Night Traveller (Gay Romantic Sci-Fi)

Chapter Twenty Eight

Captain Spier shook her head in angry disbelief. Cutter Levi had slipped through her eager fingers, apparently vanishing into thin air. 

She ground her teeth in frustration. What had gone wrong? Her team had surrounded the building well before she flashed her ID at the front door, but by the time someone came to answer it Cutter Levi had disappeared. Captain Spier searched the house herself in the company of two officers, twice. They found the room where he had been sleeping, the bedclothes were still warm, but of Cutter Levi himself there was no sign. 

The caretaker who had let them in seemed just as much at a loss to explain his disappearance, scratching his head in bewilderment as he stood in the doorway to the empty room. Perhaps he was genuinely ignorant but she was still going to take him down to the station for further questioning. 

She ordered Officer Fenn to scan the entire building with a heat detector to double check that Levi was not concealed on the premises but with no success. She could only suppose there was a secret way out, possibly a tunnel, below. Her face grim, she left an officer on guard and reluctantly returned to the station with the rest of her team and the caretaker. 

Confessing her lack of success to Lieutenant Oliver was not going to be fun. 

XXX 

Cutter Levi wove through the streets of Kapunda, moving at a fast pace but not fast enough to make it appear that he was running. The less attention he attracted from other inhabitants at this hour of the morning, the better. 

Thank god their paid informant at the police station had come through in time. He had sent through a warning only moments before the house was surrounded, as soon as he realised who Spier was hoping to catch in the raid. Levi had just had enough time to pull on his trousers and boots, snatch up his utility belt containing his favourite knife and ID, and get down to the tunnel below. He cursed, remembering the expensive new soft leather jacket he had been compelled to leave behind with the rest of his possessions. Someone was going to pay for that. 

"Boss?" he spoke softly into his wristcom. "I reckon I'll be at the 'port in five minutes. Is the ship ready?" 

"Bay Five, the Moray," answered Khan. He prided himself on always having an escape plan in place, albeit one that was solely for the use of himself and his top men. Anyone lower down the food chain had to fend for themselves. This time he'd commandeered the Moray on Levi's behalf, a small trader ship, nominally operated by Ty Stephens, a slightly disreputable trader, but in fact owned by himself. 

He didn't see the need to personally leave Kapunda, at least not today, but he wanted Cutter Levi off Burra entirely. Not only for their mutual protection but because he had one more, really important job for him. A job which, if everything went as he intended, would not only set them both up for life, but would extract a satisfying revenge on Chang and all his associates. This sudden departure, inconvenient as it was, had only brought things forward. 

Levi reached the space port without being challenged. He paused in the shadow of a building to scan the surrounding area for potential threats before making his way to the Moray, standing ready at Bay Five. 

He slipped unobtrusively into the open hatch. Ty Stephens greeted him with a stunner in his right hand. 

"Good, you're here," he said rather obviously, lowering the stunner as soon as he recognised the intruder. He had worked with Levi before. "Ready to go?" he asked, already closing the hatch and moving forward to the pilot's cabin. 

"Sooner the better, as far as I'm concerned," replied his passenger, following. "Do you know our destination yet?" 

"Khan sent a man over with something for you," Stephens answered indirectly, "Just before you got here." 

He gestured with one hand to the two seats in the passenger area. One was occupied by a traveller's backpack. "Have a look while I get ready for take-off if you like, I'll be a few minutes," invited Stephens, seating himself at the pilot's station. 

Levi lifted the pack from the seat to the floor in front of him. It was full and heavy and Levi was pretty certain it didn't contain clothes for a holiday. Weapons, maybe? 

He opened the pack and stared disbelievingly at the contents. What the-? It looked just like a spacesuit, the type worn when you had to make repairs to the outside of your ship. He hauled it out by the shoulders. It was a spacesuit. Where the fuck were they going? 

He draped the suit carefully over the seat next to him and scrummaged around in the bottom of the pack to discover what else had been provided. He was just lifting out a small, heavy package wrapped in plasfoam with a large warning label on it, when he heard Stephens get the all clear from the tower. He held on tightly to the package as the ship launched straight up into the still dark sky. 

"Asra, here we come," announced the pilot. 

XXX 

Lieutenant Oliver kept his lips tightly shut. Captain Spier was frustrated enough by the morning's debacle, she didn't need his criticism as well. There would be an investigation later of what exactly had gone wrong, but at the moment she was still focussed on tracking down Levi's current whereabouts. 

"I would bet he's either gone to ground here in Kapunda or, more likely in my opinion, looking for a berth off the planet entirely," he offered. "Can we check with the space port authorities?" 

Captain Spier nodded. She had already asked Fenn to check the city maps for possible escape routes underground, including a diagram of the house where Levi had been holed up. Now she sent through an urgent request to the space port. 

"Captain Spier here. There is a warrant out for the arrest of Cutter Levi. I'm authorising a search of the space port and all vessels prior to departure, effective immediately." 

There was a squawk of protest from the other end. 

"Levi is wanted for questioning over the bombing at the Victory," the Captain explained tersely. "There's a strong possibility that he's at the space port now, looking for a ship out. I also want the records of all ships departing in the last hour, their names, registrations and destinations." 

Lieutenant Oliver stayed for another couple of hours, helping with the investigation, but as time passed with no news from the spaceport, he suspected Levi had already made his escape. 

"Have you got enough to bring Mo Khan in for questioning?" he asked. 

"Enough to ask him to answer a few questions, not enough to detain him," Spier responded grimly.  

An hour later Mo Khan was politely incredulous, strongly denying any involvement with the bombing. In fact he insisted he and his second had been framed. He accused Chang of orchestrating the entire event, from the bombing to the kidnapping of Governor Callan. Needless to say, he professed to have no idea as to the current whereabouts of Cutter Levi, he had the day off and he wasn't expecting to see him. Indeed, he wasn't expecting to see him for at least a fortnight as he, Khan, was about to take his annual holiday on Moonta. He had booked a deluxe cabin on Paradise Island several months ago, which Captain Spier was quite welcome to verify. Presuming he wasn't under arrest, he added sarcastically. 

Captain Spier hid her dismay, wracking her brain to find some valid reason to prevent his departure but in the end, the best she could do was alert the Wallaroo police. She spoke personally to Lieutenant Varga, explaining the background behind her request for covert monitoring. 

As soon as he ended the call, Mo Khan proceeded openly with the preparations for his holiday, passing over temporary control of his various business arrangements to subordinates, arranging his finances and sending a message to remind the pilot of his private space yacht about their scheduled departure early the following day. Then he went out to lunch in a popular local cafe, slipping a couple of disposable, and untraceable, wristcoms into his pocket. The rest, and most important part, of his business needed to be conducted in absolute privacy.