“Jenna! For God’s sake get out.”
To hell with her promise—
Voices. Steps on the stair. She dove for the dead Japanese, snatched up his sidearm, and pivoted before the first man came into range.
Split target, dammit. Two on the stairs, one in the door. Perception had slowed to almost stop-motion. She dropped into the Weaver stance, right arm rigid as a rifle stock, left hand reinforcing the right fingers around the pistol butt. Left elbow down. Flick off safety. Double action. Good.
First man. Flash of light. He had gotten off a shot. Jenna squeezed her trigger, twice. Two in the chest. Second man coming in the door. She addressed him, two shots—one chest, one head, dead center. His head flew back, and he crashed against the wall, but Jenna had already swung back to the stairs. First man had fallen. Third was almost down, in range. There was a second shot. Who? She wasn’t sure. Legs visible. She squeezed off three more shots, at the legs and hips, before the third man could descend to firing level. Third one caught him. He tumbled, sprawling over the first men.
She swung back to number two—
Ripping, terrible pain in her side. Japanese bastard wasn’t dead. Blood gushed from his gashed throat, but he had managed to draw a boot knife and clip her side as her attention was focused on the other three. She spun away from the pain even as it bit into her, and addressed him. Firing twice, both into the head at close range.
Jenna staggered back against the wall, sobbing for breath, knowing that when the pain came, it was going to be bad. She needed time to stanch the wound. But Aubry and Bloodeagle needed help.
No. They were depending on her to do her part. To keep her word. She hated herself, hated the necessity, but Jenna ran, ran through the back of the building as a jarring explosion tore the side out of their hotel.
Aubry. Bloodeagle …
She was in an alley. Screams filled the street, and the sound of whooping skimmers filled the air. Jenna swallowed her pride, and her fear, and disappeared into the night.
39
Bloodeagle was trapped. Aubry was still unconscious, his leg partially sutured up. A little blood still leaked onto the table, and he was finishing when he heard the scream in the hallway.
Doubtless there were undocumented laborers, and drug dealers, in this building. The result was that armed men, even having no interest in anything but Aubry, would cause a stir.
Shots.
Carefully enfolded in an oilskin was the detonator he had removed from Aubry’s leg. It did not hum. It did not tick. But he knew that the mechanism within the blood-smeared steel tube continued its relentless progress toward zero.
Bloodeagle concealed it under the bed and dragged Aubry into the bathroom, leveraging his enormous body into the bathtub. The unconscious man lay there, breathing shallowly.
Bloodeagle reached out and stroked Aubry’s face.
“Aubry,” he said gently. The barest smile crossed his face. So beautiful. And utterly incapable of seeing the possibilities. Aubry stirred gently, groaned, and lapsed back into unconsciousness.
Bloodeagle bent over and, very gently, kissed him. He tasted Aubry’s sleeping breath, rubbed his stubbled cheek against Aubry’s.
“In another life, my brother,” he said.
Then the front door exploded.
40
The concussion jolted Aubry into consciousness. He struggled to his knees, then heard the first blast of gunfire, and crouched again, humiliated by his own weakness.
He peeked up over the edge of the tub, and saw Miles Bloodeagle die.
Singing his death song, Miles charged them. There were three black men, security forces of the Central African Republic, and they had no idea what it was they faced. Miles Bloodeagle was no ordinary man. He was a NewMan, one of the beings spawned in the Gender Wars, a creation of superior strength and speed and intent.
Their guns roared at him, and any ordinary man would have died then. He took a grazing shot in the shoulder, and another one in the hip. His mind simply shut down the pain, and he was onto them, and for what happened next, Aubry’s heart sang.
Bloodeagle was not as fast as Aubry, not as strong, although perhaps his musculature was thicker.
But he shared Aubry’s total, mindless commitment to the moment, and its impact was awesome. The amplitude and speed and sheer clarity of his movement were virtually balletic.
One of the men dropped where he stood, spine shattered. Bloodeagle fought from a crouch, moving up and down, side to side, throwing, and landing low kicks, constantly maneuvering, and the men were in each other’s lines of sight.
He had his hands on the second, and slammed him into the wall, and Aubry could hear the bones shatter.
And then the third. But Bloodeagle was weakening now, and the man got his hands on Bloodeagle. It didn’t matter—the Cherokee twisted him like a doll, and threw him aside.
He turned, and the next man through the door fired, catching Bloodeagle again, along the side of the head. But the NewMan pivoted as he fired. In an eye-baffling movement he whipped a chair up and around, hurling it the way an Olympian hurls the hammer, and the security man’s head rocked back so fast that his neck snapped and then—
And then the death machine that had been secreted in Aubry’s leg triggered. There was a moment in which the entire world was devoured by white light. There was the sensation of heat, and then of cold. And then there was nothing at all.
41
The street boiled with police. Jenna immediately switched out of combat mode, softened her face and body language, and shut away her pain. She wore a stolen coat over her hastily bandaged wound, and prayed that the blood wouldn’t seep through.
She cut a sidewise glance at the next man who examined her inquiringly. He was thickset, with a puffy face and an effeminate mouth.
He jerked his head and said something in a language that she didn’t understand. She nodded and followed him.
Behind her, a squadron of skimmers lifted away from the hotel roof. She didn’t need to be told what they carried.
Aubry …
Miles …
My God. What did I do. What have I done?
She walked up a winding staircase with the man, and into a dingy room. He closed the door, and as he did, saying something else in that singsong voice, she slipped up behind him and her arm twined around his throat.
Her rage was homicidal. She ached to complete the torque and break his neck. But his only sin was in finding her attractive. He had not been rude. Perhaps he would even have been gentle. As gentle as a man could be.
She changed the grip. He passed out, and slipped to the ground.
Jenna sat on the edge of the bed. She held her face in her hands, and contemplated her next move.
42
Outside, in the street, Daglia’s chief of police, an African named James Danessh, considered the evening’s catch. Two men. One dead, one unconscious. Seven of his own men were dead, one probably crippled for life.
What in the hell was going on here? Alerts from the goddamned PanAfricans had brought heat down on his neck. Informants had pinpointed the foreigners rapidly. And then he had put his people into motion.
Seven men dead. “Search,” he told his assistant brusquely. “There is another man.”
There was more to this than met the eye. Much more. And he would extract payment for his dead men. He had something that the PanAfricans wanted, and they would pay dearly for it. There were rumors. Swarna had fallen ill. Suddenly. Perhaps this man Azziz had tried to kill Swarna? A shame the attempt hadn’t succeeded. But still, if he could find the third conspirator, alive, there was advantage to be gained.…
43
“I have tried to be an honorable man,” Harris said.
Jeffry Barathy thought that the president would seem a larger, broader man. He realized that the weight of office, and perhaps something more than that, had shrunken him over the years.
“I have tried, but personal and national interests rarely
coincide.”
“I can understand that.” The image was crystal clear, but Jeffry understood that the computer links were as secure as technology could make them. A plainclothes member of the Gorgon antiterrorist task force, which—it was an open secret—sometimes acted as a security arm of the executive branch, had hand-delivered the descrambler to Jeffry personally, and insisted that he prepare for a message from the president. Jeffry had been skimmed to a safe house outside Las Vegas, a room in the basement of a building labeled only GENERAL PRODUCTS, INC. He had descended in an elevator and wheeled himself through a short maze of passages. He had seen no other human beings, save the two enormous men behind him. And they had waited outside the room. He wondered, a little alarmed at what would happen to someone who tried to enter, to get past those two utterly foreboding men. He decided that it would probably be better not to know.
“How can I help you, Mr. President?”
He was quite certain that he had not been brought here on a whim.
“I am nearing the end of my second term. A breach of security such as we are about to discuss could severely imperil my party’s ability to hold on to the White House for another four years.” He smiled bleakly, raising his shoulders a little as if in apology for being a politician.
“But,” he said, “there are things which go beyond politics.”
“Like Aubry Knight?”
The president smiled. “Yes. Like Aubry Knight. I would like to ask you point-blank: What have you been able to discover about his whereabouts and activities? I believe that Koskotas is lying to me. I can bring pressure to bear, but time is of the essence here.”
“Virtually nothing. He hooked into the Denver sky line, and then disappeared.”
Harris drummed his fingers for a moment before speaking. “Please listen closely. I will only say this once. Aubry Knight was prepared for an operation against Phillipe Swarna. He was inserted in Ma’habre, and traveled south to Swarnaville and there made contact. The attempt failed, although Knight performed … admirably.” Harris removed his glasses, and wiped them with a gesture that was pure stalling tactic. “He is a … remarkable man, isn’t he?”
“That’s what everyone seems to think.”
“Tell me … how much personal contact with him have you had?”
“Not a lot. Just the operation four years ago.”
“I see. You have a reputation, and you have the personal incentive. I wish to make certain … information available to you. At three forty-five a.m., your time, your computer banks must be prepared to receive a transmission—approximately twelve megabytes of files pertaining to something called Operation STYX. It is the most I can do. Afterward, all references to this conversation must be destroyed. It must never be spoken of. Do you understand?”
Jeffry swallowed. “Of course.”
“Very well.” Harris allowed himself the tiniest ghost of a smile. “You know, one makes do with what material one can get. You are … more interesting material than most.”
And the image dissolved.
44
There was no air in the room. On the other hand, perhaps it was the hanging upside down that did it. Aubry’s diaphragm was exhausted. He was gasping for breath in a manner that utterly terrified him, or would have, except that he was somewhere beyond terror. His leg bled, and a trickle of blood ran down it and into his mouth.
“Who are you?” James Danessh said. He was speaking in pidgin English, and Aubry found it difficult to understand some of it.
Other aspects of the conversation he understood very well indeed.
He hung upside down in a room that felt as cold as a meat locker. He was dizzy, and tired, and in so much pain that he could barely think. His circulation was gone.
“Cut him down,” Danessh said.
Aubry tried to brace himself, tried to relax, and it meant very little. He crashed into the ground shoulders first, and barely managed to get his head out of the way.
“Cut him loose,” Danessh suggested.
They did. There was no circulation. No blood to his limbs. Despite the pain, Aubry wanted nothing more than to curl up and go to sleep. Two men, almost as large as Aubry, hauled him upright, and one of them drove a fist into his gut.
“I think that you will talk to us,” the first one said. The second agreed, heartily, and slammed a fist into Aubry’s gut to demonstrate the practicality of the suggestion.
Aubry tried to move. He tried to steady his breathing. He knew a dozen ways that he could have killed both of these men. They were clowns, with soft bodies to match their blows, which ordinarily wouldn’t have bothered him more than gnat lashes.
But he was so tired. And hurt. And cold. And all he wanted to do was sleep.
So tired.
His world flashed red as another fist smashed into him, and he sagged.
The second man looked up from his work. “Excuse me,” he said, and slammed his fist into Aubry’s face.
“Nullboxer? Shit. I could have killed him at his best. Now, he is a nothing. Step back. Stand him up.”
Aubry fought with himself, momentarily shaken out of his dream. Wasn’t there any strength at all? There wasn’t, and he felt as weak as a baby. But …
But he feigned complete torpor, allowed himself to seem weaker still, and weak to the point where they not only had to stand him up, but hold him up, as if he were dead. And as he did he concentrated all of his strength in one leg. His right leg. Still not enough strength. Then just in his right foot. There was a slight tingle of light if he concentrated that precisely. And then he managed to feel as if the strength in his body were a thick, viscous syrup, and he concentrated the entirety of it in his right toe. The rest of his body was a thing of numbness and death … but there was a spot of light in that darkness. The big man stepped forward, and with the greatest effort of his life Aubry sent that single point of light arcing into the juncture between his tormentor’s legs. The moment of contact was electric in intensity.
Oh …
It felt so good to have that moment, as if it was something long denied him. To see the flash of surprise on the fat, flabby face. To see the eyes start out from their sockets, to see the hands fumble to the crushed and ruptured genitals, and watch him bend over …
To see the thin stream of vomit. Then there was a sound like a bell, ringing against the side of his head, and all was darkness.
Danessh glared at the man with the ruptured testicles, and shook his head. “You are a fool,” he said. The man could not answer. He was far too busy cupping himself, and perhaps bemoaning the loss of his sex life.
“Perhaps we are all fools.” He nudged Aubry Knight’s senseless form with his toe. “There is much here that I do not understand.” He watched his breath form frozen puffs in the cooler, and shuddered, drawing his thick woolen coat tighter across his thin shoulders. “And I’m not certain how much time we have to understand it.”
Aubry awoke in the cell. It was, perhaps, a little warmer. He curled onto his side, and there was not enough heat for him to feel that he could move. He was dying, and it didn’t seem to matter much. He had done all that he could to protect his family. To regain his honor.
And more than that no man could do.
Golah, senior guard at Daglia Prison, was used to many things, but there was an unaccustomed sense of excitement in the air.
There had been many official visitors, and the vidphones were still humming. Everyone wanted to see, or speak of, the man in the security cell.
There was a sense of excitement. This had, in some way, been a coup over the hated PanAfricans, and the sense was that there would be a way to turn it to their advantage.
It wasn’t the same as holding the member of a royal family, or even an ambassador, or something of that kind.
But what happens when you hold a man who attempted to assassinate a head of state?
Attempted? As yet, there had been no further word on Swarna’s condition.…
Golah lit a cigarette and l
ooked out at the desert. There could be a garden there, if they had the technology to make it bloom. The Jews and the Ibandi had done it. And there could be benefits …
He lit another cigarette, inhaling deeply, never realizing that it was his last.
Two miles away, two men and a woman met, shaking stones from a leather cup.
“Whose task will it be, siblings?” Ni said.
“Should we even go? He allowed himself to be taken,” Roku reminded them.
“Any man can be taken,” San said. “He was in a foreign land. He had no training in such things. He was betrayed. Surrounded by enemies. Still, he performed superbly.” She lifted her head, almost sniffing the air. “I think it likely that he endures torture superbly.”
The bones rolled out, and tumbled to a rest in the sand. Go took his turn, rattled them, and sprawled them out.
The bones came to a rest. Go smiled. “It is mine.”
The four of them shook hands in a curious four-way clasp.
“The honor is yours, my brother.”
“It is mine.”
“Have a good death.”
Clouds had stolen the moon, and the wind off the desert was a low, moaning thing.
Golah thought about another cigarette. He craved it. He knew that he was killing himself, slowly, but in his considered opinion, the taste of another cigarette would be worth its infinitesimal reduction of his life span. One should live for today, he mused. The future took care of itself.
He shook a cigarette out of its pack, then looked down and saw the dot on his chest. He said “Oh …” a moment before the bullet slammed into his breastbone, a single .22 slug that tore through bone and cartilage and delivered a ghastly load of hydrostatic shock to his system. He was dead before he hit the ground. The guards in the other towers died next, one after another. In more advanced environs, they would have had more armor, more protection. But they were poor, and had endured a lifetime of indignities owing to that simple fact of birth. In the final analysis, death was just one more.
Firedance Page 25
