The Big Sheep Read online

  He snorted. “I thought Selah could be reasoned with. I thought if I showed her how powerful I really am, she’d come to her senses. Stop lowballing me on protection payments for DiZzy Girl and the other shows, stop playing the other warlords against me, treat me with the respect I deserve. But I see now I was mistaken. Selah is never going to think of me as anything but a pawn of her creation. Right up to the second I destroy her.”

  “Um,” I said. “Destroy her?”

  He smiled coldly at me. “These bombings in the DZ,” he said. “Ultimately they only hurt the DZ, and that hurts me. I’m taking the battle to Selah Fiore. At midnight tonight the Flagship building is going up in flames. The DZ has provided the rest of the world with entertainment long enough. Now it’s time for us to sit back and watch the carnage.”

  “That’s insane,” I said. “If you destroy Flagship, you’ll shut down production on DiZzy Girl and all the other shows shooting in the DZ. You’ll lose all that income. How does that help you?”

  “It’s a short-term sacrifice,” said Mag-Lev. “What Selah wants to do to the DZ, I’m going to do to the entertainment industry. A rebalancing of power. Selah Fiore and Flagship Media will be out; someone else will be in. I spent most of yesterday in meetings with other companies very eager to work with me.” He grinned. “You might say I’ve been auditioning Selah’s replacement. So you see, I don’t need the sheep anymore.”

  “You’ve lost your mind,” I said. “You’re not even a real warlord! You’re just an actor playing a role! This isn’t a pretend war you’re starting. Real people are going to be killed!”

  “Not a real warlord?” Mag-Lev roared, pounding his fists on the desk. “Who do you think is really in control of this city? The mayor? Don’t make me laugh. Nobody’s cared who the mayor of Los Angeles is since the Collapse. In Los Angeles the appearance of power is power. Hell, even before the Collapse, California had two governors who were movie stars. You think that’s an accident? You say I’m not a ‘real warlord.’ So tell me, Keane, what do I have to do to be ‘real’? Make a movie with a chimp? Marry a Kennedy?”

  “Well, I’d definitely recommend that option over making a movie with a Kennedy and marrying a chimp,” said Keane.

  “Very funny, Mr. Keane,” said Mag-Lev. “Let me remind you who is holding the gun. And remember, when Selah wanted that sheep stolen from Esper, she came to me. Because I’m the one with the connections to get things done. I may have started out as a man playing a role, but now I am Mag-Lev.”

  “You’re so full of shit,” said Keane.

  “Excuse me?” said Mag-Lev.

  “You claimed to have brought us here because you care about Priya,” said Keane, “but all you care about is showing Selah Fiore how big your dick is. You think it will make Mommy proud when you blow up her building? It’s not going to change anything, Giles. If you think destroying Selah Fiore is going to give you the freedom you need to take control of the DZ, you’re kidding yourself. Without Selah, you’re nothing.”

  “You son of a bitch,” snarled Mag-Lev, waving the gun at Keane.

  Keane sighed. “Use your head, Mag-Lev. Three years ago you were just an unemployed actor. However thoroughly you’ve embraced the role of warlord, you wake up every morning with one thought in your head: How much longer can I keep fooling everybody? And you know what the answer is, Giles? Not very fucking long. The other warlords are uniting against you. You’ve overplayed your hand, fallen for your own hype. The only hope you have is to negotiate a compromise with Selah.”

  “It’s too late for that,” Mag-Lev growled. “We’re at war.”

  “Everything you’ve done so far could be interpreted by Selah as negotiating tactics,” I said. “But if you blow up her building, there’s no going back. Then you will be at war.”

  “And trust me,” said Keane. “You don’t want to go to war with Selah Fiore.”

  “I have no other options,” said Mag-Lev.

  “Negotiate,” said Keane.

  “Clearly, you’ve never tried negotiating with Selah Fiore,” said Mag-Lev.

  “Actually,” said Keane. “I have.”

  “And how did that go?”

  “I’ll let you know,” said Keane.

  Mag-Lev sighed. “Even if I wanted to keep negotiating, I have no leverage. All I had was the sheep.”

  “We’re going to get the sheep back,” said Keane. “And rescue Priya while we’re at it. You said you’re blowing up the Flagship building at midnight. If we can rescue Priya and get the sheep to you before that, will you call off the attack?”

  Mag-Lev seemed unconvinced.

  “What do you have to lose?” I asked. “Give us until midnight. If we fail, you can go ahead with your idiotic war.”

  Mag-Lev glared at me, but he said, “Fine. You have until midnight. Cross me, Keane, and you’ll find out just how much power I have in this city.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Mag-Lev had his people drop us off back at the office. The fire had gone out, and Keane’s car was now a barely recognizable lump of twisted, blackened metal. Debris lay scattered all over the roof. Apparently oblivious, Keane strode past the wreckage and went downstairs to his office. I followed.

  At this point I had no idea what he actually planned to do. There seemed to be no winning move: even if we somehow managed to get the sheep back from Selah, there was no way we could deliver it to both Jason Banerjee and Mag-Lev. If it were up to me, I’d deliver the sheep to Mag-Lev, because whatever deep, dark secrets were contained in the Maelstrom file, at least Banerjee hadn’t promised to kill us. And maybe it was time for the truth about Erasmus Keane to come out. Frankly, I was getting sick of being completely in the dark about Keane’s past. If the Maelstrom file hadn’t burned up with Keane’s car, I’d have been sorely tempted to open it.

  Keane went into his office and closed the door, presumably to “think.” I continued downstairs to my apartment. I thought about calling April, but decided that telling her about the morning’s adventure would only make her worry. I sat in my office for a while, trying to think of a way out of this mess, but came up with nothing. Both of the cases we had taken on had come to miserable ends. The sheep was in the hands of Selah Fiore, who was planning to do God knows what with it, and Priya, the woman who had hired us to protect her, was dead, twice over. I hadn’t even imagined, when we took her case, that it would be possible for us to fail this badly. Adding insult to injury, we weren’t likely to get paid for any of this. Maybe April was right. Maybe I was wasting my life, working for Erasmus Keane. I certainly wasn’t getting any closer to resolving Gwen’s disappearance.

  After an hour of staring at the wall, getting no closer to a solution, I heated up some leftovers for lunch and then went back to bed. I’d only gotten about three hours of sleep, and that wasn’t helping either my mood or my abstract problem-solving abilities. Maybe I’d see things in a different light in a few hours.

  Less than an hour later, I was awoken by a banging on the door. My first groggy thought was that it was Priya Mistry. Then I remembered Priya Mistry was dead. Then I remembered an indeterminate number of Priya Mistrys were still alive, and any one of them could be at the door. Maybe, in fact, all the extant Priyas had gotten together and formed a union to protest their mistreatment. I went to answer the door.

  It wasn’t any of the Priyas. It was Peninsula’s bodyguard, Roy.

  “What the hell is going on, Fowler?” he demanded.

  “Come in, Roy,” I said. “I’ll make some coffee.” We went to my office, and I put the coffee on. Roy and I sat down. “Now,” I said, “what’s got you all worked up?”

  “I got a call from somebody at Flagship this morning,” Roy said. “Telling me my services were no longer required. I was kind of expecting it, because of … what happened to Priya. But then Taki called me, asked where I was. She said Priya had a new bodyguard. I thought Taki had lost her mind. Because, well, Priya is dead. Why would she need a bodyguard? But then I remember
ed that weird conversation Priya had with that guy at the house, about them making copies of her. So I’m going to ask you again: What the hell is going on?”

  I sighed. There wasn’t any way to halfway explain something like this. I either needed to stonewall Roy or tell him everything. At this point, I didn’t see the harm in leveling with him.

  “The woman you buried,” I said, “wasn’t Priya Mistry. She was a clone.”

  Roy nodded. “I figured,” he said.

  “Really?” I asked, surprised at his blasé reaction.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I was up most of the night, thinking. That’s why she acted so weirdly toward me at the house that night. The real Priya died in that explosion on the set, didn’t she?”

  I shook my head. “That wasn’t the original either. Another clone.”

  “Another clone? How many are there?”

  “Living and dead? We don’t know. At least three, probably more. The one you were watching was probably replaced at least once before. Keane thinks they all go crazy after a while, so they have to be replaced.”

  “That’s why she didn’t remember the pizza place,” murmured Roy. “She had never been there.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “So she’s not dead,” Roy said. “The real Priya.”

  “We think Selah is holding the original,” I said.

  “Where?”

  I paused. “Roy, you need to understand … we’re not sure what condition Priya is in, if there even is a real Priya. We don’t know what Selah has done to her, what she’s been subjected to. And, Roy, she isn’t going to know you. In all likelihood, you’ve never even met her. All you’ve ever met is copies.”

  Roy thought for a moment. “I understand,” he said. “I don’t care. I love her.”

  “Did you hear what I just said, Roy? You don’t even know her.”

  “I knew Priya before I even met her,” said Roy quietly. “I’ve always loved her. And I always will. It doesn’t matter what she’s been through. I don’t expect you to understand.”

  I sighed. The fact was, I did understand. That’s exactly how I had felt about Gwen. How I still felt, if I were being honest. Once somebody got into your soul that way, you weren’t ever the same.

  “In that case,” I said, pushing my thoughts of Gwen away, “the best thing for you to do is to talk to Flagship about getting your job back. Watch over the clone they’ve got working on DiZzy Girl now. She’s as real as any of them.”

  “No,” said Roy. “Even if I wanted to do that, Selah is never going to let me near Priya again. I think she suspects I know about Priya’s death. If I show up at that set again, I’m going to be the next casualty of Selah Fiore’s insanity. I don’t even dare to go home.”

  “So what do you want?” I asked.

  “I need to find her,” said Roy. “The real Priya. She’s in danger, I know it. She needs me.”

  “Look, Roy,” I said. “Keane and I are working on it. If and when we find Priya, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “No,” said Roy firmly. “I’m going with you.”

  “Roy,” I said, “I appreciate all your help, but Keane isn’t going to—”

  At that moment Keane walked in. “Keane isn’t going to what?” he asked.

  “Roy wants to go with us to rescue Priya,” I said.

  “Okay,” replied Keane, regarding Roy thoughtfully.

  “Okay?” I said. “Just like that?”

  Keane shrugged. “We may need his help with the sheep.”

  Evidently, Keane had finished whatever he was doing in his office, and we were now going to try to rescue Priya and the sheep. I didn’t like our odds, but at this point I was committed.

  Keane called Pavel, who swung by in his Suburban. Two hours later Keane, Roy, and I were looking down on the Solana Spa and Resort in Malibu. Keane instructed Pavel to remain in the Suburban, parked just down the road, and to be ready to meet us at the resort entrance.

  The place was a green oasis perched on top of a cliff that fell away steeply to the Pacific. A tall chain-link fence topped with razor wire encircled the resort, with a cluster of mission-style buildings, a swimming pool, and tennis courts taking up about half of the fenced-in area. We were two hundred yards or so from the entrance, lying on a rocky bluff across the winding highway that ran up the coast. Keane held up a pair of binoculars he’d brought along, surveying the resort, but there wasn’t much to see. Except for a single security guard walking the perimeter, the place seemed to be deserted.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Now we wait,” replied Keane.

  “Do we even know Priya is in there?” asked Roy.

  “No,” said Keane. “Nor do we know the sheep is in there. We’re acting on pure conjecture. If you’ve got any better information, feel free to share with the group.”

  Nobody had anything further to offer, so we sat there, roasting in the sun. We had been there for nearly two hours before we saw any activity. People began emerging from bungalows and making their way toward one of the larger buildings. Mercifully, by this time a breeze had picked up. The temperature dropped, and clouds were moving in off the Pacific. I hoped that Biblical rain held off for a bit. We weren’t equipped for a flood.

  “Looks like the afternoon shift is starting,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Keane. “But nobody is leaving. I think there is only one shift. They’re on Belgian time.”

  Sure, I thought. Why not? If you’re going to pretend to be running a research institute in Belgium, you might as well go all out.

  We continued to watch for some time, but couldn’t see much of interest from our vantage point. After another hour, we sent Roy to get some food. He returned a while later with sandwiches and drinks, and we had a brief picnic on the bluff, taking turns with the binoculars. By the time we had finished, the sun was nearing the horizon. All the staff—we had counted about two dozen people—had gone inside.

  But then, just before the sun began to set, we saw some movement. I couldn’t make out anything but silhouettes against the glare, but three figures seemed to be moving toward the cliff’s edge.

  “What’s going on, Keane?” I asked. He was peering through the binoculars.

  “Looks like two men and a woman,” said Keane.

  “Priya?” asked Roy anxiously.

  “Hard to say,” said Keane.

  “Give me those,” said Roy. Keane shrugged and handed him the binoculars. Roy watched the figures for a few seconds. “It’s her,” he said. “It has to be. They’re going to throw her off the cliff!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Roy,” said Keane. “They’re not going to hurt Priya. At least not like that.”

  I took the binoculars from Roy.

  “What are they doing?” he asked.

  “If I had to guess,” I replied, “I’d say watching the sunset.”

  The two men had escorted Priya—I was fairly certain it was her, or one of the clones—to a vantage point where she could see the sun setting over the Pacific. It was the kind of thing you’d do for someone who was sentenced to death.

  Roy grabbed the binoculars back. “We have to rescue her,” he said. “Now is our chance!” He started to get to his feet, and Keane and I both immediately leaped onto his back. It was all we could do to keep him down.

  “We’ll never get near her, you idiot,” Keane snapped. “If we’re going to have any chance to rescue Priya, we need to wait until it’s dark.”

  “That could be too late!” Roy cried, still straining to lift himself against our weight. “They’re going to kill her! Or worse!”

  I wasn’t sure what Roy was imagining, but I didn’t have any trouble believing Selah Fiore was capable of devising a fate for Priya that was worse than death.

  “Roy,” I said. “Keane is right. If we go down there now, they’ll see us coming. We’ll never even get through that fence, and Priya will be no better off.” I didn’t add that going after Priya now would also ruin our cha
nces to retrieve the sheep.

  Roy struggled for a little longer, but his heart wasn’t in it. Finally he lay down on the ground, and Keane and I got off him. We watched as the sun set, and the men escorted Priya back inside. There was nothing we could do now but wait for it to get dark.

  Half an hour later, we crept down the bluff and crossed the street. The resort complex was dark except for the light cast by a few halogen bulbs on the buildings. The single security guard meandered slowly around the perimeter. The wind was blowing hard now, and we were being pelted with big sporadic raindrops.

  “I’ve seen department stores with tighter security,” I whispered to Keane as we crept along the southern fence.

  “Presumably, Selah was counting on secrecy to protect her operation,” said Keane.

  I nodded, but couldn’t help thinking that Selah’s reliance on secrecy hadn’t prevented us from finding this place. Either somebody had screwed up, or this was a trap.

  We made our way along the fence toward the cliff. The western edge of the resort was open to the cliff side, but the fence extended far enough down the rocky face to make it very difficult, if not impossible, to approach from that direction. If we had rock-climbing gear, we could have done it, but wire cutters were a simpler solution. We waited until the guard was walking toward the north side of the resort, and then I started snipping away at the bottom of the fence. After a couple of snips, Roy pushed me aside and grabbed the wire cutters. He cut through the fence like it was made of string and then pulled open a gap large enough for us to crawl through. I went first, followed by Keane. Roy started to crawl through, but I held up my hand.

  “We need somebody out here to keep an eye on the security situation,” I said. “I’ll call you when we’ve got Priya.”

  I could see he wanted to argue, but then he thought better of it. “All right,” he said. “But if I don’t hear from you in fifteen minutes, I’m going in after you.”

  I nodded, and Keane and I took off across the lawn toward the nearest structure. We skulked from building to building, while Roy gave us updates on the location of the guard and other employees via my comm. For the most part, the complex was quiet, but occasionally someone would leave the main building to return to what I took to be the living quarters, or vice versa. All the entrances seemed to be protected by palm-print scanners. Our plan was to grab an employee on the way to the main building and use them to get inside.