| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <shadowtk@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Hunting |
| Date: | Thu, 5 Feb 1998 00:26:40 +0000 |
>>>>>[Okay, update on the HVAR hunt. We hit paydirt.
+++++begin video
Lynch walks briskly through an office, trailing a bow-wave of "Hey!" and
"What the..." among the startled, besuited dwellers of Cubeville: a man
in FBI raid gear tends to have that effect.
He passes a sectretary whose alarmed "Can I help you?" becomes "SIR! You
can't go in there!" as he straightarms the closed door of an office,
pieces of the latch flying as the door crashes open.
Inside, two men and a woman are looking around in alarm: Lynch leans
against the wall, which creaks alarmingly under the weight of him and
his gear.
"Mr Roger Snell, I presume?"
"Who are you? How dare you?" The man behind the desk blusters. "I'll
call Security! I'll call the police!"
"I _am_ law enforcement, Mr Snell, and I'm here for an informal chat. If
you prefer, I can arrest you, Mirandize you, take you to Seneca, past
half Seattle's news crews. We can summon your lawyer from the golf
course, and you can be questioned at leisure, with our enquiries about
your illegal arms dealing made part of the public record." Lynch sounds
like he's grinning.
"You have no right to do this! You have no proof! These allegations are
baseless, and- and - This is a non-smoking building!"
This last is directed at the SIGA agent as he takes a Marlboro from a
flat steel case and lights it with a well-loved Zippo.
"So sue me, which you're surely going to threaten to do anyway."
"You cannot storm in here waving a machinegun and making wild
accusations against my good name!" Snell blusters.
"I'm not waving a machinegun: I have a L7 assault weapon worn correctly
on its harness as per regulations. And do you think I'd be making these
accusations like this if they were wild?"
"You could have contacted me less violently -"
"I got through to your secretary." Lynch replies, blowing smoke. "She
said she couldn't fit me in for at least five days, and I've got a
morgue full of corpses and a killer on the loose, with a HVAR I think he
got via you."
"This is PREPOSTEROUS-"
Lynch slaps down a photograph: the inside of a bus, the seats chewed
ragged, shreds of fabric and foam covering but not concealing the
carnage within. Over thirty corpses, torn apart by multiple bullet
wounds, some almost dismembered, and blood is everywhere. One of Snell's
colleagues - the man - turns away, gagging, before giving up the fight
and vomiting onto the carpet tiles.
"This is what a HVAR does at point-blank range, Mr Snell. It kills
thirty-one people in a few seconds. This is why I wouldn't accept Monday
afternoon, maybe, if you had time, for our little chat. The killer is
still free." He lays down another on the desk, Snell and his two
colleagues staring horror-struck: this one might once have been a small
child of perhaps six, hit by at least half-a-dozen rounds at point-blank
range. "Do you have children, Mr Snell?"
"I... I don't see how..."
"I do. I see scenes like this and I think, if I were illegally selling
weapons on the black market, I'd want to co-operate fully, or maybe next
time it might be my daughter dead. Or kidnapped. The man I'm after took
four girls with him, pretty ones, can you guess what he wanted them for?
What happened to them befoe they were murdered? Perhaps the one he chose
is still alive. How many more times will he rape her between now and
Monday afternoon, Snell?"
Lynch leans forward, and Snell shrinks back. "And can you imagine the
media reaction, if we had to make this official? That you allegedly had
information, and refused to co-operate, and had to be _arrested_ before
you'd share it? You'd be a target for scores of vigilantes. You'd even
be an accessory to the crime. Now, are you going to talk about Lot 712B
or not?"
Snell's hands are shaking. "I don't have to say anything without a
lawyer present..."
"I want the killer. Right now I don't give a shit about you, but if
you're all we can catch, we'll haul you in and put you away. Talk to me,
now, or talk with a lawyer present at Seneca, on record, with Turner
Network reporting your arrest as an accessory."
"You've got no evidence."
"You want to bet on that? Think I'd be here, doing this, if I didn't?"
Lynch stubs his cigarette out on the heel of his boot, tosses the butt
into the wastepaper bin.
Something almost visibly snaps inside Snell. "All right. Lot 712B was
stolen in transit. I have reason to believe it was taken by this man."
He scribbles rapidly on a pad, hands the top sheet to Lynch.
"712B, that was eight HVARs and ammo, eight Alphas, twenty-four Light
Fires, right? Shipment from Ares to you, last November."
"That's it. That was my contact point for the man, he called himself
Titan. It was valid then, he said he'd inform me if it changed -"
"Enough." Lynch turns on a heel and walks out. Outside the office,
Lilith is holding several uniformed rentacops at bay: as he leaves, she
falls in beside him. The rentacops follow, uncertain.
"He broke." the mercenary says shortly.
"Told you so." Lilith smirks, as they reach a stairwell and descend at a
run in a thunder of combat boots.
+++++end video
We're en route to Titan's last known location now. More as we get
it.]<<<<<
-- 1Lt J R W Lynch <18:32:24/02-04-59>
Strategic Intelligence Gathering Agency
