by Linda Nagata
I haven’t placed any money in escrow, of course, but I think someone has. It’s possible to fake all kinds of data including a death—I should know—but from what people like Bryson and Cory have told me, even the Red insists that money should be real. I don’t know whose money we’re playing with and it doesn’t matter, because these terrorist toys that Leonid is so carefully inventorying will never make it to any warehouse—I will blow them up on the road if I have to—and no money will ever change hands.
I wish Leonid would hurry the fuck up. I want to get a look at things farther down the tunnel, determine if the missile launcher really is here.
“Damir,” Leonid says. “Bring a forklift. These are ready to be loaded on the truck.”
Damir slips out past Logan and Tran. I follow with Leonid. As we leave the chamber, Logan shines a little LED light down the tunnel. “Looks like at least two more chambers.”
“More chambers with more goods!” Leonid declares. “I would not subject you to such a day of misery for a single pallet of RPGs.”
I’ve stopped paying attention to FaceValue because Leonid has defeated it. Emotional analysis is useless to gauge the intent of a man whose every word reads as a half-truth steeped in subterfuge—but it’s hard not to like the old bullshitter. I only hope we really are playing the same game.
Leaving on the lights in the first storage chamber, we move deeper into the tunnel. As we move, I watch the floor in the beam of Logan’s light, searching for any hint that tank treads ever rolled through here, but the floor is smooth.
The chambers are staggered on opposite sides of the tunnel. Tran clicks the light switch for the next one—and I stifle a groan. This one is full of pallets—but still no missile launcher.
“Ah-ha,” Leonid croons. “Look at this. Look at all this. We have found the armory.”
I turn to Luftar. He nods, as if to say I’ll wait, and lights another cigarette. I watch the smoke drift back toward the garage. Is the launcher here? If I asked Luftar about it, would he tell me?
“Shelley!” Leonid calls. “There is more here than I anticipated. More than will fit on the truck!”
This is Leonid’s way of reminding me that I am here as an arms dealer and I need to play that role. I signal Logan and Tran to again take up posts on either side of the entrance. Leaving my pack with them, I join Leonid.
We work quickly, inventorying crates of AKs, grenade launchers, boxes of C-4, and pallets of ammo. Other crates hold body armor, some used, some new, and antique night vision gear, incendiary and fragmentation grenades, antipersonnel mines, and shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles. And then Leonid hesitates at an open crate. It holds gas canisters labeled in Arabic characters. My overlay translates the writing, but it’s just a manufacturer’s code. “Probably Syrian,” Leonid decides. “From before.”
My skin prickles. “Wait … you think it’s sarin?”
“Da.”
This is a yard sale at the Devil’s house.
I look over my shoulder. Luftar is still watching from the hall. He gives me a smile and a slight nod. If there were other men here, apart from those I’ve already seen, there would be some indication of them, lights or noise, but there’s nothing. I conclude there are only the thirteen. If we could arm ourselves adequately and hit them without warning, we might win a firefight. Luftar is on watch to make sure that doesn’t happen.
“Where is that boy?” Leonid growls. “Damir!” He stomps out and yells up the tunnel. “Damir! Where—”
He breaks off when he realizes someone up there is yelling too, dark and dirty Russian. It’s Abaza. Leonid goes still, listening to a furious tirade. “Shit,” he whispers.
And I think, Abaza must know. He must know who we’re working for and why we’re really here.
I move to the chamber’s entrance, to stand with Logan and Tran. Luftar is looking away, toward the disturbance out front. I edge closer to him, my hand drifting toward the pistol in my chest holster.
I don’t want to kill Luftar. He seems like a decent guy. But then, so do I, most of the time. The overriding fact is that he is the enemy, assigned to stand over us with a Lasher.
I can’t give him a chance to use it.
Take him? Logan asks.
We have only the three Stonewall pistols between us. When Luftar goes down, his Lasher won’t do us any good, because it’s registered to his biometrics, but we have a room full of weapons behind us—enough to start a war.
I review in my mind where the RPGs are stashed; I calculate the number of seconds it will take me to reopen the crate and distribute the weapons.
Violence of action has won battles for me before.
So I say, Yes.
Logan and Tran both reach for their pistols. I take a step back toward the RPGs. From deeper in the tunnel, someone speaks a question.
I don’t understand the words. I don’t know who it is. I turn, my pistol out, aiming the Stonewall’s long, fat barrel into the darkness. Someone yells. Everyone yells—Logan, Luftar, Tran, Leonid, the unknown voice, and me—all of us agreed on one thing: “Don’t shoot!”
For half a second, all is silent, and then Abaza’s voice booms down the tunnel. “What the fuck? What the fuck?”
I don’t turn to look at him, knowing Logan has my back. I keep my attention on the unknown. In the dim light spilling into the tunnel I see a young man, mid-twenties. My first thought is that he is no soldier. And my second: Can I use him as a hostage?
His eyes are hidden behind farsights that gleam faint green. The narrow lens rests above sharp cheekbones and a prominent nose—Middle Eastern features framed in a short mane of thick black hair. He’s dressed like a civilian with money who’s decided to spend a week in the mountains: khaki pants, lug boots, a dirty sage-green thermal coat for warmth, and several days of beard stubble. No weapons that I can see—but there is a look of shocked recognition on his face—an oh holy shit expression that I don’t like at all.
He turns to run. I go after him. I catch him in two steps. Get him by the shoulder. Shove him back against the tunnel wall, the Stonewall under his chin, the ruby glow of its laser sight so bright it looks like it’s burning a hole in his skin. “Who the fuck are you?” I growl, trusting Logan and Tran to cover me against Luftar, Abaza, and his men.
“No one,” he whispers. English, this time, with an American accent. “I’m not armed.”
Leonid moves in to talk me down. “Shelley, my friend—”
But Abaza has caught up with us, and he takes over. “Shelley!” I hear panic in his voice. He’s almost breathless with it. “Shelley, please. I have wanted to kill Issam many times—but I ask you not to. He is harmless, and I need him.”
“Let him go, Shelley,” Leonid says. “It was a misunderstanding. Nothing more.”
The tunnel is crowded now with Abaza’s men and the advantage of surprise we might have had a moment ago is gone—but so is the sense of threat that nearly brought us to a firefight.
I holster my pistol. But I don’t let Issam go, not yet. Instead, I push his farsights up, away from his eyes, giving my overlay a clear look at him—and it finally identifies him. It tags him as Issam Salib, an American citizen, born in San Jose, Stanford educated, with a doctorate in computer science.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” I mouth the words more than speak them, but Issam catches on. He gives a slight shake of his head. It’s not so much denial as a gesture of helplessness or hopelessness—and it makes me wonder how deeply he believes in the radical cause.
I let him go and step back a pace. “What the fuck is he doing here, Maksim? Coming up on me like that in the dark?”
Abaza strolls closer. I watch him warily. He’s holding his Lasher 762 casually, in one hand, and he’s looking at Issam, not me. Still, I move back, putting more distance between us.
“No,” Abaza says, turning to me with a hurt expression. “Come.” He beckons me to follow him deeper into the tunnel. “Come, I will show you why
he is here, why we have only a few more hours.”
“You have had news from outside?” Leonid asks him. “Bad news?”
Abaza answers in Russian, but my overlay whispers a helpful translation: Nothing that will concern our work here.
Only a minute ago, Abaza’s furious rant was echoing down the tunnel. He’s quiet now. His anger is under control, but it’s still there beneath the surface. I feel it. I see it in the tension of his muscles—and FaceValue confirms it. The worst move I could make now is to look like I’m afraid of him. Better to look like a jackboot instead. So I grab Issam again, by the arm this time, and drag him with me as I follow Abaza—who looks back, evaluates the situation, and barks a short laugh. I am a man after his own heart.
I pull Issam closer. “What were you thinking when you saw me?”
“I … I thought you were here to kill me.” His voice is breathy, pleading. I’ve done a good job of terrorizing him—and Abaza’s okay with it; he’s enjoying it. Issam is not in a good position here—and maybe that’s something I can use.
“Why would I want to kill you?”
Abaza laughs again. “Because you are a hero of the West, and Issam will strike the next blow against your empire of satellites.”
So our intelligence was mostly right. The missile platform is here, but it’s not Abaza who is the intellectual power behind it. It’s Issam. Does that change the equation?
Logan sticks close behind me as we walk into the dark. It’s his light that lets me see where I’m going. I assume Tran is with him, and Leonid. There are others, but I don’t look. It’s Abaza who worries me.
We reach the next chamber. Abaza pauses beside the green glow of the light switch. “I do not trust you, Shelley,” he says. “I trust no one. Not even our friend, Leonid. But I don’t need to trust you, because you cannot betray me. Soon we move out. You return with Leonid, and tell the world what you saw here, what I did here, how I succeeded when they failed in Sudan and failed in Bolivia.”
Abaza. He likes to play the silent tough guy, but it’s an act. Behind that act, he’s a little kid who wants the world to fear and admire him.
Works for me.
I release Issam, expecting him to flee, but he just stands there, rubbing his arm.
I ask Abaza, “What happened in Sudan? In Bolivia?”
“Betrayal. Failure. But it won’t happen here.”
Colonel Abajian had said allied operations were preparing to hit the known locations of two other missile launchers. My guess is that Northern Sword is the last holdout.
Abaza turns the lights on, revealing what I expect: the BXL21 road-mobile missile launcher—and it’s huge. I knew its dimensions, but to be there in front of it, to see it filling the chamber with not even a meter of free space on either side—the sight transfixes me with its gravity, its implied power.
The vehicle is backed in, so I am looking up at the glass windows of the cab, with the cargo bed and its four cradled missiles behind. It takes a fleet of wheels to support the combined weight of the launcher, its stabilizing legs, and the YGH-77s. I count eight fat tires on this side alone. The four missiles rest in separate hydraulic lifts that will raise them to a vertical position for launch. They are over twenty feet long but lithe and narrow. Fins flare above the first-stage booster.
Our only assignment was to locate this facility and confirm the presence of the missile launcher. We have done that. We could depart with that knowledge and call this mission a success, but it’s not truly done until this device is destroyed. Colonel Abajian has promised to do that, but in war, nothing is certain. The least chance could be the difference between success and failure.
I flinch as Abaza puts his hand on my shoulder. “The balance of power is shifting. The BXL21 is not part of our deal, but the stock you are buying will be worth even more because of it. There will be a time of chaos as the world rights itself. You will grow rich.”
I don’t give a fuck about Abaza’s scrapyard collection of military artifacts.
And I don’t want to walk out of here leaving the missile launcher intact. Abaza might need less than an hour to roll the platform outside and set up. Issam might have a hundred targets lined up for him to choose from. There’s a good chance that Colonel Abajian’s cruise missile strike will come too late.
I don’t think the BXL21 would be all that hard to destroy right here, where it sits.
An idea is brewing in my head. What if the rockets can be ignited here, inside the UGF? The warheads they carry are nonexplosive—kinetic weapons designed to destroy their target with mass and momentum alone—but why should that matter? They carry their own oxygen in the propellant mix. If I could ignite all four rockets, surely they would dump enough heat energy to blow this place apart?
Colonel Abajian gave me a free hand to determine how best to serve the goals of this mission. Destroying the BXL21 while ensuring that this UGF could never be occupied again would more than satisfy the mission goals.
Leonid’s manufactured enthusiasm erupts into what has become a suspicious silence. “Maksim!” He pushes past me. “You are part of it.” Like he’s so amazed, so impressed. “I wondered. I wondered at the reason you had agreed to sell. I knew it was something big.” He steps around an obstacle on the floor: a mattress with a sleeping bag. Issam must sleep here. An outsider among Abaza’s people.
Leonid begins to circle the vehicle, inspecting it, his eyes round with wonder as he lays down the shit so thickly, I can’t believe Abaza doesn’t shoot him in disgust. “You amaze me, my friend. Your determination, your cleverness, to bring this huge, intricate device here, and no rumor of it anywhere.” He pauses as he reaches the rear of the vehicle. “But Maksim … Maksim, my friend, you must know that after this, they will never let you rest. They will hunt you without mercy.”
“It won’t matter,” Abaza snaps. “Not if we cripple them.”
Leonid nods somberly. He passes out of sight behind the vehicle. We all wait in silence, listening to his footsteps as he returns, unseen, on the other side. When he steps into sight again, he looks at me. “You are making an excellent investment, Shelley, but only if we move quickly.”
“They will not find us,” Abaza says. “Not in time. In a few hours, we will go. Three will stay with Issam to serve God.”
I turn to look at Issam, wondering how a Stanford-educated genius stumbled into shit this deep and sticky. He returns my gaze. FaceValue confirms his quiet panic. He wants out. He wants me to get him out. He knows no one else will. “I’ve kept us hidden from the Red,” he says, turning his farsights over and over in his hands.
“You’ve studied the Red?”
“I needed to get outside its reach. I went too far.”
“You went where God intended,” Abaza tells him. “You will do as God intends.”
“Yes, of course. That’s why we are here.” Issam turns his vulnerable, dark eyes to me. “Do you want me to show you how it works? It’s really cool, I promise. And God-level scary.”
I am being flirted with, enticed on a date. Leonid sees it too and tries to interfere. “We need to finish the inventory.”
“No.” I shift my gaze to Abaza. He has to know I’m recording everything I see—and that means he can’t afford to show me fear or doubt or weakness. So I dare him. “I want to see it. Not often I get to see a gun this big.”
He draws himself up, puts on a stern expression. “This is more than a gun, Shelley. This is God’s will.”
Issam touches my arm. “Come sit in the cab. You won’t believe it. It’s like you own the world up there. You own the skies, anyway.”
“You own nothing,” Abaza says. “The driver is just a driver and it does not matter who sits in the cab, because the missiles are not controlled from there.” He reaches out, catches Issam behind the neck; pulls him close as a lover, even as Issam shrinks back. “Shelley is a handsome man.”
Issam stares at a spot above Abaza’s shoulder. He makes no answer.
“I kno
w what you are doing. You want to beg him to take you with him—back to America! So go. See what answer he gives you.”
He shoves Issam backward, directly into me. I could step out of the way, but I don’t. Instead, I catch him by his shoulders and hold him close. I’m not sure if Abaza is jealous of Issam or of me, but it doesn’t really matter. Either way gives me what I want: a few minutes in the quiet of the cab, to hear what this desperate American expat has to say.
“Show me, Issam.” I pitch my voice low, like a lover, just so I can see the flush of anger in Abaza’s face. “I won’t have a chance like this again.”
• • • •
I climb up behind him into the cab. He slides into the driver’s seat, his shoulders hunched, chin dropped, a submissive posture. “Close the door.”
I slam it behind me and lean forward to look at the console—a posture that hides my face from the watchers below. I turn to Issam. He is eyeing me with an appeasing smile. It’s an attitude not reflected in his voice as he speaks swiftly, his lips barely moving. “There are no listening devices here.” FaceValue tags it as truth. “You are safe to speak. Did the Red send you here?”
“What do you know of the Red?”
“Enough that I kept this facility secret for seven weeks. Twice as long as the last time I ran a cover. The method works.”
“What method?”
“It’s a system using locally integrated AIs. Complex. It would take more time to explain than we have, but it works. It can work, to affect local goals. Did Maksim invite you here?”
I nod. “I thought Maksim would be the one controlling the missile launcher.”
“Maksim? Maksim couldn’t point his finger up his ass without help. He’s an idiot. A vain, psychotic idiot.” Issam gives me a helpless shrug and then mimes pointing out the gauges on the dash. “I thought it was over when I saw you, our security cracked, this site no longer hidden—but I guess he just gave it away.”
“You’re sorry?”
“No. It’s just … intellectual pride. The only pride I have left. Maksim didn’t lie to you. I’m begging you. Get me the fuck out of here. I will give you all my work. Everything I know.”