By three days out I narrowed it down to 126 people who might be worth killing for enough money, and who might have enemies with that kind of money.
I leaned back, sighed and rubbed my eyes.
“Dan,” she said.
I stretched and looked over. We were traveling as Dan and Cynthia Charles.
“Can I offer some advice?”
“Please,” I said.
“You’ve been alone for a decade. It shows. You’re instantly edgy around anyone else, and can’t share. You also can’t express yourself.”
“Probably,” I agreed. I’d been expecting commentary on my list. Not on that.
“This is a nice ship, and it’s culturally Freehold, not just a flag of convenience.”
“Right. And?”
“Go spread someone,” she said.
I blinked.
“You need company, and you need to unwind. Go to the spa, take a div, and get your head back on a bit straighter.”
I almost blushed. Not because I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed not to have thought of it. Also, that I was so obviously having trouble with people.
“Keep the advice coming,” I said.
Yeah, that was a good idea. I got away from her, which was good for all kinds of reasons, and I got some physical sensations and synaptic rushes that really did help.
The spa had real leafy plants, wood veneers and scented air with attractive people in tasteful form-fitting clothes and elegant accessories. It offered everything from plunge to massage to fairly exotic sex. All I needed was human companionship, and that was easy enough.
I feel guilty about one thing. Bjirka, as she was known professionally, seemed to have a pretty good time herself. I wasn’t sure if it was real or an act; either was possible. However, I kicked in Boost and three segs later I knew it wasn’t an act. Every muscle in her body cramped and spasmed and her grin was still a meter wide when I left. They’d counted our doses on active duty, so we never got to try that. Physically, I got a bit more thrill from it. Psychologically, it was very satisfying. As they say in show business, always leave them wanting more. She was pretty much annihilated.
The part I felt guilty about was that I’d picked her because she looked a bit like Silver. It was a grudge fuck by proxy.
I felt even more guilty when I got back to find Silver had ruled out three more possible targets.
However, I was able to sleep better, and I was more relaxed. Actual human contact is necessary to mental well being.
The jump between systems was as disorienting as I remembered, and I was out of practice. My reflexes and coordination were shot, and I had trouble even standing. A nap straightened me out, but it was annoying. Silver had no significant problems.
A few potential targets left system during our transfer. We crossed those off. One other came home. One made a large charitable contribution, which didn’t take him off the list, but did make him someone to consider separately. A generous martyr taken out of the way could be used for a tragic or pity option for further fundraising. That had been done politically in one very high profile case a couple of centuries earlier. I expect it had been done more than once.
I availed myself of the spa once more before we reached orbit. Once down I’d have no such options. Silver and I were a married couple, and we needed to be a boring, unremarkable married couple. Visiting brothels, no matter how classy, would stand out in the oddly conservative culture of Caledonia. They’re modern and casual about sex in general, but marriage is very important. There wouldn’t be any stigma, being offworlders, but it would still be commented on. Discretion was great cover.
We transferred to their insystem shuttle. Very nice. The couches were comfortable, padded for extra support, and the services were all voice or touch controlled. It was a brand new Lola Aerospace AtmoSurf 5, in pale blue and white. There was no skywhip, which is part of why they use the Surfers. We went down in a series of graceful, dipping glides, a couple of sharp skilike turns, and a long, screaming approach. It was slower, but more interesting than a skywhip insertion.
Rollout was the same, and with the new port expansion we didn’t have to wait for docking. We unsnapped, shimmied out of those amazing couches, laughing softly at how awkward that was, stretched, and joined the debarkation line.
Surface gravity is 1.05, slightly lower than ours. The air was thicker even than Earth’s, but with comparable O2. It’s quite a nice planet, and I’d enjoyed my stint here with the embassy a lot. I knew a bit of my way around the general map of the capital. The adjusted twenty-three Earth hour day was short for me, but we’d be on an odd schedule as mission dictated anyway.
Once out, we grabbed bags, caught a “limo” that was an oversized van, ground only, and checked in at the New Raffles. A bellman in uniform took our bags and buzzed the door faster than we could get out.
“Good morning, Mister and Mrs. Charles. How was your trip?”
“Long,” I replied. “Is there a package for us?”
“Yes, a bag arrived for you. I’ll have it sent up.”
“Thank you.”
The elevator was fast, the luggage awaited, the view was good and offered a clear field of fire across the city center.
I slipped the bellman enough bill to make him happy without being flamboyant, and he closed the door on his way out.
I felt better already. I had more space, a spare bed if I didn’t like sharing, and the bag was from the embassy, and should contain some weapons. It wasn’t marked from the embassy, of course. It was marked from a safehouse used for the purpose.
I popped it open, rooted through the packing, and found a nice concealable pistol and some supplemental tools.
Silver already had a secure link up, and was pulling an encoded intel update.
“He’s still here, as far as we know,” she said. “Faint DNA traces, and I have a map.”
“Excellent. Those will hopefully include stalk sights and recon OPs he’s using. We can narrow this down.”
We ordered food in. Their version of Chinese is not bad, though unlike anything on Earth or Grainne. I scanned maps while shoveling food.
The geography of Randall’s positions put him definitely near and in the capital. There were no concrete scans elsewhere, and the probability on those there were was low. They were also unpatterned. So he was in the capital for now. He’d been here close to twenty days or more.
Based on his existing MO, I expected him to target someone within fifteen days.
That radius and timeframe, even with some leeway on both for coverage, put us down to seventeen possible targets.
There were two of us.
It was time to earn our pay.
CHAPTER 5
I shortly had a quandary on our targets.
Ten of them were going to be attending a major industry forum at the Parliament Hall. There’d be security all over the place, government, private, everything.
Now, it was possible that was a useful distraction for him while he went after a target elsewhere. However, it was also possible he planned to wade right in for a target at the forum, and use the intermeshing security as a cover, and rely on them to get mixed up for additional distraction.
The good news was, the ten at the conference were much easier to track, and for some matters could be considered one target. So we were down to eight.
Silver reported, “Masterson is going out to the mountains for a week.”
“He was never a strong chance anyway,” I said. “But we can pull him off the list for the week and add him back in if we need to.”
Seven.
Three of the six individuals had solid, consistent patterns and whereabouts at present. That was a bad idea from a security point of view, but indicated they didn’t feel threatened. A secondary input, but worthwhile. It also meant I could rule them out. None of the traces we found were anywhere near their routes.
So, three individuals, one group.
I was betting on the group.
For one thing, the odds did favor it being one of them, from a straight statistical analysis. There was no strategic calculus I could use at this point; it was not a military matter.
It fit, though, with the training and mindset I’d used. I’d taught him everything he’d known to that point, and there was little he could pick up elsewhere that would be comparable. My plans, training and doctrine colored his.
Hell, mine were what everyone in the galaxy was going to use until something even more brutal came along. I should be proud of my legacy.
If it were me, I’d hit the conference. Lots of distractions. So much muscle in one location would make people lazy. They’d worry about protesters, press and commercial spies. They wouldn’t be looking for an assassin. It would send an object lesson to others, that nowhere was safe. It would allow peers to witness the matter, which would have psychological impact for any future threats, offers or other negotiations.
Lastly, it took serious balls and was a way to show off. That was something we knew about his personality before we deployed. He had to fight hard to keep subordinate and invisible, even when we were building our personae on Earth.
He was going to hit the conference. He was going to be very methodical and high tech, and he was going to laugh at them while he did so.
Silver had been working with me all along, with the scans, the mapping and other details. Now I needed her expertise on gear to determine how this would go down.
“So, if he’s going into the conference, where is he going to hit them and what is he going to use?”
She stared for a moment, made a gesture for “wait,” and turned to her system.
I sat patiently. She pulled up maps, blueprints, floor plans, seating charts, ran them in different pans and layouts. I’d let her have the desk. I had the bed. I liked being able to sprawl, though it was hard on the shoulders, eventually.
At last, she said, “It comes down to three probable methods. Please check me.”
“Go ahead,” I said.
“He can hit them on arrival or departure, but there will be a lot of crowding. He can hit them while they’re seated in the auditorium, but that increases the likelihood of either collateral damage, or a miss because of a collateral in the way. Or he can hit them during their presentation at the podium.”
“That’s when he’ll do it,” I agreed. “It’s the easiest and most dramatic. Everything he wants. A separate, visible target and easy to exfil after the fact. So let’s figure out how.”
She said, “You tell me, how hard would it be to get a rifle in there?”
By “rifle” she meant any weapon to conduct a shot with. I’d probably use a long-sight radius pistol myself.
“I expect they’re going to have scanners dialed up. Whole weapons, components, anything questionable. In this case, the security are professionals and will be harder to fool.”
“What else might you use?”
“Explosive. Again, easy to detect most of them by vapor.”
“And he’s never had a collateral, nor used explosive in close quarters.” His MO was gadgets.
“Chameleon suit,” she said, pointing at the screen.
I looked over. A previous victim had been killed in semi-public, smashed into a tree and the ground, and no one had seen anything.
“Are modern suits that good?” I asked.
“I can’t find you a node because they’re still heavily classified, but yes.”
“Damn. What do I need to know?”
She stretched back in the real leather chair, showing nice lines, and said, “Well, the current ones are spectrally near perfect. They’re also thermally near perfect if you’re willing to seal one up. Of course, there’s limited wear time in that case. If he has a small oxy bottle, he can probably manage twenty segs or so. Call it half an hour in Earth or adjusted Caledonian time.”
That was disturbing.
“Okay, let’s look at this. He gets in early when security is lax, finds a cubby hole, waits them out. He could even have press or maintenance ID, and have access to some areas, including restrooms and food. When it’s time, he throws on the suit, walks across the stage, shoots or nails someone up close, then sprints in the confusion.”
“They’ll see distortion at that point.”
“Yes. I wouldn’t do it. I’d go for a shot. I’m a better marksman, though.”
“He’s not up to standard?”
“He was one of my backfills. Never had the full pipeline of training. I just focused them on the espionage aspects, not the combat.”
“Ah.”
I flipped the file in my mind. “He shot low Master. I shot perfect every year.”
“Perfect?” She looked stunned.
“Yeah, it’s one of the things I’m good at.”
“I’m impressed. Is that common?”
“No, not even among our unit. We were expected to make Expert, and they preferred Master.”
She shrugged. “Marksman will have to do me.”
“That’s better than most, and better than almost any other military.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Am I right, though?” I asked, ignoring the compliment exchange. “I don’t want to plan for something and be wrong.”
“We’re guessing,” she admitted. “It’s a good guess, though. Scents point to location. MO points to method.”
“Right, so let’s assume we’re wrong and plan a backup.” Of course, that backup would have to assume this was the right place. We couldn’t cover two at once.
I wished I had an entire platoon, now. Of course, an entire platoon, even of Operatives, left a deployment signature that could be traced. For this, it had to be me.
“Poison?” she suggested. “Tagged binary neural toxins, one before, one on location.”
“Do you know how to do that?”
“No. I’m theorizing.”
“Research it.”
“Looking.” She used hands and mic and queried quickly. I wondered how traceable these searches were to the Caledonian Intelligence Service, and if there were moles in there. I was paranoid, but was I paranoid enough?
“Possible,” she said. “Expensive. Would take a professional lab, nothing you could do in a home shop. It would definitely make people wonder.”
“Not that, then. He likes to do things himself.” Or at least he did a decade before.
“Okay,” I decided, “we assume the chameleon. If he goes for a shot, I chase him down. If he tries anything else, I chase him down. It doesn’t matter if they arrest me after I shatter his spine. As long as I maim him, we’re good.”
“That makes sense,” she said. She looked disturbed.
“Yeah, we’re going to kill him, and it’s not going to be a fair fight.”
“I know,” she agreed soberly. “It’s not just that it’s unfair. He’s a hero, really.”
“A broken one,” I agreed. “Think of him as an abused pet turned vicious.”
“I’d rather think of how to deal with a chameleon,” she said. “The best method would be sonar or laser detection. I assume they’d notice that and neutralize us instead. So we use mics to determine he’s moving, then blow dust through the ventilation system, or scatter something on the ground. He’ll leave footprints or a swept area. Ionized dust will stick and degrade the screens. After that, anything directed at him—dust, pellets, that will bounce or shadow him.”
“I like the dust. We have two local days to prepare it and sneak it into that ventilation system, hide it so they can’t see it, exfiltrate, fake some kind of ID to get us back inside, and get near the podium.”
“You don’t want much.” She looked a bit put upon.
“I trust you to do the job.” I did.
“Thanks . . . sir.”
“Can we triangulate with mics?”
“Easily. But you can’t see the sound.”
“Can we put directional indicators in a pair of glasses and hook it to earbuds? There’s enough press around no
one should notice the gear.”
“I could. I can’t do that in the allotted time.”
I nodded. “And I want them to see him, too. That hinders his escape. Hopefully.”
“Will do,” she agreed as she grabbed shoes and a touristy backpack. She was out the door with a wad of cash in seconds, leaving me to figure infil, exfil and cover.
Eight hours later, we both looked dreadful. Greasy hair, dust, grime, general dirt. We were at the back gate to the convention center across from the Parliament Annex, with a backpack full of nastiness. It was early autumn and quite comfortable in the temperate coastal zone. Humans do try to pick comfortable environments when possible.
My earlier recon had revealed what I thought I could use. The gates were designed to stop traffic. Patrols and fences were to stop pedestrians. There were gaps we could get through. I surmised they relied on regular patrols to keep homeless out, but we weren’t going to be homeless. Silver had fabricated us two generic ID badges. Staff often appeared in the back of technical photos or candid shots, and the blowups were good enough for placement of bar code and picture. No one ever actually looks at an ID up close anyway. Not the kind on menials.
Getting into the grounds wasn’t hard. We lurked near a pedestrian gate with nicotine inhalers charged with scented water only, and made a point of waiting in shadows out of view of the entrance. It wasn’t long before someone else came out. He was another menial of some kind, and he already had inhaler in hand as he reached the gate.
I said, “. . . but I guess we need to get back to work. We’ve been out too long.”
“Okay,” she said.
I nodded at him and grabbed the gate as he nodded back, and waved my ID in the general direction of the scanner, but not close enough to actually trigger it yea or nay.
I nudged her, we grabbed two rolling grease dumpsters and headed toward the refuse dock. I whipped out a trash bag from a pocket, she slid the backpack in and it went into the slimy filth in the tub.