“Why don’t you all wait outside while Captain Nation finishes with his constructive comments.”
Nation went on with his tirade demanding results and threatening to have me replaced with someone competent. I did my best not to smile at that one. After another minute of his abuse, I interrupted asking, “Is any of this getting us closer to catching the killer, or is it just making you feel better?”
Nation said nothing, just slowly turned beet red and walked out.
* * *
After the captain left, I walked outside. Everybody was hanging around looking down in the mouth. I peeked down the hall at the departing figure of the captain, then smiled at the team, “The captain wants you all to know you’re doing noble work!”
As everyone was going back into the war room, I grabbed Rogers by the arm, “Rogers, my man, mind if an old gumshoe tags along on your room-to-room?”
He smiled, “Not at all.”
His team consisted of two of his security guards, the engineer with the robot, Lijuan, and now me. They had a pretty good routine down. Lijuan would look up who was supposed to be living in a room and what their work shifts were. Then we’d try to call them. If they answered, we’d explain that we were doing a room-to-room to determine if anybody had moved in to their room while they were away. Most were too busy to come down and open the door for us, so after the robot peeked in and cleared the place of obvious intrusion, we just opened the door ourselves and walked in and looked around. If it looked like that person lived there, for example a gender match on clothes, then we’d just leave. It was kind of boring until we arrived at a vacant room. Then the engineer would drill a hole in the door and poke his fiber optic cable in for a peak. If it was empty, we’d pull out the cable, seal the hole in the door with a shot of space glue—marvelous stuff that—and be on our way.
More for the sake of team morale than anything else, I stuck it out with them all day. I wasn’t going to quit until they did. When they finally quit, Lijuan and I headed for a cafeteria for a late bite. She knew of one that specialized in Chinese food. She got some dim sum and a pot of green tea to go. I was going to do the same but the cook recognized me. Lijuan had told him I was from China Town in Manhattan. He was a jolly little man, his face so rotund and plump it was a wonder he could still see. I liked him right off. He made me feel like I was back at the C&L Dumpling House in the Bowery. He insisted I stick around for some kind of flaming duck. I asked him how he got live duck up here on a space station.
“We don’t. We just grow part we need in lab. Duck lot happier that way.”
“Does it taste like real duck?”
He laughed, “Sometimes!”
Chapter Nineteen
Hallway Outside Stone’s Room
I was about to punch in my door code when I heard some kind of racket inside my room. It sounded like somebody banging on something with the palm of their hand. I wondered if it was the killer. I put my ear to the door… yep, definitely somebody inside rearranging things. I decided I’d just wait him out—he had to come out sometime.
Meanwhile, I called Monica. She answered on the first ring. “Come down to my room right away. I think our boy is inside arranging for my early demise.”
“On my way.”
I leaned against the wall facing the door, my left foot forward and body crouched with a slight forward lean—my action stance. I pulled the widow maker out of my jacket pocket and hid it behind my thigh, safety off, thumb on the button. In my left hand I had my thumb sap with my first two fingers through the leather strap. If this was the killer, whatever was going to happen was going to happen fast.
After what seemed like an hour—probably about ten minutes—I saw the door latch move. Then the door pulled inside making a swoosh sound and a dark blur came at me in a rush, right arm high and brandishing a pry bar. In the milliseconds before the bar landed, I got a good look at the perp’s face, but it wasn’t Crowne. By reflex I put my left arm up to block the pry bar and snapped my switchblade open. The pain from the blow to my forearm was excruciating—the bastard had scored a direct hit on my ulnar nerve, aka my funny bone. I didn’t find it humorous at all. I swept his right arm to the side with my left arm then came back across his face with the sap, catching him on his right cheek bone. Then I lunged with my blade aiming for his lower torso. I felt good penetration, but his left arm stopped it from being a kill thrust. He got in another blow with his pry bar catching me square on the head and putting my lights out.
When I came to I was leaning against the wall and some musclebound dame was slapping me in the face. When I started to snap out of it, the first thing I remembered was the bastard that whacked me. I tried to get up but the dame pushed me back down.
“I gotta get him!”
“Whoa there, Trigger! You may have a concussion. We gotta get you to sick bay.”
I struggled but couldn’t shake her off—damn, that broad was strong.
“But I’ll lose him!”
“Do you even know which way he went?”
I shook my head.
“Did you get a good look at him?”
“Yeah. It’s not Crowne.”
Monica grabbed her communicator, “I’m calling security to cordon off the room and an environmental mechanic to deal with the CO2.”
I looked at the door barely hanging by one of its hinges.
“What happened to the door?”
“That’s where I found you. I think he threw you on the bed and activated his CO2 mechanism. When I got here the door was locked. You didn’t answer when I banged on it, so I dialed your communicator. When I heard it ringing inside the room, I knocked the door in and found you. You were damned lucky. What made you think you could take him by yourself?”
“Well, it’s my job for starters. And, I had my widow maker and my sap.”
I was still holding my stiletto.
Monica raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth wide.
“What? You knew I carried a blade.”
“Yes, but now it has blood on it.”
I looked at my hand. “Why so it does! I guess I got a piece of him!”
I reached for a handkerchief to wipe the blade.
“Stop!” She grabbed my arm. “You got a piece of him all right—a piece of his DNA! We can nail whomever we catch if their DNA matches.”
I grinned in spite of the pain in my arm and the worse pain in my head. “Yes, we can! Assault, breaking and entering at the very least.”
“And assuming we can find his CO2 apparatus in there, that should be attempted murder.”
“Yeah, we just have to catch him.”
I struggled to my feet. I was still pretty wobbly but after Monica helped me up I could stand alone. Sort of.
“So it looks like I maybe got two inches of penetration, judging from the blood smear.”
“You got him in the torso?”
“Yeah.”
“Show me where and what angle.”
I put my index finger against her stomach, “About like this.”
“Hmm… it probably went through the rectus abdominis and possibly penetrated the transversalis fascia and parietal fascia.”
“Translation?”
“There is a slight chance the knife penetrated the small bowel. If it did, the wound is guaranteed to fester and he will likely die without treatment. If not, he may be able to stitch the wound himself. And if that doesn’t fester, he will recover.”
“So you figure he’s heading for his hideout to treat himself?”
“Right. If he turns himself into sick bay he’s as good as captured.”
“This may be our best chance yet to get this guy. We gotta get the team down here to look for a blood trail.”
“And what if they find him?”
“Do not approach. Nobody plays the hero.”
“You mean like you did?”
“Okay, I had that coming. New plan. We know he’s gonna be holed up somewhere licking his wound. Doubtful he’ll be
back to recover his gear from this room. Meanwhile, I want that CO2 apparatus. If we know what it is and how he deploys it, we may be able to fuck up his next kill.”
Monica nodded, “Okay, but I think he’s going to try to jump ship as soon as possible—he’s in no condition to commit another murder, at least for now. And the longer he stays on Borucki, the worse his odds of evading capture.”
She started leading me down the hall, “You gonna come quietly or do I have to get rough?”
Quietly seemed like the best option so I shuffled along beside her.
“Where we goin’?”
“Sick Bay.”
“But what about the blood trail?”
“We’ll get Rogers to assemble a team of his blood hounds. Mak and Lijuan can form another team. When one team finds the trail, the other can join them.”
“You have a keen tactical mind for a molecular biologist.”
* * *
“Would you hold my hand so I can get your jacket off?”
The flight nurse was a cute redhead. I shook my head. “I can’t feel my fingers.”
“That’s a really nice jacket. I’d hate to have to cut the sleeve off. Is that real leather?”
I gritted my teeth and pulled the sleeve off with my good hand.
She started to take a scissors to my khaki shirt sleeve.
“Hey, wait, that’s the only shirt I have up here.”
“We’ll get you a coverall.”
“No way! Just unbutton the front and I’ll wiggle out of it.”
My left forearm was bruised and swollen where the pry bar landed.
Then the flight surgeon started shining lights in my eyes and making me look left and right and up and down.
“Detective Stone, you have a concussion. We need to admit you for observation for at least 24 hours.”
“I have to get someone on that blood trail.”
“I’m sure you do, Detective. But right now you are wobbly, nauseous, and having trouble forming coherent sentences. Plus, the x-ray shows your left ulna has a minor fracture.”
The flight surgeon took the phone out of my left hand—I was too weak in that arm to put up a fuss.
“Hey, I need that.”
“You need a Zip-Kast on that arm and at least twenty-four hours’ observation. Monica will help you with your investigation.”
“Where the hell is Monica anyway?”
“I think she’s preparing a solution to get a blood sample off that knife blade. Where’d you get that thing anyway? It’s a beauty!”
“It’s Italian. Got it in New York City when I was twelve.”
About then Monica walked up with my knife in a plastic bag. The blood smear was gone.
“Did you get your sample?”
“Yup, I’m going to scooter it back to the lab on Einstein for DNA sequencing.”
“Can I have my knife back now?”
She opened the bag and took the knife out. The blade was still open.
“How do you close this thing anyway?” I took it from her and depressed the backside swivel bolster with my thumb. This released the blade lock so I could close the blade against the side of my leg. Then I slid the safety button back to ‘safe’ and put the blade in my pocket.
“You must have had an angelic childhood.”
I shrugged, “There were very few angels in the Bowery when I was a child.”
I got a message from the crew dissecting the evidence in my room. It had a picture of a strange looking apparatus laid out on the floor. I got an incoming call from the fireman.
“Stone here, whatcha got?”
“We had to run a compressor to flush the leftover CO2 from the room. Then we pulled these two CO2 bottles out of the vent. There was one on each side. They would have held about 4 kilos each when full. These inflatable bladders they’re wrapped in effectively seal the vent. There’s some kind of RF device attached to the valves on the bottles.”
“Were they full?”
“No empty. If that dark-haired woman hadn’t pulled you out when she did, you’d a been a goner.”
Monica, you are one beautiful, beautiful musclebound babe. I wondered if I dared say that to her face.
Chapter Twenty
Sick Bay
My communicator vibrated, “Stone here.”
“Hey, boss. We think we found the hideout.”
“Don’t touch the—”
“The door. We know.”
“Where’s Rogers?”
“We already called him, he’s on his way. Probably twenty minutes before he gets here—he’s on the other end of the quad.”
“Okay, get an—”
“An engineer and fire crew. They’re on the way too.”
“Okay, I’m going to try to sneak out of this sick bay as soon as Monica gets back from shipping her sample. See you in twenty mikes if I can find my clothes. If I can’t, I’ll be the guy with his butt sticking out of the paper hospital gown.”
* * *
I showed up at the hideout riding pillion on a narrow gauge golf cart driven by Monica. Clever little contraptions those. When they sense a zero-gee situation they harpoon themselves to the deck.
“Whatcha got?” I said to Mak as we pulled up.
“See the engineer with the drill? That’s where the blood trail ended up. He should be streaming his FO cable back to us any second now.”
I noticed everybody was keeping about thirty meters back, even the fire crew. They were in full panoply with backpack fire extinguishers, full Nomex™, and helmets equipped with face shields. Slung from their waists were small compressed air bottles feeding masks that were hanging open from their helmets. One of them was holding a rope that attached to the engineer. Real pros on this station.
“Good work,” I said, then turned to find Lijuan.
“Lijuan, can you check flight schedules?”
“Any particular one you’re looking for?”
“Anything leaving Borucki. Make me a list of the next week’s worth of departures.”
I turned back to the fire crew. “Chief, what are your guys doing?”
“We’ve cleared the entire wing, and I got two-man teams at each end making sure it stays that way.”
The engineer walked back from the door paying out his fiber optic cable. We all crowded around as he attached it to his computer. The room was dark but the FO cable was Siamesed to a light cable that acted as a flashlight. There was no wire attached to the doorknob or the sink cabinet. In the middle of the floor was a pair of bladders that looked like deflated water wings. Each was wrapped around what looked like a fire extinguisher bottle, maybe three or four kilos each. It was the same apparatus he used in my room.
Lijuan tugged at my jacket sleeve, “Boss, I got your flight schedules.” She showed me her laptop screen and pointed to a single line. The SpaceCorp Moon Shuttle SMS Anthony Colaprete was set to leave within the hour, destination Lunar South Pole.
I looked at Lijuan, “You think he could be on it?”
Lijuan flipped the page to a manifest. “While I was checking the passenger list, this name popped up. I think this is our boy. He’s going by the name Jonathan Teach now. Station roster has no record of anyone named Teach.”
“Monica! We gotta get to the Lunar Shuttle Port ten minutes ago! We’re looking for a new passenger addition named Jonathan Teach.”
I turned back to Lijuan, “You and Mak stay here and supervise the fire crew. Under no circumstances let the fire crew or anyone else to attempt to open that door!” I climbed into the pillion seat behind Monica on the golf cart.
As we dashed off, I shouted, “Lijuan, get that shuttle flight held!”
Chapter Twenty-One
Lunar Shuttle Launch Port
We arrived at the passenger terminal to find it empty except for a few hangers-on who wanted to watch a shuttle departure on the monitors. The shuttle had just been freed from her hold-downs and was speeding away from Borucki at 70 meters per second. I grabbed a flight t
echnician, “Is that Colaprete?”
He smiled, “Why yes, it is!” He must have read my expression. “Is there a problem?”
I muttered more to myself than to him, “You have no idea…”
Monica smiled at him, “He’s just upset because he wanted to watch the departure. He’s never seen one from the station before.”
“Oh, well you can replay the recording on line.”
Monica dragged me away, “Thanks, we’ll do that!”
I was feeling weak and a little dizzy from the excitement. I sat down on the pillion seat of the golf cart. The flight technician, bless his heart, followed and began a litany about lunar surface shuttles.
“SMS Anthony Colaprete was the first crew shuttle designed to service Colaprete Station, hence, its name. Crew shuttles perform an essential role of swapping out lunar surface crews after a month of surface duty. Prolonged duty on the Moon at one sixth gee causes decalcification of the bones. So, SpaceCorp policy wisely calls for one month of lunar duty to be followed by two months of recuperation on Borucki.”
I sat and listened while I caught my breath. This information might actually be useful if the perp was planning to set up shop on the Moon.
The flight technician rambled on, “The lunar surface contingent numbers about 300 personnel at the two water works located at the north and south poles, plus a smaller contingent of about a dozen who are out scouting around for minable deposits of Helium-3. Helium-3, if found in rich enough deposits, would be extremely valuable for fusion propulsion. Anyway, providing 600 lunar surface crew with a place to hang out in full gee was the primary function of Borucki. A space station only needs about 300 crew to keep her flying and maintained in a relatively low hazard area like Earth-Moon Lagrange Point 1. Hence, they have little difficulty accommodating 600 lunar surface crew awaiting deployment.”
I interrupted, “Tell me about the shuttle launch. How’s it work?”
The flight tech smiled at the chance to show off his knowledge, “Prior to launch, a shuttle like Colaprete would be secured in a horizontal position to the hangar deck floor. At launch the hangar roof will open and the hangar floor will lift the shuttle until it is even with the outer hull of the station. The hull rotates at 1.34 rpm to provide a full gee at the rim giving it a rim speed of 70 meters per second which is used to launch the shuttle tangentially away from the shuttle. A few minutes after release, the shuttle is over the mandatory safe separation of 100 km and can light the nuclear light bulb engines for a decent trajectory to the lunar surface where it lands in a conventional vertical fashion.”
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