Drop Zone Read online

  Even though Mina might want to spare him the interview so he could focus on further recovery, they needed answers, and she wasn’t leaving until she got them.

  Once he was seated in the drone, he grumbled, “Okay, fine. I’m here.”

  “Is that any way to greet the people who saved your life?” Mina asked, keeping her tone light. She needed him happy and relaxed. “We know you’re upset and angry at yourself that this happened. But we’re past that. Vincent Kramer took lead on this.” Norm’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah, so you understand what that means. If the Syndicate finds out who broke you out of there, it’s not just your double thrusters on the line, it’s his, too.” Mina was going to keep that from happening, whatever it took. “Harri Hampburg’s life is on the line, too. Waterbury threatened to kill him to get you to comply, and even though he’s in New Mexico and McAllister is keeping an eye on him, we need to make sure he stays safe. The Syndicate can find him. They can find anyone.” Given enough time, since they had enough resources, that was the truth.

  Norm bowed his head. “I know.” He was weary down to the bone. “I’m sorry. You’re right, I’m feeling mighty sorry for myself and extremely apologetic that I put those I care about in danger.” He glanced up. “I know you know this, but I’m gonna say it out loud so we all understand. I’m grateful to you for getting me out of there. I wouldn’t have lasted ten more minutes in that sorry hellhole. Every part of me was broken and bleeding. He did a number on me. I owe you my life.”

  “We didn’t do it alone. I’m just glad we were able to help,” Mina said. “Now we need answers. The entire story, on the record. Then we go after this guy and put him where he belongs—back in a box indefinitely.”

  Before Norm could respond, the sim intoned, “What is your destination please?”

  “Looks like you could use a decent meal,” Mina commented. “Do you know of a place where we can sit down and not be bothered while you tell us your story? Please don’t say Biters. Someplace Waterbury wouldn’t know. Then we’ll decide together where you go after that.”

  “Yeah.” Norm ran a hand over his face. “I got a place. Little diner called Mary Lou’s. It’s a sit-down-and-order kind of place, printed, reasonable prices. Run by bots. Located out of the way. Half residential, half merchandise mecca. Everybody leaves you alone. Been there a few times. Nice and private.”

  “Sounds ideal,” Mina said. “Destination Mary Lou’s diner.”

  “Destination entered. Travel time three minutes and thirty-seven seconds,” the sim confirmed.

  Mina didn’t prod Norm during the ride. She let the ex-marshal settle and work on getting his head back in the game.

  Instead, Lee filled him in about his new residence. His excitement was infectious.

  “Sounds like a great place, kid.” Norm chuckled. “I’m looking forward to being invited over.”

  Lee nodded enthusiastically. “You will be. I’m hoping to have some kind of a get-together soon.” He worried his thumbs together. “I’ve never done that before. Entertain anyone. No room in my last place. But I’m looking forward to learning how.”

  “You’ll be a natural at it,” Norm encouraged. “All you need to do is print up some goodies and have fresh drinks available, and your job is done. Oh, and pipe in some music. People love music, especially when it’s set to mood circles on the screen. Really sets the tone for the evening.”

  Lee smiled, soaking it all up.

  “Landing at Mary Lou’s diner in thirty seconds,” the sim announced.

  They set down and exited.

  Mary Lou’s resembled Biters in that they were both single-story cinder block stand-alone buildings. That’s where the resemblance ended. Mary Lou’s was covered in jaunty red paneling and had huge solar-catch windows and a red and white awning wrapped around one whole side. There were also a fair number of drones in the lot.

  “Don’t worry,” Norm said, moving toward the door. “The booths are spaced out. We’ll ask for one in the back.”

  They followed him inside.

  “Hi there, and welcome to Mary Lou’s. How many in your party?” A perky bot in a red and white uniform with a paper hat perched on one side of her brunette head greeted them at the door.

  “Three,” Norm said. “Someplace in the back. No company.”

  “Certainly, sir.” The bot’s name tag read Sarah. “Right this way.”

  Sarah led them to a generous booth in a back corner. No other diners were close enough to overhear. The clientele consisted mainly of families and a couple of elderly couples.

  The interior was exactly like the exterior—lots of red and white. The floor was well-worn, alternating black and white tile. The booth was made out of a glossy red material.

  The bot gestured for them to sit. As they did, they ran their cuffs over the approval pin set into the tabletop. It connected with a bank stamp that told the restaurant that they had borrows to spend here.

  For privacy reasons, no other information was shared.

  “There are a variety of ways to order,” the bot explained. “The easiest is through our holo menu. Just enact the sensory button on the table, and it will display. When you’re ready to order, simply tap the item you’re interested in or verbalize your request. Disengage holo when you’re finished. If you make a mistake and order something you don’t want, simply say ‘error’ out loud. If you would rather use a board, they are right inside that opening.” Sarah gestured to a small drawer built into the wall. “Just tap your request into the board, and it will be sent to our kitchen. Your food will be brought out as soon as it’s ready. Would any of you enjoy a refreshing drink to start?”

  “I’ll take a coffee with a shot of dairy-sub, no sweet,” Mina said.

  Norm said, “I’ll have the same.”

  “A bubbly for me,” Lee said.

  “We have every flavor of bubbly available in the entire galaxy,” the bot chattered happily. “Strawberry blaster, grape grapple, kiwi kidder, mango bloom, summer kiss, lime twist are a few standard examples. We can mix them, we can add ice cream, we can add—”

  “Lime twist is fine.” Lee blushed. Once the bot left to take care of their drinks order, he muttered, “Sorry.”

  Mina tapped the holo menu, and an enormous 3-D menu popped up in front of them, covering the entire table. She’d never seen one so big. Mina and Lee were on one side. Norm sat on the other.

  “The eggs any way you can get ’em don’t disappoint,” Norm said, his face superimposed with holo menu from Mina’s vantage point. “They’re printed with just the right amount of trace. A personal favorite is the old-fashioned hash scramble.”

  “That sounds good.” Lee selected the option with his finger. The words shifted and turned green.

  Mina chose a lemon raspberry scone. “I already ate breakfast. Eggie made me some delicious French toast.” It was possible Mina had a certain someone from France on the brain today. No, it wasn’t possible, it was a fact.

  Once everyone finished ordering, Mina hit the button, and the holo menu popped out of sight. She reached in her pocket and drew out a veribox. She didn’t have to explain to the ex-marshal what this protected government recorder was or why it was necessary. She activated it, nodding toward Norm.

  “If we’re going to have any luck nabbing Wilbert Waterbury,” Mina told the ex-marshal, “we need everything. Don’t hold anything back. I want it from beginning to end. From when you first met this guy, to when you were carried out of his residence yesterday afternoon.” Her voice did the stressing for her. The tone that she’d chosen brokered no room for pushback. They were doing this.

  Norm sat back, contemplating. “Once I start, there’s no going back.”

  “Understood.”

  “You told me on the drone ride to the medi-unit yesterday that you know who Wilbert Waterbury is and who he’s connected to. Take a moment to con
template the hellscape you’re opening up and the likelihood that very bad things could be brought down upon yourself and those you love by poking into this case. There’s no time frame for how long it takes either.” He gestured to the two-centimeter square box on the table recording his every word. “There’s no pulling it back once it goes in there. It’ll be like an old-fashioned freight train running at high speed on those rickety tracks. When it bashes into you, it obliterates your body with no apologies. Only way to save yourself is if you decide to step out of the way, which you can still do now.”

  She studied the ex-marshal. He seemed resigned, but not overly fearful. He was doing his due diligence by warning her. She appreciated that. “Is that why you kept Waterbury’s Syndicate affiliation out of the first set of charges? Because there’s not a whiff of it in his file.” Mina acknowledged Norm’s words and accepted the consequences by moving forward. “It was cited that the two of you were friends. I find that a little hard to believe, having met Wilbert. You couldn’t have been close. Was that a ruse so you could get close to him? To find something to bring him in on that wasn’t connected to the mob?”

  Norm sat back in his seat as the bot approached to drop off their drinks.

  Once she left, Norm picked up his coffee and took a sip. “You better get comfortable. This is going to take some time. I won’t leave anything out, but like I said, once this is open and presented as an official report, there’s no going back. If you manage to take him in, the testimony I’m about to give will be key, and you might actually succeed in taking a chunk out of the Syndicate’s hide. But once that happens, they’ll react like wild animals doing whatever they can to save their existence. I’ve seen it a couple of times during my career. They kill magistrates, go after jury members, pay off lawyers. It’s as ugly as ugly gets.” He met Mina stare for stare. “Are you sure you still want to do this?”

  Was she?

  This was what she did for a living. She’d sworn a pledge to protect innocents and do whatever it took to bring to justice those who would hurt them. The Syndicate had operated without a care for well over a hundred and fifty years, harming people without compunction, constantly getting away with it, becoming wealthier and wealthier as the years went by.

  It was more than time for them to be held accountable.

  Even more important than Norm’s testimony, Mina had to make sure this case proceeded in exactly the right way. They had to bring Waterbury in on charges that would stick—and before the Syndicate knew what was happening. If they didn’t, they would lose. If they were extremely lucky, and Waterbury got Babble, a powerful truth-telling serum, and multiple media stories broke at the same time, it would produce the kind of chaos needed to keep the Syndicate in a spiral. It would be like igniting a hundred fires at once. This old, rich, corrupt crime organization wouldn’t know which flames to put out first or, if everything went perfectly, who started the blaze. Mina believed her agency had the wherewithal to complete the case efficiently, and if anything went wrong, the CIU had the ability to protect them.

  “Yes. I’m ready.”

  Chapter 4

  “I was never this guy’s friend. Let’s make that perfectly clear. I got close to him on purpose, made him think we were friendly,” Norm started. “This goes way back. Gotta be twelve, thirteen years now. He did seven in a box, and it was at least five or six before that when she first came to me.” He straightened, his expression grim. “See, it wasn’t just animals Waterbury liked to hurt. It was women, too. And this one happened to be my niece. She started it all. And before you ask, no, she won’t sit witness on this. He scared the ever-loving sweetness right out of her, not to mention left behind some physical scars. She moved halfway around the world to get away from him and has been living peacefully ever since. She’s not in witness protection, per se, but right up close. New identity chip. I wiped her lifecheck. All the standard stuff. No record of her anywhere. Anyone who goes looking would have a hard time finding her. Not impossible, but hard enough that I feel good about it. So we deal right now that her name doesn’t come up. I’m not even going to mention it. You can do a deep dive on me, and it’ll never pop. If you don’t agree, I stay quiet. I’ve already put too many people I love in the crosshairs of this evil empire. She’s the only genetic relative I have left. I never married, never had kids. She’s worth protecting.”

  “Deal,” Mina answered without hesitation. She wasn’t willing to risk a family member of Norm’s either. “She doesn’t play in this. But we still need to hear the story. All of it. If she was one of his victims, there will be others. It all adds.”

  “It does, which is why I’m agreeing to talk. I haven’t in years. Tucked it away so it didn’t come back to bite me. See what that got me? Nothing. These guys”—he leaned forward, lowering his voice, though the veribox would still pick up every word—“they don’t forget. They never forget. They live by revenge. They love it more than they love breathing. I can tell you for a fact that Waterbury thought of nothing but carving me up every second of his seven-year sentence. It was his fuel. His energy. His life force.”

  Lee sputtered, unable to keep quiet. “Then why didn’t you just move away? Do the same thing as your niece? Change your name, wipe your background. You had the means to do so. Then you would’ve stayed safe.”

  Norm shook his head. “Not a chance. He would’ve come after me until the day he died. Better to face it and try to get the best of him. And when I tell you I was ready and had plans in place, I was, and I did. My failure was not expecting him to come at me sooner. I was off by a few weeks. Like I told your partner here,” he said to Lee as he gestured at Mina, “I had someone on the inside of Oak Lane, where he’s doing his group, monitored residency. And he’s doing it there because I mandated it long before he was sprung. I set it up, made sure he didn’t get out without it, everything. I still have sway, my word means something. Then just like that”—Norm snapped his fingers—“he slips out like a whisper.” His brow furrowed. “I should’ve counted on that. I should’ve known that the Syndicate would muck everything up. There are no new hires at Oak Lane as far as I know, so they got him out some other way. Could’ve been bot reprogramming.” He glanced at Mina with an unspoken apology. “Had I known he was going to gain more freedom, I never would’ve agreed to take on the job guarding your friend Harri. Not in a trillion. I would’ve enacted my plan, had him come get me on my turf. Things would’ve gone different. Much different.” Norm shook his head sadly.

  “I believe you,” Mina said. “You’re excellent at your job. Your record is pristine. You set things in motion, thought you had the areas covered. I’ve been there. It’s no fun when the gravity gives out.”

  Norm appeared crestfallen. “That’s how I know I’m slipping. I should’ve known the Syndicate would worm their way in. Another mistake I made—because the bosses didn’t try to save him at the time of his trial, didn’t pull any strings, didn’t throw currency at his case—is I figured he was a string they wanted to snip. That he was beneath their notice or was a toothache they were willing to pull.” He took a sip of coffee. “Had no idea they were paying for his residence the entire time he was inside. I went over his file every six months from the time he went in to the time he got out, and nothing flagged. They paid for the reno and everything. They want him back. He has value. And because of that, they’re not going to let him go again easily.” He pinned Mina with a gaze that churned with regret. “Even if we catch him, he gets out. My bet is nothing will stick.”

  “Not if he gets Babble before they know he’s inside,” Mina countered. “By then, it’s too late. He’ll confess every bad deed he’s done and knows about in that organization. It will be a bloodbath, a hemorrhage they can’t stop.”

  Norm’s eyebrows shot up. He looked intrigued, his face easing from sadness into hope. “Babble, huh?” He leaned forward. “And how do you figure you’re going to get that approved?” Babble had be
en restricted a few years prior to Waterbury’s case, as people who were slated to get it were ending their lives rather than face giving a confession that exposed their every ugly secret.

  Mina gestured to the veribox. “Times have changed and are continuing to change. Approving violent criminals for Babble, especially ones that’ve already done time in a box, is getting easier. What can help our case is you providing us with firsthand incriminating evidence and my director bringing that to a magistrate. Wilbert Waterbury counts as an extremely violent offender, especially after testimony that he tortured you.”

  “That will only work if the magistrate isn’t dirty,” Norm countered.

  It was a sad truth. “That’s right,” Mina said. “It’ll be up to McAllister to find one who isn’t. We have to trust he can do that. But we can’t do anything without airtight evidence. And that starts with you and your story. So walk us through.”

  “He’s an animal,” Norm grunted, sitting back in his seat, relaxing by a few degrees. “It doesn’t get much worse than prolonged torture with intent to kill, according to my data log.”

  A male service bot dressed in the same uniform Sarah wore approached their table, expertly hefting a large tray filled with their food.

  The tray didn’t so much as jiggle.

  Not an extremely great time to break the rhythm, but they had to eat. That’s why they were here.

  “Here you go,” the service bot said cheerfully as he set everything down in its correct place. “Enjoy your meal.”

  Mina picked up her scone. “I had no idea entirely bot-run eating establishments existed anymore.” She reached out and paused the veribox, glancing around, making sure there were still no inquiring ears nearby. “With the Air Breathers Employment Act of 2090, I thought it was illegal. Don’t they have to have at least a few humans working here?”

  “This place has been here for years, so I’m pretty sure it was grandfathered in,” Norm answered around a mouthful of food. “This is as good as I remember.” He finished his bite and continued, “I believe the upper management consists of all air breathers, and that’s enough. Some people prefer not to be bothered when they go out to consume a meal. There’s another place called Manicotti’s up north. Same thing. All bots working the floor.”