“What the hell?!” Ashton exclaimed, outraged. “Where the hell did he get one of those? And it’s got his alias on it!”
“Dunno,” Mercer, who was with Ashton in his special tracking app, watching the live feed from Pierce in a ‘screen’ inside the app. “Maybe from Gorecki, or one of his lot?”
“Impossible,” Ashton declared. “We didn’t develop those until after the original Headquarters fell. Gorecki was long dead by that point.”
“Then we have a mole in the IPD,” Mercer decided.
“Shit,” Ashton cursed.
“Well, that’s ironclad,” Pierce said then. “Sorry, Detective. I had to be sure.”
“No problem at all, Mr. Pierce. I’m glad you checked.”
Gardenia slipped the ID back in his pocket as Pierce picked up the bagged device and slipped it into his own jacket. The men shook hands, then Pierce left.
Gardenia stayed only long enough to pay the bill in VR, then he, too, departed.
“Heads up, folks,” Ashton ordered. “Here they come.”
“I’ve got my people on Pierce, Nick,” Mercer said, “and watching Gardenia in the street surveillance video.”
“Good,” Ashton said. “Between all of us, we’ll nail where he’s going. And that should tell us who he is. Meanwhile, tell me that package isn’t going anywhere near the Palace.”
“Nope. Stand by; I need to direct him.”
“Standing by.”
“Excellent, Mr. Pierce. Well done,” Mercer told the Palace staffer from the overview app. “There’s a luggage shop about a hundred feet ahead of you. Stop in there. A man will be looking at a red suitcase. Give him the device.”
Pierce obeyed. Moments later, he was back on the street, sans device.
“Excellent, Mr. Pierce. Proceed to the Imperial Research Building, and check in with the Imperial Guard in the basement, please.”
Pierce sauntered off.
While Mercer was handling Pierce, Ashton was commanding the groups – live, and in video – who were tracking Gardenia… as well as tracking the man himself, from inside the app.
When he left the Baked Bean, Gardenia headed for the commuter trains and caught a southbound local train. Detective Rick Honda, in full disguise as a commuting engineer, slipped onto the train as well, to ensure their mark wasn’t lost. Gardenia exited at the Imperial Park South station, headed up the escalator to the mall level, and then into a gift shop, where he remained. Honda, who had also exited at that station, and trailed him to the shop, then located a good spot for surveillance.
“What have we got, guys?” Ashton asked then. “We got an ID on him?”
“Face match came up negative,” came the response from the Imperial Guard’s Investigations group, “but we tagged his account when he got on the train. Daniel Kendig. He owns the gift shop. Lives out in the burbs. Wife and three kids. Immigrant from the Democracy of Planets,” came the response.
“We got him, then,” Ashton decided. “Send a request to Bank Investigations to pull his records. All his records. Let’s see what we can dig out there.”
“Yes, sir.”
Meanwhile, the device, which everyone figured was not something to mess with, was carefully handed off from the undercover Marine agent to a cargo van – after being placed carefully in a padded steel box – thence to an Imperial Marine attack ship at a shuttleport ten miles outside of downtown. The idling ship took off and headed straight for the Imperial Marine Combat Training Center, four hundred miles south of the capital. From there, it was transferred into a chemical/biohazard vehicle, and taken straight to the Biological/Chemical Weapons Lab on the base.
The device, still in its steel case, was placed in a fully enclosed, all-metal, sealed analysis chamber, where mechanical manipulators were used by an operator working in VR. It was removed from the steel box and the double bags, and allowed to activate.
Alarms went off all over the facility.
“...Wait, so that’s what the damn gizmo was filled with, nerve agent?” Ashton said in astonishment as the four leads on the investigation – Carter, Ashton, Daggert, and Mercer – tagged up. “And he gave him instructions to put it in the air ducts in the Palace!”
“Bingo,” Mercer said. “That shit was so potent – and there was so much of it – that it could have killed everyone in the Palace, the Admin building, and the Research building.”
“Oh hell, don’t stop there,” Daggert said then, angry and disgusted. “Everyone in the Imperial Mall, Imperial Park, and maybe then some, if it had gotten out. And it almost certainly would have done. Men, women, and children.”
“Damn,” Carter whispered, shocked. “But then, who is he working for?”
“We don’t know for certain, but we strongly suspect the Democracy of Planets,” Daggert said. “Remember, we’ve had at least two warnings from completely different sources – one inside the Empire, one inside the DP – regarding what the Empress Amanda calls, ‘the plutocrats behind the government,’ trying to start something... of just this nature.”
“As in, assassinating the Emperor,” Ashton said. “And anybody else who gets anywhere close.”
“Exactly. It would take down the entire head of the government, leaving only the lower sections to try to pick up the pieces. In effect, it is the same kind of decapitation strike we performed on the DP capitol of Olympia.”
“Yeah, I heard about that,” Ashton murmured. “And yeah, it is. Just... subtler.”
“Right,” Mercer agreed.
They were silent for long moments, considering what kind of disaster had just been averted.
“Okay, we know who the fellow is,” Daggert said. “Director Carter, Inspector Ashton, may we depend on you and your people to bring him in for us to interrogate?”
“Count on it,” Carter declared.
“Good,” Daggert said. “Let me consult with the Emperor on how he wants to handle it, and I’ll notify you as soon as I can.”
“…No, Nick, I’m not
