"Shut the door," Merry and Jayne said simultaneously, covering their faces.
"Alright, alright!" Fred juggled the pizza box awkwardly long enough to close the door again, then dropped it on the coffee table.
"Foxy's Pizza and Wings" was written on top in elaborate font beneath a logo of a cartoon fox with an uncomfortably come-hither stare. "Best pizza in the Lower Fifty! Vacuum sealed for authentic smog-free flavor!"
"You should get one of those air curtains that go over the door," Fred complained. "The ones that blow air straight down so the smog can't get in?"
"Oh, believe me, I looked into it," Merry said, not looking up from her computer. “But this building is too old for the necessary ventilation system those require.”
"The infrastructure in the mid-levels is finally catching up with the bottom 15," he mused, plopping down onto the settee next to Jayne, who was already tearing into the pizza box and ripping open the plastic vacuum seal. "It's supposed to be a fast one, right?"
Merry held out her hand expectantly. "Bring me a piece, would you?"
Fred wrapped a napkin around a slice of pepperoni and handed it to Merry, who frowned at it.
"Is this Foxy's? Why didn't you go to Gino's on forty-first?"
"Because Foxy's is closer," Fred replied, sitting down and grabbing a slice for himself. Jayne was already almost finished with her first and considering a second.
"Foxy's overcharges for their stupid vacuum gimmick," Merry said, making a face as she picked a shred of plastic off her pizza. "Which makes the pizza taste weird."
"Would you rather it tasted like smog?"
"At least smog has some kind of flavor."
"Besides, you told me you loved Foxy’s."
Merry held up her finger. “Ah, ah! You misheard. I love Foxy, their mascot. Look at that thing and tell me it isn't creepy. Those leering eyes, the way they tried to make the fox look sexy. That fox is horny, I can feel it.”
"The sexy fox is creepy," Jayne said without looking away from her pizza.
"You guys just need to open up your minds, let go of society’s morals.” Merry aggressively bit into her pizza.
"Frankly, the mascot could be a photorealistic penis with googly eyes and I would not care," Jayne said, the mental image causing expressions of dismay on Fred’s face. "I just need hot cheese inside me right now."
Without missing a beat, Merry riffed, “An anthropomorphic penis would be the perfect mascot for something involving hot cheese.”
“Gross! Can we please get back to research?” Fred begged.
“I agree. I want to get this over with before this case makes me die from boredom.”
"Not everything can be car chases and explosions, Jayne," Merry said with a sigh. "Doing the research is an important part of the work."
"I bet I could find a way to do the research that involved car chases and explosions," Jayne said, leaning closer to Fred conspiratorially. Fred frowned.
"How would you—"
"Don't." Merry cut him off, looking like she'd just stopped him from putting a fork in an electrical socket. "Don't ask. She'll tell you, you'll say it's impossible, she'll take it as a challenge and I'll have to clean it up. Just don't." She pointed an accusatory finger at Jayne. "And you stop baiting him just because you're bored!"
Jayne just grinned at Merry and took another bite of her pizza.
"What are you working on anyway?" Fred asked pulling the tablet Jayne had been reading from closer.
"Vetting the clients," Jayne replied, snatching the tablet away from him before he could get greasy pizza fingers on the screen. "We need to be sure they're legit before we agree to help. We don't want to find out after the fact that we accidentally assisted in human trafficking or sedition or something."
"Besides, knowing more about them and their history will help you mediate," Merry added.
"What do we know about them?" Fred asked around a mouthful of pizza, leaning closer to read over Jayne's shoulder. Jayne leaned away from him, if only to escape the sounds of chewing directly in her ear, and angled the screen so he could see the profile she was building. She tapped the photo of the male agent in the corner.
"Franklin Reed is a graduate of the academy," she said. "Top marks, impressive pedigree, the whole package. Started getting high-end corporate jobs right out of school. Now he's only twenty-six and employed by several companies in the hundred levels, officially as a CPA. Unofficially, he spends less time in accounting than he does with the legal department. He's been on the side lines of several high profile class action suits, as well as fraud investigations, union disputes, financial scandals, you get the idea. As soon as he shows up, witnesses back out, evidence gets lost, and the press suddenly finds more interesting things to report on. He's a fixer. If one of his companies has a problem, he makes it disappear. He does pretty clean work, honestly. He operates in plain sight most of the time, staying just on the edge of what's technically legal. He's so visible and so good at covering his ass, legally speaking, that he's basically untouchable. And on the couple of occasions someone has tried to build a case against him, either legitimately or by framing him… well, he drops in to see them somewhere nice and public for a friendly talk, and suddenly they're not interested in pursuing it anymore. Like I said, clean work."
"And the other one?" Fred inquired, reaching into Jayne's lap to scroll the tablet down to the blurry photo of the second agent. Jayne grimaced, both at the invasion of her personal space and the greasy smear on her screen. "Sorry, let me… "
Fred tried to scrub the grease off with his sleeve and Jayne batted him away impatiently.
"The other player, Jerra Ford, we know significantly less about. She's very good at staying under the radar. She dropped out of the academy several years back and pretty much disappeared. What we do have on her is mostly her street reputation and a few statements from people who claim to have hired her. She doesn’t keep records, so there’s no way to verify anything."
"Which is where things get interesting," Merry interjected.
"As interesting as anything in this case gets, anyway," Jayne said, unimpressed.
"She's very well liked," Merry continued, ignoring Jayne. "A regular lower fifty Robin Hood. If the rumors are to be believed she's helped hundreds of people in the lower levels. Getting crooked tenement owners arrested, helping abuse victims disappear, exposing corrupt officials. She specializes in defending regular people from the corporations. Blue-collar employees being denied workers comp, people hurt by unsafe products and practices. You remember those class action lawsuits I mentioned Reed being involved in? It looks like Jerra was on the opposite side of them more often than not, though always unofficially. Reed doesn't lose often, but when he does it's usually because of Jerra."
"Uh oh," Fred said, deep in thought. “These two probably don’t like each other very much.”
Merry rolled her eyes. “Ya think?”
Fred furrowed his brow, and considered the thought again. “I do,” he concluded, leaning back to grab another slice of pizza.
"Very astute of you," Merry replied. "They've been butting heads for years. And it seems to have escalated recently. Jerra stole evidence that would prove one of the corporations Reed represents knowingly released a cleaning product connected to the deaths of no less than fifteen people. Reed somehow managed to alter the chain of custody — the record of where a piece of evidence has been, who's had it and for how long and such — to make it look like it had possibly been tampered with, maybe even fabricated entirely. Which meant it couldn't be brought to trial. The corporation settled with the families out of court for a pittance and walked away scot-free."
"It was bullshit," Jayne said, scowling. "So Jerra tracks down every one of the board members of that company along with anyone who'd signed off on the release of that product, and one by one she gets every one arrested on any charge she can get to stick. I don't know if she was fabricating this shit or digging it up legitimately but it was a badass
piece of work. She took her time with it, made sure every case was airtight before she tipped it to the authorities. The suits still didn't get as much jail time as they deserved, but at least it was something."
"Except now she's crossed a line," Merry points out. "She struck first, made it personal. Maybe Reed feels like she's coming after his livelihood, or maybe he's just pissed she managed to get around him after he thought he'd won. But he starts lashing out at her former clients. Suddenly they've got debt collectors on their doorsteps. The ones that own businesses find their suppliers and investors pulling out all at once. So she snipes back at him, and it's been going back and forth since. It's not going to be long before they get someone killed, if they haven't already."
"Wow," Fred says. "You know, I had this buddy a while back. He and his girlfriend were exactly like that."
"They blackmailed and sabotaged each other?" Jayne asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No. Well, kind of. There was this time—"
"Anyway," Merry interrupted him. "Now they need to make a trade."
"Must be something important to get them to cooperate," Fred assumed.
"I'm not sure of the exact details," Merry said with a shrug. "She has a piece of tech he needs. He's agreed to trade it for information. Whatever they're swapping, they want it enough to make this deal in spite of how much they dislike each other. Unfortunately, they're both expecting a backstab."
"Let's be honest, they're probably both planning a backstab," Jayne said. "So all I've got to do is, you know, dismantle whatever schemes they've cooked up and keep them from tearing each other's throats out long enough to make the trade."
Fred nodded in understanding. "See, that sounds exactly like the time I had to sit between my buddy and his girlfriend at his sister's wedding and—"
"I actually think we have all the information we need," Merry said. "What do you think, Jayne? Want to make it a date?"
"Are they going to buy me dinner?" Jayne asked sarcastically.
"I bet I could work it in," Merry said with a grin.
Jayne gave the info on her tablet one last look over, checking for any red flags. To hell with it. If it was a disaster at least it would be an exciting one.
"Alright, set it up," she said finally, tossing the tablet aside and going for another piece of pizza.
"Awesome," Fred said. "I'm coming along, right?"
"Why?" Jayne asked bluntly, pizza halfway to her mouth.
"For backup, obviously!" Fred said, flexing. "You need someone watching your six if things get hairy!"
Jayne snorted, almost choking on her pizza.
"Sure," she said when she could breathe. "At least it might make part of this mission entertaining."
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Unity Public Park, L45, Theron Techcropolis, Amaros
About a week later, Jayne waited on the edge of a small park, fiddling with her comm in order to look busy while she surreptitiously scoped out the area for anything suspicious. They'd canvassed the area pretty well already but you could never be too careful.
She leaned against the chest high railing that secured the edges of the park while she typed, her back to the forty-seven level drop just beyond it. The park had been built on top of a building in the same level as her office. The airspace above it was kept clear of construction, save for the ubiquitous metal walkways which crisscrossed the blue sky like the web of an impossible spider. There weren't many places like it in the lower fifty where you could go to get some genuine sunshine. It had been less popular lately since the smog had started hitting this level more often, turning the grass brown and causing weird lumpy growths on the trees. But it was still public enough to serve Jayne's purposes.
Hearing clunking footsteps, Jayne looked up to see Fred jogging towards her. He waved as he approached and she nodded in reluctant acknowledgement.
"What are you wearing?" she asked when he got close enough to speak. He'd replaced his usual sweaters and slacks with low slung jeans and a leather jacket that was several sizes too big for him, along with a baseball cap, worn backwards.
"It's to make me look tough," Fred said, grinning. "Cause I'm the muscle. Look, I even got one of these."
He pulled a toothpick out of his pocket, stuck it between his lips, and struck his best tough guy pose. Jayne privately thought he resembled a Chihuahua dressed up as a character from Grease.
"Okay, first of all, no," she said, snatching the toothpick out of his mouth and throwing it over the side of the building. As he scrambled to try and catch it she grabbed the baseball cap from his head and brandished it at him like a weapon. "Here's what you're going to do, Mr. Tough Guy. You're going to stand next to me and not say anything, because I cannot afford to have you screw this up, hear me?"
Fred opened his mouth to answer and she cut him off, smacking him in the shoulder with the hat.
"Ah! I said no talking!" she hissed. "Not a word! You do not speak until we leave this park. Understand?"
He opened his mouth and she smacked him with the hat again.
"Nod if you understand, dumbass!"
He nodded sullenly.
"Thank you," she said, and put the hat back on his head, facing the right direction this time. "And pull up your fucking pants."
When Fred was looking more presentable, they headed towards the center of the park. A large but simple fountain decorated the middle of the park, and it was here all parties had agreed to meet.
"I still don't understand why we had to meet at all," Jayne said impatiently as they waited for the other two to show up. "It would have made way more sense to just use dead drops."
Fred started to say something and she shot him a dangerous look. He shut his mouth and just nodded.
"They could have at least agreed to a restaurant," Jayne went on, eyeing the other people in the park suspiciously. Two women, watching young children play in the grass. Older kids hanging out on a picnic table. A couple of old men playing chess. Man walking a dog. A busker playing guitar badly.
"Watch out for the guy with the dog," said Merry's voice in Jayne's ear. "His shoes are too nice for this part of town."
"I already spotted him," Jayne said under her breath. "I can do this without you, you know."
"Oh yeah?" Merry replied. "And how many times have you handled an exchange like this?"
"Never."
"My point exactly."
"That means I have a great track record though," Jayne said, smiling a little. "I've never failed."
"That's not how math works," Merry said, exasperated, and Jayne chuckled. "They're on their way into the park now, so be prepared. Everything else is already in place."
"I'm all set," Jayne assured her. "Just keep a watch out in case we missed anything."
She flinched as she felt her phone go off in her pocket. She pulled it out long enough to see her mother's number on the screen. Then Fred nudged her and she followed the incline of his head to see a woman approaching them. She hit ignore and shoved the phone back into her pocket.
Jerra didn't look like Jayne had expected. She supposed that was the point. She was, if Jayne had to guess, somewhere in her late twenties, though she had the kind of face that might have looked twenty-something well into her late forties. She was pretty in a very particular way, a girl-next-door kind of look. Approachable and unsurprising. Easy to dress down into something so plain and unremarkable that you looked right past her. But equally easy, with the right makeup, to transform into a face you might easily mistake for a B-list actress or model. The kind of face that could belong to anyone. With her mousy brown hair and plain, figure obscuring sweater and men's jacket, she could have slipped into the background almost anywhere.
She smiled and waved as she hurried towards them, like they were old friends she was excited to see. If she hadn't, Jayne might not have believed it was her. It wasn't just how she looked, though her appearance was a master class in being instantly forgettable. She didn't move like a spy. Her whole countenance wa
s so flawlessly natural that Jayne could almost forget what they were here to do.
"Sorry I'm late!" she said brightly. "I got held up. Is Reed here yet?"
"He shouldn't be long," Jayne replied, matching her casual attitude. "What held you up? No problems, I hope?"
"Nah, it's nothing," Jerra said with a dismissive laugh. "I just went to pick up my dry cleaning on the way here and it turns out you already picked it up for me! Thanks for that, by the way."
There was nothing in Jerra's voice to indicate that she was anything but grateful, or to suggest she was talking about a discreet highly directed explosive charge which she had bought and was presumably planning to slip into Reed's coat.
"Oh, don't worry about it!" Jayne said casually. "I passed by there on my way here so I figured I'd take care of it for you. I'll give it to you when we're done here."
"Did you get Reed's too, while you were there?" Jerra inquired.
"Oh, Reed didn't have any dry cleaning," Jayne replied. "But he did have a couple of friends he wanted to have join us. They couldn't make it, unfortunately."
"Ah, that's too bad," Jerra said. "The more the merrier, right?"
"I prefer small groups," Jayne said. "Less complications."
"Reed's approaching from the left," Merry said in her ear. "Also, guy with the dog is local police. They're watching Reed. Shouldn't cause any problems."
"What about the busker?" Jayne whispered, scanning for Reed. "There's no way he's got that much money in his guitar case when he's playing that badly."
"No, I think he really is just that bad. Maybe it's pity cash?"
Jayne didn't answer because she'd spotted Reed, strolling casually towards them. He looked exactly like his photo, from his suit to his chilly grin.
"Jayne!" he said as he approached. "Glad you made it! How is everything?"
"Looking good," Jayne replied, shaking his hand when he offered it. "Your friends couldn't make it though, sorry."
Reed froze for a moment, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Jayne had to suppress a smile. Not so confident without his sniper in the building across the street, was he?
Expelled (Interplanetary Spy for Hire Book 1) Page 47
