The hoverbikes waggled back and forth, like children squirming. Their beams played side to side, working up and down. I couldn’t see how deeply they pierced the structure, but one lanced out through a side wall while the others touched off more fires. Secondary explosions shook the building and one or two alarms that began to wail shut off immediately as some vital equipment melted.
More important than what they were doing, however, was the sudden advent of Public Safety Department agents in Hauberk battle armor. In teams of three they ran from nearby buildings. The heavy armor, painted an urban gray that worked well to camouflage them in the night, gave them bulk and deadliness. Unlike the way such armor appears in Tri-Vids, no lights illuminated the agents’ faces. They remained dark and brooding—no less sinister even without the bulk of the LRM launcher packs they would have carried on a battlefield.
As two troop carriers appeared around the corner from Thirty-ninth and began disgorging troops, a voice boomed from one of the power-armor teams. Despite the distortion, I recognized it as Niemeyer’s voice. “Stop! Police! You’re under arrest. Don’t make us…”
Even before he could finish, two more hoverbikes raced north on the access road that paralleled the highway. Their forward-mounted Gatling cannons vomited fire and metal, scything through armored troops. One laser lanced scarlet fire through a troop carrier. The vehicle exploded, casting silhouetted figures in grand arcs through the night sky. When they landed, they crumpled and lay still.
Niemeyer’s troops returned fire. The unarmored officers had little effect, save to play bullets over the hoverbike hulls. One driver did shy, turning his vehicle, so a small laser beam from one Hauberk armor suit burned into his spine. That hoverbike jetted forward, then crashed into a hovercar parked on the side of the road.
More explosions shook the switching center and part of the building sagged. As the roof collapsed, jets of flame shot out the black scars in the front. Burning debris gushed out, then rained down in a hellish snow. Lasers flashed, burning red and green, bullets flew, striking sparks and spinning men to the street.
Then, from atop the highway, a dozen and a half LRMs arced down and sowed fire over the parking lot. The first hoverbike flew into the air, tumbling end over end. The pilot went one way, bits and pieces another, until the burning hull smashed down. The fans shredded themselves, spitting shrapnel into the air.
The second hoverbike just evaporated while the third went spinning out of control. It plowed into armored troops, which scattered like toys. A second gout of flame from the center washed over that vehicle. The pilot vanished and the hoverbike burned.
The launch of missiles from a Catapult had shattered the FfW assault. The ’Mech came running along the highway, closing almost to a range where his missiles would not work. I assume that was because he wasn’t going to launch again, but this assumption was misplaced. Fire blossomed in the left shoulder launcher and, at this range, he couldn’t miss what he was shooting at.
I hit the accelerator on the Cabochon and whipped the wheel around. The vehicle shot across the battle zone and edged around one of the burning hoverbikes. Turning right, I cut the back fan to drag the rear. Sparks shot from behind me as the hovercar slowed, then I killed the forward fan and ducked my head.
Had one of the LRMs hit me dead on, no matter the Cabochon’s safety record, I’d have been clean dead. The explosions playing toward me ripped up reinforced roadway, snapped light poles and blew fencing apart as if it were cheesecloth in a gale. The closest bounced the hovercar a meter in the air, and the landing left an imprint of the steering wheel on my forehead. The shrapnel took the roof off and shattered the windows, but the side panels were enough to deflect a lot. I felt a sting in my legs as some of the safety panels spalled off, but the pain told me my legs were still there, which I counted as a plus.
Most importantly, however, the Cabochon shielded Niemeyer and his crew. The only reason to shoot again was to kill him, and the only person who would want him dead would be Bernard. That put Bernard or his agent in the Catapult and that started all manner of things running around in my brain.
Niemeyer popped up on the passenger side and, though his face was hidden behind smoked glass, I could almost see his eyes widen when he saw me.
“Get your men in here, we’re going NOW!”
“No.”
“It’s your ass that thing wants dead. Leave and your people are safe.” I kicked both fans on. “Get in unless you want them to die.”
Snarling, he boosted a wounded man into the backseat, piled another on top, then tore the passenger door off the Cabochon. He knelt on the seat as I hit the accelerator and spun the hovercar around. I drove toward the Catapult, then under the highway overpass. We emerged going fast, cutting back and forth across lanes. I figured it was an even-odds shot that we’d get a couple of flights of missiles once we were in range, so I hit the first small cross street, and then another.
“If he’s going to shoot us, he’ll wipe a lot of real estate.”
Niemeyer grunted. “Bernard?”
“My guess. In the morning media he’ll have saved Public Service operatives from an Ff W ambush. Someone sold the FfW to him, and you to him.”
“And we were sold to Ff W. Set up.” His right arm swung and snapped the jagged roof post off. “Next right, then along Fiftieth to the hospital.”
“With all speed.”
“Yeah, with all speed.” A low growl sounded from him. “Just the way my world is going to hell.”
35
He who wants to kill a snake must aim for its head.
—Danish saying
Manville, Capital District
Basalt
Prefecture IV, Republic of the Sphere
24 February 3133
We reached the hospital quickly and both of Niemeyer’s people were rushed into the trauma center. He should have been looked at first, but he wasn’t going to let them drug him until his men were out of danger or while there was a possibility that I might get away. I gave him my word I’d not leave, which he laughed at. He had me join him in a trauma room, where the doctors took care of both our shrapnel wounds.
In the trauma room I looked down at my bloody trouser legs. “See, no running away for me anyway.”
He just grunted as they began to peel him out of the armor. His chest plate had been punctured and the armor on the right shoulder had been ripped away. No gashes there, but a licking tongue of flame had clearly toasted him a bit. Interns pulled shrapnel from him and applied sutures, while medtechs slathered unguents on the burns.
Interns similarly worked on me and, like Niemeyer, I passed on anything more than local anesthesia. He didn’t want to pass out and I didn’t want to become a babbling idiot. While I had enough evidence to have Bernard arrested, and enough circumstantial evidence to have Emblyn picked up, it would have been for minor offenses. The prosecution would have dragged on while the war for Basalt continued. The winner would pardon himself and the loser would likely be executed for minor crimes.
Minor crimes all wrapped up as a treasonous conspiracy.
Aside from grunts and the occasional hiss, Niemeyer and I fell silent. The doctors talked, forceps clicked and shrapnel clanked into metal pans. I pushed all that and the little tugs and pinches away. I needed to gather my thoughts because Niemeyer would be on me hard and fast. I had to figure out what I was going to tell him.
I couldn’t tell him the truth. My claims of being a Ghost Knight would be looked upon askance and, with the HPG network down, couldn’t be verified by anyone on Basalt. While I could send reports in through local staffers, they would just treat them like agent reports. While mine might be accorded higher priority than others, there would be nothing in their handling to compromise my identity.
Regardless of that, I still didn’t have enough evidence to put the principals away. With Bernard willing to kill Niemeyer and his men, arrest became a moot point. There really wasn’t an authority on the planet that could st
op him, unless it was someone who was going to terminate him. And, if that were to happen, there would be nothing to stop Emblyn from completing his takeover of the world, since all the attacks had left the people’s trust of the government in tatters.
Bernard had successfully hit on one point that seemed like a way out of the LIT trap. His appearance at Number 8 to smash the attack—much akin to Reis’ antics on Helen—elevated him to the image of a strong, central authority figure with the power to hit back at the enemy. If he were able to capitalize on this political asset, it would make him very strong.
The problem with LIT is that halting such a campaign is like nailing gelatin to a wall. Yes, Bernard did stop one attack, though not until it had done an incredible amount of damage. Not only did it take out Number 8, but it devastated a contingent of Public Safety Department officers. While their deaths would ratchet up the public’s concern, and would invest Bernard’s calls for vengeance with some power, Bernard could never command enough in the way of troops to put a stop to the FfW attacks. He couldn’t have troops everywhere all at once, and absent that, some sites were going to be vulnerable. Without completely subverting the system of civil liberties guaranteed by The Republic, Ff W could not be stopped.
I realized that thinking about that was getting ahead of things. In the hovercar with Niemeyer we’d hit on the core understanding of the raid that I needed to sort out. Gypsy had planned the raid and turned it over to Catford to execute. Someone had sold the raid to Niemeyer, though the chances of my learning who that was from him were zero. The same individual might have sold Niemeyer back to Catford, but I doubted that. Catford could have easily had troops in reserve waiting for trouble. If nothing else they could have been used to cut off pursuit or secure an alternate escape route and Catford was cunning enough to deploy forces to do just that.
I already knew that Bernard had people in Public Safety on his payroll, so they clearly sold the operation to him. I wasn’t sure if the guys working for Bernard would have expected him to try to assassinate Niemeyer. If they suspected Niemeyer was watching them, they might have. That was really another moot point since Bernard could have had dozens of reasons to want Niemeyer dead, right down to not realizing he was there and just wanting Public Safety bodies to blame on Ff W. The idea that killing Public Safety officers might move his agents up in the organization could not be discounted either.
Elle was a wild card in the mix. She’d clearly told me the operation would be going off twenty-four hours later than it did. Gypsy could have moved the timetable up, though Catford likely would have balked at that. Gypsy could have misled her for whatever reason, or she could have lied to me. It didn’t make much sense for her to do that, but that fit with the odd nature of the conflict here.
Bernard’s escalation of things did make sense—frightening sense. His action, while unilateral, would show FfW to be an enemy of the state in a very direct and threatening way. His military reaction to their effort—as opposed to Niemeyer’s law enforcement one—made them into a military threat. Calling up the Basalt Militia and arraying them against FfW could now be easily done. With inside knowledge of what FfW was doing, he could hurt them, giving his forces an advantage if Gypsy decided to stage a military coup.
As I thought it over, it seemed to me inevitable that things would come to some BattleMech slugging match worthy of a Solaris championship. Frankly, that solution would have suited me well, since it would have limited the size of the conflict, confined it to an arena, and would have chosen a winner without ripping apart the lives of a lot of folks.
The problem is that neither Bernard nor Emblyn would abide by the outcome of such a battle. There would be more outbreaks and as folks got desperate, serious damage would be done. So far the attacks had caused a lot of property damage and inconvenienced people, but death had not slopped over into the civilian population. I was not sanguine about that situation continuing. Bernard’s willingness to murder Public Safety officers indicated there would be no restraint on his part.
And once he had taken power, I could imagine a lot of civil rights abuses in the name of maintaining security.
This analysis was all well and good, but left me with nowhere to go and nothing to do, short of a wholesale murder spree—which, I will admit, was tempting. I mean, I knew I would never do it, which is why I could entertain the fantasy. Each clank of shrapnel in the dish was another bullet pumped into Bernard and Emblyn. I tossed Teyte, Catford and Siwek into that mix, just because I knew I’d have that many bullets in a clip, with a couple to spare for anyone who twitched one more time.
Niemeyer looked over at me as an intern swathed his body in gauze. “Don’t expect that your intervening there will spare you from prosecution.”
I frowned. “Look, let’s cut to the chase, shall we? You’re going to figure I was there as some sort of a spotter for the whole thing, right, which explains in your mind why I was present when things went down. You’ve seen my files and you know what I’m capable of piloting, so you know if I were going to be there in some capacity, I’d not have been there in a Cabochon. And if I was there working for FfW, why would I have rescued you? If I wanted to save you and your men, I wouldn’t have called in reserves, right? And if I was working for the guy in the ’Mech, I’d not have pulled you out, right?”
His nostrils flared. “So, you just happened to be there? Out for a midnight drive.”
“Yeah, insomnia is a horrible thing.” I shook my head. “Look, there is no way you can prove I was there for any reason other than circumstance. You investigate, you find out I had lunch in the area, supper, too, but nothing sinister. I was definitely at the wrong place at the wrong time—’cept I was able to help you out. I don’t regret that at all.”
His hands tightened on the edge of the treatment table. “So, you’re telling me that the ends should justify your means?”
“Nope, just that actions speak louder than words.”
Niemeyer snorted. “I’d rather believe you hit the accelerator by accident.”
“And I’d rather believe this is all a bad dream, but we both know it isn’t.” I shrugged. “You can haul me down to headquarters, or break into my hotel room, and grill me. You’ll get nothing.”
His brows furrowed. “You truly think that second barrage was not an accident?”
“I think of it as a weather forecast: seventy-five-percent chance of treachery, with mixed stupidity. We both know how it will be spun, and how it is being spun now. By noon you’ll have him here, visiting survivors, talking to the media, building up a frenzy of activity. We both know it. You’ll be lauded as a hero, as will he, and circumstance will toss you together. He’ll be legit and your hands will be tied.”
“Not as much as you think.”
“But more than you’d like.” I almost added, “And more than I’d like,” but I held back. Sam never would have said that.
“There’s a lot of things I don’t like, but I have to abide them.” The big man shrugged, then exhaled loudly and seemed to shrink a little. He turned his head slightly and regarded me carefully. “You are a material witness. I’ll want you to give a statement on what you saw.”
“Sure, I’ll head down there later today. After the crowds have cleared from the media conferences.”
He nodded wearily, then slid off the examining table and stood. “I’ve got people to check, reports to make.”
“I have a question for you. You’ll have to trust me with the answer.”
His head came back up as wariness tightened his eyes. “And the question is?”
“Insider or anonymous tip?”
“Just like before.”
Just like when I had tipped them about the Palace raid. This brought a new player into the mix, someone who wanted Ff W to fail. It had to be someone inside the organization, but who? Catford, Gypsy and Elle all had to be candidates. Tactical commanders would have been, too, but they wouldn’t have called Public Safety in on themselves. I included Siwek just for
the fun of it.
Niemeyer watched me, then nodded. “You going to cause trouble?”
“Probably, but not for you.”
“Why? Why not just leave?”
“Did you have someone following me last night?”
“No, but I know where you were. At one of the Basalt Foundations kitchens. You helped out.”
“So maybe I’ll be helping out. It’s a nice world you have here.” I gave him a Sam-nonchalant shrug. “I would like to see it remain that way.”
Niemeyer hesitated for a moment, then nodded, but said nothing. He shuffled from the trauma room.
An intern slapped a light anesthetic patch on my legs, then gave me a pair of scrub pants since mine had been cut clean off me. I retained the rags in a plastic bag because they held my identification, squawker, noteputer and some money. Wandering out of the hospital, I took one look at the smoking wreck of the Cabochon and hailed a hovercab. A Drac brought his cab over and picked me up.
The trip back to the Grand Germayne did not take that long, but I managed to use my noteputer to do a bit of work before we arrived. True to my word, I was going to stir up some trouble, and I wanted to have a safety net in place to make sure I could clean up after myself.
About a block and a half from the hotel, an unmarked Public Safety unit hit its lights and siren and the taxi pulled over. I gave a moment’s consideration to bolting from the taxi and running, but my legs just weren’t going to go along with that plan. Two plainclothes officers—the two on Bernard’s payroll—approached with needle pistols drawn and ordered me out of the vehicle. While one of them conducted me back to their hovercar, the other told the taxi driver to get going and that unless he wanted to be associated with “all the other Drac terrorists,” he’d just forget the fare.
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