Inescapable (24 page)

‘The building
has not been reoccupied since the last break-in attempt. Constance
and Overt have been virtual recluses for the last few days, though
Mister Constance could be resting from his knife wound.’ There was
a slight pause and then, ‘Miss Vaughn’s flight arrived five minutes
ago. She has just sent through notification of the guest quarters
she has been assigned and indicated that she is ready to be picked
up.’

‘Reply with an
ETA, and let Sam know we’ll be at the house in… forty minutes.’ Fox
glanced out the window, recognising the landscape. The arrival time
would be pretty close, but forty minutes felt good. There would be
a little time for pleasantries before she dragged the recently
arrived exec back onto transport. Fox knew that Vaughn had hopped
one of the regular flights MarTech ran between Chicago and New York
rather than requesting something private, and her rank within the
company could have afforded her a little luxury. She was a
distinctly unprepossessing woman, quiet, but she had a temper which
she had learned to utilise when she needed to be assertive. The
killer Fox was trying to catch was, it seemed, the same, but he had
never learned to channel his temper; this man hid his anger, buried
it, smothered it to keep his clients from knowing what he thought
of them. And then something had come along and popped that cork.
‘It’s the quiet ones you have to watch.’

‘Sorry,
Fox?’

‘Nothing. Just
a saying. Send something to Eaves. Ask him if we’ve got the budget
for a full financial analysis of Harper August.’ The train was
pulling up in the tower’s station and Fox got to her feet. ‘At
least
this
part of the day is going to be reasonably
pleasant.’

~~~

‘This area really is
very nice,’ Vaughn said as they sat in the lounge of Sam’s house
drinking coffee. ‘It’s like Downtown in Chicago, but without the
oppressive wall of buildings to either side.’

‘The
redevelopment work was a decade earlier,’ Sam said, ‘and the
conservation district was set up to ensure that things didn’t get
too out of hand, though it’s become more of an exclusion thing,
unfortunately. Not all of the residents are…’

‘Pricks,’ Fox
said. ‘I think that’s the word you’re looking for.’

‘Isolationist,’
Sam corrected. ‘Though I’ll accept your opinion on many of the
older ones. I’ve heard of suggestions to have the entire island
covered by the MCD, but they’ll never manage that. Well, if this
private policing vote passes, they might be able to press something
through. In the meantime, they try to keep the area around the park
as clean and tidy as they can, and they pay less attention to this
area.’

‘Though some of
them seem to be paying more attention than they were. We found out
that August and his friends, mostly August, have been buying up any
property which becomes available in this area. There’s been a
recent increase in activity like that and they’ve pretty much
bought up everything likely to come available for years now. Unless
they can get the owners out through other means.’

‘Which brings
us back to business,’ Vaughn said, looking a little disappointed.
‘We still have to put a proviso on a lot of this that we resolve
the local security problem.’

‘The way things
are looking,’ Sam said, ‘if we can’t sort that out, I’ll need to
sell this place. I
really
don’t want to do that because I’m
fairly sure it’ll end up as a complete win for August, but I don’t
see a choice.’

Sitting beside
Fox, Marie gave a little wince. If Sam had to sell, it was likely
she would have to move, and she knew it.

‘Still,’ Vaughn
went on, ‘we should progress assuming we will be doing the
alterations since there are a few things which need to be
organised. I asked that Miss Shaftsbury be here because there are a
few aspects which will require her knowledge and her
signature.’

‘Signature?’
Marie asked, frowning. ‘And it’s Marie.’

‘MarTech Group
will need both of you to sign nondisclosure agreements. Mister
Martins wants to put in some as yet unmarketed equipment,
specifically some new computer systems and a fabrication system.
You would be performing market testing, in effect. The aim is to
have them available to Fox, but everyone in the house would be
using them.’

‘A new
fabricator?’ Fox asked, her eyes narrowing. ‘
That
new
fabricator?’

‘A small trial
unit suitable for a building this size. That’s what I’m told.
Jackson said that his daughter had something workable which they
could fit here late next month. He’s viewing it as a working trial
for the bigger unit he wants to install in the new tower.’

‘What are we
talking about here?’ Sam asked, looking between them.

‘I’d need you
to sign the NDA to tell you,’ Vaughn said, grinning a little
timidly. ‘It’s
very
top secret.’

‘It’s why
Terri’s on the Moon,’ Fox said. ‘It’s why the UA cell grabbed her,
but it sounds like she’s cracked the problems they were having.’
Fox looked at Vaughn. ‘Sam was on the op to get Terri out. He was
my backup, and it turned out I needed the help to get out myself.
He knows something about what was going on.’

Vaughn gave a
nod. ‘Good. That simplifies things. So, aside from the NDA, which
is a fairly standard commercial one, not some ultra-secret NIX
thing, we would also be doing
extensive
work on the
building. Even with the refit as originally specified, the upgrades
to the environmental controls would mean more or less stripping the
interior. We will need to move you out of here for at least two
weeks, Marie, possibly longer.’

‘Uh…’ Marie
said, looking uncertain.

‘We can arrange
something,’ Fox said. ‘I’m sure there’s a spare apartment in one of
the MarTech towers.’

‘I’ll see what
can be arranged when the dates are finalised,’ Vaughn agreed. ‘Now,
I’d like to go through the details on the space utilisation and
make sure we have everything written down right. Shall we start at
the top and work down?’

‘The intention
is to make the top floor Fox’s apartment,’ Sam said.

Vaughn checked
her data and nodded. ‘Indeed. A little surprising, but it does make
a few things easier.’

‘The top floor
was Felix’s private rooms. It’s foolish, but I find it hard to be
up there.’

‘That’s really
quite…’ Vaughn smiled. ‘Well, let’s get the walkthrough over with
quickly then. I can work over details with Fox at a later
date.’

~~~

Georgiana Ivers linked
into the NAPA tactical map and checked over the squad of uniformed
officers she had ready to breach her target’s apartment. She felt a
little bad about excluding Fox from the bust, but Robbard
and
her captain had been clear on the matter: this was
NAPA’s job, not Palladium’s. So, they would probably not have
narrowed the focus down to one name without Fox and Kit, but it was
still to be a NAPA-only deal to bring in Wallace Deedle.

Everything
narrowed down to Deedle, even if Ivers was having some difficulty
believing that a man like Wallace Deedle could be the killer. She
had done all the checks, gone over his employment records and
personal data. The man was so clean he squeaked, but he was also
the only bank employee who had handled financial advice for all of
the victims, including providing consultation to Emerson on some of
her charity accounts.

There was an
alert from her implant: the warrant for entry had come through,
which meant they could open the locks without the owner’s
knowledge. ‘Verify target’s location,’ she ordered over the
tactical comms.

‘Biosensor
reports he’s in his apartment,’ one of the technicians she had
along for this purpose reported.

‘I want visual
confirmation.’ She had already determined that, with a warrant,
they could tap the camera feeds inside his apartment.

‘Visuals
confirmed,’ the tech reported after a few seconds. ‘Looks like he’s
in the lounge watching an IB feed or something.’

‘Unlock the
door on two; we go on three. Everyone in positions. I want him
taken alive unless he resists.’ Which, Ivers thought, was very
unlikely. ‘One… Two… Three!’ The door slid aside and two armed
officers were through it almost before it was fully open. Ivers
went after them, followed by two more. There was a very small
entrance corridor, no side doors, and then they were through into a
lounge which was entirely unoccupied, silent, and dark.

Ivers came to a
stop as the lead officers rushed onward, checking the other rooms.
The visor she was wearing came with infrared visualisation and she
was sure Deedle would have shown up even if he was hiding behind
furniture, but there was nothing. ‘Where is he?’

The tech, still
outside, sounded surprised. ‘He’s right there, in the lounge.
He’s…’ The voice trailed off as the man walked into the dark room.
‘Shit, he’s… He must’ve looped this somehow, and faked the
biomonitor data. This guy’s background does
not
suggest he’s
capable of this kind of manipulation.’

‘Get a full
forensics sweep done. The whole apartment and I want his computers
locked down and analysed. I want to know where he is, not where you
think
he is.’ He had found out. Somehow he had figured out
they were coming for him and run. The question was where he had run
to. The question nagging at Ivers’s mind was, would he run away
immediately or hit his next victim first?

~~~

Wallace Deedle found
himself riding the maglev as the afternoon progressed. The BQ-line
passed nearby his apartment block in Port Morris, circling Queens
and Brooklyn, crossing into Manhattan where it briefly joined with
the LI-line. It passed through three precinct HQs on that route,
but he did not notice and was not noticed.

He sat in a
calm he had not felt for months. The voice was gone. His mind was
still, serene, quiet in a way it seemed he could not ever remember
the like of before. He sat and listened to the sounds of the train
as it soared along the track. There was something beautiful in the
smooth sigh of air passing by the hull of the carriage, the slight
hum of the magnetic drive field. He was sure he had never noticed
it before, but the silence in his head made everything so much
clearer.

He spoke to no
one, said nothing to any of the people who travelled with him. All
the while, he hoped that someone would stop him, but he told no one
of his intentions. He rode the maglev and prayed to a God he had
never previously believed in that someone would see him, and know
him, and stop him.

Because at
seven pm, Wallace Deedle had an appointment. And he knew that if he
was not stopped from keeping that appointment, someone was going to
die.

~~~

Fox recognised Ivers in
the IB feed Kit was streaming for her and knew what it probably
meant. The sour look on the detective’s face almost certainly meant
there had been no arrest, but the news reports were saying that an
apartment had been raided by NAPA, so Ivers had found a
suspect.

‘Find out who
they were after, Kit,’ Fox ordered silently. Then she returned her
attention to the room, which was the basement area occupied by the
building’s computers and a few other utility functions.

‘The staircase
access up through the building is perfect,’ Vaughn was saying.
‘We’ll increase security on the exterior doors on this level and
rework the access between Marie’s apartment and the staircase. The
rest of the space will need additional cooling and… Well, to be
frank, the final design of some of this equipment is not complete
yet. We’re not sure how it’s going to go in, but it will.’

‘Jackson will
get it in, somehow,’ Fox said.

‘Uh,’ Marie
piped up, ‘is any of this equipment dangerous?’

‘People keep
telling me that’s a no, but I’m not so sure.’ Fox flashed a grin.
‘The bit I think sounds dangerous needs very carefully controlled
conditions to function. They’ll seal it up to make sure nothing we
do can affect it as much as safety and security. If something
breaks, it’ll probably be non-functional before it gets near
you.’

‘Besides,’
Vaughn said, turning to one of the walls, ‘this is the main
partition between the utility area and the apartment. We’re going
to thicken it and seal it with a new polymer MarTech has come up
with for use in off-world construction. You’ll be able to suck all
the air out on one side and no one would know on the other.
And
it’ll be as strong as any of the load-bearing
walls.’

Sam looked
around the grimy space. It looked a lot like Felix had not paid too
much attention to the functional side of his home beyond making
sure it still functioned. ‘Cost
is
a factor,’ he said. ‘This
all sounds very–’

‘It is,’ Vaughn
interrupted, ‘but MarTech Technologies is going to handle costs on
the work needed for the new fabricator and Palladium will subsidise
the additional security and communications if Fox is living here.
Actually, we’d like to hook the building up to the MarTech network.
Services can provide a suitably large pipe and they do have a good
reputation as–’

‘The sales
pitch isn’t needed,’ Sam said. ‘I use MarTech Services
already.’

Vaughn’s lips
twitched. ‘I know. I checked your website as part of our customer
research.’

‘It has some
excellent photo work,’ Marie said.

‘It does,’
Vaughn agreed. ‘What does the tattoo mean? Uh, out of
interest.’

‘Depends,’ Fox
said. ‘It’s programmable pigmentation. What’s it saying today,
Sam?’

‘Uh… It’s a
beauty ideogram, shū. I think the one in the web image is xiè,
which is lust.’

‘And this is
why I don’t usually
want
to know what he has written on his
chest.’

‘You’ve seen
that tattoo quite a lot then?’ Vaughn asked.