Broken Wings (John Hardesty Z04 Book 3)

by Clay Moore

  "Good, now there is just that last gang leader. Does anyone here have one of those electronic flash bangs?"

  One of the team members raised his hand diffidently. "I have one."

  "How many of those do you have?"

  "I have one on me, and the rest of the ammo box that they came in is in the armory. A total of 12."

  The problem with flashbangs is to be useful you have to have both your eyes and ears available. This electronic version of the flashbang did not use gunpowder, or Radamite to produce the bang and the flash. That used the battery pack which fired off a very high-powered strobe and played an explosion at high decibels. Traditional use is with pairs. Two flashbangs in different parts of a room would make sure to affect the maximum number of people. He was just going to have one man probably sitting behind his desk.

  "Give me your flashbang. I'll trade you my submachine blaster."

  The team member smiled and took from his foul weather jacket pocket the flashbang. John took off his submachine blaster and handed it to the team member who gave him the flashbang. Then John took out the extra submachine blaster magazines. He had that those over to the team member. The team member looked up at John with adoring eyes. Perhaps this one could make it through the Z-level training, thought John.

  This new flashbang uses the same chassis as the old flashbang, but with one new item. There was a crystal lens that took up most of the body of the flashbang. It cited that Crystal was the high-powered strobe that would dazzle most people. The rest the part that was a metal casing contained the battery and the controls. At the bottom of the cylindrical device was a big red button. All you had to do was remove the plastic cap. The reed switch could be activated by either slapping the flashbang against her thigh or depressing it with the phone or another finger. Once you press that red button, you had three seconds to throw it and get out of the way.

  John knew that if he were the paranoid gang leader he would have some way of controlling who could get onto the penthouse floor. That met every gang member had to have one of those devices. Considering the technological backwater that snake eyes were, it had to be something simple. Perhaps it might be a card of some sort.

  John went to the furthest gang member. He rifled through that man's pockets pulling out everything. He sat all the objects out onto the thin, expensive carpet. The man did not look like a smoker of new tobacco, so the liner was an anomaly. There were mechanical keys, as well as the electronic keys for the new grav-cats. This gang member also had a coin purse in which he had several silver pieces from Eridani. Replace all the coins in the coin purse and tossed it Oliver. There was nothing that looked like it could possibly be related to the penthouse. He went to the middle gang member and rifled through his pocket. Just ordinary things that a man might carry in his pants pocket. He went to the last gang member. Again he struck out.

  He put his hand to his four head trying to figure out how a gang member would try to keep people out of his penthouse. It had to be a pass of some sort. The most difficult passes can actually be embedded in the skin of a trusted employee.

  He moved the body left and right trying to see if there was something that he had missed during the search. As he did that right arm of the body flopped left and right. As it moved a golden color flashed. John stopped and looked at his right hand. On the index finger of his right hand was a gold signet ring with an etched Dragon. John tried to pull off the ring, but some bloating had occurred. He pulled out his fighting knife from its sheath in the suit coat behind his neck. John pulled the body so that it laid on its stomach. With one swift stroke, he removed that forefinger. He was able to pull the ring off.

  In studying the gang mentality, John knew that they use some sort of talisman as a marker for those people who were a member. In fact just about any organization that uses male members asked to have something like that. The fraternal order of sub-light pilots has a ring very similar to this. Only it uses an old nuclear-powered ship as its emblem. In this case, there was an added dimension of ownership of the Dragon mega-casino. Perhaps the gang leader thought he was smart and giving every man or woman, and his organization a ring instead of an ID card. In a way, it is somewhat astute of the gang leader to do this. What gang member could turn down a gold ring.

  John tossed the ring in his hand. He closed his fingers around the ring and put it in his right coat. The thing about modern technology is that it makes certain things you have to do moot. You don't have to touch the ring to a panel for it to identify you. Just have it on your person, and the sensors in the door will read you. The gang member was much shorter than he was, so he was not going to chance to put the ring on his finger.

  He could walk all those flights of stairs up to the penthouse. That would be stupid. While he was fleshing out the enemy, it made sense to go up floor by floor. He walked over to the bank of elevators. As soon as he got within range of the left elevator sensor it opened. He got into the car and pressed PH.

  While the car door was closing, John went through a litany of tests to ensure that the car was not booby-trapped. He tapped the floor to see if any part seemed a little loose. Then he looked the light fixtures to see if there were any explosives. The final trick was to stand on the handrails and push up that ceiling hatch. He looked all away around him and saw that there were no assassins, or bomb emplacements. John struck back so fast that they probably did not have any chance to set up any defenses other than their own bodies.

  John hopped off the handrails. He noticed that he was coming to the 64th floor, or the penthouse, as it was called. John drew out his blaster pistol. He was determined not to give this gang leader any chance. The doors had not wholly opened when he saw the gang leader behind his desk with a submachine blaster. He fired a burst of submachine gun fire at the opening doors. John threw himself against the right wall of the elevator car. He almost didn't make it. John felt a small burn like touching a burner on the stove passed by his left arm. He looked at his left arm. His gray suit was charred just a little. About a 5 mm hole was made in the suit oat.

  "Well that's another suit that I have to have remade," muttered John.

  It was a little awkward for John to shoot. He was a better shot with his right hand that he was with his left hand. And how he was standing now pinned his right arm against the front side of the elevator car. The car's door was now completely open. John took advantage of it and of the slight deafness that could occur when firing a submachine blaster inside. He jumped in the elevator car to the left side. More submachine gun blaster fire followed him but was cut off by the combination of wall and elevator car wall. As he expected, he seemed to bounce off the left wall because he hit his left arm almost flush on the wall. He rebounded, so to speak, from that wall and ended up looking at the gang member straight on.

  The gang member had let his submachine gun drop a little. When John suddenly appeared in the elevator car doorway, he was surprised for a fraction of a second. That fraction of a second with all that it took John to get to his knee and fire a single blaster shot at his enemy.

  It was neat. It wasn't pretty. It did get the job done. John would never know this gang managed to keep and maintain control over a make a casino like this. This was only the second highest credit generating casino on snake eyes.

  Slowly he walked into the leader's office. He kept his gun leveled at the body that was draped over the desk. John could see the computer terminal just behind the counter. He needed to crack that terminal. Part of the information that he wanted might be in it, or it might give an idea of who to approach next.

  John touched the earpiece in his right ear and said, "Oliver, you guys can come up now."

  "We don't have the Dingus that we need to open up the elevator door."

  "You probably know this gang leader better than I. What would be an appropriate password for him."

  "What passes for public schools on snake eyes are big into Roman history, and I mean ancient Roman history."

  "Did this guy seem mega
lomaniacal you?"

  "I think half of the gang members on the silly planet are more than megalomaniacal."

  "Did you see the content of the history classes of school districts?"

  "Of course. As one of the first things that they tell you at the station chief to do, especially if you are the first one at that station. Get a broad base of information about the planet. I know that some of the worlds that we might come up against, or we might need to help have not been contacted by any of the higher technology worlds. That's part of my job is to help any Z level agent with the knowledge that he needs to complete his mission."

  "And when there is no Z-level agent on the planet?"

  "Essentially since so many reports into headquarters that eventually we will have an excellent primer on the world."

  "Well, you remember your station chief training."

  "Okay, I think we will break up when we get into the elevator car. The door's just opened."

  "If anyone asks you how I quickly sleaze their security, I asked my AI on my ship to see if she could charm this hunk of silicon."

  "No one will hear that from me. Well, I'm just about ready to walk in see you in a few."

  John removed his data stick that really was a transmitter to his ship. Rosie did indeed enter the gang leader's computer. She rewrote some security protocols and in deftly left. He pocketed the data stick in his inner right coat pocket. About that time the second set of elevator doors opened. John knew that they were coming, but it always was a good practice to draw down on someone coming from behind you.

  He was pleased to see that everyone jumped one side or the other of the elevator car. He suddenly found that he had no targets. John reseated his blaster in his shoulder holster.

  "Sorry guys, a force of habit, one that I think that you might want to emulate."

  Oliver stuck his head in the elevator doorway. The brown-haired man looked so funny and had an expression of shock that John couldn't suppress a small chuckle. Oliver smiled. He managed to find his legs and walk into the doorway.

  "Well," said Oliver, "I suddenly realize that I need a new pair of undershorts."

  "I wanted to get my hands on Anton so quickly that I forgot how many hours are in a day here."

  "Each day consists of 24 hours here. Each solar day is 48 hours here. The planetary engineers decided to train the snake eyes, colonists, that they should simply divide each day by 24 hours and number at something like day 1.1 and day 1.2."

  "Well leave it to the engineers to come up with a practical solution." John checked his watch what was supposed to adjust itself to the time of any planet that it was on. Sure enough, it said that the time was day 306.1 and the time was 2300 hrs.

  "I've been up that long?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Okay, I want you to vacuum the computer. Go to this office with a fine tooth comb. If you need to cause damage, you can go ahead and do that, because this is not part of the customer experience. By the end of tomorrow, I would like to have this casino backup and running. I'm sure you check the casino's credit accounts you would probably find a huge stash. Use it to broadcast that you are reopening on that day."

  "You're talking about marketing?"

  "Yes, I'm going back to the station house an crash on my cot in my room. Give me eight hours and then someone a better get me up, but be ready to duck."

  It seemed to Anton Hecton that life was getting a little more hectic since the new gang took over the Dragon. Anton did not have the balls to send one of his operatives over to the Dragon to see what they were doing. All the casinos agreed that they would collect 5% on every wager. They had to make the odds work that way to pay for their high overhead. What all the new owners of the Dragon had to do was give back two percentage points. They could even give back 99% of what was wagered in the one-armed bandits. The Dragon would still make a lot of money, but not the amount of money that they were used to.

  Anton slapped himself in the head. If it got round to the players that the Dragon had better odds, they would go there and wager. All it would take is a slight change in the payout of some of the games for the players to see some money come their way. It was the illusion of wealth coming their way that kept them coming back to the casino.

  A loud rap on his door told him that it had to be Falstaff, his personal assistant. The staff was now apprised that they had to knock and wait five seconds before they entered the door. Anton hated to do that, but he really didn't understand what was going on in the Dragon. Was whatever happened at the Dragon aimed at him, or was it merely a gang play. Falstaff entered Anton's office.

  Falstaff opened the door and took out his slate. He started walking into the office but slowed way down when he noticed all the suitcases, boxes, and bags scattered about the room. Like most things associated with Anton Hecton, the office was a front. Beyond the door on the left wall was his very spacious apartment. The only way into that apartment was from the room. That was why the office door was made of vault quality battle steel. All the walls that people could get to also had a sandwich of battle steel, ceramic, battle steel. This was one of the best armorers that Naval architects could come up with for the fleets.

  “Do you see something that troubles you, Falstaff?"

  For the first time, Falstaff realized that he had actually stopped on his way to Anton's desk. He gulped thinking that it might be his last.

  "I've always wondered why you stand in front of my desk and you don't take one of the two seats in front of my desk?”

  "I guess that comes from my military training. You are the commanding officer of this operation. I am just your assistant. When I had to deliver a report to a commanding officer, my search might be required while I delivered that report."

  "Remind me. You are from Alphacent, correct?"

  "Yes, sir. What gave it away?"

  “The first thing is your accent. You must have been raised in the upper middle levels of the cities."

  "Yes, sir."

  "I'm from Alphacent, myself. I was raised as a groundling."

  "Wow, sir. You sure did make it a long way."

  “Yes, I did. The second thing that I noticed about you is that you dress appropriately for your level on Alphacent. I like a little bit of style, so I don't think I fit in the upper-level social class. They would smell it on me as soon as I walked up in a garish psychedelically colored suit. Whenever one of the upper crust raises their nose at me, I use the power of that wealth to find out who they work for, or if they owned business. I then set about to destroy that company. Some of these people did not know how to slide down the social ladder. They took the coward's way out. It saved me the cost of the blaster round.

  “There are a few other things that I noticed. But they're of no consequence. You had something to say to me, so say it."

  "The Dragon has been captured by the owning gang, by another gang. They are calling themselves 'the gang of 12.' "

  Anton sat very still. He stared into the eyes of Falstaff, who realized that Anton was furious. He did the best thing that he could do, and that was to keep quiet. Finally, Anton stood up and looked out the window behind him.

  For a few minutes, he looked at all of the flying grav-cars. He often wondered how many accidents there were because of the lack of laws and those to enforce them. For the first time in his life, he wished he had police protection. He did not know if that would keep this gang at bay, but it would sure make him feel good. After a while, he felt his emotions fall back to where he wanted them. He turned from the window and looked at his personal assistant.

  “I apologize for that,” said Anton. "I usually try to keep myself in check. My anger got me to my position, but it is not going to help me stay here."

  “That's no problem, sir. We all have our breaking points."

  "Tell me all that you know about who took over the Dragon."

  "It appears that about 2200 hrs. That a man wearing a gray suit entered the main entrance to the Dragon make a casino. What some unreliable
witness say is that he approached one of the female blackjack dealers who is known to be the girlfriend of the gang leader that owns the Dragon. At that point, the gang leader must have pressed the repel boarders button. The first gang member arrived at the main room on the first floor brandishing a submachine pistol. He was immediately shot dead by the man in the gray suit. This witness says that it took a few seconds before everyone realized that there had been a shooting in the main room. That is all I have. The other is all conjecture based on conflicting reports from various other interests.”