by John Bowers
The young man, who might have been twenty-one, jacked a round into the chamber with an unmistakable racking sound. Someone screamed as Nick launched himself toward his assailant. The kid didn’t expect resistance and was totally unprepared when Nick hit him with a flying tackle, driving him back against the cart and upsetting the table behind it. The shotgun slammed into his forehead and fired, blasting a hole in the ceiling. Instantly the room reverberated with shrieks of terror, but it was already done. Nick slugged the kid in the face with his laser pistol, knocking him out cold, then leaped to his feet.
“Cuff him!” he shouted to Bridge, then darted around half a dozen tables as he charged toward the serving buffet. The girl was staring at him in horror, her mouth open; she spun and fled into the kitchen. Nick leaped onto the buffet case and skidded across the top, landing on his feet on the other side.
“Get down!” he shouted to the employees who stared at him in disbelief. He raced for the door into the kitchen, gun in hand, and dived through the doorway.
FF-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T!
The girl stood in the middle of the kitchen between two stainless steel counters, an automatic weapon in her hands. Behind her, four startled kitchen employees dove for cover. Nick twisted onto his side as the bullets streamed over his head and smacked into the wall.
“U.F. Marshal!” he shouted. “Drop your weapon!”
The girl adjusted her aim and fired again.
F-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T!
Nick rolled to his left as the bullets, still four inches too high, ricocheted off the floor behind him.
He fired twice.
The girl grunted and pitched backward, landing on her butt with a look of absolute shock on her face. She laid the weapon down almost gently, as if it were fragile, and stared down at her stomach. Faint tendrils of smoke curled from two neat laser holes in her smock, blood spreading in ever widening circles from the wounds.
Nick got to his feet and hurried forward to retrieve her weapon; he jerked the clip free and ejected the chambered cartridge, then laid it on a table; he holstered his pistol and bent over the girl. Marshal Bridge appeared in the kitchen doorway.
“Get a medical team in here,” Nick yelled. “Right now!”
The girl’s head rolled back and Nick put his hand under her neck. Her eyes stared at the ceiling lights as if she’d never seen them before.
“Hang on,” he told her. “Help is on the way. Just stay with me.”
Her eyes moved up to meet his, but they no longer held any animosity. She just stared at him as her lips tried to form words. He bent closer to hear what she said.
“P-Please…” she pleaded. “I d-don’t…want to…d—”
Her body sagged in his arms and, as he watched, her pupils began to dilate.
“Hey! Stay with me! You hear me? Stay with me! Help is on the way.”
But his heart sank as reality sank in. She was already gone.
***
Nick never got to finish his lunch.
Within minutes the dining room was swarming with law enforcement officers from four agencies—U.F. Marshal, Federation Security, Alpha Centauri Bureau of Investigation, and the Lucaston Police Tactical Division. The dining room was locked down and everyone present, over a hundred people, sequestered to various conference rooms on the 50th floor until they could be interviewed. Paramedics attended to several cases of emotional shock and one woman was removed to a hospital.
Aside from the two assailants, no one else was injured.
Under the supervision of building security, Marshal Bridge escorted Nick to a private office where he could decompress out of public view. Nick drank two bottles of cold water and sat breathing deeply until the shakes began to subside. No matter how many times he faced gunfire, from the war until today, he always got the shakes. Even though he knew it was only adrenaline waiting to be metabolized, it always annoyed the hell out of him.
Marshal Bridge also looked shaken.
“How long is this going to take?” Nick asked him.
Bridge shook his head.
“You never can tell. Crime scenes are always time consuming, and this one is a royal mess.”
Nick blew air, puffing his cheeks. Bridge rubbed his face with both hands.
“Walker…I don’t see how you do it.”
“Do what?”
“How you stay so calm. I’m shaking like a leaf.”
Nick laughed and held out his hand. It was still trembling.
“Yeah, I know, but you do this shit all the time. Since I’ve been a U.F. Marshal, I’ve only been in one gunfight, and that was seventeen years ago.”
Nick shook his head, his face feeling numb.
“It all depends where you are. Alpha 2 is a relatively quiet world compared to some of the others.”
“Yeah. I’ve just been lucky, I guess.” Bridge’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know?”
Nick looked at him. “You mean the girl?”
Bridge nodded.
“She panicked the minute she saw me. She obviously knew who I was and didn’t expect to see me there, and it spooked her.”
“But how did you know before they made their move?”
“The minute we sat down she ran to that kid and told him about me. I caught them looking in our direction, then he went back into the kitchen. Based on their body language, I was pretty sure they knew there was a contract out on me. I knew I might be overreacting, but I’d rather do that than be dead.”
“Well, I’m glad you did. That kid would have had us cold if you hadn’t been alert.”
Nick leaned over and rested his elbows on his knees.
“I’ve never killed a girl before,” he said. “I’ve never killed any female.”
Bridge frowned and leaned forward.
“You didn’t have a choice, Walker. She was spraying the shit out of that doorway. If she didn’t get you, she might have killed somebody else.”
“I know, but she was just a kid. And she didn’t know what she was getting into.”
“How do you know that?”
“It was in her eyes. As she was dying, she begged me to help her.” Nick buried his face in both hands and sucked air to keep from breaking down. He shook his head again. “I couldn’t do a thing for her.”
He clenched his fists as he thought of the senseless waste. His anger mounted and he turned to Bridge, his face throbbing.
“Goddamn it! God damn that Saracen! If he wants my head on a plate, then fuck him! I want his even worse, and if it’s the last thing I ever do, by God I’ll get it!”
Chapter 8
Thursday, May 4, 0445 (CC)
53rd Floor, Federation Building – Lucaston, Alpha Centauri 2
Marshal Bridge asked Nick to stay in town for the night; the next morning he called another meeting to update everyone on the most recent events. Not all those invited were able to attend, but the room was about half full as Bridge opened the meeting.
“By now you’re all probably aware of yesterday’s events here in this building,” he began. “Nick Walker and I were just sitting down to lunch in Dining Room 5 when a kitchen worker came after us with a heavy shotgun. Fortunately, Walker had picked up that something was wrong and was able to neutralize the threat. The suspect had a partner, also a kitchen worker, and she opened up with a 10mm machine pistol like the shooter used ten days ago. Fortunately, the girl with the gun was the only one killed.”
His face looked grim as he surveyed the marshals.
“UFM and ACBI have been working overtime since noon yesterday, and we’ve come up with some important intel that may help in this investigation.”
He thumbed his remote and a picture appeared on the holoscreen behind him.
“This is Nadine Wilson, age seventeen. She’s the kitchen worker that Walker killed.”
Nick recognized the face with a twist in his gut. She wasn’t a beautiful girl, but in the picture she wore a pleasant smile. Gazing at the photo drove home the fact that she w
as somebody’s daughter, a teenaged girl probably working her first job. Whoever had sent her in there on a mission of murder needed to pay.
Bridge continued.
“What’s remarkable about Nadine Wilson is that, as a criminal, she is unremarkable. She was a local girl, very bright, good grades, and graduated high school a year early because she was able to challenge several courses and pass them ahead of schedule. She was planning to work for a year to save money for college, and her parents told us that she wanted to pursue a career in economics. She had no criminal record, had never been in trouble of any kind, and frequently volunteered her time at charity events.”
“What happened to her?” asked someone across the room.
Bridge thumbed the remote again. The Chairman’s photo appeared.
“Kenneth Saracen happened.” Bridge turned to stare at the photo, then looked back at his audience with anger in his eyes. “This dirty bastard, this—motherfucker—got inside her head and filled it with his sick, twisted ideology, and sent her out to sacrifice her life so he could feel important.”
Bridge flicked the remote again. The next picture was also familiar, a young man with dark hair and burning eyes. His head was tilted back so that he looked down his nose at the camera. It was obviously a mug shot—his left eye was badly bruised and another bruise, this one vertical, darkened the center of his forehead.
“The good news, if you want to call it that,” Bridge said, “is that we now have our first prisoner from the ARMO movement. Meet Horace Cowan, age twenty-two, from New York City. This boy is a different story entirely. His first arrest came at age fifteen when he torched a police hover cruiser during a TERMO demonstration in Manhattan. Since then he’s been in and out of custody on a variety of charges associated with civil disobedience, always RMO related.
“He dropped off the Ladar about two years ago. No further arrests until yesterday. He isn’t talking yet, but we have reason to believe he is one of Saracen’s lieutenants, a recruiter sent out to dazzle innocent kids like Nadine Wilson. If we can prove that he recruited her, I plan to charge him with murder.”
Nick raised his hand.
“Did you say he isn’t talking?”
“Not so far. He’s got this arrogance thing going, this superior attitude that he’s the smartest man in the galaxy. We’re beneath him, not worth his time.”
“Let me talk to him.”
A stir ran through the marshals as they listened.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“I’m the one he wanted to kill, so he obviously knows who I am and he’s got a hard-on against me. Maybe facing me will get his emotions to override his common sense. He might give something away.”
Bridge stared at him for a moment, then nodded.
“Talk to me after the meeting.”
Lucaston Department of Corrections, Lucaston – Alpha Centauri 2
Two hours later, having read Horace Cowan’s arrest record and rap sheet, Nick Walker stood in the dark room outside an interrogation cell, gazing through the one-way glass at the suspect. Horace Cowan sat with his elbows on the table; E-cuffs encircled his wrists, the chain looped through a ring in the center of the table to keep him from leaving his chair. The E-cuffs would deliver an electrical charge up both arms if he tried to become violent.
“He’s all yours,” Bridge told him, “if you’re sure you want to do this.”
Nick nodded grimly. “I can’t wait to do this.”
“Just remember, no rough stuff. You have a hearing coming up in a few days.”
Nick didn’t respond. He pulled open the cell door and stepped inside.
Horace Cowan sat with his eyes closed, a little smile on his lips. He kept his eyes shut as Nick, guns dangling from his belt, sat down across from him. Nick placed his hat on the end of the table and crossed his arms, but didn’t say a word. Thirty seconds passed without a word spoken. Finally Cowan broke the silence.
“Is it time for lunch yet? I’m in the mood for a Salisbury steak, rare.”
“I don’t think so,” Nick said. “It’s time you got used to prison food.”
Cowan, eyes still closed, smiled a little wider.
“Okay, so burn the steak, I don’t care. I’ll still eat it.”
“You may never taste steak again. I think they’re going to bring you a bowl of steamed worms. Fat and juicy.”
Cowan laughed. “You can’t scare me. I’ve been in jail before.”
“Not on Alpha Centauri, you haven’t. Your little overnighters are over, Horace. This time you’re going down for the long haul.”
Cowan took a deep breath, like a man just waking from a comfortable sleep. He opened his eyes…
…and they sprang wide with shock. He jerked backward hard enough to trigger the E-cuffs, then sagged with a grunt as electricity surged up his arms.
“What—What the fuck are you doing here? Are you going to shoot me?”
Nick was mildly gratified to see fear in the suspect’s eyes, but he shook his head.
“Too late for that. I missed my chance yesterday.”
“You fucking bastard! You killed Nadine!”
“No, I didn’t. You did.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You killed her. I just pulled the trigger. You’re the one who recruited her. You jerked her out of a decent life with a future and now she’s lying on a slab across town, face up, naked, while strangers carve up her body to determine cause of death.”
Horace Cowan’s tongue traced across his lips as he stared at Nick.
“You can’t pin that on me!”
“Who else can I pin it on? You’re the only one here.”
“I’m not going to talk to you.”
“Fine. I’ll just sit here all afternoon. You interrupted my lunch yesterday, so I’ll have it now. River trout, perfectly baked and seasoned, flaky to the touch, with lemon. And steamed vegetables. You can enjoy your worms.” Nick glanced at his watch. “They should be here in about ten minutes.”
Horace Cowan glared at him, then his eyes dulled and he sat back.
“You think I care about any of that? I won’t be in prison long.”
“How do you figure that? About a hundred people saw you pull a shotgun on two U.F. Marshals.”
“I might spend a year or two in stir, but it won’t last. The Revolution is going to win, and then there will be a brand new government here. I’ll be released and hailed as a hero.”
Nick shook his head with a grin.
“Wow, what an exciting fantasy. Do you jerk off every time you think about it?”
“What?”
“It’s a wet dream, Horace. It isn’t real.”
“You don’t think it’s real? You’ll find out! You’ll get yours, Walker.”
“You may be right. I might get gunned down as soon as I step out of this building, but you’ll still be living in a cage. Maybe not for the rest of your life, but if you ever do see daylight again, you’ll be too old to jerk off anymore. Next time your ARMO fantasies make your pee-pee hard, you might want to think about that.”
“You filthy pig!”
Nick laughed.
“‘Filthy pig’? That’s a good one. You know what’s really filthy, Horace? An ugly, impotent piece of shit like you who has to get innocent kids killed just so he can get his gratification. That’s not only filthy, it’s also sad. Pathetic, in fact.”
“Fuck you!”
“You’re not my type. I’ll bet you weren’t Nadine’s type either, were you?”
“We didn’t have that kind of relationship.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. She was only seventeen, wasn’t she? Of course, a little statutory violation wouldn’t bother someone like you.”
“Her age had nothing to do with it. We had more important things to consider.”
“Sure you did. What you’re telling me is that she retained just a little of her sanity in spite of your brainwashing. You would have done it with her
, but she didn’t want an ugly fuck like you.”
Cowan’s neck swelled and he hammered the table with his fists, wincing as the E-cuffs protested.
“You don’t know anything! She was a freedom fighter! Just like me!”
Nick shook his head again.
“She was a brainwashed kid, a decent girl who had the bad luck to give you more than the time of day.”
“She was a true believer!”
“I doubt that. More likely you appealed to her emotions. You told her the myth about starving children who go to bed hungry every night, didn’t you? While their capitalist masters live a life of luxury.”
“It’s true! One in four children on Alpha Centauri go to bed hungry every night.”
“And your ARMO revolution is going to fix that?”
“Yes! Yes! ‘From every man according to his ability, to every man according to his need’. That's true communism, true brotherhood.”
Nick stared at him for ten seconds, letting him wait for a response. Cowan stared back at him, panting with revolutionary passion.
“Do you know anything about the history of communism, Horace?”
“Of course I do!”
“Really? Did the Chairman educate you on the subject?”
“Yes.”
“Really? Then you know that the communist experiment had a fair trial and failed.”
“It didn’t fail! It was defeated by—”
Nick slammed his own fist on the table.
“Shut the fuck up! You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. I’ve been reading up. Communism lasted for a little over a century and died a natural death. It was a tragic, abysmal failure across the board. Every country that adopted it paid a horrible price in blood and suffering. Why do you think it’s been extinct for five hundred years?”
“It was never extinct! It was just dormant.”
“Yeah, like the Ebola virus. Communism is an infection that kills everything it touches.”
“That’s a lie!”
“In the first fifty years alone, over one hundred million people died, either by starvation or execution, sacrificed by their own communist governments. How is that ‘power to the people’? A government that truly cares about the people isn’t going to butcher them like cattle, or let them starve by letting ideology trump common sense.”