Gancha said, “Jake, will you come to bed?”
I shouted at her, “Don’t call me that name! Ever!”
A noise came from the other side of the door and I got out of bed, popped up, and opened it to see Alena walking away. The robocat Tut followed behind her.
Oh shit. Did she hear?
I returned to Gancha’s side.
“What’s Alena doing here?”
“She lives here,” replied Gancha.
“I’m not sure I like this at all.”
#
The next day, Gancha and Alena went shopping at the Franken Mall. Both dressed in matching blue sweater tops and beige slacks. It didn’t take Gancha long to realize Alena liked shopping as much as she did. Which was to say not at all.
When taking a break in the lounge chairs, Alena asked, “Gancha, can I tell you something?”
“What?”
“That guy who stays at your place sometimes. The one you call Mike. He stares at me sometimes. Makes me nervous.”
Gancha smiled.
“It’s not funny!”
“It would be if you knew.”
“Knew what?”
Gancha declined to answer. “I’ll let Mike tell you himself. When he’s ready.”
“Tell me what?”
Gancha shrugged. “Whatever.”
To change the subject, she added, “Shall we get some ice cream?”
Chapter 34
Two days later, I went to Salia’s for dinner with the love of my life.
And who should be sitting at our table when I walked into the Italian restaurant?
Alena.
“What’s this?” I asked as I took a seat at the table.
Gancha replied, “It’s time we cleared the air. We can’t go on living like this.”
I continued to stare at her. I stole a glance at Alena, who looked at Gancha.
She said, “It’s time you told Alena who you really are.”
“This is against my orders.”
“I know that,” she replied. “But you’re not in charge here.”
Damn independent woman.
Alena pipped up with, “Will someone tell me what’s going on?”
I looked at Gancha, then at Alena.
Crap.
“I’m not ready for this.”
Gancha added, “You’re never ready. If you don’t tell her, I will.”
Oh well. Might as well get it over with.
I looked at my hands to find my index fingers rubbing my thumbs. I stopped them.
“About three weeks ago, I woke up on Earth.”
Alena nodded. “And?”
“I found myself a prisoner in a small room. Later, my uncle Berry came in and told me why I was there.”
This was harder than I had expected.
“And why were you there?” Alena asked.
“Jake Dani had come back to Rossa and got himself killed. I was rebuilt from his template.”
Alena’s jaw dropped and she sat back.
We three sat like that, not saying a word, for another five seconds. Seemed like forever though.
“Are you telling me,” said Alena, “that you’re my dad?”
There. It was out.
I nodded.
“I don’t believe it,” Alena said. “Not for a minute.”
She looked over at Gancha.
“He is,” Gancha said.
Alena turned her gaze back to me.
“But you look different.”
“Acorn had me rebuilt in the image of an identity he had on reserve. So I have a different voice, hands, and fingerprints.”
“I still don’t believe it,” Alena said.
I repeated the same routine I had used before.
“Ask me some questions that only you and Jake would know the answers to.”
Alena sat quiet for a moment.
“What did my father say to me when we got to my room at the embassy?” she asked.
I noticed she didn’t say “mercon embassy.” I thought hard on that one.
I said, “How are they treating you?”
“And my reply was?” she asked.
“’Like royalty.’ I brought along an injector and gave you a shot.”
“And where was this?”
“At the mercon embassy.”
Alena nodded slowly.
“And what did you say when you told me my Mom had died?”
“I was busy then. All I can remember was saying, ‘She didn’t make it.’”
“What did I get for my sixteenth birthday?” she asked.
“Where the hell did that question come from?”
“Answer it!” Alena demanded.
I looked at my hands and saw them shaking.
Gotta stop that.
Then I remembered.
“A red dress. Party dress, if I remember right. A chiffon thing. I remember commenting that you looked so grown up in it.”
Alena sat back, her jaw slack, while she stared at me.
“So it was your name Gancha called out that night,” Alena said.
I looked at Alena as she bowed her head.
“I’m Mike Shapeck now. Don’t ever use my old name. What Gancha did was a mistake.”
Alena sat quiet. After a minute or so, her eyes watered and she looked up at me.
When I saw that, I stood and came around the table to her.
She stood and put her arms under mine and lay her head on my chest in a hug.
Two seconds later. I felt Gancha’s right hand on my back.
#
I don’t remember what I ate for dinner that night. Probably some pasta thing or other. That’s what Salia’s was famous for.
Two days later, I was still in shock. Now both Gancha and Alena knew what my former name was. What was next? I didn’t seem to be in control of that anymore.
This whole frickin’ thing was one big loss of control.
#
The face of Mike Shapeck stared back at Ash Getner.
Where the hell is he?
The fact that Shapeck had traveled via the fast method from Earth meant someone had paid a lot of money. And Shapeck disappeared once he landed at the Zor Franken Airport.
One thing was sure. Getner didn’t like people disappearing on him.
And that brought BIS to Getner’s mind.
Was Shapeck part of BIS?
What the hell could I do with that spy organization? I’d like to wipe it out completely.
The next report was on Josey Shavens. One of the perks of his network was learning miscellaneous things that could come in handy. He read of one agent overhearing a conversation, in a grocery story of all places. Josey Shavens worked as a housekeeper for a crime lord, Gancha Morentoss.
Where had he heard that name? After a minute lost while searching through a stack of the plastic reports, he reread the report on Morentoss. It seemed the crime lord was a crime lord no more.
He sat back and pondered this new development. Then he searched through the stack of reports on his desk and found the one on Shavens and read where a Mike Shapeck often stayed overnight at Morentoss’s house.
Well, well. Mike Shapeck again.
He sat back in his tall chair.
It’s time I dealt with him.
Getner tapped his fingers on his desk while he pondered this new fact. Then he raised his comm and pressed the buttons for the number of Ben Nguyen.
Chapter 35
Ben Nguyen was in the midst of lunch in his home when he got the tag from his boss. He listened carefully before responding.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Nguyen grabbed what was left of his sandwich, stopped at his refrig for a bottle of water, and headed to his car.
On the way to Getner’s office, he finished his sandwich and the water. A pain in his chest alerted him to the need to take one of the pills he always carried with him.
His ticker was one of Nguyen’s major problems. He liked the money he got from working
on the rough jobs for the head of the York Security Agency. But he didn’t like the man himself. Didn’t trust him. Part of Nguyen suspected Getner would order him killed if he became too much of a liability.
If it wasn’t for the money, I’d find another job.
Ben Nguyen saved every sol he could so he could afford a new heart, a healthy one from a young male but with his own DNA in every cell. For that, he’d need lots of cash to pay for a trip to Earth to get a template made. He needed the template so the doctors could replace his heart.
So far he had half the money he needed.
As he pulled into the parking lot of the office building where Getner rented space, Nguyen realized he needed to adjust his thinking. He much preferred to kill Getner but as long as the man was in control of so much money flowing to him, he’d just have to bear him. Until he had enough. Cash or Getner, whichever came first.
At the reception desk, Nguyen pondered the young man sitting there.
“Who are you?” he asked.
The man must have seen his expression because he volunteered, “Jason. Jason Butter. I’m filling in for Shirley. She’s sick.”
He didn’t have long to wait before Jason said, “The boss will see you now.”
Upon entering the inner sanctum of the master spy, Nguyen was surprised to see him standing by the window.
Nguyen watched as Getner turned and said, “Things are coming to a head.”
He stared into Nguyen’s eyes.
“I want you to keep this confidential. I’m telling you this so you can prepare yourself. Be well rested.”
Nguyen nodded.
Getner went on to describe the key events of the upcoming coup.
Nguyen sat still, impressed by Getner.
What an imagination!
“Your part will be to take out Stan Curling, the head of the York Federal Police.”
Getner turned to stare out the window,
“There may be problems with this guy Shapeck. I think he’s a BIS agent, sent to replace that f**ker, Jake Dani.”
Getner turned and picked up a cube from his desk and handed it to Nguyen.
“I want you to kill Shapeck when he visits his girlfriend, Gancha Morentoss. I have her address on this data cube.”
#
Stater wore his gray slacks and a beige shirt when he got off the Space Elevator at Meda. He pulled his one piece of carry-on luggage on its wheels as fast as he could so he could get ahead of the others in Second Class as they walked out of their cars. From his memorization of the layout of the terminal at the planet end of the Space Elevator, he knew which way to go.
He walked to the hallway reserved for service people and along the way saw the door with the label “Authorized Personnel Only.” After turning around to see if anyone paid him any attention, and seeing none did, he pushed his back to the door, opened it, and pulled his luggage with him. The room held rows of lockers with benches between them. He pulled his luggage up to one side of a row of lockers and left it there. A quick scan of the lockers found four were unlocked. In the fourth one he opened, he found a coverall that might fit him.
With haste, he pulled the coverall out and slipped it over his clothes. He studied the chest label of a nametag who was a mechanic, in case he was called by that name.
Then he rushed out the same door he had come in, almost jogged to the end of the hallway, and opened the door marked “To the Space Elevator.”
The room was empty.
Have I arrived too late or too early?
On one wall was a schedule, which he checked. At 1 a.m. Third Class was due to disembark from their cars. A glance at his comm showed the local time to be midnight. He was too early.
He leaned against one wall outside and waited. Spies do a lot of waiting.
At 1:30 a.m. the last of the cars arrived at the bottom of the Space Elevator. Stater pushed himself away from the wall and walked to where he could see the cars twenty yards away.
Men in speckled fatigues got out of their seats and carried their duffel bags on their backs. None had weapons, of course. Weapons of any sort would be detected when they boarded the transports.
As they walked to buses with darkened windows, Stater listened carefully.
As part of his tour of duty for the British forces of NATO on the eastern front of Poland, his skill of translating Russian conversations was a key part of his being assigned to the troops penetrating the enemy lines.
The men in uniform walking in single file to the buses spoke Russian, a Slavic language.
From the separate conversations going in, in different dialects of the language, Stater deduced that this group came from different areas of the Motherland. None of the men wore any insignia on their uniforms.
As he listened to the conversations, he gathered most of the men had no idea why they were sent on this secret mission. But from their self-confident walk, Stater knew they were elite troops.
“Anyone know where we’re going?” asked one young soldier in his native tongue.
“A base north of Zor is all I know,” answered another.
“Where’s Zor?” asked a third.
“Quiet!” commanded an officer. That man wore a sergeant’s insignia.
The men looked at each other and fell silent as they walked on.
Stater knew he’d be asked how many troops there were. He tried to count them but lost track. There were so many. So he estimated them instead. About a thousand.
Chapter 36
I got a tag.
“Yes?”
I had trained the members of my team to avoid revealing their names when first answering a tag.
A strange voice answered.
“Can someone pick me up at the airport?”
“Who is this?”
“Stater Gong. And you are?”
“Mike Shapeck. I’ll be there in…” I checked the time, “about thirty minutes. Where will you be?”
“Baggage Claim.”
Of course.
We disconnected.
I remembered Stater from my days at the training center. He had taught a class on Weapons. Was damned good at it too.
I took the BIS van. It was originally made by Izu in Zor, but had been heavily modified by Vincent and me.
I told Chima, the van’s AI, “Zor-Franken Airport, Baggage Claim.”
She took a devious route to check on any tails. Which pleased me.
I heard the roar of another jet biplane taking off. The sound of cars, trucks, and cabs echoed off the hard surfaces. I didn’t have to look for signs for Baggage since I had been there.
Spotting Stater was easy. All I had to do was look for a big man who looked familiar. I saw him next to two suitcases on wheels. He had on a beige casual shirt with the wide lapels so common now in Zor, gray slacks, black shoes, and a gray suit jacket. He’d fit right in here, but looked warm in the heat. In this lower part of the airport, overhead lights were on as well as the headlights from the vehicles which traveled here.
Knowing he might not recognize the new me, I parked and walked up to him, called out his name, stuck my right hand out.
He looked me over first. “Do I know you?”
“Mike.”
He smiled. “Ah.”
I didn’t need to help him load his cases into the van. He did fine by himself. The van pulled away and soon we headed north on Ambassador Boulevard.
I unlocked my seat, turned to my passenger, and extended my hand again.
“Name’s Mike Shapeck.”
We shook.
“Stater Gong.”
“Acorn explained how you came to be but it’s still hard to grasp. We’ve never had anything like this before.”
I said, “I remember you from weapons training.”
Stater nodded. “And I remember Jake. He had difficulty with rifles.” He studied Mike. “What did you say when I showed you a rifle?”
That brought a smile to my face. “I didn’t say anything. I’m not good with rifl
es.”
Stater grinned and said, “And you weren’t either. You scored four out of ten on the target the first time. But you got better as you learned.”
He nodded without adding anything. Like a good spy. I wondered if he was as sparse with words as Gerhi Oman had been.
“You’re not like Gerhi. He seldom had much to say.”
Stater replied, “Gerhi taught Operations Planning. I never went on an op with him. And never got to know the man.”
“He was quiet. Seldom talked much.”
“Hmm, come to think of it, he never said much at staff meetings. I learned he died on Rossa. During an operation. Sounds like he didn’t plan it well.”
“Can’t say. I was the one being rescued so I didn’t plan the op. Besides, ops can go off the plan, even the best plans. They usually do.”
Stater moved his head up and down a little.
“I’ve been meaning to ask. Where’d you get the name Stater?”
He replied, “My mother wanted a girl. She named me after her sister, the one who went on to get a Nobel Prize in physics.”
“Was she an agent too?”
He shook his head.
“And how’d you end up teaching a class on Weapons?”
He looked down for a several seconds. “I learned that having a weapon in my hand made all the difference.”
“Respect?”
Stater shrugged. “Don’t know about that. Fear for sure though. But I’d rather have people afraid of me than respect me. Or ignore me.”
He added, “I can’t say I remember you. But I recognize you from a photo Acorn gave me.”
“Thanks for sending the information on the rumor you overheard.”
“It’s not a rumor. I saw them get off the elevator at Meda. And guess what?”
I opened my eyes wider.
“What?”
“They spoke Russian.”
“Oh shit. Acorn said Getner’s half-brother was Lewinkow Minsky, the president of Russia. Ash Getner is the head of the YSA here. That’s the York Security Agency, the master spy agency.”
“Well, well. Isn’t that interesting?”
“Interesting, hell?” I added. “It’s disastrous! So Getner is planning a coup?”
“Looks like that.”
“Can you guess how many troops?”
“About a thousand.”
#
Chima took a loop around Moss Street, Franken Boulevard, and University Avenue before pulling into the basement garage of the ops center.
Rebuilt: A Jake Dani/Mike Shapeck Novel (Jake Dani / Mike Shapeck) Page 13
