Shell Game, page 7
part #15 of The Last Hunter Series
He’d trained others in the past but never anyone that he actually liked. Those selected by the monarchy to be spies and assassins were snakes and there was little trust to be had between them. The stories that Lisa had told him about the two spy ships they’d captured cemented that firmly in his mind. Snakes, every last one of them.
Well, maybe not all of them. There had been the one that had been shocked at the betrayal of her partner. She was a Confederation prisoner at this point, but it might be worthwhile to look into her more closely when time allowed. If nothing else, finding out what was going on back in the kingdom would be very helpful. That was a problem that they’d have to deal with before very much longer, and they couldn’t waste time on preparations. Not against people like him.
He didn’t allow any of those thoughts to show on his face, simply smiling at her. “Your words warm my heart. I have to say that I’ve been looking forward to this moment ever since we first met. You are an extremely intelligent person with skills that will take you far in this universe. Needless to say, you also have an extremely bright alien inside you that can do things that I’m probably poorly equipped to even understand. You’ll be a powerhouse one day, Lisa.”
She laughed. “I’m a powerhouse now. And don’t think that you’ll get away without us setting up some handrails on this particular partnership. There are certain things that I’m not willing to do and that I know the Confederation would frown upon. If you want to work with me, then you’ll need to adjust your style.”
He could hear the undertones of what she was saying and knew she was implying that he’d better keep his damned hands to himself when it came to other women. She also undoubtedly meant other things that he could probably guess, but that was something they could hash out face-to-face without an audience. Well, an audience other than Regex.
Truthfully, he wanted to talk to the scientist inside her. While talking shop with an alien that had undoubtedly never killed anyone in his life would be different than anything he’d done before, Regex’s insight into what they were doing and how it could be improved might be intriguing.
“Of course,” he allowed with an inclination of his head. “I would never do anything that you would disapprove of while working with you. You have my word.”
“Uh-huh. We’ll see about that.”
Romanoff shook his head and smiled. “I can see that the two of you have a lot to talk about, so Mac and I will step out and begin discussing some of the work that we need to accomplish. I want both groups to collaborate as much as possible so that we each have an idea of what the other is up to. We don’t need any surprises in the middle of any of our operations. Clear?”
“Absolutely so,” Patrick said.
He waited until the two officers had left the room and closed the door behind them. Then, he focused his attention on Lisa. He clasped his hands together and gave her his full attention without saying a word.
Lisa took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You have a way of doing whatever you want and then expecting the people around you just to accept it. That stops with me. I don’t appreciate what you did to me when we slept together. You made a change to my body without my permission, and I am furious about it.”
“Ah,” he said. “I suppose that makes sense. After you said the kingdom was here, I thought it imperative that you had what was necessary to protect yourself if you were ever captured. The fact that you know about it leads me to believe that that might have occurred. Or did you just become so suspicious that you had someone run an ultraviolet light over your entire body? The pain left over after the tattooing shouldn’t have been so sharp as to draw your attention.”
She leaned forward. “I was captured, but it doesn’t change the fact that you did something to me without asking my permission. You don’t get to do anything to me unless I’m agreeable. If you try, I will gut you.”
His smile widened. “I believe you would. I give you my word that I will not do anything to your person if I do not have your explicit permission. Well, unless you invite me back to your bed some night. I need a bit of freedom of action to pleasure a woman, and I don’t want to ask permission for each and every separate act.”
Her face reddened. “I think you shouldn’t be considering sex with me while you’re flirting with other women. Worse, you shouldn’t be thinking about taking your pants off when I might be inclined to use a knife to trim off an offending appendage.”
“Ouch! Such sharp repartee cuts deep. What I was doing with her was business, though it could very easily have turned into pleasure. We don’t have any kind of exclusivity, but I will refrain from that kind of behavior while we work together. If you decide that you want to be exclusive, then I will forgo the pleasures of the flesh with anyone other than yourself. I’m willing to compromise, though I will admit that being able to seduce people can get me access to places that you wouldn’t consider possible.”
She sighed. “We’re going to have to do this one step at a time. For right now, you just need to keep your hands to yourself. Neither I nor anyone else is going to enjoy the pleasure of your company in bed until we get settled into whatever our relationship will be. I know that it’s useless and counterproductive to try and change a man, yet I’m not going to commit myself to something—even a professional relationship—without certain understandings in place.”
“Very prudent,” he said. “Well, we could discuss it right now. I suggest we order some food and decent drink. While dinner was acceptable, I like to snack when I’m talking about work. It’s a failing of mine.”
She stared at him for a few seconds and then nodded. “I don’t think we should discuss anything of import until tomorrow. I need to get some sleep—alone—so that I can come at this without being annoyed.”
“As the lady commands. Snacks and then rest. Once we finish breakfast, we can start working on something tremendous.”
9
Jack woke the next morning, got himself cleaned up, and prepared to step out and join the rest of the team in the common room. He doubted that Lisa and Patrick would be joining them. Considering the sort of things they did for a living, regular business hours were not exactly their best times for working, so he wouldn’t be shocked at their absence. A glance around the common room confirmed his guess.
He supposed they might have been up late doing things of a more personal nature. If so, he would have to trust that Lisa kept Patrick at arm’s length enough to do the work that needed to be done. One way or the other, he’d deal with the issue if it proved to be a problem.
Derek had briefed him on what they’d discovered during his outing yesterday and he had to admit that things would be challenging. Tina would be remotely making the rounds of the system and pinpointing all the locations utilized by the Tardans via the probes and sensor buoys they’d deployed. It was their job to get human intelligence on what the aliens were doing because they wouldn’t simply be sitting around twiddling their thumbs. They were doing something, and he wanted to know what it was.
The Marines and Navy personnel were breaking their fast at the large table, with Derek sitting at one end and chatting with Mac Turner. They both began to rise as he approached, but he waved them back down into their seats.
“There’s definitely no need to stand on formality when we’re on a mission like this,” he said as he sat. “Today’s going to be an interesting day, and we need to get our heads in the right space so we don’t make a mistake that stands out.”
The food they’d ordered ran the gamut between normal breakfast fare like pancakes and bacon but included what had to be some local breakfast variants that he was unfamiliar with. One of them seemed to be made of steamed vegetables in a sauce that seemed like it would be more appropriate for lunch or dinner. He had a scoop to give it a try and to see why it qualified for breakfast.
After pouring himself some orange juice—or the local equivalent, he supposed—he used his fork to spear one of the pieces of vegetable and ran it through the sauce before popping it into his mouth. It was sweet and chewy in a way that vegetables usually weren’t, and the sauce only enhanced the flavor. It was definitely something that went along well with pancakes and bacon.
Once his plate was fully stocked with food, he dug in with gusto. The bacon didn’t quite taste like regular bacon, so it was probably a different animal. He wasn’t sure exactly how they would raise enough animals and grow enough food to feed a population without a planet. It seemed there had to be dedicated facilities for just that purpose, but they would have to be huge or numerous. Perhaps both.
The conversation around the table was general in nature, and he contributed where he thought it was appropriate. The Marines and crew personnel seemed hesitant to engage him in conversation, but he understood that. Once a flag officer of his rank—or of any rank, really—was present, it was always prudent to be cautious of what one said.
Only once they’d finished eating and the dishes had been cleared away did he turn his attention back to business. “Based on the information you brought in last night, Derek, it seems that we have a couple of angles we could approach. The one closest to hand isn’t likely to tell us much about the Tardans, but it isn’t something we should ignore.”
“You mean the former manager,” Derek said. “We did a little digging around and were able to locate an address for him. Whether or not he still lives there or if he’s in prison, we don’t know. I’m inclined to drop in and visit and see what he has to say. If he is not there, then we can look at other angles. I understand this is most unlikely to generate information about the Poseidon Group, but we’re right here.”
Jack nodded. “We’re not going to give it very much time, but if we can gain his trust enough to give us information, we can allow Lisa and Patrick to develop the information he might have and utilize it while we go in search of the prospectors. Honestly, I’m a lot more interested in what they have to say because they’ve been out in space since the very beginning, and spacers talk. Whatever the Tardans are up to, I suspect there are areas of the belt that are restricted, and we need to know where those are because they are likely the kind of places we need to be.”
Truthfully, he had very little interest in the manager here on this station. If Derek hadn’t gotten enough information for them to at least make one attempt at contacting the man, then he wouldn’t have dwelt on it at all. He’d have simply told Lisa that they needed to handle it and headed back out to the cutter to rejoin Specter. He’d leave half the Marines and spacers when they left, and the two groups would begin working separately to develop intelligence. Time was of the essence, and they needed to be about their business.
Once they were ready to go, he had Mac split the Marines into two groups. One would remain here with Lisa and provide backup if things went wrong. There were four cutters that had been fitted with extra life-support and heat shields to provide a base of operations for the stealth fighters, and two of them were close by if there was some type of action in space that needed to be dealt with. He doubted that would be the case around the station, but one never knew. Lisa and Patrick’s best bet would be to draw no attention to themselves, but he wouldn’t be shocked if there were a few dead bodies left in their wake should things turn exciting.
The true reason that he and Derek had come to the station was to get the location of the prospector’s ship, and now that they’d done so, it would be best for them to be on their way. With that in mind, he gathered the group that he was taking with him, and they set off to find the ex-manager’s home.
The address took them to what he would call a middle-class section of the station. Everything was in good repair, but nothing was fancy. It had decent access to middle-grade shops and all the amenities that someone with that income level could afford. They hadn’t seen any sign of it yet, but somewhere aboard the station would be lower-income housing and even slums.
That kind of thing was unavoidable, particularly if there was no planet to put people out on. The down-and-out had to live somewhere, and managers for stations like these would undoubtedly have less desirable locations to stuff them. It was despicable, and yet it happened all the time.
Every time they passed any of the station security officers, he felt himself tightening inside, even though there was absolutely no reason why they would pay any mind to him or his people. It felt as if the security personnel were staring at them, but that was more the line of a guilty conscience than anything else. The guilty ran when no one pursued, or so the saying went. He wasn’t guilty per se, but the sentiment was still valid.
When they arrived at the appropriate corridor and found the door in question, he knew that they didn’t even need to check. Several thick bands of fluorescent red tape were strapped across the door, indicating that it was under seal by station security. There was a secondary lock system and alarm placed over the pad that would normally allow a resident entry.
That undoubtedly meant that the potential contact had indeed been arrested and was still in custody somewhere. Locating him would be Lisa and Patrick’s responsibility. Once they were clear of this location, he’d give them a call and let them know without spelling it out too clearly. The communication channels were undoubtedly being monitored, though probably by electronic means, in all but the most important cases. Just steering clear of keywords that might interest the Poseidon Group would be good enough.
They all walked past the locked-up apartment and continued back into the more accessible areas of this level. If anyone had been tracking them, they would have wondered why they’d made a big circle through the residential area and then come back out without doing anything, but he doubted anyone would be watching closely enough to spot that kind of behavior.
As they headed back toward the maintenance zone they’d penetrated the station through, he used his comm to call Lisa. She picked up after a couple of seconds, her voice groggy. She’d obviously still been asleep. “Hello?”
“Hey, this is Jack. Sorry to wake you. I just wanted to give you a heads-up that we tried to go visit the guy you recommended to us, but he wasn’t home. Honestly, I’m not sure he even lives there anymore. You’re probably going to have to follow up with that yourself.”
“Okay,” she said, her voice a little clearer. “I appreciate you trying to hook us up. I’ll get things settled myself over the next few days. Are you coming back by this evening?”
“Probably not. We’ve got other things to do, and it may be a couple of days before I have the free time. I’ll give you a buzz, and we can do dinner.”
“That sounds good. Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll talk to you later.”
Jack disconnected and put his comm unit away after turning it off. She’d gotten the gist of it, and now they could focus on finding the prospectors’ ship and seeing what was really going on in the system. Tina should have gotten a decent idea of the layout and distribution of the Tardan military vessels and hopefully even located the kingdom ones he expected to find here as well.
Utilizing the key card that Lisa had given him to utilize the hack she’d put into the access lock, they made their way into the maintenance section cautiously, and Mac sent a few Marines in front to make sure they didn’t run into any trouble. If they did, it would be taken care of in a nonlethal fashion, and they would have to find another way to get back into the station later.
There were a couple of close calls because, unlike the last time, maintenance personnel were moving around the area. Going with the information that the Marines were able to provide, they skirted the first group without making contact. The second time, they weren’t so lucky.
They ran into a pair of maintenance personnel who looked shocked to see people in regular street clothes. One of them—a man who was much bigger than his companion—glared at them. “This is a restricted area. How the hell did you get in here?”
Jack forced himself to smile in a manner that reminded him of his father. Superiority with a hint of arrogance. No one could pull off that kind of expression like his old man. It would project the kind of impression that he wanted to give these two.
“That’s not the right question. What you should be asking is how you can assist us. Actually, you can’t. We work for the governor. I think you know what I mean. As I see it, you have two choices. You can either move along and hope that I forget to ask who you are, or you can cause us trouble, in which case my associates will take you into custody so that we can question why you are inhibiting us in the performance of our duties. Trust me when I say that I don’t think you or your friend would enjoy the experience.”
The man opened his mouth to say something, but his shorter companion grabbed his arm and yanked. “Let it go, Andy. We should let these gentlemen get on about their business and not ask any questions.”
The bigger man glared down at his friend. “This is bull. None of these people have any authority to be in here.”
“And yet here they are. Don’t make waves. Report it to the supervisor if you feel that strongly, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. Let. It. Go.”
All Jack did was stand there smirking at the two. He was projecting power of a different sort than he’d ever utilized before, and it made him feel dirty. Even so, if it kept them from having to knock these two out and leave a trail that could be followed by the government, that was all for the good.
Even if the big man reported something to his superior, Jack doubted it would go any further than that. The implications that he’d laid out were plain for anyone with eyes to see. He might as well have screamed that he worked for the secret police or some similar organization. People who questioned them undoubtedly disappeared and were never seen again. Or if they were let go, they would never be the same again.
