Makeda opened the door, Colt in hand, expecting someone to be within. It was as she’d left it—dirty clothes and bag on the bed. “Right. I’m going to call Schmidt back. I need to know what he’s thinking. He paid us, and the package is dead.”
“Not going to be good for our rep as clean extraction specialists.”
“I know. That’s why I need to know what he’s thinking. Is he pissed?” She paused. “Is this what he planned?” She shook her head. “I don’t know.” Makeda focused on Saladin. “Keep an eye on things. Figure out if we need to move tonight rather than tomorrow.”
Saladin nodded. “Will do.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “It will work out. It may suck, but we’ll make it work out in our favor.”
Makeda patted his hand. “I know. I’m just pissed. What did I miss?”
“I’m not sure you missed anything.”
She didn’t respond. Saladin left her in her room. Makeda shook her head. “Clearly, I missed something.” For a moment, she wondered if Imre was involved. She shook her head again. That didn’t make sense. He was out of the picture.
Unless he’d waited until he had the elevator codes to complete the second part of his job: kill Tojo, the one who had furnished the codes to begin with.
The thought twisted Makeda’s stomach in knots.
This time, when they called Herr Schmidt, Makeda sat cross-legged against the cool stone wall of the hotel room. It was beige and featureless, but gave the impression that she was calling from a different place than last time. The low table and its equipment had been moved to accommodate this.
“Payment received.” MissTree nodded. “Ready when you are.”
Makeda pulled up the comm program and pinged Herr Schmidt with: I draw in fresh sustenance.
After a full minute, forever in Matrix time, the response came back with: Goethe was the better poet. Makeda accepted the incoming call.
Herr Schmidt appeared. He still wore the impeccable suit from before, but his tie was missing and he seemed to be in good spirits. “Frau Makeda. I trust you are well?”
“I am not. Your man’s boat exploded without him on it.”
“Ah. That. Well, these things happen.” He tilted his head. “You got paid, yes?”
This was not what Makeda had expected. She’d expected him ticked off, not in a good mood. She nodded. “Yes.”
“Then there is no problem.”
She leaned toward the laptop camera. “You knew this was going to happen?” He stared at her; a frown crept into his expression. “Herr Schmidt, when I took on this contract, I was specific that I would not be party to any wetwork.”
He tilted his head as if contemplating a mysterious stain on the table. “You were not. You were paid to deliver the man. You delivered him. You were paid. You left. The job was done. The boat blew up.” He shook his head. “I do not understand your problem.”
“My problem is the fact that it looks like I failed to complete my run. Or it looks like I, one,” she held up a finger, “specifically delivered him to die. Or two,” she held up a second finger, “failed to stop the sabotage of your boat.”
The blond man scoffed. “That is, as you say, a personal problem. You and I, we have no problems. You did the job I paid you to do.”
Makeda pressed back against the wall, feeling the cool stone. “What actually happened? Why pay so much money to deliver an engineer to a doomed boat?”
He glanced to the side and nodded. “When I hired you, the corporation that had engaged me had every intention of bringing Herr Isoshi onboard. Then I got a better offer.” He shrugged. “Some corporations would rather see their assets burned than let them go.”
Makeda refused to consider the implications of that right now. “So you changed the deal. You have no idea what you’ve done to me and my team. You should’ve given us the option of dropping him off somewhere for Saeder-Krupp to pick up.”
“I did not change the deal.” Herr Schmidt scowled. “I do not understand you people and your insistence on making everything about you. We—” he gestured to both of them, “—completed our transaction. What happened at any time afterward doesn’t matter.”
Makeda took a deep breath, pushing away the insult and the man’s inability to understand the possible damage he’d done to her team’s reputation as clean and safe extraction specialists. She also ignored the fact that this was too close to what happened to Imre’s team when they lost the codes to her and took Tojo’s money back. Tojo had been correct. He’d given them the codes, he deserved his payment, even if Imre’s team had lost them.
This was different. This was about her team’s reputation and the contract they’d agreed to. “It does matter. I—”
Herr Schmidt disappeared, and she was left staring at her surprised reflection in the laptop screen. She looked up. “What happened?”
“He was tracing the call. He almost got through.” MissTree worked fast, unplugging every piece of equipment from every other piece of equipment.
“Drek.” Makeda helped, pulling at the cords she could reach. “Almost?”
The mage nodded. “Almost. My friend said he had to drop everything in Germany.”
“No wonder he was willing to argue with me. Trying to get the trace.” Makeda scowled. “This isn’t going to go well for any of us.” She hesitated. “If it isn’t obvious, I want you on the team. You’ve reacted and adapted well. You have resources. The question is, do you still want in now that it looks like Herr Schmidt might be gunning for us?” MissTree gave her a small, feral smile. “Someone’s always gunning for you in the shadows. This isn’t the first time. It won’t be the last. I’m still in.”
“All right. Welcome aboard.” Makeda turned on her internal comms. “Saladin, HiddenPlath, please come to room twelve. TechnoGalen, consider this the bat signal, you need to monitor this.”
It took a moment for Galen to respond to the alarmed keywords. He showed up at the same time as Saladin and Plath did. Both were openly armed, carrying their pistols and Uzi, respectively. Plath moved in to help MissTree pack the electronic equipment into two small cases. Saladin closed the door and leaned against it, in guard mode.
“I’m here,” TechnoGalen said. “How bad is it?”
“Patch MissTree in as part of the team. We’ll skip the dinner interview for now.” Makeda shook her head. “I don’t know how bad it is. But here’s the sitch as I see it. We got hired to do a willing extraction. There were some bumps in the run, but we got the package to the boat. The boat then exploded on our employer’s orders. Schmidt doesn’t care what this does to our rep as a reliable extraction team. To the outside, we’re going to look incompetent at best or like backstabbers at worst. None of it is going to turn into future runs for a while.”
Makeda gestured to MissTree. “Her hacker friend said Schmidt tried to locate us twice. That means he may be looking to tie up loose ends.”
“Why? What loose ends?” HiddenPlath shook her head, confused.
“The fact that there are runners out here who know that Herr Schmidt is willing to back out on an agreed-upon extraction for more money.” MissTree snapped the first case closed with more force than needed.
Saladin nodded. “That’ll get around. Any other client he wants extracted is going to think twice. Plus, local runners will know that he changes the deal in mid-run.”
“There’s one other thing.” Makeda threw herself to the small couch. It creaked under the force of her momentum. “I made a mistake. I let him know that I knew about at least one other run he’d commissioned against Tojo.”
“Imre’s team?” Saladin rubbed his chin.
“I didn’t name Imre. Just mentioned multiple runs. Could’ve been Imre’s job. Or maybe Schmidt had something to do with the explosion. Either way, he knows I know about at least one of them.”
The comms came alive with Galen’s voice, thoughtful and worried. “What if this whole fraggin’ thing was to get the elevator codes and then muddy the waters with multipl
e runs? To make it seem like it was only an extraction. Not a paydata run. Easier to get the codes from the engineer than to break into Krupp Specialist Engineering. Then kill the engineer before anyone realized this was about the codes and not the man. That way no one would know the codes were taken to begin with. No one would suspect, and Saeder-Krupp wouldn’t know they needed to change them.”
“Oh, frag.” Makeda put her face in her hands.
“Elevator codes?” MissTree looked around the room.
Makeda waved a hand without looking at her. “One of those things you don’t need to know the details of right now. Suffice it to say, paydata worth millions in the right hands.”
“Either way, we qualify as loose ends.” Saladin pushed himself from the door. “We need to get out and lay low for a couple of months.”
Makeda was glad that neither Saladin nor Plath called her out about the elevator codes. She hadn’t told them about that yet and she’d have to do so as soon as she had a quiet moment…but not in front of MissTree. “Yeah. And that’s my main point here. Tomorrow, everyone disperses. Tonight, if you really want to. Separate ways. We can’t move as a group. Meet back in Belgium in the next week or so. Take your time. Make sure you’re safe.” Makeda looked up at MissTree. “Plath’ll give you the address and pass phrases to our meeting place in Belgium so you aren’t shot on sight.”
“Merci.” MissTree snapped the second case closed and set it next to the first.
“I’m already home. What do you want me to do?”
“Keep your head down, Galen. Monitor and report. But don’t do anything to get them looking at you.”
“Okay. I can do that. I’ll put the home guard on watch duty, too.”
With that, there was nothing else to do except pay everyone and make plans to run and hide.
21
Saladin stopped Makeda as they left MissTree’s room. “Can we talk?” He glanced at the cracked door behind them where HiddenPlath and MissTree were making plans. “In private?”
Makeda’s heart dropped. He was going to go his own way, too. She steeled herself and nodded. “I need your help anyway.” She led him to her hotel room as she set all her internal comms to private mode. She cleared the small room before entering and closing the door behind him.
Saladin leaned against the door. “You know they’re going to go together, right?”
Makeda refused to ask what he wanted. If he was going to leave her on her own, she wouldn’t give him the opening. “Plath and MissTree? Yeah. I gave them their instructions. How they fulfill them is their business. You know that’s my management style.” She dug into her earlier purchases and handed him a pair of scissors and a hair pick.
Saladin raised an eyebrow and asked, “What cut?”
“I was going to go with as ‘short as possible’ when I was going to cut it myself. But you’re here and you’re better at this than me—at least when cutting my own hair.” Makeda put down a towel from the communal bath in front of the dresser mirror and moved the wooden chair to the middle of it. “So, very short and cute.”
“You know that’s not going to be enough to stop people from recognizing you.” He picked out her curly hair with slow, careful strokes until it was like he needed it to be. Then he began to cut.
“I know. That’s what the hair dye is for. I’ll go for something more permanent when I’m in a safer place and home territory.”
Saladin smiled at her in the mirror. “I suppose you want me to apply it for you, too.”
“Yep.” She watched him work, sighing at the loss of her beautiful, natural curls. It took forever to grow her hair out. He seemed content to do this for her. Heart beating faster and impatient curiosity won out over her desire to be stoic about all things. “So, what did you really want to talk to me about? It wasn’t to tattle on Plath and MissTree.”
“I know you’ve got Rabenhaupt’s contact info. You gonna tell him about Herr Schmidt?”
It took a moment for Makeda to realize he was talking about Imre. That was what he wanted? She considered the idea. She wanted to. One runner to another. But she didn’t owe him anything. Then again, Schmidt was an ass. “Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know if he was the one to blow up the boat or not. What do you think?”
“I think Herr Schmidt did that on his own.” Saladin concentrated on turning her curls into a cute pixie cut. “When it comes to Johnsons and runners, I’d trust the runner first. If it were me, I’d drop Rabenhaupt a warning to watch his back. If all Schmidt wants is the codes, he might use the pickup as an opportunity to screw over another runner.”
Makeda eyed him. “Galen told you.”
“About the codes and what they’re worth? Yeah. When the run went bad.”
“Saved me for the codes?”
“That and more.” He yanked the conversation back to his original thread. “Warning Rabenhaupt could help us get the bastard back.”
Saladin had a point. She trusted Imre more than Schmidt. Makeda considered what she’d say in an e-mail as her longer hair disappeared. Between this, the fire-engine-red hair dye, and the hair gel she’d bought, it should be just enough to change her appearance to give her those few seconds she needed. “All right. I’ll give him a warning.”
If Schmidt killed Imre after he got the codes, she would be the only other person to know he had them in the first place. Makeda sighed. This was going bad. Really bad. Better to let the other runner know that the Johnson was not on the level. Tojo had been right. Shadowrunners had a code of sorts. Trust the runner over the corps.
While Saladin finished her haircut, she sent a message to Imre’s account: Schmidt hinky. Careful with your goods. Watch your back. It was the best she could think of on short notice. She did not receive a reply.
An hour later, Makeda dried her hair as Saladin scanned the headlines. Wet, her hair was the color of drying blood. Dry, it had a cherry pop that suited her tight, natural curls.
Just as she was about to suggest dinner, Saladin said, “Oh, hell,” and Galen binged an alarm.
Makeda grabbed the Colt and had it at the ready as she looked for the danger.
“On the news.” Saladin pointed at his datapad.
“Bat signal: Streaming news to everyone.”
This was Galen’s only warning before the Spanish news report popped into Makeda’s comm, automatically translated into English.
* * *
It was an aerial shot of Makeda walking with Tojo, pulling him along down the pier. Under the video, the words “Brussels2Rome Party Train kidnap victims murdered” scrolled. The screen split in two with the footage of Makeda handing Tojo over and walking back up the pier as the older news anchor, a human man with graying temples spoke.
“Here we see the suspected terrorist Martina ‘Makeda’ Aldon handing off drugged and reluctant Saeder-Krupp engineer Tojo Isoshi moments after the Saeder-Krupp executive, Aki Nakamura, was forced onto the same boat. Minutes later, you see the boat crew abandon the vessel and the Ciervo Saltando explode. At the same time, you see that Makeda barely reacts to the explosion and the murder of the two innocent people.”
The split screen shifted to show the Ciervo Saltando explode and Makeda hesitate a moment before continuing on to her little red Honda.
The news anchor reappeared. “Again, if you are just tuning in, four of the six missing Brussels2Rome Party Train passengers have been seen. Unfortunately, two of them—Tojo Isoshi and Aki Nakamura—have been murdered by Martina Aldon, who goes by the moniker Makeda. The fourth passenger, Imre Dahl, a VIP specialist for the Hanover Casino, was last seen in Makeda’s presence in Switzerland. It is unknown at this time if he is a victim or a co-conspirator with this known terrorist.”
Images of Imre with mint-colored hair and Makeda with her longer, natural curls appeared on the screen with their names emblazoned underneath and a commcode to use if they are seen.
The news anchor continued speaking. “If you see either of these two people, please contact the number
on the screen. It is important that Mr. Dahl is found and Ms. Aldon is captured before she can hurt anyone else.”
* * *
The feed snapped off. It left Makeda blinking and stunned. She shook the surprise away, shifting into survival mode. “Is there feed of the executive?”
“Yes. Hold on.” Galen sent it to her.
Makeda watched the struggling, crying Japanese man pulled down the pier and forced onto the Ciervo Saltando. “How long was this before me and Tojo arrived?”
“Clock says fifteen minutes. But that could be faked.”
“I never saw the man. The whole thing could be faked. Or, they really did murder both Tojo and Aki.” Makeda thought fast, considering her options. She comm’d the group. “Right, everyone in my room ASAP.”
Saladin opened the door and watched for HiddenPlath and MissTree. They arrived in a hurry. Plath looked annoyed. MissTree looked concerned.
“Why would they do this?” Makeda asked this as a rhetorical question then answered herself. “To lock us down. Or lock me down. Galen, did they get anyone else on camera?”
“Not yet. But they might trace you to the pickup with MissTree.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.” She looked at the mage. “You need to lock down anything that could point to you. Change your look. I assume this hotel isn’t under your name?”
MissTree shook her head. “It’s not. I’ve been ready to leave for days. There shouldn’t be anything for them to grab onto.”
Galen broke in. “By the way, ‘Martina Aldon’ suddenly exists. From Denver. Terrible grades. A lot of B&E busts. No pictures from when you were younger, but a decent fake profile.”
“Drek. So this was planned from the beginning?”
“Don’t know. I could make a profile like this in an hour and seed it in thirty.”
HiddenPlath took this in. “What do you need us to do?”
Makeda Red Page 19