“Huh. Yeah, like me.”
The morning wore into midday. Laramie and Kenny watched a guard shift at 0930 and another at 1132. Foot patrols walked the block every ten to fifteen minutes. Laramie saw the police carried L-6 Vipers, which had better accuracy and kill power than RESIT’s stubby Vectors. The police obviously wanted to keep people away.
At 1448, a sudden flurry of activity at the checkpoints caught Laramie’s attention.
“Kenny, get the video going.”
A light truck with a square blue cargo pod drove up to the fortifications and stopped. One of the guards approached the driver and motioned for him to lower his window.
“What’s that? A delivery truck?” Kenny asked.
“Looks like it.” Laramie peered through her binoculars. The driver appeared calm, like this was just a routine route and no big deal. He handed credentials to the guard.
“Get a close-up of the driver.”
“Yep.” Kenny rested the video recorder on the railing to keep it steady.
The checkpoint guard reviewed the documents. Then he handed them back and waved for another guard to raise the barricade. Laramie could barely hear the engine rev up before the truck lurched forward and rolled slowly toward the underground garage.
“That was interesting,” Laramie said. “Acid One, did you see the delivery man?”
“Affirmative, Battle,” Wyatt replied. “We didn’t get a good view of the security challenge.”
“We have it on video.”
“Good job. Keep your eyes open.”
“Copy.”
At 1519, Kenny took the binoculars while Laramie tore into a meal pouch. It took one whiff for her to realize she must have grabbed the wrong one. She scowled for a moment and forced the spoon into her mouth. Another bite and she couldn’t do any more.
“Kenny, you want this?”
“What kind is it?”
“Cheese and veggie omelet.”
No hesitation. “No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were hungry?”
“Wouldn’t matter if I were starving. Hey—that truck is leaving.”
Laramie peered over the ledge just in time to see the barricade open. The truck slowed but didn’t stop as it exited the perimeter. One of the guards appeared to be yelling at the driver, tapping his wristwatch in an exaggerated, scolding motion.
“That cargo box was green. Didn’t it go in with a blue one?”
“Yeah, it did,” Kenny said.
“Huh. They must bring supplies, drop them off, then haul off the empties.” She thought for a moment. “How long did they spend in there?”
“About thirty minutes.”
Thirty minutes to unload and load. That seemed like a long time to just change out cargo boxes. Apparently the guard felt that way, too. But they had tolerated it. The wheels in Laramie’s head started spinning.
“Acid One, Battle One. What floor are the target’s offices on?”
A moment of silence before Chris answered. “Six. The big conference room is on seven. He’d probably be on one of those two floors during most of the day.”
Half an hour between entrance and exit. Would that be enough time?
“Okay,” she said, “I have the beginnings of a plan.”
“God help us,” said Wyatt’s voice.
“Hey, if you have something bet—”
“Chemo One is on the move,” came a low, terse voice. Carlos.
The hairs on Laramie’s neck stood up. No one was supposed to displace until 1600.
“Copy, Chemo,” Wyatt said. “What’s your status?”
“We have a tail.”
21
Department of Health Campus
Juliet, Alpha Centauri A
26 February 2272
Kenny glanced in her direction.
Laramie scowled back at him, pointed to her eyes, and snapped her wrist back toward the Health Department building. Watch the target. They still had a job to do, at least, until they didn’t.
She pulled out a dog-eared street map Finn had given her. A moment later and she had it unfolded to the square that showed their immediate area. “Chemo. Call your position as you move.”
“Copy. We’re on Fourteenth, walking south. Sid is in front and picking the route.” The words were careful, almost a murmur.
“Who’s following you?” asked Chris’s voice.
A few moments passed with no response. “Two men. Black tactical gear.”
Laramie found Fourteenth Street on her map. Moving south would take them close to her observation post. Chris and Wyatt were on the other side of the compound. She wondered what happened to have attracted attention. Sid was a native. He knew his way around the streets and would have worked hard to avoid being compromised.
“Can you tell if they have radios?” Chris asked.
“Unknown. Turning left on Palazzo.”
Laramie raised her head and peered over the ledge at the guards working the Health building perimeter. They had dark vests and closed helmets. They didn’t seem any more alert than before. Had one of them noticed a stranger casing their building?
“Palazzo leads to Alexandria Square,” Chris said. “It’s near the end of lunch. Sid—lose them in the crowd.”
“Copy,” said a different voice. Sid’s.
“Kenny,” Laramie hissed. She pointed to their flank. “Alexandria is that way. See if you can get eyes on.”
“On it.” He hurried to the far railing with binoculars in hand.
Laramie listened to the tense silence, staring at the street map, visualizing Sid and Carlos threading their way past busy citizens hurrying back to their offices. She suddenly felt very over her head in her knowledge of the big city.
“Entering the square,” Carlos said.
“Staff Sergeant?” Kenny’s voice had a tinge of alarm. “I have eyes on Alexandria. An APC just parked at the far edge, the right edge.”
Great.
“Did you get that, Chemo?” Laramie asked. “APC on the … east edge of the square.”
“Copy,” said Carlos.
Kenny was counting quietly to himself, but the comm picked up every word. “Troops unloading from the vehicle. Six. Seven. They’re fanning out, Staff Sergeant. Active patrol.”
“Acid to all elements, we are scrubbing the mission. Displace and evade. Do not return to the safe house until you are sure you are clear.”
“Acid, Chemo, they are still on us.” Carlos’s breathing was heavy, as if they were running an obstacle course. “Turning on Magellan.”
“How many pursuers?” Wyatt asked.
“Still see two.”
“Staff Sergeant.” Kenny had turned ninety degrees and was looking off the adjacent edge of the building. “The APC from the Health building is loading up. Looks like they’re getting ready to roll out, too.”
Laramie looked over the ledge and watched half a dozen police in full tactical gear board the armored truck. She glanced down at her paper map again. Magellan Street ran diagonally away from the Health Department. It was parallel to Alexandria Square. She could see the pincer move in her mind. If the agents trailing Chemo kept providing radio updates on their position, Carlos and Sid would be cut off.
“Chemo, Battle,” she said. “You need to take out that tail.”
“Say again?”
“Belay that,” Chris’s voice interrupted. “Your orders are to escape and evade. Battle, you too.”
Laramie cursed their lack of understanding. “We have eyes on reinforcements from two APCs. They’re going to get encircled.”
“Your orders are to escape and evade.”
Laramie looked over at Kenny. He wore a grim expression, fully aware of the danger Carlos and Sid were in.
Her lips twisted into a snarl. “Carlos, elimina los que te están persiguiendo o no habrá un después.”
“Afirmativo, chica.”
Kenny stared back at her, puzzl
ed.
She glared hard at him until he got the message.
Chris’s voice filled the comm. “Say again, Battle?”
“Battle is displacing. Out.”
But the truth was, they weren’t running. They were engaging.
They hurried down the fire escape. Laramie thought briefly on the irony of knowing Spanish. Many ranchers in West Hadensville were descendants from Mexico. She’d learned it growing up in the fields. Her first boyfriend was third-generation Mexican. But no one expected a tall, blonde tomboy from Juliet to speak it. It was her little secret.
But Carlos knew. And he was in trouble.
The alley at the bottom remained clear, but the absence of contact didn’t make Laramie feel better. She hoped the crowds might frustrate the tail. But she also didn’t have any illusions about how quick civilians would be to scramble out of the way of armed police.
“Moving off Magellan,” Carlos said. His voice was low, still out of breath. “In the alleyway by the red dumpster.”
He was signaling where they were going to lay their ambush. She hoped Sid was onboard. Carlos had no doubt made it clear what he intended, but that didn’t mean Chris’s Marine would disobey his boss.
Laramie set the pace for her and Kenny. The back streets were largely deserted save for blue utility cabinets and the smell of trash. They had just slipped past a power transformer between two old brick buildings when Kenny let out a stifled cry. Laramie turned to see a rat the size of a small cat scurrying across the pavement.
“Did you see the size of that thing?” Kenny asked.
“Heavy gee makes ‘em bulky. Come on.”
They rounded the back corner of what appeared to be a bank. Laramie’s earpiece suddenly filled with the sounds of a scuffle.
She started running and came to Magellan. Throngs of people flowed past the maglev track in the center of the road while a mass transit train squawked Stand Clear warnings to their left. Laramie scanned the crowds but didn’t see any hostiles.
More struggling noises. Laramie thought she heard Carlos growl.
“Hurry!” Laramie hissed.
“There, to the right,” Kenny said. He pointed at a side alley and a barely visible dumpster in the distance. A red dumpster.
Laramie darted through the crowd, barley dodging a businessman in a peach-colored suit who was clearly paying attention to his neural stub instead of where he was going. She leaped over the safety railing that bordered the maglev track. The dumpster sat fifty meters ahead, beckoning. She hurried past more pedestrians, desperate to close the distance.
A cry of pain filled her earpiece. “No, don’t—”
Laramie heard the dual echo of a laser shot from both the alley and her earpiece. She broke into a sprint. As soon as she reached the dumpster, she slowed down and drew the pistol from underneath her poncho. Around the corner she could hear more noises, grunting. Thumping.
She peered past the edge of the dumpster. In another side alley, two policemen were hunched over the ground pummeling something with their pistol butts. Both wore ARC vests, their heads protected by open-faced helmets.
Fury filled her.
The space between them collapsed. Laramie launched herself through the air until she was suddenly upon the police officers. She brought down her own pistol butt square on the exposed cheek of the closer one, connecting solidly and shattering bone. The officer immediately fell to the ground, dazed.
The second man, momentarily confused by the sudden attack, moved out of striking distance and locked eyes on Laramie’s pistol. He lurched forward with a massive bear hug and staggered her backward, pinning one arm to her side. Laramie barely kept her footing and almost toppled over. But she managed to keep her right arm free and delivered a vicious elbow into the officer’s throat. He coughed a horrible, wet croak and his arms slackened. A head-butt to the bridge of his nose released his grip altogether and sent him to his knees.
She wheeled around just in time to see Kenny deliver a boot to the first man’s face. He went down flat. Thinking that seemed like a good idea, Laramie put her own foot into the bear hugger’s nose and he went down as well. She kicked away the pistol that fell out of his hand.
Her ears roared with her own heavy breathing. When she finally looked around, her heart sank to her feet.
A crumpled heap that used to be a person lay a few meters away. Kenny knelt next to him, his hands resting lamely on an unmoving arm. Laramie knew why he wasn’t taking a pulse. She could see the fresh steam from the laser hole rising from Sid’s neck.
A pitiful moan next to her snapped her out of her daze.
“Jesus Christ.”
The police had beat him brutally. Laramie grabbed his tunic and pulled him into a sitting position. Carlos let out a moan of anguish, his eyes rolling in random directions as they meandered on the border of consciousness.
“How bad?” she asked.
The sergeant’s eyes were scrunched shut. “Ribs …” he grunted.
The radio of one of the police officers crackled. “Orange Team, do you have control of the suspects? Over.”
Laramie smacked Carlos’s cheek hard. His eyes snapped open.
“Can you walk?”
He struggled with the concept before giving a stilted nod.
“Help me,” she said to Kenny.
They each took an arm and hauled Carlos to his feet. His face contorted into a parody of itself, agony spilling forth from the unrestrained beating he had endured moments before.
Laramie wrapped Carlos’s left arm over her shoulder, propping him up. “Kenny, you’re on point. Ten meters. Carlos, act like we’re boyfriend and girlfriend. We’ve had too much to drink and you need to hold on to me. Got it?”
“Uh-huh.”
Carlos leaned heavily against her as he clutched his side. He didn’t even attempt a crack about playing lovers with his boss. Not a good sign.
“How do we get out of here?” Laramie asked.
Kenny’s eyes darted from alleyway to alleyway. “We have to get back on Magellan. These back paths loop back around and are all dead ends.”
“You’re sure?” Laramie didn’t like the idea of merging back into the main thoroughfare.
“I spent a lot of time looking at those maps.”
“Okay. Let’s move.”
Kenny went to the end of the side alley and peeked around the corner. He beckoned them forward. Laramie forced Carlos to walk with her and followed Kenny onto the main road. They stumbled with every step, and Laramie struggled to steer him. At least their intoxication act would be convincing.
They wove through a maze of people and emerged into a temporary clearing next to an aerobike. Kenny dodged a food cart vendor who had just packed up and veered off the sidewalk into him. The sudden altercation caught the attention of a number of passersby.
“Kenny,” Laramie whispered so that only her comm would pick her up. “Slap the cart hard and yell eeyah. Do it now.”
The young trooper stared at the vendor, a stout, balding man a third of a meter shorter. Even from a distance, Laramie could see the blatant disregard in the vendor’s face.
Kenny made a big windup and smacked his hand on the plastic shell covering the food bins. “Eeyah! Eeyah!”
The vendor jerked his head back. His expression changed to annoyance as he muttered a curse and turned his cart. The other pedestrians quickly lost interest and refocused on scurrying past the watchful eyes of security officers.
“Can you explain to me what I just did?” Kenny muttered on the comm.
“You told that bastard to watch where he was going. Slang for eyes up. Otherwise you’ll draw attention for not acting tough. This is Juliet.”
“Got it, Staff Sergeant.”
“Shhh. Call me that again out here and I’ll stomp your guts out, Kenny.”
The young trooper kept walking, staying ten meters ahead. He looked back over his shoulder. “I see police way behind you. At least four. They’re moving fast, on foot,
like they’re on a mission.”
They stumbled further down Magellan. Most of the civilians ignored them, eyes down or absorbed in their own agenda, universally unconcerned with a drunk couple who had apparently enjoyed a very early trip to a bar. But one couple, a young man and a woman dressed in casual garb, slowed their pace. The man’s eyes flicked between Carlos and the approaching police detachment shoving citizens aside.
His eyes went to Laramie. He stared.
Laramie flashed him a lecherous grin. “Buy me a drink? We could make this a group thing.”
The young man seemed to actually consider the offer. The woman with him turned red. An angry slap snapped him out of the fantasy and they quickly hurried on.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” Laramie smirked. “You’re all mine, Carlos.”
The mention of his name made Carlos stagger. He almost went down to the ground. It took everything Laramie had to hold him on his feet.
“Come on, buddy, you can do this.”
Pain tortured Carlos’s features as he tried not to gag.
“Blue Team, status,” a police radio crackled over the crowd.
Laramie focused on the simple act of hauling Carlos along one step at a time. He was heavy and unbalanced. She hoped their drunken show was a convincing ruse. Nothing in the RESIT curriculum taught active camouflage, let alone disappearing into a mass of tough-love Julietans bristling under martial law. This was all her. The art of blending in was a personal skill honed during teenage years filled with filching drinks, racing aerobikes, and dodging the law. God help her if she couldn’t get this act right.
A series of shrill whistle blasts sounded from behind them.
“Maglev coming,” Kenny said. “Do we get on?”
“How close are the cops?”
“Close.”
“Do it.”
Kenny veered to the elevated platform that straddled the middle of the street. Carbon-fiber awnings extended from vertical poles to shield pedestrians from rain and sun. Laramie followed, propping Carlos up against a pole that helped anchor a city diagram.
The mass transit train slowed to an eerily silent stop underneath the awning. When the doors opened, Laramie took the lead and dragged Carlos along with her. The interior of the passenger car showed the wear and tear of heavy use, with bits of trash discarded on a blue-black rubberized deck. She plopped Carlos on the seat vacated by an older woman who had just exited the other side. Then she sat down next to him and watched Kenny board along with half a dozen other passengers.
Escape Velocity (The Quantum War Book 1) Page 15
