Kop

by Hammond, Warren

  “Look who’s the rich boy. Are you trying to impress me?” His S’s whistled.

  I added another forty thousand to the pile.

  “What’s going on here? Who are you?”

  “I’m your savior. Do you really talk like that?”

  “No.”

  “Then cut it out. How much do you owe?”

  “Who are y—”

  I slugged him in the gut. The air burst out of his lungs. A kick took his legs out, and he thudded to the floor. His wig fell off, landing like a dead cat. He tried to roll away. I grabbed him by the hair and shoved the wig in his mouth.

  “You listen to me, asshole! You work for me now. You will never ask me any questions, and when I ask you a question, I expect an answer. Do you understand?”

  He was sucking air through his nose. I pinched it shut. “Do you understand?”

  He nodded, his nose tugging at my wobbly hand.

  I let go and yanked the wig out; saliva strands clung to the synthetic hair. “How much do you owe?”

  “Hundred and ninety thousand.” Lispless.

  “I have eighty thousand on the bed there. It’s yours.”

  He nodded again, confused.

  “Here’s what you’re going to do. You will pay off your debts using that money as a first payment. You will not gamble with any of my money. You will quit prostitution, and you will absolutely not go back to doping. Do you understand?”

  “Why?”

  “No questions!” I slapped him hard. He yelped. I slapped him again. I said, “Do you understand?” He was guarding his face with his hands now, peeking at me through his fingers. “Do you understand?” My voice was insistent.

  “No,” he said with a whimper. “I don’t understand, and that wasn’t a question.”

  “You’re right,” I said with a leer. “That wasn’t a question. What don’t you understand?”

  He spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully, trying to avoid any semblance of a question. “I don’t understand what I’d have to do to earn that money.”

  “Here’s what you have to do,” I said. “You have to go to the spaceport tomorrow morning and apply for a job with a new company called Lagarto Lines. They have a freighter to crew and you will offer your services as an engineer. You can do that can’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so.”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t know. Tell me you understand. Tell me you will do it.”

  He was slow in answering. His eyes moved back and forth between me and the money. I saw the way he looked at the money. I had him. I just had to wait him out. He studied me. He studied the money. I kept waiting. Finally, he said, “I’ll do it.”

  “If your bookie asks you where you got the money, you will tell him you stole it from one of your tricks.”

  “Okay.”

  I nodded. “You better be smart enough to realize that this is the best day of your life. You do as I say, and your debt will disappear.”

  “If I don’t?”

  I stomped on his hand. “No questions!”

  He screamed. He held his damaged hand up in the air. One finger stood badly out of whack.

  I whispered in his ear. “I’ll be watching you.” Then I walked out.

  Maggie, Abdul, and I pored over the financials, an exhaustive workup on their assets and liabilities. Niki brought in tea every few hours. Spreadsheets and loan documents floated all over the room. Maggie ran computer analyses and hypotheticals on the numbers. Abdul hmmphed and uh-huhed through the data. My brain had given up trying to understand any of it hours ago. I just waited patiently for their analyses.

  I told them both my plan. What I needed to know was if it would work. They were skeptical at first, shocked by the utter audacity of it, but the deeper they delved into the reports, the more enthusiasm they showed for the idea. My assessment was proving accurate.

  Carlos Simba: He was stretched skin thin. Every asset he had was put up as collateral for the four loans he took from offworld banks to buy his freighter. He was barely keeping up on his payments. Taking over the Bandur organization was creating a huge cash drain. He was paying out far more in payroll than he was taking in, while Bandur’s former pimps, dealers, and shylocks were taking advantage of the outfit’s disorganized state by reporting reduced profits or not paying Simba at all.

  Chief of Police Diego Banks: His grip on KOP was tenuous at best. Paul used to pay his police followers with money from a Bandur slush fund that Simba was now regularly raiding to make his freighter payments. As a result, Chief Banks had been forced to trim down the payouts to cops. Cops were grumbling, one step from mutiny.

  Mai Nguyen: She was out of the O racket all together. She had legitimized her drug business eleven years ago by converting 80 percent of her holdings into two legit companies, one a restaurant chain that serviced the Orbital and the mines, the other an employment agency that was used as a cover for the slave trade. She had used the restaurant chain as collateral for the two loans she took out to buy into Simba’s new shipping company.

  If they could stay the course, they’d solidify their power. Slave money was already flooding in with the new shipping line. They’d been severely limited trying to smuggle a containerful here and there. Now they had their own slave ship. I spent three nights at the spaceport and counted 206 slaves passing through a fence hole in the dead of night.

  The path to my revenge was obvious: end the slave trade. If I could do it, both Simba and Nguyen would default on their loans. The effects would domino from there. The banks would seize Simba’s assets, and his organization would implode. There were a thousand crime-boss wannabes out there just waiting for such an opportunity. Simba and Tipaldi wouldn’t survive for long before somebody did to them what they’d done to Bandur and Sasaki.

  As for Nguyen, the banks would seize her restaurant chain, and her employment agency would be rendered worthless with no slaves to place. She’d be ruined. And Chief Banks? Without Simba’s money to buy cop loyalty, his tenure as chief would be very temporary.

  Mayor Samir would go down with the rest of them. His fate was tied too closely to Simba and Banks. The power vacuum left by Simba and Banks would launch the city into criminal and police anarchy. The fragile balance that Paul and Ram Bandur created between KOP and the criminal element would dissolve. A mayoral election was coming in less than a year. He’d be voted out by a landslide.

  Niki poured a new round of tea for us and sat down next to me.

  I said, “What do you think, Maggie?”

  Maggie blew on her tea and took a careful sip. “I think you’re right. If you succeed, they’ll be cleaned out. They don’t have enough reserve funds to survive the hit—financially, that is.”

  “And you’re sure that Lagarto Lines isn’t insured?”

  “I’m sure. No offworld insurance company is willing to insure a Lagartan company, and the Lagartan insurance companies don’t have the capital to underwrite a freighter.”

  My blood surged. I could do this. I could make a difference. “Abdul?”

  Abdul sighed. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

  “I’m sure. There’s no other way. I might be able to score some vid evidence by hanging around the spaceport with a camera, but the vids wouldn’t go anywhere. The mayor and Simba are in charge now. The DAs won’t take up the cause, and the press won’t run the story. Hell, even if we could get the press to plaster it all over the news, the mayor’s people would discredit the vids as fakes. They’d claim there was some offworld conspiracy by the other shipping companies to close down Lagarto Lines. You know that people would eat it up—a lone Lagartan company battling the offworld powers. At the very best, we’d force Mayor Samir to create a sham commission to investigate the matter. Six months later, they’d issue a report saying they found nothing.”

  Abdul walked to the window. He talked with his back to us. My plans were too ugly for him to face. “You know the slave trade won’t end. It’s too profitable.
”

  “I know it won’t, but I’ll knock Simba and Nguyen out of the business. It will take a while for somebody else to step in and take over. Think of how many people will be saved in the interim. And when somebody does take over, they won’t have a slave ship to use. They’ll have to go back to smuggling slaves through on the regular lines. They won’t be able to transport anywhere near the numbers they can now.”

  Maggie asked, “How many people are on the crew?”

  “Nine.”

  “You really think this is the only way?”

  “Give me another suggestion.”

  Maggie and Abdul both clamped shut. I didn’t think so.

  I said, “We’re talking about nine lives versus a lifetime of slavery for thousands.”

  Abdul turned around and pleaded, “Nine people, Juno.”

  “The greater good…”

  Abdul’s sagging face sagged further in resignation. “Yeah, the greater good. How do you plan on doing it?”

  “It’s beautifully simple, but I need your help.”

  I had Maggie and Abdul onboard. The rest was up to me and my heartless exploitation of Manuel Hidalgo. After a month’s worth of carroting and sticking, he was my tool. I had his loyalty 100 percent. He actually thanked me for saving his life. He said he felt resurrected. He told me it was the first time in a long while that his life was heading in the right direction.

  We met under a bridge. Children played in the river while their mothers roasted skewered geckos over oil drums filled with burning trash. I stayed in the shadows. I was going for a very cloak-and-dagger feel. He was into the spy gig. “Hidalgo,” I said.

  “Yes?” he responded. He was wearing pressed whites, one hand in a cast. His hair was trimmed and slicked. His canker sores were in remission since I’d sent him to a doctor to treat his VD.

  “Tell me about your progress.”

  “I went on my first flight yesterday. Starting next week, I’ll be going regular.”

  “Tell me about your cargo.”

  “It’s like you said. They’re shipping peoples—all kinds of them: men, women, children. I’ve managed to talk to a few of them. Some got conned into it and actually believe there are high-paying jobs waiting for them, but most are being brought against their will.”

  “Do you have the shipping schedules I asked for?”

  “Yes.” He handed me a data chip. “I put the schematics you wanted in there, too.”

  “Excellent. Go now.”

  Hidalgo hung around like a puppy waiting for a pat on the head.

  “Go,” I said.

  He skulked away, thoroughly dominated. I waited until he was out of sight then stalked down to the riverbank and unmoored a rented skiff. I steered for open water, the motor putt-putting along. One step closer to my vengeance. I couldn’t erase the wicked smile on my face.

  I gave the chip to Abdul and Maggie. They spent the next three weeks researching the nets, looking for optimal “camera” placements. When they returned the ship schematics to me, there were five red circles marking the spots. Their mood was somber. I had to keep reminding them—greater good.

  Two more weeks passed before the time came to end my relationship with Manuel Hidalgo. I told him to come to Afrie’s.

  I waited for him at a table, sipping my brandy, working up the courage to take the last step. I watched Hidalgo come in and sit down at the bar. He was dressed proper, sporting new duds and a stylish hat—no more cast on his hand. He’d gone from screwing johns to squarejohn in no time. I got up from my table and brushed by him on my way to the bathroom. He joined me a minute later.

  “You’ve done well, Hidalgo.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’ve exceeded my expectations these past few months. I have good news for you. There is only one more thing for you to do. I have no doubt that you can handle it. When you’ve performed this task, I will release you from our agreement—all debts paid. How does that sound?”

  He looked disappointed. He was so hooked on playing spy that he was sad it was coming to a close.

  “Take this bag. In it, you’ll find five cameras and a blueprint of the ship. The blueprint is marked to show you where I want you to place the cameras. The placements I chose don’t offer the best vantage points, but they are in out of the way places, so you should be able to escape detection. The cameras are already recording. All you have to do is put them in place and then leave them alone.”

  “Do I need to retrieve them?”

  “No, they’ll beam a signal back on their own.”

  “Got it. I can do it; you’ll see.”

  “I know you’ll succeed. When I start receiving the feed, I’ll transfer the money into your account.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” He looked like he had more to say.

  “Spit it out.”

  “Can I ask a question?”

  I nodded. He’d earned it.

  “You work for the government, don’t you?”

  “I can’t answer that, Manuel.”

  “You’re going to expose the slave trade. I can help. I can testify.”

  “I won’t let you testify. It would be too dangerous. You’ve done enough for your people. Now take the bag and get out of here.”

  The instant he walked out my enforcer juices ran frigid. It was done. Lagarto was about to begin its spiral into chaos.

  I spent the rest of the night at the bar, trying to warm my soul with a brandy bottle….

  From my rooftop, I watched the Orbital cross the sky. It passed through constellations, drawing an arc across the heavens. I peeked at my watch. Carlos Simba’s solitary ship would be braking into our atmosphere in just a few minutes. I toasted Manuel Hidalgo again. Shit—bottle was empty. Niki padded across the roof. She’d set the alarm to wake her up in time to catch the show. She sat next to me, our feet touching.

  “Do you think I did the right thing?” I asked.

  Niki moved in close. “Does it matter?”

  Not anymore it didn’t. I’d had Abdul rig the cameras. He’d taken out the guts and replaced them with explosives, nothing too powerful, but enough to ignite the fuel tanks. He’d set the timers for reentry. Let friction burn up the evidence.

  I wished there had been a way to save Hidalgo. He’d salvaged a good life for himself. I’d gone through it over and over, but just couldn’t take the risk of him blabbing. He just wasn’t stable. If I could flip him, so could somebody else. There couldn’t be any ties back to me. I wasn’t ready to risk my life or those of Niki, Maggie, and Abdul over him. Call me a coward if you want. I’d just add it to the list of my sins.

  Greater good. It was a powerful argument, enough to convince Maggie and Abdul, but I knew it wasn’t my main justification. They killed Paul. That was all the reason I needed.

  I looked at my watch—started wearing it on my left.

  Any second now…

  There! A shooting star.

  about the author

  A former schoolteacher, WARREN HAMMOND now works as an instructor in the computer industry. Over the past thirteen years, thousands of information-technology professionals have attended his classes. An avid traveler, he and his wife have trekked the Himalayas, hiked the Inca Trail, explored the Galapagos Islands, gone camping in the game reserves of Botswana, and toured the temples of Angkor Wat. In addition to writing KOP, he has also written EX-KOP, the second book of the series. Born and raised in upstate New York, he currently lives in Denver with his wife and two cats.