Every Last Mother's Child
Page 171
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“Martha,” a closer came into the safe house, “Cleo’s dead.”
“How,” Hozenbur asked looking up from the map of the evacuation hospital.
“She committed suicide,” The man said, “No note, or anything! She was found dead of an over dose.”
“Damn that was our best chance to get that halfwit!” Hozenbur snarled.
“Martha,” The closer said, “We’ll get her but; it’s going to be messy.”
Secretly the closer was pondering whether to just leave. He had his getaway planned. A landing craft in the southern part of the continent an hour on the road and then just busting his way to orbit where a small yacht waited for him on the other side of Trena’s moon. All the closers were sociopaths or they wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing. But the closer knew that Hozenbur was the worse of a bad lot. He sometimes envied people like Kellogg who had been able to get out of this dirty dark business and had been able to make their peace with themselves and the clones. He was certain that Hozenbur knew that this would be the last closer operation in Ebio. That regardless what happened in the next few days whether they succeeded in assassinating the clone or not they would be wanted galaxy wide! There would be no safe haven for them. He knew that. He also knew that if he didn’t participate in this last hurrah, that maybe he might grow old.
“I don’t care how messy it is going to be.” Hozenbur said, “The bloodier the better. I want the cops and the infernal Black Guard to know what the price is going to be when they come for us. I want to leave a trail of bodies.”
“Martha,” One of the other closers said “you know Black Guard One is on Trena. You also know that the Thonian MP unit has one of the best SWAT units in the galaxy. The Mounties also are no slackers either.”
“Also if we hit that hospital the marines on duty will put down one hell of a fire fight!” The closer continued said. No one messed with an Interstellar Rescue Service field hospital. The Marine Corps unit that was always stationed with the hospital handled an assault on the hospital the same way every time. The attackers were killed. There was no attempt to take prisoners. The injured from the assault were stabilized and sent to a prison hospital. The surgeons and the doctors in the hospital didn’t care who their patients were if they needed help they helped them. To make matters worse for an attacker, if it was a government sponsored attack the empire sent a Black Guard alpha team in and made sure that the government knew how bad a decision someone in that government had made. Sometimes, the government official’s home was destroyed. No one messed with the IRS.
It was then that he knew that Hozenbur was going to get herself killed. That frightened him. He left the room and began to plan his escape. He pondered if he should go state’s evidence and turn Hozenbur in to the Mounties.