by Piers Platt
“Well, interviewing one would pretty much guarantee the article would get picked up galaxy-wide, first of all. But I’m also wondering why we never hear about the guildsmen who made it to fifty kills. Maybe this is just my ignorance, but I figured they would be living the high life, and having their nouveau riche exploits splashed all over the tabloids, you know? ‘Drunken young millionaire crashes space yacht,’ kind of thing.”
“Maybe they’re just well-behaved,” Beauceron suggested. “You would have to be very disciplined to be a successful killer, I would think.”
“Mm,” Ashish grunted, pouring himself another coffee. “Maybe. Or maybe none of them make it to fifty.”
“I would just be more cautious, if I were you,” Beauceron warned. “Don’t post anything else on the web. If you’re serious about publishing a story on the Guild, they’re not going to take kindly to it.”
“Oh, I know.” Ashish glanced around the diner, and lowered his voice. “They sent me a warning already.” He pulled a manila envelope out of his messenger bag, and set it on the table.
Beauceron eyed it for a second, and then picked it up, pulling out the contents. “What is this?” he asked, after flipping through several pages.
“As best I can tell, it’s a full threat assessment for me and my family. I sent a copy to a friend of mine who works at a personal security firm, he told me they do something similar for wealthy clients who travel to the Territories often, and are at risk of being taken hostage for ransom. That report has our health records, daily routines, the vulnerabilities of my home security system …,” he trailed off, rubbing his forehead. “I almost threw up when I first realized what it was. They even have the estimated police response time to an incident at my son’s pre-school. But that wasn’t the scariest part.” Ashish stirred some cream into his second cup of coffee. “Ask me what the scariest part was.”
Beauceron looked up at him, waiting.
“It wasn’t mailed to me. It was just sitting on my kitchen table one morning when I came down to eat breakfast.”
Beauceron locked eyes with Ashish. “So why are you still writing this story?” he asked.
“I’m seriously considering shelving it,” Ashish admitted. “I hate the idea that someone can threaten me and I’ll back off, but … I have a wife and a kid to think about, too. I don’t know. I’m trying to figure out a way to publish it anonymously, but still get all the credit.” He grinned.
“I admire your tenacity,” Beauceron said, closing his notebook. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “I’m going to tell you about the first Guild murder I investigated.”
“You’ve investigated more than one?” Ashish asked.
Beauceron nodded. “Three, I believe. But the first one was what made me who I am today.”
Ashish pushed his untouched plate of food aside and leaned forward, listening intently.
“There’s a bay on the ocean, a few miles south of the city here. The commercial docks are still in operation – there’s some seaborne shipping that unloads there, mostly fish catches, but some heavy cargo that is too expensive to fly, as well. A crane operator was repositioning a cargo container, and happened to crush a coworker of his, killing him. The two of them had recently argued over something, I forget what it was, so the patrol that took the initial call asked for a homicide detective. It was an accident, but while we were finishing up, we got a call over the radio – one of the pleasure yachts out on the bay had just sent in a distress call, someone had been killed on board the ship.”
The patrolmen and I piled into their cruiser and flew out there – the boat was large, but it didn’t have any space to land an air car, so they hovered and I jumped down onto one of the aft decks. You have to understand, most crime scenes I see are hours old, and a lot of evidence can disappear in that time. The victim was still warm when I got to the master cabin – she had died no more than fifteen minutes beforehand.” Beauceron shrugged. “I got lucky – right place, right time.”
“This was the one you caught, right?”
“Yes. The woman had left her guests at the party on an upper deck, and gone down to her cabin suite to change – she had spilled something on her dress. She ended up surprising the killer, he hadn’t expected her to come down to the cabin for hours. She walked in, saw him, screamed, and he broke her neck. The guests heard the scream, and a crewmember came to investigate and found her body. The killer was gone.”
We were a ways out from shore – ten or eleven miles, too far to swim. So I guessed that he had used a small watercraft to reach the boat, and was now on his way back to shore. I sent the patrol cruiser out to fly a search pattern around the boat, and then I spent some time looking for any additional evidence. But the crime scene was remarkably clean, I didn’t find anything, and the boat’s security cameras had been disabled. The patrol cruiser didn’t turn up anything in their search, and I realized he might have been using an underwater scooter, or a small submersible ship.”
Beauceron cleared his throat, and then continued. “I looked at the ship’s nautical charts next. We were out at the entrance to the bay, basically equidistant between two peninsulas, like between the tips of a giant letter ‘C,’ you understand? I guessed that he would be heading for the tip of one of those peninsulas, which were much closer than the mainland. So I called up Headquarters and asked them to start checking security footage along those shorelines. There was nothing, but they noticed that one of the cameras had stopped working for a short period of time. When we went back and looked at that camera’s footage, we could just make out a man in the water in the distance – he must have used some kind of electrical disruption device, and when he got close enough to shore, it shut down the camera, but he didn’t realize that the camera could see him before his device got within range.”
“Is that a standard tactic for guildsmen, do you think? Disrupting camera feeds?” Ashish asked.
“I’m not sure. It’s a good one, if so – we rely heavily on security camera footage to reconstruct crime scenes, and to track criminals afterwards. But we had lost our man at the shoreline – when the camera feed started up again, he was gone, naturally. I had the patrol car pick me up again, and we headed for the shore – we were still only about twenty minutes behind him, at that point. And as we were flying, I saw a shuttle launch from the spaceport directly ahead of us.”
“And you realized that’s where he was heading …,” Ashish said, smiling.
“I guessed that that was the case, yes. He headed for the peninsula closest to the spaceport, it seemed a reasonable assumption. We didn’t have a physical description of him, but I convinced my supervisor that he was already at the spaceport, heading offworld. We know that guildsmen have facial implants to allow them to mimic other people, so we closed everything down and started searching for anyone with an implant. If we found someone with the right implants, we might be able to find evidence on him that tied him back to the crime scene. Traces of seawater, for instance.”
“Where did you find him?” Ashish asked.
“I didn’t, actually. We were close to giving up, but a patrol found him trying to escape through an electrical conduit in one of the spaceport’s sub-levels. They pulled him out and brought him back to the station.”
“Did you get to interview him?”
“I tried,” Beauceron said. He looked past the journalist, staring into the distance. “He didn’t say anything at all, not a single word. And then I let him escape.”
* * *
Beauceron spent most of the rest of the morning in the courthouse, awaiting his turn to give evidence in an ongoing trial. In the afternoon, he gave up waiting and headed back to the station to finish a report on one of his other cases. That took the rest of the day. Beauceron leaned back in his chair and stretched when he had finished. Two other detectives walked past his cubicle, laughing as they went to meet a coworker for drinks. Beauceron waited until they had left, then took the elevator down to street level. He bought a
hot dog and a bag of chips from a cart up the street, and ate them alone in his cubicle.
When he was done, he woke his computer and re-read the case files for the three Guild homicides he had investigated. He jotted in his notebook as he did so, and finally wrote down the first case’s number on his notepad. Then he walked back to the elevators, pushing the UP button before changing his mind and taking the fire stairs instead.
Need some more exercise.
When he had climbed three flights he exited the stairwell and walked over to a secure door marked EVIDENCE in large, black letters. He swiped his access card and then placed his finger on the scanner. The scanner beeped and flashed green. Beauceron heard the deadbolt click open.
The lobby inside was empty, given the late hour. He walked up to the counter, where an avatar appeared across from him, smiling.
“How can I help you tonight, Detective Beauceron?”
Beauceron opened his notebook. “I’d like to take a look at evidence collected from Case … 00291178-HM412,” he read.
“Absolutely. Please wait while I access that storage locker.”
The box arrived nearly a minute later, sliding through the avatar’s hologram to rest on the counter. Beauceron hefted it under an arm and walked over to a booth, where he set it down on a desk, and then unlatched the case. Inside was a set of clothes, a watch, a pair of shoes, a holophone, and a grey bracelet. The holophone, he knew, was wiped – all data unrecoverable. The clothes and shoes had tested positive for traces of seawater, as had the man’s hair. The bracelet. Beauceron picked it up, holding it in the clear plastic bag in which it had been stored. He pressed the button and watched as a golden 24 hologram appeared over the bracelet’s lens, distorted slightly by the plastic bag covering it.
Nearly halfway. Twenty-four murders you should have answered for, and perhaps more since.
He set the bracelet down and rifled through the contents of the box again.
He certainly was traveling light – he was about to board an interstellar flight without even a carry-on bag. That’s … odd.
He sealed the container again and turned it back in at the counter, then walked back downstairs to his desk.
If I was a trained killer … I’d want to have certain equipment or weapons close at hand at all times, in case of need.
Beauceron watched the video footage from the carnival accident on Colony A31 first. The killer walked onto the fairgrounds carrying a backpack, set it down as he operated the ride, then deliberately picked it up before fleeing the scene. Next, he viewed the video of the bar where the alley stabbing and vivisection had occurred.
Bartender asks if anyone is missing a data drive, victim gets up and leaves, killer follows him … stopping to put his backpack on before he goes. That’s two suspected Guild killers, both of whom carry a bag of gear with them. So why didn’t the guildsman I caught have a bag?
“Pull up video footage from Anastakis Spaceport security on February sixteenth, 2396, related to Case #00291178-HM412.” The computer processed the request for a second, and then a video window popped open.
“Video is cued up at suspect’s entry to the spaceport,” the computer reported.
The computer showed him several angles of the man walking from the air car rental center, then entering the Departures area of the spaceport, before stopping to check his phone. Then police activity started to pick up, and the man headed directly for a fire stairwell. And he’s carrying a small duffel bag, Beauceron saw.
“Visual contact was lost at this point,” the computer reported. “Stairwell cameras were inoperative for several minutes, and suspect took care to avoid camera coverage while traversing the spaceport’s utility corridors on Sub-Level Four.”
Again with the security camera interference.
He jotted that down in his notepad.
“Next available footage is from suspect’s arrest, acquired from shoulder-mounted camera on arresting officer,” the computer told him, pulling up a new video. Beauceron watched as the man squeezed back out of a narrow metal pipe, hands held high.
He doesn’t have the duffel bag now … what did he do with it?
“Call Anastakis Spaceport Lost and Found Department,” Beauceron ordered.
“Lost and Found,” a tired voice answered, after a few rings.
“This is Detective Martin Beauceron, Alberon IP, Homicide Division. If someone lost a bag in a fire exit, or one of the spaceport’s sub-levels, would they turn it into your office?”
“Yeah, eventually. If it looked like a passenger’s bag, someone would probably turn it in to us.”
“How long do you keep lost items?” Beauceron asked.
“Six months,” the man told him. “Then we auction them off.”
Beauceron made a face.
“… but we inventory everything we auction, the spaceport makes us track our proceeds from the auction,” the man said.
“Can you send me a copy of the inventory from … June 2396?”
“Assuming it goes back that far, sure. I’ll send you what we’ve got. What’s your address?”
Beauceron had the file in his inbox a minute later.
“Computer, open the Lost and Found inventory, filter for items labeled ‘duffle bag’ that were added since the suspect’s arrest.”
“Please confirm: are you referring to the suspect in Case #00291178-HM412?”
“Yes,” Beauceron said.
“There are three thousand, one hundred and ninety-eight entries that match those criteria,” the computer said, displaying the list. “Suggestion: filter by color?”
“No, color’s too easy to change. Estimate dimensions of the bag carried by the suspect, and eliminate any on the list that are too large or too small. Give yourself a margin of error, though.”
The list refreshed on his screen. “Two hundred and one bags match those criteria.”
“Sort the list by date, earliest at the top,” Beauceron said.
Beauceron spent an hour reading through the list, but by the time he reached the end of it, he was convinced that the killer’s bag had not been found. Last, Beauceron typed out a full report of his conversation with the journalist, transcribing his notes on the mobile kitchens and adding his own analysis and implications for possible Interstellar Police operations.
“In conclusion,” he finished, “I believe Mr. Mehta’s lead should be pursued with all available resources. The opportunity to locate the Guild’s training center cannot be ignored.” He saved the file, sent it to Rozhkov, and then shut his computer down, yawning involuntarily as he headed for the parking garage.
* * *
Rozhkov finished the report and pulled off his reading glasses, letting them hang around his neck. He slipped out of bed, stepped into a pair of slippers, and pulled on his bathrobe, before shuffling down the hall to his study. From a drawer at the bottom of his desk, he pulled out a small phone, and punched in a number from memory. He sighed as he sat down in the desk chair.
“Identify.”
Rozhkov opened an app on the phone, and waited while a unique code was generated in the air above the screen. “Five-one-one-romeo-two,” he read.
“Stand by,” the voice on the phone ordered. “Identity confirmed. The line is encrypted, you may proceed.”
“I need to file a report.”
19
The combat transport hovered over the open field, the wind from its turbine buffeting the grasses below. Rath stepped off the landing skid before it touched down, waved his thanks to the pilot, and then followed the waiting sentry across the field to a cluster of camouflaged tents in the tree line. They ducked through a tent flap as the transport disappeared back into the starry night sky.
“Wait here, sir; I’ll go get the general,” the sentry told him. Rath nodded and set his Forge down on the packed earthen floor.
The command tent was abuzz with noise, as staff officers and support personnel managed the ongoing battle through their viewscreens and tactical reports
. Rath could hear the sound of artillery pieces firing in the distance, and watched on one screen as a drone loosed several missiles into the upper floors of a tall building. The tent smelled of mold, sweat, and gun oil. His mission brief had given him a fairly thorough background into the planet Jokuan’s ongoing civil war: an ethnic majority within the population had risen up against Jokuan’s president, who was widely acknowledged as a rather brutal dictator in impartial press reports. As Jokuan had not yet been accepted into the Interplanetary Federacy, however, Interstellar Police peacekeeping units had no jurisdiction, and remained offworld. The revolutionaries had the advantage of popular support and numerical superiority, but the president’s allies on other planets in the Territories gave him significant financial and logistical support, and his modernized military was far more technologically advanced than the guerrillas they fought. Rath could not help but feel like he was on the wrong side of the conflict. His thoughts were interrupted when a pudgy, short man in a Jokuan general’s uniform waddled up to him, followed by a taller man wearing the rank of major.
“Contractor 621?” the general asked.
“Yes,” Rath replied.
“Excellent,” the general gave him a tight smile. “Do you have any questions about your mission?”
Rath shook his head.
“Very well. Major Ikeda will be your liaison during the operation. He can handle any operational requirements you might have – transportation or supply needs, what have you. The major’s assault team will also accompany you during the operation as security.”
Rath frowned. “I’d prefer to work alone, thank you.”
The general gave a curt shake of his head. “I’m afraid not. This mission is too critical – the dissident must be eliminated before the rebels transport him out of the city. But Major Ikeda’s team will take orders from you during the operation,” the general conceded.
“As long as those orders don’t endanger my men,” Ikeda added.