Codename: UnSub (The Last Survivors Book 2) Read online

  Nevaeh Kraft put a hand on his arm to bring him back to what could be considered reality. “What?”

  Kevin paused, hesitant. It took him about five seconds to realize that he didn’t reply because he enjoyed feeling her touch. It took him another five seconds to conclude that he couldn’t drag it out forever. But Lord, would he like to. The last time he had felt a woman’s touch, it was a mercenary who shot him in the chest. Twice.

  Ah, Mandy. The good old days. “The triplets at the Ground Zero,” he said, and she took her hand away. Dammit. “They know about every person he kills. For all I know, they use his contract sheet for insider trading. Either they’ve talked, which is possible, for Mac, or—”

  “Or they’ve been bugged,” Nevaeh concluded. “And if they’re as good as I’ve heard, then this guy would need technology on par with—”

  “The hackers,” Kevin Anderson muttered. “Kaye freaking Wellering…” he blinked, then muttered a curse. “You don’t know that name. And you never heard me say it.”

  Nevaeh smiled, her eyes glittered in her Eurasian features. “I know who she is, head of the Hacker’s Union. She hired one or two Exiles through me awhile back.” He blinked and smiled at her, bemused. She giggled—he loved that giggle, he was certain—and answered his unspoken query. “I’m very well known for my discretion. I’m surprised you know her, though.”

  “We met. She didn’t kill me.”

  “How did you know Kaye runs the Union?”

  “Wellering oversold her lowly status when we first met. She tried to meet with me in what looked like a broom closet, even though I had walked past Union secretaries with better accommodations.”

  Nevaeh nodded, understanding his point. Thankfully, no one else in the city had enough awareness to put the facts together. A small smile touched her lip. “I hope you don’t think she’s a serial killer,” she asked wryly. “That would really and truly be a bad day.”

  Kevin chuckled. “Thankfully, no. But, she has a fascination with Kyle. She wants to know where he comes from, his entire past, things like that. If someone paid her to keep tabs on who Kyle’s paid to kill, she’d probably happily leap on it—indulging her hobby while being paid for it? That sounds like the way her mind works.”

  Nevaeh nodded. “If someone told her that he was worried someone would pay Kyle to take them out, and have Wellering bug the Ground Zero while specifically looking for Elsen’s contracts, she probably wouldn’t even blink.”

  Kevin grinned that she caught on. “Exactly. She might be supplying this bastard without her even knowing what he’s using some of the equipment for…or even if she’s using the data herself, she may not know exactly how he’s using the information. And if I go to Kaye and ask, she’ll either turn me into a newt or something… or she’ll ask me for a favor in return.”

  All humor left her face, and she simply arched a brow. “A Newt, I don’t get…why are you worried about a return favor?”

  He barked one, short, sharp, humorless laugh. “I never liked Faust, and I don’t want the starring role.”

  Kraft shrugged. “Point taken. Now, if the triplets know they’re bugged with Hacker tech, you think they could find it?”

  “I’m not sure…” Kevin sighed. “Even if they can, and we kill this bastard, Kaye may still come after me for whacking a client of hers without her permission…Damnit, I hate this city.”

  He looked up to meet her eye, and his next thought came out before he could think it through. “Although I think I’m starting to warm up to it.”

  Nevaeh smiled at him.

  ***

  Lotus looked up from a scanner, blinking only once.

  “You were bugged, weren’t you? The whole bar?” Kevin asked.

  Mickie spoke up. “The main area was, yes.” Her eyes hardened. “Kaye bugged us, that damn slut! I’m going to take these nanite bugs and ram them so far up her tight little—”

  “Ah!” Kevin exclaimed sharply. He raised a finger to his lips and looked around Lotus’s back office. He had come to her directly when he concluded his business with Nevaeh. Mickie had seen him go into the back, and she had been looking for an excuse to get away from her brother’s latest argument with Father Jack.

  Kevin looked out the door, making certain that Mac wasn’t anywhere nearby. “Sorry, but I don’t trust your brother as far as Kaye’s concerned. He seems enamored of her. And he’s a schmuck to start with. Listen, you’re both going to have to keep this under wraps for the time being.”

  Mickie’s eyes flared. “What are you saying? She bugs us, probably trying to destroy our entire business, and you think—”

  Lotus placed a hand on her sister’s arm. “Kyle’s targets.”

  The other sister blinked. “Oh crap. You think Kaye’s a serial killer? Or one of her clients?”

  Kevin shrugged. He knew they weren’t stupid, and that was proof of it. “That’s why you need to keep this under wraps. We don’t know who, and I don’t think Kaye will appreciate it if we accuse her of aiding and abetting a killer and she didn’t know anything about it. But right now, we know one thing: he’s after Kyle’s targets, probably because they’re a challenge for him. Kyle’s been after the head of the Burners, Alek, I know that much. Three have already died, so are there any others on Kyle’s list?”

  Mickie grimaced. “Mac would know. He handles all of Kyle’s banking. If Kyle doesn’t use us for research, Lotus and I generally never know, or take notice of any of his targets.”

  Kevin smiled evilly. “I’ll get Mac to tell me. If it is Alek, where would I find him tonight?”

  “Golden Gate Park sometime this evening,” Mickie answered. “And if it’s not Alek?”

  The Exile grinned. “I’m not a genius, Mickie, but I’m not a total moron. Anyone Kyle can hunt down without you, I probably can too.” He glanced at the rotary phone on Lotus’s desk. “May I use this a moment?”

  She nodded, and he picked it up, started to dial, and then paused. “Is this bugged too?”

  Lotus smiled and shook her head. He nodded and kept dialing.

  “Yes?” came the sharp, whip-like voice of the Mercenary Guild’s leader.

  “Major Rohaz, this is Kevin Anderson. Are you busy?”

  There was a slight pause as Antonio Rohaz put up his mental defenses. “Why do you ask?”

  “I think our mutual acquaintance may be in need of assistance sometime tonight. I wondered if you needed anything out of R&D that may need…field testing.”

  Rohaz took a moment to put a drag on his cigar, and Kevin could swear that he heard a smile in his voice when he said, “I may be able to come up with something.”

  “Thanks, I’ll meet you shortly, once I know where I’m going.”

  “See you then.”

  Kevin hung up, then smiled, leaned down, and kissed Lotus lightly on one cheek. He looked into her eyes and said, “You not only look like an angel, you are one. Thank you.”

  He looked up at Mickie and patted her on the shoulder. “You really should try to get to know Kyle better, even if you told him that you were in love with him, what’s the worst that could happen?” He shrugged. “I have to go scare your brother now. Sorry.”

  The two of them were left blinking as he marched out. Sometimes talking with him was like undergoing a blitz attack.

  Kevin walked into the main bar and smiled at Mac, who was entangled in a shouting match with Father Jack. The priest, as usual, was winning, but Mac had the tenacity of a terrier.

  “Hey, Mac,” Kevin hailed him, calling over the noise. “I need to know who else Kyle’s been hired to kill lately. He might be in trouble.”

  Mac stopped in mid-shout and glanced his way. “The Gentleman Murderer? In trouble? Ha! And people say that I have a crappy sense of humor.”

  Kevin stopped at the bar in front of the hacker. “I’m serious. Do you truly impugn my honesty and honor?”

  Mac laughed. “A nutcase like you? Honor from a man who killed—”

  Th
e bar owner didn’t have a chance to finish the sentence. Kevin grabbed him by the shirtfront, hauled him over the bar top, and slammed him against the wall.

  “Now that I have your complete attention,” Kevin began in a voice so controlled it was frightening. “I should remind you that I am not your friend, your associate, or even that we’re in business with one another. I have few friends left on this entire planet, and one of them is about to walk into a giant deathtrap with a very well trained killer and, possibly, a few thousand Burners. I need to know who else Kyle’s been hired to kill lately who’s still alive.”

  “No one,” Mac choked out. “Alek’s the only one left.”

  “Thanks. Now, was that so hard?”

  Kevin dropped Mac and charged out of the bar at a dead run.

  “Lunatic!” Mac called to his retreating back.

  Father Jack smiled and took sip of his drink. Mac looked at him, narrowed his eyes and said, “Shut up.”

  Chapter 23: High Dark

  Kyle waited in Golden Gate Park, resting himself on top of a Windmill someone had placed in the middle of the park over a hundred years ago. The meeting of the Burners was for after dark, and the windmill was his only clue to the location.

  Alek showed up on time, though, with several bodyguards. By the time he appeared, at least a thousand Burners had arrived to greet him. Kyle knew that this was going to be difficult, even after he took his shot. He had invested in subsonic ammunition for this event, for the simple reason that he didn’t want the crack of the rifle to give away his position. If anyone thought to look to the nearest elevated position to search for the shooter… it wouldn’t help much, but he would manage.

  Alek took up a position on a wooden park table so all could see him. He was a perfect target. Kyle lined up the crosshairs on his forehead. It would be easy.

  And then something caught his attention. Alek had arrived with six bodyguards, and five of them were decent, by gang standards. The sixth one, however, was good even by corporate security standards—he missed nothing, and his eyes moved constantly. He was at least six-feet tall, with dark red hair and green eyes.

  He also looked like a teenager.

  Kyle pulled back on the scope to get a better look at him. The guard moved as though he had been trained in penjakt silat, Krav Maga…or something more… familiar? Kyle couldn’t tell what exactly he saw in the boy, but it was off.

  The Assassin blinked. A well-trained killer hired to be a bodyguard for Alek? Someone that obviously dangerous? He was too young to be an Exile or a Merc, and Kyle had never seen him at the Assassin’s Guild Hall.

  However, if the training was as good as his motion indicated, he fit the training profile for what Kevin Anderson was looking for in a killer.

  And then something strange happened. The boy looked up, studying the windmill a moment. He smiled, showing big round dimples, and winked in Kyle’s direction.

  Elsen lowered the scope so he could see the guard’s hands. He was going for a knife. Kyle suddenly understood why someone else had taken a shot at Alek—the “serial killer” Kevin had talked about had wanted to get close. He was investing time and energy in a kill he could have settled with one bullet, had he not deliberately missed.

  Kyle considered it a moment—if this man had not missed on purpose, the entire mission would have been quite professional. The missed bullet would have been a perfect setup—it would prompt Alek to hire bodyguards.

  The “guard” drew a knife, and Kyle re-angled his scope to take in the area around the platform. There was a large and burly man who was about seven feet tall and four feet wide around the shoulders, a creature of such brute strength most people would have been wary of even looking at Alek the wrong way.

  However, Kyle knew that the knife would be too fast for the brute to do anything. It was obvious that the response time would be exceedingly slow for what was about to happen.

  The killer struck.

  And this time, the killer wasn’t Elsen.

  The knife was fast, the knife wielder faster. Incredibly fast, in fact. He was faster than almost every assassin Kyle had ever seen.

  The knifepoint stopped less than a millimeter away from the Alek’s spine.

  Kyle blinked in surprise. He had expected to see Alek paralyzed, and three of the other guards slashed open around the fallen Burner.

  Instead, the giant had been a blur, and grabbed the man’s wrist in a grip that hurt to look at. The killer didn’t even scream, however, and delivered a blindingly fast kick to the giant’s groin.

  The larger man didn’t even blink, simply lifted the wrist with the knife and hurled the serial killer like a rag doll across the park. The redhead bounced off a tree, and used his momentum to come back at Alek as though nothing had happened.

  “Get him, Frank,” Alek called. The albino leapt off the table before Kyle could shoot, and Elsen was about to reacquire the target when the whole world went mad.

  The park was suddenly alive with explosions, at least four of them. Trees shattered, and four massive fireballs went shooting into the air. The crowd, of course, did not react well, and dispersed into chaos.

  And the crowd interfered with Elsen’s shot. Alek ducked and decided it would be a good time to leave.

  The redhead and the giant named Frank were soon back at it once more. The redhead tacked to Frank’s right, and delivered four body blows to the creature’s kidneys and solar plexus, one right after the other in a perfect retzev.

  The giant vibrated a little with the impacts, then slammed a ham-like fist down towards the redhead’s back. The killer dropped to a crouch so the blow swung overhead. He sprang back up like a jackrabbit, firing a double palmstrike into Frank’s chin. Before gravity could pull him down, the redhead grabbed Frank’s shoulder with one hand, and with the other delivered a series of deadly blows—a palm into the nose, a crippling jab and an elbow into the giant’s throat, then dropped into an eye whip with the tips of his fingers.

  Kyle expected the giant to drop like a tombstone, but he didn’t. Frank didn’t even stagger. He simply grabbed both of the redhead’s wrists and pulled him away, holding the man’s arms out from his body. Frank then proceeded to slowly pull, about to rip both of the man’s arms out and beat the redhead to death with them.

  Elsen wrote the redhead off as dead, and then changed his angle to reacquire Alek again. The albino was almost to the trees, about to escape into the woods. He was running, and Kyle would have to literally shoot through two people to kill him.

  Kyle aimed anyway, and prepped to take the shot.

  And then there was a sound of automatic gunfire.

  Out of the woods came a man in all-black Mercenary body armor. He could tell by the HUD helmets—a combat helmet with slender goggles slid down from the brim. The goggles were as a screen so soldiers would use binoculars, sonar, thermal imaging, and night vision, as well as track prey and distinguish friend from foe.

  The mercenaries had a “memory cloth” system of body armor that was impervious to most non-AP rounds, and provided slight protection from fragmentation grenades. It worked based on running an electrical current through the cloth. The gauntlets on the suit were black metal, and acted as a control unit for the computer elements of the suit. Some customized suits offered hidden blades, and fingertip tazers.

  However, that did not catch his eye—those were basic, though customizable. In the man’s hand was a Saber assault rifle. It was essentially an assault rifle with an attachment that fired .20mm HEAP rounds, shotgun shells, and any bullets in that caliber. It had been in production since 2090, but classified as a prototype still in development in 2093.

  The Saber was based on an original design created by the Assassins, and Major Rohaz was the only man who had the design after the Assassins fell—and he promised Kyle never to deploy it in the field with the Mercenaries.

  The attacker came out of the woods firing on full automatic, carrying the gun in a proper fashion, held up to shoulder level, e
yepiece level to the eye. There was a cartridge sticking out at right angles from the attachment in the top—the shotgun area. Out of the back end was a short, stumpy cartridge under the butt of the attachment for high explosive rounds. The mercenary cut a path in front of him to make sure the area was cleared, and turned to his right, and fired at full automatic, with the shotgun, for Alek Soubel.

  The albino dropped to the ground a moment before, and Burners around him were cut down like felled wheat. The mercenary looked displeased, and fired off a different round, one that turned the area around Alek into a fireball. The mercenary was about to shoot again when he turned, intercepting a Burner who had charged at him. He slid back one hand from the grip, and swung the rifle like a club, swinging it in what was regular Krav Maga fashion.

  And now Kyle knew why Rohaz had sent a Saber into the field.

  Rohaz did not break his promise. He had not fielded it with a mercenary.

  He put it into the field with Kevin Anderson.

  As Kevin cut a swath through the crowd, Kyle turned back to the redhead, expecting to see his arms ripped out and on the ground—he was more worried that Frank would try for Kevin.

  Kyle would have needed to find another sparring partner if that happened. That would be annoying.

  However, the redhead was intact, still fighting Frank. The redhead used his position to swing his legs up, kicking Frank in the chest, and the solar plexus, and the throat, and finally, slamming both boots to his head.

  Frank growled and let the redhead go, and Kyle saw why—the redhead had cleats on his boots, and one of the spikes had scratched Frank’s eye. The redhead then broke into a run, charging for the windmill. Frank followed at a speed that belied his bulk. The redhead didn’t seem to care, but he leapt for the windmills, taking two steps up the wall to back flip over Frank’s head. The resounding crash shook the windmill, but the redhead didn’t stay to follow up. The killer ran past the tree line, with Frank not too far behind him.

  The redhead whipped out a cord from around his waist and threw it at a tree like a bolo. It wrapped around a tree, and when Frank passed it, the detcord exploded, dropping the tree on top of Frank like a club. The tree and the giant went down like, well, a felled tree.