“They saw what?”
“They saw my data, my head, my mind.”
Tiger felt nausea well up. “Are you saying …?”
“They saw us, Tiger. They know who we are and where we are.”
He fought the bile rising into his throat, as dread crept over him like an icy shadow. “What else did they see, Jock?”
The man hung his head, unable to look his old friend in the eye. “They saw her. They know she’s with you.”
Tiger squeezed his eyes shut tight, trying to wrap his head around it all. This was not his idea of a leisurely R&R getaway! With a sigh, he opened them slowly and reached for Jocko.
“Alright! We’re outta here!” With a firm grip, he led him toward he door.
“Where we going?” the hacker asked nervously when Tiger opened the door for him.
“I’ll let you know when I figure it out!” With an abrupt shove, he sent the man flying out into the hallway.
***
“Sir, we got something!” The comtech inside the command craft stuck his head out the hatch and motioned for Frost. His team had bivouacked near a skyway junction point just outside of the city. His operatives were eating some greasy burgers from a nearby service stop while awaiting their next move. As Frost made his way back over, his second-in-command, who went by the nom-de-guerre, Number Two, followed closely behind, along with another, younger merc.
“What you got, Cee Tee?” Frost sauntered over to the side of the HC, a half-eaten bacon cheeseburger in his hand.
The tech tossed him a quickstick. Frost inserted it into his PDC as the man laid out the situation. “Somebody hacked into the GenetX mainframe about thirty minutes ago. They tripped an alarm and got caught in a BareTrap.” He paused as Frost pressed a button on his device and projected the hologram onto the armored hull of the HC. The image of an unkempt, unshaven middle-aged Caucasian male appeared.
“Jesus, what a waste of a human life!” Number Two made no attempt to hide his disdain for the man in the hologram.
“The perp was traced back here … to Huntsville,” Cee Tee continued his briefing.
“You don’t say,” Frost commented, as he read Jocko’s biofacts. “Do we have a location?”
“An apartment building in the old Lincoln Mill neighborhood.”
Frost turned to Number Two. “Cain, send a team to this building and bring me back this loser if he’s still there. Preferably, very much alive. Anyone who is with him … bring ‘em in too. No need to take any chances. Also, any data storage: hard drives, external drives, flash sticks, PDC’s … you know the drill.”
“They’ll be en route in five.” Number Two spun around and moved away purposefully. A former commander of one of the Space Guard’s elite Hunter-Killer teams on Mars, he’d worked many years now under Frost, first there, and now in the “asset retrieval” business. A quiet man who subscribed to the High Yield mantra that stressed maximum efficiency per minimum effort, both physically and mentally, he was a man of few words and wasted motion. Like most High Yielders, he believed that each move, each thought, each emotion should result in a productive outcome.
“There’s something else, sir,” Cee Tee continued. “There was someone with the perp. Someone you might find interesting.”
“Show me.” Frost handed the PDC over. As he did, he was aware that the younger merc, the one who’d been coded Number Seven, had stepped in closer to observe.
“At the time this Reginald DeWitt was caught in the act, a second man was seen on the video capture.” He pulled up a grainy picture of a man standing in the background behind the hacker. Frost instantly recognized the black frock coat and vest from his days on Mars.
“He’s a Charger pilot. And an old school one,” he observed. “I haven’t seen a coat like that since I left Mars ten years ago. Johnny Cash-worshipping assholes think it’s the Wild West all over again up there.”
“Which would correlate with what that Tuttle redneck was saying about a spacer taking the vixen from them.”
“Do we have anything on him, yet?”
“Corporate is running a facial recognition scan as we speak.”
“Majestic! I wanna know the second they have something. In the meantime, I want you to check with the local spaceport. I wanna list of any recent arrivals. Especially veteran pilots. Or to be more precise … local veteran pilots.”
“Yessir!” Cee Tee climbed back into the craft.
“So, you think we’re after some worn out ol’ redneck spacer?” the kid behind Frost asked, almost in disbelief. Frost ignored him. He was a new addition to the team, and already Frost saw a weakness. Too quick to underestimate the opposition. It could be a fatal flaw.
“Sir!” The comtech stuck his head back out of the hatch again. I think we got your match. I’m patching it through to your PDC.”
In seconds, another biofile projected onto the hull. This one pictured a man in his late thirties to early forties. Unlike the hacker, he had the eyes of a man with confidence and courage. Frost immediately saw a worthy adversary. It has been a long time! He smiled to himself, looking forward to a well-played game.
Number Two returned. “They’re away, Snow!” He called Frost by the nickname given to him during his Space Guard days. Behind him, an aerocraft was lifting, the retrieval team he’d ordered sent for the hacker. Frost had his doubts they would find anyone there. If this hacker was involved with the kind of man Frost suspected he was, they were already going to ground.
Two noticed Tiger’s profile. “Who do we have here?”
“Tanner Beauregard Thomas, born right here in Huntsville,” Cee Tee began narrating for them all to hear.
