Red Angel: Book II: Raiders (Red Angel Series 2) by C. R. Daems

Author:C. R. Daems [Daems, C. R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Talon Novels
Published: 2016-04-21T23:00:00+00:00

* * *

I decided to leave the merchant problem until tomorrow and enjoy dinner and the evening relaxing with Alexa. The problem wasn't going to be solved in a few hours. There were four hundred and thirty merchants who made between forty and sixty stops a year, and we were looking at close to a year's activity. The best we could hope for was to narrow the list to twenty or thirty candidates.

After seeing Alexa off to work the next morning, I went into my home office and sat thinking. I had to narrow the list—almost twenty-one thousand visits—to something manageable, so I made a few assumptions:

1. There were three couriers—one in each of Master Puzzle's publication areas.

2. They were UAS registered merchants.

3. The ship had to be in its Master Puzzles area within a week of the monthly publication.

4. The ship had to stop at the raided planet between the publication date and one month afterward.

5. The ship spent seventy-five percent of its time in the Master Puzzles publication area.

That decided, I began my search of the Eastar Master Puzzle's area. Assumption one didn't eliminate anyone. It just focused the search within the five planets in that area. Assumption two only eliminated twenty-eight merchants and fourteen hundred entries. Assumption three, however, eliminated three hundred eighteen merchants and more than fourteen thousand entries, leaving only seventy-four merchants. Assumption four eliminated sixty-four merchants and almost four thousand entries. And I was pleased when assumption five left only three merchants: Star Trader, Easy Explorer, and Storm Runner. Then I realized I hadn't checked to see if any of the three had visited Safe Harbor, the indicated system for the coordinates. Only two, Star Trader and Easy Explorer, had during the thirty days after publication. That became the sixth assumption.

The next day, my assumptions generated similar results for the Holy Star area—two merchants—and Stone Ring area—three merchants. When I finished, I sent the team a message stating what I had found and the assumptions I had made and finished in time to wash and join Alexa for dinner.

"You look pleased with yourself," Alexa said as we took our places at the table.

"I managed to narrow the list of potential merchants working with the raiders to two or three in each of the Master Puzzle's publication areas. Once we get a puzzle message, I think our odds of identifying the specific merchant are high."

"No wonder the raiders fear you and your team. You really are like human bloodhounds." She laughed. "Pretty soon all the criminals are going to move to the FPU and PRS, because it isn't safe to operate in the UAS."

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