and nodded at my driver. “Go!”
The driver laid rubber and smoked out of the alleyway and merged into traffic into the main street.
“The safe-house on 59 th and Grand.” I ordered. “And wheel it!”
I exhaled and noticed my hands were trembling.
“Kurlie, you okay?” My bodyguard asked reluctantly.
“Yeah. Send some guys over to Larron’s flat and get him and Vince to the safe-house. Grab all their h ardware and bring it over. I want to know what they found.
Get the tavern cleaned up before the police get there. Get Tommy out of my place and get me some clean clothes.”
“Sure Kurlie.”
“And get Max on the line right now. I need him to contact Nikki and warn him about this guy.”
I watched the traffic go by in a blur as we weaved thorough the lanes. The city went by in a strobe of distorted neon as we blazed through the sheik uptown boulevards.
My driver swerved left after passing the sonic monorail station and gunned the car through one of the busiest intersections in the city.
“Max isn’t answering his telecom, Kurlie.”
“Keep trying, damn it.”
“We’re almost there Kurlie.” The driver announced with a relieved sigh as he made a right into a side street that lead to an industrial district composed of manufacturing plants and warehouses. “This place is like a ghost town after hours.”
The street lights seemed dull and gave the area an ominous air as we slowly pulled up a ramp that ran along side of some loading docks of a two story building that belonged to me. We came to a stop in front of a steel roll-up door, the driver punched in a security code on a number pad, and we watched it crank up with a mechanical groan as we pulled inside a dark garage and parked.
“No Max yet?”
“No. The rest of the guys should be here soon.”
“Okay, let’s get set up inside and have the entire crew meet here in the next hour.” I frowned as we stepped out of the car. “Somebody get the lights. I want all our safe-houses up and running within the next two hours.”
“You’ve got it Kurlie.”
“One more thing,” I glared as I pulled out a cigar and lit it, “get word to all our people on the street that I want to know if there have been any big buys on weapons or drugs. I want to know if anything unusual’s been going on in our territory. Nothing moves in the city without us knowing.”
Chapter 5
T he first four days went by without incident. I upheld my personal policy of absolutely zero transmissions and steered clear of the main shipping lanes and military supply routes. Where Scotty was concerned, we kept the small talk on neutral ground by avoiding personal questions.
In an odd way, he reminded me of my father. Wherever he originated from I could tell that he was well traveled. I still had no idea what he did for a living or what his business entailed at Nexus. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good if he was involved with Kurlie and I refused to believe that he was employed by him. No, this guy had a story. It was none of my business, but my curiosity was killing me.
The Zephyr was a light hauler but extremely maneuverable in zero grav and atmospheric environments. She had a fixed inverted gull-wing delta configuration with an eighty foot span; the vessel’s double-vertical rudder’s dihedral symmetry and the two smaller twenty-degree anhedral ventral fins made the craft really stable and gave me an extremely tight turning radius. The hull was a hundred and twenty feet long, thirty feet wide, and twenty-four feet tall; it was plated with poly-alloy armor composed of radar absorbing, infra-red signature reducing materials.
It cost me a fortune to get my ship customized, especially the retractable retro-jet modifications, but it was worth every credit. I took a lot of pride in black market kit bashing the instrumentation and controls to suit my needs.
The Zephyr was fast. Illegal, sensor-scrambling fast with what’s called a Bokka bomb defense system that would
The driver laid rubber and smoked out of the alleyway and merged into traffic into the main street.
“The safe-house on 59 th and Grand.” I ordered. “And wheel it!”
I exhaled and noticed my hands were trembling.
“Kurlie, you okay?” My bodyguard asked reluctantly.
“Yeah. Send some guys over to Larron’s flat and get him and Vince to the safe-house. Grab all their h ardware and bring it over. I want to know what they found.
Get the tavern cleaned up before the police get there. Get Tommy out of my place and get me some clean clothes.”
“Sure Kurlie.”
“And get Max on the line right now. I need him to contact Nikki and warn him about this guy.”
I watched the traffic go by in a blur as we weaved thorough the lanes. The city went by in a strobe of distorted neon as we blazed through the sheik uptown boulevards.
My driver swerved left after passing the sonic monorail station and gunned the car through one of the busiest intersections in the city.
“Max isn’t answering his telecom, Kurlie.”
“Keep trying, damn it.”
“We’re almost there Kurlie.” The driver announced with a relieved sigh as he made a right into a side street that lead to an industrial district composed of manufacturing plants and warehouses. “This place is like a ghost town after hours.”
The street lights seemed dull and gave the area an ominous air as we slowly pulled up a ramp that ran along side of some loading docks of a two story building that belonged to me. We came to a stop in front of a steel roll-up door, the driver punched in a security code on a number pad, and we watched it crank up with a mechanical groan as we pulled inside a dark garage and parked.
“No Max yet?”
“No. The rest of the guys should be here soon.”
“Okay, let’s get set up inside and have the entire crew meet here in the next hour.” I frowned as we stepped out of the car. “Somebody get the lights. I want all our safe-houses up and running within the next two hours.”
“You’ve got it Kurlie.”
“One more thing,” I glared as I pulled out a cigar and lit it, “get word to all our people on the street that I want to know if there have been any big buys on weapons or drugs. I want to know if anything unusual’s been going on in our territory. Nothing moves in the city without us knowing.”
Chapter 5
T he first four days went by without incident. I upheld my personal policy of absolutely zero transmissions and steered clear of the main shipping lanes and military supply routes. Where Scotty was concerned, we kept the small talk on neutral ground by avoiding personal questions.
In an odd way, he reminded me of my father. Wherever he originated from I could tell that he was well traveled. I still had no idea what he did for a living or what his business entailed at Nexus. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good if he was involved with Kurlie and I refused to believe that he was employed by him. No, this guy had a story. It was none of my business, but my curiosity was killing me.
The Zephyr was a light hauler but extremely maneuverable in zero grav and atmospheric environments. She had a fixed inverted gull-wing delta configuration with an eighty foot span; the vessel’s double-vertical rudder’s dihedral symmetry and the two smaller twenty-degree anhedral ventral fins made the craft really stable and gave me an extremely tight turning radius. The hull was a hundred and twenty feet long, thirty feet wide, and twenty-four feet tall; it was plated with poly-alloy armor composed of radar absorbing, infra-red signature reducing materials.
It cost me a fortune to get my ship customized, especially the retractable retro-jet modifications, but it was worth every credit. I took a lot of pride in black market kit bashing the instrumentation and controls to suit my needs.
The Zephyr was fast. Illegal, sensor-scrambling fast with what’s called a Bokka bomb defense system that would
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