was gone. I was on early morning shift, three to eleven you know, and fellas come to me at five. I was sleepin’. Nothing going on about. And then fellas wake me. Say dey come to take the woman and de babe home. Pays the cred and up and left. By ‘n by I checks the room and that me make think strange.”
“What was strange?”
“Room clean as a whistle. Nothing dere. Only cover on de duct off see, lying on de floor.”
“But you didn’t see the woman or the boy leave?”
“Nah, just de babe. Fella was carrying im in ‘is arms, when ‘e cred the room. Cute little fella, de babe I mean.”
Marty took a long sip of her wine and looked out into the warm dark night. What Billy had told her was significant. To her it meant that the baby was taken alive and could still be alive. Whoever had the baby or had brought him up, could lead back to the people who had killed Philip Zumar and his wife Mariah. Mariah had hidden Gabriel in the air conditioning duct and he had crawled out of it after whoever came for them had left. Otherwise they’d have replaced the cover on the duct. She’d saved her children at the expense of her own life. A tear rolled down Marty’s cheek. She let it roll. For Mariah, she thought.
“Would you be willing to sign a statement about what you’ve told me and if required repeat what you have told me in a court?”
“Yeah, no worries, Marty. Never like bad business. Making wrong right is OK by Billy.”
Martine sniffed and with an embarrassed glance at Billy, smiled. She wasn’t pissed off anymore. She and Billy rocked on in silence.
The Lev ride up the Australasia Vactube took forty-five minutes to go from Darwin to Changi Lev port. Darwin time being three hours ahead of Asian Time, Marty had left Darwin at 10:35pm and with the Friday traffic delays in getting a Lev, had arrived back in New Singapore at 8:05pm. Tired, and with the strange feeling of having gone back in time, which traveling on the high speed Vactubes always left her with, Marty was glad to arrive back in front of her Env.
She glanced at the time on the Dev by her Env door. 8:20pm, Friday the 3rd of January 2110. The Dev scanned her eye and she went in, walking across the running track and swiftly to her cabin. What she needed badly now was a clean and a good long sleep. She entered her room, and the hairs on her neck rose and she froze. Something was off.
She went into a crouch, reaching into her canvas backpack side pocket. With her left hand she pulled out the black market fight gloves that she’d bought in Pattaya. Still crouching, she turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees and saw nothing out of the ordinary in the room. But something had set her on edge. Her heart was thumping in her chest. She controlled it, forcing a steadiness into her veins. She put the fight gloves on and turned them on, the sleeve of mesh running up and around her arm to her shoulder. The mesh from fingertip to shoulder couldn’t be cut and its power lent a deadly speed and force to any blow commanded by tapping her fingers in their glove tips.
Still in a crouch she silently stole to the light control Dev in the room. In the bottom drawer of the stand it was on, was a night vision helmet. She took that out and put it on. The oiled drawer slid back in its place without a sound. She reached up and killed the master switch, counting to two with her eyes shut, she opened them to see the fully lit room through the visor of the helmet. She silently walked to the shower room and reaching out with her hand pushed a button set into the granite wall of the shower cubicle. The meter wide shower head descended into the cubicle stopping ten cents from the floor.
Marty climbed onto the shower head, hooking a long lithe leg around the steel pole in the rear of the shower head and rising three meters above her. She pressed a green button set into the top of the shower head and it started to swiftly rise. The noise of the wires running on the rollers to the counterweights was all that could be heard in the warehouse. She came to a stop in the center of the ceiling, nestled among the steel ceiling beams that held the roof of the warehouse.
She looked over the warehouse from her perch high in the rafters. There was nothing out of the ordinary. There was no one here. Lowering herself to the ground, she took the helmet off and said loudly, “Lights.” She rolled her shoulders, shaking the adrenalin out of her limbs. Lifting her arms and beginning a springy, bouncy walk, she walked out of the door of her cabin and across to her fight bag. Before she reached it she tapped out a sequence with her fingers in the fight gloves and without halting her stride her fists lashed out, two lightening fast jabs from her left, two fast solid punches from her right and then she went in with the elbow. The bag swung violently on its hook. The warehouse echoed with the sound of its chain rattling. She stood back from the bag and taking a deep breath shut her eyes and turned off the gloves. The mesh uncoiled itself from around her arm and she shook the gloves off holding them in her hand as she went back into the cabin.
She walked over to her Sleeper and looked at the table beside it. The Devstick that she used to call Mother was gone.
Chapter 27
UNPOL Executive Club, Topside, New Singapore
Friday 3 January 2110, 8:28pm +8 UTC
Assistant Director Cochran and Director Flederson walked out of the Lev together onto the red carpet that had been laid specially for them. The traditional New Year Board of Governors Dinner at the UNPOL Executive Club on Topside was made special by their inauguration. Flederson was wearing the full dress uniform of an UNPOL Director with its single gold star denoting the highest rank achievable by an UNPOL officer. On his hands, white gloves contrasted with the dark blue of the rest of his uniform. Cochran, walking slightly behind him, was dressed similarly — the difference only in the silver star on her cap and epaulettes.
Reaching the entrance, the Devstick in Cochran’s hand lit up. Looking at it she said to Flederson, “Director, I must take this. Please go ahead. I’ll be there in just a moment.”
Flederson smiled at her and said, “Don’t be too long, Sharon, the Board of Governors is not known for patience.” He turned, tugged at the bottom of his jacket to straighten it, straightened his back, stuck his chin out and walked into the club.
Cochran smiled into the Devstick saying, “Yes it’s happening now — I’m sorry, I’ve really got to go. The Governors are waiting for me.” She turned with the Devstick at her ear and looked at the entrance to the club. The guard by the door stood at full attention, practically quivering with tension waiting for her.
“A few hours, but I should be home before midnight. Yes, me too, bye. I’ll call you when I’m finished.” She looked at the time, 8:30pm, and folded the Devstick to its smallest. She put it into the pocket of her bottom outers. Like Flederson, she straightened her jacket, both hands tugging sharply down, and in the same motion strode forward. She walked through the tall dark mahogany doors and saw the single large round table where the Governors and Flederson, with his back to her, sat waiting.
The next thing she knew she was lying face down on the granite floor with a loud ringing coming from one ear, blood dropping onto the floor near her eye. She twitched her arms and legs to check if she was all there. She couldn’t hear anything. She reached up and touched her forehead with her hand. It stung and when she looked at it the blood spread in the white material of the gloves. She became aware that a pair of boots was in her line of vision and looked up into the face of the guard she had passed moments ago.
He was shouting but all she could see was his mouth moving. He pulled her by the arm and she stumbled up into a crouch as he led her back out of the entrance and sat her on the red carpet, her legs splayed out in front of her. She saw that her bottom outers had been blown off and her legs were naked. The guard left her and ran back into the Club. Sitting on the carpet she wanted to lie down, but resisted the temptation and pulled her legs up under her so that she was kneeling on the carpet. The blood dripped from her forehead as she slumped forward and she still couldn’t hear anything. She knew that a bomb had gone off.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the Lev door open and a full team of SOE come out running. The glare of the light above the door hurt her eyes. Two of the SOE team ran to her and crouched down. The rest went running
