by Terry Mixon
The receptionist gave him a small shrug and buzzed a nearby door open. “If you’ll step through, I’ll escort you back.”
Brad let the fake Saburo hold the door open and went through. The office behind the desk was a busy one. With half a dozen people in sight just from here, he couldn’t imagine how Khan had gotten the place empty for the Cadre to take Watson. It certainly wouldn’t be possible now that Brad had surprised her.
Whether that would stop the inevitable attack or not really depended on how important the woman was to the pirates. If she was important enough, the strike teams would have to attack after Brad finished here. If not, they might come in at any time.
He’d just have to count on his new associate to tell him if the pirates started moving.
The receptionist walked them to the rear of the building and to an office adjacent to a warehouse that had a lot more people moving cargo containers around. No way had that been cleared last time. The Cadre must’ve planned to come right through the front door.
The young man rapped on a door that looked like real wood. “Ms. Khan? Commodore Madrid to see you.”
“Send him in, Wally,” a husky tenor called out.
The young man opened the door and gestured for Brad to enter. This was it. Things might just get very exciting in the next few minutes. If Brad played his hand right, he could find out exactly what the Cadre was up to. If not, he might end up dead.
Lily Kahn turned out to be an attractive older woman with a swarthy complexion. She stepped up to Brad as he came into the office with her hand extended. “I’m not sure how I can help you, Commodore, but I’m always ready to assist Fleet.”
He noted she had a firm grip. Not hesitant at all.
“I’m not with Fleet, but Commodore Fields is an old friend. He told me that if anyone could help me clear up a mystery, it was you.”
“Well,” she said with a smile as she closed the door. “That certainly sounds enigmatic. If you and your associate will have a seat, I’ll make us some tea.”
Brad sat and shook his head. “I just had something, so I’ll pass on any refreshment. Thank you.”
The man pretending to be Saburo also declined, so Khan took a seat behind her desk, probably disappointed that she couldn’t poison them.
“I’ve got a busy schedule, but I can spare you a few minutes. What mystery are you trying to solve, Commodore?”
“The Cadre is active around Ceres, or so several sources inform me,” Brad said as he crossed his legs. “I have a deep interest in the doings of pirates, and I’m told you might offer unique insight on their activities.”
He thought he saw a shadow of a twitch before the woman shook her head slightly. “I’m not sure how I’d know that. Could you perhaps be more specific?”
Brad smiled a bit at her well-concealed discomfiture. “Certainly. I’ve got the names of several merchant ships known to work with the Cadre. They’ve been here a number of times in the last few months, and I’d like your professional assessment of what they might have been doing.
“Of course, you wouldn’t know what they were doing behind the scenes, but they had to have cover cargos. I’d like to know what they claimed to have been delivering and taking back out of Ceres, as well as where they claimed to be going. Commodore Fields said to tell you he’d credit you with a favor for your help.”
Without waiting for her to actually agree, he placed a data chip onto the desk and slid it over to her. He wanted to keep her off balance.
“I’ll see what I can find,” she said after a beat. “As one of the major import-export dealers, I have privileged access to the records other than our own, but not into the specific cargos delivered. That would be a violation of my competitors’ proprietary business practices.
“That said, there are usually general cargo manifests listed. Basic categories of goods being brought in. The exports are a lot easier. It won’t be anything other than water or something based on water.”
She focused—or pretended to focus anyway—on her screen after she slid the chip into her computer. “These ships have fairly generic cargos listed. None of them used Crystal Clear, so all I can tell you is that there doesn’t seem to be a pattern in what they brought in.
“I see everything from basic foodstuffs to luxury items listed here. The destinations they listed with traffic control when they departed are all over the map. I’m sorry, but it seems that I haven’t been all that helpful.”
The woman gave him a slightly sad look and slid the data chip back to him. “If that’s all, I really must be getting back to my work. I can give you the name of someone that might possibly be able to give you more information, if that would help.”
“That would be very kind,” he said, already knowing that she likely planned to have him ambushed on the way to a dead end. It made life so much simpler when one knew someone else was a snake.
She jotted the name and address of another business down on a card and handed it to him as she stood. “I wish I’d been able to help you more. Good luck in tracking them down. Pirates are disgusting and make life so much more difficult for honest people in my line of work.”
He couldn’t agree more.
Brad slid the card into his pocket and extended his hand. “You’ve helped me more than you realize, and you still might be able to clear up one little thing up for me.”
The woman frowned slightly as she shook with him. “How so?”
“Perhaps you could explain why you poisoned Ella Watson and what exactly you do for the Cadre.”
Chapter Twenty
Khan tried to jerk back, but Brad kept a firm grip on her hand. As he’d noted earlier, she was surprisingly strong. She reacted with a credible punch for his face, which he deflected with his free hand.
“Don’t make me shoot you, Ms. Khan,” he said calmly. “And don’t scream. I’d hate to see you shot in the middle of a scrum with the Cadre hit team you have outside the building.”
“You’re making a terrible mistake, Commodore,” she said, her eyes hard. “I can’t imagine who told you this fairy tale, but they’re wrong.”
He allowed a chill smile to cross his lips. “Ms. Watson told me. This may come as a disappointment to you, but you didn’t give her enough poison to kill her. She survived and pointed the finger right at you just before I smuggled her back to my ship. I’d imagine she’s docking right about now.”
Brad was pleased to see a hint of fear in the woman’s eyes. She might be a good actress, but she wasn’t that good. She knew he had her and that she’d pay the ultimate price.
Of course, that wasn’t conducive to getting her cooperation. Falcone had taught him that lesson when they’d first met. Pirates might warrant spacing, but if you gave them another choice, they could occasionally be convinced to spill their guts, to turn on their fellows like a pack of wild dogs.
“I see it in your eyes now,” he said softly. “You know what’s coming. Payback for all the evil you’ve helped commit. It doesn’t really matter what form it takes. I could take you to my flagship and space you. Or I could simply shoot you here and now.”
As a mercenary commander, that was outside his jurisdiction. He’d have had to catch her in space, committing piracy or transporting slaves. As an Agent of the Commonwealth, though, he could do what he needed to do and explain himself later. As they said, it was occasionally easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “I hear a but in there. I can change my fate, but only if I help you. What are you offering?”
“I’ve already told you what I want. I’ll also need a full and unredacted copy of all your data, as well as your complete and enthusiastic cooperation in telling me everything you know about the Cadre and what it’s doing both here and elsewhere in the system.”
She raised her chin. “And what do I get in exchange?”
“Life in prison with no possibility for parole,” he said coldly. “A far better fate than you deserve.”
/> “I don’t want to go to the mines on Mercury,” she insisted. “If you want my willing cooperation, you’ll have to promise me something on Earth or Mars.”
Brad sighed. He really hated smart pirates. “Agreed. We’ll talk while my associate looks at your computer. I’d like to see if you lied to us a few minutes ago. It makes no sense for the Cadre-affiliated merchants to use a different import/export house when they have you.”
The fake Saburo—Brad really should’ve gotten the man’s name—moved to the desk and started tapping on the keyboard.
“Of course they went through me,” Khan said with a sneer. “Would you just let go of my hand? Put me in a chair or stand me in a corner, whatever makes you feel safe, mister brave mercenary.”
“Drag the chair in front of your desk out into the open space,” he said. “Don’t try anything or I’ll shoot you and be done with it.”
“So gentlemanly,” she said in a sweet tone that didn’t mask the nastiness underneath. “It must be horrible, being afraid of a little woman like me. How do you manage to fight real pirates without soiling yourself?”
Brad didn’t rise to her bait, so she dragged the guest chair out into the open and sat primly on it.
“It looks like her company did the work for the pirates,” the man at her desk said. “They brought in ore, though. No listed points of origin. They also didn’t take water or any of its potential derivatives. It says here that they bought refined tungsten.
“There are some refineries that supply that kind of thing here. They use ore from all the surrounding asteroids to make it and a host of other materials.”
That was odd, Brad had to admit. “What did they need that for?” he asked Khan.
She shrugged elaborately. “I was instructed to get them, not told what they were for. It cost a pretty penny, though. Came right out of my budget.”
“How much are we talking about?”
“The ingots weighed a few tons each. All told, I moved about a gross. That’s a dozen dozen for the uninformed. One hundred and forty-four.”
What in blazes could they be using the expensive material for? They wouldn’t have made that kind of investment without an ultimate plan for it, but he couldn’t see much in the way of potential nefarious schemes at the moment.
The com on the desk buzzed and a stud on the built-in console blinked blue.
Khan raised an eyebrow at him. “That’s Wally. If I don’t answer, the sweet boy will get worried and come back to check on me.”
“Answer it,” Brad decided. “Be brief and don’t get clever.”
The woman rose to her feet, reached over the desk, and touched the stud. “Yes?”
“Just reminding you that Mr. Lloyd will be here for his appointment in twenty minutes, ma’am,” the receptionist said.
“Hold on a second, Wally,” she said, pressing the button and setting the stud to blinking again while the call was on hold. “Shall I tell him to cancel it?”
“Yes,” Brad said. “You really don’t want someone rushing me right now.”
She pressed the stud again. “My meeting with Commodore Madrid is going to run long. Please call Mr. Lloyd and see if he can reschedule. Give him my apologies and tell him that I’ll make it up to him.”
“Will do,” the young man said. The lighted stud went dark.
“That will clear the next hour and a half from my schedule,” Khan said as she straightened. “I can cancel the rest of my afternoon meetings before they come due.”
Brad nodded. “That should give us enough time to settle our business.” He gestured for her to resume her seat.
Khan sat with a languid grace, keeping to the edge of her seat and leaning forward toward him. “I’ve heard a lot about you from people in my organization, Commodore. They say you’re a dangerous foe. I wonder if your reputation is overblown.”
“I caught you, didn’t I?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Brad saw the door open and Wally step in, a shotgun raised and a grim expression on his face as he swung it to bear.
With his well-honed reflexes, Brad dropped down to the floor even as he drew his pistol. The blast of pellets missed him for the most part. A few struck his armored skinsuit, but it easily deflected the impacts.
Wally got off another shot just as Brad put a trio of slugs into his chest, sending the receptionist stumbling back out the door to fall against the wall in a bloody heap.
Khan hadn’t wasted a single second and was already pulling a slender handgun from the bookshelf she’d thrown herself toward while Brad was busy. Her expression mirrored that of her henchmen, coldly furious as she brought the handgun around and started squeezing the trigger.
Brad rolled and returned her fire. Once again, his armor took the hits, and she failed to tag him on exposed flesh. Her dress was spectacularly less effective against his bullets. One of them struck her in the face, ending the confrontation abruptly and costing him his hard-won source of information.
The fight hadn’t been a quiet one, and now Brad could hear people in the office screaming and running. Wise move on their parts. He could also hear the rapid approach of booted feet. He hoped that was his people rather than the Cadre hit squad.
Moments after he took cover behind the desk, his troopers raced in, their submachine guns up and tracking for threats. They relaxed marginally when Brad rose.
“The Cadre will be here in a minute,” Brad said. “We need to get the hell out of here and call for backup.” The last was said toward the man pretending to be Saburo.
When he didn’t get a response, Brad turned and found that the man was sprawled behind the desk with half of his head missing. He obviously hadn’t managed to duck that second shot as quickly as he’d needed to.
Brad knelt beside the corpse and retrieved his com. The earbud was gone, likely disintegrated, but he could probably make the call for help from the screen.
Or he would’ve been able to if the damned thing hadn’t been locked.
“We won’t have timely backup,” Brad said as he rose to his feet, pocketing the com. “We need to get the hell out of here. Secure a way out through the warehouse. Don’t shoot anyone that doesn’t shoot at you first.”
While most of his men moved out, Brad plugged his chip into the computer and started it copying the records that the dead man had been accessing. They all seemed to relate to the pirate ships that had been calling on Ceres, so perhaps there was a clue buried in there that would tell him what their game was.
As the computer copied the data, he stripped the dead man of Saburo’s weapons and bag. It would give him better firepower than his pistol. He wished he could take the man with him, but they’d have more than enough trouble escaping the Cadre as it was. Besides, hauling a dead body around would certainly draw a lot of negative attention.
The computer chimed, done with the operation. Brad pocketed the chip, headed out the door, and moved into the warehouse as he extracted his submachine gun. Unlike earlier, the place was abandoned, the workers fled. His scouts had already secured an exit normally used for large cargo haulers.
If any of his people had had skill with the massive transports, he’d have considered stealing one. As it was, they’d have to secure something else.
He triggered his com as he moved out of the building and into an industrial section of Piazzi. “Oath, this is Madrid. Come in.”
“Oath here, Commodore,” Xan said. “Go ahead.”
“We’re blown and I’ve lost communication with our backup. Get the man Fraser sent up to call them and give them my contact code. And send Saburo down openly. We’ll be coming into the spaceport hot, I suspect.”
“Copy that. He just docked a few minutes ago. He says he’ll be there in thirty minutes and to keep your heads down until then.”
That worked, so long as they could keep dodging the Cadre killers on their trail. “Keep me in the loop. Madrid out.”
He’d have been tempted to call the local police if he hadn’t seen wh
at that cost back on New Venice. The safest thing for everyone was for him to get off Ceres or deal with the Cadre himself.
“We need transport,” Brad told the senior trooper. “Preferably two vehicles. We don’t have long to get them, either.”
To punctuate his point, he could hear sirens in the distance as Piazzi security responded to the gunfire. If he let them pin him and his people, the Cadre could kill everyone with impunity. They had to vanish into the population and pop up only once they got to the spaceport.
Sadly, the only vehicle in sight was a mobile food truck that served the workers in the area. He’d heard them called “roach coaches” before because of the supposed quality of the dining, though he had no personal opinion. The vehicle had speakers on the roof, playing some kind of instrumental music that sounded Latin to his ears.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Brad said with a sigh. “Secure that vehicle and get the civilian out of here, Corporal.”
The man running the counter behind a sliding window in the side of the truck saw them coming and tried to get back to the front of his vehicle, but the troopers beat him to it.
They pulled him out of the truck and sent him running as Brad and the rest piled into the back of the truck. A trooper then got behind the wheel and started it forward at the best speed the vehicle could manage.
“Keep it down to something reasonable,” Brad ordered. “With any luck, we’ll be able to drive away without anyone knowing we’re even in here.”
That, of course, was when someone opened fire behind them with an automatic weapon. Slugs began puncturing the rear wall and door, sending pots, pans, and troopers flying. The Cadre had found them.
Chapter Twenty-One
Brad leaned out the still-open window and returned fire. On the move like they were, with his driver swerving to throw off the attacker’s aim and using a short-barreled weapon like a submachine gun, his chances of hitting anything were low indeed, but perhaps the fire would get the enemy to duck.