by Dick Stivers
Deathbites
( Able Team - 12 )
Dick Stivers
Terrorist death squads wipe out three leading U.S. computer research facilities and push America to the precipice of computer chaos.
The program was always the same — murderous precision, total extermination, no human mercy.
A sole survivor of one of the silicon-chip massacres guides Able Team to the hidden data bank that directs the terrorists in their program for panic. While the beautiful and brainy Lao Ti taps into the death data, Carl Lyons, Gadgets, and Politician pursue an army of psychotic misfits.
The computer world trembles under the onslaught of the terrorist strike force as Able Team, joined by Phoenix Force and Hal Brognola, launches a fierce counterattack to shatter the circuits of savagery.
Dick Stivers
Deathbites
1
June 1, 1520 hours, Osaka, Japan
Dr. Uemurea knelt beside the low table in one corner of his office, his untasted tea in front of him. He touched the stout white-oak stick he always carried and looked at Aya Jishin who knelt opposite him. She was explaining how Japan could overcomeAmerican competition in computer development. She explained hoarsely, fervently and urgently.
Uemurea knew he would have to kill her.
He looked attentively at this woman, his face carefully impassive. Behind the mask of polite intentness, he let his mind wander. Again he touched the stick; he had great faith in it.
Uemurea was Japan’s top computer researcher, but to him technology was only a thing of the mind; it meant nothing to the soul. Uemurea’s soul yearned to observe the old ways, to once again find the glory that had been Japan’s in past centuries. So, he had a traditional tea table in one corner of his office, while all his colleagues had American chrome clutter. Every day he went to the dojo to practice bojitsu, the deadly art of the staff, while others at the research facility collected pulled muscles playing squash and racquetball.
Then this creature, this Aya Jishin, had come to him with a repulsive proposition. She knew he would refuse, refuse curtly, and that could only mean she did not intend to let him live to repeat that proposition to anyone else.
He looked at the hands of Aya Jishin — blunt fingers, huge ridges of calluses. They were ugly, deformed hands that had been plunged again and again into beans, rice, sand until they were little better than maces on the end of her muscular arms. The arms swung from wide shoulders.
Whatever this thing kneeling, facing him was, it was not a woman. The bland, expressionless face, the perfect dark eyes, were not meant to be accented by a nose that had been improperly reset and a cauliflower ear. Suddenly it occurred to him that he was looking at the type of Japanese woman he pretended to honor. In the past, the samurai women had fought as well as the men. Some had been extremely proficient warriors. Was this repulsive creature actually a throwback to the times he wished he had lived?
He shook off the dreadful notion, at the same time mechanically shaking his head. He was not aware that he had shaken his head until Aya Jishin stopped in midsentence, respectfully waiting for him to voice his objection.
The scientist found himself reluctant to state his view. It was not that he did not know the only course permitted by honor, it was just that he suddenly felt his fifty years and did not look forward to the exertion of physical violence. A workout was one thing, actually having to fight for one’s life was something else.
Dr. Uemurea was just opening his mouth to speak when there was shouting and screaming from outside his office. He rose quickly, perturbed by the nature of the sound, but thankful for the interruption. Across the table, Jishin rose smoothly, easily.
“It is the New Red Brigade,” she said. “We are destroying this place.” Her speech was still quiet, her voice still hoarse, but the speech form had changed from a person speaking to a superior to a person speaking to an inferior.
“You never expected me to go along with your plan,” Uemurea said.
She shook her large head. “No, but your research will put the plan into operation. You deserved the right to refuse.”
The scientist was amazed by the cultural correctness of her action. In a flash of insight, Uemurea realized that while he had been romanticizing about Japan’s past, this terrorist had been living it.
“What is happening out there?” he casually asked, leaning on his cane.
“The workers are being killed so they can identify no one. The electronic files and the paper files will then be loaded into trucks. As I explained, we must use them if we are to defeat the Americans in computer sales.”
“But you’re not really interested in who sells the most or the best computers, no more than I am.”
She shrugged. “Not computers, as opposed to cars, televisions, or anything else. But the ability to manufacture is power. Being able to manufacture the best is more power. I am interested in that.”
“Thank you for your honesty. Then you really think you can speed the disintegration of America?”
She grinned, an ugly gap-toothed grin. “I shall bring about that downfall, myself. First, they will lose their computer researchers, then other researchers, then those who manufacture things.”
“And where will a disfigured Nipponese like yourself be able to hide in the United States?” he scornfully bated her. “You’ll stand out like one of their neon signs would stand out in one of our temples.”
“I’ll be safe within WAR,” she replied.
Uemurea attacked. One moment his hands were idly toying with the jo, the breaker of swords, the next moment it was whistling at her head with skull-crushing force.
Aya Jishin moved her clenched fists together to form one elongated fist. Her movements were perfectly executed. The mountainous ridge of hardened knuckles suddenly was in the path of the striking stick. With a crack like a high-powered rifle, the seasoned oak broke over the knuckles. Half the stick spun away, burying itself in the plaster of the office wall. The other half stung Uemurea’s hand. He let it drop and it rolled behind him. Uemurea turned sideways, exposing fewer vital areas to those pile-driving fists. His arms came up to protect throat and face, elbows in to protect the upper body.
Jishin grinned and struck his forearms with a lightning left-right. The scientist could hear the bones in his forearms snap. Before the pain could catch up, the fists flashed again. The first blow caught his left biceps, turning muscle into mush. The force of the blow spun him halfway around. The other fist mashed muscle in his right arm. Suddenly his arms fell, helpless.
The vital spots were all open now.
Jishin was wearing the uniform for members of the company below management level. It was a tailored coverall in gray denim. On her feet she had jogging shoes. One of those joggers crushed the muscle along Uemurea’s thigh.
He went crashing into the wall, only to rebound into a high kick that broke his sternum. He collapsed to the floor where more bone and muscle jellied under the impact of jogger heels.
When Jishin finally strode from the room, Uemurea was still partly conscious, drifting in and out of trauma shock. His body had no vital parts broken, but it would not survive the huge trauma to muscle and bone. The scientist’s last coherent thought was that America was doomed.
*
July 2, 1023 hours, Fremont, California
Ryan von Stradt could not keep a smug look of satisfaction off his face as fellow researcher, Doreen Morrison, prattled her jealous congratulations.
“I had no idea you were so close to a breakthrough, Ry. It’s all so sudden.”
“If you keep plugging, the details come together eventually,” he assured her. But, he said it as though she had not been working hard.
&nb
sp; She turned and strode down the hall, her heels beating an angry tune on the tile of the corridor. Von Stradt laughed as he unlocked the door to his electronics lab.
He locked the door behind him. He was not going to risk having someone barge in and find the source of his breakthrough thinking. He sat down at his personal computer.
Quickly he hooked up the telephone modem and instructed the computer to dial Small Chips.
He had received a brochure in the mail a week before. It had expounded the glories of a new data bank, designed especially for researchers in the electronics and computer field. The name, Small Chips, and the method of advertising had almost put him off trying it, but the introductory price was low, and Ryan von Stradt had been desperate — his computer research was going nowhere. So he had subscribed to Small Chips, and as soon as his access code arrived, he had scanned the contents of the bank with great eagerness.
At first he was disappointed in the size of the bank. Judging from the menu, it could not contain more than six or seven megabytes of information. But once he began scanning documents, he could not believe his eyes. All the information he needed to develop a new breed of computer was there. He took notes for several days and then announced that he had solved the problem of parallel chip connection. The stir the announcement caused made his ego soar.
Von Stradt was aware that Dr. Uemurea had been working on the same problem in Japan. Then terrorists had destroyed the research facility, razed it completely, and killed the staff. Von Stradt refused to ask himself why the information in Small Chips so closely paralleled Uemurea’s research.
The Small Chips computer accepted his recognition code and he went immediately to the section he wanted and started making notes. Tomorrow he would start working on drawings and specs. Today he wanted to make sure that he gleaned all the information that would help him from Small Chips data bank. He became so engrossed in note taking, he did not even notice the first few shots.
When an automatic weapon went off in the hall outside the door, he looked up from the terminal. Then there was a frantic beating of fists on the door and Doreen Morrison’s voice screaming to be let in. He quickly shut down the computer. He did not want her to guess the source of his inspiration on parallel chip connection.
He unlocked the door and opened it just in time to see his beautiful co-worker drop as bullets tore her body, spraying blood and bits of flesh all over the doorjamb. Ryan was a lot quicker at closing and relocking the door.
He ran to the telephone. The line was dead. It was time to evacuate. To hell with his breakthrough notes. He ran to the window. He was searching for something to use to break the sealed window when the locked door broke inward from a single blow that shattered the jamb. In the doorway stood a person — Von Stradt was not sure of the sex — a person that made his blood run cold. Long black hair was pulled into a ponytail that was doubled back on itself and bound with a rag. The face could have belonged to a prizefighter who had stayed in the ring a few too many years. The shoulders were broad and heavy. The body was covered by a gray mechanic’s coverall, on the feet were joggers. The eyes were calm and deadly, the smile not at all warming.
“Thinking of going somewhere?” the person asked. The voice was flat, hoarse. It gave no clue to the sex of the speaker.
Von Stradt found no answer. He stood mutely while the thing glided in and turned on both his personal computer and his terminal to the company mainframe.
“Access codes?” it demanded.
“Uhhh,” he stalled, wondering when someone was going to come and wake him from this nightmare.
“An old man down the hall tried to stall me and I poked an eye out,” the hoarse voice said.
“Shit,” he told the approaching demon.
Two knobby fists hit him on each side of the chest. Ryan fought to take a breath and his body exploded with pain. His knees buckled. He could not breathe, because each breath felt like he was cutting his chest with hot knives.
“Both lungs are pierced by broken ribs,” the hoarse voice told him. “You’d better lie on your back and breathe with your diaphragm or you’ll never last until help gets here.”
He did as he was told. It helped some, but not much. “Get an ambulance,” he croaked. Then he coughed and tasted the saltiness of blood.
“No access codes, no help,” the voice told him.
Although it was agonizing to talk he mumbled the codes, first for the main computer and then for his personal computer.
After that, he was left alone while the strange being checked through the computer files. In a few minutes, it was through and shoved the terminals to the floor in anger.
“You’re not a researcher,” the hoarse voice spat. “There’s not a single concept worth stealing. You’re worthless.”
The gray coveralls towered over him, filling his blurry vision. Then a foot came up and stomped down on his chest. The joggers and gray coveralls then left the room. They were the last thing that Ryan von Stradt saw as he choked to death on his own blood.
The police were investigating the crime two hours later when the bombs went off, leveling the Computer Development Company and killing all twelve of the police officers who were inside the building.
*
July 6, 1535 hours, Plainsfield, New Jersey
Stanley Keen III — known behind his back as Stan Three Sticks — looked down the boardroom table at the management team of Electronic Developments Inc. The general manager, marketing director, sales manager and comptroller all wore gray suits with a fine pinstripe, much like Stan’s. The product-development manager, the only other member of the management team, wore the cheapest-looking denim suit that Keen had ever seen. The men all wore white shirts and plain, solid-colored ties, except the product director who wore an open-necked, solid green, uniform shirt. On his feet, which were propped up on the boardroom table, were cowboy boots.
“Are you idiots so bankrupt for ideas that you’re going to start stealing them from the Japs?” the product-development manager asked.
“We are not stealing anything!” the comptroller shouted. “We paid the fee to use Small Chips. We’re entitled to use all the information it contains.”
“I’m all for that,” the voice behind the cowboy boots drawled. “What I don’t quite understand is why we want to pretend that we thought up the ideas in the first place. Everyone knows that old Uemurea did that work.”
“You can’t prove that’s Uer… Ume… whoever’s work,” the sales manager said.
“So what? I can sure as hell prove it’s not ours. We’re not even working in the same area.”
Before the four gray-suited managers burst blood vessels, Stan Three Sticks spoke up. “Let’s address that question first. What is the advantage, if we claim we came up with the parallel process over giving credit where credit’s due?”
“Patents, Mr. Keen. Patents,” the general manager exclaimed. They were interrupted by screams and the sound of automatic fire outside the room.
Five gray suits turned toward the door. One pair of cowboy boots disappeared from the boardroom table and carried the owner in a long dive through a window. Five heads swiveled away from the door to look at the shattered window.
The door to the room was broken open and two figures wearing black hard hats peered into the room.
“Nothing but management,” said one of the hard-hat wearers.
The other did not say a word. He tossed in a couple of fragmentation grenades and closed the door again. Five figures in gray suits watched fragmentation grenades roll across the room. They died watching.
An hour and ten minutes later, Miss Helen Argue showed the thirty-three pupils in her seventh-grade class into the reception area of Electronic Developments Inc. The students and the teacher were shocked to find that the reception area was decorated with three bullet-riddled bodies. Miss Argue hastily took her pupils back to the bus that had brought them. She had the driver keep them in the bus while she went back to telephone the police.
The police arrived in eight minutes. Miss Argue and four officers were killed when the building blew up. Eighteen pupils were injured, two blinded by flying glass.
Unfortunately for the free-spirited product-development manager, he returned to report to the police when he saw them arrive at the building.
2
July 7, 1948 hours, Atlanta, Georgia
Aya Jishin looked over the thirty long-noses crowded into the meeting room. She never thought she would get lonely for the sight of a civilized face, but she was. Nogi did not count. He was of Japanese origin, but too many brushes with Yakuza swords made him look more like an apple doll than a human. His appearance did not matter: he was willing to train barbarians to kill barbarians. That was all that counted.
“Good evening, former victims,” she said, addressing the group. “You’ve been put out of work by automation. Now you’re going to put the automators out of business.”
The audience had to strain to catch her hoarse, croaked words, but they seemed to think it was worth the trouble. Shouts of assent greeted her opening remark.
She continued. “All of you joined Workers Against Redundancy because computers and automated machines have robbed you of your means of earning a living. WAR welcomed you, just as it’s welcoming thousands of others each day. But the thirty of you were meant to do more than write to your congressmen, to be more effective than picketers, to pack more punch than a leaflet delivers. Welcome to the muscle and heart of WAR. You will form the local Harassment Initiation Team, known as HIT.”
Being part of a hit team seemed to appeal to the audience. They cheered again.
Jishin waited for the cheering to stop. She expected it, not because she had any illusion that she was an orator, but because the unemployed long-noses had been carefully selected. She was speaking to the angriest of the angry, the ones who would take any excuse to strike out against the system.
She had already delivered the same speech in four other parts of the country, and there were still more HIT groups to start up. Wherever shortsighted government policies created large groups of unemployed, Jishin looked for a potential group of terrorists waiting for someone to come along and aim them at someone.
