The Poet Heroic (The Kota Series) (5 page)

7

Berlin

One year later

Dynk smacked the executive across the face. The man tilted in his chair, but Tat had bound him tightly. Evant held the chair steady from behind with a foot pressed against one of its legs.

“Where is your rendezvous to pay the operative?” Dynk asked again.

The executive’s lavish hotel suite was the nicest they’d been in for some time, so no one was in a terrible rush to escape back to the streets of Berlin. A Dominion-secured city, Berlin certainly wasn’t the safest location for a mission. Fortunately, Babbitt had done a thorough security wipe-down of the hotel, so no monitors would be alerted to their presence any time soon.

They were, however, in a hurry to discover the location of the executive’s rendezvous. Sometime tonight, he was supposed to hand over a briefcase full of kronar to a Dominion operative awaiting payment for a job well done. This job had involved releasing a canister of DRK into a nearby village where Underground rebels were hiding. Thereafter, Cruelthor had ordered the executive to pay the operative and assign him his next target. Babbitt had luckily intercepted Cruelthor’s transmission when scanning for anything that might give them a lead on Dominion activity in the area.

The Underground commanders are mostly assholes, thought Vale, but they’re doing a lot of good in this region. We can’t let them be wiped out. Besides, Cruelthor shouldn’t get away with factoring an entire village.

Tat was rummaging in the mini-fridge. “Oh, yes! Guys, he has chocolate!” Her dark curls bounced as she popped up from the fridge. Smiling, she held two handfuls of expensive chocolate bars. She threw one across the kitchenette’s marble counter to Nocturna, and then Tat tore open her own and started dancing around, making sounds of pleasure as she chewed.

Nocturna made a ‘why not?’ face and opened her chocolate, took a bite, and winked at Vale.

Vale wore a coat with a wide hood to shadow his face, but he shook his head at her with a smirk. Then he indicated the open briefcase on the counter in front of her. “How much?”

“Looks like over a million.” Nocturna trailed her hand over rows and rows of loose kronar tubes, their fiberoptics lit in different hues to indicate their varying denominations. “I’ve never seen this much kronar at once. I almost want to lick them.”

Vale turned his attention to where Babbitt sat at the executive’s desk. “Any progress?”

Babbitt’s fingers were flying over the desktop controls, and file after file opened and closed on the holographic screen over the tech-laced wallpaper. “He’s wiped his files pretty clean. He didn’t use his own account to extract that much loose kronar, but I can’t find the ID account he did use. I’m getting a lot of financial records from his palm scans, though. We might be able to track his movements and figure out where he’s been lately, so that
might
lead us to his rendezvous if he scoped it out earlier, but…”

Nocturna walked over to Vale. “Sir, you know the quickest way to get the truth.”

Vale sighed and turned to where Dynk was interrogating the executive.

Most of the time, they managed to carry out their missions without having to expose who he was. In some instances, however, his telepathy was required. He didn’t like revealing his cards too often, however, especially when they planned to let the interrogated party walk away.

Vale put a hand on Dynk’s shoulder, and his friend turned his blond head to frown at Vale.

“Are you sure?”
Dynk thought at him.
“If he figures out what you’re doing, he’ll tell everyone he knows that you’re telepathic. I thought you didn’t want-”

“We don’t have time any other way,” Vale said aloud.

Evant looked at Vale pointedly, and Vale used their mind link to hear his thoughts.

“Try talking it out of him,”
thought Evant.
“He’s not one to crack from force – that’s clear. But coercion might work. He’s too slippery to risk letting him know you’re telepathic. We’d have to kill him if he figured it out.”

Vale nodded at Evant. Dynk stepped aside, and now Vale looked down at the captive executive. The man clearly didn’t recognize Vale yet because of the hood shadowing his face, but with dramatic flair Vale reached up and removed the hood from his shaved head. Vale saw recognition in the man’s widened eyes, then his eyes darted to the side of Vale’s head to quickly check for the Dominion tattoo.

Even after all this time, thought Vale, people still momentarily think I’m Cruelthor.

In annoyed amusement, Vale rolled his eyes and reached up to touch the slash mark that Dynk had once tattooed over the Dominion sign. “Yes, it’s me,” he told the executive. “The other one.”

The executive swallowed. He was sweating, and his bottom lip was bleeding from Dynk’s work. “I won’t tell you rebels anything. If Cruelthor ever finds out I talked to
you
-”

“Whatever comes next you can blame on the operative,” Vale said calmly. “
He
isn’t going to report anything to Cruelthor ever again. If you carry on as normal after this, my brother will never know you had anything to do with this. My friend at your computer has blocked your ID tag activity since we grabbed you, and all monitor surveillance has been looped for this hotel. As far as anyone knows, you’re just taking a nap right now before going to pay the operative. We were never here. If you tell me what I want to know, you’ll walk away with half the kronar you were planning to give the operative.”

That got the man’s attention. He glanced at Dynk nearby. “How do I know you won’t just slay me?”

“I guess trust needs to run both ways. You tell me the truth about where I can find the operative, and I’ll let you live with even more wealth than you currently possess.” He gave the man a moment to consider, then looked him in the eye and pushed into his mind
greed
and
fear
. “If you don’t tell me where to find the operative, Dynk will make sure you never taste chocolate again. Or anything else.”

Dynk pulled out a knife and stuck out his tongue, knowing Vale’s point.

“I’m flushed,”
thought the executive.
“But
I could use the kronar… Beathabane’s right; I can say I paid the operative and then don’t know what happened after I sent him to the BMO factory.”

Vale tried not to show a reaction to this. The BMO factory was in an abandoned suburb that had once been a main manufacturing district. It made sense that the Underground would have a base there. It made even more sense that it would be Cruelthor’s next target.

“Alright,” the executive finally said. He looked across the room at the clock. “I’m supposed to meet the operative at the Oberbaum Bridge in ten minutes.”

Vale focused on the man’s mind and sensed
sincerity, hope, relief.
Then he nodded at Evant.

“Thank you,” Evant told the man with a kick to his chair. “Dynk and Tat, stay here with him until we’re back. Babbitt-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Babbitt called from the computer terminal. “Keep the monitors oblivious and scrounge around for anything useful while you’re away. Got it.”

Nocturna, carrying the briefcase, joined Evant and Vale as they reached the hotel suite’s exit. “Let’s go catch us a bad guy.”

About ten minutes later, Evant and Nocturna walked across the famous bridge from one direction while Vale strolled from the other. Centuries of use and war had been kind to the bridge. Dominion reconstruction had been even kinder. Vale watched his brick and concrete path as he walked, and the smell of purified city water wafted up from the river. Beautiful lampposts lit the bridge rails. Several wealthy (and therefore Dominion) pedestrians smiled and chatted as they sauntered along the bridge. Many tourists carried shopping bags, and a few ate pastries from the bakery Vale had passed on his way. His stomach rumbled, but he adjusted his grip on the briefcase and focused on his mission.

“Don’t see anyone fishy yet,”
Evant’s mind-voice called to Vale.

Neither do I, thought Vale.

He sensed a wave of
frustration
from Evant. Vale knew Evant thought they had better things to do than watch the backs of Underground rebels. Just yesterday Babbitt had uncovered a route the Dominion was using to bring prisoners to the Mainland’s new factor base. Rescuing these prisoners was actually Vale’s #1 priority. However, then they’d heard the news about the factored village outside Berlin. Vale couldn’t let Cruelthor’s heinous attack go unpunished.

Those villagers didn’t deserve being factored, thought Vale. No one does. And I’m certainly not going to let it happen again to this next target.

Just then, ahead, Vale spotted a solitary man leaning against the rail of the bridge. He had checked his watch twice since within sight. He kept looking in Vale’s direction as if expecting someone.

“I think that’s him,”
said Nocturna’s mind-voice.

Vale looked past the man and saw Nocturna and Evant approaching from the other direction. Adjusting his path so that he could cut off the man if he ran, Vale tugged his hood farther over his face and walked with the briefcase in clearer view. The case reflected the lights of the bridge, and the shine of light-on-metal caught the potential operative’s attention. The man studied the briefcase, and his mind flushed with
greed
and
satisfaction.

Bingo, thought Vale.

The man stepped away from the rail and examined Vale as he walked closer. “Excuse me. Do you happen to know-”

Then the light must’ve caught Vale at just the right angle, and the operative’s face froze in horror.

Shit, thought Vale.

The operative turned to run in the opposite direction, but Nocturna and Evant were right there to meet him.

“Shh.” Nocturna reached out and grabbed the man’s wrist, skin to skin. “Sleep.”

Her mutate-genetic ability to sedate through touch worked quickly. The operative tottered before completely going limp, and Evant caught him as he slumped. Quickly, Evant threw one of the man’s arms over his shoulder to support him.

By now, pedestrians were watching.

“Oh, Andru,” Nocturna scolded loudly. “Always drunk before even getting to the party.”

Vale took the man’s other arm to support him from that side. Together he and Evant dragged away the unconscious operative.

“Any idea where his next target was?” asked Evant.

“Yeah, I heard the executive thinking about the BMO factory. We need to find this guy’s vehicle and make sure that next DRK canister never gets delivered.”

Nocturna was quite pleased with herself. She skipped ahead, twirling her purse – never mind the gun inside – as she ran ahead. “I’ll find Andru’s car.”

It was late by the time they reached the BMO factory. Vale had driven the operative’s car out of downtown Berlin, through the poorer streets of the suburbs, and finally into the old manufacturing district. The entire area was in ruins from centuries of war, but it was clear that the citizens were trying to restore the town. Vale had seen many similar situations during his past year on the Mainland – anywhere there was anything salvageable, citizens were trying to rebuild, especially if it meant living close to a Dominion metropolis. It wasn’t surprising the Underground had a base here, for they too needed to be close to supplies.

Vale parked the car at the rusted gate of the factory and shut off the engine. The rebel trio climbed out, and Evant lifted the unconscious operative over his shoulder. Then they stood together, in the clouded moonlight, and looked through the gate at the forsaken building. No lights. No sounds of humanity. The breeze brought smells of mold and rust.

“Sure this is right?” asked Evant.

Nocturna walked to the control panel by the gate. She flicked the buttons. “Dead.”

A loud voice cut over the wind, “Dead is exactly what you’ll be unless you put your hands in the air right now!”

Vale and Nocturna held up their hands and looked around. From a cluster of trees along the road, a soldier with a rifle hurried towards them. Evant turned with the operative and slowly slid the unconscious man to the ground. Then he too raised his arms.

Another soldier appeared from the trees and joined the first. “Who are you people?”

“No questions until we get them inside,” said the first soldier. He waved his weapon at them and pointed to the gate. “It’s open. Move. I’m taking you to Commander Scribe. Be quick, before we’re spotted out here.”

Evant sent Vale a look.
“They’re taking us into their base? Good lord, these people are idiots! They don’t know who we are, if we brought backup, if we’re armed…”

“Do as they say,” Vale told his partners.

Keeping his hands over his hooded head, he waited until Nocturna opened the gate. Then he led them inside the compound. The gravel parking lot was bare, and Vale studied the factory as they approached. Windows too high to escape from. Only the one cargo door. The side door they were headed for seemed the only way to quietly get in or out.