Rogue(40)

“How do we track the starports?” I asked.

“I have software,” she said. “The more we refine the parameters, the better. But, the more we refine them, the greater risk of a disguise working.”

“We’ll need several searches, then.”

“I’ll need both our comms and try to borrow or buy another.”





Caledonia had four starports. It was quite the cosmopolitan system, in one sense of the word. Silver actually was able to create a patch through a coded police channel to the Caledonian National Police and into their line to the security cameras at the ports. She was sure it was secure, and I believed her. It would have been nice to jack right in through the CNP’s line, and HM Annette would allow it, but I had to assume he could track exception codes, or that someone would note it and, permissions aside, make a scene, hoping for promotion.

That wasn’t the problem. Nor was the volume of people a problem. A few thousand a day left the system. However, tens of thousands only left the planet, and went through the same ports. They used different lines, but he could easily change from one to another at one of the orbitals.

Silver’s training was impressive. A good Special Projects troop is a better grade of spy than most actual agents because of their training. We never had enough of either them, or Operatives or even Blazers, because there just weren’t enough people with the combination of high intellect—top .5 percentile—psychology and fitness.

She helped me set up search parameters around his photo; with enough slack we started getting hits at once. We tightened it slightly, and left it to run. I scanned through the faces it had captured, and we set up five more patterns, hoping for gait, physical proportions, ID types and unusual itineraries.

I was most concerned about appearance. ID was probably a waste of time, as was itinerary, and gait and proportions were very unreliable without recent video to work from.

I had a face every few minutes; the estimate was several hundred for the day. This could continue for some time, and I had to rest in there. To my advantage was that once I knew where he was, I could call for backup at the far end. In theory.

Silver worked backward toward my encounter with him. There was no guarantee he’d fired the rocket. It could have been a remote system set days before, or he could have consulted for someone else. I hoped to find out which, but didn’t know at present.

I worked in realtime, and she occasionally pinged one to me to double check. We got nothing all day.

We took shifts for showers, restroom, food runs, kept the “Do Not Disturb” sign lit, reinforced with an occasional step outside to nod and greet the housekeepers, and offer occasional tips. We took turns doing calisthenics, and she went to the hotel gym every day for a brief run. I prefer calisthenics. That is to say, I prefer me doing calisthenics. She’d take breaks for pushups and crunches to keep awake and burn off nervous energy. When she did I got to listen to her “Uh!” and “Urh!” once she passed forty. It sounded deliciously sexual, and I could only compensate with louder music and trying very hard not to look at her.

I’d look at the images that registered, and the ones she forwarded. Some were close. Some I had to squint to define. None were he, that I could tell. I saved a few for further review, and overlaid the two images. Some things are very hard to change, even with surgery—eye spacing, forehead height, cheekbones. Most people won’t go through that kind of surgery, even in our field. None were quite right, but some were close enough to make me second guess myself.

It was tedious, tiring, intel work. With ten operators, it would be easy. We had two. My eyes got gritty, hers got red. My ass got sore, so I stood, then my feet got sore. I was utterly revolted by more tasteless sandwiches, better than the prison’s but reminiscent of them. I took sleep in combat naps once a day, with a two-div rest at night. Then I found I was off the local clock and running on Freehold time again, a much longer day cycle than theirs.

On top of that, we had to track the news, intel reports from the embassy, and attempt to run periodic DNA scans.

We got lucky. It was only three days before he left. When the image came up, I jerked in my seat. Yes, that was definitely him, a decade later. I ran an overlay to be sure, and it was perfect. He was aboard a shuttle, and if I had someone on the receiving end I could stop him. I contemplated that contact code, and decided I owed Her Majesty Queen Annette the courtesy of a warning.

We were on the road in less than three minutes, me driving while Silver rammed through seats for us on the soonest shuttle we could conceivably make. I violated many traffic laws, and had the Royal Warrant handy in case anyone saw me. I lucked out.