by Terry Mixon
The drop was onto the open floor. Landing made new parts of her hurt. She crouched down and listened. If someone were here, her best defense was her ears.
“Don’t move,” a man said from behind her. “Hands up where I can see them.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“This doesn’t have to end poorly for you,” the ex-spy told Adam.
It had been a while since Price had left, and he’d been expecting the man to bargain. The bastard had more patience then Adam had expected.
“Why would I possibly believe you?” Adam asked. “You killed my brother. I gotta tell you, there’s no coming back from that. He might’ve been an asshole, but he was my asshole.
“Still, it would be rude of me not to let you make your pitch. Gaston, isn’t it? Not the same name as when I met you, but I get it. That was another life. So, go ahead. Tell me how I can get out of this alive.”
The man smiled wryly, which looked odd when combined with his smashed nose and bloody face. “I suppose I can’t blame you for taking my offer with a grain of salt. It’s quite simple, really. My organization can’t afford to have you causing trouble. We can pay you a lot of money and send you off to anywhere else in the system. Otherwise, we have to kill you.”
“You still haven’t explained how I know I’ll live. You’ll forgive me if I’m not the trusting type.”
“Do you have a choice? A special Janus team will take over the investigation into the terrorist attack, and they’ll see you whisked away, if you’re not killed resisting arrest. Poof. No more Adam Hale.
“If you release me, I’ll personally guarantee your lives. Don’t be like your brother and force my hand.”
Gaston leaned forward as far as his bonds allowed. “Whether you know it or not, you’ve actually been quite helpful to my organization. I am making you a real offer.”
“I see a few problems. One, I don’t trust that your boss will honor your bargain. And two, you slaughtered a bunch of civilians on Mars and blamed it on me and my people.”
Adam stood and smiled coldly. “Not to mention I hear your people killed some new folks today. That pisses me off. An ambush in a park? Really? There were kids there.
“Tell me, did you make that same kind of offer to the third man on Mars? The one that supposedly killed himself.”
He stepped over and put a hand on the prisoner’s shoulder.
“Let me run a scenario by you. He didn’t like whatever plans you had going and you killed him to be sure he kept his mouth shut. Then you staged it to look like a suicide. What’s to say I won’t have the same thing happen to me?”
Perspiration beaded the man’s forehead. “You don’t know the kind of people I work for. You’d be much better off taking the deal. That way you could at least be sure your other friends don’t suffer for your intransigence.”
“That’s the wrong thing to say.”
He grabbed the man—chair and all—and dragged him over to the smashed window. The huge chamber beyond was dark, but Adam could just make out something on the floor below them. A catwalk hung suspended beyond the control room.
“How far down do you think the floor is?” Adam tipped the man out face first. “Looks like at least thirty yards. Maybe more. A man could break a lot of important things in a fall from this high, even in low gravity.”
“I’m not going to tell you anything,” Gaston said hoarsely.
“I’m not asking you to. I know enough to kill you without any qualms at all. I already know your boss’s name. Randy Evans. He’ll tell me what I want to know. Execs just aren’t that good at resisting this kind of thing. No RIS training. That’ll be a lot easier.”
He tipped the man out.
“Wait! Wait! I’ll talk!”
“You mean you’ll stall,” Adam corrected. “You’ll tell me something so I’ll spare your life. That’s no fun. Besides, Zane left some data chips—which is how I got your name—so I know some of this already. Like how you used the Disruptors. More than enough to know when I’m being bullshitted.”
“Janus is connected to the Disruptors. They brought them in on the Mars job.”
Adam laughed. “You expect me to believe that Janus is working with those crazies? A major corporation that they bombed? Try again.”
“Who do you think finances those nutballs? The explosion here was just to make Janus look innocent. It wasn’t even the Disruptors.
“Do you know what Janus is? The god with two faces. The god of beginnings, transitions, and endings, among other things. It’s a fitting name for them, let me tell you. Is that enough to whet your appetite? Enough to get you to pull me back in so we can talk like gentlemen?”
The door behind Adam crashed open, and he caught sight of men with weapons. They didn’t look like security.
He let go of the spy, grabbed his pistol, and crouched low. The man fell through the smashed window with a scream.
The intruders were already shooting. Several shots went over Adam’s head even as he returned fire.
The first man through the door took a round in the throat. He staggered back and blocked the rest of his team before he went down. The second man dove for cover.
That gave Adam just a few seconds to act. There were probably too many people for him to handle, so he needed an exit strategy. One that didn’t involve falling to his death.
He pocketed the pistol, jumped up into the windowsill, and threw himself toward the catwalk.
And missed.
* * * * *
Rachel did as the man ordered and raised her hands. He’d gotten the drop on her. Reaching for her weapon would almost certainly get her shot.
“Price?”
She turned her head enough to make out her captor. It was Hale’s friend, Jason Chang. He only had a large wrench to menace her with.
Well, this was embarrassing.
Rachel lowered her hands and turned to face him. “In the future, might I suggest you avoid attempting to detain an intruder unless you’re really armed? An actual burglar might have shot you.”
The man shrugged. “I didn’t expect to find anyone in here. Security cut me loose and insisted I let them search the shop. You just missed them.”
“I can live without meeting them. Hale’s safe, but I need to get some gear to ask a bad man some important questions.”
Chang raised an eyebrow. “I can’t imagine what you’ll find here to help you with that, but be my guest.”
She led him to the place Hale stashed his weapons. Hopefully, he’d managed to hide Zane’s kit there before everything blew up.
“I’m pretty sure that a rusted-out air circulator isn’t the answer to your prayers,” Chang said with a lopsided smile.
“Shows what you know.” Rachel opened the machine up. Hale’s private stash of papers and cash were still there.
“Dude! Look at that. I had no idea Adam put stuff in there. That’s pretty clever.”
“No, clever is putting a second hidden stash under the first.”
She moved the obvious stuff to the side and opened the hidden panel. The weapons were still there, and so was Zane’s kit. Perfect.
Chang’s eyes bugged out. “Holy crap! Those are military-grade weapons! Security would freak!”
“Then I suggest you forget you saw them. Could you go get a large pack from Hale’s closet? I saw one there when I bugged the place earlier.”
His eyes narrowed. “So, the story about Adam’s brother being a RIS agent was true. Don’t blame Adam. He was really drunk. You aren’t his brother’s fiancé. You work for them, too.”
“Keep it under your hat, but yes. Hale knows. That’s a big part of why that attack in the park happened.”
“Are those the same people that framed me? I’m going with you.”
Rachel let him go without agreeing. His skills might be useful, but he could also be a hindrance. She needed to consider this carefully.
Once he returned, she packed the large bag with handguns and ammunition. There were
a few carbines with folding stocks. They barely fit, and the ammo for them made the pack almost too heavy to lift.
That’s what decided the issue in Chang’s favor. She wasn’t going to throw her back out trying to carry the damned thing.
“Here.”
He eyed her doubtfully. “If security catches me with all that stuff, they’ll never let me out.”
“Not if you’re helping me. Hale doesn’t know this, but I’m officially authorizing him to assist me on behalf of the Republic. You, too. These weapons are part of our mission gear. Security can scream all they like.”
“And if we lose?”
“Then being locked up for the rest of our lives really isn’t a fate we need to concern ourselves with. We’ll be dead.”
She put the machine back the way it had been and faced Chang. “You’ll need to leave first. The people watching this place will swarm as soon as they see me.”
“Then don’t let them see you.”
“I’m a spy, not a ghost.”
He grinned. “You mean I know something you don’t? There’s access to the building next door. We can head out that way and no one will see us.”
“I didn’t see anything like that. How do you know about it?”
“I’m an engineer. I take things apart to see how they work. Adam’s sewage system wasn’t very good when he bought this place. The access turned up while I was fixing it. The building next to this one shares the tunnel. Come on.”
She put a hand on his chest. “Wait. This place has bugs. Tell me where we’re going.”
“To the back of the shop, adjacent to Adam’s rooms.”
“Go around the other side, then. That’s clear of bugs.”
He led her through a maze of equipment and to the back of the shop. She’d been here before, but hadn’t paid as much attention as she should have. She’d been looking for a stash at the time.
Now she gave the various tables and disassembled parts a good look as they went by. There was a lot of junk. “It looks like you could build a second ship from all this stuff.”
He tossed a grin over his shoulder. “Just about. Most of it isn’t easily repairable, but we have all the systems represented here. We use them for parts.”
Chang led her to a cranny at the back of the shop. It had a table on top of a rubberized non-slip mat. He rolled the empty table clear and folded the mat back. A recessed floor panel sat beneath it.
“Why hide it?” she asked.
“I didn’t, really. I needed a table to do some delicate work. I figured I could move it if I needed in there again.”
He grabbed the recessed handle and opened the panel up. The dark area under the floor looked to be about four feet deep and was far grimier than the room where they were keeping the prisoner.
“That’s disgusting,” she said. “Have you considered cleaning it out?”
Chang shrugged. “Why bother? It’ll just get nasty again. Let me grab us some coveralls.”
“Grab some lights, too.”
She used her com to cast a dim light into the hole while he set the bag on the table and went back into the shop to rummage around. The opening led to a low tunnel with pipes running along the walls. It would be a tight fit for Chang with the pack. Good thing he was small for a guy.
He came back with some coveralls that were only clean when compared to the tunnel they were about to go into.
Rachel sighed and slid one over her clothes. She was about to drop into the opening when something made a noise out in the main shop area.
She put a finger over her lips to warn Chang and then slipped out enough to see the rest of the building. She heard the unmistakable sound of someone moving around.
“We have company,” she told Chang softly. “We need to hide how we got out of this building. Take the pack and get going. I’ll be right behind you. Lights out.”
He lowered himself into the pit with surprising grace.
Rachel rolled the non-slip mat and slipped it under a bench. She moved the rolling table as close to the open panel as possible. It was wide enough to slip over the access, though getting the thing to move with the panel almost closed was going to be fun.
She had just enough space to reach out through the slightly open access panel and move the table a few inches at a time. It wasn’t nearly as quiet as she’d have preferred.
The sound of someone coming into the general area made her heart thud, but she kept inching the table along until it completely hid the panel.
A pair of black boots came into the alcove. The pants didn’t look like security issue, so she’d be willing to bet it was Janus.
“Alpha Three, I thought I heard something in the back of the shop, but it’s empty. My sector is clear.”
He was undoubtedly reporting in over a com with an earpiece. Time to get moving before he discovered just how wrong he was.
She settled the panel into place. The dark was almost as impressive as the stench. She flicked her light on and breathed in through her mouth. It even tasted bad down here.
Chang had moved a dozen feet up the tunnel. She gestured for him to keep going and followed along. She hoped they got clear before the bad guys figured things out.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Adam barely had time to realize how screwed he was before he slammed into something a lot more forgiving than he deserved. Saying it broke his fall was perhaps a little too generous, but it beat slamming into the deck. Combined with the low gravity, he rolled off without any serious injuries.
The light from the ruined control room was just bright enough to see that Gaston hadn’t been so lucky. He’d fallen into the gap between the pile of what was obviously some kind of old packing material and the bulkhead. It was unfortunately bare and unpadded. He’d also landed on his head.
It was still better than the bastard had deserved.
Someone started shooting from the shattered window, sending puffs of decayed junk into the air. Adam turned and ran into the darkness, which in the low-gravity conditions was more of a lope. Luckily, he’d worked in similar conditions before.
The attackers’ lights weren’t good enough to cover any distance at all, so they were quickly shooting into the dark.
He found a slumped pile of boxes and stopped behind it. They’d be after him in a moment, unless he slowed them down.
The light behind them silhouetted his attackers nicely. It was time to teach them something about tactical doctrine.
The pistol that Price had given him was almost empty, but he had the spare magazine. Making them keep their heads down was worth a few shots.
He could see three men looking for him. Taking out one of them would reduce their force by fifty percent, counting the man he’d dropped when they’d broken in. That would make them very leery of chasing him too closely.
Adam estimated the distance. Pistols were more accurate at longer ranges than most people believed possible, if the shooter knew the characteristics of the weapon and had time to aim.
He’d hit targets the size of a man’s head at over two hundred yards in normal gravity. He wouldn’t have to compensate as much here, though he’d have to do a lot of estimating in his head. The biggest problem was that he didn’t know his borrowed weapon that well.
Once he thought he had the range, he aimed at the man to the far right. The middle of the torso would do. If he guessed wrong on the trajectory, he still might hit him.
He carefully squeezed off a shot and watched the bullet hit the man in the groin. Ouch.
Without waiting, he raised his point of aim and snapped off a shot at the next man. He was still turning to look at his companion when the bullet took him in the chest.
The last attacker dove back out of sight before Adam could shoot at him. Too bad. A clean sweep would’ve been really helpful.
There was some sporadic shooting from the control room, but nothing aimed. After Adam’s eyes were as adjusted to the darkness as they were going to get, he headed deeper into the ca
rgo bay. There were a number of hatches against the closest wall, but none of them opened.
Large vacuum doors dominated the end of the bay opposite the control room. The station had built up around the bay, so they shouldn’t actually lead to space, but he wasn’t going to take that kind of fool risk.
The catwalk he’d jumped for earlier led to a walkway around the bay on a second level. If he wanted out of this place, he needed to get up there.
He risked the light from his com, shielding it with his body. A rusted ladder led up. He didn’t trust it, but he really didn’t have much of a choice.
Two rungs broke off as he climbed. One in his hand and another under his foot. The noise of the latter rung hitting the deck was incredibly loud to his ears. He had visions of the gangway he’d jumped for earlier breaking away from the ceiling under his weight. That would’ve sucked.
Once he reached the dubious safety of the upper level, Adam headed for the area near the airlock. There was a hatch set in the interior wall. It resisted him, but there was a little movement. Enough to suggest that they hadn’t welded it shut.
Adam used the rung as a makeshift pry bar. It snapped almost at once, but the hatch opened enough for him to get his fingers inside the lip.
He really had to be careful now. If he lost his grip while planting a foot on the wall, he might propel himself into the railing. It could very well give way and send him falling into the bay for a second time. Gaston’s twisted body proved that was a bad idea.
There were more lights shining out from the ruined control room. Enemy reinforcements had arrived, and they were looking for him. It was doubtful they could see this end of the bay, but it was time to get going.
Three solid heaves got the hatch to open with an ear-rending squeal. The darkened corridor on the other side smelled as though no one had used it in a long while. Still, it had to lead somewhere better than here.
Adam pulled the hatch closed and forced the locking handle over with the remains of the rung. Unless they’d brought a cutting torch, that should keep them off his six long enough for him to escape.
