She rounded the side of the display setup, and found a body sprawled, machine-pistol limply in hand, a single round drilled neatly through the centre of his forehead, a similar hole in the wall behind where he would have been sitting when the intruders had blasted their way in through the ceiling. A light weapon, for it not to have taken his head off. Short range, light, mobile, good for close-in fighting. Professionals.
The display screens were off, connecting cables ripped clear. The body pulled far enough aside to allow one or two people to sit or stand, access the terminals, get what they'd come for and leave the way they'd come, up through the ceiling. She took a deep breath, rifle unerringly sighted upon the darkened room that to combat-vision looked alive and gleaming with bright and complicated detail. She knew exactly what this op was, she'd done them herself. She could have been revisiting the scene of her own past history. Only she'd have hoped to put a hole through this half-competent techie's shoulder, not his head. No need for it, normally. Someone was on very strict orders.
She did a fast search of the apartment's other rooms, finding only empty, if moderately flashy, residential quarters, bedrooms and a bathroom-all recently occupied and occasionally littered with empty cans or bottles, display readers or technical manuals of varying description. Finished her search in time to hear a scuffing of sound beyond the outside hiss of water from the broken pipe, then coming through the door ... just the right sound and pace to be Ari, she guessed. He wasn't bothering to slow down, evidently having guessed who'd caused the carnage outside. He came in somewhat less wet than she, paused briefly to consider the scene in the living room, then came striding over to where she was re-examining the body by the terminal centre. He was breathing hard but by no means exhausted. His right hand grasped an identical TS-4 to her own, its muzzle glowing red hot to her heat sensitive vision, though whether that had been from his own firing, or that of its previous owner, she had no way of telling.
"This wasn't any bunch of amateur assassins," she told him without preamble, "this was professional combat ops. The only professional combat ops in Tanusha who aren't working for us just arrived in the League Embassy."
"GIs?" He looked surprised, but only a little. Paused at her side to consider the sprawled body on the floor, and the precision of the bullet hole. Exhaled with a hard grimace. "Yeah, I'll buy that. How'd they get in and blow a hole without triggering alarms?"
"Same way the League always does it," Sandy replied, moving to a covering position in the centre of the room as Ari stepped over the body and began examining the monitors and equipment around the workstation. "I think that's what I picked up before, it wasn't the GGs' thugs at all, it was the GIs. The GGs must have put people to cover their flanks, then discovered they'd been beaten here, I'd guess they've gone off to look for them."
"Yeah, well, they better hope they don't find them." Peering behind one terminal unit to examine the damage. "This is all fucked, no prints or anything ... any more bodies?"
"Nothing. If there was anyone here, the GIs took them with ... this guy's probably only dead because he resisted and the mission brief didn't include carrying injured targets."
"Um ... I reckon instead they got out early, maybe someone tipped them off." Ari straightened up, glancing about, biting absently at his bottom lip. Halfway between boyish indecision and cool, measured consideration. Dark-browed eyes narrowed with a certain intelligent intensity. "There's no point in hostages, the data's in the mainframe, you get that and get out. Hostages just get in the way."
Sandy nodded, it was logical. "What data?" she asked. "Sal Va's contacts? Locations?"
Ari gave her a sceptical sideways look.
"Dammit, if they got just a quarter of what these guys are involved with, it'll be a lot more than just Sal Va." Pointed at the corpse at his feet. "That's Lu Fayao, the SIB has been trying to get enough evidence to bust him for the last three years. He's got access formulations to parts of the network even Ibrahim's not allowed to have. Assuming this was League GIs, who's it likely to be and how many?"
Sandy took a deep breath, vision fixed upon the precise, personwide hole in the ceiling. Visualising the broader regional schematic, the number of troops required to infiltrate, cover, execute and fade ...
"I'd reckon a single tac-section, five GIs, probably mid-20s." Pause. "Maybe higher." A wary look from Ari. She didn't blame him. She didn't like the idea much herself. "They'll be decked out for black ops, real silent stuff, nothing dramatic. Their intel will be excellent, to get in like this without detection."
"Yeah, well, we got a lot of League contacts after the big blowupbut we were never going to get all of them ..." He performed a brief recheck of his new weapon, handling it with an easy familiarity that raised Sandy's suspicions of Ari's previous associations even further. "... let's go, we might still get something if we move fast."
"This job's a half hour old, Ari," Sandy replied as he strode past, "they'll have gotten out within five minutes the way these guys operate
"Uh-uh." Ari shook his head, pausing beside the pile of ferrocrete rubble beneath the ceiling hole, eyeing the ragged rim cautiously. "These guys have at least two other contacts down here in the warren, if they got in this quietly they'll have searched those places too ..." Gave her a quick, distracted look. "You coming?" And leapt-with the easy grace of athletic augmentation-caught a handful of rim onehanded and hauled himself quickly up and out of sight.
Sandy stared. And followed, restraining her frustration with an effort. Leapt, caught and yanked herself through with a fast vault, and found herself in an upper apartment room with similar furnishings and lived-in appearance ... no sign of the occupants, possibly tied up in an adjoining room. She had no time to check, and Ari was already headed out the front door, which was closed but unlocked, evidently hacked the quiet way.
"Ari!" she snapped on the private connection, and he paused to let her edge past and sneak first look into the main hallway. When she didn't draw fire, Ari moved to go past ... Sandy grabbed him by the jacket collar, pivoted smoothly and thumped him back against the wall of the entrance corridor. He blinked at her in dazed alarm as she fixed him with a hard, point-blank stare.
"You didn't say anything about other sites," she whispered harshly ... uplinked communication was probably smarter in the hallways, but she needed to make a point. "What else haven't you told me?"
"Sandy ... look, this is very important ..."
"D'you know why they never assigned me with a direct commanding officer for field ops in Dark Star? Because they knew damn well I'd shoot him if he fucked around with the lives of my team, and they knew it was damned unlikely he'd know better than me what to do. Do you think you know better?"
Ari blinked again, somewhat stunned. Not your sexy, cuddly pet GI now, huh? She kept her stare dangerously direct. He took a hurried breath.
"Sandy, this isn't a Dark Star op, there are civilian concerns here and you don't know all the angles ..."
"Because you don't fucking tell me anything. Who are these other people and why didn't you tell me about them before?"
"Sandy ... they're just more contacts of Sal Va's, I didn't think it'd be that important ..."
"Jesus Christ, Ari, when you put me into a firefight, you tell me everything! When it comes to survival I'm not negotiable, you got me?" A brief, wary nod. Not frightened, she doubted she could ever bluff him into thinking she might actually hurt him. Just wary. And about bloody time, too. "Now where are these people, and how can we get there?"
Again the uplink connected to hers, she accessed and the picture drew itself clearly across her internal schematic, two rooms at differing points of the underground complex.
"You take the north one," Ari suggested, unperturbed by the forearm pressure that pinned him to the wall. "I'll get the other ... these GIs, could they access your com-links?"
League software, Dark Star formalities ... she made a face. "It's possible." Released him with a dark, warning look. Ari tugged his shirt b
ack into place as if nothing had happened. "We'll keep it silent ... I'll meet you at yours, I move faster. Ari, if you get in their way, surrender-they'll know we're here now, they'll know it's you, and they're not going to want to kill CSA operatives. You can't shoot your way out, it's just not possible. Agreed?"
His eyes flashed with an unexpected, crooked smile. "I'm learning." And he left at a jog, giving her a flamboyant whack on the backside as he passed. Sandy took a brief moment to shake her head in disbelief before running after him.
Their paths diverged at the first cross-corridor, his headed left while she sprang lightly on ahead, vision-scanning for any signs of telltale movement or recent heat-imprints. The schematic unfolded before her-the new site Ari had assigned her was over on the north side of the warren ... surprising in its isolation, no nearby escape routes. Possibly a good thing, given that routes out were also routes in.
She duck-scanned at the next T-junction, finding only another empty length of dingy corridor ... sounds echoed, soft footsteps and voices from several hallways down, doubtless some of the locals had awoken to the commotion and braved the outside. She resolved to factor unarmed civilians into her firing equations, pushed off left and kept running. Another right-wide doorways in the scarred ferrocrete on her left, open space littered with empty crates and boxes-ware house space she guessed, ignoring the darting run of a long-bodied rodent across the corridor before her. The air smelt stale, more fluoros were out, plunging sections of echoing hallway into shadow. Another cross-corridor ahead, the air smelling different as the ventilation currents changed, and a big, ragged hole in the left wall dripped leaking water and condensation from cracks somewhere higher in the structure ...
She stopped, her back to the right-side wall at the T-junction. Something wasn't right. Her target apartment was just several more corners away through the increasingly dank and crumbling corridors. She visualised it on her schematic, a broad view showing her present relation to the tower retail complex above, and the flanking streets and entry points, ventilation and com-grids ... she was out from under the overhead complex now, a side street was several storeys directly overhead. Dirt between here and the surface, which explained the dampbeing built on a frequently rain-soaked river delta, Tanusha was wet. The soil gathered a lot of moisture and care was taken in building plans to avoid too much underground construction as it would displace the sponge-like qualities and cause the rivers to overflow and flood.
She reopened several adjoining links in a darting flash of electronic intent, connected into adjoining systems and saw that Ari's target apartment was directly under the main overhead tower complex, and barely ten metres from an elevator shaft. The elevator shaft had a security override to prevent it from descending down this far, and the shaft itself registered as blocked-all this lower part was "unofficial infrastructure," doubtless the owners of the overhead complex didn't advertise the nature of the residencies that existed below. She vision flashed across the registrar notice of tenant companies, scrolling rapidly until she hit ... Tetsu Incorporated, Administration and Marketing Division.
She recalled the raid she and SWAT Four had led on Tetsu nearly a month previous, in the midst of the FIA-infiltration crisis that unfolded following the Parliament Massacre and the attempt upon President Neiland's life. Up to their necks in it, Tetsu had been. Federal Intelligence Agency plants in middle management feeding illegal biotech data to equally illegal FIA anti-GI researchers. And separate League plants accepting the illegal knowledge that the League were willingly feeding them in an attempt to undermine the biotech restriction regime that remained strenuously enforced throughout the entire Federation. Ari had known the League delegation was newly arrived in town, GIs and all. He hadn't been surprised to find those GIs apparently involved in this present mess. And he'd sent her off in this direction, while he himself headed toward the most obvious entry point for a League infiltration-any League team would be likely still to possess Tetsu access codes, and possibly still have contacts inside, and could come down on the tower landing pads ...
Dammit, Ari, was her first and immediate thought, what don't you want me to find out?
She ran, fast, internal schematic showing her the quickest shortcut to reach Ari's intended destination, trusting that superior reflexes alone should be adequate to deal with any non-GI threat between here and there. Empty corridors echoed, and she kept her footsteps light and springy, bouncing on her toes with the reflex of long operational practice.
Found the apartment quickly enough-no security barrier this time, the door had been smashed open, contents strewn about the inside, but thankfully no more bodies. She darted back out and on down the adjoining corridor, the open elevator shaft upon her left, doors also forced wide, residual heat from footprints fading quickly on the scuffed ferrocrete outside. She glanced cautiously inside and upwards, weapon ready ... the shaft zoomed high and empty but for the central cables. There was no physical obstruction blocking the way, whatever the schematic said-a false reading then, placed there to confuse intruders. Probably certain persons who knew the codes simply used the elevator to ride in and out of the warren.
Another hack-and-scan on the schematic showed that an adjoining elevator further up-one that did not descend down this far-was already on call from the ground floor ... and the ground floor door to this shaft, which she could see just two levels above her present position, had been hacked. Ari, she guessed. On his way up to the Tetsu level. She shouldered the rifle strap, took a moment to tense the leg muscles in correct proportions, and leapt ... a calculated release of energy that shot her two levels up the elevator shaft ... and grasped the central cable at the apex with a steely grip. Had barely begun an override and hack of the opposing elevator door when one of the remote seeker functions she had implanted on the local network abruptly activated another portion of internal schematic. Codes and visual locations flashed across her vision, and she immediately recognised military-grade encryption. Not just military. League. Dark Star.
She threw out a trace seeker immediately. A brief pause as it replicated itself across a series of regional network sources ... At that moment the elevator cable to which she clung descended abruptly with an activating whine. She switched fast to the opposite cable and caught a ride up, twisted a leg to get some awkward leverage and jumped off as she passed the second floor door. Caught and balanced precariously on the narrow ledge, hacking a second path to this elevator door ... building security intervened this time, wise now to old tricks ...
From above her a whistling presence was coming down fast. She didn't need a glance to know how swiftly the car was approaching, and there wasn't enough space for her and it. Hit the door system with her least subtle attack barrier and the electronics simply fried. She smacked an elbow into one door-edge to make a dent, got her fingers into the resultant gap and pulled ... with a grating crunch of protesting mechanisms the doors opened. Into an open hallway on the tower's lower levels, people in suits passing-abrupt shock of alterna tive locations, the surroundings suddenly bright and gleamingly corporate. She unshouldered the rifle and tossed it back into the elevator shaft, then set off running with a loose, casual gait ... building security flared red alarm across her internal schematic, registering the infiltration in the elevator shaft. Surely security guards would be on their way.
And then the trace seeker came back to her with what it figured was a reasonable fix on a mobile source on the main road outside the building, moving away at foot speed toward the river ... Security rounded the corner up ahead, a pair of blue suits with tasers. Sandy produced her badge from a back pocket as she ran, paused long enough for one of them to scan-verify the seal (even security squibs had that basic enhancement in Tanusha), and ignored the following questions, dodging past several more suits as the hallway curved left. The right wall was all transparent, overlooking the road. Glass doors opened onto an open-air cafe overlooking the street below ... she darted through, skipping quickly between tables and startled diners t
oward the far right corner of the balcony. Grasped the railings and looked out toward the river.
A four-lane road, traffic banked at the lights of an intersection. Crowded sidewalks, pedestrians walking in the bright sunshine ... a typically busy downtown Zaiko scene. Another block beyond, the street ended in greenery and a walkway skirting the broad, blue expanse of the river. She overlaid the location her seeker trace had shown on the internal schematic ... a brief disorientation of distorted vision, graphical lines matching up reference points and measuring distances ... then came clear, a single, coloured spot flashing clearly upon the right-hand sidewalk amid the passing crowds. Another moment's calculation, adjusting for movement at time of detection, speed and time elapsed ... the circle vanished and reappeared further on toward the river, moving at walking speed. She frowned, visionzooming upon the people within the circle, knowing all too well it was an imprecise guess, her target could have changed directions, crossed the street, stopped or started running ... but there, in the middle of the visually imposed circle, was a man with a heavy jacket, zippers on the shoulders and pocketed cargo pants. Like her own. Black skin, dark sunglasses, hands in pockets and apparently unworried by the heat on this sunny Tanushan day. Cocky bastard. If she'd picked that last transmission, no doubt others would have too. Certain mafia types, especially, having access to League codes that League operatives had been stupid enough to lend them ...
"Excuse me, ma'am," came a waiter's voice at her elbow, no doubt concerned at the consternation of the other patrons at this rude arrival, "can I help you with something?"
"How 'bout a rope?" Sandy asked. And hurdled the railing before the waiter could consider what the hell she was talking about. Yells of desperate alarm from behind as she fell ... The broad transparent awning covering the tower's entrance spread directly below at a fortyfive degree downslope. She hit it feet-and-backside first, slid to the rim and leapt off with an extra shove, aiming for an empty space of sidewalk she'd spotted on the way down, hit, rolled with a hand to her side to keep the pistol in place-and set off running as pedestrians around leapt or stopped in double-take startlement at this woman who fell from the sky and into their midst.
Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1) Page 21
