“He’s always too busy, but he’ll jump at the chance to take you around. I imagine he’ll take the opportunity to inspect the security arrangements while conducting the tour.” Plus he’ll give you a subtle grilling and let me know what he finds out, he added to himself.
Grego screened the Chief, who was indeed busy but could break away for a couple of hours. After John Morgan left with Chief Steefer, Grego called up the employee list. After scrolling down a bit he spotted a familiar name; Akira O’Barre. Grego thought for a moment trying to remember how he knew that name. Failing that, he opened her personnel file. There it was. Akira was one of the secretaries working for Myra when Grego brought Diamond in looking for a Fuzzy-sitter way back when he first discovered Diamond asleep on his bed. Akira had since been transferred to Records Division on Myra’s recommendation. She was a top-flight file clerk with superior computer skills. She had also proved to be a capable assistant manager, too.
Grego made another call, this time down to Record Keeping. “Akira, could you come up to my office, please? Don’t tell anybody where you are going and take my private elevator up. I’ll send it down for you.”
“Yes, Mr. Grego.”
Grego screened-off and sat back in his chair. He wished he still had Ruth Ortheris—correction—Ruth van Riebeek on the payroll. She was used to all the cloak and dagger stuff from her time in the Terran Federation Navy as an undercover operative. She did a good enough job on the CZC, after all. But she was gone and Grego had to make do. Akira O’Barre was a bright young woman, according to her personnel file. Hopefully, she would learn a little about what John Morgan was up to.
After a moment’s thought, Grego called down to Science Division. Juan Jimenez’ face appeared on the screen.
“Juan, Chief Steefer is bringing down a VIP. Give him the five centisol tour. And wear your guns when you greet him.”
Juan couldn’t keep the surprise off his face. “Wear my guns? Here? If you say so, Victor.”
“The VIP is from Freya. It’s a sign of respect….”
* * * * * * * * *
“This building must be ten times the size of the Charterless Freya Company’s headquarters,” Morgan observed.
Juan Jimenez, complete with gun belt, John Morgan and Chief Steefer stepped off the conveyor belt near an elevator in Science Division. “I’ve never been to Freya myself, so I couldn’t say,” said Jimenez. “Company House is about 650 feet by 500 feet at the base and around 2200 feet high not counting the transmission towers. However, we left Company House after that last set of double doors. Science Division is an annex connected by this long corridor. Still, the main building is the largest structure on Zarathustra.” He turned to Steefer. “Chief, I understand you were on Freya during your time in the military. What do you think?”
“I didn’t spend much time at the Charterless Freya Company’s HQ, but I recall it didn’t look as big from the outside,” replied the chief. “Of course, it was built for an inhabited planet some three or four hundred odd years ago, and I recall it was being expanded on when I left.”
Jimenez nodded. “Company House was designed and built when the CZC owned the planet outright,” he explained. “Almost everything is here under one roof. Production Division, warehousing, the power plant, you name it. Science Division and Prison House are the only real exceptions. We had expected to fill the building in about one hundred years as the company grew along with the profitable exploitation of the planet.”
Morgan nodded. “And now?”
“Well, the Fuzzies, through no fault of their own, did cause a hiccup in our long-term plans but Victor managed to get us through it and we are back on track, more or less.”
“Indeed. I would have expected Science Division to be turned over to the colonial government after the charter was invalidated.”
“Ah, Victor managed to hang on to it in the same deal he brokered to maintain planetary services and mine sunstones at Yellowsand.”
Morgan nodded then turned back to Steefer. “Oh, Chief, let me get that.” He reached over and plucked a few hairs from Harry Steefer’s parade perfect uniform. “I can see that you are a man who takes pride in his appearance.”
“The legacy of my time in the Service,” said Chief Steefer with a nod. Then he pointed at his thinning scalp. “These days I have to hit myself with a lint brush several times a day to keep up with the fall-out.”
“Why not use follicle replacement ointment?”
“I prefer to look my age and not delude myself with cosmetics.” The chief ran a hand through his thinning hair. “I might just shave it all off when it starts to look really bad, though.”
“So, you were on Freya, Chief?”
The Chief was taken off-guard by the sudden shift in topic. “Ah, yes, sir. It was about thirty-six years ago as a raw lieutenant straight from the academy.”
“Really? What princedom were you stationed in?”
* * * * * * * * *
“Thanks for coming up on such short notice, Juan.”
As soon as Akira left his office, Victor Grego summoned Juan Jimenez. Ordinarily, when something was bothering him he would have called Leslie Coombes. Unfortunately, Coombes was on loan to the Colonial Government as Acting Colonial Chief Prosecutor, while Gus Brannhard was laid up, as a favor to Ben Rainsford. Leslie Coombes was the only lawyer on the planet whom Gus would admit to being his equal. Fortunately, Grego had found that Juan Jimenez made an excellent sounding board once he was confident that he could speak freely without fear of repercussion.
However, Juan still tended to jump like a raw recruit being barked at by a drill sergeant when Grego called. He had come straight up to Grego’s office without removing his gun belt.
“Mr. Morgan was just leaving the lab when you called, Victor,” replied Jimenez. He never stumbled over using Grego’s first name anymore. Back when he first replaced Leonard Kellogg as head of Science Division it took a concentrated effort on his part to use the CEO’s first name, as was the prerogative of all division heads. Somewhere along the way the two men became more than company officers. They had become friends.
“That is what I wanted to talk with you about.” Unlike when he was speaking with John Morgan and Akira O’Barre, Grego met with Juan Jimenez on the balcony. Meeting with a division head from behind a desk would have implied that he was being called on the carpet. “What do you think of our Mr. Morgan?”
Jimenez considered a moment before answering, then shrugged and said, “He seems like a good guy. Of course, if he’s head hunting he might just be putting up a likeable front to catch us off-guard. I was a little surprised when he walked in with that planet-buster on his hip. Thanks for the heads-up about putting on the belt.” He patted the gun belt then looked surprised to find he was still wearing it. Sheepishly, he hung it on the peg next to Grego’s.
Grego gave a short laugh and took a drink from his highball. “It seems he got the impression that colonists traveled everywhere armed. He isn’t completely wrong, of course.”
“I noticed Morgan was particularly enamored with the kholph. I think he might be a little homesick. I offered to let him have a young one since the mated pair produced three offspring, but he politely declined. He said the young need to be kept together until they reach mating age, then they need to be separated quickly.” Juan took a drink from his iced tea. He never drank on company time. “Do you think he’s a head hunter?”
“That I can’t be sure of. I had a chat with Akira from Records. Morgan will be going through the sales records, product placement reports and who knows what else? Akira will be keeping us informed on everything he does. Meanwhile, Chief Steefer will do a background check on him.”
Jimenez leaned forward. “Good idea…wait…Akira O’Barre? She’ll likely try to put a ring in his nose and lead him around by it. I’ve heard some stories….”
“Don’t tell me about them! I want plausible deniability.” Grego finished his drink. “We’ll keep our ear to the ground and
see if there are any rumblings.”
V
To look at him, one would never think that Raul Laporte was a respectable businessman…nor should they. He was tall, lean and swarthy with slicked-back hair and a black handlebar mustache that instantly summoned to mind the image of a cartoon villain. A long reddish scar marred the left side of his face an inch from the ear completing the almost stereotypical image of a thug. But Laporte was more than just a mere thug…he was a criminal artisté. Since his arrival on Zarathustra he managed to get into a sunstone fencing operation, extortion, stolen goods, racketeering and even an information brokerage that traded in CZC and Terran Federation Naval secrets, not to mention his connections to numerous robberies and the occasional murder.
As the owner of The Bitter End, a nightclub in Junktown, Laporte had access to every lowlife on Zarathustra. This allowed him to act as middleman for most of the criminal activities in Mallorysport and especially in Junktown. However, hard times had befallen Laporte. Sunstones, once the sole domain of the Chartered Zarathustra Company for legal purchase from prospectors, were now on the open market for anybody to buy, undercutting his illicit gem fencing operations. The information brokerage died out when the Pendarvis Decision smashed the Chartered Zarathustra Company’s charter, resulting in the CZC no longer buying secrets, or even having any worth keeping. That left him with plain vanilla robbery and extortion.
Not for the first time Laporte considered taking over Leo Thaxter’s various ventures of shylocking, protection and money laundering, but as long as Thaxter was alive—even in prison—he presented a danger. All it would take is a big enough case against one of Thaxter’s cronies or henchmen and they could slap old Leo into a polyencephalographic veridicator and make him talk about how this, that or the other person was connected and quicker than you could say ‘lawyer’, everybody gets busted. In fact, most of Thaxter’s enterprises were already in shambles, the result of his being connected to the Fuzzy faginy ring and its CZC sunstone vault caper.
Laporte sat behind his desk and absently sharpened his knife. This was something he did whenever he had to do some thinking. One of the benefits of living on a colony world was that everybody carried weapons, so he didn’t stand out by lugging around such a large bowie knife. Ironically, the major drawback of living on a colony world was that everybody carried weapons and they were not at all reluctant to use them. Laporte had to be very careful when and whom he tried to strong-arm. For instance, no amount of money would ever entice him to take on, say, Jack Holloway. Everybody who ever tried was now dead and buried.
For that reason alone Laporte would avoid antagonizing Holloway directly or indirectly. So, when the two men in front of his desk suggested he do just that, Laporte picked up his whetstone and methodically worked his blade.
“Whattaya think, Mr. Laporte?” Duncan Rippolone inquired.
“I think what you ask for is suicide,” the gangster stated. “That is what I think.”
“Oh, come on,” the shorter man argued, “this is a two-bit backwater planet—”
“With a population just over one point one million and growing, and with a spaceport controlled by the same company that manages the prison,” Laporte finished. He stabbed his knife into the top of his desk for emphasis. Laporte liked to do that for the intimidation factor it provided. The numerous scars in the desktop attested to how often he used this tactic. “Let’s say you manage, against all odds, to grab up Gus Brannhard. How do you plan to get him off-planet? They’ll veridicate every person who even looks like they’ll buy an off-world ticket. And Brannhard tends to stand out in a crowd.”
“We could disguise him—” Anderson started.
“That’s meaningless to a cop with a DNA scanner,” Laporte interrupted. “When Brannhard was appointed Colonial Chief Prosecutor they took his DNA, did a retina scan, mapped every scar and blemish and even X-rayed his teeth and skeletal structure. There was an attempt to kidnap a public official on Loki a few years back. They drugged him up, pasted a fake beard on him and tried to get him off-planet. They would have made it if the beard had stayed on. After that they took the precautions I already mentioned. Rainsford was quick to follow the Loki example to protect his cabinet. Fingerprints can be altered, retinas can be covered with implants, scars can be removed and teeth and bones can be worked on, but DNA comes with a lifetime guarantee.”
“DNA can be masked,” Anderson said. “How do the scanners work, here?”
“A swab of saliva is dropped into a receptacle and the scanner breaks it down almost instantly,” Laporte replied, as he pulled his knife out of his desktop and started working it again. “Hard to beat that.”
Rippolone snickered and Anderson glared at him until he settled down. “On Terra, a person’s hand is placed in a box-like contraption that reads DNA instantly. They were brought into use over a year ago because the out-dated scanners that are still in use on the colony worlds are now beatable.”
Laporte put down his knife and whetstone and looked squarely at the taller man across from him. “Beatable how?”
Anderson produced a small capsule from a pillbox and handed it over to Raul Laporte. The capsule was no different from what one might purchase at a drugstore to counter the symptoms of a common cold.
“How does it work?”
“You keep it in your mouth until you see a cop with a scanner come your way. Then just bite into the pill and swish it around. For the next fifteen minutes, you have somebody else’s DNA in your mouth. It only works on the saliva, so it is useless on the newer scanners.”
“Where does the DNA come from?” Laporte turned the capsule over in his hand.
“Homeless types, bums who were paid off for a blood sample,” Anderson explained. “People with no criminal records.”
“How many of those pills you got?”
“Forty pills,” supplied Anderson. “Five for each DNA signature with eight different signatures. Color coded so you can tell them apart.”
“In case they retest anybody more than fifteen minutes apart,” Rippolone added. “If they get wise to one sample we just switch to another.”
“I see.” Laporte returned the capsule to Anderson. “Now all we have to do is get the bag on Brannhard, fit him with contacts, shave his whole body and arrange for a new identity and get him to cooperate when you shove that pill in his mouth. Sure, nothing to it.”
“I realize this presents a significant challenge.”
“A challenge is hunting a damnthing on foot in a loincloth armed with a knife,” Laporte interrupted. “This is just plain impossible.”
“Whazza damnthing?” Rippolone asked.
“Local carnivore,” explained Anderson. Unlike his associate, he had read-up on the local flora and fauna during his time on Zarathustra. “Three horns and seven kinds of mean.”
“The point is that we have no way of grabbing him up without getting the whole planet in an uproar. Brannhard used to get people out of a jam with the law. The fact that he now works the other side of the fence hasn’t hurt his popularity one bit with his former clients, partly because he recuses himself when an old client is prosecuted. And almost everybody he has personally prosecuted is still in jail. You won’t find many people willing to help with this caper. Grabbing him will be relatively simple, but getting him off-planet will be a major bitch and a half.”
“This will take considerable study and planning,” Anderson agreed.
“Gentlemen, I fail to see how taking part in this caper in any way benefits me while the numerous downsides are readily apparent,” Laporte said, as he resumed sharpening his knife. “While I personally would like to see Brannhard gone, he would simply be replaced by somebody else, like Coombes, who is currently keeping his seat warm. I have made some very dangerous, not to mention powerful enemies on this planet. I barely escaped indictment after the CZC robbery, even though I had nothing to do with that.”
Laporte leaned forward and pointed his knife at the two men and said with
special emphasis, “I don’t need to make any more enemies in the government than I already have. Especially, Holloway. He tends to shoot back first. Brannhard and Holloway are as thick as thieves…if you will pardon the irony of that expression.”
“Who is this Holloway you refer to?” Anderson asked. “Is he a player?”
“Jack Holloway is most definitely a ‘player,’” Laporte explained, as if to a small child. “He is a close personal friend to Grego, Rainsford and Brannhard, as well as being the Native Affairs Commissioner and one hell of a gunfighter. He’s killed more men than I ever expect to. So many in fact that when somebody draws on him they call it suicide.”
“Aw, you colonists always exaggerate about these things,” Rippolone said. “I’ll bet I could take him if I had to.”
“Feel free,” Laporte smirked. “I’ll send flowers to your next of kin. By the way, what is your interest in Brannhard, anyway? You seem prepared to go to a great deal of trouble to get him off-planet alive.”
“Our organization has had prior dealings with your Colonial Chief Prosecutor,” Anderson supplied. “There is an open contract on his head and we intend to collect.”
* * * * * * * * *
Juan Jimenez returned to his office in Science Division to find Dr. Mallin patiently waiting on the couch. Juan couldn’t help thinking that Dr. Mallin always took a seat on a couch if one was available. He wondered if it was an occupational habit or a subconscious cry for therapy.
Jimenez welcomed the psycho-scientist then took a seat in the chair across from the couch. “So, Ernst, what can I do for you?”
“Have you heard from Ruth van Riebeek, today?”
“I just got back to the office. Let me check.” Jimenez went over to his desk and checked his viewscreen messages. There were a few of the usual fare; various sub-division heads wanting his approval for one thing or another, the weekly complaint from Anton Bayley about this or that. Finally, there was the message from Ruth.
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