“You’ve given us some good stuff so far,” I said. “Nothing great, but good enough …a couple of low-level operatives.”
Callahan greeted this with a wide, knowing smile. “Hear that boys? I’ve given them some good stuff so far.” He bobbed his head as if in agreement with himself.
They nodded and laughed.
“Are all clones this tight-lipped or is that just your personality?” Callahan asked. He smoothed his hair with his right hand, leaned forward in his chair, and rubbed his palms together. “Tell you what, Harris. I’m just like this restaurant. I’ve got a menu, know what I mean?
“You want to eat outworld-grown stuff, we’ll give it to you cheap. You want low-level operatives, I’ll give them to you. They’re worth what, one thousand dollars a pop?”
The waitress returned with Callahan’s salad. Callahan remained silent until she left. He stuffed a forkload of greens in his mouth. “Earth-grown is the best tasting,” he said around a wad of lettuce. “The goddamn best.”
“So let’s talk big fish. What’s Crowley worth? What do I get for a big fish like Amos Crowley?”
I feigned nonchalance. Amos Crowley was someone in whom I took a personal interest. A former general in the U.A. Army, Crowley nearly killed me twice—once when he sent a band of terrorists to attack a backwater Marine base and once when he sent an inept assassin to even the score for the role I played in saving the base.
“Crowley?” I asked. “He might be worth one hundred grand …if your information was good.”
“One hundred grand,” Callahan echoed, his head perpetually bobbing up and down. “I like that. The math adds up. Small fish …one thousand dollars. Crowley is like one hundred times more important, so he’s worth one hundred times more dough. I like that.”
The conversation seemed pointless. I didn’t believe Callahan had information about Crowley. The boy was a big talker, nothing more.
“How about Yoshi Yamashiro? Is he worth something?”
“I know several parties who would be interested,” I said. Yamashiro was the former governor of Ezer Kri. I had nothing against the man personally, but the Department of Justice took a dimmer view of him.
When Yamashiro became governor of Ezer Kri, he inherited a planet with a large population of people of Japanese descent. Since the territories were supposed to be a great galactic melting pot, Ezer Kri’s ethnically pure population concerned several senators back in Washington, D.C. The situation came to a head when a plurality of Ezer Kri citizens voted to formalize Japanese as their official language and rename the planet
The Senate accused Yamashiro and his cabinet of sedition and sent the Navy to declare martial law. Shortly thereafter, Yamashiro and most of the Japanese people vanished from the planet.
“And what do I get for Warren A.?”
“Warren A.” was Warren Atkins. The “AT” in Mogat was short for Atkins, named after Warren Atkins’s famous father, Morgan Atkins.
“Ambitious,” I said. “Leading us to Atkins would make you a millionaire. Of course, everything would depend on the quality of your information.”
“So let’s talk about the biggest prize, Harris.” Callahan paused to empty his beer. “What if I get you the biggest deal of them all? What do I get if I lead you to the Galactic Central Fleet?”
The Galactic Central Fleet (GCF) was a very large fleet of antique Naval ships. The Mogats had already used GCF ships in two minor attacks—one of them being the battle at Little Man.
“As I recall, there is a ten million dollar bounty for anyone who can lead us to the fleet,” I said, still sure that Callahan was nothing but talk.
“Hear that, boys?” Callahan looked back and gave his cronies a cocky simper. “I could wind up rich.” They nodded at him and smiled. He turned back to me and his good humor vanished. “You don’t trust me, Harris, do you? How about I give you a sample, just this one time?”
“You offering a freebie?” I asked.
All three thugs laughed. “You must be mistaking me for the halfway house down the street. I don’t do charity. Know what I mean?
“How much do I get for Billy ‘the Butcher’?”
“William Patel?” I asked. Patel was a harbinger of death—a Confederate Arms spymaster blamed for terrorist attacks on civilian targets. He had a high enough price on his head. Whenever intelligence reviewed satellite footage of terrorist bombings, Patel’s face appeared somewhere in the feed. “Last I heard, he was worth twenty- five thousand dollars for a tip and maybe twice that for a capture.”
“That so? How about if he’s practically gift-wrapped?” As he said this, Callahan flicked his eyes toward the street. “See that red Paragon?” He pointed to a far away car. “That’s Patel’s car.”
The avenue below us was shaped like a horseshoe. The street ran in a sweeping curve around the outside of an enormous marble and glass fountain with thirty-foot waterfalls. Glass tunnels served as walkways through the cascading water. The tunnels were packed with pedestrians as the work day had officially ended about an hour ago. The bumper-to-bumper downtown traffic had not cleared up.
Parked at the far end of the curve, well beyond the fountain, was a Paragon—a luxury sports car that looked like a shoehorn with windows. The car was burnt orange, not red. Its tapered rear window mirrored the amber and pink glow of the evening sun.
“Sure,” I said, not taking Callahan seriously. “And the dump truck up the street belongs to General Crowley. Saw him drive it there myself.”
“You don’t believe me.” Callahan placed his hand over his heart and did his best to look pained.
“Sure. I believe you. Patel drives a Paragon …nice car. I always took him as more of a armored tank-man, myself.”
“You don’t think much of me, do you, Harris?” Callahan asked.
“Is there any reason why I should believe that car belongs to Patel?”
“Is that reason enough for you?” Callahan asked. He pointed toward the street. There, stepping out of a delicatessen, was William Patel. He wore a black leather trench coat that swept along the sidewalk. He was tall and wiry with black hair and dark glasses hiding his eyes. He was too far away to shoot from this terrace, but close enough for me to recognize the face once Callahan pointed it out.
“I did some business with Billy this week. My boys have been following him ever since he came to Safe Harbor. He comes here for coffee…. He goes to the same damned stores every day. Loves this friggin’ block. Maybe he’s visiting his sweetie. Know what I mean?”
Down on the street, Billy the Butcher pushed his way through the crowd. I lost him as he took the tunnel through the fountain, then caught him again as he emerged on the other side. He shoved a woman out of his way as he stepped toward the street.
Taking only a quick glance at the stalled traffic, he skipped from the sidewalk to the road and wove his way through the cars. He was still in the middle of the traffic when he turned, looked in our direction, and peered over his shades. From this distance, I could not see the sneer on his mouth, but I knew that it was there. Having paused only for a quick glance, Patel walked past his expensive burnt orange Paragon and vanished around the corner.
I jumped from my seat.
“Where you going, Harris?” Jimmy Callahan asked. “You don’t think you can catch him from here?”
I grabbed Callahan by his collar with my left hand and clipped the first of his bodyguards with my right. The goon was just getting to his feet, giving me a warning glare, and reaching for his gun when the heel of my palm struck the corner of his jaw. He gasped and fell to the ground. I instinctively knew that his jawbone had broken.
The second goon stepped in my way. I brought the edge of my foot down on the instep of his leg, pressing hard against his knee. The man’s kneecap snapped like a dried branch. He made a faint whimpering noise as he fell to the ground and wrapped his arms around the knee, cradling it against his stomach.
“Harris, you speck! What the hell do you think you are doing?” Callahan shouted. Muscles or no muscles, the man followed without a fight. I tugged and he came running.
“Real tough boys you’ve got there, Callahan,” I said to myself in a whisper. Behind me, the first explosions
