The Stefan Mendoza Trilogy Boxed Set, page 42
part #1 of Stefan Mendoza Trilogy Series
Huiyin considered me from beneath a cocked brow. “An AI?”
“Not a real one, at least I don’t think so. It’s some sort of simulator. A simulacrum. Good enough to present a challenge for Chan. Good enough to nearly kill me several weeks ago.”
“You’re not so hard to kill, Mr. Mendoza.”
“Stefan, please. The people who call me Mr. Mendoza usually want me dead. I’d at least like the illusion we’re working together.”
After a few seconds, she said, “We are.”
“Great. Then do me a favor and stop with the value judgment of my team. We survived a pretty nasty double-cross.”
Huiyin stared at the apartment building. “Will you kill her?”
“Heidi? Not unless I have to. She’s not some Agency loyalist. She wouldn’t have been skimming money otherwise, would she?”
Her face hardened; she’d caught the dig at Dong. “When do we go?”
“When Danny’s aerial recon finishes.”
I checked the video feed Chan had set up from the drone. It was a modest system, but extravagant wasn’t an option for Huiyin on such short notice. Danny had rigged a simple pair of cameras—regular and night vision—on the drone undercarriage. The video showed lights twinkling in the gated communities surrounding the largely abandoned apartment complex. Unlike the West Virginia house we’d ditched after cleaning up, the western edge of Frederick had suffered in the ongoing economic troubles. A helicopter or the prototype cars we’d dealt with so far would have presented easily identifiable profiles for Chan’s image scans. We were clear for a few miles in all directions.
I whispered to Danny, “It’s nearly two. We a go?”
“Yeah. Sending the bird up higher…now.”
The images took on a different angle. The drone had gone into a steep climb. Ichi straightened in the other car; Chan must have said something about the drone changing its flight pattern and attitude.
Huiyin zipped her jacket up and pulled mirror shades of her own over her eyes. “This would be a bad place to get caught with our pants around our ankles.”
I tried not to react to that image. “Danny’s sending the drone higher. He’ll give the go signal.”
She slowly scanned the lot. “Ready.”
Enhanced optics. As good as my eyes? Better?
Danny huffed into the microphone over the sound of boots stomping on stairs. “Moving into overwatch.”
When the noise over the connection decreased, I said, “Waiting on your signal.”
More huffing, some scraping, then the clack of a rifle bipod extending. “Go.”
I keyed a signal to Ichi and popped my door. She shot across the lot, dancing along the edges of the pools. Her assignment was the back porch of Heidi’s third-story apartment; it would test even a skilled athlete. I fought back a whisper of caution, not wanting Ichi to think I was trying to diminish her in Huiyin’s eyes. Kids’ egos could be so fragile.
Huiyin took the lead as we dashed for the stairs. I slapped a camera into place at the bottom, then a second at the midpoint landing, and a third at the entry to the hallway. It would give Chan a clear view of the stairs and the doors on both sides of the third-floor hall.
Chan whispered, “Video signal clear. No obstacles.”
Huiyin telescoped a shock staff as she skidded to a stop shy of Heidi’s door. I slipped to the other side. In the past, I would have relied on reinforced gloves for an operation like we were pulling off, but with the cybernetics I could just eliminate fingerprints, and my fists would do anything gloves could.
When Huiyin nodded, I connected privately to Ichi. “We’re in position.”
She grunted, then said, “Almost. This wood is rotted.”
“Take your time.” But hurry. I smiled anxiously at my impatience. The shakes were coming. I was having a hard time making sense of Heidi playing both sides. When things didn’t make sense, I lost my center.
Huiyin leaned across the door. “Are we going in or not?”
Heidi climbing from a third-floor balcony wasn’t an option worth serious consideration, but I didn’t want to send Ichi a signal that she wasn’t contributing. I placed a small charge on the doorframe where the bolt would be and ducked down. Wood popped—a sound nearly as loud as the explosion—and I launched a shoulder into the center of the door, which flew inward.
Muzzle flash, the crack of a pistol, something burying itself in the concrete wall opposite, a shadow moving inside the shadows.
I switched to full thermographic and followed the heat image—small, thin, moving to an open area, a glass door…the kitchen and the porch!
The form banged off the glass door, wrestled with the handle.
A gun clattered to the floor, and the lock flicked open. The form squeezed through the open door, left shoulder first, right hand not quite out yet.
I grabbed the wrist—small, frail—and hauled back on it.
Something snapped, and Heidi screamed. She banged off the sliding door as I pulled her back in, then slumped to the faux-wood vinyl floor. A light flicked on, and I switched back to normal optics in time to catch Ichi pulling herself over the porch’s low wall. Her lips were squeezed tight—betrayed—as she shoved her way through the small opening before sliding the door shut behind her.
Broken wrist or not, I kicked Heidi’s gun away. Ichi checked the safety, then set the weapon on a small, scuffed wooden table in the corner where doorless cabinets met the sliding glass door frame.
Heidi wore a dark nylon jogging suit over what looked like it might be a black T-shirt. Fine strands of hair hung out of a black wool watch cap. Wrinkles that had been mere hints some weeks back now seemed like deep gorges in pale flesh.
Huiyin squatted at Heidi’s side, shock staff resting on the material of the jogging pants. “We have some questions for you. Answer quick and honest, and we leave you alone. Give us any trouble, and…” She lifted the staff up an inch or so and keyed a modest charge, which popped and glowed. The air took on a smell like an overloaded circuit.
Heidi pulled the watch cap off and nodded. It wasn’t a look of pain or fear but acceptance. Resignation. “I want to—” Her voice faded, and she swallowed. “Save you some trouble. You don’t need to hurt me. I don’t know who, exactly—”
The staff popped again, this time melting a section of the pants into the flesh of her thigh. Her spine arched, her leg jerked, and the back of her head slammed against the wall.
I said in an even tone, “No need for that. She’s not lying.”
Huiyin tapped the staff further up the thigh. “We need to know who financed the assassination.”
Tears rolled down Heidi’s face and disappeared in the lifeless hair clinging to her cheeks. She hadn’t undergone Agency conditioning. If she knew something, she would break. Without the conditioning, everyone broke eventually. “I only knew Chambliss. And Wicker. And Dong, but I didn’t know that was his name or that he worked for—”
Another pop of power, another burned section of cloth and flesh. And now there was the smell of urine.
Heidi shook. “I-I—” She rocked back and forth. “Please. I’m dying.”
Huiyin’s finger tensed, ready for another jolt. I snatched the tip of the staff away, grunting when the current hit but keeping my grip. It was powerful, painful. It probably should have stunned me.
The new limbs. Maybe they have a little something more going for them.
Huiyin released the staff and moved to the sink, calm, emotionless.
I collapsed the staff and stuffed it in my pocket. Then I squatted at Heidi’s side and said in a soft voice, “Tell me what you know.”
She wiped tears from her face. “Nearly a year ago, I received a call. It was one of Chambliss’s people. I don’t remember the name. She was asking about my health. They knew I was burning through my savings, trying to deal with—” It looked like she was fanning her face. “This.”
“What’s this?”
“Early-onset dementia. Aggressive.”
The meds she’d had in her hotel room. “You ever hear of these people before that?”
“No. Never. She offered to help. I met with her; she discussed some opportunities. It was all gray but not explicitly illegal. They offered a lot of money for the work.”
Huiyin’s face was still frozen. She knew the story or accepted it.
I probed at the first burn—gentle. “We’ll need to get this cleaned up.”
Heidi sighed, relieved. “Thank you.”
“When did they talk to you about me?”
“A couple months later. I’d heard you were dead. I—” She looked away. “I told them I’d rather not work with you. They eventually insisted. I assumed your reputation had been smeared by Stovall.”
“Someone spent a lot of money preparing me for the job.” Had they recruited Gillian around the same time? So many questions. “And they never told you why?”
“I knew not to ask. That’s how you end up dead.”
“When it fell apart, you disappeared.”
“I received a call from the same woman. She said my contract had been terminated. I—” A long exhale. “I thought it was a warning. I ran.”
“You’ll need to run again.”
“I was already planning to, but—”
Danny was in my ear, urgent. “Incoming. Air limo and cars. What is it with these guys and their flying cars?”
Huiyin’s eyes widened. She apparently hadn’t expected problems.
I helped Heidi to her feet. “They asked you to stay here until we showed up?”
Heidi nodded. “You knew?”
“It’s how this sort of thing goes. Did they offer you a payment or promise you they’d be in touch?”
Heidi leaned against me. “The drawer next to the sink.”
I helped her over and pulled the drawer open. The corner of one of the data devices we’d used during the Weaver operation poked out from beneath yellowed, crumpled papers. Heidi took the device from me and logged into it, then handed it to me.
I was familiar enough with the communications interface to pull up the history. “Chan?”
Chan’s voice had an edge to it. “Yeah.”
“Can you hop through our connection to get into this device?” I sent a short video of it, low res over the area’s flaky Grid.
“Inbound. You heard Danny.”
“Stay low. We’ll deal with them. I want to know who’s behind this.”
“A trap. This was a trap.” Chan sounded manic. Drugs again? Already?
“It’s always a trap. It’s just a matter of whether you can turn it to your advantage. Can you get into this device or not?”
A window opened in the display, then another, then another. Data flowed. More windows opened.
I set the device on the countertop. “I’m assuming that’s you? Chan?”
“I’m in. Looking.”
I waved Ichi over and said, “Take her to the bathroom. Heidi, you have anything for the burns? Alcohol? Something to numb it?”
Heidi grimaced. “Alcohol.”
Ichi wrapped an arm around Heidi’s hip. I stopped them. “One thing.”
Heidi’s eyes were wet with tears. She was hurting. “Yes?”
“Stovall. He’s still with the Agency. They’re running this at some level.”
She bowed her head. “People like him never leave the Agency, not until they die. They know what’s going on.”
The Agency was behind Stovall at some level, and he was behind whoever was coming for us. All we needed was a lead to start making sense of things.
And once I had this matter dealt with, I could take care of Stovall.
Chapter 12
Heidi’s apartment was cool and silent except for the occasional groan of the settling structure. I’d dragged the cheap entertainment center display into the kitchen. That was the only source of light as it played the drone video. The thing smelled like its chipped and faded black resin frame was melting. Jaggy artifacts dragged behind some of the fast-moving objects. Some pixels flickered intermittently, and sections of the display never lit at all, but there was enough for everyone to make out the important elements. Water arced away from six cars speeding down the single feeder road that led into the parking lot. Headlamps glowed pure white, revealing the cracked asphalt and muddy rain pools. The vehicles dodged left and right to avoid potholes and clumps of concrete carried into the street by runoff.
Huiyin wrinkled her nose as her eyes jumped from one corner of the display to the opposite corner. The effect was almost rabbit-like, but she was no helpless prey waiting for the hunter to come for her. She wiggled her fingers and shook her head, then said, “A dump like this, why not just fire rockets from that flying car?”
I’d wondered about that myself. “They probably want my body in good enough condition so they can confirm my identity. There’s not a lot of potential for DNA collection.” Or they wanted the computing device intact.
Her mirror shades tracked up and down my body, then returned to the display. “Six cars. Eighteen, maybe twenty people. Snipers in the air limo?”
“There was one last time. Chan will take it down when it gets closer.”
“How capable are they?”
“They’ve been competent enough so far.”
She unzipped her left pants leg, revealing a slender but shapely thigh and a molded black holster. The holster held part of a small pistol. She unzipped her right pants leg and pulled the other part of the pistol from there. As far as I could see, assembling the weapon involved slapping it together and flipping a couple of latches. She pulled two magazines from the lining of her jacket, loading one into the gun and stuffing the other into a pocket.
I snorted. “You must be great at parties.”
She zipped her pants legs closed. “I like being prepared. Is that a problem?”
I pulled my own pistol, which dwarfed hers. “Not for me. What kind of round does that thing use?”
“Five millimeter. Explosive tip.”
She liked her explosives. “They wear armor.”
“I don’t shoot at armor.”
She moved to the hallway leading to the front door, searched for a few seconds, then crouched in the opening opposite the kitchen. It was a much more effective place than Heidi had chosen. I jerked the display power cord from the wall, then yanked the cord from the back of the display. They would send someone up the back porch. I filled a bowl with water and splashed that onto the porch near the wall, then set the exposed wiring in the puddle and plugged the cable into the wall socket before sliding the glass door nearly all the way shut again.
The apartment was small—kitchen and living room, hallway, then bedroom and bathroom. Not even eight hundred square feet. There was a smell about the place, like it had been abandoned for a while. Dark patches of mold ran along the bathroom baseboards. Heidi was in the bathtub, hunched over, shaking.
Ichi looked up. “She will be safe in here.”
“Yeah. I want you on the roof.” I held a hand up before she could protest. “They’re going to come in fast, probably moving in a couple groups. You get on the roof, you can swing down when they’re bunched tight on the stairs. Knock some of them around, then get the hell out of there. The distraction will buy us time, and that’s something we’re going to need.”
She smiled and bounced up and down on the balls of her feet. “I will—”
“This isn’t about you trying to kill an army single-handed, Ichi. Kick a couple around, then get back up on the roof. If they send someone after you, fine, kill him. But you’re not our ninja army, okay? These people have some nasty guns. Bullets don’t care how pretty you are or how fast you kick. Keep moving, stay out of sight. You hear me?”
A strange look—disapproving?—passed over her face. Because I’d called her pretty? She had to know she was.
She squeezed past me, head down. “I will do as you say.”
“I’ll call you when it’s time.” I tapped my temple. “I’ll be watching you.”
And I did watch her. From the second she exited the front door, Chan’s camera picked everything up in the hallway dividing the third-floor units. When Ichi reached the stairs, I could see her more clearly. She became a graceful, powerful shadow, hopping onto the rail where the two sets of stairs merged at the top, then climbing up and out of sight.
Her breathing was a comforting sound in my ear once I couldn’t see her anymore. “I am on the roof. The flying vehicle is moving away. The cars are coming into the parking area very fast.”
“Stay low. Wait for my signal.” I took up a position just inside the kitchen. “Chan, that air limo comes down as soon as possible.”
“Yeah.” The manic tension in Chan’s voice was thick. “Seeing the system now.”
“They won’t bother with your car. You’re safe. Danny, you copy?”
Danny hummed. “Yeah. I was watching the video on the entertainment center. Really nice. Um, I still have a good signal, but is it going to hold up?”
Chan sounded irritated. “Yes.”
Danny said, “Cool. What are my priorities?”
I wanted the limo down, but I needed for Chan to show me that the run-in with Jacinto hadn’t taken away our edge; we needed the best Gridhound on our team. “Keep them off Chan and Ichi. Huiyin and I will have a pretty good crossfire going in here.”
“Okay.” He hummed again, then said, “Here they go. Two cars coming straight at you. North side.”
Brakes, the splash of tires through puddles. They were coming around, sealing off the far stairs. That was fine, but it meant Ichi might encounter trouble from the far end of the roof after engagement.
“Ichi?” I cursed for not thinking about putting another camera up in the north stairs.
“Yes?” Calm. Fearless. The young always were.
“They’re sending people up the north stairs. You think you can handle that group first? Just knock one or two around, then get back up, just like I said.”
“I can do that.”
