by S F Chapman
The kid shook his head, “No sir. All we know for sure is that he's from Free City.”
“Alright, crate him up. The Consular's people will ship him straight away to our Morgue and we will let you know what we find out.”
The old investigator was quite eager to get Mac's body safely away from the prying eyes of the hapless New Roman and EurAfrican officials. If they stumbled upon the fact that Mac was a Free City Liaison Agent then both Ryo's investigation into the assault on Seamus and the murders onboard the Billikin and the Lieutenant's efforts to unravel the desert mystery would be compromised.
“Yes sir,” the young man chirped, “I'll get right on it.”
Zmuda returned to the shattered rear section of the bar. He’d been introduced earlier to the few New Roman cops loitering around the crime scene as Ryo's coworker, Inspector Third Class Hal Zelichowska.
It had been a long and harrowing night for both men.
Lev had managed to spirit the cop and the spy away just after the altercation and clean them up in a room at a local boardinghouse used mainly by Enlightenment Crusaders. Ryo had hastily called Chief Inspector Helga Bennet in Free City and detailed the ill-fated meeting. Helga was adamant that they must continue the dual investigations and recover Mac's body at once with a minimum of fuss.
Ryo and Zmuda both reluctantly agreed.
They now had to determine how the thugs knew of Zmuda's involvement in the assassination of Madame Kufuzu a year earlier.
As Inspector Third Class Hal Zelichowska, the Lieutenant bowed a bit in deference to Ryo, “Well boss, we have the names of the two other victims.”
“Do tell.”
“The knucklehead with the Frag grenade was Norman Rollo, a petty punk most recently from Mariner's Station on Mars. Nobody seems to know where he got the advanced munitions.”
Ryo stroked his chin in thought, “What about the other guy?”
“Fritzi Wolfe, an up and coming hoodlum apparently from Nairobi who has recently had several very large and unexplained payments made to his personal account. Both men have affiliations with a small gang called the 'Goons' that engages in intimidation and murder for hire.”
“Well; that's a bit of a break.”
After some reflection, Ryo continued, “What about the gun?”
Zmuda glanced around the nearly deserted bar.
The Lieutenant opened his coat to reveal the unusual weapon; “I spotted it under one of the booths at the front of the bar. I grabbed it while you and the New Roman cop where looking at the bodies.”
Ryo smiled to his pal.
“I'd like to get it back to the CRAMP lab as soon as possible,” Zmuda whispered.
“Good idea. Slip out with it now, I'll cover for you.”
Zmuda seemed reluctant to leave, “What about you?”
Ryo groaned from the emotional and physical battering of the last twelve hours, “I'm going to take a quick trip to Nairobi to see what I can find out about Mr. Fritzi Wolfe.”
• • •
Bowie swaggered unannounced into the office at the EurAfrican Imperial Military Base in Tunis and laid his gun on the cluttered desk, “I need another one of these gems.”
Commander Frédéric Rameau growled as he looked up from his paperwork, “Turn in your Entrance Authorization, I don't want you to come around here again.”
“Why the hell not?” Bowie asked with some annoyance.
The Head of Covert Operations took his time before he answered; he was, after all, in charge of the various dirty deeds that the Goons had been paid to accomplish. Rameau leisurely replaced the thug's nearly depleted Particle Beam weapon with a freshly charged weapon that he retrieved from his gun cabinet.
“First; a cheap punk like you shouldn’t be on an elite military base. I can’t have you parading around here like an arrogant peacock. You had your chance years ago but you just couldn’t handle Paramilitary training. Second; there can be no visible connection between your band of half-wit hoodlums and the honorable Empire of EurAfrica.”
“I quit the Paramilitarists because of hard asses like you,” Bowie laughed at the ramrod Commander. “We both know that what I do ain't cheap and that there's no such thing as honor in EurAfrica.”
“Perhaps not;” Rameau shot back, “but your idiot cohorts did manage to screw up the assassination that the Kufuzu family ordered. That opportunity may never present itself again.”
“I shouldn't have let Wolfe take Rollo with him;” the big Goon winced, “he was such a moron.”
The Commander's face hardened, “How you accomplish the tasks that you're paid to do does not concern me. What I require is that you actually succeed in doing them.”
Bowie stood in terse silence while Rameau scribbled some instructions on a sheet of paper.
“To appease the Kufuzu family after your recent screw up, I want you kill this man. My sources indicate that he mucked up the assassination attempt.” The Commander handed him a thick dossier entitled Ryo Trop, Free City Inquisitor's Office.
The burly hired hand studied the file and stared at one of the many photographs, “He's got a cute family; perhaps I'll mow down the whole group.”
The Commander nodded curtly, “That would be a nice touch.”
• • •
Far to the southwest, the weary old Inspector awaited the arrival of his counterpart for the hastily arranged meeting. It was early spring in Nairobi, Ryo observed as he sat straight-backed in the open-air cafe to avoid irritating his recent wounds.
Down the street an ancient African man tended to the nearest of a dozen or so small trees that lined this side of Kenyatta Avenue. The wrinkled skinned chap produced an obviously homemade machete fabricated from a long, sharpened scrap of charcoal-black steel flat stock with a shred of grimy old leather wrapped around one end to serve as a handle.
With well-practiced flicks, the maintenance man used the razor-edged tip to deftly trim several small branches from the tree.
When he had amassed a good-sized pile of sticks and twigs, the old fellow retrieved a long piece of heavy twine from his pocket and methodically bundled up the debris. He hoisted the tidy package of limbs and trudged off to the next tree to begin the slow process again.
“Ryo?”
The old investigator twisted painfully around towards the source of the query.
It was Inspector Second Class Zara Kamchatka.
She stared at him in dismay for several seconds, “You look like crap.”
Ryo winced as he stood to greet her, “I was a little too close to a Frag grenade that exploded in New Rome last night.”
“At that sleazy bar that Mac likes?” the willowy woman sat down at the table. “I read this morning that there was some sort of drunken skirmish there.”
Ryo gingerly lowered himself into his chair, “It was far worst than that, I'm afraid. Liaison Agent Hugo Mackillroy was killed along with a couple of others.”
“Mac?” Zara's face darkened into a gray mask of dread.
“I'm afraid so.”
After a few minutes of silence, he continued, “A CRAMP agent and I were conducting an Edict 343 investigation.”
The woman's eyes grew huge at the mention of the secret operation.
“Zara; we were set up for assassination.”
She trembled at the sudden wave of horrifying news. “Alright;” she whispered, “I'll do whatever I can to help out.”
Ryo studied her for several seconds, she was tough and wilily with a no-nonsense personality to match. Something about her had inexplicably changed in the last few minutes.
He had assumed for many years that Zara would eventually replace Helga Bennet as Chief Inspector when his cranky old boss finally retired or succumbed to the endless demands of the relentless job.
Now he wasn't so sure.
“I have two questions;” he intoned, “What do you know of a local bruiser named Fritzi Wolfe and his sidekick Norman Rollo? And do you have any information about a gang called the Goons
?”
“I, uh, well..,” Zara had an uncommon look of remorse. “It's not important.”
“Inspector Kamchatka,” Ryo growled impatiently, “thirteen people have been killed to date, all rather gruesomely. You need to tell me what you know before someone else is murdered.”
Her shoulders slumped in defeat, “You're right, I screwed up.
The old Investigator glowered at his dithering coworker.
“About six months ago I was poking around in one of the slums of Nairobi for some information about the Goons. They had a small-time protection racket that was working its way into the business district and the Warlord Syndicate asked for help from the Inquisitor's Office to put an end to the scheme.”
Ryo nodded.
“One night I trailed Wolfe to a pub on Moi Street and a fairly nice looking fellow struck up a conversation with me at the bar. Wolfe slipped away while I was chatting with the guy.”
She pressed her hands over her eyes, “One thing led to another and after way too many drinks I ended up spending the night with him.”
“Investigators are forbidden to engage in casual sexual relations with the locals, Inspector Kamchatka.”
“I know,” she whispered.
After just enough time for Zara to fret about her unforgivable misconduct, Ryo continued, “How does this all tie together?”
She glanced up repentantly at him, “The man that I slept with was Herman Bowie. I discovered about a month later that he is the top dog of the Goons.”
Ryo cringed at the revelation.
“It was all a set up.” Zara pressed her eyes closed, “Bowie and the other Goons knew that I was hunting around for details about their operation.” Her voice cracked with shame, “Somehow Bowie managed to turn it all against me.”
Ryo considered the complex ramifications of the unsavory dalliance.
Down the street, the old black man gathered up his final bundle of twigs and shuffled off.
“Wait a minute;” Ryo stared in consternation at the departing maintenance man, “you were intimate with a member of the Goons?”
Zara nodded.
“How much does this Bowie creep know of your investigation into Madame Sophia Kufuzu's death?”
She flinched at the scathing question.
“Almost everything.”
26. Decisions and admonishments
“Well this is definitely it, Boss,” Mixion glanced up at Lieutenant Zmuda. The poor fellow's face was pockmarked with a dozen or so tiny shrapnel wounds from the blast in New Rome.
He stared at her in disbelief, “You're sure?”
She nodded, “I have good information from two different sources. Commander Frédéric Rameau of the EurAfrican Imperial Military is definitely responsible for both the unusual particle weapons and the attack on you and Inspector Trop at the nightclub.”
“Alright; I'll let Ryo know what you’ve discovered.” He tapped his fingers on the desktop for several seconds as he contemplated the news.
“We’re going to have to put a stop to these efforts by Rameau,” Zmuda muttered as he turned towards the door. “I’ll be back in a few hours to discuss our next move.”
Mixion nodded to the Lieutenant; he almost certainly would come up with some sort of cleaver plan. “Where are you off to?” she asked.
He had an odd look of resolve as he stood at the door, “I'm going down to the CRAMP lab to check over that gun that I smuggled out of the nightclub. Hopefully I can figure out some way of putting an end to this madness.”
• • •
The toasted caramel smell of freshly roasted coffee beans filled the air.
Dilma stood momentarily awestruck just inside the door of the bustling Cafe Bernardi in the Old Town District.
A dozen paces ahead, in a thick clump of the noisy and kinetic patrons, Sabra stood next to a table of five merrily attired friends.
Dilma's hand had slipped from her nanny's a few seconds earlier when they had entered the trendy hotspot together. Now the little girl felt strangely cutoff and isolated amongst the swirling hubbub of grown-ups.
Sabra smiled flirtatiously at a handsome bearded man at the table. He blew her a kiss and winked.
The temporarily forsaken preteen at the door of the Cafe felt a nudge from behind. Dilma turned around to see what was the source of the prodding. A redheaded woman with a rather stern expression of displeasure pointed to Sabra.
“Stay with your baby-sitter, kid!” the woman growled.
The girl nodded shyly and hurried to the table.
Sabra reached down and idly stroked Dilma's braided hair as she chatted with her Enlightenment Crusade pals.
The little girl glanced timidly back towards the doorway but the mysterious woman was gone.
• • •
“Of course I'll take on the assignment,” Keira grinned at Seamus. “This old relic and I have been through a lot together already.”
“Excellent;” Mixion commented, “the boss is still recovering from a near-death experience in New Rome. He should be back in the office later today. I'm sure he'll approve and by the end of the week we should be able to move Seamus out of Free City for good.”
The old man was visibly relieved by the news.
Keira scribbled a note to herself on a scrap of yellow paper. “I'll inform the Liaison Superintendent's Office that, until further notice, I will be attending to Item 87 in the most recent Postings.”
Seamus beamed with gratitude, “Thank you, my dear.”
“Mmm;” Mixion tapped her fingertips absently on her forehead as she thought, “the final nettlesome part of this whole scheme is to find a place to settle him where no one would ever think to look.”
Seamus and Keira grinned at each other.
“I think we may know of just such a place,” the old fellow wryly noted.
• • •
It had been going on for nearly an hour now, he realized.
“Yes, Oh Exalted One,” Tariq replied as he cringed under the verbal onslaught of the tyrannical Warlord.
Daniel Kufuzu's tirade in the cool, dim cave in the isolated corner of the Sahara Desert continued unabated.
Tariq and his workmates stood in tedious tight-lipped silence while the Warlord ranted about their latest failing: The rice pudding that the madman had demanded and Qadir had spent two days procuring from a bazaar in Séguedine had been presented to him at room temperature and not chilled as he had stipulated.
EurAfrican Serfs had been raised for centuries to quietly endure the periodic scoldings of their masters, Tariq had certainly weathered many tongue-lashings in the past from Commander Frédéric Rameau; but this unending mistreatment by Kufuzu was far too extreme.
The lightly built Warlord balled up his fist and struck Qadir in the abdomen.
The stoic Serf silently winced at the punishment.
The tyrant's diatribe began anew.
Although it was not his place to question the often-absurd demands of the Warlord, Tariq was surely forming a strong dislike for the man.
• • •
“Sit down,” Chief Inspector Helga Bennet said.
Ryo limped into her dim office and eased himself onto the hard wooden desk chair.
The irritable head of the Inquisitor's Office shuffled through a thick pile of papers on her desk. She pulled several sheets from the stack and handed them to Ryo.
Helga finally smiled a bit in almost a motherly way, “How are the injuries?”
Ryo nodded distractedly as he read over the reports, “Much better now that the metal shards have been removed from my thick hide.”
“Since we will soon be short an Investigator,” she revealed, “I need you to be in good health.”
He set down the paperwork and tipped his head at her comment.
“When your investigation wraps up,” Helga stared at him with her steely gray eyes, “I plan to recall Inspector Second Class Zara Kamchatka from East Africa due to her unforgivably bad judgment of late.”
Ryo frowned; 'recall' meant only one thing, Zara was finished at the Inquisitor's Office.
Precluding any further discussion of the indiscretion, Helga tapped at the top sheet of Ryo's stack, “The Coroner has ruled that Nate Briggs was murdered by persons unknown. His wounds and the damage to the neck area of his spacesuit are nearly indistinguishable from those that were found on the mass murder victims onboard the Billikin.”
“Dreadful but not unexpected,” Ryo noted.
Helga smirked at his reply before continuing, “Using your recent lead regarding the misdeeds of the Goons, Inspector Heinkel down in Records has identified the deceased assailant of Mr. Seamus Nelson.”
He grinned at the break in the case.
“The dead punk's name is Bertrum Hubert Schleim. He was most recently arrested in the company of Fritzi Reginald Wolfe and Herman “Bowie” Kowalski last February in Tunis for Drunk and Disorderly Conduct. They each served twelve hours and were released. You will note that on his arrest record Mr. Kowalski has some sort of military training.”
Helga handed him the mugshots of the trio.
“I certainly recognize Wolfe and Schleim,” Ryo noted as he studied the photos. “Now three of the four Goons are dead but I suspect that this Bowie character will be the toughest to tangle with.”
“And the hardest to find,” Helga added.
• • •
The Lieutenant stood at the workbench in the secret CRAMP lab and studied the internal components of the gun that he had spirited away from the crime scene in New Rome.
It was remarkably similar to the rudimentary drawings that he'd obtained from an operative in Tunis several months ago.
He gently pried aside the metal shielding to reveal the workings. Below was a tiny particle accelerator barely larger than his index finger coupled to a high-powered Rutherford Neutron generator.
Zmuda scribbled some notes about the markings on the components. Later he would attempt to track down more data about the unusual parts.
He continued to probe the interior of the little weapon.
The label on the power cell read Matter/Antimatter Power Conversion Unit 90 volts -- 400 Kilowatt/ seconds. It was a staggering amount of energy for such a small package.
