The Nexus Series: Books 1-3 (44 page)

8

“YOU
call it a bold decision if you wish; I call it brash,” said Director Holiday.

“I didn’t call
it either,” newly elected Mayor Cole’s voice replied on his phone.  “I
just said it was the decision I had made.”

“So there’s no
way I can talk you out of it?”

“I’ve been
scheduled to speak at the Centennial since the election results came in. 
The people need to hear from me, Director.”

“It would be an
insult to your intelligence to think you’re unaware of the dangers; so I’ll
have to assume you’re indifferent toward them.”

“I have to show
this city that I’m not afraid.  Isn’t that why you stopped my
assassination in such a public manner—to show we don’t have to fear?”

“We stopped
your assassination to keep you alive, Mayor Cole, and that’s how we’d like you
to stay.  It’s too soon for you to make another public appearance.”

“Well, we can’t
exactly reschedule
Anterra’s
hundredth birthday, can
we?”

Holiday
sighed.  “I can see I’m wasting my breath.”

“I’m sorry this
conversation isn’t going like you hoped.”

“It’s going
like I expected.  I just thought I’d try.  We’ll see you this
evening, Miss Cole.”

“With my
bodyguard there, plus your department keeping an eye on things, I’ll be the
safest person on MS9, Director.  You shouldn’t be so worried!”

“I should be a
lot more worried than I am,” Holiday muttered once he’d hung up.

“TWELVE
cups of coffee coming up,” Jill announced as she entered
Dizzie’s
cubicle.

“I’ll probably
need all twelve,” said
Dizzie
, already typing away on
her central computer.  “I’ve been at it for a while, and I haven’t come up
with a thing.”

“You haven’t had
your caffeine yet.”  Jill set the maker on the table, along with a huge
paper bag.

“True. 
Geez, what’s all that?”

“You know Momma
Ginny.  I couldn’t stop by without her hooking us up with breakfast. 
By the way, I never got to thank you last night.”

“Thank me?”

“For sticking up
for me when Bradley...”

“Oh,
that.
” 
Dizzie
scowled at the memory.  “Don’t you dare
feel bad about anything that happened on the mission, Jillian Branch!”

“Okay, Desiree
Mason.”

“I’ll ignore
that.  Honestly, that kid needs his butt kicked up between his ears, you
know that?  I’d be happy to do it for him, too.”

“Get in
line—behind Ginny.  She’s already promised.”

“Well,”
Dizzie
chuckled, “I don’t know what I’ll be able to do once
Momma Ginny gets through with him.”

“Where’s Amber,
by the way?  It’s after seven.”

“Yeah, I was
wondering the same thing.”

“Sorry I’m late,”
Amber mumbled from the cubicle’s entrance.

Jill and
Dizzie
exchanged a glance.  Amber never looked
anything but immaculate first thing in the morning.  Actually, Amber never
looked anything but immaculate
ever,
as far as Jill could
remember.  But right now...

“Um, are you
okay?” asked
Dizzie
.

Amber’s eyes
were bloodshot, like she hadn’t closed them at all last night.  She wore
the same clothes she’d been wearing last night, and her hair apparently hadn’t
been tended to since then either.  Her face was smeared with yesterday’s
makeup.  “I was at my computer all night.  I figured I’d get a head
start on the search.  I didn’t even realize what time it was until like
two minutes ago.”

“Anything?” Jill
asked her.

Amber shook her
head dejectedly.  “I should have just slept.”

“Pancakes and
bacon,” Jill offered, pulling a to-go box out of Momma Ginny’s bag of
provisions.  “And coffee’s on the way.”

“I
may have something,”
Dizzie
announced.

Jill and Amber
turned away from the computers they’d been working at and eagerly looked at
Dizzie’s
screen.  Breakfast was long gone, a third pot
of coffee percolating, and up to this point none of the three had discovered
anything of value.

“This article
mentions a witness to a shooting in Moscow a couple years ago,”
Dizzie
explained.

“Where?” asked
Amber.

“Moscow,
Russia.  The Home Planet.”

“We’re idiots,”
Jill declared.  “Why didn’t we include
Earthside
results in our searches from the beginning?”

“Because we’re
egocentric
Anterrans
who forget Earth even exists,”
Dizzie
answered bluntly.

“Hey, at least
you finally thought of it,” said Amber.

“Actually, I
didn’t.  This article is cross-referenced in one of our department
databases for some reason.  Looks like the original article was deleted
almost immediately after publication.  It’s a fluke that I came across it
at all.  Anyway, this witness described the shooter as being tattooed with
some sort of webbed patterns.”

“That’s a
little vague,” Amber said with a frown.

“You said the
man Dr. Rivera mentioned had an accent, maybe Russian,” Jill reminded
her.  “This could be just what we’re looking for.”

Dizzie’s
fingers tapped busily.  “The article doesn’t
say anything else useful.  I’m checking local law enforcement records
now.”  She frowned at the screen.  “Weird.  The police have no
record of the shooting at all.  It’s like it never happened.”

“How could that
be?” asked Amber.

“Maybe they
were bribed,” suggested Jill.

Dizzie
grimaced.  “Or threatened.  In either
case, even though they removed it from their official records, I’m sure the
incident is noted somewhere.  The Moscow Criminal Investigation Department
has a ghost database for highly classified, ‘off the record’ cases.  Every
major law enforcement agency has one.”

“I don’t
suppose you’d be able to hack into this database you speak of?” Jill mused.

Amber’s eyes
widened.  “No,
Diz
!”

“I wouldn’t
have to,” said
Dizzie
.  “With the right access
code, our department should be able to legally examine the database.  Of
course, I’m only allowed to use that access code if I’m on official department
business.”

“Do it,” said
Jill.

“Don’t do it!”
Amber said at the same time.  “You can’t do anything that might get you in
trouble,
Dizzie
.  I won’t let you.  You’re
already doing way too much to help me.”

“No, we’re
not,”
Dizzie
contradicted.  “But don’t worry, I
won’t use the code.  A database like that is constantly monitored, and
they’ll notice the minute I’m in there.  Then they’ll call the liaison
office to confirm that the codes are being used legally, and...well, long story
short, I’d be fired—or at least suspended—before I had time to learn anything.”

“Good,” Amber
said with relief.

“Bummer,” said
Jill.

“But hey, we
already learned something,”
Dizzie
went on
optimistically.  “We’ll refocus our search to Home Planet databases. 
Back to your stations, girls.  Oh, Jill, could I get another cup of joe
first?  No cream this time.”

“Coming right
up.”

SEVERAL
more hours of effort turned up just one other tiny lead, this one even vaguer
than the first.  It was an amateur travel blogger’s post.  Like the
article about the Moscow shooter, the post had been removed just hours after
its publication. 
Dizzie’s
search found a record
of it deep within the blog host’s archives.

The traveler’s
account was about an experience at Vilnius International Airport in Lithuania
nearly three years ago.  A would-be fellow passenger, a woman in her
middle thirties, was detained by security just before boarding the flight and
was eventually handcuffed and escorted away.  “I was kind of relieved,”
the American blogger had written, “because she looked suspicious anyway. 
Her arms, legs, and neck were tattooed with dark crisscrossing patterns like
broken glass or spiders’ webs or something.”

“A woman?”
Amber wondered aloud.

“Maybe we’re
talking about a criminal society, here,” said Jill, “not just one guy.”

“Or maybe this
woman has nothing to do with the other guy,” Amber said glumly.

“It’s another
Eastern European location,” said
Dizzie
, “relatively
close to Moscow.  I doubt it’s a coincidence.”  Again,
Dizzie
examined the local law enforcement records for that
time frame.  Again, there were no public records of the arrest.  “She
has something to do with the other guy, all right,”
Dizzie
said firmly.

“WHAT’S
wrong?” Corey asked the girls when they got to Conference Room D for
debriefing.  “You look...”

“Awful,” Bradley
finished.

Dizzie
fired a seething look at him, but Jill put a
silencing hand on her arm the moment her mouth opened.

“I took your
advice,
Cor
,” said Amber.  “I got
reinforcements.”  She gestured gratefully to the other girls.

“Glad to hear
it.  And?”

“And the search
is taking a lot longer than we thought.”

“Hey,” Jill
reassured her, “we’ll get there.”

“Get where?”
asked Bradley.  “What search?”

“The search for
the cure to sticking your nose in other people’s business,”
Dizzie
spat.

“It’s okay,
Diz
,” said Amber.  “We’re trying to find the man who
may have killed my dad, Bradley.”

He
swallowed.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t know.”

“I know. 
I’ve been kind of private about it.”

Bradley shuffled
his feet awkwardly.  “Um, I hope you catch him.  Let me know if I can
help.”

“Sure,” Jill
said, sounding much more sarcastic than she’d intended.

“Seats, please,
everyone,” the director ordered as he entered the conference room. 
“Plenty to discuss.”  He raised an eyebrow as he saw the girls’
faces.  “Something the matter, ladies?”

They looked at
each other.  “Just kind of a tough morning, sir,”
Dizzie
answered.

“Sorry to hear
it.  Put it behind you as well as you can so that you can give me your
full attention.  After all, it’s our job to protect our beloved mayor
tonight, and Sherlock’s not going to do it by himself.”

IN
a room sealed behind a wall of bulletproof glass, not far from the conference
room in which they sat, was Sherlock.  He—or
it
—appeared to be no
more than rows and rows of columns with blinking lights.

The department
had been built around those columns with their blinking lights.

It was here
that the sea of
Anterra’s
digital information was
copied and stored, and subsequently analyzed by Sherlock’s meticulously
programmed detecting skills.  Through billions of “eyes” and “ears,” he
could spot a crime as it happened—or better yet, spot a crime before it
happened so that it could be prevented.

His main job
tonight would be preventing the assassination of Anne Marie Cole. 

9

“COREY,
you’re to remain near the mayor at all times,” Holiday instructed as the
debriefing neared its end.  “Jill, Bradley, Amber—you three will position
yourselves around the plaza.  Don’t stray far from your vehicles.  If
Sherlock spots any suspicious behavior, Desiree will alert our teams to
investigate immediately.”

Dizzie
winced.  She always winced at the director’s
use of her full name.

“We’ve packed
every street and building within sight of the plaza with extra surveillance,”
he continued.  “Sketch’s people are certainly not the only criminals who
want the mayor dead, but they are almost certainly the only ones who know
Sherlock exists.”

“Anyone else
won’t know just how careful they ought to be,” said Corey.

The director
nodded.  “If an attempt is made on Miss Cole’s life tonight, we will see
it coming in time to stop it.”

JILL
stared into the eyes of her uniform’s helmet as she always did before heading
out on a job.  On the visor was enameled a vivid blue butterfly with wings
outspread.

There was a
nameless feeling on the brink of a mission.  It quickened her breath and
pulse, put every fiber of her being on high alert.  Protecting the new
mayor, who also happened to be a major driving force behind the department, was
important enough in and of itself.  But the personal dimension made it
that much more important for Jill.

She was
protecting her only link to her father.

She put on her helmet
and stepped out of the locker room into the garage just off HQ.  She
zigzagged between the cars to her
skybike
and swung
into the seat.  Her teammates climbed into department vehicles.

“Lead the way,
Jillian,” Corey’s voice crackled in her helmet’s ear.

“If you insist.”
she replied, kick-starting her bike.  She sped across the expanse of
pavement, low ceiling rushing by just over her head, toward the tunnel opening
at the far end.  Then she was flying through the twisting dark passage
that led under the lake.

A minute later
her bike burst out the bay door of an abandoned building near the lake’s
eastern shore.  PETE’S FISH CANNERY, the faded letters over the bay
said.  Three other vehicles roared out just behind her, the bay door
closed, and then they sped through the fading daylight toward downtown.

A
high wall of bulletproof material had been temporarily erected
around the plaza for tonight’s activities.  No one was allowed through the
gates without first passing through scanners and metal detectors.  The
buildings surrounding the plaza had been emptied and locked down, the streets
barricaded.  Security officers, policemen, and plenty of civilian-looking
gunmen with concealed weapons were everywhere.  Every possible precaution
had been taken.

Jill still
worried.

She’d positioned
herself at the far end of the plaza.  Across the sea of onlookers she saw
the platform where the mayor’s speech would soon take place.   That
section of the plaza was roped off and filled with an even higher concentration
of armed personnel.  Corey was there somewhere, near the podium where Miss
Cole would speak.

Even tonight a
segment of the plaza was reserved for protestors—
peaceful
protesters,
security insisted, or the tear gas and the rubber bullets would make an
appearance.  A few dozen passionate souls had gathered there behind the
barrier, hoisting their signs and quietly expressing their distaste.  Not
as many as on previous nights.

“Anything,
Diz
?” Jill asked.

“We’re clear,”
Dizzie’s
voice replied in her ear.  “Not even a
low-level red flag.”

Jill continued
drifting about her end of the plaza.  It was fairly boring, as missions
went.  Boring could be better than exciting, though.  Exciting
usually meant trouble.

Finally, Chief
Home Planet Liaison Riley took the podium and introduced the mayor.  The
doors in the building behind the platform opened, and Miss Cole stepped out
amid a roar of applause.  She smiled and gave brief waves and nods of
greeting as she strode across the walkway from the door to the platform. 
Once she was at the microphone she thanked and thanked again all who had
come.  At last the claps and cheers subsided, and she began.

“The first thing
I must do is apologize.  Yesterday, I allowed the people of this city to
believe that my life was in danger.  By now you have heard the details of
the event—that I knew of this plot to take my life and was involved in the
countermeasures that foiled it.  I had no wish to alarm the good people
who put me in office, and yet serious circumstances made it necessary to act as
I did.  You see, there is evil at work on this satellite, my
friends.  I do not deny it, nor should you.  Our plan was to send a
message—not only to those who attempted this evil deed, but to all of
you.  You must know, citizens of
Anterra
, that
what you have heard is no myth.  There are indeed Guardian Angels watching
over our city.”

Another round of
applause.

DIZZIE
sat in her cubicle watching the speech from more than a dozen
different angles on her monitors.  “Guardian Angels,” she snorted. 
But she was smiling.

“When a
hundredth birthday is celebrated,” the mayor continued, “and you look back upon
the events of the century, you must expect to see many bad things as well as
good.  But I believe, and hope you will believe with me, that much more good
than bad awaits us in the century to come.”

More applause.

“
Miss Mason
,”
Sherlock’s electronic voice said into her earphone, “
I have red-flagged an
item for your consideration
.”

She rolled her
chair to another monitor, where Sherlock’s observation was displayed.

The department’s
heightened surveillance had done its work.  One of the extra cameras they
had planted in the Flynn Tower showed man dressed in black and wearing a
beanie.  He’d exited the fifth floor men’s room and was moving down the
hallway to the corner of the building that overlooked the plaza.

“Sherlock, this
is the first you’ve seen of this guy tonight?”
Dizzie
asked.

“
That is
correct.  The building was supposedly cleared and locked down nearly three
hours ago.  The man must have been hiding inside from that time until now
.”

“All agents on
alert,”
Dizzie
reported.  “Converge on the Flynn
Tower immediately.  We have a lone man on the fifth floor, possibly
armed.”

JILL’S
heart started racing.  She was the closest agent to the Flynn Tower. 
She pushed out past the guards at the nearest gate through the plaza’s
temporary wall.  “On my way,” she said.

“I sent you the
layout,”
Dizzie
told her.

Jill checked
the small screen on the wrist of her uniform.  It showed a simple map of
the tower’s fifth story.  Surveillance could pinpoint the man’s location,
marked on the map by a blinking red dot.

“I’m mobilizing
two other teams to join you,” said
Dizzie
, “but
they’re positioned at the other end of the block.”

“I’m not
waiting,” Jill said, running across the street.  “Amber, you’re close by,
aren’t you?”

“On my way,”
Amber reported.  “Should be at the doors within the minute.”

“And I’m ninety
seconds out,” Bradley added.  “I’m almost to my car.”

COREY
resisted the urge to run to the Flynn Tower himself.  His instructions
were clear:  Stay with the mayor at all times.

He stood with a
knot of other security personnel near the platform on which the mayor was
speaking.  Several other officials were seated there as well, including
Chief Riley in a wheelchair directly beneath where Miss Cole stood.

“I don’t think
it’s any accident,” she was saying now, “that we are gathered here in the place
named after the renowned Lila
Jann
-Birch, one of the
pioneers of the Metropolitan Satellite Project.  If you have read Miss
Jann
-Birch’s social theory, you know
Anterra
turned out to be a much darker place than she envisioned.”

Corey shuffled
his feet.  He switched his com to the channel the mayor would hear in her
earpiece.  “Miss Cole, sorry to interrupt, but we’ve got trouble!”

The mayor went
on with her speech as if she hadn’t heard him.

DIZZIE’S
eyes were glued to the Flynn Tower surveillance.  The man had reached the
lounge in the corner of the building.  Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out
at a sunset sky spread behind the surrounding buildings.  Below was the
plaza, with the mayor on her platform at the far end.  The man went behind
the leafy shrubs of a raised bed at the end of the lounge.  “I lost
visual,”
Dizzie
said anxiously.

“What do you
mean you lost visual?” Bradley’s voice growled.  “Didn’t the department
fill the place with cams?”

“Yeah, well
they didn’t put any behind the decorative shrubbery!”
Dizzie
lamented.  “Sherlock, can you zoom in from this angle here?  Maybe we
can get a look at him through the branches.”

“
Immediately,
Miss Mason
.”

SHERLOCK
was good at multitasking.  While he magnified that particular camera’s
view for
Dizzie
, he simultaneously overrode the
entrance’s security system for Jill.  A simple pick quickly took care of
the manual locks.  “I’m in,” she reported, crossing the lobby quickly
toward the stairwell.

“OKAY,
I can sort of see him again,” said
Dizzie
, leaning
close to her monitor.  Through the leafy branches she could see the man
kneeling near the corner windows.  “Looks like he’s retrieving something
that was hidden in the bushes...”

Then he was
facing the window overlooking the plaza.  He moved slightly, and something
metallic was protruding from behind the shrubs. “Zoom a little closer,
Sherlock,”
Dizzie
ordered tensely.

Sherlock
obeyed.

A hole had been
cleanly cut through the glass pane.

“Sniper!” cried
Dizzie
.