by Glenn Smith
“Affirmative, I’m fine,” she assured the sergeant. “All secure. Have your guys triangulate my signal and move in. I have one subject in custody.”
“Confirmed, Charlie-six. They’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Thanks, Control. Charlie-six out.”
The man turned his head toward her as best he could and appeared to gaze up her skirt.
“Yeah, enjoy the view while you can, pervert,” she told him. “It’ll be the last one you get for a long time.”
He glared up into her eyes, then hissed at her like a cornered house cat warning a stray tom to stay away.
Ashley rose up on her knee and leaned forward slightly to put more pressure to his back. “What the hell is your problem, freak boy?” she practically shouted.
With no further warning he spat a heavy stream of thick yellow-green directly into her eyes. She clutched her face in her hands and fell backward to the deck, squirming and screaming in pain. Then, in one swift fluid motion, the man—or whatever the hell he really was, because he was certainly no man—grabbed her by the ankle as he rolled onto his back and pulled her closer, then reached up inside her skirt and yanked her PPG out of its holster.
She knew what he had done. She was aware. She knew he’d taken her PPG. But writhing in burning pain, she could offer no resistance.
She knew she was about to die.
He threw her leg away from him and stood up. He gazed down at her for a moment and watched while she continued rocking back and forth, clutching her face in her hands, screaming and crying in pain. Then he raised her PPG, took careful aim at the center of her chest...
...and then shot her almost point blank in her face instead.
Chapter 8
Security Police Corporals Martin Wallenberg and Randy Schmidt rounded the last corner in one of the shorter, lesser-used corridors within their assigned search sector and spotted Special Agent Urbana lying motionless where it dead-ended just ahead, face up on the deck, her arms stretched out to her sides, looking almost as though the ancient Romans had nailed her to a cross. Schmidt drew his sidearm and kept watch behind them as they moved forward, and as soon as they reached her Wallenberg knelt beside her to asses her condition.
Most of her face looked burned—her eyes were swollen shut and her skin was blistered and discolored. Her left ear and neck looked much the same but were also blackened, the ear charred around its edge. “Looks like a P-P-G burn on her face,” Wallenberg opined, “but the rest looks more like some kind of chemical burn, like somebody threw something in her face.” He glanced at her hands and saw that they were pretty badly burned as well, lying palms up in small pools of smeared, coagulating blood. “She must’ve tried to shield her face with her hands,” he concluded.
He grasped her shoulder and shook her. “Agent Urbana!” he shouted. “Can you hear me? Are you all right?” When she didn’t respond he told Schmidt, “She’s out cold, Randy.” Then he placed two fingers over her carotid artery to check for a pulse.
Schmidt tapped his comm-link. “Delta-two to Control,” he called.
“Control. Go ahead, Delta-two.”
“We found Charlie-six, Sergeant,” he reported. “She’s in pretty bad shape. She has what appear to be P-P-G and some kind of chemical burns to her face and hands.”
“Is she alive?”
“She has a weak pulse,” Wallenberg replied. Then he turned his ear close to her mouth and nose to see if she was breathing and nodded.
“She’s alive and breathing on her own, at least for now,” Schmidt answered, “but you’d better have the medbay send a team down here and fast. I don’t know how much longer she’s going to last in her present condition.”
As Wallenberg carefully probed the back of Urbana’s neck with his fingers, searching for any indication that it might be broken, Schmidt knelt down and carefully grasped her closest forearm, lifted it off the deck, and turned it to find that the back of her hand had been much more severely burned than the palm—charred through to the blackened bones from just above her wrist down to the edges of her fingernails. What little flesh remained was cracked and pitted like a dried up, sun-parched lake bed, oozing with thick, semi-congealed dark blood. “Jesus Christ,” he mumbled. He glanced over at her other hand—no doubt it was in the same condition—then added, “Her hands are very badly burned, Control. Down to the bones. Better tell that medical team to hurry up.”
“Copy that, Delta-two. They’re on their way. Any sign of the suspect?”
“Negative. There’s no one else here.”
“All right. We’re having Dock Control stop all traffic and lock down all the gates, and we’re initiating a base-wide search. Standby with Charlie-six until the medical team gets there.”
“Copy that, Control.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later the medical team had shown up, stabilized Special Agent Urbana as best they could, and then rushed her off to the medbay on an antigrav gurney. Now, in addition to having committed the offenses that C.I.D. had wanted him for in the first place, the suspect had armed himself with Urbana’s weapon, apparently a P-P-G, and also wanted for the additional crimes of attempted murder of a law enforcement official, aggravated assault with a weapon on a law enforcement official during the commission of a felony, and escaping arrest. Both the Solfleet Security Police and the local civil police forces had been placed on Fugitive Alert, and the SP platoon on standby had been mobilized to join in the manhunt. All flight and docking operations had been halted and the entire facility had gone on security lockdown—all personnel, military and civilian alike, ordered to lock themselves inside their quarters or wherever else they happened to be at the time.
Because they’d been assigned to the C.I.D. backup detail from the beginning, Wallenberg and Schmidt had been permitted to join in the search for the suspect as well, as had all of the other patrolmen who’d been assigned to the detail with them. The rest of those already working their regular shifts, on the other hand, had resumed their normal duties as soon as the standby platoon took over for them.
“I can’t believe the old man didn’t to authorize ‘dead or alive’ for this dirt bag,” Schmidt complained as he and Wallenberg strolled through one of the main corridors in their assigned search sector, his tone filled with disgust. “He tried to kill a cop, for God sake!”
“I hear it’s because of the crimes C-I-D wants him for,” Wallenberg offered. “Something about him possessing some kind of highly classified information or something. They need him alive to find out what he knows, or why he wants to know it, or where he has the information stashed, or something like that.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll tell you one thing. If we find him and it comes down to either him or me, or either him or you, he’s going down quick, and I mean permanently. I’ll put him down without a second thought if it’s him or one of us. To hell with taking him alive.”
“I’m with you a hundred percent on that, Randy,” Wallenberg proclaimed, “but we’ve got to at least try to take the sorry fuck alive first or the old man will come down on us like a Rocky Mountain avalanche. He and the C-I-D commander know each other pretty well, you know?”
“Yeah, I know. They went to the Solfleet Academy together,” Schmidt pointed out.
“How do you know that?”
“Next time the old man calls you to the carpet, take a look at the class picture on his back wall,” Schmidt told him. “Second row, over to the far right side. They’re standing right next to each other.”
“I don’t get in trouble as often as you do, Schmidt quipped. “I’ve never had a chance to look at it that closely.”
The longtime partners stopped in front of the doors to the Recreational Facilities section. Wallenberg punched the security override code into the wall panel to unlock them, and then led the way inside.
“I doubt we’ll be the ones to find him anyway,” Schmidt reasoned.
“What makes you say that?”
“We already fou
nd Agent Urbana, so it’s another team’s turn for glory.” He pointed off to the right, at the gymnasium. “Let’s check in there first. I’ll get the locks.”
* * *
Jennifer rushed into the emergency room and straight up to the reception desk. “Special Agent Jennifer Barrett, C-I-D,” she announced, holding her shield up briefly for the lone and obviously very busy nurse sitting behind the desk to see and not really caring whether or not he was too busy at the moment to help her. “My partner got hurt and was just brought in here. Special Agent Ashley Urbana.”
“The young woman with burns to her face and hands,” the elderly nurse clarified, looking up from his work and peering over the tops of his eyeglasses, apparently to convey his irritation at having been disturbed.
“That’s right, yeah,” Jennifer confirmed, unfazed. “How is she? Can I see her?”
The nurse scratched his neatly trimmed gray beard while he gazed at his computer screen for a few moments, and then told her, “The doctors are still tending to her. If you’d like to wait, you can...”
“Yes, I would. Thank you.” She stepped back from the desk and clipped her badge back onto her waistband, then walked into the waiting room—empty, except for a disheveled mother and two half asleep small children—and sat down and stared at the floor.
Ashley was tough. She was a young woman, and strong. She’d be okay. She had to be okay. From what the medical team who’d transported her had been able to tell the C.I.D. chief during the few short moments they’d taken to talk to him—not that he’d given them much of a choice in the matter—the burns on her hands were probably the most severe of her injuries. Yes, she’d been shot in the face at close range with a P-P-G, probably her own, and her eyes had been swollen shut from an apparent chemical burn of some kind, but according to the medics those injuries had looked to be more superficial in nature, at least upon preliminary examination. And as far as her eyes were concerned, the doctors had already confirmed that. They had been only slightly burned by the unknown chemical substance that had swollen them shut and the doctors expected them to heal completely. That at least was some good news.
But what about her hands? If they really had been burned to the bones as the medics told the chief they had been, how much useful living tissue could there possibly be remaining? Would she ever regain use of them or would she have to be fitted with biotronic replacements? Jennifer sincerely hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She’d heard that the biotronic skin’s sense of touch had never quite been perfected, and she hated the thought of Ashley having to deal with that.
Ashley would be okay. If not... If not, Jennifer would never forgive herself.
“I’m sorry, Ashley,” she whispered. “I should’ve been there with you.”
“Not necessarily, Agent.”
Startled by his voice, Jennifer looked up to find District Chief Ronald Ansara standing a few feet away, looking down at her. Not a credential-carrying agent himself, Commander Ansara served only in an administrative capacity as the commanding officer of all Mars District C.I.D. offices, and she really hated it when he called her ‘Agent.’ Granted, she was an agent, but she also had a name. ‘Agent Barrett’ would have been more acceptable.
She noticed his clothes—blue jeans, a dark gray pullover shirt, and a pair of brown slippers—because she’d never seen him wearing anything but his uniform before, then started to stand up, but he put a hand on her shoulder to stop her and gave her a gentle nudge to sit back down, which she did. He sat down beside her, gazed at her for a moment, and then asked her, “You say you should have been there with her?” Jennifer nodded, to which he replied, “Let me ask you this, Agent. What course of action had the two of you agreed to follow in the likely event the suspects separated?”
“Um...” Jennifer hesitated for a moment to gather her wits and straighten it all out in her mind, then answered, “We, uh... We each had a pair of uniformed S-Ps assigned to back us up, so we decided we’d split up and follow both suspects. Sir.”
“And that was exactly what you did, was it not?”
“Yes, sir. Ashley followed the contact and I stayed with the crewman, at least until...”
“Then you did nothing wrong, Agent,” he assured her, interrupting. “You developed and agreed upon an operational plan and then carried out that plan. What happened to Agent Urbana is a terrible thing, but it’s not your fault. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, sir,” she answered meekly.
“I mean it, Agent,” he reiterated. “You are not responsible for what happened to her.”
Jennifer nodded, though not very convincingly.
“Now, why don’t you go back to your quarters and get some rest,” he suggested. “I’ll call you if I find out anything new.”
She looked him in the eye for the first time since he’d sat down. “Would you go, sir, if it were your partner lying in there?” she asked in an almost challenging tone of voice.
He grinned ever so slightly. “No, I wouldn’t,” he answered, “and I honestly didn’t expect you would, either. But I had to suggest it, if only to bring your strength back to the surface where it belongs.”
She smiled very briefly, despite everything, then dropped her gaze back to the floor and folded her hands in her lap.
“I’ll wait here with you if you like,” he offered.
Really? A commanding officer who really cared that much? Maybe he wasn’t as useless as her supervisor had made him out to be. “Thank you, sir,” she replied. “I think Ashley would appreciate that.” And to be honest, so did she.
* * *
The gymnasium access keypad’s faceplate had been pried off of the wall panel and left hanging by its wires, a couple of which Schmidt could see were broken. He thought about trying to snap it back into place, thinking that maybe it might still function, but then reminded himself that the whole area was a potential crime scene, so he left it alone. He and Wallenberg drew their sidearms instead and then moved to either side of the gymnasium doors. Wallenberg nodded to Schmidt, indicating that he was ready. Schmidt touched the hanging pad’s ‘open’ button and the doors slid open—an exchange of glances told each of them that the other was just as surprised as he was. Schmidt nodded. Wallenberg nodded back. They raised their weapons to cover crossing fields of fire and then swung around, moving through the doorway and into the gymnasium, and then resuming the same positions flanking the doors once inside. The doors automatically closed behind them a few seconds later, plunging the gymnasium into total darkness.
They’d been partners for more than two years and had been friends even longer than that, ever since they attended Basic Training together. Each was comfortably familiar not only with how the other worked, but also with how the other thought. They didn’t need to say anything. They simply knew what the other would do. Schmidt stood ready while Wallenberg holstered his sidearm, broke out his night-vision unit, and strapped it in place over his eye. He switched it on and then drew his sidearm again and stood ready while Schmidt did the same.
Schmidt nodded once when he was ready to go—Marty would see him easily through his NVU. Then he and Wallenberg moved off in opposite directions toward the near corners of the gymnasium. Precisely two minutes later they had swept the entire gymnasium from one side to the other, checking both atop and underneath the retracted bleachers, and then arrived at the far end at exactly the same time without ever having to look at one another or adjust their pace. Just as they’d done a hundred times before.
They looked at one another and shook their heads to tell each other that they hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. Then Wallenberg tapped himself twice on the chest and pointed toward the equipment closet. Schmidt nodded agreement and then prepared to cover his partner’s back as he moved forward.
Wallenberg tested the door latch, turning it downward very slowly, and quickly realized that it wasn’t locked. He turned it until it stopped, then pushed gently, but the door didn’t budge. He pulled slightly, and t
he door began to open.
It burst open suddenly and a man charged out, running full bore and screaming at the top of his lungs as though he were making a suicide run at the enemy lines on a battlefield. Schmidt and Wallenberg jumped aside just in time to avoid being bowled over, but in doing so missed their chance to grab him, and had Wallenberg not had the presence of mind to throw his foot out at the last second the man might have escaped. Fortunately, he did have the presence of mind to do that and the man stumbled over his foot and fell forward, sprawling headlong to the hard gymnasium floor.
“Halt! Security Police!” both partners shouted in unison as they quickly zeroed in on the target and started circling around him in opposite directions and moving toward him, slowly and cautiously. The suspect started to get up, but Schmidt hauled off and pistol-whipped him across the back of his head as hard as he could and dropped him back to the floor. Then, before he could even begin to recover from that, Schmidt grabbed hold of one of his arms and lifted and twisted it and bent it back at the elbow as he dropped none to gently to one knee, planting it just below the back of the suspect’s neck between his shoulder blades, effectively immobilizing him. The suspect struggled, but only briefly and to no avail.
“You got him, Marty?” Schmidt asked.
“Got you covered, Randy,” Wallenberg answered.
Schmidt holstered his sidearm, then pulled out his handcuffs and locked one bracelet over the suspect’s wrist... perhaps just a little bit tighter than was actually necessary. Then he leaned forward, shifting even more of his weight onto the helpless man’s back and neck and eliciting a few grunts and groans as a result, and reached for the other arm, and when the suspect foolishly pulled it away and tried to hold it out of reach, Schmidt twisted the cuffs and wrenched his wrist until he cried out in pain.
“Give me that fucking arm or I swear I’ll break this one off!” Schmidt shouted at him. He reached for it again, and this time the suspect didn’t resist. Schmidt cuffed it, then stood up and tapped his comm-link. “Delta-two to Control. Suspect in custody.”