That made him think about Li. He wouldn't be happy if Kepper failed. And while he was more than willing to kill anyone Li sent to liquidate him, having to look over his shoulder for League assassins would get tiring.
Besides, Allan Kepper never failed to snag a mark. That was his promise to clients. He always got his man—or woman, for that matter.
With a snarl, Kepper lifted himself to his feet and started hobbling back to the Harr'al's helicar. First things first, a visit to Doc Zuyev to get his leg treated. Then he would run the plate numbers on the escape vehicle.
19
When the helicar pulled up with their potential passenger bleeding in the back seat, Henry found he was speechless for a moment, mostly because he wasn't sure whether to praise Cera's initiative or yell at her for putting herself into danger without backup. Silence proved an acceptable midpoint. He climbed into the front passenger seat while Tia rushed around and climbed in behind Cera, allowing her to get to the stricken Miri Gaon. "Please, get me into the Center," Miri said hoarsely. "Please."
"They don't have a full medical staff on-site, and you need a doctor," Henry said. He nodded to Cera. "Get us back."
"Yes, sir."
Miri swallowed while Tia examined her wounds, grimacing. Blood from Miri’s wounds was already soaking the cheap cloth interior. Tia pulled her jacket off and pushed it against the shoulder wound, which was worse. Miri let out a short cry of agony.
"You're going to bleed to death if I don't," Tia warned. She noted that the other wound on Miri's side was oozing blood as well. "Henry, I need something. She's bleeding from two wounds. It's not good."
Despite Cera beginning a skyward ascent into the sky traffic lanes, Henry briefly released his harness to shed his jacket. He handed it back to Tia, who took it with her left hand and applied it to the second wound while her right kept the shoulder wound under pressure.
"Get me to the Center," Miri repeated, grimacing from the pain shooting through her arms.
"It's not safe for you there," Henry said. "Whoever is after you knows where you are."
Tia flashed him a look. "The union would fight for her."
"Maybe so, but there's more than one way to take someone from a place like that," Henry replied, trying not to sound like he was insulting the ISU's ability to protect its members. "And if this guy's willing to open fire or has buddies who will, how many spacers could get killed?"
In the back, Miri started to slouch carefully, her hand gently moving toward the remaining pistol on her ankle.
Tia reached over and grabbed her. "We're not here to hurt you," she said to Miri. "We're here to get you to safety."
Miri tried to fight, but with the pain in her left side and the damage to her right arm, she couldn't quite escape Tia despite the latter's awkward leverage. "Who are you people?"
"I'm Tia Nguyen, First Mate of the Shadow Wolf, an independent ship," Tia said. "We've been hired to extract you."
"James Henry," Henry said from the front seat. "Captain of the same ship. This is our helmswoman, Cera McGinty."
Miri let out a small sigh of relief. "I… I see. Abdul sent you."
"If you mean Major al-Lahim, yes, he did," Henry said. "He said you were one of his once."
"More like he was one of mine," she said softly. "I helped train him for a brief time before I retired."
"I'd say you made an impression, then."
Miri laid her head back as sweat poured down her face. She looked like she was getting sick. Beside her, Tia appeared worried. "She might be going into shock," she warned Henry and Cera.
"Cera, get us to the spaceport as quickly as you can. Without breaking the traffic codes." The Harr'al tolerated a lot of things, but violating air traffic laws for helicars was one thing he suspected they paid close attention to.
"Goin' as fast as I can, sir," she answered.
By that point, Henry was already bringing his commlink up. "Felix, get Oskar prepped. We've got wounded in need of medical attention."
"Roger that," Felix said.
There was silence as the helicar sped to the spaceport.
* * *
In the seedier blocks of the Alien Quarter, Doctor Zuyev maintained a personal practice that catered primarily to the dark economy of Sektatsh, namely wounded criminals and sick slaves. Kepper watched as one such slave, a Harr'al, was pushed out of an exam room by an irate master of the same species growling something in the local language. This allowed the male Tal'mayan nurse to give Kepper entry. "Doctor Zuyev will be with you shortly," the nurse promised before closing the door.
Kepper limped over to the bed and sat. Frustration still roiled within him about the unexpected interruption and how Li had failed to warn him of the effectiveness of the extraction team. The "independent spacers" claim felt stretched, given how effectively that helicar driver had removed the mark.
Kepper was not in the mood to talk when his link activated. The code confirmed it was Li calling it, and Kepper only answered so he could lead off with, "Independent spacers, my ass, Li!"
On the small holo-screen the commlink displayed, Li's expression turned immediately sour. "So you failed."
"You didn't tell me they had someone who could drive a helicar like that! What else are you hiding about this crew of so-called 'independent traders'?"
Li rolled his eyes. "They're not operatives, Kepper. Maybe you're just overrated."
At that moment, Kepper longed to kill Li. He could taste the fear he would bring to the arrogant Leaguer in his final moments. He gritted his teeth and bit down the impulse. "Even if they're not operatives, they're something more than mere independent spacers! Just who the hell are these people, anyway?"
"That's privileged intelligence information. I'm afraid I can't share it," Li responded. "Should I be hiring someone else?"
Kepper snarled. "I'm not done yet, Li. I've got their helicar number, so I'm going to track them when I'm done. You'll get your mark."
"See that I do." With that, Li ended the call.
Kepper forced ice-cold control into himself to prevent his anger from leading to something foolish like pitching his link into the wall. He took a deep breath and blocked out the desire to do horrible things to Li until the urges went away. With control restored, he sent the helicar number to his contact in the Sektatsh Traffic Control agency with instructions to give him their location ASAP.
By that point, the door opened, and Doctor Zuyev entered, bringing with him a tray of equipment. "It is not often I see you here, Kepper," he said, his English tinged with a Russian accent. "Job going bad?"
"Unexpected complication," Kepper said, his voice stable and unemotional. "I need to get back to it."
"Of course, of course. I will have you out shortly. You always pay well."
That’s precisely why I pay so well.
* * *
Li looked up from his monitor for a moment and let his irritations seethe. He wondered what he'd misjudged. Kepper's competence, perhaps. The man did have quite a reputation, but maybe it was unearned. Or did intel miss something about the Shadow Wolf?
He looked it up. The Shadow Wolf's known crew listing, at least on League intelligence lists, was too small for the ship, so there were things about them that weren’t known. Could an operative of some sort be on the vessel?
Or maybe it was just dumb luck. That happened.
Either way, Li knew Admiral Hartford was not going to rest easy until Miri Gaon was in custody. Disappointing him would not do the cause any good. Li would have to make arrangements.
With a couple of button presses, he brought up the list of assets the League had in local pirate bands and security forces. Someone would be interested in a payday to seize the Shadow Wolf and secure Miri Gaon.
* * *
The helicar pulled into the Shadow Wolf hangar to find the unloading job completed. Henry felt relieved since it meant no dealing with that fussy chamberlain, especially about why he was returning with a bloodied vehicle and someone new.
He darkly wondered if they would suspect he'd stolen a slave.
Oskar, Felix, and Brigitte were waiting with their one anti-grav stretcher for emergencies. Henry and Tia helped Miri from the back seat and, with their assistance, onto the stretcher itself. She was rather pale. "She's definitely in shock," Tia said, her voice strained.
"Indeed." Oskar checked his medscanner and nodded to the others. "To the infirmary, now." As they rushed away, Oskar continued giving orders. "Brigitte, I'll need you to run a blood sample for the synthblood synthesizer."
"Captain." Cera's voice turned his attention to the vehicle. She was looking in the back seat, where two angry splotches of blood showed on the cloth surface. "The rental agency's goin' t' freak at that, sir. Can we clean it?"
"We can, with some work," Tia said. There was no mistaking that she was shaken. When she noticed the way Henry was looking at her, with worry and sympathy, her gray eyes flared with frustration. "Don't feel pity for me, Jim. You've got your old memories, too, and you don't like being pitied over them either."
"True," he conceded. "I'll leave you two to the cleanup, and I'll send Vidia to help. I need to go send some messages and file our departure plan." He turned away. "It's time to get the hell off this planet."
* * *
Kepper walked out of Zuyev's office feeling restored at least physically. His ego still felt bruised, and Li's remarks stung more than he thought they would. His pride made that sting unavoidable, granted, but that pride was important. Professional pride was the shell he used to keep his urges in check.
Given that he was still waiting for news from his contact, Kepper flew the helicar back to Vasily's building. He was pleased to see no sign that the apartment had been disturbed in his absence. Upon entering, he went to the storage closet in the bedroom and tapped the key to trigger the sliding door. It opened, revealing a much bedraggled Harr'al bound and gagged. Given the mess he'd made of his things, it was obvious to Kepper that Vasily had done what he could to try to escape, although his captive was just silently kneeling, head bowed and eyes closed.
Given the frustrations of the day, Kepper felt a greater readiness to satisfy his urges, just a little. Only a few deep cuts. Nothing too messy. He might have done so had he not felt the call intensify enough that he doubted his control. There was a possible time crunch, and if he genuinely lost control, well, that would be too messy. Not to mention loud. No, not today. There would be no giving in to urges.
The part of him that wanted to satisfy himself, the proverbial devil on his shoulder, suggested a compromise. He might not enjoy the Harr'al's physical agony and prolonged death, but the emotional agony and terror of being dragged off to the Trader Quarter's slavers would at least satiate the need. He would get to hear the wailing and begging, see the terror in that rubbery face, in those pale-green eyes. It would be delicious.
But again, his damned pride stepped in. He'd told the Harr'al he would only sell him to a slaver if he didn't cooperate, and Vasily had kept true to his word. Some might have scoffed at the idea of honor among thieves—and kidnappers and assassins and slavers—but there had to be some expectation of a promise being fulfilled, or nothing would get done. That was how Kepper had been taught, and it was how he saw the world work. He wasn't about to sacrifice his pride for the pleasure of the Harr'al's terror at being returned to slavery.
Kepper considered his options. He supposed he could let Vasily go free, but that was sloppy. He could identify him and knew things about the situation that might yet hurt his efforts. No, that wouldn't do.
Vasily gave him a forlorn look. "You kill me now."
Kepper could see it wasn't a question. Vasily knew he wasn't walking away. Kepper was impressed. Then again, just because Vasily spoke English in that broken way didn't mean he was simple. And he'd had hours to understand the situation.
When Kepper didn't say anything right away, Vasily asked, "May I pray?"
He shrugged. "If you think anyone's listening, sure." As he spoke, his hand reached behind his back to pull out his pulse pistol. He put the muzzle against Vasily's bowed head. Vasily's voice began quietly speaking in what he figured was Russian or some other related language. He didn't bother turning on his auto-translator, not particularly caring for what was being said. Instead, he pulled out his commlink to see if there were any messages from his contact.
The speaking stopped. Kepper turned his head back to Vasily. The Harr’al’s pale-green eyes were fixed on him. He’s ready for the end. Perhaps there would be enjoyment in letting the moment linger. Give him some hope and time to consider his end, to allow some terror of death to come back. Kepper did have time to kill, after all. His commlink went off. Using his free hand, he checked it. His contact had a reply.
Kepper's finger tensed on the trigger. There was the hard-toned whiff of a pulse pistol shot and the thud of a lifeless body, once on its knees, falling over. He glanced down at Vasily's corpse and noted something akin to peace on the alien face, the rubbery skin relaxed in death.
That was one loose thread dealt with. Kepper still had a ship and a mark to catch.
20
After filing a departure flight plan with the Sektatsh Spaceport, Henry sent quick messages to the various parties interested in Miri, letting them know she was on the ship. He was still wondering just how the hell he was going to satisfy Vitorino, al-Lahim, and Caetano, all at once.
If that was impossible, well, then he was indeed between a rock and a hard place. Vitorino was his employer. Without his patronage, Lusitania and other worlds where Vitorino's trade network had weight would be tight spots to find work in. On the other hand, Caetano would certainly have Jules imprisoned and go after Henry and the rest of the crew. Al-Lahim couldn't be ignored, either—Coalition Intelligence could make all sorts of trouble for him, given his status back home.
A knock at his door prompted Henry to look up. "Come in," he said. Felix walked through the door, concern showing on his face. "Is our passenger doing all right?"
"Yeah. She's stabilizing." Felix slid into one of the available chairs. "So we've got our package. What now?"
"We take her back to Lusitania and get your brother cleared," Henry replied.
"You've got some grand plan to appease Coalition Intel, Minister Vitorino, and Caetano?" Seeing Henry's irritated glance at that query, Felix sighed and shook his head. "You don't."
"I'm working on it. That's the best I can do," Henry said.
"I'm not sure how you can satisfy them all," said Felix. "But if you don't follow through with Caetano—"
"Jules is the priority." Henry adopted a tone he hoped would reassure his oldest friend about his too-stubborn, absolute-faith-filled brother. "I just have to hope we can do this in a way that appeases Vitorino and al-Lahim as well."
"Well, CIS only seems interested in keeping her safe. We get her safely to Lusitania, and we've done that. Vitorino's going to be the problem, I figure. I know he's playing up that he wants the truth out as the Trade Minister, but knowing his rep, he has another motive."
"Vitorino always has ulterior motives," Henry noted wryly.
Felix took a moment, perhaps to consider his next remarks. "And what about this disappearances thing? Do you think our new passenger is an actual witness?"
"Well, either she is, or it's a mighty big coincidence that League intelligence tracked her to Harron from a lost ship. And you remember what they said about coincidences back at Halsey, don't you?"
"'Coincidences usually aren't,’" Felix quoted from memory. "That would imply that the League's involved with what's going on or at least knows who is and is not working with them in some way."
"That's my read too. But we won't know for sure until Miri talks." Henry looked toward the stern of the ship, in the general direction of the ship infirmary. "We'd better hope Oskar keeps her stabilized."
"In the meantime, I'm going to join Yanik down in the holds. Get some things ready. Just in case."
Henry recognized what Felix meant.
He nodded in agreement. "You do that," he said, eyeing the family rifle briefly. Felix caught the gesture and nodded, showing he understood what Henry was thinking. Without another word, he stood and departed.
* * *
After leaving Vasily's body in his apartment, Kepper finished his cleanup with haste. He dealt with the helicar with a scrubbing program that wiped the system blank then made arrangements for his stakeout gear to be cleared out—he didn't have time to do it himself—while making his way to the spaceport.
With the information from his contact on hand, Kepper didn't have trouble finding the helicar rental agency. Once he arrived, he found the staff reasonably flexible—that was, willing to cooperate for a reasonable bribe—and got the information he needed.
A few minutes later, the data filled the digital display on his personal reader. The vehicle had been rented by an independent trading shipowner, James Henry, co-owner and captain of the Shadow Wolf out of Darien. Kepper didn't recognize the name of the captain or ship. After considering whether someone might have practiced some datahack-enabled identity theft, he reasoned that such a vessel and crew would make for a quick and dirty extraction team. Independent traders needed work since they lacked the steady contracts that many shipping companies enjoyed. Getting paid to move a single person from one world to another was probably an ideal payday to them.
With this information in mind, Kepper decided to reach out to another contact. He was in luck—while his guy in traffic control was more of an equal in terms of mutual arrangement, he had dirt on one of the higher-level administrative officials of the spaceport, one Trafan Desik, a Harr'al from across the planet who ran a smuggling ring for which the city and neighboring Calnin authorities had little love. Kepper kept a functioning relationship with Desik by occasionally doing small jobs for him, never failing to remind him that Desik's fate was in his hands.
Coalition Defense Force Boxed Set: First to Fight Page 72