Rogue(20)

Lastly, it took serious balls and was a way to show off. That was something we knew about his personality before we deployed. He had to fight hard to keep subordinate and invisible, even when we were building our personae on Earth.

He was going to hit the conference. He was going to be very methodical and high tech, and he was going to laugh at them while he did so.

Silver had been working with me all along, with the scans, the mapping and other details. Now I needed her expertise on gear to determine how this would go down.

“So, if he’s going into the conference, where is he going to hit them and what is he going to use?”

She stared for a moment, made a gesture for “wait,” and turned to her system.

I sat patiently. She pulled up maps, blueprints, floor plans, seating charts, ran them in different pans and layouts. I’d let her have the desk. I had the bed. I liked being able to sprawl, though it was hard on the shoulders, eventually.

At last, she said, “It comes down to three probable methods. Please check me.”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“He can hit them on arrival or departure, but there will be a lot of crowding. He can hit them while they’re seated in the auditorium, but that increases the likelihood of either collateral damage, or a miss because of a collateral in the way. Or he can hit them during their presentation at the podium.”

“That’s when he’ll do it,” I agreed. “It’s the easiest and most dramatic. Everything he wants. A separate, visible target and easy to exfil after the fact. So let’s figure out how.”

She said, “You tell me, how hard would it be to get a rifle in there?”

By “rifle” she meant any weapon to conduct a shot with. I’d probably use a long-sight radius pistol myself.

“I expect they’re going to have scanners dialed up. Whole weapons, components, anything questionable. In this case, the security are professionals and will be harder to fool.”

“What else might you use?”

“Explosive. Again, easy to detect most of them by vapor.”

“And he’s never had a collateral, nor used explosive in close quarters.” His MO was gadgets.

“Chameleon suit,” she said, pointing at the screen.

I looked over. A previous victim had been killed in semipublic, smashed into a tree and the ground, and no one had seen anything.

“Are modern suits that good?” I asked.

“I can’t find you a node because they’re still heavily classified, but yes.”

“Damn. What do I need to know?”

She stretched back in the real leather chair, showing nice lines, and said, “Well, the current ones are spectrally near perfect. They’re also thermally near perfect if you’re willing to seal one up. Of course, there’s limited wear time in that case. If he has a small oxy bottle, he can probably manage twenty segs or so. Call it half-an-hour in Earth or adjusted Caledonian time.”

That was disturbing.

I said, “Okay, let’s look at this. He gets in early when security is lax, finds a cubby hole, waits them out. He could even have press or maintenance ID, and have access to some areas, including restrooms and food. When it’s time, he throws on the suit, walks across the stage, shoots or nails someone up close, then sprints in the confusion.”

“They’ll see distortion at that point, she said”

“Yes. I wouldn’t do it. I’d go for a shot. I’m a better marksman, though.”

“He’s not up to standard?”

“He was one of my backfills. Never had the full pipeline of training. I just focused them on the espionage aspects, not the combat.”

“Ah.”

I flipped the file in my mind. “He shot low Master. I shot perfect every year.”

“Perfect?” She looked stunned.

“Yeah, it’s one of the things I’m good at.”

“I’m impressed. Is that common?”

“No, not even among our unit. We were expected to make Expert, and they preferred Master.”

She shrugged. “Marksman will have to do me.”

“That’s better than most, and better than almost any other military.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“Am I right, though?” I asked, ignoring the compliment exchange. “I don’t want to plan for something and be wrong.”

“We’re guessing,” she admitted. “It’s a good guess, though. Scents point to location. MO points to method.”

“Right, so let’s assume we’re wrong and plan a backup.” Of course, that backup would have to assume this was the right place. We couldn’t cover two at once.

I wished I had an entire platoon now. Of course, an entire platoon, even of Operatives, left a deployment signature that could be traced. For this, it had to be me.