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  NEVER TELL A DEAD MAN YOUR SECRETS

  Somebody aced the dragon Dunkelzahn, and one of the mysterious links to the assassination is flat on his back in slab city: a double agent with two identities—both out of commission. Now he's the most-wanted carcass in Tacoma. Jack Skater's mission? Sleaze past the high-tech funeral security, outwit the Knight Errants, cop the stiff, and keep it on ice long enough to get the answer to the shadowrunners' life-and-death question: what's so hot about a stone-cold corpse?

  And that isn't all that's dropped Skater elf-deep in drek—the UCAS Secret Service is also after the dead man's secret—and the government blue crews are prepared to liquidate anything in sight to get to it first....

  “SAY THE WORD AND IT’S HISTORY.. ”

  A gel-sealed ring of white phosphorus explosive was wrapped around the fifteen-centimeter trunk line.

  Skater shoved his head inside the duct. The filtering system above and below was sealed. The sweet smell of burned flesh pervaded the air locked up in the duct. If his plan didn’t work, they ran the chance of being trapped like rats in the crawlspace between the ninth and tenth floors.

  He pulled back out of the hole and gave Wheeler a thumb’s up. “Burn it.”

  Wheeler touched an electronic detonator clipped to his shirt.

  Skater tucked his face into the crook of his arm as the white phosphorus caught, throwing out a blinding amount of light and heat. The die was cast, and it waited to be seen if Lucky Lady came up a seven or snake eyes. . . .

  SHADOWRUN : 27

  HEADHUNTERS

  MEL ODOM

  1

  “Elvis has left the building.”

  Jack Skater hunkered down in the shadows atop a four-story warehouse adjacent to the team’s target and listened as Quint Duran gave the all-clear over the commlink. The ork was stationed down in the street, only a few blocks from the building Elvis had just vacated. The structure was the Mariah Building, at the corner of South Twenty-first Street and Ainsworth, not far from the Alaska Street Reservoir in Tacoma. The target was one of the bodies inside Shastakovich’s Funeral Home on the ninth floor of the Mariah.

  The new moon barely cracked the darkness that swallowed Tacoma except for the occasional pockets of neon advertising running the length of several skyscrapers and the illumination necessary in the around-the-clock dock areas. Wet salt air rushed over him, propelled by the easterly winds coming in off Puget Sound not far away. The smell of the sea was almost stringent enough to claw the scent of the new tar roof underfoot from his nostrils.

  He accessed the Commlink TV hardwired into his skull. “Our package, Duran?” he said. The Crypto Circuit HD in the hardware scrambled the transmission, making it impossible for anyone else to pick up. He especially hoped that held true for the city’s blue crews working to keep the streets safe from crime. Or better yet, Skater thought, keeping the streets free of any crimes they didn’t get a percentage of. But maybe he was just being cynical. A guy got cynical quick when he worked the shadows.

  “In place,” Duran answered. “Just lit up the fiber link’s power monitor here. We’re go.” The ork’s voice sounded deep and relaxed, carrying the confidence of his many years as a mercenary before joining the team. He was verifying the operation of the Fiber-Optic Observation Link Elvis had installed into the security systems. It would give them access to the Mariah Building’s vid and aud subsystems they’d need to break into the funeral home.

  The fiber link itself was system-friendly, an old military model that was still capable of linking up with whatever the Mariah had to throw at it. Duran also boosted the signal on to the van parked a few blocks further down Ainsworth Street, where Archangel sat running the computer-assist and communications for the team’s run. The elven decker was one of the best in the biz at breaking into computer systems and kludging computer-driven sec systems.

  “Was he seen?” Skater shifted gingerly on the rooftop, trying to find a new vantage point. As scout for the run, he’d needed the height to get a better view of the terrain to call out the moves and provide backup if things went bust.

  The ork laughed gently. “Nobody’s chasing him, kid. And Knight Errant working security, somebody would have been on his slotting hoop by now if they’d spotted him, wanting to know just what the frag he was doing on the building.”

  “His ID should hold,” Skater said.

  “Now that he’s dumped that fiber link, it might. But he’s got too much heavy bodware to pass more than a surface inspection.” Skater knew that was true. But Elvis had been the one to send. Alone, with backup a few hundred meters away and the team maybe on the line if the run suddenly went to hell, the big troll samurai was chromed with enough Amie-Awesome cyberware that he might be able to break free and get away even from Knight Errant’s best sec-guards.

  “I’m clear, chummers,” Elvis said in his basso voice, “and in position at the boot shop a half-block down South Twenty-first from the main entrance to the Mariah Building. Have you got contact with the sec systems?”

  “Powering up now.” Wheeler Iron-Nerve’s voice came over the commlink. The dwarf was in the van with Archangel. As rigger for the team, he was responsible for the hardware and the vehicle. “Okay, it looks like a go. Up to Archangel now.”

  “I’m here,” Archangel said calmly over the commlink. “I’ll let you know what I find.”

  Skater took a deep breath and tried to shake the feeling of dread that had been with him ever since the team had taken the Mr. Johnson’s nuyen four days ago and agreed to the run. Too many details had been left hanging, too much danger possible. He glanced down the street and barely made out the red-and white-striped sawhorses he and Elvis had put into position to cover their emergency escape route. If things didn’t get all fragged up, they’d be able to grab the body and simply take it down in the freight elevator and carry it out while Archangel sleazed her way through the building’s security so the Knight Errant teams on the premises wouldn’t be the wiser.

  Skater was still nervous about the run despite all their precautions and all the planning they’d squeezed into the past few days. But the bottom line was that they all needed the score. Living in the shadows, in between the cracks of society without selling out to the Mafia or yakuza or the corps, was expensive even if a man or woman or meta lived alone and was responsible only for his or her own hoop. Now, though, Skater had Emma to figure into his personal equation of survival too. It made things harder in some ways, and easier in others.

  Noise from the dock area thundered through the empty streets of Tacoma’s business district, and the whirling spotlights of the dock crews warred with the running lights of freighters. For decades, Tacoma had been the poor step-sister to glittering and decadent Seattle. But it was 2057 now, and wealth had come calling, spilling into the city from the deep pockets of the megacorps as they developed the shipping trade. The yakuza, Mafia, and Seoulpa Rings worked the alleys and black markets for the crumbs.

  The team had made their pickup of the fiber-optic link and paid a fragging slotful of nuyen for it at Basil’s Faulty Bar, where Abe Heep ran a decent drinking establishment and a well-inventoried backdoor supply house for illegal techware that he scabbed from intelligence circles everywhere in the world. Duran had arranged the buy, and Skater was impressed by the operation. He’d spotted equipment from Seattle, the United Canadian and American States, the Salish-Shidhe Council lands, California Free State, and even Tir Taimgire, which ran the tightest security of all.

  If the run got hosed somehow, Skater was counting on the abundance of security at the docks to drek up the Lone Star squads that would be summoned to the scene. His team could buzz turbo for the dock area and lose themselves among the private sec that would be drawing rank and number down on the docks where
they guarded the ships of their various countries. A hidey-hole waited, already arranged and paid for, if they needed it.

  He shifted, keeping his shadow against the line of the building as he peered over the edge. No sense in letting himself get spotted from below. A trio of thrill-gangers passed by down on the street, talking in loud voices. One of them took a long drag on a cigarette and glanced up, stopping for just an instant.

  Skater drew back from the edge, hoping he hadn’t been made. Dark and slim and dressed in combat black over Kevlar armor, there was no way he could have passed unnoticed along the street. He carried an Ares Predator II pistol in a shoulder rig, and a Mossberg CDMT combat shotgun hung from his shoulder on a Whipit sling. A Cougar Fine Blade rode in his right boot. His Salish blood showed in his dusky skin, high cheekbones, and close-cropped dark hair.

  Skater took the Ares low-light binox from his chest pouch and scanned their target. The light-multiplier circuitry banished most of the night.

  The Mariah Building stood like an imposing stone finger, fourteen stories high. The maglev controls listed fifteen floors, but that was because the thirteenth had been left out. Its outer skin was blued chrome, the color of gunmetal or the broken heart of a razorboy, interrupted by rectangles of bulletproof black polycarbonate glazing. It was dwarfed in comparison to the Shiawase Complex and other megacorp skyrakers downtown.

  Over the last three days, Skater and his crew had uncovered everything they could about the building, and about the various possible escape routes. Archangel’s databases now also had the names of every legitimate business located inside, most of the renters’ and shopkeepers’ identities and their staffs, and those of a number of apartment-dwellers in the top four stories who weren’t paying blackmail rates to keep their IDs unknown.

  The lower floors held office and shop space, which was how they’d been able to set up the connect for the fiber link. Cullen Trey, suave and debonair—and the team’s combat mage, who had a sweet tooth for expensive things and an aristocratic lifestyle—had rented a small office in the name of a dead street mage.

  Trey knew the man was dead because he’d killed him less than three weeks ago. Quint Duran had assisted in the track-down, looking for a mage who’d robbed the daughter of a jeweler Trey did biz and friendship with.

  When Trey and Duran found their prey, the street mage had already established another identity, complete with SIN. Duran had taken care of the thief’s accomplices, and Trey had taken out the mage. As a combat mage, Cullen Trey was deadly. The false papers had been a bonus.

  Once the fiber-optic observation link was found—and Skater was sure it would be—and the cable discovered snaking through the rented office space to the link box Elvis had installed only moments ago, the trail could only lead to a dead man.

  The target Skater wanted was on the ninth floor—another dead man named Coleman January. Shastakovich’s Funeral Home had arrived with the money coming into Tacoma, a branch office of a substantial chain that catered to corp execs and those who could afford a somewhat expensive send-off. The security was provided by Ares and included most physical systems, with a wage mage on retainer for more important clientele.

  “I’m in,” Archangel said over the Commlink IV. “I’ve sleazed us past the security systems inside and outside the building. Knight Errant will be blind and deaf to anything I want.”

  Skater took a deep breath. “The whole system?”

  “Yes. It took awhile to sort through the prism switches till I found the one we needed. I hit some white barrier IC that took a bit of work but I had some sleaze utilities it hasn’t seen before.” Skater breathed a sigh of relief. The plan had depended on the decker’s ability to get past the high-tech security and operate the fiber link without being noticed. Brute force alone wasn’t a viable option. “What about the target?”

  “I’ve accessed the database, but there’s no listing for Coleman January.”

  Skater checked his chron. It was 1:43:22 a.m. “Any mention of delivery being made?”

  “No. I looked through those, too. I’ve got the deliveries that were already made this evening and the ones that’ll be made first thing in the morning.”

  “Fraggit!” Skater said without cutting in the commlink. He wiped perspiration from his face with a gloved hand. It was still too drekking hot in August to be dressed as he was. The humidity was impartial to man, woman, or meta. But he couldn’t chance being identified. The hose-up with ReGEN a few months ago had cost him an eye, an ex-girlfriend, and nearly every bit of nuyen he’d had stashed away.

  He was scared. He knew that and he hated it, but he was smart enough to admit it to himself. At twenty-five, he’d already been running the shadows for years. He was slotting good at what he did—or he’d never have made it this long. But he glanced at his shaking hand, seeing Emma’s face in his mind, his little girl’s smiles when he tickled her.

  “Kid,” Duran growled, “there’s no way we got the wrong funeral home.”

  “I know,” Skater said, forcing his mind to wrap around the problem facing the team. He glanced back at the building. “The Johnson said Coleman January would be here no later than two o’clock this morning. There’s only one way he could have known that.”

  “Sure,” the ork replied. “You get to thinking real mean, you start to figure he was planning on slotting ol’ Coleman’s stick himself. Geek the guy, then let us pick up the body while Mr. Johnson makes sure he gets away clean. We get bagged by Lone Star, and I don’t think they’ll buy that we had nothing to do with. They probably wouldn’t look much past us either.”

  “We don’t have much time to ask why,” Cullen Trey chimed in over the commlink. He was posted a block north on Ainsworth street, providing further visual coverage of the site and backup, if needed. “Not if we’re going to get that body and clear out before the next Knight Errant shift comes on at two-thirty. If the fiber link’s still up and running when they run the system analysis programs, our chances of being discovered become astronomical.” Unlike the others, Trey’s Commlink IV system was an external one. Cyberware and magic didn’t mix.

  Skater knew he was right. The Knight Errant security agency pulled on-site security in twelve-hour shifts, from three to fifteen and fifteen to three. It was one of the first bits of information from the Johnson they’d confirmed.

  “We’ve got fifteen minutes,” Trey went on, “providing Mr. Johnson’s schedule is precise, to the time when the body’s supposed to be there. At that time, we’ve got the thirty minutes for the op we planned. We can still decide whether we keep a green light or deep-six the run. I, for one, would like to see the other end of that nice little fee.”

  Skater wasn’t surprised. Trey had a nuyen Jones, and liked the good life even though he wasn’t born to it. “How do you call it, Elvis?”

  “Well, chummer, we’re into the funeral home’s sec systems with the fiber link. I’d say that gives us a leg up on the situation. And we are here.”

  “That could be according to the Johnson’s plan,” Wheeler grumbled. “Welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the fly. Frag, we’ve been slotted over by Johnsons before. Me, I’m for taking the front-end nuyen and taking a walk on this one.”

  “Archangel?” Skater said. He lifted the binox again and tried to stare through the black polycarbonate glazing covering the ninth-floor windows of the Mariah. He wished he could peel it away, get a good scan inside. And he wished the thick greasy ball that had suddenly appeared in his stomach wasn’t there.

  “I’m with Wheeler,” she said. “Discretion is the wisest move at this point. We’ve been paid for our time. If the Johnson gives us any grief about how we handled things, he’ll have to find a way to leverage the down payment back out of us.”

  The problem was, Skater was aware, that Johnsons could sometimes do that. When a shadowrunner made a deal with a Mr. Johnson, there was usually no telling who was really inside those Armante suits. And going back on a deal was sometimes worse than failing.
The victim of a run didn’t always know who’d come after him. Mr. Johnson knew who he’d made a deal with.

  “Duran,” Skater said.

  “I want the action,” the ork replied. “That makes it three to two. You gonna tie it up or go with the majority?”

  Before Skater could answer, a footstep scraped against the pebbled rooftop behind him. He whirled, losing himself behind an air-conditioning unit.

  “Told you I spotted somebody up here, Fontaine.”

  The three thrillers Skater had spotted earlier stood in the center of the rooftop, dressed in the jet and crimson colors of the Milton Dark Angels. One young elf held two long knives in naked, scarred fists, while the other two, a human and a troll, were armed with a stun baton that crackled blue static and a glowing monofilament whip.

  “Guess you were right, Hector,” the elf said. “I have to give you that. Watch him, Wynn. If the fragger tries to slot it outta here, cut his legs off with that whip.”

  Skater drew the Predator from the shoulder rig. Dancing with members of a thrill gang didn’t fit into his agenda at all. The problem was, if he cut loose with the Predator, every blue crew in the area would be on him and the team.

  “Kid,” Duran called. “We ain’t exactly got all night.”

  “Busy,” Skater said. “Unexpected company. A welcome wagon of Dark Angel thrillers evidently out for a rooftop prowl.” And there wasn’t much rooftop to share. This building had only a small area to move around in between the masses of machinery used to heat and cool the offices and apartments below. Standing at the edge as he was, he didn’t even have many choices.

  “Hold on,” Duran said, “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Stay put,” Skater said. The ork’s position down at street level put him too far away to be any help, and the stairs along the outside of the building were the only way up. “I’ll handle it. By the time you get up here, it’d be over. One way or the other.”