Dark Vengeance (11 page)

Captain Mars entered the exam room and quickly slapped the panel to close the door behind him. The public meeting had gone well but there was no less concern on his face. He looked at Purser’s body on the exam table, then at the doctor as he swept his scanner over her. The Captain turned to me with a pale expression. “She’s just fainted, you said?”

I shook my head. An expression of disbelief came over him.

The doctor stopped his scan, clicked the scanner closed and leaned for a moment against the exam table like a man who needed to sit down. He straightened up to address the Captain. “It was indeed an assassin’s bolt, exactly the same type that was used on the previous victim.”

The atmosphere in the exam room became silent and heavy with anger. The doctor continued, “Somehow this gentleman knew, though I do not know how that could be,” said the Doctor, and he nodded toward R.J.

Captain Mars rubbed his face with one hand, “Lae, we need to use your office for a few minutes. We don’t want to be disturbed, okay?”

The doctor gave a weary nod of approval.

We took seats in the office. Captain Mars shut the door behind us. For a moment the tension level was too high to speak. R.J. looked up at the Captain as he sat behind the desk. “I know what’s going on,” he said. “I know why all of this is happening.”

“You think you know who did this?” asked the Captain tersely.

“No, but I know why.”

“Then please, explain it to me. Why are Ambassador’s aides being targeted for death?”

“They’re not,” replied R.J. “He is!” And to my complete dismay, R.J. pointed at me.

“For god’s sake! What are you talking about, R.J.?” I demanded.

“The assassin is the third man. His first murders were Officer Ree and the Sentian.”

“But you don’t know who he is?” asked the Captain impatiently.

“Captain, those two murders couldn’t have been about me,” I insisted.

“You have the floor, Commander,” said the Captain impatiently.

“The murders of the Sentian thief and Officer Ree were an accident. They weren’t supposed to happen. Some of what I’m going to say is just conjecture, but I’m sure it’s close to what actually happened. The Sentian was passing through walls to get into staterooms while most everyone was at the big party. He passed through a wall into a room or into some hiding place and ran unexpectedly into the assassin. He must have recognized that person as an assassin or at least some kind of known criminal. The assassin couldn’t allow himself to be discovered so the Sentian had to be killed. The Sentian ran for his life to get away. He hoped to go through the doors to engineering just as we speculated but was blocked by the doors and ended up in the security office. You know the rest. The assassin had to eliminate anyone who had seen him so the Officer and the Sentian both had to be killed. The next murder was Ambassador Beltran’s bodyguard in the gym. The body guard had the unfortunate luck of choosing the same color sweat clothes and the same machine Adrian had been using every morning at that time. He had his back to the concourse. The assassin didn’t realize he had the wrong man. He killed the bodyguard and only later found out it was the wrong person. That meant his contract was still open. Now there had been three unplanned murders. Very messy. This assassin is highly skilled but not too smart. Now he knows he’s really screwed things up. Too many of the wrong people have been killed. The heat was on. He needed to get the job done fast. He set up within the crowd at the meeting this morning and waited. When he thought he had a shot, he took it. Purser barged in just in time to take an assassin’s bolt meant for Adrian. The doctor will confirm it hit her somewhere around the neck or head, right where your heart would have been, Adrian. The assassin must be furious with himself. Another screw up.”

There was a very long, heavy silence.

The Captain slapped the desk in front of him. “You’re theory implies that the assassin was standing in the crowd out there, Commander.”

“Yes. It would have been too difficult to thread a shot through a group of people from any distance. After he fired the shot, he simply stood gawking like everyone else, pretending to be one of the crowd.”

The Captain leaned forward on the desk with his head in his hand. He rubbed his face and looked at me. “Does anyone want to kill you, Captain Tarn?”

I shook my head in disbelief.

Mars lamented, “If only the cameras had been back online. Another hour or two and we could have found the killer in the video.”

R.J. continued. “It may even be, Captain, that the killer knows the surveillance system will soon be back online and that forced him to rush this second attempt.”

Mars rubbed his face with both hands. “Could you be wrong about this, Commander?”

“I do not believe so, sir.”

“So if I lock Captain Tarn away in a guarded cell, there should be no further violence aboard this ship.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that, Captain,” argued R.J.

“Why not?”

“You’d only be inviting the death of more security personnel along with Adrian himself. There’s a much better way.”

“And what would that be?”

“Allow us to return to our staterooms and give me an hour. Then meet us at Adrian’s and I’ll explain and demonstrate a better way.”

“You did a good job with the fainting story, Captain Tarn. Otherwise, we would be in the midst of a real panic.”

“I really thought she had fainted,” I replied sadly.

“Can the two of you get back to your staterooms safely?”

“Our assassin is in hiding, licking his wounds, Captain. That will not be a problem,” said R.J.

“All right then. I’ll go and try to deal with this latest disaster and meet you in one hour. Please stay out of sight, Gentlemen, in case Commander Smith is correct about all of this.”

I paced back and forth in my room for forty-five minutes. R.J. finally came charging through the connecting doors, his small laptop under his arm. At nearly the same moment, Captain Mars chimed the front door. There were no greetings, just a silent, shared burden between us. We gathered at the desk where R.J. had set up his laptop. He stood beside it to speak. “As bad as things are, I believe we are in the best possible position to capture the assassin and put an end to this insanity. He has mistakenly assassinated two innocent people and killed two others probably because he was recognized. The people who paid his contract will not be pleased. Usually such criminals want things to be clean and neat. Instead they have ended up with a large number of people who will be interested in bringing them to justice. Our assassin needs to wrap things up quickly to put an end to this mess. His presence is now well known and he knows that. Finding him is now the most important priority. He has created a situation that requires haste before the net closes in. He must take more chances than usual. That is our advantage.”

R.J. tapped his laptop and a life-sized image of Plato appeared. Plato wore a long white robe with an orange sash over one shoulder. His beard seemed intricately defined. The age lines in his face adjusted as he moved in place. The image was so detailed it was impossible to distinguish it from reality. R.J. spoke to it, “Teacher, how can we catch a killer?”

The image responded, “Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.”

R.J. explained, “Do you remember this sculpting program, Adrian? Combined with an A.I. that references Plato documents, it produces an amazingly lifelike reproduction. It’s just photonic, of course. I can push my hand right through it. But, otherwise it is difficult to tell it’s not real. It is much like the holomatter used in this ship’s interior except that it’s not a solid image.”

The Captain interrupted. “Where exactly are you going with this, Commander?”

R.J. tapped a key on his laptop. The image changed to one of me. It was an odd experience, sitting there looking up at myself.

“I created this image fairly quickly using photographs. What we need is to give the assassin another good chance to kill Adrian. You said you’re about to have the video surveillance system brought back online, didn’t you Captain?”

“Yes, tomorrow morning to be exact.”

“That’s perfect. You make an announcement that the ship’s video surveillance system will be switched back on tomorrow morning and that things are continuing to return to normal. That will add greatly to the pressure that’s already pushing our assassin. Has the news leaked that Ambassador Sulik’s aid was murdered?”

The Captain replied, “We were forced to tell Ambassador Sulik the truth, of course. However, we have asked her to remain in her quarters and have stationed special security there to be certain she does. She does not know it but her communications have been temporarily cut off. The medical unit has been ordered not to speak of it. So no, as far as everyone else is concerned, the Ambassador’s aide just fainted.”

R.J. nodded. “That’s also helpful to our cause. No special security patrols, the ship seeming to be operating normally. The assassin will probably think he can still move about freely for a little bit longer. So, tonight Adrian strolls out the gallery to sit at the fireplace reading, but we replace him with this image. He will fall asleep and remain there all night. We will station ourselves out of sight and wait. It will be the last, best opportunity our assassin will have before the surveillance system is working again. Too good an opportunity to pass up, I’ll bet.”

“How will he know I’m there?” I asked.

“I believe he’s been tracking you all along. Maybe by communications or some tracking system we don’t know about. He’s not had any problem finding you before now. We’ll put all of your personal electronics on the chair inside this image and you won’t be far away.”

“Elachia will need to be on duty at the desk all night. She may interfere with your plan,” said the Captain.

“Give her plenty of reasons to repeatedly leave the desk during the night, Captain. I do not believe the assassin will harm her. He’s done too much collateral damage already. And, we’ll need comfortable hiding places to watch from. We may be there most of the night.”

“I like your plan, Commander. I will also ensure that no staff members inadvertently interfere. Let us hope we can end this thing.”

Our stakeout was set up in a hidden alcove created by the ship’s engineers. A false, duplicate wall concealed us in such a way that we could see through and even pass through it when the time came. It was the best of blinds since we could sit comfortably and watch and even exit out the back when it became necessary to stretch our legs. Elachia was behind her counter off the left. She had been told everything. My false reproduction sat with his back to us near the fireplace on the right. Only his head and neck were visible above the chair back. We wore black jump suits with hoods, provided by Captain Mars.

With ship’s lighting in the evening mode, the atmosphere became spooky. Elachia kept making her unnecessary trips away from her counter. The room remained quiet and empty. Captain Mars left our blind frequently to contact the flight deck. My false image eventually tipped his head forward and to one side to appear asleep as programmed by R.J.

But after hours of anticipation, there was nothing. Elachia would return from each trip, glance at the hologram of me, then momentarily over in our direction, then resume her normal duties. We began to worry.

Around 4 A.M. real doubt and frustration began to set in. In an hour or so staff would begin setting up for their new work day. There might even be traffic from a few early guests like the Tagons. It would not be as easy a time for an assassin.

Then the worst possibly thing happened. To our right a figure glided in from the concourse. It was the Ancient, coming early for her morning supplement treatment.

The Captain stood and lamented, “That’s it, Gentlemen. Our assassin did not take the bait. We’re beginning to get guest traffic. We’ve lost our window of opportunity.”

The Ancient passed by, waving her arms erratically as always, carrying a medical slip in one hand. She headed straight for Elachia.

“That’s curious, though.” said R.J. “She has no staff with her.”

At the counter, the Ancient dropped the slip in front of Elachia and waited in her usual erratic manner. Elachia read the note. We could hear her on the intercom that had been set up. “Oh, you want your safe deposit box? It will take a minute for me to retrieve it. If you’ll just wait here, please.”

Elachia glanced over at us, rolled her eyes, and left the counter to retrieve the item.

Then to all our surprise, it happened. The Ancient turned and seemed to notice the sleeping form of Adrian Tarn. She floated a bit closer, stopped, and appeared to check around the gallery in her same erratic fashion. We watched in astonishment as a strange figure stepped out of the image of the Ancient and headed for my sleeping duplicate. It was a lizard man, a species I had encountered on a previous trip, a species that sometimes participated in the slave trade.

We watched wide-eyed as lizard man came up behind me, drew out some form of injector and plunged it into my neck. When the device passed through the sleeping man rather than into him, lizard man jerked back in alarm and twisted around to look for attackers.

But it was too late for him. The real me was already standing silently, directly behind him, stun gun leveled and ready. He spun around, gave a lizard hiss, and took my stun blast full in the chest. He fell, the look of disbelief frozen on his face.