by Tom Clancy
Another acronym: Keep it simple, stupid.
“Here’s how I see it,” Howard said. “We wait until after dark before we hit the place. My men do the tango with the estate’s guards while Sergeant Fernandez and I and a couple of others hop the fence and head for the house. We set off some flash-bangs and some puke lights and take out any guards there, go in and round up everybody, haul the ones we want out, and hightail it for the border. Ruzhyó, Peel, and Bascomb-Coombs will do, and we can feed any incriminating information about Goswell back to our hosts later and let them deal with him if he’s involved. With any luck, by the time the locals figure it out, we’re on our plane and halfway across the ocean.”
“One small addition,” Michaels said. “I’ll be going in with you. And yes, I know, it isn’t the wisest course of action, but we’ve had this discussion before, and since I get the heat, I get to make that choice.” He glanced at Toni, about to say that she’d be staying at the command center.
The look in Toni’s eyes was reptilian. She knew what he was going to say. And he suddenly knew if he said it, whatever chance he might have of patching things up between them was going to die right here and now. So instead, he said, “And Toni will be going in, too.”
She gave him a short nod. “Thank you.” Her words were cool and crisp—you could use them to frost beer steins—but at least she was still talking to him. Better than nothing.
When they got to the fire station, near a little town called Cuckfield, the Net Force Strike Team was already there. But when Toni stepped out into the rainy evening, there was a surprise waiting under the overhang of a carport next to the main building: Angela Cooper was there, too. She wore combat camo, pants, shirt, and boots.
“Oh, shit,” Fernandez said quietly. “Looks like the game is about to be canceled.”
They moved to the carport, out of the weather. Alex stepped forward, but before he could speak, Cooper raised one hand to his objections. “If I wanted to stop you, Alex, I wouldn’t be here alone.”
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Officially, His Majesty’s government cannot condone any action against Lord Goswell without much more evidence than we currently have. However, the DG and our MP know what we’ve found out and, unofficially, they believe what we all do—that Bascomb-Coombs is very likely responsible for the computer terrorism, and that Major Peel and Goswell are privy and part of it as well.”
“So you’ve decided to look the other way?” Alex said.
“Yes. Provided we have an unofficial observer to make certain our unofficial position is kept, well, unofficial.”
Toni said, “So we get to do the dirty work, take care of your problem, and if it all blows up in our faces, you get to keep your hands clean.”
“Can’t put anything past you, can we, Ms. Fiorella? Well, that’s probably not strictly true, is it, Alex?”
Years of martial arts practice gave you a certain amount of physical self-control. If you knew you could seriously injure or kill somebody with your hands, elbows, knees, or feet, it tended to make you think before you made any sudden moves. You had to be able to move almost reflexively fast once the action started, but you also had to know when it was appropriate. Once, in college, a dorm mate had sneaked up behind Toni and grabbed her in the hallway, intending to tickle her. His practical joke had cost him a visit to the campus clinic and a concussion. It had taken her a few more years to get past the reactive stage, so she could usually assess the situation before decking somebody who didn’t really mean her any harm.
That hard-won self-control was all that kept Toni from stepping forward and destroying Angela Cooper. She really wanted to do it, bad. Instead, she managed a smile. She said, “Oh, I’m a bit slow sometimes, but I eventually catch on.”
“All right,” Alex said. “Colonel Howard will run it down again. We’ve got a couple of hours until we go.” He looked at Toni, shook his head a little, then gave her an open-handed “Sorry” shrug. He looked pale, almost gray, and she hoped he felt bad. He should.
Thursday, April 14th
The Yews, Sussex, England
Ruzhyó leaned against the stone wall of the big house under the substantial roof overhang. The wind had died pretty much as the rain began, and the gutters piped the water away to drain chains at the house’s corners, so he was dry enough even in the damp evening. And he had his umbrella, of course, and a feeling he would be needing its hidden functions before the night was over. Intelligence services of every country he knew of took a dim view of anybody who killed any of their operatives. It was bad for business. Spetsnaz had always been notorious for its vengeance. Once, in one of the evertroubled mideastern countries, one of their ops had been caught by a group of zealots, and slain. A week later, sixteen of those zealots were found lined up neatly in a ditch, their severed penises stuffed into their dead mouths, their eyes plucked out.
Kill one of ours, and we destroy a village of yours. It made even zealots think.
The British were more polite and less savage, but they would by now assume their men were dead, and they would know who was responsible. At least they would know of Peel, and if they knew enough to find and follow him, they doubtless knew for whom he worked and where his employer lived. Peel would realize this, and he would have a plan in place by now, a way to escape being captured.
Huard, dressed in rain gear, walked a circuit around the back of the house, looking at Ruzhyó but not speaking as he moved from sight. Huard didn’t like him, but Huard was a child.
So, in Peel’s shoes, what would he do? Flight was the only real option; even Goswell could not protect him if he stayed here. And timing was critical. Peel would have to disappear before things grew too warm. Were he Peel, he would already be gone. Certainly before morning light offered his pursuers too much help in spotting him. And he would wish to depart without any telltales left behind. Peel had sent his men to the property’s borders, leaving only Huard and Ruzhyó here. They, along with everybody inside the house, were expendable. That’s how Ruzhyó would see it in Peel’s place.
So, sometime during the night, Peel would call him inside. Or perhaps use the com to tell Huard to do it, to kill him? No. He wouldn’t trust Huard. And if the boy failed, his master would know that Ruzhyó would have to come for him.
Ruzhyó could simply disappear into the rainy darkness in a few more minutes. None of Peel’s men would find him or stop him if they did find him. He could trek away, catch a ride, steal a car, and be in France tomorrow. This game was nearly over, and what was the point in waiting around for the expected end?
He mentally shrugged. No point at all, actually. And perhaps that was the reason. There was nowhere he had to be. One place was as good as another. Did it matter where the sands of one’s hourglass ran out? In the end, did anything matter at all?
Next to the parked lorry, Howard slipped his helmet on, and checked the LOSIR com. “Perimeter team, sound off, by the numbers.”
The Strike Team obediently replied. All ahead functions there.
“Entry team, sound off.”
“This is E1, Cooper.”
“E2, Michaels.
“E3, Fiorella.”
“E4, Fernandez.”
And he was E5. Five of them should be enough, if everybody did what they were supposed to do. He and Fernandez would work the heavy shots, and while Michaels and Fiorella weren’t trained assault troopers, he’d seen them in action enough to know they had balls. The only unknown was Cooper, and if she was a field agent for MI-6, she ought to have at least some basic moves. It was hurried, it was slapdash, it was hung together with string and bubble gum, but it was what he had to work with, and it was about to be a go. They all wore the light SIPEsuit configuration, mostly just armor, corns, and the tactical comp to run the helmet. They all carried the simple but reliable H&K 9mm subguns and tactical pistols, save for Howard and his .357 revolver. And as soon as he’d brought that out, Julio had howled.
“Why, Katie Mae, I
must be going blind,” he’d said. “My tired old eyes completely shot. What is that ugly lump on top of the colonel’s antique good luck charm? Is that a dot scope? It can’t be!”
“Julio . . .”
“No, I must be on drugs, or maybe just out of my mind. The Colonel John Howard I know would never in a million years upgrade to hardware just because it was state-of-the-art and useful!” He started looking up at the rainy sky.
“What are you looking for, Sergeant?”
“I dunno, sir. Some sign or portent. A big meteor about to fall on us, a gathering of angels, a rain of fire, something to let us know the end is near.”
“Never let it be said that your commander is a total Luddite,” Howard said. He smiled.
Now, they were on their way. They would split into two groups a couple of miles from here, the perimeter team would hit the gate, and they would go over the fence. Howard took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“All aboard,” he said.
Peel glanced at his watch. Almost nine. Still raining, but not as hard as it had been, to judge from the sound on the slate roof. Bascomb-Coombs hadn’t come out of the study; he was hunched over his computer, wearing a headset and finger bands, deep in some VR scenario. Well, fine. He could die never knowing what had hit him for all Peel cared, and good riddance.
Goswell had tottered off into the dining room for a late supper, and Peel had the sitting room to himself, working on his third scotch, a small one this time. He didn’t want to drink too much. There was Ruzhyó to consider.
He’d have to get started soon, but he was stalling. Had to be done, of course, but there was a certain reluctance to get to it. Another page turning in the book of his life, and a big one. Ah, well. That’s how it went. Win some, lose some, but the important thing was to live to fight another day.
He took another sip of his scotch.
Thursday, April 14th
Upper Cretaceous
What will be Sussex, England
The monster, which looked like a cross between Godzilla and a giant Spielbergian raptor, stomped out into the clearing that served as his toilet and let loose a bellow that shook fronds off the ferns. It was still pretty far away, a couple of hundred meters. Probably could cover that in maybe four or five seconds once he got moving good. One shot, maybe two.
“There he is,” Jay said redundantly.
Saji looked up. “No shit.”
Jay swallowed dryly, put the laser sight crosshair onto the monster’s chest. The cross bounced around a little, but finally the holographic image blinked red, indicating that he had a lock. He jerked the trigger—and had a moment of panic as he feared he’d pulled it too hard.
The rocket streaked away, smacked into the monster’s chest, and exploded.
When the fire and smoke cleared, the monster was knocked down.
“All right, Jay!” Saji yelled.
The triumph was short-lived. As they watched, the monster rolled, used its tail as a prop, and got back to its feet. It looked around for the source of the attack.
Ohhhh, shit!
Saji was already shoving another rocket into the bazooka-style launcher before Jay could speak. She slapped him on the shoulder. “Loaded!”
The rocket lanced into the beast again. Boom! Again, it knocked the thing asprawl.
Then it climbed back to its feet again, and roared loudly enough to wake everything that had died since the beginning of time. It leaned forward, stuck its big tail straight out behind it, and spotted Jay and Saji. It looked like a giant hunting dog on point at a covey of quail.
Man! At least it was having an effect. Thing was, they had one more rocket and then the party was over. They could bail from VR if it got too close, and they’d sure as hell have to do that. Given what the little tiger had done to Jay’s brain, he had a feeling that if this beastie got its claws on them, VR image or not, they would be in real physical jeopardy. If they had to bail, the thing would win, and Jay did not want to let it do that. More than anything he had ever wanted in his life, he wanted to beat this thing. Not just beat it, but to kick its ass seven ways from Sunday, to stomp the crap out of it big time.
But it didn’t look good for the home team, no sir.
“Reloaded!”
Jay took a deep breath and readied his last shot.
Sure enough, Bascomb-Coombs was still there in the study, waving his hands around, wiggling his fingers, and directing some unseen computer wizardry. Peel glanced up and down the hall. No one around. He slipped into the room. He pulled the small Cold Steel Culloden boot knife from the sheath on his belt. The knife was short, pointed like a stiletto, with a hard, rubbery handle that gripped well. He stepped up behind the computer scientist, reached out, caught his forehead with his left hand, then drove the knife into the base of his skull with his right. Bascomb-Coombs stiffened.
The monster opened its toothy mouth, flashed fangs the length of a man’s forearm, and screamed that terrible scream again. Then it froze in that position, jaws agape.
“What is it doing?”
Jay shook his head. “Hell if I know. But there’s my target.” He lined the crosshairs up on the thing’s open gullet, held his breath, and pulled the trigger.
Bascomb-Coombs jittered a few times, then collapsed, his suddenly dead weight more than Peel could hold up. He bent and pulled the knife out of the man’s hindbrain, wiped it on the dead man’s shirt, and put the blade back into the sheath.
“Sorry, old man, but you mess with the bull and sometimes you get the horn.”
The knife was the way to go, all right. He didn’t want to attract any attention. Once he was done in here, he would use his gun to do Ruzhyó. He didn’t want to get too close to that one.
Now, let’s see. There was Goswell, the maid, the cook, and old Applewhite left inside, then Ruzhyó. Huard he could save until last, the boy would never have a clue. Then pop the safe—whose combination he’d had for months—take whatever cash and baubles were there, and a lively stroll through the rainy fields and away. A long and hard day, and it wasn’t over yet, but there it was: You did what you had to do, and God save the king.
He went down the hall toward the dining room to have a word with his lordship.
This time, when the rocket exploded, so did the monster’s head. Ersatz brain and bone and blood sleeted in all directions, some of it hitting Jay and Saji, but neither of them cared.
“You got it! You got it!”
“You seem awfully joyful for a Buddhist, under the circumstances.”
Saji hugged him. “What, for shutting down a computer program? That’s all you really did, isn’t it?”
“All I did? Hey, this was no ordinary computer program, woman!” But he hugged her back. He had done it. He had redeemed himself. And it felt better than pretty damned good, it felt absolutely great.
Jay Gridley was back!
40
Thursday, April 14th
The Yews, Sussex, England
The entry team made it to within a few hundred meters of the house without any trouble. Michaels had expected to hear shooting from the perimeter team when it got to the gate, but either they were too far away, or things had gone better there than expected.
In the headset, Howard said, “See anything, E4?”
Fernandez was on point. “Negative, I—wait. There’s one just passed under the light by the back door. Looks as if he is walking patrol.”
“Copy. Let’s move in.”
Michaels waited until Howard passed him before he got up from the wet ground where he’d been prone and started moving in a low crouch. Stay low, move slow, that’s what Howard had emphasized.
Toni and Cooper followed him, and the tight feeling in his bowels was not altogether from his worry about being shot.
Ruzhyó caught the movement in the field during a lull in the rain. It wasn’t much, just a dark shape outlined against the distant outdoor light from a neighboring farm, but it was enough to gain his attention.
<
br /> A few seconds later, he caught another glimpse of something. Could be a lost sheep, maybe. A calf that had wandered away from its mother. But he didn’t believe that. Dark shapes coming across the field in the rain? British assault team was more likely. And sooner than he—and Peel—had expected. Since he hadn’t heard any gunfire, Ruzhyó had to assume they had gotten past the guards. Not a real surprise. Peel’s men were good soldiers, but the estate was too big for them to cover properly.
Ruzhyó moved deeper into the overhang’s shadows, circled away from the house, and headed toward the building that Peel used for an office. He could use that for cover until he saw how many of them had come. Then, if he was lucky, he could still slip away. There could be a dozen or a hundred of them, and without knowing where the gaps were, it would be risky to try to run.
Goswell wiped his lips as Peel came into the room, wearing a rather smug smile. Ah, well. Here we go.
He had sent Applewhite upstairs with the maid and Cook and told them to lock themselves in the upstairs office and stay there until he personally told them to come out. The office door was steel, with a stout lock and a policeman’s bar behind it, installed as part of a security room under Peel’s aegis. Rather ironic, that.
Now he could finish this unpleasant business. He put his napkin back into his lap and left his hands there with it.
“Do have a seat, Major.”
“I think I’d rather stand, if it’s all the same to you, Geoffrey.”
Geoffrey? Good God, Peel has gone round the bend. Somewhat flustered at the overly familiar tone, Goswell sought to collect himself. “Did you see Bascomb-Coombs, then?”