CHAPTER 10
SIFTING THE WAKE
It was nearly midnight by the time Major Eames arrived in the Sant Adrià de Besòs district. The sky was dull coal dark and low, and the rain had drizzled to a stop. The streets glistened in wet black and a concrete ozone scent charged the air. She could hear the police cordon beams still sizzling in the damp. District security had called this one right: responding fast and strong, sealing off the area, and radioing for her and the Task Force. By the time she got there, they had all the main avenues blocked by hulking military vehicles and squads of Guardia Civil troops.
She’d managed to snatch a couple hours sleep before the first calls came in, so her mind was clearer when she clambered out of the Command track. Still, she took the stone stairs two at a time to get her heart moving faster, get some focus in her mind, but as she turned around to survey the street, everything lensed out to a crawl. Another slap of déjà vu: three neat rows of lumpy, blood spotted sheets stretched away on the sidewalk; the orderly queue of sterile white ambulances; the spin of emergency lights making tenement frontages blink in the stark yellow lined relief of metronomed lightning; the clumps of detained civilians huddled around the C.S.I. vans.
You’re too late.
There’d been at a dozen scenes like this in her career, and she felt that same raw daze spreading over the activity, haunting, suffocating. As if everything got shocked mute from explosive brutality. They were just going through the motions. Sifting the wake. She shook her head, and the world synced back into place. She drew a sharp breath as Colonel Estevana approached from inside the mosque.
“Something wrong Major?”
“No. Too familiar, that’s all.” She took a moment to regard the older man. He had a deep lined face, worn more by the recent fatigue, and gray hair under the command helmet. She’d underestimated him, been too hard on him yesterday, (my God was it only yesterday?) but he took it and did his job. Good man. He was more cop than soldier, but these days the line was blurred anyhow. She pushed down her own wave of exhaustion, and made a mental note to mention him in her reports. “Doesn’t make it any easier though. What’s the count?”
“To start, we’ve got 11 bodies upstairs. All civilians - 5 with criminal records. Four must have been guards - we found pistols on them. There was some old scanning gear at the top of the stairs too. Strictly low tech, mostly for show. One of the civilians was a wire head with priors. Turkish and Russian gang related: all hack and fraud. Probably maintenance for the old system.”
“What else?”
The colonel hesitated. “There’re more bodies downstairs. In the basement. Looks like they hosted fights down there. There was a crowd -” his voice caught and Major Eames glanced his way. He returned her gaze for the briefest of moments, then looked away. Must be a horror show if he’s choked up, she thought.
“Take me there.” She said “I want to see for myself.” He nodded, said nothing, and turned back into the building. They followed police tape, blood smears, and the bustling ant trail of CSI geeks through the building, down the stairs. When she finally stepped out onto the lowest level she realized he was right: it was bad.
The air was rank, cloying with the tang of blood and bowels and the acrid linger of gunpowder. Dozens of bodies still lay sprawled across the main level, tumbled on the stairs, draped over the railings like broken dolls. The cement floor was slick with dark blood, wide swathes congealing into sticky black aspic sprinkled with spent brass casings. She clamped down hard before she retched. This wasn’t a shootout: it was butchery.
Frowning, she nodded towards the room. “How many?”
“67 bodies so far. A couple of them just parts. Most are here on the top level. Some in the stands, a few trampled on the stairs and down by the pit. There was more armed security down here; six as best we can tell. Two behind the bar, four on the floor. All had known histories with the Turkish mob. And this was certainly a gun battle – not bombers.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive – No shrapnel, no explosion radials, no legs.”
“Legs?”
“Usually all that’s left of bombers - their legs.”
“Right. Any live arrests?”
“No. There’s no one higher up the food chain. The Utilities room has an escape ladder. And it was locked from the inside. Whoever was in charge probably bolted at the first shot - left their gamberros to fend off the attack. CSI already sniffed the room. We’re checking for matches against the Interpol VICAP database.”
“Mob front like this - I take it there’s no surveillance, right?”
Colonel Estevana nodded.
“What about witnesses? Someone must have seen something.”
He consulted his datapad. “Interviews are ongoing. Most everyone was gone by the time the first response arrived however. Neighbors say the place emptied out fast. Everything was nice and quiet until people came streaming out like it was on fire. No one would hear anything going on down here anyway.”
“Your men find any survivors?”
He thumbed thru more screens. “We’ve got two wounded from inside - still being processed. But it looks here like they both mentioned a big guy and a girl. And an Asian.” He paused and knit his brow. “One of them also says he saw someone – Anglo male - throwing knives. Must have been one of his we found stuck in the bar. You think the Asian’s a Triad? Crank dealers have been scuffling over turf and supply.”
“No.” She shook her head, and moved carefully out into the main room. “This isn’t some street spat. It’s a war-zone.” She stopped and looked back at the Colonel. “Throwing knives, huh?” He shrugged, and she filed that bit of information away for later. “Any clues on the shooters? Bodyguards take down any of the attackers?”
“No. Not unless one of the dead gamberros tried to off his boss. And that’s not likely.”
“Any trace of this big guy and his girlfriend?”
“Too many people in the main area for sniffers to sort it out, and DNA traces off the weapons we picked up aren’t back yet. And then there’s the weapons…”
“What about them?”
“Well, there’s lots of brass - 10mm, old 12 gauge, 7.62. Typical gang guns. Bad thing is CSI team also found flechettes everywhere. And indication of an explosion: Semtex residue down by the pit - with plastic casing fragments. Said it was probably a micro-grenade.”
Major Eames eyebrows went up. “That’s definitely not mob stash. Both the shredder and Semtex are on the banned list. They’re tagged with mandatory life minimums just for looking at them funny.” Suspicion itched at the back of her mind. “Strictly military issue. Or Corporate.”
“Corporate? You think someone hired professionals?”
“C.E.O. orders a grudge hit on a low rent fight pit? No to that one too. And this - ” she gestured with her hand at the scene all around them, “isn’t too professional. Psychopathic yes, but definitely not professional.”
Colonel Estevana stared out onto the main floor again. “This – this can’t be deliberate, can it? This has to be some kind of deal gone wrong.”
“Something went wrong – for sure. The question is: where are the attackers? How’d they get out - with the last of the crowd?” She looked over at the colonel, who nodded toward the center drop, smiling grimly. Eames stepped warily toward the railing, and peered down the circular levels towards the arena itself. The fencing was shredded, crazy canted in tangles and heaps, acting as a steel link shroud for another butchered corpse. The cage door was ajar, broken open. “What else is down there?”
“That’s another problem. My men just started searching under the stands and found an old steel security door on the north side. Looks like it was closed off decades ago. But it was wide open. And several people definitely got out that way.”
“And…?” Major Eames felt heat rising in her voice.
“Major, the passage goes to the maintenance system for the Tube network. And into the sewers. I re-tasked the Sniffer team, but it’s a maze of tunnels down there that go on for hundreds of kilometers. The trail went cold after 200 meters.”
“God. Damn. It. This keeps getting better.” Major Eames let out a heavy sigh. “Alright… something’s out of whack here. I want to know what.”
She stared off at the far wall above the arena. Thin hunches formed shapes in her mind, like collecting smoke. Chalk outlines of thought both present and elusive, just outside her grasp. She stared harder, willing them to definition, identity, but they vaporized under scrutiny. Enough. She made a decision.
”Starting from here, I want to concentrate our search in this district from now on. Have the men lock down this one, and ease up on the other Zones. I’ll authorize Predator and Death Star surveillance to keep an eye on things so if anyone tries to bolt, we’ll know about it immediately. Otherwise, I’ve got a feeling this is somehow connected to our asset. Let’s turn the screws and see if anything pops.” She looked around the large room on more time. “And we might not be the only ones looking for them.”
The man called Hester stopped threading his crossbow and watched the Newscast with growing interest.
“Yes Jen, the scene here can only be described as chaos. There’s blood and bodies everywhere. NewsNet5’s exclusive sources with the Guardia Civil say the mosque you see in the distance was treacherously attacked during evening prayer services. An unknown number of gunmen shot down nearly a hundred worshippers, sending the rest fleeing in the streets. District leaders are outraged by this latest incident of gang violence and call for increased security patrols in the Zones. North District ombudsman Cameron Salazar decried this “massacre at the mosque” and said it only supplied further proof of discrimination and deliberate negligence on the part of the Montevedo Administration towards the Zone populace. It remains to be seen whether this act is linked with the recent reports of a new Basque narco-terrorist group operating-”
He shut off the hotel wall screen with a click. “North it is then.” he said out loud, then set down the crossbow and started packing.
As he finished, he picked up the small GPS pad that had been added as part of his mission gear. The Dark Room boys said it was configured as a passive tracker that would register the nano-rich hemoglobin in the asset’s blood stream, but only in a 10 kilometer range. He would need to narrow down the search parameters before it would detect him. Once he was within range, the corporate satellites could pinpoint the boy’s exact location. He switched it on, the dull blue LED screen slowly brightening as it powered up.
“Time to see how well you work, luv.” He said, and set it to silent mode.
Last of all, he detached the bow from its stock, and slid the crossbow into his kit bag with the rest of his weapons. He hefted both it and his carry case over his shoulders, turned off the lights and stepped quietly out the door.
It was nearly midnight by the time Major Eames arrived in the Sant Adrià de Besòs district. The sky was dull coal dark and low, and the rain had drizzled to a stop. The streets glistened in wet black and a concrete ozone scent charged the air. She could hear the police cordon beams still sizzling in the damp. District security had called this one right: responding fast and strong, sealing off the area, and radioing for her and the Task Force. By the time she got there, they had all the main avenues blocked by hulking military vehicles and squads of Guardia Civil troops.
She’d managed to snatch a couple hours sleep before the first calls came in, so her mind was clearer when she clambered out of the Command track. Still, she took the stone stairs two at a time to get her heart moving faster, get some focus in her mind, but as she turned around to survey the street, everything lensed out to a crawl. Another slap of déjà vu: three neat rows of lumpy, blood spotted sheets stretched away on the sidewalk; the orderly queue of sterile white ambulances; the spin of emergency lights making tenement frontages blink in the stark yellow lined relief of metronomed lightning; the clumps of detained civilians huddled around the C.S.I. vans.
You’re too late.
There’d been at a dozen scenes like this in her career, and she felt that same raw daze spreading over the activity, haunting, suffocating. As if everything got shocked mute from explosive brutality. They were just going through the motions. Sifting the wake. She shook her head, and the world synced back into place. She drew a sharp breath as Colonel Estevana approached from inside the mosque.
“Something wrong Major?”
“No. Too familiar, that’s all.” She took a moment to regard the older man. He had a deep lined face, worn more by the recent fatigue, and gray hair under the command helmet. She’d underestimated him, been too hard on him yesterday, (my God was it only yesterday?) but he took it and did his job. Good man. He was more cop than soldier, but these days the line was blurred anyhow. She pushed down her own wave of exhaustion, and made a mental note to mention him in her reports. “Doesn’t make it any easier though. What’s the count?”
“To start, we’ve got 11 bodies upstairs. All civilians - 5 with criminal records. Four must have been guards - we found pistols on them. There was some old scanning gear at the top of the stairs too. Strictly low tech, mostly for show. One of the civilians was a wire head with priors. Turkish and Russian gang related: all hack and fraud. Probably maintenance for the old system.”
“What else?”
The colonel hesitated. “There’re more bodies downstairs. In the basement. Looks like they hosted fights down there. There was a crowd -” his voice caught and Major Eames glanced his way. He returned her gaze for the briefest of moments, then looked away. Must be a horror show if he’s choked up, she thought.
“Take me there.” She said “I want to see for myself.” He nodded, said nothing, and turned back into the building. They followed police tape, blood smears, and the bustling ant trail of CSI geeks through the building, down the stairs. When she finally stepped out onto the lowest level she realized he was right: it was bad.
The air was rank, cloying with the tang of blood and bowels and the acrid linger of gunpowder. Dozens of bodies still lay sprawled across the main level, tumbled on the stairs, draped over the railings like broken dolls. The cement floor was slick with dark blood, wide swathes congealing into sticky black aspic sprinkled with spent brass casings. She clamped down hard before she retched. This wasn’t a shootout: it was butchery.
Frowning, she nodded towards the room. “How many?”
“67 bodies so far. A couple of them just parts. Most are here on the top level. Some in the stands, a few trampled on the stairs and down by the pit. There was more armed security down here; six as best we can tell. Two behind the bar, four on the floor. All had known histories with the Turkish mob. And this was certainly a gun battle – not bombers.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive – No shrapnel, no explosion radials, no legs.”
“Legs?”
“Usually all that’s left of bombers - their legs.”
“Right. Any live arrests?”
“No. There’s no one higher up the food chain. The Utilities room has an escape ladder. And it was locked from the inside. Whoever was in charge probably bolted at the first shot - left their gamberros to fend off the attack. CSI already sniffed the room. We’re checking for matches against the Interpol VICAP database.”
“Mob front like this - I take it there’s no surveillance, right?”
Colonel Estevana nodded.
“What about witnesses? Someone must have seen something.”
He consulted his datapad. “Interviews are ongoing. Most everyone was gone by the time the first response arrived however. Neighbors say the place emptied out fast. Everything was nice and quiet until people came streaming out like it was on fire. No one would hear anything going on down here anyway.”
“Your men find any survivors?”
He thumbed thru more screens. “We’ve got two wounded from inside - still being processed. But it looks here like they both mentioned a big guy and a girl. And an Asian.” He paused and knit his brow. “One of them also says he saw someone – Anglo male - throwing knives. Must have been one of his we found stuck in the bar. You think the Asian’s a Triad? Crank dealers have been scuffling over turf and supply.”
“No.” She shook her head, and moved carefully out into the main room. “This isn’t some street spat. It’s a war-zone.” She stopped and looked back at the Colonel. “Throwing knives, huh?” He shrugged, and she filed that bit of information away for later. “Any clues on the shooters? Bodyguards take down any of the attackers?”
“No. Not unless one of the dead gamberros tried to off his boss. And that’s not likely.”
“Any trace of this big guy and his girlfriend?”
“Too many people in the main area for sniffers to sort it out, and DNA traces off the weapons we picked up aren’t back yet. And then there’s the weapons…”
“What about them?”
“Well, there’s lots of brass - 10mm, old 12 gauge, 7.62. Typical gang guns. Bad thing is CSI team also found flechettes everywhere. And indication of an explosion: Semtex residue down by the pit - with plastic casing fragments. Said it was probably a micro-grenade.”
Major Eames eyebrows went up. “That’s definitely not mob stash. Both the shredder and Semtex are on the banned list. They’re tagged with mandatory life minimums just for looking at them funny.” Suspicion itched at the back of her mind. “Strictly military issue. Or Corporate.”
“Corporate? You think someone hired professionals?”
“C.E.O. orders a grudge hit on a low rent fight pit? No to that one too. And this - ” she gestured with her hand at the scene all around them, “isn’t too professional. Psychopathic yes, but definitely not professional.”
Colonel Estevana stared out onto the main floor again. “This – this can’t be deliberate, can it? This has to be some kind of deal gone wrong.”
“Something went wrong – for sure. The question is: where are the attackers? How’d they get out - with the last of the crowd?” She looked over at the colonel, who nodded toward the center drop, smiling grimly. Eames stepped warily toward the railing, and peered down the circular levels towards the arena itself. The fencing was shredded, crazy canted in tangles and heaps, acting as a steel link shroud for another butchered corpse. The cage door was ajar, broken open. “What else is down there?”
“That’s another problem. My men just started searching under the stands and found an old steel security door on the north side. Looks like it was closed off decades ago. But it was wide open. And several people definitely got out that way.”
“And…?” Major Eames felt heat rising in her voice.
“Major, the passage goes to the maintenance system for the Tube network. And into the sewers. I re-tasked the Sniffer team, but it’s a maze of tunnels down there that go on for hundreds of kilometers. The trail went cold after 200 meters.”
“God. Damn. It. This keeps getting better.” Major Eames let out a heavy sigh. “Alright… something’s out of whack here. I want to know what.”
She stared off at the far wall above the arena. Thin hunches formed shapes in her mind, like collecting smoke. Chalk outlines of thought both present and elusive, just outside her grasp. She stared harder, willing them to definition, identity, but they vaporized under scrutiny. Enough. She made a decision.
”Starting from here, I want to concentrate our search in this district from now on. Have the men lock down this one, and ease up on the other Zones. I’ll authorize Predator and Death Star surveillance to keep an eye on things so if anyone tries to bolt, we’ll know about it immediately. Otherwise, I’ve got a feeling this is somehow connected to our asset. Let’s turn the screws and see if anything pops.” She looked around the large room on more time. “And we might not be the only ones looking for them.”
The man called Hester stopped threading his crossbow and watched the Newscast with growing interest.
“Yes Jen, the scene here can only be described as chaos. There’s blood and bodies everywhere. NewsNet5’s exclusive sources with the Guardia Civil say the mosque you see in the distance was treacherously attacked during evening prayer services. An unknown number of gunmen shot down nearly a hundred worshippers, sending the rest fleeing in the streets. District leaders are outraged by this latest incident of gang violence and call for increased security patrols in the Zones. North District ombudsman Cameron Salazar decried this “massacre at the mosque” and said it only supplied further proof of discrimination and deliberate negligence on the part of the Montevedo Administration towards the Zone populace. It remains to be seen whether this act is linked with the recent reports of a new Basque narco-terrorist group operating-”
He shut off the hotel wall screen with a click. “North it is then.” he said out loud, then set down the crossbow and started packing.
As he finished, he picked up the small GPS pad that had been added as part of his mission gear. The Dark Room boys said it was configured as a passive tracker that would register the nano-rich hemoglobin in the asset’s blood stream, but only in a 10 kilometer range. He would need to narrow down the search parameters before it would detect him. Once he was within range, the corporate satellites could pinpoint the boy’s exact location. He switched it on, the dull blue LED screen slowly brightening as it powered up.
“Time to see how well you work, luv.” He said, and set it to silent mode.
Last of all, he detached the bow from its stock, and slid the crossbow into his kit bag with the rest of his weapons. He hefted both it and his carry case over his shoulders, turned off the lights and stepped quietly out the door.
