The Pattern Ship (The Pattern Universe) (17 page)

“So, here’s the deal. If you want to keep all your money, stop strangling the businesses that need to invest in the machinery to build the equipment to manufacture the shields. I suggest you charge no more than a half percent interest rate. I think that would be perfectly acceptable. Agreed?” Zeke nodded his head trying to get him to agree.

Novamursky didn’t move except to lick his lips, his eyes furtively looking at the others for their reaction.

The man next to him was fat, greasy and of probable Italian, or Sicilian descent judging by his black hair, olive skin and meatball gravy on his suit. He was a greedy man. Zirkos and Zeke had watched his operation for weeks waiting to see what they were going to do with the opportunity to gear up all the factories for this moneymaking operation.

“Putschinski, your control of the factory workers is such that they will do anything that you ask, and I am asking, so you need to pay attention.” Zeke tapped his gun on the wooden surface in front of him.

The table was the only thing standing between them at this moment. The noise seemed overly loud in the room.

“I want all workers to be given your unions’ full support in setting up the manufacturing plants to get these shields built. I know you will want to control the overtime and the shift pay, but I warn you to be scrupulously fair, or my people will land and take over your operation and drop you into the middle of Siberia with no shoes on.”

They had already rescued one poor manager who had tried hard to convince Putschinski and who had been beaten up and left shoeless in the forest miles from Moscow. He would have been dead in minutes from the cold. Instead he had a warm reception in the space lounge before being returned home to await news. They had dozens more just like him.

Putschinski blanched, as he realised they were aware of his favourite means of dealing with dissidents. Safe in the knowledge that he or his men were innocent of any murder, they let nature do their job for them. The wolves got fed, the rumour mills kicked in and Putschinski never had to do anything more than just mention how cold it could get for people to suddenly become pliant and agreeable to his demands.

Zeke heard a chuckle in his ear and realised it was Zirkos listening in.

“Now I know transportation is a serious issue, so here is my simple offer to you,” he said, turning to Romanov.

“If you find that you are unable to collect and deliver all of the necessary materials and finished products in a timely and productive manner, I promise I will come down and personally test out my new fleet of anti gravity vehicles to manage it for you. They are all controlled by robots so none of your drivers would be required.”

Romanov looked a decidedly angry red colour. He was definitely the most volatile of the lot.

“I warn you Romanov, I can follow every single one of your trucks, drivers and every piece of cargo that moves inside Russian borders. I will know if you are not cooperating. You will not know anything from me until I remove you and your people.” The warning him left him nicely simmering.

Zeke congratulated himself, politics was a breeze!

“Now, Leibowitz,” Zeke turned to the last member of the little cabal.

He was a nasty looking sort, not big like the others. He smoked black cheroot type cigarettes which reeked of camels dung and he always wore his black leather gloves. A fetish they had decided. He liked wearing the German round glasses that always seem to be fashionable amongst the certain few. His grey suit looked a little unkempt, as if he had worn it a few too many years. Too tight to buy a new one, Zeke suspected.

“That’s not a Russian name, is it? East German? Ex Stasi, I would guess. You didn’t like the other side of the Berlin wall because you had no opportunity to ply your trade.”

The only response was a single eyebrow raised as Leibowitz sucked on his cheroot nervously.

“Well, I’m very sorry to say you are going to have to retire. We have every intention of ensuring everyone will have a protection shield which means your ability to fix problems for your friends will no longer be possible.”

Zeke smiled at them all then.

“We” he gestured including all of them in his sweeping hands, “are very grateful for your input, but we also know that some of your friends in West Germany have been looking for you for a while so, I have personally arranged for you to make an unscheduled visit to see them.”

He smiled maliciously, he really didn’t like this little guy. He was an evil bastard who was just about to get his desserts.

“You are leaving for a long holiday just about...... Now!” And with that Leibowitz disappeared.

He would be most hurt to find he had been dropped into a holding cell at Interpol’s Berlin headquarters along with a pile of brown folders, photos and tapes retrieved from the hidden filing cabinets of his private apartments.

Other such documents had been distributed amongst other western nations Police forces. A lot of case files would soon be made available to Nuremberg for prosecution of their new star genocidal killer.

The other three had stepped back a little seeing their little fixer friend disappearing like that. Zeke thought it was probably a good message to leave them thinking about while he and Zirkos continued organising their replacements, that they had no doubt at all were going to be needed shortly.

“So, Gentlemen,” he rubbed his hands together conspiratorially.

He knew they wouldn’t understand the gesture, but keeping the body language on the attack all the time was something he was learning to do.

“I will come back to see you three in one weeks’ time, we will meet here as now and I expect to hear from you that everything I have requested today is being delivered. Yes? Are we in agreement?”

Zeke looked at them and noted their stubborn burning anger was showing. Thank god for personal shields he thought. Without it he had no doubt he would be torn limb from limb.

“I do hope we are, gentlemen, because the alternatives are going to be so boringly predictable.”

These were not people used to being talked to like that and Zeke was acutely aware of the battle they had on their hands. One they would win, but nonetheless they had to be given the opportunity to change.

“Good. Thank you Gentlemen, nice doing business with you all,” and with that Ship D-Jumped Zeke back to the control room.

Zirkos was laughing, which was funny to watch. It was something that had infected him since they had met, as a lot of human mannerisms seemed to. If it hadn’t been the silvery tint to his skin, he would have been as human as the rest of us.

“What do you think, next week? Ambush or compliance?” Zeke smiled, relieved the confrontation was finally over.

“Oh! Ambush, for sure,” he reckoned, “they were not at all happy with you. I think they will attempt to overpower you with numbers, or something we haven’t yet considered.”

“Yes, I suggest we undermine their power base over the next week. We have enough people in place on the ground down there now that can take over when the time comes.”

Zeke thought for a moment.

“I will go down and talk to Nublenko, he needs to know his cells are going to fill up this coming week.”

“Ship? do me the honour of putting me into Nublenko’s office please.”

Nublenko was in the middle of roasting a young recruit when Zeke appeared behind the poor lad.

“Mr Callaghan, your timing is perfect, please tell this poor excuse of a police officer that the force shields will be here soon. So, he won’t have to worry about getting his pretty face shot up.” He looked back at the officer and tossed his head towards the door.

The poor lad got the message and skidded out relieved to be free of his roasting.

“Petrov, its been a difficult week.” Zeke began hands splayed out in the Italian mob’s style of placating mannerisms.

They laughed, both knowing the problems that were dogging them all.

“Okay, here’s the real deal, Petrov. The whole thing is about get really exciting.” I grinned, rubbing my hands gleefully. The meeting with the Mobsters had got my adrenalin running.

“How much room do you have in your cells? I added hurriedly, “If I fill them, can you process them?”

“Hah! the jails in this place are bigger than the offices.” He threw his hands out indicating the size of the place. It was huge.

“They used to be the ones used by the KGB and GRU. You could put an army in here and lose them for a year and when you found them you would discover they had eaten half their men and used the bones to begin digging tunnels to the outside,” he laughed at his own humour.

Zeke suspected that it was in part true, and wasn’t prepared to consider which part that might be.

“Right, then listen to this. We have just set up a showdown with your Mob leaders and things are going to get a little rough. We will do what we can to keep it away from your officers and the innocent public, but I need to store the soldiers until its over. You can do what you like with them when we have finished.”

Petrov’s eyes widened as Zeke told him of their intentions. He hadn’t ever seen them in action properly, but had a fair idea of what they could do, especially the disappearing and arriving bit. He had no doubt that his jails were going to fill up. He just hadn’t quite come to terms with how full they were going to be.

Zeke needed to get some kind of visual of the jails so Nublenko showed him through the main central jails and they were, indeed, enormous and dank, somewhere no-one would want to be except as a fleeting visitor. He imagined the people who had been incarcerated here in the past with no hope of reprieve. Zeke sighed, humans were real bastards most of the time.

Ship had taken the coordinates of each of the rooms as they proceeded through them and would use them to drop people in there as they were 'cleaned up'.

After a few more details and stopping to down a quick red pepper vodka with a strong coffee Zeke managed to leave Petrov ready to organise World War III and knew that he wouldn’t be seeing him again until all this was over.

***

They monitored the Russians for any relaxation of the Mob’s total stranglehold over the coming week. There was little change, if anything some aspects were harsher. Every time Ship picked up someone and dropped them into the Russian jail, there was another one ready to take their place. Zirkos sighed.

“They breed, these black tattooed bears breed, is it that vodka liquid they drink?”

“Yes, No, its an all out power play,” Zeke laughed. “ They are saying for every soldier you take we will put up two in their place.”

Zeke leaned across the table that had become their base of operation.

“I have an idea.”

Two hours later Ship came under some heavy pressure as Zirkos and Zeke continued to identify soldiers of the Russian mob and as quickly as they were identified, they were removed and new ones replaced them only for themselves to be removed. By the end of that day there was no longer two for one, and it was more likely one for two as the soldiers dried up and the effect on the streets, factories and businesses were electric.

The next day there was a definite change in the atmosphere down on the surface in Moscow’s streets. People were beginning to gather to try and understand why their minders kept on disappearing. No sooner did new ones arrive barking orders at them, than they disappeared and were never seen again.

They started to rebel and the factory workers had a different attitude, the workers sensed things were changing and Zeke put the odd person in place to keep the rebellion on an even keel. The word was getting out that the Mob were being cleared out to make way for a new way of working.

The following day all hell broke loose as the Mob leaders decided they needed to make a big stand, so they took over a large government building and holed up in it with what was left of their soldiers and explosives, booby trapping the whole complex.

They had amassed several hundred innocent employees in there, all wired to packs of DXC, a Russian made explosive that had incredible explosive power. The victims, if it all went off, would be nothing but smears on the moon. The building would cease to have a GPS coordinate. It was their endgame.

Zeke and Zirkos studied the building. They would be unable to remove that many people with so many of them wrapped in the explosive. It looked like a dangerous stand-off that came immediately to a head when Romanov decided to start shooting at the police cars outside. A typical stunt, but it had the effect of galvanising Zeke into action.

“How big a beam can you create with Ship?”

“Are you thinking to D-Jump everyone out of there? It won’t work, there are too many.”

“No, I have a better idea. Ship, can you detect the molecular composition of the DXC they are using?”

“Affirmative.”

“Are you able to change the molecular composition without being detected to say, this?” He held up his hand and showed Ship what was in it. Ship scanned it.

“Affirmative.”

“Ship, proceed with transfer of molecular composition of the DXC. Advise time to completion?”

“Started. Time to completion in ‘invisible mode’ is eight minutes and twenty four seconds.”

“Ship, D-Jump me to the main entrance of that building, stand by to remove the three leaders when I say clear. At the same time remove all weapons from the soldiers.

Zeke arrived at the front entrance, a commanding edifice that housed the municipal tax office. It would be no great loss to the locals if the building with all their records went up. He reckoned half of Russia would be routing for the Mob leaders despite the havoc they created with the economy.

“ROMANOV?” Zeke hollered.

“ROMANOV, I’M COMING IN!” Zeke shouted, as he headed for the steps.

He didn’t for one minute believe he would be allowed to reach them before they responded aggressively.

He was right. Within a second the whole of the front of the building seemed to open fire as all of Romanov’s men moved into position in the window frames and began spraying him with bullets. The front of the shield went red in patches as it absorbed the heat of the shells and contact friction. The shells themselves either ricocheted off somewhere, or landed on the ground spent and buckled.