WARNING:
ACTUALLY, THERE IS NO EXPLICIT SEX IN THIS STORY. However, there will be a lot of innuendo and some sexual blackmail. If reading scenes like that would offend you, please don't read this.

If you want to comment, send email to <luba@lubakmetyk.net>

Part 3

Puck stopped abruptly in the hallway, letting Wisdom reach the door first. Instead of simply opening it, Pete checked the doorjam carefully, using a miniature hotknife to provide extra illumination, looking for the dark hairs he'd left carefully placed between the door and frame. "Gone," he grunted to his former teacher, who needed no further explanation.

"Could be the maid went in to turn down the bed, could be those goons cased your rooms, could be more goons waiting inside."

Unlocking the door, Wisdom just shrugged unconcernedly. "Any yobbos inside, Pryde's already taken them out."

As they entered, Kitty came out of the master bedroom, a casual white sweatshirt replacing her torn top. Before she could say anything about the ambush in the hallway, Pete gestured to her to stay quiet. As Judd started a systematic search of the living room, Wisdom gave his girlfriend a further series of hand signals that she should start chattering, while accompanying him into the main bedroom where he started his own search.

Taking her cues from him, the two of them kept up a steady stream of dialogue about their nice dinner, plans for the next day, and other random topics. Wisdom quickly found one bug sloppily planted in the bedside lamp and eventually unearthed a much better disguised one hidden in the small alarm clock by the bed, that he knew hadn't been there just an hour or two ago. Bringing the conversation to a natural close, he went through the adjacent bathroom quickly, without finding anything more.

Going back out to the living room, they were presented by three more eavesdropping devices by Judd, one inside the phone jack itself. When the Canadian indicated the small kitchen was clear, they went in there and shut the door. "You wanna dump them or leave them?" It had to be Pete's and Kitty's decision -- after all, they'd have to put up with the things.

Kitty had taken the moment of privacy when she'd left to change to calm herself after that disturbingly personal attack on her, using some of the techniques Logan had taught her so long ago to set the incident aside. She intended to match Pete's and Puck's professionalism. "We can leave the one in the phone. We can use our cell phones when we want privacy, but there may be some things we want to feed the other side, and using the phone when they think we haven't found the bug could be a good way to do that." She didn't know who the other side was yet, but that seemed a good idea on general priciple.

"An' we can make a friggin' big fuss findin' the bloody amateur ones -- 'specially in th' bedroom where we need our privacy, love," Wisdom couldn't resist that small, suggestive leer at his girlfriend, "an' just hook th' other ones up to yer soddin' random noise generator, an' pretend like they got 'em past us." Noticing their visitor's puzzled look, the Englishman boasted, "You're goin' t' love this bleedin' toy, mate, it's one o' her Goddess of Computing, Inc's best sellers -- tell 'im 'bout it, Pryde." He was bursting with pride at the way she'd handled herself, both in the fight and now; although he wouldn't imply by word or deed he'd ever doubted her ability to handle herself, he could safely beam at her in congratulation as she explained her work to a fascinated Judd.

"It's a program that can run on almost any state-of-the-art machine, including my laptop. The software synthesizes a continuous stream of innocent conversation on a variety of innocuous topics from prerecorded voices and a large data base of commonly available information according to some generic user guidelines -- in this case, I think I'll set it for a discussion of the local museums and other sightseeing possibilities."

With the bugs taken care of, Kitty curled up on the leather couch, asking just a bit anxiously, "Did we blow it already, out in the hall?"

Pete handed Judd a beer, then went to get himself a large scotch and his lady a small g-and-t. "Nah. If any o' them wankers is in any shape t' talk, I want 'em t' take back a message not t' mess with us. But I bet they ain't goin' t' own up a little girl an' a skinny git like me took 'em out so easy. They'll claim it were bodyguards or bloody cops or passin' hockey players or some other damn fool excuse, right, mate?"

The former soldier refused a seatpreferring to pace around the room. "Yeah, no big deal. One good thing is, I didn't have to take a hand, so they don't know I'm involved. And Pete's right, they'll be too scared to go back to their boss with the truth -- if they survive to say anything." He stopped to stare accusingly at Wisdom. "But it would have been better to play along with them."

The Englishman glared back at his old friend, absolutely refusing to try to justify or rationalize his instinctive response to Kitty being their target. "Now, me, I think it would be better if you tol' us what the whole friggin' story is here -- or mebbe we don't play along with you any more."

Judd sighed. "Ok. Here's the deal. The company I asked you to get inside belonged to my cousin Ruth's husband, a guy named Roger Enwright. Roger... he wanted to succeed, to be a big man -- but he didn't like to work, so he was willing to cut corners and take shortcuts. He bought this company years ago, and he was good enough he coulda made a neat little fortune if he'd just stuck to promoting and improving their products and procedures. But he wanted more, bigger profits faster..."

"Stop yer ramblin' an' get t' the bloody point, already, ol' man," Wisdom prompted him, none too subtly, when Judd stopped talking. That earned him a glare from Kitty, and a jerky nod from the stocky dwarf.

"The point is, Roger was killed just a few weeks ago." That raised Pete's eyebrow, but he stayed quiet while Judd went on, "He'd been at a big charity do, and on the way home he plowed his sports car into a tree. The autopsy found both alcohol and tranquilizers in his bloodstream."

Pete jumped in again rudely, demanding, "Nobody in the car with him? He go to this bleedin' party on his own?"

"No, Ruth had stayed home with the flu." Judd sounded just a bit defensive. "And the autopsy indicated the alcohol and pills were injested only an hour or two previously -- while he was already at the charity do. So, no way they could have been administered to him back home. He changed at the office and drove straight to the hotel for cocktails."

"Doctors confirm them were his pills?"

"All longterm prescriptions, nothing suspicious there."

"So, was it a soddin' accident, or no?"

Judd shrugged. "It could be accident. Roger coulda started feeling bad at the party, washed a few pills down with a drink and then wrecked himself. Or it could be suicide. He mighta been feeling down, drank and took the pills, then deliberately wrapped his car around the tree. Or it could be a nice, neat murder..."

As his voice trailed away, Kitty asked, "What did the authorities say? It sounds like there was a pretty complete investigation, if they checked up on his medications and everything. Did they question people at the party, to see if he told anyone he was feeling bad? Was there any evidence the car had been tampered with?"

The squat, blocky Canadian glanced at Wisdom, who was regarding his girlfriend with a proud smirk on his thin face. "Y'know, kid, I wondered about you two -- seemed like an odd match, even if Logan *did* train her. But I'm starting to see why it works." They both ignored Kitty's glare of mock-outrage, but the knowing grin on Judd's face faded as he continued, more soberly, "No, no signs of outside interference with the car or the scene. The authorities ended up ruling it an accident -- partly lack of any evidence to the contrary, partly because of the usual bureaucratic pressure not to disturb business-as-usual."

"So, no suicide note?" Pete growled. "Or the family hide it?"

"No, no note -- until I got a letter and a tape a few days later." That got his audience's attention. Both Kitty and Pete sat upright, all business now. "There was a cover letter, too, from a local law firm -- *not* Roger's usual lawyers, by the way -- saying he had arranged to have it sent to me in case anything happened to him, and that they mailed the package out as soon as they saw his death notice in the papers. But it still took a while to reach me."

Judd paused, obviously reluctant to continue. Pete and Kitty glanced at each other, both silently agreeing not to push. Wisdom gestured at the near-empty beer bottle clutched in the dwarf's hand, and got a grunt and nod in response. While Pete got up to freshen up everyone's drinks, the ex-mercenary drained the last of his and threw the bottle away in exchange for a fresh one. Then, as the Englishman sat down next to Kitty again and lit another cigarette, he resumed his narrative.

"Roger wrote me he was being blackmailed, by videotapes of him in bed with his personal secretary -- that was the tape he sent. Somebody wanted two million dollars, or they'd send copies to his wife and kids." Puck nodded a silent acknowledgement of Kitty's sympathetic wince.

"So wot? Big businessman like him can pay that, no problem." Wisdom grunted then, as Kitty dug a sharp elbow into his side at his callousness.

"According to what he wrote in his letter, he didn't have the money. He was overextended already, the usual combination of high living and bad investments." Judd's voice was cold, his tone cynical, at his relative's apparent priorities. "He couldn't raise the money on his company's stock, it was all mostly pledged as loan collateral already. And any publicity would have hammered down the company's value and violated his existing loan covenants and margin accounts."

"Do you think he may have killed himself, because he couldn't pay the blackmail?" Kitty asked the obvious question gently. "And you want us to help find the blackmailers?"

"It's even more complicated than that," Judd sighed, still pacing around the large living room restlessly. "Nobody knew, but Roger was involved with Yakuza dope-runners. He went to them for the money."

"He were smugglin'?" Wisdom demanded, harshly. "Distributin'? Dealin'? Just personal-like, or this damn business we bought involved?"

The Canadian stopped pacing, to stare at Wisdom. He knew the younger man shared his hatred of the drug trade. "Don't be an idiot. Of course the company is involved -- that's why I asked if you could swing buying it, or figure out some other way to get in. And, no, he wasn't smuggling or distributing or dealing. What he did was a damn sight more important -- he was money-laundering."

"Oh!" Kitty tensed suddenly against Pete's side and he hugged her reassuringly, knowing she was being reminded of her father's past trouble. She leaned into his sheltering arm for a moment, then straightened up, forcing her mind back to present business. "I've read about that company. It's had the bulk of the market for secure electronic fund transfer for years. He put in back doors in the software, didn't he? But why didn't auditors ever uncover them? Those programs should be subject to endless, exhaustive review."

"Almost right," Judd nodded at her, hiding a grin as he saw Wisdom preening himself at his girlfriend's cleverness. "Roger is... was a marketer, not a software designer. He just let the cartel put in its own software developers, and turned a blind eye when they got their hooks into the examiners or their families." He glanced from Kitty to Pete, and back. "Y' know, I'm kinda glad you came with that bum. You're our best chance of finding and shutting those backdoors, from what I've heard."

Wisdom scowled at his old acquaintance. "Cut t' the bleedin' chase, Judd. Just wot the friggin' hell d' you want us t' do, exactly?"

"I want you to find the blackmailers," Puck replied, implacably. "I want you to shut down the money laundering. And I want whoever killed Roger -- the blackmailers, the cartel, a rival cartel, I don't care -- I want them. Roger may have been a crook, but Ruth and her family don't deserve any of this crap."

Across town, the door to a small, seedy apartment opened, and a woman stepped inside. She pulled off a decrepit old tan trenchcoat to reveal a generic black-and-white maid's uniform. Hanging her coat on a hook on the back of the door, she turned back into the musty, squalid sitting room to say, "I plant bugs, Boris. You got signal, yes?"

A short, chubby man shot up out of the sagging old recliner he'd been lounging in to wave his hands and shout, "You plant bugs, Natasha, yes. And dey find bugs, Natasha, right away! So, you ask I got signal? No!" He dropped back down into the recliner with a disgusted snort and a loud thump. "And ve not haf money go buy more bugs at kiddie spy shop..."

"Ve haf plenty money if you get up off big fat rump and go find job!" the raven-haired woman snapped, out of temper with her long-time partner. Sneaking into the Pan Pacific Hotel had been easy, but sneaking the keys to a particular suite hadn't been such a trivial job, and the odd trio loitering in the hallway outside had given her a bad feeling in her gut.

"Ja, vot kind big fancy job you t'ink I find, eh? Squirrel catcher? Is not whole lot of vork for old spies, Natasha." The single bulb in the naked ceiling fixture highlighted the grey streaks in his coal-black hair, the deep wrinkles in his face framing the small mustache more grey now than black. "Cold var ends, it's 'good-bye, Boris, good-bye, Natasha' -- no pension, no gold vatch, no not'ing! Ve need money -- money pay rent, money get plastic surgeon, money buy bombs, money go try sell software ve steal to nice rich crooked Japanese... Dat old boss vere you vork, vere we steal software, he haf lots money -- haf big house, fancy car, Rolex even. Ve make nice trap," he whined, "ask just a liddle money. Vas goot plan. Vy idiot get killed before paying, eh?"

She came back in, from the tiny bedroom, maid's uniform discarded in favor of a cheap red satin nightgown and wrapper, stained and wrinkled and smelling faintly of liquor, and clinging tightly to her statuesque figure. "Maybe vas just accident."

"Bah!" He got up to fetch himself another Moosehead beer out of the efficiency apartment's tiny refrigerator. "So, you see new boss?"

"Da, I see dem check in, den I vait and see dem go to dinner. I go up, plant bugs vile dey eat..." It had irritated her -- and pained her -- to lurk in the shadows in her fake maid's uniform while well-dressed hotel patrons had passed her by without a second glance, to watch them go into a restaurant where in previous days she would have been an honored fellow guest, dining dressed to the nines, escorted by some sucker from the vast military-industrial complex she and Boris were happily playing like a fish.

"So?" He'd almost started ranting again about the bugs being found, but something in his companion's expression warned Boris not to push.

"Vas young man, dark, not too tall, thin, maybe t'irty. Looks maybe a liddle like you ven ve first meet..." When she'd just graduated from spy school in Moscow at the tender age of eighteen, Natasha mused, and been assigned to work with the already-experienced field agent, ten years her senior. For the first time in a long time, she remembered and missed that perfectly conditioned, trim young man -- before years spent in the decadent West had resulted in the distinctly pudgy, flabby failure she'd grown accustomed to over the decades. "Vas girl vit' him, liddle skinny t'ing, young like schoolgirl..."

"So, maybe new boss get tired of liddle skinny schoolgirl, and vant real voman, eh, Natasha?" Boris nudged her in the ribs, hard enough to make her wince, then rubbed his hands together in glee. "Vas goot plan. You get boss-man into bed, ve make tape and try again..."

"The family won't be upset by Pete buying the company?" Kitty took the fresh drink Pete had just made her, with a smile of thanks.

"No..." But there was just a trace of hesitancy in the Canadian's bass voice. "Ruth's sixty-two -- which isn't all that old," he scowled back at Wisdom's pointed smirk, "and she's used to handling house and family-type money, but she don't want the headache and hassle of keeping the business. She just wants to unload the big house here and head back to Saskatoon and get a smaller place, easier to manage, maybe open up a small bookstore or crafts store. She never wanted the fancy lifestyle like Roger did."

Kitty nodded, but "That wasn't quite what I meant..."

"I know." Judd accepted the fresh bottle of beer Wisdom handed him, and took a long swallow. "Roger and Ruth had two girls. Freddie -- Fredericka -- is an oncologist in Victoria, married to a pediatrician. They're both genuine saints who eat, sleep and breathe medicine, and don't want ta 'waste' their time on business instead o' patients or research. "

"They got kids, then? An' the kids don't want the business either?" The Englishman had sat down next to Kitty again, and pulled her close.

"There's a girl, Amy." The pride in Judd's voice was obvious to his small audience. "She's seventeen. She says she wants to go to McGill to study biogenetics, so she can meet her idol someday. And you know who her idol is?" He glared at his somewhat mystified audience. *Your* Beast."

He ignored Kitty's surprised giggle and Pete's automatic "Not mine, mate," and went on, "She's got his picture -- whole lots of pictures -- papering her bedroom wall, and all his papers and articles saved in her scrapbook." He grinned suddenly. "I always get a kick ragging Lankowski about that, I keep telling him to dye his fur blue." He sobered again. "Amy will take money for school -- she knows it'll be hard enough without working part-time or having loans to pay off -- but except for that she isn't interested."

He fell silent for a few minutes and, sensing the change in his mood, Pete signalled Kitty to remain quiet. Eventually, heaving a gusty sigh, Judd continued slowly, "Freddie and Charlie have a boy, too -- Roger -- named after his granddaddy, of course. He'd *love* to run the company... he's absolutely positive he *will* get the company, whatever anybody else says. But he's the only one who thinks that. He's twenty-four now, never finished university 'because he didn't need it,' and already got himself arrested couple of times for fighting and drinking..."

That got a badly suppressed guffaw out of part of his small audience. "Yeah, yuk it up, Pete," the former bouncer scowled at Wisdom choking back laughter, "we mighta done drunk and disorderly, but none of us ever got hauled in for drugging, and this stupid kid has -- and not just once. And I got me a bad feeling I know where he's getting the dough for all his sprees, I think he may be dealing already. Young Roger's weak, just like his granddad, and he'd buy into money-laundering without a second thought. But he's also stupid enough he'd get caught sooner or later, cheating on taxes for a start, and that would hurt Amy and his parents... a lot."

Kitty and Pete traded glances. It sounded like the classic case of a spoiled wealthy boy never learning that life required hard work. "You said your cousin has two daughters?" Kitty asked.

Judd shook himself and nodded briskly, appreciating the offered change in subject. "Freddie and Bessie, short for Elizabeth... She's a judge in Edmonton, and her husband is a Mountie." Pete whistled at that, and traded looks with Kitty again. That explained how Judd had arranged to have them handle things informally. "I told them everything, the whole mess, and I had to talk a blue streak to keep 'em from firing up an official investigation then and there, to let me try to fix things on the sly. They finally agreed, partly for Amy's sake, partly 'cause they both know how tough it can be in these kind of cases to get enough evidence for formal proceedings. That's when I called you."

"Right, so them two know about all this muck. Who else, then?"

"Freddie and her husband. I told them, also, and we all agreed not to tell Ruth. There's no benefit in hurting her that way. She knows... she knew Roger was weak, she's not a stupid woman, but why rub her nose in it for no good reason? Amy doesn't know, she's smart but still young and innocent -- and we'd like to keep it that way. Young Roger doesn't know squat from us, but I don't know what his crooked friends mighta told him."

"But he'll know yer checkin' into things, an' if he's tied into th' cartel he'll spill t' them about yer little scheme an' about us..."

Judd interrupted, quickly. "He and Amy don't know diddly about me. It's not like we're close, after all -- Ruth is my cousin, but that makes them second or third cousins once or twice removed, whatever the damfool jargon is. It seemed better -- safer -- to keep the connection quiet."

Wisdom was all business now. "Right, then. There's still an off chance they'll go after more o' the family, even with the company sold off -- just as an example, especially if they killed th' old git. A judge an' the Mountie should be pretty safe, an' smart enough to take precautions. The doctors should be ok, too -- just warn 'em t' stay in crowds at work, don't respond t' any unknown emergency calls alone, you know the drill. An' you keep yer eye on 'em. Wot about yer cousin?"

"She's gonna dump the house onto realtors, and bug out. With what you plunked down for the company," Pete squirmed at his lady's inquiring look, his blue eyes silently pleading with her not to pursue the matter, "she can afford to settle up Roger's debts -- at least, his official ones -- and still have enough left to move before selling here. She's going to stay with an old school friend while hunting for a house there."

"That'll work," the Englishman nodded. "The boy we leave alone -- he may lead us t' someone useful. The girl's the major weak point..." He noticed -- but didn't comment on -- the sudden worried look on his former trainer's face, turning aside to Kitty. "How cooperative would yer X-mob be, if you asked 'em fer a favor?"

"What did you have in mind, Pete?" Kitty asked cautiously. Some of her old friends had come to accept her unexpected choice of lover, but a few remained obdurate, and Wisdom himself usually prefered to minimize any contact with what he referred to disparagingly as 'the spandex crowd.'

"Might be damn convenient if she won herself a nice all-expense-paid trip t' see 'er hero in his hallowed laboratory." Judd looked up at that, startled, and a look of relief crossed his craggy face as Pete turned to him. "You an' her people come up with somethin' -- they sent th' big blue git a soddin' genius essay she did, without tellin' her, or some bloody story like that -- an' he wants t' flippin' encourage eager-beaver young smart-ass students, or suchlike. Logan's there, he'll keep her safe."

"Rahne would probably enjoy a few weeks working with Hank, also." Kitty was thinking aloud. "Moira always says long-distance cooperative research is harder than sharing a lab bench. Rahne'd be a less obvious watchdog than Logan, she and Sam could take her -- Amy, right? -- out in the evenings, and they could share a room."

Despite the seriousness of the conversation, Pete couldn't resist the opening. "Rahney an' Amy, or Rahney an' Sammy-boy?" he leered at Kitty, then held up his hands in mock-surrender when she kicked him in the shin. "Th' elf'll be right pissed, Pryde, bitchin' an' moanin' about bein' left shorthanded. First we take off, then Rahne too?"

"Betsy is there visiting Brian and Meggan, remember? Making wedding plans? She's a great ninja, you know, she can take our place fighting and sneaking if something comes up."

In a popular nightclub a few streets away, a sweating, frantic young man had roughly elbowed his way up to the crowded bar, and was now arguing with the bartender. "What do you mean, I gotta pay cash up front from now on? I need to score real bad, man, and I ain't got that kind of dough on me. C'mon, gimme the usual bag. I'll take my cut now, and I'll pay you back after I offload the rest on my friends, like usual."

The man behind the counter shook his head. "No can do, Rog. Orders from on high -- no more special privileges. Your old geezer's dead, and you ain't taking over Kitsilano, since it's been sold. So that makes you just another whiny rich brat don't think he has to pay for his fun..."

"I *will* get the company, just you wait and see!" the increasingly desperate supplicant whined. "It's *mine* and I'll get it back somehow. And I still got contacts, you *know* I can move some stuff for you at nice markups."

"You want to keep dealing, fine," the bartender replied, unperturbed by the large figure looming over him threateningly. "Cash up front, same as all our other runners -- unless and until you *do* get Kitsilano back." He hesitated a moment, then reached below the counter to pull out and pass over to the young man a small clear envelope, with a white powder inside. "Message from on high -- this is your last freebie, unless you figure out how to take back the company, or at least run it."

"They got a plan to help me get it back?" he asked eagerly, palming the envelope quickly, sliding it into a pocket. "Like, take out the new owners before the papers get finalized?"

"Nah." The bartender looked at him scornfully. "Word has it the guy bought the whole gig got a pretty murky past himself. High-ups figure he runs to the dark side, so they're betting he'll play along, no problem, for a nice, fat piece of the action." He picked up an empty glass and started polishing it, idly. "Way I see it, kid, you got only one chance. We hear this big spender bought the whole outfit to give his teenybopper girlfriend as a wedding present. You're younger, better looking -- you get the girl away from him, you get the company."

Shutting and locking the suite's door after letting Judd out, Wisdom turned back into the room, and immediately strode toward where Kitty was standing. "You *sure* yer alright, love?" he asked anxiously. He *knew* intellectually that there was no chance she could have been hurt in that ambush, with her powers and fighting skills -- and him there too -- but logic had nothing to do with his instinctive desire to protect her and keep her safe. However, he was always careful to hide that normal male reaction, especially during fights, until a quiet, private moment like this.

"I'm fine, Pete," she smiled back at him, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him tightly, then pulled back slightly to look him over carefully. "How about you?"

He grinned back at her. "No damage, Pryde, not even to me pride this time." He yawned suddenly. "Tired, though. It's been a long day..."

They strolled to the bedroom, arms around each other. Once inside, Pete pulled off his jacket and threw it at a chair (which it missed, and slid down to lie on the floor). Pausing to empty the contents of his pockets onto one of the nightstands, he looked up, and froze momentarily. Kitty had phased her outer clothes off, and was standing there in her underwear, wonderfully decadent and sinful chocolate-hued silk with cream lace trim. "Oh, yeah, love..." he reached out to her, growling in his huskiest tone, "...almost forgot you owe me dessert..."

Continued in Part 4...