by John Lumpkin
Neil saw the Chinese man captured by Aziz’s forces at the terraforming station. He was also alone. His fingertips dripped blood. He had the same catatonic look as he had when Neil first saw him.
“We know he goes by the name Kao Xun,” Naima said, “and we only learned that from comparing his image to one taken at his entry into Tecolote five months ago. Our techniques have not earned us much else. He seems impervious to pain, and we have not been able to dissociate him from reality to the point where he provides us information, or says anything at all. He is … very strange.”
“Perhaps we could try speaking with him,” Gomez said.
“The capability of the American National Security Service in extracting information from prisoners is legendary,” Conrad said. “We would be delighted if you would try.”
Naima said, “Contact me later today and we’ll set something up.”
Conrad said, “You both should know we are stepping up our efforts against the rebels. Colonel Abdulaziz has returned to the field and will initiate an offensive against their positions within hours. We will also accept your prior offer of artillery rockets. You have done us a great service, Lieutenant Mercer and Officer Gomez. We will soon put down the rebellion and return to a stable state. Generals Naima and Vargas are drawing up a list of other security-oriented needs to that end.”
Gomez said, “And I suspect we will provide them, if we can have a few things in exchange.”
Naima smiled thinly at the NSS officer. “What we have been waiting to hear. Please, explain.”
Gomez, with occasional interjections from Neil on technical matters, outlined the plans for establishing control of the Apollonian Ocean and containing the Chinese on their territory of Huashan. Tecolote would serve as the critical air and sea base. The allies would lease land and build a number of facilities on the island, which they would turn over to Tecolote once the war was done. The United States would also offer a package of economic and military aid to assist their country in rebuilding from the civil conflict, and make available several older Space Force frigates for transfer.
“Your country could become a significant power on Entente,” Gomez said.
“That’s quite an offer,” Naima said.
“I will want to see the particulars before agreeing to anything,” Conrad said.
“Of course,” Gomez said.
Naima’s handheld emitted a brief tone, and someone knocked at the door and opened it without waiting for a reply. It was Conrad’s massive Korean bodyguard, carrying a big carbine in one hand and his handheld in the other.
“Excellency, we are being attacked,” he said. “Someone has landed several cars on the roof and defeated your guards up there. They are exchanging fire with our people outside on the ground.”
And we can’t hear a damn thing because they’ve soundproofed this place to keep all the screaming from disturbing anyone else at work, Neil thought. He tried to raise Kelley, but the building also apparently blocked his handheld from calling out.
Conrad’s face turned into a snarl. “Park, after you kill them, preserve their bodies as best you can. We’ll need their genes to identify their families.”
“Yes, Excellency,” the bodyguard said. “All routes of escape are blocked, so you best remain on this level.”
Naima drew her sidearm and chambered a round. “For your safety, Excellency, we should stay in this room. It is as secure as any in the building, and no one can see in. Park, stay outside and protect this door, but give no indication there is anything inside.”
“I want a gun,” Conrad said. “We all should have guns.”
Gomez quickly produced her pistol. Naima looked askance at that – they had been searched when they entered the building – but said nothing. Park surrendered his sidearm to Conrad. He collected a pistol from a comrade, gave it to Neil, and exited the room.
Naima closed and locked the door.
Neil looked at his gun. It was the same model as the Japanese 8mm automatic Donovan had given him before the firefight on the other side of the planet, nearly a year and a half prior. He had missed the one time he had fired it.
And I could kill these three people and make the world a better place. The thought surprised him. Where did that come from?
They flipped the table on its side and hid behind it, with Gomez and Neil on the flanks.
And waited.
Conrad was utterly still; Gomez looked angry, and Naima tried to work her handheld to communicate out, but the attackers had done something to the building’s network. Neil looked at his gun and recalled a prison rescue he took part in on Kuan Yin. This is what it’s like to be on the other side.
They heard a muffled whump.
“Maybe we should relocate,” Gomez suggested.
“No,” Naima said. “We’d just expose ourselves.”
Ten minutes later, another whump, much louder than the one before, followed by a flurry of shots. Park’s big carbine fired a burst just outside the door; a fusillade answered it, and the carbine went silent.
They watched as the door burst open to Auguste Desroches’ interrogation room, and several attackers entered. Several were wearing chameleon camouflage, shaded in irregular patterns of gray, black and white for urban operations. One removed her mask and approached the chef. She was Chinese.
Unprompted, Naima pressed a key on her handheld, and the audio feed from the interrogation room cut in.
“Please, please, I didn’t tell them anything,” Desroches said. “Please don’t hurt my family.”
“How did they learn about you?” the woman asked.
“I don’t know! Please, tell me what you did to my family!”
In response, the woman raised her rifle to her shoulder and fired a burst into the man’s chest. Red stained white; his head pitched back, and then forward, and he exhaled, and he was dead.
“Next room!” the woman ordered.
“Get ready,” Naima said unnecessarily. “Lawson, please don’t expose yourself to their fire.”
“Like that time on Commonwealth? The bastards had it coming,” Conrad said.
He sounds eager for this, Neil thought.
A moment later, someone jiggled the handle on the door to their room.
Here it comes. Neil felt sweat between his palm and the gun’s grip.
Out of the corner of his eye, Neil saw the door to the other interrogation room open. The rebel who opened it yelled something out the door, and the door handle stopped moving.
“General,” Neil said. “The audio …”
Naima turned it on.
The Chinese woman walked inside.
“Brother,” she said quietly in Mandarin. “What have they done to you?”
Kao Xun’s head snapped up, and his eyes seemed to focus for the first time. He held his hands up, his fingers still draining blood from the beds of skin where his nails used to be.
“Tai, I will live. Thank you for coming for me. Please, cut my bonds.”
Sister moved to release brother.
“They’re here to rescue the prisoner. They’re not here for the president. They don’t know he’s here,” Neil whispered.
“We have to make our way to the roof,” Kao Tai said.
“Very well,” he said. He stopped and pointed at the glass wall. “They watch me from in there.”
The woman raised her gun and fired a burst into the glass. It shattered. The nuggets of glass fell straight down, leaving two surprised Chinese agents looking at Neil, Gomez, Naima, and President Conrad.
Gomez was closest to the window; her body was partially blocking those of Neil and the others. Gomez raised her gun; Kao Tai adjusted her aim and pointed at Gomez …
… and in that heartbeat neither fired.
Conrad stumbled as he tried to move, and his gun skidded across the stone floor. Neil raised his gun and shifted to one side, but Naima cut in front of him and blazed away. One of her shots grazed Kao Tai’s arm, and the agent’s submachine gun clattered
to the ground, even as she and her brother bolted for the door.
They heard another exchange of fire in the hall, ending with a male scream.
“Everyone all right?” Gomez turned and asked. Her eyes did not meet Neil’s.
Before anyone could answer, Park and several of Naima’s paramilitaries burst into Kao Xun’s interrogation room. Park turned and vaulted over the broken glass.
“Excellency, are you injured?”
“I am fine,” Conrad answered.
“They are retreating up the stairs, trying to get to the roof.”
“Hunt them down and kill them!” he roared. “And Naima, I want the building’s security chief arrested, now.”
“He’s dead, sir,” Park said.
Conrad smirked. “Good. One less thing to attend to.”
After a few minutes, Neil was allowed to make his way to the ground level, while Gomez remained with Naima. Harkins, who had spent the gunbattle crouched behind the consulate’s Honda, unsure who to shoot at, reported that three skycars had taken off from the roof, but someone shot one of them down. A column of smoke rose from where it crashed.
“Went in nose down. No one will have survived,” Harkins said.
“Get a good look at the other two?”
“Yes. One was a ’36 Holden Commodore, dark blue, with the optional tailfins. The other was a ‘29 Lin KT-5 in hunter green. Nice sound system in that one. Anyway, tagged them both with my six.” She patted her rifle.
Neil blinked. Harkins had marked both cars with virtual traces, tasking the allied satellite network to follow their movements. It was no sure thing on Entente; the surveillance constellation was not as robust as around Earth and was subject to Chinese fire from the surface, but her gun had told her the tasking was successful, and she would have at least a half-hour of information on the cars’ positions.
I’ll need to arrange some aerostats for Tecolote until we can get perfect satellite coverage, Neil thought. He said, “All right, I’ll pass that information –“
“Lieutenant Mercer!” came a shout from behind them.
There, striding out the front door of the building, was President Conrad. He still had Park’s sidearm, which he waved as he approached. A dozen guards moved around him, all nervously scanning the walls and sky for any threat.
“Mercer! I’m told several terrorists escaped. Can you assist us in bringing them down?”
“Assist, Excellency?”
“They have taken our traffic control network offline, so our police cannot track them. But you have access to a number of assets in space, yes?”
“Yes, Excellency,” Neil said. Fulfill the mission. Now they were outdoors, his handheld worked again, and he could connect to the allied fleet network. He quickly described his need to an officer on Formidable, who linked him to a ship that was as close to overhead as any.
“Sneaker, this is Repulse,” said a voice, English and male. Brit R-class cruiser, Neil knew at once. More than enough firepower, if she’s in the right place. “We’re in a Molniya, descending over New Albion. Pretty oblique angle to your position, but we can see it.”
“Understood.” Much of the fleet was in a highly elliptical orbit over Entente, with its periapsis over New Albion, where it could bombard any attacking Chinese forces while avoiding passing low over Huashan and the deadly surface-to-orbit lasers there.
Neil transmitted the tags on the cars.
“Got them,” the voice said. “We’ll be shooting through a lot of atmosphere, so we’ll be firing in the infrared. This an armored target?”
“Shouldn’t be,” Neil said.
“That is the correct response, Sneaker,” Repulse transmitted. “This is a poor angle. All right, we’ve reoriented toward the target.”
Neil heard a muffled “Fire Mission!” from someone else in the cruiser’s command center. A few seconds later, a crack of thunder rolled across the San José.
“One target destroyed,” Repulse said. “Moving on to the second … he’s in a different location, over the city. Sorry, Sneaker, your mission ROE prohibits the shot. Too much risk to civvies. We’ll stay with him as long as we can in case he heads over safe terrain … whup, lost the tag; your tracking bird is the over the horizon and couldn’t make a handoff. We’re setting soon, too. Hope one out of two was good enough, old boy. Repulse out.”
He told Conrad that one of the craft had been shot down, but the other escaped. He avoided saying exactly why the Repulse did not shoot down the second car – figuring the British concern for civilians would not be well-received.
Conrad said, “Your ability to bring force to bear on our enemies is impressive, Lieutenant Mercer. You shall have your alliance with Tecolote.”
Mission accomplished, Neil thought. He wondered who he just had killed.
Kao Tai saw a distant explosion over the foothills and knew the other car had been shot down. Six more of her best, dead. Killed by an American or British ship in orbit. With the medication withdrawn, Conrad is no longer refusing their support. She immediately dropped altitude to hide among the buildings of San José, eliciting a yelp of pain from Xun, who was beside her.
“What is it?”
He pulled a dripping red hand away from his abdomen. “I’m shot, sister. One of their guards on the roof, just as we were leaving. My liver, I think.”
She landed the car on an empty lot and pulled Kao Xun onto the ground. She kneeled over him, watching him bleed onto the weed-seamed concrete.
“Hospital,” Xun moaned.
“We cannot, brother. That would put you back in their hands, and they might yet find a way to break you, and your body’s suffering in the meantime would be immense. Even if they do not, they would certainly execute you. This is better. Remember, we are born to serve.”
Kao Xun smiled briefly at that. “We are born to serve,” he repeated.
He bled out and died a few minutes later. Kao Tai stayed with him during that time, programming herself with all the actions needed to get to the safehouse and report in. It hurt so much that she knew she would need to leave herself for a long, long time.
They exited the security center in the Honda, Neil driving, Gomez beside him, and Harkins in the back seat.
“Nice way to seal the deal, Neil,” Gomez crowed. “With any luck you killed those Han operatives, too. Really fine work uncovering the way they were drugging Conrad. He’s much more pliable to our interests now. Tell me, how did you find out about the drug they were giving him?”
“I have my sources,” Neil said evenly.
“Neil, we talked about trusting each other. If you’re worried about the Marine knowing …”
“Not the issue,” Neil interrupted. He turned the car.
“That’s not the way back to the consulate. I need to brief Layton. Where are we going?”
“Somewhere we can talk,” Neil said.
Gomez’s face darkened. “No, Mercer, we’re going to the consulate, now.”
“No, we’re not.”
Gomez tensed.
Neil said, “If you reach for that gun, Gomez, Harkins will put a bullet in your skull.”
Chapter 13
ITANAGAR, ARUNCHAL PRADESH, INDIA – Fearful of an outbreak of hostilities with China, thousands of northern mountain dwellers began arriving in the regional capital this week, overwhelming local shelters. Several refugees reported seeing paramilitary units moving toward key passes into Tibet, but authorities dismissed their claims and denied any such operations were underway. They also threatened reporters with expulsion from the region if they did not supply the names of “anyone spreading such unfounded rumors.”
Combat Supply Cache Falcon, Sequoia Continent, Kuan Yin
These guys would be deadly at poker. The meeting was DiMarco’s usual “captains and above” gathering, and Rand couldn’t read the reaction of most of the officers when he presented his report on the situation at Sycamore. The straight backs, the guarded expressions: This was a group of careful men an
d women.
When he finished, Lieutenant Commander DiMarco frowned. “So all you have to go on is the timeline they gave you to reply to the offer? That’s not evidence, Captain. That’s speculation.”
“It’s not ironclad, but the timing is too perfect, sir,” Rand said. “I recommend we send Ruiz to tell them we are planning to surrender, and we use that time to disperse our forces. Even if they’re watching the site and see us leaving, they’ll think we’re coming their way.”
“The answer is no. We’re just a month away from launching our assault on Sycamore, just as Colonel Foster envisioned. Carrying out your plan entails significant delays.”
“But, sir –”
“That’s enough, Captain.”
Major Cruz took up his cause. “Commander, we should still send Staff Sergeant Ruiz back to Sycamore,” she said. “No harm in him telling the civvies to mislead the Hans. We need him there to coordinate with the civvies anyway.”
DiMarco waved a hand. “Fine.”
Rand stewed for the rest of the meeting. I wish Kelley had come back with us. She could fuck DiMarco into complying. He’s going to get everyone here, every last damn fighting American on this planet, slaughtered, all in the name of what he claims is Foster’s vision. If Foster was so smart, she would have recognized the need for flexibility in the face of changing information and conditions. She would have recognized we can’t beat three Han brigades by ourselves, and that our best hope is to bleed their forces with guerrilla fighting here, so our guys have it easier elsewhere, and the Big Army can make it back to Kuan Yin. Most of all, she would have recognized the sheer stupidity in getting so many soldiers killed for no reason at all. Too bad we can’t call Vincennes anymore. Then again, why the hell did the general on Vincennes sign off on gathering here in the first place? Kelley was right; this is idiotic, from beginning to end.
The meeting eventually broke up, and DiMarco shuffled off, two Navy ratings in tow.
I will not lose any more of my people, Rand thought.
“Major Cruz, can I talk to you for a minute?” he said.
Cruz turned to face him, eyes narrowed. Her shadow, Captain Gant, had an almost identical expression.
