Rogue-ARC (34 page)

From his point of view it was very safe. I would kill Randall, so at the very least, they reduced the security risk. Killing him would prove I was serious, and provide testament of my bona fides. They’d also try to acquire evidence of me performing that act, or admitting to it. They’d hold that close for a later threat, if needed. Investment at their end, minimal. With that out of the way, they’d negotiate with me for future kills. If I was a plant, they’d deny all knowledge, and parachute in a platoon of lawyers. I or our government would take the hit. If Randall killed me, they’d use it as an excuse to pay him some severance and cut him loose. He’d have to go freelance to lesser venues. Win-win for them regardless of outcome.

From my point of view, they were asking me to do what I’d already been tasked to do, so I had no moral qualms. I wasn’t being asked to kill some innocent bystander to prove myself. In that regard, they were professionals, not mere thugs. That’s how they’d stayed in business for several centuries.

The only question was if they suspected that was my mission and were playing along? Well, not the only question, but that was the relevant one. This could be a setup, with them feeding Randall whatever intel they acquired. So I’d have to proceed incommunicado again, for everyone’s benefit.

“What is the rate?”

“Seventy-five,” he said.

That was ridiculously cheap, in my opinion.

“You’re aware of his abilities. That’s not enough.”

“You need to demonstrate your proficiency in the task.”

“Certainly. At a discount, not a bufyet special.”

“An even hundred then.”

“Is he really working that cheap? I’m disgusted, if so. He’s stupid as well as inefficient.”

“It seems quite fair.”

“For really high profile or dangerous tasks? You don’t go to Lola Aerospace for an orbital tug.”

“One fifty is as high as I will go, no matter.”

“That’ll work as an opener. After I’ve delivered your message, we can negotiate on future deliveries.”

“Acceptable,” he said. I couldn’t see the smirk, but I knew it was there. He figured to blackmail me at that point. He also had deniability. We’d discussed “messages” in hundreds of marks, not assassinations in hundreds of thousands. I’d get paid the proper amount, but he’d try to hold it at that level.

“Then I will tell you when the message is delivered.”

“It must be soon, and quietly,” he insisted. “The last round were too public and visible. That’s a breach of etiquette.”

“Noted,” I said. “I’ll get on it. It will still take several days.”

“There is a time frame here,” he reminded me.

“I appreciate any information you have on location or meetings.”

“He doesn’t meet in person anymore. I have been unable to locate him. That is why I am hiring you.”

Well, the tone had changed here rather rapidly.

“Then I shall get on the task, after dinner.”

The meal was a little tense, though we did manage small talk about the food, the lava formations and the climate.

I hadn’t actually gained anything from this deal. I had a snoopy thug who thought to control me. I wasn’t sure that was worth knowing Randall was on the ropes. We’d already deduced that.

Now, though, I had to worry about them trying to track me, if this went on too long.

We finished, excused ourselves and left. The cool, pleasant evening was hindered by the cloud over the deal.

They had contact through a disposable phone. I had contact through whatever they chose to give me. There were implied threats against me if this didn’t move fast enough.

Once in the car, I told Silver, “Ideally, we wrap this up and they forget about me entirely.”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “That leaves them without an enforcer.”

“And without a problem.”

“I’m not positive he’s that logical.”

“Maybe. He’s got limited intel on us, though.”

“He might have gotten something from Randall.”

That put shivers through me, half of them because I’d forgotten to account for that.

“Change everything,” I said. “Clothes, IDs, the works. Assume they got some DNA from that meal.”

“I already did,” she said. “That’s part of why I’m surprised you agreed to meet in person.”

“It was a risk, but I think we came out ahead. He’s cut off again and they’ll throw any intel they get at us, I hope.”

“Yeah,” she said. “They may have figured you were a threat and be setting you both up.”

“That’s sort of what I want,” I said with a smile. If only I could believe it.

“Can you really get paid twice for the same job?” she asked.

“I know someone who got paid three times for the same job. But I only care about cutting Randall off from resources.”

Still, after a convoluted detour around the city and back to the house, a check of the sensors and boobytraps, and picking up a couple of pistols to hold in my lap, I felt a bit better.

The tactical summary, again, was that Randall had lost his primary underwriter and employer and now had to scrabble. He’d lost his primary bank account. He had intelligence agencies in three major systems looking for him. He had me after him. He was panicky and insecure. He’d thrown blocks at me and missed. We were closing in inexorably, and he had few options left.

Realistically, if someone else bagged him, I didn’t care. It would be easier for me, morally. An accident wasn’t desirable, though, because it wouldn’t send enough of a message, and dammit, as much as I hated the notion of sending messages through killing people, this time it probably was justified, one on one. I knew Naumann would feel validated by it, though.

Having done all this, I pondered what else I could do to hinder Randall. I didn’t want too much publicity. That would be bad for us as well. If I could damage his reputation further, by hindering more hits . . . but that assumed we didn’t end this.

Silver interrupted my haze.

“I’ve got a DNA match and image!” she almost shouted.

Antigravity exists. I was two meters above the bed in a microsecond.

“Where?” I called back as I landed and ran over.

“Port. Marquardt came through with what we provided.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Already departed. It took some time to get sorted through the system.”

I remembered the trouble we’d had on Caledonia. They’d actually had people scanning the images of every passenger the last two weeks.

Yeah, Randall had pronged the dog by getting flashy.

“Departed where?”

“He lifted ten hours ago, could be on a ship or deep space shuttle now. Marquardt wants to know if he should alert the ships.”

“Sweet gods, no. He’ll fight like a wounded leopard. Just tell us where the hell he’s going.”

She dove in with mic, keypad, optical trackers. I’m fast, but she fairly flew, with several screens at once and audio. She sat there and pulled data, made notes, called Marquardt’s office, deleted, tagged. It was most of an hour before she turned and said, “Ninety-five percent chance of Earth, five percent of Mtali.”

That was so insane I had to ask her, “Say again.”

“Ninety-five percent Earth, five percent Mtali.”

My first thought was that he was desperate if he was going to Earth. If IDed there, he’d be ripped to pieces. Of course, so would I.

Had he found another patron with a lot of money? Or was he hoping to use the massive government system to shield himself from me? Was he suicidal and trying to take me with him?

We’d missed the launch, but there were a lot of ships for Earth. That wasn’t a problem. I knew Earth, had money, had backup. I also found I had a neurotic fear of going there. They didn’t know my name, but I was the most hated man in the world’s history. If discovered, I’d be lucky to just be ripped to pieces.

“What’s your deduction based on?”

“He was there just in time to board an Earth ship. There was a Mtali ship that left about two hundred seconds after they opened the hatch on the shuttle. At a sprint, he might have made that one, but there’s no report of anyone doing a breakneck rush through the station, and no images on file. The Earth ship is well en route now.”

“Is it an Earth flag?”

“Yes.”

“Shit.” Yeah, I couldn’t call up the UN and give them that info. Call me a coward, but having the largest government in history aware of my presence after I’d killed six billion of its subjects was not on my list of things to do.

“Get us on the next one. Fast. Use the best ID you have. They will check it.”

“How are we traveling?”

“Married couple. Museum tours. We’ll need to be mid-wealthy.”

“I have one we can make work.”

She opened a screen, grabbed fresh ID and ran a charge.

“We need to lift in two hours. So we need to leave now.”

“Only essentials, and be leery even of the papers. Can you fab more on Earth?”

“Not easily, but yes.”

“We want nothing questionable. Dump it all. Save two spares you can easily conceal.”

“Are we calling Marquardt?”

“Yes, after we abandon the car at the port, right as we lift. Delay time the transmission.”

“Understood.”

She rose, went over and grabbed a bag. I had mine, both a common garment hard case and a basic shoulder bag. She threw clothes, tossed gear, and in two minutes said, “Ready.”

This is why I can never get along with civilian women.

We gathered up everything dispensable, stuffed it into another bag, and I tossed that into the car’s hold. We’d abandon it en masse for Marquardt. The IDs and other technical items I tossed into the burner, lit them, and stood there for five minutes dousing them with fuel to ensure adequate destruction.

I drove, she watched for threats. That was just the state of things now. I didn’t think we’d be any safer on Earth, though, and this was going to be a mental ordeal for me.

We parked in the exchange area—set up for meeting arrivals—then took a slide into the terminal. We cleared the process in minutes; the NovRos are nice people.

When we reached the station, there was a message waiting from Marquardt. It was cordial enough, but pretty clear that he’d prefer we not come back. I understood his point. We’d left a mess for him to clean up and hard evidence he’d have to carefully explain away.

CHAPTER 21

We were closer.
We were now only a day behind. Still, it was aggravating to not yet have found the man, and terrifying to be going back where I was considered history’s greatest monster. I lay awake in our stateroom craving human touch.

Earth ships are not as nice as many others, though adequate, and better than they used to be. We couldn’t do any research, though. All activity is monitored and we’d get flagged instantly. We stayed locked out of the ship’s node and committed nothing to paper, either. We passlocked our comms and phones and secured them in luggage when not on our persons.

Earth changed security protocols after my attack, like closing the barn after the horse is loose. They’ve been tightening it ever since, and now it’s flat out ridiculous.

All ships stop at the jump point stations, and everyone is sequestered and cleared through Customs there. They do nothing outsystem or in orbit. Fair enough. It limits the possibility of them letting someone slip through.

However, it’s slow. It’s intrusive. They scanned everything with sniffers, and I was very glad we’d used new luggage against any propellant or explosive residue. Those are actually quite common if you travel outsystem; the luggage is jumbled together and you get residue from other pieces. They’re supposed to be able to tell the density, but that assumes they hire people with more than a room temperature IQ. The luggage went down a chute, through a door and off to be examined.

That’s a problem. It’s compounded by the fact that all the luggage gets held up while they do this dance, rather than forwarding other pieces. I supposed they’re afraid it will strain their intellects. That, or no one wants to risk signing off in case it comes back on them.

We waited a long boring time for that, during which we made couplish small talk to look “normal,” then had to go through and make declarations.

I stepped up to this typically soft Earth type in a rumpled blue uniform who asked, “Has your luggage been out of your control?” without any kind of preamble or eye contact.

“Yes,” I said.

He looked up in shock, and asked, “When?”

I said, “From the time it offloaded from the ship and into your scanners until now.”

He got this disgusted expression and said, “That’s not out of your control.”

“I didn’t see where it went, so I can’t tell what happened.”

“Are you trying to be smart with me?” he asked, and I choked back a response of
how would you know if I were
?

“I misunderstood, I guess,” I said.

He snorted and then read from his screen, “Have you acquired or are you carrying any fruits, vegetables, live plants, unsterilized soil samples, unpackaged meat or animal products, leather, horn, bone or other processed animal products, recreational pharmaceuticals, inflammable materials, live animals or insects, non-UNSC-rated power supplies or energy cells, radiation sources, firearms, blades over eight centimeters, electronic, neural or chemical disabling devices, unapproved/unlicensed entertainment or educational or other media, bullion or more than ten thousand marks in cashable cards?”

I caught most of it and filled in the rest from context. He clearly didn’t care. I didn’t see any point to the question as they’d already scanned the luggage. Incriminating question? Intimidating question?

“No,” I replied.

“Step through, please.” He turned to Silver and started his routine.

I walked through the gate, and then two others snapped at me like cops. “Stand up, spread your legs on the marks, hold your arms up. Stay still.”

It was easy enough to hold my arms up in .4 G. Three different scanners ran around in spirals, searching me for something, and apparently found nothing. I exhaled in relief, afraid it would recognize my facial bones from long past. They let me out and Silver got the same treatment.

After that, we were handed necklaces.