could help them with the tougher part of the mission.

Even Kris had to admit there were a lot of “ifs” in that plan. The small wooden boats and nets looked like a picture that could have been taken anytime in the last three thousand years on old Earth. Birds mewed, and old men mended nets as others sailed out past the rocky breakwater into the rising sun.

“We got a problem, folks,” Chief Beni announced. “There’s no network up and running in this area.”

“Don’t the boats have computers?” Kris asked.

“Look at them,” Jack said, pointing with his chin. “Those boats are lucky to have bottoms.”

“There’s got to be a tax computer here. They catch fish. They have to record taxes,” Kris insisted.

“Maggie’s a doctor, not a fish,” Jack pointed out.

“But I’ll bet you she paid for her passage,” the chief said in support of Kris, “and someone’s bound to have taxed that.”

“I’ve spun off several net scouts,” Nelly said. “One of those overhead lines has to be carrying a net.”

They waited for a long five minutes while Jack drove as slow as he could around the bay.

“I got it,” Chief Beni yelped. “I’ve got a net. Now to get in. Oh, that was easy. I guess they don’t think the customs office down by the fisherman’s bay needs all that secure a net.”

“Or no one wants to mess with that fine old tradition of smuggling,” Abby put in through the gaping hole that might once have been a back window to the cab. “I think I could like these people.”

“What, you think they’re as nefarious as you?” Jack asked.

“Let’s hope so. If they’re all good little patriots for whoever is in power, we’re in trouble.”

“Okay,” the chief went on, “they do tax every fish that comes in, and there’s a new section in the database for recording everyone shipped in by these little boats, how much they paid, and where they went.”

“You got to love bureaucrats,” Kris said.

“Assuming they didn’t take a cut and forget to enter anyone,” Jack said. “Talk to me about Margarita Rodriguez, Chief.”

“She ain’t in here.”

“What?” Now it was Kris’s turn to yelp. “No, see if they misspelled her name.”

“We got a lot of Rodriguezes here, boss. Doing it by eyeball may take a while.”

“Do they have their profession? Jobs?” Kris and Jack said at the same time.

“Let me see. Spelling isn’t too good here, either. I could understand it from fishermen, but this guy’s supposed to be a bureaucrat.”

“A bureaucrat who weighs fish and knows what tax to demand for each kind,” Kris pointed out.

“Does ‘medico’ mean what I think it means,” the chief said.

“It probably does.

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