Mina Cortez: From Bouquets to Bullets

by Jeffrey Cook

  “Yes, but I still don't trust her. Or anyone else who isn't you right now.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Miko responded with a smirk.

  “Anyway ... yes, she did. I can't just sit on my hands right now though. Especially since I think I can only get this particular bit of information right now.”

  “Wonderful, so where are we headed?”

  “The stupidest possible place in the world ... and just hope that they would never expect me to be quite this dumb.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Vlad pulled in near the flower shop. Mina wasn't sure if they had any kind of good description of her transportation, but if someone was watching, she wanted to not make it too obvious that she was riding in Vlad. She also hoped to have multiple exits, which the large parking lot in front of the neighboring Mexican restaurant and hardware store had, and Emerald City Flowers and Design didn't.

  The girls got out of the car after parking between the two buildings—not a legal parking spot, but out of sight from the street—then scanned the area. Not seeing any signs of anything out of the ordinary, both went to the shop. Mina let herself in with her key and the security code, and went straight to the shop's inventory computer.

  “So, I'm dying of curiosity. How are your inventories and receipts going to help us?” Miko asked.

  “They're not,” Mina responded, logging in as soon as the system finished booting up. “My grandfather was an Inquisitor. I have all of his passwords. Do you have a spare drive I can record all of his information onto? I don't want to stay logged in here any longer than I have to. There shouldn't be anything incoming or outgoing, but still ... if we can just copy everything he had, maybe there's something useful there. We can look at it somewhere else.”

  Miko agreed, handed over a drive with some of her videos on it, and set to keeping watch on the doors. “I have other copies of those movies,” she assured Mina.

  “Of course,” Mina responded, letting Miko move to take watch while she used the back doors into the hidden system information her chip fed her to pull up her grandfather's records. As soon as they opened, after she'd moved through five different layers of security, she put the chip in and started recording everything.

  As she was finishing up, the system chimed, indicating that a new order had come in. “Damn it ... who orders flowers in the middle of the night?” she cursed, finishing the copying and shutting down quickly, to see an e-mail asking for a delivery first thing in the morning ... someone had forgotten her best friend's birthday. Shaking her head at her own curiosity and hitting the shut down, Mina headed for the door. “We need to move.”

  “You find something?” Miko asked.

  “I don't know, but I have the files. Mrs. Cofra forgetting her friend's birthday might have been a big problem though ... if anyone was hacked in enough to look for any activity here.”

  “Seriously? She ordered flowers in the middle of the night?”

  “Yeah, but she also gave me an idea,” she responded, opening the refrigeration unit and taking out one of the arrangements slated for delivery early the next day. “My parents will have to figure out something else to take to the Aaronson kid's Chipping Day celebration”

  “Okay, so ... flowers, great. I'll ask later,” Miko responded.

  They got back to the car without any obvious sign they'd been noticed, but no sooner was Miko about to start Vlad up than they noticed a car traveling slowly through the neighborhood, pausing out in front of the shop. A car door opened and shut.

  Without waiting for anything further, Miko backed out of the alleyway without turning her headlights on. Typically, when Miko did things like that, Mina wished that Vlad had some of the standard modern safety features installed, so she wouldn't have been able to go anywhere with her lights off after a certain hour. Now, she couldn't be more grateful to be in an antique death trap. They moved slowly out through the back of the lot, through the route typically reserved for delivery trucks from the hardware store, before reaching surface streets. With no sign they'd been followed, they settled on one of the light rail stations with plenty of traffic at all hours.

  Mina started going through her grandfather's records, while Miko, in theory, tried to get some sleep. Before that effort really began, she finally asked, “So, I just have to know. Who are we taking flowers to?”

  “I'm sorry, Robin,” Mina responded. “I need to do one more stupid thing first thing tomorrow morning. Then we can try to find a good hiding spot.”

  “Holy totally not surprised at that scenario, Batman,” Miko responded.

  “What?”

  Miko sighed.

  * * * *

  Mina spent a while trying to relax, closing her eyes and otherwise trying to clear her mind, but even as tired as she was, sleep simply wouldn’t come. She was tempted a few times to call her parents, but elected to keep her phone turned off until the following morning.

  She did spend a while checking the information from her grandfather's files. She learned a good deal about the history of the AIA through her grandfather's words, such as confirming that there had been quite a few more agents in those days. There was a lot she didn't understand, either due to coded references an agent of the times may have understood, or simply references to people and events she didn't know. Still, there were some that were fairly clear.

  May 25, 2118

  Initial evaluation of A. Park is just as expected: he's eager. Very, very eager. This has raised understandable concerns, but I believe them unnecessary. He might need a short leash for his initial missions to prevent trouble, but he'll learn. I gave him the 'chips are a tool, not a crutch' speech, and he seemed to take to it readily. The kid has good instincts, and he trusts them. I respect that. I suspect he'll make a good cop, and I'm confident he'll make a fine agent.

  Mina felt tears welling up a bit, more so as her mentor, in note after note, went from the new kid into a seasoned agent. But amidst skimming these, another set of entries caught her eye. The name Fiona Richter (switching in some accounts to Fiona Reisen, then eventually back to Richter, without much explanation) immediately grabbed her attention. By the notes and her early assessments, she was apparently a fourth-generation Inquisitor. Her father had been killed in the line of duty, after which the AIA had moved her family west from St. Paul. Beyond that, what Mina found surprised her. While Mina read the accounts, a story began to unfold of a technically brilliant new agent who took a case too personally, in her grandfather's written opinion, due to similarities to the case that killed her own father. That case would cost her her arm, and get her put on several months' desk work.

  What surprised her the most was one of the later entries.

  November 5, 2132

  Dear Sirs,

  I understand that Agent F. Richter has been offered a promotion, moving her to a supervisory position within the FBI. I was officially asked to submit my opinions on the matter, as her trainer and supervising officer. While she had some rough spots in her early career, particularly the Everett incident, she has been nothing but committed to the Agency. She has so far sacrificed an arm, a kidney, a marriage, and a chance at any kind of normal home life to the AIA. I cannot question her commitment to our goals and ideals.

  Additionally, while she has a stated preference for field work, I think her greatest gifts would be realized in a supervisory role. While she has few true friends among the agents, especially those junior to her, she has earned universal respect. Additionally, while her methods may occasionally be graded as unusually harsh, I have no doubt that this is because she genuinely cares for her fellows, and hopes to pass on the lessons she has learned without new agents having to learn them the hard way, as she herself did.

  I highly endorse the move, and urge that you do not put too much stock in some other reports, which would cause us to lose a valuable opportunity. We have sufficient agents in the field. An agent managing an agent's responsibilities, while also moving up to a supervisory position with t
he FBI should be lauded for that accomplishment, and she could do more good for us there.

  Sincerely,

  T. Escalante

  Mina read the note through a couple more times, then went back through a few more accounts. Some of the Director's behavior and attitudes began to make a degree of sense, and as her grandfather had noted, while there was no question that Mina still didn't like Director Richter, she could respect what she'd put into the job. The fact that the Director didn't want to know where she was and had urged her to simply avoid notice helped.

  Granted, she was pretty sure that her upcoming plans were anything but careful, but there was something she had to do anyway. She spent a little while writing on the card attached to the flowers, then did her best to cat nap a bit until first light.

  * * * *

  Because someone involved with the killings of Agents Park and Hall had clearly gotten information on the cops' routes and methods, Mina had Miko keep some distance when she went to the police station where the agents had worked first thing in the morning. She took the flowers with her, delivering them to the station under the guise of bringing flowers to pay respects to the pair of officers who'd been killed. She hoped that even if she was recognized, no one was going to try anything in the actual police station.

  She did her best to not tear up or otherwise look like anything but a delivery girl, moving to a cubicle which still bore Agent Park's name. Taking a deep breath, she ducked into it to add her bouquet of flowers to the numerous others decorating the station. No one was looking, and soon Mina was at the keyboard, bypassing the police department's security system like she was, well, perhaps a 'Szach-level' hacker, the taste of aluminum on her tongue.

  Rather than looking anything up, however, she entered the license plate from the sandwich shop, and put out a public APB on that plate and vehicles matching the description. She didn't recognize the name of the registered owner when she pulled it up, but was able to enter a falsified report suggesting that it was picked up by a traffic camera leaving the area where the two cops were killed, and the driver was wanted for questioning. She was pretty sure that few things were going to motivate the police like the thought of possible suspects in a cop killing. If nothing else, she was pretty sure that even if that specific car hadn't been there, there was indeed a tie between them, which may lead to other information coming up.

  She was tempted to do more than that, but the sound of approaching footsteps drew her attention away. Making sure the report was filed, she turned the computer off, and by the time a policewoman rounded the cubicle doorway, she was back on her feet and rearranging some of the flowers.

  “Can I help you, Miss?” the woman asked.

  Mina gave her her best smile and shake of her head. “No. Just dropping these off. I'll be on my way. Thank you.”

  She left the woman behind, but as she neared the door, she picked up the scent of a familiarly cheap cologne. A man was talking into his wrist-comm, though she couldn't pick up what he was saying, but figured that he was either one of the people she'd briefly encountered at the sandwich shop, or shopped at the same place. It was enough to put her on edge. While she was tempted at first to cause a scene to draw attention to him, she knew that would have gotten her kept around for questioning, and she wasn't sure, even here, whom she could trust and whom she couldn't. Instead, she just nodded to him politely as she exited the building. She was still fairly confident, immediately out front of the station, that no one was going to try anything stupid, but she didn't want to lead anyone right back to Miko, either.

  Instead, she headed down the block, staying in plain view of people on the sidewalks, moving away from where Miko was parked. She was sure she was being watched, and probably followed, but if so, people were not giving off any of the cues her chip would typically pick up on to suggest where the problems might lie. As such, she continued at a casual pace, as if she hadn't noticed a thing. After crossing one street, she moved with the same casual air to the edge of a building, then quickly darted down the first alley that went through to the next block that she came across.

  Somewhere outside the alley, she heard a car suddenly accelerate and turn the corner. It could be coincidence, but she suspected someone was moving to cut off the other end of the alley. She had to either double back or make a run for the next block. Her speed and reflexes would keep her ahead. She knew this ... and she knew it as every breath tasted like chewing on foil. Those aluminum-flavored thoughts hadn't served her well against these particular threats. Mina fought off the instinctive reactions to simply follow the suggestions the chip put in her head and pursued a different plan.

  All scents of the city were drowned out by a burning sensation in her sinuses. Nonetheless, she headed for a dumpster at a full run, pulled herself up onto it, sprinted across it, and used the extra height from the dumpster to snag the bottom edge of a fire escape. Pulling herself up, she started scaling the side of the building with the escapes, heading for higher ground. She saw a car pull around to the other end of the alleyway, as she'd expected, while hearing two sets of footsteps entering it from the end she'd come through. She didn't spare much time to glance down, climbing as quickly as she could without making too much noise. After a few moments, she could hear voices below as people shouted to one another from either end of the alleyway. A bit of scuffling as they searched, before a shout told her that someone had seen her.

  Mina pulled herself up over the edge of the building just in time to hear a couple of silenced shots pop against the wall just behind her. There was scrambling from below. She suspected it to be people heading into the surrounding buildings to try to cut her off. The combination of burnt-wire smell in her sinuses and the chipped instructions practically screaming for her to get off the rooftops, where someone could trap her, was quickly giving her a headache.

  She firmed up her resolve to try to ignore those thoughts, which would lead her right where the counter-chips expected. Despite this, she found herself looking for ways down a few times, simply by merit of the chipped responses being so automatic. Instead, she focused on estimating her best jumping distance and the lengths between buildings, forcing her chip to supply the information. Mina took off at a sprint as soon as she found a span that would be challenging, but not impossible. She cleared the gap across an alley, teetering on the edge of another building, before pitching herself forward.

  Picking herself back up, she moved to the best cover she could find and turned her comm on to contact Miko. As she did, it immediately chimed at her to tell her that she had missed three calls from her parents. The sound was followed by another, specifically, someone from an adjoining building yelling “Over there!”

  A peek around her cover revealed three people on the rooftop she'd been on, one now sprinting towards her rooftop. Cursing, she stayed as low as she could while heading for another, amidst calls of where she was heading and “Cut her off!”

  A couple of shots whined off of the rooftop behind her. She kept running, aware of those following her. Meanwhile, she assumed some of those shouts were into a wrist-comm. Someone—or a bunch of someones—from street level, would be heading to the rooftops in the direction she was moving.

  “Miko!” she addressed her wrist-comm, even as she jumped across the gap to another building, now only one rooftop away from running out of block before she reached a street. Her chip helpfully chimed in with a number of routes down, or possible hiding places, which she discarded while also ignoring the urgent insistence that she turn her comm back off.

  “Hey. You done doing stupid things now?” came the response.

  “Yes. Your turn,” Mina called into her wrist as she ran, hearing plenty of movement around her.

  “Tracking you now,” Miko answered, with the sound of Vlad's engine growling to life in the background.

  “Hurry!” Mina added, then quit focusing at all on the comm. She banked to one side, briefly exposing herself to the line of fire. Apparently, that wasn't what had bee
n expected at all, and she managed to leap off the top of her current building towards the row of buildings across the alleyway. This time she didn't quite make it, leaving her dangling by her fingertips from the three story building that backed into the alley. She heard voices below her and glanced down, struggling to pull herself back up. More commotion on the rooftops told her that even if no one would be there to intercept her, someone would have a clear line of fire to her shortly.

  She was out of time.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The roar of Vlad's engine being gunned as Miko tore down the alleyway interrupted the commotion below Mina. While there was enough room between two sets of buildings for delivery trucks, it was never meant to be traversed at that rate of speed. Vlad took a dent to one door, and Miko fought the wheel to keep from spinning as she side swiped a set of garbage cans.

  The next thing she hit was a man with a gun, sending him smashing into the wall. Another dove out of the way of the car. A third would also have gotten clear, but Miko opened the door to catch him as well, though her driver's side window cracked on impact with his skull.

  Mina judged the distance, then let go of the rooftop, dropping onto the top of Vlad as it moved under her. “Go, go, go!” she yelled down. She flattened herself to the top of the car, hugging it as best she could. Then she looked up, saw people reaching the edges of rooftops above her, and another figure standing and pointing a gun behind them. Just as the first shots were fired, Vlad cleared the end of the alley and pulled out onto the Seattle streets. Mina almost lost her grip on the car when Miko pulled out of her lane to pass a slower moving car, then barely avoided an oncoming van as she pulled back into the correct lane.