Fox Hunt (Fox Meridian Book 1) (7 page)

Of course,
proving
Hunt was a spy of some sort, or finding out what he had been up to, was probably going to be impossible, but it did provide potential motives, and it did explain the pressure to have his murder investigated by American cops.

And then her implant threw up a message receipt indicator, and she noted the sender and opened it immediately.
Re: Sanderson Hunt. Come to the office at your earliest opportunity. JM.

Fox looked at the message for a second and then uncurled herself to check on the progress of the forensics swarm. Jackson apparently knew there was something off about Hunt and was unwilling to discuss it over unsecured comms, even with his special encryption. Well, maybe she
would
get to find out what the spook was up to after all.

New York Metro, 16
^th
January.

It was well into the afternoon of the following day before Fox managed to get all the paperwork finalised, the body and evidence prepared for transport, and her own body shuttled down to the surface. Thankfully the maglev system between Newark Spaceport and Long Island, the LI-line, was fast and efficient, and it was maybe another thirty minutes before she was looking out of the carriage at the kilometre-high, gleaming spire that was the headquarters of MarTech Group.

It was one of three arcologies in the immediate area owned by the company, though the third was new and still under construction. Each was structurally similar, a streamlined tower, aerodynamically designed to handle both normal wind and the raging storms that came up the Atlantic coast in the wake of the massive hurricanes which had made the Gulf of Mexico largely uninhabitable. You could basically live in one of those towers your entire life: they could produce their own food, recycle water, provide power, and they had every convenience you could ever want. True, the main MarTech building was heavily devoted to the labs and research facilities of the company, but the secondary tower and, as far as Fox knew, the new one were residential. The two completed buildings had over half a million inhabitants, and that was not counting the smaller apartment blocks which littered the space between them, housing an average of fourteen thousand people each.

The train slowed as it climbed to the entry point on the side of the tower. Looking south out of the window she could make out the ocean and a couple of larger structures. The Hamptons still boasted a few single-occupancy houses owned by the very-and-conspicuously rich, the ones who had yet to cotton on to the fact that showing off wealth like that had really gone out of fashion. Then she was looking at the walls of the tower’s station and she got up to leave the train.

Of course, she still had quite a way to go before she was at her destination. It was just that the rest of the journey was going to be vertical for the most part. Security passed her through to the nearest elevator block without comment, though she knew her arrival was being flagged upstairs as she walked through and, sure enough, a message appeared in-vision.
Please take tube sixteen, Inspector. Mister Martins is expecting you.
Of course he was. She followed a virtual trail of lights along the corridor, pasted there for only her to see, leading to a door amid the bank of elevators, walked into the waiting car, and turned to see the doors closing. Now it was just a matter of waiting.

‘When I said “your earliest opportunity,”’ Jackson Martins said as Fox stepped out of the car and into his private apartments, ‘I didn’t mean straight from orbit. You could’ve stopped off and changed. Had a nap. Eaten.’

‘Food and sleep are for wimps,’ Fox replied, ‘and you said “office.” This is your home.’

‘There’s no difference, as you well know. Order some food and come out to the solarium.’

Fox watched his retreating back as he wandered out of the lobby through a door at the back which led into the deeper recesses of the suite. He was tall, over one-eighty-five centimetres, and aging very gracefully into his sixth decade with little grey in his mop of black hair. Jackson Martins had always been something of a geek, far more of a technician than a salesman, and probably more of a scientist than a technician. Certainly he was a genius, a pale-skinned, blue-eyed, likeable genius with a striking ability to put two and two together and produce five when it came to technology. He kept himself fit, mostly for his daughter, claiming he had no intention of putting her through the loss of another parent. His rather odd attachment to Fox was because of his daughter too, but that was a longer story.

She accessed the apartment’s computer, having been given guest access soon after moving to the area, and ordered up sandwiches and juice, and then she followed Jackson out into the solarium, which acted as both a nice place to sit and a link into the more private areas of the house. The place continued to impress her: Jackson was a technologist, but he had the money to buy physical decoration and was old enough to prefer the real over the virtual. His home was beautiful, elegant, and with little in the way of virtual enhancement which was not there for function.

‘Teresa is over in Oslo until Monday,’ he said as she sat down on a lounger beside the one he was stretched out on. Beside them, an entire wall of glass gave them a view of the park which took up the central section of the spire’s top. Above them was sky, shading toward a darker blue in the thinning atmosphere.

‘Well, I came to see you. Because you said I should.’

‘True. How was the Moon?’

‘Grey.’

‘Yes, well it generally is. I heard about the little incident with New Moon, however.’

‘I’d imagine it made news. A mercenary pretending to be UA. A corrupt cop caught by the newest of LCSS’s units and a NAPA consultant. Gunfire and explosions.’

‘All very exciting, yes. I have a far less exciting Technologies research facility out there which Sanderson Hunt had no reason to go near, but he seemed interested in the place. It’s in the Jenner crater. You need to
try
to get there and he did. Recently. He’s on my list of people I think subcontract their loyalties to other agencies.’

‘His background stinks of NIX. I’m glad it’s not just me that thinks so, but what have you got out there that they’d be interested in?’

‘Ah, well… That’s one of the reasons I wanted to see you personally. I restarted the Dallas nanotechnology research, and I was hoping to keep it away from United Anarchy by putting it up there, but NIX were always quite keen to get their hands on that work ahead of time too.’

Fox forced her fists to unclench and then remained silent as a service robot rolled in with her food, placing the tray down beside her and then retreating on silent, motorised wheels. ‘I thought you’d decided that research was too dangerous.’

‘I discussed it with Teresa. Actually, she discussed it with me. She’s quite determined that it should go on, I think
because
of what happened to her in Dallas. This technology has so much promise, Fox. It could literally revolutionise our production systems. You have no idea. I’m putting the prototype into the new tower. Production at twenty times the rate we have in current fabrication facilities, creating new materials at the
molecular
level. In your lifetime, we could see unheard of materials, nanoscale robotic devices capable of repairing damage at a cellular level. Miracle science, Fox. That’s what we’re talking about.’

She peered at the man in the baggy jeans and the surfer singlet. To her knowledge, he had never ever been a surfer, but the image suited him. That said, as far as she knew anyway, he had never tried weed and she felt that was a surfer-dude requirement. ‘You don’t have to sell me on the tech, Jackson. I just got the impression you viewed that line of research as… sensitive. And I don’t mean commercially or socially.’

‘Huh, well, it could be the latter. Disruptive technology. I hate the term, but this is. I was… loath to continue after what happened in Dallas, but…’

‘But you can’t resist a technical challenge. After meeting you I kind of understood what happened to Oppenheimer. Okay, so you think Hunt got his hands on some of the research, and someone killed him for it?’

‘That’s where it gets strange… Why kill him on the flight back to Earth? If they got the data on the Moon, why not kill him there? If they don’t have it yet…’

‘They’d have waited. I guess that’s my job. I know what to look for at least. There was a data stick in his cabin terminal when I got there.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s all getting run. We’ll see what comes out.’ Turning, she leaned back on the lounger. ‘I do feel like I’ve been on my feet for twenty-four hours straight.’

Jackson shrugged. ‘Don’t mind me. Nod off if you need it. I’ll say, under oath, you were interrogating me for a couple of hours.’

‘Oh yeah, the captain will believe that. Sure.’

~~~

Grant J. Canard, Captain in the North American Police Administration and the head man of precinct 19, had left middle age behind him, but you
really
could not tell. He prescribed to the theory that age did not make you look distinguished: it made you look old. He looked little older than Fox, but had actually been born a decade before Jackson Martins. His face still held a flush of youth, his body was firm and carefully sculpted to appear fit, he had a strong jawline, straight, narrow nose, and blue eyes which sparkled. His hair, mid-brown without a hint of grey, was cut into an authoritative, very sharp, flat-top.

As with many people rising up the social hierarchy, Canard was media-savvy and politically astute. Fox’s VA told her that his current level of delegated votes had gone up in the last month, which suggested the bastard had had a good Christmas season attending the right parties. His suit looked like it was a step up from his usual designer too.

Fox disliked Canard because she thought he was superficial, overly political, and a lousy cop. Canard disliked her because despite not being political, she still managed to move in circles he found it difficult to get near. Despite their mutual dislike, he indicated a seat in front of his large, stylish desk as soon as she entered his office. She knew the room was v-tagged with a host of images that made it look less utilitarian, but she had a policy of turning decorative tags off when she was working: she wanted to see things only when they were really there.

‘I’ve got your report on the scene,’ Canard said. ‘So we’re looking at a hit? Political?’

‘A MarTech salesman hit for political reasons? No, this isn’t political. He was probably a spook.’

Canard’s eyes tightened: wariness, Fox thought. ‘Evidence?’

‘Circumstantial at this point. His entire life looks manufactured to me and he was apparently nosing around some research facilities on Luna which he shouldn’t have been interested in.’

‘This would be according to Mister Martins, I assume?’

Fox nodded. ‘There’s a commercial sensitivity aspect to the information. MarTech is doing some research which a lot of other people would like to get their hands on up there.’ She knew that he knew that she knew what the research actually was, and she also knew that that fact was probably pissing him off. For some reason she could not quite bring herself to be unhappy about that.

‘Autopsy and analysis of his possessions should be done by tomorrow.’

‘I’ll pick the data up through my home system and go over it. Chances are we’re never going to close this one. If he was NIX they aren’t going to admit it, and the killer could easily be well outside our jurisdiction.’

‘Do what you can,’ Canard growled. ‘Our clean-up rate isn’t looking too bad at the moment, so losing one won’t make too much difference.’ Which was probably true, but she expected he would shaft her over it at some point in the near future. ‘How did the training assignment go?’

‘Fine. The incident with New Moon Data Security was a bit of a surprise, but it showed they were up to the task. Their commander gave a rousing speech at the dinner afterwards about collaboration being the best path to high-quality policing. I don’t suppose we’re going to see any of the money they’re paying NAPA for my time?’

‘Huh.’

‘That’s what I thought.’ There were, Fox had to remind herself, one or two things about the job which Canard and she agreed upon.

‘Keep me apprised of developments in the case,’ he said, which was as close to a dismissal as she was going to get so she nodded and got to her feet. ‘Have a good weekend, Inspector,’ he added.

‘Thanks, same to you,’ she replied as she walked out. The problem with hearing Canard say something nice to her was that she felt like checking her back for knives.

~~~

Fox knew she had forgotten something as soon as she walked out of the elevator car and turned down the corridor to her apartment. Sam was standing outside his own apartment door, a slight twist to his lips indicating that he was amused and waiting for her. Generally, a woman who found herself the subject of Sam’s attention was rather pleased. He was an attractive man with a firmly muscled, slim body, the result of training and not enhancement. His oriental features were distinctly pleasing to the eye: his eyes were dark, his lips quite full, his hair long and very black, perennially braided with silver beads to hold the ends and pulled back behind his head. Right now he was standing there in just a pair of jeans and she could see the programmable tattoo he wore over his right nipple, and she thought it likely that it was good that she could not read whatever Chinese character it was displaying.

‘Aw… shit, I forgot,’ Fox whined, slumping as she walked closer. ‘How the Hell did you know I was even in the building?’

‘I actually
talk
to my agent,’ Sam replied. He had a good voice, Boston educated, and very smooth. Fox kept going to her own door and he followed her; she did not object to this. ‘Javen asked Kit to let him know when you were back.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Fox grumbled as she sent the necessary signals through from her VA to the apartment’s security system. She had done a thorough job of locking the place down before going away for a month.