The Widowmaker Reborn by Mike Resnick

Author:Mike Resnick
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction/Fantasy
Publisher: www.Fictionwise.com
Published: 2001-05-27T22:00:00+00:00

18.

“You're crazy!” exclaimed Kinoshita.

“Am I?” responded Nighthawk. He gestured to Melisande. “Ask her.”

“He's right,” said the empath.

“But it doesn't make any sense!”

“It makes all the sense in the world,” said Nighthawk. “We know she hates her father. We can assume he's as corrupt as most politicians, since he paid my law firm to oversee the performance of a highly illegal act—and, of course, he's also commissioned an illegal hit.” Nighthawk paused. “I submit to you that that kind of corruption doesn't occur overnight. If Cassandra was appalled by it as an adolescent, she probably had access to enough information to start thwarting him. And since she didn't want to do it openly, for any number of reasons ranging from preserving her sources of information to preserving her life, she needed another identity.”

“But Ibn ben Khalid is a man's name!”

“It just means she's better at misdirection than most of us,” answered Nighthawk.

“Ibn ben Khalid has been operating out here for a decade,” continued Kinoshita, not yet willing to admit he was wrong. “She'd have been a teenager then. Who would follow a teenaged girl into battle?”

“You still don't understand, do you?” said Nighthawk. “Think back, Ito. We've been all over the Frontier. How many of Ibn ben Khalid's followers have actually seen him? That's why there's such a complex chain of command. There are probably less than a dozen people out here who know Ibn ben Khalid is actually Cassandra Hill.”

“Nineteen, to be exact,” interjected Cassandra.

“Well, I'll be damned!” muttered Kinoshita.

“Probably you will be,” she agreed. Suddenly she turned to Nighthawk. “Now that you know, what do you propose to do about it?”

“Nothing, for the moment.”

“It is our mission to kill her,” said Friday.

“Don't be a fool,” shot back Nighthawk. “You don't think she'd have shown herself if we weren't covered, do you?” He looked at Cassandra. “How many guns are pointing at us right now?”

“Eight,” she said. Then, “I know how good you are, Widowmaker. But they're well-hidden; even you can't kill all of them before one of them gets in a fatal shot.”

Nighthawk looked carefully around the tavern. “All right,” he said. “You're calling the shots. What next?”

“Next? Next we talk.”

“What about?”

“What are your intentions if you survive this meeting?” she said. “You're being paid to return Cassandra Hill and kill Ibn ben Khalid. You can't do both.”

Nighthawk poured himself a drink. “I'll have to think about it.”

“There's another alternative,” said Cassandra.

“There usually is.”

She looked at his team. “The rest of you go outside and wait for us. I want to talk to the Widowmaker alone.”

They arose and began moving to the door.

“Just a minute!” she said firmly. “You—the red one!”

Friday turned back to her.

“Leave your weapons here on the table.”

“Why just me?” demanded the alien.

“Because I don't trust you. Do what I say.”

Friday shrugged, unstrapped his various pistols and knives, and placed them gently on the table, then walked out to join the others.

“You look approving,” noted Cassandra, sitting down across from Nighthawk.

“You picked the right one. He'd just as soon kill the two of us as look at us.

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