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Chapter 15: Players & Cribs

  I slept until ten. Waking up, I felt mugged. Something foul coated my tongue. I looked at the other bed and saw Memo, still dressed and on top of the covers. He was snoring. A hissing from the bathroom sounded like the shower running. Probably Rafe. I dropped a pouch in the coffee machine and brewed a cup. At least it made the tongue coating taste different. My bag from the Swat van was lying on the dresser. I got a tab of Cocktail number 7 down and lay back on the bed. A scan with my implant showed I was within range of our Battlenet. The Swat van must be parked nearby. The Templar linkage in my bag boosted signal so I had plenty of bandwidth. Slipping on my network glasses, I opened a link.

  Only myself and Saint Peter were online. Tactical showed everyone was sacked out in three rooms of the motel. Father Cervantes was halfway to Dallas in his Forensic truck, no doubt tapped into the data stream coming out of Barksdale. That reminded me of the condom in my Skins, full of Develin’s drugs. Have to give that to Father for his own tests.

  Interrogation of Salvador Uribe provided everything he knew very quickly. Sal was not a very tough nut. He didn’t want this job anyway, but a Jacksonville thug called Tar Bone hijacked his tour gig and put Kurt on the bus to meet two guys from the Libertine. They were supposed to do all the heavy work. Sal was kind of a Coyote transporter using the band to hide. When the band left without him, he was way out of his comfort zone.

  Kurt was one of Tar Bone’s crew. Once his addiction was found on a jailhouse tox screen, interrogation made brisk progress. He liked one of those designer love drugs with a mean withdrawal. Saint Peter found the drug pattern in his copy and turned it down. Way down. Sobriety and Kurt did not mix much. Without his meds, Kurt was painfully talkative. He described Tar Bone as a connected career criminal, out on the Eastern Seaboard. Flash cars, boats and a team of hackers making money playing games. He had grown up in Jacksonville as a Fixer in a neighborhood gang. Tar Bone came out of prison six years ago and started making bank. Kurt had even been to the Soldier Club, where Tar Bone kept his hackers in secure style.

  Saint Peter would pursue Tar Bone’s bio in Jacksonville and the Soldier Club address. It was more than I had hoped for. We had been grabbing people for days and some had been able to talk. I had thought the network would be in fast retract away from our grip. Discussing it with Saint Peter he observed, "Their size and pyramidal hierarchy work against them. They have too many hands and not enough brains. Until a high rank can tell the tale, their filters keep the babble out."

  I hoped that was true. The comment about size and many hands was not confidence inspiring. Saint Peter had a question for me, "Why did you pursue a Barksdale agenda after achieving your own objectives?" I struggled to remember my motivations last night. At last, I hit on a Templar argument, "If the Barksdale squadron had deployed with no joy, we would have been billed service credits. This resolution saved money and increased cooperation from Shreveport Garda."

  That sounded fine to Saint Peter, "Good work Marshal." This was one of those times where his not having a sense of humor helped. I was glad I wasn’t fully monitored over this link. He can tell when I’m laughing. As I remembered the evening, the club staff just hit me wrong. Like bad things happened there and everybody was in on it. And they had ripped off Garda. Or maybe it was just mixing alcohol with number 7. I got frustrated and then a little mad.

  Someone slapped my stomach in the Real. I broke link and looked up at Rafe in a frayed gray robe. He looked into my eyes, now that I could focus on him and said, "How are you feeling today Chuy?" I described my few symptoms and he reminded me to take the number 7. "I served it to your cousins early this morning, they’re just sleeping now." I told him, "Gracias, amigo. I have already taken my meds. Why are you so active this morning?" He gave me a vague shrug, "I got rid of that vile poison in the parking lot, don’t you remember? Go take a shower, Ivre."

  Maybe I was still a little drunk. When I got showered, he walked me to a little diner out on the lot. The motel manager was hosing off the parking lot by the gray van. He gave Rafe an unfriendly look. I got some coffee and Tabasco over eggs and potatoes to set me straight. Rafe is sort of my mother hen, must be the Christian in him.

  Of course it was a little bit his fault. "You know, I didn’t expect to be drinking so much down at the bar. Did you get a good peek at all the ladies there?" He flinched as I scored. "I will treat Claire to an evening in Strasbourg, for my penance." He waved a finger at my empty plate, "For you, a fine breakfast is enough. You are a much simpler creature."

  We went to the Swat van and squared away our gear. I got the drug sample out of my Skins and hung them on the recharger. The knotted condom got dropped in an evidence bag. I pondered what to label it and came up with some pretty funny ones. To preserve the chain, I settled on "Hook Shot sample." Rafe got a laugh from some of my rejected labels. The commo suite in the van gave us good uplinks and privacy. We dived into the net and sifted through developments. Interrogations progressed at a slower rate, there being a lot of copies running. They all had their tales to tell.

  Ms. Weathers detailed a network of clubs, working the edge of law like the Libertine. On record they were independently owned and managed. Financially, they all got their start up from the same venture group, Griffin V.I. out of New York. They all got their bands from Sigerd Entertainment, out of Jacksonville. Staffing was flexible among the network. Weathers used to work SoCal before moving to Louisiana a year ago. There were seven clubs in a line from coast to coast along the old southern interstates.

  The Keno drop payoff was a standard play in the clubs. Being exclusive and secure lent safety to cash transfers. She had gotten tonight’s request from one of the owners, Sten Laporte, who she had only seen once before at a Labor party. The job was downloaded to her phone as a "Vendor" appointment, including a picture of Tibbet. The cash card got dropped off by a kid on a scooter.

  Saint Peter was developing a bio on Laporte and backchaining the New York moneymen. We already had Sigerd Entertainment as a subsidiary of Gnefl Corporation. Names were swiftly filling in on the enemy org chart.

  Ogre was being forthcoming on a number of unsolved murders. He seemed to have been a soldier for this syndicate a number of years. Nosy journalists, would be extortionists and twelve women were memorialized in tattoos on his body. The particular images chosen were idiosyncratic, but his descriptions of the crimes were very detailed. Six of those girls were eligible for religious charter protections. We would see how Ogre liked a real-time Christian prison. He was lucky executions had been banned, but if he was killed inside, I doubt there would ever be a zombie made available. Ogre was a soldier who didn’t ask a lot of questions. I guess that was part of his appeal. Other than Tibbet and some casual criminals he had little contact with others. Future interrogations would be about his Gneflheim experience, sort of a game walkthrough for our players.

  Tibbet was deep into the Gneflheim network. A former champion with a new body, he was a member of the Seventh Circle and a Solstice Adept. What that translated to was a made guy who had the run of all seven clubs. Whenever there was a Solstice, which was some kind of entertainment event, Tibbet often supplied compliant women. Not willing, just compliant. He had done that maybe twenty times over the years. Half of them were Christians. There were different Solstice events for different status participants. Game world events elevated their outrages based on the level of the player. Then the events translated to the Real for the high level elite. Locations favored islands in the Carib. Tibbet had never been to those, he just shipped his party favors. There were also musical events in major metros timed to coincide. Tibbet had been to many of those.

  The use of the term Solstice for these events was troubling. Saint Peter said the ritual Solstice was peculiar to the "Old Religions." Those belief systems had been done great harm by pre-Charter Christians. They were antagonistic from long habit. The maternal versions were usually non-violent but the paternal versions featured ritual violence and covert in
filtration. Several were said to exist in secret, outside the Charter.

  If the Gneflheim game motif was to be believed, we may be dealing with a Brotherhood of Odin society or Wotanism, by modus if not actual belief. The difference was unimportant, under the precepts of Instrumental Pragmatism. The Believers were not Charter signatories, so they received no special cultural consideration. The Garda would be their protectors or antagonists, based on circumstance.

  I left Rafe examining more interrogation reports and jumped into the Garda flow. Saint Peter had built case bridges into various units, forming cooperative connections. I wanted to see what he had done in my name while I slept.

  The bridge to a Templar Recruiting and Training unit in Jacksonville was the newest addition. They had a corner of a Garda base out on Blount Island. Just because they were an R & T team didn’t make them less effective. There were too few Templars for the luxury of administrators. All could answer the call and carry Saint Peter’s sword. The trainers in particular, were highly competent troops. I had, apparently, asked them to raid Tar Bone’s club whenever he was resident.

  It was very likely they would do that. There were six of them and a training arsenal available in the middle of a major Garda base. It would also be cheaper than trying to do it ourselves. I chopped my approval to Saint Peter. A formality, but he always wants my opinion on matters in my name.

  There was another bridge to Dallas Garda. They had been given the go ahead to toss the kidnapper’s rooms. A list of everything interesting in the room, gleaned from interrogations, was provided. They also had passwords to the electronics. It should be a walk-in for them. I approved the use of my simulacrum to secure their cooperation. I had, apparently, gotten them to wave service credits by locating Sweetie for the North Mexico Garda. Dallas would charge them for any services on this case.

  The Barksdale bridge was full of forensic reports and bio’s. Legal was working the charges. We were holding several for Templar Justice. Jesuit lawyers from the Curia were on the way to handle that. Commander Del Rey had secured space for us on base. Plans were to move to Barksdale today. Saint Peter’s direct link to Barksdale Garda as the imaginary Del Rey meant I was not needed to negotiate with them.

  So I had been frugally busy while sleeping and eating breakfast. It gave me an urge to actually do something myself. I brought up Saint Peter’s decision tree, oriented on the timeline and looked for tasks.

  There was an assignment directed to me or "Others as requested." The mission was Repatriation and Release. I was to take the girls and my cousins back home to Chihuahua and report back alone "With all speed." I also needed to recover our gear at Tio’s and give the SWAT van back to White Sands.

  The only other task boxes were the raid on Tar Bone and a bunch of forensic labs. Those were being worked by others. There appeared to be forty specialists and Templars working for me now. I wondered how many I would actually meet.

  I dove back into the Dallas bridge and watched my simulacrum negotiate in replay. I wanted to know who it talked to and what was said before calling again. That avoids many awkward conversations. When briefed, I called the Dallas Agent in charge. I wanted a Lifter to get myself and three deputies with vehicles at Shreveport and fly us to Dyess in Abilene to get the girls. Then take us home to Chihuahua. Bill the whole thing to North Mexico Garda. Agent Ross had no problem with collecting transport fees for that. The bird was waiting at Barksdale. He assured me the Bureau of Missing Persons appreciated our work. No doubt our successful recovery would enhance their annual report. Norte Americano bureaus were very crafty about seizing good credit, of any kind.

  I called White Sands Garda and told them their van was going to be at Dyess base in a few hours and would they be available to pick it up. Commander Lisandro offered to retask a flight for the job and stop billing for the van on receipt. White Sands was a regular stop and an old posting for me. I had a good relationship with Lisandro from when he was a lieutenant. He once said he would try to forget that I sold out to the Templars and remember I was a pretty good sergeant back in the day. He had never been Transferred and had a kind of fascination about it I would occasionally indulge over drinks.

  I told Rafe we were moving to Barksdale, so wrap up and get packed. Then I dropped out of the net and got to work. I had been running pretty hard for the last five days and now it sounded as though the only rest coming was on the Lifter. I was anxious to get aboard.

  Barksdale gave us a mothballed barracks for our use. Comforts were low, but security was high. And the price was right. We emptied our gear out of the Swat van and I got my cousins to pack their personal kit for the trip home. Lucho was happy to return, but Lalo and Memo wanted to keep after the leads and kick some more asses. I explained that deputies were temporary and they had their girls. The Templars would pursue the case, but did not require their services any more. Go home and keep the girls safe from any reprisals. The last suggestion was the most persuasive.

  The Lifter flight was nice and quiet to Abilene. My cousins made traveler bands and taped a water bottle horizon gauge up before we were airborne. They could see it over the hood of the yellow Mastretta. The Crew Chief observed this but said nothing. As long as everything fit, he would transport it. I got a little rest until we landed at Dyess. The Swat van was unloaded and we picked up the girls for the next leg. It was Memo’s first sight of the girls since their abduction.

  Tears flowed, but the number 7 kept the cousins dry. If anything, the strong emotions made them more deadpan than usual. This confused the girls and made things awkward. I had a word with them in private, while strapping them in. "I’m sorry the boys are distant. They submitted to chemical controls to get deputized. Let them sleep it off tonight and they should be back to normal tomorrow" I grasped Chelo’s hand and made eye contact. Pitching my voice low, I asked for a decision. "Sweetie is going to her familia, but yours is far away. Do you want us to send you on home or could you stay with Sweetie and finish your schooling? I am sure my cousins would fall all over themselves to show you how chivalrous they can be. And I think Sweetie could use a good friend." Emotions chased across her face, but settled on duty. Her schooling and her friend required attendance. "I’ll stay with Sweetie."

  Sometimes, I think Jesuit methods are an infectious meme. Asking her in front of Sweetie applied a lot of pressure. But I wanted them together so my cousins could guard them. There might be some kind of reprisals from this distributed syndicate. Just because the harm was already done, didn’t mean the enemy wouldn’t develop some vindictive reasons to go after them.

  I talked to my cousins, too. Letting them know I was taking them back to Chihuahua with a job in mind. "The Templars may want you demobbed, but we have Navarro business with these girls." I tried to make eye contact with each. "I know you still don’t feel yourselves, but it is going to wear off tomorrow. I want you to remember the training when it does. You three are going to watch the girls for a while, maybe a long while."

  Their deadpan expressions made it hard to read what they were thinking, but Lucho stuck out his fist and we all placed our hands atop. "Good enough, primos. I’ll go with the Templars and you keep the wolves away." After that, I strapped in and tried to get some rest. It wasn’t easy, but the number 7 helped.

  We got to Tio’s field in the afternoon. Lucho drove the girls slowly in the Mastretta, the rest of us carried our kit to the main house. Tio was there with Esmeralda. We had a hugging reunion and more confusion with the cousin’s lack of emotion. Tio had a tight gaze for me. I tasked the boys with loading Templar gear in the Lifter, it would only wait so long. Esmeralda took the girls in the house and Tio hooked his finger at me, "Come talk to me, Jesus." He pronounced it Hay-soos. He must be mad to call me by my Christian name.

  He sat me down on a stump seat used for chess games in the yard. "Jesus, you have brought the girls home and that is a good thing. But the boys are like robots with the drugs. I know my history. Drugs and armies make murderers. You may think y
ou are immune because you fight por Christo. But I have seen a lot of bad things done en nombre de Dios. I want my sons out of your army." I nodded as I told him, "They are home to stay Tio. Tomorrow it will wear off."

  Tio absorbed this and said, "Memo probably did not tell you, but the simulator hurt his injury several times. He would cry out and shake in his box and neither I nor Esmeralda could help. Esmeralda was very unhappy about that. And when he came out, huy! He was simple like a baby. It took hours to get him to respond as my Memo."

  He paused and just looked at my eyes for a moment. "You are even on some drug. Why do they do that? You are not on a battle line. You are one of them. Where is la confianza? The trust?"

  I had that argument with myself a lot these last five days. But I remember it seemed like a good idea for my cousins. Maybe I had goggles on for this topic. He was certainly right about the number 7 making this a difficult conversation. "Tio, to be Garda you must represent all the people, not just your own." He hacked the air between us, "You sound like a politico. You did not sound that way in your text."

  I understood a little better. The text I sent from my Happy Place, when the drugs had worn off. I had agonized over the damage to the girls and been apologetic about risking his sons. It had probably scared him. And Memo’s torture in the simulator was my fault too. I forgot that the muscle microshocks used in it would have involved his broken clavicle. I had left him without an attendant. Just Esmeralda, with her fear of the simulators.

  "You are right Tio. My text was a weak moment when I was in the hospital. I did not mean to trouble you with my self-doubts."

  "De nada, Sobrino. Somos familia" It’s nothing, we’re family. "But you worried me when you talk about my sons and danger and all the trouble the girls got."

  "It was the pain talking Tio. I snuck that text offbase when they were putting my face back together." He studied my face and said, "Around your eye, I see a line. What happened?"

  "One of the Secuestradores hit me with a rock when we went to get the girls. It broke the bone." Tio tsked and said, "It is not so bad then, Memo had worse."

  "I am sorry about Memo and Esmeralda with the simulator. I should have left someone to take care of him. We were moving very fast and I tried to go where I could do the most good. I will apologize to them both." Tio nodded and glanced at the Lifter in his field. "So you are leaving right away?"

  I nodded back to him, "We still pursue the head. It is a bigger snake than anyone thought."

  He digested that, "Does this snake still want anything in Chihuahua?" I waved my hand side to side, "Maybe, if it is a crazy mean snake. The boys are trained as well as I could to look out for this snake in Chihuahua. If they should see it, I would like you to call me."

  "Of course, Chuy. I think we will save your things here for when you have finished with the snake. We have more visiting to do." He slapped me on the shoulder. "There is still more Reposado that needs drinking."

  "Acuerdo, Tio." We had an agreement. "I’ll go talk to Esmeralda and the boys."

  It took forty minutes to pack and leave on the Lifter. Toward the end, the Cargo Chief was blowing a whistle and jumping up and down. But this was mi familia, he could wait.

 

  I got almost three hours of nap on the way to Shreveport. When we landed at Barksdale, the Crew Chief basically shoved my gear on the blacktop and locked up the bird. He was racing the Pilot for bathrooms and food. Maybe drinks and girls too, aviators have a lot of comforts to choose from. I heard a whine and saw a command car approaching. There was a pallet running behind in slave mode. They roared up and slid broadside to me in an eerily choreographed hard left.

  "Marshal Navarro, what happened? Your girlfriend kick you out?" Major Wilson grinned at me over the top of his thick arm, hanging out the command car window. Soldiers poured out of the other doors and started heaving my gear on the pallet drone.

  "You know how it is, Major. Good looking Templar, so many screwed up women…I’m just out there rolling the dice." He seemed happy to see me. Probably missed talking to someone he couldn’t bully.

  "Sez you Marshal. At what point do you think to yourself, maybe the women aren’t the ones who are screwed up?"

  One of his Privates rode on the pallet, making room for me in the command car. Major Wilson hauled my butt over to the temporary barracks and deposited the drone pallet out front. "Just pat its little head and send it home when you get unloaded." He slapped his swagger stick on the car door and rapidly disappeared in a display of high torque. These Shreveport yahoos really liked their wheels.

  Father Cervantes had arrived from Dallas and sought me out for a wellness check. At least, that was the reason I thought of for the conversation. "Everything went well at your Tio’s casa?"

  "Si Padre, mi familia seemed well and satisfied with the justice received so far."

  "And the young ladies are coping?"

  "Si, as well as can be expected. They will be at Adoncia’s familia now, receiving care as only family can. All will be assisted by the Victims Advocate from the Magistrado."

  "Bueno Chuy. I understand you arranged for your cousins to watch over them?"

  "Si Padre. They would have in any case, but the training will help them do so with their heads, not just their hearts."

  Father Cervantes nodded and looked off in an unfocused way. He was conferring with someone on the net. I thought of Father Luke, off somewhere at a retreat. "Marshal, we are pleased with your handling of the personal issues that this assignment required. Now that you are not directly supervising family, we would be happy if you would discontinue the number 7. Do you have any reasons that may require continued use?"

  "No Padre, I will be happy to discontinue meds and get one hundred percent into the assignment." Cervantes put a hand on my shoulder before walking away. "You are a good man, Chuy. I would tell you Para Dios agarre el día, but in your case, maybe you should seize tomorrow for God."

  "Acuerdo, Padre."

  Mi compadres were happy with the news. Rafe told Etienne, "Finally! His ripostes have been deadly with that stone face." Etienne nodded and replied, "I prefer his monkey expressions to the man of stone too." They were pointedly talking to each other about me without a care. I would need to sleep off the number 7 to earn my place in conversation. "Let’s feed him and get some wine in him," Rafe said. "Then we’ll tuck him in his Happy Place." Etienne nodded and grabbed my arm, "Come along then, Marshal and it will go easier for you."

  Dorothea rolled over and shook my arm. "The café is ready." The smell pulled me out of bed. It was my second "day" in my Happy Place. A real-time clock showed me it was morning out in the world. The sweep of the second hand was noticeably slow. I felt refreshed and clear. I sipped a cup then walked out my front door to the Real.

  I woke in the simulator and the lid opened. My toilette came first, breakfast second. The BOC served a decent burrito con huevos with plenty of Tabasco. I had two. Major Wilson dropped by the table and watched the second one go down. "You seem awful chipper this morning, Marshal. Did you squirm back in your girlfriend’s good graces last night?" I waved my empty ring finger at him, "She wanted to slide the oro on, but I told her, leona, I am a complicated man. I need to keep moving." My newly mobile face brought him to laughter.

  "How can you sound like Don Juan but look like Jaks Chou?" Jaks was an Asian action star with a self-deprecating martial style.

  "I wasn’t offered a choice on the Writ." I would admit to being Transferred, but the circumstances were classified. Just asking was a little rude, but the Major had worded it well. "I’ll say no more on it then. You have yourself a good day Marshal. Give me a call if you want to play army again."

  I went back to the barracks and dived into the Battlenet. Everyone else seemed to be there already, from the lack of response to my return. There were whole structures of logic that were not there the night before. The breakthrough revolved around one of Saint Peter’s game players getting recruited. He was an up
load, hidden behind a false avatar. The cover was ex-Garda trouble boy. He had received an offer in a Gneflhiem bar from a high level character that had been tracked firing off high bandwidth packets. The character, "Lord Equinox" wanted our player to deliver a package to a bin in a Jacksonville apartment. Current thinking was to let the R & T team send the courier. It looked like a test to check out the player.

  The Hook Shot was some combination of cocaine and Alzheimer’s meds that stimulated gambling addiction. Prescription drug laws were going to close the club down. The Belle was already lining up a new owner. There were some notes from Saint Peter observing that the Templar operation was being hidden within the Garda drug raid. Templar charged prisoners were held incommunicado. I sourced the notes back to a Planning space and tried to see what was meant.

  Saint Peter was gaming the likelihood that the Tibbet and Ogre cover was still viable. By controlling eyewitnesses and selective spin control, he thought we may be able to continue the charade. They appeared to have made the delivery and disappeared before the raid. Their player personas were being puppeted within the Gneflhiem game world, to see if contact could be made. Two Templar trainers, who were physically closer to the kidnappers, would be prepped for doppelganger work in Jacksonville. Provided they survived the Tar Bone raid. That was poised to go in with an hour’s notice. They expected him to drop by his private soldier club anytime.

  I checked the decision tree for any new jobs. There was a standby assignment as a Raid Rider. Whenever that went in, I would travel their net and whisper in ears. Sometimes, that worked well, other times it was annoying micromanagement. I always tried for a minimal approach.

  The decision tree had another fork labeled "All Hallows Oct 29." That was the next solstice event for the game world. Our girls may have been meant for that party. Within the branch was a list of islands in the Carib. The number seven re-occurred in the number of islands used to host past events. Each had a percentage chance of hosting based on past schedules. Each island had a growing database of research.

  I conferenced with my Sergeants, looking for ways to play the kidnapper’s identities. I also threw out the solstice event for comments. We were just brainstorming ideas and conjecturing when the raid alert came down. Tar Bone was at his hideaway.

  I went for full simulation, jumping back into the flow as soon as I had plumbed the connections. Tactical for the raid showed maps, schematics and several blue icons. The target was near Bull Point north of town off Main Street. A big two story in a new money neighborhood with its own covered dock to the Drowned Keys. Much of Jacksonville had been reclaimed by the sea in the past hundred years. Empty homes now housed families of fish, revitalizing the fishing trade. Favored islands of grown coral rose offshore to protect what little could be held against the swollen Atlantic. Everything else moved inland.

  Our surveillance preparations included a voice tap on exposed windows, isolated power, net and sewer services. Red dots were numerous in the house. I checked metadata on the target feed for accuracy. The sensory feed was from a Manta, holding station offshore. It had scrambled out of Blount when the voice taps confirmed Tar Bone in residence.

  Mantas were drone platforms for coastal use. They could travel underwater or skim above the surface at high speeds. The design was used for vetting cargoes at sea. Avionics would produce a detailed model of contents and crew in huge container ships. A house on Bull Point was not a big problem. I wondered how much it was costing us.

  So there were a lot of red target dots. I checked blue icons to see what was in play. The six Templars, led by Sir Hamblin, were approaching from the north on the Main Street Bridge. They were in a gray van, using camouflage to close the range. Behind them was a Garda Swat unit in two armored vans. Standing off the dock was a Snakehead APC with a Blount Marine unit. It would surface from a nearby spillway and seal off the back when called. The Marines had two Punisher drones spinning rotors a half klick up for on call air support. Once again, I wondered at the cost.

  I watched feeds for the Templars. Sir Hamblin was checking gear as the van made a right off Main and onto a street called Custer. The name was not a good omen. The road wound through an impressive seafood restaurant, crossed back under Main and became Trout road. "Two minutes out," Hamblin said. The surroundings outside the van windows became upper residential, with tree fronted mansions.

  Hamblin looked at his team. I was surprised to see Salvador Uribe’s face on the driver. I guess the doppelganger idea had caught Hamblin’s imagination. We would see how well it would work. He certainly looked just like my little Sal. The van slowed and the side door came open, the interior lights staying off. Four Templars in Ghillie coverings exited the coasting van and melted into a line of trees. Forty meters later, the van turned left into a short driveway. Hamblin and Sal got out.

  The driveway held an angular silver sedan which looked very new and expensive. There was also a row of five motorbikes. Any other vehicles were parked in the three car garage. Several windows faced the street from both floors. Grounds lighting was minimal. The double front doors had an arched portico. There were two black men under the portico sharing a smoke. Probably having a little toque on the job. They looked up as Hamblin approached, displaying pistols in their pants.

  "Who dat?’ said one, creeping his hand toward the pistol.

  "Tell Tar Bone Sal is here with his packages." The Sal look alike also sounded like Sal. The other thug went inside the house while the talker stayed. "They in that van?" Hamblin spread his feet and blocked any movement toward the van.

  Sal said, "Sleepin like babies. We just gonna wait and let Tar Bone see his own self." The thug did something with the lit joint that made it sizzle and disappear, a real druggie magician.

  There was a commotion in the house. Bodies moving and voices rose. The Battlenet interrupted my audio and I heard the Manta driver say, "We have movement at the back, two walking to the dock." I checked Tactical quickly and saw three blue dots marking Templars at the left side windows. Another one was using small trees to close behind the two red targets heading to the dock.

  A tattooed man, appearing dressed in bib overalls with no shirt, exited the front door. In his arms he cradled a subgun. He said nothing, setting up to one side of the door and watching all with hawk eyes. The gun looked like current issue Garda, but the sling had a zebra pattern. I wondered briefly who made fashion accessories for illegal weapons. Tar Bone stepped out a moment later.

  Tar Bone was very tall and dressed like a Carib banker, white linen and a Homburg hat. His black eyes looked wild and suspicious. "’Bout damn time Sal got his ass back here." He squeezed outside, ducking slightly to clear the doorway. "You was supposed to be here in the daytime, fool." He stepped closer to Sal and jabbed a ringed finger down at him. "Now I got schedules all fallin late."

  Sal seemed to shrink a little as he looked down. Our Templar was doing a great performance. I noticed the Sergeant’s name was labeled on Battlenet as "Westin."

  "I’m sorry ‘bout that Tar Bone. We had to change a tire in Tallahassee."

  Tar Bone rolled his wild eyes over to Hamblin, "This one of them boys from the club?" Sal looked over at Hamblin and said, "Yup, this is Deeter or something like that. He’s a German, but he can talk American."

  "Huh, German feller." Tar Bone looked at Hamblin like he was for sale, "Say something in German for me."

  "Was kennon sie uber Deutschland?" Hamblin said.

  "That sounds kinda whip," said Tar Bone. "What'd you say?" Hamblin told him, "Have you ever been to Germany?" That was diplomatic of him. He actually asked what Tar Bone knew about Germany. Not much, it seemed. The important task was to distract Tar Bone and close range.

  Seeing Sal’s strange German security guard perform like a dog for Tar Bone’s amusement made his guards laugh. Tar Bone himself was enjoying playing the man. None noticed that pseudo-Sal and Hamblin had gotten within arm reach of all three targets under the portico. A growing whine from the nort
h let Hamblin know the Swat team was close. Then the house lights went off. Hamblin subvocalized, "Now."

  Sergeant Westin moved first, jamming his left hand behind Tar Bone’s belt and yanking him forward to the edge of the steps. Westin turned left, placing his right hand under Tar Bone’s armpit and spinning him off his feet. Tar Bone flew low across the front of the house and skidded to a stop at the right edge of the driveway. It was fast and shocking, because Westin only came up to Tar Bone’s chest.

  Hamblin stepped into the two guards, placing his hands on their chests. Charge flowed and both jerked in a St. Vitus dance until Hamblin shoved them backwards off the porch. They landed limply, hors de combat. He turned back to the door, seeing Westin wrestling with Tar Bone on the ground. Hamblin must have good faith in Westin, because he ignored that combat and pushed open the front doors.

  Flashes and thunder filled the inside of the house. A hail of bullets flew out the front door. "Shots fired" was interjected on the net from several voices. A Swat van bounced onto the driveway and turned sideways in the yard. Rapping noises marked bullet hits on the armored sides. Soldiers spilled out the back. Another van blocked the driveway and spewed its own troops. Bright lights illuminated the front of the house from atop the vans.

  Hamblin rolled Party poppers into the house from the wall beside the doors. Glass broke somewhere on the left. Shooting continued from the house and then flashes and thunder once again lit the interior. These flashes were much brighter and the thunder louder. When they finally died out, I could hear the popping of pneumatic guns. Tactical showed many red dots turning yellow, unsecured but hors de combat.

  Hamblin produced an assault pistol and moved into the house, working the right side. Weapons, furnishings and writhing targets made tricky footing. He was joined by two Templars in the Ghillie suits, having let themselves in the left windows. They tossed off the Ghillie covers to reveal their white Tabards and red Crosses.

  Garda soldiers poured inside as the Templars gained the staircase. Hamblin hand signed his two men downstairs and was soon joined by another Templar. Hamblin and the new Templar, labeled "Brown", took the upstairs route. The interior was very dark, back from the windows. Hamblin’s visor illuminated people at the top of the stairs, feeling their way back toward the rooms. Whenever thermals showed a weapon, Brown shot them. We were using splats, gel blobs filled with metered nerve agents. Not much knockdown but the liquid filling sprayed through clothing. A few seconds and the local feed would supply the sound of a falling body. Brown and Hamblin began clearing rooms, once the hallway was secure. There was a moment of gunfire from the basement, but units began calling in "Clear" immediately after. Tar Bone’s club was closed for good.

  They found four more girls upstairs, muddled with narcotics and suffering various stages of abuse. Two were freckled blonds, two were young and black. I called Agent Ross at the Bureau of Missing Persons and sent their images. The Templars would take care of the blondes, who were registered Baptists. The Garda would handle the other two, who were runaways.

  Uploaded prisoners flowed into our net. There were two dozen or so, including Tar Bone. Saint Peter would put them all to the question within the hour.

  I stayed on scene as a Rider, long enough to see Tar Bone’s neighbors come out in the street and clap. Families slapped other neighbors on the back and laughed. It looked like a block party would spontaneously erupt, but the Garda soldiers urged them back into their homes.

  I saw two Templars enter the back of a Swat van. Their labels said Johnson and Westin. I switched perspective to Johnson and found him helping Westin get out of the Salvador face. I was surprised to see Westin was a woman. Bio data said Roxanna Westin was a covert specialist and fieldcraft trainer. It was less surprising to see she wore Combat Skins. Her small size hid them well while impersonating a short man.

  I had enjoyed her moves with the enormous Tar Bone. My interest became a little less than professional, so I dropped off the Rider feed and got out of the simulator. Time for dinner.

  ****