Rebuilt: A Jake Dani/Mike Shapeck Novel (Jake Dani / Mike Shapeck)

by Victory Crayne

  The cops kept busy leading the insurgents interviewing the hostages. Four guys in civvies carried the two wounded on stretchers out of the council chambers.

  Soon, Stater spotted the inevitable reporters. He bowed his head and put his hand over his face. He told his teammates, “Don’t let them capture your faces.”

  Sam and Randy covered their faces with their hands and looked out between the fingers.

  They had to leave Beach behind. That couldn’t be helped. The cops would take care of her.

  They soon descended in the elevator to the ground floor. Not being sure if all the insurgents were taken out, they proceeded with caution. But the team hurried as they needed to get away as soon as possible.

  Once they got into the van, Randy drove. Stater stayed in the rear compartment with the wounded Sam.

  #

  It didn’t take long to cover the short block to their hotel. Randy parked on the street. Having stripped off the rest of our uniforms, they looked more like residents, albeit with white pants.

  After climbing the outdoor stairs, the threesome made their way into Stater’s room. Once inside, Stater insisted on looking at the bandage on Sam’s arm.

  Randy recharged their Snaps and reloaded the SK-48.

  Stater put the telly on the local news and, sure enough, the big item of the day covered the seizure of the city hall by the cops.

  Lieutenant Moore stood in front of a microphone claiming credit for the arrest of the insurgents.

  Just like we had planned.

  Stater watched as an armored troop carrier, loaded with feds all wearing the black of body armor, drove up to the first floor. A dozen feds, carrying automatic rifles, shot the two insurgents guarding the window. The cops poured through the window and thus punctured the insurgent boundary.

  In addition, a line of police advanced on the building from the cordon around it. Using shields, they deflected the shots from the windows until the lead policemen got through the main door.

  It took close to another ten minutes before the shooting ended. The count was two cops dead and four wounded, out of seventy. The other side didn’t do so well. Fourteen insurgents were dead and sixteen were wounded, out of fifty-fix. The cops were better prepared.

  “Where’s the local hospital?” Stater asked.

  Randy replied, “That would be Telmot General.”

  “How far away is it?”

  He shook his head. “Not more than three blocks. On the other side of the Telmot Terminal where the railroad ends.”

  Stater had seen the terminal as he drove over the tracks on B Street.

  “I’ll take the first watch. You guys hit the sack. We visit Beach tomorrow morning.”

  #

  They got to Telmot General at noon. The room where Beach was staying had police guards, so Stater gave his gun to Sam and went ahead alone into her room.

  She sat up in her bed but had bandages over most of her exposed body.

  “I see you’re in good hands,” Stater said as he took a seat next to her bed.

  She stared at his face.

  “And you are?”

  “Stater Gong. Mike Shapeck sent me.”

  She nodded.

  “And you’re Beach Omar. When do you think you’ll get out of here?”

  She took a deep breath and winced. That must have hurt.

  “Doc says I have to say here for two weeks. One of the guys used brass knuckles on my belly. May have ruptured my kidneys.”

  “I know how that feels. But all the bad guys are dead or captured. Should stand trial soon.”

  “They’ll have a tough time getting a jury together,” she added. “Most of the folks around here don’t like their kind much. Out-of-towners. Probably from Campbell.”

  She looked at Stater straight in the face.

  “Let me take this opportunity to say thanks. I really mean it.”

  “Just part of my job. I couldn’t leave you here alone.”

  “Who came with you?”

  “I brought a couple folks from Telmot. Sam and Randy. I’ll do the full introductions when you get out of here. You may remember me from training.”

  “Is that Sam Lane?”

  “You know him?”

  “Only from financing my house. Smart guy. And big. I wondered if he was a Binger.” She paused at looked at Stater.

  “If I remember right, you taught Weapons.”

  “That’s right. Can you report to me?”

  She nodded her head.

  “Glad to have help. You’ll do nicely.”

  Back at the motel, Stater said goodbye to Sam and Randy. Sam wore his left arm in a sling.

  “I’m the new station chief of the Telmot BIS group. I’ll need to build up the training center.”

  “Count me in,” said Randy

  “Me, too,” added Sam.

  “You guys have to go through some training first. Hope you don’t mind.”

  They smiled.

  “No problem,” said Sam. “We expected that.”

  Chapter 48

  Three days later, Vin got a tag from Mastar and relayed her message to me.

  “I’ve reconsidered. Quadruple the amount and I might consider it.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” I said. “The shark bites.”

  Vincent added, “We’re meeting at the Franken Mall at two this afternoon.”

  To make it more convincing, Vincent wore the same disguise he wore the previous time he met Mastar. As before, Zetto tagged along.

  When Vincent got to the outside of the mall, they both looked around but she was nowhere to be found. Vincent set his comm to forward any calls to Zetto.

  His comm vibrated and he recognized Mastar’s voice.

  “Walk into the mall and out the other end. Walk by yourself. Leave him.”

  That told Vincent that Mastar watched them. He looked around but couldn’t see her. Maybe she had ducked behind a cement wall.

  “You have to stay here,” he said to Zetto.

  He knew his partner would stay outside for a few minutes and then follow. Zee could trace Vincent’s whereabouts from his comm signal. Besides, he knew where Vincent was going since he had heard what Master said on Vincent’s comm.

  Vincent walked into the mall entrance and down the long hallway. Storefronts were open on both sides. It was amazing how many women’s clothing stores plied their wares. Maybe some woman who knew the brand of clothes they had inside and could tell them apart. They all had skinny manikins in their front windows, either white or black under the clothes. No heads, to focus attention on the clothing. Vincent also spotted several toy stores. Some catered to children and some to adults.

  Several times, he glanced at high-calorie cookie or treat shops. Shoppers could buy jelly beans of all kinds, chocolate-coated pretzels, assorted chocolates, chocolate-covered garnot fruit, and, of course, ice cream.

  Who could afford to eat this stuff?

  Then he realized they were meant as treats for when you got tired of shopping and your guard was down.

  Kiosks of all sorts littered the hallway. You could buy nose rings here. Comms there. Makeup here. For women, he assumed.

  Okay, maybe some men.

  After a five minute walk, he came out the other end, next to the main doors leading out of Stacy’s.

  It didn’t take him long to recognize Mastar.

  He turned away from Mastar and spoke with his hand covering his mouth.

  “Comm, is there anything within ten feet of me broadcasting a signal?”

  “Mastar’s comm and yours.”

  She came up to Vincent this time and raised her left arm. She uttered a command he could not hear. Probably checking for something broadcasting.

  She added, “Turn off your comm.”

  “Comm, off.”

  The red light on his wrist told him his comm was indeed shut down. He spotted Zetto in the distance.

  “Do you have a cig?” she asked.

  Vincent nodded.
/>
  “Cost ya ten.”

  She nodded and reached into her right pocket and pulled out a ten spot.

  After reaching into his right pocket for his ecig, he also flipped the toggle on the switch. With his left hand, he reached into his left pocket and pulled out two envelopes.

  He turned his back to Zee’s camera so it would not report his face, just the fact that Mastar took an envelope.

  She took his ecig and the envelopes.

  “This meeting never happened,” she said.

  “Understood.”

  “Where do we go from here?”

  “I’ll tag you when I learn the investigation of Tanny is closed. In the tag, I’ll specify where I can give you another envelope.”

  She walked away.

  Vincent turned and went back into the mall. Zetto joined him in the center with a big grin on his face.

  Back in the ops center, Vincent removed the camera and placed it on the table in front of Mike.

  “Part One done.”

  #

  Deek tagged me two days later.

  “Good news and bad. Which do you want to hear first?”

  I sighed.

  “The bad.”

  “On my desk I saw a warrant for the arrest of Gancha Morentoss.”

  Even though I knew that already, I decided Deek didn’t have to know it.

  “Damn! What’s the good?”

  “I’m back at my desk. Mastar dropped the charges.”

  I put on my happy face.

  “That’s good news, Deek. I knew you’d beat it.”

  “Did you help?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  I disconnected before he could pry more.

  Time for Part Two.

  I gave instructions to Vincent.

  #

  Since the charges against Deek were dropped, Vincent tagged Master to arrange a meeting, using a line she could not trace.

  He used Zetto again for Part Two. They both wore the same disguise of full beards and bushy eyebrows. Vincent’s was black, Zee’s brown. This time Zee took a different route to Stacy’s.

  Vincent met Mastar in front of Stacy’s again. When he gave her a data cube containing a copy of the vid of their first meeting, her jaw dropped and she glared at him.

  “What’s this?”

  “Simple really. There is no second payment.”

  She glared harder, if that was possible.

  He turned away and walked back into the mall with a definite smile on his face.

  Zee greeted him with “You look like you’ve just won the lottery.”

  “In a way, I did. Never trust a spy.”

  #

  The next day, I watched Sheila Fish on the news.

  “Emily Mastar, of the Metro Zor Police, committed suicide yesterday. The police said there was no suicide note but since she had taken an overdose of sleeping pills, her death was ruled a suicide.”

  Well, I’ll be damned.

  I might have had something to do with Mastar’s death. She was only doing what she’d been trained to do, namely, find the cops who were bent.

  Then why did I feel guilty?

  The more I pondered her decisions, the more I realized she had cooked her own goose when she decided to accept the bribe.

  For a moment I wondered where that phrase about a goose came from. Guess I’ll never know. Somewhere in the past.

  Why does our language have so many phrases from the past?

  Besides, suicide was a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

  Everybody has their price. But Deek and Lister were now back on the job. Two positives, one negative.

  I drowned my guilt in Burbock. Half a bottle.

  The next morning, every time some closed a door I swore someone was using a jackhammer to crack the inside of my skull.

  Damn booze!

  Upon stumbling my way to the kitchen, I drank sixteen ounces of water, along with three aspirins. That would help my dehydration and maybe some of the pain of this blasted hangover.

  After changing into street clothes of all brown, I sat in the planning room. I didn’t feel like eating breakfast.

  Chapter 49

  The information from Nguyen was too hot to keep to myself. I sent a message to Zetto, my communications expert.

  “Can you come here? I need to send something so it cannot be traced to its origin and I want to give the message to you in private.”

  Next, I composed my message to Nikki Su and another to Acorn. My spy boss needed to know where this came from.

  It took an hour for Zetto to appear before me in the planning room, in a white long-sleeved dress shirt with a blue jeans jacket and pants.

  “Whatcha got?” he asked.

  I showed him my message to Nikki Su on the wall.

  “Subject: Coup: Your job is at stake

  “I recently learned that Ash Getner, head of the York Security Agency, is planning a coup with the help of a thousand Russian soldiers being trained at Fairport Base east of Zor. Getner is the half-brother of Lewinkov Minsky, head of the Russian government on Earth. Minsky came from the SVR, the Foreign Intelligence Service, which is the counterpart to YSA.

  “If Getner gets his way, you may not only be out of a job, you may die shortly thereafter, if not during the coup.”

  The message was signed “A concerned citizen.”

  Zetto nodded. “That’s amazing! Can Getner get away with that?”

  I replied, “Can you send this to Su so she cannot trace it back to us?”

  “Sure,” he nodded. “Easy as pie.”

  I wondered where that phrase came from. With that, I handed him a flash drive with the text of my message, encrypted of course.

  He paused to look at me.

  “You don’t waste any time, do you? Just like you know who.”

  I had to grin at that one.

  “Just send it.”

  Zetto turned and left the ops center.

  #

  Nikki Su’s staff had tried to trace the sender but could not succeed.

  She hesitated about sending the message to Getner since it involved him. Then she forwarded the message and set a meeting in her office.

  She sat back and pondered the impact of a potential coup.

  This will be a first for any government on Rossa.

  #

  Ash Getner received the same message fifteen seconds after Su did. He had placed a virus in the computers at the federal government so any emails that mentioned his name would be forwarded to him, unchanged. He sent the entire message to his own computer expert but that man could not trace the sender through the servers at ymail.com.

  “Damn!”

  Maybe it was time to put a virus in ymail.com.

  He sat back in his tall black chair and pondered his next action.

  Su had requested a meeting with him, which was good on the surface. Maybe she still believed in him.

  But the message was alarming. Since Ben Nguyen had not reported in after the weekend and the message indicated information that Nguyen had, Getner assumed Nguyen was compromised. As in captured and tortured to reveal this information.

  Scratch him off.

  That meant Getner needed a new operations expert. Since YSA was full of eager men and women who coveted assignments in the field, it should not be a problem.

  It also meant he might have to move up the date of the coup, even if the troops were not totally trained.

  #

  Lieutenant General Leon Petrovsky, head of the contingent of Russian Special Forces at Fairport Base, received a coded message from Ash Getner.

  Instead of having a month to train his troops, he faced only a week. That meant skipping the construction of a copy of the federal building and the prime minister’s office, as well as the broadcasting center of Channel One. Instead, his troops would have to be trained on simple cutouts made of wooden sticks, with plastic stretched between them, and limited to the key places in all the buildings.

/>   Mine is not to question orders but to obey them. The higher ups always know more than I do.

  Petrovsky called his subcommanders on the secured phone line in the base and told them the earlier date.

  Chapter 50

  Nikki Su wore a simple sleeveless orange knit top today. Not showing was her gray business jacket hanging near the right of her desk. She sat behind the copy of the Resolute desk in the Oval Office of the president of the US.

  She looked up to see Ash Getner in front of her desk, dressed in a gray business suit and white dress shirt.

  “You may sit, Mr. Getner.”

  “I prefer to stand, madam,” he replied.

  “And I prefer that you sit,” she demanded in a more stern voice.

  “As you wish, madam.”

  Getner sat in the chair facing her.

  Will it always be a contest of wills with this man? Does he expect to succeed me?

  “I want you to investigate this message on a potential coup,” she added.

  He nodded.

  She asked, “What do you know about the message?”

  “The sender could not be traced.”

  She shook her head.

  “Dismissed,” she said.

  With that, he rose and walked out of the large corner room.

  Nikki Su placed her elbows on the surface of the desk.

  Could I just have seen the man who would replace me and topple the York Constitution?

  She didn’t trust him, but he was head of all the federal security agencies. He might have known about the message, yet he didn’t comment on it. She thought of who else she could ask.

  Five minutes later, she picked up her phone and ordered her assistant Charlotte to contact the man.

  #

  Stan Curling got the tag and rushed to put on his blue suit jacket. Placing his Snap in the holster behind his back, he walked out of his office.

  “Hold all my calls and appointments,” he said to his male assistant as he rushed out of the outer office.

  In two minutes, he faced the guards on the eighth floor of the federal building. He reached behind him, pulled out his Snap, and placed it in a plastic box. Stan walked through the metal detector and wasn’t surprised when the alarm went off.

  “Belt buckle,” he said to the uniformed guard standing in front of him. The guard ran a wand over his body and when it got to his front side, the alarm went off. He looked up at Stan.