Manhunt on Tau Ceti 4 (Nick Walker, U.F. Marshal Book 6)

by John Bowers

  “Well, I already did that. Whether you want to believe it or not, Ken Saracen, the man you know as Tinker-Smith, is a stone-cold killer.”

  “Then why hasn’t he killed anyone here?”

  “I believe he did. He sent Ginny Stapleton to Hardwood and you know the rest.”

  “That’s just a theory. You still don’t have proof. Either way, Ken has been here almost two years and hasn’t even spit on the sidewalk.”

  “I suspect he’s developed a new strategy to achieve his goals. Instead of blowing people up, now he’s buying them off.”

  “Buying them off? Oh, you mean the civic projects he’s sponsored.”

  “Right.”

  “To what end? What does he hope to gain?”

  “World domination. He wants to rule his own planet.”

  Chapter 29

  Sheriff Buono stared at Nick as if he were crazy.

  “You’re shitting me, right?”

  “About what?”

  “World domination. Is that what you said? Ken Tinker-Smith wants to rule the whole planet?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “That’s the craziest thing I ever heard.”

  “Maybe so, but a lot of crazy people before him have wanted the same thing.”

  “I’m aware of that, but why would he pick on such a small world? I would think Terra or Alpha Centauri would be more his style. We’re not very big yet.”

  “He tried those already. They didn’t work out, so now he came here.”

  Buono whistled and shook his head. Nick recognized the skepticism in his eyes as he gazed down the street and chewed his lip.

  Buono’s eyes focused again.

  “I’d like to help you, Walker, but you’re not making it easy.”

  “I’m just telling you the facts as I know them.”

  “Yeah, but world domination? I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  Nick tipped his hat back and hooked his thumbs into his gunbelt.

  “Sheriff, as I said—if you don’t want any part of this, then I’ll do it on my own. All I ask is that you don’t interfere.”

  “How are you going to take him down by yourself? If it was one on one, I don’t doubt you could do it, but he has people working for him, and if you’re right about him, he’s hiding behind the walls of that fortress.”

  “I need building plans.”

  “Building plans?”

  “Yeah. You know, blueprints.”

  “How will that help?”

  “From what I’ve seen, it would take an army to storm the place from the outside, but I’m willing to bet there may be a basement, maybe even some kind of secret entrance underneath the castle.”

  Buono tried to hide a grin. “You think Ken has a secret entrance?”

  “It’s a long shot, but ancient castles on Terra usually had some kind of escape route, in case of a siege. For all his insanity, Saracen is a smart guy. He’s been chased off three planets so far, and I’m sure he’s aware of his vulnerabilities. If nothing else, having a secret exit might appeal to his sense of drama.”

  “Maybe so, but the place was more than nine-tenths complete when he bought it. The basement would have been laid decades ago.”

  “He could have altered it.”

  “Sure, I guess so, but it wouldn’t be in the original blueprints.”

  Nick grimaced. Buono was right.

  Even so…

  “I’d still like to see them.”

  “Okay, knock yourself out.”

  “Do you people have some kind of planning commission around here? Or a records office?”

  “We sure do. Hell, last year we even discovered fire. Makes the wait a lot shorter at a restaurant.”

  Nick blinked in surprise. Buono was staring at him with cold eyes.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you.”

  “You sure about that? You did say ‘you people’.”

  Nick held up both hands in self-deprecation.

  “I’m sorry, Sheriff. Since I’ve been here I’ve been constantly frustrated that you don’t have a lot of the tools I’m used to. I didn’t mean any offense.”

  Buono broke eye contact and clapped Nick on the shoulder.

  “All right, forget it. Come on, I’ll show you where the planning commission is located.”

  Trimmer Springs – Alpha Centauri 2

  Dressed to kill, Kristina Norgaard-Green left the house to walk the nine blocks to her boutique with a smile on her face. It was a beautiful morning on Alpha 2 and she couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so light-hearted. Her date with Kevin Dougherty had been a wonderful diversion, even though it was nothing more than dinner and a few hours of conversation.

  She wasn’t in love with Kevin, but she did like him a lot. She had known him casually for more than two years and he was a very nice guy. Her mother had liked him. Nathan had liked him. Kevin was his own man, but possessed a number of the same qualities as Nathan. As a lawman he was selfless, ready and willing to serve the community even at the risk of his own life. He had honor, integrity, and dignity. He was also a gentleman.

  Perhaps most important in the short term—he had made her laugh.

  She hadn’t laughed in two years.

  As she strode down the street and turned the corner by the U.F. Marshal’s office, she almost felt like whistling. Maybe it was crazy, but she felt good and didn’t feel guilty about it. She had loved Nathan Green with all her heart, and always would, but he wasn’t coming back and she was still young. She had to get on with her life. Nathan would want her to do that.

  She smiled and waved at a casual acquaintance on the street. She passed the police station. Kevin wasn’t on duty yet, but had promised to stop by the boutique later in the day. She looked forward to seeing him.

  She waved at another acquaintance, a regular customer, and called out a good morning. She kept walking. The boutique was almost in sight.

  Across the street from the boutique, a hovercar was lifting off from the roof of the bank. She paid it no attention. Her key was in her hand as she stopped at the front door of Suzanne’s. She unlocked the door and stepped inside, disabled the alarm, and headed on back to the office in the rear. Mildred wasn’t in—it was her day off. Kristina flicked on the lights and woke up the computer. She stowed her purse in the closet and stepped into the rear hallway to disable the alley alarm…

  She stopped and stared at the broken glass that covered the floor in front of the rear door. The door itself was standing slightly ajar, and someone had ripped the wiring out of the alarm, bypassing the circuit with alligator clips.

  A burglar?

  Sophia scorn!

  She headed for the stockroom to see what might have been taken, but before she had gone six feet she heard a footstep behind her. Fear surged through her, but as she turned to look she heard the sound of an aerosol spray. An acrid, toxic mist swirled over her head and she dropped like a stone. The last thing she heard was a hovercar settling in the alley directly outside the back door.

  Lago District – Tau Ceti 4

  Sheriff Buono walked Nick two blocks down the street to the building where the planning commission was located. They went inside and Buono told the clerk to give Nick whatever he needed. As he turned to leave, Nick offered his hand.

  “Thank you, Sheriff. I appreciate your help.”

  Buono nodded. “I’ll be in my office if you need anything else.”

  Nick watched him walk out the door. A little manpower would be nice.

  But he understood the sheriff’s reluctance. People who lived in small towns were vulnerable to public outrage, and Saracen had ingratiated himself with the locals by showering them with money. No matter where he came from or what he had done, convincing them of his true character would be an uphill battle. Eventually they would find out for themselves, but until then, Nick was on his own.

  And he hoped to spare them the grim discovery.

  The records clerk, a slight, pale
man with virtually no hair, produced the documents Nick was looking for. To his consternation, the blueprints were just that—blueprints. Instead of viewing them on a computer display, Nick had to unroll actual paper and weigh down the corners with weights to keep them from rolling up again. And—again to his amazement—the drawings were…blue.

  Nick was no architect, nor was he an engineer. The majority of the markings on the drawings meant little to him, but he could at least see the shapes of rooms inside the castle, and their relative sizes. At first he was confused—there were several pages of drawings, each page reflecting the exact same dimensions of the building’s outer walls, but the internal layouts were different. Then he realized he was looking at different floors, including the upper levels and towers, which were somewhat smaller than the lower levels. He briefly studied those, but saw nothing that indicated a way to get inside.

  Finally he located a page of drawings that indicated a subterranean level. Most of it seemed to deal with plumbing, wiring, and crawl spaces. This must be the basement, or the area below the basement. His eyes narrowed as he studied the detail, looking for anything that might be a tunnel or other unusual entrance. The only thing he found was a narrow shaft that exited the castle on the west end. In the drawing, it was cut off shortly after it left the building, but a penciled notation described it as a sewage shaft containing a twelve-inch pipe that extended all the way to the lake.

  Good old Saracen, friend of the ecology, dumping his personal sewage into a pristine lake.

  The shaft was only two feet wide; with the pipe running through it, that made it much too small for someone to crawl through. Heaving a disappointed sigh, Nick reviewed the blueprints one more time, then rolled them up and returned them to the clerk.

  This was a dead end.

  Saracen’s Castle – Lago District – Tau Ceti 4

  Victoria Cross was proud of her military background. She had trained as a Star Marine with the understanding that, once she graduated boot camp, she would go straight to law school on the Federation’s dime. First, of course, she had to survive boot camp, because no matter what their specialty, all Star Marines, from clerk to cook to bottle washer, were considered first and foremost to be riflemen. By the skin of her nails, Victoria made the grade, graduated law school, and spent another four years as a military lawyer.

  The men she trained with, including Nick Walker, went off to war, where more than a third of them were killed. That plagued Victoria for years, even though, as a military lawyer, she could not have transferred into combat even if she wanted to. Still, she felt guilty, which may have contributed to her decision years later to defend Nick in court.

  Now, locked in a tiny closet in a bizarre castle on a frontier planet, it occurred to her that the time had come to pay her dues.

  Her hands were still cuffed in front of her, which at least was better than having them cuffed in back. She had spent a miserable night in the dark, but Saracen fed her breakfast afterward and, before locking her up again, Brandy let her use the toilet. But that was it—the closet contained neither a water source nor bathroom facilities.

  Victoria felt the press of time; Nick had no way of knowing where she was, and was probably concerned for her safety. Her grand plan to scout the terrain for him had failed miserably, and now she was nothing but a liability. Even worse, Saracen had hinted that Nick might be dead, but she didn’t believe that was the case. If Nick was dead, Saracen had no reason to keep her alive, so either Saracen was bluffing, or he really had sent someone to kill Nick but didn’t yet know the results.

  Victoria had tried the closet door the night before without success. Brandy had locked her in and the lock was secure. Even with tools, she would have had a hard time breaking out in total darkness—and she didn’t have tools. But there had to be something she could do, a way out. There had to be.

  Taking a deep breath, and remembering her Star Marine training to never give up, she began a closer inspection of her prison. It was three feet wide and three feet deep, nine square feet in all. The air was fresh but chilled; she remembered the corridor outside had been warmer when Brandy let her out, so the closet must be near the outer wall of the castle. The sides were wood panel, but that was probably overlaid on stone, which would explain the low temperature. There was no furniture, not even a stool, nor was there room for one. Sitting on her knees and breathing deep to keep herself calm, she started at the bottom and, inch by inch, ran her hands over the wood surface. If she could find an irregularity, a crack, or even a splinter, she might have something to work with.

  She worked one complete wall at a time, gliding her hands over the surface from side to side, working her way up. When she reached her limit, she stood on tiptoe until she could go no higher. The first wall yielded nothing.

  She started on the second wall, and when she reached about eye level, discovered a crack in the wood. It was thin, nothing but a hairline, but she tried to work a thumbnail into it to pry it apart. When one thumbnail didn’t work, she tried the other, but all she got in return was a broken nail, which both frustrated her and pissed her off. The second wall also became a dead end.

  In the third wall, she thought she detected a nail head, but it might have only been a dent in the wood. Without light, it was impossible to tell. She picked at it for two or three minutes before deciding it was a false hope.

  Having exhausted all three walls, Victoria considered the ceiling—there might be an exit there that led to an upper level. She tried to wedge herself against opposing walls by using her shoulders and feet—in boot camp she had been obliged to climb out of a stone chimney using this method—but with her wrists cuffed together, she couldn’t use her hands for leverage and after several tries gave it up.

  Finally, her last hope—the door. First she pressed her ear against it to make sure no one was standing outside. She couldn’t be certain, but she couldn’t hear anyone—the coast appeared to be clear. She began feeling the door from the bottom up, working her way to the top, but once again encountered no splinters, nails, or cracks that could be exploited. She was about to give in to despair when, reaching above her head, she connected with a metal hook.

  A hook!

  It was a closet, after all. A closet is where you hang clothing; although this one had no dowels for hangers, it did have a hook on the door. You could hang a coat on it, or a hat, or…anything. With her heart pounding in her ears, she took a solid grip on the hook and gave it a twist. It was tightly embedded in the wood, but she felt it give just a fraction. With a fresh grip, she twisted again…and it gave a little more.

  With a final grip and another twist, the hook began to move.

  Victoria unscrewed it.

  Lago – Tau Ceti 4

  Nick walked out of the planning commission and glanced at his watch. It was about an hour before noon, and he needed to get inside that castle. He had no idea if Victoria was dead or alive, or if she was even in the castle, but Davis had dropped her off there the day before and no one had seen her since. She could easily be in trouble, and with or without a plan, he needed to get over there and see about her.

  He started walking toward the taxi.

  Mijo was waiting for him when he arrived.

  “Hi, Nick!”

  “What the hell are you doing here? I thought you went home.”

  The boy’s eyes drifted down the street.

  “I did. I found mi abuela and told her I was back in town.”

  “You did, huh? What did she say?”

  “She was glad to see me. I’m not in trouble no more.”

  Mijo stood there grinning. His grin faded when Nick gripped him by the arm.

  “Let’s take a walk.”

  Nick led him up the steps of the sheriff’s office and into the lobby. The same middle-aged woman looked up from her desk. This time she smiled.

  “Hello again.”

  Nick pushed Mijo toward the counter.

  “Do you know this boy?”

  The wo
man looked at Mijo, her smile fading, then back at Nick.

  “I sure do. Everyone in town knows him. That’s Julio Castro.”

  “He told me his name is Mijo.”

  Her smile returned.

  “He goes by that. It’s what everyone calls him. Is he bothering you?”

  “Do you know where his grandmother lives?”

  “Grandmother?” Her brow knitted. “He doesn’t have a grandmother. He doesn’t have any family at all that I know of. He is sort of the town’s wayward child. Everybody looks out for him.”

  Nick’s expression relaxed. “That’s nice of them.”

  “No, I mean everyone looks out for him. He steals anything that isn’t nailed down.”

  She waved a finger under the boy’s nose.

  “You’re a scamp!”

  Mijo had been scowling at her for exposing his cover story. Now his expression turned to confusion.

  “What’s a scamp?”

  The door to Sheriff Buono’s private office opened and the sheriff came out, striding across the center of the office toward the front desk.

  “Is that kid giving you a hard time?”

  Nick shook his head.

  “No. I was just trying to find out where he lives.”

  “He lives everywhere and nowhere. He spends quite a bit of time in one of my cells, too.” Buono frowned at the boy. “What are you up today?”

  “Nothing.”

  Buono turned to Nick.

  “You want me to take him off your hands?”

  Nick hesitated, then shook his head.

  “No, we’re fine. He helped me out in Hardwood yesterday, so I owe him one.”

  “Did you find what you were looking for at the planning commission?”

  “Not really. But it was worth a shot.”

  Buono nodded, looking conflicted.

  “Short of what we talked about earlier, is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Probably not. I’ll just have to wing it.”

  “What’re you gonna do?”

  Nick considered a moment, then shrugged.

  “Maybe I’ll just walk up to the castle and knock on the front door.”