Celestial Hit List Read online

  Jack came out of the bathroom, a towel knotted about his waist. “Where have you been?”

  She threw him an impish grin, hiding her feelings. He had been big brother to her, but now she wanted more, and she feared what she wanted was something Jack would not, could not give. Her voice did not give her away as she said arrogantly, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  His sandy blond hair was rumpled, as though he’d just combed his hand through it, but he gave her a wry smile back. “No,” he said flatly. “I don’t think I would. You’re usually up to something.”

  “Girl has to keep herself amused. You all done for the day?”

  “Probably. I can’t take much more spit and polish even if I’m not,” he answered ruefully. “He refused audience again. I’ve spent all day reviewing. He won’t talk to me about the Thraks and Lasertown, or any of the review committees. Dammit, Amber, I can’t do anything for Dorman’s Stand, but Claron has hope—it’s not Thrakian sand, it was just firestormed. But the longer we wait to start terraforming, the less chance it has!”

  She frowned at him, mirroring his own expression. Absently, he reached up and touched the line between his brows. Memories of the planet where he’d rangered stung him. Once green. New. Primitive. And then charred under his very feet as he fled helplessly.

  “Let’s go out.”

  He considered her abruptness. “Can’t.”

  “What? You think the Thraks are going to try something with me here?”

  “I think that the emperor and the commander want me to sit tight until tomorrow.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “That’s stale. Come on.”

  Jack strode two more steps, pivoted and looked at her, realizing he’d returned to pacing. He did not like confinement, mental or physical, voluntary or otherwise. The young woman watching him with an unconsciously defiant tilt to her head, her dark honey-colored hair all tousled, was up to something. He knew Amber well enough to know she was not cajoling him into disobeying orders on a whim.

  “What is it, Amber?”

  She reacted as he knew she would to that tone of voice, straightening, her chin going out a little. But her eyes widened and her voice softened. “The media’s got a hunt on for you and I don’t think the interviews are going to be friendly. In the long run, Pepys will be a lot happier if you and I disappear until the ceremonies.”

  “I’m supposed to be secure here.”

  “You’re on the World Police’s list. Sooner or later, a reporter is going to be able to access that list, or bribe for a printout. They’ll be here. The question is: do you want to be here when they get here?”

  He paused a moment. Then he shook his head. “No. Wait, I’ll be out in a minute.”

  He disappeared inside the bedroom, stopping only to kick the pile of discarded clothing in with him. Amber relaxed then, sitting down on the chair nearest the door. Once she had him out of there, out from under World Police surveillance, she could tell him what she’d overheard.

  She could hear Jack stamping his feet into his boots. As she looked toward the door in anticipation of his reappearance, she caught sight of the lawn monitoring screen.

  A flicker of movement at its corners. Amber froze. There was no more indication than that of someone headed this way—and whoever that someone was, he was as professional at avoiding the security as she was.

  Chapter Two

  Someone’s coming.”

  Jack appeared at the bedroom door, alerted immediately by the tone in Amber’s voice. “Who? Can you tell how many?”

  She was already at the camera controls, fine-tuning the monitor’s sweep. Other flickers came to her, all barely seeable. “Four. No, five. Professionals.”

  “That didn’t take them long.” Out of habit, he looked to the corner where his suit normally hung. The corner was empty. Bogie was at the shop, being electronically swept for bugs, and would be kept there until tomorrow’s ceremonies. The palm of his right hand itched. He scratched it, worrying unconsciously for a second or two over the scar where his little finger used to be.

  “I must have led them here!” Amber left the camera and sprinted for the door.

  “Amber, no!”

  “I won’t be trapped in here.” A curtain of honey-colored hair swung wildly, obscured her face, then eased to her shoulder.

  “There’s only one way in. We can hold it, if we have to,” he said, crossing the room to her side.

  She bolted out from under his hand even as he started to drop it comfortingly to her shoulder. Out the door into the night, even as the lawn lights sputtered and went dark.

  “Damn,” Jack muttered and went after her.

  He had no illusions about either Amber or the safety of the emperor’s barracks. Fourteen long months ago he’d been shanghaied from his apartments here, gassed inside his own front door, chilled down and cold-shipped out as a contract laborer to the norcite mines of Lasertown. He was supposed to have been killed, but his would-be abductor had decided to double his money and sold him under a forged labor contract.

  Amber had told him later, after she’d tracked him down, that the abductor had been killed by the employer he’d double-crossed. She’d not wasted time tracking down the employer—that was something Jack meant to do once his life returned somewhat to normal. As a thin veil of cold sweat broke out on his forehead, and he plunged out into the night, it occurred to him that he might have lost the opportunity.

  It was not the months of deprivation as a miner, nor as a prisoner of the Thraks, for which Jack intended to pay back his enemy. No. It was for the months of cold sleep, of cryogenic imprisonment, a torture he rarely went through if he could help it.

  Cold sleep had stolen away more than half his life and most of his memories from his youth. He would sooner die a hundred deaths than unwillingly endure it again. Cold sleep had frostbitten away his finger, and several toes. And cold sleep had taken him out of a hellish war most of his comrades now considered ancient history.

  The Sand Wars.

  Jack stumbled and went to his knees, and Amber swept him up, drawing him back against the concrete of the building, her slender arms shaking even as she drew him into concealment with her.

  Amber gripped his arm tightly. “This is no media hunt.”

  “No.”

  “Jack,” she whispered in his ear. “I can do it if I have to.”

  It. He froze then, as he realized what she meant. “No.”

  “But, Jack—”

  “I said no.”

  She’d been trained to kill with her mind, though the thought of it normally raised goose bumps on her thin arms. She was no murderer, but she’d just told him she was willing to, for his sake. It could destroy her psyche if she tried. He could not, would not, let her. He got to his knees as the five intruders ranged close. Even without his battle armor, he was a formidable combatant. His muscles knotted across his back. His thighs tensed as he got ready to spring.

  There was a wine-dark smear about face high across the field of nighttime blackness. It came to Jack even as he sprang that he was seeing nightscope goggles—and it came to him too late that his opponent could see him better, much, much better, than Jack could see him.

  By then it was definitely too late.

  Jack immediately went limp, so that the intruder had to shrug off a dead weight. He rolled as he hit, kicked, and took his enemy out as the man’s knee went with a sickening crack. He moved quickly then, scrambling out from under the man as he went down, felt his torso clawed at.

  By then he was surrounded and he felt the sickening kick of a stunner and went face down in the grass as he vomited, involuntarily.

  He heard Amber scream, amidst thuds and curses. From the muffled, struggling sounds, he guessed they now had her somewhat restrained. A hand grasped his collar and pulled him up, into a kneeling position.

  The intruder couldn’t possibly know of Jack’s incredible tolerance for a stunner. Already, his muscles had begun to tremble back to life.
r />   Someone wiped his face clean of the vomit. Then he was pulled to his feet. He let his weight hang as two of the intruders shouldered him. They were taking him and Amber back to the apartment. Why, he did not know. He only knew that this way, he had his hands on two of them.

  Jack smiled grimly into the darkness.

  Just as all the tensile strength flooded back into his arms and hands, one of the intruders said, “Jesus, this guy is heavier than he looks.”

  “Forget it. We deliver the message and leave.”

  Jack thought twice about what he was going to do to the two necks within reach. Messengers were far different from assassins. These five he might let live until they said what they were going to… at least until his curiosity was satisfied.

  Just inside the flooding light of the open doorway, they stopped and let go of Jack. Their faces went dead white as he did not hit the floor, but stood alertly in front of them. He spun around.

  The leader, dressed all in knit black from head to toe, with only the moon of a face staring back thrust a closed fist out at him. Jack’s reaction was squelched by Amber’s being carried in.

  Amber made a stifled noise as the two men holding her, followed by a painfully limping fifth, came into the apartment. She flailed about, only managing to kick the door shut.

  The leader pointed at her. “I advise you to stay quiet. The man who sent me says to tell you that Rolf won’t be bound by the emperor much longer. He says to tell you that your days of freedom are nearly over.”

  Her face paling, Amber collapsed within the embrace of her captors. Fury rose inside of Jack as the words killed Amber’s spirit. Rolf had been the Svengali, the Fagin, who’d subliminally programmed her psychic talents for assassination. Only Rolf knew the neurolinguistics that would set her off. Only Rolf knew who’d hired him to do the programming. Jack thought they’d long been rid of Rolf.

  “Leave her alone.”

  The leader turned back to Jack. He pulled his night lenses off and let the goggles hang about his neck, a kind of obscene looking necklace. “Just defusing the situation.” He still pointed his fist at Jack. “I have a message.‘

  “Why should I listen?”

  “A friend sends it.”

  “Friends have other ways of getting hold of me. Friends don’t attack in the night.”

  “This friend says you’ve betrayed him. He’s not so sure you will listen.”

  “Then tell me and get out.”

  “In a moment.”

  The lamed man hobbled about, effectively gutting the security monitors inside the apartment. When he was done, he nodded, stifled a groan, and left. Now no one could hear or see or record what was transpiring.

  Except for Jack. And what they’d just done to Amber, he’d never forget. And in different circumstances, neither would they. He looked at her. Her wide eyes were sunken and glazed over. She drew shallow breaths. Her skin stayed gray and she shuddered. The thought crossed Jack’s mind that what the man had already said might have triggered one of her NLP programs. If they didn’t say what they’d come to say and get out, he’d lose her.

  He strode across the room, grabbed her up from her captors’ arms and slapped her, hard. Her head snapped back, but her cheek pinked and in a second, a spirit that was definitely Amber stared back at him out of her eyes.

  “Don’t you ever—”

  “I won’t.” He held his arms around her loosely, protecting her. “Feel better?”

  Sulkily, she answered, “Yes.”

  He looked at the two men who’d held her. “I’ll remember you,” he said. Their breath was stale in his face. One was half bald from a laser scar, and the other had metal alloy teeth. Jack turned with Amber back to the leader, who stood impassively in his black clothes, like the assassin he could have been. “I’m listening. I won’t be two seconds from now.”

  “Then look at this.”

  The assassin opened his fist to reveal a gold mesh ocular piece, a prosthetic camera. Its fine wires trailed out of the back. Bits of flesh and blood crusted its edges.

  Amber gasped. “That’s Ballard’s eye,” she said, and swayed in Jack’s arms.

  Jack was not immediately convinced it belonged to the middle-aged renegade of their acquaintance, who wore his gold eye like a medal, but it had belonged to someone. The shreds of flesh clinging to it told him that. Ballard had fought in the Sand Wars, too, before he’d been injured and had deserted. Ballard knew Jack for what he was. Ballard had secrets that could have been torn out of him like that gold mesh camera.

  Jack looked at the intruder, who smiled.

  “Now that I have your attention, I am to say this. ‘If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and so I have done.’ And this: you are betraying your promise.”

  Jack wrenched his attention back from the grisly prosthetic. “That’s it? That’s all?”

  The man shrugged. “I’m a messenger. He seemed to think it was enough.” Evidently finished, the intruder signaled his men, and they faded from the doorway like shadows from a nightmare. And with that, the last of the evil departed from Jack’s apartment.

  Amber sagged within his embrace and Jack had his hands full for a few seconds. When he had time to look up, a faint beam against his windows told him that the lawn security lights were on again.

  When he looked down, Amber was staring at him beseechingly.

  “What are we going to do, Jack?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. “I don’t know.”

  Chapter Three

  As Amber shook herself, Jack added, “But I know what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to sit around and wait for anyone else to show up. And then…”

  “And then?”

  “I’m going to pay Ballard a little visit and see if he’s missing any vital parts.”

  Amber grinned then, faintly. “What if he is?”

  “He may find himself missing a few more. But I can’t do anything until after the ceremonies.”

  Amber’s smile became absolutely predatory. “That’s my white knight,” she said and beat him out the front door.

  The assassin cum messenger reported back to his employer. He entered the room with no little hesitation, for his employer was intent upon his prey and not in a mood to be interrupted. The assassin prided himself on knowing when the man who employed him was more dangerous than he himself. The employer not only commanded his skills, but his grudging respect. The man was middle-aged, his powerful shoulders bowed somewhat with the weight of his years and ambitions, though no gray yet flecked his dark hair. One brow was laser-scarred, winging away. Like most men of the military, it had come from his chosen career, a laser burn that could either have blinded him or gutted his brain, but had done neither, a lucky near-miss.

  Winton took his attention away from the cowering, one-eyed man sitting across from him. A plastiflesh patch took the place of one of the victim’s eyes.

  “It’s done?”

  “As you ordered.”

  “What about the girl?”

  The assassin smiled thinly. He’d been told of the girl’s possibilities and she had worried him. “You were right. What I said disarmed her totally. My thanks.” And he bowed his head.

  Winton shifted in his chair. “And the rest?”

  “He showed little reaction. But he heard and he listened.” The messenger shrugged. “I can do no more.”

  Winton bared his teeth. “Unless I pay you to do it.”

  “He crippled one of my men tonight. Even if you pay me to do it, I cannot guarantee you success. And… I’m told you’ve tried before.”

  “Perhaps.” Winton swiveled around, riveting his attention back on his victim. “You are dismissed.”

  “Commander.” The messenger bowed and left.

  Winton pursed thin lips in thought. He looked at the man hunched in pain sitting across from him. “Your sacrifice was not in vain, Ballard.” He pushed a chip across the table. “You’ll find sufficient credits coded to that to bu
y a replacement. Perhaps platinum, this time.”

  “I will never see out of this eye again.”

  “Perhaps. Microsurgery is tedious and unpredictable.” Winton stood up. “But I’d try it, if I were you. Somewhere far away.”

  Ballard reached out a trembling hand and clutched at the chip. “Somewhere where Jack Storm can’t find me if he comes looking.”

  Winton said nothing. He did not have to.

  The victim looked at him as if he would have liked to have known why all this had happened, and then he turned away as if knowing Winton would not tell him. Not even if he had been dying.

  Winton waited until the door closed and sealed before swiveling in his chair to the computer terminal. He opened com lines.

  “It’s done.”

  “Will it set him on the trail?” the flickering image asked him.

  “Perhaps.”

  “Is the man who threatens us and Jack Storm one and the same?”

  “If this works, we should know fairly soon. And if he is…” Winton’s transmission trailed off.

  “We have failed to get rid of him in the past.” The man facing him wavered visibly. “Perhaps a different tactic. If we fail again, all that we’ve worked for may crumble.”

  Winton said nothing. He had entirely different ambitions from his partner, but revealing them would not profit him. He sat impassively.

  “He will be followed.”

  “Yes,” Winton said.

  The image did not ask for reassurance. If it had, Winton would not have given it. If he said a thing would be done, it would be done.

  Only three times had he failed. Two with an unknown soldier. Once with Jack Storm.

  “Very well,” the image said, dismissing him.

  Winton cut the transmission. The com lines went dead. He sat back in his chair. Then he reached out and idly tapped out a new number. The transmission lit up, the monitor’s eerie light reflected on his face.