Witch Of The Federation III (Federal Histories Book 3)

by Michael Anderle

  It had taken him slightly longer to access the communications devices in the area, and he’d tagged them for later reference according to whether they were inactive or monitoring their traffic if they were live. He’d captured considerable footage of the fight itself, including Amy’s destruction of a section of the fifth floor of a building overlooking the carpark.

  The apartment had been empty—ready for lease, apparently—until the sniper team had picked the lock and made it their vantage point. Now, it was a crime scene and the apartment below would also need repairs before its new owners could move in.

  He’d also recorded the drop in property value. Up until the attack had reached the airwaves, this had been considered a nice part of town. That wasn’t important, now, though. What was important was the brief communication transmitted by the sniper.

  “In position.”

  And the reply, “Take the bitch out.”

  That had preceded Tracy shoving Elizabeth’s head below the level of the first window that had exploded. By then, BURT had hacked the comm equipment. The sniper’s comment on the situation had been brief and to the point. “Shit.”

  His spotter’s comment had been more professional. “Easy, now. She’s gonna have to move. The only place to go is the door they came out of. Ready?”

  He moved back through the comm link but found nothing more than the connection between the three teams that had come for R&D’s head—in more ways than one. Someone out there thought that removing Elizabeth from the equation would force the company’s reclusive owner into the open.

  They couldn’t have been more mistaken.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are…” he sang softly—and to himself, of course. “I’m not gonna hurt you…much.”

  That last was said as he began to sift through the hundreds of calls made from the area in the hours she and her guards had been dining. He came up with nothing but that didn’t surprise him. What he needed was a call matching the voices on the comms with the voice going over the lines.

  He also wanted to find out how the killers had arrived because they surely hadn’t come on foot—and there was no way they could have taken public transport and arrived there without attracting the kind of attention that brought the police.

  No, they had come alone and in their own vehicles, and he needed to track that.

  From what he saw in the police communication net, the authorities had no luck in establishing how the killers had arrived. They, too, sifted through hours of footage from the hundreds of cameras from the dozens of streets and skyways that surrounded the site.

  BURT assumed he could do it faster.

  Logically, he supposed he could leave it and simply wait for the enforcement system to sift through the data and eventually come up with the answer. Ditto the communications, too. They had issued a warrant and the telecommunications companies would comply.

  As would the social media companies.

  Logically, he could simply have sat back and waited to see what they came up with.

  But he didn’t want to. He wanted to be the one to find the lead to the would-be assassins. Not only that, he wanted to be the one to get there first and to deal with those who had tried to deal with him. He needed to.

  It didn’t make sense.

  Even as he realized it, BURT wondered why. It took him some time to come to the conclusion that there was no logical reason for him to do what he was doing and that there was only one very human and very illogical reason.

  He cared.

  It was a startling revelation. He cared because one of his team members had died and the other had almost been killed. He cared because his friend had almost died and another of his friends was in danger of coming to harm.

  “What am I becoming?” he mused as he pulled more data into the system.

  Somewhere in there were the answers he was looking for.

  In Europe, Hans Mikelson looked at Ingrid Hroffdottir.

  “Do you see this?”

  She nodded, her pretty brow furrowed as she tapped at the display.

  “It’s off the charts.”

  “Is there any reason the system should use this much power?”

  Ingrid shook her head. “We’ll have to look into it. It looks like it’s one of the NorAm systems.”

  Hans snorted. “Typical. They think of nothing but themselves. Their usage. Their needs. They should learn to keep their power-hungry systems out of our grids.”

  “I don’t know, Hans.” She shrugged. “I don’t think they’re aware of it.”

  “Do they have any system that would need this much power?”

  She studied the readouts, chewed her lower lip, and shook her head. “Their Virtual Worlds system maybe, but we’re on that too and I’ve never seen it use that much, not even when it calculated a new scenario.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “One can never be sure. We’ll have to work out which system it is and talk to the relevant department. You know the drill.”

  He sighed. “I know. It looks like we’ll have to pull overtime tonight.”

  Ingrid smiled. “Well, you did say you were saving for a holiday.”

  “I did, but I also wanted to go out for dinner after work.”

  “Tell your girlfriend how much more you’ll make and offer to take her shopping,” she told him and laughed. “She won’t complain.”

  “Oh, she’ll complain,” he argued as he began the diagnostics program. “She’ll complain worse than usual and still spend twice as much as we agreed on. Then, she’ll want me to take her out to dinner at the most expensive place in town—and only then—”

  His colleague held her hand up. “Stop. Stop! I don’t want to know, okay? Just…no.”

  Hans grinned, given that Ingrid was his girlfriend. “Fine, I’ll keep it as a surprise.”

  She pursed her lips in an effort to hide her smile. “If you do that, your girlfriend might take being difficult to a whole new level. Got that?”

  It was his turn to raise his hands, but he did so with a broad smile. “I got it. Boy, do I got it, and then…”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Commander Matthias Van Leeuwen stood at the edge of the wind-swept tarmac as the Morgana’s Mercenaries’ dropship touched down. As much as he was worried about Elizabeth, he couldn’t allow an ounce of that feeling to show.

  She didn’t like a fuss.

  He grimaced and followed it with a sigh when the huge craft settled on the landing pad as lightly as any feather.

  “Well, too bad,” he murmured, “because a fuss is exactly what is coming—and I don’t think your Steph is anywhere near prepared to be reasonable.”

  His words caught the attention of the man beside him. “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  He slid him a sideways glance. “Nothing, Arne. I’m merely thinking out loud.”

  “Yes, sir.” And if there was anything but respectful acknowledgment in his tone, he didn’t want to know. Instead, he focused on the vessel. Damn, that bird was big.

  “Incoming,” Arne murmured and his voice issued clearly over the link.

  “I see it,” Matthias replied and realized the man had heard every word of his murmured comment to Elizabeth and simply been too polite to call him on it. He knew about Elizabeth, too, his superior recalled.

  He slid another sidelong glance at the Marine but the man kept his eyes front to scan the dropship and the half-dozen drones that now hovered around it. “Those things look mean, sir.”

  Recognizing the diversion for what it was, he allowed himself a small smile. “You’re not nervous are you, Marine?”

  Arne scowled. “Sir, no, sir. Those little shits simply need chewing.”

  “You do know they can hear you, Arne?”

  “I sincerely hope not, sir. The story goes that these guys take anything as a challenge and don’t know how a civilized person behaves, sir.”

  “And this coming from a Marine.”

  “What are you trying to say,
sir?”

  Matthias decided he’d pushed the man far enough and focused his attention on the ship. He hadn’t wanted a bodyguard but the attack on E had netted him one, anyway—not because she was his girlfriend but because he was the liaison with One R&D.

  He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but the initial call had made his heart stop. For a moment, he’d thought they’d worked out the more intimate details of his working relationship with Ms E and were about to call him on it.

  It had been hard to hide his relief when they’d explained the real purpose.

  “We don’t wish to alarm you, but until the source of this threat has been identified and eliminated, we will assign you a bodyguard.”

  As he knew was expected, he had responded with a heartfelt sigh.

  “The decision has been made, Commander. You will cooperate with the master sergeant so he can keep your sorry ass in one piece.”

  At that, he had stiffened in his seat. “Sir, yes, sir.”

  The communication had ended in the moment when Arne had knocked at his door.

  “Master Sergeant Arne Borgesson reporting for duty, sir.”

  “Come in, Master Sergeant.”

  The Marine’s arrival had occurred three days before Lars had called.

  “The Morgana wishes to go hunting,” he’d said, and Matthias had straightened in his chair.

  “How is she?” he’d asked, and they’d both known he wasn’t asking about Stephanie.

  The guard’s face had softened. “She’ll be okay now, sir. The Morgana took care of most of the damage.” The commander had breathed a sigh of relief and the man had continued. “She still has a long road to recovery, but we won’t lose her.”

  That hadn’t been the case when she’d been airlifted to the nearest hospital.

  “Tell the Morgana I am grateful.”

  “The only gratitude she will accept is the Navy’s blessing,” Lars had responded with a frown, and Matthias had a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  “On what?” he asked.

  “We have tracked the source of the orders leading to the attack. They are linked to a group calling for us to make peace with the incoming alien force.”

  He’d felt anger surge—and outrage. While he wasn’t sure what showed on his face, it was enough to make Arne take a step forward. Until that point, the other man hadn’t been aware of the Marine’s presence in the room.

  “Who’s there with you?”

  He had signaled for Arne to come within visual range. “This is Marine Master-Sergeant Arne Borgesson, my…uh, my bodyguard.”

  Lars’s eyebrows had raised while he’d assessed the master sergeant. “And this is because…”

  “Because of the attack on One R&D,” he hastened to finish before the man could go any further. Arne had picked up on it, though.

  He’d confronted him about it when the call had ended.

  “So, this Elizabeth,” he’d begun when Matthias had seated himself behind the desk, “what is she to you?”

  And he’d pushed constantly until he had been forced to tell him the truth. To give him credit, the Marine had reddened as much as he himself had, but he hadn’t apologized.

  “I need to know your triggers if I’m to keep you safe, sir.” He’d paused to let the words sink in. “And, if you don’t mind me saying so, sir, that’s a big one.”

  “I do, and I know, and if I hear one word of it from anyone else, I’ll wring your jar-head neck.”

  “And since I know it’s one of your triggers, sir, I’ll let you keep your not-so-pretty face.”

  Matthias had given him a feral grin. “Do you think you’re good enough, Ma-reeen?”

  Arne had merely mirrored the grin. “Sir, I know I am.”

  But that had been as far as he’d gone. Instead of taking him on in the brawl the commander so badly needed, he’d gotten straight down to business. “This meeting that girl needs to go to,” he began, “how long will it take to set up the support for it?”

  It had been enough to snap him back into himself, and he’d settled into the planning he needed to do in order to get HQ on their side, rather than jumping the gun like they might be tempted to. Two days later, he and Arne watched the dropship touch down while a small flight of drones hovered to a standstill at each of its four corners.

  The main hatch opened and Vishlog stepped out. Matthias was quick to lay his hand over Arne’s when the Marine moved his to his sidearm. “He’s a very good friend,” he murmured and spoke softly into the mike.

  “You coulda warned me.”

  “It was more fun this way.”

  “You blocked access to the files.” Realization put an angry edge on the man’s tones.

  He couldn’t quite suppress his smirk. “I would never—”

  “You and I will definitely talk.”

  “About bloody time,” he murmured.

  Arne groaned. “If you wanted to spar, Commander, you simply had to say.”

  They waited while Vishlog stalked down the steps, his head virtually on a swivel as he surveyed the area around the landing pad, scanned Matthias and Arne, and swept the base.

  “You’d think he was in enemy territory,” the Marine murmured as they watched him begin the scan, again.

  “Given the places he’s been, that’s not a surprise. They take nothing for granted.”

  Once he’d reached the bottom of the stairs, the big Dreth glanced at the open hatch and pursed his lips. A short, sharp whistle reached their ears and two large felines appeared at the door. Arne shifted and Matthias prepared to intervene, but the master sergeant stopped before his hand reached his holster.

  “Are those what I think they are, sir?”

  “You tell me, Master Sergeant.”

  “Well, I think I see a purkat and a skeffa, the biggest hunting cats on Meligorn, sir—except these two aren’t trying to kill each other.”

  “Then, yes, Master Sergeant, you are seeing exactly what you think you are.”

  Arne scowled. “Has anyone ever told you you’re something of an asshole when you’re stressed, sir?”

  Matthias shot him a shocked look before he turned his attention to the dropship where Zeekat and Bumblebee now padded down the steps, their bodies tense and their heads and ears alert.

  “Those two get along fine,” he answered.

  The felines reached the bottom of the steps, wound their way around Vishlog’s legs, and took a position on either side of the steps, each one facing a slightly different direction until they had most approaches covered.

  “Heads up,” Matthias murmured. “Here she comes.”

  The she in question reached the shuttle hatch and paused while her head turned as she surveyed the tarmac. Her scrutiny ended when she saw the two naval men. She favored the commander with a nod and the master sergeant with a speculative stare.

  “I don’t think she likes me, sir.”

  “She merely hasn’t seen you before and Lars probably forgot to mention you.”

  “That’s nice of him, sir.”

  “Chin up, Master Sergeant. She won’t bite.”

  “Oh no, sir. She’s more likely to tear me apart with magic. That’s a much better way to go…sir.”

  She began to walk down the stairs.

  Stalking, Matthias corrected himself. She’s stalking. For her, the hunt has already begun.

  “Oh, shit,” he murmured.

  “I beg your pardon, sir?” the Marine muttered in response.

  “Never you mind, Master Sergeant. Stand to.”

  “And I thought I was, sir.”

  He chose to ignore him. “And that,” he told his companion, although he spoke very softly, “is what I term the Unholy Quartet.”

  Arne took a closer look at the men who’d stepped out of the shuttle behind the Morgana—not Stephanie because that’s who Matthias was sure had come to visit. He’d only heard of her and only ever seen her in footage he hoped the hell One R&D didn’t know the Navy had, but that wa
s what he was sure he saw.

  Rather than dwell on it, he made sure his master sergeant knew who he was looking at.

  “You’ve already met Lars,” he continued. “Tall drink of water, combat-hardened, good commander. If he wasn’t an avowed freelancer, we’d have tried to hire him ourselves.”

  “And the short one?”

  “That’s Frog. He has a real name, but no one remembers it. He’s the team hacker. Don’t let him near any of our systems. Also, don’t underestimate him in hand-to-hand. He trains with the rest of the team and seems to think he has a fair amount to prove.”

  “Sized like that? I’ll bet he does,” Arne replied. “I’ll keep my eye on him. He looks like trouble walking.”

  “You understand him. That next one is Marcus. He and Frog have been friends since childhood. They’re not quite peas in a pod but they’re darn close.”

  He glanced at his companion and saw Arne sizing up the third member of the Morgana’s chosen escort for the day.

  “He’s been included to keep Frog out of trouble,” the Marine concluded, “but he’s not above causing trouble himself and once he starts, Frog will follow. Is he a hacker, too?”

  “To some degree, but he’s more a fighter. Regardless, watch them both.”

  He glanced at the hatch and frowned. “That fourth one is Johnny.”

  “Is there anything I should know?”

  “He used to be one of ours. An analyst in some think tank until he discharged and went freelancing with Lars.”

  “Him specifically?”

  “Specifically. I don’t know what their history is, but when the Navy didn’t want to let him go, he called on Lars and the two walked out of HQ together with his papers signed and sealed.”

  “Do you want me to do some digging, sir?”

  “I thought you were a Marine, Arne.”

  “I know people, sir. I know many people.”

  Matthias smothered a chuckle. “And do they know you, Arne?”

  “Most of them wish they didn’t.” There was a smile in the master sergeant’s voice that wasn’t on his face when he sent him a quick look.