Alone in the Crowd (The Chronicles of Anna Foster Book 3)

by Patrick Stutzman

“Haven Control, Team Alpha. ETA: five minutes.”

  “Haven Control, McClaskey. Confirm Sierra November One.”

  “Haven Control, Team Echo. ETA: three minutes.”

  “McClaskey, Haven Control. Sierra November One confirmed. Location: approximately fifty meters east of HQ on top of building Alpha Eight. Subject is armed and dangerous.”

  “Haven Control, Team Foxtrot. ETA: seven minutes.”

  “Haven Control, McClaskey. Any civilians present?”

  “McClaskey, Haven Control. One civilian present, Anna Foster.”

  “Foster? God, damn it!”

  The rapid firing ceased. Thinking the sniper may be reloading again, Anna rose up while holding her breath, her firearm at the ready. As soon as her vision passed over the top of the wall, another shot hit the stone just centimeters from her head, spraying dust and rock in her face. “Shit!” She dropped to the ground again, her breathing rapid. “Where are those troops?”

  As if on cue, she heard shots being fired from the far corner of the administration building. Daring a quick glance, she could not see who was firing, but the attack was directed at the sniper on the roof, who dropped back to the opposite side of the rooftop. She joined in, releasing two blasts from her pistol at the stranger before maneuvering to use more of the fountain’s central spire for cover.

  A sharp crack ripped through the air. Anna saw a tiny cloud erupt from the corner of the building out of the corner of her eye. She fired again, but her shot impacted the metal roof plating. As she searched for him, she caught movement and ducked behind the wall just as another shot cut through the air near her former position.

  On hitting the dirt, her communicator broadcast another message, reminding her that she had left the channel open. “Haven Control, Team Bravo. Moving into position.”

  “Foster, McClaskey. Get off this channel! I can hear your communicator from here.” She shut off the communicator half a second later, grumbling under her breath as she did.

  Two more shots slammed into the fountain, showering her with debris. Anna pressed as close to the stone wall as possible while covering her head. She hoped the soldiers would hurry up and put the sniper down. Three more shots from the corner of the main hall penetrated the silence, followed by a few shots from further away.

  Several seconds passed in silence, with only the gentle breeze playing by her ears. Footsteps close by sent a chill up her spine. Had the sniper got away and was now coming for her? If she was going to go down, she would not do it without a fight. Mustering every scrap of courage, she rolled onto her back and aimed her pistol at the approaching man.

  Colonel McClaskey, carrying a heavy pistol, stopped and stared at her for a brief second. With a face demonstrating impatience, one side of his mouth frowned. “Go take a shower, Foster. Lying in the dust isn’t very ladylike.”

  Anna gave him a withering look before rising to her feet and dusting herself off. The colonel hustled toward the sniper’s location, holstering his sidearm as he moved. Returning her pistol to its place on her belt, she followed, making sure she stayed several paces behind him.

  Turning the corner of Alpha Eight, she found McClaskey and four other troopers surrounding a body lying prone in the grass. Dressed in an unmarked gray coverall, his close-cropped, black hair and sharp Asian features implied that he was a native of either the Far East of Earth or the southern continent of New Avalon. A long rifle lay not more than a meter from the man’s head.

  Kicking the sniper’s lifeless foot, the colonel frowned at the corpse. “Who was this asshole?”

  One of the soldiers answered, his words clipped. “Identity scan indicates his name is Feng Cheung, sir. He came in on the recent flight from Earth. Currently lives at Epsilon Fourteen.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Who took him out?”

  “None of us, sir. He took his own life.”

  “He took…” The colonel’s words were heavily laced with disbelief. “Okay, return to your patrols.”

  The soldiers left the area after retrieving the weapon, picking up the pace after reaching the main path. As McClaskey turned and spotted Anna, he narrowed his eyes while activating his earpiece communicator. “Haven Control, McClaskey. Stand down Code Sierra November One. Situation resolved.” He paused while he listened. “Armstrong, McClaskey. She’s standing in front of me, dirtier than a hog in a mudbath… Yes, she’s fine… I understand. McClaskey, out.”

  The leader pressed the button on his earpiece again and stared at Anna. She watched his face harden as his attention focused solely on her. “Let’s get one thing straight. You are not a member of this colony. I only tolerate your presence because of the intel you are providing about this moon. Until such time when you’re done with that, I have to protect you. After that, you’re on your own.”

  Fuming from his words, Anna snorted and straightened her back. “Let me make one thing perfectly clear with you, colonel. I have spent the last ten years of my life trapped on this moon. I’ve handled wild beasts driven by hunger, bloodthirsty birds, and pirates, all by myself. I can certainly handle the likes of you. You’d better hope you don’t get on my bad side.”

  A look of mild curiosity and a hint of a smile formed on McClaskey’s face. “Is that a threat, Foster? I’d like to see you try.”

  “Name the time and place.”

  He chuckled through his mouth, sporting a full smile, as two troops arrived with a stretcher and loaded the body onto it. “Not now. I have important things to do.” He walked past her, forcefully bumping his shoulder into hers as he did so. She glared at his back while he retreated to the main hall, envisioning a well-placed shot through his heart. After the medical team left with the body, she decided to conduct some research on her own.

  Several minutes later, she reached the dwelling in the colony’s residential area labeled Epsilon Fourteen. Sneaking along the side of the prefabricated house, she stopped on reaching the front and peeked around the corner. With nobody present, she moved to the front door, pulled out her hand scanner and the silver bullet-shaped tool she had found while on the mining station. Dialing the tool to the desired setting, she watched the results as she projected an invisible beam of energy at the keypad embedded in the wall next to the door. While the scan commenced, she looked around her to make sure the coast was still clear. A code appeared on the small screen. Smiling, she put her tools away, typed in the code, and entered the house.

  Anna was surprised at how clean her would-be killer kept his home. The place appeared to be virtually spotless, with everything neatly arranged in their proper places. Even the bed was perfectly made.

  The one object that appeared out of place from the other dwellings was a statuette on the metal dresser in the one-person bedroom. The dark-blue artwork looked like an abstract piece with a broad, fringed base that tapered to its apex pointing skyward. Upon closer examination, Anna found two indentations next to each other near the base. Part of Anna’s mind screamed at her to not touch them, saying that she would regret it. But, another encouraged her to do so, indicating that she would not find any answers unless she followed through. Considering she had found nothing else in the house to indicate who Feng Cheung was or why he had attacked her, she touched the notches.

  A light deep within the statuette glowed near the base of the spire, casting the desk and the wall behind it in a bright shade of blue. A couple of seconds later, a holographic keyboard projected between her and the spire, and a monitor appeared directly above the spire’s peak. Several icons and smaller windows materialized. The first one she noticed was a green and white logo floating inside a black cube. “NR Suppliers.” Her whisper was barely audible, even to her ears. “They’ve finally found me.”

  Tapping another window, Anna searched through Cheung’s message archive, surprised to find that several messages were sent over the last week. “Wouldn’t he have been in mid-jump during that time? How did he communicate with Earth?”
Further examination of the messages’ metadata revealed that they were sent within the local network. “The local network? Then, that means…oh, shit.”

  Cheung had a partner somewhere in the colony. Anna deactivated the hidden computer and took one hasty step toward the door. She froze when she heard somebody standing outside muttering something unintelligible. Panic set in, and she frantically searched for a way out of the house. All of the windows and vents were too small. She had no choice but to hide. But, where? As her search continued, the beeps from somebody entering the door’s passcode reached her ears.

  * * * * *

  Seconds later, the front door opened. A middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair wearing a burgundy leather jacket, a white dress shirt, and khaki pants entered the house and softly closed the door behind him. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small, black cube that easily rested in the palm of his hand. Taking a quick look at it before grasping it firmly, the man casually walked into the bedroom and to the secret computer system. He set the cube on the desk next to it and reached for the twin indentations. He paused, feeling the heat from the base of the spire, and retracted his hand a few centimeters as he weighed the situation. After a few seconds, he activated the spire and, when the monitor appeared, touched the top of the cube. As the monitor indicated the data transfer had begun, the man reached into his jacket and drew a small pistol. He turned to begin his search but met the wrong end of Anna’s pistol aimed right at his nose.

  Chapter 29

  “Drop it,” Anna ordered, her voice stern.

  He smirked. “Maybe it is you who should drop it, Anna Foster.” He waved his pistol back and forth, showing her that his weapon pointed at her abdomen.

  Curious to know more, Anna resisted the temptation to pull the trigger. “You seem to know about me, but I don’t know who you are. Who are you?”

  “My name is not important…”

  “Like Cheung’s? He didn’t care to introduce himself to me either before trying to make another hole in my head.”

  The man nodded. “I see. And, did you talk to him the same way with a gun shoved into his face?” He locked eyes with her, his face expecting a response.

  A few seconds passed. Anna felt the tension growing in the air between them. The nervous pangs in her stomach urged her to end the standoff and take the man down. Her unanswered questions kept her from following through. If this was the only other person in the colony trying to assassinate her, killing him would accomplish nothing more than adding another body for the military to investigate.

  Anna’s trigger finger twitched. “I’m not dropping it.”

  “Too bad the safety’s on.” His smirk demonstrated his bravado.

  “I’m not falling for that.”

  “That makes it much easier for me to kill you then.”

  “Then, why haven’t you fired yet?”

  His smirk melted away. “Maybe I’m waiting for a friend to show up.”

  “You have someone helping you? Not likely. I know how NR Suppliers works.”

  “Explain Cheung then.”

  The demand caught Anna off-guard. She did not know why the company had sent two people after her. It did not make sense to her. Then, she saw past it, recognizing it as a way to focus her thoughts elsewhere and giving him the edge he needed to finish her off.

  “Later. It all depends on whether you cooperate with me or not.”

  The man laughed but never took his eyes off her. “Cooperate with you? You’re not in a position to demand anything, Ms. Foster.”

  “Neither are you.” She stared unblinking at him, her lips pressed into a thin line.

  “Then, it appears that we are at an impasse.”

  “We’re going to have to resolve this soon. The military will be here any minute to search for clues about Cheung and his motives for trying to kill me.”

  “So be it.”

  Anna dodged to the side as he pulled the trigger. A sizable hole appeared in the closet door behind her. Bringing her pistol around, she attempted to aim at her target again. He batted her hand away with his free hand as she reflexively fired, her shot going astray into the wall above the dresser. Following through, he brought his weapon to bear toward her head. She slapped the gun away as she ducked, the deadly bolt of energy smashing into the wall next to the doorway.

  Reversing her hand, she grabbed for his gun and charged, slamming her shoulder into his gut. They tumbled onto the bed, bouncing once on impact. Anna leaned up and attempted to direct her gun at him, but he slugged her across her jaw before she finished the move. As she recoiled from the attack, he broke his gun out of her relaxed grasp. She recovered quickly and shoved her hand at his arm again, pinning it down on the mattress. Her torso followed, slamming against his chest as he tried to sit up and knocking him back down on the bed.

  “Get off me, you bitch!” He struggled to free his arm, but her grasp remained firm.

  As he strained to adjust the aim on his weapon to point at her, Anna shifted her thumb, digging it into the flesh between his wrist and hand. He tightened his grip on his pistol but felt it weaken as her thumb pressed against his wrist muscles. He balled up his free hand into a fist and swung at her jaw again. She whipped her head back to avoid the incoming blow. His fist, not finding its mark, clipped her chin instead. Not enough to faze her, she swatted at his arm with her weapon, finding only air. He punched at her again, but she blocked it this time and shoved it to the mattress, following the move quickly by pinning it down with her leg.

  As she sat up and applied more weight against his arm, Anna’s grip on his wrist weakened, and he ripped his hand out of her grasp. As he fumbled to aim the weapon at her from above his head, she fired her pistol at his. The shot pierced the metal casing and knocked the gun from his hand, sending it clattering across the floor. Her aim instantly dropped to his face.

  “Don’t even think about it.” Anna ignored the warm, stinging pain in her jaw as she spoke. He lay still, his eyes fixed on the barrel of her gun centimeters from the tip of his nose. “Now, what is your name?”

  The man scowled. “I’m not telling you shit.”

  Pressing her weapon into his nose, she gave him a dark look. “I don’t think you’re in a position to make such comments.”

  A scant second passed before Anna heard multiple voices nearby. She had to cut things short. She drew back and pistol whipped the man across his temple, knocking him unconscious. A rapid glance around the room confirmed she had no easy escape. But, she had an idea.

  * * * * *

  The front door opened seconds later, and two armed soldiers cautiously entered the room, sweeping the area with their rifles held ready. The squad leader who followed them a few moments later held his pistol in hand as his eyes scanned the room. He gave a quick nod after several seconds, prompting the soldiers to sweep the rest of the dwelling. One stopped at the kitchenette, one moved into the head, while the other scurried to the bedroom.

  “Clear!”

  “Clear!”

  “Sergeant!”

  The officer hurried through the house until he reached the bedroom doorway. The soldier gestured toward the comatose man lying on the bed and the data cube next to the blue spire on the dresser. Another nod from the officer, and the trooper palmed the cube and handed it to his superior.

  As the sergeant accepted the item, a faint sound of metal clanging on metal reached their ears. He and his subordinate snapped their gazes toward the closet. Tiptoeing to the door, the officer signaled a slow count to three before opening the door. As the door slid aside, they trained their weapons on a metal plate. Its carpet covering was folded to the other side of the closet. Raising an eyebrow, the sergeant stooped down and examined the spot, noticing that the metal bolts that held the panel in place had been removed.

  Stepping back, the sergeant signaled for the soldier to scan the closet and moved into the hallway, meeting with the other trooper under his command.

  “Guard the front room u
ntil I give the all-clear.”

  “Yes, sir!” The marine nodded and made a beeline to the front door.

  The soldier checking the closet emerged through the doorway several seconds later. “Sergeant, the closet is clear.”

  “Who’s the man in there?”

  “Dexter Mason, sir.”

  “Very good. Take Mr. Mason to the brig for questioning. I’m sure the colonel will want to see what’s on this data cube.” The sergeant lifted the storage device and inspected it for a few seconds before dropping it into his left-breast pocket and directing his squad back to base.

  * * * * *

  Ducking around a house a few lanes away, Anna planted her back against the wall and listened intently for footfalls, chatter, or anything that might indicate someone trailing her. After unbolting the floor panel and replacing it after squeezing through the opening, she had crawled under the house and escaped through a narrow gap in the faux foundation.

  Thinking back on her situation, she realized that she could be in a lot of trouble for what she had just done. One of the last things she wanted to do was be considered a criminal in the colony’s eyes, and the fight inside Cheung’s house was the perfect way to do just that.

  Hearing only the sound of the wind blowing between the buildings, Anna risked a look around the corner to confirm she was not being followed. Seeing nobody in sight, she ducked back with a sigh of relief. She diverted her thoughts to going to Jason’s house.

  The confrontation Anna had with Catherine was raising some questions about what was happening between Jason and his girlfriend. Why did Catherine feel threatened by her? What was Jason saying or doing to make her think that way? She did recall him saying something a day or two ago about Catherine believing he was cheating on her. Was he doing something else in addition to what he claimed? If so, with whom?

  As much as she wanted answers to these questions, they had to take a back seat to the attempt on her life. Stepping carefully to the nearest dirt road cutting a gentle curve through the colony, Anna checked both ways before emerging into the open and jogging back to the main hall.