TheDirty
It wasn't Kieron's first hit. If he thought about it, he'd probably done twenty of the things since he graduated from the academy three years ago. The difference here was that he knew the targets.
This was his first undercover.
When a hit package was built, all the juicy stuff came from the inside guy. The where, when, and how of it—the vulnerabilities that no one would know unless somebody went inside and befriended the target, got to know him, learned about his family, and maybe even became a trusted friend.
Sometimes, you can accomplish all this through careful hacking. Most of the time, you couldn't, and so you needed an inside guy.
Yeah, this was Kieron's first time as the inside guy, and if he was honest with himself, he didn't care for it so much. It was easier to drop the hammer when the target was two-dimensional, when he was a date/time group of actions, when he was a picture on a wall, an icon in a link matrix of an insurgent network.
He wasn't looking forward to it, but it had to get done, he knew that. He was a RAT after all, not a cop.
The night was cold and wet, as Vancouver in November would be. He leaned against the limestone wall of the freight building. Rain splashing along his face, rolling off his clandestine skein suit, made to look like civilian clothes but equipped with quite a few military upgrades.
He scanned the dimly lit, hover-rail freight yard. Beyond it, Vancouver Harbor, the breakers kicked up in the wind, white in the dark, rainy night. The old-style CONEXes and storage cars were lined up in the gloomy yard. A tall, orange container marked: India Industries sat huddled into the scrum.
He touched his lapel, looked up at the roof. "Colm, status."
In his earpiece, he heard, "Wet, cold, bored."
Kieron smiled. "Yeah. What about the container? You know—the thing you're supposed to be watching."
"Oh, it's still there."
He shook his head. Colm was solid, dependable, and capable. But he tended to joke around when no one else was in the mood. Kieron tried to sound authoritative. "I'm going to need an 'up' every five mikes, unless of course you see them first."
It was quiet in his earpiece for a moment. Then, "Roger that."
As the inside guy, you automatically assumed command of the hit. It was assumed that no one else could "call the ball" if the mission didn't go down as planned. Where would he go if he spotted surveillance while en route to the objective location? What would he do once surrounded with no escape available? What was he capable of?
These were the questions the RATs had to answer beforehand, so they knew what to do when and if it went south. And it went south more often than not when dealing with smart insurgents.
His target was the son of a Canadian Senator. Just to be clear, the word Canadian had no more implication than any other descriptive term like "tall," "white," or "ugly". It didn't represent an identity—not anymore. The concept of borders was a thing of the past, existing now more as window dressing than anything else. Every governing apparatus operating on Earth reported up to the Global Ordering Council. Being the son of a Canadian Senator did, however, mean people higher up the chain were interested in him.
Jaime was a fucking brat—if Kieron had to sum him up in a simple sentence. He was born rich, and it was easy to see that in his affinity for fineries—an insurgent with a taste for Michelin-starred restaurants, and fine, hand-made clothing. But his networks were careful, capable, and deadly when it suited them.
The goal of the mission was to take down Jaime's cells and disrupt his operations, which were growing more violent. He was responsible for the assassination of cops and civic leaders over the last year. There was one direct attack on a military checkpoint in which a few civilians were burned up along with a squad of troopers.
After Kieron had entered the network and determined the identity of the Senator's son, the gig became Top Secret Compartmentalized. Only those with the highest level and a demonstrated "need to know" about the op had any awareness of it.
This made it easier to kill Jaime, turn him into ash without anyone knowing—not his father, not the cops, not the government on any broader level.
The RATs did what they did.
The operation at the rail yard was one of several simultaneous ops that were to happen independently of each other—each relying on its internal triggers and timelines. This could complicate things. It was mission essential to hit each "zone of action" with a restrictive comms bubble to avoid the insurgents alerting their greater network. It was a risky and complex ballet of killing that was to unfold.
Kieron touched his lapel again. "Juma, come in."
"I'm here, boss."
Kieron smiled. Juma had more team time than he did. The boss reference was a jab at his first mission command. "How are we sitting with the bubble?"
"Test cycle complete. Positive atmospheric impedance. Give me the word, and the bubble drops on the "X."
Kieron nodded. "Sounds good, brother."
He thought about it for a minute, touched his lapel. "Colm, any movement out there at all?"
"Nothing."
He checked his holo watch. Jaime was late, which was unusual. But Kieron had no intention to be so himself. "I'm heading in. Sniper teams report."
In his headset, "Team one, in position, eyes on." "Team two, in position, eyes on."
"Good copy."
He stepped from the relative cover of the overhang and into the drizzling night. He moved across the street and approached the key card entrance to the freight yard—an employee entrance, unmanned and unused this late. He pulled a small, tan box from his pocket with a few orange switches on it, toggled through a couple of settings, and the key card light turned green, and the heavy gate slid open.
He made his way across the rail lines, some of them the old school, rusted lines of iron, still in use. The other "lines" were singular tubes sitting about a foot off the ground. These were linear anti-gravidic lines. The heavy hovers used them to float across the Earth.
He moved around the waiting, parked trains, and entered the storage yard. Tall CONEXes and rail containers were stacked in deep, long rows, spreading out in two directions.
In his earpiece, he heard, "This is team one, I have you on the 'X', time-mark, now."
Juma said, "Kieron, when the bubble drops, you'll be cut off."
Kieron didn't respond. He couldn't, in the event he was observed. He walked up to the container marked: India Industries, banged on the giant, hinged doors.
After a moment, the door opened. A large man stood in the dull light of a kerosene lamp. He wore a heavy beard, an old revolver in his hand, not pointed at Kieron, hovering at his waist.
"You looking for a dime bag, eh?"
Kieron said, "I need two quarters and a Key."
The man stepped out of the container and looked around, then gave Kieron a pass up and down. "Where's your boss?"
"Don't know. We were supposed to be here at the same time."
The man looked at his holo watch, considered his next move. After what seemed like a long time, he said, "Well, come on in. Cold as a witch's tit out here."
Kieron took him up on it and was inside, the door creaking shut behind him.
There were two more men inside. Disheveled and worrisome, they had hard, mistrusting eyes. Several large crates were stacked and strapped to a corner. The container appeared to have served as a home of sorts for at least two of the men, judging by the clothing and trash. The place smelled of piss and shit and garbage. Kieron noticed the "bucket shitters" in the corner, a staple for long-term reconnaissance operations. They supposedly trapped all odors inside them; apparently, these were malfunctioning.
He wrinkled his nose.
His host winked at him. "Smells like shit in here, eh?"
The pistol was resting on a small table now.
"Do you have the tubes?" Kieron decided to play the part of an impatient insurgent. He studied the interior, the men. Were they armed? The place was hot, and it stank; it was oppressive.
"We can do business when your boss gets here. Have a seat."
"Crack a crate, let's have something to talk about while we wait." Kieron smiled jokingly, inviting the guy to join him in a chuckle.
He did not. "Have a seat."
Kieron sat. In his earpiece, "A black, hover truck is arriving. As soon as they step out, I'm dropping the bubble."
When the truck parked and Jaime was identified, Kieron would slip into the comms abyss. He had a plan to notify the strike team, of course. But the scene was developing differently than he'd expected.
The air in the room was as tense as it was putrid. His host never lost eye contact, a quirk that Kieron had always found present in psychopaths, usually on psychoactives. In the darkness, he couldn't see the pupils well enough to make an assessment. The guy was staring a hole through him, a slim smile under his nose.
The door banged.
The big man moved to it, cracked it open, and had a small conversation; code words were passed, and then he stepped outside. Kieron could hear him whispering, and then he was back inside, the door closing behind him.
His eyes were lasers. In the different angle of the gloomy lantern, he could see them now. The pupils were blown out like black saucers. He noticed the man's breathing had elevated. He felt the shuffling, stinking men behind him.
The psychopath said, "You know what we found when we rode this box all the way across the ocean?"
Kieron wasn't focused on the man's words. He had a pretty good idea what was about to happen.
"Rats." The weird line under his nose stretched and curled at its ends. "We found a bunch of fucking rats."
In his earpiece, "Bubble is up. Kieron, the hover truck departed. No sign of the target. Advise next steps." Juma's voice had an edge. "Advise next steps."
The shuffling sounds behind him exploded into rushed movements. Kieron twisted himself in his chair, lifting his shoulders to his ears. The machete blade made contact with his right arm, biting into the impact-resistant nano-fiber. He remembered what the old man told him when the clothing was issued, "It's better against high-speed projectiles, but it'll dull the impact of bladed weapons…"
He dropped from the chair to the floor, changing levels on his attackers. Momentarily thrown by the tactic, they hovered over him. He reached into his waistband and produced his pulse pistol. The first round blasted the machete-wielding man's arm, severing it, sending the blade and elbow down to the floor. He rolled under the table just as the axe dropped down on him, burying its blade into the wood.
Kieron kicked the table up high, causing his attacker to reach for the handle. His dome split open as the pulse round entered beneath his jaw. The ceiling of the container now decorated with a grisly splatter.
His host, the big man, fell upon him. His eyes were endless behind the whites of them, his thick hands seeking out Kieron's throat. He was a big bastard, strong and heavy with fat and muscle. He smelled terrible, unbathed, teeth unbrushed. One hand clawed at the windpipe, the other grappled with the pistol, pushing it out and away.
Kieron reached for the strangling hand, plucked it away from his throat, then touched his lapel. Struggling, breath pounding, he said, "Compromised. Need assistance."
The big man was back at him. He was too strong, too loaded up with drugs, heart pumping venom throughout his body. Kieron managed to get his knees up to keep him at bay, but he was in danger of losing the gun.
When he turned his attention to it, to keeping the gun, the man's other thumb plowed into the notch at the top of his chest. It slipped in deep, shoving the windpipe back against his spine.
Kieron gasped and wretched. He let go of the pistol to pry the thumb from his neck.
Suddenly, the pistol was pressed against the side of his head, and the big, stinky bastard took a moment to enjoy it. His cheeks climbed up his face, and his mouth opened. His finger slipped into the trigger well.
When the door flew open, the big man took no notice of it. Transfixed with Kieron's impending death, the spit flew away from his open mouth in long strings.
His head kicked sideways, and the lights in his eyes disappeared. The shot had come from Juma's pulse rifle, who was standing over Kieron then.
He knelt next to him, rolling the big bastard off him. He swept Kieron's body for wounds, finding the blood from the machete strike on his arm.
"Can you breathe? Are you shot?"
Kieron tried out his open airway for a moment, drawing deep gulps of rancid air into his lungs.
Juma said, "Are you okay, Kieron?"
He tried to speak, but it came out as a husky groan. He coughed and then said, "I'm good."
Juma looked around the room at the bodies. He wrinkled his nose.
"Smells like shit in here."