Humans Only: A Jake Dani Novel (Jake Dani/Mike Shapeck Book 2)

by Victory Crayne

  Was gray the color of the day and nobody told me?

  “Getner will oppose that. After all, we embarrassed him by the vid of him giving a package to Coocher.”

  Zetto interrupted. “But the vid doesn’t show Getner’s head.”

  Andy replied, “It’s what goes on in the mind of Getner that counts.”

  “So could we get Prime Minister Klava to rescue Albert Poors?” I asked.

  No response came immediately.

  Andy said, “Klava will want to know why Poors was involved.”

  Vincent added, “That’s a sticker. You’d have to reveal the ID of Poors.”

  From this angle, I could see he wore a white dress shirt and brown slacks.

  “I don’t think I want to do that just yet,” I added.

  Vincent added, “So that means no fed cooperation.”

  Which spoils the main part of our only surviving plan.

  I looked at Andy.

  He shook his head.

  “I can’t be away from my office as long as this op may take.”

  “I understand,” I said. Andy had to keep up his appearance of running his security business.

  I asked Andy for another of his special inventions.

  “That’s easy.”

  He smiled before he left for his office.

  #

  Gancha tagged Guy Coocher at the HO headquarters.

  “You don’t know me but I’m a big fan of yours. Name’s Gancha Morentoss. I inherited the estate of my grandfather, James Venesio. I’ve sold all of his criminal empire as soon as I got it, and bought some legit businesses. I think we can help each other.”

  A pause on the other end.

  “Are you there?” she asked.

  “Just thinking it over,” said a deep masculine voice.

  “How about a million sols worth of donation to your campaign?”

  “Hmm. You seem eager.”

  “I foresee your becoming the next prime minister. Can we meet?”

  Another pause. This time she waited.

  He asked, “Can you be at my office in the Parliament Building at two this afternoon?”

  Gotcha.

  “I’ll be there,” she replied

  At the appointed time, she walked the hall toward his office. To her surprise, Coocher stood outside the door. He wore his usual medium blue business suit. What surprised her was his height. Kinda short and overweight. Big belly.

  “Gancha?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “I thought it best to meet you here, instead of in my office. Politics, you know.”

  “Shall we have coffee downstairs?” she asked.

  “I think it would best to talk in my van,” he added.

  “Whatever you wish,” she said.

  As they walked, she noticed he was bent over a bit. Not a lot, but not straight either.

  Once inside his van, she took a seat behind the driver’s seat. Coocher got in beside her.

  “You want to donate to my campaign?” he asked.

  “Sure. I think you will be the next prime minister. My only question is: what would my donation buy me?”

  Coocher spoke into his comm.

  “I’m going to dinner with a donor. Cancel or postpone my appointments for the rest of the day.”

  He disconnected and turned to her. “Salia’s?”

  At dinner, Gancha sipped on her glass of Chardonnay. This conversation was tricky and full of potential land mines. She had to stay alert and could not afford to get drunk where she might say a wrong word.

  He asked, “Where were we?”

  “I had asked you what my donation of a millions sols might buy me. I have several businesses in Zor and…”

  She stopped when his hand covered hers. This was getting personal, which brought a smile to her lips. All was going according to plan.

  “Did I ever tell you,” he said, “that I have a preference for tall women? Especially smart ones.”

  Chapter 46

  The more I thought about Gancha, the more I made up my mind.

  The most important op I’ve done and I can’t rely on her. To hell with her. If she can’t keep up with us, she might not fit on my team.

  “Ron, pack food and water.”

  He grinned as he headed toward the kitchen. I couldn’t tell if his grin came from having something to do or the fact we were going on an op.

  “Vincent, can you detect the transponder?”

  “Oh yeah,” Vincent replied. “It sends a signal every minute. It’s still at the Embassy.”

  “Let’s take the van,” I said.

  I packed a rifle with a scope in a sport bag and exchanged my Snap in its holster with a clean one. By clean, I meant clean of serial numbers and barrel bores that might lead to any of us. Zetto made sure we had four cases of food and water. Ron hummed the whole time we prepared.

  But the limo didn’t leave the city. It traveled to the Parliament Building, to the HO HQ, and back to Parliament.

  Vincent said, “If that guy doesn’t go home in a week, the battery on the transponder will need replacing.”

  Andy showed up with his special invention. It sure looked like a button on my shirt, exactly like the photo I had sent him. The receiving end would rest in the BIS van.

  The next evening, Vincent reported, “The limo is moving.”

  He looked up with a smile.

  “This time it’s heading south on Ambassador.”

  We watched the blinking icon on our wall as the limo approached the Zor-Franken airport.

  “Might pick up somebody.”

  Then it kept going. When it got outside the city limits, I said, “Okay, Ron. Let’s get movin’.”

  We had a long ways to go. Over a thousand miles.

  He and I carried loads of food and equipment to the van. We had complete sets of black clothing and Z helmets in our sports bags. I packed three of the Pyronex small bombs and Ron another three. We also loaded six transponders, turned off to save their charges.

  I said, “Chima, tell us where the Coocher limo is.”

  A map displayed on the dash showing a blinking light ten miles south of the city limits.

  “Check your weapons?” asked Vincent from outside my passenger window. “Clean?”

  “Yep. Packed.”

  “Good hunting,” said Vincent with a smile and a wink.

  Ron pulled out and drove around Grand Central Station while I kept my eyes on the rearview mirror and the overhead mirror.

  While we were on the road we needed more current information.

  “Chima, send a wireless signal to the transponder to set the broadcast rate at every fifteen seconds instead of a minute.”

  “Affirmative.”

  We headed south on Ambassador, fifty minutes behind Coocher. Since his cars had heavy armor, I figured they’d travel slower than ours and would have to stop more often for fuel. We had armor too, but we depended on fabric armor, not the sheet metal kind.

  As we drove west on the two-lane road, darkness descended and snow fell from the sky. It was early this year. The white stuff that came in November was stubborn. It stuck around until March. Kinda reminded me of Earth when I visited Detroit. The locals there said that about their snow.

  As we headed west, Ron said, “Better get some sleep.”

  I laid my seat back to a prone position.

  The wipers went blink, blink, blink across the windshield. As Ron drove, particles of snow came right at me. I felt like ducking to avoid their constant onslaught. The red taillights of the car ahead of me glowed.

  To my right lay more whiteness buried under a dark sky. Heading in that direction was insanity. That part of Rossa was too wild. In the distance ahead of us, I saw occasional lights, probably from farm houses, clustered together and inside a fence.

  I checked my comm.

  Another four hours to go before I could take the next shift.

  With hot air coming out of the dashboard vents, I closed my eyes and t
hought of my daughter. Nestled back in the safety of the mercon embassy, she was safe for the moment. I doubted if anyone from HO would risk an attempt on her while she was there. The security at the embassy had to be top-notch to keep protesters out.

  As for the rest of my team that was a different matter.

  As the night wore on, I realized I was going deep into bigotry territory. Ron and I were half-Bingers. If that fact got out in this rural countryside, we might get killed for just that.

  I shook my head.

  Crazy thoughts. Can’t go there.

  I focused on the harm that Coocher and his Humans Only organization had done. Hoskins had tortured my friend Zetto, my ex-wife Leanna, and my daughter, Alena. Not to mention poisoning the waters of Zor with VB, resulting in thousands of deaths. That kind of bigotry had to end somewhere.

  Then there was the question of Gancha.

  Where the hell is she?

  Ron had tuned the van’s visual display to show the location of our transponder. Just three miles ahead.

  Then the blip stopped moving.

  I glanced at our gauge. Half full. As we passed a sign, I read “Fuel ahead.”

  Clouds covered the night sky, blocking my view of the stars. The onboard map showed a fuel station not far ahead. Maybe Coocher’s cars had stopped.

  We climbed a small hill and off in the distance saw a blur of lights. I reached over to Ron.

  “Can’t sleep. Too wired, I guess. Do we need fuel? The limo might be there. This might be a good time to change the battery.”

  Ron slowed the van. The red lights receded in the distance. No white lights appeared in my mirrors. We were alone out here with three limos of bigots in front of us.

  “Chima, we’re stopping at the station ahead. Turn off the dome light so you can’t be seen.”

  I added, “Chima, kill the lights when a door is opened. Put the words and logo of Broadway’s AC and Heating on the sides of the van.”

  I turned to Ron and said, “And while I’m inside, you fill up our tank, sneak up to one of their vehicles, and put a new transponder underneath.”

  “What if they see me?”

  “Use a drone to distract anyone.”

  Three black vehicles parked next to the pumps. I could see the hoses leading to each. The occupants must have gone inside to relieve themselves and get food and coffee. Only one guy remained outside, a big guy in an all gray overcoat. Probably armed too.

  Ron pulled up to the gate in the fence and waited while it slid open. He parked at the pump farthest from the three limos and got out.

  I opened my door and emptied my thermos of coffee on the snow. Sure wished I had packed a warmer jacket.

  While Ron connected a hose to our van, I huddled over and ran into the store as I got pelted with snow.

  Movement on my right caught my attention and I glanced in that direction. Two small greepers sniffed the air near the trash cans. From the bend of the bushes, I figured they stood downwind from the cans. Then I spotted the momma greeper. Big thing. Her eyes focused on me. Thank heavens the fence stood between her and me.

  I continued running. Once inside, six pairs of eyes watched me as I approached the counter and sat. They all wore dark coats and winter hats.

  Coocher was nowhere in sight. The rest of the place was empty. But it was dark outside and few customers must visit this far from civilization. Mostly they came for the gas and food. As I entered the main restaurant, I passed kiosks of items for sale. Toys, and stuff for traveling, like coffee mugs, head rests, and blankets.

  A chubby woman, with a flop of gray hair and wearing a mustard-yellow uniform, came up. “Coffee?”

  I nodded while I shivered and placed the empty thermos on the counter.

  She lifted a pot and poured the black liquid into a white porcelain cup. “From the city?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  “Folks around here know how to dress for this weather.”

  I had forgotten about how much colder it could be as we headed west toward to the ocean. Hundreds of miles of flat land lay around us. Except for the few farm houses and barns nestled inside fences, the rest was left to nature. Which on Rossa meant greepers, gofers, and reddoes. Screechies had migrated south to get away from the chilly weather.

  Behind her rested a mirror, the bottom half covered in colored business cards. On the polished surface between them, I watched as the guys behind me continued their study of me. I wished she had not made her comment.

  The coffee was steaming so I added ice cubes from my glass of water.

  “Want me to fill up yer thermos?” asked the waitress with a pot in her hand.

  I nodded and she poured the hot steamy liquid.

  “Where you headed?” she asked.

  I couldn’t tell her my real destination. Not in front of those guys.

  “Headed back. Visited my sister.”

  Two minutes later, I got the message I waited for. My ear piece spoke with Ron’s words.

  “Mission accomplished. I’m back in the van.”

  Coocher came out of the gents room with two big guys on each side of him, one in front and the other behind.

  I placed my left elbow on the counter and put my hand in front of my face so he couldn’t see me.

  He took a seat with his back to me.

  “That’ll be three fifty,” said the waitress.

  I hauled out my comm and touched it to the outlet for the register. With a few clicks, I paid for the coffee in the name of Stan Broadway. That was one of my aliases. We kept small bank accounts open in each name. Every team member had an alias.

  “Thanks,” I said as I got up and turned away from the guards and Coocher.

  The damned snow came down as I raced to the van and got in the driver’s side. Once inside, I headed back toward Zor.

  “Hey, aren’t we supposed to go the other way?” asked Ron from the other front seat.

  “I told the gal in there I was going back to the city.”

  When we got over the other side of the hill, I looked for place to turn around. With no one else on the road, I made the flip in direction, being careful to not let my tires press on the side of the road. Didn’t want anyone to guess what I’d one.

  “Chima, change the outside. Use plain gray this time.”

  The blinking light on my dashboard shifted. Coocher was on the move.

  I kept a couple miles behind them. Several miles and hours later, when the transponder stopped again, I pulled over.

  “Shift change.”

  I opened my door and got out. The snow had died to a light dusting.

  Taking advantage of this opportunity, I grabbed a spare gas can, opened the gas cap, and tipped the spare can into the tank. The air had a chill to it and I wished it would hurry up.

  But the time I finished, Ron had climbed into the driver’s side.

  Chapter 47

  With all the time spent behind the wheel or waiting for my driving shift, I had plenty of time to think. I thought of what it was like to live on this planet. It was a frontier world for sure. Humans struggled to make a living, feed themselves and their children, and somehow survive.

  Come to think of it, that was also true for most people back on Earth. Those in the developed countries seldom understood what daily life was like in the other parts of the world. Starvation, terrorism, corruption, war. And all too often, immigrants to Rossa brought with them their old cultures, which encouraged those behaviors.

  The biggest problem we faced was not from the alienness and wildness of Rossa, but from other human beings. Earth shipped its poor and hungry and we had to deal with them.

  Then I thought of York, where most immigrants from North America and Europe came.

  I thought of my landlord, Sing Sing Cullen. She was a lesbian in a world that discriminated against them. Same for male gays and for Bingers like me. The same was true for those who tried to survive despite having an accident of birth. Such as fingers on one hand growing out of each
other, ears that didn’t work right, or any form of being born abnormal. Heaven forbid that someone made the mistake of being born with too dark a skin. Naughty, naughty. Shame on them.

  Those who had grown up on Rossa were more adjusted to life here than their parents. “The young adapt, the old die off.” Only those who spent the first twenty years of their lives on Earth would want to live with the old habits. Those who were younger adapted. Unfortunately, most of the immigrants were over twenty.

  Which brought me back to the task ahead of me. Fighting discrimination was an unending battle. The people who lived in Chester had their limited attention spans focused on survival and being “normal.” They had no idea how much they practiced discrimination. They tried to stay together in their struggles to survive and tried to get all those around them to conform to being the same, ignoring the fact that the few amongst them who were different could provide the answers―if only they let them.

  They had no idea of the burden they put on those they discriminated against.

  All the progress that mankind had made since we first tamed fire came not from those who conformed but from those who thought differently. We have no records from those prehistoric times but I suspected the first man who showed how to make fire met his death for daring to steal what belonged to the gods. The rest of his tribe reacted out of fear that the gods would punish them for his disobeying the rules. Rules they made up.

  I thought back to the burning of the library in Alexandria, Egypt, so long ago. If the mob had not burned that library maybe humanity would have gone to the stars sooner. But then again, only the wealthy used the library and much of their wealth came from owning slaves. The mob had many slaves who burned the library in frustration.

  The struggle to raise awareness had many bumps on its path.

  On my turn to drive, I saw flashing lights. I slowed after the curve and spotted an ambulance and two cop cars, all with flashing lights. Then I saw the reason.

  There weren’t many cars on the road, so I slowed down to gawk at the damage.

  A greeper in white fur lay off the right side of the road. A sedan with its front end smashed in rested off the side of the road about twenty feet from the greeper and turned around. Two men pushed and pulled a gurney to the ambulance. On it lay a white sheet over a body with boots sticking out.