Read Online Linnear 01 - The Ninja by Eric Van Lustbader - Free Book Online Page B

elaborate melodramatics and, too, he did not quite believe her after all.
    ‘You bastard! You’re like all the rest!’ She turned towards the hall.
    He grabbed her right wrist, whirling her back. ‘Where are you going?’
    ‘Away!’ she cried. ‘Out of here! Away from you, you sono’abitch I’
    ‘Justine, you’re acting idiotic.’
    Her free hand slashed upwards, struck him across the face. ‘Don’t you say that to me.’ Her tone was low, a growl; her face was an animalistic mask.
    Without thinking, he slapped her. The blow was hard enough so that she reeled backwards against the wall. Immediately, his heart broke and he said her name softly and she came into his arms, her open lips against the tendons of his neck, her hot tears scalding his flesh; she stroked the back of his head.
    He picked her up and carried her to the rumpled bed and they made violent love for a very long time.
    Afterwards, with her lithe arms about him, her legs twined with his, he said quite seriously, ‘That will never happen again. Never.’
    ‘Never,’ she breathed, echoing him.
    He heard the phone ringing in his sleep and drew himself up through the layers from delta to beta to alpha. Just as he awoke, the muscles in his stomach tightened. He turned over and reached for the receiver; beside him, Justine stirred.
    ‘Hello?’ His voice sounded furry.
    Justine put her arm across his chest; even her nails were warm.
    ‘Hi! It’s Vincent.’ There was a pause. ‘Say, am I disturbing you?’
    ‘Well, sort of.’
    ‘Sorry, buddy.’
    There was only a singing on the line and he woke up. Vincent was too much a Japanese to intrude yet he would not be calling this early unless it was important. It was up to him now, Nicholas knew. If he said ‘later’, Vincent would hang up and that would be the end of it.
    Justine’s head moved into the crook of his shoulder and her face went from light to shadow.
    ‘What is it, Vincent? I suspect this isn’t a strictly personal call.’
    ‘No. It isn’t.’
    ‘What’s up?’
    ‘You read about the stiff they took out of the water a couple of days ago?’
    ‘Yeah.’ His stomach rolled over. ‘What about him?’
    ‘That’s why I’m out here.’ Vincent cleared his throat, obviously uneasy. I’m at the M.E.‘s building in Hauppauge. Do you know where it is?’
    ‘I know how to get to Hauppauge, if that’s what you’re aiming at,’ he said shortly.
    ‘I’m afraid I am, Nick.’
    He felt as if he were abruptly holding onto three pounds of air. ‘What the hell is going on? Why all the goddamn secrecy?’
    ‘I think you ought to see what we’ve got for yourself.’ Vincent’s voice seemed strained. ‘I don’t - I don’t want to prejudice you in any way. That’s why I’m not giving you anything to think about over the phone.’
    ‘Buddy, you’re wrong about that. You’re giving me plenty to think about.’ He glanced at his watch: 7:15. ‘Give me about forty minutes, okay?’
    ‘Sure. I’ll meet you outside, guide you in.’ There was silence for a moment. ‘Sorry, buddy.’
    ‘Yeah.’
    When he put down the phone, he found that the palm of his hand was slippery with sweat.
    Nicholas looked again at the sliver of metal under the eye of the microscope, a fractional shaving from the small piece Doc Deerforth had recovered from the breastbone of the corpse.
    ‘Here are the spectrometer readouts,’ Vincent said, slipping the sheets across the zinc alloy table. Nicholas took his eye from the microscopic fragment. ‘We ran it through threetimes to be certain.’
    Nicholas picked up the sheets, running his gaze over the figures. But he already suspected what he would find there. Still, it seemed incredible to him.
    ‘This steel,’ he said carefully, ‘was manufactured from a particular type of magnetic iron and ferruginous sand. There are perhaps twenty separate layers. The size of the fragment makes it difficult to tell. I’m going by past experience.’
    Vincent, whose