“None,” he answered. “But it’s the Gael. Whatever it is, it isn’t good. You’ll probably be doing her a favor when you consider what they might do to her if they can capture her.”
3
Selena Beauregard had reviewed the file that Paulsen had given her and had come to the same conclusion. Jacq Clemmons was Michelle Williams’s only ticket off Earth. What intrigued her far more were the circumstances around Ms. Williams’s disappearance. She had left a trail of bodies behind her. Fairly strange for a pretty young college student, she thought to herself.
Even more disconcerting for her was the notion of this Operation Aurora. According to her files, the hackers that loved to play havoc in the Terran Gael Force servers had stumbled upon this by pure chance. They had not finished the decryption until number one hundred and nine had been found, and they had hesitated to act on number one hundred ten and missed any opportunities there. If she was calling the shots in the Resistance, she would want Williams alive- give them a better chance to find out what the hell the Gael were up to. It was odd for them to be so adamant that she be killed, and Paulsen was extraordinarily nervous, far more so than she had ever seen him. Sure, he had played everything cool, but deep down she knew he had been sweating.
A large realization dawned on her, and Selena found it an all the more frightening prospect. What if the Resistance did know why the Gael were taking these one hundred and eleven people? Could that be what had them so scared that they would order the assassination of a college-aged civilian? Selena had looked into her contract and found another interesting bit of bonus information: collateral damage had been authorized. The Resistance did not care how many people she hurt to accomplish her mission.
Normally, she did not allow such thoughts to concern her. Compassion was not a luxury afforded a business woman, but at the same time she did not relish her work the way others did. No matter what the psych screening tests that kept her out of the military said, she was not a sociopath.
4
At last satisfied that her appearance was as good as she was going to make it without a shower and a change of clothes, Selena stopped washing and put her hands under the thermal unit to dry them off. She then reached into her stylishly tiny handbag and pulled out a small receiver. It located the tiny tracking device that she had dropped in Clemmons’s first beer and provided her with his current location and a map overlay.
“Good boy,” she muttered. “Didn’t throw that up at least.”
Concealing the small device in her hand, she stepped out the woman’s lavatory and headed for the exit. The night had grown much cooler, and she regretted not having brought a coat with her- warm and useful for concealing weapons, but not revealing enough to get any man she wanted like a nice low-cut dress. As she got clear of the party and into the dark once more, she checked the position of her targets again. They were moving slowly down one of the wooded paths headed toward the older campus and the sunken gardens at its center. They were moving slowly. Selena guessed the two men were carrying Clemmons, making it look as if they were carrying a friend who had partied a little too hard back to his dormitory, just in case they ran into anyone. Maybe they were a little better than she had given them credit for.
Over the course of ten minutes, she got within sight of the two men just in time to see them break into one of the academic halls, still carrying the unconscious Jacq Clemmons. This was a move she had not expected. She had figured they would get him to a vehicle or a safe house they had set up and interrogate him once they were certain they were safe.
Selena pulled up in the shadows just outside the old brick building and took out the handheld device once more. Punching in a few commands, she found a detailed map of the building called Ewell Hall, home of the music department, and she realized where they were going. They were in one of the soundproof rooms.
“Damn,” she muttered under her breath.
She had definitely underestimated these guys. None of the devices she had that could eavesdrop on a conversation through a brick wall were going to be any good. That only gave her three options as far as she could see, none of them particularly appealing. An attempt to rush the two men would result in too much death, possibly even the death of Clemmons. It was too messy- way too many things could go wrong. She could wait until the two men were done, reacquire Clemmons and get the information she needed, but that also had its disadvantages. What if these two men killed Clemmons when they were done? Not to mention, she would be losing a lot of time and falling behind her fellow hunters. The only other option that she saw was to allow her competition to get the information she needed and then either get it from them or follow them.
Following them seemed to be the better option. She had already made a bad habit of underestimating these two and a confrontation might go horribly wrong, especially with so little time to plan. The better choice was to wait until she had the advantage again. Yes, that was best, she confirmed to herself. She checked the map again. There was only one good egress from the building- the same way they had come in. Walking slowly, she picked a spot in the shadows of another large academic building and curled up against a tree, waiting for the two men to leave.
Chapter 9
1
“Morning, starshine,” Jennings said with false gusto as Clemmons’s eyes fluttered open.
Fix stepped back from Clemmons withdrawing the hypodermic that had rapidly reawakened their captive. “I give it three seconds,” he said as he went back to a table set against the wall.
Clemmons eyes darted around the room furtively, desperately taking in where he was. He was strapped to a chair (a cello chair- just to make it slightly more uncomfortable for him). The lighting was dim as there were no windows in the room, and the wall seemed to be covered with some type of egg crate material. The room was only about twelve feet by twenty, with one door almost invisible as it was also covered with the soundproofing material. The door was fitted with a heavy lock to keep unwitting souls from interrupting recording sessions. A cluster of microphones hung down from the ceiling and a powered down switchboard dominated the left hand wall. Clemmons’s eyes were more drawn to the table on the opposite wall where Fix had unrolled his black nylon tool carrier and was inspecting different sharp and dangerous looking objects.
Clemmons at last came to his senses when he saw Fix turn back around toward him with a scalpel in his hand and a pair of pliers. He screamed, “HELP!!!” as loudly as he could.
“Fifteen seconds,” Jennings said, looking at Fix. “Braver than you thought or stupider?”
Clemmons screamed again.
“Stupider,” Fix replied.
Taking out his own knife, Jennings gently placed the flat of it against Clemmons’s cheek. “No good screaming,” he said matter-of-factly. “This is a soundproof room.” A look of disbelief crossed Clemmons’s face. “Not a music major evidently,” Jennings added. “Let’s put it this way. No one can hear you. You can choose to believe me, or you can choose to keep screaming. Keep in mind, if you choose to keep screaming, I will need to cut out your tongue.”
A profound look of terror seized Clemmons and he wet himself. It was not turning into a good day for his clothes.
“Bear in mind that the choice to cut out your tongue would just be for our own benefit,” Jennings clarified. “Screaming will do you absolutely no good. We just find it annoying. It’s in your best interest not to annoy us, understand?”
Clemmons nodded, his upper lip shaking as tears began pouring out of his eyes.
“Excellent,” Jennings said. He grabbed a chair, spun it around and sat on it with its back to his chest. He was staring directly at Clemmons’s eyes. “We’re going to play a little game with you, Jacq. This game is called the truth. As long as you keep telling the truth, you keep winning. If you win, you get to keep your life. If you answer questions incorrectly though…” He looked over at Fix, who smiled darkly. “You will need to forfeit pieces of your body.” He let that revelation sink int
o Clemmons’s mind. “My friend here will start with your teeth and then your fingernails. If we’re still playing, and you’re still not answering questions correctly, we move on to round two, which will involve losing your fingers and toes.” Jennings cast his eyes downward to about Clemmons’s belt buckle. “You really don’t want to know what happens at round three. What do you say? You ready to play?”
“Yes, sir,” Clemmons answered weakly.
“So polite,” Jennings said as he smiled at Fix. “We’ll start with the easy questions. Do you know Michelle Rachel Williams?”
He nodded.
“Well?”
A shrug. Fix stepped forward, opening the pliers. “No, no,” Clemmons protested trying to throw himself out of the chair he was in. “Look, yeah I know her. We’re on a couple of committees together, different school organizations is all. I didn’t know her all that well.”
“Until?” Jennings led.
“Look I saw what happened on the news, man,” he began. “I never expected her to show up at my parents’ place. I don’t know how she even found it.”
“It’s in the school directory, genius,” Fix muttered.
Jennings held up a hand to Fix. “Continue, please,” he said.
“Michelle was confused as hell. All she knew was that some guy had tried to kill her twice and that she was being falsely accused of some kind of espionage or treason charges,” he said.
“You were willing to help out a wanted felon? Very compassionate,” Jennings observed.
“Hey, man. The Gael put that on her. Do you actually believe anything they say?” Clemmons demanded.
Jennings’ thoughts darted to their current mission, but he quickly pushed them back down to the surface. “So, you did help her get off-planet?” he asked.
Clemmons nodded. “As much as I could, I mean,” he said. “It’s not like I have a shitload of underworld connections or anything.”
“Who’d you set her up with?” Jennings asked, leaning closer.
“An old friend of my father’s,” he replied. “Vesper Santelli. He said he could get her out to the Wolf System.”
Fix and Jennings shared a look. “Vesper Santelli?” Jennings snarled. “Don’t you know who he is?”
Clemmons seemed taken aback. “He’s a transport merchant. I know he does some smuggling, getting items in around tariffs, but that’s all,” he said.
“Tariff running?” Jennings exclaimed. “That’s his most legitimate enterprise. Not only is he one of the largest pentamethaline dealers in the galaxy, but he also runs a lucrative side business supplying the outer worlds with kidnapped young girls to be wives and haremites of the outer world colonial barons. You probably signed her death warrant by sending her to a man like Santelli.”
“And her rape warrant,” Fix added darkly.
“Look, I didn’t know,” Clemmons protested.
Jennings decked him across the face so hard his body rocked against the restraints keeping him in the chair. “Consider yourself fortunate that’s the worst you’re getting,” Jennings growled as he got up and kicked his chair out of the way.
“You’re not going to kill me?” Clemmons asked hopefully.
“Never was,” Jennings replied.
“I considered it,” Fix added as an afterthought, as he turned back to his bag and withdrew another hypodermic.
“We’re going to give you one last dose,” Jennings said. “When you wake up, it’ll be all over.”
“Unless we’re lying,” Fix added as he depressed the button on the syringe, “And this is drain cleaner.”
2
They left Jacq Clemmons unconscious but relatively unharmed from the ordeal and headed back toward where they had parked the shuttle. Jennings was working under the assumption that Clemmons was going to be too frightened to mention to any authority figures about what had happened to him tonight. However, even if he did talk to anyone and he convinced them that what he was saying was true, Clemmons’s blood work would show that the young student was delving into the pharmaceutical experimentation that was common in most universities among the teenagers. Crazy kids, Jennings thought with a smile as they arrived at the garage.
“You got a ticket,” Fix observed as they arrived at their ship.
“Son of a bitch,” Jennings muttered as he pulled the electronic tag off the hatch. “Three hundred bucks! That’s robbery.”
“Parking here sucks,” Fix observed as they climbed in.
“We’ll bill it to the Gael under expenses,” Jennings said wryly as he punched several controls, closing the hatch, engaging the thrusters and warming the engine.
3
Selena Beauregard watched as the small shuttle left the parking structure and sped off toward one of the skyways, heading eventually to a ship in orbit, she would guess. The small electronic device in her hand had already tracked the engine signature of the shuttle and locked in on it thanks to the network of satellites the Resistance had access to. In a short while, she would know what ship they were heading to, but to track them she would need a ship of her own.
Pulling out her communicator, she punched in a series of numbers, which resulted in an electronic squelch that was quickly shut out. “En-Enter Cl-clearance,” an electronic voice said.
“Foxtrot Tango Golf two-two-five-nine-seven,” she replied.
“Paulsen,” the voice of the major came on immediately.
“I need a ship,” she said.
“Have you not your own?” he replied.
“Mine’s not appropriate for this type of mission,” she replied. “I need something a bit bigger, but discreet. I’m going into some dangerous areas; don’t want anything too flashy or that will be noticed by anyone.”
“I have a ship you can borrow that would do you,” Paulsen said. “I’m sending co-ordinates to you. The shipyards. Paulsen out.”
A coded sub-file popped up on her display showing a mapped location just outside of the military base not far from where she stood now. “Great. Now I just need a taxi,” she said to herself.
Chapter 10
1
“How’d it go?” Lafayette asked, greeting them as they slid down the ladder that led from the shuttle hatch to the living quarters.
Jennings stepped past him. “As expected,” he replied.
“Did you find out where she is?” his first mate asked, falling into step behind him, headed through the kitchen.
“We’ve got a good idea,” Jennings replied. “But we’re lacking details.”
“She’s been sold,” Fix said, bringing up the rear.
“Slavers? She’s got good friends,” Lafayette observed as they all crashed down on the couches in the lounge.
“Not bad people, just stupid,” Jennings said. “This Clemmons guy thought he was helping her get off planet, but he had no real idea who his father’s old buddies were.”
“So who is it?” Lafayette demanded.
Jennings sat forward on the couch, sniffed the air and let out a long sigh, “Did you make dinner?” he asked.
“You know I did, but answer the question,” Lafayette demanded.
“You will nae like it,” Fix said as he stood up and went to the reefer. “What is it?” he asked Lafayette as he pulled out a container.
“Does it matter?” he retorted.
“Nope.”
Fix scooped whatever was there onto two plates and then threw it in the convector. Half a minute later he grabbed two sets of silverware and brought a plate over to Jennings before setting himself down in a chair opposite him. Jennings began shoveling what turned out to be a very tasty parmesan rigatoni with arugula and spicy Italian sausage into his mouth, completely aware that he was ignoring the hard stare from Lafayette.
At last, Jennings relented and said, “Santelli.”
“Santelli?” Lafayette repeated incredulously. “Vesper Santelli?”
“It sure is nae his nicer cousin,” Fix added.
“Merde, Capitaine, we can’t go
up against Vesper Santelli,” he protested. “Dat guy is insane. Remember Aric Tyson- guy in our unit who leased out his ship to Santelli for some illicit bullshit or another. He had to drop his shipment in order to avoid being caught with it by the tariff inspectors. You know what happened to him?”
“I know,” Jennings said.
“Santelli chopped him into tiny pieces, but kept him alive long enough to throw him out into space and watch his eyeballs freeze and his heart explode,” Lafayette continued anyway. “Dat was of course after he murdered his parents and his sister and her whole family. There’s no way we can tangle with this guy.”
Fix grunted, “He’s right.”
“Both of you want to give up now?” Jennings demanded incredulously. “You’d have the Gael hunt us down?”
“I’m not saying dat it’s a good idea, mon capitaine, but what else is there?” Lafayette protested.
“Santelli’s protected,” Fix said. “Guy like him has protection everywhere he goes. Probably lives in a very lavish and expensive fortress. Security. Cameras. Lethal response systems. Guns. More guns. Shields. If he’s flying, he’s got escort ships. We would nae be able to take him.”
“And we don’t have the connections to even think about approaching him as legitimate fellow criminals,” Lafayette pointed out. “We wouldn’t even get a meeting. No way to parlay dat into an information exchange.”
“No one’s untouchable,” Jennings argued.
“And if we had months to observe, plan and execute, that would be true,” Lafayette argued. “We don’t.”
Somberly Jennings let his eyes fall to the floor, conceding the point. “Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way,” he said suddenly, looking back up. “Maybe we don’t need to go to Santelli at all.”
Lafayette sat forward, intrigued, and asked, “What do you mean?”
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