Throughout the O’Neal Bane Sidhe, other teams were preparing for other missions in their areas of specialty. Cleaning teams did a phenomenal job of forensics work when there was a call for it, as now. Professionals thoroughly schooled to leave no evidence at a scene were adept at finding bits others had missed.
This was probably the nicest of the offices available to operations, which meant it was usually booked solid by office staff and other chair warmers in the hierarchy. Some things never changed. The proximity to the holidays had made for a rare vacancy. The non-field staff hadn’t been recalled, which had kept it that way. The chairs were all in good repair, and the walls had been tuned as a project by one of the Sohon kids with decent taste.
“Don’t get used to such palatial surroundings, Amy. This is the first time I’ve gotten the good office in a couple of years, and it’ll probably be that long before we luck out again.”
“Got it.” She grinned at him. “Everything okay?”
“Sweet. Some of the wrinkles in the data hops are creative and clever. I wouldn’t have thought of dynamically routing through machines for sale on auction sites. Excellent,” he said. “Byron, get me Cally.”
“Easier said than done, boss; she is one hot lady. Should I be jealous? Connecting…”
“All set?” he heard Cally ask him, the 2-D of her on the small screen showing a damp face, her hair in a towel in that wrap thing women did.
“A-ffirmative,” Tommy confirmed. “And Papa’s gonna have a run for his money when he comes back. Miss Sands here is one hot-shit electron mechanic.”
“Amy,” the sweet soprano corrected from the background.
“Yeah, well, anyway, Amy passes with flying colors, we’re good to go on our end,” he said.
“Roger that. Golden on our end, too. Chill or rack out or whatever, meet in room twenty-eight delta foxtrot at eighteen hundred. Got it?” Cally asked.
“Check. Twenty-eight delta foxtrot, eighteen hundred. Later, I’m out.”
“So what do I do between now and eighteen hundred? Oh, and Sands is okay, too.” Amy grinned at him again. “Just please no ‘miss’ — it makes me feel like James Bond’s Moneypenny.”
“Right. Sorry, Sands. Do whatever you want, within common sense. I’m probably going to be playing Diess Challenge.”
“I haven’t played it yet. Is it any good?” she asked, more avidly than he would have expected. “I’ve heard mixed reviews.”
“It’s got a few rendering bugs in places, and don’t PvP on the Galactic side unless you’re prepared to lose. There are some God King exploits that totally screw Galactics. There’s supposed to be a patch coming, but…” he began automatically, then paused. “I’d rate it a four out of five.”
“She shoots, she scores,” Amy said, popping to her feet and grinning. “See you at eighteen hundred, boss-man.”
George Schmidt’s own mother wouldn’t have recognized him — black hair, dark brown contact lenses, skin tone bronzed to a level his own fair complexion would never support. His features had been altered by the tried-and-true contoured cheekbone pads. The make-up department had subtly altered lips, eyes, brow line, ears and nose with expert application of a long-wearing, highly localized astringent. Among other tricks, they had even managed to give him a mild, temporary case of acne. Juvs tended to be immune, as did anyone who could afford and paid for the vaccine. Acne was a near guaranteed way to camouflage a juv for a short stint. It would be gone by morning.
In this case, they had designed the acne and other facial changes to both put him squarely in the college student age bracket, as well as feed false data to any facial geometry analysis tools.
Cally and Sands had undergone similar treatments. It saved the trouble and risk of having to hack out too much police security holo. Body changes were thermal. Costuming had pulled out all the stops. Local police systems tended to be difficult to fool. That didn’t mean it couldn’t be done, it just made the cover process more expensive than the Bane Sidhe usually liked to shell out these days. Cost was not a factor on tonight’s missions, for their team or anyone else’s.
The car they had brought for insertion was a typical anonymous beige of the kind currently in vogue among the feds, down to the detail of being between three to five years old — and having interior cop car construction, complete to the back seat and valid government tags.
Cally looked George over thoroughly before looking at his brother. “Will we do?” she asked.
“Flawless,” Harrison said. “Oops, bro, you’ve got a string.” He reached down and clipped a hanging thread from the bottom of his smaller sibling’s T-shirt.
George grimaced, as if more than used to being fussed over. Harrison was on the team for more than one reason. Clothes and make-up might seem trivial to the uninitiated, but the smallest oversight in appearance could blow a cover. World War II allied spies had gone so far as to make sure the buttons were sewn onto their coats the “right” way before inserting behind the lines into France. The job of “Schmidt One” was not to make them look good. Harrison’s job — one hat of many — was to make sure they looked right.
“Showtime.” Cally nodded, getting behind the wheel of the Fed car as Sands climbed in as shotgun, in this case literal as there was a short-barrel twelve gauge under the seat. She heard the loud slam of the door behind her as George got in. He had to slam it, as there were no handles on the inside and momentum had to carry it.
Tommy and Harrison had climbed back into the gray Buick sedan. It was cramped as hell for Sunday, but he wasn’t complaining. The car didn’t look like much, but it this model had the most aerodynamic body within the range of conservative and boring, given that it also had to fit a grand national engine under the hood. The windows also were something special. Nano-polarized, there was a set of dimmer switches on the dash that controlled the tint, from none to dark. It made the vehicle as good as a van for camping near a run, but much, much faster. A built-in electric heater under the hood kept the engine warm even in a Chicago winter.
Everyone hoped they wouldn’t need the car’s special features. Get in, get out in the Fed car was the plan. Yeah. It was good to have a plan. It was essential to have a backup.
At the station, Cally did exactly what real Feds would do. She parked in one of the reserve spots right near the building — but she was a nice Fed. She didn’t park in the chief’s space.
The station was typical for the age, with parking lot and cement walkways crumbling. The building was an ugly box of faded, stained brick and dingy mortar with “Greenville City Police” tacked on the side in aluminum letters. Two “e"s and an “l” were missing. The parking lot was also, given the time of day, damn near deserted.
As she and Sands took up flanking positions to escort George in, Cally noted the exits carefully, along with the lights and the collapsed bit of curb outside the emergency fire exit they planned to use. The chained and padlocked exit.
“Hold up,” she ordered, detouring to pick the lock and unthread the chain from the double door’s handles. She started to put the offending items on the ground, but then got a quick mental image of some helpful soul coming through and noticing that someone had left the door unlocked. She jogged over to the car and shoved chain and lock underneath it before retaking her spot on Schmidt’s left.
In accord with their story that Bryan Cane was one of the coed’s ex-boyfriends who had come in “voluntarily,” George walked slightly in front of the two FBI agents who, while they were not actually touching him, walked almost exactly where they would have been had they been hustling him in by the arms. The implication was clear, displaying the typical unsubtle and humorless attitude of the modern Bureau Field Agent. If they carried the stereotype a bit far into HD true crime drama, so much the better. It would fit the locals’ preconceptions; people didn’t question what they didn’t notice.