Dead Six

Nightcrawler, was the target neutralized?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you sure, son?”

“He was dead before he hit the floor, sir. The guy he was meeting with got away. I don’t know who the hell he was. He looked like a local, but he didn’t fight like a local. He was good. Really good, sir. That girl that Bureaucrat put the BOLO on was there, too. I almost had her, but she escaped. She’s working with the shooter. Called him Lorenzo.”

There was a pause. “Understood, Nightcrawler. Did you notice anything else about this man? Any way to identify him?”

“He was average looking, could’ve been Arab, could’ve been Mexican. I couldn’t really tell. He did carry some kind of high-cap 1911. Xbox tried to take him prisoner, but that kind of backfired on him. Are the others okay?”

“Shafter and Anarchangel are on their way to the safe house. Zubaran communications are going wild. People saw you. You screwed up out there, son. I want a full briefing as soon as you get back. Bureaucrat will be mad as hell.”

“Reaper, can you track this?” I asked hopefully.

“I can try. Give me a second, though,” he responded. He was right. Eluding pursuit was more important. “I’m routing every cop in the city back to the Hasa Market where we’re holed up in a hostage standoff.” The boy was creative when you gave him some leeway. “We’ve got a room full of school kids and a sack of anthrax!”

“Don’t overdo it,” I warned.

The radio crackled one last time. “Nightcrawler out.”

You just wait.

The stolen radio sat in the middle of the computer table, volume cranked all the way up. Reaper had removed the back plate and attached a few mysterious wires to various things and was tapping away on his computer, looking at waves, graphs full of quickly scrolling numbers, and other things far beyond my meager comprehension. He’d already made sure that the radio didn’t have any sort of tracking device that could lead back to us. He was in the zone. I had pulled up a chair and was sitting there, pad of paper and pen in hand, scribbling furious notes each time someone from Dead Six spoke.

It had taken forever to get home. After being routed in the wrong direction, the police had actually caught on that they were being screwed with. Then Reaper had introduced a ferocious virus into their system, crashing the entire Zubaran security forces’communication network. We had parked the van in a ditch a few miles away and then walked home.

Jill, apparently not sure what else to do, was sitting across from me, nervously fiddling. The one called Nightcrawler—or Val, as Jill had said the Southerner had called him—had roughed her up pretty good, but she seemed okay to me. I’d been too engrossed with the radio on the walk home to talk to her. Carl had checked Jill’s minor injures, then had grabbed a beer, flopped onto the couch, and was watching TV. The selections in this part of the world were out of date and he was watching the end of a poorly dubbed episode of Three’s Company. He ripped the Velcro on his vest and tossed it on the floor, absently rubbing the bruise on his back.

Dead Six’s communications were thoroughly connected. Within ten minutes of Reaper’s virus attack, they had informed all of their operators that the security force’s comms were disrupted and to take advantage of that if they needed to. It pissed me off that some of our work might somehow benefit these jerk-offs.

“Any luck?” I asked.

“I can’t get a fix on the transmissions. This encryption is intense,” Reaper muttered. “Whoever set this network up is good, really good.”

“You’re better,” I stated. “Find them.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” he said. “It’s all about the math. If we hadn’t found this unit already open, I wouldn’t ever have cracked it. Even then, I can’t access any of the other channels. I can’t triangulate location because they’re bouncing these things off everything. Their crypto guy’s got mad skills.”

I scowled. Reaper was usually unbearably cocky about this kind of stuff. I didn’t like him sounding humble. That couldn’t be good. Shaking my head, I went back to the chatter. This was the operational channel of the day, and Dead Six was apparently a busy bunch. I had noted every call sign used or referred to, and they had mentioned eight different individuals so far. I had no idea if that was all of them or just a fraction.

I got the impression that this channel was for the operators in Zubara, but from the dialog I could tell that this was bigger, and there were other active channels, and probably command channels beyond that. Big Boss was the operational commander. He answered to somebody called Bureaucrat, who apparently had a sidekick called Drago, but neither one of those had spoken yet.

There were two other operations being conducted today in the Zoob. Unfortunately they all spoke in vague generalities about their locations, like “we’re on the street,” or “by the mosque,” or “we’re waiting in the parking garage.” No names, just random call signs. Nothing I could use to track them. The people they were either murdering or spying on were simply referred to as the targets, never by name.

“Nightcrawler, this is Control.” It was the girl from earlier. Her voice was young, American. Her tone told me that she was close to this Nightcrawler. “Big Boss wants an update on Xbox’s status.”

The voice that came back sounded tired. “He’s got a concussion. I think he’ll be okay. He’s pretty screwed up, though, kind of . . . like punch-drunk stupid or something.” His accent was from the northern Midwest, Michigan, or maybe Wisconsin. It wasn’t thick, though. He’d probably traveled. There was another voice in the background. I recognized the accent. “Yes, I am talking about you, asshole. . . . No sign of traumatic brain injury. Um, I think. It’s hard to tell with him. He’s awake, anyway.”

It sounded like the Southerner laughed and then said “Tell Sarah Ah said hi,” or something like that. He sounded like he was from East Tennessee, and not from the rich side of town. I quickly scribbled “Sarah?” after the note for Control.

“How are you doing?” she asked. That was real concern. I was right. There was some emotion there.

“I’m fine. Had a close one today, but I’m fine,” Nightcrawler answered slowly. The kid didn’t just sound physically tired, but weary, burned out. Good. From what I’d heard in the last little while, their operational tempo was brutal. They were being driven hard, and hopefully that meant they would slip up soon.

“What happened?” Control asked.

“It was that girl. The one Bureaucrat wanted so bad. I don’t know. I just . . . she caught me off guard.” I glanced over at Jill and gave her a big thumbs-up. It would have been better if she had shot him in the face, but she was new at this and wouldn’t have thought of a vest. Jill shrugged. Nightcrawler continued. “Then there was that other guy, the one with the tricked-out 1911. The girl called him Lorenzo. He’s good. He, I don’t know, fell off the roof of this mosque, landed on our truck, and started shooting.”

“He fell off the roof? He kept shooting after that?”

“It wasn’t that high. I mean, I fell off the roof of the barn once when I was a kid. I ended up in the emergency room, though.”

“I didn’t fall,” I said to the others. “I meant to do that.”

“Don’t worry,” Control said. “We’ll find him. I need you to be careful out there.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

Damn right you’re fine. You didn’t report my sack of money, either, you piece of shit. “They’re sloppy on the radio,” I said.

“You’re just annoyed,” Jill said.

Control came back. “They want to debrief you right away. Big Boss is sending a car to pick you up. I’ll . . . I’ll see you soon.” She was trying to be professional, but was . . . she was in love with him. Holy crap, this gets better and better.