“How soon?” Ashton asked.
“The faster we can grab Gerber, the better,” Daggert said. “We don’t want him to have a chance to realize Kendig is missing. I expect he’s keeping a close eye on him, given the assassination attempt that he’ll think is going down. The rest, we can probably take our time with.”
“Yeah. So taking Gerber into custody needs to happen fast,” Stone murmured.
“Can we do it today?” Ashton wondered. “I think it would be good if we can grab him right away.”
“Me too. Do we have the exact delivery route?” Carter asked.
“No, but we’ll have it in about three minutes, if not sooner,” Ashton said, watching Stone and Peabody develop blank gazes as they began the search in other VR channels; it was simply a matter of which one found it first, or if they teamed up to locate it.
“Right,” Carter said with a chuckle.
Moments later, Peabody came up for air. “We got it,” he said, as Stone likewise returned to the meeting. “Disseminating now.”
“Very good,” Daggert decided, as they all looked at the delivery route in VR. “It even has estimated arrival times.”
“Which is good,” Honda said, “because that way, we can be waiting.”
“Exactly,” Ashton said. “Rick, you’re our resident disguise expert, these days; I want you taking over for this Gerber, so it won’t tip off any of the other spies in the ring.”
“Rationale?”
“Hell, he called in sick,” Ashton said with a shrug. “For the entire existence of the human race, nobody ever has figured out how to cure the common cold. An’ a bad one’ll lay a body low.”
“Right,” Honda said with a chuckle.
“How are we gonna do this, Nick?” Peabody wondered.
“Mm. Let’s keep going with the ‘illness’ concept,” Ashton decided. “Win, I want you in the delivery bay of...” Ashton quickly pulled up the delivery route again, “okay, look right here. He’s got a bunch of packages scheduled for delivery at Pander’s. That’s one of those big fancy department stores in Park West, over near the University arcades, and he’ll hit it about mid-morning…”
“You want me to see about getting permission from the management?” Carter wondered.
“No, Lee, because we don’t yet know who-all is part of the ring,” Ashton noted. “We don’t want to tip off anybody. I want to try to do this so that nobody else knows it’s happening. Nobody else. Just us.” He waved a hand around the VR room.
“Ah, duh – right,” Carter agreed. “I’m more used to the usual street type of busts, not espionage.”
“No problem,” Daggert said with a smile. “You have people on your team who are.”
“True. Keep going, Nick.”
“Okay. Win, I want you in the delivery entrance of Pander’s with a stunner. As soon as he comes in, take him down. Rick, grab whatever packages he’s carrying when Win stuns him, so they don’t make a racket hitting the floor. Then you’re going to go back out to the truck – we need to get you an ICM uniform to wear – and take over the route, so nobody gets suspicious.”
“You want me to try to look like this Gerber fella?” Honda queried.
“No, don’t worry about it; if one of the spies knows him well, you’d have a hard time pulling it off, so it’s better not to even try. So I don’t care what you look like, just as long as you don’t look like you, or him. Win, try to make sure that Rick has a clear exit, if you can.”
“Right,” Honda and Peabody said in near-unison.
“So Win knocks him out, and Rick takes over, then we want a gurney handy so we can cart out Gerber in it, and an ambulance waiting. Pete, you’re our best driver – you’ve got the cert on the emergency driving and the subterfuge stuff – so you get to drive the ambulance. Jim, you and Beulah are the ambulance attendants; I’ll want you waiting inside with the gurney, preferably in medical tech uniforms of some sort. The three of you, get Gerber strapped onto the gurney and covered with a blanket so his ICM uniform doesn’t show – strap the blanket down with him is probably your best bet – and then Beulah and Jim load Gerber into the ambulance, climb in, and Pete heads for the Palace West entrance.”
“Where I’ll have people waiting,” Daggert tag-teamed Ashton.
“I’ll ping the New Headquarters medical office for the ambulance and the uniforms to go with it,” Carter offered. “Then I’ll see if we can’t get a loaner ICM uniform for Honda, there. The ICM brass don’t have to know what it’s for, just that we need someone undercover.”
“Thanks, Lee, and that’ll work,” Ashton said. “Anything else, General?”
“Not really, not at the moment,” Daggert said. “This looks very good to me. We’ll want to pick up the rest of the ring as soon as possible, of course, but I doubt he contacts them every day, at least based on what we got out of Kendig. So we have a little more leeway there. Given the specific assassination attempt through Kendig, that’s going to be Gerber’s focus for now.”
“Okay, guys, let’s roll,” Ashton decreed.
“Excellent. I’ll notify the Emperor, at the same time I show him the Kendig interrogation,” Daggert affirmed.
It all went off as planned. Franz Gerber, aka Frank Garb, got out of the delivery truck in the alley carrying several packages, and went into the Pander’s department store’s rear deliveries entrance. Once inside the door of the receiving area, Winston Peabody hit him from behind – Peabody was standing just inside the door,
