Milena reentered the room with a pair of mugs in hand. “Am I interrupting something entertaining?”
“Not in the slightest,” Matthew said, accepting the coffee. “Thanks.”
Abigail resumed her place by the window. “Let’s cut to what we’re all thinking,” she said. “Logan wants us to do him a favor and take Stein out.”
Milena nodded. “That’s the conclusion that I’ve drawn as well. He owes Stein money for his part at Gilgamesh. He can’t pay because you guys foiled the theft of those grav plates. He tips his hand to me, knowing I’m in the guild and will report back to Matthew that Stein was the attempted Assassin.”
“That’s all well and good,” Matthew said. “But then why not leak the information that doesn’t implicate himself as the source.”
Thompson drained the last of his coffee, apparently needing the caffeine more than even Matthew did. “Because Logan is a damned lunatic. He’ll have us second-guessing our own motives and which hand is which if we let him. I want Stein, and when I get him, I’ll break every bone in his body one at a time if it gets me Logan and anyone else in the administration that has even a whiff of what they’ve been up to.”
Matthew cleared his throat. “The Guild of Lanterns doesn’t condone torture.”
“Neither does the Colony of Arizona,” Thompson said, “but if it saves lives...” He shrugged. “So how do we do this? Freelancers are supposed to be good at planning impossible missions. I’m just a bureaucrat along for the ride, waiting for prisoner transfer.”
The window was dark. They had been here for over an hour, and there was no indication that they were even close to finished. Matthew’s eye trailed over the other three in the room. Abigail gave a curt nod. “I might have a few ideas,” he said with a tired smile. “And you might just be issuing that warrant after all.”
DAMON STEIN KNEW FROM a young age that something was very wrong with him. His first clue was when he watched a beloved family pet get run over, and he only felt a passing curiosity in the event. Oh, he faked being affected, because otherwise his parents might have been concerned. His suspicions were proven true as a teenager when a bully from school followed him home one afternoon. After enduring a heaping of mockery, Damon killed him without a second thought and disposed of the body. He even attended the funeral, feigning sadness that an acquaintance had met a tragic end.
It’s not that he particularly enjoyed causing pain or suffering. He was rather indifferent to it either way. Life was full of pain, no matter how hard you tried to avoid it. But getting away with causing it and never being discovered, that was one of life’s real joys. His other discovery was that most people were imbeciles, making it easy to evade detection. A good actor can fool anyone, friends, family, and even enemies.
He attended the University of Ganymede and easily earned a degree in criminal justice, before spending a brief stint in Arizona’s military and finally diverting into intelligence work. And there he found his true calling. For ten years, he got away with countless atrocities in the name of his home colony, though he went above and beyond his job description. Bombings, kidnappings, assassinations. Damon Stein could do anything for any client.
It was that overconfidence, as he now grudgingly recognized it, that led him to the Gilgamesh job. The Abrogationists were the worst of the worst, at least in the eyes of the colonials. Chasing the slow death of civilization itself was an unpardonable sin that made Damon look like a saint. Working for them would damn his soul. So he wholeheartedly threw himself into it for the challenge.
And somehow or another, that was what made it all go to pieces. He was more than aware that he had a stalker watching his every move. He’d disabled more than one camera and knew that that was only the tip of the iceberg. Whoever it was, kept well out of sight. No one in the Arizona government was that good, and his own contacts spread throughout the administration would have heard about it by now anyway. Someone of equal skill was on his trail. He just had to endure another month. Logan had one more job. The big one. The Phobos platform. After that, Damon would disappear a fabulously rich man, at least until the itch to create havoc struck him again.
And then Logan had demanded a meeting, having little to say. Damon knew good and well what that meant, that Logan had no intent to pay what he already owed and was scuttling the Phobos operation. The meeting had linked their association to whoever was watching Damon, and it was only a matter of time before the cards came crashing down. He’d spent the days since then cleaning house, preparing to burn every bridge, destroying all evidence of his storied career. He’d disappear into the night like a wraith.
And all of this made his life more exciting than it had been in years. For the first time, there was a new thrill. Fear. Fear that just this once, he had overstepped, made a mistake, or made enemies that were smarter than he was. That was part of why he waited to make his move, savoring the tension. He could walk into the sunset with zero risk, or he could play the game a little longer relishing in the excitement, and maybe, just maybe, squeeze payment out of Logan before he killed him.
The final round came on one of the rare afternoons that Damon spent in the Office of Colonial Intelligence’s main building on the backside of the capital complex. Paperwork was the bane of any government employee’s existence. Over the years, he’d perfected the ability to get it done from anywhere but the home office, but sometimes even his skills couldn’t overcome the monolith that was the bureaucracy.
He was elbows deep in said duty in his third level basement office when the message crossed his screen.
Warrant issued for arrest of Damon Stein. Thompson himself wrote the affidavit. Twenty minutes tops.
Damon sat back and rubbed his short goatee. Perhaps his stalker had ties to the government after all. He closed his work in a flash, then fired up a program that would wipe the drives clean. If they were issuing a warrant, they had everything they needed to put him away, but there was no sense in doing their job for them. He unlocked a drawer and pulled out a special holster designed for two pistols. He automatically checked both to make sure they were loaded and one of them to ensure its power cell retained its charge. Clipping it around his waist under his suit jacket, he checked the time. Nearly four in the afternoon. Perfect.
He stepped out into the hall and calmly walked toward the elevator, then changed his mind and moved toward the stairs.
“Agent Stein,” a familiar voice said as he passed an open office. He paused only because ignoring Max would be more suspicious. Max joined him in the hall, straightening his tie. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“Make it fast,” Damon said, motioning toward the staircase with his head. “I’m on my way out.”
Max fell into step beside him. “Funny thing about that. A little birdie from the Ministry of Law just sent me a tip. It was about you.”
Damon fell into comfortable patterns of faking surprise. “Really? I haven’t done any work with them in ages. What’s this about?” They hit the stairs.
Max followed him up the staircase. “Didn’t say. Not sure he knew. Look, Damon. Let’s go check with the director. He can probably head this off and get it sorted out before it turns into a scandal.”
They hit the flight between floors. Damon stopped and turned to face Max. “I appreciate the offer, but I’ll have to take care of this one myself.” In a single motion, he drew the earthtech magnetic pistol from his holster and put a silent slug between Max’s eyes. He was dead before he hit the floor. Damon stepped over him and continued up the stairs. With any luck, it would be some time before the body was found.
A few minutes later, he stepped out into the ruddy afternoon sun. There was a chill wind in the air as he walked down the sidewalk going over his limited options. He needed to get out of the downtown area before the entire capital complex was breathing down his neck. From there he could chart a course forward. The one thing he couldn’t do was look like he was fleeing. No doubt, the stalker had the OIC under surveillance. The
moment he deviated from course, he’d lose the element of surprise. On the average office day, he would walk to the parking deck and leave from there. Most likely, his current vehicle was being tracked, so that wouldn’t get him very far. He made an abrupt turn and jogged up the stairs to the train station at the last possible second. The timing had to be perfect on this. If Max had delayed him for too long, this wasn’t going to work.
An attendant tried to stop him at the turnstile. “I’m sorry, sir, the four PM is about to pull out.”
He waved his OIC badge and walked right past the dumbfounded employee. The boarding platform was already empty, but he picked up his pace and slipped into the only car with open doors just as it closed.
The car was empty. He narrowed his eyes, half expecting some enemy to leap out of a nonexistent hiding place. In attempting to elude one trap, he’d walked into the real one. He grabbed his comm and called the squad leader of his most trusted team.
“We’re burning bridges,” he said. “I need a pickup. I’m on the four PM westbound. Expect hostiles.”
“Understood. We’ll be airborne as soon as we can.”
Damon’s eyes switched back and forth between the front and back doors of the train. Odds were good his enemies weren’t just planning on picking him up at the next stop. The question was from which direction would they advance on him. And who would it be. Thompson may have issued the warrant, but Damon doubted that desk jockey was creative enough to pull off a setup like this. Not only had the warrant been issued, it had been issued knowing it would be leaked, and that he would try to slip onto this exact train. The timing had been perfect.
The rear door of the train burst open, and the Shield Maiden waltzed in, a smug grin plastered across her face. “Looky here,” she said. “I’ve just caught Arizona’s own little madman.”
So it was the freelancers. Cole evading his prescribed death had been a nuisance, but his crew’s reputation was well earned. Damon drew his gun and fired at the same time Sharon brandished her shield to harmlessly absorb the shot. “Is that all you’ve got?” she said, advancing steadily across the train.
It wasn’t, but he turned and ran, hitting the emergency release on the car’s front exit and barreling through it. Outside, the city was a blur as the train raced down the elevated downtown tracks. Too fast, he noticed distantly. The train wasn’t sticking to schedule but leaving the city in a hurry, most likely to remove a potential danger to the citizenry. He stepped across the narrow gap between cars and slipped into the next one.
It was half full of people, men and women staring out windows or on electronic devices. They looked at him with curiosity for a few moments but then went back to their previous diversions. No doubt, many, if not all of them, were undercover officers, ready to spring the trap when the Shield Maiden showed up to catch him in a pincer. There were still a few seconds to even the odds. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a silver disc. It began to hum when he activated it, steadily increasing in pitch.
“Come on,” he muttered under his breath. “Finish charging.”
The door behind him slammed open as Sharon advanced with almost as much force as the train itself. He leaped aside and threw the disc at her. It magnetized, and with a clink, fixed itself to her chest, delivering an EMP. Even as she crashed to the aisle, he drew his pistol and turned on the rest of the train cabin.
Every other soul had drawn on him except one. A man in a cowboy hat stood and lifted its brim. “Trying to kill me is one thing, but attacking poor Abigail like that is unforgivable.” It was Cole. He’d lost the recognizable hat and poncho for Arizona styles, making him surprisingly hard to spot in the crowd, but it was undoubtedly the gaucho. “If I were you, I’d lower that weapon. You’re good at what you do. But not good enough to take out a whole car of officers.”
He was right. Opening fire would just get him killed. And there was always a way out. Sometimes it just required patience. He dropped his gun and raised his hands, willing to stall until his men arrived. “Well played, Cole. I see you’ve recovered from your injuries.”
“I appreciate the concern,” he said as he stooped for the fallen weapon. Then he took the earthtech pistol and began to pat him down. “Your sincerity is suspect, but it’s a start.”
“We both know it wasn’t personal,” Damon said as two officers wrestled his hands behind his back to cuff them.
Behind him, the Shield Maiden cursed. “None of that ‘it’s just business’ nonsense. You’re nothing more than a psychopath who gets his kicks out of chaos. Matthew, a little help here?”
Damon rolled his eyes but admired her savvy observation. Outside, the tall buildings had given way to suburbs. It wouldn’t be long now.
His comm buzzed from an incoming call. In fact, his escape was already here.
He squeezed his eyes shut as the exterior windows of the train blew inward. There was a deafening series of blasts and, even through closed lids, the flash from the stun grenades burned after images into his retinas. He opened his eyes to a chaotic scene, one that seemed frozen in time. He could still see, which was better than the rest of the occupants, but no one would be hearing anything for quite some time. He stamped his right heel hard into the floor, extending the hidden blade in the sole. The officers behind him never had time to recover before he delivered a swift kick to each of their abdomens. They stumbled back, hands fumbling for the unexpected stab wounds.
A pair of men in harnesses slipped through the window, each taking one of Damon’s arms before they were all yanked out of the car. He felt glass from the window frame cut through his coat and down his back, but that was a small price to pay for an exceedingly narrow escape. As they were hoisted into the air, his eyes fell down at the receding train. It was a well-crafted trap, and Damon was willing to admit that he had gotten lucky in the timing of his team’s arrival. The freelancers’ presence meant the pesky shadow that had been watching him was most likely the Rossiyan freelancer Milena Drugova. She was both the top of her skill set and part of Cole’s little club. Idly, he wondered if she knew that it was her witch of a broker that had hired him to kill Cole.
And then his boots were hitting the ramp of the skyhopper. He straightened his back as his men set him down. He gave them each a nod and headed for the cockpit. “Get us out of here,” he told the pilot. “Fallback point alpha.”
Slowly his heart rate began to recede. The escape had delivered more excitement than he had hoped. His career may be entering a new stage, but there were new thrills to earn. Perhaps getting away with killing in the open would be more entertaining than killing from the shadows. Still, there were loose ends to tie up before he moved on from Mars. Between dealing with the freelancers, Thompson, and Logan, he was going to be very busy disposing of potential threats.
ABIGAIL HAD TO SWALLOW her pride. Much as she wanted Matthew to chase the officers from the room so she could open up her suit to reset it, it was an unreasonable thing to ask of him. Whatever Stein had thrown at her had shut her off cold, and there was that insane design flaw that required her armor to be open and unoccupied before it would reboot. Unfortunately, there were two seriously wounded men in the car currently receiving first aid for stab wounds, as well as the minor glass injuries on nearly everyone else. There wasn’t going to be any clearing the room.
It had been going so well too. They had isolated Stein from any possible aid, and yet he’d magically had a team of commandos show up and whisk him away. He knew that they’d be coming for him. She shifted her neck around, uncomfortable the way she was laying on her side. They’d played a game of trying to outguess a shrewd enemy, and he’d guessed one step ahead, or at the very least figured it out in time to juke their takedown.
Matthew knelt by her. “You okay?” he asked. Blood ran down from his hairline, and her eyes traced the bright red drop.
“Are you honestly going to ask me that when you’re the one bleeding?”
He wiped his forehead and looked at the smear of
blood on his hand. “Sorry. Glass, I think. I’ll be fine. Hopefully, they’ll be fine too,” he added quietly with a look behind him at the injured.
“Hey,” she said. “I have to reboot, but I’m not going to do anything until that device is off of me.”
He stepped around to her front. “Do you know where—”
“Front side. About halfway down, I think.”
“I’ve got it,” he said, prying the disc off. “Earthtech?”
“Without a doubt” She hit the internal release for her armor and let the back plates separate before starting to wiggle herself out from the strange position. “A lot more subtle than that pulser White Void has.”
“And a lot riskier.” He offered her a hand, which she accepted gratefully. “You may be able to conceal it on your person, but if you miss your throw, you’re gonna have some buyer’s remorse.”
He brushed the glass off one of the car’s hard benches and helped her up into it. “Let’s keep it,” she said. “It may be reusable.”
Matthew pocketed it with a nod. Absently, she noticed that Matthew was between her and Thompson’s officers, blocking their view of her. It was a sweet gesture because she felt half-naked in the tank top and athletic shorts. The feeling only got worse when Thompson himself entered the car and headed their way. She refused to make eye contact, even though she could feel his eyes on her, making judgments. Her disability was going to go on her permanent record in Arizona for sure this time.
Her suit chimed as it finished its reboot and Matthew was already reaching down for it. She frowned. “Hey put it in—”
“Follow mode,” he finished for her. “I know. You’ve shown me how.” He took her suit by the hand and gently lifted it to its feet. In follow mode, it was like a giant posable doll. It was the only way for someone else to easily move her suit, considering no one else in the colonies had an implant in their neck to control the thing.
After Moses: Wormwood Page 33