Ex-Kop by Warren Hammond Page A

again.”
    Ian watched as Yuri meekly complied, the cameraman's pudgy frame disappearing down a staircase a few seconds later.
    Horst. He was the offworlder at Roby's, the one who was all hands with Liz. And he was coming to the restaurant. That wasn't good. I forced my scattering mind to focus in on the problem at hand. An offworlder's head was sure to be riddled with implanted tech. He'd be detecting our camera as soon as he got in range. “Shit.” I placed the call. I could hear the ringing in my ear at the same time it was echoing from the projector. “Turn off the volume,” I told Maggie.
    Ian ignored the ringing and looked at the door. “About time,” he said to himself. Just inside the door was the offworlder, waiting to check his raincoat and umbrella.
Pick up already.
Ian finally answered, his buff holo appearing in front of Maggie and me.
    Maggie was up out of her chair, staring me down. I put up a finger to say, “Wait.”
    “Ian. It's Juno. We need to talk. Now.”
    “Okay, boy-o. What's up?” The camera on his head was aimed straight at the Holo-Juno that stood next to his table.
    “You've been bugged.” I said.
    Maggie went wide-eyed.
    Ian said, “What are you talking about?”
    “You're in a restaurant with jungle paintings, and you were just sitting across from a guy with a bruised face. I can see everything.”
    “Where are you?” The camera view wheeled dizzyingly around the restaurant floor. The offworlder was approaching.
    “Are you listening? You've been bugged. You remember Maggie shooing a fly away? She dropped a bug in your hair. I'm looking through the cam right now.”
    “You're shitting me.”
    “Ask the offworlder. He might be able to detect it.” I clicked off. My guess was the offworlder had already picked it up. Those people seemed to have more circuitry under their skullcaps than they did brains. Maggie's cam was surely lost, and this whole stakeout setup was already shot—might as well take the opportunity to prove my snitch skills.
    Ian led Horst into the men's. We caught a super-close-up of the offworlder a second before he picked the cam out of Ian's hair and the projector went blank.
    Within seconds, my phone was ringing. Holo-Ian asked, “Where the fuck did she get this thing?”
    “She's rich, remember? She said she picked it up from an offworld shop.”
    “Are you saying she's been watching me?”
    “We've been watching you together, ever since you left KOP station. She just ran out to get some food when I called you. Itwas the first chance I got. Listen, Ian, I gotta go. I need to finish erasing our conversation from the recording before she gets back. She's going to be suspicious as hell. I don't know how long I'll be able to keep her trusting me.”
    “I'm not done with you, boy-o. Come to Roby's tonight,” he ordered before hanging up.
    Maggie was staring at me.
    “Sorry about the cam,” I said. “The offworlder would've found it anyway.”
    “You don't know that for sure. That unit was pretty high-end.”
    “Never underestimate an offworlder,” I said with the authority of somebody who had been burned before.
    Maggie sighed. “We got nothing.”
    “We got plenty, Maggie.” I paused, prolonging the moment long enough to give proper emphasis to what I was about to say. “That guy with the bruised face, he was at the barge the other night. The unis caught him trying to sneak onboard to steal some footage. Josephs told me he was a cameraman for the Libre. I watched him get his ass kicked by Ian and company right there on the pier, and now we just heard Ian say something about how he'd been sloppy—”
    “What are you saying?” she asked with a shocked face. “Are you saying Ian's involved in the barge murders?”
    I nodded, my mind crackling with the possibilities. The plot was already forming in my mind. Horst: the offworld serial killer. Yuri: the documentarian. And Ian: the cover-up man. The three of them having dinner together: maybe a