"He knew nothing about me," Sandy said firmly, as if reading her mind through the linkup. "He's a very loyal guy. He's never known anything but service to the League. I've tried to fill him in on everything that's been going on, but it's difficult. He's still working with them, lying low. I don't want him to get upset or nervous in case they see his behaviour changing. But he can't leave now without alerting them that I'm onto them.
"He knew I was coming here when he accepted the mission. I think that's part of the reason why he wanted to do it, to see me again. He just never guessed I was the reason for the mission in the first place."
Vanessa could feel her brain starting to race. The implications were enormous. One of the main people in the FIA operation, potentially about to turn over. Or maybe he could be their mole. Give information to the CSA. Help them capture the bastards. Good God, what an opportunity!
"He says they do have infiltrator software in Tetsu—he was using it for a covert search during our raid there, seeing what we were up to. He found some traces of the stuff I was using when I was helping out Intel, searching the database and showing them what to look for ... League software, he recognised the key-codes immediately, knew there was only one person who could use it like that. Which is how he knew to send Cody the message."
"Do you trust him?" Vanessa asked.
A pause.
"Where I'm concerned, yes. With my life." Another pause. A deep breath. "The rest of it, politically ...I dunno. I don't want him to get hurt, Ricey. I only just found him again. I cant put him into anything too dangerous."
Vanessa could hear the emotion in her voice. Jesus. Who would have thought that the League's most dangerous, advanced GI ever brought to life would turn out to be such a mass of emotional dramas?
She knew what she ought to do. What the CSA would no doubt like to do, given the chance. Use this Mahud to give them the rest of the FIA team on a platter, no matter what else it cost. Ibrahim would not like it, but Ibrahim knew where his priorities lay. Ibrahim would sacrifice Sandy's friend to get the others, no question. Damn. And she could suddenly see, at that moment, why Sandy had contacted her and not Ibrahim. It was trust that Sandy was showing. Trust in her. But her priorities ... lay where? What the hell was she going to say?
"Where is he now?" she thought to ask.
"He's gone out to a rendezvous point. Nothing serious, just a head count and review. I'm at his apartment. Rented under a false name, buried under a mass of encrypted transactions, you'd never find it unless I told you. The encryption they're using lets them make all kinds of network transactions without anyone seeing. Very corporate"
"Did he tell you whose?"
"Nope. I'm not pushing. I'm just happy to have found him. He'll have to make his decisions for himself."
"Yeah ... no, I agree. Damn. It's a tough one, isn't it?"
"Tough on you too ... hey, I'm sorry to drop this on you, I know it's a problem at your end. Like right now you're wondering if you ought to push me for more information to bust some asses right now, or leave me here and wait to see if I can come through with something more substantial."
Vanessa sighed. "Yeah. Well shit, I'll have to tell Ibrahim at least as much as you've told me ..."
"That's okay, I want you to. Just... leave Mahud to me. I need to do this my way. And if I push him before he's ready, he might just bug out on me. Just give me some time, huh?"
"Sure." Vanessa smiled reluctantly. "Sure I will. I'll recommend that much to the boss, too ... it's the best lead I've heard of so far. I think he'd recommend you keeping your head down for now. We want the top people. I reckon he'd want you to stay with Mahud until he's ready to give them to you."
"I hope so."
"So," Vanessa sighed. Stretched out her legs, leaning back in the sofa. "You really like this guy, huh?"
"Not the way you're thinking" The humour was back in her voice. "I think he's more like ... I dunno, d'you have a brother?"
"Two of 'em," Vanessa replied with a smile. "Small difference though—I haven't screwed either of them, and I'm not gonna start."
"Oh hell, you know what I'm like—even if I had a real one I'd probably be screwing him too." Vanessa grinned. "No, Mahud's ... he's just nice. I think so, anyway. Maybe he'd scare other people, I don't know. But you'd be surprised just how harmless he can be."
"No I wouldn't be, I've got you as a measure."
"I'm not a good measure, Ricey. I'm not a good indication of anything, GIs least of all."
"Yeah, the rest of them probably all make a lot more sense than you do, Cassandra." Another frequency bleeping. Vanessa recognised this one immediately, and her heart rate rose fractionally. "Sandy, I'm getting an emergency call, I gotta go."
"Sure Ricey... take care, huh?"
"You too. I'll be seeing you." Click to static. Readjust to new frequency, then a fast, reflexive tuning. It was code, no words, sending as soon as she connected. She noted it down with little surprise, made a few fast, mental translations with the help of her implant, then disconnected as it began to repeat.
She refolded the headset into her jacket pocket, went straight for her gearbag on the table and strode out the door, heavy weight of rifle, armour harness and attachments thumping against her back as she went.
* * * *
The shots started when they were only halfway in. Vanessa thudded sideways into the nearest mall-side, the glass shattering with a crash across her armour. The remaining few civilians screamed, ducked, fell or ran, amid yells from her foremost team to "Get down! ..." another second and she discerned that the shots were not directed at them, and darted forward instead, dodging between panicked and scrambling civvies, yelling at them to keep moving in the other direction, away from the firing.
"S-5, under fire, random cover, targets are moving." That was Kuntoro. Tac-net had him mapped and she figured his position clearly enough as she ran, tac-sim postulating firing positions from available audio and topographical data ... she dodged past the last of the civvies, Devakul already up and running ahead, armoured, lithe and weapon-ready, heavy feet pounding over the brick-paved walk, dodging café tables and chairs upended in the recent rush. If she'd had time, she would have sworn. It was no place for a firefight. But she had no time ...
"S-2," she snapped, "move, grid-fiver, seven, level three and four, keep it blocked, we can't let 'em through ..." The mall opened to an indoor food court, Devakul skidded for cover behind a corner and potted indoor palm ... ducked in abruptly as fire blew the palm to bits, tile fragments showering amid shredded greenery as Vanessa cut left, still sprinting, hurdled an umbrella-shaded table that crashed over, then ploughed through an angled shop window that afforded her a right-angled view across the nearest port of the food hall. Saw nothing moving, propped on her left arm amid still-falling debris, rifle ready, fire ripping past Devakul's position ... Devakul held his rifle around the corner and fired by remote-sight in short, popping bursts. She heard the launcher's muzzle-pop even as she rose, and ducked fractionally before the grenade hit the wall not four metres in front with a shock that nearly knocked her over.
"Central!" she yelled on all fours amid the showering dust and debris, "they are armed, full military-spec, get me everything you've got and all civvies out! This is a fucking war!" And for her team, "People, watch for civvies, no random firing, this is a shopping district, not a battlefield!" Or at least it had been.
Devakul was still firing amid the blinding dust, she leapt across the line of fire behind him, slid flat behind the raised podium of the central eating area, then popped up to scan between the clustered table legs ... ducked back as target-warning flashed and fire sent chairs and tables smacking around the open hall like tenpins, plastic and wooden pieces crashing and clattering all about. She rolled behind the podium, headed away from Devakul, then Bjornssen arrived and laid down fire—she popped up, managed a brief burst at the glimpse of a departing figure, hitting nothing.
"Get him! Watch the angles, no rushing!" as
Bjornssen hurdled forward through the dust, Singh behind and Devakul after ... she saw brief movement on her right as she followed, spun fast and found a very unthreatening man lying flat on a restaurant floor where the glass front had collapsed in on him, looking stunned and terrified. "That way!" she yelled at him, a fast flick to audio, pointing back the way she'd come, then turned and raced after her guys.
Another grenade shattered windows up ahead, Bjornssen ducking and rolling through the smoke ... more firing on tac-net, the position showed clear on visor and internal-vision, Kuntoro returning fire somewhere on levels up above. She held herself back, more sporadic fire smacking walls and breaking glass up ahead, checking through tac-net and tac-sim, measuring the angles, watching the distances ... a grenade took out a shopfront ten metres away, window frames collapsing on Singh's helmet with a heavy crash ... they were falling back to a major thoroughfare, she saw in that moment of frozen time, multi-level shopping that connected to the nearby major hotel where they'd been staying and had apparently been surprised.
"Singh, Dev, first right turn, right flank and hold! Work it forward! S-5, flank left! Don't let them get past tac-C-2!" Heavy fire in front, Bjornssen and Devakul covering for Singh's dash across to the right-hand corridor ahead. "S-2, forward and spread, I want a crossfire on that atrium hall! Box and hold people!"
Ahead Devakul followed Singh's dash and Vanessa ran up through shattered debris and smoke, ploughed headlong through a protruding side display window, kicked her way through mannequins and display shelves into the store proper. And had the surreal experience of running down a fashion store aisle parallel to the mall, full armour thumping the carpet ... ducked and fell as shots hammered the surrounding walls, kicking clothes out and stands crashing over, hit the ground amid a hail of shredded fabric and wallboard ... tac-net showed Bjornssen already running at the distraction ... then all vision blanked as a grenade went off somewhere over her head and brought half the ceiling down.
Up and struggling, some indeterminate split-second later, through flames and smoke, ruptured water-pipes and malfunctioning spurts of foam retardant, smashed a damaged partition wall aside with her rifle arm, burning fabrics clinging like so much bonfire ash ... tac-net showed a target down in the main hall ahead, several troops covering, and now fire zipping up and down from right to left in front of her position.
She scrambled further forward, found the dividing wall to the next shop to the left and kicked it—her foot went through with a massive thud, took a square metre of brick wall with it. She aimed two more kicks to clear space then squeezed through the crumbling hole. Rolled low, now finding herself in a fancy net-interface monitor display shop, and ran at a low crouch between elaborate stands and displays ... tac-net calculated fire positions, acquired an exact fix from Hiraki's arms-comp (it was Hiraki on the next level up, she gathered), and from that she guessed the required angle for herself. Stopped scrambling by the shop's far wall, crouched and aimed out the display windows, past the holographic interference of window dressing. Outside was the broad mall, ten metres wide, the multi-level, glass atrium overhead and flanked by balcony walks. A man in a dark coat crouched behind the foundation support for the overhead crosswalk, edged close to the corner, weapon ready, unaware he'd been flanked. She shot him, close enough to see the blood spraying as he spun.
Leapt out through the windows in a crash of collapsing glass, rolling on the floor ... fire whipped past, tac-net showing two other targets further up, sheltering behind the sporadic cover of stone flower boxes before the opposite side of the broad mall's windows. She fired one-handed as she ran, low and crouched, shots erupting fragments and dust about flower boxes and splintering wooden bench seats ... abruptly outflanked on another angle as the target tried to change cover, shots knocked him flying before Vanessa could adjust. She skidded in behind the overpass support, flipped to audio, full volume ...
"This is the CSA! Surrender to arrest now or you will die!"
The reply was a volley of fire, aimed blindly over a further row of decorative flowerpots and miniature trees. Return fire shredded the greenery in seconds, erupting concrete and tile fragments sharding the air through curtains of dust ... she noted even as she fired that the last target behind her was down—Kuntoro and Tsing had got him. She hadn't entirely taken her eye off that potentially fatal threat from behind since the firing started, especially not now in the main mall surrounded by overlooking balconies ...
"Watch!" came Hiraki's warning yell a fractional second before something whooshed past at speed and the entire right side of the mall exploded. A shocking confusion of concussion, flame and debris and she was shooting without targets, more blind fire hammering about ... dimly realised through the flaming chaos that something was cutting the air like a saw, staccato blue light flaring through the debris as everything it touched exploded ... she rolled frantically back behind full cover as the light swung her way, and half the ferrocrete support detonated in a spray of flaming wreckage.
Fire converged heading the other way, leaping red tracer, tac-net showed the fix ... she spun left around the support, locked and firing as the far mall end collapsed beneath the hail. Ran, because that was textbook, directly at the target, spraying fire to cover possible invisibles, adjusting her suited stride to the recoil as she accelerated through the smoke, spreading destruction before her at will. Got far enough forward to see pieces of another bloody corpse where tac-net said the last should be, and slid to a skidding halt amid a confusion of broken chairs, flower banks and snack vendors, covering the last position of the previous target... empty.
"Cease!" she yelled, and the carnivorous hail of tracer above her head abruptly vanished. Propped to her knees and scanned on full motion/multi-light, easier now things were no longer disintegrating, and saw ... nothing. Things collapsing in delayed shock, displays, windows, plants, walls ... smoke everywhere and things burning. Target-IDed corpses. Nothing else. Someone had evidently surprised them. There could be more. But nothing that end of the mall had survived that last barrage. So she was one corpse short.
"Missing one." Tac-net showed Sharma, Kuntoro and Hiraki already converging along the flanks up the far end, and more following—even without her order they blocked the exits. She rose and walked, a clear enough view now to have faith in vis-scan's warnings if surprised. Feet crunched over rubble, avoiding upturned tables and mall-walk attractions not so much bullet riddled as eviscerated. No sign. A measured, steady pace up the centre of the wreckage, rifle braced, a visor display warning of barely 220 rounds left in the magazine. The dismembered corpse was strewn about something that looked like a V-9 APL. Anti-Personnel Laser. Not merely military, but frontline. That had been the blue light. What had made the five-metre crater at the mall wall back there she didn't care to guess.
Blood-trail, she saw then, through the drifting smoke. Heat residue, past the sporadic fires and round-impact spots. Held up a fist, the several marks moving behind in cover formation halted on tac-net, covering with interlocking, integrated fields of fire. Stepped carefully forward, looking right, the location of the blood trail. It made a right turn after barely a metre, and entered a doorway recess. This one was metal framed, and afforded more protection. Another step, and she saw the booted feet sticking out, and a hand limply dangling. Another, and she saw a woman seated, curled up as if for protection. A warm body, and much blood. Vis-scan detected no pulse on IR. A short, snubbish machine gun lay alongside, muzzle warm. Something unidentifiable in her lap, small and apparently plastic. Or something like.
"Got one," she said calmly, rifle levelled unerringly. "Hit and unmoving. Something in her lap. Could be a bomb." Tac-net showed more of her team sweeping, covering. She heard their comments, terse and brief. Someone's horror at discovering several civvies, huddled in a corner. But there were always some. Vis-scan read her voice, analysed the visuals and went into threat assessment without her urging. And came up negative on the bomb.
She paused. Trust it? Only if she was
feeling suicidal. She wasn't. Took another step forward across the mall. Another. Bjornssen went past behind, ignoring her target, covering further up the mall. Smoke drifted, fires burning, localised fire retardant hissing, adding to the clouding mist. A situation light blinked on her lower side-visor, someone off-net wanting an update.
"Hitoru," she said calmly, "talk to central for me would you?" He did, the blinking stopped. Another step. The pool of blood beneath the curled woman had grown larger. The body fractionally cooler. And the black, flat plastic whatever-it-was had a bullet hole in it. She knew some forms of bomb didn't mind that. But it lessened the odds drastically, and she closed the remaining distance. At close range she could look down on it, beyond the woman's obscuring hand and folds of her long coat. Definitely no bomb. More like ... data storage? "I got it, Hitoru. I'm clear here."
Knelt on one knee—squatting was mostly impossible in armour—and pulled the flat plastic square from the woman's unresisting hand. Noted only one bullet hole, and that only in the stomach. Apparently. Grabbed the woman's face in one armoured hand, pulled the jaw open ... foam, saliva, general unpleasantness—self-inflicted, probably in capsule form. Jesus.
"Lieutenant?" Krishnaswali's voice, invited now on tac-net. "Vanessa, what happened?."
"I just wrote off a mall." With forced humour. Only realising now as she spoke just how hard her heart was hammering. She felt suddenly out of breath. "I hope that's okay."
"Fuck the mall," said the CSA's head-SWAT, with typically clear pronunciation. "What happened?"
"Um ... well," she took a deep breath. The woman's blank eyes stared into hers. European, not unattractive and now very dead. The unsteadiness deepened. "They had basically a military arsenal holed up around here somewhere ... God knows how in a hotel district... and they basically blew up the mall." Krishnaswali at least did not need to ask if her team was okay—he had all the vitals in front of him. "And I got a dead girl here I'm guessing might have been in charge, she took a non-fatal round, crawled off to try and do something to what looks like a data-storage unit, then it looks like she topped herself. So it's not just GIs that are expendable, looks like."
Crossover Page 34