Kris Longknife: Furious

by Mike Shepherd

  “A good guess, sir.”

  “Have shots been fired in this place?” Foile said, raising his voice in an omnidirectional question to the forensic team now taking the place apart.

  “Shot or shots were fired. Strangely, not a lot of residue,” one CSI investigator with a large black box announced. “No evidence of high explosives, though. Certainly nothing here to qualify this as a terrorist location.”

  Foile chose to ignore the additional information. No doubt it would come out in the media. “Would the low residue fit the sleepy dart hypothesis?”

  The CSI investigator nodded.

  “When did they leave?” was another wide-open question to the experts.

  “Somebody had lunch and didn’t eat the crusts of their bread,” a CSI type at the table announced.

  “Someone stoked the fire for us,” Mahomet reported from where he was warming his hands by it. He’d led the outside search team and looked frozen.

  “Anything outside?” Foile asked.

  “The great outdoors,” his chilly agent replied. “No car, so they’re likely on the move back to town. Other than that, nothing since last night’s snow but a few footprints between here and the garage.”

  “Clean as a whistle,” came from the head of the CSI team. “There is evidence of sexual activity in front of the fireplace. A lot of it. Some fresh.”

  Leslie got a big grin on her face.

  “Not a word,” Foile ordered sternly. “The Prime Minister will not learn of any of this; nor will the media.”

  “Yes, boss, but a girl’s got the right to be glad when another girl gets lucky.”

  “Yes, but you can store your grin. This girl has the job of checking out every surveillance camera between here and town. I want to know where they’re headed.”

  “Sir, I told you there are not a lot of cameras between here and town, and the snow made all of them lousy.”

  “Well, it’s not snowing right now. Hunt, my fine agent, hunt.”

  31

  Kris had them pull off the freeway into a working-class neighborhood. Penny was just about to do it herself. “We ought to be safe here,” the cop’s daughter said. “No one pays for surveillance cameras where there’s little worth stealing.”

  They cruised the side streets, working their way slowly toward the town’s center. Penny was the first to call for a halt. “I need a cup of coffee, which is a ladylike way to say I need to pee.”

  “Nelly, can you find us a small restaurant with a back entrance?”

  “Kris, I have a map of Wardhaven. It’s about two years old, but it does have all the traffic cameras on it. There’s a small bar and grill five blocks from here. It’s on a main drag with traffic cameras, but we can get to it by back streets.”

  “Let’s head for it. I need to powder my nose. Noses, from the looks of the proboscis you put on me.”

  Five minutes later, a visual check showed no cameras covering the rear of the place, so they pulled into the back parking lot of Mulligan’s Irish Bar and Grill.

  Inside was shady and cameraless. They ordered coffee and pie, then took turns keeping an eye on things while one of them took care of business.

  Jack was just coming back as the pie arrived. Kris studied the few occupants, it being between lunch and dinner, and the several TV screens, which showed various sporting events. One, however, was on a news channel.

  Kris watched it out of the corner of her eye for about ten minutes, but none of their faces appeared. If they were the subject of a search, it hadn’t gotten to flashing their faces every five minutes.

  They slowly enjoyed their coffee and pie. Jack had acquired Colonel Hancock’s receiver for the police net, and he and Sal monitored it while they ate. Traffic stayed moderate with no spikes. After a quiet hour, Jack paid the bill in cash, something that didn’t raise the waitress’s eyebrows even a smidge.

  While he did, Kris browsed the back of the bar. Between the men’s and ladies’ room was a phone with a bright red and yellow sign. FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS DRIVE DRUNK. CALL A CAB. There were numbers for four cab companies’ phones below it. There was also a bulletin board beside it with twenty or more business cards pinned to it.

  NELLY, RECORD ALL THOSE CARDS.

  DONE, KRIS. WHAT’S IT FOR?

  WE’LL SEE LATER.

  Jack rejoined them, and they slipped out the back.

  “Where to?” Penny asked.

  “Cruise the back streets,” Kris said. “Don’t do any one twice. Stay in quiet, middle-class neighborhoods. We’ve got time on our hands until eight. Think about where we want to eat supper.”

  Kris had missed out on cruising as a teenager. She’d heard about it but never done it, having Harvey to take her anywhere she wanted. Somehow she suspected the usual teenage cruising was not done with two girls in front and a lone guy in back. Still, she got Jack talking about himself, and that was a good way of spending time.

  Around five, they found a small seafood place, the Sail Inn, with an easy rear entrance. Again, no cameras, and plenty of screens showing sporting events and one on the news. Their faces were still not up. That was nice.

  Kris still didn’t relax.

  As it got close to six, Kris visited the powder room. Sure enough, there was another phone with the injunction to call a cab rather than drive drunk. There was also a collection of business cards pinned or taped up next to the phone. Cards for town-car businesses. Unregistered and without any of the controls that cab companies operated under, the town cars were usually just a driver and a car and a lot of business cards. They weren’t quite illegal, it being hard to outlaw someone offering to drive you around town and you offering to pay them.

  NELLY, ARE ANY OF THE CARDS AT THE BAR AND GRILL NOT PINNED UP HERE?

  THREE OF THEM, KRIS.

  GIVE ME THE NUMBER OF THE ONE CLOSEST TO HERE.

  Kris made the phone call, asking to be picked up at the back door of the Sail Inn. The driver said he’d be there in five minutes.

  He was there in fifteen.

  As Kris and her team got in, she noticed a police car pulling into the back parking lot. Maybe he was there for supper. Maybe he wasn’t. Kris ordered the driver to turn left, away from the main street and back toward quiet residential ones.

  A few minutes later, she heard sirens in the distance. The sound grew more distant as they drove away.

  * * *

  Senior Chief Agent in Charge Foile hated it when he hovered over one of his subordinates. At the moment, he was hovering over Leslie. She’d spotted the car they were hunting.

  Problem was, she’d spotted three cars identical in make and color to the one that should have been in the garage of the mountain lodge. Three had meandered past the gas station ten miles farther down the mountain. None had stopped. They had no license plate on any of them.

  “Should I check farther up the mountains?” Mahomet asked.

  Foile shook his head. “They’re heading back to town. On that I’d bet my pension.”

  “Should we order a roadblock down the mountain?” Leslie asked.

  Foile stared up at the lodge’s high wooden ceiling for a moment, estimating distance and time. He shook his head. “They’re already back in town. We should have, though, when we headed up here.”

  “You know, sir,” Leslie said, “if either of those three cars are them, they must have seen us barrel past them as they left.”

  “That thought has crossed my mind,” Foile said. “I’m getting real tired of being just a few steps behind those people. Real tired.”

  “I’ve run a search on that car in town, sir,” Leslie said. Apparently, she was also tired of playing catch-up and had already done what he was about to order.

  Foile gave the young woman a smile. “Talk to me.”

  “Sorry, sir, but I don’t have a lot,” she said. “There are two samples of that car parked outside no-tell hotels. Their GPSes are off, and their license plates are screened. There are three examples of the car pa
rked outside houses that have private security cameras. They also have shut down. I checked. All three of the houses have teenage daughters in the family.”

  “So they likely have their boyfriends over and don’t want either one or both of their folks to know about it,” Foile said.

  “Most likely,” Leslie admitted. “I’ve checked the hotel registers. They usually are paid in cash. No surprise, both of the cars are likely cash payers.”

  “Do we want to knock down some doors?” Mahomet asked.

  “We’ve bashed in our quota of doors for this week,” Foile said. His boss had gotten a complaint on that topic, one she’d only mentioned to him, though he suspected she’d taken a lot more heat. “No, have some agents drop by the office of those two hotels. Take pictures of the three. Ask the clerks if any of those cars belong to a threesome. That ought to add some excitement to their day.”

  “I’m on it,” Mahomet said.

  “Leslie, stay on that car. Have every surveillance camera in town set to scream if it catches sight of one of them.”

  “I’ve already done that, sir. There are a lot of hits, and so far all of them are for cars with working GPS units and readable licenses. I think our princess has gone to ground, sir, or is staying on streets that aren’t covered by cameras.”

  That proved true for a long, quiet afternoon as Foile and his team drove in from the mountains and settled back into their squad bay at the Bureau.

  “Everyone makes a mistake,” Foile kept repeating, a mantra that had gotten him through a lot of hard chases. Then again, he’d never been chasing one of those damn Longknifes. Maybe she wasn’t going to make any mistakes.

  He called Rick at Nuu House. No surprise, the two Marines sat blank-faced in separate rooms saying nothing at all. Not even their name, rank, and serial number.

  Foile found himself cycling back to the thought that he’d gone to sleep on last night. Who would dare kill Kristine Longknife, Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy, Princess of United Society?

  The Prime Minister had balked at sharing who that might be with a Bureau agent. What would a retired general, known for being trouble, have to say?

  Foile fetched his hat and coat and headed out the door. He was just pulling to a stop at the ivy-covered old mansion known as Nuu House when Leslie called.

  “We’ve found the car, in a lot behind a dive, the Sail Inn.”

  “Any sign of the three?”

  “No sir. They ate, paid in cash, and left. They used the phone to call a cab. We’re checking on any fares picked up there.”

  “Get back to me as soon as you get anything.”

  Foile had only gotten to the room General Trouble was being held in when his commlink buzzed again. “Tell me something good,” he said.

  “Sorry, sir,” Leslie began. “I have nothing good here, sir. No cabs picked up anyone at the Sail Inn, sir. There are a batch of cards for town cars. We’ve already called all of them, but none had a pickup anywhere near there. At least none any are admitting to.”

  Foile closed his eyes in frustration. Those three were once again ahead of him. Worst, he’d lost his last connection to them. He’d finally gotten the license number of their car, and it now sat in the back of a dive telling him nothing.

  Where had they gone? Were they walking? The last thing Foile wanted to do was turn loose a bunch of beat cops with pictures of the Longknife princess. He might as well go straight to the media hounds himself with the story.

  Besides, they intended to go someplace where they could get themselves killed. The quiet neighborhood where the Sail Inn stood wasn’t the right place for that. “Keep on it,” Foile told Leslie. “Try all the town-car places. I’ll bet you she found a card someplace else and called one that wasn’t up at the Sail Inn.”

  “Yes, sir. That sounds like something she’d do. Where are you, sir?”

  “I’m about to see if I can cause Trouble a little trouble.” And on that cryptic remark, Senior Chief Agent in Charge Foile let himself into the room where the legendary war hero was silently doing battle and, damn it . . . winning . . . with the best the law had to muster.

  32

  They cruised the back streets. Officially, their story for the town-car driver was that Kris and Jack were newlyweds, and they’d just landed jobs and were dreaming about buying a house. The driver didn’t seem to buy the story but every ten or fifteen minutes, Jack would produce another twenty, and the guy kept driving.

  Jack, at least, had drawn out a wad of cash before he started his walk on the outlaw side. Smart man. Kris thought that one of many good reasons to keep him around.

  The streets they drove edged farther and farther toward the south, so when Penny reminded the two lovebirds that they better not be late for work their first day, it was only a short drive to Longknife Tower.

  The driver let them out at the first checkpoint, pocketed his last two twenties, and seemed happy for the exchange.

  “You the new hires?” an overweight man with sergeant stripes asked. They admitted they were, and he arranged for an electric cart to take them to the next checkpoint. There, a dizzy brunette took their vitals off their fake Identacards, photographed them for their new idents, and took their fingerprints.

  OOPS, WHY DIDN’T ANY OF US THINK OF THAT? Kris thought to Nelly.

  BECAUSE NONE OF YOU HAVE APPLIED FOR A JOB LATELY, Nelly shot back. DON’T WORRY, IF I CAN’T PULL THE WOOL OVER THE EYES OF THIS COMPUTER, YOU CAN SELL ME CHEAP AT A GARAGE SALE. BY THE WAY, KRIS, I’VE COLLECTED THREE COMPUTER CERTIFICATES. THIS ONE AND THE TWO BELONGING TO THE FAT GUY AND THIS GAL. IF I NEED TO GET ON THE NET, I’M ON.

  True to Nelly’s promise, the computer raised no red flags and did not report that the troublemaking Princess Kristine Longknife and her trusted sidekicks had reported for minimum-wage jobs.

  That security checkpoint passed, they were ushered into a room with two other new hires and sat down to watch their new-employee orientation. Kris listened with only one ear as they were told how wonderful their employer was and how grateful they should be that it was providing them with the absolute minimum benefits the law allowed. Then again, maybe the two strangers sitting with Kris didn’t know that her father’s government had passed laws requiring that no employer could offer less health insurance than the rent-a-cop company was offering. Or that the contributions the firm was making into their retirement was the standard social-security package. It was almost enough to make Kris wonder if her brother, Honovi, who had chosen to follow father into the family business of politics, hadn’t chosen the tougher career.

  Then Kris remembered the alien mother ship in her sights.

  Nope. Brother might not have it easier, but he did have it safer.

  Kris turned more of her attention back to the screen. It had just mentioned that there would be a test after the show. It would be a shame to find she couldn’t storm the castle, er, Longknife Tower, because she flunked a new-hire-benefits-package test.

  Video done, they were handed a test. A paper test! It took Kris and company all of a minute to select the proper answers from the ten multiple-choice questions.

  The brunette glanced at Kris’s paper for all of a second and gave her a hundred percent. Penny and Jack were smart enough to get one wrong, and somehow managed to pick a different question, so there was no question about cheating.

  The other two were still laboring over the test as Kris and her team left.

  An older ex-military type with two railroad bars on his collar was waiting for them. “Always nice to see fresh meat. You three are joining security, the only reason the rest of these slobs get paid. Follow me.”

  They followed as he led them through a rats’ maze of cubicles. Most had techs watching screens. “These folks make sure that if you screw up, we know it. They watch everything you do, so make sure you’re doing what we pay you for and nothing else. You hear me?”

  Yes, sir, Kris almost replied in proper military voice, but she caught herself, and mumbled �
��Yeah,” along with the others.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “We heard you,” Penny snapped. “You’re watching our every move. So how’s that different from my last burger-flipping job?”

  “Here, my young, mouthy girl, we got people with guns backing you up. You make a mistake, and one of them might just shoot you. You hear me?”

  Kris nodded like a bobblehead doll. Jack grumbled “yeah,” and Penny got big eyes and kind of shrank into herself.

  Kris was ready to put her whole team in for acting awards.

  NELLY, HOW WE DOING?

  KRIS, I GOT HIS COMPUTER CERTIFICATE AND ALL HIS SECURITY CODES. HE HAS NO IDEA WHAT KIND OF TROUBLE HE’S GOING TO BE IN BEFORE THIS NIGHT IS OVER.

  GOOD GIRL.

  The next stop was uniform issue. Bins along the wall offered a selection that ran from too small to too large, with not much in between. Fortunately for Kris, too large was just what she needed.

  Unfortunately, women sizes quit about two short of what would fit her.

  “Why don’t you try something from the men’s side,” the captain suggested. “With that face, it’s about as close to anything man-wise you’re likely to get.”

  With that snide remark, Jack offered her something from the bin he’d chosen from.

  “What do we do about purses?” Kris asked.

  “We don’t issue no purses.”

  “What’s a woman supposed to do for her things?” Kris asked.

  “Deary, lipstick is not going to help you.”

  Kris tried to look like she was struggling to keep her temper. It was easy. She was. “Where am I supposed to keep my sanitary napkins and other stuff I need for my feminine needs.”

  The captain suddenly looked a lot less sure of himself. “It that time, huh?”

  “For me, too,” Penny added.

  “What is it with you two? You shacked up together?”

  “We don’t have to answer that question,” Penny snapped. “We can sue you if you make us.”

  “Woman, you got an attitude problem,” the captain growled. “I ought to show you the door just for that crack.”