“That would be my guess.” Red wondered. “That might be why Ankh can’t track him. He might be riding freighters secretly, hiding in the hydroponics bay or something like that. He can stay with his product and disappear at the same time.”
“Criminals will never learn that crime doesn’t pay.”
“K’Twillis and Mackestray are both filthy rich.”
Rivka thought for a moment. “Not for much longer. There’s a truck coming. What do you think?”
“I think I can jump into the back of it from the pit wall over there, where the road passes beneath.”
“I figured you’d say something like that. I’ll follow in the van at a discreet distance. Use your comm chip so Ankh can track you. Splitting up. Wasn’t it you who said we should never split up?”
“I think that was you, but it looks like we never follow our own advice.” Red crouched as he ran from the edge toward the high wall. He crawled onto the wall and waited for the truck as it slowly made its way up the treacherous road.
Rivka ran the other way, into the woods, and through them. She jumped into the van, and they headed to the road to wait.
“I didn’t hear any gunfire, and where’s the big guy?”
“He will have a different means of transportation, and trust me when I say that we wanted to shoot people, but they were too close to innocents.”
“You were running, though, so he was half-right.”
“I hope there is no shooting, but the people we go after? There is no compromise. They aren’t willing to be taken alive. We tend to accommodate their desire. Justice is served.” Rivka tapped her datapad, bringing up a map and seeing that Red’s dot was moving. “He’s on his way. An unmarked truck will be turning onto the main road momentarily.”
Chapter Seventeen
Lindy climbed out of the police vehicle and waved at the officer. She went straight into the candidate’s building, where the severe Capstanian continued to parade through the lobby. She held out a hand for Lindy to stop.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked.
“A Blokite was here, wasn’t he? That individual is extremely dangerous, and I’m here to protect Candidate Bandersnatch.”
“I didn’t authorize such a thing. And your idea of dangerous is probably not the same as our idea of dangerous. Armed as you are, you probably see everyone else as an enemy. Your solution is a hammer, and every problem is a nail. You will leave this building at once!”
Lindy rolled her eyes as she kept herself from punching the Capstanian female.
“You are correct in that I do see you as a nail that needs to get hammered. You should take the rest of the day off.” Lindy used her railgun to nudge the humanoid obstruction out of her way.
“We’ll just see about that!” She turned and ran down the hallway toward the candidate’s office.
Lindy walked deliberately, nodding to volunteers and staff throughout the area as she went. The female’s shrill screams echoed down the hallway.
“I feel sorry for whoever is waiting for you at home,” Lindy mumbled to herself. When she reached the office, the scene before her wasn’t what she expected.
Bandersnatch was shaking his fist at the Capstanian female and had called her a series of names that the translation chip couldn’t interpret. She was screaming back. Lindy crossed her arms over the top of her railgun and tried to follow along.
The candidate was standing and stabbing his finger at her. Veins stood out on his forehead, and his face had turned purple. Finally, the female broke down and started crying. She flopped onto the couch and held her face in her hands as she bawled.
He sat down in his chair and glared at her.
“I’m here to wait for Mackestray,” Lindy interjected.
“I don’t think he’ll be back.” Bandersnatch leaned forward, tearing his eyes away from the blubbering on the couch, and focusing on Lindy. “I get the impression there will be no more face-to-face meetings, only digital follow-ups. He said if I told anyone, he would see great harm come to me.”
“Is your family safe?”
“Single. I don’t have anyone. I’m not sure what he can do to me besides physical violence, but I refuse to wage the political war that he said would guarantee a win. He doesn’t know Capstanian politics very well.”
Lindy shrugged. Neither did she, but that didn’t matter. What was important was how they would find Tod Mackestray.
“Can we tap your communications so we can trace where he’s transmitting from?”
“Sure. What do you need from me to make that happen?”
Lindy removed one of Ankh’s small discs that gave him the ability through proximity access to break into computer systems. “Set this on top of your computer. We’ll do the rest.”
He put the disk on a small box on the side of his desk.
Ankh, can you hear me? Lindy asked using her comm chip.
“Out of range. If you’ll bear with me,” she said. The candidate was confused but waited as directed. Lindy removed her datapad. All the team members carried them because of the data that Ankh and the AIs could share.
She tapped out a message. Disc installed on B’s computer. Can you access and tap communications that come from Tod Mackestray?
Ankh didn’t have to type. The communications were routed directly into his brain, so his answers came at the speed of thought. Done. When will comm occur?
“When do you expect to hear from him next?”
“After payment, which I have no intention of making.”
Lindy stifled a groan. “Can you make the payment?”
“Risk all of my savings?” he asked pointedly. “I don’t think so.”
Ankh. No contact unless payment. Can you spoof Mackestray into thinking he’s been paid?
Need payment information, Ankh replied.
“Do you have the bank information where Mackestray said to make the payment and how much was this going to cost you?”
“The initial amount was three and a half million credits. I guess my belly laughter convinced him of the complete insanity of such a number. The current price is half a million, but he said it was enough to guarantee victory.” The candidate held out a handwritten note with a long string of numbers and a deposit identifier code.
Lindy sent the information to Ankh.
“Well?” Bandersnatch finally asked.
“He’s working on it. How long did it take you to come up with half a million?”
The candidate sat back and smiled. “Nearly all my entire adult life.”
Done.
“And there we are. Ankh has made the payment and tapped your computer. Now we wait.” Lindy turned toward the Capstanian, who had finally calmed down. “What’s her story?”
“She contacted the Blokite and arranged the meeting. She’s my campaign manager.”
“Win at all costs, huh?”
“That’s her take. She’s now fired, which makes winning secondary to putting food on her table.”
“Is she going to rat us out to the Blokite?” Lindy wondered.
“I sincerely hope not.”
“A friend of mine says hope is a lousy plan.” Lindy pointed her railgun at the former campaign manager. “Can’t have you helping Tod Mackestray escape. He’s wanted on multiple planets, and could be responsible for thousands of deaths on Leed’s Planet. We have information that suggests his meddling helped that world devolve into a bloody civil war. He is a very dangerous man.”
“I didn’t know,” she cried.
“What the hell did you expect, when you deal with someone who says they can guarantee an election? That doesn’t pass the sniff test. I refuse to win in such a way, but now my hands are tied, thanks to you, hellspawn!” He shook his fist at her anew.
Lindy looked from one to the other. “Don’t tell me. You two had a fling, didn’t you?”
The female started crying again.
“Not my finest hour,” Bandersnatch admitted.
“Wh
at’s with politicians and their genitals? It seems to be a universal constant, like the speed of light, the structure of a hydrogen atom, and politicians lay pipe.” Lindy shook her head. “Forget I said any of that. It’s not my place to judge. I’m only trying to do my job, which is to catch this guy and hold him so the Magistrate can question him. Simple as that.”
“Can I go back to work?” the candidate asked.
“The campaign must go on, but now that we’ve paid Mackestray, there could be significant external influence, which should invalidate the results. I don’t know your election law. The Magistrate would be the best one to ask for a legal opinion.” Lindy pointed with her thumb. “How do we guarantee that she doesn’t run to the Blokite and tell him everything we’re doing?”
“I don’t know.”
“You stay here,” Lindy shook a finger at her. “I mean right here, on the couch where I can keep an eye on you. If I leave, I’m trussing you up like a bistok for a barbecue and taking you with me.”
“I’m not a criminal!” she whined.
“You contacted a criminal in order to influence an election. In my small mind, that makes you a criminal. Once again, I’m not qualified to render a legal opinion, but I can hold you for the one who will. You will be judged.”
More crying. This time, Bandersnatch rolled his eyes.
“Yes, you can get back to work now.” Lindy smiled while the former campaign manager blubbered. The bodyguard left to find a chair where she’d sit in the hallway and wait for Mackestray to raise his digital Blokite head.
“Execute Snatch Capstan,” Tod Mackestray ordered.
“The program is running,” Margaret replied.
The Blokite leaned back as he often did to watch his AI work. “I don’t deserve you, Margaret,” he remarked.
“But here we are, traveling the universe together, making a difference in so many people’s lives.”
“Some may say that’s a bad thing, but if you can afford it, why not? Who says that the people who paid for the big chair are going to do a worse job than the ones who convinced the voting drones to check their box? Can we trust elections to the people? No, I say!” Mackestray pounded his fist on the table for emphasis. “Why leave something like that to chance? He’s the president because of pure dumb luck.”
“And who wants that on their office door?” Margaret snipped. She’d spent much time with the Blokite and had adopted his sense of humor.
“Indeed. Ha!” He laughed in the way his race did, without any head movement. “I’ll let our boy know that he should start working on his victory speech.”
Mackestray tapped out a message and pressed Send.
“There you are,” Ankh said.
Jay’s ears perked up. Usually, Ankh didn’t talk when he was engaged in cyberspace. She pulled a chair close and watched.
“Indeed,” Erasmus added. The Crenellian and the AI submerged themselves in the digital existence of cyberspace, tracing the message back along the pathways it had taken to get to Candidate Bandersnatch’s computer. They ran along beams of light, avoiding red herrings that would lead them astray. Into space they went, where physical boundaries meant nothing more than a few-nanosecond-longer jump between nodes before jumping back to the planet. Three times the signal bounced into space before returning to Capstan. When light shone into the dark alleys of digital deceit, the scum of cyberspace never knew that they had been seen.
“Hello, Margaret,” Ankh whispered, feeling the power swell within his chest as he prepared to combat an enemy AI, starting with slowly isolating it. Once its fangs were removed, he could learn its secrets. After that, he could put it into solitary confinement or eliminate it, overwrite its code with ones and zeros, turning it into binary’s version of emptiness.
Erasmus circled behind and observed, looking for places where Margaret could jump and run. Plato’s stepchild closed the doors, one by one. From Margaret’s perspective, all her avenues remained open. She wouldn’t realize that she had become the prey.
Good hunters never let prey know when they were coming. Ankh virtually winked at his closest friend, the AI who lived in his head, separate but together as they corralled the unsuspecting AI, all the while digging through the creation’s signature to find the physical location.
“You can’t hide from us,” Ankh whispered.
Jay watched the Crenellian and wondered. She stayed close to intercept Hamlet or Floyd if they tried to bother him. She secretly cheered for him, knowing that in his domain, he was a superhero. From his digital palace, he made others great, like Jay with her speed; like the Magistrate with her cases.
“Find him, so we can stop him from hurting people.” Jay maintained her vigil over her friend while the wombat snorted in her sleep. “Everything happens for a reason, doesn’t it, Floyd?” She adjusted her chair so she could stroke the wombat’s thick fur while she waited for Ankh.
The truck drove casually along the outskirts of the main city.
“I think he’s going to the freighter port,” the driver guessed.
There’s a spaceport for freight. We think that’s where he’s going, Rivka relayed.
They are in for a surprise when we get there. I’m trying to figure out how to get out of this truck without being seen.
Slip over the back gate and crawl underneath? Isn’t that a rear dump? Rivka asked. Regardless, we can’t let that ship leave, whatever kind of ship it is.
What if K’Twillis isn’t on it?
We still can’t let the ore freighter leave. It’s filled with product stolen from the bowels of the planet. The Capstanians can sell that to pay for recovery of the land. That will probably cost whatever K’Twillis was going to make from this. It chaps my ass that he’s been doing this, but he’s innocent until proven guilty. I need to talk to him.
I have a railgun with a full magazine. That ship isn’t going anywhere. I think this truck won’t be going anywhere after this either. I’ll try going underneath it, and while I’m down there, I’m ripping out hoses and breaking shit.
Sounds right up your alley. We’ll pull in at a safe distance from your truck so we don’t alarm the driver. Anything you need?
I suppose a sandwich is out of the question?
A sandwich is always good. It’s the timing that’s out of the question. Tighten your belt. It could be a while before we eat. Rivka signed off but watched the flashing dot on the screen. It turned where the driver had thought it would.
“He’s going into the freighter area. Will there be security?”
“Yes. If he turns up ahead, there will be a line of vehicles checking in, but there’s no inspection, and it won’t take him long to get through. I’ll slow down so we aren’t in line behind him.”
“Sounds like a good plan.” Rivka leaned toward the windshield watching the traffic, looking in each vehicle to see if there was a Blokite or an Aborginian.
“Are you going to kill him?” the driver asked out of the blue.
“What makes you ask that?”
“We don’t have capital punishment on Capstan, but there are some criminals who don’t belong in the same society as the decent people.”
Rivka wondered what his definition was of decent people, but not enough to ask. “It’s a path that once you’ve gone down it, it’s hard to step back from. The line between a capital crime and a lesser felony starts to blur. Who watches the watchers? I never set out to kill anyone, but in the end, the psychopaths find their own way to the chair.”
“Is this guy you’re chasing considered to be a psychopath?”
“I won’t know until I question him, and then I’ll know for sure. I think we’ll be questioning two serial criminals. K’Twillis the Aborginian is scum, but he hasn’t caused the loss of life that Mackestray has. I need more facts, and then I’ll consult with my higher-ups. What I know for sure is that the universe will be a better place with these two in Jhiordaan or pushing up daisies.”
“Daisies?”
“Yes, flowe
rs. A human expression for being dead and buried.”
“Of course. Pushing up daisies. I’ll have to remember that, but probably have to change it to pushing up glavodines, a nice yellow and red flower that is unique to Capstan.”
“You’ll have to show me one of those. I get to travel to a number of planets, but rarely get the chance to stop and smell the glavodines.”
“Another human expression?”
“It is.”
The van joined the line of traffic behind a passenger car. The truck carrying Red was pulling away from the guard station. Rivka looked from her datapad to the area beyond the fence and back to the datapad as she tried to figure out which freighter was carrying the contraband.
When they were waved forward, Rivka sat quietly in the passenger seat while the driver flashed his badge. “Just taking a look around on a routine patrol,” he lied. The guard waved them through, covering a yawn as they accelerated away.
“Right. Fourth left and we should see him.” Squarish and rough-colored spaceships were lined up, filling every spot in the freighter port. Industrial-sized loading systems operated on rails between the ships. The truck had pulled up to one of these. They saw Red jump over the tailgate and slide under the truck, but then the truck backed up and turned around.
Red? That can’t be good.
I’m hanging on under here. This guy is pissing me off. And K’Twillis, too. I’ve had about enough of their crap.
Our goal is to capture him. Keep that in mind, please, Rivka tried to sound calm but was never sure how her intent passed via the comm chip.
Chapter Eighteen
When the vehicle finally stopped moving, the driver climbed out and tried to make eye contact with the loader operator, who was face down in his cab. The driver bent down to pick up a rock. He threw the first one away and kept looking at the ground.
The driver is looking on the ground for something, Rivka reported.
I see him. I’m hugging the belly of this trailer as tightly as I can. They’ll probably find my fingerprints on it ten years from now.
Judge, Jury, & Executioner Boxed Set Page 72