Act of War

by Dale Brown

  “I was sure you’d bugger him a few times first—you are into little boys, aren’t you, Khalimov?” The Russian killer’s smile dimmed, and Pereira saw him swallow hard. “Or did your boss tell you not to bugger the victims before you killed them? Afraid you’d leave DNA traces behind that would lead back to him? I get it.” Pereira turned to his son and said, “This is Captain Pavel Khalimov, son. He rapes and kills young boys for fun, like that old one-eyed Colombian Feliz down on Pier Seventy-seven did before you and your friends took care of him. What do we do to perverts like that, son?” Manuelo expertly shot a glob of spit into Khalimov’s face. “Very good, son. That’s exactly what we think of corn-holing faggots like Khalimov here.”

  The big Russian flicked the switchblade in a blur of motion, opening up a deep gash on Manuelo’s left cheek. The boy screamed like the child he was but quickly silenced himself and started swearing in Portuguese. Blood gushed down his face, and very soon the boy’s face began to turn pale. “I suppose you would call that a badge of honor for your bastard child, eh, Pereira?” Khalimov asked. He stepped forward, grasped Manuelo behind his neck, and pulled him around so he could face his father. The boy kicked, clawed, and pulled, but it was obvious his strength was quickly leaving his young, thin body. “Say good-bye to your son, Pereira,” the Russian said, raising the knife. “Maybe I’ll pay a visit to your big-titted young wife after I dispose of you and see if she needs consoling.” Pereira screamed over the noise of the nearby bulldozers as Khalimov drew the knife across…

  Suddenly a massive shape and a blur of motion obscured Pereira’s view. He and his PME captors were pushed roughly backward by a metallic bar or tool of some sort. Manuelo screamed again, and the father screamed in unison, unable to see or do anything in the confusion. Machine gun fire broke out—Khalimov’s guards, no doubt—so close that Pereira thought he could feel the bullets whizzing past his ears, and he instinctively curled up into a ball to present the smallest and most innocent-looking target for the gunmen. A shotgun blast rang out, completely destroying Pereira’s hearing.

  He hated himself for thinking it, but he prayed that last shot, directed at the last spot where he thought Manuelo had been standing, would quickly end his suffering.

  Just then, in the midst of another barrage of machine gun fire, Pereira was suddenly airborne, lifted by the back of his trousers and hurled through the air. A split-second later he landed, hard, on the concrete wharf again—and when he opened his eyes, he was face-to-face with his son, Manuelo, who was looking at him with tear-filled but overjoyed eyes, holding a blood-covered hand over his facial wound. “Manuelo…my God, Manuelo…!”

  Then, between the gun blasts, he heard a strange but very loud and clear electronically synthesized voice in English. “Help the boy, dammit. Get him out of here.”

  Pereira pressed his hand over his son’s face to staunch the blood and to cover his young body with his. He looked up just in time to see…well, he had no idea what in hell it was. It moved like a man but looked like something out of a science-fiction movie, with segmented body parts, wide back tapering down to a slim waist, bullet-shaped head, and weirdly articulating limbs. It didn’t move like any machine he had ever seen, but it obviously was some kind of human-looking construct. He heard machine gun fire and then saw sparks and flying pieces of shattered lead fragments as the bullets bounced off the machine; a barrel like a short grenade launcher atop a large box on the machine’s back swiveled around and fired a projectile of some sort. The acidy, stinging scent of tear gas reached his nostrils, making it instantly hard to breathe, and Pereira instinctively scooped up his son in his arms and scrambled to his feet, moving away from the gas and hoping he didn’t fall off the wharf into the harbor.

  The robotlike thing sprinted away so fast that Pereira couldn’t believe what he saw. More bullets ricocheted off its smooth metallic skin. A PME officer would move out of hiding, afraid of the approaching machine, and before he could take two steps the machine was on him, knocking him unconscious with a single blow to the head with an armored fist. The pattern was repeated twice more: a soldier or one of Khalimov’s men would shoot, the robot would rush him, the gunman would bolt, and the thing conked him out.

  Out of the clouds of gas a PME wheeled armored vehicle appeared, firing its twenty-three-millimeter machine gun mounted on a roof turret at the robot. The robot sprinted diagonally away, far faster than the gunner in the turret could follow, and in moments it had dodged back and jumped atop of the APC. One massive hand reached down to the machine gun barrel, and with a quick jerk the barrel bent, then snapped. The robot then pulled the gunner out of the gun turret and tossed him to the pavement, aimed the barrel of his shoulder-mounted grenade launcher inside the vehicle, and fired. Within moments acidic smoke began streaming from the turret and all of the APC’s crew members abandoned the vehicle, coughing and gagging as they threw themselves outside as fast as they could. With the APC stopped, the robot stepped off, reached down to the bottom of the armored car’s body, and effortlessly lifted the vehicle over onto its side, putting it out of action.

  Yop tvayu mat! Khalimov swore to himself as he dashed for his Land Rover SUV a few meters away and opened the locked steel case in back. What in hell is that thing? He remembered something about the Americans developing a powered strength-enhancing exoskeleton that could carry weapons and give its wearer incredible physical ability, but he never thought he’d ever see one, especially not down here in Brazil! This had to be reported to Zakharov immediately—but first it had to be stopped before it rolled over both his security men and the PME officers he had hired to help him find Pereira. The thing was strong and obviously bulletproof, but it didn’t look that massive.

  He had just one choice of weapon and just one chance to knock this thing out.

  Through the thinning clouds of gas Pereira saw Khalimov raise what looked like a rocket-propelled grenade launcher or LAWS rocket and aim it at the robot. “Olhar Para fora! Tem um foguete!” he shouted, but he was too late. The projectile hit the robot squarely in the back on his left side, and it went flying as if hit by a wrecking ball. When the smoke cleared, the robot was lying facedown, blackened and smoldering like a half-burned piece of firewood. It looked like a smashed toy, but Pereira could see a small rivulet of purplish fluid and a wisp of smoke leaking from its back near where the projectile exploded and thought about the irony of a bleeding machine. Was it blood, or could it be…?

  …and at that moment, to Pereira’s astonishment, the robot began to slowly get on its feet. It was obviously wounded, moving much more stiffly and not nearly as smoothly and gracefully as it had been just moments ago, but it was now moving toward the Russian.

  Khalimov swore in Russian, dropped the spent LAWS canister, drew his pistol, and fired. The robot tried to pursue him but appeared to be suffering a serious malfunction, because it was now moving very slowly and clumsily. Khalimov holstered his pistol and ran over to one of the nearby running bulldozers, jumped in, and steered it toward the robot. The machine managed to keep from getting pinned under the front blade by hanging onto it, but Khalimov didn’t care. He steered the bulldozer over to the edge of the wharf, set the throttle lever to high, and jumped off just before the bulldozer, with the robot still clinging onto the blade, tumbled into the harbor. He looked over at Pereira, wanting to finish the job he had been assigned, but by then Manuel had retrieved a PME assault rifle and had just loaded a fresh magazine in it, so the Russian turned and sprinted away. In moments he sped off in his Land Rover with two PME sedans accompanying him.

  “Jason!” Ariadna shouted. Vega, Skyy, and Jefferson, all wearing bulletproof vests, helmets, goggles, and gas masks, sprinted over to where the bulldozer had gone into the ocean.

  “Follow me!” Jefferson shouted. He leaped aboard the garbage barge closest to the scene, lowered the conveyor belt that had been loading trash onto the barge, and unclipped the cable. Swinging the arm out over the gunwale, he fed out a length of cable, kicke
d off his boots, grabbed the end of the cable, and jumped into the harbor where bubbles were still rising. Ari dashed over to the barge and stood by the controls. A minute later, Jefferson surfaced. “Go! Raise him up, now!”

  It was an immense relief to all of them to see the CID unit pulled from the ocean. He was unceremoniously laid facedown into a pile of garbage, and Ariadna was beside him immediately. “That round hit him right in the damaged power pack access door,” she said. “He lost the entire hydraulic system.” She used a Leatherman pocket tool to open a tiny access panel on the unit’s waist, punched in a code on a keypad, and the entry hatch opened up on the CID unit’s back. “Help me get him out of there.”

  But it wasn’t necessary, because just then Jason pulled himself out of the flooded CID unit. He coughed, then vomited seawater, looking as white as a sheet, rattled but unhurt. “Shit, what was that?” he said after they took him away from the worst of the tear gas still wafting around the wharf. “I feel like I got hit by a train.”

  “It was a LAWS rocket fired from about fifteen meters,” Ari said. “We thought you were toast. Then you got run over by a bulldozer and pushed into the ocean.”

  “The sensors went blank when the rocket hit—all I got were warning messages about the hydraulic, electrical, and environmental systems failing,” Jason said. “I had just enough power to lift the blade or whatever was on top of me, then everything went out. I was okay until the water covered my face. Thirty more seconds and I was a goner.” He looked up at Jefferson and raised a hand, and the Ranger shook it. “Thank you for saving my life, Sergeant Major.”

  “Don’t mention it, Major,” Jefferson said. “I’m glad you’re in one piece. I saw that LAWS round hit and thought we’d be spending the next few days picking up all the pieces. That’s one hell of a machine you built.”

  They went back to look for Pereira. The Brazilian was trying to get away in the confusion and battle, but he couldn’t move very fast while still handcuffed and with an injured boy in his arms. They found him a few minutes later, hiding in some wooden shipping pallets. “Relaxe,relaxe,” Kristen Skyy said in English-accented Portuguese. She pressed a handkerchief over the boy’s facial injuries while Jefferson found a handcuff key and released them both. “The boy is hurt.”

  “Quem esta? Pode me ajudar?”

  “I’m a reporter. Televisao,” she replied. She was wearing a dark blue bulletproof vest with the letters “TV” in white cloth tape on both front and back; a blue Kevlar helmet with similar letters front and back; yellow-lensed goggles; a gas mask hanging under her chin; blue jeans and combat boots. “Yes, we can help you.”

  Through his watery vision, Pereira could see four persons carrying the immobile robot to a waiting PME panel van. “Quem é aquele? O deus, o que é ele?”

  “Amigo,” Kristen said. She put his hands back on his son’s face. “Help the boy.” She went over to the van and watched as they loaded the machine into the back. Her cameraman and soundman were right behind her, recording everything.

  “Is that him?” Jason asked after the CID unit was loaded up.

  “Yes,” Kristen said. “Manuel Pereira, former Brazilian army commando, GAMMA second in command. His family lives somewhere in this shantytown. I assume that’s his son—he’s supposed to have at least one son around that age.”

  “Who was trying to kill him?”

  “The men in uniform are PME officers,” Kristen replied. “Manuel Pereira is wanted by the PME—more accurately, he’s wanted by TransGlobal Energy, and that’s good enough for the Brazilian government.” She motioned toward an unidentified man in civilian clothing lying unconscious on the wharf. “But these guys, the ones not in uniform and the one who fired that LAWS rocket and drove you into the drink—I don’t know who they are. They might be Atividade de Inteligencia do Brasil, the Brazilian Intelligence Agency, which reports to the President of Brazil, or maybe they’re CIA.”

  “That’s easy enough to check,” Jefferson said, pulling out his cell phone.

  Jason, Kristen, and her crew went over to Pereira. “Fala Ingles, Manuel?”

  “Um pouco. A little.”

  “Quem o atacou? Who attacked you?” Pereira paused, still ethnically and morally hesitant to rat on anyone even after everything that had happened. Kristen motioned to the boy and asked in broken Portuguese, “Quem atacou seu filho, Manuel?”

  Rephrasing the question to include his son changed everything—one look down at his son’s deeply scarred, blood-covered face, and the hesitation was gone. “Captain Pavel Khalimov,” Pereira said. “He is soldier with Yegor Viktorvich Zakharov, GAMMA’s second in command.”

  “I thought you were second in command of GAMMA?”

  “No more. Zakharov is military leader now.”

  “What about Jorge Ruiz?”

  “I think Zakharov in charge now,” Pereira said. “Jorge want only to warn of poluicao, of corrupcao—Zakharov, nao. He is violencia, guerra, poder. GAMMA is no more.”

  Kristen looked at Jason in surprise; then, after making sure her cameras were rolling, asked, “Did Zakharov have something to do with Kingman City, Manuel? Did Yegor Zakharov plan and carry out the nuclear attack in the United States?”

  Pereira closed his eyes, lowered his head, then nodded. “Sim,” he said. “Terrivel. Desventurado. He must be stopped. He is very powerful, importante.” He swallowed hard, then looked away. “Desculpe. I am sorry. Zakharov is not GAMMA, GAMMA is not Zakharov. Jorge wants only paz, respeito, esperanca. Zakharov wants only violencia. I never trust Zakharov. Jorge only trust him.”

  “Onde e Zakharov agora?”

  “Nao sabe,” Pereira replied. “After we attack Repressa Kingman, we hide, move around.”

  “Pode falar Jorge Ruiz?”

  Pereira’s eyes returned to Kristen’s. “Sim,” he replied. “I can call. Telefone segredo.”

  “Does Zakharov know this secret phone number?”

  “Sim,” Pereira said. “We must hurry. Pressa.Jorgeestánoperigogrande.”

  Pereira, his son, wife, and baby were taken away with Richter, Vega, Skyy, her film crew, and Jefferson into their waiting PME armored van. As they sped off to their waiting helicopter at São Paulo International Airport, Pereira called their secret drop number. “Nao resposta,” he said. “Eu comecei somente sua máquina da mensagem. He will call this number when he receives my message.”

  “If Zakharov doesn’t get to him first,” Jefferson said. “His assassin Khalimov found Pereira—Zakharov might know where Jorge is hiding.”

  “Onde esta Jorge Ruiz?” Kristen asked Pereira.

  “Hiding. We move many times.”

  “But do you know where he might be most of the time?”

  Pereira hesitated, then nodded. “Sua quinta, his farm, em Abaete, Minas Gerais,” he said finally.

  “I know where it is,” Kristen said excitedly. “I covered Ruiz during one of his human rights rallies there. Abaete is where GAMMA was started. It’s less than two hours north of here by jet.”

  “The government seize his farm, move his family’s gravesite, and sold it, but the new owners allow him to visit and hide there. He…como você diz…torna-se re-energizado…strong, refreshed, there. Maybe he go there.”

  “We need to get there as quickly as possible, Sergeant Major…”

  “We’re going to need authorization to operate outside São Paulo state first,” Jefferson said. “I’m not going to start a war down here.”

  “We’re working with the PME to…”

  “Don’t even go there, Major,” Jefferson said. “I’ve seen how the PME operates: each officer hires himself out to the highest bidder, and no one even thinks twice about switching sides whenever it suits them. I was authorized to travel to Brazil to assist the authorities to capture and question Manuel Pereira, not to fly around the entire country getting into gunfights with government troops. We’re not going anywhere else except back to the States.”

  “But Jorge Ruiz will be dead by
then.”

  “From what Pereira has said, he might be dead already—and even if he’s not, his organization has been corrupted and taken over by this Zakharov guy,” Jefferson said. “I’m not going to risk the future of Task Force TALON chasing after a guy who might not be a factor in the attacks in the United States.” He glanced back at the van following them, the one carrying Richter’s and Vega’s CID unit. “Besides, Major, Doctor, you two have some repairs to do. Or did you forget that your robot back there had to be pulled off the bottom of the harbor with a crane?”

  “Then send Task Force TALON, Sergeant Major,” Jason said. “You’ve got a platoon of top-notch troops back at Cannon ready to go—why not get clearance for them to deploy? We can act as their advance team and scout Ruiz’s farm in Abaete. They can bring CID Two along with some real weapons.” He made a quick mental calculation in his head; then: “They can be here by dawn. We can be in Abaete and scope out the farm at night and brief the team before they go in.”

  Jefferson thought for a few moments, then nodded and opened his phone. “I’ll request the clearances and get the rest of the team loaded up and moving south,” he said. “But we don’t do anything until we get permission from the White House. We were authorized to fly to São Paulo, period. We stay here, or we head back to the States.”

  Over Kingman City, Texas

  A short time later

  “My God,” the President breathed. “I can’t believe it…I simply can’t believe it.” He sat back in his seat in a Marine Corps UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, one of three orbiting over the blast site in a sort of aerial “shell game” to confuse any attackers that might want to shoot the President’s helicopter down. None of the helicopters had any presidential markings—they resembled the military helicopters that had been orbiting the area since shortly after the blast occurred. He shook his head numbly. “A nuclear terrorist attack on American soil. It’s simply incredible.”