by Declan Finn
So, not only was there a well-trained sadist with the skills of a professional killer out there, it was someone who didn’t mind getting caught by several intimidating groups. And, of course, someone had killed one of Kyle’s targets. Normally, Kevin would have thought that could have been a coincidence, but he had the feeling that would only have been an enticement to this particular psychopath. Three dangers made it exciting, why not four?
Unfortunately, that led Kevin to yet another conclusion. No one started with that level of confidence in their ability to kill people and get away with it. No one. Which meant that this killer was only noticed after he’d gained a lot of confidence in his ability to escape and evade detection, and get away with murder. Either he was stupid and lucky, or he’d done this a lot. While Kevin would wager almost anything that this killer had done this before, he wouldn’t even begin to know where to check. Normal procedure would be to look at who’d been killed in recent months. But there was no such thing as a police force around San Francisco.
How do you find a monster in a city full of them?
Kevin sighed and pulled back from the rifle scope. It was going to be a long night.
“Are you showing off, or are you just bored?”
Kevin stayed deathly still for a long moment, and then relaxed when he recognized the voice. “I’m bored, actually. And I figured that if I save bullets, it’ll add up in the long run. You know, you’re very quiet.”
“Usually. I can be loud when I want to be,” Nevaeh Kraft told him as she leaned up against the wall of the roof. “Though loud has usually been a drawback.”
“I can sympathize,” Kevin said sardonically. He picked up an earbud and slipped it into place, and slightly readjusted the electronic ear it was attached to.
“Nice toy,” she said with appreciation. “You raid a mercenary depot?”
“Yes, I did. But I built this myself.” He put down the rifle on the other side, away from Nevaeh. He didn’t want to leave a gun near her. She was dangerous enough, from his point of view. Granted, she might not want to kill him, or ever even try, but Kevin had been in the city too long to leave that to chance.
Nevaeh’s midnight blue eyes looked over the electronic device with appreciation. “Very nice. At this point, I’d say I like a resourceful man, but I haven’t met one in years, so I wouldn’t know.”
“I’m not exactly resourceful,” Kevin told her. “I just have a degree in engineering.” He leaned back. “So, what are you doing here at this time of night?”
Nevaeh gave him a casual wave of her hand and said, “Oh, I was just in the neighborhood.”
“You travel across rooftops all the time? What are you, Batgirl?”
“Says the man who spends most of his nights on rooftops?”
Kevin smiled. “Touché.”
“Actually, I came by to discuss your serial killer with you.”
Kevin arched a brow. “Serial killer? Did I say serial killer? You have to usually find three bodies before you can declare one of those kicking around.”
Nevaeh scoffed, obviously incredulous. “Are you going to seriously sit there and tell me you haven’t even considered how big this guy’s body count is by now?”
He sighed and glanced out into the street, keeping Nevaeh in his peripheral vision. “Of course I’ve thought about it, but proving it is the thing. There are a lot of bodies, and tying them to the killer and using it to find him are two different things. And if he’s a killer, is he a homegrown psycho, born of San Francisco, or is he a serial killer who just managed to get himself exiled here with the rest of the garbage? Either way, how do you prove it? We don’t have something like ViCAP here, and we don’t have access to the real thing back in civilization. Right now, we can run down what leads there are, but it’s more or less a shot in the dark.”
“What’s a Vi-Cap? Some sort of hat?”
“Violent Criminal Apprehension system. Police departments across the country would share details in the system, and thereby make it possible to compare and contrast cases that could be by the same perp in different cities.”
She gave him a grin. “Good, I was afraid you might write it off.“
Kevin looked her right in the eye. “Write it off? What gives you that idea?”
Nevaeh sighed and looked away, down upon the streets. “It’s very easy to write things off as just the cost of living here. Stuff happens, after all. And a lot of stuff happens here. Every day, and it’s been that way for a long time. You’ve only been here a few months, and haven’t even made it to your first full year. How much longer do you think it will be before you stop caring about things? Before you get down to your last few bullets and decide it would just be easier to go home for the night instead of saving someone being beaten to death in an alley? How many people can you see assaulted before you write it off as ‘just one of those things’?”
Kevin looked at Nevaeh for a long moment, as though she had read his mind and found all of his deepest fears. His fear that he would become a callous, violent, hate-filled creature like the rest of the people here. He had already been that person once, and he didn’t want to make the return trip. “Give me some time at least,” he said with a smile, “I’d say it’d take two years for me to become a serial killer myself. Thanks, though.”
Kevin picked up the rifle and looked through the scope at what looked like another mugging down the street. Money exchanged hands, but they were smiling. A call girl transaction. False alarm. “It could also be a hit. Someone who really likes his job, and was under orders to make it a public execution. Kyle was paid to go after him, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that someone else could have wanted him dead and sent out a henchman who likes his job.”
Nevaeh’s smile wavered. “Yeah, it doesn’t help a lot, does it?”
“No. But still, it’s not a good sign, no matter how you look at it. I’m going to have to deal with it sooner rather than later.” Kevin glanced at Nevaeh and thought about whether or not to trust her with the next bit of information. It could be used against him easily – screw with his investigation, screw with him.
But there was just something about her that made him want to trust her. It wasn’t a sensation he had a lot. Come to think of it, he almost never had it, especially not since landing in this little back end of Dante’s Inferno. “I just got an ultimatum—solve the problem, or the Tongs will consider kicking me out of town. After all, blood in the water brings sharks. It pays to have chum on hand, just in case.”
Kevin set down the rifle and looked at her. He surprised himself at how striking she was every time he looked at her. Her dark blue eyes reminded him of Moira, his wife, and her long black hair reminded him of Mandy, a mercenary who tried to kill him once…then she succeeded, and then she tried to seduce him…sort of.
Either way, my brain is getting confused…yes, brain. Sad, I had to think about that. “Was there something in particular that you wanted to discuss?”
She gave him a slight smile. Playful, sardonic, and as attractive as hell. “Well, I’ve gotten word about a highly-trained killer from the real world who took up residence in San Francisco, and could probably do the kind of damage you showed me.”
Kevin arched a brow. “And what’s his connection to our victim?”
“Nothing, really. But if we stick with a theory of a hit for hire, then we’ve got something.”
“The CV?”
She glanced out into the street, watching with him. “He’s former SAS, and he was such a psycho, he was shipped here as soon as the UK knew that there was a San Francisco to send him to. He was even a mentor to a friend of yours.”
Kevin frowned. “Unless he worked with some Israelis, he never crossed my path.”
Nevaeh paused. “Well, you came here not long after Major Rohaz lost someone named Vaughn?”
He had a quick flashback to last year, when he was trapped on a rooftop with a mercenary stalking towards him. “Angie Vaughn? That bitch? Oh, wonderful.
Fun fun fun. Though, for the record, I never faced her myself. Who exactly could have been a mentor to that particular psycho?”
Nevaeh smiled. “Do you know the name Harris Derringer?”
Kevin’s head fell, and he said, “Damnit.”
Chapter 16: Tree Hugger
Whatever it was that made people in San Francisco decide to join the Burners, I can say intelligence certainly wasn’t a part of it. Burners were often among the stupidest people I’ve ever seen. They liked lighting people on fire, and they enjoyed listening to people scream. They sound like they came out of some bad horror movie that my father would have watched. The only one of them that ever really seemed to have anything resembling a brain was one of the strangest-looking men I’ve ever seen.
He had orange eyes and marble-white skin. He looked like a piece of chalk with some crayon on it. At some point, I remember hearing that someone didn’t want him walking around anymore. Apparently he was causing personnel problems…he kept burning Corporate trainees. Someone told me once that they had heard him say that they deserved it, but he didn’t like wasting his fuel on them…
Robert "Mac" Hollyfeld, 2096
The past two days had been full ones. Kyle had spent them in contact with various people within San Francisco. Payments had been necessary, and once he had received his money from the Broker who had hired him, they had been made. Kyle had found it necessary to bribe a Burner with some gasoline for the location where their Leader would be tonight, and he had made it clear to the man that if any ’difficulties’ occurred because the man had betrayed Kyle to Alek Soubel…
But that was unimportant. He settled himself atop the tree, about three-quarters of a mile away from where Aleksandyr Soubel was supposed to be waiting. He was not certain of the veracity of the information, but even if this turned out to be a false lead, he would complete his contract. The Burner who had sent him down the wrong path would suffer for having the audacity to do something so stupid, of course, and Kyle would find his target regardless.
Kyle knew he would likely not be making the kill this evening, but his rifle was present and assembled regardless, and if the opportunity came, he would take it. For now he was content to watch the proceedings—though this contract was for the leader of the Burners, Kyle knew that there would be more to completing the mission. If he just sniped Soubel tonight, it was more than likely that one of the followers would take up his mantle making Soubel into a martyr to be emulated. No, this would need to include a character assassination as well as a physical one.
The source of his power was where Kyle would have to strike—so, Alek Soubel was a puzzle to solve. Kyle smiled, an eerie expression akin to the rictus seen on a stripped corpse left in the sun too long. He liked puzzles, and liked them even more when he was paid to solve them.
The first step, of course, would be determining the source of Soubel’s gasoline supply. There may be tankers available, but for the most part those were guarded, and difficult to get to. Lotus had checked that no tankers had been taken by force for at least the past year—so with the increased presence of the Burners, he had to be getting his fuel from there means—which only left “legitimate” transactions. He had to be buying it. And gasoline wasn’t exactly cheap, so someone had to be supplying the Burners with funds—they weren’t taking it off their victims. Tomorrow he would follow the money. Tonight he would watch the Burners, and learn what made Alek Soubel tick…
They gathered slowly, coming in small groups to sit before a bench in the park. Oil drums had been placed on either side of the bench, and something inside them had been ignited, allowing a flickering orange glow to illuminate the area. As the Burners gathered, those nearest the bench sat and fidgeted restlessly. Kyle noticed that they left an area empty in front of the bench—a radius of about 2.5 meters—well outside the distance a squirt bottle could reach. Off to the far side of the bench, Kyle could just make out the silhouette of man, with firelight flickering off the barrel of the gun he held.
And then the show began.
Aleksandyr Soubel leapt over the back of the bench, his alabaster skin taking a ruddy cast as he moved into the firelight. The Burners before him cheered, but were quickly silenced as Alek raised his hands. He looked off to his right, and two men dragging a third between them stepped into the half-circle before the bench. It was the Burner Kyle had bribed earlier, stripped down to his skivvies, and beaten.
“This is a sad day for us. Charlie here thought it would be a good idea to talk to someone about us!” Boos and other little negative murmurs started erupting from the assembled crowd. “Now I know Charlie didn’t mean any harm by it, did you, Charlie?” Alek continued as the murmurs died down. The beaten Burner only moaned and shook his head.
“This is the last time we will meet here. Frank will find each of you, and tell you where we will be meeting next. For now, I just have to say that I am very, Very Disappointed!” the last two words were shouted in the ear of the beaten Burner named Charlie.
Once again, Soubel looked to his right, holding out his hand. A goon walked over with a small bottle, some twine and a pair of candles. Kyle recognized the bottle as the one he had bribed the Burner with. Its contents were splashed over Charlie, down to the last drop. Alek then made a show of arranging the candles—long tapers in an X across the man’s neck, securing them with the twine.
“Now, I hoped we all learned our lesson tonight. Talking to strangers can be dangerous.” A match hissed, and the candles were lit. Charlie jumped up, trying to put out the wicks, only to find that the twine that secured the candles to his throat was also tied to his hands. Every motion he made to get near the flames, made the candles drop to his gasoline-soaked clothes. He tried to blow the flames out, only to have them relight—thanks to a phosphorus thread in the wick.
Alek laughed. He had wanted to try the trick with the candles for a while, but his normal targets didn’t really give him the opportunity to tie the complicated knots that this set up required. This was going to be a treat—Charlie knowing that there was nothing he could do to stop the blaze, but seeing it come for him. He was already starting to scream and the first flame hadn’t even touched him.
The rest of the Burners were on their feet now, backing away able to see the spectacle better. This was almost better than burning one of the Corporate jerks, or one of the Children. Charlie was already dancing in the flames, and they were still only on the candles. When he finally burned, that was going to be awesome.
Kyle shook his head, ignoring the disturbing tableau playing out before him, knowing that he would be doing more leg-work to complete this contract. Where was Alek getting his gasoline from? And for that matter, who was supplying him with the funds to buy it? As Charlie, his erstwhile informant, started to burn, Kyle withdrew from his blind in the tree. Meticulously he disassembled his rifle, stowed it, and headed back to the UC-San Francisco campus.
His goal was the small computer reference room slightly down the scarred halls from the library. With the ease that Lotus pulled information from the ether, he had had little reason to do his own research for a while. Plus, being in this room reminded him of the people he had lost. But his recent interaction with Derek had reminded him that if nothing else, he was a professional. He was taught how to do his own research. A professional assassin relies on only himself. He had to stand on his own.
So, first, where was Aleksandyr Soubel getting his gasoline? And, how was he paying for it? Once he knew that, it was only a matter of time before Kyle introduced a bullet to the gray matter inside Alek’s skull.
Tracking sales of gasoline, even on the black market was relatively easy. There were only a few sources left in the city, and most of those belonged to the Corporations. Their systems were notoriously easy to hack – it was like they didn’t even believe in information security. After a moment of typing code, Kyle was able to determine that several Corporations sold to “Sasha Adoure”.
Sasha meant “Alexander,” and “Ardor,”
without the fancy spelling, meant “burning heat.”
The transparency of the name made Kyle smile, and learning Alek’s alias was the link that would ultimately prove fatal for the Burner.
Encryption surrounding the local banks was better than what the Corporations used, but only by a little bit. It took Kyle an extra minute to hack it, and thirty seconds of that was due to an inconvenient sneeze. After searching the banks for any variation of Alek Soubel or Sasha Adoure for a few minutes, Kyle was rewarded with a mountain of information. A quick perusal showed there was pattern of regular deposits and regular withdrawals from the account, and with that, a way to find Aleksandyr Soubel.
The withdrawals all seemed to take place on the same day of the week, each week. The only concession to security was the relatively random location of the branch from which the funds were withdrawn. However, even that would do little good, as there were only 6 branches of that bank left in the city. Kyle looked up from the computer screen to ascertain the date. Alek would be making a withdrawal tomorrow, and that would mean Kyle would have an opportunity to put an end to this contract quickly.
A little smile crossed his face, as he uploaded the virus that would freeze Soubel’s account, and trigger an alarm as to which branch he was using. A few more minutes to tidy up the code, and no one would notice anything was amiss—until Alek came in to make his withdrawal. Then everyone who had eyes on that bank would see it light up like a proverbial Christmas tree.
He looked up from the computer screen, and glanced at the chronograph on his wrist. It was time for some rest, but Kyle felt strangely energized, despite the work he had just put into creating a lockdown and alarm virus.
Something nagged at Kyle—the source of the funds. While it had been easy to find the accounts, the person or persons responsible for depositing the funds seemed anonymous. But random people didn’t just drop money into an account, not without some connection to the owner of the account. So, a new puzzle had crept up on Kyle: who was funding Alek Soubel and why?
