~~~
‘I got their demands at midday,’ Jackson said. His voice was calm, steady, but Fox had only ever seen him look the same way in Dallas when he had been there for the briefing the last time his daughter had been taken captive. ‘They want all the data on the research being done at Jenner, and they want you to deliver it.’
‘Have you told NAPA about this?’ Fox asked, knowing what his answer was going to be. She had managed to get a couple of hours’ sleep before her VA had awoken her, quite urgently, at Kit’s insistence. The AI had explained that Jackson needed to see her, and also stated that there was new evidence which could wait until Fox was securely situated in Jackson’s office.
‘I haven’t. After I got your message earlier, I did some checking on the situation regarding NAPA and Canard. He was… less than helpful. He made it quite clear that you were not available for work on this case, but that NAPA was busy locating Teresa and the situation would be resolved quickly and efficiently.’ Jackson frowned at her. ‘Has your captain always been an asshole?’
‘He’s heavily into law and order politics. I think he’s hoping to push into a full-time advocacy role at some point, but he’ll be pressing for divisional captain and commander before then.’
‘No sights on the directorship?’
‘Too difficult to get up there. You just about have to assassinate the incumbent, and Canard’s too much of a wimp to go there.’
‘But perfectly capable of keeping you tied up while Teresa–’ His ashen colouring had reddened as the anger began to rise, but he forced it back down, gritting his teeth until he could speak again. ‘Kit has… obtained some interesting information. She requested external verification of her memory, security, and storage after she found this, and–’
‘Hold up. Why would she do that?’
‘Because,’ Kit said appearing beside them, ‘I do not know how the data arrived in my system. Someone apparently bypassed my security and was able to implant data records, large ones, without me being aware of it.’
‘I’ve checked her entire system. I can’t find any viruses or Trojans. There is just the anomalous data, and that has been validated against the sources the metadata points to. Someone has located camera feed data which NAPA has apparently not found, and they have given that data to Kit, anonymously.’
‘You’re both being obscure and I’m tired,’ Fox pointed out. There was a nagging pain in her head, between her eyes and clamping down around her skull. She was running on too little sleep and not enough coffee, and she was going to need a stimulant to keep her going if everyone kept avoiding the point.
Kit clearly recognised that. Turning, the AI looked at the large wall screen behind her and maybe a dozen video loops began playing on it. One showed a vertol landing, people rushing toward it. Fox saw Terri being rushed off the transport and out of sight, but a second feed picked her up being hustled into a ground vehicle.
‘Do we have the identification plate on that car?’
‘I scraped it from the video,’ Kit replied, ‘but the vehicle is not in any official records. However, one of these feeds shows it entering the Perth Amboy area.’
‘That’s… interestingly coincidental.’
‘It gets more interesting.’
Several of the other feeds showed Bucksbridge meeting with Killian and Caravel. It seemed like he had been kept away from the other UA members, but having found them it seemed it had been easy enough to locate the others. Remen was there with Killian, there were shots of Caravel, Remen, and Prentice, and Caravel had met with Sandoval, which was even more interesting. There was another man seen with Caravel and Sandoval, and in the footage taken from the kidnapping. Fox frowned at the unknown. There was something about him…
‘Do we know who the big guy is?’ Fox asked. He was big, heavily muscled and tall, his shape somewhat masked by the heavy coat he wore in every shot. He had long, dark hair with a white fringe which helped to hide his face, but there was something familiar about him.
‘We never get any really good views of his face,’ Jackson said, ‘but I ran a composite match on the best angles from a couple of frames. The system came up with this.’
The image changed to a still of a man Fox did recognise. The picture was from a UNTPP personnel file and the hair was different, shorter and without the white fringe. Her memory flashed over the man she had known and compared it to the images she was seeing on the screen. ‘It can’t be him, Jackson. He was big, but that bulk around the shoulders–’
‘Could be the result of cybernetic replacement.’
‘I watched him take half a dozen rounds to the chest. Gavin Marshall died in the bunker in Dallas. I blew the damn bunker up before I got out!’
‘Which may well be an explanation for the cybernetics. We know Prentice and Caravel were handling that operation for UA. We know a number of bodies were never found in the wreckage. Marshall’s body was one of those. I checked. One possibility concerning his actions on that day was a deliberate desire to sabotage the rescue.’
Fox frowned, biting her lips closed and staring at the floor. ‘So, Caravel was NIX, and he was working with Sandoval. Both were down around Dallas when the UA incident happened. Maybe they were there to push the UA cell into acting. Maybe they formed the cell. It wouldn’t be the first time an intelligence agency has set up what seems like a terrorist group to accomplish its aims.’
‘The nanotech research.’
‘Uh-huh. What better way to get it while the world thinks it was some terrorist grouping?’
‘It makes sense. Sandoval was with Wayden, yes? I used them for site security at Dallas back then, but they had no access to the research. Sandoval would likely be able to find out what we were researching, but he had no way to get into that research.’
‘Okay, so you flatly refuse to hand over the data. They can’t get past the security. I’m going to be sent in so NIX arrange for one of their people in the UNTPP to be placed in charge. Despite that, I get Terri out and blow the place, as you wanted. NIX cuts Caravel off and he’s forced to go to ground with Prentice, who has managed to get Marshall out somehow.’
‘And when Sandoval or his bosses discover I’ve restarted the research, they bring Caravel and his team in to get the new data. Hunt was the first attempt. You were supposed to connect his death to UA; they were going to be the fall guys again.’
‘But the data they got was incomplete.’
Jackson nodded. ‘And anything I give them now will be similarly incomplete. That’s why Teresa was going up there. And there’s the matter of the other murders.’
‘Oh, that’s revenge,’ Fox said bitterly.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘If you take all the surnames of the victims, the initial letters spell out “TARA.” If you want to continue that, their next victim is Teresa Martins. M for Meridian. And they picked their first victim to be sure I’d be called in as primary on the case. They’ve been stringing me along with false leads, had me chasing shadows, and Sandoval has been in there to make sure some of those leads got chased when I’d have ignored them. They wanted me running around after that and not paying as much attention to the Hunt case, and they wanted me following Sandoval into a trap last night. Now they want me to deliver the data because they want me dead. Revenge for Dallas, pure and simple.’
‘Do you think my daughter is still alive, Fox?’ Jackson was looking even greyer now. Terri was all he had left of his wife, but she was also a constant source of pride for him and a loving, happy daughter too. Losing her would, probably, break him.
‘I think they’ll keep her alive until they get their data. They want that data and she’s about the only tool they think they have to get it. Alive, she’s a bargaining chip. When do they want the data delivered?’
‘You’re to go to a dead drop in Queens tonight at eight.’
‘Uh-huh. Run me around for a few hours and then get me somewhere they can kill me and take the data.’ Fox looked up at the scree
n and the videos still playing on it. ‘I’m going to lose my job again, Jackson.’
‘I did say I have a position open at Palladium.’
She laughed. ‘Canard has my pistol.’
‘Thank you for reminding me. Your techs should have finished recovering whatever data they need. That weapon is the commercially sensitive property of MarTech Group. I’ll send some lawyers around to retrieve it.’
‘You can do that?’
‘I can, and have, and they’ll be ensuring that no technical schematics have been recorded in NAPA files, which should annoy your captain.’
‘Okay. But I’m going to need some additional equipment if I’m going to pull this off.’
Jackson smiled. ‘I believe I can adequately supply you with the necessary tools.’
~~~
Canard looked up as Fox walked into his office. His expression was as sour as Fox had expected it to be and it was about to get worse. ‘What is it, Inspector?’ Canard snapped at her. He did not offer her a seat, but then she did not want to sit down.
‘Did I ever tell you why I quit the UNTPP?’ Fox asked in reply.
‘It was a question we asked at your interview, so yes, you did.’
‘Do you remember what my answer was?’ He scowled. She knew he was trying to remember, probably checking to see whether he had it filed away in an archive. She decided to put him out of his misery. ‘I found myself unable to work under a command structure which I could not trust to back me in the face of political pressure.’ She sent him the file she was holding ready; a gesture seemed to be necessary so she flicked her wrist as though tossing an envelope onto his desk, and the virtual interface obliged by popping up a virtual message indicator which appeared on his desk’s surface.
‘What’s this?’ he asked. Fox felt that it was a distinctly stupid question.
‘I can’t prove you knew Sandoval was a NIX agent, but the fact you’ve been doing everything you can to keep me out of the way since he died suggests that someone’s leaning on you. I find myself unable to work under a command structure which I cannot trust to back me in the face of political pressure. Also, you’re an asshole.’
Canard’s face turned red as she turned on her heel and started for the door. ‘I’ll see to it that you never work–’
‘A naive, stupid asshole,’ Fox said. The door opened in front of her and she wondered whether Canard would try to get another jibe in before it closed, but there was nothing and she connected to Kit on the way to the station. ‘Kit, situation report.’
‘Mister Martins has dispatched sixteen drones into the area indicated by the video captures. I am monitoring.’
‘Can you operate sixteen drones at once?’
‘They are autonomous. Their AIs are not complex, but quite sufficient for the task at hand. I am merely directing their activities and monitoring the video where they believe they have found something.’
‘Right. Anything positive?’
‘One possible. A disused factory building which is showing infrared activity of approximately the correct magnitude. I have one of the drones stationed over that building constantly to watch for one of the targets.’
Fox allowed herself a small smile. ‘Very tactical.’
‘I am running tactical and intelligence analysis packages.’
‘Uh-huh. Anything more on where those video clips came from?’
There was a short pause and then, ‘I found only one thing in all of the records which appears to serve no real purpose. This is a metadata tag, “thought and memory.” I believe this has been placed as a clue to the source of the data.’
‘Thought and memory? That’s it?’
‘Yes, Fox. I am attempting to decipher this now. If it is not a clue to the sender, I believe we must wait for that person to make themselves known.’
‘Okay. I’m on my way back. Keep me updated if you find anything new.’
~~~
Fox stopped off on the way to her apartment, requesting access to Sam’s apartment as she rode the elevator up. It was usually wise to check with him before you arrived: not many of his clients came to his apartment, but the ones who did were actually ones he liked and they tended to stay longer.
He was alone and shirtless at two in the afternoon, and he took one look at her and went to his kitchen area to pour coffee. ‘You are not looking like your day is going well.’
‘I just quit NAPA. Terri’s been kidnapped by UA terrorists who want me to deliver data to them so they can kill me. Oh, and the entire thing was set up by NIX to get the data out of MarTech without anyone knowing it was them.’
Sam handed her the coffee and peered at her. ‘You’re sharing more than usual.’
‘You busy tonight?’
‘I wasn’t…’
‘Good, because I need a backup I can trust. I don’t want you going in, just being there to get Terri to safety once I’ve got her free of the place. I cleared it with Jackson; he’ll pay your standard fee and danger bonus.’
‘You know I’ll do it without. I like Terri. I don’t like the idea that you’re going in alone. You are going in alone, right?’
Fox gave him a smile. ‘Yes and no.’
~~~
‘We have target verification. Height is twelve hundred metres. Wind speed is thirty-five knots to five hundred and then dropping. Holding position, but flight control are going to get iffy about this pretty soon.’ The pilot was the same man who had flown her up to Boston. Fox had asked for him, knowing he had experience and could handle the job. From the way he had reacted, it seemed like he was rather pleased with the assignment.
‘Okay,’ Fox replied over their link, ‘you give me fifteen minutes once I’m on the ground and then you swing this thing in for the recovery. Sam? You know what to do?’
Sam looked across the rear bay of the vertol at her, his face hidden behind a helmet. He looked distinctly sexy in the full-body combat suit Jackson had supplied. Like Fox’s, Sam’s could take hits from small-calibre weapons with no trouble, but she was determined that he should not need to test that. ‘I’m ready,’ he told her. ‘Just make sure you get out of there with her.’
‘I intend to. Hit the rear hatch.’ The last order was to the pilot and, behind her, the big rear hatch of the military-model vertol began to open up like a huge jaw. The wind whipped at them, not too strong, but still buffeting at their bodies. The helmet Fox was wearing protected her from most of it, and the slim, dark red suit kept the rest off even though it was only a couple of millimetres thick. ‘Deploy transport drone.’ A large, torpedo-like pod which was resting on rails beside her slipped silently backwards and then dropped over the edge. Fox glanced at Sam. ‘See you soon,’ and then she was running down the ramp and out into the night air above Perth Amboy.
She let herself drop for six hundred metres or so, forming her body into an arrow as she chased the pod, which had already deployed fins to steer it toward its target. Satisfied with her progress, Fox opened her legs and stretched out her arms, and the web of fabric between her limbs gave her lift and steering as she turned and circled, getting her bearings via GPS. There were few street lights below; the buildings were mostly dark. Telemetry from the pod was telling her that nothing as complex as radar or ladar was watching the sky from down there. There was no moon to speak of and some low cloud. Fox and the pod were dark shapes in the night, falling through the air, unseen by those below.
At three hundred metres, she angled out in the direction of the shoreline and then pulled her chute at a hundred. The sudden slamming tension over her torso bit into her hard as she decelerated, steering herself around to a landing on a stretch of road just outside the industrial complex which was her target. A thought hauled the chute in to form a mass on her back. It was no use for jumping with in that state, but it was easier to carry. She unstrapped the harness and started in the direction of the pod.
‘Zorra to Skyhook. On the ground. Start the clock.’
Now all she had to do wa
s get in, save the girl, and get out alive. No problem.
~~~
‘How long before she’s due at the first checkpoint?’
Prentice frowned at Killian. The younger man had been acting like a kid in the back seat of the family transport for the last hour. The ‘are we there yet’ questions were getting annoying, but Prentice did understand the problem: Killian had not been in on the revenge angle of his companions until now, but Remen’s capture had changed that. ‘Thirty-five minutes,’ Prentice told him.
‘I want her to pay,’ Killian added, his grip tightening on the rifle he had been carrying for most of the day.
‘You’ll get your shot at her,’ Caravel told him. ‘Sit down.’
‘I can’t sit down. I’m–’
‘Sit the fuck down,’ Marshall growled, ‘or I’ll break your fucking legs.’ The big man was sitting with his eyes fixed on the chair to which they had tied Terri. He sat there in a wife-beater T-shirt which showed off the bulk of his cybernetic arms and watched her with a degree of malice she found more frightening than all the guns and those powerful arms. She knew a bit about cybernetics and she could tell that the arms were over-engineered, grafted to a frame which could not support the power available. From the look of it, his spine had been reinforced, or maybe replaced, but his lower body was natural and his legs would probably collapse if he tried to use the full power of his arms. He was a big man with a powerful physique, but it was his mind that was frightening.
Terri had recognised Marshall from photographs more or less immediately. She had never met any of this bunch, but from what she had heard, she knew that they were UA and that they were connected to the Dallas attack somehow. The fact that Marshall was now working with UA people was not a great surprise. The fact that any of them were here and trying to pull the same stunt again…
Fox Hunt (Fox Meridian Book 1) Page 21
