True Path

by Graham Storrs

  “The tanks and guns are on their way from the barracks,” the minder explained, although this had been mentioned at the briefing. “Same with the missile launchers. The drones will come in from Andrews Air Force Base.”

  “People seem to be in high spirits,” Jay said.

  “Yes, sir. We’ve been waiting to get Polanski in our sights for a very long time.”

  “There’s not much chance of him being taken alive, is there?”

  His minder looked at him and frowned. “There ain’t a man in this building who don’t know his duty in that respect, sir,” he said, ambiguously.

  The APC they put Jay in reminded him of old times—sitting in similar steel boxes, in uncomfortable body armor, in cities all over Europe. The smell of excited, nervous people and the thump of boots on steel floors was as familiar to Jay as his own quickening heart rate and the tension in his muscles.

  “Nobody mentioned sweepers,” he said to his minder, sitting next to him. On any raid he’d ever been on before, it was standard procedure to send the battle droids in first to bear the brunt of the opponent’s fire and to soften up whatever defenses they’d laid.

  “What’s that?” his minder asked, inadvertently explaining their absence.

  It had been years since Jay had traveled with the foot soldiers on an outing like this. These days, he was either in the command and control vehicle, or he stayed back at the local police HQ and helped direct the action from there. The Deputy Director clearly wanted to keep him out of the decision-making loop and, probably, out of earshot. Sticking him in a van filled with troopers had the additional benefit that a whole bunch of armed men could keep an eye on him.

  Angry at the idea, he got up and went to the front, stepping between booted feet in the vehicle’s narrow aisle.

  “I’m going to sit up here with the driver,” he called back to his minder, climbing into the still-vacant passenger seat. It was a small act of rebellion and it also gave him slightly more freedom of movement in case he might need it at the other end.

  “You’ll be safer back here, sir.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  His minder was out of his seat, crouching in the aisle. “That’s the navigator position, sir.”

  “Yeah, I know. Relax. I can follow the van in front as well as the next guy. I want a ringside seat for this little show.” He looked back at the rest of the troops, all staring at him, and shouted, “We’re going to kick Polanski’s arse, right?” There was a loud chorus of agreement. He turned back to his minder. “So why don’t you just sit down and let me enjoy it? I’ll be happy to mention your cooperative attitude next time I speak to the Director, OK? Besides, it’s a more comfortable ride in the front. You want me to be comfortable, don’t you?”

  Shaking his head in frustration, the minder sat down again. Grinning happily, Jay settled into his new seat.

  -oOo-

  If glaring at the back of someone’s neck could kill, Sandra would have sent Matthew to meet his maker long ago. In lieu of murder-by-telepathy, she had to make do with teasing the little shit relentlessly.

  “Found it yet?” she’d shout, or, “Too clever for you, was I?”

  Mostly, Matthew would ignore her, but now and then his temper would get the better of him and he’d shout back, “Will someone shut that fucking bitch up?” This would prompt one of the guards to shove her and say, “Shut up, bitch.” No-one seemed to think of gagging her. With Polanski out of the room, his Merry Men appeared to lack any kind of initiative. Nevertheless, she kept a sufficient gap between taunts to avoid the idea from occurring to one of the bright sparks around her.

  The problem was that there was no booby trap. Disguising the true date of the splashtarget was all she’d had time for before they’d dragged Matthew back into the room. Now all she could think of to do was to get the teknik so wound up about things that he’d recommend Polanski should abort the lob, or at least postpone it. Matthew’s breathing was labored and the man seemed ready to fall off his chair. There was a small chance that she could add enough to his stress level that he would finally keel over and Polanski would have to ask her to work the console.

  She had struggled against her ties to the point where her guard had slapped her about a bit and pushed his gun in her face. There was no way she’d get free with him watching all the time. However, she had at least discovered that the wooden chair she was tied to was rickety enough to fall apart if she could give it a hard enough knock. But that wasn’t much use either, unless she had both the opportunity to throw herself about the room and the time to untangle herself from the wreckage. She needed a distraction but, so far, she hadn’t worked out how to get one.

  For the thousandth time she regretted not having broken both Matthew’s arms, or, better still, to have killed him when she had the chance. Next time, she would not be so humane.

  And, always in her mind, gnawing at her reason, was the knowledge that Cara was sitting there beside her, silent, frightened, trusting.

  The lob, of course, would be a distraction. A chance for her to get away. If nothing else, Matthew would kick up a fuss, demanding that they carry him off to safety. She didn’t suppose they would. But she didn’t have time to wait for the lob. She had to get away now, steal a car, and drive fast if she stood any chance of avoiding the backwash. She had about twenty minutes before it started, which meant there was about an hour and a half before the backwash hit. She realized she was straining against the ropes and forced herself to relax. She felt exhausted enough as it was without tiring herself further. She was hungry too, and dying for a pee. A turgid wave of old, tired anger rose inside her.

  “You’re all going to die, you stupid bastards!” she yelled. “Matthew’s an arsehole. He has no idea what he’s doing. The Shanty, DC, the whole Eastern Seaboard for all I know, is going to be rubble in about ninety minutes. You should shut that rig down now and smash the fucking thing. Polanski doesn’t care—”

  The guard hit her so hard across the back of the head that lights flashed across her vision. She heard Cara scream as the floor rushed up and smacked her in the head again. Cara was shouting, “Mum! Mum!” Sandra tried to reassure her, to say she was OK, but she couldn’t get her voice to work properly. She lay on her side on the floor. Apart from Cara’s sobbing and pleading for someone to help, there was silence. The heaving spinning tilt of the floor made her feel sick and she retched a puddle of thin bile that stank and made her heave again. Lucky my stomach’s empty, she thought and retched again.

  “Mum! Please say something,” she heard Cara say, crazy with fear. “Why won’t anybody help her?”

  “I’m all right, darling,” she said and this time she heard herself say it.

  “No she’s not,” Cara said. “Get her up. She needs a doctor.”

  “Taste of her own medicine,” said Matthew, through his bandaged-shut jaw.

  Sandra had to admit the justice of what he said. She closed her eyes but it didn’t stop the room spinning.

  “Please, please help her,” Cara said.

  “Leave the bitch where she is,” said Matthew.

  Sandra, on the whole, favored Matthew’s point of view. Her puke stank and the floor was hard but the whole damned Shanty stank and she felt that, if she lost contact with the floor, she might just drift loose and float away like a balloon.

  “What in God’s name is going on here?”

  Sandra cracked open an eye and saw Polanski’s legs planted solidly on the heaving floor.

  “She was mouthing off so I hit her,” someone said.

  Polanski bellowed back at the man, “Get out of here before I have you shot, you idiot. Get her off the floor.”

  “I’m fine,” Sandra said, not wanting a fuss. She felt men grabbing her chair, taking her weight. They heaved her upright and set the chair back on its legs. The room whirled end over end and she threw up again.

  “He hit her with his gun,” Cara said. “She needs to go to a hospital.”

  “It�
�s too late for that.” Polanski’s voice was firm, but not harsh. Sandra felt fingers on her chin as he lifted her head up. Polanski’s face swam in front of hers. “I’m sorry,” he said, quite gently. “You’ll probably be all right, given time.”

  “Time,” she said. It was a cruel joke. An urgent thought pushed its way up to the surface, and she made herself focus on it. “Let my daughter go,” she said.

  He gazed steadily into her eyes but his face kept sliding away. He looked as if he really wanted to set Cara free. Even though she knew that he wouldn’t, for a moment she felt a glimmer of hope.

  “No! I’m not leaving you,” Cara said.

  Polanski blinked, let go of Sandra’s chin, and stood up, wiping his hand on his trousers.

  Sandra closed her eyes again and let her head fall forward. It was the end. If they untied her right now, she couldn’t even stand up, let alone fight them. She heard Polanski speaking to Matthew.

  “Nothing,” said the teknik. “I couldn’t find anything.”

  “Then we go ahead with the lob. Are you ready?”

  “Sure. Starting the timer at …” There was a slight hesitation as he set the clock. “… ten minutes. Bricks to the stage, please.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. It’s just something from the old days.”

  Sandra could almost see it, beautiful young men in their splashgear, strong and bursting with energy, the lights on them, the music pounding and the crowd screaming their adoration. There had been good times, innocent times … Well, maybe not good, or innocent, but better than this.

  “Is this the revolution you wanted?” Cara shouted.

  Sandra snapped out of her daze and turned to look at her daughter. Cara was flushed and angry, her lovely face wet with tears. Her words were directed at Polanski who was now standing on the platform, one hand resting on the loose plastic sheeting of the sphere.

  “Is this the America you wanted to build?” Cara said. “A place where women are kidnapped and beaten? Where children are tied up and left to die? Where your friends and followers are just used up and thrown away? Is that what you want?”

  Sandra felt a sob in her throat. How did her little girl get to be such a brave, fierce woman?

  “Are you listening to me, Polanski? Are you listening to anyone except the voices in your head? Because you’re not Joan of Arc.”

  Polanski turned to face her and Sandra caught her breath at the look on his face.

  “You’re not even—”

  “No!” Sandra said with all the strength she had. Cara looked at her, confused. “Darling, no more. He’ll kill you. So just … No more, eh?”

  She saw the pain and pity in her daughter’s face. She saw her struggling not to cry as she said, “I don’t know what to do.”

  Again, a sob almost choked her. “I love you, Cara.”

  Whatever Cara might have said in reply was lost as the girl broke down into helpless tears. Sandra turned her gaze slowly towards Polanski. He was standing on the platform, watching them with a zombie stare.

  -oOo-

  Polanski turned away from the sobbing child and her glaring mother. They didn’t matter anymore. There was only one thing left to do in this life. After that … Well, he would face the judgment that was coming, confident that he had done all that he could.

  He pushed his shoulders through the narrow hatch and climbed inside the clear plastic sphere. As he put his boot onto it, he hoped once more that the material was as tough as the engineers said it was. Just one small hole, anywhere, would end his dreams of a new Republic forever. He would suffocate and freeze in the void and his frozen corpse would be returned to the Shanty as a lesson in hubris.

  He sat on the padded seat and pushed the hatch closed. It did not fasten, but the internal pressure would hold it closed and sealed throughout the trip. He hoped.

  He picked up the mortar tube, the bipod legs, the heavy base, the mortar shell, the sights, the remote control unit, and he clutched them. He must not let them fly loose. If the landing was bad, they might break his bones, crush his skull. He practiced wrapping his legs around the tube and the bipod. That’s how he would hold them when he landed.

  “One minute to lob,” Matthew called out. The teknik sounded calm, like he’d done it a hundred times before. Polanski was not calm. His heart was thudding and his palms were sweating. He’d been in plenty of operations against the Government and its lackeys. He’d planted bombs, staged ambushes, robbed banks, assassinated Church leaders. He knew the symptoms of fear well. Only this time was worse. Could you die of fear? he wondered. Could your heart beat so hard it just burst?

  “Thirty seconds to lob.”

  Thirty seconds? How had the countdown happened so fast? He held his heap of deadly weapons closer, even though he knew there was no need for it yet. He held his breath in a frightened anticipation of all his air being sucked away as the sphere ripped apart. He closed his eyes and prayed to God to let him live, to succeed, to make the splash whose ripples would be felt from sea to shining sea.

  “Eight. Seven. Six.”

  What? So soon?

  “Four. Three. See you in Hell motherfu—”

  The light went out. The sphere inflated with a slap.

  Chapter 28: Assault

  There was already a contingent of the Sons of Joshua waiting. They blocked the Shanty gates on Jefferson Davis Highway to prevent anyone from entering or leaving. At the sight of the FBI convoy, they pulled aside the barricades. Jay could see expressions of grim satisfaction, sometimes outright jubilation, on the faces of the militiamen as his APC ground slowly past them. It wasn’t just because Polanski was about to be killed or captured. He could tell from the chatter inside the vehicle that any chance to stick it to the godless scumbags in the Shanty was something the law enforcement agencies relished.

  Jay checked the time. It was exactly noon and the assault was running late. Steering the big c-and-c trucks through the narrow Shanty streets was slowing things down even further. The structures were so flimsy that whenever one of the trucks clipped the corner of a building—which happened often—walls came down and roofs collapsed.

  An outer and an inner cordon were being established within the Shanty to encircle Polanski’s headquarters. The c-and-c trucks stayed at the outer cordon, while the mounted guns, the light tanks, and most of the APCs went on to the inner one. Jay’s vehicle stayed back. It was almost ten minutes past twelve when it pulled up alongside the Deputy Director’s truck and everybody got out.

  Jay marched over to the command center and tried to get in. Two agents at the door blocked him.

  “The Deputy Director needs me in there to help direct the assault,” he insisted, making enough noise to be heard inside.

  His minder hurried up behind him. “I’m sorry, sir, but the Deputy Director asks if you wouldn’t mind waiting out here for a while. The inner cordon won’t be set up for at least another ten minutes. Can I get you a coffee? The mess truck’s just arrived.”

  “Does no-one here understand the urgency of this mission?” He kept his voice loud so English could hear him. “We don’t have time to do this by the book.” A light drizzle began to fall. With a frustrated sigh, he stepped away from the two guards. To his minder, he said, “White with no sugar, please. I’m going to sit in the APC, out of the rain.”

  He climbed in the back and shut the door after him. He was all alone in the vehicle, which seemed much bigger without a dozen armored bodies inside it. He sat down and pulled off his helmet. The engine was still running, and the lights and heating were still on, so at least it was warm. He didn’t know what a Washington DC autumn was like in the days before climate change, but if this one was anything to go by, cold and wet was now the norm.

  It was hard to sit still. His body crawled and itched with the need to be moving, to get to the rig, to stop the lob. It could be happening right now. Hell, it could already have happened. While English arsed about lining up his soldiers like some kind of w
argaming nerd, Polanski might already have unleashed a splash that would sweep them all from the board like the hand of God. Which would be kind of ironic, Jay thought.

  If he’d been in charge, he would have sent in a small force of commandos. Polanski’s defenses were pathetic. Half-a-dozen well-trained men could have fought their way to the lob site and blown up the rig with minimal preparation. They could have done it hours ago. Hell, one man could have done it. He should have done it himself instead of going to the FBI. That was a stupid mistake. He should have just—

  He should do it now. Don’t think about it, he told himself as arguments and potential problems began to pop into his thoughts. Just fucking do it.

  He put his helmet back on and rushed to the front of the APC. This time he climbed into the driver’s seat. He’d seen how the thing was driven. There was nothing to it. It was even an automatic transmission. He revved it up, put it into drive, and hit the accelerator. Through the armored glass slit, he saw his minder, a coffee in each hand, leap out of the vehicle’s way, his face a picture of shock and surprise. Jay threw the wheel around and skidded onto the muddy road, glad to find the APC a lot more stable than it looked.

  ”Jay”, the Voice of Reason said into his ear. “You know that, however this goes, someone is going to end up shooting you.”

  “Shut up,” he said out loud. “Or come up with a better idea.”

  Hearing only silence, he floored the accelerator.

  -oOo-

  Sandra and Cara were alone. Well, almost. Matthew was still at the control desk but he had slumped forward and seemed to be unconscious. The last thing Sandra remembered was Polanski winking out of existence and her guard bending down to her ear to say, “Enjoy the rest of your life, whore,” before leaving with the others. After that, she must have passed out.

  “Cara?” Her daughter was lying on the floor, still tied to her chair, making no noise except when she took a deep, sobbing breath.

  At the sound of Sandra’s voice, she looked up sharply and said, “Mum? Oh God, Mum! I thought you weren’t going to wake up again. I thought …”