“As much as I can, I will accommodate them.”
So long as the Guardia remained helpful, at least. She certainly wasn’t planning on telling them everything—but she also suspected the Guardia could tell her whether Angus Killough’s apartment had been rented to someone else.
“That is the most we can ask, I suppose,” Oliveira admitted. “You have more people aboard the shuttle, then?”
“Two years ago, this world was actively at war with the Protectorate, Lieutenant,” Roslyn said gently. “For the same reason you’re worried about our activity in your city, my Captain insists that our officers travel with Marine escort.
“We will make use of whatever unmarked vehicles you can loan us,” she continued. That would allow the Guardia to track their movements, so they’d also want to acquire other vehicles—but the appearance of cooperation was worth a lot.
“We only wish to serve,” Oliveira told her.
“And observe,” Roslyn said pointedly.
To her surprise, that got an honest chuckle from the young man. Maybe they could get some value out of the partnership after all.
11
Two hours later, Roslyn and her team were equipped with two large gray SUVs that hopefully wouldn’t draw too much attention as they shuffled around the city—and the information that the lease signed by Andrew Jackson, Killough’s alias, was still active.
“All right, take us past the address,” Roslyn ordered. “Regular speed; let’s look like we’re going somewhere.”
“Subtle peeping tom, right,” Mooren replied. The Sergeant was driving the lead vehicle, with Herbert driving the following van.
“We don’t know what happened to Mr. Killough,” Roslyn pointed out. “It seems likely the apartment is watched.”
“I was making commentary, not arguing,” Mooren noted. A navigation system overlay appeared on the bottom half of the SUV’s windshield as the Marine plugged in addresses. “There’s a nice hotel in the suburbs of Nueva Portugal that we’d drive right past the apartment on the fastest route to,” she noted.
“Sounds good,” Roslyn said. “We’ll probably need a home base for a bit.”
She pulled up the holographic screen and keyboard on her wrist-comp and fired off a note to Abiodun back aboard Huntress. Booking hotel space for twelve definitely fell into the Logistics Department’s responsibilities.
“What have we got on the apartment?” she asked. Corporal Knight was sitting directly behind her, and the electronic-warfare tech had been doing research for her in the public records.
“It’s the third-floor unit in a five-floor complex inland from the main downtown core,” Knight replied. “Villa-style complex, with two hundred units around a central courtyard. Reasonably midrange, mostly occupied by young professionals and new arrivals.
“Fourteen Guardia reports in the last year: minor domestics and a couple of break-ins. None were related to the unit we’re looking at.”
“Security?” Mooren asked.
“Artificial stupid silent alarm at the entrances,” the Corporal replied. She paused. “That’s an Artificial Sequential Intelligence,” she clarified. “Pre-coded semi-learning algorithm, works through a logic chain to decide whether to call the Guardia.
“Nothing complicated or unusual,” she concluded. “ASI alarm has never been triggered. This is quiet and boring, sir. Exactly where I’d rent an apartment if I was trying to stay under the radar.”
“Wonderful,” Roslyn murmured. “So, if we have to cause trouble, we’re causing it for a bunch of the people we don’t want to bother.”
“They’re all Protectorate citizens, aren’t they?” Mooren asked, the Marine’s voice calmly pointed.
“They are,” Roslyn agreed. “We do everything we can to make sure we aren’t risking anyone, but I prefer not to irritate the people who might have their local MP on speed dial.”
Several of the Marines chuckled—but the Staff Sergeant cleared her throat.
“If you look out your left, we’re coming up on the complex,” she told them. “Time to peel our eyeballs, I think.”
There was surprisingly little to see from the outside, Roslyn quickly realized. The complex was a square structure of white brick and red tile, with a gated accessway through to the inner courtyard with a stylish metal gate closing it off.
“Herbert, can you swing by the other side and see what the rest looks like?” Roslyn requested. There were balconies on the outside, but they had privacy screens to prevent exactly the kind of surveillance she was trying.
“On it,” the pilot replied.
“Not much to see,” Mooren agreed. “Can’t slow down without drawing attention, either.”
“Take us to that hotel,” Roslyn ordered. “I’m going to see if I can get overhead from Huntress. Might not tell us much more, but everything we can get helps a little.”
She was already considering her worst-case scenario: there wasn’t going to be any way to tell if Killough was present from the outside. They were going to have to move in.
The suite Abiodun acquired for Roslyn at the hotel had clearly not been picked at random. It was excessively comfortable, in the Lieutenant Commander’s opinion, but it had the virtue of having a seating area large enough for the Marines to all squeeze in.
Knight set up a few security devices to make sure they weren’t being watched, and then Roslyn projected a hologram of the complex from her wrist-comp.
“This is what we’ve got,” she told them. “It’s not much. Right now, I know that Angus Killough rented a third-floor apartment in this building and the lease is still active. Someone is paying for it and the landlord doesn’t think he’s disappeared.”
“Easy enough to pay in advance or set up recurring payments from an account with enough to cover it,” Mooren pointed out. “And most landlords don’t come around that often.”
“Exactly,” Roslyn agreed. “Last report I have from Killough is six weeks old. He believed our Prometheus lab was somewhere in Nueva Portugal, and was digging into some of the companies that the previous agents had IDed as working with Finley.
“It’s possible he simply lost access to the drop box that got uploaded to the Link,” she admitted. “But I haven’t seen anything in the local data drops, either. So far as I can tell,
