The Rimes Trilogy Boxed Set

by P. R. Adams

  “Where?”

  “Sewri Mudflats.” He suddenly realized how unpleasant the name sounded. “It’s about a half-hour drive.”

  Metcalfe noisily fiddled with his earpiece. “That’s certainly remote enough. Okay. I’ll arrange for a vehicle. You call Dana yet?”

  “I just got off the call with Tendulkar. I’ll call her now.”

  Metcalfe dropped the call without another word. Rimes called Kleigshoen. It took a few rings before she answered.

  “Jack? It’s not …” Kleigshoen’s voice drifted off into slow, seductive breathing.

  “Dana, we have to leave in about thirty minutes.” The connection stayed silent for several seconds. “Dana? Ritesh called. He wants to meet us. We need to—”

  “We should’ve thought of this before last night, Jack.” Kleigshoen sighed heavily. “You two let me drink way too much. I’m a disaster. I can’t believe you’re any better.”

  “Thirty minutes in the lobby,” Rimes said, working his stiff shoulder.

  He disconnected and tossed his old underwear into the bathroom recycler. Yawning, he ran through a series of stretches, trying to work the kinks out of his back.

  Razor in hand, he started the shower. Suddenly, he didn’t care about running up the Bureau’s bill and cranked the shower to full heat. A minute later, he was gasping beneath the steaming spray, shaving as quickly as he could.

  He toweled off, applied his antiperspirant, and pulled on his underwear. Bloodshot eyes stared back at him as he brushed his teeth. Cursing himself for indulging in one drink too many the night before, he gargled with the courtesy mouthwash. He eschewed his suit for a black T-shirt, dark slacks, and navy windbreaker. Ten minutes later, he was in the elevator, headed for the lobby.

  Metcalfe proved to be a competent but impatient driver. The hotel had loaned them a small T-Corp three-seater with an anemic engine that supposedly boosted its electric motor. There was barely enough room in the back for Rimes and Kleigshoen to squeeze in. They were pressed tight against each other, their bodies warm in the cool air.

  The back of the front seat dug into Rimes’s knees. Ten minutes into the drive, they ached as if they’d been worked over with a lead pipe. With each pothole strike, the car sputtered and gasped and threatened to die, drawing another string of curses from Metcalfe.

  “He’s got some sense of timing,” Metcalfe muttered over the clattering and squeaking. “We’re not going to get there in time to do any sort of recon.”

  “I’m having a hard time getting a connection to the Imagery system.” Kleigshoen massaged her temples. With each jolt, she looked ready to vomit. “The latest image I have is from three hours ago.”

  “Send me a copy,” Metcalfe said as he glared at Rimes in the rear-view mirror. “Did he give any reason for having to meet so soon?”

  “No,” Rimes said. “We didn’t really talk much.”

  Rimes looked out the half-window to his right. What leaked through the grime was a sleeping city: the occasional bus and more infrequent scooter or small car. There were no pedestrians in sight. The car’s engine gasped; Rimes worried about their chances, should things unravel.

  A thunderous crack sounded, and the car suddenly went airborne. Metcalfe screamed furiously as he fought to regain control. They landed hard, and Metcalfe fought to get the petulant little beast moving in a straight line again.

  “I simply cannot believe people live in these conditions,” Metcalfe shouted. “There’s more hole than road—oh, hell.”

  Rimes saw the lights before he heard the brief siren wail. The police mini-SUV approaching them in the oncoming lane pulled a U-turn as it passed, then accelerated to catch up to them.

  Rimes and Kleigshoen twisted in the seat to watch through the rear window as the police vehicle closed on them. In the confined space, Kleigshoen was pressed against him, filling his awareness with her scent, her heat and touch. He looked down at her for just a moment, long enough to catch her turning to look up at him. She pushed tighter against him.

  Without moving his head, Rimes said. “I see two in uniform. They’re definitely following us.”

  Metcalfe mumbled and pulled over to the left. He rolled the window down and twisted in his seat to watch the police. “We’ve got five minutes to get there, so this is going to be tight. Let me deal with them.”

  Rimes saw Metcalfe slip something out of his pocket: cash. Then the police vehicle’s floodlight kicked on, nearly blinding them. Rimes blocked the light with his hand and watched the policemen exit their vehicle. Both had unsnapped their holsters; the second officer’s right hand hovered over the weapon’s grip.

  “Something’s not right,” Rimes said. “They’re ready to draw.”

  Metcalfe watched the driver in the side-view mirror. “Dana, what’s our little friend doing back there?”

  Kleigshoen strained a little to get a better view of the passenger. “Jack’s right. He’s got his hand on his gun.”

  “Okay then.” Metcalfe slid the cash back into his jacket pocket. “Stay sharp, right?”

  The driver, a small, pudgy man, finally arrived at the open window. His hand now rested directly on his pistol butt. He made a face, as though detecting alcohol in the air. He stared at Metcalfe.

  “You been drinking?”

  “Last night, officer,” Metcalfe said with a smile. “We’re well over it, I assure you.”

  Metcalfe switched to Hindi and said something that seemed to set the officer at ease. They spoke for a few moments, Metcalfe pointing back in the direction of the hotel. The officer nodded and headed back to his vehicle.

  With practiced ease, Metcalfe popped open the glove compartment and pulled out a small booklet. “I want you ready to act,” he said, never losing his smile. “Understand?”

  Kleigshoen nodded.

  Metcalfe popped open the door, waving the booklet and calling to the driver in Hindi. Rimes watched as the policemen focused on Metcalfe. The second officer seemed worried, looking back down the road. Rimes followed his head and saw an approaching black SUV.

  It was accelerating.

  “Get down,” Rimes shouted. He shoved the driver’s seat forward and hooked his arm around Kleigshoen’s chest, pulling her down as automatic gunfire roared. Glass shattered and bullets tore through the car. The firing stopped as suddenly as it had started, replaced by an accelerating engine’s whine.

  Kleigshoen gasped. She pulled away from Rimes and put a hand to her back. Twisting, she looked through the shattered windows.

  “They’re down!” She scrambled to get out of the car and made her way to the battered police vehicle.

  Rimes grimaced in sudden pain as he carefully navigated through the glass-covered door. Outside, he braced his butt against the ruined car—the vehicle wasn’t going anywhere. A quick inspection revealed a dozen cuts across his hands, but it was his left leg that troubled him: he’d been hit in the thigh.

  Kleigshoen squatted over Metcalfe, then helped him up. Metcalfe was covered in blood, but he seemed alert and functional, which was more than could be said for the policemen.

  “You all right?” Metcalfe called to Rimes. He brushed Kleigshoen’s hands away, then took her shoulders, turned her around, and looked at her back.

  “Caught one in the thigh.” Rimes put weight on the leg. It was numb but seemed functional. “Just cut up other than that. You?”

  Metcalfe said, “I used our friend here for cover when I noticed his passenger watching the road. Get the passenger’s gun. We need to be ready if they come back.”

  Rimes took a tentative step, then another. “Is she okay?”

  “She was grazed along the back,” Metcalfe said after a moment. “I’ll get you two to someone we can trust.”

  Metcalfe hooked his wrists under the driver’s arms and pulled him onto the side of the road. Metcalfe grunted as he lowered the policeman to the ground. “We’ll take their vehicle.”

  As he approached the passenger-side door, Rimes saw the othe
r policeman. He was still alive but slipping into shock. Rimes took the policeman’s gun and searched him for extra magazines or loose bullets, gently swatting away the policeman’s bloody hands when he resisted. When he was done, he pulled the policeman to the side of the road.

  Wincing at the stiffness in his shoulder, Rimes pulled off his windbreaker and wrapped it around his hand to sweep the glass from the back seat, then let Kleigshoen in. Once he was sure she was in safely, he swept off the passenger seat, climbed in, and closed the door.

  Metcalfe pulled his jacket off and swept the driver’s seat clear. After checking the gun he’d taken from the dead policeman, he pulled onto the road, already chatting in Hindi with someone over his earpiece.

  A minute later, they were off the main road, heading toward the slums.

  “I guess we have our answer about Petty Officer Tendulkar,” Metcalfe finally said. He gave Rimes a rueful smile.

  “Or about T-Corp,” Rimes replied. “Or both.”

  Metcalfe nodded. “I don’t think Tendulkar would do something like this on his own. We’ll find out soon enough. For now, though, we stay off the Grid. There’s no reason to take any risks.”

  The SUV bumped and rattled as they approached the slum’s outskirts and the road turned into little more than packed dirt. Metcalfe drove for several minutes, searching down the maze of winding paths before pulling into one. He stopped the SUV beneath a tattered overhang and killed the engine.

  Jacket draped over his gun, Metcalfe exited the vehicle. He looked around quickly, then entered the maze. Kleigshoen and Rimes followed.

  “We’ve got a few minutes to kill before our Good Samaritan will be ready for us,” Metcalfe said. “She runs a tight schedule.”

  They wandered through the tightly packed slums for several minutes, Metcalfe frequently checking the map overlay on his earpiece.

  Finally, they reached what constituted a nice house, for the slums. Light leaked from beneath the heavy drapes covering the door, revealing a scooter chained against the outer wall.

  The drapes lifted as they approached, and an elderly man wearing a crisp shirt and baggy, tattered pants gave a quick glance around, then waved them in.

  Metcalfe and the older man spoke quietly just inside the entry as a young woman in a nurse’s uniform stepped from behind a curtain to the left of the entry. The place reeked of curry, onions past their prime, and unwashed bodies. The young woman whispered quickly to the old man, then pointed Kleigshoen and Rimes toward the hut’s central room.

  The place was half the size of his apartment and served as dining room and kitchen. The floor was hard-packed dirt.

  The young woman set out a bowl of water and her medical kit while Metcalfe slipped the old man a wad of cash, silencing his protestations.

  The nurse quickly examined Kleigshoen and Rimes, carefully cutting away as little clothing as she could in order to get to their wounds. Kleigshoen’s shoulder and back had a long gash where a round had grazed her. It was shallow, but it was bleeding and would be vulnerable to infection without treatment.

  The nurse washed the wound clean before swabbing it with alcohol and applying an ointment. She taped a gauze strip over it, then turned to the superficial hand wounds they’d received from the broken glass. The crude medicine and equipment she worked with was a painful reminder to Rimes of how fortunate he was.

  After washing away the blood and applying antiseptic, she turned her attention to Rimes’s leg wound. She carefully examined the wound, then explained to him in English that the bullet had passed through without doing serious damage. Rimes grimaced as she cleaned and sewed shut both ends of the wound while warning him that he risked infection if he didn’t get a more thorough cleaning at a hospital.

  It was growing light out by the time the nurse closed her kit and emptied the bloody water outside the house. She spoke with Metcalfe for a few moments, then pulled two cellophane-wrapped hospital shirts from beneath a stack of blankets. She handed the shirts to Metcalfe and stepped through the front entry.

  Rimes looked the shirts over. They were distinctive in their plainness. Stolen clothing might catch someone’s attention.

  We wouldn’t stand out any more than we already do, and it’s not like we’d be the first to steal clothing. Anyway, who’s to say we aren’t recent patients?

  A moment later, he heard someone unchain the scooter. The motor came to life, and Metcalfe entered the house alone.

  Metcalfe looked the two of them over. “Are you waiting for something nicer?”

  Rimes smiled. He helped Kleigshoen into her shirt, then pulled his own on. The shirts were stiff and smelled stale, but they were clean.

  Metcalfe watched the entry for a moment, finally turning to look at Kleigshoen and Rimes. “We’re staying here for now. If they’re looking for us, they won’t find us. I’d suggest you get some sleep. We’ll go looking for our friend Tendulkar tonight, so we’ll need to be sharp. He’s almost certain to be on his guard. Everyone’s going to be on their guard.”

  16

  2 March 2164. Mumbai, India.

  * * *

  They were parked off a secondary road leading into an upscale housing area. A towering privacy wall blocked out the street lights, cloaking them in shadow. Metcalfe sat in the vehicle’s front seat, eyes focused on the Grid security video. Rimes watched the feed over his earpiece.

  “Think he has any idea?” Kleigshoen asked.

  Rimes defocused from the video feed to watch Metcalfe’s face in the weak glow of hacked-together surveillance equipment.

  IB’s apparently unlimited funding amazed Rimes. Metcalfe had purchased a stolen SUV, equipment, guns, and a change of clothes without batting an eye. Objectively, it was the same operational concept—”Get it done”—that the Commandos lived by, but on a completely different scale. It felt different.

  Metcalfe stared into space for a moment. “No.” He lowered his head and returned to the security video.

  The police killings had stirred up surprisingly little activity. According to a newscast Rimes had heard earlier in the day, the official line was that radical dissidents had targeted the policemen. By all indications, the three of them weren’t even fugitives from the law—at least officially. It had even been frighteningly easy to locate and close in on Tendulkar: he had no police protection, no extra security.

  Rimes closed his eyes and relaxed, enjoying the dreamlike quality of the moment: a moment of calm in a turbulent mission that had sapped his energy and resolve.

  Tendulkar’s voice suddenly came over the communication channel. Tendulkar was speaking with his cousin, the senior T-Corp scientist. The two talked about trivial matters for a few moments before the cousin asked Tendulkar if he’d heard from his friends. Tendulkar quickly said he had not. They both sounded nervous. The cousin assured Tendulkar he’d done the right thing and disconnected.

  “Okay,” Metcalfe said, replaying a security video that showed the front of an impressive two-story, gated house. “This is where Tendulkar is hiding, his brother’s place. His brother’s a senior government engineer, and Poppa Tendulkar was a T-Corp administrator until last year, so they’re not hurting for money.

  “Tendulkar’s brother shares this place with their parents, his own family, a cousin, and his cousin’s wife. I make eight inside right now, plus Tendulkar, so nine.

  “Right now you can see the woman I believe is Tendulkar’s fiancée, who arrived ten minutes ago.

  “I haven’t had any luck getting a floor plan. Best I can determine, it’s fairly similar to the floor plan I’m laying over the image now.”

  A pale-blue wireframe settled over the house to match the security camera’s perspective. Metcalfe adjusted the obvious problem areas, aligning the door and windows and knocking off a small side patio.

  A glowing finger appeared over the image on Rimes’s display. “Dining room, living room, bedrooms. According to energy use patterns, they’ll fire up their entertainment console and run it until a
bout ten. That should put Ritesh and his sweetie out the door a few minutes later. Factor in a goodbye peck, and Ritesh is headed this way on his scooter by a quarter past.”

  They’d wrapped a cable around a nearby pole. When the time came, Rimes would run across the street and wrap the cable around a signpost on the opposite side. In the dark, Tendulkar wouldn’t see it. It would knock him off scooter, and Rimes would be on him before he could get off the ground.

  It would then be up to the IB’s interrogation techniques to pry out the desired data.

  “What’s our extraction plan?” Kleigshoen asked.

  “There’s a private airstrip sixty kilometers north,” Metcalfe said. “A pilot will be waiting for us. Then we get to Pune and hire a shuttle to wherever the heck we need to go next.”

  “Simple enough,” Rimes said. “What are our possible destinations?”

  Metcalfe thought for a moment. “Seoul. Darwin. Tokyo. Who knows at this point?”

  Rimes shook his head.

  “What?” Kleigshoen leaned forward, crossing her arms on top of the seat and resting her chin on her hands. “Too much travel?”

  Rimes chuckled quietly. “Too much uncertainty. I’m used to knowing where to go, what to do, and what I have to do it with.”

  Metcalfe glared back at him. “Who do you think makes that possible? We have people all around the globe pulling down data, listening in on countless conversations, buying information, analyzing targets, and more, all so you can have the sort of certainty you’re used to. People risk their lives every day on some of the most mundane and innocuous things, all in the name of intelligence gathering.”

  Rimes nodded. “I get that. It doesn’t make the transition from operator to collector any less jarring, though.”

  Kleigshoen punched him gently on the shoulder. “What we’re doing here is critical. Of course we’re uncertain. For all we know, the bad guy could be one of us.”

  Metcalfe cleared his throat. “What Dana’s trying to say is that we can’t even identify what’s at stake between these two metacorporations. There’s simply no way for us to say we have actionable material to work with just based off what we’ve dug up to date—”