The Stones of Silence_Cochrane's Company_Book One

by Peter Grant

  “I’m putting my life in your hands tonight. Please take good care of it!”

  “We will.” The leader of the team spoke with quiet confidence. “These toys you got for us will help make sure of that.” He patted the control console on the table. “Once the situation’s stable, what next?”

  “Depends on who these people are. I’ve got to learn everything they know, and why Jamshi’s helping them. I may have to find out the hard way.”

  “We’re here to help. After all, we’re cops. We can do anything.”

  Frank had to suppress a frown at the man’s words. Here on Skraill, that was no more than the truth. The police could get away with anything, because the powers that be gave them almost unfettered authority – and asked no questions about confiscated loot – in return for their unquestioning obedience, particularly when dealing with political opponents, agitators and troublemakers. Of course, that’s why people like Frank used Skraill as a base in the first place. Once law enforcement came to equate loyalty with payoffs, those who could afford – and were generous with – the biggest payoffs, earned the most loyalty, irrespective of their official status.

  “I may have to take you up on that. If it comes to that, there’ll be a nice bonus for all of you, on top of what we already agreed.”

  The seven men grinned broadly. “Mister Haldane, don’t take this wrong, but I really like the sound of your voice,” one said with a wink. The others laughed.

  Frank took his personal comm unit from his pocket and dialed a code. “Jamshi? I’ll be there in five. Have the gates open.”

  He could hear the relief in the man’s voice. “Great! Drive straight into the warehouse. The gates and doors will close automatically behind you. I’ll come out to meet you.”

  “All right.”

  “And our toys will come out to meet them,” commented the team leader, drawing more hard laughter from his people.

  “Just make sure they don’t get too enthusiastic,” Frank warned. “I’ll be in there too.”

  “Here.” The policeman tossed him two small flat black boxes, strung on a cord. A red light in the corner of each box glowed faintly. “Put that around your neck, beneath your clothes, one box in front and one behind. As long as it’s there, they won’t hurt you.”

  “I hope you tested it.”

  “I did. It works.”

  Frank hurried out the back of the old, dilapidated warehouse, exiting onto the street on its far side. His runabout was waiting in the rapidly fading light. He slid into the driver’s seat, activated the power pack, and drove slowly around the block. As he passed the truck parked at the end of the road, he could see a shadowy figure in the cab raise something to his face. He knew he’d be warning Jamshi that Frank was on his way.

  The gates were open, as promised. He turned slowly into them, then spun the wheel in the opposite direction to make the tight turn into the long, dimly lit warehouse. As the sliding doors began to close behind him, he drove forward slowly, stopping in the center of the floor. Jamshi appeared at the door of a row of offices, set against the rear of the building, and waved him forward.

  Frank started forward at a crawl, flicking on the vehicle’s headlights as he did so. He’d already set them to high beam. Jamshi put a hand to his eyes, blinded by the sudden glare, and turned his head away – then he staggered suddenly, slapping at the back of his neck as if he’d been bitten by one of Skraill’s notorious stingers. He rubbed the place for a moment, then staggered again, and crumpled to the ground.

  Frank pulled up by the offices and waited. After about three minutes, there came a tapping at the window of his door. He looked out, to see a small, winged, insect-like machine hovering there. Two short, stubby tubes protruded from its base, like the tiny barrels of a diminutive gun. The needle tip of a dart protruded from one of them. The flitterbug bobbed up and down, three times, then rose and flew away. Exhaling in relief, he got out of the runabout.

  Jamshi was unconscious. Frank relieved him of his weapon and wallet, and searched his pockets, putting everything in his vehicle; then he went into the offices. He found two more of Jamshi’s men and the three strangers there, also unconscious. He searched them, too, taking everything he found to the car. He removed the local currency from the wallets and formed it into a thick wad, dropping it into a trouser pocket.

  To his surprise and pleasure, Jamshi’s safe in his office was unlocked. He rifled through its contents, discarding most of the documents as irrelevant to his needs, but whistled sharply as he opened an envelope containing more than a dozen interplanetary bearer bank drafts in negotiable currencies. Jamshi had clearly been making a lot of money recently. They were all in five or six figures, with one in the low seven figures. He took them out to his vehicle, along with all the hard currency in the safe. He added the local money to the wad in his pocket.

  He heard the warehouse doors slide open again, and the whine of power packs as two heavier vehicles entered. He walked out of the office in time to see two police transporters pull up next to his runabout. The seven cops got out, pulling four limp bodies from the back and carrying them into the offices. The leader joined him.

  “See? No trouble at all.”

  “You were very good. I’m glad I gave you that shipment of flitterbugs I lucked into a year ago. I never thought I’d need them myself!”

  “We’re glad, too. The boss won’t buy any for us. He reckons they’re ‘not cost-effective’, but we all know he pocketed the money that was budgeted to buy them. These have saved us some real headaches over the past year, letting us stay out of range rather than risk getting hurt. I’m glad we could return the favor.”

  “So am I. Here.” He took out the accumulated wad of Skraill banknotes and handed them over. “There should be enough to buy all of you a real good time.”

  “I’ll say!” The policeman counted swiftly, then slid them into his pocket. “This is enough for a long weekend at Maddy’s for all of us, with everything thrown in.”

  Frank grinned at the mention of Skraill’s most luxurious and infamous brothel. “Enjoy it.”

  “I will!”

  One of the other policemen came out, carrying a briefcase. He opened it. “Thought you’d want to see this, boss.”

  “What the hell is all this?” The team leader stared in bewilderment at the saline solution, drip tubes, narcotic ampoules, hypodermic needles, syringes, hair clippers, conductive gel and neural scalp net.

  Frank felt his blood turn to ice in his veins. “I know what it’s for. I’ve run into kits like this on other planets. That drug makes someone talk, and you can verify he’s not lying by connecting that net to a portable truth-tester.” He lifted a tray in the briefcase to show the small electronic device hidden beneath it. “Trouble is, some interrogation drugs also fry your brains. If this is one of them, after about five or six hours, the victim will start to talk nonsense, then go into a coma. He won’t come out of it. It’s irreversible.”

  “Bastards! You mean they were going to do that to you?”

  “If this is one of those drugs, it sure looks like it, doesn’t it?”

  “Uh-huh. Want us to help you do it to them instead, when they wake up?”

  “Funny you should say that. I think it would be only fair, don’t you?”

  “It sure would – and we’ll learn whether this drug is the bad kind or not, at their expense. You know how to use all this stuff?”

  “I’ve never used it myself, but I’ve heard about it, and I reckon I know enough to get started. We’ll begin with Jamshi’s people, then him, then the three strangers. The hired men won’t know as much as their boss, so if I make any mistakes, that won’t matter. By the time we get to the big shots, I’ll have figured out how to use this. D’you mind helping with cleanup afterwards?”

  “Hell, no! This bunch would have ended up in the garbage, anyway. Their kind always does. We’ll just lend nature a helping hand by speeding things up.”

  Frank washed his hands as he
watched the policemen put the last corpse into a body-bag. The half-light of dawn was showing through the windows as they loaded it into the back of one of their transporters. He felt unclean after working his way through no less than ten criminals, but he’d had to learn who was after him, and why. Now he knew that he and his core team were in mortal danger. The Albanian Mafia didn’t play games. They wouldn’t stop after one failure, and they’d want revenge for their dead brothers.

  Jamshi was a damned fool, he thought savagely. If he hadn’t been so damned greedy, he would never have offered that shipment of stolen drugs off-planet, and the Albanians would never have heard of him. He was greedy then, and he got greedier when they waved money at him to help them catch me. Well, he’ll never learn now.

  He picked up his comm unit from the table, and terminated its recording function. It had stored everything said by the prisoners during their interrogation. He dropped the unit into his pocket as the team leader came up, face wan with fatigue after their all-night session. His eyes were somber. He’d heard what the Albanians had revealed.

  “I’d say you’re in big trouble, Frank.”

  “Maybe… but there may be a way to turn the tables on them. I need one more thing from you and your team. It’s a big favor, but if you’ll do it for me, you’ll all be rich by tonight.”

  The cop was suddenly alert, all business. “What do you need?”

  “Call your people together and let me explain.”

  He looked around at the seven. “I need the courier ship these guys used to get here. I know you’re not System Patrol Service, but you must have friends in that crowd. I need them to take you to that ship, and help you arrest every member of her crew. They’re not Albanian Mafia, just spacers that came with the chartered ship, so I don’t want anything to happen to them. Wear facemasks so they can’t recognize you, and don’t identify yourselves. Cover their heads so they can’t see what’s happening, bring them all planetside, then let them go somewhere outside town. Have a few of your friends standing by to arrest them for illegal immigration – no papers, no entry stamps, that sort of thing. Make sure they can’t reach any officials for a day or two. By the time the mess is sorted out, we’ll be long gone. There’s half a million kronor in it for each of you, in gold and hard currency.”

  They stared at him for a long, wordless moment. The Sergeant said carefully, “Frank, you’ve always been straight up with us, but… half a million apiece? Do you have that kind of money on hand?”

  “I tell you what. While your crew dumps these bodies, you come back with me to my place. I’ll show you the money – in fact, we’ll lock it in my apartment, and code the lock to your DNA instead of mine. I won’t need to go back there, so you can have it, too. I’ll give you the title deed. You can keep it for a squad hangout, or sell it and split its price among you. I’ll send some messages to get my people together while you organize things with the SPS. As soon as you leave the ship with your prisoners, we’ll take her out of the system. We won’t be coming back, so no-one will cause trouble by asking awkward questions about us. You’ll be able to enjoy your loot in peace. How about it?”

  One of the cops said eagerly, “If he’s good for the money, boss, I got a brother-in-law in the SPS. He runs one of the customs boats inspecting arriving ships. For a decent cut of the money, enough to keep his crew sweet as well, I reckon he’ll take us all to the courier boat, and bring us back to the orbital terminal. We can bring the spacers planetside in one of our official shuttles, with no-one the wiser.”

  “If Frank’s got the money, we can give him a quarter of a million in cash or gold, and get that back when we sell the apartment,” the Sergeant agreed. “Are you all in this with me?”

  Six voices chorused their assent.

  “Right. Go drop this lot in the city dump. Have the workers unload a couple of garbage trucks over them, then roll everything nice and flat. By the time you’ve done that, Frank and I will have taken care of our business downtown. How long will your people need, Frank?”

  “We can meet you at the spaceport by noon. There’ll be eight of us, each with one or two suitcases and bags.”

  “All right, noon it is, at the police dock. Let’s go.”

  Frank and his men lined the rear bulkhead of the courier ship’s diminutive docking bay. They stood in silence, watching, as the protesting crew were bundled aboard the customs boat, hands cuffed behind their backs, heads obscured by thick black cloth bags pulled tight – but not too tight – around their necks with pull-cords. The cops and SPS spacers followed them. Last to board was the Sergeant. He paused in the airlock doorway, looked at Frank, and gave him a thumbs-up sign. “Good luck to you all.”

  Frank didn’t reply, just made the same sign in return. He didn’t want the spacers to be able to recognize his voice, if they heard it again in future. The Sergeant grinned, went through the airlock, and sealed the inner door behind him.

  They waited until the customs boat had pulled clear of the ship, then Frank spoke. “All right, there are nine of us to handle the duties of a thirty-strong crew. We’re not going to get much sleep until we get where we’re going. Pick berths for yourselves, drop your gear there, and divide the various duty stations among yourselves. Captain’s cabin is mine. While you do that, I’m going to make a departure signal to System Control. I want to be under way within half an hour.”

  The others nodded somberly. They’d all had to rush like men possessed to get ready in time, and they’d all had to abandon most of their goods and property planetside. That was regrettable, but they all had assets safely stashed elsewhere. They wouldn’t starve. Besides, Frank had made it clear that they faced a mortal threat. Getting off-planet alive and unhurt made up for a lot of losses.

  “Where are we heading, boss?” one asked.

  “Ever heard an old proverb that says, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’? That’s where we’re at right now. We need to link up with someone who has as much cause to worry about the Albanians as we do, and who’s strong enough that it’s worth our while to join forces with them to protect ourselves. I reckon there’s only one option.”

  “You mean…”

  “Yeah. Let’s go by Rousay, send warnings to the others, and ask Henry for an introduction to his boss. He can also warn him to watch out for the Albanians, which should put him in a receptive frame of mind to talk to us. Before we go see him, we’ll take this courier ship to Medusa and sell her. That’ll make up for what we lost on Skraill. After that, we’ll adopt new identities, split up, and head for Henry’s boss using different routes. The Albanians know me, but not you – at least, that’s what their investigator said last night. If we aren’t seen together on Medusa, they won’t identify you, or associate you with me, for a while longer. By the time they do, we’ll be in a safer place.”

  “Can’t we just drop out of sight?” one of them wondered.

  “This is the Albanian Mafia. They’re not the biggest crime syndicate out there, but they’re one of the most ruthless. They keep people scared of them because they never stop coming until either you or they are dead. They can’t let us go without risking that reputation. This bunch seems to be an offshoot of the main body; but in some ways, that’s worse, because without the backing of the rest of their people, they’ve got to be even more ruthless if they want to be convincing. No, they won’t let us alone. They’ll keep looking, and one day they’ll find us. When they do, I want us to be ready to fight back and win – and that means we need allies.”

  “What if their boss expects us to be loyal to him, rather than to you?”

  “I’m sure he will. Henry told me he’s former military, and they’re big on that. Thing is, we’ve been useful to him in the past, and I reckon he’ll need people like us again. We’ve all got military and merchant spacer backgrounds. We can all serve as officers aboard his ships, and three of us are qualified commanding officers. If he’s as good as Henry says he is, I won’t object to taking his orders, at least for a wh
ile. As for the longer term, who knows? Let’s take care of problem number one. We can worry about the rest later.”

  “Works for me.”

  “All right. Let’s go!”

  17

  Enemies And Allies

  CONSTANTA

  The nurse slid a picture across the table. “That’s him.”

  Vasil’s heart leapt with mingled triumph and sorrow as he gazed at the image. He’d traveled on Pavli’s ship before, and recognized his face instantly. It hurt to realize that he’d have to give his comrade the final mercy, but he knew Pavli would understand – if he’d been able to, that is.

  He ground his teeth as he realized Pavli’s comatose condition might be the result of drug-assisted interrogation. After all, what else could have caused it? Why hadn’t they killed him when they were finished? It would have been a lot cheaper than keeping him alive in a nursing home. Did they think they could use him, even in a vegetative state, to put pressure on the brotherhood? If not that, then perhaps their opponents were weak. Did they find it difficult to kill in cold blood, rather than in the heat of battle? If so, they would be easier to deal with. People with scruples stood little chance against those who had none. However, Pavli’s fate was also a warning. He could never allow these people to take him alive. He would have to make sure his team realized that, too.

  “Thank you,” he managed to say in a neutral tone, masking his feelings. “It may be him. I’ll have to see him to be sure. When are visiting hours?”

  “By appointment only, and restricted to family or legal guardians unless special permission is given. You’ll have to prove your relationship to him. Security is strict.”