EMPIRE: Resurgence

by Richard F. Weyand

  Dickens had juiced the system up quite a bit. It was no longer as rugged as an unmodified Imperial Marines field system, but he wasn’t using it under battlefield conditions, either. It was nowhere near as powerful as many of the bigger systems, but he wasn’t doing simulations or anything that involved. Data analysis alone was a much simpler and less compute-intensive task.

  Dickens opened the data intercepts file he had previously decrypted on the system. All message headers. No message contents, but at least they were the full headers.

  Dickens did much the same analysis Thomas Pitney had done, and came to the same conclusions. That’s why he was on his way to Imperial City. All well and good. But what else was there to extract from the data?

  Dickens spent his days working unhurriedly on the problem, enjoying himself as he coaxed what could be learned from the data. He had plenty of time.

  One thing Dickens did that Pitney had not was correlate the latitude, longitude, and altitude of the communications to actual physical locations within Imperial City, using the detailed map he had loaded on the machine before leaving Phalia. If he was going there, he wanted a full physical map.

  One at a time, he investigated each location, right down to the room and the location within the room. From these, he started building scenarios and conclusions.

  Across the Galactic Empire, especially in the old Sintaran Empire portion, some of Pitney’s best agents were pulling up stakes and moving out, headed for Imperial City.

  Whatever went down, whenever it went down, the Department would be on scene and ready.

  Setting Up Shop

  Donahue and Odom arrived on Center before most of the other Department agents. Pitney did not have his agents get in touch with each other in Imperial City, at least not yet. He didn’t want to risk losing everybody if he lost one or more to the enemy. A person can only reveal under questioning the names of people he knows.

  They checked into a hotel in Imperial Park West. Donahue took a suite with two bedrooms as it was cheaper than two single rooms and would let he and Odom get together without going out into the hallway. They talked about their plans over breakfast the next day. They had had breakfast brought up by room service.

  “I’m going to go out looking for an apartment today,” Donahue said.

  “Get oversize parking with it,” Odom said.

  “Parking?”

  “Sure. Hard to get around with anything big without a car. And a big car is better. You can carry more shit.”

  Donahue nodded.

  “Makes sense,” he said. “How big are you going?”

  “Depends on what I can find. I gotta get in touch with some old contacts. Do some shopping. What’s our budget like?”

  “Anything you need.”

  “Anything?” Odom asked.

  “Yeah. Anything. Pay extra to get extra security if you have to. You know. Better sources. The kind with bad memories.”

  “Got it. What kind of apartment you gonna get?”

  “Something nice. Befitting my official status. With a servant’s quarters. You can be my driver and valet.”

  “That’s a good cover. A driver can do anything. I’ll get a uniform and shit.”

  Donahue nodded. Someone else might have had ego problems with the cover. Complained about relative status. Odom saw a role as Donahue’s driver as an advantage to their mission.

  It was so nice working with a professional.

  “Anything else for now?” Donahue asked.

  “Nah. That’ll keep me busy for a coupla days.”

  “All right. Hundred thousand get you started?”

  “With the car and all? Better make it two hundred,” Odom said.

  Donahue nodded, and transferred cash in VR from an alias account to Odom.

  Donahue wanted to be close to where the action was. He wanted to minimize his travel times. That would most likely mean somewhere around Imperial Park. The question was which quadrant.

  Imperial Park North was unlikely. The sleepy residential areas north of Imperial Park were unlikely centers for anything of interest. Imperial Park South was the poorer end of town. The part near Imperial Park was regentrifying a bit, but it got less interesting fast, from his point of view, as you moved south. Imperial Park East and the Downtown area east of it were where the big money was. Those areas were pretty stable, though, and kind of stuffy.

  Imperial Park West, by contrast, was where the university was. It was the trendy part of town, the most vibrant part of town. The place with the highest turnover of residents, where it would be easiest to insinuate agents. New people were in and out of Imperial Park West all the time. Someone new was a non-entity there. Ho-hum.

  His guts told him it was Imperial Park West. When he thought it through carefully, his brain said the same thing.

  “Ah, Mr. Donnelly. Good to meet you,” the apartment agent said.

  “Good to meet you, Ms. Greenlee.”

  “Please have a seat.”

  Donahue sat in the guest chair before her desk.

  “You said you were looking in Imperial Park West, for something a little upscale, is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Of course, the truly upscale apartments are in Imperial Park East.”

  “Oh, yes, I know. But I like the vibrancy of Imperial Park West. It’s just more– exciting, I suppose.”

  “Yes, I understand. And you mentioned two bedroom suites?”

  “Not really, Ms. Greenlee. A bedroom suite for me, and a servant’s quarters for my valet. Something on the other side of the living area, with its own sitting room and bath, but nothing super fancy. Off the kitchen or the back hallway, perhaps.”

  “Ah, I see. Let me change my search parameters a bit.”

  She fussed in VR for a bit, mumbling to herself.

  “Well, that won’t do. Nor that. Hmm. Oh, yes. This is nice.”

  She came out of VR, back to Donahue.

  “I had almost forgotten,” she said. “There is a building that has a number of apartments set up just as you describe. It’s near the Imperial University of Center. I think they were thinking in terms of visiting faculty for the university, and didn’t consider typical faculty salaries. They overshot the mark on the rent.”

  Greenlee pushed Donahue a file, and he looked it over. Perfect. And perfect location.

  “Is oversize parking available? The car is on the large side.”

  “Yes, though it is an extra charge. On the other hand, it is the closest to the street, so it’s easier and quicker to park and retrieve the car.”

  “Perfect. The extra charge is fine. And this says it’s furnished, and available for immediate occupancy?”

  “This unit is, yes, Mr. Donnelly.”

  “Excellent. I’ll take it.”

  The big car backed into the door of the small warehouse, and the roll-up door came down to conceal it. Odom popped the trunk release, then got out of the driver’s side and walked around to the back of the car. A couple of big fellows began loading weapons cases into the trunk while a small man watched.

  “You wanted one case of the rockets, Mr. Bosom?”

  One of the loaders chuckled. When Odom had been asked to repeat his alias, he had said, ‘Yeah. Bosom. Like tits.’

  “How many in a case? Dozen?”

  “Half a dozen. Easier to carry.”

  “Better make it two, then.”

  The little man nodded.

  Odom held up a hand and stopped the two fellows as they came up with another couple of cases. They held them while he opened the top one. Inside was an M55 over-and-under and several magazines of each type for the same. Odom pulled out the weapon, opened both breeches, and all he smelled was gun oil. The breeches were completely free of insertion marks.

  “Very nice,” Odom said.

  “New in box, as specified, Mr. Bosom.”

  Odom inspected another case. Timers, caps, wires, remotes. It was a nice kit, one he had used before, and
it was all here.

  “It’s a good thing you have a big car, Mr. Bosom,” the little man said.

  Odom nodded, went forward to the passenger side of the car, and got a briefcase off the front seat. He carried it back to the little man and handed it to him.

  The little man set the briefcase on a bench and opened it. It was about half full of Imperial bank notes in various denominations, not new. He passed a device back and forth over it, then waited for the device to total up.

  “Very good, Mr. Bosom. All as agreed. Have a very nice day.”

  “Pleasure doin’ business with ya,” Odom said.

  He nodded to the little man, then went around to the driver’s door and started the car. The roll-up door went up, and Odom eased the big car out into the street.

  That third day on Center, Donahue moved from the hotel into the apartment. He had told Odom to pack that morning before he left, and Donahue had a delivery outfit come and move all their stuff, including the trunks.

  When Odom headed back to Imperial Park West from his pickup at the warehouse, he set the car to the coordinates of the parking space Donahue sent him. The car auto-drove there and pulled into the space.

  Odom got out and the big limo fit completely into the space. He had been worried even an oversize parking space might not be big enough for the big car.

  “Fits,” he said. “Nice.”

  Odom went on up to the apartment number Donahue had sent him. The door was already set for him, so he unlocked it in VR and went in. Donahue was in the bedroom unpacking, but came out into the living room when Odom arrived.

  “This the apartment?” Odom asked.

  “Yeah. What do you think?”

  “Nice. Car fits in the spot, too, so that’s good.”

  “How big a car did you get?” Donahue asked.

  “Limo. Nice big trunk.”

  “And how did shopping go?”

  Odom looked around the apartment, pointed to his ear.

  “It’s clean. I checked it,” Donahue said.

  “Shopping was great. One of my old contacts had a good supplier. Expensive, but all top-quality stuff. New in box. Nothing beat up or anything.”

  “What all did you get?”

  “Normal stuff. Four M55s with mags. Several thousand rounds for the rifles, and a few hundred of the SGMs for the launchers. Couple of RPG launch tubes and a dozen rounds for those. Some plastic. Timer and caps kit. Some surveillance stuff. I didn’t get any handguns or ammo, though. You and I have those already.”

  “You think that’s enough?” Donahue said.

  Odom missed the sarcasm and he shrugged.

  “Well, the car’s kinda full at the moment, but we can always get more. I think he’s got plenty o’ stuff.”

  Donahue just shook his head, and Odom finally caught the sarcasm.

  “There’s no such thing as too much, you know,” Odom said. “Just too little. And that’s bad. Besides, didn’t you say there are other people going to be working on this?”

  “Yeah, but we’ll probably be working independently.”

  “Even so. If they need somethin’, we can probably help ’em out.”

  “Fair enough,” Donahue said. “And at least we’re set.”

  “Well, I wanna take those M55s out and shoot ‘em in. New in box is good, but new in box with a couple hundred rounds through ‘em is better.”

  “You got a place you can do that?”

  “Yeah,” Odom said. “One o’ my buddies has a farm a hundred, hundred-fifty miles out. We’ll shoot ‘em in, make sure there’s no problems.”

  “All right. Good. Because I’ve reported in that we’re here, and I’m expecting instructions soon.”

  “I’ll give him a call. We can probably do it tomorrow.”

  Thomas Pitney was reviewing reports from the agents assigned to the Center project. Donleavy and Odom had arrived, and Odom had procured additional weapons for them from what looked like a good confidential source. That was good to know. Some of the others arriving may also need supplies.

  Pitney had gotten a processed file from one of his staff people correlating the location coordinates in Imperial City to actual physical locations. He sent Donleavy the file, and suggested the emplacement of a few unobtrusive surveillance devices.

  “Hey, I got some instructions,” Donahue said.

  “We gonna whack somebody?” Odom asked.

  “Nothing so exciting. Not yet, at least. We need to place some surveillance cameras. How many of those did you get?”

  “Coupla dozen.”

  “More than enough. We know where the people we’re looking for were yesterday, but not where they are now. So if we take surveillance footage of the places they communicate from, when new times for a location come in, we can look and see who was there.”

  “Got it. So we’re gonna go place some cameras, see if we can’t catch ‘em tomorrow.”

  “Exactly.”

  “OK, you got a map or something?”

  “Yeah.”

  Donahue pushed Odom access to the map, and they looked at it together.

  “OK, well these two locations here and here, they ain’t gonna give us nothin’,” Odom said. “One’s the Imperial Marines Academy and the other’s the IUC residence hall. Million people in and out o’ those all day long. We need things where a given doorway doesn’t have much traffic.”

  “There’s this restaurant here,” Donahue said, pointing.

  “Yeah, we definitely wanna do that one. And look at the times. Not during the major lunch or supper rush. Looks like it’s one o’ those quiet meeting places. Like somebody met up there, and communicated while they were together.”

  Donahue nodded.

  “Or while he was waiting for his companion,” he said.

  “Yeah, that would do it. This one here’s a big apartment building, but we should be able to get something in the hallway.”

  “Why don’t we just look him up in the apartment directory and see if his ID matches?”

  “Yeah, that works.”

  Odom looked at the map.

  “You know, we can do the same thing with the IUC residence hall,” he said. “Track the room down. Probably the Imperial Marine Academy, too, now that you mention it.”

  “The residence hall I get. How with the Academy?”

  “Well, if the room is an office of some faculty or staff member, then we got our prime candidate right there.”

  “Of course,” Donahue said. “The cameras will only give us anything extra for public spaces.”

  “Yeah, so a couple other places for sure. This coffee shop here is another good one.”

  “What’s this one? A luggage and travel supplies store?”

  Odom shrugged.

  “Maybe it’s the shopkeeper or one of his clerks. A guy who’s there every day.”

  “Yeah. OK, that makes sense.”

  Donahue nodded, looking over their selections.

  “OK, so we split them up?”

  “Yeah, I don’t think you and I should go to the same place. We don’t look like normal people.”

  Donahue adjusted his posture and his facial expression, then looked at Odom.

  “Whatever do you mean?” he asked.

  “Damn, but I wish I knew how to do that.”

  Donahue chuckled.

  Donahue and Odom did split up to place the cameras. Most of them were close to the apartment, and they placed those first.

  The cameras came in various disguises. One of the most useful was a camera that looked like a time-release fertilizer stick for a potted plant. People would look right at it and just see something that belonged there. Even people who maintained potted plants just thought someone else from the plant maintenance company had come through and placed it.

  The usual placement method was to be fiddling with something, like unwrapping a piece of gum, and drop the wrapper. You bent down to pick it up, and when you did, you placed your hand on the edge of the pot of a potted plan
t to stabilize yourself. When you stood back up and moved on, there was a time-release fertilizer stick where there hadn’t been one before.

  Donahue and Odom got their cameras placed and tested the feeds. The cameras zip-squealed a transmission every five minutes or so to save batteries. They were getting good feed from all their cameras, and they settled back and collected video while they waited for more data.

  Meanwhile, Donahue started reporting in to his Premium Interiors job.

  New Position

  Troy Donahue, in his alias as Barry Donnelly, went into the office on Monday morning, reporting in to his new position. Just as Imperial City was also the sector capital, the provincial capital, and the planetary capital, Premium Interiors’ Imperial City offices were the sector sales headquarters, the provincial sales headquarters, and the planetary sales headquarters for the company. Donahue’s new position was planetary sales manager.

  Donahue met with the provincial sales manager that morning, and he, the provincial sales manager, and the sector sales manager all had lunch together.

  “I just don’t think we’re making the numbers we should be in Imperial City, Barry,” said Morgan Hayles, the sector sales manager. “That’s the bottom line. Now I know there’s a lot of competition in Imperial City. No one’s questioning that. But we still lag our overall market share here.”

  The provincial sales manager agreed, nodding.

  “That’s exactly right,” Ron Sharp said. “Now, I think we have an opportunity to turn that around. We think we have an inside track to get the furnishings contract for the refurbishment of the Imperial War Museum. Only fifteen floors, but with a tremendous public exposure. We can make it something of a showpiece. That’s where I’m hoping you can make a difference right off. Lock that deal up.”

  “That’s right,” Hayles said. “It’s a great opportunity. At the same time, I’ve looked at the preliminary drawings, and I think it’s missing something. I can’t put my finger on it, but I think we can do better.”