As she approaches within a few metres of the doors, Alice sees four Seguridad officers walking out through them. They seem relaxed despite the rifles slung around their shoulders, an off-duty air about them as though they’re out for a stroll.
“Given the flight time to Heinlein and back, I reckon we can take us the rest of the day off,” one of them is saying to his colleague: Officer Alonso according to her lens.
“Where’s your prisoner?” she asks.
He gives her a disdainful look and she can tell he is about to dismiss her query. She recognises the very nano-second that her name and status registers on his lens. He stiffens. They all do, like a wave passing through them.
“We had new orders to hand her over to the two guys who were waiting for us inside.”
“Which guys? Who were they?”
He blanches, a gravity about his expression.
“We didn’t have clearance to see their names.”
“And you just handed over your prisoner to them?”
“Their orders came from the highest echelons in the Quadriga. Seems somebody doesn’t trust us to handle the transfer.”
“This is unacceptable. I need to speak to the prisoner. Come with me.”
“Ma’am, our orders were countermanded from on high, and obstructing them is punishable by a ticket home. Besides, these are not guys you want to cross. We’re glorified rentacops. These were soldiers.”
Alice remembers Nikki’s description of the unidentified actors who had closed down this same dock a few days ago: high-level mercenary types. She doesn’t know what strengths or skills might be secretly residing within herself, far less how to activate them, but she does know how to exploit the element of surprise and an elevated angle of fire.
“Give me your weapons,” she commands.
She expects a modicum of resistance, but Alonso shrugs and complies, a man well-used to navigating the path of least resistance.
“It’s your funeral,” he says, that path no doubt taking him and his buddies to the nearest bar.
Alice races up the ramp to access the receiving areas above. She slips inside quietly and crouches close to the edge of the platform, peering through the glass barrier.
Down below she can see Nikki. She is handcuffed, kneeling on a sheet of black plastic with two men standing over her, their backs to Alice. They are dressed identically in charcoal fatigues; they are not uniforms but there is something unquestionably military about their appearance. One of them is holding a knife.
Alice stands up and raises the suppression rifle. The weapon automatically links to her lens, overlaying a cross-hair upon her view, which she places over the knifeman’s head. She takes a steadying breath and pulls the trigger.