Shot Clock

by Mark Parragh

  And now here she was in the loading dock, listening to him explain what he’d discovered. She was slender but lean and muscled, with sharp features and skin the color of coffee. She wore the hotel security uniform, the tailored jacket and slacks, but Kirk noticed her pants legs were tucked into the tops of her black tactical boots. She nodded as he explained that reservations insisted there was never anyone named Jason Mardo at the hotel.

  “Why did facilities lock out his room?” she asked.

  “They say the lights don’t work, ma’am.”

  She gestured at the few clusters of bags still on the floor. “And you checked all these?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I figured if Mardo’s tags ended up on those bags over there, then their tags must be on his. But these are all on hold for guests arriving tomorrow. They check out.”

  Worede thought for a long moment. Finally, she nodded and said softly, “Good work, Wexler.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  She took her own radio from her belt and called the dispatch center. “I need a list of everyone working the loading dock yesterday. Both shifts. And have HR pull their personnel files.”

  She put the radio back and cocked her head toward the doors. “You’re with me.”

  They hurried through empty corridors, and Kirk felt his heart racing. He felt his future opening up before him. It wasn’t that he wanted something like this to happen. But it was an opportunity to impress his superiors, to get noticed. He’d already gotten Ms. Worede’s attention. She was only a few years older than he was. If he could impress her, if she decided he was worth mentoring, there was no reason he couldn’t be at her level by that age.

  They crossed the building until they were beneath the hotel’s north wing, and found a freight elevator that took them up to the third floor. Worede led the way down the deco-patterned carpet to Room Three Thirty-Two.

  She stepped aside and gestured to the door. “You figured this out. Let me see how you handle it.”

  Kirk nodded and stepped up to the door. By the book, he silently told himself. He knocked sharply and waited. After ten seconds, there was no reply, so he knocked again and announced, “Hotel security. Open the door, please.”

  More seconds passed. He took out his master keycard and slotted it. The door unlocked with a beep. He slowly turned the handle and pushed it open into darkness. The light from the hall fell across the entry foyer. The bathroom door on his right was closed. The niche on his left for coats and luggage was empty.

  “This is hotel security,” he announced. “Is anyone here?” His fingers found the light switch and pressed it.

  The overhead lights came on just fine.

  He glanced back at Ms. Worede, and they traded a dark look. More evidence that there was an insider involved. Had someone in facilities lied to get the room locked out? Or was it someone in reservations who’d gone in and blocked the room while facilities had no idea?

  He walked in, and Ms. Worede followed and closed the door. “See if anything’s out of place,” she said.

  The room looked normal, the bed made, in-room magazines neatly laid out on the side table, keys in the minibar. There was no sign it had been occupied. He knelt to look beneath the furniture as Ms. Worede checked the bathroom.

  “Clear,” she said as she came out.

  Kirk walked to the closet and slid open the door. He froze and felt a twisting sensation in the pit of his stomach.

  The closet was full of guns.

  A trunk lay on the floor, green with yellow stenciled numbers. On top, a brace of a half-dozen automatic rifles leaned muzzle up against the back wall, stubby grenade launchers under the barrels. He saw pistols and submachine guns, an open box of grenades. There was even something in the back corner that he thought had to be a rocket launcher.

  In horror, he turned back to show them to Ms. Worede, but she was standing right behind him. Their eyes met for a moment. Then she struck with terrifying speed, and the blade of her hand crushed his throat.

  Kirk stumbled back, and she spun him away from the closet so he fell to his knees on the floor. Then she was behind him, her arms wrapping around his skull. She clutched him tightly and snapped his neck with an emphatic twist.

  It was over in a moment.

  Chapter 7

  When Crane awoke, Swift was naked in front of the windows, doing yoga sun salutations. Crane watched her move her taut body with grace and precision. He saw the influence of martial arts training, and perhaps dance classes. From what she’d told him last night, he gathered her whole life had been devoted to intense, comprehensive training. There was no telling what kind of skills she might have picked up.

  “Still no sign of your bags,” she said when she realized he was awake. “You’re going to have to wear yesterday’s clothes.”

  She finished the last station of the Surya Namaskar and bounced on the balls of her feet a few times. “Of course, so am I,” she said. “But the gun was in Josh’s bag. Why are they still holding on to yours?”

  “They’re still suspicious, I expect,” said Crane as he got up. “Plus, they haven’t found the bullets yet. My guess is they’re sifting through my things with a fine-tooth comb.”

  She bounced over and kissed him. “They going to find anything?”

  “No. You’re awfully perky this morning.”

  “I got laid!” she chirped as she headed into the bathroom. “You should know that, John. You were there!”

  Crane did his own quick workout, showered once Swift was out of the bathroom, and dressed in the same clothes he’d worn yesterday. He strapped on the Breitling Navitimer he’d picked up in Puerto Rico. He was supposed to meet Josh for breakfast in just a few minutes.

  “You said there were things you wanted to tell me,” he said, “about Team Kilo, and I really want to hear them, but I’ve got to—”

  “Oh no, that’s okay,” she interrupted. “Josh needs to hear this too.”

  Crane stopped, a bit taken aback. She wanted to meet Josh? That was vaguely troubling. He suspected Swift would run circles around him. But he couldn’t think of a reason to say no. And Josh would want to know whatever it was she wanted to tell him.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go meet Josh.”

  She took his hand as they walked down the hall. They took the elevator to the main floor and crossed the lobby to Matin, the hotel’s breakfast cafe. Swift swung their clasped hands back and forth and happily skipped a few steps beside him. Crane was amazed at the contrast between this woman and the one he’d seen on field missions. She was practically giddy right now, but Crane knew what she was capable of when something got in her way.

  Matin was bright and sunny, with sweeping windows that gave a fantastic view across the lake to the funicular terminal and the glacier above it. The sky was a deep, cloudless blue, though the weather app on Crane’s phone had suggested that might change soon. There was a pleasant background buzz of conversation and the clicking of silver against china. The place was crowded, but Crane saw Josh at a table. He wasn’t alone. A man Crane didn’t recognize stood by the table, leaning over toward Josh and gesturing quickly as he spoke. It looked like he was giving Josh a good arm twisting.

  “That’s the best part,” Crane heard him say as they approached. His accent was Australian, and he was obviously enthusiastic about his subject. “It’s a low enough temperature that you can use that land for agriculture. You grow crops and generate a couple hundred megawatts, even at night.”

  “John!” Josh said, looking up in relief. “Good morning. This is Hank David. If I understand him correctly, he’s kidnapping me until I invest in a solar energy project in Queensland.”

  David laughed, and introductions were made all around.

  “I’d take him seriously if I were you,” Swift said to Josh. “Mr. David turned a couple small-town radio stations into a nationwide media empire. This is about those solar updraft towers? He knows what he’s talking about.”

  David raised an eyebro
w, obviously impressed. “Well, you’re doing better than me, young lady,” he said. “I should just get out of your way. Enjoy your breakfast, all. And, Josh, listen to this one and then call me when you get back to the office.”

  They watched him return to his table, and then Josh turned back. “So you’re the mysterious Swift,” he said with a smile as they shook hands. “It’s a pleasure to meet you at last. You’ve been holding out on me, John.”

  She gave Josh a flirty smile, and then they sat and ordered breakfast. Crane went light, ordering yogurt, granola, some fresh fruit, and a glass of cranberry juice. Josh chose French toast with a topping of something called Saskatoon berries, which Crane thought was about as Canadian as breakfast could possibly get. Swift disregarded the menu altogether, telling the waiter she was still operating on Cook Island Time and couldn’t possibly eat breakfast now. She demanded a salmon tartine and a Labatt’s Blue. Crane couldn’t help wondering if this was part of some new persona she’d adopted, perhaps just out of habit. Alone with him last night, she’d struggled to reveal her true self to him. In public, she seemed to take on a different character with everyone she met.

  They made polite small talk while they waited, Swift going out of her way to make sure Josh knew where she’d spent the night. After a few minutes, she got down to business and quickly filled in Josh on some of the basics she’d given Crane. That she was here with the leader of Team Kilo, a man called Redpoll. She didn’t mention their personal connection.

  “But what you need to understand,” she said then, “is what Kilo actually is, what it does, why Skala was so afraid of us. The other players he knew were all after the same thing. Wealth and power. It drives everything they do, just like it drove Skala. So he understood them, but he didn’t understand us.”

  “You’re not after money and power?” Josh said with a raised eyebrow.

  “We need them, to be sure, but for us they’re a tool, not the goal. To people like Skala, what we do makes no sense. We forego obvious opportunities; we invest in things without immediate returns. Worse, we watch them and infiltrate their networks. A lot of the time, they don’t even know we exist until we pop up inside their defenses and take them apart. Kilo’s ruthless and thorough. It’s unpredictable. It scares people.”

  “I’m getting that,” said Josh. “So what’s Redpoll after, then?”

  “He doesn’t want to rule this world,” she said. “He wants to shape the next one.”

  Crane and Josh traded a look, and then Josh said, “I don’t understand.”

  Their breakfast came, and Swift smiled quietly while the waiter laid the plates. The kitchen hadn’t been thrown by Swift’s order. She thanked him with a smile and took a swig of her beer.

  “Redpoll’s father sent him to Harvard,” she said, “to get a western education. It was the seventies. He saw the oil crisis, social and political instability, cold war fears of nuclear annihilation, population growth, pollution, climate change. He concluded that global civilization was unsustainable. Five, six, seven billion people simply couldn’t live the way Americans did. There just wasn’t enough food or oil or living space. He decided it was all going to fall apart.”

  “He wasn’t the only one,” said Josh. “Plenty of prophets of doom back then.”

  “No, but his reaction was unusual,” she answered. “He concluded trying to head it off was futile. A waste of resources. Instead, he started planning for it, and how to rebuild afterward.”

  She took a bite of her salmon, and Josh caught Crane’s eye. Crane thought he looked worried.

  “The fall itself will be, well, what you’d expect,” she said after a moment. “Destruction and chaos, governments collapsing, wars and upheavals. Institutions and diplomacy will fail, and only force will hold things together on a local scale.”

  “So a time for warlords,” said Josh.

  “And God knows that’s something he understands,” said Swift. “So he gathered a cadre of warlords. He carved the world into regions by geography or culture, and he picked Section Leads to run them. We have mercenary armies and military hardware stashed away all over the world to maintain order, bring things in for as soft a landing as possible. But he backed those up with people who could rebuild trade networks and political systems. Right next to the guns and the rockets are technical and cultural archives. We’ve got a whole law library buried under Siberia. It’s something to see.”

  Josh had stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. Now he put it down.

  “It’s not a totally new idea,” said Josh. “People have been playing around with it for a while. But I’ve got a problem with it.”

  “What’s that?” she asked. Crane tried to decide if her tone meant she was genuinely curious or that she was giving Josh enough rope to hang himself.

  “I don’t take issue with rebuilding the world,” Josh went on, “though I’m not ready to give up on this one yet. But it seems like it’s always some guy who thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room, and so he should get to decide what the new world looks like. I’m guessing this Redpoll isn’t a big fan of democracy?”

  “He’s not,” said Swift. “But then, I’m not really a big fan, either. The common people always seem to make a mess of things, don’t they? Too many cooks, I guess.”

  Crane decided he should step in before things got ugly.

  “Where does your friend Turnstone come into this?” he asked. “Is he one of those warlords in waiting?”

  Crane didn’t know exactly who Turnstone was. He only knew he was highly placed in Team Kilo and that he and Swift apparently hated each other.

  “Turnstone’s one of the Sector Leads,” she said.

  “What’s the quarrel between you two, anyway?” Crane asked. He didn’t expect to get a straight answer, but it was worth a try.

  “He cracks his knuckles,” she said. “Endlessly. Disgusting habit. I swore I’d destroy him.”

  Okay, then, Crane thought. At least he’d distracted her.

  “So why’s Redpoll here?” Josh asked.

  “Like I told John, he’s getting old. He’s worried about who’ll take over the mission when he’s gone. He’s here to evaluate a couple candidates.”

  Josh snickered. “There’s something funny about that,” he said. “Civilization, very inconsiderately, keeps stumbling along, wobbling from one crisis to the next, but it never quite falls down, does it? And so now he needs to pick someone else to wait for it to come apart.”

  Josh seemed intent on picking a fight with her. Crane stepped in again. “So who are the leading candidates?” he asked.

  She smiled at him. “Oh, I shouldn’t say.”

  “You?”

  She smiled. “I don’t think he’d trust me with a pointed stick, much less the resources of his organization.”

  She finished her beer and put the bottle down on the table with a sharp click. Her mood seemed to shift instantly, and she was once again the giddy girl who’d skipped down the hall with him.

  “But you can ask him yourself, if you’d like. You’re invited to lunch. He wants to meet you.”

  Chapter 8

  She unlocked the door to the suite with her keycard and entered the room. As she crossed the threshold, everything changed. Angela Worede fell away and was forgotten, and she was Shani Abera once more. It was a comfortable transition, one she’d waited for. She knew how to be Shani Abera, the Ethiopian refugee, the Israeli Defense Force commando, the mercenary captain. Worede was like the cotton/polyester blazer she put on for work and took off again when her shift was over.

  The others were already there, waiting. There were five of them, four men and a woman, her advance team and squad leaders, the best people she had. They didn’t look happy.

  They started peppering her with questions almost before she could close the door, and she shut them down with a sharp gesture.

  “It’s taken care of,” she said. “Wexler’s dead. The weapons are secure. I’ve got a story for Horton, and I rewro
te the RFID chips to support it. Nobody goes back to Three Thirty-Two for any reason.”

  She turned to one of the men, Jorge. “There’ll be footage of me and Wexler en route,” she told him. “I need you to wipe that and cover your tracks.”

  “No problem,” said Jorge.

  Paul, her number two, spoke up next. “What the hell happened? They mistagged the bags?”

  “That’s right,” she said. “The tags were wrong, so our asset put the guns in the wrong bags.”

  Paul swore. “I told you we should have had our own people down there. End to end control. None of this would have happened.”

  It was a debate they’d had earlier. She’d already packed the Cambie’s staff with too many of her own people. Much more, and someone would notice something. She’d decided it was too risky to try to plant another one, especially one who played a minor role offsite and wouldn’t be here when it all went down. It was better to bribe someone already in place for what should have been a simple job. Of course, it hadn’t worked out that way.

  “It happened,” she said. “It’s done. Two PDWs aren’t going to make or break us, and I can keep Horton chasing his tail until midnight. It’s just another day.”

  Next, Abera turned to Sandra Govain, who worked in reservations. “What about Redpoll?” she asked. “Is he in place?”

  Sandra nodded.

  “He’s in his suite. He’s traveling light. Just a handful of support staff. Assistant, chef, and he brought Swift with him.”

  Abera remembered Swift from her security dossier. She was dangerous and unpredictable, but Abera didn’t intend to give her time to react.