Night and Day (Book 2): Bleeding Sky (34 page)

 “And
this guy?” I passed over the picture of the vampire from Shuster’s
team.

“Based
on that bullet hole in his head, I guess he’s dead too,” Ozmankowski said.
“That’s Mr. Kwame. Never gave me a first name. Rigger. Tower D.”

“When
was the last time you saw them?”

“Thursday
night,” he said. “Company paid for the whole floor of this shithole.
Collins, Kwame, couple of other guys didn’t want to stay because the
accommodations weren’t up to their high standards.” He paused. “Me, I don’t
care. I ain’t reaching into my own pocket. If it’s got a bed, I’m okay with
it.”

“Where
did they go?”

“How
the fuck would I know?” he asked. “Told ‘em I’d dock part of their pay if
they didn’t stand rig watch like everybody else, but they didn’t seem to
care, so I didn’t care. I got plenty of men to watch the rig anyway. Told
‘em to check in here tomorrow, see if we’d be staying an extra day or moving
on.”

Ozmankowski
shook his head. “Shit, now I gotta find myself a couple of riggers.” He
paused. “Or maybe I can move some people around and drive light till we get
to San Antonio. That might be okay...”

“Yeah,
figure it out another time,” I said. “Were Collins and Kwame with your rig
from the beginning?”

“Nah,
they came aboard in D.C., same as Mahathir and Jenks. Had to let some good
people go to make room for them.”

“Why
was the change made?”

“Ask
your bosses,” he said. “Maybe had something to do with security or
something. Company didn’t put them on. It was area government.”

Or
at least someone inside area government. The same one that wanted Heymann
dead. “Where are Mahathir and Jenks now?”

He
laughed. “I told ya, four guys took off to stay somewhere else. Collins, Mr.
Kwame, Mahathir and Jenks.”

“How
many guys you have total?"

“Twenty-four.
Six assigned to each tower.” He paused. “Twenty-five if you count me. But I
don’t work. I supervise.”

“What
do you do while you’re on the road, find a hotel every night?” Martinez
asked.

“We
don’t stop till we get where we’re going, little lady,” he said. “You seen
those towers?”

I
nodded.

“Got
bunk space in there for each crew when they’re not on duty. Two day shift
drivers, two night shift drivers, two riggers. Riggers are usually trained
as backup drivers, in case somebody gets sick or something.” He jerked his
chin at the photos in my hand. “Not Collins. He told me up-front that he
didn’t drive. And to tell you the truth, Mr. Kwame wasn’t exactly a top
driver either. I put him in the cab once for about ten minutes. That was
plenty.”

“So
there’s twenty of your guys here right now?”

“Nineteen,”
he said. “Sinclair is on the rig.”

“Yeah,
we met him,” I said. “You have everybody’s paperwork?”

“Paperwork,”
he said. “I guess you don’t know how things work, Charlie Welles from the
Area Governor’s Office. Their licenses and everything else are in the
company files in Philly. They got their personal IDs. That’s all they need
on the road.”

“Okay,
Mr. Ozmankowski. I’ll be sending some Security Force troopers over to check
every one of your men. Your people will stay in the hotel until that’s
finished.”

“How
are they supposed to eat?”

“Call
for a couple of pizzas,” I said. “If any of your men seem even a little bit
suspicious, they will be taken for further investigation.” I paused. “And if
any of them are not in this hotel when my troopers get here, they’ll be
considered hostile, and when we find them, we will kill them. No talk. Just
bullets.”

“Wait,
wait. What the hell is this all about?”

I
held up the pictures of Clarke and the dead vampire he’d called Mr. Kwame.
“These two came into the city aboard your rig to kill Ambassador Heymann. In
the old days, before the war, some prosecutor might try to hang an accessory
charge on you.” I shook my head slowly. “These days, it’s different. The
line is a lot more blurred between accessory and participant. So you want to
be as cooperative as you possibly can. And I might be able to keep you from
ending up like Collins and Kwame.”

He
scowled. “Yeah, I’m listening.”

“First,
let your men know that my people are coming.” I pulled the phone from my
pocket and handed it to Martinez. “Third icon on the screen, the one that
says AOC. Press it and have the operations center patch you in with Bristow.
Tell him I want five troopers here with commo back to the command trailer.
They’ll be getting information and passing it back to be confirmed through
the operations center.”

“Yes,
sir.” Martinez said.

“I
want thorough checks,” I said. “Any holes in their backgrounds, any missing
periods, anything that looks even a little bit suspicious, I want them
hauled in for a full vetting.”

“Yes,
sir.”

“And
Lita, don’t press either of the first two icons,” I said. “Unless you want
to wake up Commander Takeda or General Bain.”

“Understood,
sir,” she said. She moved to the window and held the phone to her
ear.

I
looked back at Ozmankowski. “Well?”

He
stepped to the wall and banged a couple of times. A minute later, there was
a quick courtesy knock at the door and it opened. A young guy stood there,
in a t-shirt and boxers. He looked at me, then at Martinez, and finally at
Ozmankowski.

“Yeah,
chief?”

“Go
room to room and tell everybody we have an ID check coming,” he said, his
eyes on me. “Tell them to get rid of the hookers, lose whatever happy stuff
they’re drinking or smoking, get dressed, and have their personal IDs ready.
And if they try to leave the hotel before the check, tell them they’re off
the crew.” His eyes met mine. “Permanently.”

“Got
it, Ozzie,” the man said. He closed the door.

“Happy?”

“Getting
there,” I said. “Now I want you to throw some clothes on and come with me
back to the rig.”

“Why?”

“I
want to take a look at where your four missing crewmen bunked during the
ride down here.”

“I
thought you said you saw the towers,” he replied.

“I
saw them from the outside. Your man on the rig wasn’t very friendly. He
didn’t offer us a tour.”

“Sinclair’s
okay once he gets to know you,” he said. “Just tell him I sent you and he’ll
show you around.”

“I
don’t have time to get to know him,” I said. “You can show me around.” I
paused. “Get dressed, Ozzie.”

It
took him about five minutes to get ready. While he was in the bathroom
washing off Cheryl’s perfume, Martinez came back and gave me the phone.
“Captain Bristow said he’ll have them here in ten minutes.”

I
nodded. “I don’t expect them to come up with anything, but I still have to
cover the bases. Shuster was smart. He knew area government would be
watching airports and train stations for Special Collections people. So he
sent them in with Heymann and his trailer.” I paused. “And he brought along
a backup team as well.”

“Sir?”

“The
two missing men,” I said. “Mahathir and Jenks. I guarantee one is a vampire,
the other human, and both are Special Collections.”

“You
still think he’ll try for the ambassador today, sir? I mean, you thought he
was alone and desperate and that’s why he’d do it today. If he has another
team...”

“I
think the plan was always to do it today,” I said slowly. “That’s why he
came after me and killed Brenner’s team last night. Take me out of play,
leave Brenner on his own. Then take out Heymann when he’s vulnerable on the
road.”

Ozmankowski
came out of the bathroom, wearing khaki coveralls like the man on the rig.
He grabbed a baseball cap that was hanging on the bathroom doorknob and put
it on. “I’m ready,” he said.

Sinclair
made himself scarce when Martinez and I showed up with Ozmankowski. The crew
chief watched him head for one of the far towers and shook his head. “What
did you say to him?” he asked.

“About
the same thing we said to you,” I said. “Maybe a slight variation on the
theme.”

He
sighed. “When he gets a bug up his ass, you know how hard it is to get it
out?”

“You’ll
have a nice long ride to San Antonio to work on that,” I said. “So, the
towers?”

We
followed Ozmankowski to the closest tower. “There are four towers, like you
can see,” he said. “A through D. Six men in each. One in the cab when we’re
rolling, the other five in their racks. Drivers trade off in the middle of
their shift, humans during the day, vamps at night. Riggers stay below
except when they’re on the deck, checking the straps, or we need them to
drive.”

He
opened the hatch. “This is D tower. Bottom rack on the right was Collins,
bottom left was Kwame.”

The
bunks went up either side of the tower, with a metal-rung ladder on the back
wall that went up to the hole at the top into the cab. Each bunk had a shade
that could be pulled down, probably for privacy. And a little extra
protection from the sun for the Vee crewmen.

We
stepped into the tower. “Smells like dirty socks,” Martinez said.

“You
get used to it,” Ozmankowski muttered.

I
lifted the shade on the bottom right bunk and peered in. Empty. Just a bare
mattress. No books, no pictures taped to the wall. Blank and impersonal. I
turned and checked the bottom left bunk. The same.

“Guess
they were neat freaks,” I said.

“Not
very sociable either,” he said. “Both of ‘em kept to themselves. Not
unfriendly, but not much on small talk. They did their jobs and spent the
rest of the time in their racks. They didn’t even seem that friendly with
each other.”

“Where’s
the latrine?” Martinez asked.

He
laughed. “Miss, this transporter moves at about two miles an hour. You need
to pee or take a crap, you hop off the rig, run into the bushes, and do your
business. You could take a nice dump and the transporter wouldn’t be more
than a couple of hundred feet down the road when you were done.”

“What
about Mahathir and Jenks?” I asked.

“Tower
B,” he said.

“Let’s
take a look.”

It
was the same story. Shades down. Empty bunks. If Shuster’s four teammates
had brought anything with them onto the transporter, it had left with
them.

“So
what do riggers do, exactly?” I asked after we walked back to the edge of
the transporter. I could see that the line to Heymann’s trailer was gone. I
checked my watch. Almost noon. He’d be leaving soon.

“What
do you think?” Ozmankowski said. “They make sure the rigging on the load is
tight, that it hasn’t shifted or come loose. Checks every couple of hours,
humans during the daytime, vamps at night. When we get to the destination,
they’re the ones who drop the restraining straps and hook up the lift
straps. When we pull out they do the reverse and re-rig the
load.”

“Seems
like a pretty easy job,” I said.

“They’re
all easy jobs if you know what you’re doing,” he said. “You don’t know what
you’re doing, you might have a couple of hundred tons of metal sliding
across the deck and shearing off a tower. The job may be pretty easy, but
it’s pretty goddamn important.”

I
nodded. “Well, I appreciate the tour, Mr. Ozmankowski. And just to let you
know, I’m sure you won’t be blamed for accepting crewmen sent by an area
governor’s office.” I paused. “Do you need a ride back to the
Cunningham?”

He
shook his head. “Nah, I’ll stay here with Sinclair until he’s relieved, see
if I can chase away the sulks.”

“Good
luck with that,” I said, starting down the rope ladder.

As
we crossed the square, I saw Heymann and Clay climbing into the back of a
Humvee. “Showtime,” I said.

Martinez
and I stood in front of the command trailer, watching the ambassador’s
motorcade pull out. Motorcycles, cop cars, humvees, fifty or sixty guys. All
to protect one man who didn’t seem to care whether he lived or
died.

Bristow
stepped out onto the steps above us. “Any luck with the transporter crew?”
he asked.

“Yeah,”
I said. “All of it bad. Your guys still over at the Cunningham?”

“Couple
more and they’ll be done,” he said. “Nothing unusual about the transporter
crew.” He smiled. “Well, one of them is a bigamist, if that’s
helpful.”

“If
it works for him, it works for me,” I said. “When they finish up, get them
back here as soon as possible. And let the field units know that we’re not
facing an individual anymore. We’re facing a team again.”

“How?”

“The
transporter. Shuster used it to bring in his team under the radar. Or, as it
turns out, teams. He brought along a couple of extras, so he’s back at full
strength.”