Subversion_Age Of Expansion_A Kurtherian Gambit Series

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  “Hey!” Nothing. The sound wasn’t loud enough.

  “Hey, you!”

  That was louder.

  The man turned briefly, allowing Hughes to take a snapshot of his face before he set off running down the street.

  Gotcha, he thought, checking the image. It wasn’t perfect, but it was probably enough to get a facial rec off the system. He uploaded it immediately, just in case anything happened, and then started heading back to help his partner out.

  They were going to be in some shit for this, but at least they had a lead they didn’t have before. He shook his head at how cold he had become. No more sitting watching Dorota and her holoscreen dinners. He felt bad for the old girl.

  Conference room, Special Task Force Offices, Undisclosed location, Estaria

  The next morning tensions ran high as the agents assembled for their briefing.

  “Bravo team!” Carol called out, without waiting for everyone to settle down. “What can you report?”

  Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy from lack of sleep. It was probably safe to assume that she had been up all night since getting the call, working the case leads and simultaneously keeping the higher-ups in the loop so they didn’t do anything that might tie their hands in the wider investigation.

  Elroy stood hurriedly, pulling up slides of data on the main holoscreen. Dhashana’s head was down fielding incoming intel on her own holo. Even Cleavon looked frazzled, his shirt unironed and unstarched.

  The first image on the screen was a photograph of the murder scene, showing the road and the building where the sniper shot from. “Our ward was taken out by a sniper as she came out of the Department of Cyber Communications building. The agents on the ground were unable to stop it even though they were parked just across the road. In fairness to them, it’s worth noting that there was nothing they could have done – given that we were allowing Carpe to go into her place of work.”

  There was an awkward pause before he continued. “While Agent Riley secured the scene, Agent Hughes went after the shooter, estimating where he might be seen emerging. He managed to snap an image of the man we believe is responsible.”

  The next slide on the presentation showed a series of images of the shooter, dressed in black, carrying the holdall.

  “We’ve run facial recognition. It appears that this is our guy, except we’ve no identity for him. He is, however, wanted in connection with a series of suspicious events. Darfort, the Engleton bombing two years ago. There are shootings going back twenty years we can connect him to.” He gestured in the direction of Bates. “Even our esteemed leader has worked a case where this man was a suspect. But we’ve yet to obtain fingerprints or a single sample of DNA.”

  Dhashana’s attention was back on the briefing. “Each time he strikes it seems like he just picks up and disappears until the next time. No cyber trail, no money trail, no nothing.”

  Carol pulled herself closer to the table on her antigrav chair. She studied the two agents who had spoken so far. “This is true,” she admitted. “We nicked named him Sneaky Steve. We could never get an ID on him or tie him directly to anything. But now we know he’s involved. Arnold Sloth is involved. Our job now is to find a tangible link between the two and bring them both in. We need these men taken off the board. They are both to be considered armed and highly dangerous.”

  She glanced at Cleavon who was taking notes on his holo. “We’ve been trying for a long time to get Sneaky Steve, and data analysis has always been a bottleneck. As you know, our technological capabilities are now greatly improved. Our best course of action now is to use these enhanced capabilities to find the links we need to locate them.” She focused on Bravo team. “Your job is to follow communications and money trails. Find anything and everything that might be useful in finding out who these men are working for, and where they are. As soon as you have anything, you’re to report to me. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” they chorused.

  Cleavon raised his hand. “Ma’am, there is still the issue of the other ward. Suedemann.”

  “Take him into protective custody and get him into a safe house. We may need him later.”

  Cleavon actioned the order immediately, tapping a message to the agents who were watching Suedemann.

  “Anything else?” Carol asked.

  No one else dared mention anything. Raza and Soraya knew they should just get on and help Bravo team. They didn’t need to be told about that.

  Alisha and Joshua glanced at each other. They knew that their investigation was going to tie up with the Bravo team assignment anyway. They just needed to crunch some data. Rhodez knew what he needed to do too.

  There was a flurry of activity as Carol dismissed them all, and the agents filed out of the room.

  They all knew it was just a matter of time before the facial rec system would give them a location on Sneaky Steve – and then all hell would break loose.

  They needed to be ready for it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Special Task Force Offices, Undisclosed location, Estaria

  Nearly a whole day had gone by when the alert went out. Sneaky Steve had been spotted heading into a motel on the east side of the city, miles from where the shooting had taken place.

  Joshua glanced down at the alert on his holo. He knew exactly what it was before he even read it. The fact that everyone’s was going off at once meant only one thing.

  They were sending in a SWAT team. He opened the message. He’d been selected to attend. One look at Alisha told him she was heading out too.

  The pair moved, along with another half dozen teammates toward the doors from the office. Protocol dictated that they head down to the locker rooms, change, and then head out to the weapons locker where they would be collected and taken to the location.

  The excitement pumped his body full of adrenaline. He would be ready. They’d run the routine several dozen times in training, but this was the first time they would be doing it for real.

  Alisha looked pale, but her eyes were wide. “I’m beginning to regret that second mocha I had this afternoon,” she whispered to him as he held the door for her.

  “You’ll be fine,” he reassured her. “Just a walk in the park.”

  She smiled, hurrying ahead to catch the elevator that would take them further into the labyrinth.

  Rhodez watched the chosen few leave and sat back down in his console chair. He hoped they’d do okay. Whether he was there with them or not, he wanted them to win. He just realized that if he wasn’t there, he couldn’t influence things. He couldn’t protect anyone. Specifically, Alisha. He would just have to trust that Joshua was sufficiently motivated.

  Morðingi Motel, East side, Spire

  The truck doors opened and the agents piled out on the street, creating a trickle of armored bodies that parted and flowed in two different directions around the motel, most to the front, some to the back.

  Joshua followed behind the body he knew to be Alisha. If there was any rearrangement in order, though, it would be difficult to know who was who between the heavy gear, impaired vision of the helmets, and general confusion that always went along with these busts.

  “The last sighting of our target was twenty minutes ago from a traffic cam on the other side of the street. He is checked in under the name of Hermit Rogers.” Carol Bates was in every agent’s ear – no doubt sitting watching everything from the tactical support vehicle that was already on location when they arrived. Joshua had clocked it just a few hundred feet up the street.

  “When you’re all in position I will give the go-ahead. You go on my mark and not a second before, agents.”

  Joshua felt weird not answering her with a ‘yes, ma’am.’ Given their location, Alisha was going to be the one to make the breach. He didn’t know if he should offer to do it for her. He didn’t know whether that would insult her, or if she was nervous about being the one on the sharp end. But then, he reasoned, he would be more likely to kick the door down i
n one go. That would give them the element of surprise and keep them all safer.

  He ran up the stairs double time. One of the agents in front of him had taken the motel owner aside and presumably out of the front door, pumping him for intel all the way.

  In no time at all they were outside the door. 112. This was it.

  Alisha stood aside. She was breathing heavily, her goggles steaming up slightly. It was time to act. The other agent in front of him stood back as well. Looks like they all agreed he was kicking it down.

  He moved into position, checked that Alisha was ready and then swung forward. With the first kick the door moved under his foot but didn’t break, either at the lock or at the point of impact.

  More welly, he told himself.

  He swung forward and kicked it again, this time as hard as he possibly could. The door frame snapped, splintering. He pushed into the weak point again and then got out of the way, allowing Alisha to trample over the top of the broken wood into the room. Her weapons were held firmly outstretched, sweeping the room for any signs of life and movement.

  She stopped suddenly mid sweep to the left.

  She’d found her target.

  The second agent was already in after her, also moving to the left. Joshua waited a moment, and then followed the two in, covering off the space on the right-hand side of the room.

  They had him.

  He heard Alisha call it in over the holo.

  “Okay, take him,” Carol’s voice commanded in their audio pieces.

  “Wait, wait!” the man protested. He wore normal indoor clothes, but there was no doubt he was the man they’d been studying from the holo image all afternoon. He moved from the left of the room, toward the window. Joshua’s eyes scanned the area to see if there was a way he could use the window to escape. They were only on the first floor. Even if he jumped backward he would live.

  “I can tell you things,” the man continued. “You want to know who I work for right? I have evidence on all of them. On what they’re plotting. Everything. I can—”

  Alisha had left her comm open so that Carol could hear everything. Carol interjected. “Take him!” she repeated.

  Joshua felt Alisha’s hesitation.

  And then there was a loud bang.

  The man stopped suddenly, his expression changing before he fell. Joshua moved forward, looking at Alisha. Her face was frozen in shock. But he noticed her finger was still along the side of the weapon. He glanced in the direction of the body. Already there were other agents filing into the room through the broken door, fanning out, stomping, calling the word “clear” from the different rooms.

  Joshua stepped forward again. The man’s shirt was white, with a crimson patch growing on the back, through where the heart would have been. No exit wound though. More like the size of an entry.

  Then he noticed the glass around the body.

  Windowpane glass.

  Then he felt the breeze. The air was coming into the room from the outside. He moved across the glass, knowing he shouldn’t be disturbing it, but he was compelled.

  He looked out of the window, across the street.

  It couldn’t be. Was it his imagination? He could have sworn he saw someone closing the window. It was difficult to see anything though. It might have been nothing.

  He looked back at Alisha. She shook her head, and that told him everything he needed to know.

  She. Didn’t. Fire.

  He muted his holo, and signalled for her to do the same. “Come on,” he told her. “Let’s get you some air.” He made sure that the others saw him lead her out as if she were in shock for shooting someone.

  He led her back out of the motel and down into the lobby. An EMT team were just heading into the building, along with any number of agents and analysts who were ready to start collecting evidence.

  Or doing a clean-up.

  “I didn’t—” she started.

  He hushed her. “I know. But that means there is someone else out there who did.”

  Alisha was even paler than when they had started. “We need to tell Director Bates.”

  “Yes. Okay. But… are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Confused. But I think so,” she told him.

  “Okay. Go find that service truck. I think it was just up the street.”

  “You’re not coming?”

  “No, I’m going to go see if I can find out who actually shot our target.”

  Alisha tried to grab his wrist, but he had already taken off onto the street.

  Joshua scanned up and down the road, trying to filter out all the activity that should be there to try and figure out what shouldn’t. He thought about heading across the road and trying the alley. That was how Agent Hughes had caught Sneaky Steve. But he had a head start. From here, he could see who was going to emerge. He stepped back out of the way, against the wall of the motel building.

  He waited there, out of the way of the clean-up crews and officials, watching.

  +++

  Alisha banged on the truck door. For a horrible moment she questioned herself, wondering if it were just a service vehicle and not the ops van.

  Then she heard movement.

  The door opened, and there sat Carol Bates, a headset on and the operational device on two fingers of one hand, which would be used to control the specialist equipment, allowing her to zoom in, or replay at the twitch of a muscle.

  “Get in,” Carol told her briskly, glancing around to see if anyone was watching them.

  Alisha hauled herself in and Carol slammed the door closed after her. “What’s the problem, Agent?”

  Alisha felt the adrenaline shock her anew. “Sorry to bother you ma’am but I thought you should know. I wasn’t the one to take the shot. The target was hit by a sniper outside.”

  Carol frowned. For a second Alisha was sure there was a flash of recognition across her face. But then it was gone. “You mean you didn’t follow the order?” Carol asked pointedly.

  “No, ma’am. I hesitated. I thought you should know in case there is something else going on that we didn’t know about.”

  Carol busied herself with the array of open holoprojectors, carefully ticking off a checklist as if wrapping everything up. Eventually she stopped and turned to the agent stooped awkwardly in front of her. “I think you need to consider your report carefully. Disobeying a direct order in the heat of the moment doesn’t bode well for a long career in the department… if you understand me.”

  Alisha shuffled back half a step, confused. “You mean, you want me to lie on my report?”

  Carol shrugged deliberately. “I’m just saying, if your report says anything other than you pulled the trigger, you should know that that would require me to order a course of psychological tests and probably months of therapy.”

  “But, that would mean the end of my career in the field,” Alisha protested.

  Carol pursed her lips. “I know. So think hard, Agent.”

  Alisha frowned. “But when they find the bullet…?”

  “They will find it was fired from the appropriate service weapon.”

  There was an awkward pause. Carol returned her attention to her screens.

  “You know who did it,” Alisha realized.

  Carol stopped again, and this time responded in a voice so low Alisha could barely make it out. “We couldn’t risk this target getting away. And you did hesitate, Agent Montella.”

  Alisha suddenly understood. It was just back up. So Carol knew about it. So lying on an official report was all right, then. “Right. Okay. I’ll get my report done before I go home,” she promised.

  “Thank you, agent.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Alisha tugged at the handle to the door and let herself out, back into the bustling real world, unsheltered by the sanctity of the ops van.

  She needed to talk to Joshua. He needed to know. Apart from anything, she really didn’t want to be doing anything off-book without at least looping him in on it. Besides, he might have some la
st words of advice for her, ones that could stop her from going through with it…

  Outside the Morðingi Motel, East side, Spire

  Hans exited out into the back alleyway, the sound of sirens filling the air as more reinforcements showed up. Red and blue flashing lights penetrated even the daylight, illuminating the area for anyone who happened upon the scene.

  His job was done, and now he needed to get out of there. Not that anyone was going to be looking for him. It was doubtful anyone even realized that he was the one that delivered the death blow. Apart from maybe the agent who was supposed to have pulled the trigger. She was probably confused.

  He re-ran his view through the scope in his mind’s eye. There was no doubt in his mind that it was Alisha. But as long as she played along, there was nothing for anyone to worry about. They were just taking down a dangerous killer.

  And yet, there was an unsettled feeling in his stomach.

  He opened his holo and connected a call. A male voice answered. “It’s done,” Hans told him simply.

  “Good. I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come in.”

  “Yes sir,” Hans responded, before hanging up the call.

  He hurried past the gap in the alley which led down to the street. He caught a glimpse of the police and the SWAT team. It was time to get well away from here as fast as he could.

  ***

  Joshua’s eyes never left the gap in the alley. He had a fifty-fifty chance of seeing the shooter leaving the building. Half the probability said he’d turn the other way. The other half said he’d leave past this side street.

  He was just beginning to think his guy had gone the other way when he saw a figure. Normal passers-by would slow their walk or turn to see what the commotion was about.

  This figure didn’t. He just kept walking, as if in a hurry. In a hurry and dressed all in black.

  It was too obvious, was it not? he mused to himself. Then, just at the last second, the figure turned and stole a glimpse in the direction of the noise.

  He didn’t have time to get his holo up, but there was no doubt in his mind he knew who the figure was. It was Hans Duo, their classmate—and now teammate. The one that got the special assignments with the director’s husband. The one that seemed to get special treatment in the university. The one that came to them through unconventional means.