“Can’t do that either,” he says. “Urban Pacification Forces are barred from entering federal installations armed. We’ll have to just keep rolling until the time’s up.”
She sighs and calls the Fedlab on Slate as they pull away.
“Weren’t you just here?” asks the tech.
“Yeah, but I’m outside now. Look, it turns out I can’t hang around but I need those results. How about I call you? I’ll dial in every five minutes from a quarter past twelve.”
“Seems more complicated than it needs to be,” he says.
“Story of my life,” she says and dials off.
A couple of blocks away, more fire clatters off the roof followed by a terrifying bang. Kirsty flinches and when she opens her eyes, the air’s filled with snow and one of Carmine Cares is on the floor. Where he’d been sitting, the armored wall panel is buckled in, delaminated armor dusting everything. The guy on the floor’s shaken but unhurt. He brushes himself off and sits back down as the driver hits the pedal and the third livedrive pod groans as it kicks in.
“Tell me that was junior Gs again,” Kirsty says, “and I’m not buying it.”
“No it wasn’t,” says Cusack flatly. “Most likely that was a Barrett.”
“What’s a Barrett?”
“Like a sniper rifle but really heavy calibre,” he tells her. “Like, bullets this big…” he holds up a thumb. “Like heavy enough to shoot through houses. This damage was just back-face shock. If it had penetrated, we’d have been minced by the round bouncing around.”
Kirsty yelps as the roof comes down with another bang, blasting powder and flakes over everyone and leaving a dusty crater above them. Cusack leans into the cab and shouts at the driver, “Ben, who the hell’s shooting at us?”
“No one’s following, I’m sure of it,” yells the driver. “My guess is an airship’s buzzing us.”
“Do you see one?”
Ben points to the utivan’s roof. “I see nothing but airships. It’s the newsfeeds, they’re bumping into each other up there trying to get gang war footage.”
“Find the nearest mall,” Cusack tells him. “They’ve always got underground parking, right?”
He looks worried as he sits back. “So what sort of people own Barrett rifles?” she asks him.
“The same sort of people who own airships,” he says, “rich ones. Corporate ones.” Turning to his comms chief, he say “Hey Harmony, call Carmine and tell him they’ve zeroed the utivan. Tell him we’re conspicuous as hell now we’re covered in bullet hits and that it’s making me nervous. Tell him we’re going to ditch the vehicle, scatter and fall back on the safe house.”
Harmony nods and leans over her Slate as another bang jets laminate armor snow out of the battered back door. Kirsty coughs and sneezes as the white dust coats her nose and throat.
“CarmineNet’s out,” Harmony says, brushing the powder off the comms Slate’s screen. “I can’t raise base.”
“You think that’s because we’re off-District?” asks Cusack. “Maybe ’cos we’ve no line-of-sight link?”
“Don’t know about that,” says Harmony. “It’s usually pretty good. Even at a distance.”
“I think it’s a line-of-sight problem,” nods Cusack. “Keep trying. It’ll resolve soon, you’ll see.”
Kirsty thinks he looks scared. Cusack didn’t look scared all night but now he does. Not even when he swung in through the window and gunned down three men. “We’re ditching the van?” she says. “Are we in trouble here?”
“It’s nothing,” he says, his lips tight and bloodless. “Just a precaution.”
“But you can’t contact your boss.”
“Comms glitch, nothing more. Carmine will look out for us.” He nods as he stares intently ahead. “He always looks out for us.”
Kirsty really hopes so.
Thursday 13 March
03:39 pm
HEMBLEN TRIED CALLING Monty from a paybooth near a busy Tramtrax stop, fifty or sixty worried people as eager to hightail it out of the District as he was. They flinched as gunfire echoed from every direction. They looked the other way as gang-affiliated teenagers ran towards the gunfire with shiny new sprayguns or aging aging assault rifles in plain sight. Hemblen just kept his head down and his handgun out of sight and got Crash The Pad’s answer service every time he called through. He knew who his boss must be talking to – some angry Meat4 Power suit screaming contractual violation.
After five tries, he caught a trans-District express, reluctantly flashing the driver his mercwar ID, giving up his anonymity for the privilege of moving out of District 45 and across to District 46. It differed from the one he left in only two respects – gang war wasn’t raging in 46 and he rented his apartment there.
His place stank of neglect the moment he stepped into it. The drapes were all shut and dusted black with mildew, his long-suffering houseplants curled up and dead weeks back. Muddy combat fatigues lay next to a rucksack from when he’d dumped them at New Year. The cable access told him he’d got no new messages. He dialed out and this time, Monty picked up on the first tone.
“Boss. I just dropped you into a world of shit.”
Amazingly, the old man smiled. “Jude, thank God. You okay son?”
“Not a scratch. They called you yet?”
“Meat4 Power? Sure. They’re not happy with you, I’ll tell you that.”
“The contract?”
“Suspended forthwith. They seem to think that a bodyguard crippling clients constitutes a breach of contract. Under the circumstances, I found it hard to argue otherwise.”
“What went down. I… I need to explain.”
Monty shook his head. “You save that for the Union, Jude. Meat4 have already reported you. Pending an inquiry, they’ll be calling to suspend your operator’s license. Maybe today, definitely tomorrow.”
“They were shooting kids, boss. What else could I…”
“…I’m in no I’m position to doubt you. You did what you thought best.”
“You mad at me?”
Monty Cox smiled sadly. “To tell you the truth, I’m kind of relieved. I didn’t figure that stepping up to corporate level would lose me so many of my guys. If nothing else, you’ve made it so I don’t have to talk to those Meat4 Power assholes any more.”
Thursday 13 March
03:25 pm
FOUR DAYS AFTER his night flight to the blood-smeared nightclub, Martha brought him a hard copy file fronted by a long lens image of the Federal wetvet. Bishop thought she didn’t look like the forty seven year old admin who wanted to work in Pet Division any more. Bishop thought she looked like a RESC operative coming late to a life of company violence. “So I looked her up,” Martha said.
“And?”
“And I knew she wasn’t right,” she said. Bishop flicked through her file as she talked. “Officer Kirsty Powell works Federal Environmental with little enthusiasm, finesse or obvious natural ability. Slow to clear cases, poor interpersonal skills and three verbal warnings for hostile behavior in the last twelve months. With no hope of promotion, she’s made it very clear in her quarterly assessments that she’s completing her contract purely to give credibility to an undisclosed startup livedrive enterprise.”
Bishop pointed to a shot of a large four story brownstone. “She lives here? Nice place.”
“She owns it,” corrected Martha. “Independently wealthy because of it, she’s no need to be working as a wetvet. Not unless she has other motivations.”
“Meaning?”
“Her federal employment started the year Bostov Cryonics moved into the Toronto Hub.”
“Your inference is that she’s a Bostov sleeper?”
“And?”
“And I’d need more than your hunch to even think about buying that.”
“What if I told you that she’s got ties to the local gang?” said Martha.
Bishop shrugged. “What does that prove?”
“She attended a course they ran last year. They called i
t ‘Women’s Street Defense Techniques’. I’d call it small arms training.”
“Lots of women learn how to use handguns,” said Bishop. “If you hadn’t noticed, it’s going to hell out there.”
“She’s martial arts trained too,” said Martha. “PD records show she broke an assailant’s leg in a bar fight last year. You know who pays for her training? The same gang that taught her to shoot.”
He still wasn’t going for it. “Bostov haven’t been entrenched long enough to use a gang as a front.”
“Most companies wouldn’t think of it,” said Martha. “But I’ve read RESC reports that sound like you wrote them stating that Bostov recruit almost exclusively from gangs.”
Bishop closed the file and pushed it back at her. “For your research I give you top marks,” he told her. “For your interpretation, I think you’re way off.”
“She’s Bostov,” said Martha firmly.
“No she’s not,” said Bishop. “Officer Powell is a rich girl trying to piss mom and dad off by hanging with the homeboys.”
Martha looked triumphant. “So what if I told you that your little rich girl shot one of ours?”
“She shot someone? Who?”
“Nobody who traces back to us. It seems as though he got too close to her and took hits to his ballistic vest,” said Martha. “Now he’s backed off, she’s carried on looking into the fatalities at Arclights. The RESC shadow squad tells me she’s currently at the hospital that treated the nightclub victims.”
Bishop wondered what he’d done to the woman he’d plucked from the admin pool. She was savoring this “You could have told me that part first,” he said.
“I could have. But I didn’t,” she smiled.
“So what needs doing, Martha?”
“She’s got to go,” she said, firmly.
“What if I said this one was on you? What if the decision came from you not me?”
“Then I’d say the same thing. To protect Reboot, this girl needs to die.”
“Jesus…” Bishop found himself smiling and shaking his head at the same time. Pet Division was going to be in for some changes when Martha Bhaskar moved in. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”
“I’ve detailed a twin-pronged solution,” she said. “One – reassign the shadow squad to nail her. Two – dispatch a four man clean team to sweep and sanitize her residence.”
“What’s with the jargon?”
“I’ve been liaising with RESC field agents all morning just in case you sanctioned this,” she said. “They’re stretched thin but can handle this.”
He looked at her. This life-long employee. This administrative assistant. “You realize you’re talking about murder here?” She nodded – enthusiastically. “If she’s gang-affiliated, work on making the hit look a part of that. Anything to stop it linking back to Meat4 Power.”
“Maximum deniability, right sir?”
He nodded. “Always and every time, Martha. Maximum deniability.”
Friday 14 March
11:30 am
KIRSTY GETS THE call from Tim at 11.30, just as the utivan’s taking the downramp into a mall’s sublevel drop-off bay. He starts jabbering the moment she holds up Slate, grainy low-res visuals from a vandalized paybooth. She can’t understand anything. “Slow down, Tim,” she tells him.
He takes a deep breath. “They’ve taken your brownstone, Kirsty. Three utivans full of armed bad-asses drew up outside. The Carmine Cares guys here took one look at the lobby minicams and hustled us down the fire escape.”
“So where are you now?”
“The Bowlerama, where else?” he says. “The UPF are staying put since they can’t raise Carmine Cares for new orders. Oh yeah, and the Bowlerama’s comping them free food so long as they stand watch over the doorways.”
“Then stay put too, Tim? I don’t want you getting hurt.”
He sucks his teeth. “I wouldn’t know about that,” he says, raising his shotgun and racking the slide. “I ain’t new to this. Fuck with me, I’ll punch you right back. The late, great Ice-T said that.”
“Did he say that? Really?”
He shrugs. “Well, something kind of like that. I can never quite remember.”
“Well newsflash, Tim. We are new to this.”
“Awww, you worry about me too much,” he winks, then hangs up.
They bail from the bullet-hammered utivan leaving Ben, the driver, to drive back up to street level and draw more fire. Cusack pulls on a long leather coat that hides his body armor and lets his folding stock assault rifle hang at his side. The rest of Carmine Cares cover up too then hurry off at two minute intervals. Kirsty stands in the gloom of the drop-off bay. “What now?” she asks Cusack.
“Now we wait until last and then walk out of here, calm as you like.”
“And you’re sure this is working out fine?” she asks.
“Carmine will back us up,” Cusack nods. “He’s the man.”
Kirsty doesn’t share his faith. As Carmine Cares disperse, she pulls a clear perspex calling card from her pocket and dials Bostov’s company killers on Slate. Priest, the skinny kid with the bleached skin, appears on-screen and Kirsty starts to talk before she realizes it’s a recording. Kirsty says “Fuck” and waits for the tone.
“Priest, if you’re screening calls, pick up now...”
She waits. He doesn’t. “Come get me,” she says. “Meat4 Power are zeroing in on me and I’m starting to get scared because even your rental soldiers are starting to get scared too. If you don’t pull me out soon, you’re never going to know what I’m finding out.”
Five minutes later, just like Cusack promised, they walk out and up and into the mall. Business is down and shoppers are thin on the ground, what with the overnight gang war. But the Tramtrax stop is inside the mall and by the time they catch one, Cusack’s confident they’ve thrown off any tail.
By 11.45, they’re walking into twelve unit industrial park that’s a ten minute walk from Kirsty’s brownstone. It’s an anonymous spot – just a wide concrete forecourt surrounded on three sides by multi-purpose units. Cinder block walls, corrugated sheet roofing and two doors – an roll-up steel shutter covering the tractor trailer access and a regular six foot pedestrian door right next to it. Kirsty checks the time and makes her first call to the Fedlab but doesn’t get through. Cusack kneels next to her and struggles with the small door’s stiff padlock and rusting chains.
“Carmine’s smart,” he says, straining against jammed bolts. “He bought a bunch of units like this years ago, fitted them out and then abandoned them. He looks ahead, see? He knew one day, one of his crews would need a safe house.” The bolts finally slam back. “I reckon today’s the day, don’t you?”
The door creaks open on a few thousand square feet of damp commercial storage, the floor concrete hard standing, the damp air reeking of rust and neglect. Cusack fumbles for the circuit breaker and snaps on bare bulbs dangling from the ceiling beams. They step into a loading bay area that could fit three tractor trailers side by side. The raised lip of the loading bay is topped by a seven foot wall made of welded corrugated sheeting and draped in coils of razor wire. There’s one break in the wall off to the right.
“This is the genius bit,” says Cusack, making for the break. “The whole place is a maze of these shipping containers,” he bangs one as they walk into a narrow passage between a couple. “Anyone coming in has got to walk down and up and down and up two or three times to get to the split level over on the far side. That’s time enough for us to drop enough fire on your head to make you think twice. Duck down here, Miss Powell…”
They turn and twist and push round jagged metal until they reach metal stairs leading up to one final container raised almost to the ceiling by the two containers it’s resting on. “The final refuge,” Cusack says. “The lower containers are backfilled with rubble – unmovable. Upstairs, we’ve kevlar over sandbags on the floor, steel plates welded triple thick on the walls. Once I’ve got you inside there, y
ou’re bullet proof until the food runs out. That’s weeks, Miss Powell.”
The steps are overwelded by jagged scraps of corrugated sheeting, the grooves running up and down the angle of the stairs so that only a narrow strip of steps are visible up the center. She goes up slowly, watching each step carefully. “Easy to break a leg,” she says.
“That’s the general idea,” he nods.
The final refuge is as functional and unappealing as the rest of the unit. Two rooms, one door. The front has a plastic water butt, sandbags piled deep against the front wall, ammunition boxes and hammocks. The back has plastic chairs and a wooden table, cardboard boxes of long-life rations, rolled sleeping mats and a chemical toilet.
“Good a place as any to make a stand, I guess,” she says.
“It shouldn’t come to that,” he tells her. “Close the door, make your calls. I need to get my crew positioned once they start arriving.”
At 12.20, on her fifth attempt, Kirsty’s call to Fedlab 157 finally gets through. “You took your time,” she says.
“Just making sure I got everything right,” says the Fedtech. “Gas spectrometry on all inorganic samples plus blood chromatography and full DNA profiling on all the organics. Results are uplinking to you now.”
She watches the download bar creep across Slate’s screen. “I could really do with just the highlights,” she tells him. “Have you got names on the stiffs?”
“DNA profiling identifies them as Millie Novak, Taki Otomo, Linden Kokin and Kenny Sossamon,” he says. “Just four normal, young, mildly intoxicated Hub residents.”
“Four?” queries Kirsty. “I only sampled three bodies.”
“Affirmative,” nods the Fedtech. “You swabbed three. Blood and tissue-typing highlighted the fourth.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere,” he says. “Skin cells belonging to Sossamon were in every wound track of every body. And that finger-nail you extracted? The body was Novak’s, the nail was Sossamon’s. That’s your smoking gun right there. Sossamon’s your perp, no doubt. Is that what you needed to hear?”
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