All Free Novel
53
“The skimmer turned right when it exited the garage. That would take it to the end of the block and a traffic light. There should be a camera on that corner of the casino which register transponder IDs as vehicles pass.”
“The Empress is stealthed. No transponder.” Ray explained.
“Check.” Gee said.
Ray scanned through the security feeds and found the image of the skimmer passing by but as he said, no transponder code. Gee reached past him and opened up the vehicle maintenance tab. Once more the fields were empty as the car hadn’t been broadcasting anything when it went past. “See! Nothing!”
“Scroll down please.”
Ray looked at the bottom of the maintenance page and saw four numbers. Energy output values for the four antigrav units. These could not be stealthed as the units could not be modified without destroying them.
“You will note the four values aren’t equal as the load in the vehicle isn’t evenly distributed. This is the pattern you must track from every intersection sensor.” Gee explained.
Ray’s eyes lit up. “Holy shit! I can do this!” He bent over his terminal and hammered out a search algorithm for the pattern and linked into the city’s network to run the algorithm. With a grin, he patched his screen into the large display above the bar and everyone got to see a huge map of Las Vegas and a blinking red light at each intersection the pattern was identified at. The line of dots moved away from the Gemstone Casino heading to the western edge of the city then it veered north before the last intersection leading to the highway. It went through three intersections then stopped which meant the skimmer had to have turned west once more as there were no more sensors in that direction.
“That’s where we start!” the Major said. “Ray, freeze the assets and all accounts for Maury Levine and the Gemstone.”
“WHAT? You can’t do that!” Walter yelled.
“Indeed I can and I did. Maury Levine is a suspect in this investigation and is on the run. We are authorized to cut off access to his funds to prevent him from fleeing the jurisdiction. Let’s go people.”
The team moved out of the casino double time and once they reached the sidewalk they boarded a large personnel carrier. The moment the door closed they were in the air moving towards the coordinates Ray sent to the driver.
It took just ten minutes to get to the neighborhood where the skimmer disappeared. The road they determined the skimmer turned onto ended with a dirt track leading out into the desert. The empty desert.
“Now what?” the Major asked.
“Are there any flight centers or high velocity ground transport centers out there? Someplace they’d be able to move him more quickly?” Gee asked.
Ray looked at his tablet and shook his head. “Nothing that’s being actively used. There are three old airstrips but the use of airplanes is prohibited… oh right.”
“If they get him onto one of these ‘planes’ tracking his next location is going to be very difficult.” Gee said looking at Bal who was staring out into the inky blackness thinking that Jack was out there in that darkness.
They shivered.
The first ‘airport’ they checked was little more than a barn and a strip of cracked concrete. Gee and Bal urged the team to hurry back to the transport to go to the next one quickly. They just got into the air once more when Ray called out that they had a hit on the Empress skimmer in Baker, California and it was heading west.
“Set course for Baker!” Major Ash called out to the pilot.
“Major, we believe continuing our current search would be more effective use of our limited time. The Empress is now heading on a course which likely intersects with the gate in Los Angeles where we can easily detain him or you can have local authorities pick him up anywhere in between. If Mr. Levine was simply running for the other gate, why the diversion out into the desert. There was no roadblock he was avoiding. More likely he came out here for a purpose. Searching for the alternate transport site is still a viable plan.”
“That plan is just guesswork while capturing Mr. Levine will give us real answers.” Ash growled.
“At the cost of time we may not have.” Gee pushed.
“Thank you for your ‘advice’. We’re going after Levine,” the Major said, reminding Gee and Bal what their official position was. Gee sat back and shared a look with Bal who was equally unhappy.
Jack’s shivering caused his chains to rattle. This prevented him from hearing the sound of the plane until the screech of its wheels touching down some distance away. His head came up as he strained to hear anything above the jingle of the metal links. He struggled to make sense of the roar until it finally connected in his brain as the drone of an airplane propeller. He hadn’t heard that sound since he was a kid. The sound got louder then suddenly cut off as the engine was shut off somewhere close by. Jack listened and shivered then finally the door opened. Moments later someone entered and Jack heard the distinct sound of two sets of boots.
Two men walked into the light and looked at him. He looked back but he was shivering too hard to see clearly.
“It’s Danner. Let him know,” a cool voice said.
“Shit. He’s naked. Why the fuck is he naked!” the second one said pulling a sat comm from his pocket. He pressed a button and waited. “Package confirmed,” he said and hung up.
“Find him something to wear,” the first one ordered and the second one walked off into the darkness.
“I- I d-don’t- s-s-sup-pose your h-h-here t-t-t-to res-rescue me.” Jack forced out between his chattering teeth.Copyright by Nôv/elDrama.Org.
The man walked closer and jabbed Jack in the chest with a rod. Jack cried out in agony as a painful shock ripped through his nerves.
“No talking. Understood?”
Jack nodded the moment he could control his muscles.
“Smart.”
The other man walked back with a bundle of… something in his arms. “I found some clothes he can wear.”
The man with the shock rod snorted and nodded. The clothes were dumped on the floor at Jack’s feet. He looked down and saw a dusty white one piece leather jump suit with red accents and… a cape? Cheap looking rhinestones covered the chest, arms and legs which flared wide at the bottom. There was a red scarf which Jack hoped was warmer than it looked. The man also brought a pair of boots. Hopefully they’d fit as Jack could barely feel his toes.
The man who’d got the clothes pulled out a gun while the other went behind Jack and undid the locks, pulling the chain back through the chair’s frame. Jack almost fell forward but caught himself. He hadn’t realized how much he’d been leaning against the chains.
“Get dressed,” the man behind him said.
Jack’s muscles shook from being locked in place for hours then shocked. He carefully bent down and it took three attempts to get his fingers to grip the jumpsuit. He picked it up and undid the zipper down the chest. He braced himself against the chair and put one leg in then the other. He pulled it up and was grateful to discover it had a little room to spare around the waist/groin/ass area. The previous wearer must have been a little heavier. The problem began once he got his arms in the sleeves. His chest, shoulders and neck were too big to allow him to pull the zipper up further than the top of his stomach. He tied the red scarf around his neck and pulled the ends down over his chest.
He lucked out as the boots fit well enough. Maybe a little loose but better than nothing. He looked down at himself, seeing the suit glitter like little sparks firing off and felt ridiculous. He looked up just in time to see the shock rod thrusting in to jab him in the neck. Lightning flashed behind his eyes and he crumpled to the floor.
Even at the personnel carrier’s top speed, which they were using, it took them close to ninety minutes to catch the Empress skimmer on the outskirts of Barstow. They were two minutes out and closing.
“Mr. Sharif, can you pull up the energy output of the antigravs again?” Gee asked.
Ray looked at the Major as he’d felt the climate definitely become chilly. She frowned and nodded.
He tapped into the network and pulled up the last sensor reading.
“How does it compare to the one in Las Vegas?”
“The vehicle was moving faster through the intersection in Barstow so all readings are higher.” Rey said.
“I’m interested in the ratios between the four units,” Gee explained.