The corporal led me to his jeep, a sturdy little five-seat auto with a hard top. It did not have mounted machine guns or a missile carriage—clearly the Army did not expect to face ground forces.
I was not so confident. Once out of the rain, I put my pistol in my ruck and pulled out my M27. I grabbed two extra clips and hid them in my jacket.
“You expecting a war?” the corporal asked as he climbed in.
“Better safe than specked,” I said.
“Colonel, we have road blocks set up every eight blocks across Safe Harbor. Intel ran a scan. There may be a couple thousand looters out there, but the last thing they want is to mess with us.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. “This just makes me feel a little more relaxed.” I patted the M27.
“Sort of a security blanket, sir?”
“Ever been in combat, Corporal?”
“Mostly police actions.”
“That’s good,” I said. “You’ll know what I am talking about soon enough.” Dead is dead. It doesn’t matter if you’re shot by a scared looter or a separatist sniper.
The strange sensation of driving through empty streets never went away. We drove through the financial district with its tall skyscrapers, the light of our headlights reflecting on marble and glass façades the way it might reflect on the surface of a still lake. I kept looking for men in suits. We drove past a row of apartment complexes and grocery stores, and I automatically checked the buildings for lights. The only time we saw people was when we passed roadblocks.
The soldiers would see us, slow us for visual inspection, and salute us on our way.
“Spotted any looters, sir?” the corporal asked. I didn’t answer.
The most haunting thing we passed was a LAWSONS convenience store. These were stores that never closed. Lights were always supposed to be on in these stores and the doors were never supposed to be locked. Yet here was a LAWSONS that was as dark and deserted as any dance club on Sunday. Even the LAWSONS sign over the door was dark.
The corporal drove like a maniac. He streaked down the wet streets so quickly that he could not possibly have swerved in time to avoid hitting another car had one appeared. When he came around corners, he did not slow down, causing the jeep to drift more than it turned.
“You know, I’ve been stationed in Safe Harbor for two years now and I’ve seen more of the town over the last five hours than the last twenty-four months. It’s not a bad place, really . . . a little dark, maybe.”
“Did you see the feed from New Gibraltar?” I asked.
“I’d like to see them try something like that around here. McCord would send one thousand fighters and shoot their asses down,” the corporal said.
“From what I hear, the Separatists only had four ships at Gateway,” I said.
“Yeah?” the corporal said.
“And from what I understand, they have over five hundred ships in their fleet.”
The corporal frowned. The dim green glow of the dashboard lights lit up the lower half of his face. It lit his bottom lip, the bottom of his nose, and the folds of skin under his eye sockets. The strange lighting made his expression grim. “Five hundred ships? I didn’t know that.”
The entrance to Fort Washington Marine base was up ahead. You did not need to know military tactics to see that it was also on high alert. Bright lights lit the main gate to the base. Red strobes flashed on and off on the half dozen radar dishes that spun around the wall of the fort. Unlike New Gibraltar, which looked like a modernized version of an old medieval castle, Fort Washington was a sprawling campus that took up several square miles.
Looking beyond the gate, I saw the taillights of jeeps rushing between buildings. They drove by headlight only. The streetlights were out. There were no lights on the outsides of the buildings. Throughout the grounds, the only bubbles of light were emplacements for long-range cannons capable of hitting ships outside the atmosphere.
Crazy driver that he was, I expected the corporal to race up to the front gate and screech to a stop. He showed more common sense than that. With the base on alert and armed guards all around the entrance, the corporal slowed to a crawl and coasted to the gate.
The guard who approached the jeep did not draw his M27, but I could sense a dozen other weapons pointed in our direction.
“Corporal,” the guard said.
“Just bringing you one of your own,” the corporal said, nodding toward me.
I handed the guard my ID. “I brought in a local thug named Jimmy Callahan about a week ago. Your MPs have been keeping him and a couple of buddies in the brig for safekeeping,” I said.
The guard walked around the jeep for a better look at me. He read my ID, considered it, and reread. “Wait here, sir,” he said and went into his booth to phone command. When he hung up the phone, he handed me my card and saluted. A moment later the gate went up, and the other guards saluted as we drove by.
The corporal may have been Army, but he knew his way around this Marine base. He skirted the motor pool and the barracks and brought me right to the administration building. I thanked the man and he saluted me, then he drove off.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jimmy Callahan and his two bodyguards sat in an interrogation room. Both of Callahan’s stooges smoked, he didn’t. The three of them sat without speaking to each other. Callahan did not even look in the other boys’ direction. He occasionally reached up to smooth his hair as he considered his various options.
I watched this scene on a security screen in the chief ’s office hoping for a clue about Callahan’s general mood. The man was a sphinx for nearly five minutes, then he gave me a clear insight by staring into a supposedly hidden camera and sticking his middle finger out at it.
Two MPs escorted me to the interrogation room and locked the door behind me.
“You’re a colonel now?” Callahan asked as he turned to look at me. “You must have run away from something really big this time. Know what I mean?” He bobbed his head in that arrogant way as he spoke. Behind him, Silent Tommy and Limping Eddie, the two bodyguards I maimed right before the explosions, stubbed out their cigarettes and sat like statues. They did not seem as happy to see me as their boss was.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said.
“Allow me to explain. You run away from the battle at Little Man and they make you lieutenant. Now, in two short weeks, you’re a specking colonel. What did you do, run away from New Gibraltar?”
It became very apparent that there were two Jimmy Callahans. The first, the one speaking to me at this moment, was a petulant prick who thought he had the world by the balls. The other was a scared little kid.
“That’s clever,” I said. “Don’t you think that’s clever?” I asked Silent Tommy. He did not answer. “How about you, Eddie? Don’t you think Jimmy’s joke is clever?”
“See, now, Harris, they don’t want to answer because they’re scared of you. They don’t have anything you want. Me . . . I have information you want, so I’m not scared. In fact, I think it’s about time you did me some favors.”
“Really?” I asked, sitting on the edge of the table in the center of the room. “You don’t think saving your ass from Patel was enough?”
Callahan’s mouth bent in a comical frown that took the corners of his lips halfway down his chin. “I’ve been thinking about that, and I don’t think Patel was after me. I think he was after you. Know what I mean? I never did anything to Billy. What would he have against me?”
“Well, there is this little issue about you fingering him to the Marines.” I said.
“You cannot possibly be talking about yourself, Harris? You’re not the Marines. Hell, you’re a specking deserter.” Callahan smiled at his own joke and flexed his biceps. “And as for saving my ass, who says that you saved it? Tommy and Eddie were there. They came out just fine ’cept what you did to them.”
Tommy’s jaw was wired shut and mending. Eddie was on crutches. Both my doing.
“A
nd where did I end up?” Callahan continued. “I ended up in Fort frigging Washington, the biggest shithole on New Columbia. I figure you did nothing for me. The way I figure it, you owe me.”
“Sounds like you have it all figured out,” I said. I hopped off of the table and started for the door.
“Where are you going?” Callahan asked.
“Didn’t you hear?” I asked. “Your buddies from the Confederate Arms are getting ready to bag this planet. Should be quite a reunion. Their fleet will bombard this base until it’s defenseless, then they’ll probably send down commandoes to nuke it. That’s what they did on Gateway. Of course, Billy the Butcher probably didn’t have an old pal like you that he wanted to bust out of Gateway Outpost.
“You did know that they evacuated New Columbia?” I asked.
“So I hear,” Callahan said.
“If I were you, Jimmy, I’d be thinking about how I might get off this planet. They planted hot bombs around the base on Gateway,” I said. “You know what that means? It means that most of the jarheads who were in that building are alive and melting at this very moment. Mop them with a sponge and you’ll pull off their skin. And those boys were wearing radiation-proof armor.
“The lucky ones got cooked on the spot. They weren’t wearing armor, just like you’re not wearing armor. Lucky you. You will probably die just like that.” I snapped my fingers. “One moment you’re praying, ‘God, please don’t let them nuke me.’ The next minute, you’re face to face with God and he says, ‘About that prayer . . . ’”
“What do you want?” Callahan asked, all humor drained from his voice.
“Where is the GC Fleet?”
“How the speck should I know?” Callahan said.
“You said you knew.”
“I asked what I would get if I led you to that fleet,” Callahan said. “I didn’t say I knew where it was. I just wanted to know what it would be worth to me.”
“You wanted to show off.”
“What?” Callahan thought about this. “Yeah . . . maybe.”
“What is the Hinode Fleet?” I asked.
“Never heard of it,” Callahan said.
“Right before the attack on New Gibraltar, the Intelligence Network intercepted signals referring to the Hinode Fleet. Is that what your Mogat buddies call the Galactic Central Fleet?”
“I don’t know,” Callahan said.
“How do the Japanese figure into this?” I asked, feeling more than a little frustrated. “Are they in with the Mogats?”
“Who the speck are the Japanese?” Callahan asked.
“Refugees from Ezer Kri,” I said. “Are they part of the Confederate Arms?”
“How should I know?” Callahan asked. He sounded frustrated and his face turned red.
“How about your pal Billy the Butcher?” I asked. By this time I was yelling. The mood in the room was thick with anger, and I wanted to hit Callahan. “Where is Patel?”
“I don’t know,” Callahan shouted. Then, lowering his voice, he said, “Someone else always arranged our meetings.”
Finally I was getting somewhere. “Who was that?”
Callahan sat slumped in his chair when Limping Eddie mumbled, “Tell him how to find the supply guy.”
Callahan looked at him and a smile stretched across his face. “I like that.” Then he turned back to me. “You could visit Batt, he’s your best bet. If anyone can answer your questions, it’s Batt.”
“Who is Batt?” I asked, the calm returning to my voice.
“Batt is Bartholomew Wingate,” Callahan said. “He introduced me to Patel.”
“Mogat or Confederate?” I asked.
“Neither,” Callahan said, the swagger back in his smile. “He’s one of yours. I guess patriotism isn’t his bag. Know what I mean?”
“He’s a punk like you?” I asked.
Callahan’s smile brightened. “Oh, he’s much bigger than me. You might say he has his own army.”
“I thought you had one, too?” I said.
“I do,” Callahan said, “but it’s not as good as Batt’s. He’s got a lot more clout around here than me. He knows everything and everybody.”
“Great,” I said throwing my hands up in frustration. “Only we can’t find Batt. We just evacuated the planet.” Players like that vanish into the woodwork the moment you look the other way.
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that.” Now Callahan sounded almost gleeful. “He’s still in Safe Harbor. He’s just up the road. He’s the commander at the Army base.”
“Let me get this straight,” Lieutenant Colonel Bernie Phillips said. “Your prisoner claims that Colonel Wingate is selling supplies to the Confederates?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“Bullshit.”
We sat in an observation room in the brig. Behind Phillips, the video screens showed the room in which Callahan and his bodyguards sat idly waiting for me. I could only hope that the colonel did not glance at the screen. At the moment, Callahan was flexing his biceps and kissing them. Silent Tommy responded with a hand-gesture that meant “go speck yourself.” This only encouraged Callahan. He responded by flexing both arms at once.
“How well do you know Wingate?” I asked.
“I’ve known Batt three years now,” Phillips said. “Ever since I transferred in.”
“So you’re friends?” I asked, knowing that I could always play the Che Huang trump card if the need arose.
“I can’t stand the son of a bitch,” Phillips said, his expression dower. “He thinks he’s king of the goddamned planet just because he has a bigger base. Command airlifts our supplies in through his base. The prick makes me fill out so many forms to get my stuff you’d think he owned it. He’s always showing off. He must come from a rich family. He lives like a friggin’ king.”
“Let’s see here. Your supplies come through his base and he acts like he owns them. Is that right?” I asked. Phillips nodded. “And he lives like a king, but you don’t think he’s selling?”
Phillips’s expression brightened. “Bust Batt Wingate? Think we could shoot him for this?”
“Once this is over, I’ll hand you the gun,” I said. “For now I need him alive. If my hunch is right, Wingate might be able to lead me to the Confederate Fleet.”
“Just remember, I get to shoot him when you’re done with him,” Colonel Phillips said.
“Deal,” I said.
“What’s our first step?”
It was late at night and the sky over the city was still black. I crept through the alley behind a row of restaurants until I could see the roadblock. Arc lights filled the street around the barricade with senseless glare. The light shined on the soldiers, blinding them to any enemies lurking nearby while making them well-lit targets for any snipers who happened to pass.
These boys did not have anything to worry about from me. I didn’t want the pack. I wanted the stray. I hid in the alley, using garbage pails and food crates as cover. I hoped my fall guy would come soon. There was so much rot in the cans around me that the air smelled like vomit.
My target came in the form of a sergeant who was touring roadblocks to keep the men alert. He drove a jeep. He drove alone. Approaching the roadblock, he stormed out of his vehicle and started screaming and cussing the moment his feet hit the ground. He was kind enough to line the men up at attention in just the right angle so that neither he nor they were facing in my direction. Then he paced back and forth in front of the line like a caged animal, screaming something about always being alert. I did not listen to what he said or how they responded.
“Phillips, I found our guy,” I called over a comLink stem in my glove.
The colonel had volunteered to direct this operation himself. He and five of his men hid a few blocks away, waiting for me to locate and mark a target. They had two special jeeps that had been decked out for night operations. Unlike other jeeps, these units had absolutely silent engines that could only be detected with sound equipment. These
stealth jeeps were black with special nonreflective glass. Their chassis were not painted. They were covered with a nonreflecting flat coat of black porcelain that resisted radar detections. Sophisticated radar equipment would spot them in a heartbeat, but the cheap radar used in ground vehicles such as tanks and all-terrain vehicles would turn a blind eye. Even trackers, those sniper robots so loved by the enemy, had trouble spotting these vehicles.
Since these jeeps were also made for night operations, they had night-for-day scanning built into their windshields. They had discreet lights and searchlights, but with that night-for-day scanning, you could drive stealth jeeps black.
“What you got?” Phillips voice came over the discreet ear piece.
“A single passenger in a stealth bug.”
“Officer or enlisted man?” Phillips asked.
“Does it matter? You’re in either way, right?” I asked. We were going to kidnap the man and use his ID and vehicle to break into Fort Clinton. If Callahan gave us good information, a medal of valor awaited Phillips for his part in this. If Callahan had lied . . . even a Secessionist attack would not save him from a court martial, assuming he survived.
“If we have to knock somebody up, I’d rather hit a synthetic,” Phillips said.
“He’s a sergeant.”
“Perfect. Can you mark him?”
Hiding in the darkness of the alley behind some trash cans and a stack of crates, I shined a laser pointer on one of the rear tires of the jeep. It had stopped raining in Safe Harbor, but the air was humid and heavy. Puddles dotted the ground and the alley was grimy with dirt and slop.
My laser pointer cast a red beam that was as thin as a sewing needle. It illuminated a tiny red spot no bigger than a mouse’s eye on the side of the tire. I kept the light steady for twenty seconds as the sergeant berated his men.
“How the speck do you plan on catching criminals? Are you on guard duty or vacation?” Then, without a pause, “I asked you a question!”
“Guard duty!” the men yelled.
“Guard duty. That must be why you ladies are not wearing bathing suits,” the sergeant continued yelling. He made me nostalgic for my old drill sergeants back in basic, though those sergeants used far more creative profanity than this fellow. They also cuffed us alongside the head at every opportunity.
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