I feel like I'm drifting. I feel like everyone is moving in fast-forward while I am standing still. I feel like that scene from that movie, the one where everyone is sped up except me. Events below have caused me to disengage.
I live my life on the periphery. Even when I am part of a group, I'm always on the fringe. I never feel that I belong here, wherever here is today. Some days that works to my advantage. Many days it doesn't. I am self-sufficient and independent but work alone.
My file says I started as a snitch, a low-level informant. Like most things in my life, that too is a lie. They pay me to watch, to observe, sometimes enemies, sometimes allies. In this organization, we have no friends. Sometimes, there is a secondary mission, off the books, omitted from the file. Drop the right word here, the right expression there, reinforce the right idea or nudge someone in the right direction. But leave no trace, no fingerprints. Make certain they never realize that I'm the provocateur.
Today, the mission is in a convention center, a massive, informal, three-hotel complex with a maze of meeting rooms and subterranean auditoriums. The hotels are connected by skybridge walkways above the street. That's good because I don't like to go outside. Too many places for others to watch and hide.
On paper, the mission was simple. They always are in someone else's mind. A weapons dealer was using a science fiction convention to cover for a major tech exchange. The initial bids had already been recorded in a blind auction. Now, it was down to the survivors. There would be an inspection and a second round of bidding, then the winner would take delivery in the middle of a crowd of forty thousand plus.
My primary mission had been to ID the principals and their entourages. My secondary was to tag one of the cases with a noisy geo-locator when my partner lost her bid. Which she would have. That was part of the plan. The tag was meant to look like a double-cross to sow the seeds of betrayal between one faction and another. If anything went wrong, the final layer was containment. I knew there would be a security team staged nearby to make sure the tech didn’t get released unsupervised, but I didn’t know exactly where. All I had to do was call.
I didn’t often work with a partner. More of an associate since she didn’t even know I was there. But I remembered her from the early days, back before I worked alone. Now, I was Intel, she was Field Ops. I’d had the training but had never had to use it.
It was a complex mission requiring coordination, one of my most complicated yet. We even had an inside man. And that's where everything had gone horribly wrong. But that wasn’t why I’d disengaged.
I had started in overwatch up on the first floor railing, thirty feet above the lobby, overlooking the Atrium below.
When I'd been given my partner’s description, tall, lanky, flaming orange hair with three glittery tears running down one cheek, I’d thought, not exactly inconspicuous. Not exactly subtle. That was before I realized how many of these freaks there'd be. Thousands. Some were dressed in weirdly bright colors with hair in pink and green and blue. Others were in pseudo military uniforms from no army that I recognized. Many were hauling large, black cargo containers like amateur roadies at cross between a Battle of the Bands and a taping of Antiques Roadshow. And the place was awash in weapons, mostly replicas I assumed. Ideal for an illicit transfer. Who would notice one more set of freaks?
I'd sat through the introductory briefing. I knew most of the names of the characters but I couldn't be bothered to recall them unless I had to.
Seventeen minutes ago, I had watched my partner disappear into an all-night concert in one of the auditoriums. The tech, loaded into a pair of large, black Pelican cases, was already inside. The cases were MilSpec sealed against everything unhealthy for the tech: moisture, dust, shock and awe. Like my partner, they blended in perfectly with the rest of the décor.
I knew there was a problem when I saw a flying wedge of hotel security forcing its way through the crowd followed by the paramedics. Later, I learned later that my partner had suffered respiratory failure. They’d revived her in the ambulance.
I had never lost a partner on a mission before. That provided the momentary distraction someone else was looking for. In the excitement, both buyers and sellers had dispersed. And like the queen in a game of three-card Monte, the cases had disappeared.
While my bosses had me watching her, we'd both been betrayed from the outside. Or much, much deeper within. Someone had set us up nice and clean, just like I would have done it. Sow a seed of doubt and let the paranoia grow at its own speed. If anyone knew I’d been watching her, now they'd be watching me.
I had no way of knowing who had taken her out. Her radio had been silent on the issue. And the identity of the inside man had been compartmentalized outside my knowledge. I had a sneaking suspicion there was a contingency in play, one I wouldn't like.
I let the scene wash over me as I thought, disengaged but not despondent.
I assessed the situation on the floor below. I saw both convention and hotel security, but I didn't worry about them. Cops only a little more. If the situation turned ugly, they'd pull out and wait for reinforcements. Though there might be enough to form a tactical squad if they thought of it. That could be a problem. At least I didn't see any real military like at the airport. Or were there? Some of these guys could pass.
Standing there, I was torn between my partner and the cases. The problem was things were moving too fast. Everything but me. And I wasn't even supposed to be here.
I hated improv but figured I had no other viable options. Right now, the secondary took precedent. If the containment kicked in, this place would take a long time to recover. Time to earn my pay.
I had maybe minutes before this entire complex went Fallujah on me. If the security team had a spotter, they'd start containment any time now. My only shot was tagging the cases before they moved again. I could pull rank and take charge, but that meant exposure for me and my bosses. Not publicity they liked. If our security team picked up the signal from the geo-locator, they might wait to see how this all played out. Relying on them for subtly was never a wise contingency plan. But it was the only one I had.
I had an idea where the cases might be headed, but needed to make a couple quick stops before I followed. My Bluetooth earpiece would descramble any of our secure transmissions with the help of my Blackberry, but it couldn’t monitor convention or hotel security without the proper inputs. Which meant I needed a security headset. Then I had to trap all their frequencies.
Luckily, I'd scoped out the OpSec parameters before the mission started. Convention security would be the easiest place to score a headset, and theirs might pick up hotel security as a bonus. That meant a four-level descent down two different stairwells. The glass elevators would have been better, as maybe I could recon on the way down, but the elevators in this place took forever. Didn't any of these freaks ever take the stairs? It sure looked like some of them might benefit from a little Stairmaster by Marriott. But that opened up traffic-free alternate routes for me.
I also needed a change of wardrobe. Business casual was far too upscale for this affair. I’d go shopping on my way.
I dropped down the back stairs two at a time. At the Atrium level, I crossed to a secondary stairwell, avoiding the crowds milling around the grand staircase and the escalators. Even this end of the hotel was crawling with photographers, voyeurs and the exhibitionist objects of their desire. After the scene outside the concert, I was amazed con security hadn't cleared the floor. After the flying phone incident last night, the place had gone into virtual lockdown, badges and room keys only.
Two floors down, I exited into a party of light and shadow pulsing to a Euro-trash beat. The music wasn't half-bad, but the costumes the musicians wore made Alice Cooper look like a deacon's wife at a churchyard social. The problem was I needed to pretend I was interested.
First things first. I needed a badge. So, I picked the first person I saw staggering toward the elevators alone. A quick bump and slight of hand, and I had become "Marilyn, My Bitterness," whoever she was supposed to be. That one hadn't been covered in my briefing but would have to do.
From there, I made a quick circuit behind the music tables and lifted an unattended T-shirt, hoping it wasn't triple-extra large like most of the ones I’d seen people wearing down here. It turned out to be a blood donor shirt, which I hoped wasn't prophetic. At least it was black and not tie-dyed purple and blue. It had a pretty cool Chinese dragon on it. I could work with that.
Next, I dodged my way through the press of see and be seen toward con security. The door to their command post, if you could call it that, was one of the few clear spots on this level, right across from a band whose music repelled even these geeks. I tried to figure some way to use that to my advantage but couldn't. So, I feigned brief interest in front of some pasty twentysomething nerdling whose eyes lit up as I approached. I turned away before he could open his mouth once I’d set up my Blackberry. I’d settled on the distraction I needed.
Security was clear, so I ducked inside.
"Can I help you?" asked the girl sitting behind one of the four computer terminals. She looked like she might be sixteen, but all the twentysomethings did these days. I knew they had security cameras out on the floor. I'd already scouted out their blind spots.
"I think you might have trouble brewing outside,” I said. “The gang in gray-face looks like they want to start a turf war with some guys in boxes behind the stairs. It could go Kandahar pretty quick.”
She just stared at me like I'd spoken Chinese, which I would if I thought it might help.
"He means Plan 9 is looking for trouble with the action figures behind the spiral staircase," said a woman over my shoulder. "You're about to have a major Jedi versus Sith."
I turned around to find a tall, lanky woman with bright blue hair dressed in black overcoat with a tight, white, sleeveless T beneath. Yet another one not covered in my briefing. She was what they called con-hot. Not New York, celebrity nightclub, sex tape hot, but someone no sane man would kick out of his hotel room even sober.
I glanced at her badge. "Miss Corrosion." The only real name was "Lucretia." I’d only heard of one Lucretia, the Borgia pope’s daughter, and she wasn’t a sweet young thing.
Whatever she said, it got the response I was looking for. These pencil-necks could really move when they wanted to. A guy in camo with a sparkling green plastic, St. Paddy's Day bowler led a squad with headsets out the door, bellowing, "Move, people!"
"Is there anything else?" the twentysomething asked as if she were surprised I was still standing there. As was I.
"Come on, honey, quit thinking hentai or we'll be late for the Live Astronomy at the Hilton," Miss Corrosion grasped my hand and led me out. I had no idea what she’d just said.
I was still trying to figure it out as she pulled me into the stairwell. "What in the…" was all I managed to get out before the door closed behind us.
"I hope whatever you were after in there was worth it," she said as she spun me around. "Because that stunt means they’ll remember us both."
"I don't know who you think you are," I started again, trying for a sterner tone.
"Well, I know you’re not." she flipped up my badge up, "Marilyn, My Bitterness. I suspect she'll be missing this pretty soon, and be right back in Security to report it. You’d better hope they didn't make the name. Now give me that T-shirt you lifted."
Before I could protest, she had dropped her coat on the rail and was shucking out of the sleeveless T that already left very little to the imagination.
"I know they're pretty, but do you really have time for sightseeing right now?" she said as she extended her hand, now wearing only the black, pleated skirt and tights. I turned away, passing her the shirt.
"I don't know what your angle is here, but I've got an appointment." I said with my eyes shaded. Then something draped across my hands.
"Get out of the button-down and put these on,” she said. I looked down at my hand. Her T-shirt and skirt. She had to be kidding.
"It's a cargo kilt,” she said, laughing at my expression. "All the metrosexuals are wearing them. Don't worry, it's adjustable. And the shirt will fit, though I think you'll stretch it out more than will ever look good on me again. I hope you're not going commando under there."
She was serious. And dark-haired now. She was in the process of wrapping the blue wig in her coat and stuffing it under the bottom stair. "You could have picked a larger size. This is going be drafty," she said tugging the blood-donor shirt down over her tights, looking down her back.
Not moving, I tried a new tack. "Thanks for the free show and all, but, I think you have me confused with someone else."
"Contrary to your opinion," she replied, hands on hips, "I don't do this for just anyone. I'm your advanced team. I'd show you my ID, but," she made a show of flipping her hands down her torso. A small, black clutch had materialized over one shoulder. "Maybe this will do." She cracked open her purse to reveal the crosshatched grip of a small pistol. That looked real enough.
I'm not sure whether it was her credentials or the amazing resemblance she bore to my downed partner, but I opted to use her as a local guide for the moment. Whoever she was, she knew the indigenous population better than I did, and might even know the terrain. Besides, I wanted to know exactly who she was and what had happened to my partner. Keep your friends close and all of that.
"I'll need that coat," I said.
"The coat's a dead giveaway."
"So's this," I said, opening my shirt to expose the holster.
"Good point." She started digging it out from beneath the stairs.
Not having an alternative, I shed my slacks and shirt and squeezed into her ribbed, sleeveless T and pleated skirt. Drafty didn't even begin to cover it. I transferred my Blackberry to a pocket, then adjusted the holster to rest in the small of my back.
"At least the shoes work," she said as she looked me up and down, "but lose those socks. That's too geeky even here. Too bad you didn’t score a staff badge. Just turn yours around and security might not notice."
As I adjusted my Bluetooth around my ear, she tossed me a radio unit like all the convention security people wore. "I think you forgot this."
“Thanks.” I dropped it in the pocket opposite my Blackberry. With the frequencies I'd picked outside con security, I was now full duplex, transmit and receive. If I trusted her.
“Where to now?” she asked.
“Back to where the cases started, down in the basement of the Hilton. If we’re lucky, we can pick them up again there.”
A quick sprint upstairs landed us right outside the skybridge between hotels. Traffic was light. The meeting rooms had mostly closed down. Problem was, if we didn’t have to fight the crowds, neither did the guys with the cases. Unless they’d taken time to unload, they could be almost anywhere by now.
Less than five minutes later, we were descending a long escalator in the Hilton.
The basement was a huge, open space, mostly, but not quite, empty. It had the feel of a twenty-four-hour diner, the kind you know is crazy busy at breakfast, lunch and dinner, but you wonder just who’s sitting there at 2 a.m.
Amongst the bare, round tables that looked like an ill-attended wedding reception were a smattering of groups of mostly young men huddled around boards surrounded by cards and crowded with multicolored pieces. At a glance, I didn’t see anything I recognized. No Risk. No Monopoly. There was something that looked a little like Clue, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
Miss Corrosion and I surveyed the landscape for any sign of the cases. Aside from a couple of cloth privacy screens, there wasn’t anyplace to hide them down here. Except in plain sight mixed in with the stacks of black plastic crates off in one corner. After a quick circuit of the room to peer behind the dividers, we made for them. Where we were greeted by two guys, both younger, one tall, large and happy, the other short, thin and very serious.
The little guy spoke first. “Here to check out a board game?”
The big guy looked at my partner and said, “You look like you’d be up for something adventurous, Runebound or Descent.” Then he turned to me. “But you look more old-school strategic, maybe Axis and Allies or Lord of the Rings Risk. So I’m betting that Arkham Horror or BSG would be just the thing to satisfy both of you.”
“Actually,” Miss Corrosion said, “we were supposed to meet some friends down here. They would have been carrying a couple cases just like one of those.” She pointed toward the stack near the wall that seemed to be vomiting more board games than my cousins’ basement when I was young.
The two young men looked at each other uncertainly.
“Don’t tell anyone,” she said, leaning in conspiratorially, “but I heard a rumor that they have a signed copy of Chainmail. My friend here is a bit of a collector and very interested. They might have some other stuff, too, but didn’t really want to advertise that they were hauling it around.”
The little guy looked dubious. “Third edition?” he asked.
“Second,” she answered, “The one before TSR.”
They both nodded approvingly.
“There were a couple of guys hanging around like they were waiting for someone. I figured they were meeting up with a gaming group. I tried to interest them in a game of Killer Bunnies to pass the time, but they weren’t biting. They took off a few minutes ago.”
“You don’t know where they were headed, do you?” she asked.
The big guy answered this time. “They said maybe they had gotten confused and were supposed to meet in the Hyatt.”
“Yeah, but that might have just been an excuse,” the smaller guy added. “They looked kind of uncomfortable when we approached them.”
Miss Corrosion looked at me. “Well, I guess we’ll have to check there. This deal would be too good to pass up.”
“You might tell them the con frowns on private sales down here,” the big guy added. “They need to take it upstairs or we’ll all be in trouble.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that,” she said. “We just wanted to make the exchange in public. You know how much it’s worth.”
They both nodded again, this time sympathetically.
But I could feel their eyes follow us all the way to the escalator. As it carried us up, I asked, “What in the hell is second-edition chain mail, some kind of weird medieval armor you people wear?”
“It’s an old pamphlet from the 70’s with war game rules for miniatures,” she said without looking over at me.
“How expensive could a little booklet be?”
“Five hundred base. Five times that if Gygax signed it. At least ten if the other guy did.”
“Five grand American for a game?” I said. She nodded distractedly. I could only shake my head. But she seemed to know what she was talking about enough to fool the geek experts, at least for a couple minutes. And she had gotten more out of them then I thought I could have, not that it was much.
Once we hit the lobby, she started for the escalator that would take us back up to the skybridge we had come over on.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To the Hyatt. We might still be able to catch up with them.”
I shook my head. “It’s time to call in containment. If those cases get released into the wild, it’ll look like a bad day in Bosnia.”
“We should give it one more chance before we call in the cavalry. You know what this place will look like when they come charging in. Besides, we haven’t been out of visual that long.”
“We shouldn’t have been out of visual at all,” I said. “You’ll just have to keep your team under control.” We both knew how likely that was regardless of what either of us wanted. But I’d never met a reluctant security spotter before. They usually had hair-triggers for calling in the troops and causing a scene. Maybe she’d done time in Ops.
“I don’t recommend this,” she said.
“I get that,” I said. “But it’s my call.”
“It’ll go down better if they hear it from me. But I’ll need your authentication and override code.”
Ah. I’d been waiting for this. It almost made sense. CYA. My bosses would not be pleased.
Reluctantly, I gave her what she wanted. She made contact with the security team over a secure channel behind a cupped hand. Discretely, I monitored her frequencies on my Blackberry while pretending to check my messages. Everything checked out. Perhaps she was on my team after all.
She terminated the connection.
“Where do we link up?” I asked.
“They’ll deploy through Peachtree Station.”
“How long?”
“Five to ten depending on the trains. They’re staging one station up.”
I nodded. Just enough time to street-hike and meet them. I waited for her next move.
“You should meet up with the security team and coordinate them,” she said. “I’ll recon the Hyatt and set up forward ops. We can rendezvous there.”
I nodded again. That, too, almost made sense. By the book protocol.
“Sounds good” I said. “I’ll snag a sat-comm from the tac-leader and get in touch. We’ll link up in fifteen in the Hyatt. That’s too short a timetable to work the proper channels with the cops and hotel security, so we’ll have to keep this quick and quiet, and hope it doesn’t blow up worse than it already has. So, keep it subtle.”
She turned a hip, dropped a shoulder and smiled that perfect smile. “I don’t know any other way.”
We split up in the lobby. I broke left, down a secondary conference wing crowded with lab-coated geeks pushing a projection cart that carried a cross between a Frankenstein movie prop and a WWII-era nuclear bomb that seemed to be playing music, if you could call it that. It sounded like a psychedelic funeral dirge.
I lingered where the wing exited onto the street. The food court mall by the subway station was a straight shot, two blocks up. Going around rather than through the Marriott was the optimal route this time of night. The Atrium would be even more packed than when we left. I assumed when I left her that Miss Corrosion would exit the front of the Hilton and head up the block on the other side of the building. We didn’t have much time before the security team was onsite, and they definitely needed adult supervision. Still, I hesitated and watched the glassed-in skybridge above the street. Sure enough, I saw her striding across, dodging through people like a salmon through rocks on its way upstream.
I started across the crosswalk in case she was watching for me. But I palmed my Blackberry and set it to record a frequency scan, just in case. Less than a minute later, I saw what I was looking for as green bars flashed across the display. She was talking to someone and it wasn’t me. I broke into a run uphill. Now, it was a race. The skirt was a definite distraction.
I was on the stairs up the outside of Peachtree Center when I heard the first rumblings of trouble over the con security headset. Someone had reported an unspecified incident in the food court. Con security was polling their positions for confirmation. Judging by the spike in radio traffic, hotel security and Atlanta PD were doing the same. They’d already closed down the two skybridges in the Marriott as a precaution. In five minutes the cops might start emptying the place, which was exactly what I didn’t want.
I didn’t have much time to get our security team in position and come up with a plan.
At the top of the staircase, I glanced back down the street. Foot traffic between hotels was picking up. At least they weren’t turning people away from the Hyatt yet.
I ducked inside just as a rent-a-cop was checking the door. I almost clocked him as I burst in which seemed to annoy him. But that probably described his entire weekend. Then I almost bowled him over as I beelined for the subway entrance. He shouted after me, but didn’t pursue as I raced away, my skirt flying up. How did women wear these things, never mind run in them? Now I knew how field hockey players felt, only my uniform didn’t include any cute and colorful spandex undershorts.
I met the lead elements of the security team at the top of the world’s longest, most disorienting escalator. They were dressed like high-tech government-issue ninjas, complete with the requisite gadgets, holsters and black, eye-slitted ski masks. In this place, they’d blend right in. I knew the leader, an agent I’d worked with several times before named Chen. He, at least, was safe.
“We only have a couple minutes before this place blows up like a Taepodong missile,” I told him. Then I looked over his shoulder. They were only five of them. “Where is the rest of the team?”
“I’ve already deployed second squad along the street per your orders,” Chen said.
I shook my head. That confirmed it. Somebody was working against me. “Ok, we don’t have time to reconfigure.”
“I can radio them…”
“Radio’s compromised. We’ll just have to make it work. First, I need you to set up cell phone jammers to cover this entire block. Plus, we need all police frequencies offline. That means fire, too. That’s how they’re going to make their move to get the cases out. Once we’re inside, I want the entire hotel phone system disabled.”
The agents raised their eyebrows. “All that’s going to get a lot of attention,” Chen noted.
“All the good choices were gone before you got here,” I said. “Switch over to encrypted, spread-spectrum mode. By the way, someone hand me a spare sat-comm.” One materialized in my hand. As I jacked it into my Blackberry, I continued. “I need two agents to cover the skybridges here. Just hold this side and make sure no one leaves even if that means a standoff. Drop someone here to cover our retreat. One more comes with us to cover the other skybridge in the Hyatt. Bring in the lead from second squad to cover the back stairs to the street. That leaves you,” I said to Chen, “in the lobby while I flush them out.”
“Standard containment?” one of the agents asked.
“No. Local PD seems inclined to keep people out for the moment. That works for us. Our biggest threat is an uncontrolled evacuation. But we don’t care if the people leave. All we care is that nothing bigger than a carryon gets out. At last visual, the tech was still in the cases, but could be transferred to a large duffel bag. Probably wheeled. It’s heavy.”
“Vehicle traffic?” another asked.
“I’ll cover the parking garage and lock it down after I verify the loading docks are clear. Have the external team signal if they spot a service truck. According to the hotel intranet, there’s nothing scheduled.”
“And the backup team?” Chen asked.
“Call them in to secure the subway and relieve our people in the food court, though I doubt they’ll get here in time to do much more than cover our retreat. This could go down fast. But if they do, have your second collect up his remnants into a strike team.”
“What about local PD and hotel security?” the lone female agent asked.
“Recruit them if you can,” I said. “If not, use any threat necessary to keep them out of our way. National security and federal obstruction for starters. Use any agency name except our own.”
They all nodded. That, at least, was standard procedure.
“If there are no other questions…” I paused for a moment. Everyone shook their heads. “Let’s get moving before someone thinks to pull a fire alarm.”
We left one agent to hold the subway for us, then dropped two in food court to cover the skybridges there.
As we transited through the hotel corridor to the lobby, I gave Chen a few more instructions.
“I want you to setup a tactical net monitoring all secure communications. Any disposition changes, regardless of source, including mine, get passed on to me through this secure channel.” I setup a special IM thread on my Blackberry. Chen nodded, then stopped short.
A young woman wearing little more than silver cat’s ears and a well-animated tail had paused in front of us, blocking our way. “I love the costumes,” she said “The new Stargate?”
“Something like that,” I said.
“The weapons look so real.” She pulled out a camera. “Do you mind if I get a picture?”
Chen started to reach for her camera, but I waved him off. “We’re in the middle of a live action right now and running late. But we’ll be over in the Atrium a little later. They’ll be a lot more of us then.”
“I’ll look for you,” she said as she scoped out my legs then sashayed off toward the food court, glancing back over her shoulder.
“Not exactly procedure,” the female agent noted.
“You get a lot of that here,” I said. “It’s best to improvise.”
She nodded and smiled knowingly, pretending to peek under my pleated kilt.
At the hotel lobby, I pointed her toward the skybridge beyond the bar. Chen headed for the cluster of hotel security, Atlanta PD and state police holding a worried conclave by the escalators as they eyed the still expanding crowd. By now, their radios would be nothing but static and their cell phones would have no bars. Even the landlines would be down hard, if they thought of them at all.
I split off and headed for the back way into the underground complex. I pulled up the convention map and overlaid the floor plan I’d downloaded.
Even if the second team came online quickly, we still didn’t have enough personal to cover all the exits, as a quick trip around the block on Google Maps will tell you.
As I descended the first set of escalators in the eerily empty International Tower, I contacted Miss Corrosion on the comm. “The security team’s in place. What’s your 20?”
“I’m in the basement,” she said, “Conference Center level. Is the strike team online?” I was surprised she answered but was interested in what else she had to say. Maybe I was wrong about what was going on.
“No, we’ll form it up when second team gets onsite. First, we need a target, before local PD thinks this is a bomb scare and does something stupid.”
“You might rethink that,” she said. “They are going to move it through the parking garage.
“I’ll secure it then come to you.”
“Hold there. I’ll bring them to you as soon as I confirm a visual. Back in five.”
“Signal when we have a target.” I said. She closed the channel just as her position marker sprang to life on the 3D overlay on my Blackberry. With the sat-comm, I could track her position in real-time for what it was worth. Which was might be something like Greek debt on the European market by now. I broke into a run. I didn’t know exactly who she was but I didn’t want to miss another face-to-face.
After dodging my way through the cartoon crowd spilling out of the rooms on the lowest level, I came to the bottom of the escalators leading back up into the Hyatt proper. To my left were the doors into the underground parking garage. All valet, no self-service. So unless they had someone on staff, the cases were unlikely to be going out that way. But I already knew that. Which left me precious little time to figure out where they were.
I checked my dedicated IM channel. None of our people had been moved, so no tip off there. I checked Miss Corrosion’s position, and found her meandering two levels up. I knew better than wasting my time with that. God only knew whose pocket her comm was in by now. I suspected she’d turned traitor in this game. But where the hell was the exchange going down?
As I stood disengaged again, a young woman in shiny, white plastic body armor nudged past me to get on the escalator up, just as two guys in western long coats, one wearing the ugliest yellow and orange knit hat I’d ever seen, were about to step off the down side.
“Aren’t you a little short to be a storm trooper?” one of them asked her as they passed. Probably the best pickup line he could think of.
“You know how many times I’ve heard that this weekend,” she sighed. The pair of them seemed to take her acknowledgement as an invitation and u-turned right back up to sniff her tail. A newsprint program fell out of the tall one’s coat pocket onto the bottom landing as he nudged his buddy with an elbow like he thought he might get laid. Out of your league, friend.
Looking for inspiration, I picked the program up and thumbed through it. It was a pocket schedule for the convention. Not much official going on this time of night, except the cartoons, some B-movies and a couple concerts.
Wait. Concerts. Amps, instruments and all kinds of other electronic equipment. And tons of crates to get it all in and out. Plus music to cover any noise.
I quickly I checked the room and cross-referenced it with the hotel floor plan. And there it was, hiding in plain sight, a vehicle elevator. Even if we’d cleared this level, we might not have found it until too late.
I dashed up the escalator. The next level was more crowded but not overly so, mostly milling drunks and a couple of attractive twentysomething hook-ups seeking out the deepest shadows. Pretty much like the backstairs of every nightclub I’ve ever been to. They might be geeks but they still seemed fundamentally human right then. I’m sure none of us had thought at the beginning of the weekend that national security would include protecting them and their weird fantasies.
The next up escalator was packed, so I dodged to the stairs between it and the down, taking them two and three at a time until I crashed into the sea of humanity at the top. I pushed my way into the press of alcohol and sweat soaked bodies, past the impromptu hotel bar, past the potbellied Gene Simmons clone, past the drooling picture takers gathered around a young woman clad only in green body paint and a few strategically positioned leaves, past the sparkling merman with a trident who definitely worked out and was eyeing my legs. Finally, past mob after mob of fishnet stockinged, tightly corseted, brightly-colored hair, pasty-skinned, black eyelinered young men and women, some on leashes. It was like an expiration date expired casting call for Road Warrior with no Mel Gibsons, all drawn into a mutant congregation by the thumping baseline in the auditorium beyond.
The doors to the concert hall were cordoned with velvet ropes and more con security who were turning everyone away and shouting at the crowd. “You aren’t getting in this way. The line starts outside. So move back before the Fire Marshall shuts us down.”
Line? For a geekfest concert? And what the hell was a Cruxshadow anyway? I could see where they were snaking the line across the floor like some evil Disney carnival ride. The crowd was loud and restless. It was setting up like the streets of Belfast during marching season.
I was tempted to push my way through with the gun and badge routine. But this posse was one incident away from a complete meltdown. If I were still in business casual, I just would have just walked across like I belonged. That wasn’t going to work in a kilt and sleeveless T with a perv coat concealing a gun. But I needed to cross that line. I had no doubt the Pelican cases were somewhere inside.
So, instead of waiting for random friction to ignite the crowd, I decided to start flicking matches. I may not know the language but I knew rival tribes when I saw them. Words would be unnecessary to inflame their mutual contempt into open combat. Fortunately, there was plenty of exposed flesh to provide the tinder, most of which was infused with alcohol.
Starting a fight is easy. Ducking out of it without getting caught is harder. The two cops at the bottom of the escalators to and from the lobby above were in surveillance mode, sweeping their gaze back and forth across the crowd like twin beacons of a lighthouse. That made the timing tricky but not impossible.
I quickly ID’d my target, an attractive young woman in a chain mail bikini half-drunkenly draped across a bare-chested Schwartzenegger knockoff. Crowded in close behind, a knot of small, weaselly guys in yet another set of unidentifiable uniforms was openly ogling anything with breasts and legs. They’d gotten loud and demonstrative, resulting in several disdainful glances being exchanged. Perfect. Time to light this candle.
When the crowd parted briefly, I slipped by the woman obliquely. I made certain my right hand, the one nearest her, was visibly occupied above my waist texting on my Blackberry. Trailing my left hand behind my back, I flicked her bare behind with a finger, then slapped my hand angrily against my leg as I pulled it back to my side to make sure the sting registered in her mind. I retreated without a backward glance as the crowd closed behind me like the Red Sea.
The crack of the slap silenced the residual noise just in time for the pain of the flick to catch up with the young woman’s beer-addled senses. “Ow! Someone pinched my ass!”
An expectant hush descended, quickly followed by a sonorous “The fuck you did!” from the Conan clone directed at the pervs behind him. From there, the turbulence in my wake erupted like an Irish folksong. A moment later, cops and security beelined in from all sides like a brace of Exorcet missiles. By then, I was a couple dozen feet clear, slipping the security headset out of my pocket and turning my badge backwards. As all the males in con security abandoned their posts to help with the fracas, I approached the heavyset woman in the con security shirt still standing beside the door.
“Go inside and get some reinforcements,” I said. “I’ll take over here.” She looked puzzled as if trying to piece together what I wanted. I didn’t give her time to think. “Do it,” I commanded, “before this turns place into a riot. The radios are still dead. We’ve got no way to call for help.” I tapped the headset to reinforce what I was saying.
She scurried inside. Which left me as the only fox guarding the henhouse door.
I ducked under the yellow crime tape blocking access to a third set of double doors into the concert hall to my left. Straight back were two more doors, either of which would provide the most direct access to my destination. Both were locked, of course. So, I’d have to take the back way through the concert. I just hoped I still had time. The pandemonium could catch up with me at any moment if the cops decided to shut down the floor.
I slipped inside the double doors and was greeted by utter darkness. Opening the inside door was like passing through a barrier into a world defined by a throbbing baseline driving flashing, multicolored lights. The place was SRO front to back, a few thousand packed in easy. Row upon row of chairs were filled. There was a mosh pit directly in front of the stage. All around, scaffolding supported lights, amps and video screens. Farther back, a raised camera platform recorded all the action. I had to say these people knew how to party. It was like a high tech, geek-themed Mardi Gras in here. All it needed was the beads.
I sidestepped into an alcove with a water station, surveyed the layout and consulted the map on my Blackberry. The rollup door to my destination sat right behind the blackout curtain that blocked the view backstage.
The band was somewhere south of metal and north of modern rock. They sported the standard-issue instruments plus a pair of violins. Two dancers in black bustiers flanked the lead singer who strode across the stage with Jaggerian confidence, his spiked hair bouncing with the beat. For all the sound and fury around him, he definitely knew how to sing. The music wasn’t half-bad. I might have to check out a CD when all this was over. When the singer grabbed a chair and waded out into the mosh pit flanked by a security escort, I seized my opportunity.
I wormed my way through the crowd toward the blackout screen leading backstage, after almost getting clocked by an apologetic redhead with a shawl who had jumped up in front of me to start dancing in the aisle. She could have been nearly my age.
Backstage access was controlled by a lone security sentry, the only one in sight who wasn’t with the singer or hadn’t been caught up in the mayhem outside. He looked like a Braveheart wannabe in a kilt with a combo balding braid. I tried the authority play, attempting to walk straight past like he wasn’t there.
He blocked me with an arm like that Scottish log they tossed at the highland games, as if it would have stopped me were I so inclined. “Where do you think you’re going?” he barked over music.
“I need to find Dave or Mike,” I picked two common names at random, nearly screaming them to be heard, then snatched a third out of my head. “Sarah said one of them might be back here.”
“Big Dave?” He furrowed his brow.
I dredged a sobriquet out of the briefing, something unique but physically unidentifiable. “Chthulhu Dave.”
“Chthulhu Dave,” he chuckled. “That’s a good one. It fits. Give me a message, I’ll tell him when I see him.”
I used what I had been told would be a one-time, all-access emergency pass and hoped it worked. I leaned in close to his ear. “Tell him the Fire Marshall’s sniffing around outside. One more incident and he says he’ll shut us down before the encore and screw the second act. It’ll be room keys only down here.”
I saw him mouth an obscenity as he glanced over his shoulder. I craned my neck with him. Behind the cluster of people beside the stage, all of them focused on the performance, I spotted the aluminum rollup door I was looking for, firmly closed. That meant I needed to get to the service corridor that circled the room and come up on my destination from behind. I spied the door to that, too, as I panned the area.
Just as I was about to drop this bruiser and declare a medical emergency, he relented. “Try the other stage entrance by the mixer,” he pointed across the room as he yelled into my ear.
“It’ll be quicker if I go behind,” I said, gesturing to the stage door.
This time, he just nodded and cast a worried eye at the number of people dancing around the singer on his impromptu stage. The guy had guts. As I started by, security grabbed my arm. “Send anyone else you see back there my way.”
“Will do, “ I yelled. I breezed right past the cluster of groupies, roadies and support crew without so much as a second glance. I stepped lightly so as not to become entangled in the snake’s nest of cables taped across the floor.
A few seconds later, I escaped the thumping beat and seizure inducing light show through the rear service door. The music still echoed in the corridor like a Sunday morning hangover. I had expected unpainted cinderblock but found finished wallboard lined with wood bumpers, and a drop ceiling with recessed fluorescents.
To the left, behind the stage, the corridor narrowed to fit three emergency stairwells. I marked those in my mind as they might be my easiest access to the street if I was wrong. To the right it jockeyed around the back wall of the vehicle elevator, the front of which was my destination. The corridor was devoid of activity, though littered with black, wheeled cases but not the Pelicans I was looking for. I ignored them. Most were lidless and either empty or disgorging cables and electronics. Those still sealed were awash in backstage detritus, discarded playlists, empty Red Bull cans and crumpled snack bags.
On my Blackberry I quickly confirmed that none of our security team had been repositioned. They were still in place, which meant I might be on the right track. Miss Corrosion’s comm unit was now hovering on the lobby level in the vicinity of the bar. Her five minutes was almost up.
I moved around the corner to the right. Straight ahead, I could see the first of the two doors I’d found locked earlier. The space between it and the other, around another corner and out of sight, was occupied by a fourth emergency stairwell. There were too many places to hide in this maze.
I hugged the near wall, watching foot after foot of corridor expose itself beyond the jog as I cautiously advanced. From the map, I had an idea of what to expect but knew from experience that maps didn’t always translate accurately. Soon, I could see the other door. Closer and to the right, within a walled of alcove, was a set of open stairs that scissored back to somewhere off my map. So far, everything was clear.
At the corner I gave a listen. I heard nothing over the throbbing concert. Show time.
I bobbed my head out and back, taking in the rollup door across the space and the entrance to the vehicle elevator on my right. No one home in front. I moved to the next corner, careful not to engage any of the elevator buttons, then ducked my head around again.
Inside the elevator, I found a white Econoline van. A perfect hiding space. If we’d quickly cleared the parking garage and the loading docks, we never would have found it. The elevator’s safety gate was up, which meant someone had been here recently. I spot-checked the van’s side mirror. No one looking back. Quickly, I cleared the other side and its mirror, then the underside. No sentry. Strange. Where were these people? I would have thought they’d have someone watching such a valuable cargo. I was beginning to doubt my instincts.
I pressed my ear to one of the windowless back doors of the van, then cautiously opened it after I heard nothing stir inside. There they were, the Pelican cases, just as I’d last seen them, ready to roll. I confirmed they were still loaded with the tech then dropped in my surprise, the noisy geo-locator. Now all I had to do was walk away.
I had just closed the door when I heard a lull in the music. In the hush I could make out the singer’s voice.
“Do you know what time it is?” he asked the crowd. Accompanied by a few thousand voices raised in unison in an eerie, Euro-soccer-style chant, he answered his own question. “It’s time for ‘Marilyn, My Bitterness.’” I looked down at my badge, and hoped he wasn’t talking about me.
In the instant of cheering that followed before the music returned to full volume, I heard voices and heavy feet descending the blind side of the open stairs. Crap. I bolted for the hidey-hole in the cubby beneath the stairwell. I dropped all pretenses and drew my pistol. It was too late to bluff my way out now.
“See, no one stole it back,” one of them said as he stepped into the loading area in front of the vehicle elevator. “None of them even know it’s here. Nothing to worry about.”
“I’ve got to admit,” the other said, “the band is pretty good. But why not stay for one more song? That redhead was getting into it.”
“That’s always the song they close with,” the first answered, then turned back to business. “Go ahead and get the van ready. She’ll be here any minute.”
I pulled out my Blackberry and thumbed up the radio locator. Sure enough, Miss Corrosion was on her way down the nearest emergency stairwell. So, she hadn’t ditched the radio. Just as I was about to give Chen a head’s up, I heard my own voice on the comm telling him I had reestablished contact and they could pull out. What the? Then the channel went dead. Rather, it appeared to. ComSec 101: There is no better jammer than one of your own compromised radios.
Before I could react, the door to the stairwell swung open. I scrambled to reposition myself into the farthest corner where I hoped neither she nor the van crew could see me. Too late. I caught a glimpse of her as I darted by, holding a pistol in one hand and a Blackberry with a sat-comm unit that looked suspiciously like my own in the other. That meant she knew exactly where I was, too. Where the hell had she been hiding that. More importantly, where had she gotten it? Off my partner I presumed.
“Start the van,” Miss Corrosion said. “We leave as soon as the music ends. We’ve got a delivery to make. I’ll be there in a minute. There’s something else I need to check.”
I didn’t have many options now. If I started throwing shots, this place would turn into a rerun of Mogadishu circa 1993. A pile of bodies was not what my bosses wanted. I knew she had a pistol and I suspected her companions did as well. You don’t rip off both my organization and the type of people we were dealing with armed only with a nice figure and a smile. My backup was on their way out. Any minute now, the locals’ radios would come back online. I was certain that would play into her escape plan.
I had nowhere else to run, no other place to hide. I had no idea what she had planned for me. If I disappeared now, it would only confirm my superiors’ suspicions. To them, she was just an extra with neither a name nor profile. I was the one with the expertise to pull this off, and it was my voice giving all the commands. If I died, it wouldn’t matter. Either way, she had neatly rolled up an eight-month operation and tied it with a bow. Only I knew that she had to be someone else’s inside man. She couldn’t have done all this without someone feeding her information. And she’d never talk if she were dead. I had underestimated her.
I heard her heels like tiny gunshots above the raging concert slowly click, click, clicking closer across the concrete floor. I couldn’t get a fix on her exact position because of the music, but my Blackberry showed her headed right for me. She knew exactly where I was. All she had to do was flush me out.
My heart began racing as fast as my thoughts. This shootout wouldn’t go down like Lethal Weapon, more like an entry vestibule in the Bronx. I had never fired at anything other than paper targets and that only a handful of times a year to qualify for a gun. She looked amazingly like my partner. Would I hesitate? I suspected she wouldn’t. And the odds were three-to-one against me.
In silent prayer, I stared up at the white acoustic tiles on the ceiling as she closed the angle. Up there, I spied my guardian angel in the form of an automated sprinkler head. If I couldn’t prevent her escape, I could certainly move up the timetable and make it more dramatic.
Bracing my back into the corner, I steadied my pistol with both hands, sighted in on the red glass bulb and squeezed off a single round just like on the range. As the gun’s concussion deafened me, the hallway exploded in a shield of water, light and sound. Time to slowed to stop-motion fast. Bullseye.
A white strobe flashed like lightning through the artificial downpour, only instead of thunder, a piercing, three-tone siren cut the air. I didn’t know how many sprinklers were open now, only this one or the entire line. It didn’t matter. In less than a minute, the hallway would be awash with thousands of conventioneers descending the emergency stairs to the street, once they believed the fire alarm was real. That didn’t leave Miss Corrosion much time to deal with me without witnesses.
I didn’t plan to make her job any easier. While I still had surprise, I seized the initiative. I popped out from behind the concrete stairs and fired off two more rounds, aiming for the van, a target I knew I could hit. I kept my aim high, so as not to damage the cases. I retreated to cover quickly, not bothering to note where the bullets struck. My only objective was to keep Miss Corrosion from drawing a bead on me. She and one of her companions belated registered as blurs of motion. I didn’t even try to extrapolate where they were headed.
Miss Corrosion recovered fast. She laid down covering fire on the move, spraying chips of concrete whizzing by my ears. I closed my eyes and kept my head firmly down. She screamed for her accomplice to prep the elevator.
When her gunfire paused, I popped out again, snapping off three more shots in the van’s direction, my vision tunneling only to the elevator. All I wanted now was to keep them moving away from me. Miss Corrosion rolled under the crosshatched safety gate as it slammed into place. By the time I ducked back, the elevator had begun its descent. More shots smashed into the wall behind me, sending shards of cinderblock and droplets of molten metal splashing across my face.
A few heartbeats later, I dropped lower beneath the stairs, ducking out and back quickly, squeezing off another couple rounds. Miss Corrosion returned fire, but without the accuracy or sting of her previous volleys. The angle was no longer in her favor as she and the van disappeared into the floor. Quickly, her shots became despondent then stopped altogether.
A few seconds later, my vision widened back to normal as a ringing registered against the siren rattling my ears. I emerged from my hidey-hole like a rain-soaked rat to survey the damage, wondering how to flee this sinking ship. The music next door had ceased. Any second now, I expected security to investigate as they cleared the floor. Time to disappear.
The mission hadn’t gone as planned, but close enough for anyone in my line of work. Rule one of counter-espionage: No plan survives first contact with the enemy. With that in mind, this one had stood up pretty well. The primary and secondary had been accomplished, all without resorting to containment. Not a bad night’s work. Miss Corrosion was good, almost as good as me, but she worked with amateurs. They never should have left the van unguarded.
As I walked across the hallway to the emergency exit, I enjoyed the cool water splashing against my face. I wondered if the action would have moved back to the Marriott, or maybe the Hilton now. These people definitely knew how to party. I could use a drink and a little female company. Maybe they weren’t all that strange. And I still had an expense account, a room key and a badge.
Stepping out of the artificial rain into the shelter of the stairwell, I pulled my Blackberry from the pocket of my kilt. On the IM channel I’d set up earlier, I typed Chen. “The package has been tagged. Standard frequency. Tell Ops I’ve exposed their inside man. They can pick her up from here.”
© 2011 Edward P. Morgan III
