“Six seconds. It will take you six seconds to unsnap your holsters, draw your weapons, flip off the safeties, locate my center of mass and squeeze the triggers,” explained Warlock. “Which would be fine, if I was a static target.”
“Get this stupid witch off me,” choked out Klaas.
“Settle down, Mr. Luger. I’ll get to you in a few,” Warlock assured him. Then addressing the former Marines. “While you fumble with the pistols, the knife will cut your boss’ throat and I’ll be moving. One of you will end up with nerve damage to your wrist. Imagine trying to find work with a flipper hand. Then, I’ll throw the knife. Duck or stuck, it’ll be your option. Or you can both back off while Mr. Luger and I have a talk.”
“Why are you just standing there?” screamed Klaas. “Kill her! She won’t do anything, if she knows what’s good for her.”
Looking up at the bodyguard who recognized her, Diosa suggested, “Tell him.”
“Master Sergeant Diosa Alberich, Strike Kill Team Leader, call sign Warlock,” the bodyguard reported. Before he finished, each section of the baton hammered into place as it expanded. “Three years ago, my unit had lost four Marines as we tried to move into a captured ship. We were preparing to try again when a Gunship arrived and five Strikers deplaned. They assaulted the corridor right into the enemy’s fire. At one point, Warlock pulled a sword, leaped a cargo box and sliced up a four-man gun team. Boss, I don’t think it will bother her to end your life. Striker’s don’t worry about consequences.”
Diosa felt the fight go out of the crime boss. She waved the blade in front of his eyes so he was aware of the weapon.
“So far, I haven’t damaged you. However, be advised the tip is at your throat. Understand?” she inquired. Klaas nodded his head. “Excellent. Negotiations are now reopened. Who ordered the attack on me?”
“I can’t give you the name of my client,” Klaas said. He felt a sharp pain on the side of his throat and a warm liquid began to run down his neck.
“Six seconds,” Warlock reminded the bodyguards. “Should we start the count?”
Both held out their hands to assure her they weren’t going for weapons.
“Why is it you refuse to work with me? Is it because I’m a girl and you don’t take me seriously?” Warlock whispered in Klaas’ ear. “Because, I can do more than nick you. I can remove an ear. It’ll hurt but you’ll get the message. I am serious and don’t really care about you. All I want is an answer.”
“Bernarde Domiziana. He contracted me,” Klaas admitted. “But he’s left Orbital Station to attend to business on Planet Uno.”
The ammonia surged off Klaas’ as his sweat glands pumped and the carbon dioxide rolled from his breath as he lied.
“Mr. Luger. You just lied to me. That hurts. You could shake my faith in human nature,” Warlock warned him. “To restore my confidence, I’m going to remove your ear.”
The knife shifted to the top of his ear. The blade bounced on the skin and Klaas flinched. Then he felt the edge move, leaving a stinging sensation in its wake.
“Wait. Wait,” pleaded the crime boss. “It was Enyd Maraike who contacted me.”
This time Klaas displayed none of the signs of lying.
“Enyd Maraike? Emil Maraike’s wife? Why?” inquired Warlock.
“I don’t ask any questions. It’s dangerous in my business. If you know what I mean,” Luger snarled. It was unmistakably a threat. “Now let me go.”
“Exfiltration while in contact with an enemy is one of the most difficult maneuvers,” advised Warlock. “Usually, I go for the ‘kill as many as possible before bugging out’ method.”
“What does that mean?” Klaas asked one of the bodyguards.
“It means Mr. Luger, she’s deciding if she should kill you,” replied the former Marine. “If I were you, sir, I’d ask for alternatives.”
“You military types are all crazy,” Klaas blurted out. “Fine. What are my, or rather, your alternatives?”
“Oh, now you’re taking me serious,” teased Warlock. “Tell you what, have the boys go to the back of the room and face the corners.”
“And what about me?” Klaas asked suspiciously. “I die and you escape?”
“I am not a cold-blooded killer. Well, not until recently,” admitted Warlock. “I release you and run for the door. I leave and you go about your life.”
“It may not be that simple, Princess,” he replied. “You have insulted me. In my own office and in front of my men. I can’t forgive that.”
“The first stage of healing is forgiveness,” explained Warlock. “Of course, there is always stopping the pain.”
“What is she talking about?” Klaas asked the bodyguard.
“Pain lets you know you are alive, sir,” the Marine answered. “She means…”
“I know what she means,” shouted Klaas. “You two go to the back of the office and face the corners.”
Warlock shifted the blade to Klaas’ throat and pivoted her head watching as the bodyguards passed her. When they arrived at the corners, she noted they both reached under their jackets. Two seconds gone, and when the soft clicks of safeties disengaging reached her, she deducted another second. That left her three seconds to reach the door, open it, and get riddled with kinetic rounds in the back like a fixed target in the doorframe. Not a smooth or satisfying exit.
What she needed was a little mayhem. Studying the walls on either side of the door, she locked in on a solution. Not the best but it would give her about thirty seconds to confuse the bodyguards before someone turned on the lights. Pulling the knife back, she reversed it and slammed the blunt hilt into Klaas’ temple. As he fell to the side, she stepped on his meaty shoulder, jumped to the coffee table, then onto the back of the couch.
“Kill her,” ordered Klaas.
Two seconds, one second, and kinetic rounds impacted the door. The bodyguards had anticipated her movement and targeted where she should be heading. Instead, Warlock veered to the side and dove towards the light switch. As she bounced off the wall, her hand shot out and slammed the switch. The room went dark. Not dim, but absolutely black. It seemed Klaas Luger didn’t want the lights or sounds from the Red Witch to leak into his office.
She used the recoil from her collision with the wall to roll back into the room. Up in a crouch, she attempted to listen and judge where one of the bodyguards was located. Then she stopped. His mouth shone as if it was a lighthouse beacon. Shifting to the other corner, she easily located his glowing teeth as well. As if the room were well lit, Warlock sprinted the length of the office and beat the bodyguard to the floor. Then she ran to the other corner and clubbed that bodyguard into unconsciousness with the baton.
Klaas was hugging the deck staying low and out of the line of fire. And bless his heart, thought Warlock, he was a mouth breather with big visible teeth.
“Hello, Mr. Luger,” she said into his ear. “That wasn’t very nice.”
When he attempted to pull away, she smacked him with the baton.
“Do you know what a Striker is?” she asked adding another tap.
“No. No I don’t,” he whimpered.
“We are Marine Corps special units trained to assault heavily defended corridors,” Warlock explained. “Darkness is our friend. Bullets make us mad. And people we don’t like die in horrible ways.”
His teeth were shaking and chattering. He kept looking around as if the darkness would vanish along with this nightmare of a woman.
“You and I are done,” Warlock advised the crime boss. “If I even smell one of your people sniffing around me, you will die in your bed. Slowly and you’ll know before it ends because the pain will let you know you are still alive. Do we have a deal?”
This time the ammonia and carbon dioxide weren’t from lying. The emissions were the direct results of his terror. When he didn’t reply, she nudged him.
“Your word Mr. Luger,” she coached. “Give me your word and I’ll get out of your hair.”
For fun,
she judged where the top of his head was and ruffled his hair. He jerked back.
“Yes, it’s a deal,” he promised. “You stay out of my business and I’ll stay out of yours.”
The woman didn’t answer. Klaas Luger remained on the floor even after the door opened, her back was silhouetted briefly in the frame, and the door closed.
Chapter – 9 Ultraviolet Sensor
Diosa stepped into a split hallway outside Luger’s office. Based on the noise and light flashing under the door from one direction, it led to the nightclub. Down the other passageway was a rear door. She took three steps towards the access door when a blinding headache hit her. Leaning against the wall for support, Warlock closed her eyes. Visions of florescent skulls, little cauldrons, root mugs and glowing teeth flew back and forth on a background of floating pentagrams. She plucked the goggle from her pocket and fitted it over her right eye. The visions continued.
As if looking through brightly colored gauze material, she struggled to see the screen. ‘Poet. OK but need to rest,’ she finally managed to type on her PID.
‘You survived the meeting with Klaas Luger?’ he sent back.
‘Yes,’ she replied with one word.
“Did he?”
She ignored the question, squared her shoulders, and attempted to walk normally. But she knew she was staggering. Around the service area near the core, she located the unadorned hallway. On the observation deck, Warlock punched the button on the lift for the guest deck. Thankfully, people assumed she was coming from a club and didn’t require medical attention.
At her quarters, Warlock didn’t remember how she arrived, she opened the door. Without turning on the lights, she fell into bed and fought to get control of the imaginary of witch paraphernalia clouding her mind. A long time later, the migraine faded. The lack of pounding pain allowed Diosa to begin separating memories, thoughts, and reality from the visions.
The neurologist who worked with her after they activated the sensor array in her right eye, warned about the dangers of over stimulation. Her brain received the input directly from the sensors over an enlarged optic nerve and it was up to her mind to sort and learn to make sense of the stimuli. Colors, although blurred around the edges, had been easy to handle. Visualizing soundwaves proved confusing but it never twisted her reality. The scattered bioimaging and perceiving a vein pulse below a person’s skin came easy to her. Although seeing the blood flow was freaky. And the Haller Organ sensor seemed no more than an extension of her own instincts in perceiving someone sweating heavily and taking nervous breaths. All of her active sensors almost fit in the normal range of human experiences. They were just super-sized.
But the activation of the ultraviolet sensor and the narrow beam had taken over her mind. She still hadn’t come to terms with the florescence of items in her consciousness when she forced herself to relax. The neurologist explained the best way to work with a sensor was to let her mind adapt and not fight it.
Warlock pulled the goggle up. The room was dark and she scanned it seeking stimuli for the UV sensor. She wanted to test her response and see if it was going to be the sensor that drove her insane. If it did, she’d have the bionic eye removed and live with the one eye. Nothing appeared until the beam rolled by a small cluster of tiny glowing points of light. Getting up, she crossed to the dresser. Reaching out blindly, Warlock’s arm came under the ultraviolet beam and she noted faint stripes on her skin. Wrapping her fingers around the shiny dots, she found herself grabbing her hair brush. After slipping the goggle over her eye, she turned on a light and opened her left eye. It was light sensitive but she managed to recognize the glowing dots as hair follicles at the ends of hairs caught in the bristles.
So far, identifying teeth in the dark and being able to locate her hair brush in the dark seemed to be the only use for a UV sensor, she thought. Then Warlock turned off the light, laid down and went to sleep.
‘Are you alive?’ the message from Walden woke Warlock up.
She rolled over and glanced at the PID. She’d been asleep eight hours. Flipping on the light, she cringed expecting her left eye to be light sensitive. Other than a normal response, the eye adjusted without difficulty.
‘New target. Enyd Maraike, Emil’s wife,’ she typed back. ‘I’m going to breakfast. Get me what you can on her.’
‘Enyd Maraike. I’m on it,’ he replied.
***
Walden, on the bridge of The Talon, finished typing in search terms for Enyd Maraike’s social media and slid his chair to another stack of monitors. There he typed requests for her financial information and, at another stack, he launched a search of her personal history. As results appeared, Poet scrolled through and sent specific lines to collecting monitors. At the other stacks he did the same until all the pertinent data from the three were collected on the fourth stack of monitors. When the searches ended and the fourth stack held lines of filtered data, he read and chose lines and began to fill a single monitor with refined information. A snapshot of Enyd Maraike began to emerge. As with all raw data, the facts created timelines, notable events and marked turns in behavior. It didn’t yield motivations or intentions.
Enyd Maraike arrived at Orbital Station four years and nine months ago. After securing a job with the internal communications division, she joined a number of clubs and attended social events. Receipts showed her dining habits and favorite eateries. Pictures and posts revealed events, friends and acquaintances. Within two months, Enyd moved from attending events with fellow workers, to dates with executives, and attending balls and private parties. Her dining choices reflected the climb in her social status. Financially, she spent Pesetas beyond her salary. This was offset by small but regular deposits into her bank account from several investment firms. While the search revealed the names of the firms, the specific sources of the income remained behind corporate veils. Then four years and two months ago, her posts told of meeting the love of her life.
‘Warlock. Enyd met Emil at a noodle house,’ Walden sent.
‘She like noodles. What is the significance?’ Diosa replied as she shoved the remains of her breakfast around the plate with a fork.
‘The small out of the way restaurant is located one hundred eleven decks from her work and seventy-five decks from the lounges and eighty-two from the shopping mezzanine,’ Poet reported. ‘It’s between snack stores and fast food places near the Master of Transit offices.’
‘Again, Poet, what of it?’ Warlock sent.
‘The noodle house is a favorite of technicians and computer programmers,’ Walden replied. ‘She doesn’t do noodles or Asian food establishments.’
‘Help me here Poet, I don’t understand?’ asked a frustrated Warlock.
‘Enyd Maraike went to the noodle house twice,’ Walden typed. ‘On her second visit, she met her soulmate. Enyd and Emil have never been back to the restaurant.’
‘You are suggesting, she targeted Emil,’ ventured Warlock.
‘Or the fates favored an introvert at fifty-five with an independently wealthy twenty-nine-year-old socialite,’ Walden sent. ‘A fairytale? Popular woman meets nerd at noodle house. She falls madly in love. They marry two months after meeting. A few months later she convinces him to transfer to an important position. In my opinion, he was targeted.’
‘Why?’ inquired Warlock.
‘That Warlock, is your job,’ Walden replied.
***
Warlock shoved aside her plate and contemplated Walden’s report. As she sat, a man strutted into the restaurant, crossed between tables and headed for her location in the back.
“A peace offering from Mr. Luger,” he stated while laying a package on the table.
Warlock lifted her goggle and held the package up to the ceiling lights. Although the light wasn’t strong enough to show through the package, enough penetrated for her scattered light sensor to see there were no wires, batteries or lumps. It wasn’t a bomb.
“How did you find me?” she asked while tearing open th
e package.
On the way to the restaurant, she’d felt as if people were following her. Unfortunately, her bionic eye lacked a sensor to detect surveillance.
“Mr. Luger has his ways,” the delivery guy replied.
Inside the package, Warlock found her pistol. She dropped the weapon into her lap and the messenger started to turn away.
“Wait a minute. I have a reply for Mr. Luger,” she said.
On a napkin, she jotted down the six businesses owned by the crime boss plus his residence. Then, she slipped the combat knife from between the slit in her skirt and punctured a fingertip. Carefully, she let a drop of blood drip next to each name and address. The drop spread on the paper until the first letter on each listing was encompassed in a red circle. Folding up the napkin, she held it out to the messenger.
“Give that to Mr. Luger with my thanks,” ordered Warlock.
The man looked puzzled and acted as if he was going to question the type of message. Warlock cocked her head, absentmindedly stuck the injured finger in her mouth, and winked at the man. With the other hand, she waved him away. Then Diosa made a mistake. She glanced at the restaurant’s counter.
From her table, she could see behind the counter to where the wait staff stacked the dirty dishes. To her, each glass, mug and plate was smeared with glowing blotches. Glancing back to her own used dishes and mug, she saw the same stains. Dropping the goggle over her eye to block the ultraviolet beam and the disgusting displays of saliva, she picked up her mug of coffee and hesitated before lifting it to her lips. The UV sensor was one of the bionic eye’s capabilities she’d need to get under control. If not, she’d never enjoy another meal with the goggle off.
She set the mug back on the table and reached for the pistol. After dropping the charged magazine and checking to be sure no one had tampered with the weapon, Warlock sent Walden a message.
‘Where is Enyd Maraike?’ she typed.
Op File Treason Page 6