Rampant Destruction (CERBERUS Book 10)

by Andy Peloquin

  A few seconds later, Detective Locke’s voice barked in Nolan’s earpiece. “What!?”

  Nolan had expected a bit of irritation, but the man sounded borderline furious.

  “You call to remind me that you’re too busy to sort out one of the biggest messes in New Avalon?” Detective Locke’s tone went well beyond hostile. “That your problems are somehow bigger than—“

  “I’ll do it,” Nolan said. He kept his tone flat, letting Taia’s digital voice modulators turn his voice into a deep growl. “Derring’s a problem I can take care of.”

  That seemed to take the wind out of Detective Locke’s sails. He cut off mid-tirade, stunned to silence.

  “I take it you’ve been surveilling him?” Nolan asked.

  “Of course I have!” Detective Locke snapped. So not all his wind had been knocked out.

  “You’ve got a fix on his current location?”

  “He’s holed up in his Upper Heights mansion,” Detective Locke said. “Surrounded himself with a small army of gunmen. Seriously, an army. Last surveillance log counted seventy-five on-premises.”

  Nolan had a pretty good idea as to why that was. He’d taken out contracts on Fineas Derring with multiple Shadowspear operatives—a distraction tactic to split their forces. Though he’d made certain the Doofs snatched up the assassins, he wouldn’t have been bothered to learn one or more slipped through and actually pulled off the job. Derring had evidently survived the attack and responded by contracting his own force of shooters to protect him.

  “That’s a lot of warm bodies and itchy trigger fingers,” Nolan said. “SWAT would have a damned hard time getting past all those shooters.”

  Detective Locke snorted. “No shit! That’s why he’s a problem of your magnitude.” He drew in a deep breath. “He’s the kind of filth you eliminate, Hellhound. The sort of man the Empire is far better off without. My hands are tied, but yours aren’t.”

  Nolan didn’t bother responding to that. “Send me all the intel you’ve got on him and his mansion. See if you can figure out a plausible reason to pull your Doofs back, too. I’ll handle the rest.”

  “Sending the intel now,” Detective Locke replied.

  “Receiving data packet via the comms channel,” Taia said in Nolan’s earpiece.

  “You’ll know when it’s done,” Nolan said.

  “I don’t know what’s changed, Hellhound,” Detective Locke began, “but you have to know you’re doing a good th—“

  “Goodbye, Detective,” Nolan said, and ended the call.

  “Nolan, we’ve just found that link between Derring and Black Crow Security,” Taia said as soon as the comms channel went silent. “Detective Locke’s intel identifies the ‘small army’ guarding his estate as Black Crows.”

  She called up images showing contractors with paramilitary outfits and an impressive array of weaponry patrolling and guarding an enormous Upper Heights mansion.

  “Correction,” Taia said. “Detective Locke’s intel identifies Sandra Herion as one of the partners in Black Crow Security. Herion is Derring’s mother’s maiden name.”

  Nolan raised an eyebrow. “Guy like that probably has all kinds of assets under other names and a dozen ways to avoid paying taxes.”

  “Including, it appears, ownership of half a dozen other buildings around New Avalon,” Taia continued. “All of which are under the names of his mother and two of his ex-wives.”

  She called up a map of the city, and outlined in bright red the properties Derring secretly owned.

  “But what matters right now is this building.” Nolan jabbed a finger in the direction of their target. “Derring owns it, and a guy like him doesn’t strike me as the sort who’d give over total control of it to anyone, not even the Protection Bureau. I’d bet he’s at least got blueprints of whatever’s down there—“

  “And maybe a manifest of what was installed before the Protection Bureau commandeered it,” Master Sergeant Kane finished. “Something that could give us an idea of what we’ll face if we go in.”

  “Exactly!” Nolan nodded. “The Protection Bureau’s powerful, but not even they can simply hollow out an underground structure from the bedrock of New Avalon overnight. Which means they had to move into some pre-existing structure. And if we can get our hands on intel of what it was, we might be able to find something to exploit. Like the ventilation shaft on Diomedra.”

  Master Sergeant Kane scratched at his bearded chin. “You don’t need to keep selling me the cow,” he said, giving a dismissive wave. “Just explain how you plan to get it done.”

  “With way too little effort.” Nolan almost laughed. “Look at the layout of his mansion.” He gave Taia the mental command to display the same image she’d shown him earlier. “It’s all grand picture windows and wide-open spaces up on the top floor, which will make it as easy to get into as a Voidmarine’s pants on Fleet Week.”

  “Speaking from experience?” Bex put in from her perch by the window. “And you swore you and Rip were just old buddies!”

  Nolan ignored the gibe. He couldn’t, however, ignore just how much he’d missed her comments in the days since she’d left. Nothing lifted his spirits quite as much as one of Bex’s glib, sarcastic comments.

  Master Sergeant Kane’s lip twitched—just for a moment, then he was all business again. He folded his arms across his chest and stared at the images on the holo-screen. “You’re right,” he said after only a few seconds. “Drop in from above, enter here”—he tapped the glass-walled room adjacent to the rooftop swimming pool and hot tub—“and get to Derring. Man like that’s going to have a lot of armed guards for show, but no way he’s got any real defenses that could give you trouble.”

  “Cloaked and with silenced weapons, we’ll be in and out in ten minutes,” Nolan said. “Fifteen, tops. Taia can copy everything off whatever devices he’s got in the mansion, and if he’s got the data on the building stored off-site, we’ll find out and get there.”

  Master Sergeant Kane slowly nodded. “Better than trying to infiltrate the Protection Bureau’s building blind, especially with all those Black Crows guarding the perimeter.” He tapped a finger against his lips, studying the images for a long moment. “Take Ajeen. The two of you will make quicker work of things, and it’ll do you good to have backup in case things go pear-shaped.”

  Nolan didn’t bother to argue with the master sergeant. He had no need to ask if they could handle surveillance on Agent Styver and the Protection Bureau’s building—Master Sergeant Kane knew exactly what he, Darren, and Zahra were capable of, and if he decided it was worth sending Bex with Nolan, then it was the right play.

  Bex popped to her feet and, with a broad grin, strode toward Nolan. “Looks like it’s you and me again, Cerbie.” She clapped him hard on the shoulder. “Let’s go see a shit-sucking dirtbag about a blueprint!”

  “Dick-tweaking idiots!” Bex’s snort echoed loud over the comms channel. “What short-bus-riding balls-for-brains trained them? Anyone who calls that a proper perimeter had to have been dropped on their head a few too many times.”

  Nolan couldn’t argue with her assessment. They’d spent the last hour watching the mansion first through Taia’s spy satellite network, then through the cloaked Phantasm hovering near the southern end of the Iceglades, where it bordered the northern edge of Upper Heights. What he’d seen hadn’t impressed him.

  The Black Crow contractors defending Derring’s Upper Heights five-story, half-square-kilometer mansion put on a good show of force for anyone who would be terrified at the sight of an armed gunman. True to Detective Locke’s intel, at least thirty men and women in black paramilitary uniforms were visible around the estate’s vast exterior, doubtless with more inside or off-duty. All carried heavy-looking weapons and wore serious expressions as they ringed the outer wall, front gate, and main entrances to the mansion.

  But any well-trained soldier who’d actually pulled guard duty on a military base could immediately see the holes in the defe
nse. Sure, armed forces patrolled the perimeter of the property, but the eight-minute gap between patrol sweeps made it far too easy to slip over the five-meter-high wall and through the lush gardens, which offered too many hiding places on the estate’s southern side.

  Any hostile forces coming up the main western driveway would find themselves facing a force of at least fifteen gun-wielding Black Crows, but that left the northern and eastern edges of the property with only a handful of guards to patrol it. Whoever was in charge relied too heavily on the gunmen atop the roof and third-floor exterior balconies to keep an eye on the ground floor, a serious mistake once darkness fell. Even with floodlights and motion sensors, there was simply no way a force that small, arrayed in that composition, could keep a proper eye on that much acreage.

  And, of course, the layout of the Black Crows accounted for a ground-based force breaking through the front gates, but failed to prepare for any sort of overhead insertion. The four Black Crows standing guard on the rooftop’s corners could be taken out, and any invading force would have direct access from above.

  “Hey, at least it makes our job easy,” Nolan said. Truth be told, he welcomed a cakewalk after the intensity of the Corrigan mission and the time he’d spent in the Vault. Hell, he wanted nothing more than to spend the next week relaxing in the cabin in the Celestial Cascades and forgetting the world around him existed.

  But that wasn’t possible. Not yet, not until the Protection Bureau had been either pacified or eliminated.

  He glanced at the Phantasm’s flight console. 16:02, it read. They had just under three hours until sunset, then another hour or so until they made their move under the cover of darkness.

  Nolan’s eyes wandered toward Bex. She hadn’t spoken much on their drive to the Sentry Division warehouse, or when they’d armored up and boarded the Phantasm for their short flight to the observation coordinates. Now that he thought about it, Nolan realized she’d been oddly quiet since they left the cabin. Since they left Roz behind, sobbing in Jadis’ arms.

  “How are you doing?” Nolan tried for a casual tone.

  Bex’s helmet swiveled toward him. “Really?” she snapped. “You’re asking me that now?”

  Nolan grimaced inwardly. “I mean—“

  Bex cut him off with a slash of her hand. “Just drop it, Garrett. Yes, it’s harder than I expected, and yes, seeing Roz like that nearly broke me. But no, I’m not regretting it. Not yet. Now, if you keep checking up on me and hovering like a goddamned mother hen, then yeah, I might start regretting it. So don’t ask goddamned stupid questions like how I’m fucking doing.”

  Nolan fell silent. Her reaction was marginally worse than he’d expected. She was pissed—at the situation at the very least, maybe even at him or herself, too—and in no mood to talk to him. On the other hand…

  “We’ve got a few hours until we make our move,” he said. “The Phantasm’s got a secure comms channel you can use to call the cabin and—“

  “Drop. It. Garrett.” Bex growled each word. “Mind on the mission.”

  “Copy that,” Nolan said, and turned his attention back to the mansion below.

  Though he no longer looked at Bex, he couldn’t help worrying for her. He could only begin to imagine the pain she was feeling. She’d just gotten her daughter back, then left her in the care of strangers. Friendly strangers, certainly, but anyone other than Bex herself was surely a poor substitute in Bex’s mind. That image of Roz’s tear-stained face haunted Nolan—what would it be doing to Bex?

  But she was right about one thing: they had to keep their mind on the mission. The sooner they got in and got what they needed from Derring, the sooner they could return to their primary task of dealing with the Protection Bureau.

  Nolan leaned closer to the flight console’s screen, as if it would enable him to see his target through multiple levels of stone, brick, and permacrete. With Taia’s satellites hovering over the building, she had a lock on the various heat signatures moving inside. Derring was alone in his office on the third floor, but the presence of a woman swimming naked in his pool suggested that his focus on work would soon turn to other, more leisurely pursuits.

  When that happened, Nolan and Bex would mobilize. The top floors were poorly guarded, with far too many access points. It would be almost too easy.

  “Shit sticks!” Taia said in Nolan’s earpiece. “Nolan, you need to see this.”

  An official document bearing the seal of the Imperial Defense Forces popped up onto his HUD. “Be on the Lookout,” it proclaimed. “Wanted for crimes against the Empire: Nolan Garrett.”

  Nolan’s gut tightened as he stared at the image on the BOLO. It was an older photograph, taken shortly after he was medded out of the Silverguard. Though his face was gaunter, his eyes more hollow, it still depicted him clearly enough that anyone who saw it would recognize him.

  But that in itself wasn’t what set dread coursing through him. The only reason this would have gone wide to the Doofs was if the Protection Bureau had allowed it. They knew he’d escaped the Vault and survived. They had decided to burn him publicly, make him enemy number one. And if they saw anything that might resemble Cerberus’ handiwork, they’d immediately come hunting him.

  Which meant he had to be damned careful with this Derring mission. Any visible fingerprints could set the Protection Bureau on high alert. Agent Styver would be smart enough to know it wasn’t a coincidence, and they’d connect an attack on Derring to their new base of operations. They’d pull off a vanishing act as effective as when they’d vacated their Bolt Hole offices, leaving Nolan with no way to track them down—and entirely at their mercy when they came hunting him.

  Chapter Twelve

  Nolan stood atop the lowered rear ramp of the Phantasm, staring down at the vast estates and enormous mansions of Upper Heights nearly a full kilometer below him. Up this high, the wind whipped past his armored body with such force he had to grip the ship’s frame to steady himself.

  Nolan drew in a deep breath, going over the plan they’d crafted. It would be a simple, clean infil, but Nolan and Bex were both armed and ready in case things went pear-shaped. Nolan had his Balefire Mark 2.1, NC7 pistol, and Echoblade, while Bex was loaded down with her MK75 in a light machine gun configuration, the Karma Sideshooter pistol, and her own Echosteel dagger. They’d do their best to avoid dropping unnecessary bodies, but had no qualms about what would happen if the Black Crows forced the matter.

  He turned to Bex, who stood beside him. “Ready?”

  She gave him a thumbs-up. “As ready as a boy on prom night with a wallet full of condoms.”

  Nolan chuckled. Bex really did have a way with words. “Taia, the pool deck still clear?”

  “Affirmative,” Taia said. She called up aerial satellite footage of the Derring mansion. The pool deck was elevated above the mansion’s main roof, offering privacy even from the guards stationed on the rooftop. “We’ve got a clear infil path.”

  Nolan unslung his Balefire rifle. “Then let’s do this.”

  With a nod to Bex, he leaped off the ramp and into the empty night sky.

  Wind rushed around him as he plummeted toward Upper Heights. For long moments, he basked in the freefall, the feeling of weightlessness. Yet the sensation that had formerly been so pleasant now sent a shiver down his spine. The last time he’d felt like this, he’d been locked in the Vault, batted around by the artificial gravity. Grimacing, he gave Taia the mental command to extend his combat suit’s glider wings.

  The wings snapped out, and instantly the wind caught him and arrested his downward momentum with a jolt that jarred his spine. One moment he was falling, the next he was gliding smoothly through the air, once more in full control.

  “Taia, target coordinates,” he said.

  A map of Upper Heights appeared on his HUD. Two blinking red dots showed his and Bex’s position relative to their target half a kilometer to the southeast. Taia had full control of their combat suits and would keep them on course f
or touchdown atop the roof of Derring’s estate.

  The gliding descent took less than three minutes. Nolan activated his helmet’s thermal imaging as Derring’s estate came into view, and the heat signatures of the man’s guards shone bright orange and red on the sea of cool blue. As Taia had said, the elevated pool deck was clear, and the guards on the rooftop watched outward.

  Too easy, Nolan thought with a grin.

  The pool glowed a soft orange—Derring liked it heated, it seemed—and made for an easy target. Nolan never stopped scanning the rooftop and the glass-walled room next to the pool, keeping an eye on the guards. The probability that the Black Crows could see through his combat suit’s digital camouflage was virtually nil, but he wouldn’t take any chances.

  Nolan and Bex circled once to slow their descent, then came in for touchdown. Taia pulled up at the last second and retracted the glider wings for a picture-perfect landing. Nolan’s combat boots barely made a sound as he dropped the last meter onto the wooden deck. Bex landed a moment later, and her tap on his shoulder was the signal to advance toward the sunroom ten meters away.

  As Nolan had expected, the glass doors to the sunroom were unlocked and slid open with scarcely a whisper. Comfortable pool furniture and a fully stocked wet bar occupied the western half of the room, but Nolan turned toward the east-side staircase that descended into the mansion. He paused at the top of the staircase just long enough to scan for any movement below. His thermal imaging and helmet’s highly attuned auditory sensors picked up nothing. The top floor was empty and quiet.

  “Path’s clear,” Nolan said over comms. “Taia, are the heat sigs still on the fourth floor?”

  “Affirmative.” Taia called up the feed from the spy satellite, this time overlaid with the thermal imaging filter. “They haven’t left their room in the last half-hour.”

  Nolan nodded. Taia had hacked into the mansion’s blueprints and located the master suite on the fourth floor. The larger of the two heat signatures in the enormous bedroom would doubtless be Derring.