Bang-bang.
Emz and Luki had spent the last twenty minutes analysing the drone footage as it circled the two-storey suburban house. Keeping the drone high and far back to avoid detection had limited their view inside, but they could make out the general layout. The upper level appeared to have four or five bedrooms and possibly a rec room above the double garage. Downstairs, the main entrance sat on the right-hand side, just ahead of the garage, sheltered by a covered porch. Along the front, there was a dining room, a kitchen with a keeping room, and, on the left-hand side, a large screened porch area with double doors leading to the rear garden. At the back, the house featured a living room, some unidentified spaces, a back door, and the rear wall of the garage, which was flush with the rest of the exterior.
Several lights were on throughout the house, and they were busy trying to work out if they could spot any movement to indicate how many people were inside and where they were, when the surprisingly loud knock came.
Emz readied his SMG and pointed it at the van’s door. Luki switched the screen to an exterior camera, which picked up the image of a large black man standing a metre or so back from the vehicle, with a gun readied in both hands.
“That’s Bamba,” Emz said, relaxing a touch.
“Who?” Luki asked.
“Some backup I called.”
“Why is he pointing a gun at my van door then?”
Emz shrugged. “He’s a bit…” He couldn’t find the right word, so shrugged again and stepped towards the van door, while Luki looked apprehensive.
The fixer kept his hand gripped tight to his SMG, hung low at his side but ready to pivot up if needed.
“Bamba, it’s Emz, I’m opening the door,” he shouted, before pressing the release and letting the door slide aside.
Bamba didn’t fire but stood there with an old analogue handgun pointing at Emz’s chest. The whites of his eyes, like the pale ink of his open-jawed crocodile tattoo on his neck, stood out bright in the darkness as he searched beyond Emz into the interior, not quite able to see all the way in due to the angle.
“Who is in there with you?”
“Just me, and a techie.”
Bamba scowled. “What is it that you want of me?”
Emz looked down at the SMG in his hand and opened his grip to let the gun swing away on the sling across his body. Then he opened his hands as a peaceful gesture. “I need you to help me kill some bad people. You owe me.” Emz gave a beckoning motion. “So stop being an arse and come in here, and I’ll explain.”
Emz casually stepped back deeper into the van.
After a calculated pause, Bamba edged his way in, gun first, keeping the angle tight as he scanned further into the van’s interior with a sweeping motion. He spotted Luki at the central desk, seemed to quickly dismiss him as a threat, and, after completely scanning the whole space, finally stepped inside. The van door closed behind him with a gentle swoosh and clunk. He made a swift check of the small empty bathroom before lowering his gun, though he kept it at the ready.
“Luki, this is Bamba, a hired mercenary and friend,” Emz introduced with a little hand gesture.
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“Non, we are not friends. Though, I do owe you. Just one time only,” Bamba added.
Emz nodded. “Bamba, this is Luki, a tech guy and a friend.”
“Well, we are not actually friends either, we are business partners,” Luki added.
Emz nodded. “Great, now we’re all friends,” he said, clapping his hands together.
Emz scanned Bamba. The last time he had seen the big Senegalese mercenary was five months earlier, in October, when they had escaped a gang war in a delivery vehicle and been dropped off in the Rauschen district, on the northern coastal stretch of the Sambia Peninsula. It had been chilly and out of season, so Bamba had holed up in a vacant summer home to convalesce. His broken arm had healed, though a chunk of his left ear was still missing. His dark brown face was marked with scars, but much of it was hidden beneath thick coils of overgrown black hair and a beard.
“Some of my other friends, people I care about a lot, were attacked tonight, and one of them was kidnapped and brought here.” Emz pointed to the screen, which Luki had switched back to the drone footage of the house. “They are forcing her partner to write some code for something big, like a terror attack.” Emz pointed at Bamba. “That’s why I need you to help me get in there, kill the bad guys, and rescue my friend.”
Bamba’s professional eye scrutinised the recording. “How did you know where they took your friend?”
“Luki hacked some cameras, and we tracked a grey panel van leaving the area… Before you ask, we don’t know that van is their getaway vehicle, but the timing fits. There were at least five attackers, so they must have needed a sizable vehicle or multiple cars involved. And that van was the only contender that we could see. It also is heavily tinted, without any signage, and when it arrived here, there was an identical van inside the garage. It just feels shady.”
Bamba nodded. “Oui, that makes sense.” He kept his eye on the drone footage. “You say there were at least five men?”
“Yes, though three were killed in the attack. So that leaves only two, maybe with a driver to return with the hostage.”
“You killed three?”
“No, my friends had a security robot, it killed the three before it was taken out.”
Bamba scowled. “A robot that kills?”
Emz nodded. “It was a custom job, and that’s what they’re forcing one of my friend's to write a code for—a hack that can turn any robot, anywhere, into a killer.”
“Merde. That is something bad.” Bamba acknowledged. “So, two or three in your van, and another van, so possibly another five or six in the house. Or even more.”
“Yeah, that’s what we were thinking,” Emz concurred.
“Should we not anonymously call the police?” Luki asked. “They will send a SWAT team.”
Emz rubbed his face and thought about it. “Yeah, we could. But what evidence do we have to give them that anything is wrong here? My friend in Poyz would have to admit that she was attacked and is being forced to write an illegal hack for terrorism, which the police would immediately stop. So she wouldn’t admit anything for the sake of her partner. And even if we could offer some other story to get them here, they wouldn’t storm the house, they’d send a patrol car and drones to investigate.” Emz opened his hands. “And the house just looks normal. We don’t even know for sure they are in there.”
Bamba nodded. “Oui, you are correct. We need to get in there and take care of this ourselves.”
Luki looked aghast. “I am not going in there. I have never even fired a gun.”
Emz calmed him down. “I know. I need you to find anything you can about this house, who owns or rents it, and any chatter you can find about a kidnapping online…” Emz paused at his own words, thinking back. “Actually, I remember seeing a forum posting about a kidnapping job. It was… the first Saturday of December last year. See what you can find.” Emz then sent over some images to Luki from his mobile.
Luki cast the gruesome photos up on his large screen. It was the two men shot in Beata’s corridor—one pasty and ginger, the other with darker southeast Asian heritage. The third image showed a prone man with white but heavily tanned hands and a crushed-in skull next to a shot-up robot.
“And see if you can identify these thugs.” Emz turned to Bamba. “Unless you’ve met them before?”
Bamba scrutinised the photos but shook his head.
Emz then pulled out the dead men’s guns from his black duffel bag and stacked them on the desk in front of Luki. “Maybe you can get their biometric info from their guns.”
Luki scowled as he considered the feasibility of the task.
Emz took one more handgun from the bag and turned back to Bamba. “We’ll get you set up with anything you need. Including this.” he added, passing over a brand-new SIG P400MAX to the big African thug.
Bamba took the gun, a wide, toothy white smile spreading across his usually stoic face.
