"Smith? Smith's Alpha team?"
I'd heard of them. They'd pulled some fancy stunts in Earth sector a few times. The word was to co-operate with them if we ever had contact. This wasn’t always the case with mercenary teams, many of whom were actually black listed in the sector.
"That's them. About half the team are doing security for Jon at the moment, while the other half are off down your home stomping ground somewhere."
"I wish they'd been available a few times before now. I've come close to this killer several times now, and a decent merc team could have made the intercept for me."
"I doubt it," interjected Jane. "As I understand it, you still haven't identified who it is. Without a known target with a bounty, no merc team is going to take it on. Jon will be bringing part of his team, and between us, we'll have more than enough assets in place to make this capture."
"It's him I'm worried about," I said.
"Don't be," said Jane emphatically. "He's happy to be bait. The potential prize for a successful capture is worth the risk. And the risk is minimal."
"Minimal?"
My eyebrows went up and my eyes went wide. I wasn’t sure they understood the situation. Maybe it was a girl thing. Most men would be cringing at the thought of being bait to a killer who took dicks as a kill trophy. The mere thought made me cringe.
The girls both laughed.
"Jon has balls of steel," said Jane. "You'll see."
"It's not his balls at risk," I retorted.
The girls kept laughing.
I looked at them as if they were crazy, and they laughed harder. Obviously there was some joke I was missing.
Janet stopped laughing first, and Jane settled down as soon as Janet put on her serious face. They really could be twins, but I wasn’t going to ask.
"Let's get on with identifying our killer," said Janet. "We don’t need 'probable cause' here, but we should put together as much evidence as possible before we do anything overt. Throw all the data to the computer, and let's get some requests sent off across the sectors to cross reference ships on stations or space ports, with proximity to crime scenes."
I pulsed over the data, and we started working on it.
Five
By the time Jon Hunter arrived on the station, I'd long since ignored his rank. He was a Duke as well as an Admiral, at the tender age of eighteen. The girls always called him Jon, and it was impossible now to think of him otherwise. I really hoped I wouldn't slipup when I met the man.
Both girls were intoxicating to be with. Apart from both being drop dead gorgeous, something which bothered me on a level I didn’t understand, especially considering my age in comparison to theirs; they were highly intelligent, both methodical and intuitive, and probably the best detective partners I'd ever worked with.
Between us, we narrowed down the incoming ships to a single one, which had been sighted in-system for more than seventy five percent of the kills in my files. It turned out to be a small freighter, which surprised me as I'd always thought I was most likely chasing a yacht. Jane gave it a high probability it had a small yacht about the size of a shuttle in its cargo bay, which would be found to be present the rest of the times. I wasn’t betting against her. Especially when we identified it carried very small cargoes, usually of a high value.
It made sense. No-one paid much attention to a small freighter, unless it wasn’t actually trading. As long as it off-loaded cargo, and loaded another cargo within several days, where the pilot got to in the meantime wasn’t going to concern anyone. Enough freighter crews went downside to planets while the ship was unloaded and loaded again, for it to be normal activity for a crew. As cover for an assassin, it was damned good.
I watched Jon's command carrier arrive through one of the station's promenade deck windows. I also had up pop-up hollo screens showing the outside view from several different parts of the station. Between them all, I had a stunning view of the ship arriving.
I'd seen images and vids of it in action of course. I'm not sure there was anyone who hadn't now. Crewmen on other ships had taken opportunities to make vids of the revived old escort carrier called BigMother, and the other ships in the fleet in action, and the media companies had paid top credits for all of them. The Midgard war, and the British coup which followed it, had been big news everywhere.
The carrier didn't dock. Instead, it stopped a good way off the station, and a shuttle launched. Jane and Janet had gone to meet the shuttle.
I wasn’t going to be meeting Jon, at least not until after the trap was sprung. There was a possibility the killer knew me. You can't track someone for as long as I had without them becoming aware of you at some point. In order to make things look as normal as possible, we were not going to take the risk of being seen together. For now, I was incognito, just another passer-through.
I headed back to the security office.
On the monitors there, I watched Jon come through the airlock from the shuttle dock. He was followed by two women who appeared to be identical twins. I'd been told they were Majors Amanda and Aleesha Peck, but I hadn't been told I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.
All three were in civvies. Jon wore blue jeans with a black belt, red t-shirt and dark red jacket, with what looked like sneakers on his feet. For someone who was valued above two billion credits, and no-one knew quite how many above, he was modestly attired, and looking like he was actually dirt poor. I guess he hadn't yet had time to update his civvies wardrobe. The girls were likewise in blue jeans and black belts, the jeans looking like they were painted on. Their tops were skimpy, in a pale orange colour, leaving the naval area bare, and showing a generous amount of cleavage. Both were wearing thigh holstered guns. Behind them trailed a butler droid, with a grav chest in tow.
All three were limping, Jon being the worst. When I looked closer at them, I could see some visible bruising on all three. Like everyone, I'd read the tales of the assassination attempts on them, but the professional part of me had discounted many of the claims as being too wild to be true. I knew what was survivable and what wasn’t. Seeing them now, I began to wonder if the reports were more accurate than I’d thought.
Jane and Janet met them, still in uniform, and there were hugs all round. They headed off towards the best hotel on the station.
The monitors shifted cam locations to follow them. Conversation was mundane, but at one point Jon made it quite clear to Janet they were still recovering from their injuries, and as such, were not here for any business at all. The girls had convinced him he needed some disco time, and should be around normal people for a while. He intended looking the shops over to see what was missing, and which businesses needed to be invited to the station, soak up some good music, and do bugger all else. If anyone wanted him, they could make an appointment for after the mini-sector was established.
I watched them enter the hotel, check in, and disappear into their rooms, while Jane and Janet headed back towards administration.
Shortly after, they entered the security office, and took seats next to me.
Phase one was complete. We started in on phase two.
Six
Not long after our suspect's ship docked, Janet reported a hacking attempt on the station's computer. We allowed the hacker into vid storage, and followed along with what was viewed.
Predictably, Jon's arrival on the station was the main interest, with particular interest being shown in his comments on the way to his hotel, which had been rerun several times. Also of interest had been where he was now.
Jon and the twins were at that moment in the best restaurant on the station. He was dressed formally in a suit, without a tie. The twins were in cocktail dresses, with the left shoulder bare, plenty of cleavage on display, and splits up the right leg which revealed their side-arms, as well as very nice looking legs. What should have been a major turn on for the men in viewing range, was actually a turn off instead. Unless you liked both legs and guns equally.
They appeared to be enj
oying a good meal. All three were drinking beer, although there were three empty bottles in front of Jon, and only one each in front of the twins. The latter obviously took their bodyguard duties seriously, even if apparently looking off-duty. They alternated scanning the room for threats, but only a cop or merc would have been able to tell it was what they were doing.
Almost immediately after the hacking ceased, the vid of the small ship dock airlock adjacent to where the small freighter was, showed a figure emerging into the station.
I froze the image, and threw it to another monitor, blowing it up. I sat there looking at my suspect, for the first time ever being able to put a face and a name to my killer.
The docking records named her as Ingrid Blakstov. She was rated to fly a small freighter on her own, and had a lack-luster Trading Guild record. She wasn’t listed in either the Mercenary or Bounty Hunter Guilds.
She was pretty, in an ordinary sort of way. Just about everything about her looked average to the casual eye. She was dressed conservatively for a good class of restaurant, and at a pinch it would be okay for club wear, although restrictive for disco wear. Unless she wasn’t a dancer, in which case it was good wall flower, not be noticed attire.
I added the image into my files, with a copy of the docking records and Trading Guild record, and went back to watching her move into the station. She wasn’t wasting any time, heading straight towards the restaurant where Jon was.
The three of us followed her on the monitors as she took a place at the bar, ordered a drink, and sat there continually looking at the door, as if waiting for a date to show up.
A butler droid brought me a meal as well, although Jane and Janet declined.
By the time Jon and the twins were eating dessert, she had given up waiting, and moved to a table on her own, where she ordered a fast serve meal, and coffee. She didn’t look towards Jon at all, ignoring the other patrons completely. Or so it looked. To the trained detective, she was completely aware of everyone in the room, and Janet was quick to mention she was observing several of the same feeds we were. The only thing she didn’t know, was we were allowing her to.
By the time the twins had finished their coffee, and Jon his fifth beer, Ingrid had also finished eating, and was preparing to depart. Jon was somewhat loud in discussing disco plans with the twins as they made their way out. As well as limping heavily, he was unsteady for another reason as well. I looked up the beer alcohol content, and wasn’t surprised five was having an effect on him. I made a note to order less potent beers if I drank any here.
Jon and the twins headed back to their hotel rooms, while Ingrid went straight back to her ship. I took the opportunity to stretch my legs and freshen up, in preparation for a potentially long evening ahead.
By the time I was back in the security office, Ingrid was already on the move again. Now she was dressed to kill, as they say. Short black skirt, slinky but all covering top, elaborately done up hair. Ordinary pretty had become gorgeous in a quick change.
Jon and the twins emerged from their rooms about the time Ingrid arrived at the one and only disco on the station. He was back in jeans, with a bright red shirt under his darker red jacket. The twins had also gone for the infamous little black skirt, with low cut blouses, and no apparent underwear underneath. None appeared to be armed.
Two armed men in station security uniforms were waiting for them, and the group moved off towards the disco.
Seven
"Odd," said Janet abruptly.
"What?" I asked.
"The scanner at the airlock didn't record any form of weapon on her as she entered the station."
"You can detect that?"
"Oh yes. It’s a refinement of a ship freight scanner Jon was testing for Australian militia before he was caught up in the Midgard war. When he took possession of this station, we had them added all around it, so we could keep tabs on what was being brought here. The internal ones are simply an adaption, scaled down so we can detect what is under clothing, and within shipping containers and packaging. With the enemies Jon has, we don’t want anyone smuggling explosives on board. Nor do we want dark side merc units hitting us on our own station. At least not without sufficient warning to set up our own ambush before they can set up theirs."
"I can see that. So big brother is definitely watching everything here?"
"Big sister actually," said Jane with a laugh.
Janet joined in with a giggle, and I looked at them both, wondering what the joke was I was missing.
I thought about Ingrid without a weapon. It didn’t make sense. The MO of my serial killer required a blade of some kind, and a very sharp one. I went back over my records looking for any evidence of a blade being procured at the murder scene rather than brought in. But there wasn’t any. All knives at all locations were accounted for, and a number of the crime scenes had no access to any form of knife.
"Does this mean we have the wrong suspect?"
The girls became serious again very quickly. They looked at each other for a long moment.
"Unlikely at this point," said Jane. "Her behavior since arrival is enough to justify our belief that she is the assassin. Just because we cannot detect a blade, doesn’t mean she hasn’t one on her, or will procure one at some point before making the assassination attempt."
"Would you say we have probable cause, Dick?" asked Janet.
"Yes. We have documented hacking coming from her ship, and what I’d call a preliminary stalking profile established."
"We should proceed as we intended then," said Jane.
"Are you monitoring all traffic inwards, or just that one airlock?"
"Everywhere," said Janet. "There are about a hundred weapons walking around on the station at the moment. We're monitoring every one of those people. A lot of them are residents, a holdover from when Pompeii ran this place. From what people have said, it wasn’t a very safe place to live back then, although it was much better than on the planet during the civil war."
"Civil war?"
"It wasn’t widely advertised," said Jane. "Pompeii broke away from the American sector, and went back to slavery as a way of life. The civil war was a quick one, ending when Jon and General Smith's team arrived there, and tipped the balance away from the government forces. As far as we know, mainstream media never heard about it. The Midgard war began a week later, and rapidly became a major threat to sectors. Pompeii was a little skirmish in comparison."
"Slavery? You're serious?"
"Yes. All the team combat vids are in the computer if you want to view them sometime."
"Err…," I began.
"Ingrid has arrived at the disco," said Janet.
Big sister indeed! I'd not been surprised about hallways and airlocks being monitored, and had thought the restaurant was being monitored because the plan was for Jon to be there in public. But I was amazed at the level of coverage inside the disco. No fewer than ten monitors sprang up giving us every conceivable view of our suspect as she entered, and moved towards the bar.
Jane gave me a speculative look, and I closed my mouth, which had apparently fallen open.
"We added a couple of cams, just in case." She was grinning at me now.
"How many were there to start with?" I asked.
"Six," said Janet. "Half the drunk and disorderly the station suffers from begins there, or in one of the other bars. We cover them all."
"Fair enough."
A disco is a disco is a disco. I remembered them from my own long ago disco days, and they were all the same, regardless of the layout. The music was always too loud, not quite what you wanted to hear; and the place was full of too many people yelling too loud, and drinking too much. Not to mention inappropriate footwear in a place where feet were never in the same place from moment to moment.
This one could have been anywhere. It wasn't crowded, probably because the station's population wasn’t very large at the moment, and a good proportion were obviously transients, given the wide diversification
of dress styles present.
Our suspect walked away from the bar with a white wine, and took up a position just off the dance floor, moving gently to the music, and taking small sips of her wine.
The music was a mixture of the last thirty years, which brought some of it into my own taste range. It was playing through the office coms system, at a much gentler volume than inside the disco itself. I was very glad we weren't staking out the suspect inside the disco. I'm getting too old for that level of ear assault.
Jon and the twins arrived about ten minutes later, and took an empty table not far from the dance floor. He divested himself of his jacket, they accepted beers from a butler droid, sipped them for a few minutes while watching the dancers, before Jon waved in the direction of the DJ.
The music changed dramatically.
"What the hell is that?" I asked.
Jane laughed.
"Jon likes twentieth century music, and the DJ just had a selection of what he likes pulsed to him. Like it or not, when the owner of the station pulses you music, you play it."
People milled around for a moment, not quite knowing what to do with what was playing. Jon and the twins walked out into the middle of the dance floor and started some sort of line dance. All three of them were a bit mechanical looking as far as dancing was concerned, but I guessed their injuries were slowing them down, and making dancing awkward. People joined in as they obtained the dance steps from the DJ access point, or picked them up by watching.
Burnside's Killer: An Interlude Novella between Parts 1 & 2 (The Hunter Legacy Book 6) Page 3
