Deadly Paths

by Jack Parker

  * * *

  "He's getting away!" Charlie snarled as one of the skycars searching for them peeled away and disappeared into the night.

  "Don't worry," Victoria reassured. "We know where he's going. Just stick to the plan and we'll stop him. You are clear on what to do, right?"

  Charlie nodded. "I think so. But do we need to do this now that it's just one on one?"

  "We're still outgunned. If he's like the others he's got a fully automatic. This is safer."

  Charlie frowned and regarded her gun in thought. She was still not quite convinced of the plan. "I mean, it's a long way down if you miss and—"

  "I won't miss. But be ready for anything."

  "Tell me something I don't know just from hanging around you."

  Victoria laughed as she opened the swing up door on her side and stepped out of the vehicle onto the Stratosphere roof.

  "Just get out of here. He hasn't figure out where we landed yet but people are starting to stare. Won't be long before they start to wander over from the ride. I'll see you soon."

  The Stratosphere hotel resembled the Space Needles in both Seattle and Toronto, but came complete with three amusement park rides. The novelty of the attractions was you were on rides that hung you perilously over the city, and they ran well into the night. The first, and closest to where she and Charlie had landed their vehicle, was a drop chair which launched thrill seeking riders up a tower toward what was the highest point on the Stratosphere itself. The second ride was really just an elaborate merry-go-round in which patrons could ride in hanging chairs that swung out from the building over the city. The third was a simple roller coaster on a catch slide that would hurtle its screaming riders at a forty five degree angle off the building, before jarring to an abrupt halt. Victoria had counted on the ability of their space-age car to blend in with the attractions, and it had so far worked.

  Their pursuit had circled three times, gone to a lower altitude, and just now had returned. Whoever was in the car was obviously confused, but he would not remain that way for long. Even though shutting down the car completely shut off the safety lights, helping to hide them more effectively, eventually their red color was going to give them away, even parked behind the launch tower as they were. He was not likely to give up and search elsewhere. They would have to take him out to chase after Mako.

  Victoria paused to flash her watch at Charlie and tap the screen.

  "One minute. Our timing has to be perfect."

  Charlie gave her a thumbs up. Victoria closed her door and patted the top of the car, signaling her new partner to start it up again. She walked away briskly, heading down a set of stairs and inside to an observation lounge. A few people gave her strange looks either for how she was dressed, or where she had come from, but thankfully no one approached to question her. At least, not until she tried to pick the lock on the door into a fourth attraction on the tower that was only available during certain times of the day. She glanced at her watch.

  Forty seconds.

  A large sign on the door gave her a phone number to call and make reservations. She took out a small tool and was fiddling with the lock when a voice behind her casually politely asked her if she needed any help. Victoria turned and saw an acne-scared young teen in the green uniform of a ride operator blinking up at her. Usually she could just charm a mess of hormones such as this into doing what she needed, but Victoria didn't have time for games at the moment.

  She pulled her gun.

  "I'm going to jump off this building right now. Is that ok with you, sir?"

  The kid's eyes went wide and he held up his hands in a reflexive gesture of surrender.

  "It- Its fine with me," the boy stammered. Then he started talking quickly. "But, um, if you are just gonna jump why do you need to go through—"

  "I'm not trying to kill myself, idiot!" Victoria snorted. "Now stand back."

  Victoria pointed her gun at the lock, intending to blast the door open. She was short on time. Charlie would be in position at any second, and without her, left exposed.

  Twenty Five Seconds.

  "Wait!" said the teen. "I—I can let you in, just you're probably not going to want to jump without all the safety checks in place. You know, they test it first and calibrate it so people don't go splat. That kind of thing could totally ruin this place."

  "I'm sure," Victoria said, stepping aside for him as he produced a mass of keys. "But I'll take my chances. Now be quick about it."

  He fiddled with a few different keys for a moment, and Victoria was prepared to door the door open anyway, when he did get it open. She rushed to her objective, a platform that extended like a plank over the edge of the building with a powerful winch attached. The attraction was simple yet extreme. Thrill seekers of the highest level of crazy could leap from the building and free-fall until a steel cable slowed them and lowered them to the lower two-story roof of the Stratosphere. Victoria quickly adorned a harness and set about trying to hook herself up.

  Fifteen seconds.

  She was struggling to get the several clips right when the boy came over to help her.

  "You really do want to go splat, don't you?" he said seriously as he reconfigured all the clasps. "I'm not in charge of this but I've done it two or three times. You'll need someone to operate the winch from here or you'll be stuck hanging at the bottom."

  Victoria peered at him. "Why are you helping me?"

  "Are you kidding? This job is boring as hell. And you are very, um . . ."

  He blushed.

  "You're sweet. And I'm not jumping that far. But, it would be helpful to have someone pull me up if I needed."

  "Pull you up? I don't know if it works like that."

  She kissed him on the forehead.

  "Try anyway. You're about to have the most fun at work you've ever had."

  Her watch was beeping. Five seconds.

  She strolled to the edge of the platform, looked down and saw she was nearly too late. Charlie had circled the building drawing the attention of the one hunting them, circled again and dropped down thirty feet. She hovered as if trying to hide under the curve of the lower saucer, and their pursuer had stopped to hover just where she hoped—but he was already firing.

  She leapt from the building.

  She could tell just three seconds into the fall that she was going to overshoot her target, and tried to compensate. She twisted he body in a backward summersault and opened fire with her handgun. Her shots put bullet holes through glass and sent sparks showering from the target vehicle. The agent in maintenance coveralls ducked back inside his skycar and fired upward wildly. He wasn't even close.

  She hit the passenger side canopy hard, rolled, tried to grab for a handhold, and slid off.

  Shit!

  Victoria aimed for the engines. She never got off a shot. Her steel lifeline scraped along the edge of the car, caught on the copilot-side engine and stabilizer, and spun the skycar nearly one hundred eighty degrees while dragging it down. The driver fought for control of the car, turning Victoria into a pendulum and swinging her toward the tower. She was going to impact at bone crushing speed and there was nothing she could do.

  Her momentum suddenly slowed with a sharp jerk as all the slack in her line left.

  Way to go kiddo! Victoria though in relief as she ran three steps up the concrete wall of the tower and then kicked off. Her return swing had her lined up perfectly. She opened fire as the skycar tried to right itself. Charlie had moved out of hiding and had her canopy open, adding her own barrage. Three engines caught fire. One exploded. The skycar careened into the side of the tower and came apart, its wreckage falling like flaming meteors onto the empty rooftops below.

  Victoria didn't notice anything wrong at first as Charlie flew over and rescued her from her dizzying pendulum ride above Sin City. She began with lighthearted conversation as she plopped down into the passenger seat, closed the canopy, and let out a long sigh of relief.

  "Remind me to come back h
ere when this is over," she told Charlie with a weary smile. "There's a young college kid up there that . . . Charlie? Charlie!"

  Charlie slumped backward and away from her with a groan. The car started to drift upward, and Victoria reengaged the autopilot, setting a general course toward Nellis Air Force Base. The younger woman was very pale and clutching at her side, barely hanging onto consciousness. She had been shot.

  "Charlie! Hang on! Let me see it."

  Victoria moved Charlie's bloodied hands and carefully peeled back her motorcycle jacket. She had been pierced through the right oblique at an angle that hopefully missed anything vital. The bullet seemed to have gone clean through. Right now it was just important to stop the bleeding. She dug into her suit's side pocket, where a few first aid items were kept.

  Charlie reached out a trembling hand between them and Victoria took it.

  "Shooting has always been fun," Charlie whispered with a small smile. She struggled with each word. "But getting shot . . .really sucks."

  She slipped into unconsciousness. Victoria worked fast to apply her packet of cauterizing powder to the wound. They would be over Nellis in minutes, but the autopilot was already starting to steer around the base. She would have to take manual control again soon. Fortunately, the car could be piloted from either seat. Victoria would need to get the attention of the security forces both so they would follow her in, and get help to Charlie. The trick was going to be not to get caught herself before she stopped Mako and Carlo.

  "Hang on Charlie," she said. "We're going to get you help. And then I'm ending this."

  * * *

  It was not a simple matter to fly onto an Air Force base unannounced in the United States—not even skimming along just above treetop level at over three hundred knots. It certainly helped to be in a state of the art skycar with a very low radar profile, but jamming equipment set up on the inside made certain he would not be detected. Nellis was a public base and a crude jammer was easy to smuggle in with anybody you could get a visitor's pass to. Of course, one had to plan ahead for the need to have the jammer in place and it was likely only going to be good for one use once activated, but Mako always planned ahead.

  Agent Kinglsey was starting to become much more of a nuisance to his plans than he had originally anticipated. He was now flying a solo mission, whereas her originally intended to have three more people with which to deal with Carlo. He could not count on the man he had left to deal the CIA slut to accomplish that task and catch up in time. What was worse, only one truck seemed to be in position as he flew low over the base, and circled to find his landing spot behind a particular hanger. Where was the other? What had gone wrong? He considered calling Dawn to ask but decided to let it be. Even three of the weapons would be plenty. Carlo had been smart to not place all his eggs in one basket as Westerners were fond of saying.

  It was dangerous to attempt contact by phone at this point, now that he was on base. It was dangerous as well to attempt any contact with Dawn or her sisters at all. They would move when they were supposed to, but it was no longer his concern weather they were informed of the plan. They never had the true objective in mind anyway. It mattered little if any of them survived so long as the mission was accomplished, though keeping Dawn around certainly had its perks.

  If push came to shove even she was expendable, and if they didn't get Carlo's plane loaded and on its way soon, that unfortunate outcome became more likely. Mako covered his skycar with a simple black tarp stored for him in a rusty old dumpster at the rear of the hanger he had landed behind. He made his way into the hanger through a small door built into the side and wound his way up a tight staircase, where another small bag was waiting for him in a dusty office that nobody had used in months. He changed quickly into the uniform and pulled the black security forces armband over his blue and dark grey digital weave fatigues.

  He made his way down a hallway lined with thin walls to a second staircase of steal stairs that lead down into the open space of the hangar below. He stepped through a small door built into one of the two mammoth sliding doors of the hangar where he found a Security Forces cruiser waiting for him. He got into the cruiser and headed out toward the C-130.

  Mako spent a brief moment checking out the M4 he found in the jeeps lock box to make sure it was in good working order. There really was no need to spend time convincing Carlo that his shipment had arrived. Dawn was smart enough to recognize this, but it probably would not occur to her that he would be slightly ahead of the schedule that he gave her. He needed to tie up this loose end quickly, as it always paid to be a step ahead of everyone else.

  * * *

  "Stow away!" Carlo yelled, the phone held in front of his face rather than by his ear to make sure he was heard. He scratched at his head, and would have tugged in frustration at his hair had he any. "What do you mean stow away? How do you even know there is one unless you saw him, and if you saw him why didn't you kill him?

  Carlo did not like the answer. He wasn't liking any of Juan's answers anymore. If the bastard had been there he may have shot him for sport, rather than any kind of example. Such incompetence!

  "Are you trying to tell me some asshole snuck by all your guys in a warehouse full of hired guns, got in a truck, and you only saw him as he was leaving and neither driver would answer your calls? Bullshit!"

  Carlo paused for effect as Julio squirmed in his own stupidity.

  "Nevermind, I'll deal with it. But only one truck is here, and I swear you better start running if we lost any part of that shipment because of your stupid, piss poor, god damn . . ."

  Someone was tapping him on the shoulder. "Hold on Julio."

  Carlo turned to regard Jacque, who had climbed down into the cargo bay with him.

  "What?" Carlo snapped. If I lose this connection before I'm done with Julio . . .

  "A security forces cruiser just pulled up. He's demanding entry."

  "What? Why?"

  "I assumed something to do with the shipment. Maybe there is a problem clearing the truck to come on the flightline."

  "Damn it. How much more approval do they need? Fine let him on. Let's get this dog and pony show over with."

  Carlo returned the phone to his ear. It was dead. The signal had dropped again. Cursing, he moved toward the hatch that the military police officer would come up. It was possible he might get a better signal by an open door. He was still staring at his phone when the first shots rang out making him fumble his phone.

  He didn't bother stooping to pick it up, but ran for his life in a mad scramble, tripping over a cargo hauling chain as he desperately sought cover. He made it behind a pallet with a crate loaded with his own personal materials. Four of these crates were stowed toward the front side of the hanger, full of critical items like computers and other gear that Carlo would need to restart his business ventures in China.

  His body guards did return fire, but not for very long. Carlo had not gotten anything but a glance at the attacker, who was wielding an M4 assault rifle set on semi-automatic bursts. The gunman was still outnumbered. Both Jacque and Reggie were armed, which meant Carlo had a chance. Carlo gulped a few deep breathes, trying to calm his panic as he reached under his arm for his own piece. The gunman called out to him, his accent all too Russian, and all too familiar.

  "You're pathetic body guards are dead, Carlo. You might as well come out and . . . What is expression? Take medicine."

  "Sasha?" Carlo questioned loudly.

  Footsteps. Heavy boots clomping on metal from left to right, moving further away.

  He's trying to get an angle on me.

  "Da. I told you your methods get you killed one day. Too bad. I liked pretending you were boss. Was good times."

  "Sasha," Carlo said, carefully peeking around the corner and spying Jacque hiding sneaking from behind a different crate slightly ahead and to the right of Carlo's position. "You don't want to be involved with these people, Sasha. Listen to me. They'll off you the first sign you aren't useful
to them. But I can help you, protect you from the Blackfire Dragon and probably pay you more. Plus, in a little while I will be making the deal of a lifetime!"

  Sasha just laughed. It was a cold laughter, somehow just as accented as his speech.

  "You think I work with little China men? Or maybe those bitches?"

  Carlo wrinkled his brow. Who else was there?

  Jacque glanced behind him and made eye contact with Carlo. He signaled his intent to attack in three, two . . .

  "Jacque wait! I want to know—"

  Jacque got to his feet and started shooting. Carlo had no choice but to join him. They opened fire together. Sasha didn't even try to take cover. Bullets whined as they ricocheted off metal and pierced areas of the aircraft that Carlo hoped were not vital. to the aircraft. Jacque managed two shots and then cried out in a strangled noise of pain as he was spun around by several bursts of M4. Sasha went down after two of Carlo's four shorts hit him square in the chest. Exhaling in relief, Carlo kept his gun at the ready and advanced on his attacker.

  Maybe if he doesn't die right away I'll have answers.

  Carlo approached slowly. He didn't see any blood yet. He looked down at Sasha who was unconscious, but stirring. Bullet proof vest or no, Carlo couldn't afford to let Sasha wake. No matter what secrets he was hiding, there were other ways of finding out. He pointed his gun at his former mercenary's head.

  His gun discharged twice. Vaguely, it occurred to him that he had not pulled the trigger. The noise had not come from his gun. Then who . . .?

  Carlo felt cold. His hands trembled. He pressed his hands to his chest. They came away sticky and red. He felt extremely thirsty, and as it began to dawn on him what had happened, he slowly turned around—and found his legs could no longer support him. He looked up with blurry vision, struggling for breath. Only fluid entered his lungs. He wretched the name as he saw who had shot him.