“Never…and I mean never make a move for your weapon on me, in my station, near my presence, or anywhere close to where I am,” I said in a cool and calm voice. I even impressed myself at how steady my voice was. I could hear the old fashioned wall clock ticking away the seconds from across the room.
Callahan moved his hand away from his jacket and the two goons behind him did the same. “This isn’t over, Fitzgerald,” his voice sounded raspy, like he had just puked up something from earlier in the day and had to swallow it right back down.
“I don’t know what the hell this even is, Inspector,” I purposely drawled out the last word. “But if I did, I think I’d find the guy whose doing it all and buy him a drink at the Miner Forty-Niner. He’s definitely making my job easier, what, with all the bad guys getting killed around here.”
“Hundreds would’ve died had that dome plate been blown out, Fitzgerald, hundreds!”
“Callahan, calm down,” I said. “My guess is the guy who planted that bomb knew what he was doing. My guess is you’ll find it was a shaped charge and specifically placed to do nothing more than eliminate that specific target – in this case, the warehouse that was being used to produce several tons per day of chain. My guess is, you’ll find there weren’t even shrapnel dents in that dome plate. My guess is, no one but the criminals who were responsible for operating the production facility was ever in any danger. But that’s just my guess.”
“I’m warning you, Fitzgerald,” Callahan said. “Back the hell off.”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about so I don’t know what to back the hell off of,” I said. “But, if I were you I’d watch my back – I heard that these things tend to go both ways.”
* * *
I was crossing the street toward the Miner-Forty-Niner when the first bolt was let loose about a quarter way down the street. I dove and rolled while both blasters filled my fists. Locating the target I quickly eliminated him and continued rolling.
There were four more – Scarus wasn’t taking any chances. Two more dropped before I even gained my feet and another was turning tail up the block. I let him go for a second and focused on the last of them.
He was holed up pretty good on the balcony of the second level above the local pharmacy taking his shots between the decorative iron railings and scurrying back for cover. Ok, I knew where he was now and let my attention wander back to the one running away. Two bolts plowed into the runner’s back, exploding through his chest. I believe I heard the wet splat of his blood and innards hitting the paved street several meters ahead of him as I brought my attention back to the one over the drugstore. It could’ve been simply my overactive imagination, though, since the dead man had been about forty meters or so up ahead when he’d met his doom.
Another bolt slammed into the support strut of the balcony situated over my head, which I was using for cover, close enough to singe the far edge of my goatee and I found myself growling. I tend to do that when chainheads try to take me out.
I came out of cover just long enough to fire four bolts, two from each blaster. I didn’t aim at the chainhead directly, though. Instead I aimed at the joint holding the main support strut of the balcony he was resting on and the entire structure collapsed. As he tried unsuccessfully to shake the grogginess of the fall from his head and extricate himself from the mangled remains of the balcony, I left my position, took three quick strides toward him and fired twice more. Both bolts ripped into his upper torso and, just like that, it was over.
* * *
“Why hasn’t this been taken care of?” Scarus asked the tall man in the black suit. “Why am I still dealing with the steady decimation of my entire operation. You told me you had this covered. You told me not to worry. Well…I have to say, I’m worried.”
The man scratched his chin and his hand went immediately up to his neck. His eyes were bloodshot and his face was sweaty. He was obviously worried, too.
“I’m working on it,” he said and turned to face Scarus. The chainlord was a tall man himself, easily over two meters. Lean and muscular, rumor had it that Wiley Scarus had survived more than a hundred attempts on his life while in prison but every single one of his assailants, all one hundred of them, had instead died by his hand. A pretty good track record if ever there was one.
“You better do more than work on it, Callahan,” Scarus threatened. “We had a deal. A deal that’s been working out for you very nicely over the past six months or so. A deal that your lifestyle has benefited from greatly during that time. A deal that you will honor.”
“Or what, Scarus?” Callahan said and moved to within an inch or two of the dark face before him.
“Or I will make a new deal with your replacement.” Scarus said and breathed his rank breath in Callahan’s face.
“Don’t worry, Scarus,” Callahan said. “The Dome Inspector’s Office has to stay out of this but I’ve got it all under control. It won’t be long now.”
“It’s been long enough, Callahan.”
Callahan smiled and began to turn toward the door in the hidden basement office of one of the local restaurants. “Feel free to try to take him out again on your own, Scarus. But from what I heard, the last time you tried that it didn’t exactly work out too well. Your forces are being reduced seemingly every day, little by little, one at a time or, in that case, five at a time.”
Scarus fixed Callahan with a glare and motioned for the door. “Get out and do your job.”
Callahan seethed at the dismissal and ground his teeth together. “I’ll do my job. But just remember…my job also includes putting people like you away for a very long time. Be careful what you wish for, Wiley.”
And with that the tall Dome Inspector was gone.
* * *
Dixon Daniels was the Regent of Dome Sixteen and he was not happy. The people were scared. There was death in the streets. Explosions in neighboring domes. Gang warfare under the fragile protection of the enormous bubbles they called home. For an Extraction Colony, the events of the past week had been more than enough to last them through to the next century. I couldn’t blame him for being upset, hell, I was upset too. It just so happened that the reasons for our mutual anger were different.
“Dixon, Dixon, I understand you’re upset,” I said. “I’m upset, too. But I’ve got my hands full cleaning up this mess, trying to solve whatever it is that’s going on and I have to tell you – I need some back-up.”
Daniels stopped his tirade and looked down at his hands for about three seconds. “I’m sorry for what happened to your Deputies, Fitz, honestly I am. They were good people. Hell, the wife and I had Pamela over just last month with her daughter.”
I nodded, aware of how close the Daniels Family had been with Pamela Stewart and her recently orphaned daughter. “I’m sorry, too, Dixon. But I need more firepower if I am going to put an end to this slaughter.”
“Well, from what I heard, Fitz, you were the one doing the slaughtering down by the Forty-Niner the other night.”
“Would you rather they had killed me instead, Dixon?” I asked and the Regent fell silent again.
“Good, I was hoping for that answer,” I said and poked my fingers on the stack of resumes sitting on my desk. “I’ve not had much time to go through these but Leslie tells me that there are at least four or five good prospects in this stack, Dixon. I need your permission to get them here for an interview so I can get this station house back to normal.”
“No way, no way, Fitz,” Daniels said. “I can’t bring in five for interviews. At the most maybe three. It’s just too expensive. You know how high the rates are between here and the nearest base – I can’t even begin to imagine how much it would cost to bring someone in from even farther away.”
“Problem solved, Dixon,” I said. “Leslie also tells me that all of these prospects come from right here in this sector. The cost is negligible.”
“Negligible?” Dixon countered. “Are you kidding me – that still means trans
portation, even at close range those small trips add up. Then lodging, meals. It’s still too expensive, Fitz…”
I slammed my hand down on the desk and stood up to my full height. With my black long coat on, my old fashioned cowboy hat resting on top of my head and the rage I was sure was boiling over me in waves, I knew that I made a fearsome sight. “I am but one man here, Dixon. That’s all that’s left, one man. I am fighting a war here, in this dome, and the domes surrounding it, and I can’t do it all by myself. I need help and I need it quick. Professional help, Dixon. Real live professional law enforcement officers. So look through that stack – your own secretary has already reviewed it. The best four or five prospects are sitting up top. Go through them, bring them here, let me interview them and make my choices. I need help in this thing, Dixon. Do you understand?”
Daniels gawked back up at me with his mouth hanging open and his eyes so wide it looked as if he’d seen a ghost. Slowly his head nodded up and down and I said, “Good. Now get to work.”
* * *
“We lost another processing center and two other outbound shipments today, Boss,” Jelvin said softly from his position about two feet from the couch Scarus was sitting on. “Word has also come down that Aruk was found hanging in his house this morning.”
“Aruk…” Scarus said and slowly folded together the fingers of both his hands where they lay on the thighs of Jenny Kovak. “Our newly appointed distributor and main supplier. Committing suicide? Highly unlikely.”
Jelvin only nodded at that. “There was a skirmish today between Yuon’s group and the Turks as well. Twelve dead and a general upheaval in Dome Seven.”
“Any other good news for me today, Slug?” Scarus asked.
“The reports regarding our general operations are showing numbers in our favor,” Jelvin offered and Scarus laughed.
“Leave the interpretation of the business data to me, Slug,” Jenny said from the big man’s lap. She was dressed in a very flimsy white negligee and Jelvin had to work to avert his eyes from taking in every creamy curve.
“Sure thing, Jenny.”
“Work on getting Aruk replaced, Slug,” Scarus said and before his second could respond he continued. “I know it won’t be easy but there’s a lot more scum out there than you think, Slug. Someone will want to step up and take the risk. We are a very profitable operation, are we not?”
“Yes, Boss, the most profitable syndicate to ever operate in this sector.”
“That’s right, Slug,” Scarus said. “You may also want to tell the Turks to back off. I could care less about those chainheads. But the success of Yuon’s group is too important to our overall operation to be disrupted. You make sure Dirk the Turk knows I mean it.”
“Yes, Boss,” Jelvin said and left.
“Did you hear him try to throw numbers at you?” Jenny said and Scarus smiled as he let his hands roam over the full figured form of Jenny Kovak. “Or are you interested in something else, Wiley?”
* * *
I made sure I was far enough away from the last location before I pressed the button on the detonator. An instant later four huge fireballs erupted throughout Dome Sixteen. I’d just taken out four very important locations, all dealing with different aspects of the Scarus operation, with a minimum of effort. Infiltrating places like the drug producing plants and distribution centers was easy – rigging the explosives had been even easier. It was getting the shaped charges correctly placed that had caused the most trouble. When dealing with domes, it was always best to ensure that any explosives work would not result in a plate breach and a total evacuation of atmosphere. In other words – a dome was one place where you didn’t want to poke a hole in the wall.
Now it was on to phase two. I watched from behind a small skimmer as groups of shell-shocked men and women frantically scampered around the edges of the fire that had now engulfed the installation. It would be only minutes before the fire crews showed up so I had to work fast. Bits and pieces of debris, some still glowing red, continued to flutter on the breeze as they made their gradual way to the ground. The environmental simulators must be turned up high tonight.
Walking quickly back toward the burning pile of wreckage I located my target, Hiko, a mid-level gangbanger at this particular installation. I grabbed a hold of the man’s arm and shouted, “I saw them – they had a bunch of weird tattoos. They threw a bomb in there! I saw them!”
“Damn Turks!” the man spat and I could see rage in his eyes. He didn’t recognize me, I was dressed like any street flunky out and about in this part of the dome, although my blaster was in easy reach underneath my loose fitting jacket.
“Yeah, the Turks! The ones with those weird tattoos! It was them, dammit!”
Hiko ran away from me shouting for his grunts. Before the night was through, there’d be a few more gangbangers taking up residence in the dome’s morgue.
* * *
“What the hell’s going on?” Scarus shouted as Jelvin rushed into the room. Four fires raged throughout the dome, one of the explosions had been close enough to shake the foundations of his house.
“The bastard just fragged us, Boss,” Jelvin offered and Scarus shoved him against the wall.
“I can see that, Slug!” Scarus shouted. “This one was a bit too close for my taste! How is he doing this? He’s just one man?”
“It’s Fitzgerald, Boss!” Jelvin said. “For Chris’sakes, it’s Fitzgerald!”
“Get Callahan on the tuner, Slug!” Scarus shouted. “Get him now!”
* * *
Callahan swore under his breath as he terminated the call on his tuner. Grabbing his jacket from behind the chair, he made his way out of the office and down the wide hallway that cut through the middle of the Dome Inspectors’ HQ.
“Callahan! Get in here…now!” he heard ring out from across the great empty space. Dammit – he had nearly been to the door.
He turned and headed toward his Boss’s office. When he entered he saw that there were three other agents already present. Two of them moved behind him to block him from an easy exit.
“What’s going on, Boss?” He asked and the older man behind the desk motioned for him to sit.
On the main monitor, taking up nearly one entire wall of the office, Callahan could see a vid of himself talking to Wiley Scarus. The words his recorded self spoke were damning him as completely as one man could be damned.
“Care to explain yourself, Inspector Callahan?” the old man demanded.
Callahan thought about it for only a second before his hand made a move inside his jacket. He actually got three bolts off, killing the old man he’d hated since day one and another nameless agent, before his head hit the far wall and his body slumped to the carpet leaking a very large amount of blood.
* * *
Dirk the Turk ripped a large piece of his shirt sleeve off and attempted to wrap it around the gaping wound in his right thigh. Most of his guys were lying around him dead, a few of them were moaning and making gurgling sounds on the ground, just waiting for death to claim them.
Billi Yuon’s men had ambushed him as he came out of his HQ. Their crossfire had been deadly but they’d been stupid. His HQ was right upstairs. As soon as his troops inside the building realized what was going on they blew out the windows and added their considerable firepower to the mix.
Soon, what he had out here on the street was a bunch of dead Turks and an equal number of Yuon’s men who had met the same fate. He saw many faces he knew among the dead – men who would be missed. Including Sammy – his second, a man he’d known since they were both just boys getting into trouble together here in Dome Seven.
He could hear the sounds of his men inside the building, working their way downstairs to come outside and fetch him up. He was losing a lot of blood and he felt a little woozy but it looked like he was going to make it.
That was when he felt the cold metal touch of a blaster behind his neck and heard the words, “Not today, turkey boy.”
; After that, all went black…
* * *
I was sitting alone in a booth at the back end of the Miner Forty-Niner when Wiley Scarus burst through the front door and fixed me with a murderous glare. The man could actually look very scary when he wanted to although he had no effect on me.
Flanking him was his usual number two and a few lower level flunkies I didn’t recognize. That was five that I could see but I knew there would be more…lots more.
“Well, looky, looky,” I said. “If it isn’t Silly Scarus and Slug Jelvin. You boys didn’t come all the way down here just to see me, now did you?”
Scarus slowly approached, his eyes intent only on me. Jelvin’s eyes, however, were doing what every good number-two was supposed to do – looking anywhere and everywhere for perceived threats to the safety of his Boss. Good job, Slug, I said inside and smiled.
“Wipe that smile off your face, Fitzgerald,” Scarus rasped and came to within about four meters of me before he stopped. The place was mostly empty, just about everyone in this Dome knew that an altercation was coming and coming soon. When I showed up here and set up camp in this back booth earlier in the day, everyone also knew that I was setting up that altercation according to my own terms.
Anyone who knew anything about me and military strategy in general should have known that any altercation I set up according to my own terms could only mean bad things for the guy on the other end of said altercation. Maybe Scarus had plans of his own. Then again, maybe he was just mad at me and winging it. I hoped for the latter.
“I have about a hundred troops outside of this place right now, Fitzgerald,” Scarus said. “You ain’t leaving here tonight…not alive anyway.”
“Blah, blah, blah,” I said and suddenly from under every table, from behind the counter, at every interior door and along the railing running along the second floor dining area, Sheriffs from every dome in this sector appeared holding weapons. Some held blasters, some held half-chargers…one even had a full-style military charger and I made a mental note to ask him how he could’ve possibly gotten his hands on it. Then I hoped like hell that he didn’t actually open up with it – for Chris’sakes, the thing was a cannon, he’d tear half this place down with it.
9 Tales From Elsewhere 2 Page 13
