by Michael Rose
Allen muttered a few choice words under his breath, took up his gear and gestured for the other agents to follow him. He entered the warehouse that was receiving the shipment of whiskey, crossed the warehouse floor and stepped out through the large bay door on the street side of the building. It took only a moment for him to realize that the dumpsters weren’t the only source of the stench. Rows of stalls and shacks lined the sidewalk behind the spaceport. From these, all manner of goods were being sold: food, fresh and not so fresh, was piled high in baskets and plastic bins; electronics, many of them no doubt stolen, were arrayed on cloth-covered tables; racks of clothes in various states of cleanliness jutted out into the street, making navigation of the market difficult. Beyond this, the narrow street barely accommodated the two lanes of cars that inched along in opposite directions.
Wagner stepped up beside Allen. “My god, it’s worse than I ever could have imagined.”
Allen nodded. “But it can’t all be like this, can it?”
Takemitsu stepped up, holding his tablet in front of him. “According to this map, the security HQ is east of here. It should be a more-or-less direct shot if we can find our way out of this place.”
Ives stepped over to a table and eyed the goods. As he sorted through the items—mostly garbage, by his estimation—a hand fell on his shoulder. He turned to see a scantily-clad woman smiling broadly at him. He counted at least three missing teeth.
“You look like you could use a little diversion, handsome,” she said, moving her hand from his shoulder to his chest.
Ives jerked away from her. “No. No, thank you, ma’am.”
The woman guffawed lustily, shook her head and moved on.
“We’re pretty damn conspicuous here,” said Wagner. “Let’s get moving.”
The four shouldered their gear and, after encountering a few dead ends, found a road running east and away from the shantytown.
9
IT HAD BEEN a month and a half. Sullivan had cooperated completely. He saw little sense in getting beaten or losing his strength due to being starved as punishment. He’d been given a tablet with its communications hardware removed and, as the tall man had said he could, he spent his days reading or watching movies and exercising.
But he was also watching and listening for sounds outside his cell. He’d learned that he was in a room at the end of a corridor. There were at least three other rooms. One room he could see across from his own through the hatch in the door. The others he knew about because he had heard their doors opening and closing.
He also knew that there was someone in the room next to his. This person had arrived a week after he had and, as far as he could tell, had been given the same treatment as himself: regular meals and buckets for washing and waste disposal. Once, he had heard a brief exchange between that person and Wilson. The voice was low and muffled so he couldn’t be sure, but he thought it sounded like a woman.
The worst part about Sullivan’s captivity was not that he was imprisoned but that the imprisonment of an entire population was continuing. As long as he was in this cell, he was being prevented from completing his work of freeing the people of Edaline. Justice for his parents—and for that teenaged boy—was being delayed.
Sullivan decided the delay had gone on long enough. He had figured out the routine and, through his quiet compliance, hoped Wilson and the tall man would have lowered their guard. He hoped they would not expect an escape attempt after so long a period of inaction.
Wilson brought Sullivan his food and wash bucket between eight and nine every morning. Sullivan was expected to have his waste bucket waiting to be removed. As an experiment, he’d not put it on the ledge one morning, and as punishment, he’d not been given food or water. After that, he always had it in place by the time Wilson came around.
Sullivan turned on his tablet to check the date. It was his forty-sixth day of captivity. This was the day he would escape. From eight o’clock onward, he stood silently by the door, tightly holding a strip of cloth that he had torn from one of his blankets. He’d placed his waste bucket on the ledge and waited to hear Wilson’s heavy steps in the hallway. The redheaded man stopped first at the neighboring cell. Sullivan heard the banging of buckets, followed by the sound of the hatch in his neighbor’s door being swung open.
He then heard the footsteps approach his cell. He heard his waste pail being lifted off the ledge. Before the food and wash pail were set in place, Sullivan yanked open the hatch, grabbed Wilson by his beard and pulled the man’s head through the hole. He quickly wrapped the strip of cloth around Wilson’s neck and pulled it tight, restricting the larger man’s airflow.
“Listen carefully,” Sullivan said as Wilson struggled for breath. “I know you carry keys to these cells. I can hear them jingling as you walk. I also know you can reach the door handle in this position, so what I want you to do is take the keys off your belt and unlock the door.
Wilson struggled more violently but could not escape Sullivan’s hold. Sullivan tightened the cloth slightly but slowly. If Wilson passed out, Sullivan wouldn’t be able to reach the keys himself. He needed Wilson to free him. Wilson relaxed somewhat but kept struggling.
“I will kill you,” Sullivan said. “I’ve killed before.” He heard the keys rattle, followed by the sound of metal scraping against the door handle. “That’s good,” he said. “Now pull the door open, nice and easy.”
Sullivan walked forward as the door swung open, keeping Wilson’s head tight against the frame of the hatchway. As soon as he saw that there was no one waiting in the hallway, he tightened the cloth. He’d decided long before he’d planned his escape that he would kill Wilson, anyone else who tried to stop him and, if he could find him, the tall man. He didn’t know this planet and couldn’t afford to leave men behind who wanted him dead.
Wilson’s body slumped. Sullivan dragged the body into the cell, searched it and found Wilson’s gun and tablet. He closed the door behind him, locked it and removed the keys from the lock.
He opened the hatchway on the door across from his. The room was empty. He checked the room next to it then turned to face the room next to his own cell, the room that he knew held a fellow captive.
He pushed open the hatch. Inside was a woman, mid-twenties he guessed, with shoulder-length blonde hair, flat and greasy from weeks without a proper wash. Sullivan unlocked the door.
“C’mon,” he said. She sat unmoving in the corner, staring at him. Sullivan beckoned to her. “It’s all right. We’re getting out.”
She still didn’t move. Sullivan went into the cell and cautiously approached her. When she didn’t flinch away from him, he lifted her up and led her out by the arm.
At the end of the hallway was a stairwell. Sullivan went in and saw a number two painted above the door. He led the girl down the steps but let go of her before reaching the bottom landing. He signaled for her to stay back as he opened the door an inch and took a quick glimpse of what was on the other side. Seeing nothing, he pushed it open another inch, then another, until he was sure it was clear. It was another hallway with double glass doors at the end of it. Through the doors, he could see sunlight. Sullivan returned to the stairwell and fetched the girl. They made their way down the hall to the doors. They were locked. Sullivan examined the keys he had taken from Wilson, selected what looked like the appropriate one and unlocked the doors. He pushed them open and stepped out into daylight. Between his time on Jones’s ship and his captivity, it had been five and a half months since he’d seen natural light.
Sullivan looked up at the building that had been his prison. It was nothing more than a standard apartment block, badly rundown and apparently unoccupied. The room he had been in must have been converted into a cell by the addition of a wall along the back of the room, blocking the window.
Sullivan returned his attention to the street. He had no idea how he might look to anyone he encountered. The street was filled with tents, shacks, stands and tables. It was part shantytown, par
t marketplace, where everything from alcohol to electronics to exotic animals was for sale. He briefly wondered why the inhabitants of the shanties hadn’t taken up residence in the abandoned building. The tall man, he realized, must have a great deal of power in the city; he must command a great amount of respect. Or fear.
As he scanned the street, Sullivan soon realized that his appearance would not be a problem. All around him were people who seemed to live in filth and squalor, either by choice or by necessity.
Sullivan walked through the crowd, leading the girl by the hand. He moved confidently and purposefully. Any sign of weakness on his part could get him killed here. He was intentionally rough with the girl. If he looked as though he were taking her somewhere against her will, he was more likely to be let by unmolested.
After a few tense moments, they emerged from the densest part of the shantytown, and he realized that it occupied a strip of land next to a long row of warehouses. This was the spaceport. He doubted there would be any safety to be found here. Sullivan turned back toward the direction he had come. The shantytown gradually thinned until it was replaced by typical, if not rundown, apartment buildings. Sullivan went into one of these and tried a few door handles. He found one that was unlocked. As he pulled it open, he called into the apartment. “Hey! Is this where Joe lives?”
He waited for a reply. Hearing none, he pulled the girl in and closed the door behind him. He understood why the door was open when he went to lock it. The lock was broken; the knob turned uselessly in his hand. Sullivan turned away from the door and looked around. It was just as well; there was nothing much here of value.
Sullivan found the bathroom and tried the faucet to make sure the building had running water. “Take a shower,” he said to the girl as he gently pushed her into the bathroom and closed the door. He waited until he heard the shower turn on then searched the room for clothes. He found some clothes that looked like they would fit them and put these in a plastic bag, along with a few packets of dried food, and then used the sink to wash up himself.
CLEAN AND WITH somewhat cleaner clothes on, Sullivan felt better, more alert. The girl looked better, too, and now followed him through the streets without being led. The prepaid credit card he’d put all his money on before leaving Edaline was gone, but he had the tablets; he might be able to get something for those. He also had Wilson’s gun. He decided he’d better hang onto that.
Sullivan found a stand selling used electronics. He took out the tablets and set them down. “How much for these?”
The merchant picked each one up in turn, making sure they were functioning. “Eighty credits.”
“One twenty,” said Sullivan.
“Ninety.”
“One ten.” He stared hard at the merchant.
“One ten,” said the man sheepishly. “Give me your card.”
“I don’t have one. I need a prepaid.”
“That’ll cost five credits.”
“No, it’ll cost one.”
The merchant scowled but did not argue. He waved a card with its embedded chip over his terminal, transferred one hundred and nine credits onto it and handed it to Sullivan without a word. Sullivan glanced at the terminal to make sure the amount was correct, shoved the card into his pocket and turned away. With the money, they could get some food and a couple of nights in a cheap motel. After that, he’d have to come up with a way to earn more money. First he’d have to survive, but he was confident that before too long he could thrive here and build up enough influence to put the next phase of his plan into action. And Abilene was just the place for it. A man with his skills could earn a great deal of money on a planet like this.
10
ALLEN AND HIS team had been on Abilene for two days. The security chief had proven to be mostly unhelpful. They’d asked around about Sullivan but had only been met with silence. Finally, a man in a bar told them that if anyone knew anything, it would be Orion Zednik. Allen knew the name from his research. Zednik was a big-time smuggler, dealing in anything from alcohol to drugs to sex slaves. According to the Bureau’s files, he stayed in power by compartmentalizing, keeping different aspects of his operation independent of one another. He employed a lot of people, but most never even knew that it was Zednik they were working for. Some even said that everyone on Abilene worked for Zednik, one way or another.
Abilene’s security chief agreed to arrange the meeting. Despite what everyone knew, Zednik liked to portray himself as a legitimate businessman and so was happy to meet with the agents, or so he’d said on the phone.
Allen turned to look at Zednik as he walked through the door of the security chief’s office. His eyebrows rose involuntarily. Zednik was tall with extremely fine features, an incongruity among the rest of the sullied inhabitants of the planet. He wore an exceptionally shiny suit in a deep shade of purple, and various trinkets of gold and silver dangled from his wrists, fingers, ears and from around his neck. A lime green pocket square puffed extravagantly from his breast pocket.
Allen held out his hand. “My name is Special Agent Frank Allen. Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Zednik.”
Zednik glanced at Allen’s hand then bowed slightly. “Not at all. I’m always happy to assist a representative of the Assembly.”
Allen overlooked what would have been perceived as a slight back on Earth. There were so many local customs that Allen had long ago given up trying to keep track of them all.
“Well, I’ll get straight to the point, Mr. Zednik.” Allen pulled Sullivan’s picture up on his tablet. “I’m looking for this man.”
If Zednik recognized the photo, he made no indication. “Hmm… is he a local?”
“No. He would have arrived about a month and a half ago.”
“So many people come and go, Agent Allen. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
“You’re sure you haven’t seen him?”
Zednik looked back at the picture. “Now that you mention it… no.” He smiled broadly. Allen felt like punching him in the mouth but smiled back instead.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Zednik.”
“And thank you.” Zednik winked at the security chief, turned on his heels and walked briskly from the office.
OF COURSE, ZEDNIK had recognized the picture. Sullivan had escaped only an hour before Zednik was called in to the security chief’s office, taking the girl and killing Wilson in the process. Zednik was damned if he was going to let the Bureau find Sullivan before he did. Sullivan was worth money, but so was the girl. Zednik would gladly kill Sullivan to get her back, even if it meant losing the reward money. Still, Edaline might give him something for pulling a thorn out of their paw. It wouldn’t be as much as if he’d turned Sullivan over to them alive, but Zednik had enough money. The satisfaction of killing Sullivan would be worth more.
Zednik got into his waiting car. In the driver’s seat sat Hans. Franz, the man who’d opened and closed the door for Zednik, got into the front passenger’s seat. Those weren’t the twins’ real names, of course, but because of their long, unpronounceable last name and their distinctly Aryan features, the sobriquets had stuck.
Hans pulled the car out into the road. “Franz,” said Zednik, “I want a meeting with Younger.”
Franz went to work on his tablet, typing out a message. Zednik never carried any electronics of his own. It was too easy to use them to trace someone.
“He can meet this afternoon at the Cairo,” Franz said. “Sixteen hundred.”
“Good.”
“Where to, Mr. Zednik?” asked Hans.
“Home for now. If I’ll be going to the Cairo, I’ll want to change first.” Zednik looked down at his suit, picked off a speck of lint and flicked it distastefully to the floor of the car.
THE CAIRO BAR wasn’t an establishment Zednik cared for, but it was the go-to meeting place for Abilene’s criminal class. The planet’s security forces stayed well clear, and the bar’s owner, a man named North, had a brigade of bouncers who strictly enforced the neu
trality of the bar. All weapons were checked upon entering, and any disagreements were to be taken outside. It was said that the sidewalk in front of the Cairo was the bloodiest spot in all of Abilene.
Zednik had changed into a dark gray suit with a blood red shirt and a red and a yellow tie. A canary yellow silk handkerchief inhabited his breast pocket, arranged with practiced indifference. Zednik stepped into the Cairo and made his way to the back room of the bar, past the bouncer, who held open the door. He was let through unchallenged. Everyone knew Zednik never carried a gun, and even if he did, he was much too important a man to insult with a weapons scan.
The back room was only for Abilene’s most powerful players. Zednik crossed to the corner booth which was, by order of North, cleaned twice daily and reserved at all times for Zednik. He brought so much business into the bar that North was happy to give Zednik this indulgence.
The girl in the short skirt didn’t pass by Zednik’s table to offer him a drink. Zednik never ate or drank outside of his own home. After a moment, he saw Younger enter the back room. Zednik raised an arm and motioned him over.
Younger sat. He knew better than to try and shake Zednik’s hand. “You have a job for me?”
“Yes.” Zednik took out a printout of a photo of Sullivan that he’d gotten off the news wires. “His name is Richard Sullivan.”
“Right,” said Younger. “He killed some assemblymen on Earth.”
“That’s right.”
“I heard about Wilson. Was it him?”
“Yes.”
“And I heard something about a girl. A particular blonde-haired girl.”
“What you heard isn’t important, Younger. But if, when you find Sullivan, he is accompanied by any young women, I would like you to bring them to me.”
“I understand. Of course, that will make this more complex than a simple lights-out operation. It’ll cost you.”
