“No,” Bull said. “You did a good job with her, Red.”
Vickie opened the slide again. “And stop talking about me like you think I can’t hear you!” she shouted. “Bagami-as pula in mortii matii!” She slammed the slide shut again. Saviour was howling. Romany was a great language for swearing.
“Chicks,” Red said, shaking his head.
“Truly,” Bull agreed.
“Hey Bull . . .” Red began, and paused.
“Just say it, Djinni.”
“Thanks,” Red finished, lamely. “And I’m sorry, man.”
Bulwark nodded, closed his eyes, and let himself pass out.
* * *
His breaths came in short bursts. He seemed otherwise paralyzed, his body refusing to respond to the simplest of commands. They had dug him out from the rubble, the only survivor, and were carrying him gingerly to the transport when he finally fought past his rage and managed to order them to a halt. He lay on the litter and concentrated, willing his body to heal. His rescuers gasped, a strange, muffled sound that reverberated from their mechanical mouthpieces, as his burns reverted to pinkish flesh while his bones and joints set and righted themselves.
Gingerly, Doppelgaenger swung his legs over the sides of his litter and stood up. He thought about obliterating them all for their tardiness, thought better of it, and told them to retrieve the remains of their fallen comrades instead. It wouldn’t do to simply leave that sort of technology lying about. Bad enough that Echo and Dominic Verdigris had retrieved as much as they had. His former elite squadron had been fitted with the next generation of energy cannons. It would be a mistake to let those fall into enemy hands. And he had failed enough for one day.
He strode lightly to the transport, a smaller and faster version of the gigantic Death Spheres, and pondered what had gone wrong. He had been arrogant, he supposed, overconfident in his own abilities, but he had earned that. It had been so very long since anyone had truly challenged him. No, that was unfair. Alone, the Djinni had proven no match for him. He should have taken him easily, if not for the inevitable interference by his allies. Little bugs, all of them, but together they had bested him.
He should have anticipated that, however. It had been the same in the War. These people never worked alone; no matter how much they cultivated the “lone wolf” image, the pack always came to the rescue. And the pack would never allow one of their own to fall without a fight.
To best the Djinni, he would need to best all of Echo, it seemed. No. Not all of Echo, only those closest and dearest to him. He needed . . .
Doppelgaenger grimaced. It would seem that game time was over. So much for fun.
“The pack will always come to the rescue,” he mused.
It was time to go to work.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Terminal
MERCEDES LACKEY AND CODY MARTIN
Verd had a plan. That plan did not include taking most of Echo with him. But being Verd, he liked having test runs.
* * *
It had been a good day for Dominic Verdigris, so far.
He had finished up an early lunch with Khanjar at one of the premier restaurants in Atlanta. She had found it strange initially, since Dominic usually took long lunches later in the afternoon, but quickly dismissed it. Working for Dominic Verdigris always involved putting up with personal quirks and ideas coming out of left field. If it wasn’t that he could, and demonstrably did, keep his attention on one thing for hours, days, and weeks at a time, she would have said he had ADD.
There was a sort of manic air around Verdigris today, as well; he was in an exceptionally good mood, and rushed to get back to his office at Echo HQ. Once he was at his desk, he was back to work almost instantly, typing through the interface at a nigh feverish pace.
Khanjar was lounging on a leather-covered chaise identical to her favorite in his office back on the island. Identical, except for color that is; Dom had done this office all in creams and golds and browns. He had gone into one of those trances of activity that had been all too rare since the Invasion.
“Dom, what are you doing? It’s been a while since I’ve seen you this . . .” She thought for a moment, as if rolling around the word she was going to use in her mouth. “Well, this happy.”
He looked up for a mere moment, still typing away. “Oh, just my daily stock market manipulations, putting distortions here and there where I want them. I’m also keeping up with the ponies; something about the racetrack always draws me back, I don’t know why. Getting a few different accounts taken care of offshore, more of the same ol’ same ol’, really. Setting up a deal with some of those chaps down in the Democratic People’s Republic of whatever in Africa; seems they need some new guns to start up another coup. Oh! Almost forgot—” All of it had been spilling out in rapid fire before Khanjar cut him off.
“That’s all nothing unusual for you. Something else is going on.” She cocked her head to the side coyly. “Won’t you tell me?”
Verdigris stopped, exhaling once. “Yes, yes, my dear. Come over and check this out.”
One of the many windows in the monitor that was the entire surface of his desk showed a sandwich shop just outside of Underground Atlanta. Strangely, all of the tables seemed to be occupied by black-uniformed Echo SupportOps—and Khanjar recognized a few of those who were not wearing the uniforms to be Echo plainclothes. “Where is that?” she asked, leaning over the desk. “Oh, I recognize it, that’s NomKitteh, the banh mi shop. I think half the Echo SupportOps eat there since you closed the campus to food trucks. Why are you watching it?”
“Wait for it. Best part is coming up.” He checked his watch, a Patek Philippe that he had personally commissioned. “It should be . . . right about . . . now!”
A beat-up van rounded the corner and came to a screeching halt in front of the eatery. All of the patrons looked up in time to see the doors open and what appeared to be a half-dozen Rebs all brandishing shotguns and automatic rifles. Before any of the Echo personnel could react, the Rebs opened fire; most were cut down where they sat, while others were shot in the back as they tried to run or shoot back. After the rifles and shotguns were empty, one Reb lit a Molotov cocktail and threw it, setting the shop front and several of the bodies—some still moving—on fire. The doors slammed shut on the van as it sped away leaving a cloud of tire smoke.
Even Khanjar had to blink at the speed and brutality of the attack. “Dom . . . did you do that?”
He put on a look of mock innocence mixed with mock horror. “My dear girl, how could you imagine that I would do anything to endanger the lives of my own Echo personnel? Didn’t you see, right there? It was Rebs! Probably in retaliation for what happened to Rebel Yell and the sentencing of Bad Bowie.”
Then he dropped the act, smirking. “You know my motto; it’s better to bury trouble if you can’t buy it off. And if anything is worth doing, it’s worth doing with extreme prejudice. I just got rid of some specific people who were fomenting dissent down in the SupportOps cadre, and I distracted everyone else. And I did it in a way that will create a wave of sympathy for Echo. Oh, by the way, put a press conference together in say . . . five hours for my reaction to this despicable attack, won’t you?”
“I should think your PA could do that,” she sniffed, more than a little annoyed that he was treating her like a secretary. Again.
“Oh, stick around for right now. Part two is coming up. As they say, ‘But wait! There’s more!’ This is where we get our money’s worth, so to speak.” He grinned, and tapped on his glass keyboard, closing the cam view of the sandwich shop and bringing up one of Atlanta Underground.
* * *
If there was one thing that Vickie was perpetually grateful for, it was that Dominic Verdigris didn’t believe in magic. He was ridiculously careless about things like fingernail clippings and haircuts. She had enough of Verd squirreled away in various safe caches—including a packet filed with her mom—to clone him a million times over. Of course, cloning him
was scarcely the point.
No, the point was that with such a tight-band connection to Verd, she didn’t even need the Overwatch suite to keep tabs on him.
Although the suite was very useful in keeping a record of what he was doing. In sort of a magical version of keystroke-logging, she had a monitor and standalone computer setup devoted to tracking everything he did on his computers, whether they were Echo or not. She also had an alert wired up to tell her when he was looking at or tinkering with something out of the ordinary.
Tapping into a security cam just outside of Atlanta Underground was definitely out of the ordinary. Directing it to point at NomKitteh was wildly out of the ordinary.
Watching live feed of a van full of Rebs mowing down thirty to forty Echo SupportOps was off the scale.
“Shit!” She thought she had gotten inured to scenes of massacre by now. Evidently not; it took her a moment to swallow her revulsion before she simultaneously hot-keyed Bella’s freq, put the Overwatch suite into full-boat recording of everything Verd was doing, and tried not to throw up.
* * *
Verdigris put an ordinary-looking Bluetooth earpiece on, holding up one finger to Khanjar. “Excuse me for a few moments, my dear. Personal finishing touches.”
“I am going to assume that, appearances to the contrary, those were not Rebs.” Khanjar examined the burning restaurant-front with an analytical eye.
“Of course not. Scum like that has its uses, but they’re highly unreliable. This needed to be a precision job, especially with what’s coming next.” The earpiece flashed, indicating an incoming call. He tapped a button before answering. “Yes, still a ‘go.’ They’ll be on their way shortly. Keep up appearances.” He tapped the button again. “Dispatch? This is Verdigris; check the roster and find out who is nearest to the incident. Yes, yes, I heard everything on the comm channels. We need to deal with this, now; full response mode, our people have been hurt.” With that he took the earpiece off and deposited it in a drawer from his desk. As soon as he closed it, there was a slight whumpf sound as the built-in incinerator kicked in. Another of the things that should have been on the Evil Overlord lists: never leave evidence.
Khanjar raised an eyebrow. “Obviously there is more to this than just removing a few SupportOps.”
“Much more.” Verdigris keyed up the desk display again, narrowing his eyes. “Things will be much easier for us with Echo after today, my dear. Then we can really get down to business.”
* * *
“. . . sending to your monitor,” Vickie said. “I’m only getting his side of the conversation—Khanjar is a lot more diligent about her magic-protection, I still haven’t got a piece of her yet—but this is only part one. Don’t scramble yet, because there’s more coming, and when you do, haul in protection with you.”
“Jesus Cluny Frog,” Bella replied. “Right, I just got the alert. I’ve tagged Ramona, she’ll issue the scramble, since I’m supposed to look incompetent. Who’s wired outside of Bull’s Misfits, CCCP, and my med teams?”
Vickie was already calling up the roster. “Motu and Matai are your best bet. I think between them and me we can keep your guys protected. I’ll tag them. I’ll go ahead and liase with Gamayun in case we need more backup. Saviour may elect to send some anyway. You get your team together.”
“Yeah. Armed. No Einhorn. Out.”
Had Verd still been watching the feed from that security camera, he would have seen a curious thing happening. Or rather, things. Where there were no people, waves of earth erupted from the cracks between the cement paving blocks and smothered the flames immediately. Where there were people, dust gathered in purposeful swirls and did the same. Dust, after all, is powdered earth. Fire is a triangle: oxygen, heat, fuel. Remove one of the three and the triangle collapses. Dust smothers quickly enough to kill flames before it kills people.
And when that was done, more earth rose up into ramparts protecting the victims from any possible follow-up attack, with narrow passages that would allow the Echo Med teams in.
Vickie unclenched her fists and grabbed a fistful of energy shots, then sucked one down while pulling out one of the “talismans” she used to store magical energy in. This was going to be a test of her endurance. Because she had the sinking feeling that not only was this not over, but was only just beginning.
* * *
Corbie got the scramble order for his default “team”—although he wasn’t officially a team leader, he seemed to be the one in charge for the loose group of himself, Silent Knight, and Leader of the Pack. Sometimes Motu and Matai came along as well, on loan from Bulwark.
But a split second after he got the go-order, the special tone came over his headset that signaled incoming from that magic bird, Victrix.
Oh crumbs. That can’t be good . . . He switched freqs. “Corbie; go.”
“Corbie, stop; I mean it, halt in place,” came the grim response. “PDA on, briefing incoming, you’re being set up. Three guesses who, and the first two aren’t ‘Daleks’ or ‘Cybermen.’”
Corbie clenched his jaw so hard his teeth almost cracked. “Right you are, love. Powered up, gimme the brief while I get the boys rounded up. We’re in a destruction corridor, it’ll take a minute to gather ’em up anyway.”
During that minute, he watched the massacre at the sandwich shop, watched the “Rebs”—and if those were Rebs, with those weapons and short haircuts, well, he was the Prince of Wales—hole up in Atlanta Underground, and noted the location. Very nice. Lovely kill-chute. What d’ye call . . . a channeling trap. Everyone files in nice and tidy in order to be chopped to mince.
“Okay, now you can go. This is the first time for me being eyes-above for you, so let’s hope my practice shows. I can see anything a security cam can see, and Underground is lousy with them. If you need anything let me know, otherwise I’ll fly by the seat of my pants.”
“Wot’s the sitch with our ops at the shop?” He still felt vaguely sick after watching fellow Echo personnel being gunned down so casually, but tamped the feeling down. He needed to focus, and right now.
“We’ve got med scrambled with everything they need and most of ’em are packing heat. We have CCCP incoming for locking down the perimeter and cover fire. And since Motu and Matai are wired, if we need cover before then, they’ll peel off to provide it.”
“Roger, love. The boys’re here, keep me updated.” The rest of his team had formed a rough semicircle around him, with Leader’s dogs occasionally poking their heads in between people. He left the mic on; he figured she was like every other intel officer he’d ever worked with. There was no such thing as too much data for those sorts. “Listen up. We got a hit on NomKitteh.” He didn’t have to say anything else; everyone knew how popular the shop was with the SupportOps. Leader cursed under his breath. Motu and Matai nodded; from their expressions, Corbie figured the witchy tech had already briefed them. “Med is scrambled, the bad boys are holed up in the Underground. They’re dressed like Rebs.” Corbie let the words hang in the air.
Silent Knight rumbled. “Clearly from your statement they are not.”
Corbie shrugged. “Short hair, really good combat boots, and weapons I’ve never seen in the hands of scruffy rednecks that weren’t stolen, yeah? And never that many of them.” He shook his head. “My bottom pound is on it being a group of pros.”
Leader’s face darkened as his dogs all started to growl in unison. He quieted them with a quick look. “Blacksnake?” Ever since the confrontation at the shopping mall, he’d wanted a chance to mash some merc heads.
“No telling. They’re not the only dirty merc outfit in town, but they are one of the best.” He frowned in disgust. “It was an efficient and professional hit.”
“Then let’s stick their efficient weapons up their professional asses,” growled Leader.
“Update. Med’s on the scene, no sign of interference. CCCP is about four minutes out.”
Corbie scrolled back to his shots of the mercs holing up, then p
ulled up his map of the Underground. “They’ll be expectin’ us to come in this entrance,” he said, holding his PDA where everyone could see and pointing. “They’re here.”
“Funneling us into a kill zone,” Knight noted.
“Update. SWAT just went in the CaffeeBucks entrance and got waxed.”
“And SWAT just found out how much of a kill zone.”
Leader winced. “What—”
Corbie cut him off. “Motu, Matai, CCCP ain’t more than two minutes away, Med won’t need you. You boys give SWAT the cover to get their men out, and that’ll give us a distraction to come in from”—he studied the map—“here.” They both nodded; Matai checked his paintball gun to make sure that it was loaded. Knight leaned over and peered at the map.
“Service entrance? Won’t it be locked? Breaking it down would be noisy.”
“Sorted. Electronic lock. Already tripped and waiting for you.”
He couldn’t help it. The words came out before he could stop them. “I love you,” he said fervently to his little guardian angel.
Knight looked at him with that expressionless helmet tilted quizzically. “You know I do not swing that way. Nor do you.”
He blushed. Knight, of course, couldn’t hear her—yet. He was a good sort, but Corbie would have to consult the others about bringing him into the fold. “Right, then. Lock’s been unlocked for us. We have Motu and Matai cover ’em from there. We come in from the other way, and sort these bastards out from both ends. Ought to put a kink in things for ’em.”
Knight tilted his huge helmet to the other side. “There is an incoming transmission on your headset that is not Echo.”
Before he could say anything, Motu made a shushing motion. “Not now, mon. Just say it’s a friend that is helpin’.”
Knight and Leader looked at each other, and Leader shrugged. “Commies,” he opined. Knight nodded.
Corbie decided to leave them with that assumption. It was as good as anything else, and until Victrix brought them into the conspiracy, better than speculation. “Righto. That’s about as much plan as we’re going to get; we need to get these sods out of the Underground ’fore they kill anyone else.” He unholstered his issued PDW, checking to make sure a round was chambered. “Let’s move!”
Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle Page 29
