by Jake Bible
“Good. Then you understand the razor-thin line I walk every day on this fucking shithole of a base. I’m corrupt enough that others leave me alone, but I’m not on the take, so I can look myself in the mirror each morning. Or afternoon. My schedule varies.”
“So what?”
“So I see the power dynamics shift constantly. Willz Syndicate is on the outs, but they want to be back on the ins. I’ll bet everything that S’lunn is using your op to get that done. He has to dig himself out of that hole he made. A hole that ended up bringing you here to investigate. And how will he fill that hole? With juicy intel he can pass on to the Willz folks. Juicy intel on your cover op and your GVD. How co are you playing this management?”
“Not very,” Angie said. “He only knows about the cover op, not about the real op. Good thing because he’s now on the list to get taken down.”
“But he can burn your GVD at any second if he wants, yeah?”
“Yeah. Not sure he hasn’t already.”
“Etch Knowles. You came in hot with his name on your tongue, so I’m guessing he’s your guy.”
“Guess all you want.”
“Whatever, McDade. I’ll check to see what’s being whispered. If a GVD undercover is blown, then there will be talk.”
“I’m not officially telling you his name.”
Kalaka grinned around his spoon. He slurped, swallowed, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand without wincing too much. “Never officially tell me anything. I’ll only get you dirty.”
“I can handle my own dirt. Start working your sources.”
“I will,” Kalaka said and eased away from his soup. He grunted as he tried to get comfortable in the chair. “But this is going to cost you.”
“Cost me? What the Hells does that mean? I’m not paying you jack crap.”
“The chits aren’t for me.”
“Chits? Are you mad?”
“Like I said, the chits aren’t for me. Well, they are, but I’ll put them to good use. Turns out Gants has a nice upper-level tile game in the works. It got put on hold because one of the players had some issue or other. Not sure. No one knows the details. But as of tonight, it is back on. Get me about two hundred thousand chits and I can buy my way into that game.”
“Gants will let you buy your way into his tile game? You’re a GVD. Why would he take that risk?”
“Gants has wanted me in his pocket for a long, long time. Two hundred thousand chits is the buy-in for the seat, the opportunity that he may be able to turn me when no other syndicate has is the buy-in for me to occupy that seat.”
“So? Why do I care if you get a seat at this game?” Angie asked, using every ounce of her self-control not to reveal that the situation Kalaka just gave her could be the biggest break she’d gotten in a long, long time. Two GVDs at that table? Brilliant.
“The game is in Gants’ place. The Club. Between the waitstaff, the whores, the patrons, the thugs, and the tile players, I’ll find out what the skinny is on your guy. Trust me.”
“Not in a million years, Kalaka,” Angie replied. “But I don’t need to trust you for you to be effective. I’ll get you the two hundred thousand chits. Where and when?”
“Where you staying? I can swing by and pick them up,” Kalaka said. Angie glared. “Or not. Gonna need an hour or two in a med pod first, wherever we meet.”
“Don’t stay in too long,” Angie said. “Keep the look. Create a story and play it up. I have a feeling everyone will be thrilled you got your ass handed to you.”
Kalaka eyed her for a few seconds then nodded in acquiescence. “Yeah. Probably right about that. Good call, Lt. McDade.”
“It’s my job to make the good calls,” Angie said. “Where and when do you need the chits?”
“ASAP and you can leave them with reception,” Kalaka said after a couple moments thought.
“Here? You want me to leave two hundred thousand chits at the front desk of a brothel?”
“They’d never rip me off here,” Kalaka said. “I’m a respected customer. Plus, I’m not leaving until it’s game time. This place has one of the best med pods in Jafla.”
Angie thought long and hard then nodded.
“You got it,” she said. “I expect a report first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Afternoon,” Kalaka said. “The game won’t be over until the morning. I won’t be awake until the afternoon.”
“Then report before you go to bed,” Angie ordered.
“Yes, ma’am,” Kalaka said. “Expect a comm bright and early. Or we could meet for a cup of caff. I know a sweet stand over in—”
“Comm will be fine,” Angie said. She stepped up close to Kalaka and pressed her wrist to his until they both beeped. “I have your signature.”
“Let me guess, you didn’t give me yours,” Kalaka said.
“Your comm will connect automatically when you ask for Angie McDade. No need for you to have access to my actual signature.”
“I can think of several reasons,” Kalaka said. “All of them dirty.”
Angie shook her head then punched Kalaka in the nose. He grunted, but didn’t make a move to return the violence; only wiped the blood that trickled from his nose and onto the fur covering his upper lip.
“Full report tomorrow,” Angie said then left.
23.
The market was jammed with people, all hurrying to get what they needed then rush home after a long day at work. Or whatever they were getting off from.
“What’s wrong?” Etch asked as he picked up a piece Mosca fruit. He sniffed it and his eyes crossed. “Damn. That’s got a stink to it.”
A couple feet away, Angie studied her own produce. She set the lumpy green blob back in the crate and shook her head.
“Give me a thirty count then meet me behind the public lavatory,” Angie said then turned and walked off.
Etch continued perusing the produce until he had mentally counted to thirty then he thanked the stall keeper and moved off into the crowd. He wound his way through the distracted and irritated public. He walked well past the public lavatories, making sure to scope out every single being that was coming and going from the area. Then he ducked through the gap between a couple of stalls and doubled back to the small building.
“You good?” Angie asked as she leaned her back against the wall, hidden in the late evening shadows.
“No one on me,” Etch said, joining her at the wall. “What’s up? I need to be back at the Club like now. I went head to head with Gants’ guy, Schigg, so I’m not exactly sitting pretty with that outfit.”
“Shit, Knowles, what did you do that for?”
“Schigg is on to me, so I had to front tough and take him down a peg. Broke the guy’s wrist. He’ll back off, but he’s not going to stop trying to nail me. His gut is telling him I’m bad news.”
“Gants?” Angie asked.
“I smoothed it over with him. The guy wants me at that table tonight, so he’s willing to look past a spat with his right hand. But things won’t be smoothed over long. Eventually, Schigg will get Gants on his side. If that happens, then I’m dead.”
“Yeah, well, Gants isn’t your only problem,” Angie said and sighed. “S’lunn.”
“What about the guy? He’s not dead, is he?”
“What? No. Not yet, at least.” Angie scrunched up her face and sighed. “I was wrong about S’lunn. He’s on the take. Working for the Willz Syndicate. Sounds like he set his partner up to die. Or that’s what Kalaka said.”
Etch rubbed at his temples for a second then faced Angie head on.
“Where you wanna start with all that shit you just dropped on my head?”
“Kalaka isn’t a problem. I told him the main op was to suss out moles in the Jafla Squad. He bought it.”
“Moles? Plural?”
“Plural. According to Kalaka, Jafla Base Squad is filled with them. Maybe half the Squad is on the take with one of the syndicates. Shava Stem Shava dying has made Jafla the hot s
pot to set up shop.”
“The Orbs are a huge draw, so I don’t doubt it. But why in all the Hells would you believe or trust a guy like Kalaka?”
“Trust him? Not a fucking chance,” Angie said as she shook her head. “I wouldn’t trust that Cervile to sonic my toilet.”
“So…?”
“But I believe him when he says there are moles. Plural. He had no reason to lie. Is he a dirty scumbag, yeah, but he had no angle to lie. Other than he wanted me not to kill him. I may have beaten him to Hells and back.”
“I was wondering,” Etch said as he glanced down at Angie’s knuckles. They were bruised and blood had dried in the folds of her skin. “May want to try washing your hands a little harder.”
“I did. Cervile blood is sticky shit,” Angie said.
“He know I’m the undercover?”
“He suspects. Heavily. But I never said for certain.”
“So you have him hunting for moles. Good. That’ll keep him busy and out of my hair. Big game tonight.”
“Yeah, well, here’s the rub, Knowles.” Angie took a deep breath. “Kalaka is buying into the game tonight. He’ll be sitting at the table with you. If he gets in. He says he can, but we’ll see.”
“You have got to be shitting me,” Etch said and shoved away from the wall.
He paced back and forth, a million scenarios rushing through his head as he tried to work out the angles in his mind of what it would mean to have Kalaka at the game. As hard as he tried to work it all out, he couldn’t find one good reason to let Kalaka play.
“Why?” was all Etch could ask finally.
“He’s coming in to figure out if you’ve been blown or not,” Angie said. “He’ll be the extra pairs of eyes and ears you need at that game. If S’lunn is dirty, then the op is already compromised. What I should do is pull the plug and get both of our asses off Jafla ASAP.”
“You haven’t called in to Lu’Tes’Tu, have you?”
“We’re still here, aren’t we? She’d yank the op in a second if I told her what a cluster this has become.”
“Then why are we still here? Why risk it? I could be walking into a trap tonight. This could be our last meeting. Maybe calling Lu’Tes’Tu isn’t such a bad idea.”
“I’m not doing that,” Angie snapped. “People are being kidnapped and killed because Gants wants to build his whore empire here on Jafla. A GVD was murdered over it. Shit, Knowles, this Squad has moles.”
“Plural,” Etch said.
“Plural,” Angie agreed, grimacing. “You get it, right?”
“I get it. But it doesn’t mean that we’re going to win this. S’lunn may have already burned me. Hells, Kalaka probably called up Gants and sold me out as soon as you left him. I bet he made a healthy stack of chits off the intel. We should shut this down, McDade. We track down Kalaka, pull him in, milk him for all the info he has on the Squad, take out the moles, and walk away with at least that in our pocket.”
“Not yet.”
“Fuck, McDade! Why not? Do we shut down Gants? No. But we at least hobble him and the other syndicates by cleaning house in the Jafla Base Squad. I’m right on this and you know it. Pull the plug. Now.”
Angie stood there, thinking. Etch let her. He watched emotions flit across her features. Etch waited. He wasn’t going to push the lieutenant. Pushing Angie McDade to make a decision was not what was best for one’s career.
“Tonight’s game,” Angie said. “We get you through tonight’s game then we decide. If the atmosphere feels off, then excuse yourself to go to the lavatory and comm me. I’ll have a Jafla PD tactical team there in minutes. We’ll bust the place and I’ll slide you through the system and on the next shuttle back to GV Division headquarters for debriefing. We’ll take some career hits on this, but they won’t be too bad.”
Etch’s stomach did flip-flops and he cocked his head as he studied Angie.
“How will playing tonight make any damn difference?” Etch asked. “They aren’t going to chat about trafficking sex slaves over a tile game. I’m not going to make any headway with this op because I sit in on one game.”
“I know.”
“Then why send me in? Why don’t we both walk away right now?”
“One more game. Just one more. Scope out what you can then leave. Lose all your chits. Fake getting shitty drunk and being sick. Make an ass out of yourself so Gants will want you gone. Then you find me and we go. But I need you to sit in on at least one game or Lu’Tes’Tu will have our badges.”
Etch knew he was being played, but he didn’t know why. He watched Angie closely, but her face had turned to stone and she was giving nothing away. The flip-flops in his stomach turned into a full-on gymnastics floor routine.
“I’m out,” Etch stated. “Out.”
“Wait one Eight Million Gods damn second, Knowles,” Angie snarled. “I said one more game then we’re out.”
“I don’t care whether you’re out or not, I’m out,” Etch said. “You keep the op going. Use Kalaka as your guy. Everyone thinks he’s rotten to the core, which the fucker is, so there’s no risk there. He’s your guy now. I’m out.”
Etch started to walk away, but Angie’s hand whipped out and snagged him by the arm.
“I’ll bury you,” she snapped.
“Why?” Etch asked. He yanked free of her grip and turned to face her. “Why, McDade? Why bury me? We have to assume I’m burned. I can’t work undercover anymore. It’s a desk job from here on out, especially since this op went to shit. I’m burying myself.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“Do you want to know why?” Etch patted his belly. “Because my instincts say to leave now or I won’t get another chance. I sit down at that game tonight and I’m a dead man. Tell me I’m wrong?”
Etch waited for Angie to respond, but she didn’t. His fear and anxiety had given over to anger once he’d decided he was done. And that anger was directed at Lt. Angie McDade.
“Come on, McDade,” Etch pushed. “Tell me my gut is wrong on this one. Tell me you aren’t feeling the same bit of sick in your own gut. Can you tell me that? Can you?”
Etch finally saw the stone crack in Angie’s face. It was an almost imperceptible crack, but it was there. Etch was right. Angie felt it too. He shook his head.
“I can’t risk going back there,” Etch continued. “I have to leave Guska on her own. As soon as Gants realizes I’m not showing up tonight, he’ll kill her. Probably have Schigg do it and make sure it looks like a warning to all that double-cross him. She’s a small time Lipian whore, but she’s a decent person, McDade. Don’t think I’m walking away lightly. I’ll have blood on my hands from this op, just like you.”
“Knowles…”
Angie could barely look him in the eye. When she finally did, Etch was taken aback.
“What is going on?” he asked.
Angie shook her head back and forth, tears close to forming in her eyes. Etch leaned in and took her by the shoulders. She shrugged him off, but he stayed close.
“McDade? Angie? What is going on?” Etch asked again.
“This is it for me, Knowles,” Angie said, taking a deep breath. “I’ve bungled a few ops and this was supposed to get me back in Lu’Tes’Tu’s good graces. I screw up this one too…”
She left it hanging there. Etch started putting the pieces together.
“Holy shit,” he said quietly. “You knew about the corruption in the Jafla Squad, didn’t you?”
Angie nodded.
“You also knew that Division would never sanction a direct op to take down dirty GVDs. That’s not for GV to handle. That’s Fleet Intelligence Service. They flush out the moles.”
Angie nodded again.
“You were going to get Gants’ trafficking connection then bring down Jafla Squad for double the glory. Buy your way back to the top with a successful op and a bit of housecleaning.”
“A girl can dream.”
“Yeah, but that dream was going to get me killed
. Fuck, McDade! You almost talked me into walking into the lion’s den again tonight!”
“Yeah. Almost. But you’re too good of a GVD to fall for it,” Angie said with a smirk. “It’s why I picked you.”
“You realize this means that you busted my op on Ballyway for nothing and now not only do we not get Gants, or the GV moles, but all that work I put into Ballyway is lost. There isn’t even the trade-off for this op. Eight Million Gods, McDade.”
Etch pinched the bridge of his nose. Angie didn’t say a word.
“I have some things to grab at Guska’s apartment,” Etch said as he finally walked away. “I’ll pick those up then meet you where?”
“Meet me at Jafla Squad,” Angie called after him. “No point in staying hidden. It’ll be good to have you on record reporting in to Jorg before we leave this craphole planet.”
“Now you want to play it by the book?” Etch called back and waved. “See you in a couple hours. Try not to make this messier than it is.”
Etch turned the corner of the lavatory building and worked his way into the market crowd. His head was swimming, but his emotions were under control. He thought about calling Lu’Tes’Tu himself right then and there, but Angie didn’t deserve to be kicked when she was down. She’d messed his career up, that was for sure, but he didn’t hate her for it. His days in undercover were almost over anyway.
By the time Etch stepped onto the public transport, he’d come to terms with the prospect of spending the rest of his days behind a desk. Maybe when the dust settled from the shitstorm that was about to go down over the bad op, he could talk Lu’Tes’Tu into letting him run an op of his own. He had the experience and he knew exactly what not to do. That had value.
Etch was close to convincing himself that the op falling apart was probably the best thing to happen. The transport roller slowed then stopped and he hurried off just in time at his stop. He wasn’t going to miss staying at Guska’s apartment that was for sure. Etch figured he’d need a month of delousing before he’d ever feel clean again.
That got him thinking of the steam showers he was going to enjoy when he was off Jafla and back home in his own apartment. Real steam. Hours and hours of it. Etch was so absorbed in the thought of a true shower that he didn’t notice the shadow that closed on him as soon as he stepped into Guska’s apartment.