EMPIRE: Imperial Police

by Stephanie Osborn

  The others groaned.

  The next day, Bronze was out of his condo at about the same time as the previous day. Once more, he headed southwest to the Fire Water Bar for a late lunch, heavy on the booze, lighter on food, chatting once more with the bartender and manager for well more than an hour after he finished eating.

  Then he ordered a cab and headed farther east, toward downtown.

  Ashton had arranged for a transport to drop them off at Bronze’s building, then meet them at the bar – and his teammates ensured that he was both well-disguised, and remained out of sight of any roving IPD officer.

  So they were not caught off guard when their target departed in a taxi. They easily trailed him into downtown, and watched as he entered a posh and very exclusive, members-only dinner club.

  “That’s a problem,” Ames noted. “I don’t think anybody, anywhere in the entire Imperial City Police Department, is gonna have an in for that place.”

  “I don’t think we have to get in,” Ashton said with a wicked smirk. “After I got a feel for some things yesterday, I made sure all the perp team leads were outfitted with some special security hacking apps. We don’t have to go inside; once I get into the club’s security system, we can all sit back and watch.”

  “And stay well out of sight in a parking garage,” Compton realized.

  “Yup. Lemme get started, here. Hugo, see if you can find us a nice out of the way spot to sit and watch,” Ashton addressed Weaver, who was behind the wheel.

  “Yes, sir!” the younger man exclaimed, enthused.

  Bronze Gets Busy

  “Annnd…there we are,” Ashton said, after sitting silently in VR within the parked car for long moments. “Check out channel 112.”

  “Got it,” came the chorus of responses within seconds.

  Ashton had arranged a virtual room in channel 112, in which the interior of the exclusive dinner club was laid out as a three-dimensional map of sorts. The observer, once in the room, could zoom in on this or that part of the club and see what was happening.

  It turned out there was more to the dinner club than dinner. A whole lot more.

  There was a “spa” area on the second floor where members could sit in saunas, obtain massages and facials, and more. There was also a very special area in the very back of the spa that partook of a bordello, as it turned out, and should the member wish, he or she could make a selection and have the same escort – male or female, as the member desired – for the entire evening, performing the massage, the facial, and more intimate functions. The escort could even dress up and join the member for dinner. And on the third floor, there was also a small gambling casino where members could enjoy themselves; some were placing very high-stakes bets against the house. And, the investigators decided after watching for a while, winning with the proper frequency to demonstrate the house was not crooked.

  “Which is something, I guess,” Ames decided.

  “Yeah. Considering the only legal part for a dinner club is the restaurant area,” Compton noted. “The spa area is legal, but not in conjunction with an eating establishment, and the brothel and casino are right out.”

  “Well, the casino would be legal if it were in a different zone,” Weaver said.

  “True,” Compton agreed.

  “Surprise, surprise,” Ames murmured to the others in a disgusted tone, as they finally located their target. “Where else would Bronze be?”

  “In the back, getting a massage from a scantily-clad prostitute,” Compton observed.

  “At least she’s easy on the eyes, I guess,” Weaver noted.

  Just then, they watched as another person, a handsome young male, entered the massage room and joined the female. He was as scantily clad, and just as easy on the eyes, depending upon one’s preferences.

  “This is gonna get damn embarrassing, damn fast,” Ames noted in a very quiet voice.

  “Um, yeah,” Compton agreed as the male prostitute pulled the drape completely off Bronze’s naked body.

  “Hoo boy,” Ashton said, eyes widening as the female prostitute grinned and reached for certain parts of Bronze’s anatomy. “Yeah, we’re not voyeurs, just cops. Okay, hang on a sec, guys.” He went into the hacking app’s controls and set up a particular sequence, then promptly decreased the image resolution until all that could be seen were general bipedal forms. Then he placed colored markers on the heads of each – red for Bronze, blue for the female prostitute, and green for the male. “We’ll see about busting the establishment once we’re finished with surveillance.”

  “That’s…better,” Ames decided.

  “Yeah,” Compton and Weaver agreed. “We can see where they are, and get the gist of what they’re likely doing, without having to see details,” Compton added.

  “Thank God,” Ames declared.

  Bronze spent several hours with his companions, apparently massaging and being massaged, as well as engaging in quite a few sessions of intercourse of various sorts. The massage room opened up to a private sauna on one side, and a bedroom on the other, and the trio made copious use of all three rooms.

  Along about seven in the evening, the Imperial City investigators noted the amorous activity slacked off, and within a quarter of an hour, all three were getting dressed. Ashton gingerly increased the resolution of the three-dimensional simulacrum, and they watched as Bronze offered each “escort” an arm, and they walked down a private escalator into the dining room together, taking an exclusive table in the corner.

  The club’s dinner menu for the evening – most such dinner clubs varied their offerings nightly, at least in Imperial City – was a Catalonian churrascaria, a rodizio barbacoa as the Catalonians termed it, or all-you-could-eat barbecue. Grilled meats of every kind were offered, along with suitable vegetable and starch sides common to the upper-class barrios on Catalonia. Legs, loins, chops, filets, and ribs of every conceivable animal – cow, pig, sheep, goat, chicken, tilapia, lobster, and several that were rather more exotic, including rattlesnake, kangaroo, and swan – were available from rare to medium well.

  “Damnation!” Ashton exclaimed as he watched. “The dinner plates are the size of platters!”

  “And they’re filling ‘em about as full,” Weaver observed.

  “Plus wine,” Ames noted. “Two bottles already for just the three of ‘em.”

  “Okay, so obviously Bronze is a hedonist,” Compton decided. “But I don’t get it. How does…playboy…factor into assassin?”

  The others turned to Ashton, who gazed back, surprised.

  “Well?” Ames demanded. “We’re waiting, Nick. You’re the guy who’s studied this jerk.”

  “I’ve never interviewed him, or even met him,” Ashton protested.

  “You still know more about him than anybody else,” Ames pointed out.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll do my best to explain, as best I understand – or think I understand,” he tried. “Josip Bronsky grew up on Wollaston, and came from a broken family. His mom abandoned him and his dad for a boyfriend – they weren’t married to begin with, according to records – and his dad was a con man. So Bronsky grew up in one of the poorer neighborhoods, being trained how to run cons. He got good at it.”

  “Okay…” Ames murmured. “Not a great start.”

  “No. Near as I can tell, on one of his bigger cons, he inadvertently got caught up in some of the inter-system politics that they have on Wollaston, and ended up playing one side against the other to get out of a con gone wrong. The side who helped him apparently taught him a few things about how to make a person disappear – the target of the con was killed, and the murder was never solved; the girl who helped him on that con-gone-wrong has never been found, either – and…” Ashton shrugged. “Apparently he liked it.”

  “What, you mean he liked the money?” Ames asked, eyes wide. The other men just listened, likewise interested, but silent, listening to the byplay between the couple.

  “Oh, I’m sure he does,” Ashton said. “But no. I me
an he got off on it, on the hit. He apparently likes killing.”

  “He’s a psycho?!”

  “By some definitions, definitely,” Ashton said. “Exactly what it does for him, I got no idea, and I don’t think I want to know. But I expect it factors into the whole hedonism thing, somehow. Maybe an adrenaline rush, maybe something kinkier; I dunno.

  “Anyway, after that one con gone wrong, he had to get off Wollaston fast, so he waited for the heat to die down and suspicion to get cast on someone else, then he headed here, to Sintar. He disappeared for a year or so, then showed back up, going by the alias of Joey Bronze. Very sure of himself, very confident. And with more money. I can’t prove it, but it’s my suspicion that he managed to get in with someone who could teach him the ins and outs of professional assassinations. And since he apparently doesn’t do anything by half measures, he got pretty good at it. Because that’s when what I call the ‘double-tap killings’ started. No gunpowder residue, two clean shots to the back of the head with what therefore was likely an airgun, and no other real evidence.”

  “How many have there been?”

  “In the few years since I’ve been on Sintar? At least half a dozen that I’m aware of. All politically motivated, all people who were trying to help the then-current Empress advance her reforms.”

  “So he’s one of the IPD’s trusted assassins.”

  “He’s one of the Council’s trusted assassins,” Ashton corrected her. “They just launder it through the IPD.”

  “Damn.”

  “Exactly,” Ashton agreed. “And he apparently gets paid rather nicely for the work.” He waved a hand at the VR imagery.

  “But isn’t he…? I mean, surely he’s putting some aside…”

  “Why? Did you read his lips earlier? They’re going to the casino after dinner. He likes to gamble. In fact, he plays it big – he knows his whole life is a gamble. If a series of assassinations go wrong for him, if things don’t work like he wants ‘em to – hell, if even one assassination goes too far south – his bosses will have no compunctions at all about taking him out and finding someone else. Look what happened to the guy who tried to take out Lee Carter, and got himself seen by Carter instead. And, judging by the double-taps, it was Bronsky who did it.” Ashton shook his head. “No, Bronsky knows it’s only a matter of time. He’s just playing it out for all he’s worth now, while he can.”

  “‘Eat, drink, and be merry,’ huh?” Compton offered then. “’For tomorrow we may die.’”

  “Pretty much, yeah,” Ashton agreed. “What he’s not counting on is for us to stop his roll.”

  Bronze was very late returning to his condo – alone – that night. The next day, however, Bronze was up relatively early; his breakfast went up at around nine that morning, and he was out of the condo by ten.

  Much to the investigators’ surprise, he headed for a gym.

  There, he hit the cardio equipment for a solid half-hour of interval training, then added resistance training to the mix, working his legs heavily.

  He worked through the standard lunch rush, then knocked off, headed for the locker room and showered, then dressed and headed for…

  …The Fire Water Bar.

  A quick, healthy lunch of grilled chicken over pasta with marinara – and no alcohol, just iced water – refueled his body, and the investigators watched as Bronze relaxed and rested, chatting casually with the same bartender.

  After a couple of hours, during which he sucked down a quantity of water and fruit juices, Bronze rose and headed out once more.

  This time, his destination was an indoor shooting range, where he spent the rest of the afternoon going through the range’s arsenal, practicing with numerous types of handguns and long guns.

  Dinner was at a reasonable hour, at an upscale diner near his condo.

  Then he headed home.

  The lights went out on his floor at eleven that evening.

  Evacuate!

  In the middle of the surveillance of the Medved assassin team, Jones was headed into the ICPD headquarters building one morning, running late for the morning status briefing, when he saw an odd situation – someone was placing an object near the base of the building on the side alley. Since no notice of maintenance had gone out, he eased his pistol out of his concealed holster, hooked his badge on his lapel, and slipped up behind the man…who was not dressed in a city maintenance coverall.

  “What are you doing?” Jones demanded to know.

  The man spun, alarmed, saw the badge, and shoved Jones away, then leaped up and ran.

  Jones twisted around, bringing his weapon to bear, and fired before the man could get to the opening of the alleyway. He went down with a cry, then lay on the pavement, groaning and clutching his hip.

  Jones turned and glanced at the object the perp had been placing at what was, effectively, the top of the headquarters building’s foundation. When he saw the countdown clock attached, his eyes went wide, and he popped an emergency message into channel 911.

  “THIS IS LIEUTENANT INVESTIGATOR JONES! EVACUATE! EVACUATE! THERE’S A BOMB ON THE SIDE OF THE BUILDING! EVERYBODY OUT! NOW!!”

  Ashton and the other members of the surveillance team had just completed their disguises for the day, including changing hair and eye color, adding facial hair for the men, and changes of clothing suited to the locations where they anticipated observing that day. Colonel Peterson had just entered to announce the morning status meeting in five, when Jones’ emergency call came in through channel 911, annunciating on the building’s speaker system.

  “SHIT!” Peterson cried. “OUT! OUT! EVACUATE THE BUILDING! Let’s go, people!”

  The Team headed for the nearest exit without question.

  As police officers poured out of the headquarters building, Jones took his injured perp into custody, handcuffing him and ensuring that the bullet wound wasn’t too serious, while summoning both an emergency medic unit and a bomb squad in VR. Moments later, both had arrived, and he pointed the bomb squad at the device at the base of the building. Then he gave explicit instructions to the medics – whose identification he verified – as to how to restrain the would-be bomber, and sent him off to the hospital in a medical transport.

  Moments later, the leader of the bomb squad walked up to Jones.

  “I can see why you’d think what you did,” the woman, heavily dressed in special armor, told Jones. “But it’s a fake. That’s not a bomb; there’s no explosive, no electronic link, no nothing. Just an empty container, a battery, and a timer.”

  “Shit,” Jones declared, dumbfounded. “The guy fled, got himself shot, refused questioning…he could have just said it was a prank and got off a lot…oh damn. Damn, damn, damn! NICK!” he yelled, shoving past the members of the bomb squad, as he searched the crowd of cops for Ashton.

  On the far side of the building, Ashton moved away from the structure per bomb protocols, and located a barricade pillar to use as a makeshift stool. The rest of the Team was clustered a little closer to the building – still out of the mandated danger zone for protocol, but close enough to study detail and try to figure out what was going on. Ashton sighed, stretched, and eased back on his stool, glancing at the sky.

  “Nick?” someone asked behind him. “Nick? Is that you?”

  He turned in instinctive response.

  Three people stood there. Three people he recognized from IPD, who were not in uniform. Three people he recognized from Gorecki’s “goon squad.”

  Kendall Raines, Jane Bowie, and Marc Olestri.

  Shit, he thought. Play it, Nick. Stay calm.

  “May I help you?” he asked politely, flashing the fake badge that Peterson had had made for him some time back, to match the rarely-used alias that she’d had created for him.

  “Ashton? Dominick Ashton?” Bowie queried.

  “No, I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” Ashton said smoothly. “I’m known as Nick, yes, but I’m Nicholas Benton, captain investigator with ICPD.” He pus
hed them the alias credentials through VR.

  “Whoa,” Raines remarked. “Well, the eyes an’ hair are wrong, too, though, I guess…”

  “What do you mean?” Ashton asked.

  “He means you look kinda like this Ashton guy,” Bowie said. “We’re with IPD, plainclothes like you, and we’re on the lookout for him. He’s wanted.”

  “Oh really?” Ashton asked, thinking, You crooked scum are nothing like me. “What’s he done?”

  “He’s murdered several people,” Olestri declared. “We have evidence on him, we’ve just had a hard time tracking him down.”

  “Is that right? Well, I’ll keep an eye out for this guy. In fact, would you like to come over and tell my supervisor, Colonel Peterson?”

  “Uh, no, I don’t think so,” Olestri said, as the trio began to back off. “Don’t want to bother the Colonel; he probably already knows through channels anyway.”

  “She. The Colonel is a she.”

  “…Oh.”

  “Well, if I see this Ashton guy, I’ll be sure to grab him for you,” Ashton said cheerily. “We’ll have to clear this bomb threat first, of course. But then you probably know about that, huh? Through ‘channels.’”

  “Um, yes, right, of course,” Raines said. “Well, we need to get back on the trail. We had somebody report he was over here, but I guess they just mistook you for him and all…”

  “Right,” Ashton said. “Good hunting.”

  And they were gone.

  No sooner had the trio gotten out of sight than the Team, led by Jones, Ames, and Peterson, came running up.

  “Nick! Nick! Are you okay?” Ames exclaimed.

  “Shush, Cal,” Ashton murmured. “I just got rid of some of Gorecki’s people. Claiming to still have badges, let me note.”