Kris Longknife's Bloodhound, a novella

by Mike Shepherd

  “So, we need to track someone off the grid,” the boss said. She gnawed her lower lip for a long moment, then made her call. “Agent Chu, you are authorized to access the Prometheus database. I will have a letter added to your file from me authorizing this as soon as I can get back to my desk. Get started on it now.”

  Both Taylor’s and Leslie’s eyebrows shot up. Prometheus was a project left over from the long ago Iteeche War. It took in all the take from every camera on Wardhaven, both private and public, and collected it into one huge database. Officially, no one had access to it. Taylor had not even dared to ask to access it to track Kris Longknife, but had made due with the usual piecemeal data pulls that the authorities regularly used.

  Prometheus was so off limits that officially, it didn’t exist. Still, parliament regularly granted the small sums needed to increase the project’s storage servers the tiny staff of technicians needed to handle the new feeds that they kept adding to the project.

  It was too powerful for anyone to use, but also too powerful for those in power to give up.

  Taylor’s boss would be in very hot water when it was found she’d authorized its use. Prometheus, being moribund, had no procedures for authorizing access. No ones authority, not even the prime minister’s, included granting access to Prometheus.

  No doubt, that topic would come up later.

  Chapter 14

  Two hours later, Taylor was wondering what all the excitement was about Prometheus. It didn’t appear to be worth a damn.

  Of course, part of the problem was that they were accessing data in the vicinity of the Longknife Tower. Taylor had concluded that the tower would be the perfect place to pick up the trail of Security Specialist Kittikon.

  He was very wrong.

  In the recent past, while in hot pursuit of Kris Longknife, Taylor had gained some personal experience with the level of security at Longknife Tower. He had not been impressed.

  Now, the agent began to wonder if that atrociously poor quality was an intended feature rather than a byproduct of poor management or tightfisted folly.

  The cameras feeding Prometheus went down time and time again, usually during the height of the business day.

  Leslie had several recent photos of Security Specialist Kittikon. After an hour of running it through the database, going back over everyone recorded entering the tower for the last six weeks, they did not have a single hit on him.

  “Maybe if we back our search away from the tower’s cameras. Get into territory where the cameras don’t go up and down like ping pong balls,” Leslie suggested.

  So they backed the search out. That gave them a lot more data to run through, both because it covered a lot more territory, and because it didn’t have gaping holes in the coverage

  It was late at night, and they’d only done a week, when Taylor insisted they go home. “The machine will have something to tell us tomorrow morning and that will be soon enough.”

  He got Leslie to leave by asking her for a ride home.

  His kids were delighted to see him. His wife let them fawn over him for a long hour, even condescended to play a board game with them, then showed them off to bed and led him by the hand to their bed.

  “You were missed,” she whispered, then showed him why he hadn’t taken all that much interest in the orgy by the pool. When he came up for air, she cuddled close.

  “Don’t you ever terrify me like that again.”

  “I was never in any danger, love.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I wasn’t, really. They intended to keep me out of circulation for two or three weeks, then turn me loose with the threat of releasing some very embarrassing pictures if I complained.”

  “How were they going to get the pictures?”

  “You can do a lot with computers these days. Leslie told me the bureau had me on camera the entire time they had me. I was a good boy.”

  “No doubt you were,” she said, and pulled him close. “You’re my good boy, remember that.”

  “With moments like these, how could I not?” he said, and held her close until she began to breathe softly in sleep.

  Only then did he shudder.

  If he’d been held the entire two weeks, he had no idea how it might have ended. Could he have stayed good? If he had, would they have been happy to create their blackmail video or would someone have decided that a dead agent was worth the risk?

  For the millionth time, he thanked any God listening that he had a team as good as his and a boss so understanding.

  Somehow he fell asleep.

  Next morning, it was the sound of his boys arguing with his daughter that woke him. She was for a nutritious breakfast. They were for something less so. She won before he managed to make it downstairs. She was rather proud of herself that she had fixed breakfast for the four of them.

  “You’ll serve mom later, won’t you Dad?”

  “Of course, dear.”

  They seemed to linger at the door until he sent them on their way with a series of hugs and promises to be there when they got home, then he did prepare toast and applesauce for his slumbering wife.

  Or not so slumbering. She was waiting for him as he brought the tray upstairs. Can a wife sexually assault her husband?

  Is it assault if he is a willing participant?

  It didn’t matter who jumped whose bones. They leapt at the same moment.

  He was late getting back to the office.

  Security Specialist Kittikon was still eluding the mighty Prometheus.

  “We’ve covered the area around the tower. We’ve covered several of Alex Longknife’s other residences. We’ve gone over all the major and most of the minor offices of the Star Lines,” Leslie said. “Kittikon has not showed up at any of them in the last eight weeks.”

  “When did you come in this morning?” Taylor asked.

  “Early,” was the most specific any of his team would confess to.

  Taylor pulled up a chair and stared out the window for a long minute. Maybe two. Well, at least five.

  “Clearly,” he said slowly, “this Kittikon fellow does not want to be recognized. Kris Longknife was not recognized when she crossed the space station to the elevator, or aboard it either, now was she?”

  “Disguise,” Leslie said.

  “That would be kind of admitting that you were up to no good,” Rick said.

  “Clearly, he is not,” Mahomet concluded.

  “So, what do we have to go on?” Taylor asked.

  “His height,” Rick said. “We could make some allowance for elevator shoes or a slouch.”

  “And run it all again,” Leslie said, despair for the length of time clearly in her voice.

  “But we’re not just after him, now are we?” Taylor said, posing the question. “He had to be bringing in a skipper for that tender.”

  “Two people,” Leslie said, slowly.

  “Should we search for recent Navy destroyer captains now on the beach?” Rick asked.

  “It would not do us any good,” Mahomet pointed out, “If Kittikon is in full disguise, so would he or she be?”

  “So we hunt for two men. Or a man and a woman. No, two people?” Leslie said.

  Taylor smiled as his protégé caught on. “And we follow them out until they go into a rest room and come out different.”

  “This is going to take a lot of computer power,” Leslie said.

  “I’ll go talk to the boss.”

  The boss did her best, but Taylor did better. He used his new found in with a senior member of parliament to get access to the Ministry of Defense’s spare computers as well.

  Still, it took a whole lot more time than they had.

  A week later, Leslie bounced out of her chair and began doing a rather cute victory dance. “Yes! Yes! I have her!”

  “Her? I thought we were after a him?” Rick asked.

  “Yes, but he’s a her at the moment.”

  “Explain,” Taylor said.

  “Here
we have two well-dressed matrons entering a lady’s room at a shopping emporium about a mile from Longknife Tower. They never leave that room, not for the six hours until closing. No exit.”

  The team was gathering around to watch the action on the wall screen. Even the boss seemed to have been called in.

  “However, here we have two rather attractive young women leaving the facility, some fifteen minutes later. They never entered it. The computer spotted this discrepancy. I had it check all the way back and forward through the day, then follow the matrons back to the tower, or as close as we could get to it before the cameras puked out on us. They were in a taxi. One of the better ones. They left here in a town car. Again, one of the better ones.”

  “Is that Kittikon?” the boss asked.

  “Allowing for the minor discrepancy in gender, the computer gives us a 39.58% chance it’s Kittikon. That’s too low for us to normally get a hit on the search routine, but I lowered the threshold. The other ‘woman’ is as much a mystery. She doesn’t cause a hit in any of our searches. However, when I lowered the probability to 35%, I got 56 potential hits. What’s interesting is that one of them is a former destroyer skipper.”

  “Former?” the boss asked.

  “Commander Megan Zloben was relieved of her command by her superior for the rather general reason of ‘loss of confidence.’ What does that mean, boss?”

  Taylor made a face. “It means her superior no longer had confidence in her ability to command the ship.”

  “That sounds rather vague,” Leslie said. “And not all that fair.”

  “I have the file here,” Rick said. “It says she failed to properly mentor her subordinates.”

  “Gosh, boss,” Leslie said, eyes way too wide, “are you getting credit for making us a great team?”

  “Something like that,” his boss said. “It appears that this commander knows how to drive a ship, but not how to build a crew.”

  “And she’s on the beach,” Taylor said.

  “And a certain Alex Longknife is more interested in her driving a ship whether or not she drives her crew to drink.”

  “He’s likely paying top dollar,” Mahomet pointed out. “They can put up with a bit of Captain Bligh.”

  “So, where is she?” Taylor’s boss asked.

  “The computer is tracking the two of them. Their town car passed through several areas not under surveillance. When we next see it, it’s taking on a new fare,” Leslie reported. “I’ve got it working, ma’am.”

  “You keep it working. Taylor, you go home. This was supposed to be your vacation time, remember?”

  “My wife won’t let me forget.”

  It was two days later that they finally tracked them to a small villa down the coast.

  Chapter 15

  Despite the massive array of force that followed them to the villa, Taylor persuaded his boss into letting him just walk up and knock on the door. She did assure that two vanloads of select SWAT teams were just a short run away.

  Taylor’s knocked but no one answered.

  “Mr. Kittikon, Commander Zloben, I know you’re in there,” Taylor shouted.

  No one still answered.

  “I’m not going away. You may open the door, or I will open it, but either way, it is time we meet.”

  The security specialist opened the door a crack. He was bare chested and in his undershorts. Maybe gym shorts.

  “I’m here alone.”

  “Then you won’t mind me coming in to talk to you.”

  “As a matter of fact, I do mind, and you may not come in.”

  “Then I will share with you the search warrant I have to go over these premises.”

  “You have no reason to get a search warrant.”

  “Yes. Your file shows you have a law degree. However, I know a judge who lost her youngest daughter on the Furious under Kris Longknife’s command. She has a most intense interest in seeing that her daughter did not die in vain.”

  The door opened. Taylor was led into a wide sitting room. Commander Zloben was reclined on a leather couch in a most revealing tank top and even more revealing bikini underwear.

  “Good morning, Commander,” Taylor said, taking a seat in a matching leather chair across from her.

  “And you are?” she said, raising an eyebrow, but not coming to her feet.

  “I am Senior Chief Agent in Charge Taylor Foile. I have been on your trail for some time. I am glad to make your acquaintance.”

  “I don’t know why.” she said, waving Kittikon over. He settled beside her and she proceeded to stroke him in a most salacious manner.

  Taylor addressed himself to the security specialist. “The ships are fitting out. When is Commander Zloben taking command of the tender?”

  “You seem to know a lot more about this than I do. Why don’t you tell me?” he said, responding to her stoking by brushing aside the wisp of her top to begin stroking her erect nipple.

  So Taylor told the two of them the story he had pieced together. Several furtive and alarmed glances interrupted their affectation of foreplay to confirm Taylor’s suspicions.

  He had guessed right.

  “So, why don’t you tell me where the fleet is going?” Taylor concluded. “I suppose we could hold the two Longknife freighters and the tender in port, but I suspect that those three ships are not the entirety of the foolishness.”

  The commander pulled down the security man’s shorts and began fondling him in full view of the agent.

  “Why should I tell you anything?” she said.

  “Because, if these aliens run true to form, you and your crew will be dead in a couple of weeks if you don’t cooperate with us.”

  The commander actually interrupted her sex play to eye Taylor. “What makes you think that? You haven’t told me anything I don’t already know. I did watch the reports that came back with that Kris Longknife girl. But as for these aliens killing me, you have not thought this through. No, not at all,” she said, and returned her attention to her sex partner.

  “What do you think I’ve missed?” Taylor said.

  She didn’t even look back at him, but toyed like a cat with what was in front of her.

  “I command a fast tender. I refuel the ships when they need it, but that also means I can refuel myself any time I want to. I’ve got almost unlimited range,” she said, and demonstrated it by roving her fingernails, claw like, over Kittikon’s thighs and chest and all in between.

  “As I see it, when they meet up with the aliens, I hang well back. If things go well, I’m in on the ground floor of a huge profit maker. If it goes sour, well, I run,” she said, and ran her fingers up Kittikon’s chest, and back down.

  “After all, someone has to bring the word back, and I figure I can run just as fast as that Longknife brat.”

  “And the aliens will follow you back.”

  “Did they follow her back?” the commander asked, and applied herself to her toy, who responded with a delighted moan. “Let’s say, you’re right. The aliens find out where we are from the freighter’s nav gear. I still have a ship. I’ve got several cute boys and girls in its crew. I know some really wonderful desert planets that aren’t on anyone’s charts. I set myself up fine. Maybe I make a few trips out to get what we need. Maybe I sell passenger slots on my ship to folks that want to run too. I really don’t see a down side, mister-whoever-you-are. Now,” she said, slithering out of her bottom, “you interrupted a nice roll in the hay. If you want, you can stay and watch, but, please, be quiet.”

  Taylor had interrogated a lot of criminals in his time. He’d learned to use silence as a scalpel to cut through resistance and get to the cancerous tumor of crime. Never had he been at a loss for words.

  The total self-absorption and self-interest of this former Navy commander lolling in front of him left him speechless.

  He let himself out. Behind him, someone groaned. Someone else laughed.

  “Did what we think just happened actually happen?” came from Leslie
in his earbud.

  “It most certainly did,” Taylor whispered, as he made his way toward the Bureau’s surveillance van. “You can send the SWAT folks home, unless they want to make it an orgy.”

  “They’re taking a vote on that,” Leslie said.

  Taylor adjusted himself before he entered the van. Yes, he was intent on the mission, but he had eyes, and they were connected to a male brain.

  “So, what do we do?” his boss asked.

  “Rick, Leslie, monitor all communications from that house,” Taylor ordered.

  “I would think they’d be otherwise involved,” Rick said.”

  “We got a message coming out,” Leslie said.

  “As I expected, the display was to discomfort me,” Taylor said. “No doubt, it ended the moment I left the building.”

  “Damn,” Leslie said.”

  “Damn for what?” Taylor said.

  “For something interruptus,” Leslie said, “and for the message. It was just a squirt of something in code. And it was addressed to a number that isn’t in our database.”

  “The Bureau has every net number on the planet,” the boss said.

  “Not this one,” Leslie countered.

  “It must be nice to have produced and sold our planet’s communications security system,” Taylor said, dryly. “No doubt there are several numbers not in our database.”

  “I’m tracking that number,” Leslie said. “It just made a call to another one. It shot the same message out. Oh, and that number also isn’t one we know about. It’s going to another number. This may take a while.”

  “And, no doubt, the message is flashing faster than we are tracking it. It will get somewhere well before we follow it,” Taylor said.

  “No doubt,” his boss said. “Any idea what it says?”

  “If it says anything other than, ‘we’ve been found out,’ you may have my pension,” Taylor said.

  “I think you’re pension is safe,” she said. “So, what happens now?”

  “I suspect that a well laid plan will get sped up,” Taylor said. “Rick, check out the orders that were placed for cargo. How much has been delivered?”