Sullivan Saga 1: Sullivan's War (3 page)

But the footage of the assassin had proven to be much more enlightening. He could clearly be seen ringing Palmer’s bell and pulling and firing an energy weapon when the door opened.

Wagner tossed the baseball. Allen plucked it from the air and held it, turning it over in his hands. “So… Caucasian, one hundred and eighty centimeters, brown hair, medium build. Do we think he’s from Edaline or a hired pro?” He tossed the baseball back to Wagner.

She caught the ball. “The hit was professional. But they have hit men on Edaline. A local boy would be easier and safer to hire than trying to reach out to someone on Earth.”

“Especially if said hit man shares their political ideas,” said Allen, catching the return. “So we check passenger manifests for flights arriving from Edaline.”

“Problem is, Frank, he could have planet-hopped his way here. Or he could have come in a year ago and been lying low. If we go back that far and restrict the search to just flights from Edaline, we’re still probably talking about over a million guys matching our description.”

“We can narrow that down. I researched the Edaline issue earlier. The first time Palmer publicly announced his support for incorporation was on April third.”

“About a year ago.”

“Right. Let’s say that as soon as he heard about Palmer’s support, the assassin got on the first available flight to Earth. The fastest ships can make the trip in three months. Add to that the three months it would’ve taken for an outgoing ship to carry the news from Earth to Edaline, and we’re up to six months. And that’s being generous. With the time it would take the rebellion’s leaders to decide upon a plan and find someone to do the deed, I’d bet we’re down to four months. Still, we’ll go back six just to cover our bases. If we don’t find anyone we like on those flights then we’ll start looking at flights from other planets.”

As Allen was speaking, Wagner went to work on her computer. “So all flights from Edaline to Earth within the past six months….”

“Don’t forget freighters. They often take on passengers and list them as crew.”

“Unless they’re smuggling someone in.”

“Let’s just see what we have on legal entries first.”

Wagner squinted her eyes at her screen. “Adding commercial passengers and freighter crews comes to… eight hundred thousand, seven hundred and fifty-two, of which five hundred nineteen thousand, two hundred and eleven are men. Damn.”

Allen got up from his desk and moved around to see Wagner’s screen. “How many were Caucasian?”

“Two hundred and eight thousand, three hundred and forty-nine.”

“All right… now set the height variable for a range from one seventy-five to one eighty-five.”

“One hundred ninety thousand, seven hundred and three.”

“We can ignore hair color, that can be easily altered. So how many of those are still on Earth?”

“Two thousand and eighty.”

“All right, one final variable: how many have either been in or through New York within the last week?”

“One hundred and seventy-seven.”

“You want to know what I think? I think our perp came to New York at least a week ago. He’d want to spend some time tailing his mark, learning his habits. And I think he plans on staying a while longer. He’d have to know we would check passenger manifests. What would stand out?”

“Someone who left today, soon after the murder.”

“Exactly. I’ll bet he’s still in New York or within a few hours of the city by train.”

“If we eliminate those recently passing though, we’re down to ninety-five.”

“We can work with that number. Bring up their files, one at a time.”

“Yes, no, maybe time?”

“You got it.” Allen pulled his chair around, and the two spent the next hour and a half evaluating the suspects based on appearance, reason for visiting, occupation, traveling companions and anything else that caught their attention. At the end of their labor, they had their three groups.

Allen rubbed his eyes as he looked away from the screen. “My eyes are going fuzzy. What are the numbers, Liz?”

“Yesses: twenty-nine. Nos: fifty-eight. Maybes: eight.”

“Good. The surveillance footage shows Palmer was killed around twenty-three thirty last night. Let’s see if we can locate any of those twenty-nine yesses on the city’s surveillance system.”

Wagner typed the commands into her computer. A bar appeared across the bottom of the screen, slowly creeping toward the right as the request was processed. After several minutes, the search had been completed.

“Here we go,” said Wagner. “The network’s facial recognition software found hits on twenty of our yesses.” She scrolled through the information. “Only one of them was near Palmer’s building at the time.” She pulled up a video of a man walking down the street, two blocks from the scene of the murder. As they watched, he wiped a hand across his forehead.

Allen leaned in. “Enlarge that, will you?” Wagner did so. “He’s not wearing a ball cap, but the rest of the clothes look like a match to the man caught on the building’s cameras.”

As they continued watching, the man brought his right hand up from his side and placed a cap on his head.

“There’s the cap,” said Allen. “Who is he?”

Wagner called up the man’s information. “Richard Sullivan, aged twenty-six, arrived in London from Edaline on the eighth. Took a flight from London to New York on the ninth. Staying at the Fletcher Hotel ever since.”

Allen had returned to his own desk and leaned in to his computer screen. “I’ll put in a request to get the Fletcher Hotel’s records.” He waited a moment as the request traveled across the Stellar Assembly’s governmental computer network to a waiting judge who would evaluate the request then, at the touch of a button, either approve or reject it.

“We got approval,” said Allen. He typed in a few short sentences informing the Fletcher that a warrant had been served to search their records. Within a few minutes, he was granted access to their computer system.

Allen looked from his screen to Wagner. “Sullivan, right?”

“Yes.”

“He’s in room seventeen eleven and checking out on Saturday. That’s four days from now.”

“Sit on him?”

“I think so. We can’t risk pulling up with lights flashing and spooking him.” Allen was busy at his computer again. “His room faces the street. There’s another hotel across from the Fletcher that we can set up in.”

Wagner went to work at her own terminal. “I’ll make the arrangements to get us in a room facing the Fletcher.”

“Good. Meanwhile, I want to read up on Edaline some more. I want to know where Sullivan is coming from.”

ALLEN TURNED HIS attention from the front door of the Fletcher and looked up at the room Sullivan had rented. Despite the human observation and a continuous feed from the cameras along the street in front of the hotel, no one matching Sullivan’s description had been seen either coming or going during the three days of the stakeout. Allen heard the door handle behind him and turned as Wagner entered the room with a paper takeout bag.

“Well, I think I’m finally ready to admit that we’ve been had,” said Allen, peering into the bag as Wagner held it out to him. He began poking through the items in the bag, trying to decipher the pen scrawls on the top of each takeout box to figure out which of them belonged to him. He found his sweet and sour pork and white rice and removed them. “Sullivan’s not in that room, Liz. I don’t think he’s ever been in that room. Did you get soy sauce?”

Wagner removed the rest of the items. “Here it is,” she said, handing him a packet from the bottom of the bag. “So we know he checked in the day he arrived. The cameras catch him leaving the Fletcher a few minutes later, they catch him near Palmer’s building the morning of the murder, then nothing. Where is he? Where has he been sleeping?”

“The Park? Hundreds of homeless sleep there every night. He could have blended in with them.”

“Or he’s left the city. He might even be off-planet by now.”

Allen swallowed a bite. “He can’t get through security without being flagged. He can’t get on a plane, passenger shuttle, train, bus or boat without us knowing. Either he’s just keeping his head down, wearing a hat and glasses, or he got out under the radar.”

“That has to be it. He could have hopped on a freighter the day of the murder. God knows there are plenty of freighter captains who don’t mind a little smuggling on the side, and any decent bioshroud would hide him from all the standard port authority scans.”

“I think you’re right, Liz. We lost this one.”

“Want to call off the stakeout?”

“No. He’s registered at the Fletcher for one more day, and it’s our only lead. Why not see it through?”

“All right.” Wagner sat beside Allen and opened her box of noodles. “This isn’t going to be an easy one to take the fall for. An assemblyman’s murder is a big deal.”

Allen chewed another bite. “On the other hand, if he is still in the city, maybe we could find a way to draw him out.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“I’ve been going over this Edaline issue. In their parliament, there are moderates and there are hardliners. They’re all from the same party and all support the system, but the parliament members who’ve been murdered have been the hardliners. I get the feeling that the assassin—or assassins—makes a distinction between good men who are just cogs in the machine and the bastards who are running the show.”

“And which was Assemblyman Palmer, a cog or a bastard?”

“He was a cog, if you believe everyone who ever had anything to do with him. One of the good guys. There isn’t a single blemish on his record. Aside from the hookers, there are no scandals, no kickbacks, no nasty exchanges with his political rivals, absolutely nothing objectionable.”

Wagner put down her food and leaned on the table. “That makes you suspicious, doesn’t it?”

“You bet it does. He’s too clean. He had real power on Virdis before being elected to the Assembly. I wonder if he had enough power to wipe his record clean. Did Sullivan know something about Palmer that we don’t?”

“Maybe. But what does this have to do with drawing Sullivan out?”

“It’ll take a bit of deception on our part. If we can convince Assemblywoman Conner to hold a press conference announcing that Palmer’s death has garnered enough sympathy to pass the Edaline resolution, Sullivan might be tempted to take another look at his hit list.”

“The forty-seven remaining members of the pro-incorporation caucus?”

“Right. We can put a tail on each of them and see if Sullivan pops up.”

“It’s risky.”

“Any better ideas?”

Wagner gazed out the window at the Fletcher. “If we could figure out which of the forty-seven are the cogs and which are the bastards, we might be able to replicate that hit list.”

“I’m sure that with a bit of digging we could figure that out. But we don’t have the time for it. If the director green lights this, I want Conner to make that announcement tomorrow.” Allen put his hand on Wagner’s knee. She responded by placing her hand on his and squeezing it gently.

Allen smiled. “Do I have your backing on this, Liz?”

“You always have my backing.” She leaned in and kissed Allen on the lips as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer.

4

RICK SULLIVAN HAD been paying attention. Assemblywoman Conner had announced that a new vote was to be scheduled for the following Monday, and almost immediately, Assemblyman Scott Howard grew an extra shadow. Sullivan had to admit that the Bureau people were good. He’d almost run right into the agent before noticing that he was also following Howard. The assemblyman, for his part, seemed unaware that he was under surveillance and had, for the last twenty minutes, been in the Landau Hotel. A woman who had been standing outside the hotel smoking a cigarette had followed Howard inside. Sullivan wondered if this was another of the Bureau’s agents. He decided that she was more likely his mistress.

Sullivan risked a glance at the agent who now stood outside the doors of the Landau. Shortly after Howard had arrived, a car had pulled up, and another man had nodded to the agent then continued on inside. Sullivan guessed he’d be guarding whatever floor Howard’s room was on.

Sullivan walked briskly across the street, turned away from the hotel entrance and continued around the corner. As he rounded the side of the building, he noticed a door propped open with a brick. A catering truck was parked on the street. Sullivan slipped in through the door and glanced down the hallway leading to what he assumed to be the hotel kitchen. He could hear voices and the sound of boxes being moved. To his left was a stairwell. He gently pushed open the door and held it as it closed behind him, keeping the noise to a minimum.

Sullivan didn’t know what floor Howard was on, but he didn’t have to know. The second agent would give away his location. Sullivan crept up the stairs to the first floor landing. He peeked through the small rectangular window in the fire door. The Landau was a long and narrow building. A single hallway ran the length of each floor, and an alcove on one side of the hallway housed the elevators. Sullivan couldn’t see into that alcove from his position in the stairwell, but he could see that it had a window. The rectangle of light on the carpet of the hallway revealed the alcove to be empty save for a potted plant.

Sullivan ascended the stairs to the next floor. This hallway was identical to the first. The light from the window also revealed a potted plant, but next to the fronds of the plant Sullivan could see the outline of a man’s head, apparently seated in a chair. Sullivan nudged open the door. He held it open a few inches and waited a moment to see if the shadow moved. It shifted slightly but did not rise. He pushed it open another few inches, just wide enough for him to slip into the hallway, and then eased it back to its closed position.

Sullivan took a small gun from his inside coat pocket. The energy weapon was no larger than a pack of cards and didn’t hold much of a charge, but there was enough in it for two more shots. “Small and quiet” is what Sullivan had asked for, and he had to admit that despite the ridiculous price, the black market arms dealer had delivered. Sullivan felt for the spare battery back in his pocket. All together, he had five more shots available to him. The Edaline military had trained him well, and he was confident he could finish this job with two shots, maybe even just one if he could take the agent down in close quarters. He preferred that, actually. There was no reason the agent had to die just for doing his job.