Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 02 Read Online Free PDF Page A

chameleonlike ability to slip into the Michael Loring identity so quickly.
    The man’s belief in the giant spider story, though, disturbed him. Coyote immediately wanted to send him to Japan to chase down a murder academy run by agents of this giant daddy-longlegs. This supposed the existence of this mythical spider and the actual existence of the assassin training center. Neither of those things was assured to be anything beyond Coyote’s personal fantasies.
    The mission made no sense, and it made even less sense for him to accept the job.
    The doors whooshed open and let him out across from the maglev VIP lounge.
    Well, at the very least, I can drop this file with Garrett and maybe talk with him. Otherwise, such as it is, Phoenix is my home and I’m not sure trooping off to Yakuzaland is such a winner of an idea.
    Phoenix’s maglev train circuit had been designed by Nero Loring, the man who had built Lorica Industries in much the same way that Darius MacNeal had created Build-more. Each of the trains on the circuit had been custom-constructed in a triangular shape. The upper, more narrow car was serviced from the VIP lounge and only admitted those who had the appropriate passes.
    Down below, in the broader, less well appointed part of the cars, lesser executives and unimportant guests waited in a crowd to be shoved into the packed cars.
    Sin fished his wallet out of his back pocket and took out his Build-more identification card. He slipped it into the slot beside the doors to the lounge and took a step forward.
    He bumped straight into the closed doors and rebounded, a bit surprised. Looking down at the slot he saw his card sticking back out.
    A dark-haired young woman in a freshly starched gray uniform looked at him from her position in the booth beside the doors. He pulled his ID back out of the slot and pressed it against the glass. She waved a laser-pen over the barcode on it, then looked at her computer monitor.
    She blinked once, then turned her face to him.
    “Can I help you, sir?”
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    Sin jerked a thumb at the doors. “You can open them.
    The mag strip must be gone from the back of my card again.”
    Her face shifted into a look of snobbishly bored indifference with the ease of plastic being injected into a mold.
    ”Sir, this is the VIP lounge. I believe you wanted the buses down on the street level.”
    “What?” Sin looked at the ID card, then slapped it against the glass again. “Try scanning it now, please.”
    The girl shook her head. “Sir, you have no authoriza-tion. Build-more does not show you as an employee.”
    You son of abitch!Sin ground his teeth as he clenched his jaw against the angry words he wanted to shout. You bastard! He turned away from the lounge doors, then almost whirled and drove the attachécase through the Plexiglass. He refrained, but not out of any fear for what Scorpion Security might do to him—the weight at the end of his arm gave him an idea.
    Okay, Coyote, here’s your chance to score some cred-ibility points.He crossed to a cement bench and sat. He opened the case and pulled out a manila envelope.
    Undoing the clasp he popped it open and smiled as he pulled another ID card from it. Picture’s not the greatest, but it will do. He tossed his old card into the case along with the envelope, then snapped it shut and again approached the lounge doors.
    The attendant had already started to reach for the button that summoned security, but her hand froze in place as his new ID card slipped into the slot and the doors buzzed. Sinclair stepped through them and pulled his card from the return slot. Slipping it into his pocket, he glanced up at the video display to see when the next car was leaving, then took a seat well away from a pair of men who, though they were wearing business suits, could havegone a long way toward proving zombies did exist.
    The attendant left her booth and walked over to