Titan (Old Ironsides Book 2) by Dean Crawford Page A

before data is wiped. But there are not a lot of cameras in this area.’
    Nathan nodded. ‘If I’m right then this was meticulously planned, right down to ensuring a means of escape that would not be monitored. The shooter opens one window in preparation, takes the shot, closes the window and walks right out of here and down that hillside. I’m guessing that we can’t place a vehicle at this spot at the time of the murder?’
    ‘If you’re right,’ Foxx replied, ‘then they would have used a vehicle that had been tampered with, any tracking devices removed or switched off. There were no recorded vehicles here at the time of the shooting.’
    Nathan rubbed his jaw with one hand for a moment.
    ‘Scheff,’ he said as he fished in his pocket and pulled out an image of the criminal Asil had mentioned back at the precinct. ‘We need to figure out if this guy could have been planet–side when the shooting occurred.’
    Foxx nodded and turned for the warehouse door.
    ‘Let’s get back to New Washington and bring him in,’ she suggested.
    Nathan was about to join her when Foxx’s communicator buzzed. She switched it on and an image of Vasquez appeared.
    ‘Yo’,’ he greeted her with his customary disregard for professional etiquette, ‘I got a trace on the MM–15 pistol’s base–code. Turns out the weapon was registered to CSS Titan before it was slated for destruction when the 17’s came into service.’
    ‘That’ll make tracking them easy,’ Nathan said. ‘We’ve got history with Titan’s captain, Marshall.’
    He saw Foxx think for a moment, and then she made a decision.
    ‘Get ready to travel,’ she told Vasquez. ‘I’m going to fly to New York and request access to Titan’s armory. My guess is that whoever got that MM–15 into circulation down here, did it from up there.’
    ‘Somebody on the inside?’ Vasquez echoed. ‘But why would anybody aboard a fleet ship be messin’ around selling arms down planet–side. The armory’s are as tight as can be.’
    ‘We’ll figure that out when we get there,’ Foxx replied.
    She shut the communications channel off and turned to Nathan.
    ‘Get back to New Washington and help Vasquez and Allen track this Scheff down. I’ll meet you there once I’ve finished up in New York.’
    ***

X
    Tethys Gaol
    The cell block was thick with loathing, the air heavy with the live current of impending violence. Xavier could sense it, could feel it probing for him as he sat in silence on his bunk in his cell and listened to the sounds of the other convicts talking.
    Whispers flittered back and forth, chasing like demons through the shadows. Xavier could not quite hear what they were saying but he could detect individual words among the conversations that stabbed in his direction: shiv, cut, stomp, slice. The words slashed through his conscience like warring blades in the night as he wondered how long it would be before they came for him. He spent much of his time willing the attack on his life to arrive, the endless waiting far more corrosive than the threat of death itself, but when the attempt finally arrived he found himself wishing that he could sit in silence in his cell for just a little while longer.
    The stomping of boots across the gantries jerked Xavier out of his lonely vigil, and he heard the other inmates clattering steel cups against the bars of their cells in anticipation. Xavier climbed off his bunk and walked to the barred doors to see four sticks making their way across the second tier toward his cell, batons in their hands and grim expressions etched into their features. Determined. Uncompromising.
    Xavier allowed himself the hope that they were not coming for him, that they had some other business on the block, but the four heavily armed guards stopped outside his cell and stared in at him with bleak expressions.
    ‘Turn your back, show us your wrists.’
    Xavier complied and backed up to the cell doors. Manacles were fitted, snapped painfully