Haywire (21 page)

“
No, I think I better get back now. I’m more tired than I thought.”

Winking at him, Finnegan smiled again before turning back to her controls. “Well, then get yerself strapped in. You’ll have another chance when we pass through the Mars conduit at Hygeia.”

“
Okay. Thank you, Captain.”

“
Think nothin’ of it, young sir. And please, call me Millie. I only make the crew call me Cap’n.”

In spite of the uneasiness he felt in his stomach, Shawn smiled.

“
Hells bells, Delgado,” Assistant Director Bernie Anderson said, his small, pinched face looking even more harried than usual.

Alex sat in a cramped comm booth in the middle car of the tram that ran from the museum to Arcadia’s various stops. He could have used his personal comm to make the call, but for this conversation he needed privacy, so he’d crammed himself in a booth and dialed his superior. Anderson’s face looked especially flushed on the display screen.

“
I hope to God you’re right about this. Callisto might be small potatoes to the folks back home on Earth, but out here its water supply means something, and a lengthy disruption of service could mean headaches for a lot of people.”

Alex held his sigh in check, but only just. “I don’t want to be right, Sir, because if I am it means some very bad people might now have their hands on some very bad technology.”

The AD grunted. “Yeah, I see your point.”

Glancing at the progress indicator screen, Alex noted that the tram was nearing the Arcadia spaceport. He winced, knowing a world of pain waited for him there. “Speaking of bad people, did the fingerprints I scanned have any matches in our database?”

“
All of them did,” Anderson replied, his finger poking at the screen as he pulled up information only he could see. “And all came up with outstanding warrants. Aggravated violence, theft, a few sexual assaults, and more weapon charges than I care to count. Taken all together, it looks like you’ve got pirates. I don’t think it needs to be said that the last thing this universe needs are pirates getting their hands on Titan technology, but I’ll say it anyway.”

Alex felt punched in the gut. Pirates were like roaches – they didn’t die easily, and where you saw one in the light you could count on dozens more hiding in the shadows close by. Never had he imagined such an element would touch Alicia’s life. She was just a museum director, for god’s sake. “Are crime scene units on their way to check out Dr. Campbell’s townhome and the uncovered lab?”

“
Yeah, yeah, they’re en route as we speak. The military brass is all in an uproar at the possibility of a Titan being involved somehow, as I’m sure you can imagine, but until this gets taken out of our hands I’m keeping them out of it. I also got Judge Blume on the horn, and he’s signed off on all the warrant paperwork you’ll need. Authorization for the cessation of traffic has already gone out.”

“
You know the Union ships are going to have something to say, official paperwork or no.”

Anderson nodded, took off his glasses, and ran his fingers down the bridge of his bulbous nose. “They can complain until the sun burns out for all I care. They signed agreements, dammit, they know the law. If any of them get too out of hand, tell them we’ll revoke their license to work in Alliance space. That should take the wind out of their sails toot sweet.”

“
I’ll make sure they understand the severity of the situation.” Alex didn’t like being heavy handed, but when his authority was challenged he could bring the hammer down good and hard.

“
Good. Now, I’m sure you have more than enough on your plate, so I’ll leave you to it. Call me if you need anything else, or when you learn something new.”

“
Yes, Sir.”

The distant AD nodded, put his glasses back on, and closed the comm line.

Alex left the comm booth and settled back into his tram seat. He was one of only a handful of people traveling in the car. “Have the officers found anything else at Alicia’s place?” he asked, the words filtering into the comm device nestled in his right ear.

“
No, Alex,” Isabel replied. “Other than the dead body of the courier, there are no other signs of violence, nor is there sign of forced entry. Forensics will be able to tell us more, though, after they’ve arrived on-scene. Also, while you were speaking with the AD we received two new bits of information. First, as soon as our tap on Dr. Campbell’s financials was approved we got a hit. She withdrew a rather large sum of money in the form of cash chits from a currency machine at the Arcadia Spaceport approximately two hours ago. Why she did this is unknown.”

“
Chits?” Alex didn’t know what to make of that piece of news. Alicia was a woman of means, and her bank accounts could be accessed all over the solar system with the press of a thumb. So, what did cash have over a fingerprint? The only thing he could think of was anonymity. But for who, and to what end? “Okay, what else?”

“
A security officer at the spaceport found the delivery truck used to get in and out of the museum. It’s been cordoned off.”

“
And I assume it was empty?”

“
The officer who found it only did a preliminary inspection so as not to contaminate the scene, but his report says that it was clean as a whistle other than a crate of spare environmental suits.”

Alex thumped his armrest and grumbled. The more time it took to find them, the more chance there was of the bad guys slipping through his fingers.

“
Alright. Mark it for Forensics. Has customs had any hits out at the launch pads?”

The AI issued a negative beep. “So far they’ve logged several minor infractions – prohibited substances and the like – but nothing above the level of misdemeanor. Certainly nothing on par with illegal technology or kidnapping.”

Hot anger rose up Alex’s neck to settle in his jaws. Someone had burst into his girlfriend’s home, committed terrible violence in front of her, and then forced her to do their bidding. At that very moment she and her son could still be under their control, scared and hurt and wondering if they would survive. “All right. Is Schmidt ready for us?”

“
Yes. He said to meet him at the control center. Someone will be waiting for you at the terminal to escort you there.”

Two minutes later the tram pulled into the spaceport and came to a stop. The woman waiting for him was in her late twenties, dressed in a tan skirt and jacket, and pretty, but she didn’t seem to care much about it. His interest went little further than hers did.

“
Agent Delgado?” she asked as she stepped forward. A computer tablet was clutched in her hands.

Alex nodded and flashed his badge. “Yep, that’s me.”

“
I’m Susan Deschain. I’ll be taking you to the command center.”

He gestured toward the hallway that extended away from the terminal. “Then please, lead the way.”

The young woman guided him through a series of security checkpoints, each one manned by armed guards who inspected his credentials thoroughly. After several doors and hallways they passed through a thick hatch and entered a large chamber. Display screens covered the walls, and over a dozen people sat at computer stations, all of them typing hastily and speaking into headsets. Several of them noticed him come in, and the looks they had on their faces said that it wasn’t a good day to be them.

“
Agent, over here,” a voice said. Alex turned and saw Paul Schmidt standing in front of a bank of monitors. The light from them bloomed around his thin frame and shined off his bald head.

Susan walked him over. As soon as they were at Paul’s station the supervisor thanked her and told her to resume her duties.

“
Pretty impressive operation you have here,” Alex said as he looked around. The light level was low enough to reduce glare on the multitude of computer screens but high enough to limit eye strain.

Paul waved dismissively. “It’s nothing compared to the setup I used to manage over at Minerva. That place was ten times as big, with nearly ten times the staff. If it weren’t for the laws prohibiting it, I could probably run all this myself.”

Alex didn’t see how that would be possible, but he wasn’t there to debate the man’s performance capabilities. “So what have you got for me?”

Paul gave him a ‘
Let’s get down to business
’ nod and hit several keys on his keyboard. Before him were three large monitors, and different video feeds popped up on each one.

“
Okay, using the photos you sent us of Dr. Campbell and her son, we did a search for any images we might’ve captured of them coming through this facility. This isn’t the busiest spaceport in the universe, so we got a hit pretty quickly.”

Alex looked at the screen on his far left. A large delivery rover rolled into view from the south. The vehicle stayed to the shadows, but scanners in the camera registered the magnetic identification markings on it. There were several people in the rover judging from the silhouettes moving past windows, but exactly how many was unclear. After half a minute a figure bounced into the light and proceeded toward the camera, but glare off the helmet made identifying them impossible, and the spacesuit didn’t have a nametag on it.

“
Did the cameras note any other rovers?” he asked.

Paul shook his head. “Nope, just the one.”

“
And when the rover came in, why wasn’t someone notified?”

“
Because it wasn’t entered into our database until you were already on your way here. As soon as the information came in, we sent a notification.”

The man was right. The subject of the delivery rover hadn’t come up until he’d gotten back to the surface and was told it wasn’t at the docking platform where Beddor had last seen it. In all the fuss, Alicia’s assistant had been slow in making the realization.

“
Fair enough. Is there any way to clear this image up?”

“
Let’s see.” Paul clacked away at his keyboard for a few seconds, adjusted a knob, and then said, “That’s about as much as I can do. Sorry.”

The video image hadn’t changed much beyond getting lighter and grainier. There was some movement, but the darkness was too thick to see what was happening. “This is pretty well useless,” he said.

Grunting, Paul pointed at the screen and said, “Dr. Campbell’s about to return.”

Sure enough, a few seconds later a figured bounced out from the lower part of the screen and hobbled over to where several other people were gathered in their spacesuits.

“
How do you know who that is?” Alex asked. He couldn’t tell anything about the figure other than it was vaguely female in shape.

“
We have video of her once she came into the spaceport.”

Alex’s eyes opened wide as he remembered the information Isabel gave him. “Right, the cash withdrawal. Pull that up.”

Paul paused the video on the left monitor and started the video that was queued up on his middle screen. On it was the image of a large airlock opening, and a person in a blue spacesuit walked into the terminal. After the round door irised closed and the entrance was pressurized, the figure removed their helmet. Alicia’s face was plain for all to see. Alex wasn’t sure what expression he’d expected to see, but calm determination wasn’t it. He’d thought she would appear panicked or distressed, but she didn’t. She looked like a woman on a mission.

“
Doesn’t seem like she knows she’s missing, huh, Agent?” Paul said.

Alex grunted. “No, it doesn’t. Do we have more footage?”

“
Yep.”

The video feed switched to an angle that showed her approach an automated bank terminal. He watched as she stood in front of it pushing buttons. A minute later she shoved something into her pocket and turned to leave the way she’d come.

“
Rewind and focus in on what she’s putting in her pocket.”

The footage was reversed, paused, zoomed in on her right hand, and resumed playing at a slower speed. The image wasn’t very clear, but it didn’t have to be. Her hand showed enough.

“
That is one thick stack of cash chits,” Paul said. “Personally, I never touch the stuff. Bank chip in my thumb serves me just fine.”

Alex nodded. “So, we know they were here and that they withdrew a large sum of money. Where did they go from here?”

“
Take a look.”

Alex looked over at the monitor to Paul’s right. Alicia walked away from the group of people huddled at the airlock and bounced toward the launch pads. There she drew close to another group, left them, spoke to another, then was pointed to head deeper into the pads. The video feed ended after that.

“
Sorry, Agent, but that’s all we have.”

Frustrated, Alex blew air out his nose and said, “You don’t have a camera on every pad?”

“
No. Never had a reason to. Every ship is met by a customs officer when they land, all landings are tracked, and cameras around the periphery of the facility cover most of what we’d need for security. It’s a small moon, Agent.”

Until that moment, Alex hadn’t fully understood just how inconsequential the powers-that-be considered Callisto. “Shit. At least tell me you have her returning to the rover.”

Paul leaned forward and hit a key that activated the video on the left monitor. “That we do have.”

Alex watched Alicia return from the launch pads and bounce toward the rear of the rover. A minute later two new figures appeared from the rover’s cargo bed with her. Alex wondered if either could be the Titan Beddor mentioned. One of them was big, but the figure moved in slow, haggard motions, not exactly hurtling through the air like the assistant had described. More than likely it was a pirate, possibly the one who’d held Beddor at gunpoint.