The Ghost in the Doll (Fox Meridian Book 6) (11 page)

‘It does, yes. It’s wide enough to allow voice-only conference calls. I suspect it is their main source of communication to the outside world.’

‘Yes, but why would they need it? They can get cheaper, faster service through a radio link to Tulsa. That’s what Cable’s people use. Of course, if they want their calls kept entirely private…’

‘Agreed,’ Kit said. ‘This is a little odd.’ She popped up a set of emails for Fox to see. ‘Someone external puts through a request for “one ox heart, three braised kidneys.” Similarly, an outgoing message indicates that “lamb’s liver” is to be delivered on the third of last month. There are a number of similar messages dating back… seven months.’

Fox smiled. ‘At a guess, an ox heart would be an augmented, male heart. Lamb’s liver is a female augmented liver. Braised could mean anything, but it’ll be code for biomod kidneys. We’ve found the place, Kit.’ Slipping her rifle off her back, Fox pulled a cable out from under the sight and plugged it in at the back of her head. ‘Is there anything on there identifying who they’re supplying to?’

‘There are encrypted files which I may be able to get into, but nothing with real names has come up so far. Apparently someone has a clue regarding security.’

‘Guess that means I have to make sure one of them lives.’

‘Don’t you think it would be better to contact NAPA and have a team sent in to–’

‘And risk losing the two people in the cages? No, I don’t. Besides, I’m trained for this and I used to do it before I had a body that could stand up to gunfire. I’m going in. Bring up all the tactical software.’ Letting her rifle hang on its sling, Fox took her pistol from its holster and checked the load: baton rounds. ‘Perfect. Kit, use their satellite hook-up and get a call through to Cable. Tell him he needs to get down here with a van, pronto.’

Fox took two steps out from the building, turned, and fired two rounds into the uncovered window. Then she moved forward, pushing through the shattered glass and turning toward the bed as its occupant dazedly tried to sit up, push out of sleep, and work out what was going on. Three plastic rounds slammed into his chest and stomach, slamming him back down again and leaving him winded and hurt. Fox holstered her pistol behind her back, lifted her rifle, and marched toward the interior door into the garage area.

There were, indeed, fourteen bunk beds set up in the room beyond the door, and fourteen men in them. Only two of those, however, were actively doing anything about the sounds from the other room, and most of them had not even woken up. Fox selected the target most likely to reach the shotgun he kept beside his bed, aimed, and fired. The three-round burst punched through his chest and he fell out of bed, knocking the gun over.

Fox shifted her aim to cover the second man. ‘Everyone keep
very
still, or everyone dies!’ Men who, apparently, kidnapped and murdered people for a living stopped moving, their eyes on her. ‘Right, everyone is going to move, slowly and carefully, to the far end of the room. If anyone tries anything, I will fire, and this is not a subtle weapon.’

One of them, the man who had woken second, stood up, but he did not move away from his bunk as the others were doing. ‘One woman can’t take us all out. You’ve no–’

Fox shifted her aim and fired. Two slivers of metal punched through her target’s right knee and his little speech cut off in a high-pitched scream as he collapsed onto the concrete floor. ‘Anyone else want to make any stupid suggestions?’ Fox asked.

‘He does have a point,’ Kit said. ‘How are you going to keep them all contained?’

Fox glanced around quickly. She had not really been expecting it to be this easy. She had expected, in fact, to be looking at fourteen corpses by now. But there was one thing you could always expect to find in any respectable camp. Twitching her rifle toward one man who looked to be the youngest, and most scared, of the group, she said, ‘You. Come over here and pick up this roll of tape.’

‘M-me?’

‘Don’t make me repeat myself.’ Fox stepped back and he rushed forward, grabbing the roll of duct tape from where someone had left it. ‘Good, now you’re going to tape all your friends’ wrists together. You’re going to do a good job, because if I think you’re not, I’ll shoot you and get someone else to do it. Understood?’

She got a dumb nod in reply, and then he turned and started for his colleagues. From the looks he was getting as he started work, Fox had the feeling that ‘friends’ was the wrong word. She watched in silence as he wrapped tape around the men’s wrists. A couple of them tried to shift their bindings after he was done, but they were holding fast. She was going to have to leave them there, but if they ran, they would not get far, and it would take them time to get free to retaliate. It would have to do.

‘Okay,’ she said when the kid was done. ‘You come with me.’ She nodded to her right, toward another interior door. ‘You go first. Try to remember I’m the one with the rifle.’

‘Uh… yeah.’ He set off through the door.

‘The rest of you, consider the fact that I also have a grenade launcher and stay right where you are.’

‘I might suggest that they won’t,’ Kit said. ‘I should also point out that your current assistant is the hapless Lucien Wood.’

‘Huh.’ Fox followed Wood through the door and into what she would have described as Hell, except that she had seen Reginald Grant’s torture chamber. The next room had three benches in it, all of them covered in blood. One had the remains of a man on it, his abdomen split open and a length of intestine looped out at his side. There was nothing Fox was going to be able to do for that one. ‘Keep going,’ Fox hissed.

‘I… I didn’t know w-what they were doing,’ Wood said, starting for the next door. ‘N-not until it was t-too late. They’d have–’

‘Not interested in excuses right now, Lucien. If you live through this, and the people I’m helping don’t decide to shoot you, you can explain it to a judge.’

‘How’d you know my name?!’

‘You need to learn to protect your implant computer. At all, never mind better.’ They walked through into the actual garage, with the cages and vehicles, and Fox paused to close the door and turn the latch on it. It would probably not hold anyone for long, but it would delay them. ‘Those cages, unlock them.’

There were, indeed, two people in the cages. The woman was fairly young, fairly pretty, but bruised, naked, shivering, and wearing the kind of dazed expression that came from continued abuse. She looked scared even when the door was opened and it seemed, to Fox anyway, obvious that she was being rescued. The other captive was a man in worn denim jeans and a T-shirt, no footwear. It also looked like he had been shot in the leg. He looked scared, but defiant. On the other hand, when he managed to haul himself to his feet, it was apparent that his leg was fucked.

‘We go out through the big door,’ Fox said. ‘Lucien, you’re helping this guy. Get him to the door, open it. Move.’ Then Fox looked in at the girl. ‘Your name wouldn’t happen to be Annaliese, would it?’

Her eyes widened and she looked up at Fox, even more scared. ‘Y-yes.’

‘Well, that’ll make Patsy and Cable happier. Come on, girl, we’re getting out of here.’

At the mention of the two dustbowlers, Annaliese’s fear subsided markedly and she struggled to her feet. ‘Cable sent you?’

‘Basically, yeah. They thought you were dead. They’re going to be pretty pleased to know you aren’t.’

‘I wish they’d just killed me.’

‘Ah.’ Behind her, Fox heard the door beginning to roll up on a clunky-sounding motor. ‘Hurry, go help Lucien with the other guy.’

Following Annaliese out, watching the inner door as she went, Fox left the building. It was in the middle of a huge, open expanse of not a Hell of a lot. This was dustbowl, good and proper, for miles. Fox had parked her Q-bug a fair distance away to ensure that it was not heard driving in, but hopefully Cable would arrive soon, and there would be transport. Then there was the leader, presumably the guy she had shot on the way in.

‘Keep going,’ Fox ordered. ‘Head down the road. Lucien, if I don’t find them with you when I come back, I am going to hunt you down and make your death long and painful.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Lucien said.

‘Where are you going?’ Annaliese asked, fear once again in her voice.

‘Just have to pick something up. Won’t be long,’ Fox replied, and then she turned and sprinted around the building.

She could hear voices as she stepped back in through the shattered window. Her victim, Ed Curry perhaps, was lying on his bed in the foetal position, but he seemed to be conscious. Fox could hear voices in the next room and they did not sound good.

‘Get after her.’

‘We need guns.’

‘
You
go after her. She’s fucking lethal!’

‘I’m gonna kill the bitch, and then I’m gonna kill Wood.’

Grinning, Fox grabbed Curry and carried him out, dumping him on the ground outside the window. Then she leaned in, aimed her rifle at the door, and fired a grenade through it. She ducked back out and there was a second’s pause before the building shook and fire burst out of the doorway into the bedroom, setting the sheets alight.

Fox heard Kit gasp. ‘I warned them,’ Fox said, picking up Curry. She started around the building to go after the others.

‘Yes, but–’

‘They would’ve come after us, at which point I’d have had to shoot them. Difference is that, this way, they don’t get a chance to hurt anyone else.’

‘I… suppose…’

‘Did you get the encrypted files off that server?’

‘Yes, Fox.’

‘I’m sorry if I shocked you, but it was the practical solution under the circumstances.’

There was a short pause and then Kit said, ‘You’re doing that thing again. Where you turn your emotions off. You’re doing that.’

‘I’m certainly not feeling any remorse over terminating a group of men who’ve committed multiple murders.’ Somewhere in the back of her mind, Fox wondered when she had shifted into combat mode and could not quite remember doing it, consciously anyway. She ignored the problem. ‘Sometimes I have to. To get the job done.’

‘Yes,’ Kit said. ‘I know.’

‘Cheer up. We saved two people and we got the bad guys.’

‘Yes… Yes, I know.’

~~~

Fox walked into the hut Curry had been put in, drying her hands on an old towel. Curry, fully conscious now, though rather badly bruised, watched her for a second, and then set off.

‘I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m going to–’

‘Shut up before I shoot you again?’ Fox asked.

‘My men will–’

‘You… don’t have any men, Ed. The only one who got out of the firehouse was Lucien Wood and, uh… Well, I just finished up with him.’ Fox tossed the towel aside and smiled. ‘He was very talkative.’

‘Wood doesn’t know anything.’

‘Yeah, well, I know that
now
. And I believed him… eventually. Little late, but you can’t have everything. Now, I need to know how to get into those encrypted files on your server. I can crack them eventually, but sooner would be nice. If you could tell me who you’re supplying in Topeka, that would be kind of cool too. Otherwise…’ Fox slipped a large knife from behind her back, one with a slightly curved, wickedly pointed blade and a lot of jagged points along the back.

‘All right! All right! The key to the files is brigade three two nine. One word, capital B, capital D. All the names are in the files. All of them. Topeka, Tulsa, St Louis, all of them.’

‘Confirmed,’ Kit said almost immediately. ‘I’m decrypting all of the files now. He seems to have kept quite meticulous records.’

‘Told you it would be something to do with his old unit,’ Fox said, inwardly smirking.

‘Yes, but the number of potential combinations was not reduced heavily by knowing that two, three, and nine were in the string. Also, we do not have a spare quantum processor.’

‘Well, there have to be some things this body isn’t so good at.’ Aloud, Fox said, ‘Cable is arranging for you to be taken into the NAPA facility in Tulsa. Of course, I don’t think I’d blame them if you didn’t quite make it, but that’s up to them.’ She turned on her heel and walked back out of the hut to find Cable, Patsy, and Wood waiting for her.

‘Get it?’ Cable asked.

‘Uh-huh. You were right, Lucien. He cracked as soon as I took the knife out.’

‘He was a surgeon in the army,’ Wood said. ‘
Not
a combat soldier. Always led from behind. Screamed like a girl when he stubbed his toe.’

‘Huh.’ Fox handed the knife to Cable. ‘Why do you even
have
a knife like that? It’s got to be the flashiest, most useless knife I’ve ever seen.’

‘Yeah…’ Cable admitted. ‘Scares the shit out of people who don’t
know
it’s useless though.’

‘Especially ex-army surgeons, apparently.’

Grinning, Cable clapped his hand onto Fox’s shoulder. ‘You did good by us, Fox. Even brought one back we thought we’d lost. You’re welcome here any time.’

‘Thanks. I’d normally say something about just doing my job, but I’m supposed to be on medical leave. So I’m going to get back to that, and leave the clean-up on this to NAPA and the Topeka Watch. I
really
hate paperwork.’

Part Two: Vitam Novam

Tokyo, Japan, 8
^th
April 2061.

Helen Dillan’s avatar took shape in Yuriko’s lounge, and Yuriko bowed formally before lifting her head and smiling. ‘Ohayo, Helen-san, I am ready to report on my observations of Aphrodite Cybernetics.’

‘Evening, Yuriko. Or is it morning there?’

‘Morning. I completed my operation at the factory last night, but did not wish to disturb you.’

‘But you got something, right? You’re looking happy.’

‘I hit, as you say, the jackpot, at least so far as connecting all the people involved. I have identified five individuals known to be members of the Fukui-kai.’

‘Known to be?’

‘I personally know that two of them are. The others were identified from police databases. One of them is quite senior, a regional wakagashira for northern Honshu. I observed him leaving with a Yurei no Ningyo, apparently straight off the assembly line.’