Chapter Six
Clean-up
During Bakman and Zee’s trip to change Chondrin’s mind, Vee sat in front of a view-screen monitoring their hover ride down the causeway with numbers on the bottom of the screen telling their exact location along the causeway’s white guideline. The first sign of danger was hearing Zee yell into her ear microphone, “Slow to eight,” watches Zee grab Bakman so he will not fall makes her finger tap a function key on the desk keyboard. Vee watches Zee swing her purse in front of Bakman's back, hears the thump of a dart, sees Zee turn her purse backward, point and aim it at a doorway, and squeeze the bottom of her purse. It makes a small muffled puff. Zee continues to watch the doorway until a dead black hooded assassin falls out and down on his face. Vee’s quick fingers grab a stylus and her other hand pushes a tiny blue button to freeze that frame.
As Zee speaks Vee scribbles on a Computer pad M, 109, L12, Hv172-398-756-model 18 while her other hand moves from the freeze-frame button to a maroon button down the panel. When Zee is finishes, Vee pushes the maroon and a second red button. She hears Emmert Barbbre speak.
"What ... What."
"Dead Assassin ... Sending frame," and Vee’s quick finger pushes another button, an orange one to let him see what she sees.
"Breen's boys are supposed to be shadowing them. Push the light blue security button and for a current recorder view enter R724859," Emmert explains.
Her fingers pushes at a panel, enters the view code on another panel, and the freeze-frame changes to the same location now. On screen an ambulance hover and crew of two are on the Causeway. Two medical mechanicals lay a dead man on a stretcher, pull a covering over the corpse, and quickly load a sheet-draped corpse and stretcher into their ambulance hover. One mustached human, appearing to be a bystander, tosses a sack of trash into the doorway, stomps on the trash, and kicks it around making a bigger mess. While the human kicks and stomps the ambulance hover races back to the nearest emergency elevator ten doors south and hurries a covered patient down to the tenth level hospital. But, inside on Vee’s computer screen, she watches the level numbers race downward past the hospital, past the ninth floor mortuary, and on down to the basement’s sixth level. On the screen, Vee can see its route but for everyone else the elevator numbers stop on the tenth floor. Anyone looking witnessed an unfortunate man collapsing and being taken quickly down to the hospital. They will think no more about it.
Emmert explains. "Breen just called in to report situation under control. His men should soon be erasing the memory card information from the rented hover. Yes, one of his teams of men is just now calling in to report that they are ready to start on it. Two of Breen’s associates report they are taking the hover down to the basement work area. Another crewmember is replacing the building's security recording. All their segment will show is a peaceful ride. In less than half an hour, they will have erased the Com, changed the Causeway Recorder to innocent views, wiped clean the rental information on the hover, and have it back in operation. Its ride time will be billed to Andre Kai, an OpDyke deliveryman, and a Cleaner has arrived on scene."
Vee looks up to see the human that made the mess walk away. A Cleaner, a mechanical in a gray tunic with a hover trash barrel, approaches to shovel the mess into its barrel. As it moves away, a second mechanical in gray arrives to spread disinfectant, chalky blue powder, over the area before wetting it down and turning on a scrubbing machine.
"Looks like it's contained, M." Breen's face pops briefly on one screen while he speaks and then it goes black.
"Looks like . . . later . . . a review," Emmert's face on another screen orders, and that screen goes black too.
Another screen blinks a warning, "Tighten Security." Vee's busy fingers flash through several views to quickly locate Zee and Bakman back on a top right screen just as they exit the Anders Building. Vee can see that Bakman wants again to speak, but Zee shakes her head to stop him. Like any couple they rent another public hover and take the same route back to the OpDyke Building without incident.
In slightly more than eighteen minutes, the elevator door opens and Bakman walks in with Zee on his arm. After the elevator doors close behind him, Bakman turned to Zee to ask his question.
"What was all that?"
Zee replies with one word, "Containment," as Vee walks forward to join them.
"Zee stopped you from being shot with a poison dart. Without her you would now be dead," Vee explains.
Bakman’s sharp eyes turn to look at Zee with new appreciation and then back to Vee as she continues to provide him with information. "Breen's men cleaned up the area, took the body down to the basement, reprogrammed the hover, changed both buildings security recordings, and cleaned the doorway. Now, it's like it never happened and they will dispose of the assassin’s body tonight."
Nodding his understanding Bakman turns back to Zee, "What did you shoot him with?"
"A double-ball fired by compressed air something like a Middle History air rifle. No traceable ballistics," Zee replies.
"What on earth is a double-ball?"
"It’s one exploding ball inside another . . . and very deadly. The first one hits and explodes blowing a hole in defensive body armor. The second smaller and harder ball continues on into the body and a tiny fraction of a millisecond later it explodes killing the person from the inside out with very little sound. Outdoors, it has an effective accurate flight path up to about 250 feet depending on the wind speed, and indoors a maximum effective range of nearly 300 feet. That’s why we avoid the upper causeways some days—the wind. Some high wind days it would be difficult to hit a target as big as a door at 60 feet, and as you saw today this same weapon does also shoots poison darts. They are usually dipped in any one of nearly three dozen fast-acting poisons with no known cure."
Just as Zee finishes her explanation, the elevator door opens behind them and a stocky baldheaded man dressed in light blue holds out a new pink purse. Zee hands him her old purse, takes the new one, and the elevator door closes again.
"Bakman . . . Bakman . . .," an agitated voice shouts that belongs to a stern face that appears on the screen beside the elevator. The face is a long narrow Nordic face, a strong pointed chin, and bright blue eyes below a small forehead with gray receding hair cut about an inch long.
"Situation contained, Bakman," the agitated Nordic face reports.
"Thanks Breen," Bakman answers. After a short pause he adds, "Breen, I've been a fool again. Zee told me of the danger, but I was busy looking at an attractive busty redheaded young woman in a tight tunic. I never saw anything until it was over. I should have been more alert. Afterward a man sees all kinds of connections. On the way back I wondered if the redhead was a plant—a distraction. The woman wore a size-to-small maroon tunic to attract the attention of any man newly released after more than eight months in jail. Also, that same redheaded woman did not react to the dead man like a normal bystander. This one did not scream or take quick running steps away. I think the woman’s actions shout ‘decoy.’"
"Could be, but we can’t do anything about it. Thanks for the information. We will review the recording, study her reaction, or lack of reaction, and if it is suspicious we’ll put her face in our files. No Sir, not your fault. They have to try; we have to stop them. Don't think they will forget. We won't either. And, we will stop them the next ten dozen times too. Sir, don’t go out without Zee."
"I won't."
"Breen Seckeland out," the Nordic face replies and the screen goes blank.
Bakman did not have to speak of his thanks to his two companions. His strong arms pull both of them to him for a long hug and a warm kiss.
Both Mechanicals giggle and each kiss his cheek.
With a chuckle Bakman leads them toward the elevator, “Ladies, my treat . . . Coffee.” Inside he pushes 27 and returns each of their kisses warmly while waiting for the elevator to rise.
The Centauri Conspiracy Page 8