Ghost War

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Eventually Handy arrived. He made no attempt to disguise himself. He still wore black and was cadaverously slender, with a pasty-pale complexion that suggested he was a vampire who had not fed in a long time. He did wear glasses that darkened in the sunlight, and left a gray haze over his eyes indoors. He’d shaved his head, confirming for me once again that there is nothing uglier than a white man with a bare scalp.

  He surveyed the damage to Ray, then looked at me. His expression hovered between peevish resentment and amusement. “Well, Mr. Donelly, you have been busy.”

  “I have.” I stayed slouched in the overstuffed chair I’d appropriated. “The two of them, out. This is just you and me talking.”

  Letitia was prepared to take issue with my orders, but Handy waved her away. “Ray will be more comfortable lying down. We will not be that long. There will be no need for Letitia to safeguard me, will there?”

  “Nope.”

  Letitia guided Ray from the room and down the hallway to the bedrooms. Handy slipped onto the couch where Ray had been and flicked a bloody tissue into a wastebasket. “Was that really necessary?”

  “You tell me.” I narrowed my brown eyes. “Bunch of choices here: you dangled me like bait in front of a Republic Knight, or Ray is the mole the CDRF has in this cell. Could be both, or could be that Ray is just a moron. You want to sort them out for me?”

  “Fascinating.” His face betrayed little of his reaction. “I asked Ray to take you on the scouting mission. I might have suggested that you might be spotted, in which case he should be cautious and observe all he could. Ray is not an intellectual giant, but deliberately sacrificing you to the other side was not my intent, nor was it suggested to him.”

  I nodded slowly. “But you didn’t mind that the CDRF thinks I’m still a factor in play. They spot me, talk to me, and now have to devote resources to figuring out what I’m up to. I’m disinformation.”

  “That is but one of your purposes, Mr. Donelly. Lying low here, you will cause a bit of a stir within the CDRF. While you are out of their sight, you can be trained for our new mission.”

  I gave Handy a hard stare. “I know you’re not stupid, so I know you know this cell has been compromised. There is a mole, and I think Ray was it. Blondie, the PADSU girl, lets Letitia’s friends know she’s hurt, or Letitia reports to you directly. You plan a quick op, Ray tells Reis, and your forces are lucky enough to ambush his people.”

  Handy smiled. “It’s better to be lucky than good.”

  “Given a choice, that’s what I’d pick every time.” I shifted in my chair and leaned forward. “What I’m thinking this all means, though, is that whatever you have planned, you’re going to use this cell as bait for some trap you’re springing on Reis. While I like the idea of trapping him, I don’t like the idea of being what he sinks his teeth into so you can bite him in the butt. I’m not the sort of resource you should be tossing away.”

  “I can assure you . . .”

  “No, I want to assure myself. You tell me what we’re doing and I’ll decide if I’m in. If I can make it better, we’ll both win.”

  Once again Handy steepled his fingers. He rested his chin on his thumbs, then pressed his lips to his index fingers. His eyes all but closed as he thought. I waited quietly, not fidgeting at all. He was going to decide to trust me or not, and any sign of nerves on my part would kill any chance of his taking me into his confidence.

  Finally he opened his eyes. “Five days from now is Overton’s Founders Day. They have a huge celebration, replete with parades. This year’s Grand Marshal is Ichabod Reis. He will be on a reviewing stand with dignitaries, perhaps even Lady Lakewood. A significant portion of the Constabulary will be in the parade, or lining the route.”

  I nodded. “Lots of crowds. If you take that reviewing stand out, you stand to hurt a lot of innocents.”

  “Which is exactly why we won’t. I had intended to use your cell to lead a raid which would draw the Constabulary off to the north while we hit other targets. You would point out that you’re now depleted, so you could barely muster much of an attack.”

  “Something like that, but . . .” I gave him a sly smile. “We might be able to hit a small target and do significant damage that would be maximized in terms of negative publicity for the good commander.”

  Handy canted his head to the right. “Do go on.”

  “Based on the offer you made me, I guess we have a ’Mech. I know we have a hovertruck and a heavy machine gun. As the constables start to react, we hit a precinct house. We open it up, bust up a bunch of their vehicles, perhaps crack open their armory and steal weapons. Depending upon how much damage we do, we strike fear into the hearts of those who were covered by that station, and we earn the gratitude of those who feel oppressed by Reis. We will be taking the war to him.”

  His brow wrinkled. “I could shift resources to let that happen. It would put another cell at the most risk, but it is possible he has another agent in the organization. Moreover, if I pull Ray from your group and use him to coordinate the other cell’s activities, we have Reis in position to pounce on them. Then we pounce.”

  “Good, I’ll set it up. I’ll need to know a sector of the city I can hit and remain outside your other operations. I think Overton is broken down into a dozen precincts, so pick one and I’ll drill it—provided I have the equipment I need, that is.”

  He nodded. “The equipment you described before is what you will have.”

  “And Letitia will be my communications link with you?”

  “If that is satisfactory.”

  “It’ll work.” I gave him a quick smile. “And I’ll want a bonus if this comes off.”

  “Of course you will.” His fingertips played one against the other. “I shall double your fee and cut you in for ten percent of the value of equipment recovered.”

  I thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Done. You’ll also give me a red frequency that you’ll monitor during the operation. If things go badly, you’ll know instantly.”

  Handy smiled. “It is so good doing business with a professional.”

  “I’ll monitor that frequency, too, so I expect warnings to flow both ways.”

  “Of course.” Handy stood and picked invisible lint from his coat. “I shall send for Ray, then have you all shifted to another site. There will be five of you: Letitia, your other three kidnappers and yourself. I will let them know you are in charge of this operation, and that should be good enough. Please do not incapacitate any more of my people.”

  “They’re my people now.” I rose from my chair, but didn’t offer him my hand. “I’ll take very good care of them.”

  True to his word, he took Ray with him. About an hour after that Letitia fielded a call and we headed back into the city and into a warehouse district. We moved into a loft conversion that was actually quite posh. I got the impression that someone who sympathized with PADSU was lending it out, doubtless getting some warm squishy feeling inside over being so bold as to harbor those who would defy the law. The food storage unit was packed with gourmet cheeses, designer waters and other exotic foods. I had little doubt that the week’s grocery bill would have fed some hinterland village for the better part of a month.

  The other three members of my team arrived within two hours. Jiro, the smallest of them, and the only one to show any Asian blood from the Combine side of things, brought a datafile that contained map coordinates and a holographic breakdown of the precinct house we were supposed to hit.

  Steve, a blond with blue eyes who bore a faint resemblance to Ray, helped me study the thing and he seemed pretty sharp. He was all over the data indicating shift changes. He pointed out that all the vehicles were parked beneath the building, so if we hit the west side, where the in/out ramps were located, we could completely destroy their ability to respond. “It’s a stupid coney has only one way in and out of its house.”

  The third guy went by the nom de guerre of Falcon. While tall and big, he wasn’t the mos
t handsome of men and I had the feeling he’d primarily joined things to meet women. He kept making plays for Letitia. If she’d hit me with the glare she gave him, I’d be the one whose jaw was wired shut. He told me he “crewed the heavy weapon.” I guess that was meant to assure me he was a professional.

  The best information I had, however, was that the ’Mech I’d be driving was a MiningMech. It was close enough to Maria that I knew what I was getting into. The main difference was that instead of a chainsaw it had a digger arm meant to do to rock what the chainsaw did to trees. For burrowing into the precinct house, which was ferrocrete slabs with some molded decorations, it would be perfect.

  We spent two days poring over the plans and patterns until we had the plan down solidly. During that time I got a good feel for the team and knew they’d be able to pull the job off without a hitch. I’d rip open the armory, Falcon would keep the constables back, and the others would load weaponry into my ’Mech’s bucket-loader attachment. We’d be in and out fast and victorious.

  The only bad part about the planning was that the pure food got to me. After forty-eight hours of eating things that, in theory, had been grown organically but never showed a speck of dirt, I’d had it. I needed something, be it greasy or loaded with caffeine or sugar or anything. I declared we were going out and wrote down the names of five restaurants on a scrap of paper.

  “We’re not compromising this op, so we’re picking where we’re going at random. Jiro, pick a number between one and five.”

  “Two.”

  “Steve, between one and five, not two.”

  “Three.”

  “Okay.” I crossed one, four and five off my list and looked at Falcon. “Up to you, big guy. Three or two?”

  He glanced at Letitia, but she was no help. “Two.”

  “Two it is.” I smiled, already feeling caffeine jolting through my system. “Javapulse Generators here we come.”

  Letitia snarled through clenched teeth. “That’s owned by Jerome Redhawk. He’s a Republic Knight. We can’t go there.”

  I frowned. “He’s an industrialist, knighted because he gave a lot of money to The Republic. If you think every one of the places his corporations own are Republic spy centers, we’re in serious trouble. The realtors handling the other two lofts here are one of his companies.”

  That set her back for a second and I pressed my attack. “Besides, it’s like wearing leather. Who would expect us to go there?”

  She sniffed. “I’m not going.”

  “You’re not staying alone.”

  Falcon immediately volunteered to stay with her, and Steve decided he wanted to double-check some numbers, so Jiro and I took orders and headed out. We resolved to do a quick recon on our target before hitting the coffee place. The both of us grinned as we headed out.

  We didn’t want any surprises.

  9

  One must plow with the horse one has.

  —Steiner saying

  Overton

  Joppa, Helen

  Prefecture III, Republic of the Sphere

  23 November 3132

  Jiro was not very talkative, and I think this was natural to him, not some sort of act. I let him drive and gave directions while watching our backtrail. We were clean, so we proceeded on, but not taking any direct route. We weren’t exactly traveling aimlessly, either, since our path ran across the parade route a couple of times, and we could see where the Constabulary had already begun to position ferrocrete barriers, and where grandstands had been built along the way.

  Our precinct house, the ninth, held no real surprises. Three stories tall—roughly a third again as tall as the ’Mech I’d be driving—with narrow windows and some statues of Justice by the front door, it sat in a regentrified area with little shops and restaurants clustered about. It was located close to the starting point of the parade, and by the time our op took place, the parade would be an hour and ten blocks distant.

  So would the crowds.

  As we were looking around, I did have to assess the chances that Handy was still using us as the bait operation. I couldn’t wholly discount it, but it seemed unlikely. We were more of a “salt in the open wound” affair. Reis would be embarrassed by the success of the primary operation, and our strike would just deepen his difficulties. Given that I only had four clowns to help me, being outside the center ring of the circus struck me as being just fine.

  Jiro and I found parking near the Javapulse Generator shop—one of them, I should say, since they are more common than mildew in showers. We wandered in, waited in line and listened to folks order drinks as if the names were magic formulae used to conjure the things. The drinks were sized as giant, titanic and Leviathan, and if it grew anywhere within the prefecture you could get it added to it. Jiro, the quiet one, ordered something so quickly I couldn’t follow it, but the server punched buttons on his noteputer and some machine spit out a frothy, bile-colored drink billowing with a frosty vapor.

  I ordered for everyone else, then myself. “I’ll have coffee, black, Leviathan, I guess. Oh, and three sugars.”

  The server looked over toward Jiro. “The service station is over there. We have a variety of sweeteners.”

  “All I want is sugar, raw, not exotic, not processed, not flavored.” I gave her a smile and fished Republic scrip from my pocket. “You can’t just punch that in?”

  “Sir, we let people sweeten their own drinks.” The sour expression she gave me suggested the possible reason for this. “Will there be anything else?”

  It’s at that point that one usually has to make a decision: will dealing with this person make my life more miserable, or her life more miserable? I saw it as a draw, but ordered a bunch of baked goods to go. While it was a zero-zero thing for her and me, I knew Letitia would consider the stuff as evil as a rare steak, and that was one in the win column for me.

  The server bagged the order and gave me change, including a beat up five-stone coin that I bit just to see if it was real. Jiro caught that and smiled. I shrugged. “The place is owned by a Knight, after all.”

  The machine spit out my drinks and we hauled them to the hovercar. We managed not to spill and, luckily, our backtrail was clean. That meant we didn’t have to try any tricks that might have caused spillage and certainly would have made the drinks cold.

  Letitia’s reaction was as predicted, but Falcon scarfed down the food I’d brought for her. I’m sure he saw that as the equivalent of tossing himself on a grenade for her. She seemed less than impressed. I did note, however, that she drank the herbal tisane I’d gotten her.

  Our field trip let us refine a couple other points in the plan, but we were good to go from that point forward. Letitia reported same to our master. We worked through our plans for the next two days and then, on the eve of Founders Day, we made our final move. It took us three blocks away, to another warehouse just that much closer to our target, and waiting therein was a wonderful surprise.

  The biggest problem with ’Mechs of any variety is that they are huge. Not only are they tall, but they are heavy. Your average roadway is not built to withstand a lot of ’Mech traffic. Even just wandering along, a ’Mech can compress the ground enough to snap water mains and crack storm sewers, which is why they tend to be restricted to certain routes in the cities.

  The second biggest problem is that there is no hiding them. MiningMechs, for example, come from the factory in a bright yellow or brick red, depending on manufacturer preferences, and despite being humanoid, are odd enough looking to attract a lot of notice. While folks are used to seeing them around construction sites or in industrial parks, it would easily be possible for folks to go days if not weeks without ever seeing a single one anyplace other than on a Tri-Vid broadcast.

  On a parade day like Founders Day, however, ’Mechs abounded. My MiningMech had seen better days. It had languished in a warehouse, then been recently fixed up, splashed with bright paint and hung with bunting and metallic garlands that made it look like it was ready for a
night out on the town. Whoever had decorated it had even run holiday lights around the legs and torso and plugged them into the auxiliary power sources at the heels.

  I smiled. “Hiding in plain sight, I love it.”

  The hovertruck had been decorated also, with hand-painted wooden signs proclaiming it to be a float created by the United Farmers for Good Food. More bunting and garlands softened the vehicle’s outline. Golden flowers strung in a wire mesh and lots of green streamers transformed the heavy machine gun into a large ear of corn, which prompted Falcon to note proudly, “It’ll be popcorn tomorrow.”

  Had I not told Handy I’d leave the help alone, I’d have dropped him for that one.

  Everyone was a bit giddy that night, but we retired to our pallets and tried to sleep. Letitia ended up writing a letter to someone—by hand, on paper. She entrusted it to me, since I’d not be in the vehicle. Steve checked things one more time, and Falcon ate through his nerves. Jiro meditated and, as a consequence, appeared the most energetic the next morning.

  I mounted up in the ’Mech we’d all nicknamed Digger—hardly original, but decidedly functional. On the secondary monitor I brought up the local Tri-Vid feed with some of the glamorati doing play-by-play on the parade. Once we saw Reis in his open hovercar reach the intersection of Grand and Independence, we started to move. By the time we got into position, he’d be in the grandstands watching folks troop past.

  The hovertruck cut a course parallel to mine, on a road that I couldn’t take. Digger moved out fairly quickly and Letitia held the hovertruck back to keep me in sight on cross streets. I took a ’Mech route, which worked out very well, since the pressure sensors under the roadbed would switch traffic signals to give me a straight shot through the town. On occasion, when a ’Mech moves through a city like that, some hotshot in a small sports-hover will dart around and take advantage of the clear sailing. All it takes, though, is one careless kick and the sports-hover will do a tumble and roll that is far from pretty and hurts a lot.