She had ordered murders and carried out enough herself to get to and keep her position; they would have done the same, if not more and worse, to reach where the Desard Family now stood.
She looked at the time.
“Now,” she said into the intercom.
A Shen Mi warehouse went up in flames.
Where the Desards had planned on profiting from her war with the Shen Mi by taking over both; she was planning to profit by taking over the Desard’s business. She had help, help that would like to see both the Desards and the Shen Mi taken out of the picture. And of course, they were also playing her, using her to get what they wanted, but unlike the others, when the dust settled, they were offering her something more than she already had. Safety. Moving up into a realm where the InterG couldn’t touch you, where no one could touch you because you were too rich, too powerful. A realm where even the Councils were in your pocket. She would take her place there, and she would take it from the Desards.
The ship carrying the Ankarian blood was the first part of the puzzle. A closer look would show it’s destination was now owned by the Desards. The first clue for the Shen Mi. If all had gone well, the assassination of Kozin Fo would be there next little clue.
***
“How is that of importance to our mission?” Grant asked sincerely.
“Well, I am out of the loop somewhat, but from what I’m hearing it doesn’t make sense. She must have known that she would be dragged into a gang war while the Desards sat out of it. How does that benefit her?” Hendricks asked.
“She gets more power from the Desards at the end?” Regrette asked. He’d gathered quite the respect for the Doc.
“If she survives. And if she does then all she’s gained is a new master. That usually means less power, not more.”
“We asked the same question of Cobroy, remember?” Gulch reminded.
“So, how is she getting more power out of this?” Rorckshift asked giving the Doc an approving nod.
“What if she had her own back up?” Kaskey asked.
“She could be playing both sides?” Regrette asked intrigued.
“Err, yeah. I guess.”
“No, it’s a good point, Kas, but does any of this change what we’re doing?” Grant asked.
“It means someone might try to get to the Desards before we do,” Tsyrker said.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Kaskey asked.
“Indeed, saves you the bother,” Hendricks agreed.
Tsyrker tried to hold in a laugh and snickered anyway. That set Regrette off.
“Did I say something funny?” Hendricks asked.
“You know what?” Grant asked. “You’re both just mean.”
“It means we need to stop this,” Tsyrker said.
“Well that’s what we’re doing,” Grant said with impatience, “and we’re not getting any closer with all this supposition.”
It sometimes annoyed him; the other games that were being played, primarily by Tsyrker. She wanted everything to fit to her plans without sharing what they were. It could make things a little difficult, to say the least.
“Kozin Fo has been killed,” Gulch pronounced.
“Oh really?” Regrette said with interest as Tsyrker turned back to her screen.
“And he is?” Kaskey asked.
“Enough,” Grant said firmly and loudly. “This isn’t getting us any closer to Gothra and time is wasting.”
“It’s juicy,” Regrette winked at Kaskey.
“Steve,” Grant reprimanded sharply.
“Mssh,” he said, but stayed quiet.
“We need to know what we’re up against in that building,” Tsyrker said.
“And if she has an army?” Kaskey asked.
“Then we bring our own,” Regrette said with a smile. “I’m sure the Shen Mi would like to get in there and finish this.”
“Yes,” Tsyrker smiled. “We’ll get Mr. V to sing for his supper.”
“They’ll screw us over as soon as they can to take what you need,” Rorckshift asked.
“You can pull out, you’ve got no stake in this,” Grant said.
“You still need to get through to the top, even with the Shen Mi. We’re in.”
“I say, of course,” Hendricks agreed.
“Well we won’t just be knocking on the front doors, Koleermeer gave us another entry,” Grant said.
“I’ll talk to Koey,” Tsyrker said and got up.
CHAPTER 41
It was late afternoon in the city of Pelluu and it was business as usual, but Grant could feel the difference. A tension in the air as if Gothra’s own fear had spread through the air and been inhaled by the populace. If you asked them they would tell you they were fine, but one or two might admit to a vague dread that they couldn’t explain.
Grant was with Gulch and their computing equipment in a hotel room overlooking the city. For this part the computers would be a two man job and no one had wanted to do it (except Gulch) and they had all agreed it should be Grant as he might get recognised.
***
“Kaskey might too,” he had countered.
“Him?” Regrette had asked. “Nah, highly forgettable face. I can’t even remember what he looks like half the time. Plus look at his hands.”
Kaskey held them up.
“Right? Too big and clumsy for working a computer,” Kaskey said.
Grant knew Regrette was doing this to annoy him, and it was working. And, worse, Regrette knew it was. Shabwozer.
“Leaders lead,” Tsyrker said and Grant knew she was right.
***
“Do you enjoy this?” Grant asked looking out of the window.
“Of course. We’re taking down another bad guy,” Gulch said from behind his computer screens.
“No, I mean this. Sitting alone in front of a computer, a lot of the time in a small van,” he looked over at him and Gulch looked up from his screens.
“No. No, Ben, this is my world.”
“You don’t get bored?”
“Not at all. You think all the action happens out there?”
“Er, yeah. I guess.”
Gulch laughed.
“Plenty of action goes on in front of these screens, Ben. You guys just never see it. What about the cameras at the Loggajello? That was pretty exciting. Keeping you guys off the screens, plenty of close calls too.”
“Really?” Grant asked with surprise. Surprise tinged with alarm.”
“Mssh, that’s why I don’t tell you guys about it,” Gulch said and looked back to his screens.
Grant stared at him for a couple of seconds and then turned back to the window.
“Did you just say ‘mssh’?”
“No.”
***
“Security’s been stepped up,” Rorckshift commented from the pavement seating of a bar. “Looks like patrols.”
“Agreed,” Tsyrker agreed over the radio.
“They’re expecting us? Kaskey asked.
“No,” Rorckshift shook his head. “No reason to think so. If there’s going to be an attack it’s most likely at night.”
“Especially after what’s gone down today.”
“Right.”
“Anybody else noticed the vans?” Regrette asked.
“Not here, no.”
“I know what he’s talking about,” Hendricks said. “One has just passed me again; I’d say a fifteen minute interval.”
“Let’s move and see if we can see one of these vans,” Rorckshift said and got up.
Kaskey followed him as they walked down the road. It had been blocked off for the evening and the bars and restaurants had spread themselves across it. There was a little stage with a band playing a cover of ‘Stargate Lover’.
“Aw, man, murdering a classic,” Kaskey bemoaned.
“What is?”
“What?”
“What is?”
“A classic? The song, man. You seriously don’t think so?”
“Never heard i
t before,” Rorckshift shrugged as he marched up the street.
“You’ve never heard Stargate Lover?” Kaskey incredulised as he hurried to keep up.
Rorckshift shrugged.
“No, ‘course you haven’t. Silly me.”
“Is it any good?” Rorckshift tried his hand at small talk.
“Well, yeah. It’s a classic.”
“I see.”
***
Regrette held back around the corner of an alleyway as a group of four henchmen went past. He counted to five in his head before looking out to see them disappearing into the crowds.
The weather was nice and people were returning home from work on foot and stopping in the city’s parks, restaurants and bars. Lot of computer jobs, working with the Web, and that meant a lot of young people. Add to that tourists who came for the famous nightlife, the beaches and the so-called Party Islands. It was, he considered, an odd place for a Universal crime boss to set up shop. But then that was the point, wasn’t it? Be where you weren’t expected, hide in plain sight and all that.
He headed off in the opposite direction to find a good spot.
***
As soon as the vans had been mentioned a new plan had formed and after returning to Grant and Gulch to pick up some kit, Rainsford Tsyrker had set out again. She was taking her preferred mode of transport: rooftops. On the ground she could run, fast, of course she could, but it was the obstacles to taking the roofs that really made her fly. Though not actually fly, just, y’know, move really fast. Cooling units to be dodged or leapt; gaps to be jumped; walls to be scaled. Once she got going she just built momentum, and she loved every minute of it.
And so she flew (not literally) across the city, looking for her goal and from the roof of a particularly tall building she saw it and set off again.
She felt alive; as she always did with a purpose, a mission. She loved to move and to be moving; she loved to feel the wind in her hair and the coolness of the air at this height. She loved the excitement of moving over the roofs, but more than that the excitement of being on a mission. Of having a goal, an endpoint, something that would help others. It was all that she had ever wanted to do, ever since she’d been a little girl.
Her Grandmother had taught her that, that she had to look after others, help others. She had taught her how to look after herself so that she could do that. It was her Grandmother who had set her on the path to this and she had always wished she had asked her why. Asked more about her past and how she had known such things. She had asked, of course, when she was young, but Grandmother had always been mysterious or deflective. Now she wished she’d pushed it when she was older, but, as was the way, as a teenager she hadn’t cared.
And now she was using techniques her Grandmother had taught her in those teenage years to navigate across the skyline, with no knowledge of how or why her Grandmother should or would have known how. And here she was at the warehouses she had seen from afar. They were dark and she stopped at a long skylight on a roof and looked in. Each of the warehouses on this street looked to be identical and she moved from skylight to skylight until she found one that seemed suitable. Mostly because it seemed relatively empty.
***
Not far away on another roof top, Stephen Regrette was setting up. It was another part of his job that he enjoyed, constructing guns. He supposed it was all the jobs that took time and care, but had a definite way of doing them. He loved greasing the parts, cleaning them. He loved sliding each piece into the next and hearing the satisfying clicks as they connected.
But then some of it was that he just loved guns. Partly it was the technology, but it was also what they did. Not the killing people, but the ability to. They were an amazing leveller and could raise up the weakest and make them a killer. And taking a life was the ultimate power. But that meant that you had to go one step beyond. There was a saying, he thought it was from Earth, about taking a knife to a gunfight, well there were people like him that had trained to be able to do just that and still win. All through the Universe were examples of martial arts that took discipline, skill and training and that could help you to win even in a gunfight. But they, for the most part, also preached self-defence, the ability to fight in order not to and that was the other thing Regrette liked about guns. That even though they were a leveller, even though they put power into your hands, most of the Universe chose not to own one, not to use one. To make their way through the Universe, rich or poor; weak or strong, through methods other than violence or the threat of it. Because in the end, guns, the use of a machine to give yourself power, were the ultimate weakness.
He also liked the noise they made.
Now he had his sniper rifle assembled and loaded in a clip. This wasn’t ultimate power because he was shooting tranquiliser darts rather than laser bolts. With the clip loaded he laid the gun down on its stand and put an eye to the scope. He swept right and then left along the street below him; it was almost deserted, obviously a linking road as the odd couple or car came along, but none stopped and Regrette could see nothing worth stopping for.
He tracked a lone man as he walked the length of the street and then followed a car going back the other way.
***
“OK, gentlemen, here it comes,” Hendricks told them from the other end of the street.
Rorckshift and Kaskey got ready, one on either side of the street. Kaskey was just leaning against a building with a large bottle of Pargkat beer, Rorckshift in a doorway holding a small box that, via Gulch, could change the traffic lights at this end of the road.
The van came into view and Rorckshift let a car go through the intersection before changing the lights to red and the van began to slow. As it did so Kaskey began to make his way drunkenly across the road. He smacked into the front corner of the van and gave a yell of pain and surprise.
“What did you do that for, man?” he shouted at the driver.
The driver just waved him to move on.
“What? No, man you hit me,” Kaskey shouted and began to move to the driver’s window.
As both of the occupants looked at Kaskey, Rorckshift sprinted out and wrenched open the other door, hitting the passenger with a stun gun. As the driver reacted to this sudden change Kaskey did the same. They quickly shoved the bodies over the seats and into the back and then pulled the doors closed.
“We have a van,” Rorckshift told the radio.
***
“OK, I have their radio hacked and have you all linked up to it. No sign of code words or authentication checks. Sign offs are ‘copy’ and ‘copy out’,” Gulch told them. “I have groups mapped by radio usage and am doing my best to designate them. Kas? Your van is designated Van Tau, understood?”
“Understood, Control,” Kaskey came back.
He wasn’t ‘control’, Kaskey was just being cheeky. It irked Gulch as this was through an official channel and Rorckshift and Hendricks were listening. But then he scorned himself for it. He didn’t want Kaskey to lose his cheekiness, didn’t want this job to burn out his sense of humour. And he knew that Kaskey was professional, knew he would give his best.
But still, he didn’t want Rorckshift or Dr. Hendricks thinking he’d named himself ‘Control’. He frowned to himself and then let it go.
“OK, let’s set the trap,” he said. “Unit Soila, request check on Fadet Street. Reports of a group of people breaking in, copy.”
“On our way, copy out.”
***
Regrette watched the squad of four enter the street and move slowly along. As nothing happened they sped up, reaching the middle of the street before Regrette laid them low. Kaskey screeched up in the van and he and Rorckshift bundled the bodies into the back.
“Unit Fhir, I’m not getting response from Soila; last location Fadet Street. Check it out, copy.”
“Five minutes away. What are we expecting? Copy.
“Unsure. Proceed with caution. Copy.”
“Copy out.”
“Coming from t
he West, Regrette.”
“Copy out,” Regrette replied with a grin and swung his gun to that end of the street.
He got bored waiting and popped them as soon as they’d got a quarter of the way down the street. Again Kaskey and Rorckshift picked them up, but this time they left for the warehouse and Regrette efficiently stripped his gun and moved on.
***
Before they got to the warehouse they picked up another four person squad that Hendricks had taken down by casually walking up and asking for a light for his pipe. He’d actually had quite a pleasant conversation with one Tarancort about the pleasures of pipe smoking before he downed all four with a stun gun in each hand.
From there they moved on towards the warehouse and Gothra’s tower.
***
Rainsford Tsyrker sprinted from the shadows as a van passed and leapt forward, grabbing the door handle in mid-air. As the door pulled open she grabbed the frame, pulling it wider, stunned both occupants and, sitting on the drivers lap, pulled the van over to park at the kerb.
Having left the van she was engaged by a unit who radioed for help, though Gulch stopped their signal reaching anyone. As the unit took chase down a street they were taken down by Regrette on the roof. Again Kaskey and Rorckshift were there to pick up the bodies and then they took them to the warehouse to unload.
CHAPTER 42
And so a corridor was opening up through the city and through it Grant was now directing a large (though spread out for disguise) army of Shen Mi soldiers. Not that he thought of them as soldiers, thugs really. Just thugs that all fought for one boss. He’d seriously considered ways to kill them when they were all in one place and then hope they could get through to Gothra anyway. But the plan was the plan and they needed an army to fight an army. And they were now in no doubt there was an army in there. Both Rain and Steve had done a recon on Gothra’s tower and were sure that there was a lot of activity in there. He was surprised that Regrette hadn’t come back with some token to show that he’d been inside, if Gothra had been a hit then he would have found a way in. Though not without weeks of preparation, well maybe only days in Regrette’s case. The fact that he hadn’t made Grant think the place really was locked down tight, but he also knew that Regrette, when working with him, stuck to the plan. He respected Grant and Grant had never really worked out why, but he wouldn’t do anything that might jeopardise the plan.