Ragnarok (The Echo Case Files)

by C.S. Stinton

* *

  Harrigan switched off the comm channel and peered through the windscreen of the Marshals’ car. It was a simple vehicle, cheap and plain, and he wasn’t sure if it had been purchased because it was nondescript or because the Marshals’ budget didn’t stretch to great expenses.

  Barring the several thousand credits now in the hands of Stan Konstantin and his crew, still in their log cabin in the wilderness of the mountains of Thor with an HCPD lieutenant in their basement.

  Tycho’s backup sidearm sat in a holster whose buckles he’d had to expand to the maximum notches and was still too tight, nestled under his jacket. Ramirez had taken the gun, smaller than the standard-issue Hauer 55, off her partner at the hospital, and ignored his complaints that he could get better on the black market when she handed it over. He had never accepted moderation when it came to weaponry.

  The bigger the calibre, the better. As it stood, this was little better than a peashooter.

  He had left the apartment with Ramirez, only he’d come straight to the streets around the venue. Under the cover of dawn still creaking its way through the towers, he’d slunk the car amongst the garbage vehicles going through the narrow tunnels and retrieving corporate waste from the buildings near First Landing Plaza, and when they’d done their work he’d slid the car into one of the dark crevices to wait. The HCPD had come soon after, blocking off routes and setting up their perimeters to watch the air-lanes. As Navarro had promised, once they’d made a perfunctory gesture of clearing out lane 26-Omicron they’d left it curiously undermanned. Anyone who was really trying could work their way through the streets to find access to the several hundred cubic metres of unsupervised air-lane.

  Or someone like him could be left completely overlooked by officers on the take, officers who hadn’t looked too closely for anyone who really wanted to be in the area.

  For now he could see nobody else, but it was early yet. They wouldn’t want to be in position until the last possible moment. And then he had to hope that he alone could deal with a Ragnarok assassin toting military hardware.

  Harrigan had never been a huge fan of law enforcement, even in his more legitimate days. But today he was, for the first time, wishing he had some serious police backup. Beyer had ignored all efforts by Ramirez to get in touch, and they’d agreed they didn’t want to push it more. The last thing they wanted was to spook Ragnarok even more than Navarro’s disappearance might have.

  So it was just him, a pistol of a much smaller calibre than he’d have liked, and a clapped-out vehicle made by the lowest bidder.