Labor and Delivery

by Jamie Davis

  “Well, try not to kill anybody else, at least in that gang. You know how much trouble I’m having finding out the price for four bodies let alone adding another one or two to the tally.”

  “I’m acutely aware,” Kurt said. “So what brings you by? Based on your comment, you’re not here to tell me you’ve worked out a deal with the gang.“

  “Got a new job you might be interested in.”

  “So, no movement at all on the blood debt?”

  “Still working on that,” Trent said, shaking his head. “For now, though, a job would manage to get you out of the city for a few days, maybe up to two weeks.”

  “Yeah, I was just thinking about something like that myself. I thought it might be worth getting out of town for a little while.”

  “Perfect, then I’ve got the best job for you.”

  “What is it?”

  Trent shook his head. “I can’t tell you much about it. The client swore me to secrecy. They asked for you by name but only asked me to verify you were available. They gave me no details.“

  “They asked for me by name?”

  “Yup, and believe me I was surprised who it was, but you’ll figure all that out soon enough. The only thing I need to know is are you available and open for the next week or two to take a high-risk job that has the potential for a major payout.”

  “How big a payout?”

  “Big enough, I think. I’m not really sure, they were intentionally vague. Given who the client paying the bills is and who contacted me, I think they have the pull and the resources to get just about anything they need for payment if the job gets done to their satisfaction.”

  Kurt didn’t like all the secrecy surrounding it, but he also knew that beggars couldn’t be choosers. He’d take just about any job out there right now because he needed the money. The extra security measures had just about bankrupted him. “Do they just want me or am I able to bring somebody else along.”

  “If you’re thinking about taking my daughter, I’m not sure I want her going on this particular job.”

  “Oh, so it’s OK for me to take the high-risk job but I can’t take along a partner I trust.”

  “Not when she’s my daughter.”

  “I bet she’d have something to say about that.”

  “I’m not sure, she’s been kind of cagey since the two of you came back from that university job last month. Neither of you will tell me much about what went on other than to say you managed to rescue the two professors. Given how distracted you’ve been and how she’s been acting, I have to wonder what else happened on this job.” Trent’s eyes narrowed. “You two didn’t do anything I’d make you regret did you?”

  Kurt held up both hands, palm out. “Good grief, Trent, nothing like that. It’s something that she has to tell you about. She’s the one who found something odd on the trip. I’ll leave it at that. You have to talk to her.”

  “Yeah, I was afraid you’d say that. Well, I’ll have to track her down and ask her as soon as she starts answering my calls.”

  Kurt decided to change the subject. ”So, where do I go to find out about this mysterious job?”

  “They want to meet you downtown. I’ll text you the address. It’s in the area of the Inner Harbor.”

  Kurt waited for more but Trent didn’t add anything else. He guessed that was all the information he was going to get from Trent. His friend wasn’t usually this secretive and it made him wonder who the client might be that would get him to agree to be so circumspect with Kurt about it.

  He also found himself feeling a little miffed that Marci wasn’t automatically included. He would’ve liked to have her along again. If he was honest with himself, he kind of missed seeing her after spending over a week with her on their last joint job.

  Of course, he wouldn’t tell Trent that. It would piss his friend off to no end if Kurt were to get involved with his daughter in a romantic way.

  Kurt smiled at Trent. ”All right, I’ll take the job. But I expect the payment to be significant or I’m turning it down. Pass that along to them so they understand that I’m not going to be doing a lot of dickering on the price once they tell me what it is they want me to do. The price I give them will be the price I expect.“

  Trent nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll make sure to send my contact a message right away. I suspect they’ll want to see you first thing tomorrow. Are you good with that?”

  “Yeah, I’ll just have to make sure to leave early enough to sneak out and avoid encumbrances with any gangbangers who might be waiting outside my apartment. Don’t give up on finding a way to pay them off.”

  “I’ll keep working on contacting them. Don’t worry. Everybody has a price.”

  “So says the guy who puts a price on everything,” Kurt said, laughing. “Can I get you something to eat or drink? If you want to hang out, I’m getting ready to make some dinner and we can talk about old times.”

  “Sounds like a great idea. You go get dinner ready and I’ll head into the other room and make this call to the client to tell them you’ll see them tomorrow.”

  “All right, good. Dinner should be ready in about 10 to 15 minutes.”

  Trent headed to the other room and Kurt turned and pulled open the door to his freezer. He knew Trent wouldn’t mind something microwaved from the grocery store and he pulled out a pair of individual dinners and slipped them into the microwave before setting it for five minutes. He returned to the refrigerator and cracked open a couple of beers and retrieved two chilled glasses from the freezer. He kept them there just for those times when Trent came over in the evenings. It had been a while since they’d hung out together. Pouring the beer into the glasses, Kurt headed into the living room just as Trent was finishing up his call.

  “…Yeah, he’ll see you tomorrow. No, that’s all. I’ll leave it to him to finish negotiations.”

  Trent smiled as Kurt walked in. He cut off the call reaching out to grab the beer from Kurt’s hand. “This will hit the spot. It’s been a long day.”

  “You’ve had a long day? I’m the one who just got beat up in an alley.”

  “Yeah and I’ve been on the comm all day, talking to everyone I could think of to try and figure out how to pay off your debt. My voice is practically gone and I’m parched. You owe me this beer.”

  Kurt rolled his eyes but smiled. Trent was one of his oldest friends and the two of them had been together since Trent was a CIA intelligence officer and Kurt was a team member in a special operations unit tasked to deal with incursions of hostiles through open gateways in the early days after the Newton’s gate incident ten years before.

  The two buddies sat down and started talking about old times. Laughing about mutual friends and some of the more hilarious shenanigans they’d managed to get themselves into while dealing with some pretty dangerous situations together.

  Kurt relaxed. He didn’t have to worry about any random attacks on the street and Trent had forgiven him for a big canceled job Kurt turned down a few months before. He had few people in his life that knew him as well as Trent did. It was good to reminisce.”

  Chapter 2

  The next morning, Kurt got up and ready to head downtown for the meeting Trent arranged for him with the new client. He checked the address and shrugged. It wasn’t familiar to him but that didn’t mean anything. That whole area was full of large office buildings, most of them belonging to one major corporation or another. He’d find out soon enough.

  Before he left to go downstairs to the underground garage and get in his car, Kurt sent up the recon drone from the roof of the building. It was another one of the new security measures he’d put in place to watch the area around his apartment for any trouble.

  The recon drone lifted off and Kurt watched the video feed on the holo-monitor hovering over his kitchen counter. The drone flew a pre-programmed circuit around his building. It checked each of the cross streets and the two alleyways nearby for any signs of gang members waiting to jump him or stop him in his
vehicle.

  Satisfied no one was out there waiting for him, Kurt headed downstairs turning at the ground floor landing and taking the second set of steps to head into the basement area where his vehicles were parked. He opted to take his sports car, since parking was always a hassle downtown and fitting his SUV in some underground garages was problematic.

  Firing up the hybrid ethanol-electric engine Kurt opened the overhead door leading up to the street and headed out into the morning rush-hour traffic. His meeting was set for 9 AM. That meant he had to deal with quite a bit of cross-town traffic as other people were all driving in to get to their offices.

  Kurt checked the address as he worked his car through traffic closer to his destination and started checking out the numbers on the buildings along this section of Pratt Street.

  He spotted the number he looked for and realized which building Trent sent him too. He planned on having a few words with his job broker the next time they met.

  Kurt pulled up out front on the sidewalk directly adjacent to the US Federal Building. Not only did it house the regional Federal criminal courts for all of the Baltimore region, it also contained the local offices of the FBI and other Justice Department entities. That included his personal nemesis the Customs Service’s Gate Enforcement Unit or GEU. Shaking his head and wondering what the heck Trent was up to, Kurt found a parking garage in a building across the street and pulled inside.

  Crossing the street on foot and entering the front of the Federal building, Kurt checked his wrist computer to confirm the room number. It looked like he was on the tenth-floor room in room 10-302.

  As Kurt walked up to the security desk, he had to submit to the body scanner housed in the desk in front of him. As the scanner processed his image, the guard held out a hand for Kurt’s ID.

  “You official ID card please,” the portly guard stated in a bored monotone. “State your business in the Federal building.”

  Kurt handed over his ID and said, “I’m Kurt Carter. I’m here to see someone on the tenth floor in room 302?”

  The guard tapped a few keys on his datapad and tapped his screen a few times then his eyes widened a bit. He looked up at Kurt and then back down at the screen. The reaction caused Kurt a little bit of alarm. Had this been some kind of clever trick to get him to come into the Federal building for a warrant or something?

  “Hey, I was just coming here for a meeting,” Kurt said, taking a step backward. “There’s not any trouble is there?”

  “No problem at all, sir,” the guard said. “You wait right here. I have to call someone to escort you upstairs.”

  “An escort?” Kurt asked. He’d never needed an escort in a Federal building before. It once again raised questions in his mind about what might be going on.

  Kurt stood by the front desk while the guard asked a colleague to watch the counter, then he left through a nearby door. He was gone for about two minutes.

  The guard returned followed by two other uniformed guards who came around the side of the desk and stood on either side of Kurt. His concern about the situation increased.

  “These two officers will escort you upstairs, Mr. Carter. Please go with them.”

  “Am I in some sort of trouble?”

  “No, sir. Just a standard procedure concerning this particular matter. They will take you upstairs.”

  One of the two uniformed guards reached out and nudged Kurt’s elbow as if to draw him along with his partner towards the elevators. Kurt jerked his arm away and scowled at the guard before turning back to the one behind the desk.

  “You say I’m not under arrest, yet you certainly make it seem like I’m under arrest. Which is it?“

  The guard on Kurt’s left gave him a half smile, one that didn’t show in his eyes and said, “Sir we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way. You are not currently under arrest. However, we have been instructed to escort you upstairs one way or the other. If you don’t choose to come along with us peacefully, then we will be required to arrest you to fulfill our orders. Which will it be?”

  Kurt ground his teeth and bit back a sharp reply. Arguing with these guys wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He’d walked right into this trap, or whatever it was. It was clear that he couldn’t back out of the meeting at this point. There was no choice but to go through with it and find out who was waiting for him upstairs.

  “Fine, let’s just get this over with. I plan to be back home before too long.”

  The guard on his left smiled again and gestured toward the bank of elevators behind the desk. His partner had already started forward and pressed the elevator button. He waved at several other workers waiting for the elevators to step aside. The waiting employees glared at Kurt as he and his guards took the first elevator to arrive, making the others wait for the next available car.

  “Nothing like a private drive to the tenth floor,” Kurt quipped. “I don’t suppose you all know who is in room 302 on that floor do you?”

  Neither of the officers answered him. Both stood staring straight ahead as the elevator traveled upward.

  Upon reaching the tenth floor, the doors slid open and Kurt followed the lead guard out, turning to the right and following him down the hallway past several other offices. Ahead of him, Kurt saw a pair of double glass doors. They revealed precisely who was waiting for him in room 302. Written in stenciled gold lettering on the glass were the words Gate Enforcement Unit of the U.S. Customs Service.

  “Shareen,” Kurt said.

  “What was that, sir?” The first guard asked.

  “Nothing,” Kurt said. “Just realized I’m here to see somebody I know, whether I want to or not.”

  The guard smiled and held open one of the glass doors for Kurt as he walked through with the other guard. They headed past the reception desk without stopping, the guards merely waving off the receptionist’s questions and escorting Kurt around the corner. Staying outside of the door marked room 302, the two guards took up stations on either side of the door. The lead guard gestured for Kurt to enter.

  “Thanks for the escort guys. Why don’t you two go get yourselves some coffee? I think I might be here a while.”

  Neither of the officers answered him. They only stared in his direction with blank expressions until he stopped smiling. Kurt shrugged and reached out to open the door. Time to see what Shareen wanted from him.

  Captain Shareen Henderson was an enforcement agent for the GEU and also, unfortunately, his ex-wife’s best friend. That made her Kurt’s worst nightmare.

  She’d never liked Kurt and she made it plain in every one of their interactions. It seemed lately she’d made it her life’s goal to find a way to lock him up for ruining her best friend’s life. She felt this way despite the fact Kurt and his ex-wife Clara were on mostly good terms at the present time. Of course, that didn’t seem to matter to Shareen.

  Kurt walked through the doorway and smiled at the GEU captain seated on the other side of a long conference table inside the meeting room. She scowled at him and then pointed to a chair opposite her. She tapped in something on her wrist comp keypad as Kurt sat down. It took him a few seconds to realize she was tapping out a message of some sort.

  “Hello, Shareen. Isn’t it nice to see you today.”

  “Just sit there quietly and wait for the rest of the meeting’s attendees to arrive.”

  “Care to tell me who those people might be?”

  “No.”

  Kurt leaned back in his chair and smiled, pleased he’d managed to get under Shareen’s skin. It was a small satisfaction, but at this point, given the way he’d been ambushed by this meeting, it was a satisfaction he was happy to have.

  He watched her face for any sign of what kind of trouble he was in and waited for the meeting to get started.

  Chapter 3

  The door opened and a man walked in. He wore a plain business suit of the style worn by numerous government drones. He was followed by a very pregnant African-American woman. She wore a s
uit as well, but the cut was much more stylish and expensive.

  “I assume this is the man we’ve been waiting for, Shareen?” The man asked.

  “Yes, sir. This is Kurt Carter. He was the man your contact recommended for this particular job. I once again repeat my reservations about his reliability to perform the required task.”

  “Your reservations have already been noted and are in the file. I will ask you to keep them to yourself from here on out, Captain Henderson. Is that understood?”

  Kurt’s smile broadened and he shifted his gaze from the man to the GEU captain. He enjoyed watching Shareen get dressed down by one of her superiors. This might not be so bad after all.

  “Mr. Carter,” the man said. “I am Jeff Hays. I am the regional director for the US Customs Service and the current managing director of the local GEU task force.”

  “I'm pleased to meet you, Jeff. You don’t mind me calling you Jeff, do you?”

  Kurt hoped the reply would give him an indication as to where he stood with the gentleman across the table. It appeared he wasn’t antagonistic to Kurt at this point and perhaps that meant Kurt had some sort of leverage over this situation. If he did, he was going to make use of it and find out what the heck was going on.

  “Jeff is fine, Mr. Carter.”

  “Please, call me Kurt, then.” He stood an shook Jeff’s hand. “Since we are all on a first name basis, I suppose you should introduce me to your other colleague here.” Kurt indicated the pregnant woman.

  There was something about her features that didn’t quite match up and then it hit him. She was African-American, at least in part, but based on the slight tilt to her eyes and the hint of a pointed ear peeking out from underneath her hair, Kurt realized she was of partial Elven heritage too.

  It was rare for elves to marry or even reproduce with humans given the longer lifespan’s they had. They usually reserved such interactions for their own kind. It was rare to see a half-elf. Most of them hid their identities, feeling out of place in either of their parents’ worlds.