“So?” Hill asked. “What made you guys stop playing along?”
“Before we went public, you mean? The short-short version is we learned we had been set up,” she said. “We never did ‘play along’ with Hanlon. We didn’t even realize he was involved until months after we found out that Congress was trying to cover up the program, and that cover-up was a big part of what drove us to go public in the first place.
“Glazer’s connection to Hanlon clicked into place during your interview,” she said to Hill. It was as good an explanation as any. “Once he said a senator was involved, I had a hunch it was Hanlon. Turns out I was right.”
“Was that what you were trying to tell Sturtevant before you went in?” Hill asked.
She shrugged and half-nodded so Hill would think he had guessed correctly.
“Sturtevant shouldn’t throw you out of the MPD because he didn’t listen,” Zockinski said.
“Yeah, well,” Rachel said. “Few things are fair.”
“Come on,” Zockinski stood. “We’re gonna talk to him.”
“Who? Sturtevant?”
“Yes,” Zockinski replied.
She looked over her shoulder at the door. “I already tried. He doesn’t want to see me,” she said. “It’ll be better if I keep out of his way, maybe give him a chance to cool off.”
“You want to stay at First District Station?” Hill asked her.
“Yeah.” Rachel grinned up at him. “Yeah, I do.”
“Atran and Netz, too?”
Jason would prefer the FBI, but she knew Phil had his heart set on the bomb squad. “Yes.”
“Okay,” Hill nodded and left.
“Where’s he going?” Rachel asked Zockinski.
“He told you,” Zockinski said. He got up and went to the coffee pot. “To talk to Sturtevant.”
“Oh,” Rachel didn’t know what else to say other than offer a weak: “He doesn’t have to do that.”
“Shut up, Peng,” Zockinski said, and sat back down with a full mug. He scowled at the taste.
She was up and cleaning out the coffee maker before she remembered she had to keep her hands free.
“It’s fresh,” Zockinski said as he stole her magazine.
“No, it’s not. And it’s disgusting. I want coffee,” Rachel said. She hadn’t, but she was getting jittery and needed to move. “If you don’t have the sense to clean the machine first, that’s your own damn fault.”
He shrugged and began turning pages.
Rachel poured water into the glass carafe, then started to swirl it around and around as the dish soap foamed. Water was a problem for her, moving water especially. It ran in and out of itself, twisting back and forth in patterns she could almost but not quite understand…
Her subconscious twitched.
She rested the pot on the bottom of the sink and ran a quick scan through Glazer. He was still securely bound to table and floor in the interview room. Jason, Hill, and Sturtevant were with him; as she watched, Sturtevant left, leaving Jason and Hill alone with Glazer.
Rachel returned to her scrubbing. She knew this feeling: she was staring at something important but it hadn’t yet crossed the barrier between hindbrain and conscious thought. She poured more soap in the carafe and worked at the burned-on stains, hoping the task would cause her subconscious to get bored and do something useful.
“Peng, quit humming,” Zockinski said.
“Shh,” she shushed him and flipped her implant to reading mode, then back to full spectrum while her subconscious started to scream.
“Snuglet the Seal?” Zockinski asked.
Rachel glanced over at the detective, her raised eyebrow asking him if he had lost his darned mind.
“My kids watch the reruns,” he said, and shrugged. “Don’t give me that look. You’re the one humming the theme song.”
Her mind slammed shut on his words like a trap. Rachel stepped back into the middle of the room and spun her sixth sense out to the edge of the building and beyond, searching through a thousand different core colors like she was trying to pick out one voice in a crowd.
There.
Eric Witcham, né Charley Brazee, with his distinctively bland core of Snuglet’s blues and grays, bobbed and weaved through the routine activities of First District Station as he made his way towards the interrogation room.
“He’s here,” she whispered. Then: “He’s here! Witcham’s in the building!”
She was running out of the break room before she had finished shouting, Zockinski at her heels.
“Jason!” Rachel called through the link as she shook the suds off her hands. “Put Glazer into lockdown. Witcham’s coming for him.”
“Get me his cell,” he said. “A tablet, a computer… Get me something he’s carrying so I can use it to track him.”
“Go,” she said to the detective as she broke away and waved him on. “They’re in Interrogation. I’ll meet you there. I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.”
Rachel leaned her forehead against the cinder block wall and followed Witcham. “Two devices,” she told Jason. “A phone and a…” It was new and unfamiliar, and it left a nasty aftertaste in her mind.
“Here.” She sent him a link to Witcham’s cell. “He’s got something else on him,” she said. “I haven’t had time to pick it apart, but I don’t like it at all.”
“Bomb?”
“Maybe. If it is, it’s different than any I’ve seen before. I’m linking Phil in,” she said, and pinged the wiry Agent hiding in the relative comfort of Santino’s office. “He’ll know.”
Phil joined them, but before he could ask why they were hot with anxiety, Jason shouted: “Glazer’s up! He’s fight—”
Then, nothing. Jason had vanished from the link.
“Rachel?!”
“I don’t know, Phil. Here,” she said, and passed him the information on Witcham’s cell. “That’s Witcham’s. He’s in the building, and he’s carrying another—”
“Holy… It’s a bomb. Rachel, he’s got a live bomb!”
A live bomb and the Agent nearest to it was down. “Jason’s unconscious,” she sent to Phil, and started running again, joining the herd of officers stampeding towards Witcham and Glazer. Four rooms away, Jason’s prone body had lost its conversational colors but his core was still healthy. “He’ll be okay. Can you suppress the bomb?”
“Already done,” Phil said from two floors above her head. “The digital detonator’s useless now, don’t worry about it.”
“Thanks,” she told him in relief. She would have done it herself if they were down to the last few seconds on the clock, but Phil was the right choice if someone had to go spelunking around in strange explosives.
She rounded the corner as the world went white.
TWENTY-ONE
Rachel lost her balance and tripped on a body, the shock to her inner ears from the stun grenade wrecking her equilibrium. She hit the ground hard and glanced up to track movement; the first explosion had blown the Plexiglas cases over the tube lighting off of their hinges, a dozen small cylinders falling from these on thin plastic cords. She scrambled back around the corner for cover, then snapped off her visuals and got her hands over her ears as twelve more concussions ripped down the hallway, hammering the fallen officers strewn across the floor.
Rachel lurched to her feet to see Witcham and Glazer leave through the outer door of the Interrogation wing’s rodeo chute, the warrens of the parking garage beyond.
“Rachel!”
“Flash-bangs,” she told Phil as she went back around the corner and staggered down the corridor. Stun grenades incapacitated through flash blindness and a blast of sound loud enough to disorient; she was apparently immune to the first but not the second. It was eerily silent except for his voice in her mind; her ears had been hit so hard they’d need more time before they started to ring. “Everyone’s down but me.”
“I’ve still got control of Witcham’s bomb,” he said. “Whatever blew, that wasn’t it.”
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“I know,” she said, looking at the smoking tubes on the ground, those officers who were still conscious recoiling from their residual heat. “He prepped the escape months ago, set the grenades in the lighting fixtures during the renovations… I think he tossed one and the rest were rigged to drop at the explosion.”
Zockinski had been among the first to have reached Interrogation and he had been hit full-bore by the first grenade. He had fallen next to Hill, who was down but still moving; Hill had his arms under him and was starting to push himself upright. Rachel pulled her sleeve over her hand and bashed a grenade canister off of Zockinski’s neck, then wobbled on by. It would take too long to get them to recognize her, let alone rely on them for backup.
“I’m on the first floor. Santino’s with me,” Phil said.
“Get a medical team in here and lock down the perimeter,” she told him, then realized she had fallen back into Army lingo. Details were needed. “They’re in the parking garage. They’re probably taking a car, so block off every road,” she clarified. “But the subway and bus lines are within walking distance so make sure those are shut down, too. Nobody enters, nobody leaves, and if you get shit about giving orders, you put Sturtevant in a headlock and you choke him until commands come out!”
“Rachel?” Phil paused. “I looped this conversation through Chief Sturtevant’s phone. I thought it would be quicker than playing catch-up.”
She shoved the profanity deep, deep down where neither Witcham nor Sturtevant would hear.
“Sir…”
“Later, Agent Peng,” Sturtevant said dryly.
“Yes, sir,” she replied. “I’m breaking communication. I need to concentrate. I’ll check in every three minutes.”
She dropped the link and mentally punched the digital locks on the two chute doors so hard she crisped the circuits. “The doors are open!” Rachel felt the pressure at her jawline but couldn’t hear herself shout. “Follow me out!”
She cleared the external door and tried to pick up speed, but her body wouldn’t go above a fast trot. The stun grenades weren’t to blame; as Rachel regained her balance and made an attempt at a run, her knees failed her. The fall in the hallway had exacerbated the days-old damage from the coffee shop and she couldn’t carry her own weight.
Her hearing started to come back, the alarms on the cars closest to her cutting through the wet fog muffling her ears. The explosions in the hallway had been intense enough to rock the floors above and below, and she limped along in a sphere of automobiles all screaming for their owners.
Fifty-two alarms. Her implant had counted their frequencies for her. She didn’t know it could do that; either she had been writing another script or Phil had stuck an extra into her private stash during practice.
Rachel stopped and took inventory. She had a set of busted knees and no chance in hell of catching the two men who were now almost directly below her, but she still had her gun with its solid rounds.
And her implant.
You’re the scariest goddamned thing on this planet, she reminded herself. So start acting like it.
Fifty-two signals… Mulcahy can do this. Her hearing had almost fully returned and the noise from the alarms was deafening. Josh can do this. Phil can, Jason can… Hell, even Shawn can, she thought, gathering up the cars’ frequencies in her mind, tracking each back to its source, weaving the myriad threads into a single command line. You might be the worst cyborg in OACET but you’re still a cyborg. You can do this. Ready, set…
Silence.
Through the concrete floor, underneath her own feet, she saw the two men freeze.
“Agent Peng?” The familiar friendly voice of Charley Brazee had an edge to it as it floated up from the void separating the split levels.
“Howdy, Eric!” she shouted, all happy smiles. “We’ve got the place surrounded. You’ve got rights, put your hands up, and… Aw, you boys are bright. You already know this speech.”
One floor down, she saw Witcham gesture to Glazer. The younger man broke off and moved silently away. Rachel unsnapped the clasp holding her service weapon in its old leather sleeve, but instead of retracing his steps towards her, Glazer kept moving further down into the garage. She left her gun in its holster so she could keep using her hands to steady herself against the cars.
“Come on out, Eric!” Rachel called out, limping slowly towards the void and keeping her voice intentionally loud to force the echoes. Witcham must have caught a change in volume as she saw him pull out a large-caliber pistol and take aim skywards, waiting for her to poke her head over the concrete divider. “I’d love to finish our little chat!”
“I don’t think we have time for that, Agent Peng,” he said, going low and sneaking forward along the tire line of a late-model Tacoma for a clear shot. “I’m assuming I’m talking to Mulcahy or Sturtevant?”
“Just me.” She was transmitting to the community server and to Santino’s cell, but she didn’t need another voice in her head. “You’ve got my complete attention.”
Witcham said something biting but she barely heard him as she ran the angles. Reinforced concrete, rebar… She couldn’t have asked for a better location for a shootout. If she could coax Witcham into moving closer to the void, she could use the solid rounds with no risk to herself and still practically guarantee she could send a bullet ricocheting into Witcham’s skull. God answers strange prayers.
She shrugged out of her suit coat and tossed it over the divider. Witcham’s reflexes were slow; he took several seconds to aim and fire. His shot went wide but he held his position.
“Eric!” Rachel feigned sorrow. “I thought we were friends!”
“I don’t want to shoot you, Agent Peng,” he said. “Stay where you are. No heroics, understand?”
“No problem, Eric! I’m not the hero type,” she said, and set off the alarm of the truck he was using for shelter to rattle him.
His conversational colors barely changed, all confident blues and golds. “Sorry, Peng,” Witcham laughed. “Ten years from now, you’ll probably be able to drive a car straight at me. But until transmissions go digital, all you’ve got is noise.”
“Says the man who uses flash-bangs instead of real grenades.”
“You think I want to hurt people? Maybe people I know? That’s sick.”
“Maria Griffin says hi,” Rachel retorted.
“She was business,” Witcham said, and his colors took on a mournful gray. “I hated having to do that.”
Rachel blinked; he actually did regret her murder. Had circumstances been different, Rachel might have changed her mind about plotting a kill shot. “Business? There’s a shitty reason to murder someone if I’ve ever heard one.”
“New world,” he said. “New opportunities. There’s not a rich or a powerful man out there who doesn’t have blood on his hands.”
“Mercenaries don’t get to pick and choose when they grow a conscience.”
“Specialist-for-hire,” he corrected. “I normally play with finances. This is my first job with a body count. I hope it’s my last.”
“You just tried to shoot me! You want me to pat you on the back for your self-control?”
Two floors below Witcham, Glazer was powering up an old electric scooter. “I’m not about to go to jail,” Witcham said as the sound of the motor filled the garage. “Stay out of my way and you’ll be fine.”
“Hey, Charley, tell me one last thing,” she said, looping his old alias into their conversation. Dear, dear, Charley, my good friend Charley, I never thought you were a nobody, a petty annoyance, no, never… “If you’re a merc, who hired you? Your buddy told us it was Senator Hanlon. Was he right?”
His conversation colors brightened. “Can neither confirm nor deny, Agent Peng.”
“Really? Because you’re nodding, asshole!” Rachel shouted. “And you’re nodding on camera. Thanks for the leverage.”
“Nice try, Peng,” he said, and pulled another couple of feet away from the void as he moved ba
ck into the garage. “But I took out all surveillance.”
“Not mine,” Rachel leaned against a minivan for support and took out her gun. “Not me. Why does everyone forget I can see through walls?”
Witcham’s colors bled to white. She sympathized; Hanlon was a scary guy.
Please, please, please… Rachel’s hands were still shaking slightly from the grenades. She steadied her weapon on the van’s side view mirror and exhaled, slowly. Come four feet towards me. That’s all I need. Just four stupid feet…
“Nothing to say, Charley?” Her window was closing and he was too far back for a head shot. Rachel decided to settle for low center mass. Stomach wounds weren’t immediately fatal but she’d do her best. “I’ll take that as a yes. On behalf of OACET, please accept our heartfelt appreciation for the new lead. Also? Stop or I’ll shoot.”
The sound of the scooter’s motor grew louder as Glazer closed the distance. “Goodbye, Rachel. It’s been fun,” Witcham called out above its sputter. He pulled another foot away from the void and she cursed herself for procrastinating. “Don’t bother looking for me. This isn’t my first time going to ground. Even if we do see each other again, you won’t know it’s me.”
And Glazer arrived, and Witcham took another step away from the void, and Rachel squeezed off two perfect shots which moved against concrete and steel before passing through each of Eric Witcham’s shins.
Then, before Witcham or gravity caught on to the fact his lower legs were gone, she put two more through his ankles, just so she and Mulcahy would have something to snicker about at parties.
“Don’t be countin’ on it,” she muttered to herself in a mock Irish brogue.
There was screaming. Glazer grabbed Witcham in a fireman’s carry, then threw him over the back seat of the scooter and swung it around so it was pointed towards the bottom of the parking garage. They took off in a sputter, Witcham’s howls gradually fading as they drove down the ramp.
Rachel collapsed on the pavement. She stared at the four fresh burrs she had stamped in the concrete and idly wondered how many months of practice she would need to put in with solid rounds before she could double-bank her shots. Then she reached out through the link. “Phil?”
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