John Shirley - Watch Dogs - Dark Clouds

Verrick didn’t want to go on. It would mean having to explain to Tranter what it was that Wolfe knew too much about. And Verrick definitely didn’t want to give Tranter that information.

Tranter never asked about it.

Detective Tranter just stood there, waiting—and Verrick kept Tranter standing there, as if he were an NCO in the presence of a Major. Which was more or less the way Verrick thought of it. He could see rainwater evaporating from the shoulders of Tranter’s trench coat, blown in the current of warm air from the heating vent.

“The Club doesn’t want any noise made about what happened at the Four Clubs,” Verrick went on. “CPD knows all about the place, of course, but all the right people are paid off. I assume you’re getting your cut.”

Tranter shrugged. He wasn’t going to confirm or deny it.

“If the media runs a story about the fight at an illegal casino,” Verrick said, “then the CPD is going to have to make surprised noises and raid the place. No one wants that.”

Tranter nodded, slowly. “I heard Wolfe shot you. That right?”

It was Verrick’s turn to shrug. “Little bit of something in my side. Went right through. Couple of stitches. Not much of a wound. I’ve had worse.”

Actually it was bothering Verrick enough, along with his aching back, that he planned to go home after lunch. But he’d needed to put in an appearance here to seem like the iron man for Tranter and Luke—Luke Kelly was out in the hallway, keeping watch, in the unlikely event that Wolfe turned up here. There were three other guys hired from Graywater Security watching over the building—two in the alley, downstairs, one in the lobby. Real professional mercenaries.

Tranter put his hand in his coat, brought out a tissue and blew his nose. “Sorry. I think I’m getting a head cold. So you want to handle Wolfe completely unofficially?”

“That’s right,” Verrick said. “You got a problem with that?”

“No. It’s just… harder to find the prick that way, without all those eyes on the street looking for him.”

“You’re standing in the Blume building, Tranter! We’ve got ctOS in our pockets! And I’m the man with access to every security application ctOS has. Count on it, Tranter. We’ll find Wolfe. And not just him. We’ll run down that loose cannon Aiden Pearce too. We’re starting to suspect that’s who set up Wolfe’s getaway…”

It was an abandoned building, one of the old Projects, a ten story tenement long slated to be torn down. Most of the windows were boarded over. A fence had been erected around it, the hurricane wire now mostly knocked down.

That’s where they’d taken Wolfe…

On the outside, that’s how it looked: Just more abandoned projects housing near Washington Park in Black Viceroy territory. On the inside, that’s mostly what it was. Floor after floor with apartments missing their doors, every inch of wall, in halls and rooms, covered with spray-painted and markered tags, with graffiti of all kinds, but especially a lot of Black Viceroy insignias. Each room emptied out, the walls often broken open so copper could be torn out to sell to scavenger companies. Here and there in the hallways you might come across an old overturned doorless refrigerator or splintery bureau. Walk down those scarred up halls and your shoes crunched paint chips.

But on the seventh floor of the old tenement, one apartment was different. The door to the apartment had been replaced—the new one was double layer steel—and the one-bedroom flat had been cleaned out and simply but comfortably refurnished. It was now one of Aiden Pearce’s safehouses—so Pussler claimed, after giving Wolfe the key and taking his leave, though Wolfe had seen nothing of Pearce since coming here.

The windows were boarded up, but inside there was a working television, a radio, an operating bathroom, toilet paper, towels, plenty of functional electrical plugs with pirated power, a fairly new sofa bed and blankets, a closet in which leaned a nicely oiled pump shotgun and boxes of ammo; a PC on a desk, the PC, interestingly, not hooked up to the internet or wifi; a bedroom with a cot and a chest of drawers; a kitchenette with a microwave, its cabinets stocked with canned foods and freeze dried goods, instant coffee, pots and dishes and knives and forks. There was a small clothes washer, in the kitchenette, like something from a recreational vehicle, and a small dryer. There was even a bottle of damned good Scotch in a desk drawer.

Wolfe was availing himself of that Scotch right now, as he brooded on his situation. It was late afternoon following the night of the Four Clubs debacle, and Wolfe was getting antsy. He was fed and warm and comfortable—and restless.

He sat there on the sofa with a small glass in his hand, sipping the Laphroaig, looking at the television news with the sound turned off. He’d seen nothing, not a word, about his personal raid on the Four Clubs. He’d half-expected to see his face on television in a public service warning about an arch criminal with Verrick swearing he was a mad dog killer. But, nope. It was almost disappointing. More than that, it was worrisome. It suggested that Verrick was going after him some other way…

Shouldn’t have tried to strike a deal with him, Wolfe thought. Stupid.

He’d known instantly his former C.O. had no intention of following through on any deal. You get crazy ideas, sitting in stir in the federal Disciplinary Barracks. You got desperate notions and programmed yourself with them. Then when they didn’t work… what next?

And where did Aiden Pearce fit into it?

“Hello, Mick,” said the television to Mick Wolfe.

Wolfe sat bolt upright, spilling some of his Scotch on the floor.

Aiden Pearce was staring at him from the television screen. No doubt of the identity of this man. Those sharp emerald-green eyes, that dark-brown hair. Pearce’s face was filling most of the screen. It was gazing right at him.

Pearce smiled. “Don’t be spilling that Scotch, Wolfe. Stuff’s expensive.”

“What the hell? Why are you on television?”

“Just something I can do. I’ve rerouted a webcam transmission to this television, just this particular television set. The set has been customized. I’m reaching you through a Local Area Network I’ve set up. There’s a special switching hub—but, never mind. We can talk about all that some other time.”

“I could swear I muted that television.”

“If I can put myself up here you don’t think I can unmute the television?”

“Good point. Feels weird talking to you this way. Like hallucinating.”

Pearce chuckled. “I guess it could feel that way. But I can’t just call you on a cell phone. Not yet.”

“Haven’t got a cell phone currently anyway. I’ve got a laptop. Trying not to use it too much, in case ctOS picks up… Wait—I get how I can see you . But if you can see me …”

“There must be a camera in the room. Yes. But you know where that would be.”

“Webcam in that PC.”

“And a microphone. Pussler naturally didn’t mention that.”

“Pussler—you trust that guy?”

“Didn’t he get me off the street when I was shot? Didn’t he show up for you?”

“Sure, but… he seems like a… uh… waste case.”

“He is. In fact I make sure he doesn’t know where I am most of the time. I’ve left the last safehouse, gone to another he doesn’t know. There is someone else I can’t trust… but I don’t know who it is yet. But it isn’t Pussler.”

“Good to hear. Because he knows where I am. If he decides he wants to make a deal with someone else…”

“He’s on my payroll. And he’s like a stray dog that’s very loyal after you feed it.”