Waypoint Kangaroo (25 page)

“A lot more,” Mike says.

“He's got one of those faces,” I say. “Average features. Unremarkable.”

Jemison turns to me. “You saw him up close, Rogers. Which one is he?”

“Give me a second.” I scan the grid of faces. “Are these recent images?”

“They're the ID holos we took during boarding,” Danny says. “Controlled lighting conditions, no aging or facial hair issues.”

It takes me a few seconds to find my so-called friend. “There. That guy. Jerry Bartelt.”

“Get his passenger record,” Jemison says. “And start a face scan on all our other security footage.”

“On it.” Danny taps at his keyboard.

“Did he know the Wachlins?” Jemison asks Mike. “Did he board the ship with them, meet them for meals or activities, anything?”

Mike studies the console, then shakes his head. “No intersections yet. Still collating data.”

“Face scans will take a while too,” Danny says. “I'll need to do multiple passes to zero in on Mr. Average here.”

“Jerry Bartelt,” Jemison says. “Who the hell are you, and why would you want to kill those nice people?” She looks at me. “Mike, Danny, forget those searches. I have a better idea.”

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Dejah Thoris
—Deck D, crew section

4½ hours after I suggested I might assist Security in some way

Jemison leads us out of the security office while explaining her plan. I like how it's an opportunity for me to show that I'm not a liability, but I don't like how it puts me and Jerry Bartelt in a room alone together. Chances are there's going to be a scuffle, and I'd rather not show up for my dinner with Ellie missing any body parts.

“Wouldn't it be better just to get a security team together and bust in unannounced?” I ask. “Why the whole masquerade?”

“Bartelt thinks you're just a good ol' boy who likes to drink,” she says. “You're going to get friendly with him and find out what he's up to.” We've reached the elevator at the end of the hallway, and she's punching the call button repeatedly. “Danny, find out where Janice Long is right now and get two goons to detain her.”

“You call your security people ‘goons'?” I say.

“It's a term of endearment,” Mike says. Danny taps his wristband. The elevator car arrives, and we all squeeze in.

Jemison turns to me. “Rogers, do you remember what Bartelt was drinking at the Captain's Table?”

“Same as the rest of us,” I say. “Red wine—a Sangiovese, I think—and champagne. They also offered a Chardonnay, but he didn't have any of that.”

“No cocktails? A martini? Maybe an after-dinner whiskey?” she asks.

I shake my head. “I wasn't really paying attention. Why are you so interested in his drinking habits?”

“I'm trying to find you a plausible excuse for showing up at his stateroom. If you're drunk and carrying half a bottle of his favorite booze, he might be inclined to invite you in.”

I decide not to mention the Red Wine in my stateroom. “Right. So it only
looks
like I'm trying to proposition him. Is this a murder investigation or are we acting out one of your private fantasies here?”

“That would be a different kind of sting,” Mike says, snickering.

Jemison raises a finger and points it at Mike. He goes quiet.

Danny looks up and says, “Blevins and Yang just picked up Janice Long. They've confiscated her security gear and are escorting her to the drunk tank now.”

“Did she put up a fight?” I ask, leaning around her.

“Sure sounded like it,” Danny says, tapping his earpiece.

I give Jemison a significant look. “The innocent never sleep in a holding cell.”

“She knows the book as well as we do,” Jemison says. “It's not going to be that easy.”

“What's the motive?” Mike asks. “Why would Janice Long or Jerry Bartelt want to kill Emily and Alan Wachlin?”

“He's not going to just tell us,” I say. “Even if we ask him nicely.”

“No shit,” Jemison says. “I figured some liquor would help loosen his tongue.”

“It's the wrong approach.” I drum my fingers on the wall of the elevator car. “Getting that friendly with him will take too long. I can put him on the defensive much more quickly and try to shake something loose. He has no reason to suspect that I'm looking at him for murder. I can play dumb better than any of you.”

“I guess some things just come naturally,” Jemison says.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I thought you were a State Department researcher,” Mike says. “How is it you seem to know so much about interrogation techniques?”

“Trade negotiations can get tricky.”

Mike narrows his eyes. “Right.”

*   *   *

The numbers on Jerry Bartelt's stateroom door glow a soft red color, and the display panel on his door below the stateroom number says DO NOT DISTURB. I can see the reflection of the red numbers in the gray camera dome on the ceiling, right at the T-junction where the hallway from the elevator intersects a longer, curved corridor.

I could sneak through the cameras' blind spots, just like I did when I broke into the excursion room to set up my comms dish, but if Jerry is watching, I need him to see me playing drunken idiot. I zigzag down the corridor, bouncing from one wall to another, letting my body flip and rotate freely, not even trying to keep myself oriented.

At one point, I pretend to get jammed upside-down in a corner, until I use my arms to roll around so I'm facing away from the wall again. For a moment, I'm concerned that I've been throwing myself around too vigorously. I press my back against the wall to make sure the hand thruster Jemison gave me earlier is still clipped to my belt at the base of my spine, hidden underneath my floppy Hawaiian shirt.

After one final collision with the wall directly opposite room 7681, I grab the door handle and bang my fist against the DO NOT DISTURB sign until my hand starts to hurt.

“Gerald fucking Bartlett!” I yell, mangling his name on purpose. “Open up, you pear-shaped sonuvabitch! I know you're in there! Come out here and face me like a man!”

I've nearly run out of insults by the time he opens the door. Jerry looks the same as he did the last time I saw him: totally ordinary, completely unremarkable. The only unusual thing right now is how angry he seems to be.

“You?” he says. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Who were you expecting? The Spanish Inquisition?” I lean forward and shout right into his face. He instinctively draws back from me. I lever around the door frame and push myself into the room, slamming my left shoulder into his chest.

“Hey!” he says, spinning back and out of my way. He wasn't expecting that move, so he wasn't braced against it. I wonder if he's had even less experience moving in zero-gee than I have. I need to use every advantage I can against this guy.

The passenger staterooms on
Dejah Thoris
are designed so that an average-sized adult is never more than an arm's length from a wall or a piece of furniture. I'm sure this is to prevent people in zero-gee from getting stranded in the middle of an empty space. A lot of people think they can “fly” in a weightless environment by flapping their arms and legs, as if they're swimming, but that doesn't work. Air will just move out of your way, and you'll be stuck hanging there. This is why the crew uses hand thrusters and jetpacks.

Jerry's stateroom is a single-occupancy studio. I let momentum carry me forward until my legs hit the side of his bed, then bend my knees and flail my arms, turning my body until I'm facing the door again, upside-down, and plant my feet on the ceiling.

I catch a glimpse of Jerry closing the lid on his laptop computer. I hope Jemison and Danny and Mike noticed it too, through the vid link we set up from my eye to Danny's wristband. If Jerry was using the laptop to monitor the security camera feeds, he's now blind. That's their opening.

“You're drunk,” Jerry says, holding on to the desk.

I kick off the ceiling and lunge at him. He doesn't even try to get out of the way, which confirms he's protecting the laptop. I grab his shirt collar and land both my knees in his stomach. He coughs and looks even angrier.
Good.

“You oughta be ashamed of yourself,” I say, slurring my words just a little. I want to appear coordinated enough to be dangerous. “I saw what you did to that poor woman! It makes me sick, just looking at you.”

Jerry grabs my wrists and tries to pull my hands away. I yank myself toward him once, hard, and tilt my head down at the same time. I score a lucky shot, banging my forehead against the bridge of his nose. Pain shoots through my head, but judging from the noise Jerry makes, it hurts him even more.

“Yeah, how does it feel, big man?” I yell in Jerry's face. “How does that feel? Doesn't feel good, does it?”

“I don't know what you're talking about!” he says.

I jerk my head to the side, stealing a glance into the empty bathroom and at the closet, then linger on the inside of the stateroom door before turning back to Jerry. I hope Jemison can see that the room is clear, and that she gets my hint about the front door.
What the hell is taking them so long?

“Don't lie to me, you sick, perverted, lousy sack of—”

Jerry slams the heel of his right hand against the side of my head and uses his left hand to punch me in the side. I do my best to hold on, but after a couple more kidney-punches, he closes his right hand around my throat. I can feel his fingers pressing on my arteries.

This guy's definitely a professional, and I've got about five seconds before I pass out.

I let go of his collar and do my best to make
I-surrender
noises, but Jerry doesn't care. I can see it in his eyes. He's not going to let me go until I'm unconscious, and I really don't want to imagine what he might do to me between then and whenever Jemison and Danny and Mike finally come charging through the door.

Jerry only has one hand free, and I make him use that one, too. I slap my right palm against his face, weak and limp. I'm not really faking that part. He closes his eyes reflexively, and I sneak my left hand around my back and grab the hand thruster. By the time he gets his left hand around my right wrist to restrain it, I've got my left arm up again.

I aim the thruster nozzle directly into his ear and press the button.

Momentum is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. In order for a small object, like a collection of gas molecules, to move a large object, like a human being, their velocity has to be correspondingly higher. That also makes them forceful enough to break an eardrum at close range.
Science!

Jerry screams. His grip on my throat weakens, but he still doesn't let go. I shove the nozzle into one of his nostrils and thumb the trigger again. He makes a noise like a startled cat and releases me, his hand going to his nose. I close my fist around the gas canister and deliver a swift jab under his chin. I hear his teeth click together as the punch lands.

He's dazed now, but he's still got a death grip on my right arm, and I can't give him any time to recover. I extend my left leg, putting my shoe on the edge of his desk, and twist my body to that side until I can kick down. I slam my right foot into his side and stomach repeatedly, with as much force as I can manage from this angle, until he releases my hand. One more kick and he spirals away from me toward the opposite wall.

I scramble over to the stateroom door and yank it open. Jemison and Danny and Mike rush in. Mike is in front, with his stunner in both hands, and he zaps Jerry as soon as he has a clear shot.

Jerry goes limp. Danny and Mike gather him up while Jemison checks me for injuries.

“Where the hell were you guys?” I croak.

“He locked us out,” Jemison says.

“Can't you override that?”

“He reprogrammed the lockpad,” she says. “Bastard's got a lot of tricks.”

“We need to search the room,” I say. “He closed the laptop as soon as I came in.”

Jemison nods, looking over the desk. “Yeah. Be careful. He's had three days to set up booby traps in here.”

I take another look around, using my eye to scan for any possible dangers. If Jerry Bartelt was well prepared for this trip, he could have smuggled in any number of deadly devices, or the components to make them. But I see nothing out of the ordinary. I tell Jemison it's safe.

Jemison gestures toward Danny and Mike. “You two, secure the prisoner here.”

“Not in the brig?” Mike asks.

“Absolutely not,” Jemison says. “This guy's a professional. Chances are he's rigged that laptop to self-destruct if he leaves the room without issuing the proper command. Just tie him down to something solid and get more security in here to sweep for electronics. Gag him, too. I don't want him talking to anyone or anything.” Voice controls for shoulder-phones are pretty common, and an easy way to disguise more sinister interfaces. No need to touch anything if the bomb responds to your voiceprint.

“Will do,” Mike says. “Where are you going, Chief?”

“Rogers and I are going to talk to the captain.”

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Dejah Thoris
—Deck C, officers' quarters

1½ hours before Ellie starts wondering where I am

We pass a large advertisement for onboard dining experiences on our way back to the crew section, reminding me that I have a dinner date.

“Listen, Chief,” I say once we're inside the crew elevator, “about the nanobots—”

“How much time do we have?” she asks.

I blink a countdown clock into my eye. “Sixteen hours. But sooner would be—”

“We'll deal with it later,” she says.