Brain Storm (US Edition) (24 page)

Carla left her position of safety to close the door. She kept trying to keep her eyes from focusing on the bodies making a mess of her apartment but she couldn't resist. She obviously regretted it when she did get a proper look because all the
color drained out of her face and she doubled over as though she was going to throw up again. She either managed to keep it inside or there was nothing left to come up. As soon as the door was closed she retreated back behind Sara by a course that kept her as far away from the bodies on the floor and the guy who was still standing as she could get.

"I'm not going to explain it all in detail but Carla and
I have had a really bad day. I want to find out why. I don't expect you to have all the answers but there are certain matters you can explain for me. I want to know all the details about this protection you were providing for Carla." She went silent waiting for the man to speak.

Carla seemed to be in a bad state behind her, breathing heavily and pacing in small circles. The man still hadn't spoken. Sara kicked the arm of the body nearest her to put it closer to the main mass. "If you aren't going to talk your no more use to me than these boys. Don't think I only killed them because it was self-
defense, that because I'm a woman I can't kill in cold blood. I am very capable of doing so and with someone like you I think I could really enjoy it."

"Fine I'll tell you," the leader said belligerently. "A few months ago this old guy, Karl Grosset he told us, came around saying he had a friend who needed to disappear for a while so she'd be slumming it down here. He knew that this area can get pretty dangerous unless you're connected so he cuts a deal with us to keep her safe. He sent us regular payments and in return we gave her a cut-price deal on this apartment and made sure she wasn't messed around with." He leered in Carla's direction. "Pretty thing like her it took quite a bit of cash to make it worth our while not to mess with her ourselves. Now the cash won't be coming in any more we can mess all we like."

"Not as far as I'm concerned," Sara said. "What did he say she had to get away from, who were you supposed to be protecting her from?"

"He didn't say and we didn't ask. People end up here for all sorts of reasons. As for who we were protecting her from, there are plenty of
unsavory types here who would bother a girl without connections as it is without him having to name specific threats."

Sara didn't think the man was lying to her. She had been trained to read peoples non-verbal communication and their reactions so that she could spot lies from truth. He was telling her all he knew. She half wanted him to be lying because then there could still be the chance of him giving her a lead. As it was she knew nothing much than she had before. Definitely nothing that gave her any better idea of what her next course of action should be. Plus she had to decide what to do with the man standing in front of her. She hadn't been lying when she told him she had killed before with no other reason that she had been told to. She didn't overly enjoy having to do that sort of thing. On the few occasions she had started to have a crisis of conscience over a straightforward assassination job she harked back to something she had read years ago about treating it like taking  Hitler out before he could start screwing around in Europe.

Despite that Sara didn't know if she could kill this guy in cold blood without it being part of a job. Fair enough this was no model citizen and the world could well be a better place without him in it, but it wasn't up to her to take him out of it. As long as he wasn't a direct threat to them she had to let him live.

Sara spoke over her shoulder to Carla. "You have some electrical tape or wires or something to tie this guy up?" She kept all expression out of her face so that he still thought she could kill him at any moment.

Carla nodded and answered hesitantly. "Yes."

"Fetch it here."

They could leave him tied up in Carla's apartment. He would free himself sooner or later, or else one of the other members of the Legion would come looking for him. By the time that happened the two women would be long gone and they wouldn't be coming back. Sara had until he was restrained to decide where it was that they would be long gone to.

Eventually the gang leaders head was covered in roles of thick electrical tape. Over his mouth, eyes and ears with only a small area around his nose to provide space for breathing. His hands were wrapped in tape from the wrists up to his elbows and his legs were done up from ankles to knees. Sara dragged him off into the bathroom and heaved him into the bath. She didn't want him hearing where they were going now that she had finally come up with something.

She returned to the living room and Carla. "Do you know where this Grosset guy lived?"

Carla shook her head and a sad look returned to her eyes.

"Okay, we should be able to get that information off the network from your terminal."

***************

Sara had accessed details of Karl Grosset's address on the network, details like that were a matter of public record for all but a select group for whom publication of their address could pose a threat to their security. Sara had physically destroyed the portable computer terminal immediately after acquiring the information and had deposited it in a number of refuse chutes on their way out of the building. She kept the main memory board with her until they were a few hundred meters away from the hotel before casting it onto a fire burning in a barrel and providing heat to a small selection of homeless types. Sara received several grunts and mumbled words in her direction but for the most part they kept their heads down and concentrated on the flames.

Sara ached to get inside a vehicle so they could hurry up and get to Grosset's residence. The problem was, in this rundown
neighborhood, the only vehicles were burned out shells or overturned wrecks. Sara reckoned that the car they had arrived in would have been stripped within minutes of their having left it. They took a different route away from the hotel than the one they had used to get there purposely so they wouldn't pass anywhere near the car so Sara didn't have the opportunity to discover if her prediction was true. They couldn't risk going back to the car in case it had been linked to their escape and had been traced.

The pair steered clear of the roaming gangs as much as they could. Even if word hadn't gotten out to the rest of the Legion of Doom about what they had done, word could already have been out that the protection order on Carla had been lifted. It wasn't always easy to keep away from them. Shaven and tattooed heads bobbed around many of the streets or other displays of gang membership were on show. On those occasions that they simply could not avoid moving past the gangs they kept a steady brisk pace with their heads looking down to the ground. Sara kept her hands in the pockets of her jacket with her right hand closed around the grip of her weapon. Although she had her head directed towards the ground her eyes were alert, drinking in the details and ready for her body to react to any threat.

They were able to make their way without being molested to one of the points where the poor sector of the city bordered with the more well-off areas. This wasn't one of the tightly controlled official checkpoints, nor was it an unofficial one run by the gangs for a price. It wasn't even one of the old abandoned points that had been forced open and was now free to use like the one they had used to get in. They wouldn't be guaranteed safe passage through any of those if the conspirators had even a general idea of where they could be. So they had wound up here where they had to create their own border crossing.

"I can't climb that," Carla said looking up at the five
meter tall, graffiti covered, concrete wall that separated the two areas. Wicked looking spikes, many with old cans stuck to them where they had been thrown up from below, stuck out from the top of the wall at a variety of angles. On the other side they were disguised behind a border of flowers and plants. The denizens of the poor sector didn't qualify for such benefits.

Sara cast around and wheeled a large refuse container, the kind that would be hidden away in the back alleys for the rubbish from an apartment in the better off area but was just left wherever down here, up against the wall. She wedged some of the rubbish that spilled out of the container up under the wheels to keep it from
moving around then climbed up onto the thick curved lid and beckoned for Carla to follow. In the end Sara had to bend down and give Carla a hand to get the other woman up. Sara knelt on one knee and made a cradle with her hands on top of her other knee.

She looked at Carla who was still standing with her arms out as though to maintain her balance. "Come on, I'll give you a boost."

"No way," Carla said her eyes flicking from Sara's hands to the top of the wall.

Sara could see that there was nothing she could say to convince Carla to go for that so she got Carla to bend down and provide her with the boost. She jumped the remaining short distance between Carla's hands and the top of the wall. Her hands closed around the bases of a pair of the thick spikes and she pulled her body up. She carefully arranged her body around the spikes knocking some of the planters to the floor on the other side of the wall. Then she had to hook her legs around the spikes so that she could hang upside down to help Carla.

The slightly younger woman looked up at Sara and shook her head. "I can't."

Sara blew out to move loose strands of hair off her face. "You can. Just grab hold and I'll do the rest."

Uncertainly Carla moved along so she was directly underneath her and reached up. Their hands met and Sara took a tight grip to make up for any weakness in Carla's own grip. That done Sara took a couple of deep breathes and tensed for the effort. With a burst of strength she forced her arms and body back up bringing Carla along for the ride. She grunted with the effort and forced a last surge of strength through her muscles to bring Carla the final few centimeters to the top of the wall with her. She flopped back down for a couple of breathes before she could muster the energy to get herself properly positioned on top of the wall again.

"Okay," she said her breath pretty much recovered. "Getting down this side should be easier than that."

"Getting down
will
be easy, not injuring ourselves in the process will be the hard part."

Sara gave Carla a sidelong look. The other woman was clinging to the spikes she was nestled in-between as though her life depended on it.

"Watch how I do it." Sara cleared herself a path through the remaining plant life. Then she got a grip on the edge of the wall, none of the spikes were close enough on this side nobody in their right mind would be trying to sneak
into
the poor district. She lowered herself off the wall and extended her  arms and legs so that her feet were as close to the floor as she was going to get. She dropped. The remaining wall flashed past in a blur and then she hit the ground. She bent her knees to cushion the impact then went straight into a roll to get rid of the rest of the kinetic energy built up from the fall.

She dusted herself off taking a quick look around to see if she had been noticed. "See? Simple. Now it's your turn."

Sara couldn't make Carla's eyes out clearly in the darkness but she definitely wasn't convinced. "I'm not going to wait around for you all night. If you don't come down from there soon I'm just going to leave you."

"Please, I . . ."

"Just lower yourself off the edge then drop. I'll catch you. Don't worry."

Carla
maneuvered awkwardly on top of the wall, turning herself around. Sara moved so she was underneath her as she let her legs go over the edge. Her stomach and chest followed.

"That's good. See how easy it is?" The words had barely passed Sara's lips when Carla scrambled on top of the wall.

The younger woman lost her grip and tumbled. Sara watched her drop, winced in anticipation but kept her position. She didn't so much catch Carla as provide her with a crash mat. Both women hit the ground in a tangle. Carla was first to her feet, brushing herself off as Sara tried to recover from the impact.

"You were right, that was pretty easy." Carla extended a hand to help her to her feet which Sara accepted.

"Easy for you perhaps," Sara retorted in the same good-natured tone Carla had used.

Chapter
Twenty

"We have yet to reacquire contact on either of the targets. We have no intelligence on where the first target disappeared to after Grosset made contact with her. It is possible that the targets are now both in hiding there. There has certainly been no sign of them at either of their official residences."

"Has target two tried to make any further contact with Ash?"

"No, sir. Given that we apprehended her as she attempted to enter ECSIS and the conversations she had with Ash prior to that event it is probable that she knows ECSIS has been compromised. While she won't know how deep the infiltration runs she will be sure to take certain precautions."

The figure on the other end of the communication, who appeared as nothing more than a silhouette being illuminated by a screen from behind, brought his hand up to his face. "Have either of them attempted to make contact with the police or any other security force?"

"Again no. If target two knows we have infiltrated ECSIS she is bound to be wary of making an approach to any other security force."