by John Ringo
“I wouldn’t be telling you if it could. She got dumped, by e-mail, almost publicly, this fucking morning. She may be… off her game.”
“Oh, fuck. What genius decided to crap on her with this right before a mission?”
“Papa. It’s all fucked as hell, I don’t know why he… just, you need to keep an eye on Cally, okay? She’s probably at least going to be volatile.”
“Cally. More volatile. Great.” Tommy shook his head as they tried to climb the stairs otherwise silently, muttering, “oh, fuck,” again under his breath.
“Look, I haven’t known her as long as you, but I had three girl cousins growing up, close to me as sisters. I know from nursing girls through breakups. I know what to say, and she’ll either lock into gear or kill me on the spot. Just, either way, don’t you get involved. If she ends up pissed, she’s liable to carry through the mission okay just so she can kill me later.”
“You’re a brave man,” Sunday said.
“Three sisters, near enough. One way or the other, she’ll be more ‘on’ for the mission.” George pressed down a corner of the green tape where it had lifted away from the badge. Lousy cheap-ass garbage, that’s all we get these days.
“Your funeral, dude.”
“Hey, she doesn’t need that loser. She’s got us,” Schmidt insisted.
“If you say so, dude.” Tommy shot him a sharp but perceptive look. “But if you hurt her, I will personally fucking pulverize any pieces of you she doesn’t get to first.”
“Gotcha,” the younger man agreed. “E-mail. How hard would this guy be to kill?”
“Hard.” Sunday pressed his lips together and climbed.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sitting on the tank of a toilet with your clothes half on and half off wasn’t calculated to inspire confidence. If changing clothes in a restroom stall wasn’t something she’d done dozens of times in her life, Cally would have felt odd about it. As it was, she just froze in place until the other woman finished her business and her primping and whatever the hell else she was doing — like, perhaps, reading War and Peace — and left. She wriggled the rest of the way into her cleaner’s coverall. She had to fight to get the zipper all the way up in front, of course, and cursed the lazy ass in wardrobe who had gone with standard size charts when fabricating them. Yes, she was a size twelve, tall. Everywhere but the bust. Ow. When she caught up with the bastard who did it, she was going to find him some night, shove him into a good, old-fashioned, straight jacket, trussed and gagged, and leave him somewhere he wouldn’t be found until morning.
Her purse and other disposable crap she stuffed in the empty tank, then without appearing to hurry, got her ass to the stairs as fast as she could. It was a calculated risk to leave George’s tape in the doors. If someone noticed, they’d know something was up. On the other end of that, the black masking tape was nearly invisible in the recessed shadows. If things went right, their cyber would be working his customary magic to cover their tracks. If things didn’t go right, she didn’t want to be boxed in by doors she couldn’t open. None of these scanners was biometric, so if she had to hide for a bit, she was maybe as low as one body away from getting out of the building.
The janitors didn’t technically come on shift until six, but she had to get all the way down to the ground floor. She glanced at her watch and hauled ass. She had only a narrow window in which to swipe a cart without having to dispossess some poor schmuck of both cart and life. She’d rather not do that if she could help it. A missing cleaning cart wasn’t going to ring any alarm bells right away, just cause a bit of confusion. A body, on the other hand, was something you had to hide someplace — a real pain in the ass on this kind of run.
Sure enough, four carts were in the hall, all on their lonesome, while someone rustled around in a stockroom for whatever critically necessary brush, bottle, or bags weren’t already on the carts. She grabbed one and got around the nearest corner faster than fast, coming out next to the elevator. Here’s where she needed a bit of luck if she wanted to keep clear of another needless death. She’d cheerfully kill the man-sized rodents who ran and worked the nastier parts of this place, but when she thought of maids and janitors, she couldn’t help thinking of the gray haired old lady in some prewar show about a family with too many kids. How could you kill a cookie-baking little old lady? Yeah, stashing a body would be a pain, but she would also hate to have to kill the cookie lady. Or someone like her, anyhow.
Luck was with her again, maybe. She pretended not to see the balding man in a guard uniform who was coming down the hall, swiping her card ineffectually and cursing in a properly ladylike fashion when there was no answering green light. When the guard came over, she gave him a properly helpless look. “It won’t work,” she said.
“Here, let me try.” The guard examined her ID and swiped it, with, of course, no result. Duh. As if him swiping it was going to magically make it work by some sort of masculine osmosis. This was another calculated risk. If she had to kill someone for a badge, and wanted someone more culpable than a cleaning lady, she had to draw him in, didn’t she? He turned the card over in his hands, examining it.
Cally kept up her helpless me act, watching for the moment when it might be time to kill him. The ID should be perfect, except for the data that wasn’t encoded on it. She’d also artfully scratched it up a little to age it.
“Here’s your problem,” he said, pointing out the scratches along the code stripe. “It’s all scratched up.”
Boy howdy, a bona fide genius, she thought. “Dammit. Not another one. My supervisor is gonna kill me.” She gave him puppy dog eyes as he nodded in commiseration. “I know I shouldn’t put it in my back pocket, but…” She shrugged.
“I’d like to be in your—” He stopped himself. “Damn, tell me I didn’t just say that.”
“Aw, how sweet,” she chuckled, practically cooing at him. Dumbass. You had fish for lunch, didn’t you?
She bit her lip, looking up at him through her lashes. “If I could get up to the third floor and get personnel to make me a fresh one, maybe I wouldn’t get caught,” she said.
“Ah, but that would be a security breach.” He was clearly only teasing her, holding his own card just out of reach. “I’ll do it for a kiss and a phone number,” he said.
“Awww…” she cooed again, pulling a lipstick out of her pocket. She scribbled a number on his arm, leaning over to plant a passionate smooch on Fish-breath. He swiped the door, pressing the third floor button for her.
“I’ll call you,” he said.
She waited until the door closed all the way before wiping a sleeve across her mouth. Blech. It wasn’t that she’d have had anything against the guy if he hadn’t worked here. She, at least, only killed people for good reasons and then as cleanly as the mission permitted. Creep. But not the first creep to develop a sudden case of stupid when presented with a pretty face, thank goodness. Besides, she’d been nice; she hadn’t killed him.
The elevator dinged and she pushed the cart out past the visual and braille “three” on the door jam. Why the hell they still printed signs in braille she didn’t know. She couldn’t imagine anybody not shipping to a colony if the alternative was staying blind or something. She swiped the bags of trash from one set of restrooms, just as if she was really emptying them. They’d need it for camouflage.
Granpa’s vent was at the far end of the floor from IT. She had only half lied about going to the personnel department. She parked the cart underneath the vent and popped the cover, startled at the trail of strings that came along with it.
“What are you doing? Taking up macrame?” she hissed over the pack at her grandfather.
“Shut up and take this damn thing,” he growled, pushing the ruck towards her.
She hefted it out of the vent, then shoved it into the trash hamper, putting the bags on top of it. She scattered some loose paper towels around to make it look more authentic.
She was bending down to get her buckley out o
f the side pouch when she saw him. He had shoved his shirt out in front of him and emerged, clutching the coverall. His scowl dared her to say anything.
“I got stuck,” he said, standing bare except for his skivvies. “After I got the others off, obviously.” He scowled.
Wordlessly, she fished his sneakers out of the pack and set them on the floor. It wasn’t funny. Nothing that happened on an op that could get them killed was funny. Ever. And she absolutely was not going to laugh. Because it wasn’t funny. Besides, Granpa had a mean sense of payback.
He was still glaring at her sideways after he was fully dressed, while they were wheeling for the stairwell. The elevator trick wouldn’t work twice.
“It’s not my fault,” she said, tugging a pistol and holster from the bottom to the top of the goodie bag. The magazine belt caught on the button of the fucking decoy and she had to reach under the heavy mother to get them loose. She hoped she hadn’t damaged it — at least not anything that would show. She might not be able to put the belt on yet, but she wanted it within arm’s reach, dammit.
“Who planned this op?” he prompted.
“Me, but—”
“The elevator’s the other way,” he observed.
“It’s secure. We can’t use it,” she said.
“You couldn’t at least have swiped a badge by now? How long have you been mobile?” he asked.
“I’d have had to kill somebody for it,” she said.
“So when have you gotten squeamish, Granddaughter? Besides, you could have grabbed me his gun.”
“I’m not squeamish!” she protested. “I just didn’t want to have to hide a body. Somebody’d smell it or something. And you’re the one who refused carrying more than one gun in.”
“Uh-huh.” He gave her a skeptical look. “You didn’t have to lift that damned thing. And the pistol’s a go-to-hell backup, anyway. In case we needed one before somebody had a chance to acquire one for us. You’re getting soft.”
Cally shrugged and stuck to her story. Besides, they were at the stairs. She didn’t wait to argue with him, just took a quick peek through the window, pulled the door open, and went on through. She picked up the front end of the cart and started moving, assuming he would come along, thereby forcing him to grab his end and start climbing, instead of standing around grumbling.
Just past the door to the fourth floor, her enhanced hearing picked up another door closing, way down below. Not even her hearing would have picked it up out of background noise if the stairwell didn’t magnify sound. Evidently Papa had heard it too, because she felt the cart drag a little behind her, as if he was slowing, maybe thinking of hiding on the fourth floor and waiting a few.
“Come on. We’ll stay in front of them,” she said in a low voice.
“We’ve got three flights before we get out of here.” He took care to avoid the loud hisses that would accompany a whisper.
“Then pick up your feet,” she said, climbing a bit faster. She knew she could set the pace, because he didn’t dare risk dropping his own end. The feet on the steps below were catching up with them, within a couple of floors, when they finally got to the top. For the last two floors, she and Granpa had been slowed by having to hug the wall and stay well out of view of climbers below.
With the cart back on its own wheels, she could tell from the flush on Granpa’s face that he was just itching to chew her out. She forestalled it by opening the men’s room door.
“In,” she said. Boy was she ever going to catch hell after this op.
He kept scowling at her as he tucked himself into a stall and lifted his feet. She began pretending to clean, sprinkling scouring powder in a sink and giving it a few casual scrubs to spread the green powder around. Like any mom, she had plenty of experience watching people — namely her girls — pretend to clean. She could hear the feet in the stairwell and made sure her back was to the door. It gave her a good view of most of the area behind her in the mirror, while letting her mostly conceal her face by just a small turn of her head.
She heard the door open and scrubbed harder, bending over the sink, waiting. They were stopping, behind her. Two of them, faces just out of her field of view.
“Ma’am, I need to see some ID,” a bass voice barked.
Her fist, the one that was suddenly flying towards the larynx of the voice’s owner, stopped in midair, caught in a hand only slightly bigger than her own.
“Hi,” George said, he and Tommy beaming at her.
“You’re dead,” she hissed. “When we get out of here, you’re dead.”
“If you’re through playing, children…” Granpa could put a wealth of disdain into a single sentence when he wanted to.
Cally hadn’t been dicking around, but she wasn’t going to argue, either. If George was stupid enough to clown on an op, it had needed to be said. It must have been one hell of a relief to get Tommy out of the shit-hole below, though. She wrote it off to endorphins and focused back in. Or tried to.
“Hey, Cally. Seriously, Papa told me,” the other assassin said. “Look, I know I’m in your business, but any schmuck who’d leave you alone with the kids for seven years—” He held up a hand when she would have interrupted him. “This is damned important before we go farther in. You didn’t need that schmuck anyway. I know you don’t—” He held his fingers over her lips to silence her, and to her complete surprise, she let him. “I don’t care what you think your part was. Any guy who leaves his kids like that is a schmuck. You didn’t need anybody like that. In a couple of hours, when we get out of here, we’re all gonna go out together. We’ll get you roaring drunk, we’ll get roaring drunk with you, and we’ll get you home. You didn’t need that guy, you got us. We’re gonna put this mission to bed. Then we’re all gonna go out and get plastered together. You’re gonna be okay. Okay?”
“You’re right. You’re in my business,” she snapped. She was having to fight misting up, but no way in hell was she going to let him know that. She had no idea what the fuck was wrong with her. She took a deep breath. It wasn’t so much what he said as the way he said it. Okay, so it helped. He still needs to mind his own fucking business, and Granpa has a big mouth. Enough. But it was enough, and she dialed back in. All the way back in.
As they jogged down the hall to the secure room, she heard Granpa clap the other man on the back. “I knew I liked you,” he said. In any other circumstance she’d have been thinking what the fuck? Or contemplating killing someone. And later, she might even decide to wring Granpa’s neck. But that would be later. The only thing in her head right now was: mission.
They had done something right with their security. There were no dedicated guards on the door to make the room scream out, “Place Where There Is Something Interesting, Valuable and Important!” Unfortunately for them, but through no fault of their security people, the team already knew what it was, and where it was, so the lack of extra guards was going to bite the bastards in the ass. Too many places arranged their security in such a way as to announce, “This way to the secret documents.” If he hadn’t gotten a couple of breaks, it would have taken George several more days, at least, to find the device with this setup. There was another thing they had done right: there were very few groups and no individuals, that she knew of, who were capable of subverting an AID.
Epetar and Winchon wouldn’t have given the security people a better view of the risks. None of them had any idea Michelle O’Neal had anything like these contacts, resources, or any will to use them. All they would have expected to face was garden-variety industrial espionage — played according to a Darhel-style version of hardball. For the kind of threats they thought they faced, and within the constraints put on them by the bean counters, the security people had done their jobs right. They would probably get the blame, anyway. Cally felt almost sorry for them. Almost.
AIDs had a real bad habit, hard programmed in. The Darhel were so confident of the AIDs’ ability to infallibly record and transmit their data load that the AIDs wouldn’
t scream for help on their own initiative, they just transmitted their load on the prescribed schedule, and “talked” when tapped from a higher authority than their user, or when told by their user to call someone or send something. If an AID was left to secure something, it was enough that nobody could, theoretically, go in and mess with whatever it was guarding without being caught on the next upload. The Darhel were frighteningly smart, and more deadly than even Cally had expected. They just had some real odd blind spots, one of which included being slow to change and update.
She still held her breath while Tommy cracked the door and ran over to treat the annoying little computer to the electronic version of an intimate rear intrusion with no lube. If it had started a transmission while Tommy was crossing the room, they would have been so fucked.
She relaxed and helped George carry Michelle’s decoy over while Granpa opened the black box sitting, alone, on an ordinary steel pushcart in the center of the room. The lid off of their own decoy, all three saw the same problem.
The base artifact had not been reproduced by Winchon or Michelle — perhaps they had not even been able to reproduce it yet. That was fine as far as it went. Michelle’s toy matched up on the surface. Unfortunately, for these people to tweak and change it to learn new tricks, they had connected cables to it in seemingly random places, hanging off and doubling back in a black tentacular mass that would have done credit to H. P. Lovecraft. To top off the similarity and the problems, the entire device sat within a mass of translucent, green, gelatinous goo, which moved and dripped, almost as if it sensed their presence.
Cally looked at the thing in the target box. She looked at the thing in Michelle’s box. Michelle’s gizmo had it going on with the tentacles just fine, only there weren’t enough of them. Not by a long shot.
Tommy had apparently gotten the next AID violation set on automatic, because Cally felt him peer over her shoulder. “Looks like the suit undergel we had in ACS,” he said. “Well, except for being snot green.” He looked at Cally. “So, what now?”
