Hard Strike

by Eric Thomson

  “No.” Malter shook his head vehemently. “Kerlin wanted to keep this to himself. His security chief was nearby, but unable to listen.”

  Decker gestured for her attention again.

  Police watching this building. Time to wrap up.

  A spasm shook Malter’s body as his face twisted in pain. The battle between his inhibitions against revealing too much and his drug-induced loquaciousness was reaching a critical stage. He would either become catatonic or suffer cardiac arrest if she didn’t administer the antidote within the next few minutes.

  “One more question. How were you supposed to convince Kerlin that merging his Freedom Collective with the Democratic Stars Alliance would help him?”

  “Money, an advance now, with regular payments in the future. And the offer of a gift to help him advance the cause,” Malter answered reluctantly from between clenched teeth.

  “What was the gift?”

  A strangled laugh broke through the increasingly frequent spasms. “Mayhem. A whole damned kilo.”

  Talyn glanced up at her partner again and saw an alarmed expression on his face.

  Ask him if he handed the gift over to Kerlin.

  “Did you give Gustav the Mayhem?”

  “Yes.” A more violent spasm shook the entire table.

  Decker made a cutting gesture, telling her to stop. She tore off the second dermal patch and applied a third, loaded with a counteracting drug. The spasms immediately lost their intensity but didn’t subside entirely.

  “Why do I think you know what he was talking about, Zack? Mayhem is a strange word to use in this context.”

  “It’s also the nickname for an explosive compound so highly classified, even knowledge of its existence within the Fleet is severely restricted. Never mind it takes a flag officer’s permission to even draw a single gram from one of the few ammunition depots in the Commonwealth allowed to hold the stuff.” Decker’s eyes were drawn to Alasdair Malter. “I think we’re losing him, Hera.”

  “Cardiac arrest. I applied the antidote a few seconds too late. He’ll need medical intervention.”

  “We can’t afford to attract attention, not if there are even a few atoms of the devil’s compound loose on this planet.”

  She stared at him in surprise for a few seconds.

  “I’m surprised at hearing you, my conscience, recommend I kill him.”

  “We need to find the Mayhem before it turns Ventano or any other city on this planet into a smoking crater. Besides, as far as I’m concerned anyone trafficking the stuff forfeits his life.”

  Talyn removed the antidote patch and pulled a subdermal injector from her pouch.

  “Last chance.”

  “Do it.” He looked out at the street again. “Tell me this place has a hidden back door.”

  “Sorry. But there is an underground garage.” She pressed the injector against Malter’s neck. “Done. And I found a rental car’s keycard in Alasdair’s pockets, so it stands to reason he’s using this unit’s space in the subbasement.”

  The Cimmerian twitched one last time and then lay still. She pressed her fingers against his carotid.

  “He’s dead.”

  “And we’re leaving a murder scene for the Constabulary to find.”

  “Hopefully not until they get search warrants for every unit in this building. Now tell me about this Mayhem.”

  Talyn picked up the discarded patches and tucked them back into her pouch, which vanished inside her voluminous tunic. While Decker spoke, she removed her facial disguise and changed from a ninety-year-old matriarch into a woman forty years younger.

  “As I said, it’s an unofficial nickname — MAximum Yield High Explosive Mixture — but the official designation is MHX-19. The guy who invented it had a warped sense of humor. He came up with the formula to circumvent the ban on detonating nuclear weapons in an atmosphere.”

  When he saw the questioning look on her face, he said, “MHX is neither antimatter nor nuclear. However, a hundred kilos of the stuff is enough to scour several square kilometers of a planet’s surface to bedrock while presenting a visual detonation signature almost identical to an antimatter explosion, but without a nuclear bomb’s radiation burst, meaning it’s clean. The Army and Marine Corps have little use for Mayhem. It’s too powerful and presents an excessive risk of collateral damage. And because making the compound is brutally expensive, the Navy prefers cheaper nuclear warheads for its missiles. That single kilo he mentioned would be enough to wipe out the entire government precinct. This is serious business, Hera.”

  “Can’t say I ever heard of it.”

  Talyn shrugged out of her tunic, turned it inside out, and pulled it on again, replacing the brightly colored floral pattern with a more sober dark blue.

  “The only reason I know is because I’m a Master Gunner. We’re sworn to secrecy before they tell us about the stuff.”

  Talyn scoffed at him. “Charming.”

  “Hey, I didn’t invent that devil’s mixture, and I never used it. But I saw what it did to the proving grounds on Caledonia. If the Freedom Collective’s radical nut jobs have Mayhem in their possession, we’re looking at a mass murder waiting to happen.” He glanced out the window again. “Where does the underground garage emerge?”

  “At the back.”

  “Let’s find Malter’s rental and try it.”

  “How about we sanitize the scene first? Take the rest of his clothes off and put him in bed. I’ll clean up the kitchen and dispose of the evidence. It won’t fool a decent criminalist, but if we can make the cops think he died in bed, if only for a few hours...”

  “Don’t forget to take his ID and weapon.”

  — Four —

  They reached the underground garage without meeting another soul. Finding Malter’s rental proved easy. The economy ground car, white, angular and practical, sat in a private stall marked 307, and opened its doors at their approach, sensing the keycard in Talyn’s hand. She slipped in behind the controls while Decker took the passenger seat. The car backed out of its stall at Talyn’s touch and silently made for the ramp leading to ground level. An automatic door dropped at their approach, allowing late afternoon sunlight to spill over the concrete floor. They emerged into a side street and saw a pair of gray-uniformed constables by the apartment building’s rear exit, heads bent over handheld scanners. Both looked up at the car as it passed, but made no attempt to stop them.

  “Take us to the rental office,” Talyn said when they reached the corner. “Ser Mannsbach asked us to return this unit since he no longer requires it.”

  “Acknowledged,” the artificial intelligence driving them replied in a soft, androgynous voice before turning left onto Fourth Avenue, which was already filling with workers headed home. Noticeable among them were a half dozen more constables with scanners on the sidewalks around the apartment building’s front door.

  Decker wanted to comment about them waiting for another call from the mysteriously encrypted communicator then remembered at the last minute their car’s AI might record everything. And once the police found Mannsbach/Malter’s body, they’d trace his rental back to the agency and find out about the two mysterious individuals who returned it. Once parked in the agency’s lot next to the Ventano spaceport, Decker and Talyn climbed out, leaving the keycard behind and walked away.

  “We need to change faces again,” she said leading them to the nearest public transit stop. “But once we’re at the safe house.”

  “What about tracking down the Democratic Stars Alliance’s gift of death and destruction? Why waste a fresh set of identities if we plan on knocking a few more heads?”

  She was silent for a moment, then nodded.

  “Agreed.”

  “In that case, I suggest we pay our little buddy Osric Floros a visit right away since he was the late and unlamented Gustav Kerlin’s chief of staff for rabble-rousing affairs. If he doesn’t know where Kerlin took the stuff, he’ll surely be able to point us at someone who does.
”

  “That mention of Mayhem really has you spooked.”

  “You better believe it. And I don’t scare easily.” Decker paused, and then asked, “How come we never came across this Democratic Stars Alliance before today, if it’s been around for a few months already and recruiting radical groups all over the Rim Sector?”

  “Since Admiral Kruczek’s inquisitors probably didn’t winkle out every last Black Sword traitor in the Naval Intelligence Branch, I suppose someone working a political analysis desk is sitting on the news so operatives like us don’t interfere in the DSA’s expansion.”

  “A few cockroaches always escape the most thorough fumigation. Once Ulrich hears of this, I’m sure the inquisitors will find out who kept the information from working its way into the threat matrix. Would I be wrong in thinking this DSA could be the Coalition’s newest ploy to advance its ambitions? How did the late Alasdair Malter put it? Get rid of so-called plutocratic rulers and unite human worlds into one entity without interference from sovereign star systems?”

  “He used more flowery language, but that’s the essence. And yes, I agree, it sounds like the Coalition found a new trick. Since co-opting legitimate governments hasn’t worked so far, why not replace them altogether without worrying about niceties such as free and fair elections, or the will of the people?”

  Decker grunted. “And once Coalition-controlled assholes like the Mission Colony Freedom Collective and their spiritual siblings on other worlds take over, goodbye star system independence. It’s a pretty solid theory, especially considering they might be in possession of the most dangerous sub-nuclear explosive substance known to humanity, one which should never end up in unauthorized hands. Think of how many safeguards failed if a few kilos of it ended up in the Freedom Collective’s arsenal. The Mayhem has to come via Black Sword traitors in the munitions control system, and since Black Sword belongs to the Coalition...”

  A silent, half-full bus pulled up before Talyn could reply. They climbed aboard and spent the entire trip in silence. Back in the downtown core, Talyn took them on another public transit line which passed near Osric Floros’ home. So far, the ubiquitous newscasts running on public displays made no mention of Alasdair Malter, better known as Alek Mannsbach. Decker questioned whether the Constabulary would, in fact, carry out a unit-by-unit search of the dead DSA emissary’s building since there would be no recurrence of the encrypted transmission.

  “I didn’t notice,” Decker said as they sat on the bench occupied a few hours earlier by an old woman wearing a loose tunic with a bright floral pattern, “but was Alasdair’s apartment properly sealed?”

  “Why?” Talyn asked from behind her polarized sunglasses.

  “Just wondering how long it’ll take for the neighbors to notice the stench of a decomposing body.”

  “Does it matter?”

  He gave her a half shrug.

  “I suppose not. What’s the plan with Osric?”

  “How would you like to become a DSA goon?”

  “And beat the sniveling little revolutionary wannabe to a pulp? Sure, but I don’t think it’s what you’re planning.”

  “I’m not. How about this for a scenario? I’m Alek Mannsbach’s superior and I’ve been watching the deal with Kerlin from a distance, ready to step in once they consummate it. You, Big Boy, are my bodyguard. Since Kerlin’s dead, I’m taking over from Alek, and my first order of business is to recover the so-called gift.”

  “And my job will be to convince Osric that cooperation is a good idea.”

  “I’d rather not carry out another chemical interrogation and risk leaving a second body with drug-induced cardiac arrest. Osric looks less healthy than Alasdair did, and you saw what happened to him.”

  “He must have suffered from an underlying cardiac weakness, but since we don’t have access to a properly equipped interrogation facility where we can test our subjects beforehand, you won’t get any arguments from me.” A pause. “We use our current cover IDs?”

  “Yes.” She stood. “Come, Ser Peel. It’s time we introduced ourselves to Floros. He lives in unit two-twelve.”

  In contrast to the Fourth Avenue apartment building, the entrance security measures, weak to begin with, were inoperative. They met no one in the lobby or inside the dingy, plastic-coated concrete stairwell and emerged on the second floor unseen and unheard.

  Talyn removed her sunglasses and pushed her hat back to expose her face, hoping Floros would open to an inoffensive, reasonably attractive woman not much older than he was. In their study of his habits over the previous week, Decker and Talyn saw no love interest of either gender, but enough evidence to show he was partial to women. It might make him more amenable to cooperating with one showing up on his doorstep.

  She knocked on the door panel marked two-one-two.

  “What do you want?” A querulous voice asked after almost a minute. Talyn recognized it as belonging to Kerlin’s link with the radical community.

  “My name is Sherri Zadeck, Ser Floros. Alek Mannsbach is one of my people. You informed him of Gustav’s death, an unfortunate event which changes things, such as the agreement Alek previously discussed with him.”

  “How come I never heard of you?”

  “You weren’t meant to. But when Alek informed me of your visit earlier this afternoon, I took the lead. This is probably something we shouldn’t discuss via intercom where anyone on the floor can listen. Perhaps we might continue this conversation in the privacy of your apartment.”

  “Who’s the gorilla with you?”

  “My bodyguard. Useful, but of no consequence other than ensuring nothing untoward happens.”

  A soft clicked followed by a louder squeak, and the door slid aside to reveal the shabbily dressed, unkempt, and wild-eyed former academic.

  “Come in,” he said with apparent ill grace.

  Talyn, immersed in her role as a DSA grandee, looked around with a disdainful expression as she brushed by him and sniffed, “How cozy.”

  Floros stared up at Zack as the Marine followed his partner into the apartment. He winked at him and said, “Don’t mind the boss. She’s more the sort to enjoy Gustav Kerlin’s country home than the humble abodes of his followers.”

  “I heard that, Corbin. Take heed you don’t annoy me too much. Bodyguards are a cred a dozen, even big bruisers like you.”

  Decker smirked at Floros. “Of course, Sera Sherri.”

  A distinctly nonplussed Floros followed them into his own living room.

  “What may I do for you?”

  “You’re aware of Gustav’s negotiations with Alek?” Talyn asked.

  “Yes. Alek invited us to join the Democratic Stars Alliance as the movement’s Mission Colony affiliate. He promised us funding and support if we adopt your organization’s policies.”

  “Who takes over now that Gustav’s been murdered?”

  “His partner, Eva Cortez.”

  Decker and Talyn exchanged a covert glance at the unexpected news. They knew Cortez was one of her late husband’s enablers, if not accomplices, but becoming the most public figure of Mission Colony’s radical movement? Or was her role to be a mere figurehead?

  Floros must have seen their reaction because he said, “You need not worry, Sera Zadeck. Eva is just as committed to the cause as Gustav. Some say she’s even more ruthless in her pursuit of our ideals.”

  “Then I should meet with her at the first opportunity. Where is Sera Cortez right now?”

  “Still at the country house where Gustav was killed, I suppose.”

  “Whose country house would that be? Surely a man of the people like Ser Kerlin didn’t own a plutocrat’s real estate portfolio.”

  The man shrank back at her acid tone, and he shook his head with vehemence.

  “No, of course not. It belongs to a progressive corporation that supports our movement. The owners placed it at Gustav and Eva’s disposal so they can host friends, backers, and supporters in complete privacy. You understand we�
�re viewed with suspicion by the colonial government and often placed under illegal surveillance.”

  “Something with which we’re intimately familiar, Ser Floros. Can I assume our gift to the Freedom Collective is now in Eva’s hands?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Gustav kept the details of his negotiations with Alek closely held. I assume Eva has it, but only she or Piet Yorik, Gustav’s chief of security, can answer that question.”

  “And Yorik is at the country house as well, no doubt.”

  “He is. Pardon me for asking, but why this concern about the gift?”

  “With Gustav’s assassination, I must make sure it does not fall into hands inimical to the DSA and its allies.”

  Floros seemed unconvinced. He scratched his beard and said, “I see. You’ll need to speak with Eva, seeing as how she’s in charge now.”

  “How can I reach her? Or could you contact Eva for me, pass on the DSA’s condolences and let her know I took over the negotiations from Alek? I’d appreciate an hour of her time as soon as possible, considering Gustav’s death is bound to bring intense police scrutiny neither of us can afford. Will you do that for me, Osric?”

  An engaging smile tugged at Talyn’s lips.

  “Okay.” He still seemed hesitant, but she didn’t push any further. “How can Eva or I reach you?”

  Talyn produced her communicator.

  “I’ll give you my calling code. You or Eva can reach out to me at any hour, day or night.” She stood. “Thank you, Osric. I know you still need to deal with your grief at losing a charismatic leader such as Gustav, but the inexorable march of political reform waits for no one.”

  — Five —

  “How is it even possible?” Eva Cortez, a long-haired brunette with smoldering brown eyes and the smooth, olive-skinned face of a woman twenty years younger demanded for the umpteenth time as she paced the living room to work off her rage. “How could a sniper get close enough to murder Gustav without triggering the security perimeter or alerting your people, Piet?”