Storm Divers (Book 1 of The Fractured Republic Saga)

by Terry Mixon

  “So I heard. You ever thought of taking up a less dangerous sport? Like javelin catching?”

  Adam grinned. “Good one. Maybe I’ll take it easy for a while. Thanks again for looking out for me. Can I get you boys a beer?”

  The older man started to shake his head, but his younger partner cut in. “That sounds great. Thanks.”

  Starnes gave the other man the stink eye, but didn’t dispute his call. The two of them wandered over to the bar. Adam took advantage of the momentary lull and headed for Jason’s table.

  He almost made it before Double Dick stopped him.

  The old man’s glare smoldered, and he stuck his jaw out. “You think you’re all hot shit because you got lucky.”

  Adam really didn’t want to fight with the man, but he couldn’t help himself. “Yes and no. I got lucky, but I’m not hot shit. Well, okay, maybe I am, now that you mention it.”

  “Asshole. Tonight was supposed to be my night and you screwed it up. You fucked with the king and he almost ate you. I hope he finishes the job.”

  Without waiting for a response, Double Dick stomped off toward the exit.

  Adam finished walking over to Jason’s table, putting the bitter old bastard out of his mind.

  “I see the three of you have met,” he said as he sat down. He raised a hand toward the bartender and saw the busy man note his request for a beer.

  Cindy smiled at him. “You’ve been holding out. Why didn’t you tell us someone was here looking for your brother? Are you going to help her find him?”

  He gave Cindy an annoyed look. “Like I told Miss Price, I can’t find someone who isn’t here.”

  Jason rose to his feet and held his hand out to Cindy. “Let’s go dance.”

  Now it was her turn to look annoyed, though she covered it well. Jason’s girl loved to gossip. Adam shot his friend a smile.

  Once they were gone, Adam leaned closer to Price and spoke just loud enough for her to hear him over the music. “You have any luck?”

  “I traded one mystery for another. It turns out Zane thought my boss’s boss was involved in a number of incidents concerning the Disruptors. The twist comes when you look at the woman’s family.

  “Her brother is a big man out here. Randy Evans. He’s in charge of FTL for Janus. Do you know anything about that?”

  “I know what everyone knows. A number of corporations expanding the colony worlds buy the ships to grow the interstellar economy. Hell, there’s a waiting list that stretches out over a decade, I hear. A few rich bastards even picked ships up to use as yachts. Janus also provides drives for the Republican Navy.

  “If you mean the technical end, they keep that totally secret. The drives come out as a black box. No one really knows what’s on the inside. And they’re booby-trapped. If someone opens one, boom.”

  “That’s a little extreme, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose that depends. No one knows exactly how the FTL drives work. Sure, they’re Alcubierre drives that use some kind of exotic matter to generate negative energy and warp space, but the details are closely guarded. I don’t even know where they put them together.”

  She frowned. “How can you not know? They have to come from somewhere.”

  “Janus has facilities all over the Jupiter system. One of them has the secret drive works, but damned if anyone knows for sure where it is. Whoever works on them does so without mixing with the rest of us. They’re totally segregated.”

  She seemed to consider that. “People retire. They quit. Janus has built FTL ships for forty years. Someone knows where the drives come from.”

  He grabbed the beer a server set in front of him and took a drink. “Yet no one is talking. They must pay really well for people to keep their mouths shut, or they’ve automated the facility. If that were the case, only a handful of people would know the specifics. That makes it a lot easier to keep secrets.”

  Price took a slow sip of her wine. “Well, the man in charge of that program might be connected to what happened to Zane. I want to get into the hotel night manager’s work mail tonight. He’ll probably be on duty, and I’ll need your help.”

  Adam shook his head. “I’m no spy. Covert ops are someone else’s game.”

  “I just need a good distraction. I’m sure you can keep him occupied long enough for me to break into his office. Someone gave him instructions to clear out your brother’s stuff. We need to know the next link in the chain.”

  Adam couldn’t care less about his brother. At least that’s what he told himself. But he did want to know who was behind the Mars massacre. They needed to pay.

  “Alright. Count me in. What do you need me to do?”

  * * * * *

  Rachel followed Hale into the hotel with a well-concealed smile. This would definitely be a major distraction.

  He was, to all appearances, drunk as a skunk. Worse, he was in the company of a number of what he called groupies, and those people were staggering for real.

  The knot of people made several course corrections on the way to the front desk, but managed to dock without incident.

  “I want a room,” Adam slurred. “A big one. Where we can keep the party going.”

  The young woman behind the desk gave him a somewhat strained smile. Rachel doubted she wanted anything to do with a loud, drunken disaster.

  “We’re booked up,” she said with a somewhat weak tone of regret. “Perhaps the Savoy has an opening.”

  “Bullshit!” Adam almost shouted. “I know you have something. Call the manager.”

  Rachel slid around the group and into an alcove near the door leading to the offices. When the time came, she wanted to have as little chance of discovery as possible.

  As expected, the woman couldn’t summon the night manager fast enough.

  When the door opened and Aslanov came out, Rachel caught it before it closed. Moments later, she was in the restricted section of the hotel.

  This late at night, there weren’t a lot of staff on duty. The guests were mostly asleep, so the hotel only needed a skeleton crew.

  Finding the man’s office was simple enough. It was the one with the light on.

  The room was compulsively neat. Every book on the shelf beside the desk arranged by size from small to large. The papers in the bins lined up so the edges were sharp. There wasn’t a speck of dust in sight.

  As she’d hoped, he hadn’t locked his comp. Why should he? He was all alone.

  She plugged a data chip into the system. It automatically uploaded a program designed by the tech wizards at the RIS.

  The screen blanked and then cleared again. She could work in this new display area and not move a thing on the desktop her target had been using.

  Rachel accessed Aslanov’s mail. Tons of work-related drivel, but he seemed to keep everything. Perfect. She might be able to recover a deleted message, but that was never certain.

  A search for Zane’s name didn’t turn anything up, but the suite number did. A message from a Janus Corporation address that bluntly instructed Aslanov to clear it out and make it seem as though no one had checked in.

  The address wasn’t very descriptive. A series of numbers and letters that seemed random. That didn’t tell her who was orchestrating this from inside Janus, but it did tell her that someone was definitely dirty.

  A noise in the hall made her snatch the chip out of the comp and scurry behind the door to listen more closely. It couldn’t be Aslanov. Hale would still be causing a scene out front.

  A man in work coveralls whistled tunelessly as he walked down the hall toward her. He had a ladder, which he set up under a light fixture. He was changing the bulbs.

  That would make slipping out a lot more complex, but she wasn’t done in the office yet. Perhaps he’d be gone by the time she finished.

  The comp had reverted to the previous screen as soon as she’d yanked the chip, but the program was still at work. She needed to plant a receiver to access the restricted system.

  Under the
man’s desk was perfect. No one would spot it there. A bug with video went on the inside of the bookshelf where it was out of the way but gave her a good angle of the room.

  Once she finished, she checked on the man in the hall. He seemed to be mostly done, so she might be able to slip out in a few minutes.

  That plan flew out the proverbial window when he closed the fixture up and headed toward Aslanov’s office. She ducked behind the open door again, hoping he’d keep going.

  He walked into the office instead.

  Thankfully, he only stayed long enough to filch some sweets out of a container on the desk. He smoothed them back down, so he’d obviously done this before and knew how to keep his petty theft a secret.

  Once he was gone, Rachel started breathing again. He’d gone on to the next fixture, so his back was to her. Time to go.

  * * * * *

  Adam gave the man a long stare over the tip of his nose. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but I’m getting pissed. I want a freaking room and I want it now. Isn’t my money good enough for you?”

  The manager’s professional smile never wavered. “Of course it is, sir. I’m terribly sorry, but with the influx of people the diving games have brought onto the station, we simply have no rooms left.

  “I’d be happy to give you a discount on a stay some other time, but I really have to agree with Veronica that the Savoy would be your best bet tonight.”

  A beefy man that had to be with hotel security had arrived and was standing patiently off to the side. Time was growing short. Price needed to speed things up.

  “I think you’re bullshitting me. Just give us a room and we’ll all get on with our lives. Tell you what. Here’s something for your trouble.”

  He proffered a completely inadequate bribe.

  The man stared at the money and shook his head. “We don’t need payments over and above the price of a stay here, sir. I’m afraid I’ve been as patient as I can. It’s time for you and your friends to leave.”

  That was the security man’s hint. He stepped forward and smiled.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Adam saw the door leading to the manager’s office open and Price slip out. She ducked into the alcove leaving no one the wiser.

  Adam made a show of sneering at the security man. “Fine, we’ll go. But you can expect a nasty review for this terrible service.”

  He didn’t wait for the manager to answer before he turned on his heel and staggered toward the front door. His cobbled-together group of would-be partiers flowed along behind him, venting their outrage on his behalf.

  Once they were outside, he shook his head. “Those bastards at the Savoy will do the same damned thing. Tell you what. Come back to the Spot tomorrow night and we’ll bring the roof down.”

  That wasn’t really satisfactory to them, but they only grumbled as they dispersed in search of a different party. Price stepped up beside him as soon as they’d dispersed.

  “Are you really going to party with them tomorrow?”

  “Hell no. I have better things to do. Like sleep. Did you find anything?”

  She nodded. “I found a message from someone in Janus telling him to clean out Zane’s belongings. Whoever it was had them delivered to a storage facility the hotel uses for lost and found items and misplaced luggage.

  “We could go after them, I suppose, but it hardly seems worth the effort. I have his kit. The rest of it is just clothes.”

  “So, what’s your plan? Do you have a name?”

  “No. Whoever it was covered their tracks. I’ll need to get into their systems and figure out who it is. I need to anyway, if I’m going to find the renegade RIS agents. They’re out here somewhere. Probably not on this station, since you’d recognize their faces.”

  He nodded. “I might be able to help you with that. I’m back on the job tomorrow, so I can probably come up with a reason to be in the headquarters building. I’m not sure about sneaking you in, though.”

  Price smiled. “I have a plan.”

  “Why does that fill me with dread?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Rachel made her way back into the hotel and to her room without causing any undue stir. Out of habit, she checked the recorder she’d trained on the front door.

  Interestingly, it had data.

  The video showed that someone had come into her room shortly after she’d penetrated the offices below. One of the former RIS agents.

  A chill ran down her spine as she watched him search her room thoroughly. He tried to access her comp, but had no luck. She’d check it to be sure before she trusted it.

  She didn’t have a bug in her bathroom, but she knew he’d searched it thoroughly based on the time he spent in there. Luckily, she’d taken her kit with her tonight.

  Rachel watched him plant some bugs. She decided to let them stay. False intelligence would help her, if she planned it out well enough.

  Obviously, she’d attracted enough attention to warrant a visit, but not enough to draw a kidnapping. Two such disappearances in a row would trigger someone at RIS headquarters to look into the station a lot more closely.

  She hoped that kept her enemies from doing anything rash.

  By now, they undoubtedly suspected why she was here. They couldn’t know how much data she had or they’d have searched harder for Zane’s kit. They had to believe she was just nosing around without the benefit of detailed intelligence.

  Also, just because Janus owned and controlled Jove Station didn’t mean everyone was in on the conspiracy. They couldn’t make too many waves without attracting undue attention.

  Well, if they thought they knew who she worked for, she should use that to her advantage. Rather than play a meek game, it was time to go big.

  Rachel opened an application on her comp and started recording. She gave the date and time. “I’ve made initial contact with Adam Hale. Based on his commentary, he never met with his brother, but I’m not convinced that Agent Hale never arrived.

  “I’ll begin talking with hotel staff and people close to the brother. If that doesn’t produce any leads, I’ll contact station security in an official capacity, as we discussed.

  “At this late date, I’m unsure if Agent Hale is still here. It’s possible that he moved on to another location. If so, someone there might remember something.”

  She paused the recording for a moment and paced as though she were thinking. Then she sat back down and continued the report.

  “I’m loath to contact our inside man at Janus, but if I can’t find any definitive answers, I will. I’ll be discreet.

  “If I come up blank in the next few days, I’ll depart the station for the primary assignment. I can always come back. At this point, the odds of finding Agent Hale alive are slim. We may never know exactly what happened to him.”

  She gave the camera a serious look. “If I fail to report in as scheduled, there may be more to this situation than we believed. I’ll leave my data in the agreed upon location for any follow-up teams. Once I move on, we can stand down for the time being. Price out.”

  Rachel encrypted the recording and sent it out through the station’s communications suite to Earth. An expensive decoy, but worth the money.

  The drop she’d used was one she and Zane had used in the past for keeping data off the official grid. No one at the home office would ever see it and ask awkward questions. Like, what mission was she on, exactly?

  Hopefully, the confirmation of her “official” status would keep the bad guys from doing anything hasty. Her comments about Hale might keep him safe for a while longer. Though, now that someone had tried to kill him, that wasn’t a sure bet.

  After that, she checked the hotel systems. Her favorite night manager had added the agent to her suite’s occupant list. The bastard could waltz in whenever he liked.

  Aslanov was getting on her nerves.

  She connected to the man’s comp and looked through his mail. There it was. A message to let someone in to whate
ver room he wanted. It had come in just after she’d scanned for the room number. Dammit.

  The sender was her new friend at Janus. She set up a relay to forward any new messages from that address to her com. That would let her know if they decided to move on her. She added a check for her room number and name, just to be safe.

  Once she’d shut down her comp, she took a shower and got ready for bed. It was humiliating, knowing that they’d be watching her, but that almost assured they wouldn’t suspect she was onto them.

  No woman in her right mind let unknown men spy on her in the shower or bedroom. Let them think she had nothing else to hide.

  She lay awake in the dark with her eyes closed. Tomorrow, she’d start making some countermoves against her new friends. She’d be up early to meet with Hale, but not for the planned operation at the headquarters building.

  No, that was too dangerous now. She’d have to teach him what to do so he could compromise their systems himself.

  No doubt he’d love that.

  * * * * *

  Adam slept fitfully. The adrenaline from the dive combined with his jitters over the spy shit to keep him tossing and turning. The promised nausea had arrived with a vengeance. Now if only the fatigue had helped him sleep.

  The fact that someone was watching him didn’t help.

  He wondered if Price had planted bugs, too. Maybe there was a whole host of people watching him sleep.

  Once sleep finally came, he woke groggily the next morning to the blaring of the alarm clock. He swatted it and staggered into the shower.

  Twenty minutes later, clean and dressed, he drank a cup of coffee to wake up and headed for a cafe he occasionally used. Price was supposed to meet him there.

  Since he usually ate at home, the odds of someone listening in here were slim.

  She was already seated at a table, looking entirely too rested for his dour mood. She had a plate of scrambled eggs and waffles sitting in front of her.

  He plopped himself into a chair and glared at her. “Why aren’t you exhausted?”

  “Practice,” she said as she ate. “If you can’t rest, you’ll make mistakes. I’ve already scanned the place for bugs. We’re clean. I’ve also been watching the patrons. No one stands out as a watcher.”