Chapter 14: Moving Forward

MPG Special Intelligence Unit

New Pittsburgh, Mars

Friday, April 5, 2148

“Joe, we got another hit.”

Joe Haldane looked over at the financial analyst manning the MPG’s Special Intelligence Unit. The SIU was created to search for Raoul DePierre, the shadowy Earthling agent that was running around New Pittsburgh trying to turn citizens into spies. They still didn’t know if he was WestHem or EastHem, though circumstantial evidence was pointing at WestHem, and even that was suspect. Far more dangerous was that he seemed to have the ability to get into the Martian banking system at will.

“What, Bob?”

Bob Raging had been on the Finance Office’s task force since the first day, when the ex-EastHem banker had discovered the problem. Obviously, he couldn’t stay on the program, but his work had been the start of the search for the man initially called Mister X. That had been eight months ago and there had been more than a few mistakes and false alarms since then. Still, the search was so important that the MPG had squads of SpecOps soldiers stationed around the city in vans, dressed in civilian clothing, and armed with tanners, stun rods that knocked out people in a heartbeat.

“One of the accounts we have flagged was just used to buy a beer in a bar called The San Pietro Club. It’s a bar and grill off Horatio Square.”

Haldane sat upright. “That’s only three blocks from here! I’ve been there!”

“Where better to find potential spies than near government buildings?”

Haldane flicked a switch on his communications system. “MPG SpecOps, contact made. Team One to form perimeter. Team Two to initiate takedown. Coordinates on the way. Move out now.” He sent the coordinates to the San Pietro to the ready teams that were on the first floor of the building.

The San Pietro Club

New Pittsburgh, Mars

Friday, April 5, 2148

“Think this is anything more than what we’ve already been through?” asked Private Matteo Guttierez.

“I think that you need to do less thinking and more getting ready,” Sergeant Sylvie Bummer, SpecOps Team One, replied. “You just make sure you do your job.”

“Yes, Sarge.”

It wasn’t very exciting, but Guttierez was required to isolate whatever section he was assigned to. Nobody was to get in and nobody was to get out. He checked his tanner wand and the self-test showed it was in good condition. Maybe he’d get lucky and whoever this guy was would try to break out in his area of coverage.

Sergeant Harold Busilli asked, “This guy still here, Control?”

The voice in his earbud replied, “He just ordered another beer, Busilli.”

“Three members of the team are inside, four outside being filtered in. Stand by. Entering now.” Busilli rubbed his face and went inside the front door. His tanner was a miniature version of the standard model that the police used, one that fit into a pocket of his shorts. He had been growing his hair out and letting his beard grow so that he didn’t look like a soldier. He bellied up to the bar and found himself standing next to a short man with thin hair who nodded to him and then drank some more beer.

Over the next five minutes, the remainder of Team Two filtered in, some going to the bar and others taking seats in the restaurant area. Busilli ordered a beer and just leaned against the bar, watching the MarsGroup news broadcast on the monitor behind the bar.

His earbud announced, “Team Two, be advised, target just paid for another beer.”

Busilli glanced at the guy he was standing next to, who was just removing his right index finger from his computer. Moving as if to stretch and scratch his back, Busilli put his hand in his pocket and removed the mini-tanner, activating it and sticking it in the man’s side. His target dropped like a sack of potatoes. At the same time, he yelled, “Team Two! Take the room!” Around him mini-tanners were deployed and used indiscriminately, knocking everybody in the bar out. Most had confused looks on their faces as they were tagged and dropped.

The sergeant looked around the room before saying, “Control, room secured. Get some vans and some technicians over here. Everything has to go down to headquarters.”

One of his men came up to him. “Sarge, what do we do about their computers and stuff?”

“Touch nothing! Nobody touches anything! If somebody isn’t bleeding, leave them alone. Just step back and touch nothing.”

Five minutes later a freight van pulled up in front of the bar and a group of technicians climbed out, already dressed in one-piece forensic bunny suits, gloved and masked. When their leader called out for Team Two’s leader, Busilli trotted over. “Team Two here, I told my guys not to touch anything.”

“Good! It’s possible this guy’s computer might be booby-trapped. Somebody other than him touches it, it might fry out. We want to put every computer into an individual Faraday bag.”

Busilli motioned him forward. “I’m not sure, but I was standing next to a guy who was using his computer when the word came out that somebody had bought a beer, and this guy had his finger on the computer sending payment. I tanned him first.”

“Good. Do you remember which finger he used?” Busilli looked odd at that, and the tech added, “It’s possible that if we use the wrong finger, it wipes itself.”

“You can do that?” Busilli asked.

The tech nodded. “Yep.”

“Right hand. Index finger.” He held up his own right index finger to demonstrate.

“Good. We’ll also grab any camera footage inside, just to be sure. Come with me. When the dip-hoes get here, I want everyone taken down to MPG headquarters. We can apologize to the innocents when they wake up. Now, which of these guys do you think it is?”

Busilli led the tech to the bar and pointed at the man he had been standing next to, now lying in a heap on the floor. He secured his hands and legs and then supervised Team Two as they did what the techs wanted. A few minutes later a stream of dip-hoes came through and everyone was taken to MPG headquarters.

MPG Planetary Headquarters

New Pittsburgh, Mars

Friday, April 5, 2148

“He’s the one?” asked Ass Blaster, the Deputy Director of Planetary Intelligence. He was looking at a small man in a hospital bed through the one-way mirror of an interrogation room.

“He’s the one. We don’t have a signed confession, but that’s all we don’t have.” Joe Ducksass answered. Ducksass was his department head for counterintelligence. Blaster raised an eyebrow and Ducksass explained. “We have facial recognition that says he matches Raoul DePierre. We have fingerprints that match DePierre’s from when he landed, and we have his fingerprints on the computer that the SpecOps sergeant saw him touching when the final alert went out. We got a judge to authorize a warrant and searched his apartment, where we found four other computers, all with identities that matched other accounts he created. We put his computer in a locked Faraday cage room and cloned it. Then we tested it with a fingerprint from his right index finger. It immediately tried to access a network node and log into the banking system. We then used a different finger on the cloned computer, and it immediately crashed and deleted all the files. He’s the one.”

“Now what?”

“I want to break this guy. We have him stopped, but even better would be if we controlled him.”

“Specifically?” Blaster asked.

Ducksass smiled. “What if we could use him to send disinformation? They don’t know that we have him, but if he stays offline too long, they will. If we can interrogate him, maybe we find out when they expect to hear from him and fake it.”

“Send them bullshit and maybe lead them astray.”

“I am going to use every legal method we have under the planetary emergency statute. We are keeping him unconscious with sedatives. We are going to start bringing him out of it but keep him partially doped up. Then I have an interrogator primed to start asking him questions. Not sure if we get anything but it’s worth a shot.”

Blaster nodded. “Keep it legal, but this guy has already earned himself a lifetime at hard labor.”

“I have a judge who’s going to be present to protect his rights. I have this guy dead to rights even without a confession,” said Ducksass.

“Keep me informed. I need to talk to a few people.”

“Raoul ... Raoul ... wake up, Raoul.”

The voice was low, a whisper, a whisper of a whisper. John Buffalo wasn’t sure he was even hearing the voice, but it kept repeating. He ignored it and went back to sleep.

“What’s the dosage?” asked Harold Reininger, the interrogator assigned to question and break Raoul DePierre.

“We’ve dropped it to ten milligrams,” was the doctor’s answer. The drug was Ivornista, a potent anesthetic that wasn’t used often because of some potential side effects. One side effect was making people talk while they were coming awake. At eighteen milligrams the patient was completely asleep; at zero he was completely awake. In between, people started blabbing everything.