Incarna

23 - Agent Riles

Riles hit the floor instinctively in case someone decided to spray 9mm bullets across the length of the mirrored wall. But no, La Matrona had made her point and wouldn’t ruin the decor any more than the gang had already done by themselves. He grabbed his satchel and personal items from his desk then turned and scoured Raul’s desk. He took the thumb drives out of the laptop then went through each of the desks draws retrieving anything that might be useful evidence.

Riles dismissed the jumble of thoughts crowding each other in his mind as he moved quickly toward the drug gang’s armoury. He threw on one of the the new FiveSeven proof armoured vests and grabbed an Infra red abled head set. An FN PDW and a FiveSeven pistol would have to do. Oh yes, and small demolition charges for a few little diversions. He wasn’t planning on anyone questioning him, he was their banker, but he wasn’t sticking around. They were all used to seeing him done body armour every time weapons came out. He’d fostered the image of the nervous non weapons capable nerd very successfully.

He made for the top floor Office, and nearly ran over Little Raul, the bosses cousin and mouth piece, on the way in. “What the fuck you doin’ nigger gringo …” Riles dropped him with a head shot and made for the far side of the room where the vault was. He pulled out his MicroAdaptor from his satchel and positioned it next to the sequencer lock and pressed go. Numbers swam across it’s screen slowly consolidating to a twenty digit code. He pressed enter and the lock opened.

Riles detached the sequencer and ransacked the vault taking a few highly valuable pieces of jewelry, a few wads of notes and the three terabyte drive and two blueray discs that held this drug rings private books and contacts. He may to have to bribe his way out of this drug controlled city and state but he hoped he wouldn’t have to deal with that useless puppet federal government though. Talk about a failed state, Mexico was it!

There was no gunfire from downstairs but plenty of shouting and swearing as scared men tried to care for their boss but still, Riles came cautiously out of the vault. The office was ostentatious to say the least. Raul had no taste but didn’t care. Riles quietly opened the panel in the wall next to the vault that he wasn’t supposed to know about just as he heard Raul shouting. He made his way into the bolt hole and sealed the door behind him then super glued the mechanism. This bolt hole led down to the basement car park but there was a branch tunnel that led out into the street. Hopefully they would reason he had fled that way and not tried to escape in a vehicle. He smiled to himself, he was, kinda!

It had been Riles’ job to secure the gangs finances, he chuckled to himself, an’ that’s what Ahm doin’. Raul would be starting to check for damage and theft, which meant he had about ten minutes to get away. He opened the basement security door very slowly. There were no voices, all was quiet. He closed and bolted and set a movement sensitive charge on it. He walked as silently as he could and made for Raul’s newest toy. He’d been in it on a few trips and it handled just like any car except ...

Riles set his last two time delayed charges, one on the nearby Ferrari and the other on the Maserati. That should produce enough anger to cloud Raul’s best logic. He scrambled the lock on the Terrafugia TF-X3, a terrible thing to do to such a beautiful piece of machinery. As he opened the door he took the barest moment to admire the sleek curves and very clever design. He tossed his satchel with its evidence onto the passenger floor and climbed into the pilot seat.

Riles pressed the startup sequence and all the dash went green. There was an explosion somewhere above him as one of his diversionary charges went off. He thumbed the control for the basement doors and out he drove into the parking lot at the back of the “cantina”. He drove straight across to the helipad, starting the transistion sequence as he drove. It had been one of Raul's favourite tricks and Riles transitioned the skycar as he came onto the helipad. He was airbourne before the H disappeared beneath him. He pulled his agency ePerb from its secure pouch in his jacket, activated it, and climbed as fast as the TF-X would go and made for the nearest commercial airlane.

The nav screen showed him the surrounding terrain in the same way that google maps did, along with the high lighted paths of the air corridors. The new additions to the North American Free Trade agreement stipulated that US citizen pilots had three minutes to join a nominated corridor for skycar, chopper and light plane traffic or they’d have to land and file their flight plan. That could take up to three weeks and plenty of baksheesh.

Mexican graft and corruption was some of the worst in the world and Riles had documented it! Right to the highest levels. He needed out of the country and fast. He looked at the ePerb and saw the ‘alert received’ light glowing. At least the agency knew where he was.