by Michael Rose
“That has to be it. He could have hopped on a freighter the day of the murder. God knows there are plenty of freighter captains who don’t mind a little smuggling on the side, and any decent bioshroud would hide him from all the standard port authority scans.”
“I think you’re right, Liz. We lost this one.”
“Want to call off the stakeout?”
“No. He’s registered at the Fletcher for one more day, and it’s our only lead. Why not see it through?”
“All right.” Wagner sat beside Allen and opened her box of noodles. “This isn’t going to be an easy one to take the fall for. An assemblyman’s murder is a big deal.”
Allen chewed another bite. “On the other hand, if he is still in the city, maybe we could find a way to draw him out.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I’ve been going over this Edaline issue. In their parliament, there are moderates and there are hardliners. They’re all from the same party and all support the system, but the parliament members who’ve been murdered have been the hardliners. I get the feeling that the assassin—or assassins—makes a distinction between good men who are just cogs in the machine and the bastards who are running the show.”
“And which was Assemblyman Palmer, a cog or a bastard?”
“He was a cog, if you believe everyone who ever had anything to do with him. One of the good guys. There isn’t a single blemish on his record. Aside from the hookers, there are no scandals, no kickbacks, no nasty exchanges with his political rivals, absolutely nothing objectionable.”
Wagner put down her food and leaned on the table. “That makes you suspicious, doesn’t it?”
“You bet it does. He’s too clean. He had real power on Virdis before being elected to the Assembly. I wonder if he had enough power to wipe his record clean. Did Sullivan know something about Palmer that we don’t?”
“Maybe. But what does this have to do with drawing Sullivan out?”
“It’ll take a bit of deception on our part. If we can convince Assemblywoman Conner to hold a press conference announcing that Palmer’s death has garnered enough sympathy to pass the Edaline resolution, Sullivan might be tempted to take another look at his hit list.”
“The forty-seven remaining members of the pro-incorporation caucus?”
“Right. We can put a tail on each of them and see if Sullivan pops up.”
“It’s risky.”
“Any better ideas?”
Wagner gazed out the window at the Fletcher. “If we could figure out which of the forty-seven are the cogs and which are the bastards, we might be able to replicate that hit list.”
“I’m sure that with a bit of digging we could figure that out. But we don’t have the time for it. If the director green lights this, I want Conner to make that announcement tomorrow.” Allen put his hand on Wagner’s knee. She responded by placing her hand on his and squeezing it gently.
Allen smiled. “Do I have your backing on this, Liz?”
“You always have my backing.” She leaned in and kissed Allen on the lips as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer.
4
RICK SULLIVAN HAD been paying attention. Assemblywoman Conner had announced that a new vote was to be scheduled for the following Monday, and almost immediately, Assemblyman Scott Howard grew an extra shadow. Sullivan had to admit that the Bureau people were good. He’d almost run right into the agent before noticing that he was also following Howard. The assemblyman, for his part, seemed unaware that he was under surveillance and had, for the last twenty minutes, been in the Landau Hotel. A woman who had been standing outside the hotel smoking a cigarette had followed Howard inside. Sullivan wondered if this was another of the Bureau’s agents. He decided that she was more likely his mistress.
Sullivan risked a glance at the agent who now stood outside the doors of the Landau. Shortly after Howard had arrived, a car had pulled up, and another man had nodded to the agent then continued on inside. Sullivan guessed he’d be guarding whatever floor Howard’s room was on.
Sullivan walked briskly across the street, turned away from the hotel entrance and continued around the corner. As he rounded the side of the building, he noticed a door propped open with a brick. A catering truck was parked on the street. Sullivan slipped in through the door and glanced down the hallway leading to what he assumed to be the hotel kitchen. He could hear voices and the sound of boxes being moved. To his left was a stairwell. He gently pushed open the door and held it as it closed behind him, keeping the noise to a minimum.
Sullivan didn’t know what floor Howard was on, but he didn’t have to know. The second agent would give away his location. Sullivan crept up the stairs to the first floor landing. He peeked through the small rectangular window in the fire door. The Landau was a long and narrow building. A single hallway ran the length of each floor, and an alcove on one side of the hallway housed the elevators. Sullivan couldn’t see into that alcove from his position in the stairwell, but he could see that it had a window. The rectangle of light on the carpet of the hallway revealed the alcove to be empty save for a potted plant.
Sullivan ascended the stairs to the next floor. This hallway was identical to the first. The light from the window also revealed a potted plant, but next to the fronds of the plant Sullivan could see the outline of a man’s head, apparently seated in a chair. Sullivan nudged open the door. He held it open a few inches and waited a moment to see if the shadow moved. It shifted slightly but did not rise. He pushed it open another few inches, just wide enough for him to slip into the hallway, and then eased it back to its closed position.
Sullivan took a small gun from his inside coat pocket. The energy weapon was no larger than a pack of cards and didn’t hold much of a charge, but there was enough in it for two more shots. “Small and quiet” is what Sullivan had asked for, and he had to admit that despite the ridiculous price, the black market arms dealer had delivered. Sullivan felt for the spare battery back in his pocket. All together, he had five more shots available to him. The Edaline military had trained him well, and he was confident he could finish this job with two shots, maybe even just one if he could take the agent down in close quarters. He preferred that, actually. There was no reason the agent had to die just for doing his job.
As Sullivan crept up the hallway, he stopped at the first room and placed a small, cone-shaped device against the door. He placed the pointed end of the cone into his ear and listened for a moment. The slightest sound would be picked up by the listening device. Inside, there was only the sound of water dripping from a faucet.
He moved up the hallway, listening at each door. He reached the halfway point and hadn’t yet heard anything that he thought sounded like Howard and his mistress. Sullivan stopped just around the corner from the elevator alcove. He could hear the faint sound of music, punctuated by cartoonish explosions. The agent was playing a game on his tablet.
Sullivan glanced at the shadow again, gauged the distance and swung around the corner. He was upon the man before he even looked up. Sullivan delivered a blow to the agent’s thorax then put his arm around the man’s neck and pulled him from the chair. He squeezed the man’s neck in the crook of his elbow and waited as he struggled, trying to reach Sullivan with his hands.
After fifteen seconds, the struggling stopped. Sullivan laid him gently on the carpet. To his relief, the agent was still breathing. Sullivan took the man’s gun, earpiece and tablet, then found his handcuffs and secured the agent’s hands behind his back.
Sullivan continued on down the hallway, pausing at each doorway as before. At the third door, he paused longer than he had at the others. The sound of heavy breathing, punctuated by an occasional moan, reached him through the listening device.
Sullivan stepped back, raised his leg and kicked the door in. As he rushed into the room the woman screamed and Howard flipped over the edge of the bed onto the floor, grabbing an empty champagne bottle from the nightstand as he went. Sulliva
n quickly strode up to Howard, knocked the bottle from his hands and fired a single shot. Howard fell back onto the floor as a small curl of smoke rose from the hole in his chest. The woman screamed again. Sullivan took a sheet of paper from his pocket, tossed it onto Howard’s body and left the room as quickly as he had entered.
FRANK ALLEN AND Liz Wagner stood over the body of Assemblyman Howard. Allen pulled on a latex glove and gingerly lifted the sheet of paper from the body. He turned it over in his hands and held it up to the light. It was blank.
“This is the same paper that was in Palmer’s study.”
Wagner looked at it over his shoulder. “He must have gotten Howard’s name from that letter that Palmer wrote. But why target Howard? He had just joined the pro-incorporation caucus. He had no vested interest in Edaline.”
“Nothing obvious, anyway. But more and more, I’m beginning to think that Sullivan is targeting people not just based on whether or not they support incorporation but based on some other factor.”
“So he left the paper so we would know it was the same guy? A kind of message?”
“I don’t know. He has to know that we’ve IDed him by now, and leaving behind a calling card seems a little on the nose for him.” He took a flat plastic bag from his pocket and placed the paper inside it. “This paper links Palmer, Howard and Conner. Two of those people are now dead. Do you think Sullivan is trying to let us know who his next target will be?”
Wagner looked down at the body. “Or trying to throw us off his trail, giving us a false lead. This guy was a sleaze. Just a cursory look through our files links him to half a dozen sex scandals and bribes. On Conner, there’s nothing. She’s clean.”
Allen shook his head. “Palmer was clean on paper, too, but he’s dead.”
“You’re right, Frank, there has to be something else going on here. Sullivan isn’t targeting just anyone.”
Allen called another agent in from the hallway. “Jackson, I want Assemblywoman Conner’s security detail doubled. Put Ives and Takemitsu on it.”
Jackson nodded and turned away to complete the request.
FRANK ALLEN SAT on the sofa in his living room, staring at the three-dimension image rising from the table in front of him. He wasn’t paying close attention to the football game, but having it on in the background helped him relax. He plucked a bottle of beer from the side table and took a sip.
In the next room, he could hear Liz Wagner talking to her mother on the telephone. Liz stayed over more often than not lately. The Bureau didn’t strictly forbid relationships between coworkers, but they had decided to keep it private to avoid any problems.
Allen’s earpiece began chiming on the table. He picked it up and put it in his ear as he took out his tablet to see who was calling. The call was coming from Agent Lasky’s number, but Allen knew it wasn’t Lasky. His tablet had been taken when Sullivan had attacked him and killed Assemblyman Howard.
Allen waited for a moment, cleared his throat and tapped the earpiece to answer the call. “Allen.”
“Hello, Agent Allen.”
“Richard Sullivan?”
“Please, call me Rick.”
Allen got up from the sofa and went to the bedroom. He mouthed the word “Sullivan” to Wagner. Her eyes widened, and she quickly and quietly ended the call to her mother. As soon as her mother was off the line, Wagner made another call. “I need a trace on Agent Allen’s line,” she said as Allen went back to the living room.
“So Rick,” said Allen slowly. “What can I do for you?”
“You can stop stalling, first of all. I’ve taken measures to ensure that this call can’t be traced. I know you’ve already tried unsuccessfully to locate Agent Lasky’s tablet. I know how to remove tracking devices, and I know how to scramble the source of the signal.”
“Fair enough.”
“Put me on speaker so Agent Wagner can hear.”
Allen shot a glance at Wagner, who had come to stand in the doorway.
“What makes you think I’m with Wagner, Rick?”
He heard an exhalation of breath. “Will you please stop insulting me, Allen? I don’t want to play games with you, I just want you to listen. Put me on speaker.”
“All right, Rick. Just calm down.” Allen tapped on his tablet to engage the device’s built-in speakers. He took the earpiece from his ear. “Rick? Agent Wagner and I can both hear you now.”
“Thank you. First of all, I want you to know that I’m not a monster. I’m not doing anything that doesn’t need to be done, that hasn’t been deserved.”
“I know, Rick. Palmer and Howard were dirty, weren’t they?”
“Of course they were. They’re politicians. But that’s not why I killed them.”
“Why, then?”
“I’m going to give you some information, but first I want you to promise me that the Bureau will follow up on what I have to say.”
“I can’t guarantee that. I have to take orders from the director.”
“Then promise that you’ll look into it yourself. Gather enough evidence to make the Bureau take an interest.”
“Rick, I’m a bit busy trying to find you.”
“Then we can come to an agreement. I’ll give you the time to investigate. I won’t kill any more assembly members, and I’ll leave Earth. I won’t cause you any more trouble.”
“All right, Rick. I can, unofficially and tentatively, make that agreement. Now what is it you have to say?”
“Did you ever wonder why an assemblyman from Virdis was so interested in incorporating Edaline into the SA?”
“Actually, I did. His associates tell me he was an idealist, that he wanted all planets to receive the protection and benefits afforded by SA membership.”
“Right. I have to tell you, I’ve been following Palmer’s actions for over two years now. I’ve been doing some investigation of my own. There was a quid pro quo in place.”
“Between Palmer and who?”
“Men in Edaline’s government. The deal was this: Palmer, using his substantial influence in the SA, would push for Edaline’s admittance into the Assembly. In return, Palmer and anyone else he had to bribe would get extensive landholdings on Edaline along with unrestricted development rights.”
“I get it. Under Assembly law, no individual of an SA planet is allowed to do business with the government of a non-SA planet.”
“Right. Only private transactions are permitted, and any large transaction, such as the transfer of land titles, would draw scrutiny from the trade commission. So if Palmer and his cronies wanted to get rich investing in Edaline, Edaline would have to join the Assembly. Can you imagine the boom in development that would occur if Edaline joined the SA and all the trade and legal restrictions were lifted?”
“Of course. We’ve seen it happen with Desiren, with Tacita. But why do you care about this? If you object to Edaline’s government, why kill assemblymen from other planets?”
There was a brief silence at the other end of the line. “I’ve done good work on Edaline already.”
“So those assassinations last year… those were yours?”
“Yes.”
“I have to give you credit, Rick, you’re good at what you do.”
“Thank you. But to answer your question, joining the SA would only entrench the butchers in Edaline’s government even further. If they gain the protection that comes from being part of the Assembly, they would become too powerful to overthrow. As it is, they suffer from trade sanctions because of their brutality toward their own people. If someone as influential as Palmer hadn’t been championing their cause, the Assembly never would have gotten this close to passing the resolution. So you see why he had to be eliminated.”
“And Howard?”
“He was in on it, too.”
“And what do you know about Conner? Is she part of this scheme?”
There was another brief pause. “I don’t think so. I think she’s just a misled idealist.”
“So you won
’t hurt her?”
“I already told you I won’t kill any more assembly members.”
“So you did. I appreciate that, Rick.”
Wagner’s tablet buzzed. She made eye contact with Allen then went into the bedroom to answer the call. A moment later, she stepped into the living room and handed Allen her tablet. She had typed a message: “Sullivan’s scrambler must have malfunctioned. We have a trace.”
Allen cleared his throat. “So, Rick. Tell me about how you came to be a freedom fighter.”
“Agent Allen, your voice sounds different. You’re trying to keep me on the line for some reason.”
“I’m just curious about you, Rick.”
There was a noise of fumbling on the other end. “I see. My scrambler died. I have to go, Agent Allen.”
“Rick, wait, I can get you leniency.”
There was no reply. Allen looked at his tablet; the call had been cut off. “Damn it! What’s happening, Liz?”
“Agents are en route to his location.”
“How close?”
Wagner put her tablet on speaker. They listened as the agents approached the location, a narrow alleyway between two buildings.
“All clear,” said one of the agents. “Found Lasky’s tablet. Spreading out to search the area.”
Allen returned to the couch and took his shoes out from under the table. Wagner went to him and put her hand on his shoulder. “You going over there?”
“No. I’m going to Assemblywoman Conner’s.”
“Why? He said he wouldn’t hurt her. You don’t believe him?”
“I do, actually. But I think he’ll want her to know the truth about the Edaline issue. I think he’s leaving the planet soon, that’s why he’s getting his side of the story out.”
Wagner put on her coat. “Hang on, I’ll go with you.”
As he waited for Wagner to get ready, Allen made a call to the agents assigned to protect Conner. “Takemitsu, it’s Allen. Where is Assemblywoman Conner?”