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

himself lay in an extra-long hospital bed with the back elevated at a 30-degree angle. Two intravenous feeds—one clear and the other a pinkish color—delivered liquid through one needle in his right forearm and the other on the back of his right hand. Athin, clear tube ran beneath his nose and fed him oxygen. Despite Garrett’s being garbed in a hospital gown, Sin could see where the fabric pulled taut against the bandages on his stomach and chest.
    He looked alert, and the tight lines around his eyes suggested to Sin that Garrett was not taking full advantage of pharmaceutical science’s advances in painkiller technology. The big African-American man raised his left hand weakly, then dropped it in a gesture of resignation, or invitation to him to enter. “MacNeal...met you at fund-raiser...your father gave $10,000.”
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    Letting the door close behind him, Sin nodded to Garrett and the other occupant whom he recognized.
    Standing in the corner, near the foot of the bed was a man who, while not as tall as Garrett, certainly massed more.
    Dark, tight eyes look out at him from a lantern-jawed head that might as well have been cast in iron. The man’s muscular build and even the way he held his fists balled and ready for action made Sin think of him as the model for every neosocialist hero statue he’d seen in Tirane.
    Looks like he’s wearing the same Hell’s Belles T-shirt he had on the night he came with Coyote to my apartment.
    Doesn’t look as if he’s washed it since then, either.
    Seated on the foot of the bed, a petite woman smiled at Sin. She had a pretty face and obviously embodied the concept of America as a melting pot. A strip of sky-blue cloth tied her dark, kinky hair back at the nape of her neck, but the bow looked a bit incongruous with the leather jacket, leopard-spot leotard and flat-bottomed ankle-boots she wore.
    Sin decided the bow’s cloth had been torn from the hem of Garrett’s robe and probably tied in place by the last person in the room. For a half-second, he thought she might have been related to Lilith, because they both shared mid-back length, blond hair and a slender, long-legged form that legions of women labored fruitlessly for years to obtain. Her dark eyes and the way she clutched her arms around herself dispelled any connection between her and Lilith. In fact, because she wore a jeans skirt that hid her legs in its thick folds, and a white blouse buttoned at collar and cuffs, Sin wondered if she wasn’t actually a nun visiting Garrett without benefit of her habit.
    The large man in the corner took a step out toward Sin.
    ”You have the wrong room, MacNeal.”
    Garrett again raised his left hand and the girl on the bed grabbed the large man’s wrist. “Bat, I know his father commissioned the shooting. It’s okay.”
    Sin saw more pain shoot through Hal Garrett’s eyes, but he knew it was not physical. The same assassins who had put Hal in the hospital bed had killed his wife and almost started gang genocide in the dark world that lurked beneath Frozen Shade. “I’m sorry, Mr. Garrett. I would have stopped it.” He looked at Bat and added: “And if you want a piece of my father, you can hold my coat and have whatever I leave behind.”
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    Hal smiled as Bat retreated to the comer. “This is Natch Feral and Jytte Ravel. Chwalibog Kabat you’ve met.”
    Sin nodded at Natch on the bed and saw that Jytte refused to make eye contact with him. Bat folded his arms across his chest and just stared smoldering holes into his head, so Sin did his best to ignore him. “Coyote sent me and asked me to give you a file.”
    The mention of Coyote served to brighten both Hal’s and Natch’s faces. Jytte finally looked at him as if appraising him and his abilities. As Sin opened his briefcase, he noticed that Bat continued to glower at