Freedom Incorporated (82 page)

She’d been
unobtrusively watching him in his stench-pot hidey-hole for the
better part of a day. Finding him had proved easy, he’d never even
attempted to mask his microchip signature.
A mistake,
she thought
disapprovingly.
An amateurish
mistake.
Natasha used disposable personas
and never engaged in assignment-work with her own chip, it was just
too dangerous.
But then, he’s just a
bounty hunter,
not a real
assassin.
She’d purchased the information
from PortaNet. Virtually anything was available on the black market
for the right price. Marketing companies exploited the information
trade all the time, though they were more likely to catalogue
trends rather than individual movements. Finding specific
information was harder, but thousands of PortaNet employees had
access to the corporate database and PortaNet didn’t pay them well
enough to immunise the data from bribes. Natasha had her own
contact, and used him frequently.

She watched the shadowy
figure emerge from the house and started walking, timing her stride
to intercept him on the overgrown footpath. The weeds were
knee-high, the only evidence of the path being a thinner patch
running parallel with the street. The parched, prickly plants
rustled under her feet and she hunched over as far as her spine
would permit. She wanted to pass as one of the seedy, dishevelled
residents. Nobody in the suburb was homeless, though very few
technically owned the house they lived in. The exodus from the city
had resulted in a surplus of empty housing. So there were no
street-bums, only abandoned-building-bums. But Natasha’s thick coat
was wretched enough to appease anybody’s expectations for a
western-Sydney resident. And she’d taken pains to appear feminine.
People never expected a woman to pose a threat. Men were dangerous
and women were not – or so most people thought.

A stale, refuse-reeking
zephyr rippled over her skin. She’d committed herself now; she
couldn’t turn back without risking the Raven’s suspicion. And she
had a good idea what he’d do if he became suspicious.

Twenty
metres.
She wondered how close she should
get.
How close he’ll let me
get…

Ten
metres.
She thought she could probably take
the shot from there, but would feel more confident at five metres
and kept walking without deviating from the overgrown path. She
imperceptibly picked up the pace of her hunched shuffle to ensure
the Raven wouldn’t slip past beyond reach.

Within four
metres, the Raven hesitated and instinctively reached for his
weapon, a Redback-PX7 if Natasha’s information had been
accurate.
Now!
All
the pent up energy in her body sprung into action and she flicked
her gun to head-hight and squeezed the trigger. The hiss of
escaping gasses and a metallic twang accompanied her bullet as it
entered the Raven’s forehead, punctured his skull, and struck his
computer.

He fell.

And that’s
number fifteen.
Natasha chalked another
success to her growing tally.

*

Esteban
couldn’t believe his eyes. It didn’t make sense. Surely that was
the Raven.
Who else could it
be?
But that would mean…
The assassin’s a woman?
That
conclusion didn’t connect in his head. It simply wouldn’t compute.
Esteban had falsely believed the realm of assassins was sacred to
men. After all, Shadow had an impressive record, so surely it had
to be a man! Yet he could find no other explanation for what he’d
witnessed.

That’s a
woman.
He was certain of that. She was
slender and lithe. When she twisted her head in the trickling
moonlight, he even grudgingly admitted she was sexy.

He shrugged away his
irritation. He never thought a woman would be good enough to kill
the Raven. But there he was, on the ground with a bullet in his
most precious instrument.

Esteban,
festering with irritation, continued to the house and skirted to
the back. He knew the assassin wasn’t interested in the house; he’d
only contracted her to deal with the Raven.
And now that he’s dead, the house is all
mine.
Esteban cheerfully used explosives to
blow a window from its frame. The charge detonated quietly,
focussing its destructive force and resultant soundwave directly
toward the glass by using an ingeniously modified shell. Shattering
glass clamoured into the barren night.

He quickly attached the
second device and shattered the inside panel before laying his
jacket over the shards and climbing through, pistol ready.
Everybody in the house was going to die. He’d made up his mind to
shoot first and ask questions later. Dan would’ve returned the
favour if he’d been there. Someone who blew the windows out
obviously wasn’t coming for a cup of tea.

He
scowled.
Where the fuck are
you?
It was empty. A disgusted expression of
ill humour added to his scowl when he realised the house was
deserted. It was just one more abandoned house in a suburb full of
useless abandoned houses.

Slices of cold
pizza festered on the table and the lights were still on.
They must’ve left in a hurry.
The bedroom and bathroom were filled with person effects.
Expensive perfume wasn’t something many women would deliberately
leave behind.
Nor is
underwear.
He thoroughly searched the house,
looking in cupboards and under beds to rule out the possibility
they were merely hiding. The manhole cover to the roof space had
been welded shut, so they couldn’t have been cowering up
there.

“
Fuck!”
Esteban screamed.

He used the
portal and returned to San Francisco in three hops. He hated the
slowdown of international terminals. And he hated customs. He
loathed their suspicion and their questions.
Why the fuck should
I
have to answer?

Back in his
office, he scrounged on his computer for a hint of where they’d
fled. The first profile he tested was Tedman Kennedy and after
failing to turn anything up under that, he scanned every one of
Jen’s chips – he’d copied the signatures from them all. Half way
through, his left eyebrow arched high on his forehead.
You’re kidding…
“Fuck me,
she’s in the building.” And he doubted she was alone.

*

“
Tell me, what
do you want?” Jackie demanded, believing she was doing a good job
of hiding her nervousness.

Dan sadly
shook his head. “I want something you can’t possibly give me. I
want something
nobody
can give me. Not even God, if he exists.”

Jen noticed
the anguish in Dan’s words and recognised that he’d never master
his grief at his wife’s murder.
Unless…
She wondered what would be
possible if Dan won all his battles and slaughtered all his
demons.
Maybe then we could…

Jackie was no longer sure
she wanted to know. “So… what’s that?”

“
You may not
remember something as
trivial
as this, but a UniForce
assassin murdered my wife.”

That explained
a lot. She suddenly understood why Dan had turned against them.
He’d been a model bounty hunter until recently.
Which means he only recently found out.
Jackie tried to look surprised, as though she hadn’t known,
but she’d read the details from his file. “Oh, that’s terrible.”
She almost sounded apologetic, but her eyes betrayed her. “I’m so
sorry… I had no idea.”

Dan’s trigger finger
started to shake. “Don’t patronise me.”

Jackie made another
concerted effort to look disturbed by the news. “I’m not. I’m truly
sorry that happened to you. I know what it’s like to lose someone
you care about.” It was bullshit. She had no clue. She’d severed
herself from everyone she’d ever cared about so she couldn’t feel
the hurt of abandonment. It was a lonely way to live, but she’d
brought it upon herself.

“
Everyone
you assassinate has people
that care about them,” Dan retorted hotly.

Jackie had never thought
about it. To her they were just money in the bank and one more
problem solved. The notion that a ‘problem’ had family and friends
was an alien concept to her capitalist brain. Consequently, she
couldn’t contain her remorselessness for long and it saturated her
tone when she said, “I didn’t kill her.”

“
Maybe not,
but you allowed it to happen. You profited from it. That makes you
just as guilty as the assassins and the people who paid for it.”
Dan’s words were level and calm despite the passionate heat he felt
beneath his collar. He was on the verge of snapping. He hadn’t been
psychologically prepared to meet someone so coldly callous and
ignorant of her guilt.

Simon edged
forward. He didn’t like the tone the conversation was
taking.
This wasn’t part of the
plan.
He looked cautiously at his friend and
wondered how stable he was.
What if he
kills them?
He tried to throw water on the
crisis by saying, “Let’s talk about a deal.”

Unfortunately, his water
only made steam.

“
She doesn’t
have anything I want,” Dan said nastily. “And as for you Michele, I
guess you’re too cowardly to commit suicide and you need my help to
do it.”

Michele shook her head,
paling. “No.”

“
Then you must
be fucking stupid. And stupid people shouldn’t breed, so how about
I solve that problem right now?”

“
Dan?” Jen
stepped up to him and brushed her fingers along his arm. This was a
side to him she hadn’t seen. She hadn’t even sensed it. And it
scared her. “What’re you doing?”

“
Nothing they
wouldn’t do to us if they had the guns.” Dan spoke the truth.
They’d all be corpses if Jackie and Michele had weapons.

“
I don’t want
to,” Jen said, speaking with the innocence of a child. She didn’t
want anyone’s blood on her hands. The men Dan had slain in combat
were different; that was justified.
But
this? Where would it stop?

Jackie, meanwhile, had
decided it was time to bargain for her life. And she knew, or
thought she knew, what Dan wanted most. “I can give you
Esteban.”

“
Oh can you?”
Esteban asked with a hyena’s grin on his unshaven face. He’d
stepped quietly into the office without anyone noticing. “If you
even twitch I’ll kill you.”

Dan cursed his
stupidity. He hadn’t obeyed the number one rule of combat: protect
your back.
And now we’re going to pay for
it.

“
Drop them,”
Esteban commanded in a voice few would trifle with.

Simon and Dan
shared a desperate thought. If they acted simultaneously, their
chances were good. Esteban couldn’t kill them both in time to save
his life.
Or could he?
A seed of doubt rested nigglingly in their minds.

“
You, black
guy,” Esteban snarled. “My gun’s pointed at you. So how about it,
Sutherland? If you try anything, your friend will definitely die.
Can you do it? Can you kill him?”

No,
Dan thought.
I can’t.
Simon had risked and given
too much already. He tossed his Colt to the ground.

“
You too big
fella.” Esteban walked slowly forward. “You’ve got no hope now.
You’re not that fast.”

Simon cast his cannon
aside, careful to keep it close so that he could retrieve it easily
if he dove to his left.

“
So what now?”
Dan asked, slowly turning to face the bane of his life.

Esteban stooped to pick
up Dan’s Colt and then retrieved Simon’s cannon, severing any hope
they had of armed resistance. He turned to Jackie. “Are you all
right?”

Jackie was breathing
easier. She nodded and said, “Good job.”

Esteban huffed at her.
“Then to answer your question Sutherland, now I kill the bitch who
was selling me out.” He switched to Dan’s Colt, refined his aim,
and squeezed the trigger twice, splattering Jackie’s brains over
her office.

Michele screamed, her
eyes bulging wide with the fear that she would meet the same fate.
She was dense, but she knew Esteban would want no witnesses for his
crime. “As for you Michele…”

“
Oh, no… No,
please. I’m not ready.” She was crying with the suspense. She knew
what came next.

“
I’m afraid
you’re just too fucking stupid to live.” He smiled wickedly. “You
see, these three burst in, made it past security – which, quite
frankly, is rat shit – and killed Jackie.” He shrugged
mock-apologetically. “The only problem is I can’t have dumb
witnesses. You’re too stupid to remember something simple like
that.”

“
But what
about…”

“
Yeah, you
suck good dick.” He shrugged again, this time with indifference.
“I’ll just have to find someone else.” He fired twice more and
Michele’s head exploded like a melon, providing a fresh coat of
grey and red paint for the walls. “That’s really funny,” Esteban
laughed.