Thermals

by Evan Currie

  “Alright,” he nodded. “Let’s check in with Adrienne, then call it a night. I want to make sure that she’s okay.”

  Gwen nodded in agreement and the two of them got up, out of the uncomfortable hospital chairs and walked down the hall toward the nurse’s station.

  The commotion they saw when they arrived started them moving a bit faster, eyes looking sharply around for Adrienne Somer, with some concern. The found her standing outside the ICU ward, wringing her hands, but with a look of relief on her face.

  “Inspector…Adrienne?” Anselm caught himself, slowing his approach as Gwen did the same. “Is everything…?”

  “He woke up,” she said softly.

  Anselm let out a breath of relief. The fact that he woke up was a good sign, at least in his experience. “That’s great…”

  “He spoke…He said something, I don’t understand…”

  Anselm raised an eyebrow slightly, listening to the tone of her voice. Adrienne was still emotional, but he could hear the puzzling tone of an Inspector in her voice, someone trying to work out a clue. “What did he say?”

  “Kamir.” She said with a puzzled frown, “I tried to ask him what a Kamir was, but all he said before the medication took over was ‘who’.”

  “Thermie.” Gwen said grimly. “Kamir Osam is a one of the Thermies. He’s been run in on a dozen minor violations, usually childish stuff, but he’s been up on assaulting an officer at least twice.”

  “Convictions?”

  “Fines.” She shook her head, “The assaults were minor bullshit, nothing that warranted jail time unfortunately.”

  Anselm nodded pensively, thinking about his hotel room and the bed that was awaiting him. When he looked at Gwen he could see that she was thinking the same thing as her lips quirked slightly and she cocked her head at him.

  “You want to check it out?”

  He nodded, “yeah. Can you send me Kamir’s arrest file? I’ll send it to Interpol and have them run it against known terrorists.”

  She nodded in agreement, already pulling her portable from his belt pouch. “Coming right up.”

  She and Anselm both knew that all the standard checks had been run when Kamir was arrested, his prints would have circulated the system looking for outstanding warrants, and his name would have been delivered to the central police network, but it still wasn’t standard procedure to run facial topography scans on every picture entered into the system.

  The process was CPU intensive and its usefulness in more than ninety-nine percent of cases wasn’t particularly impressive. This one, though, may well be the exception.

  “Are you going to be alright, Adrienne?” Anselm offered, “We can escort you back to your hotel room…”

  She shook her head, “I’m staying here. The nurses said that they would set up a free bed for me.”

  Anselm nodded as Adrienne laughed a little bitterly.

  “It’s funny isn’t it?” She asked, “Anywhere else, I’d probably have to leave. This has to be one of the only hospitals left in the world with free beds.”

  Anselm thought that was probably an exaggeration, but it was certainly true that most hospitals guarded their beds jealously, and for good reason. “Alright, I’ll be back in the morning. Get some rest, okay?”

  She nodded, though not very convincingly, and Anselm cupped her shoulder gently, “I’m serious. Get some rest, you’ll do him no good if you’re in worse shape than he is.”

  She smiled slightly at that, and nodded again. “I will.”

  “Alright. In the morning,” Anselm promised.

  Then he and Gwendolyn turned and walked away.

  *****

  Abdallah looked up from his work as Mr. Jacob stepped into the bland white room, his eyes glancing up at the clock. It was later than he’d thought, he’d lost himself in his work again. He would have to get some sleep soon, there was no wisdom in playing with the things he did when one was fatigued.

  “You have news?” He asked, though the phrase was more of a statement.

  “I do, Amir.” Jacob said, using Abdallah’s second name as he always did.

  It was a conceit, Abdallah supposed, but the men he commanded didn’t refer to him as ‘Slave of God’. The used his second name in a very deferential manner, calling him ‘Prince’ instead. Abdallah appreciated the respect, and encouraged it from those he trusted.

  “So tell me.”

  “Kamir was the cause of the accident.” Jacob said grimly, “I apologize, Amir. It was I who gave him the job to search for any other Interpol officers in the city.”

  Abdallah nodded pensively, idly pushing the arm of his electron microscope away.

  “A lesson, Mr. Jacob,” he said sternly.

  “Amir?” The name was a question, perhaps another apology. Abdallah ignored it.

  “Take this as a lesson.” He said, coming to his feet and briefly stretching out his knotted muscles. “Do not assume that the people you employ are as competent as you are.”

  “Yes Amir.” Jacob replied.

  Abdallah eyed the large man for a moment, trying to determine if the double meaning of that statement had penetrated his head.

  The probably had, he finally decided. Jacob was no fool, for all his impressive bulk, but it was difficult to tell sometimes what the man was thinking behind those inscrutable features.

  “In London, I made a similar mistake,” he went on, shrugging as if it were unimportant. “I assumed that my contact with the Japanese Embassy and their support of the warmongering of the American government would have some understanding of basic surveillance technology.”

  Jacob remained silent as Abdallah spoke with a casual sort of sternness.

  “He thought he had been quite brilliant, employing tactical countermeasures to all manner of ultra-modern surveillance technology…” Abdallah shook his head, “Then he spoke of me on a line that the Echelon system could monitor. I was very nearly captured due to a system invented almost eighty years ago, Jacob…and a person who started believing that he was smarter than everyone else.”

  “I understand, Amir.”

  “Do you?” Abdallah asked, then shrugged. “I hope so. This is your mess, so clean it up. Arrange something appropriate for Kamir.”

  “Appropriate?”

  “A warning,” Abdallah said. “Our men must understand that while Initiative is to be encouraged, there are practical limits to its application. Wholesale slaughter isn’t something to be initiated by the rank and file, Jacob.”

  “Understood, Amir.”

  “Good. You may go.”

  Jacob nodded and stepped out of the laboratory, leaving Abdallah Amir to ponder the situation.

  Indeed, wholesale slaughter was not something to be initiated by the rank and file. Even a single death was above their jurisdiction unless it was unavoidable. Deaths were not things to be handed out without purpose.

  Death was their business, and like all businesses a carefully charted plan had to be created and followed for maximum effect.

  The slaughter was for the CEO to initiate.

  When the time was right, of course.

  Chapter 4

  Anselm didn’t know what was more bizarre actually, the fact that he and Gwen were going to question a potentially dangerous witness without SWAT backup, or the fact that they were taking public transportation to get there.

  The Mag-Lev mono-rail was fast, certainly, and Gwen’s car was currently sitting in the police garage waiting for their technician to come on duty in the morning, but the situation was just too alien. Gwen seemed to consider it par for the course though, as she’d appropriated one of the Mag-Lev cars for them alone and now sat carefully checking her service pistol as the car cut through the night air toward their destination.

  Gwen’s hands worked over the Sig-Saur pistol carefully, checking the mechanism with professional thoroughness, though Anselm thought he detected a certain hesitancy to her actions. He couldn’t fault the motions, but there was someth
ing lacking in the execution.

  He didn’t check his own Fifty-Seventy, he’d cleaned and prepared it earlier in the morning while waiting for the plane to take him out to the project. His backup piece was in perfect working order as well, and he knew that both would operate as needed, when he called upon them.

  “You okay?” He asked finally, watching as she missed sliding one of the pins back into the weapon and had to try again.

  “I’m fine,” she replied tersely.

  He just looked at her for a moment, until she sighed.

  “Sorry. I’m just not used to needing this.” She said, nodding to the Sig.

  Anselm nodded, understanding. From what she’d told him the crime rate, and breakdown of violations, around the tower weren’t nearly what one might expect to need a weapon for. It seemed to be more like a large town than a city, and as such a cop was more often a mediator than an enforcer.

  “Relax,” he told her. “Chances are he won’t resist.”

  She nodded jerkily, taking a breath.

  “We’ll just knock on the door and see if he’s home.” Anselm went on, talking out the operation in advance so that it would imprint itself on her mind. “If we have to do an entry, I’ll lead. You just cover my back, alright?”

  She nodded again, this time a little more relaxed.

  “Alright then,” he smiled. “Now you’d better finish assembling your gun. I think we’re almost there, if I’m reading this display right.”

  Gwen’s gaze jerked over to the display that showed their Mag-Lev car’s location, as well as their destination, and nodded quickly as he returned her attention to the partially assembled pistol in front of her.

  Anselm watched, satisfied as she moved with a little more certainty this time. If it turned into an entry, though, he might have to consider lone-wolfing it, unless she could call in some more backup. He’d have to make up his mind on site, depending on how she got as the time approached.

  Luckily the odds were heavily against it coming to anything like that.

  *****

  Mr. Kamir’s home wasn’t of the fine quality of the last place Gwen had taken him, Anselm noted with some amusement. It wasn’t a hovel either, of course. Hovels didn’t exist around the Project, the place was far too recent for that sort of thing. What it was, was a fairly contemporary looking structure that certainly didn’t fit the image one conjured up, when one thought of a trouble-making, extreme sports fanatic.

  Anselm glanced over his shoulder to where Gwen was talking softly into her portable, and paused as he waited for her to finish.

  Finally she nodded and closed the device, then walked up towards him.

  “Get it?”

  She nodded, “Judge Billings signed off on an entry warrant based on the evidence from your scans, as well as what the Interpol computers coughed up.”

  Anselm nodded, the facial topography scan had come in just after they’d stepped off the Mag-Lev, revealing that Mr. Kamir was actually Mr. Nahime, an Ethiopian national with a record of computer crime and ties to some terrorist cells. Yet another Arab who wasn’t even remotely Arabic.

  That was a pattern forming as far as Anselm was concerned, though he wasn’t certain he understood it completely yet.

  It would have to wait at any rate, as the two officers began to make their way up to the home of their suspect. The stopped at the door, leaning slightly away from the center of the door as Gwen hit the door buzzer and also rapped sharply on the tough material.

  “Mr. Kamir!” She yelled. “Are you home?”

  They both listened intently, trying to discern any sound that might be their man getting up, moving around, or bolting for that matter.

  Nothing.

  It was dead quiet.

  Gwen rapped again, “Mr. Kamir!”

  Still nothing.

  They exchanged glances and Anselm nodded to Gwen’s unspoken query, so she took it up a step. “Mr. Kamir, Tower City Police!”

  “Do it,” Anselm whispered.

  She nodded, flipping her portable open in her left hand while she fisted her pistol in her right. She held the pocket computer near the electronic lock, and keyed in the override code that had come with the electronic warrant writ. It buzzed in response, but refused to open.

  Gwen frowned, keying in the code a second time.

  Same response.

  “Damn it,” she muttered. “He must have jacked the lock code.”

  Anselm nodded, withdrawing his own portable. When electronic locks first became de rigeur there had been a public resistance to the idea of the judicial system holding the override keys to open doors. Logically it was no threat to privacy since a court order was required to make use of a writ, and frankly it was much less invasive to have your lock admit a police officer than it was to have them ram a section of steel pipe through the door.

  Still, the result of the resistance was a great of deal of bootleg aftermarket work that could scramble your locking code to prevent the police computers from opening it. It wasn’t illegal, as such, though the work did void the lock warranty and general rendered your home insurance policy null and void.

  He keyed in an access code of his own, and waited a few second as his portable blinked silently.

  The electronic lock buzzed three times before it finally gave in and popped open.

  Gwen shot him a curious look, and Anselm just shrugged. “Interpol keeps a Beowulf Cluster in Norway that’s dedicated to cracking lock codes.”

  She shook her head slightly, shifting her grip on her Sig, but didn’t say anything as Anselm hefted his own Five-seven Magnum and pushed the door open.

  “Stay close,” he whispered. “Don’t point the gun at me, and keep your eyes open.”

  She scowled at him, probably for the gun crack Anselm figured, but nodded.

  He brought his pistol up in a weaver grip and used the edge of his arm to shove the door open as he pivoted through the door, “Police! We have a Warrant!”

  *****

  “Nothing.” Anselm sighed, shaking his head a few minutes later as they stood in the middle of a room that looked like a tornado had struck it.

  His first impression was that someone had searched the place, quickly and clumsily.

  The dirty clothing and underwear scattered around the floor had changed his mind though.

  Mr. Kamir, or Nahime, or whatever was a slob.

  Gwen grimaced in distaste as she lifted a sweaty shirt from a computer’s keyless interface and looked at the screen.

  “Locked out,” she announced a moment later.

  Anselm eyed the system, frowning.

  “Can your Interpol computers do something with this?”

  He shook his head, “Not from here. This system is a lot more complicated than a locking mechanism. He’ll probably have it heavily encrypted. We’ll have to take it out of here, rip the system apart at the station, and mirror the storage drives to the Central Network. We have guys who can crack it, given some time.”

  She nodded, “alright. The Warrant covers it, so I’ll call in a wagon and a couple part time deputies to clean this place out.”

  Anselm nodded in agreement, “Can you get someone to sit on this place tonight? In case he comes back?”

  She frowned, “Maybe. I’ll call the chief and see if I can get the overtime approved.”

  “Tell him that Interpol will cover half of it.” Anselm said, “My expense account will cover that, at least.”

  She smiled, “It’ll help.”

  He grinned back, “Usually does.”

  They became serious a moment later though, the same thought striking them at the same time.

  “If he’s not here,” Anselm said, voicing it first, “where is he?”

  “Blue Yonder maybe.” Gwen replied, “I can call a couple friends…they might know.”

  Anselm nodded, thinking about. “Alright, do it. If they don’t, we’ll call it a night and get back on the job tomorrow.”

  “Agreed.” She sa
id, snapping open her portable.

  *****

  “Hello Kamir.”

  Kamir jerked around, unable to see under the hood that covered his face. “Jacob? Is that you? What’s going on?”

  “You have committed…an error in judgment, Kamir.”

  The cold voice sent a thrill of fear through young man as two sets of arms grabbed him and hauled him to his feet. He could feel a warm wind pass over him as they wrestled him around, holding him upright between them.

  “What did I do!? I’ll fix it! I swear it, Jacob!”

  “You tried to kill Ronald Somer.” The voice replied, “Can you ‘fix’ that?”

  “The cop!? Who cares!?”

  “He wasn’t a police officer, Mr. Kamir,” Jacob said in his dull voice. “And to answer your second question, I care. I care when someone under me is stupid enough to decide to kill a man without orders. I care when someone under me is foolish enough not to consider the consequences. Put simply, Mr. Kamir, I care.”

  The small man shook under the black hood, “I’m sorry, Jacob! I won’t do it again!”

  “I know you won’t,” Jacob replied. “Put it on him.”

  The men holding Kamir began wrestling him around again, and something slid over his right arm, then his left as he was held in place. He could hear snapping sounds of plastic and metal clipping together, and suddenly the men let him go and he had to catch himself from falling to the ground.

  “Amir is angry with me, because of you.” Jacob told him as he braced himself with his hands on his knees and began to straighten up. “You’ve endangered the plan.”

  “I’d never do that, Jacob! I swear! I live for Amir!” Kamir protested, pulling the hood off.

  He instantly blinked in the harsh glare of light that erupted around him, blinding him. He held his hand up to shelter his eyes and peered around.

  Mr. Jacob was standing just a few feet from him, the lights at his back. Kamir looked around, and realized that he was inside.

  But the wind?, He thought wildly, then his eyes widened as he realized where he must be.

  He was inside the tower, near the center of the project where the heated air from the greenhouse created a constant wind as it was drawn up the length of the kilometer high tower.