by Thomas Fay
‘I’m a Sentinel. I know everything there is to know about you and your employer. By the end of the day I can promise you that you’ll both be either in jail or dead. Which one it is, I’ll leave up to you.’
Jack Dell laughed. It was a cruel and mocking sound. He pulled Maria closer as he pressed his handgun tighter against her temple.
‘It looks like I’m holding all the cards, Sentinel. Now, you’re going to tell me where I can find Simone Greenberg or things are going to get very messy.’
‘No, leave her alone!’ Agostino cried out.
‘Enough!’ Jack Dell shouted. ‘Where is she?’
John was picturing Fernali’s Sentinel cruiser racing along Victoria Road, the traffic override in full effect. They were still too far away. It would take too long. He needed more time.
‘Alright. Let them go and I’ll take you to her.’
Thirty-Four
Manson’s theory states that there are no coincidences, no random sequence of events that somehow come together at exactly the right moment to create a desired outcome. John had never really given much credence to the theory. In his two and a half decades as an officer of the law he had certainly encountered enough situations to make him believe in coincidences. Most of those situations had ended badly, where coincidence had conspired to achieve the worst possible outcome. On a very few occasions that outcome had been positive.
This was one of them.
John was contemplating disarming Jack Dell when the sound of screeching tyres, followed by angry shouts and then gunshots, reached them from the street in front of the house. Lauren cast him a questioning look. John nodded.
‘Fernali’s here,’ he whispered.
‘Nobody move!’ Jack Dell shouted. ‘Peter, Mick, go see what the hell is happening out there. Wayne, you’re with me. Keep them covered.’
‘Yes, boss,’ the men replied in unison. Two of them drew their handguns and disappeared down the corridor heading for the front door. The third man, Wayne, held his handgun at the ready.
‘You know you can’t win,’ John said. His eyes flicked to his handgun lying on the ground. It was just out of reach.
‘Shut up,’ Jack Dell said. He gripped Maria’s arm tighter, causing her to whimper in pain.
‘You realise you’re no longer in control of this situation, don’t you? In fact, to be perfectly honest, you were never in control. You made a serious mistake coming here. What I said before, about you having a choice between being dead or ending up in prison? Forget about that. You’ve signed your own death warrant by coming here.’
‘Shut up, Sentinel. This is far from over and you don’t have your fancy android to fight your battles for you.’
‘You really don’t understand what a Sentinel is, do you? We are the foremost law enforcement operatives in Iona. We answer only to the Ruling Council. Even if you were to somehow take down one of us, your life would be over. Not only would the Sentinels hunt you down with every resource at our disposal, the Ruling Council would seek you out. Believe me when I tell you, there is no evading the Ruling Council.’
John knew that Jack Dell would never be talked down. His hired gun, Wayne, was a different story altogether. He could see the doubt on Wayne’s face. He had clearly signed on with the promise of easy money for running errands and providing a show of force when the occasion required it. He had never expected to challenge the Sentinels, let alone the Ruling Council.
‘I’ll give you one last chance, before the other Sentinels come through that door. Drop your weapons and we’ll only arrest you. Resist and you’re all as good as dead.’
‘Boss, I think we should do as he says,’ Wayne said. Jack Dell turned on him.
‘Shut up! No way are we going to—’
Jack Dell never got to finish his sentence. John stepped forward. Grabbing Jack Dell’s handgun, he pushed his arm upwards, following through with a powerful elbow. Jack Dell fell backwards, blood spurting from his nose. John brought the handgun to bear on Wayne.
‘Drop it. Now,’ John said.
‘Okay. Don’t shoot,’ Wayne said. He obediently dropped his weapon on the floor. John turned to Maria.
‘Are you alright?’ he asked.
She nodded her head. She was still shaking as Agostino pulled her close.
‘Lauren, get my handgun,’ John said. He kept the weapon in his hand firmly fixed on Jack Dell. Lauren bent down and picked up his discarded handgun. Reversing her hold, she handed it to John with the grip facing outwards.
‘Thanks,’ John said.
‘No problem,’ Lauren said.
John swapped his handgun for the one he had taken from Jack Dell. He absently noted the quality of the weapon. It was an expensive P-500 rapid-fire handgun, comparable in durability, stopping power and quality to the Sentinel TK-900 handgun. It was a weapon capable of killing a dozen people with ease. Another reason he needed to put a stop to Karl Hobbs’s operation.
‘So, what did I miss?’ a familiar voice asked as Fernali walked into the kitchen.
Thirty-Five
The front of Agostino Romano’s house was no longer immaculate. Fernali’s Sentinel cruiser had ploughed straight into the low red-brick wall surrounding the front yard. Heavily reinforced at the front, the cruiser had survived relatively unscathed with only a few scratches and minor dents to show for the collision. The wall was a different story. Pieces of red brick lay scattered all across the front lawn. Five bodies lay amongst them. None of them were moving. All showed signs of bullet wounds. Streeter leaned against the Sentinel cruiser. He was holding his left arm. His suit was covered in blood.
‘You alright?’ John asked.
‘Just a flesh wound,’ Streeter replied between clenched teeth. His face was pale as he struggled to keep his breathing even.
‘You’re in shock. We better get you to a hospital.’
Streeter nodded. Fernali pushed Jack Dell and Wayne into the back seat of the cruiser. Activating the prisoner restraints, he closed the doors.
‘What do you want me to do with these two?’ he asked.
‘Take them back to Sentinel HQ. We’ll see if we can get anything useful from them,’ John replied. ‘You’d better get Streeter to a medical facility. He doesn’t look so good.’
‘He’s never looked that good but I think you’re right. That’s a lot of blood.’
‘I’m fine,’ Streeter said. His eyes and body language told a different story.
‘Alright, get out of here before Jastrzebski or the Ruling Council show up. I’ll meet you at Sentinel HQ in a little while. And get a meat wagon down here asap to get rid of these bodies.’
‘Will do,’ Fernali said.
‘And Fernali.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Thanks.’
Fernali smiled as he climbed into the driver’s seat. He turned the car on and reversed off the brick wall. The sound of metal scraping against brick was like chalk on a blackboard. The remains of the red-brick wall collapsed as the cruiser disappeared down the street.
‘Agostino, I am so sorry for this. I should never have come here,’ John said.
‘Non e vero, John. This was not your fault. Besides, when I agreed to get involved, I knew what I was getting into,’ Agostino said. He eyed his ruined wall and the five dead bodies lying strewn across his front lawn.
‘It would have been nice if you hadn’t destroyed my front yard, though.’
They looked at each other. Then they burst out laughing. John clapped Agostino on the shoulder.
‘You’re a good man, Agostino. I’ll make sure this gets cleaned up quickly and the Sentinels cover the cost of repairing the damage to your house.’
‘Grazie, John.’
‘Now that this is all over, can we get back to the reason we came here in the first place?’ Lauren asked.
‘Of course, bella. Let’s go inside and I’ll make a few phone calls. I’m sure we can figure out of a way of getting you out of the city without the Ruling Council noti
cing.’
John held the door open as Agostino and Lauren walked back inside. Stepping inside, John paused. He surveyed the front lawn. Five more dead bodies. The Chief was going to have a heart attack.
Thirty-Six
The turbo-lift doors opened on the twenty-fifth floor of Sentinel HQ. John stepped out. The doors slid shut behind him with a faint hiss of air. He took a deep breath. Then he walked down the corridor and opened the door to the Chief’s office.
‘Tesh, come in and close the door,’ the Chief said.
John closed the door and sat down in a chair facing the Chief.
‘Qallan Frost called me again,’ the Chief said.
‘What did he want?’ John asked.
‘He wanted to know if we’d found Walter Menzies’s research.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘I told him we were getting close but that we were encountering considerable resistance at every turn from Councillor Jonathan Gage.’
John shifted in his seat.
‘What did he say to that?’
‘He said that he was doing what he could to help us but he also said that we were running out of time. What the hell have you stumbled into, Tesh?’
‘It seems we’re caught in a power struggle between Jonathan Gage and Qallan Frost for control of the Ruling Council. Somehow, Walter Menzies’s death is the key to the whole thing.’
‘Control of the Ruling Council? Christ, Tesh. That’s never happened before.’
‘That’s not all. There’s at least one other player involved, a man named Karl Hobbs.’
‘The commodities trader?’
‘Officially. Unofficially, he’s got a well-trained hit squad running around town and he’s up to his neck in all sorts of illegal activity. I’m also pretty sure he’s the one that tried to kill Lauren yesterday and he’s the one who was paying Walter Menzies for his consulting work.’
‘He was paying Walter Menzies? For what?’
‘I can only guess he was funding this mysterious M-theory energy transference research. He was looking for a way of challenging the Iona Corporation’s dominance of the renewable energy market.’
The Chief leaned back in his chair as he considered what he had been told. John stared through the window behind him, seeing the boats out on the harbour. Their multi-coloured sails reminded him of the butterflies in Agostino Romano’s garden.
‘We need to take this Karl Hobbs out of the equation,’ the Chief said.
‘Agreed. We’ve got his right hand, Jack Dell, in custody.’
‘That was quick.’
‘Well, he did follow me and Lauren this morning. Let’s just say that things got a touch messy.’
‘Tesh, what did you do?’
‘Actually, this time it wasn’t me. Fernali and Streeter managed to destroy the front of a house in Five Dock, as well as kill five of Karl Hobbs’s hired guns.’
The Chief’s eyes opened wide.
‘Five? You’re telling me you’re responsible for five more dead bodies? Are you going for a personal best?’
‘Chief, you weren’t listening. These five are all Fernali and Streeter. I managed to disarm my two without killing them.’
‘Alright, let’s say that I believe you. So much for handling things diplomatically. Go and sweat this Jack Dell character and get something to take Hobbs down with.’
‘Will do, Chief.’
‘And try not to kill anyone today.’
John smiled. Then his smile vanished.
‘I’ve got a bit of a situation with Socrates.’
‘What kind of a situation?’
‘He’s been missing since last night.’
Thirty-Seven
Fernali was waiting for him outside Interview Room 3. He held a touchscreen tablet in one hand. He had taken his jacket off and rolled up his sleeves. John took in his appearance.
‘You planning on beating someone up?’ he asked.
Fernali looked up from the tablet’s screen.
‘What? No, why?’
‘No reason. What have you got?’
Fernali handed him the tablet.
‘Wayne Rice, twenty-nine years old, born in Newcastle. Dropped out of high school, ended up in the army. Basic infantry, some weapons training, survival; nothing special. Left after his first tour. Moved to Iona three years ago. Worked as a courier for about six months. Currently employed by KHE Pty Ltd, Karl Hobbs’s holding company.’
‘Any priors?’
‘One charge of common assault. He’s fairly clean. Must be new.’
John nodded.
‘What about Dell?’
‘What I sent you before. Jack Dell, forty-seven years old. He’s been working for Karl Hobbs for about twenty-five years, since the Global Energy Crisis. Numerous associations with known crime families. Suspicion of supply of prohibited drugs, possession of unregistered firearms, several charges of common assault. Nothing he was ever convicted for. Seems he always had good lawyers.’
‘And Jason?’
‘His younger brother, Jason Dell. Thirty-nine years old, serving a life sentence at Long Bay for murder. Guess his lawyers weren’t as good.’
‘Clearly. That’s our leverage. When I mentioned Jason’s name earlier it definitely got a reaction. Which room is he in?’
‘This one. What about Rice?’
‘Waste of time. He won’t know anything useful. Leave him in there for a while; we can get one of the other guys to sweat him a bit before we book him.’
John opened the door to Interview Room 3. Jack Dell sat behind the table. His hands rested on the table. His wrists were encased in composite restraints. Made of a tough resin, they were bulky and impossible to get out of. His nose was covered in dry blood.
‘How’s the nose?’ John asked, sitting down. Fernali positioned himself against the wall between them. He folded his arms across his chest.
‘Go to hell. Where’s my lawyer?’ Jack Dell spat.
‘Lawyer? You’ve got to be joking. You just assaulted a Sentinel, attempted to kidnap a citizen of Iona, caused damage to private property and discharged an illegal firearm in a residential area. No lawyer is going to help you get out of that.’
Jack Dell glared at him from across the table.
‘The only way you can help yourself is to help us. We know you work for Karl Hobbs. We know he’s been trying to get a hold of Walter Menzies’s research. What we don’t know is why? What does he want with it?’
Jack Dell said nothing.
‘You attacked a Sentinel. We have the authority to terminate your life immediately. Whether we exercise that power or not is entirely up to our discretion.’
Jack Dell said nothing.
‘Alright, you leave me no choice. Not only are we going to exercise that power but we’re going to make sure that your brother Jason joins you in the Pit at Long Bay.’
Jack Dell lurched forward, straining against the resin holding his hands secure.
‘Leave my brother out of this!’
John smiled.
‘Now that I’ve got your attention, let me propose another scenario. Both you and your brother get moved to a private cell at Long Bay. Who knows, if you manage to behave yourselves you might actually see daylight again.’
Jack Dell slumped back into his chair, as far as the restraints would allow. His eyes seethed with hatred as his jaw clenched and unclenched. Finally, he spoke.
‘Alright. I’ll tell you what I know.’
Thirty-Eight
John and Fernali stepped out of the interview room. The door clicked into place behind them.
‘That was a gamble,’ Fernali said. ‘What was all that nonsense about Sentinels being authorised to terminate anyone who attacked us?’
John grinned.
‘I was improvising. He was clearly worried but I needed to really frighten him to make the threat against his brother credible.’
‘It was a risk.’
‘Hey, it worked, didn’t it?’
‘If you say so. We going to go see Hobbs now?’
‘Yes. I’ve got to swing by the tech lab first. How’s Streeter doing, by the way?’
‘He’s okay. Flesh wound, two bullets passed straight through his arm. They didn’t hit anything important. He’ll regain full use of his arm but it might take a while.’
‘The Chief has assigned Dean and Nostrum as further backup. Can you bring them up to speed? I’ll meet you in the parking lot in ten.’
‘Sure.’
John walked down the corridor and boarded one of the turbo-lifts. His fingerprint unlocked the lower levels and he found himself in the world of computer hardware twenty seconds later. Looking around, he quickly located the young technician.
‘James, I need your help with something.’
James Gleason put down an intricate-looking piece of circuitry. He flicked off a holoprojector and looked up.
‘Sure, what do you need?’
‘Socrates has been missing since last night. I need your help to find him.’
‘Okay. Have you tried calling his phone?’
John gave the young tech a look.
‘Ah, right. Sorry. Of course you would have tried that. Let me get the tracking programs up.’
Three holoprojectors sprang to life. Multi-coloured beams splayed back and forth across an area marked out on the floor. James typed a series of instructions into his tablet.
‘Okay, I’ve input the search parameters. If he’s anywhere within the city and within range of a surveillance camera, then we should pick him up.’
‘How long will this take?’
‘About sixty seconds. We have a full profile on Socrates loaded into the system. I’ve diverted all spare processing capacity to the recognition software.’
‘How come it took so long to find Simone Greenberg yesterday?’
‘That was based on a high-resolution 2D image and a voice print. Granted, both were extremely high quality but they were nothing compared to the profiles we have on our operatives. They’re essentially full 3D models with movement characteristics, height, weight—well, you get the idea. Here it comes.’