TROUBLESHOOTER
by Andrea Speed
Eight

She laid her windbreaker on the floor and emptied the contents of the briefcase onto it, and it was surprisingly meager, considering how much this stupid thing had ultimately cost. Once that was done, she gathered the coat into a sort of makeshift bag, and put the slightly mangled suitcase back in the slightly mangled locker. Yes, it would be obvious it had been broken into, but she didn’t care - she just didn’t want to be spotted with the briefcase at the moment. Not until she was ready.

Once that was done, she tucked the bolt cutter under her arm, grabbed her “bag”, and headed out the back. It was actually an emergency exit, but it wasn’t hooked up to any alarms. She had already told Shan she’d meet him back at Caffeine Rush, and to give her five minutes. Since Shan was a stickler for time, she knew she wouldn’t have to wait too long.

She didn’t. She had barely sat down at one of the outside tables when he came loping across the street, avoiding the cars so easily you’d think he never really saw them at all. He was smiling in that slightly off kilter way of his the whole time, but once she stood up, his shit eating grin seemed to collapse in on itself. “You got it, right?”

She started walking and quickly steered him down the street, shoving the bolt cutters in his hands for safe keeping. “Yeah, not so loud.”

“Umm, this is the wrong direction -”

“Change of plans - we’re going back to my apartment building.”

“Oh okay.” He paused, and then, after a long moment, asked, “Did I do good?”

“You did great. I’d give you an Oscar if I could steal one.”

This made him inexplicably happy, and kept him grinning until they reached her building. Once again, she had to steer him in the right direction, as he thought they were heading to her apartment, but that wasn’t where they needed to go. Still, how was this going to go? There was a good reason she didn’t like the weird people in her new life to meet.

She rapped firmly on the door, and when she heard shuffling inside, she said, “Saj, it’s me, Z. Sorry to bug ya, but I need your help.”

“Saj? Is that that weird guy you’ve mentioned?” At least Shan had the good manners to whisper it.

She shot him an evil look, and hissed back, “Yes, he’s weird, but he’s sensitive, so don’t say anything about … well, anything, okay?”

“Freaky?”

“Eccentric,” she insisted, but knew damn well that didn’t even begin to cover it. And wasn‘t she one to talk? “Be nice.”

There was the metallic click and clank of locks being undone - she counted five - and then the door opened a crack as Sajeet peered out cautiously. “Z? Is, uh, is something wrong?”

“I just have something that I know you’ll be interested, but I can’t discuss it in the hall. Can we come in?”

Sajeet’s dark brown eyes settled warily on Shan, who pasted on his best grin, and gave him a small beauty queen wave. “Hi. I’m Shan, I’m just with her. I’m her ineffectual sidekick.”

Sajeet studied him for a full twenty seconds before sighing and opening the door wider. “Okay, come in. Ignore the mess.”

Although he was Indian by race, he had such a hacker’s tan now he pretty much looked white, almost all the natural pigment in his skin bleached away by weeks of seclusion and the radiation of a computer screen. He was five foot five, but looked much shorter with Shan in the room, and one of those men with the build of a stick figure gone to seed: scrawny limbs, round face, and a small but visible gut, where every single ounce of his body fat apparently lived. He may have been handsome if he had some muscle tone, saw the sun every few days or so, and washed his hair more than once a week. But in spite of the stereotype of the hygiene challenged geek, his hair was the only thing showing any signs of neglect; he never smelled, and his clothes were reasonably clean, considering he was an inveterate bachelor. His place always smelled like a combination of ozone and chili cheese flavored Fritos, though, and the air conditioners kept the place at a chilly sixty five degrees.

She had to take her sunglasses off, because it was also as dark as a frigging cave. The blinds were not only shut, but no light bled in at the edges, because the windows were covered with dark plastic that he said “cut the glare”. The only illumination was the white glow from two operating computer screens - the third was currently off. Hard drives and what had to be compact servers loomed in the background like miniature skyscrapers, attached to the screens and each other by thick clumps of cables and wires spread out over the carpet like spilled entrails.

Beyond the mammoth desk and its sprawl of machinery, there was little furniture in the front room. He had a plush leather desk chair in front of the monitors, an overstuffed bookcase on one side of the room, a tatty loveseat half covered in crap (magazines and CD-ROM drives, by the look of it), and a lone end table. If he wanted to watch a movie or a show, or listen to music, he did it like he did everything else - online.

“Oh, um … huh,” Shan said, clearly trying hard to remain on his best behavior. He tried to hide his shock as he took a good, long look at the dimly lit room, and crossed his arms over his chest, everything in his body language saying it was killing him not to say something about their surroundings.

As Saj relocked the door, she put her impromptu “bag” on the end table, knocking off some Extreme PC magazines and zip discs, but she was hard pressed to care. “I need you to work fast for me, Saj. I don’t think we were spotted, but I’m gettin’ down to time here.”

“Is this related to the cell numbers I texted you?”

“In fact, it is.” She opened the bundle, and pulled out the jump drive she had gotten from the briefcase, along with a CD -ROM still in its clear plastic case. “I need you to tell me what’s on these, and how they’re relevant to the papers I also found in the case.”

Sajeet came and took the objects with great curiosity, as Shan looked on. “What do the papers say?”

“I don’t know; I haven’t had a chance to read them yet. But I will while you work your magic.”

Saj just grunted humorously, and walked back to his altar of computers, while Shan drifted over for a closer look at the papers. “This was it?” He sounded disappointed, and she couldn’t blame him. “Sure this came from the right case?”

“Pretty sure.”

He scratched his head, sucking in a sharp breath when he accidentally grazed one of his scars, and opined, “This is what you call an anti … umm …”

“Yeah, I’m afraid it is.”

“Maybe not,” Sajeet interjected, already settled in and working at his computers. “These could be nuclear launch codes for all we know.”

Now there was a thought. It would probably explain everything too.

She let Shan help her sift through the documents as Sajeet went to work. After a few seconds, Shan groaned and rubbed his eyes. “Office memos. Oh god, I swear they make me narcoleptic.”

“If you fall asleep, I’ll punch you in the back of the head.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“What are friends for?”

They weren’t just memos but printed out e-mails, all within Osiris, and all referring to something code named “Slipstream”. There were several mentions of a “contract” with a small software company named Arcadia Systems; they had a secret deal with Arcadia to distribute “Slipstream” for them. Shit, was this actually about a interface? She felt like such a twonk.

“This is code,” Sajeet said, confirming her fears. “It looks just like basic … what the hell is that?”

“What the hell is what?” She wondered, as his fingers just flew over his keyboard.

“There’s an aberrant code string,” he told her, studying his screen intently. It looked like a bunch of random numbers and symbols to her, but then again, she was not the tech head. Her work was completely wetware oriented.

“Aberrant how?”

“It looks wrong. Can I network this?”

“Network it to whom?”

“Just Phisherphreak909. He’s on right now, and a white hat. If I ask him to keep this U-2, he will. I trust him.”

She nodded, relatively sure she’d regret it. “Yeah, okay.”

Shan sidled up to her, and whispered, “What the fuck did he just say?”

“He asked me if he could share the info with a hacker friend of his - a “white hat” is a good hacker, one who finds security flaws and lets the people running the show know about it without tattling to everyone else. And U-2 is Saj code for between us - “user to user”.”

“And it’s also a band.”

“And an old style bomber. It’s fun to learn things, inn’t?”

Shan waved the pages he was reading at her, and asked, “What does anything have to do with anything?”

“You can’t want me to spoil the ending for you.”

He gave her an evil look, and she found it hard not to laugh. It wasn’t anything against him, she just found it difficult not to burst out laughing when other people gave her the evil eye; for some reason, she routinely laughed at inappropriate things. That’s probably why she didn’t get invited to a lot of parties. Well, one of the reasons. “What I figure is Osiris has an under the table deal with this Arcadia to distribute something called “Slipstream” for them, presumably ‘cause Osiris legally can’t. But while this is scumbag corporate behavior, it isn’t worth ten thousand dollars, not to mention someone’s life. I‘d be honestly shocked if they even got a slap on the wrist for this.”

“So why the cloak and dagger shit?”

She shrugged, and nodded her head towards Sajeet, a black shadow against the bright flat screen monitor. “He’s gonna have to fill us in on that.”

They waited for Sajeet and his hacker buddy to work their magic, but she still didn’t understand what could possibly be on the jump drive or the CD that would be worth as much as this had already cost.

*****

It seemed ironic to tell the Osiris lackeys to meet her at Caffeine Rush, so she did. Hilda - or whatever the fuck her name was - didn’t want the meet to go down there, and suggested somewhere more private, which set off all kinds of alarm bells. She wasn’t going to pretend to be that stupid; she said Rush or nothing, but to give them a false sense of security, she scheduled the meet at one of the outdoor tables at one in the morning, after Caffeine Rush had closed for the night.

Shan had work, but he said Jamal owed him one (one what? Who knew?), and he could get away from the club by twelve thirty and meet her there. She told him not to bother, but he loved this shit too much to stay away and she knew it.

She showed up at midnight and did a reconnaissance of the area. Not that she was expecting Osiris to actually cough up the dough for a decent sniper, but since she figured out who the thug in the motel room was, she knew it paid to be cautious. And that didn’t even count that Dickeye business - what the fuck had that been about?

Once she was satisfied it was relatively clear, she took a seat with her back to the wall of the coffee shop, and waited, She set up and activated her laptop, taking advantage of Rush’s wi-fi source, and tapped into the DOT camera feeds of the main intersection at the head of Chestnut Street, and the intersection on Elgin Avenue - there were no DOT cameras on Perry Street. But this way, she could see everyone coming before they even reached the same block.

Eventually, a weasel-esque young man in a brown leather car coat came over to her table. He reached of alcohol, pot, and cigarette smoke; she smelled him before she saw him. “Hey baby, what’re you -”

“Keep moving.”

“Senorita, don’t be -”

She opened her coat, so he could see the SIG Sauer she now had in her shoulder holster. “Stakeout, gringo. Walk.”

His beady eyes widened appreciably, and he glanced around quickly, obviously looking for the other cops on the stakeout. He backed away, holding his hands up so they’d know he wasn’t armed. “Chill, babe, chill. I’m goin’ …”

He actually did, and he was the only person that bothered her. This wasn’t a block for drugs and prostitution; that was a couple of blocks South, starting on Columbus Avenue. When the traffic died down, she could almost hear the echo of their solicitations.

She caught sight of a jogging figure - an oddity at this time of night - but the figure was familiar, so she guessed it was Shan before he actually showed up. “Oh good, I’m not late,” he said, panting slightly.

She eyed him warily. He’d obviously come straight from work, as he was dressed in black vinyl pants, and a black muscle t-shirt so tight you could see he had nice pecs and while not exactly six pack abs, at least two or three cans close to it. At least the cap sleeves showed off how muscular his arms were, as well as the bright green and black snake tattoo on his left arm. It looked like it was circling his bicep, biting its own tail; he apparently got it in college, before the “accident”.

At her dubious look, he looked at himself curiously, and asked, “What?”

She shook her head, and decided just to issue orders. She already knew that the boss at his nightclub had asked Shan to wear leather or vinyl, look trendy and as well as tough. (But muscle in vinyl pants?!) “Nothing. I just need you to loom in the background and look mean and discouraging.”

“Act like a bouncer, y’mean? What a stretch.”

“And if someone pulls a weapon, just follow my lead. Only intervene first if it looks like I’m gonna get clobbered.”

“You think someone’s gonna pull a weapon?”

“I scared the shit out of her earlier, so it’s possible.”

“If she had any brains, she’d never meet up with you again.”

“Yeah, well, brains are hard to come by nowadays.”

“I know I lost most of mine.” He flashed her a goofy grin, letting her know he was kidding. Mostly.

It wasn’t long before a black Lexus pulled up slowly to the intersection on Chestnut, and she had a feeling it was just what she was waiting for. After all, a car that nice was never seen this far downtown this late at night, unless they’d taken a wrong turn. Shan took a position several feet to her right, crossing his arms over his chest to emphasize the muscles, and pasted on his best, stern “Don’t even try it, pendejo” frown.

Soon the Lexus purred down the street, as menacing as a shark in the ocean, and pulled up to the curb about ten feet down the street from the café. The fact that they were putting even a slight distance between them made her sure her instincts had been right - this wasn’t going to go well. She quickly dropped the DOT website, and shut her laptop, as three people got out of the sleek, dark car: Hilda, and two tall, burly men in dark suits, muscle that was trying very hard to look corporate, and failing miserably. Now she was glad Shan had come, if only to make the sides seem more balanced.

“Ms. Stark,” Hilda said, giving her a perfunctory nod. She wore a dark pantsuit, perhaps to fit in with Tweedledee and Tweedledumb, who flanked her on either side, staying just two steps behind. They seemed to size up Shan, and Shan, too accustomed to being the authority figure on the door, sized them up without a flicker of emotion. If they wanted to intimidate either of them, they’d have to do better than simply show up and scowl. “You have the briefcase?”

Although it wasn’t actually a question, Z answered it anyways. “Sure do.”

Hilda’s pale eyes studied her, her pale eyebrows raising slightly in puzzlement. “Where is it?”

“Not here. Sorry to drag you out here in the middle of the night, but I wanted you to know if you fuck with me, I fuck with you back. I know what you’re up to, and you’re not getting it back. Thanks for the cash, though.”

Hilda’s eyes turned flinty, and her bald bodyguards deepened their scowls, as if they’d just bitten into lemons. “The briefcase and the contents are ours. You will turn it over now, or you’re not leaving here.”

The thugs fixed their stances, and crossed their arms over their barrel chests, casually slipping at least one hand beneath their coats, probably going for their own weapons. It made Z smirk, doing her best not to laugh. They wanted to make this ugly, did they?

Good. She was counting on that.

TROUBLESHOOTER
by Andrea Speed
Seven

She heard the gunshots as she shoved Shan back and took dubious shelter behind a parked car, but in the back of her mind she knew they were wrong - those gunshots didn’t sound right.

You could do a lot of things to alter a gunshot: mufflers, silencers (which were not silent, but what else could you say?), alterations of the barrel, even holding a throw pillow in front of the muzzle. But judging from the sound, none of those applied. So what the hell was going on here?

She didn’t hear any wasp like noise of bullets whizzing past, nor did she hear thuds of impact or breaking glass. It was quite possible that, even at this proximity, he was a supremely shitty shot. Most people were, no matter how many times they practiced at the shooting range - this is why randomly spraying bullets and insane automatic weapons were so popular. If you can’t be a good shot, at least you can push three hundred rounds a minute.

She ducked down behind a parked Saturn, and with her SIG Sauer in one hand, she looked back at Shan - crouched down next to the brick wall, looking slightly startled - and pointed down the street with her free hand. He gave her a curious look, and hissed, “What?”

She glared at him in disbelief. Why the fuck was he whispering? In fact, people were walking past them on the street and looking at them funny, giving her an occasional dirty look because of her gun. What, didn’t they hear the shots? “Circle around,” she snapped. “That alley only has one outlet. Let’s box him in.”

“Can two people actually make a box?”

She gave him her ‘evil molten death’ look, and he rolled his eyes, shoulders sagging in acquiescence. “Okay, okay.” He duck walked down a few cars, keeping low, and then broke out into a run. Shan could run fast, so if the guy decided to make a break for it on foot, he’d be shit out of luck.

Perhaps a car was finally hit by a random bullet, or a driver was freaked by the bright flash out of the corner of their eye, because there was a screech of brakes and a sudden, violent crash, metal on metal, glass shattering, raining softly down on the pavement. Like lemmings, or suburban teens, others quickly followed in sequence - screech, crash, break - setting off a chain reaction that quickly clogged the narrow side street. She stood up, taking advantage of the chaos, and fired randomly over the tops of cars, into the alley.

She knew about urban warfare. It was part of her training. She could still remember skulking around what they called the “ghost city”, shells of buildings replicating an anonymous major city, junked cars lining the streets as if parked, and training for various scenarios. In some areas, you could use crimes such as carjacking and drive by shootings to your advantage; in others, your best bet was to snip from a window or a roof, but even then, escape could be tricky, especially if you were hitting your target at a parade or a stump speech or even just coming out of the strip club. The problem with an urban situation was it was chaotic, and there were a thousand different variables, dozens of potential witnesses, and dozens of potential “collaterals”.

But if they actually saw you, they weren’t considered collaterals - they were considered liabilities, otherwise known as viable secondary targets. As much as she loathed it, it was hard training to break.

The funny thing was, she only squeezed off two shots, not worried about ricochets since she was using fragmenting rounds, but they were still blind as hell, and way too high to avoid people coming out of their cars to argue with one another. Still, she was pretty sure she heard, exclaimed from the general vicinity of the alley, “Holy shit!” She saw that flash of light as the guy turned away, and realized the light came from something on his jacket, not his gun. Mirrored sunglasses? Oh, that moron. He’d just made things worse for himself by revealing he wasn’t a professional, or even a gifted amateur.

She broke out in a run, headed across the street, and as she threaded through the crashed cars, she yelled, “Freeze, motherfucker!” Well, she was getting weird looks for the gun, and if she said something that sounded like cop show dialogue, they’d likely believe she had a reason for running with a firearm. No matter that she didn’t wear a uniform, as most cop show cops didn’t either. This was one of those times when she was honestly grateful for television.

In theory he had a head start, but not much of one, as the torn chain link fence at the end of the alley was still vibrating. Did he get stuck? Wasn’t as easy as the movies, was it? This is where she had a slight advantage - as a man, he was probably a faster runner, but as a relatively petite woman, she could slip through the fence with no trouble at all.

The lot behind the buildings used to be a warehouse loading area, but since no warehouse existed anymore, most of the access was blocked off by fences, buildings, or dumpsters, with only the single access road still open - the only easy exit point, where Shan would be cutting him off. But she wasn’t even going to let him get that far.

She stopped and took quick aim, her sight a small black dot in her immediate foreground as she squeezed the trigger. There was little kick, she braced for it, but the shot was still explosively loud, echoing off the buildings like a prematurely set M-80.

She knew she hit her target, not by the crimson mist that exploded from about calf level, but because he pitched forward mid-step, his now injured right leg unable to hold even a modicum of his weight. He went down so fast he didn’t even have time to put his hands out in front of his face. He kissed the asphalt so hard, she wondered if he was still conscious. She got her answer a second later, as he exclaimed, loudly and indignantly “Fuck!”

“Show me your hands!” She barked, keeping her gun focused on his body. To take someone down as rapidly possible without risking a kill shot, you had to go for the lower legs. Upper legs gave you more of a target, but if you nicked the femoral artery or hit it outright, you had a corpse in three minutes. Now that he was a stationary target, she could pick and choose painful, crippling shots to the trunk if he tried any more shit. “Show me your fucking hands or I’ll take your other leg!”

The guy rolled over onto his back, holding up his empty hands as if in surrender. His lips and nose were bloody from smashing face first into the pavement, and the lower half of his right pant leg was already black with blood. “Fuckin’ … Jesus fucking Christ, you shot me! I didn’t … I didn’t know you were a fucking cop! “

She almost told him he would have been better off if she was a cop, but she noticed Shan coming up the access road, and was aware her current i.d. in this city had her back story as Z. Stark, former Sydney police officer. Since her story was still holding water with her friends, there was no reason to blow it now. “Why did you try and shoot me? Where’s the fucking piece?”

The man - who was a small man, non-descript, with greasy brown hair and a pinched face that made him look rodential - was whimpering slightly and holding on to his injured leg, folded over on his side in an almost fetal position. “Can’t believe you fucking shot me, you bitch,” he was muttering, mostly to himself.

“Where’s the fucking piece?” She demanded, louder this time.

“I threw it! It’s over there somewhere,” he shouted back, tears of pain running down his face as he vaguely waved towards the weedy, trash strewn lot behind her. “Doesn’t matter, it’s not real.”

“What do you mean it’s not real?”

“It’s fulla blanks! Shit, I was only ‘sposed to scare you!”

Blanks? If that was true, that explained the weird sound of the discharge. She caught Shan’s eyes, which were wide with surprise, and jerked her head back towards the lot. “See if you can find the gun, okay?”

He nodded, continuing to look stunned. “Yeah, sure. Is he, uh, is he gonna be okay?”

“He’ll be fine. A limp’s no biggie.”

“Limp?!” The guy squeaked.

“Why were you trying to scare me?” She heard Shan walk off, his shoes crunching on the gravel, and she wondered what the conversation about this later was going to be like. He’d never seen her shoot someone before. Rat Boy was too busy mewling to pay attention, so she kicked him in his good leg, and snapped, “Answer the fucking question!”

“Dickeye said we’d be even if I did this, okay?!” He shouted, bloody spittle flying. “He said he’d forgive my debts if I just shot some blanks at you! He said you were a pain in the ass and he wanted you scared off! But he never said you were a fucking cop! Shit, I knew it was too easy …”

“Dickeye?” That had to be one of the worst nicknames she had ever heard in her life, and she had never heard it before. Well, not outside the context of a Jerry Cantrell song. But it sounded like one of Girani’s associates - they all had stupid nicknames. “What kind of debts did you have?” But even as she asked the question, she saw the ghostly scars of track marks on his scrawny, pale arms, and had her answer. “Drugs. Shit man, you’re fucked.” She stepped back, keeping her gun leveled on the junkie (whom she now decided was perfectly harmless), and asked, “Shan, found the piece yet?”

She risked a glance at him, and saw him standing stock still near an abandoned and apparently used mattress, looking down at the trash pile of needles and condoms at its foot, frozen as if in wonder. “Shan?”

No movement, no reply. Shit! Maybe it was just too much stimulation for him, and he got hit by a seizure. Or maybe his meds were wearing off; she hadn’t asked when he’d taken them. She looked back down at the bloody junkie, who was too busy curling up into a ball and weeping like a mama’s boy. She’d been shot in the leg before; it didn’t hurt that much. A shot in the gut was much worse. “Move, and you’re going back to Dickeye as the Swiss cheese boy,” she threatened, but didn’t wait for an acknowledgement as she walked a way. He was a complete no hoper; a janitor with a bottle of Clorox and a grudge was more dangerous than him at this point.

She still kept her gun out, held loose at her side, as she went and patted him on the back with her free hand. “Shane? Shan, you back yet?”

He started slightly, and looked at her with genuine surprise. “Wow, how’d you get here so fast? I didn’t even hear you come up.”

“I’m stealthy like that. C’mon, let’s get to your place. This guy’s a complete wash out.” The Dickeye and Girani shit could wait. It wasn’t a priority right now, and she needed to get Shan out of her before a real gunman showed up.

He looked back uncertainly, his eyes slightly glazed with that lost, post petit mal look. “Should we, uh, call him an ambulance or something?”

“Don’t need to.” She held up her finger, indicating silence, and there, as if on cue, was the sound of sirens in the distance, faint but growing louder. It was probably for the five car pile up on the street, but hey, that was close enough, wasn’t it?

She gave him the slightest push to get him moving, and he started walking, scratching his head as if trying to figure out a particularly enigmatic puzzle. “I lost time again, didn’t I?”

“A few seconds. No worries.”

“Shit. I hate this.”

“I know.”

And Shan was so preoccupied with his own embarrassment, he completely ignored the bleeding, moaning guy on the ground as they walked past. But wasn’t that better for everyone?

****

While Shan changed into more “police like” clothes back at his place (and took his meds - she heard the telltale rattle of pills in a bottle), she checked her phone, and Saj had left her a text message, all the numbers on the thug’s phone. Just to prove how efficient he was, all the numbers had full names, as if he’d hit the online phone directory as well.

And it made no fucking sense at all.

She rubbed her eyes, and tried to think of a logical way to explain all this. The only things it could be was someone was attempting to play both ends against the middle, or a single entity with conflicting goals. The only way to confirm it was to find that fucking briefcase.

She didn’t think they were followed or currently being watched, but she decided to do a superficial appearance change. She emptied everything out of her leather jacket and slipped them into the blue windbreaker of Shan’s she borrowed, and then grabbed one of his baseball caps, this with a red rubber duck with devil’s horns embossed on the front (why? Who knew?), and put as much of her hair in it as she could. Her hair was short anyways, just to keep it out of her eyes, but she wanted to cover up as much as she could. The finishing touch was a pair of his black plastic sunglasses. It was weird, but he had a desk with one drawer completely full of sunglasses. She had no idea what that was about, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Maybe he was a sunglasses kleptomaniac.

Shan was too accustomed to her odd behaviors to ask why, or why she wanted to stop by his landlord’s tool shed and borrow something. (His landlord, Mr. Nguyen, was Zen Buddhist and completely cool. His wife could strip the skin off your bones with just a few choice words, though, so there was some assumption he had to adopt a Zen outlook to tolerate her for five minutes. Z had only met her once, and briefly, but even she had wanted to deck her.)

On their way back to Perry Street, he admitted, “Y’know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you really act like a cop before. It was …”

“Frightening?”

“Oh yeah. I was ready to assume the position.”

“Like that’s a big shock. Get some Jaegermeister in you, and you’ll assume it for anyone.”

As she had hoped, he laughed, and it cut the tension somewhat. But she knew she shouldn’t have gotten him in on this. Among all the misfit and outsiders she usually surrounded herself with, Shan was probably the most tragic, only he didn’t know it. It was surely better that way.

“But you look so … y’know, harmless. No offense.”

“None taken. It was part of why they hired me. Element of surprise.”

A quick check had revealed there was indeed a shift change, and she kept her cell phone open and wedged against her ear as he went into his blowhard cop routine on the little clerk, and she quickly got lost in the paint smelling halls of the small U-Store-It.

Either Shan was ultra-convincing, the clerk was completely spineless, or both, because the guy quickly folded. Maybe it helped that she told Shan to mention the name Bertrand could be involved - Bertrand was Andrew Ward’s egregiously dorky middle name. Shaw may have hidden it here, but he was still working with Ward in some capacity.

As the clerk coughed up a lot number, she found it, and slid Nguyen’s bolt cutters from beneath her borrowed jacket, and went to work on the lock. It didn’t take long.

The storage “unit” Shaw had rented was hardly bigger than a bus station locker, but was big enough to store the metal sided briefcase, which sat there waiting like an obedient dog. She hauled it out, mildly surprised by its lightness, and put it down on the pored cement floor. She had learned a few tricks in MI-6 (nothing was ever as secure as it seemed), and between that and the bolt cutters, the case didn’t stand a chance.

Finally, she popped the briefcase open, and got a look at just what all the fuss was about.

TROUBLESHOOTER
by Andrea Speed
Six

Ward’s apartment - if that’s what it was - was horribly sterile, all matte finished wood and beige wall to wall carpeting that should have been an executable offense. But if he was dead, perhaps he deserved it.

Blondie kept her distance, not wanting to give Z a chance to capitalize on her obvious inexperience at threatening people with a firearm. She looked more like a machete sort of person anyways. Z figured the time here was hers to waste, so she headed over to their beige striped couch (another crime against decoration - if this was Ward’s home, it looked like a dentist’s office waiting room) and casually threw herself down on it, waiting to get the show on the road. “So why the charade?” She asked. “Why ice Ward and replace him with a guy who doesn’t look remotely like him?”

“What? We didn’t “ice” him. He’s missing.”

“Sure he is.” Z sat forward, and wished she smoked, so she had something to do with her hands that could also convey nonchalance. Damn it - no wonder they always smoked in detective movies. “Don’t tell me, he’s stuffed in the freezer, wrapped in butcher paper marked ‘cutlets’ .”

The hard faced blonde looked mildly horrified, upper lip curling up in a half-hearted sneer. “You’re disgusting. I’m not a killer.”

Z looked at the gun she was holding - nine millimeter revolver, small, a purse sized gun, one that might be dismissed as a “woman’s gun”. She was sure if she lunged at the woman, she would shoot out of panic, but it was unlikely to hit her - or at least hit anything major - and she could take her down with little trouble. She didn’t so much smack of middle management as of internal security - the independent contractor, rent-a-cop version of Hilda of the SS. She was more accustomed to giving orders than doing actual dirty work.

She at least had the good grace to glance sheepishly down at her weapon. “This is just for my own protection. You have quite a reputation, you know.”

“Little old me?”

She arched a perfectly painted eyebrow at that. “Shaw’s dead. We think the people responsible for murdering him have the briefcase.”

“Firstly, tell me something I don’t know. Secondly, I can almost guarantee they don’t have the briefcase, ‘cause the moron that was sent to extract the information from him didn’t understand what Shaw was givin’ him.”

The woman’s cool blue eyes examined her like she had just dropped from the sky. “H-how do you know that?”

“Do you really think Shaw inflicted that much damaged on his assailant before he was killed? I don’t think so, honey.”

That seemed to take a minute to sink in, but her face was a perfect mask of emotional vacancy. “And you wondered why I have the gun?”

Z shrugged. She supposed she had to concede that point. “It was self-defense.”

“Isn’t it always?” She replied wryly, then asked, “Do you have the briefcase?”

She shook her head. “Not yet, but I think I know where to find it. But I ain’t gonna.”

That made her composure crack, and her jaw drop. “What? But you were hired -”

“Under false pretenses. Ward supposedly hired me, but he didn’t - you did. You and your people.” And it was then that she realized exactly who she was dealing with. “You’re with Osiris, aren’t you?” She reeked of corporate whore, and it made all the sense in the world.

Her response pretty much confirmed it. “Absolutely not.”

“Yes, you are. You’re Osiris, and Ward had something unbelievably illegal - or incriminating - on your bosses, and you believe that’s what’s in the briefcase. But no one can afford to be tied to it; so you hire me, under the identity of a conveniently missing man, so you could have plausible deniability if the shit really hit the fan.”

Her eyes remained unreadable, her heavily made up face reverting to a frigid mask. In the poor light, the thick brown shadow on her lids made her eyes look bruised. “You know, if any of that fairy tale was true, I couldn’t confirm or deny it.”

Oh yeah - corporate whore all the way. “That sounded so much like an official statement, I’m outta here.” She stood, and the Osiris woman jumped back, knuckles tensing on her gun until they turned white. It was hard to smell fear under so much Chanel No. 5, but you could still see the signs.

“Y-you can’t go,” she insisted, trying very hard to not make it sound like a plea. She failed.

“Can and will. No one uses me like this, even if I am getting paid.”

“How much?” Z didn’t respond verbally, just looked at her curiously, and Blondie nervously licked her lips before adding, “To keep you on the case. How much more money do you want?”

She shook her head, smirking at the woman’s audacity. “You can buy almost everybody, so go buy someone else.”

As Z started for the door, Blondie blurted, “Ten thousand dollars.”

That made her pause. “Excuse me?”

“In cash. I can get it for you by the end of the day.” Since she didn’t immediately respond, Blondie added, “You’ll get an extra ten thousand when you deliver the briefcase to us.”

She was dead serious, and while part of Z wanted to deck the bitch for suggesting that she could be bought for ten thousand dollars, another part of her thought she would be a fool to walk away from so much easy money …

But that was the problem, wasn’t it? It was easy money. If Osiris was able to connect the dots, they would have been able to recover it for themselves, and for much less money. Yet they needed someone to get it for them, an outsider … a scapegoat. Ward had been just that, and now it was her turn. “What’s in it?”

That seemed to catch her off guard. “What?”

“The briefcase. If you want me to find it, you tell me what’s in it. And I mean the truth, not this “experimental interface” bullshit.” She put her hand on the doorknob, ready to walk out. Blondie wasn’t going to shoot her, no matter what she did. She was desperate, but not that stupid. And for no logical reason, she thought Shan was loitering near the door on the other side. Maybe the mention of a gun sent him up, but he was smart enough to not charge in a room when he wasn’t sure where everyone - especially the gunman - was. He’d only come in if things went completely south.

Blondie’s eyes darted nervously from the door to her face and back again, deciding how much she dared tell her. “It … documents.”

“Documents?”

“Highly classified ones, pertaining to a project for the Defense Department.”

Worth twenty thousand dollars and at least one life, possibly two? Worth it to Girani? On a tight time limit? Absolute bullshit - it didn’t track. But Blondie seemed to believe it. She probably believed what her corporate masters told her, and that was that. If she wanted her paycheck, she toed the line, even if it meant meeting a dangerous, crazy woman in a missing man’s condo and holding a gun on her. And if the threat of violence didn’t work, she would stick to the script of throwing money at the problem.

Amazing. How stupid did they think she was? Well, maybe it was in her best interest to let them keep thinking she was a complete moron. “I’ll contact you at the Ward numbers. And if you ever point a gun at me again, I will shove it so far up your ass you’ll taste in it in the back of your mouth. Understood?”

Torn between complete revulsion and utter terror, Blondie nodded quickly, meekly, and let the barrel of the gun drop towards the carpet.

As she came out, she saw Shan out of the corner of her eye, standing flush against the wall, ready to blindside the first bad guy. But because it was her, and she saw him anyways, he exhaled and pushed himself away from the wall. But he didn’t speak until they were outside the elevator. “Do I wanna know what’s going on?” He whispered, casting nervous glances back at the door.

“Probably not.” As they got in the elevator, she got out her cell, broke the connection between their phones, and checked for any messages. Nothing. Was Sajeet having a problem breaking the thug’s phone?

Shan must have been nervous, because he was quiet until they hit the sidewalk outside. “What the fuck’s goin’ on, Z? I understood, like, four things I heard. And what does Cypress have to do with this?”

It took her a moment to get that. Cypress equaled Osiris - either it was his transitory malapropism, or a bad cell phone connection. “Nothing. It seems I’m being set up, Shan.”

“For what? Why?”

“Not sure, and because Ward disappeared before he could take the heat.”

“And Ward is ..?”

“A missing guy.”

“Ah.” He scratched his head, careful to avoid the scars. “Yeah, okay, I’m still clueless.”

She stopped at the corner and turned to face him. People just walked passed them, not interested in their little drama, although some cast glances at her or Shan that were strangely appraising or inexplicably hostile. People were just like that nowadays, especially if you looked as weird as the pair of them did. “Do you think you could be me?”

He didn’t do a double take, but it was close. “Well, for starters, I don’t have boobs, and I suck at accents …”

“No, not like that. We’ll have to stop and get you some pants. You still got that bogus cop i.d.?”

He nodded. “At home, with the rest of the outfit.” He bought a “cop accessory kit” in - of all places - an “adult novelty store”. The kit came with an extremely realistic badge, a soft rubber baton that was an … unusual shape, “mace” (really spray on strawberry flavored oil), and a pair of working handcuffs, lined with extremely un-regulation, removable fake leopard fur. He claimed to have gotten it as a gag gift for someone else, but it was one of those things she felt she was better off not knowing.

“Okay. Let’s go to your flat and pick it up. By the time we’re done, there’s bound to have been a shift change over at the U-Store-It.”

His brows knit together in puzzlement. “Y’ mean the one across from the coffee place?”

“Exactly. I want you to go in there and be Detective Zane Stark, a big bully cop.”

“Your name is Zane?”

“No, of course not. Would you rather be Zack or Zane?”

“Zane it is.”

“Right. I want you to show a picture and basically lean on the clerk until he gives you a lot number. No physical stuff, just be belligerent and pompous.”

“Dick Cheney belligerent or Steven Seagal belligerent?”

“What’s the difference?”

“One is a worse actor.”

“Don’t go overboard. Just repeat what I tell you, and make him nervous enough to squirm and give you something to make you go away.”

He nodded, giving her a big goofy smile. “Make them ‘respect mah authoratay?’ Can do. So how much of the ten thou am I gonna get?”

She glared up at him, aware he was partially joking. It figured he would hear that part loud and clear. “Two hundred bucks, and all the boxes of wine you can drink.”

That rangy grin remained on his face, and was so innocent she felt like ruffling his hair. “You’re a … oh damn … miner?”

“Close enough.” She grabbed his arm, and led him down the street towards 24th, where his apartment building was. “Look, this is all gonna sound weird, but I need you to follow everything I tell you exactly, okay?”

“Okay. But, can I ask ya - why? If you think these people are setting you up, why are you doing this?”

“Because no one fucks around with me.”

“But … somebody’s dead, right? Shouldn’t you maybe, I don’t know, let this one go?”

“No one fucks with me and walks away without at least a permanent limp.”

He gave her the oddest look, his eyes bright with a combination of humor and fear, his mouth caught in a crooked half-smirk. It was the look of a man who knew sticking a barbecue fork in a light socket was wrong, but damn it if he wasn’t going to do it anyways. “You’re more macho than me, Z. You know how frightening that is?”

“Kinda.” It was then she caught a flash of light out of the corner of her eye.

She thought it was just a stray beam of sunlight reflected off a car’s side view mirror or chrome, but some part of her brain was insisting that was wrong, that something was wrong. It wasn’t from a car, it was across the street, in a dark recess between a Thai restaurant and a thrift store. Her stomach tightened as she suddenly remembered something similar happening once in Sarajevo, an inadequately concealed sniper’s blind, and how a single bad bounce from a car’s headlight exposed a would-be assassin, the light reflecting off a telescoping sight.

It was all instinct as she shoved Shan behind her, and reached for her SIG Sauer, trying to stare into the dark depths of the narrow alley.

And that’s when the shooting started.