Freedom Incorporated by Peter Tylee (the best ebook reader for android .TXT) 📕

needed an omen and it frustrated him that none had yet arrived. His coat gently flapped in the slow drizzle, shining black with the wetness. The Raven brushed it aside, reaching into the folds of his clothing to stroke his Redback-PX7. Banned by the international convention of ‘38, the Redback had all but vanished, held only by a scattering of terrorists and law-snubbing pistol enthusiasts. It fired pellets of glass that detonated an inch into the victim’s flesh, but its nanotoxin payload was the real miracle. Most men would have shivered at the thought, but the Raven was intimately familiar with this kind of convulsing death.

He caressed the cold carbon-steel barrel.

A shallow ripple of skin between his eyebrows was all that signalled a frown, the only outward indication of his mounting frustration. He crouched, the black leather of his mid-calf boots creaking in protest. And again he fingered his scar, an inch above his thick hairline. The sensitive pads on his fingers crept across the slight pinkish bulge, invisible to all but the closest examination.

The Raven was one of the few men who never found the rain bothersome. Perhaps he had thick skin stretching across his bones, or perhaps the tingling pain simply never registered with his tampered brain. Either way, he took no note of the trickle down his chin that dripped a steady tattoo on his trousers. It was getting heavier but there he would remain, as always, until an omen released him from the shackles of caution.

*

Adam stood before Dan noticed the rivercat slowing for Meadowbank station. He eased himself out of his seat, surprised to feel his lower back seizing in protest. He gently massaged the taut muscles while strolling casually to the front of the cabin.

The deckhand expertly looped a mooring line over the bollard and hauled the ferry close enough to use the gangway. The passengers shuffled past. The rain was pounding on the corrugated iron roof of the ferry terminal and it drowned any words they may have uttered. Once more Dan deferred to the others, disembarking last. He nodded a mute thanks to the deckhand who dutifully grunted in reply.

His attention shifted. There were four people between Dan and Adam. He watched the beret’s peculiar bob and sway, caused by the older man’s arthritic gait. The Meadowbank terminal emptied into a barren car park where a dilapidated ute - parked lengthways across three faintly marked spaces - spoke volumes about the suburb. Dan stopped at the end of the terminal, his nose inches from a curtain of water caused by the combination of poor guttering and leaf-litter. It distorted his vision, giving the world a surreal texture. Most of the passengers scurried to their cars, one man holding his briefcase over his balding scalp in a futile attempt to avoid acid scarring. Another dived into his Commodore and revved the engine hard before grinding into gear and laying rubber on the road. With a vigorous swirl of the wheel, he navigated the chicane and sped out of Meadowbank as fast as his thrashed car would take him. That seemed to be a common sentiment. He was the first, but others followed. Soon only those unfortunate enough to actually live in Meadowbank were still there - stranded and ambling to their dreary apartments.

Dan took a deep breath. It smelled like rain. Rain and a broken sewage pipe - fairly common with Sydney’s outdated sewage system. His nostrils twitched, detecting a hint of chemicals drifting across the river from the factories that had reopened at Rhodes a decade ago. He knew, at least intellectually, that they had to go somewhere. But emotionally it made no sense. He couldn’t fathom why people would allow something like that in their backyard. But only poor people live here now, he reminded himself sombrely. And poor people had no political friends.

Adam had already reached the old rail bridge so Dan swept the car park with a final suspicious gaze before walking briskly to catch up. They passed beneath the new bridge and veered right to head up the hill, toward the apartment blocks that dominated the suburb. The only other passenger from the ferry was hurrying to the left, soon indistinguishable against the dreary backdrop.

Dan felt the familiar rush, the tingling sensation, the sharpening of all his senses, the knotting in his stomach. He had enough adrenaline pulsing through his veins to reanimate a corpse. Ten paces. Dan narrowed the gap, made sure they were alone, and reached inside his coat. His fingers laced the handle of his 1911 automatic pistol. His preferred model was virtually antique, but it was reliable and the newer weapons had never impressed Dan enough to make him abandon his favourite Colt.

Five paces.

Dan raised his weapon and calmly said, “Adam Oaten.” It was a statement, not a question, and it carried a note of warning. “I shouldn’t need to tell you not to move.”

Adam froze mid-step and turned slowly, only to see to the .45 jutting in his face. He uttered a resigned sigh. “I was wondering if you were one of them.” He didn’t bother to mask his contempt.

“Over to the toilet-block.” Dan gestured toward the brick structure with his weapon. It reeked of late twentieth century architecture. The once garish bricks now only held the memory of their former yellow. Dozens of snails had embarked upon the arduous journey across the path that rimed the squat building, advertising themselves as a meal for hungry birds. Adam picked a delicate path around them.

“Hands on the wall.”

The skin on the back of Adam’s hands looked like tissue paper, ready to tear at a moment’s notice.

The air reeked - an acrid combination of vomit and excrement that the drizzle only aggravated. Adam spread his legs and let Dan pat his sides for weapons.

Dan pressed the muzzle of his automatic into the small of Adam’s back, hard enough to bruise. He grappled with his handcuffs and slapped them around Adam’s left wrist. Then, with a twist to the cruel metal that would ensure compliance through pain, he wrenched Adam’s arm behind his back and fastened the other half of the cuffs. It was never easy; Dan felt vulnerable working alone. He’d never grown accustomed to it after leaving the force. Only the reassuring click-click-click of secured handcuffs released the tension pent within.

“You’re American aren’t you?” - Silence - “Aren’t you going to read me my rights?” Adam turned to search his captor’s face when the tension eased on his arms.

“Hadn’t planned on it,” Dan said huskily, shaking his head. He no longer operated entirely within the law. He wasn’t acting illegally - after all, Adam Oaten was a dangerous man and Dan needed to apprehend him - but there were simply no laws that covered his line of work.

Adam Oaten had five days’ unkempt stubble on his chin and carried an air of moral superiority. He was the type of man that could look down his nose without tilting his head.

“So you’re the latest puppet?”

Dan didn’t understand the question. He raised an eyebrow, one of the few expressions he permitted on his stony face. “What’re you talking about?”

“But not a particularly clever one I see.” Adam rubbed an itch from his cheek onto his shoulder. “Not if you haven’t yet figured out the game.”

“What game?”

Adam searched Dan’s face for the answer to an unasked question then said, “To answer that would take me longer than you’d care to listen.” He grunted. “Tell me, do you have trouble sleeping?”

On a whim, Dan played along. “And if I did?”

He laughed. At least that’s what Dan imagined the sound was supposed to be. It sounded more like a crumbling wall. “Yeah, I bet you do. You have the brainwashed look. That naïve expression I’ve seen a million times in a million people.” His shoulders slumped, something invisible snapping within. “But I don’t have the energy left to save you. So do what you will, and find your salvation somewhere else.”

Dan wondered whether Adam Oaten was entirely sane. Salvation? Dan didn’t consider himself in need of salvation, and even if he did, Adam would be the last person he’d seek for assistance. Months had passed since Dan had needed anything from anyone, and he was fine with that just the way it was. His patience snapped. “Whatever,” it came out harsher than he’d intended and he added more softly, “come with me.”

The stinging pain registered first. Dan slapped a hand to his neck the way he might swat an insect and was surprised to see it splotched with red when he pulled it away. Blood? In the shocked moments that followed he couldn’t comprehend how that was possible. He looked to Adam, he hadn’t moved. Then how…? He left the question hanging as instincts took over and he drew his Colt, his eyes urgently groping for the threat.

Then he registered the shattering sound. With rising dread he felt his wound again. Superficial. Just a graze. He risked a glance back to the toilet-block. Sure enough, there was a blossom of powdered glass on the bricks. The larger shards had already danced to a stop on the concrete path and caused the nearby snails to retract their antennae.

Dan peered through the drizzle, sweeping his handgun in an arc, ready to squeeze the trigger at anything that moved. He paced backward, acutely aware of the looming danger. He used his free hand to put pressure on Adam’s chest.

“Get back,” he ordered gruffly.

Adam shuffled to obey, pulverising a snail as they retreated into the women’s toilet.

Dan was preoccupied scanning the park, alert to anything that moved. A pool of water collecting in the hollow of a sodden newspaper gleamed with movement 30 metres away. He jerked the Colt toward it then steadied his aim with his other hand. Damn trees. They provided the perfect cover. The assailant could have been anywhere; there was simply too much ground for Dan to cover. A copse of trees 20 metres away sprouted foliage thick enough to conceal an entire squad.

Adam coughed. It was a strained, spluttering cough and it commanded Dan’s attention. One glance was enough. Someone had fired not one, but two capsules. And the first had hit its mark. Adam hunkered against the inner wall of a toilet stall. A spasm contorted his body, jerking his legs from beneath him and he landed heavily on his rump. He coughed again, this time flecking blood at the corners of his mouth. The capsule had entered his upper thigh and the hollow pellet had delivered a devastating strain of nanotoxin.

It was useless. Dan could see that. The time until death depended solely on the potency of the nanotoxin. He wished he knew what to say. He fumbled silently for the key to his handcuffs.

“Don’t bother with that now.” It obviously pained Adam to speak around the swelling of his tongue. The whites of his eyes darkened and Dan watched helplessly as they ripened to sickly saffron before blooming to rouge. “Do me a favour…”

“Name it.” What else could he say to a dying man?

“Spare me…” - blood flecked onto his shirt through a hacking cough - “a bullet.”

Dan stepped back and lined Adam’s forehead into his sights. The barrel quivered and he held his breath to steady his aim.

He fired a single round and Adam’s head jerked back and slammed against the flimsy toilet stall. For a moment that looked like where he’d rest, but slowly he toppled and slid to his left, striking his temple on the filthy rim of the toilet and dislodging his beret. He finally came to rest on his side, the handcuffs twisting his arms behind his back at an unnatural angle.

How pointless, Dan thought. He didn’t