I flick the charge cycle and the gun hums. A tiny red LED glows in the darkness. My perp stirs. He may only just have been roused from sleep, but he knows. He’s dreaded this moment for months. I doubt he’s slept soundly since his contract was released. He had to know this was coming, but he probably didn’t think it would go down quite like this. No doors being kicked in. No yelling. No pounding of boots. Just fifty thousand volts crackling beside his ear.
The woman beside him stirs but doesn’t wake. Our eyes meet, and I gesture to the door. Slowly, he gets out of bed, grabbing a pair of jeans and a shirt. I keep my distance, holding the gun close by my side so there’s no temptation for him to lunge at me. He seems resigned to his fate. No words are exchanged. He picks up a pair of sand shoes and sneaks out the bedroom door. I follow, closing the door quietly behind me. I’m expecting him to make a run for it, to bolt for the front door or try something stupid, like throw some furniture at me, but he understands that’s futile and only going to end in considerable pain.
I turn on a small lamp by the television as he sits and puts on his shoes.
“Please,” he whispers. “A note for my family. So they know.”
I nod, and he grabs a scrap of paper and hurriedly writes something. I’ll read what he’s written before deciding whether to leave it, but I’m aware this could be a ploy. Reading is a distraction. Even if I keep my distance, it’s time I lose eyes-on and he could grab a knife, or a gun, hidden under the pillows on the couch, or taped to the bottom of a drawer. He’s been expecting this night. Surely, he’s got some kind of contingency planned. I don’t buy the note as anything other than a distraction.
Tears fall as he writes.
You’re getting soft, Manning. Should have dragged his ass out of here. The prospect of avoiding a scene, though, has me second guess my instincts.
“Papa?”
Oh, shit. A kid stands in the hallway, rubbing her eyes.
“Go back to bed, honey.”
The kid stands there. My finger’s getting itchy. The job is to bring him back alive, but alive can be broadly defined. Generally speaking, a heartbeat is enough. As for collateral damage, that tends to be ignored. Fifty thousand volts is going to French fry a kid. Is this you, Manning? Really? You’d do that? You sick bastard.
“Get rid of her,” I whisper.
“Go,” he says. The girl is probably six or seven, too young to know what’s happening, but old enough to remember. This is the kind of shit that messes people up for life. She yawns, turns, and shuffles back down the hallway. I gesture with my gun. Time to go.
He gets up and walks to the front door, leaving the note on the coffee table. I shift it with the barrel of my gun, turning it around, glancing briefly at it.
I’m sorry. I love you. Goodbye.
No code, not that I can tell. No rambling. No signals. Just honesty. Fuck, I hate this job. Bringing in scumbags is one thing. Suckers like this is another.
The perp opens the door. Floorboards creak softly. Outside, several police officers mill around. One of them’s smoking. Old world habits die hard. The crackle of a radio sounds. Muffled voices. I close the door.
“No trouble?”
“None,” I reply, pulling an envelope stuffed full of rubles. It’s monopoly money given their crazy economy, but a couple of million rubles buys protection. The police here are a heartbeat away from the Mafia. I get a nod and a sneer. Job’s done. The law has been enforced, apparently. They’re gone.
“Down here,” I say, leading my perp to the landing at the far end of the corridor. I should cuff him, rough him up a bit, let him know who’s boss, establish dominance. Perps need to learn to be helpless, so if ever an opening arises, they second guess themselves. A fat lip and a bruise under the eye doesn’t count as damaged goods, but his stooped shoulders and hung head suggest he’s resigned to his fate.
What will happen to him? What happens to any of them? Don’t know. Don’t care. Stop thinking about it, Manning.
He stops by the window at the end of the hallway. I shove my arm in his back, pushing him up against the wall with the butt of my gun firmly against his spine.
“Stay.” I’m peering out into the darkness. Not watching him. It’s important to rely on haptics. My implants will warn of any muscle impulses if he starts to flex. “Jessie, we’re ready for extract.”
In my earpiece, the response is, “On my way boss.”
I relax slightly and then shove him roughly back into the wall as though I’m trying to stop him from escaping, only he’s like putty. He’s not putting up any kind of fight.
With one hand, I open the window, hoisting it high. The wind curls past. Sirens sound in the distance. A flyer drops down the alley, kicking up a storm. Jessie opens the gull-wing door and brings the craft up to the windowsill.
“Move,” I say. The perp climbs up, pauses for a second, probably to take one last look at freedom, however perverse that may be in Russia, steps on the running board, and then into the craft. The flyer sways slightly with the shift in weight, its gyros automatically compensating for the change.
Jessie looks at me without saying anything. I can see he’s not exactly thrilled about our perp not being cuffed and sitting directly behind him.
I climb in, sitting next to the perp, digging the barrel of my gun into his ribs as a gentle reminder not to move. Firing a taser this close, though, would fry us both, but he doesn’t know that. For all he knows, I’m on projectiles. No thermic barbs, but he must figure I’m carrying armor piercing rounds at least.
The door closes and we rise into the night, leaving bewildered neighbors staring out their windows, wondering if we’re in a police cruiser.
“Starport, boss?”
Normally, I’m keen to skip the country as soon as possible, as the prospect of local law enforcement leaning toward someone with a bigger check book is always a possibility. The guild want this guy delivered to Argus-4, which means we need to get into orbit and jump on a freighter bound for the stargate. It’s at least three hops to Argus, but—
“You don’t like it, do you?” the perp says. “Too easy, wasn’t it?”
I ignore him.
“How much are they paying you?”
“Shut it.” This guy wouldn’t be the first one to offer to double my fee. Problem is, then I’m on the hunt list. Money. It’ll be the death of me.
Jessie pulls up into a sky lane, merging with other flyers and heading toward Sheremetyevo.
“Much chatter?” I ask. I can’t put my finger on why, but the perp is right. This went down a little too easy. The Russians are touchy about bounty hunters operating on their turf. The GRU is normally quite intrusive, but there’s no sign of Russian Intelligence monitoring our op. Either they’re damn good, or absent. Both prospects seem equally troubling, as both raise the same question—why? Why throw tier one surveillance at a standard bounty pick up? Or conversely, why ignore it?
“Real quiet,” Jessie replies, reaching down and checking the police scanner.
“Too quiet?”
“You tell me, boss.”
Russia isn’t lawless—it’s that its laws are a racket. Even before the Galactic Union turned up on our doorstep, Russia was a blight. Justice is for chumps. Money is the only real law in this country. Rubles will get you anything from a flight to Antares to a sex slave—only slavery in this patch is willful. It’s a ticket out of purgatory. There should be chatter. Deals going down. Cops monitoring merchandise being offloaded by shady traders.
“Inbound drops? Ballistic flights?”
“There’s been a few, but for a Friday night, this place is like a ghost town.”
“You’re being played for a fool,” the perp says.
“I’m no one’s fool,” I say, my finger tightening on the trigger. “Especially not yours.”
“Sheremetyevo’s coming up,” Jessie says.
“Keep flying,” I say. “What else lies along this corridor?”
“Not much. A few
small towns. It’s mainly forest and farmland to the north. St. Petersburg is about 500 klicks on this heading.”
“And Finland,” the perp says. “Smart.”
It’s as though he’s reading my mind. If we’re being set up, I want the authorities to think we’re making a run to Finland. It’s too far to reach, but if we’re being tracked, it’ll make someone nervous as hell as the flight time is only half an hour. If they panic, they’ll show their hand, and we’ll know what we’re up against.
The other flyers in the air corridor bank, veering on approach for Sheremetyevo. Jessie follows normal protocol, gliding beneath the turn. I’ve got my gun buried in the ribs of the perp, but I’m up on my knees, leaning over the back of the seat, watching the airport.
Air traffic control says, “RF155, this is Sheremetyevo. Comms check. Over.” It’s a not-so-subtle attempt at subtly asking if everything is okay. They’re watching us like a hawk.
Jessie says, “Sheremetyevo, this is RF155. Confirm comms check. Over.”
“RF155, what is your flight plan? Over.”
I hope Jessie isn’t on transmit as I say, “Since when does an international starport care about a rental being flown into the country? Tell them we’re heading for St. Petersburg.”
Behind us, two flyers race into the air, avoiding the corridor and cutting across country toward us. The lack of navigation lights suggest they’re military. I lose sight of them as they move away from the brightly lit port. Jessie relays our intentions and Sheremetyevo signs off rather too casually.
“You’re a pawn,” the perp says.
“I’m not liking this, boss,” Jessie says.
“Go dark,” I say. “Take us to the deck.”
“You got it.”
My stomach rises in my throat as Jessie dives for the ground. His fingers ripple over the flight controls. The first thing we did when we hired this bird was to bypass the regular GPS tracking circuits and transponder unit—not so much out of paranoia as good OpSec. Most of my habits are poor. Too much booze. Loose lips. Overweight. But if there’s one thing I never cut corners on, it’s operational security. Today, it’s paying off.
“Volga River is 50 klicks out. We could make a run for there and slip below radar, hugging the rapids.”
“No, those birds are going to have FLIR—they’ll pick us up on infrared.”
There are city lights ahead. I point. “We’ve got to disappear. Fast.”
“On it,” Jessie says as we plummet through 500 feet.
The sun is just starting to peak over the horizon, lighting the sky in a blaze of orange and yellow. I can see a couple of dark smudges, our pursuers. If I can see them, they’re not more than a klick or two behind us. Too close for comfort.
“Heavy traffic?” Jessie asks.
“Yeah,” I say, noticing our guest is as interested in our followers as I am. He’s ignoring me and is more concerned about how quickly the military craft are closing on us.
“You think they’re mercs?” Jessie asks, swerving between buildings, well below the safety limit for flyers, which causes some alarm from those down on the street. Like most cities following the advent of hovering vehicles, the streets have become malls, often evolving into sprawling markets.
“Nah, these guys are straight. No mercs. Not yet.”
I’m dying to grill our perp. To bring down this kind of heat takes a special type of asshole. What was supposed to be a simple snatch-and-grab is looking decidedly political, and I’m wondering which factions are involved.
21st century politics got a damn sight more complex with countries being superseded by the world government and the guilds. Like the multinational companies of yesteryear, the guilds sway entire continents. For the most part, they’re content to leave countries alone, but when conflicts of interest arise, the guilds outmuscle everyone else.
“You thinking GalNet has something on this guy?” Jessie says, pulling up and racing between local traffic. Our perp is deceptively quiet.
“Nope.”
“Trade? Merchants? Mercenary Guild?”
“Fly,” I say, not answering and not wanting to guess. I’m sure the perp knows.
This bounty was raised by the Peacemakers, although their name can be somewhat of a contradiction. In theory, they maintain peace throughout the galaxy. In practice, corruption, backroom deals, greed, ideology, and sometimes down-and-out stupidity rule the day. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I don’t buy the party line either. Loyalty is a tool to manipulate people. Why ascribe cunning and deception when plain old coincidence and folly work just as well? People aren’t half as smart as they think they are, and perhaps that’s the biggest weakness within the Peacemakers. They’re boy scouts. Three finger salute, honor badges, craft skills and fundraising drives and all. Problem is, that makes them predictable, and if you’re predictable, you can be manipulated. Speaking of predictable, I’m kicking myself for jumping at a high-paying easy job. Nothing with big bucks is ever easy. I should have sat back and taken a good look at this mark. Should have done more background research before jumping in. Stupid.
Without an active transponder, we throw the air corridor into chaos. Computer nav units on the other craft switch to active radar to calculate our speed, trajectory and probable path, which has them swerving to maintain separation. Jessie’s using their safety margins to hide us. By swooping close, racing up behind various craft, or peeling off behind them, we throw their computers into avoidance mode. It’s a bit like running among a flock of seagulls walking over the sand at the beach.
Jessie knows the drill. We’ve practiced evasion techniques enough, and he executes a dog’s leg perfectly, working the angles, and finally cutting back and slipping into a parking garage as the troubled flock races on. We hover a few feet from the ground with our windows down and guns leaning out. Jessie’s got a portable rocket launcher. I’ve switched to thermal barbs. Seconds pass. Nothing.
“Keep us on the move,” I say.
Jessie stows his rocket on the front passenger’s seat as I take one last look around. Sooner or later, they’ll backtrack, so we can’t stay here.
“Where too, boss?”
“Moscow.”
* * * * *
Science
We join a civilian air corridor and fly at regulation speed back toward Moscow. Hundreds of military craft race past the other way, swarming into the region. Fighters, troop transports, a couple of gunships, even a heavy bomber. As I watch, a cruiser begins deploying mercs. Dozens of armored mercenaries begin falling from the open sides of the dropships. They’re using rockets to control their descent. It’s as though the knights of old, with their polished armor and chainmail have swapped lances and horses for machine-guns and jet engines. They fan out, landing by one of the markets. They think we’ve gone to ground and are looking to flush us out like dogs hunting pheasant.
“Keep her slow,” I say. “Let’s not draw any attention.”
“No shit,” Jessie says, sitting behind a fuel tanker in the slow lane.
I lose sight of the mercs, but they’ve got me worried. Mercs aren’t supposed to be operating on Earth. They’re supposed to be out on the frontier, clearing out hostile planets. Running a merc regiment in Russia is illegal, if the Peacemakers are to be believed. That’s some serious heat for running down a bounty hunter and a mark.
“Just who the hell are you?” I say, turning my attention to our passenger. The name I was given was Alexei Popov, but I’m guessing that’s fake. The wife and kids, though, I’m not so sure. Looks like he assumed a false identity and was trying to fly under the radar. I push the gun up under his chin, knowing the thermal barb loaded in the chamber will make the barrel uncomfortably hot.
“Ebenezer Scrooge.”
“Fuck with me, and I will throw you out of this flyer and let them scrape you off the sidewalk.”
“Jonathan Harker.”
I pistol whip him, smacking the butt of my gun in the middle of his forehead.
“Head for Khodinka,” I say, slipping the gun into its holster and grabbing some cuffs. “Wanna play cute, huh?” I slap the metal rings over his wrists, locking them tight. A second set of cuffs hooked over the link on the first secure him to the rear door handle. If Jessie pops the door, it’ll lift him off his feet, and I smile, almost willing that to happen.
“This is bigger than you can imagine,” he says. “You’re disposable.”
“And you’re not?” I ask. “Remember, you’re the one with a price on his head.”
“You’re being used.”
“Any more shit from you, and we’ll deliver you at room temperature.” That shuts him up. Although I’ve been commissioned to deliver a pulse, a corpse will still get at least 10 percent to cover costs. Right now, I’d settle for getting out of Russia alive.
“What are you thinking, boss?” Jessie asks.
“Dimitri Belgoff is deputy head of Signals Intelligence. If there are mercs on the ground, he would have swung the rubber stamp.”
“You know him?”
“Only by cold-blooded reputation.”
“And you’re just going to waltz in there?”
“Something like that.”
We descend into Khodinka airport, well within the ring corridor surrounding Moscow. The Kremlin is less than a minute’s flight time from here, in the heart of the city, but the real action happens in the Aquarium—the headquarters for the GRU, the Russian Secret Service. Aliens may have integrated with human society, but rather than changing, some of our worst habits have flourished. Paranoia. Control. Manipulation. Greed. It takes more than a hyper jump to change our core nature. Just as the KGB never really dissolved with the fall of communism, the GRU is stronger rather than weaker these days. The Russians feel threatened by the guilds, so seeing them side with mercs is alarming. As a relationship, I imagine it’s a bit like two porcupines fucking.
“We’re going to have to ditch this thing,” Jessie says, and I know what he means. It’s a matter of time before someone runs a physical check against a flyer with a faulty transponder.
For a Few Credits More: More Stories from the Four Horsemen Universe (The Revelations Cycle Book 7) Page 2