Rob had been taught combat driving by the Service. How to use a vehicle of this mass and power offensively when needed. Today, it was just traffic hemming him in. That had been the risk, but any earlier or later in the day and it would have been worse.
And a ground vehicle was much easier to hide. Salonnia had their share of repulsor-equipped vehicles, but Rob hardly trusted most people moving in two dimensions. Adding a third was generally an invitation for trouble.
He glanced up at the women in back. Alicia was plugged in to every comm channel possible. Mac and Carlota were holding hands and watching.
It was his game.
“Police status?” he asked.
He had to remember not to speak Alicia’s name out loud, so he was looking at her in the mirror.
“They’re starting to review the same camera footage I’ve been using for weeks,” Alicia said with a grin. “Slower than I expected, but they’ve found someone who saw Helen emerge from the rear and get into a van. Our description is so generic that I’m tempted to hack in and update it in their records.”
Rob laughed. Professionals insulted by the amateur hour happening back there. Salonnia had never been a serious threat to anyone, because the Syndicates didn’t like the thought of a well-organized, well-run government. They just wanted the kickbacks and grift.
“We can afford to wait at the far end,” he reminded her. “I’d rather be too early than too late. We are playing high-stakes poker here.”
Carlota reacted to that, but Rob had only gotten snippets of her game that had won her so much money that she’d had to just carry it around in bricks, unable to launder that much by depositing it. Not without questions. Legal, official questions.
He turned down a side street at the first chance, then ducked the van into an alley. They were tight for a vehicle this size, but he had insured it on rental. Always a smart move when somebody might be shooting at you later.
They made better time, even cutting across stalled traffic. Right up until they hit a garbage truck coming the other direction. Neither of them had lifters. Traffic had closed up behind him.
“Mac, out and spot me backing,” he ordered, then remembered that he was supposed to call her Erika.
Of course, it wasn’t like Mac was her real name either. Just the gun-toting badass chick he hung out with occasionally. The one who taught doctoral-level courses in mathematics and cryptography on the side.
She slammed the door open and started walking aft.
“Comm security?” he asked, eyes alighting on Alicia.
“Chickens minus heads, but there is a young woman on the line currently issuing orders in Yankov’s name,” Alicia said. “She’s got her shit together, too. Expect them to start quartering outward soon.”
Crap.
Rob hadn’t been counting on Yankov deciding to abandon his home base to take charge in the field, but either option would have hobbled him. Nothing Rob had seen had led him to expect Yankov to hand things off to a woman agent who stayed back while the old man took charge forward.
They weren’t screwed, but the walls were going to close faster now.
Mac had gotten far enough and was gesturing for him to back up out of the garbage truck’s way. She even slid out into traffic as he got close enough, blocking those folks and giving Rob space.
Then red and blue lights began to flash.
Shit.
At least they were on the ground. A cruiser rolled up to Mac, then cut across two lanes when he realized why she was standing there.
Rob held his breath and motioned the other two women to vanish. It helped that the back of the van had no windows.
His truck beeped as it backed, this time. They’d disabled that for the morgue to reduce the number of people that might have heard, but he was glad that he’d fixed it today. The road back there was open enough for him to emerge from the alley backwards, bump into the street, and crank the wheel over hard to line up with the flow.
The officer emerged from the cruiser and waved at people. Fortunately, he wasn’t returning their obscene gestures just yet. Having a beautiful woman standing there probably helped.
Rob had his window down to listen. Just the sounds of traffic, plus the men and women in the garbage truck working their way forward slowly.
Rob was clear. Mac started to move to get back in, coming around to the passenger door up front.
The cop waved at them, then paused.
Rob saw recognition of the panel van crystallize in the man’s eyes.
“Hey, you, wait a minute!” he yelled, still watching Mac’s bottom.
It was a fantastic, distracting bottom, in relatively-tight dark blue dungarees, with a gray shirt and a brown leather jacket over that.
Rob dropped the gearbox into reverse, in case he needed to get offensive with this much weight.
They could not be captured like this. It would blow everything, and get Carlota killed. Maybe him, too.
At the least, his usefulness in Salonnian or Imperial space would be greatly impeded if someone got his face, voice, and fingerprints on file as a Lincolnshire agent.
Not good.
The cop was walking this way, hand only resting on his sidearm. Class four, like Rob preferred, rather than the stunner on his off-hand.
Bad design, but nobody asked Rob. It meant that lethal force was the first choice, rather than the second or third fallback. Of course, they were talking Salonnian cops.
Rob had an especially low opinion of those folks, all of it personal.
Mac had paused, but the cop was watching the van. Even made eye contact with Rob.
The only reason that Class Four was still holstered was probably because Mac had been right about Carlota looking old and gray today, instead of mature and smoking hot. She did that, too. Not in Mac’s league, but very, very few women he’d ever met were.
The cop approached.
Rob was about to do something when Mac turned back to him, stunner suddenly in hand, and shot him dead center in the chest. He went down like a sack of potatoes.
Rob slammed the gearbox to park and exploded out of his door, reaching the downed cop almost as fast as Mac did. Thank whatever gods cared that he’d been alone in his cruiser, rather than having a partner back there drawing and shooting at them.
“Grab his feet,” Rob ordered, squatting enough to get the man’s shoulders.
They lifted. Rob backed, carrying them to the curb, then setting him down gently enough. He grabbed the man’s radio and slid it across the concrete hard enough that it fell into a sewer opening and vanished. Still one in the car, but Rob didn’t want to take the time to disable it. That might also sound alarms somewhere.
They had about three minutes before he woke up, minus whatever concerned citizens called the emergency line right now to report what had happened.
“Move,” Rob said to Mac, the two of them racing to the van and jumping in.
Traffic had thinned because of the bottleneck, with only one lane getting through until somebody moved that cruiser.
Rob slammed it into gear and gunned it forward.
Someone would figure this out shortly.