Dubai Double-Cross Read online

  Also by JC Hay

  Corporate Services

  Dubai Double-Cross

  Mumbai Manhunt

  South Seas Salvation

  Corporate Services Bundle

  Great Space Race

  Flare: Team Corona

  TriSystems: Rangers

  Inouye

  Grenville

  Chen

  Penzak (Coming Soon)

  Standalone

  Hearts and Minds

  Watch for more at JC Hay’s site.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Epilogue

  Before You Go

  Mumbai Manhunt

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright © 2016 JC Hay

  This novel is a work of fiction. The characters, places, and incidents are either fictional or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living, dead, or reconstituted from digital memories; actual events; or organizations is coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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  To B’ - Who believed, even when I didn’t

  One

  Elise Briggs watched the seconds tick by in bright green numbers, superimposed over the corner of her vision. Just another milk run, she assured herself, nothing to worry about. When the numbers rolled over to zero, she moved out of the shadow of the HVAC unit and crouched at the service door. She pulled a mimic cable out of her belt and triggered the connection. Immediately the scene changed, overlaying the door with a series of possible RFID codes used in Burj Khalifa over the last month. Yash wanted a small fortune to get the information for her, but given what Corporate Services was paying for this run, Elise didn’t mind the hacker’s exorbitant price.

  She swallowed against the sour taste in her mouth. CorpServ—everyone called them CorpSes, for both their demeanor and their usual calling cards—theoretically acted as a neutral go-between in the semi-covert war between the multinational corporations. They made independent operators like her easier to hire, and supposedly immune from corporate retribution. None of which stopped people from turning up dead from time to time.

  With the amount they’d offered her for the job, she could leave it all behind. Not just the work, but the whole damn planet. Mars may still be early in its terraform, but all resources there were focused on survival. There was no time or room for corporate fighting, and that made the cold, red desert sound like paradise.

  She laid the mimic against the card reader and cycled through the codes until she heard a friendly chirp of acceptance. The lights on the door handle switched to green and she yanked it open and dove through.

  She pulled the cable and the time returned. Thirty seconds. You’re getting old, Elise. The service corridor was empty, but she tapped the corner of her eye to make sure. Her vision cycled through the most common wavelengths of the spectrum, checking for UV and IR motion detection. Nothing, just like CorpServ had promised.

  Not that I’m stupid enough to trust Corporate Services. If the last year had taught her anything, it was to not trust anyone, even when she thought she could. She pushed Ty’s ghost into the past where it belonged and called up the file on her target. Information scrolled across her vision while she slipped down the hall.

  Jalila Zaahir had assumed control of her family’s namesake group at the surprising age of twenty-three, and in the three years since, had driven the company into a whirlwind of acquisition and expansion. Zaahir Amalgamated Technologies held significant corners in everything from medical implants to molecular synthetics. Zaahir had the magic touch when it came to finding the right properties just before the value skyrocketed, leaving little doubt as to why another corporation would plan an Infil and Extract against her.

  Elise reached the service elevators and removed the cover from the control. She slipped a bypass into position to release the safety mechanism on the doors and slid them open. Over a hundred floors of darkness yawned in the shaft beneath her toes. She checked for cameras in the elevator shaft, hoping they hadn’t bothered to install them in the decades since the building had been completed. Nothing showed on her scans. She hooked her descender to the rung of the safety ladder and stepped out into nothing.

  She fell, suspended in the emptiness for a heartbeat before gravity caught up with her. Her stomach lifted until she felt it somewhere around her heart. Three seconds ticked by on her chrono before she slapped the brake on her descender. The line snapped tight and inertia swung her toward the ladder on the side of the shaft. The nearest elevator door had 154 spray-painted on the inside. Two more floors to her destination.

  She tapped descend and the harness lowered her the remaining six meters to the proper floor. The manual override released safety locks from within the shaft and she rolled through into Zaahir’s suite. Elise called up the floor plan for the apartment and superimposed it over the upper left corner of her vision—the so-called “gamer spot.” The connection to video games always made her smirk. No simulation could match the adrenaline rush of the real thing. After her first run, video games were a thing of the past.

  While she got her bearings, she drew her CZP-22 from its holster in the small of her back. As soon as her hand wrapped around the pistol, the biometric pad on it came to life and transmitted additional data to her view: ammunition, weapon temperature, and most importantly, the small green phosphor showing exactly where the muzzle was pointing.

  She didn’t like to use the gun, but she’d learned from experience. Security didn’t know or care if you were operating under a no wetwork clause in your contract. They usually shot first and asked questions later. While Elise wasn’t crazy about taking out some blue-collar just for doing his or her job, she had even less interest in being killed for doing hers.

  The office was right where the map said it would be. The enormous window that comprised the far wall gave her a falcon’s-eye view of Dubai at night, spread out a half-mile below like a plain of stars. From her vantage point, she could even see the hard, dark line where the city stopped and inhospitable desert started. More important, the ambient light proved the room was empty. No late night business for Ms. Zaahir, then. Good. That means she should have her data stored in its normal safe.

  Elise took a deep breath and continued along the hall toward the enormous master bedroom. With luck, Zaahir would hand over her files with a minimum of fuss. Elise could be out of the building before the legal authorities had a chance to respond.

  Jalila Zaahir lay on the bed, nude. If the sheet knotted around her neck hadn’t been a sign, her staring, sightless eyes and rapidly cooling body temperature on thermal sealed the deal. Someone had beat Elise to the punch and made certain Zaahir wouldn’t be sharing information with anyone.

  Elise sighed. So much for this being a milk run. Just once I want to have a mission go one-hundred percent according to plan. She started to holster her pistol when a movement from the bathroom caught her attention. She rolled behind the bed and brought the weapon up, the green dot highlighting the center of a well-sculpted, hairless chest.

  “Who are you? What are you do—Jalila? Jalila!” The nude man ran from the bath to the side of the bed and tried to shake Zaahir to life.

  Damn, money and t
aste run hand in hand. Elise peeled her eyes away from the man’s gorgeous frame. He had the perfect complexion that came with wealth, but his well-defined abs and power-laden chest were natural. Nothing vat-grown about his physique at all, Elise noted with appreciation. Not that I have time to care about such things right now.

  She zeroed the pistol on his head as she stood. “Step away from the bed. Who are you?”

  Fear, grief and rage chased each other across the man’s face. “What did she ever do to you?”

  Elise wiggled her pistol to call his attention to it. “Gun. I ask the questions. Let’s try again. Who are you?”

  “Na’im. I’m Jalil—Miss Zaahir’s personal assistant.”

  The euphemism made sense in pseudo-conservative Dubai, where the appearance of propriety needed to be maintained in spite of what happened behind closed doors. Still, she couldn’t resist wondering what enhancements he had beneath the surface—stamina, heightened sensitivity, almost certainly a skillset for a wide array of bedroom activities. It depended on how Zaahir’s tastes in the bedroom ran. She glanced at his temple and made out the port covers for an extensive cortical unit. “Na’im, step away from the bed.” When he complied, she continued. “Miss Zaahir was dead when I entered the room. With you being in the bathroom at the same time, you can understand why I am disinclined to trust you. So you stay still, and we’ll have a little talk.”

  Despite herself, Elise let her vision dip to take in the full show. Na’im didn’t so much as blink at the examination, leaning against the wall next to the bathroom door. He pointed at his hips. “May I at least grab a towel?”

  Na’im wrapped the towel around his waist and turned to face the intruder. The gun stayed pointed at him, despite the woman’s apparent distraction scanning the room. Implant, he realized. Unlikely she’d miss if I tried for the panic button. He put his hands in front of him, open-palmed, as proof of his harmless intent. With luck, he’d be able to rationalize the situation and secure a way that allowed him to live through it. First he needed to keep the intruder occupied. “Why did you kill her? She was worth much more alive to whoever hired you.”

  His damp skin tingled in the cool air of the room; his enhanced nerves only heightened the effect. He fought against the response of his pleasure centers as best he could. He’d been re-tooled for entirely different situations than this one. Hostage situations and robberies were not the ideal places to start sporting an erection. At best, it would give the intruder the wrong idea.

  The woman—despite the short, shaggy cut of her silver-white hair there could be no doubting her gender the way her skin-tight suit clung to her—turned and snorted. “I told you she was dead when I got here. Or are you asking yourself?” If she noticed his discomfort, she gave no sign.

  “Why should I believe you?” He edged a little way along the wall and tried to calculate the distance to the bedroom door. If he could get to the other side, he might be able to trigger the building alarms before she gunned him down.

  “Two reasons. One, as you said, she’s worth more to me alive. And two, if I wanted her dead I’d have shot her. Gun, remember?” She waved the muzzle around slightly, though it never strayed far from his center of mass.

  “You make it difficult to forget.”

  “Besides,” the intruder added, “it takes several minutes to kill someone with a ligature, even after they stop thrashing and black out. I don’t have that kind of time.” She shook her head.

  “But I didn’t do it. And if you didn’t do it...”

  “Then there’s a third party who did, not that the police are going to care one way or another. You’ve got a cortico-storage implant. Protein or Solid State? Are you running anything else in there, or a standard pleasure suite?”

  He brushed his fingers over his port-covers reflexively. Of course she’d noticed them—he kept his scalp bare around the openings for convenience. Still, the question seemed suddenly invasive. “Protein, of course. Miss Zaahir doesn’t accept sub-standard products.”

  Her cheek twitched. “Clearly not.” He heard the smile in her voice as she raked her eyes over him.

  He was used to being appraised like a piece of meat—many of Jalila’s associates among the glitterati had offered to purchase him from her, for a night or permanently. She’d always taken pride in the fact that others wanted him, and Na’im worked hard to maintain his physique, for his own vanity as much as for Jalila’s. Still, the notice of a complete stranger flattered him. “Thank you.”

  “Does— Did Miss Zaahir encrypt any files with you?”

  “Am I her personal assistant in more places than the bedroom, you mean?”

  “You’re remarkably flippant with a gun pointed at you.”

  “It’s my first time. Forgive me if I’m doing it wrong.” He shot a glance to the counter next to him. A cut crystal decanter rested on a silver tray, a stack of glasses nearby. “Mind if I pour some water?”

  The woman shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  He turned and grabbed one of the glasses while she continued to examine the room. He braced himself against the dresser and counted to three, then spun and hurled the glass at her.

  The gun coughed quietly as the crystal tumbler exploded and showered the carpet with slivers.

  She stormed across the room and grabbed him faster than he could react. Light flashed across his vision as she wrenched his wrist up behind him. Despite her size, she had strength and a clear understanding of leverage, and he leaned forward just to alleviate the pressure on his joints. The fingers of his left hand spasmed in a quick staccato as she smiled at him. “Not smart on your part, boytoy. Clearly, you can’t be trusted.” She raised the pistol to crack him across the temple.

  “Not the implant!” Ice flooded into his stomach, adrenaline charged into his blood on a wave of fear. With Jalila dead, he had only one real bargaining chip.

  Her hand froze in mid-air. “Why, what are you storing?”

  “All of Miss Zaahir’s personal files. Bank accounts, corporate plans, acquisition intentions. She does a full memory backup from her implant to mine.”

  The woman cursed in softly accented English, but Na’im couldn’t place the accent. One of the European nations from the sound of it, but he couldn’t narrow it down further. She narrowed her eyes. “What’s the password?”

  He shrugged as well as he could in her hold. “I don’t know. It’s voice-locked to Miss Zaahir, but the implant is programmed to block out my hearing the word. I know it’s long—two or three seconds. I can track lost time on my chrono, but I physically can’t hear her say it. Am I making sense?”

  Apparently he was. She released his wrist and he massaged his aching shoulder. “Just what I didn’t want to hear.” She grumbled as she holstered the pistol. “I guess that means shooting you is out.”

  “In the head, at least.” He regretted the words as soon as he said them and quickly appended, “Though I’d prefer not at all, obviously.”

  Before she could reply, an explosion of light flooded the room. Amplified voices shouted at them in Arabic. “Attention intruders! Drop your weapons. Lie on the floor. Failure to comply will be met with lethal force.”

  Na’im froze. “She has a contract with LifeGuard! They must have dispatched as soon as her heart stopped.” With the highest-level contracts, LifeGuard rolled out their private security personnel, as evidenced by the quiet thop-thop-thop of hoverjet blades outside the windows.

  The intruder grabbed him and threw him to the floor before he could protest. “Stay down!”

  “But I didn’t do anything! I’m her assistant!”

  “And not her husband, which means they’ll arrest you for promiscuity instead.” His stomach clenched. She was right. The authorities were perfectly happy to ignore indiscretion when they were being paid and it wasn’t overt, but with Jalila gone, the bribes dried up. They’d want someone to blame, and wouldn’t have to search too hard to find evidence of him being with her before she died.

&n
bsp; “What do we do?”

  “We’re getting out of here, exactly as I planned to do.” She elbow-crawled toward the nearest window and crouched below it, then pulled something off her belt and cocked it. She reached into another pouch and slapped something against the window. Immediately, gunfire erupted from outside, punching holes through the glass. One bullet hit the thing she’d stuck to the window and it exploded, sending the pane showering out into the night. The cold air whistled through the open window frame, chilling him further.

  “Ready?”

  He indicated the towel. “Obviously not.”

  “No time for modesty, pleasure doll. It’s now, or I leave you here.”

  Na’im bristled at the slur, but complied. He moved to her side as quickly as possible. “What’s the plan?”

  She fit a pair of goggles over her face, and he realized her eyes were gray with tiny flecks of amber in them. Then she covered them and his twin reflections stared back from the mirrored surface of her goggles. An interesting choice, when people could pick their eye color as easily as selecting socks. Despite everything, he couldn’t help but be curious about them.

  The woman smiled. “It’s a simple plan, but those often work best. I hope you’re not afraid of heights.” Without further comment, she grabbed him, stood, and fell from the window while gunfire rang out around them.

  Two

  The boytoy’s arms threatened to crush the wind out of her, and his screams mingled with the rush of air as they fell. Elise twisted in the air, bringing herself above him, and watched the altitude scroll past in her vision while she chided herself. Of course Zaahir had a LifeGuard contract. It had become standard practice for those who could afford it. High-priced private medical services like LifeGuard were more than willing to burn through whoever stood between them and the body of their client. Not that it would help Zaahir much. Medical science could fix a lot of things, but last she’d checked dead was still dead.