More uninteresting stuff, and then a small lead bottle.
She was studying the bottle, very carefully not opening it since she suspected she knew what lay inside, when Dmitri threw the door open and stepped through, gun in hand.
“Tasha, put it down. I can’t believe you’re stealing from me.”
Tricia gave him a dazzling smile. “You should have said, ‘I can’t believe you let me catch you.’” She moved the lead vial to her left hand and pointed with her right at a book on the top shelf of the bookcase. “I left one camera live for you. The rest are on loops, of course.”
She shrugged. “You shouldn’t be surprised. I have to do something to maintain my skills.”
Dmitri furrowed his brow. He put his gun away but walked to the desk to loom over her. Oddly, his voice filled with concern. “Would you please, for heaven’s sake, give that to me? It’s dangerous.” He held his hand out for the vial.
Tricia laughed and brushed his hand. “Your hand’s damp. This thing really scares you, doesn’t it?” She tossed it in the air, then grabbed it as it fell.
“Tasha! Stop fooling with it!” He was really upset now.
Tricia twisted, and with a great show of legerdemain, snapped her wrist and flicked it back into the vault.
Dmitri sagged. “Do you have any idea what that is?”
“Judging from your reaction, it’s polonium—the same stuff the Premier used to try to kill you a couple of years ago. Right?”
Dmitri came around the desk and gently nudged her out of the way. He started packing things back into the vault. He hesitated at the tiny picture and left it sitting on his desk. “I guess you’re right,” he muttered, “What’s the point of having it if nobody can see it?”
After he closed the vault with a decisive thump, he glared at her. “And yes, that is the polonium the Premier used on me. Dash extracted it from my blood, and Colin…” He shook his head. “Colin figured I should have it.”
He paused while Tricia laughed, then finished in his most commanding tone, “Don’t fool with it.”
She wrapped herself around him and blew gently on his neck. “You know, the Premier told me to come out and do you with the polonium myself.”
She felt him tense up. She blew on his ear again. “But I had to go on a trip with the Chief, and the Premier was impatient.”
She could tell she was succeeding in torturing him, combining caresses with a casual discussion of her role in the assassination attempt. It was time to make him forget all about the lead vial.
He muttered, “I guess you wouldn’t have really had a choice if he’d ordered it, would you?”
She moved to the other side and caressed his neck once more. “No. I had no choices then. But this is now.”
And soon enough, she made Dmitri forget about the vial.
Karen Molina had once lived in a ramshackle wooden home forty miles outside the nearest town, nine miles down a dirt road, two miles from their nearest neighbor. She and her husband had built the house with their own hands. It had served them long and well.
But all things must come to an end. Her husband had passed on some years before. Both she and her pickup truck were too old and broken to haul water every week up the pothole-ridden dirt road. She had needed a well.
When Jonathan had been run out of town by that jackass Clay, with the help of the new government, she knew that the life she had loved had come to an end.
Now she lived in an abysmal little apartment on the third floor of a tenement in LA, where the real estate market collapse had made the rent so cheap she could afford it. Gas was too expensive, and her pickup needed too many repairs anyway, so she walked everywhere. Getting up and down the stairs to the apartment was usually the hardest part.
Today she walked to the bank, where she took out all the money that had been deposited from her pension fund that morning. It wasn’t worth much; like all the small savers in the country, she’d effectively been ruined when the government had started printing money like a binging alcoholic, but it was all she had. She scooped the bills into her backpack and hobbled across town toward the corner where her currency trader Trey worked, exchanging dollars for SmartCoin at a reasonable percentage of the exchange rate established by the BrainTrust currency markets.
She was halfway there when a young man ran up with a short sharp knife and slashed the straps holding her backpack on her shoulders. He grabbed the backpack and started to run off.
But the weight of the pack surprised him, so he stopped running and unzipped it to see what lay inside. When he saw the pack held nothing but dollars, he pulled the bag wide open, flipped it over, and shook all the money onto the ground. Relieved of the burden of the useless cash, he ran off with the valuable backpack.
Karen took a deep breath. In the old days, she’d have shot the scrawny brat, but she’d had to sell her arsenal for the deposit on her apartment.
With a sigh, she bent over and scooped up as much of the money as she could carry in her hands. She’d see if Trey could give her enough SmartCoin to rent a 3D printer long enough to make a cheap gun. Even if she had to borrow the money against her future pension checks, it would be worth it.
The first hint of trouble to reach Rubinelle was the loss of contact with the recon dirigible floating gracefully over western Nigeria/eastern Benin. After collecting the available facts, including the last video transmissions from the airship, she got the empress and the chief of staff of the Air Force and the BrainTrust Expedition Commander on a video call. “We have trouble. The Chinese have apparently decided to ally with the Imam. We might be facing a serious threat.”
The image on Rubinelle’s phone of the empress was a very close up headshot, her face stretched in the frighteningly contorted grin of a person undergoing high-g acceleration. The Empress was clearly performing acrobatics in her new F35.
Ciara saw it too. “Ping, get your head out of the clouds. We have a serious problem.”
Ping whooped. “Whatever. What’s the deal?”
Rubinelle showed them the last moments of the airship video. Two fighters came barreling over the horizon and fired several missiles, then veered away.
Rubinelle had expected to see the airship explode and destroy everything, including the cameras. The dirigible was, after all, held aloft by hydrogen gas, just like the Hindenburg.
But the Hindenburg had had an exterior shell lacquered with a material that later proved more useful as an explosive. Coating the hydrogen-filled zeppelin with explosives had worked about as well as one might expect.
Since the Benin Army’s dirigible was not a floating bomb, it did not explode. Instead, it burned oh so slowly, and the cameras continued recording while the ship slid into a graceful, flaming descent.
Ping, who had been studying military jets, grunted. “Chinese J20s. We can take ‘em. Right, Toni? We took ‘em the last time.”
General Toni Shatzki, seated in the rear cockpit of Ping’s F35D as flight instructor, was a little more cautious. “We can take them under the right circumstances. We need more information.”
Ciara interrupted these ruminations. “Empress, I propose you all come out to the Mount Parnassus so we can discuss this.”
So Ping put the hammer down and tore across the sky toward the Prometheus fleet, while Rubinelle requisitioned a copter from the Porto Novo military HQ, and the gathering began.
Colonel Suen contemplated his command with grim determination. These BrainTrust people—and make no mistake, it was the BrainTrust people who were causing the trouble, whether they were from Benin or not—had a long history of making fools out of everyone who fought them.
Of course, the Imam’s troops—really just scavengers with guns—hadn’t been that hard a target. Since they were fools, it was no surprise they’d been made to look like fools. But the BrainTrust had done the same to Chinese military personnel much like him.
So he had insisted on, and gotten, a military force capable of stupendous overkill. “Always en
ter a battle with overwhelming superiority” was his motto. If the United Nations didn’t complain that you’d egregiously overreacted, you hadn’t reacted hard enough.
So he had an immense force, one large enough to conquer all of central Africa, much less take control of one hydroelectric dam. His T96B tanks alone represented incredible killing power. Even though they were not quite top of the line, according to his intelligence, they were quite invulnerable to the entire range of Benin’s ground weapons.
Were they vulnerable to the two F35 fighters that sat on isle ships in the BrainTrust’s Prometheus fleet? He would have liked to just kill those fighters, but the Number Two member of the Standing Committee had a relationship with the BrainTrust. Best to leave that political tangle alone.
None of it bothered him. He was confident he could deal with those two fighters in the air if needed.
The most important thing was to proceed with caution so he had time to assess the enemy’s tactics. His predecessors had barreled down the highway like they owned it, arrogantly certain no one could stand in their way.
The colonel would make no such error. He cruised toward the dam with reasonable speed, but slow enough so his men could scout ahead for mines and surprise attacks. He left behind sentry posts along the route with alert and ready troops to protect his supply line, not that he anticipated needing logistical support before reaching the dam. He had plenty of supplies to take the objective.
He’d studied the enemy, its people, its tactics, and its equipment. Including, of all things, its hornets!
When Toni and Ping arrived in Ciara’s conference room, they stepped into an ambush.
Ciara rose from her chair in fury. “First of all, when this meeting is over, you’ll take that fighter plane out of my archipelago and put it someplace in Benin. You will not bring it back here, at least not until after this war with the Chinese has ended.” She took a breath before continuing, “The last thing we need is for the Chinese to attack the Prometheus fleet because we’re hosting hostile aircraft.”
Ping swayed as she realized how much danger she’d put the fleet in. “No problem. We’ll put the fighters at the Torou Airport.”
Toni shook her head. “No, we won’t. That would make our spaceport a target.” She reflected for a moment. “We’ll move them someplace out of the way, well-camouflaged, where Oziegbe can run a road easily. It’ll complicate our logistics, but anything else would afford too much opportunity for disaster.”
Ping half-smiled. “At least it’s possible to put the planes someplace hidden since the fighters take off and land vertically.”
Rubinelle had already arrived, but apparently had not yet gotten much information from Ciara. “Why are you so sure it’s the Chinese? I understand those are Chinese fighters, but they sell those to many countries. Could they have sold a couple of fighters to the Imam?”
Ciara and Toni shook their heads at the same time. Toni spoke first. “Maintaining a fighter and training the pilots is an enormous undertaking. Way outside the Imam’s army’s capabilities.”
Ciara continued. “Maintaining a couple of fighters is moderately straightforward for the BrainTrust, with tech way out on the leading edge. But for anyone else, it would be a mammoth undertaking.” She took a breath. “To say nothing of maintaining twelve of them, which is how many are now stationed at the Murtala Muhammed Airport.”
Toni jerked to a halt. “A whole squadron?”
Ciara nodded grimly.
Ping looked back and forth between them. “And the Murtala Airport is where?”
Ciara looked back at her. “It’s the airport on the northwest outskirts of Lagos.”
Rubinelle put it in strategic military terms. “A short copter flight from here. We could probably take a hang-glider to get there. They could strike the Prometheus fleet while circling the airport.”
Ping shook her head. “I thought Lagos was just a swamp at this point.”
Ciara glared. “Really, Empress, you must learn a bit about the geopolitics around your country. Particularly if you’re going to get into a war.” She paused. “You’ll remember I said at the outset that wars always cost more than you expect when you start out.” She stood up abruptly. “Here’s what the extra costs look like.”
She popped several overhead images onto the wallscreen and started pointing. “I generated these images by integrating commercial satellite photos with images I bought from Matt at SpaceR, who got them from the sensors on the UV laser platforms we used against the Sky Rubola.” Those platforms still orbited just in case anyone ever threatened another extinction-level event like the one Khalid had almost pulled off.
Ciara tried to continue, but Toni interrupted. “A dozen J20s, just as you said.” She peered at the photo. “And four Taian transporter erector launchers, each with four HQ-9 surface-to-air radar-guided missiles.” She peered more closely. “And a Type 305 radar, which is capable of detecting an F35 stealth fighter unless you approach it head-on, where our stealth works best.” She jabbed a finger at each of the radars. “And they’re in a scattered deployment, so you can’t fly head-on to all of them at the same time. “She whistled. “That’s a serious military installation.”
Ping went back to a point that still bothered her. “But I thought Lagos was a swamp.”
Ciara flung up a map of the sunken city. She highlighted the airport. “The Chinese have been rebuilding the harbor in conjunction with reviving the oil wells in the Delta. The airport was far enough inland so that it was relatively easy to reclaim. Reconstructing the airport was one of the first things they did, to make it easier to get materials and personnel in and out.”
Rubinelle offered a suggestion. “I could take a small team of Amazons into the base and blow up the planes.”
Ping countered. “Heck, Toni and I blew away six planes just like this with one fighter and a Big Gun.”
Toni laughed the way you’d laugh if you were swaying on a tightrope. “Those were very special circumstances.”
Ciara interrupted those fantasies. “Before you get too excited about the planes, let’s take a look at the rest of the problem.”
She brought up another image. This time Rubinelle brought the expert analysis. She spoke with clipped precision. “An augmented armor battalion—thirty-one T96 battle tanks.” She peered more closely. “They have an overlay of explosive reactive armor on top of their composite armor. Ping’s Big Gun has no chance of penetrating it.” Her eyes shifted to a different set of vehicles. “The battalion has been augmented with four more of those anti-aircraft missile batteries.” She studied the configuration. “They must really be afraid of our copters.”
Ping finally moved to a strategic question. “Any idea where they’re going?”
Ciara brought up another, larger-scale map. “They’re heading for Kainji Dam, following the Niger River.” She overlaid the map with lines representing the battalion’s path.
Ping studied it thoughtfully. “The dam? I don’t get it. I promised the Imam we’d sell him the electricity at the wholesale price, or what he’d been paying, anyway. Nothing about the country’s electricity supply changes.” She considered it. “Why not just let them take it?”
Ciara put her head down as if she would weep at Ping’s cluelessness.
Rubinelle jerked as if the dam had just burst and slammed her with all the water. “Kainji Lake supplies the agricultural water for a vast section of west Nigeria, which is to say, east Benin. Giving them control of the water supply gives them effective control of the region.”
Ping slumped. Then she sat up brightly. “No problem.” She dialed her phone and put it on speaker. “Matt, hey, long time no talk. What’s happening?”
There was a pause before the CEO of SpaceR replied. “Hey, Ping. Or should I say, ‘Empress?’ Anyway, delighted you called. To the best of my knowledge, the Torou Spaceport and rocket assembly plant are pretty close to on schedule. Is there something wrong?”
Ping put her elbows on the table.
“Actually, I’ve got this little problem I was hoping you could solve for me.”
Matt’s voice filled with suspicion. “Okay.”
“You still have those laser platforms in orbit, right? The ones you used to kill the Sky Rubola?”
Matt was a little too canny for Ping’s taste at the moment. “No. I won’t use them.”
Ping frowned. “You don’t even know what I want to do with them yet.”
“I saw the photos I sent to Ciara. You want me to burn the tanks and fighter planes in Nigeria from the satellites. Rain death from the sky.”
Ping winced. “Why not?”
Matt chuckled. “For one thing, I doubt it would work. The sat lasers are designed to blast virus particles with UV. It requires a beam of energy that is soft and gentle by the standards of a death ray because it is widely dispersed. And even before dispersion, our individual lasers are, by death ray standards, quite weak.” He paused. “Now, we could tune the lasers to shoot infrared, but focusing a hundred or more lasers on a single point across a hundred kilometers of atmosphere is no mean trick.”
He changed the subject. “But there’s an even bigger problem. A problem so big I won’t even try making a death ray for you.”
Ciara jumped in. “Because those satellites must be perceived by everyone as peaceful and never used for war. If somebody thinks we’ve got weapons stationed up there, somebody will shoot them down.”
Matt continued the thread, “And then we’re exposed if somebody tries to do another extinction-level event like Khalid did. Ping, we don’t dare make them look like a threat. It’s dangerous just to have people asking about them as weapons.”
Toni sighed. “That makes too much sense. So much for the easy solution.”
Ciara seemed lost in thought. “Matt, how would you feel about beaming us some power? Not to fry anything, just to recharge some batteries?”
Braintrust- Requiem Page 20
