Two floors up, she found two men kneeling with their hands behind their backs. Barney had his gun on them and Deni was tying their hands. Troll lay on the floor to one side.
“Wow. You are fast,” Troll said.
Valerie ignored the comment. “Can you walk?” she asked for the second time that day.
“Does it look like I can bloody walk?” Troll snarled.
“Alright, I’ll carry you. You lead us out, Barney.”
He slung his rifle over his shoulder. “No.” The man said simply and picked Troll up in his arms.
Looking at him, Valerie decided it wasn’t worth having an argument she couldn’t win without resorting to physical violence. Three large bags sat on the floor behind them.
“We’ll have to leave one,” Deni said. “I can only manage mine and Barney can’t carry his and Troll.”
“I’ll take them.” Valerie said and pulled each one over her head so they hung down evenly on each side, leaving her hands free. It was a bit awkward, but she could still fire her guns.
“Strong too.” Troll said as the three of them looked at Valerie with the expressions she was used to.
“I’ll lead. Barney, give me five metres clearance. Deni, keep your gun out, stay right behind Barney and watch our backs.” Valerie led them down the stairs and out to the doorway. Before going through she called Hobbs on her com. “Hold your fire. We’re coming out.”
Being mindful of Hobbs look of terror earlier, Valerie stepped out into the open. No shots headed her way so she waved to Barney and stalked across the street to the waiting aircar. Rush lowered it to the ground and they all climbed in.
As Valerie strapped herself back into the co-pilots seat Rush guided the aircar smoothly into the air and headed to one of their pre-planned landing sites.
“So are we clear?” Sneaker asked and Valerie could feel all their eyes on her.
She scanned the read outs in front of her before answering. “Yes, we’re clear.”
“WOOOOOHOOOOOO.” Troll called at the top of her voice. “We fucking did it!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The wind swept through the aircars cabin and Hanna’s hair whipped around, trying to strangle her. “I told you, you needed to tie it back,” Valerie said. Looking up, Hanna stuck her tongue out at the other woman who stood at the open side door. The wind was doing the same to her hair, but its black strands only went down to just above her shoulders and didn’t get in the way.
She wore a grav-belt around her waist and wasn’t strapped in. The only thing holding her in the aircar was one strong hand on a handle above the doorway. Rush, with Deni in the co-pilots seat, was at the controls of Tumbler’s old armoured aircar, though it would be difficult to recognise now thanks to the new ID tags and fresh paint.
A year had passed since the raid on Tumbler’s building, the Crew going from strength to strength. Valerie joined officially and, after a discussion with Sneaker no one else was party to, she had been put in charge of the operations. Sneaker was still the Boss, he picked the Jobs and led the Crew. After he said “This is the Job” though, it was handed over to Valerie. Where Sneaker led, Valerie commanded and no one, not even Troll, would argue with her.
The Job they were on now, was a high-jacking of a cargo flyer high up over the skies of Inferno. Sneaker got hold of its flight plan and manifest. Its route took it well over Sneaker’s expanding territory and held in its hold more than enough goods to make it worth their while.
Hanna reprogrammed the aircars flight computer personally, so it showed as still being on automatic, while Rush actually flew manually in the Yellow Zone. Tumbler had already done that before the Crew got their hands on it, but Hanna’s program was much better. Valerie then arranged for the local flight control to be paid off, ignoring their aircar as it closed in on the cargo flyer. The cargo flyers slow speed forcing it into the Yellow, rather than the faster Green zone.
It was Hanna’s role to Hack the cargo flyers own flight control system, getting it to remove the aircar from its screens. Normally another aircar in such proximity, would cause it to alert the crew to the possible danger it represented. Not with Hanna working her magic.
Tapping in the last commands Hanna gave a thumbs up to Valerie. “We’re all set.”
Valerie turned to the pilots. “OK, Rush. Bring us in.”
Watching the take from the nose cam on a second screen, she saw the cargo flyer grow as they eased towards it. Due to the flyers speed, there was only a very limited time window while it was directly over Sneakers territory to do this. The other Boss’s wouldn’t like them encroaching on their areas.
It was unlikely any of them would dare do anything about it. Word got around about a certain Valerie Carter and the army of Enforcers she killed on the raid on Tumbler’s building. That reputation was sealed after one of Tumbler’s Lieutenants, who had been fortunate enough not to be there, went after her.
He had taken ten men and women with him, ambushing Valerie on her way from her apartment to the Dawning Sun. She took them all apart. Hanna didn’t see it and Valerie wouldn’t talk about it. From what she heard, none of them were shot. They either died of blunt force trauma or knife wounds. None of the knife wounds were cauterised.
Hanna could well image what happened. Valerie killed them with her bare hands and that big bone knife she carried around. She would have chosen not to use her guns to send a message. It was a very clear message that spread through the Crews of Inferno like wildfire. Do not fuck with Valerie Carter.
Sneaker didn’t like pushing them though, so as long as Valerie boarded the aircraft while it was technically within his territory, the other Boss’s should be happy enough. That was what counted, where it landed afterwards shouldn’t be a problem.
Bringing her mind back to the present, Hanna watched as their aircar swept in closer and closer to the cargo flyer under Rush’s expert control. He guided the vehicle in behind their target. None of the crew could see them out of its few windows. The aircar eased forward until it was only a metre above the cargo flyer.
“OK. Almost there.” Deni was monitoring the map carefully, waiting for the precise moment that they were over Sneaker’s territory. “Ten seconds, five seconds.” She counted down and Valerie put on a pair of clamp gloves while stepping closer to the door. “Now! Go, go, go!”
On Deni’s word, Valerie leapt out of the air car. Hanna switched the view on her screen to the view from a camera Valerie carried on her shoulder. Watching Valerie grabbed hold of the handle around the cargo flyers top maintenance hatch, Hanna could only marvel at the woman’s strength. They were travelling at over two hundred kilometres per hour. The wind resistance alone must be immense.
Even with the clamp gloves magnetic seals, it must be like having your arms pulled off. Hanna knew very well what that felt like, her left shoulder still gave a twinge of pain if she rotated it the wrong way. When Valerie told them the plan none of the Crew could believe she was serious. Yet there she was, hanging on with one hand, entering the code to open the hatch with the other.
The code, just as Hanna knew it would do, as she was the one who procured it from Transflight, the owner of the cargo flyer data base, worked and the hatch slide open. Pulling herself inside Valerie got out of the wind and shut the hatch behind her. She was on a ladder in a narrow shaft only designed for the engineers to get to the top of the aircraft.
“She’s in, Rush,” Hanna told the pilot on the com. “Drop us back to a normal distance.”
“No problem.” He replied, as he closed the aircar door. Hanna’s last sight of the outside of the cargo flyer, was it receding quickly.
Looking back to the screen, Hanna saw the ladder whisking past as Valerie dropped the few metres to the bottom. There was a second hatch there. She went through that one just as easily as the first. Now in a corridor that ran along the centre of the flyer between its large cargo bays, Valerie took off her gloves and drew her right hand pistol.
She moved do
wn the corridor, checking every possible place someone could be hiding. No matter what the Job was or what they expected to encounter, Hanna had never seen Valerie let her guard down. Even when amongst only the Crew, there was always a distance between them. The woman had softened a lot since Hanna first met her. Valerie would even smile on a rare occasion, but she still kept everyone at arm’s length.
Sneaker and Hanna searched for Valerie’s origins but found nothing. Her accent was so bland and generic, it could come from a dozen worlds. It could well be the result of a person who travelled from world to world, never staying in the same place for long. It would certainly be consistent with the little Valerie told them.
The only thing Sneaker was sure of, was that she was a Life X recipient and a former member of the Legion. Chances were she would have been an officer and a member of the Privileged. One possibility was that she was a plant sent in to Blaze to undermine the gangs, Sneaker thought that to be extremely unlikely given her behaviour. No undercover operative would be that distant from the people she was meant to infiltrate.
Sneaker believed Valerie did something to cause her to be exiled from the ranks of the Privileged. It was extremely rare, but there were rumours about people being stripped of all their money, assets and power and dumped in the street, with only the clothes on their backs. Generally the way the Privileged dealt with their own, was to either kill them or shunt them somewhere out of the way. To those posh twats, exile was the worst punishment imaginable. To lose everything they spent their lives building, to lose all the power and wealth they accumulated. To be left with nothing for hundreds of years. Most would prefer death.
What Carter had done, they did not have a clue, whatever it was obviously haunted her though. Now her barriers were coming down slightly, Hanna saw a look in the woman’s eyes that she recognised very well. Despair and loss. It was in the eyes of many who lived in the Ghetto. Hanna didn’t know what could have caused that and resulted in exile. She couldn’t see Valerie doing something that would haunt her. It would have to be something done to her. Whatever it was, Hanna was glad she wasn’t the person responsible, she could well imagine Valerie’s response.
It was a well-worn path in Hanna’s mind. Valerie was a puzzle Hanna wanted to solve. She was the person who was closest to Valerie and the woman’s one friend. Hanna wished she could help her and without knowing Valerie’s history, she didn’t know what to do.
Then of course there were Valerie’s abilities. The fight with Gaunt and what Sneaker told her of their running battle through the tower, showed Valerie to be much stronger than you would presume from her size. It was possible her speed was down to skill and experience. If she had been treated with Life X, Valerie would have decades more to train herself to that level, than the majority of the people not belonging to the Privileged.
Her strength was another matter entirely. It was there in an abundance far beyond that of a normal human being. In all of Sneaker and Hanna’s research, they found nothing to explain it. Even Gaunt, who took every muscle growth drug available, had not been able to match her. It was something Valerie actively discouraged any discussion on. At even the mention of it or the very hint of a question, those cold eyes would return and turn on you, shutting you down.
Shaking her head to clear it, Hanna got back to the task in hand. A door opened on the screen showing the image from Valerie’s camera. She was now into the main crew area and she would soon be encountering them. According to the information Sneaker procured, this aircraft should have a crew of five. Pilot, co-pilot, engineer and two cargo handlers. None of which were paid to be armed, so it was unlikely they would be.
As if Hanna’s thoughts conjured her up, a woman stepped out of a side passageway in front of the camera. “Hands behind your head.” Valerie ordered, pointing her gun at the woman. The woman didn’t argue and did as she was told. From the insignia on the woman’s jacket Hanna could see she was the co-pilot. “Now turn around and kneel down.” The woman complied and Valerie stepped up to her. Quickly, she bound the co-pilots hands, ankles and taped over her mouth.
Leaving the woman hog tied on the floor, Valerie kept going. Further down there was an open door and because of the angle, Hanna could not see inside as Valerie glanced round the corner. She must have seen there was no danger, she stepped though with barely a pause. Hanna mentally shrugged to herself. Valerie would not have reacted any differently if there had been an Inferno Police Special Weapons team in there.
Two men sat across a table playing cards and didn’t even notice Valerie standing there. “I did not bloody cheat! You’re just pissed my Jack beats your nine,” the man on the right said indignantly. Hanna could tell from their sturdy overalls, with the bright yellow stripes, they were the cargo handlers.
“Yeah well, how come you’re always so lucky?” the man on the left responded. They were so focused on arguing about their cards, they were oblivious to the woman pointing a gun at them.
“Excuse me?” Valerie said politely. The men looked up in consternation at having been interrupted. That quickly changed to shock and fear. “Can you point me in the way of the cockpit?” Valerie continued. The man being accused of cheating hesitantly raised a handed and pointed.
“Thank you. You’ve been very helpful. Now place your cards on the table carefully, we wouldn’t want them being mixed up. You can continue your discussion later.” The men did as they were told with a bit of confusion on their faces. “Now stand up, turn around and kneel down with your hands behind your heads.”
Moving in an overly cautious manner to aggravate the woman with the gun, the men obeyed. “How many crew are on board?” she asked them.
“Five,” the accused cheater of cards responded.
Valerie holstered her pistol and stepped over with the bindings ready. While she tied up the cheater, his accuser managed to find his voice. “You’re not going to kill us?”
“Not unless you give me a reason to, no,” Valerie said simply. “Stay quiet and you’ll be safe enough. You can even win your money back later.” She finished securing them and left the room, closing the door behind her. With three of the five crew secured, the last two would be in the cockpit. It was mandatory for there to be two crew members there at all times.
As she no longer needed to search the flyer for them anymore, Valerie headed directly to the cockpit. She hadn’t needed to ask the way. Valerie was as good at remembering directions as Hanna. Not wasting any time in that smooth, stalking manner of hers, Valerie moved swiftly. She was so quick, it was almost impossible to watch on the screen it was so disorientating.
The image steadied when Valerie slowed and Hanna could see why. She was approaching the door to the cockpit and moved more cautiously. Not that Hanna could even imagine anyone surprising Valerie, even when she was at full speed. Entering the combination Hanna gave her, the cockpit door slid open and Valerie drew her second pistol for the first time.
The engineer sat at his station fast asleep and the pilot had her feet up on the console. “Are the guys still playing cards, Rung?” Presumably she was expecting the co-pilot.
“Not anymore,” Valerie said.
“Shit!” The pilot exclaimed and spun round. “You have got to be kidding me.” She said as she saw the woman with a gun in each hand. “How on Blazes did you get on board?”
“Huh.” The engineer grunted and looked up at the gun aimed at his head, his eyes going so wide his irises seemed to be small islands in a sea of white. He was so shocked Hanna thought he would faint at any moment. It was entirely possible he was literally pissing himself in his chair. The camera didn’t show anything below his chest, so she couldn’t tell.
“Don’t do anything stupid and you’ll both live through this.” Valerie said and jabbed the gun pointed at the pilot slightly. “You. Come here, slowly.” She holstered her right pistol and held out a couple of bindings to the pilot. “Secure his hands behind the chair. That’s it, now his feet to the leg.” Valerie told her, refer
ring to the single pillar the chair sat on.
“Good.” She said when the pilot was finished. “Now sit in the co-pilots seat and put your hands behind your back.” The pilot complied and Valerie secured her as well before sitting in the pilots own seat.
She keyed her com. “I take it you’re still watching, Hanna?”
“Yep. I saw it all, Valerie,” Hanna told her. “We’re still in position right behind you.” She started tapping a few commands into her datapad. “Right, the new flight plan has been filed aaannnndddd is approved.”
“Good. I’m installing your override program now.” Valerie got out the small flash drive Hanna created for her a couple of days before, inserting it into the cargo flyers console. The program would allow Valerie to fly the aircraft herself, without flagging it to traffic control, just like their aircar.
“The board says green for manual control. Hanna, can you confirm that?”
Checking the signals going from the cargo flyer to Traffic control, she could see that as far as they were concerned it was still on automatic. “Signal is still for automatic, you are clear to fly.”
“Rush, see if you can stay with me.” Valerie said with just the slightest hint of humour in her voice.
“I think we can manage.” Rush replied dryly. No matter how good a pilot Valerie was, there was no way that massive aircraft could out fly the aircar.
They were now well outside the city limits. Valerie started a gentle curve back to the warehouse within Inferno. Troll and Barney would be there, with a few junior members of the crew to unload all the cargo. A number of trucks were already sitting there, waiting to haul it all away to the various buyers Sneaker lined up.
Hanna sat back and smiled. Another successful Job had been pulled off.
Valerie echoed her sentiments. “Well done, team. Don’t relax yet. Not until all of this is delivered.” That was just like her, never satisfied until the Job was complete and everyone was safe. Hanna didn’t mind and nor did anyone else. More than once in the last few months, that attitude had paid off and avoided some dicey situations.
Reason For Vengeance (Dark Vengeance Book 1) Page 35