The Silent Army Read Free

SWAT cleared the rooms. Through one of the doorways I saw an overweight, middle-aged man standing naked with his hands up. A revivor was bound on the floor next to the bed, gagged and handcuffed.
    Do we have a lock on the shipment?
    Negative.
    In the next room down was the only guy who hadn’t gotten caught with his pants down. He was an Asian man, dressed to the nines, with an expensive watch and long, thick hair. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, unconcerned. There was no revivor with him.
    Who is this guy? I asked Sean.
    He’s not involved.
    How do you know that, Sean? Who is he?
    No one. Come on, leave the pervs for Vesco.
    When I scanned his face, I found him in the system. His name was Hiro Takanawa, and he was as rich as he looked. It looked like it wasn’t the first time he’d been caught paying for time with a revivor.
    “Where’d the revivor go?” I asked him.
    He shrugged. “I don’t see one here,” he said. “Do you?”
    I didn’t. I shoved open the bathroom door and looked in, but it was empty.
    SWAT, how many revivors are accounted for?
    We got four, plus the two defunct in the room where you found them.
    I checked the remaining signatures. There were six more beneath the floor somewhere, down on the basement level. Six up here, and six below. One was already defunct when I got there, so that put the node count at eleven. That was all of them.
    “Which one was with you?” I said to Takanawa. He just shrugged.
    “Understood,” Vesco said into his radio. He turned to Takanawa. “All right, you. Get out of here. Sorry, Wachalowski, that comes straight from the top. Let him go.”
    Takanawa stood up and walked calmly toward the door. He gave me a wave over his shoulder as he headed out the door.
    Sean, who is that guy?
    He’s no one, Nico. Leave it alone.
    The particle analyzer’s picked up the chemical signature, Vesco said . The explosive materials are nearby.
    Takanawa headed down the hallway, hands in his pockets and a cigarette already in his mouth. He left a thin trail of smoke as he turned the corner.
    In spite of whatever else he might be into, I trusted Sean; I’d known him too long and watched him put his life on the line too many times not to. He’d earned a certain amount of faith from me, but he knew more than he was saying. He knew who Takanawa was, and he knew why he’d been released. I suspected he might know Takanawa personally.
    On a hunch, I followed him. Moving away from the crowd, I hung back and followed the heat traces left behind by his footsteps. They led down a dark corridor to an emergency stairwell.
    Vesco, I’m heading down to deal with the remaining six revivors.
    Roger that.
    Have SWAT just keep the others together for now.
    A metal door slammed down below, and I eased the door open and slipped through after Takanawa. The stairs took me down a dark, musty corridor. More rats scrambled as I came through, and I pushed the light filter up until everything turned black and white. The sounds of the raid faded behind me, then were gone altogether. Up ahead there was a stairwell door. His handprint was cooling on the handle.
    Got it, Vesco said. We’ve secured the explosives. Bomb squad, prepare for transport.
    Nico, I’ll move a team downstairs. Wait for them. That was Sean.
    I pushed open the door and started down the stairwell. It was pitch-black, but on the landing below I could see the other side of the door was lit. Just then, the audio spiked as someone shouted on the other side. Six revivor signatures glowed on the scanner.
    Nico—
    I cut the connection. As I went through the door, I heard voices from down the long, cinderblock corridor. The far end opened into a storage area that was lit with floodlights. Chain-link enclosures were assembled there, each one with a naked revivor sitting in it. Each revivor was shackled with a collar that was chained to the fence.
    “. . . want to think about getting out of here,” I heard Takanawa say.
    A woman’s