Free The Rackham Files by Dean Ing Page B

driver would bend a yellow guide barrier of welded pipe and wipe out the prefab plastic shed that stood within inches of the pipe. Near the shed stood a vertically aligned bank of bright red tanks the size of torpedoes. I recognized the color coding, and I didn't want to be anywhere near if that shed got graunched.
    The driver stopped in time, though. He was no expert, concentrating on operating his rearview video instead of using a stooge to damned well direct him, and I thought he looked straight at me when he was only concentrating on an external mirror directly in front of him. He didn't see me any more than he would've seen a gull in the far background.
    It was Mike Kaplan.
    I couldn't be wrong about that. Same caricature of a beak, same severe brush cut and intense features. And why shouldn't it be him? Okay, using a desk jockey to drive a rig might be unusual, and I had thought Kaplan was slated to take the ship tour with me. But if the Fed-erected barriers to Pacific Rim commerce had come tumbling down during the morning as Dana claimed, an aggressive bunch of local reps might be pitching in to make up for lost time.
    I wondered what, if anything, Kaplan might be able to tell me about what had happened in that office building early on the previous night. He had left before Norm and I did, but how did I know when he had come back? The third guy—Seltzer? Meltzer!—was one I hadn't met, but without any positive evidence I had already made a tentative reservation for him on my shit list.
    It was only a short drive back to the gate that served the Ras Ormara. This time the gate was manned, but Norm Goldman, in a ritzy black-leather jacket, leaned with a skinny frizzle-haired guy against the fender of his Turbo Porsche, just outside the fencing. Norm recognized me with a wave and called something to the two guys at the gate as I parked beside the swoopy coupe.
    The skinny guy with Norm turned out to be Ira Meltzer, who spoke very softly and had a handshake that was too passive for his work-hardened hands, and wore a denim jacket that exaggerated his shoulders. When Meltzer asked where my partner was, I said he hadn't answered my calls, so I figured he wasn't coming.
    Neither of them seemed to find anything odd about that. If Meltzer knew why Quent wasn't coming, it was possible that Norm might know. I didn't like that train of thought; if true, it made me the prize patsy of all time. And if they had learned from Quent who it was that had been giving him orders, they would assume I already knew what had happened to him. While I thought about these things, the three of us stood there and smiled at one another.
    Then Meltzer said, "By the way, aboard ship it's the captain's little kingdom—except for government agencies. And you're private, am I right?"
    I agreed.
    "Then if I were you, I wouldn't try to go aboard with a concealed weapon." His smile broadened. "Or any other kind."
    He didn't actually say I was carrying, and it took a practiced eye to spot the slight bulge of my Glock, but I didn't need an argument with the honcho on board. "Glad you told me," I said, and popped the little black convincer from its holster. I unlocked the Toyota and shut my main weapon in the glove box. "I carry my GPS mapper; it's a LOC-8. And I've got a StudyGirl for notes. That a problem?"
    Meltzer looked at Norm, who made a wry grimace. "Shit, Ira, why would it be? In fact, you might carry one of 'em openly in your hand, Harve. I'll do the same with the other, and I'll give it back once we're aboard. I don't think al-Nadwi will get his shorts in a wad. I'm supposed to carry a little weight around here, even with these ragheads."
    Meltzer said he supposed so, and I handed over StudySkirt, carrying the LOC-8 in one hand. We left our vehicles near the gate and walked in side by side toward the Ras Ormara.  
    The commercial cleanup outfit I had previously seen on the wharf was finally leaving, a bright yellow hazmat suit visibly untenanted in