To Do or Die (A Jump Universe Novel)

by Mike Shepherd

  “Likely not,” Ruth agreed. “Now me, I would be only too happy to play with the controls.”

  “You’ll have to take turns with Mary. Milassi almost took her into the back room and raped her. Then he got distracted and went off with Alice. I think Mary has survivor’s guilt.”

  “Mary’s someone I could share that pain controller with,” Ruth said, then shook herself. “When will we know for sure that taking down the Farm is a go?”

  “It all depends on the weather. We’ll have everything in place by tonight. If it rains, we’re in trouble. If things go the way they should, you can meet your scientists for lunch tomorrow.”

  “I’ll need to rent some more cars. The more cars, the better.”

  “You go do that,” Trouble said.

  Ruth finished her sandwich quickly. “You think we can get the bastard?” she asked Trouble again.

  “Becky wants his head. I want his ass. Mary and her Marines want his guts for garters. Anything you want?”

  “If they find a heart anywhere in the guy, I’ll take it. But I don’t think he has one.”

  “I don’t either,” her husband growled.

  With that, Ruth went to do her job, and Trouble returned to his.

  Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. It was not an easy job to bring all the many parts of a plan together. No doubt this one would not survive contact with the enemy.

  Still, until the enemy got its vote, it was Trouble’s job to make sure every part fit right in where it belonged.

  He sat hunched over a station outside the secure room and checked each of his widely distributed actors. It looked perfect.

  As always happens in war, it didn’t stay that way.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THE TRUCKS LOADED with manure didn’t waste any time on their runs into town. If there was a speed limit, they didn’t pay it any attention.

  So the Marines passing them to do what needed doing had to drive even faster.

  And there was this cop. Apparently, he hadn’t made his quota for the day, week, or month.

  Did he stop the trucks that were way over the speed limit?

  Nope.

  He stopped the convertible doing the passing.

  Trouble let himself cuss a bit, which distracted the intel analysts in the room, so he swallowed his comments and listened in.

  “May I see your license and registration?”

  “Certainly, Officer. Carol, check and see if there’s a registration in the glove compartment. Sorry, Officer, this is a rental. Would the rental contract be enough?”

  “May I see it?”

  No doubt the rental contract also had several hundred dinars folded into it. At least, Trouble hoped the Marines knew the drill.

  Apparently they did, and the money did change hands.

  “Yes, it appears everything is in order. I’ll let you off with a warning this time. It’s nice to drive through the hills, but these roads have a lot more curves than they do on the flatlands. You hear?”

  “Thank you, Officer,” was followed by a long pause, then “you shithead,” was added when the shithead was well out of earshot.

  “Be nice,” Trouble said. “He let you off without us having to see if your driver’s license would pass muster.”

  “If you say so, Captain, but now we’re way behind the trucks. We had almost delivered all the packets. We still have a few left.”

  “Leave it be. We were lacing the stuff with two or three times what our experts thought we needed.”

  “Okay. Can we have our picnic now?”

  “Yes,” Trouble said.

  Trouble watched the cop car on the feed from the Patton. He stopped at the next roadside bar and never left it.

  So the bribe worked. He didn’t hassle the other convertibles on the road. All three manure loads now included a very nice something extra.

  The trucks pulled into the Farm just before the close of business. They were parked out behind one of the barns.

  Trouble called up his wife.

  “We’re set. You get the message to Brother Scott to pass along through his boys to the scientists to take an early and long lunch tomorrow.”

  “And I know just the place,” Ruth said. “Thanks, love.”

  “Thank me when you have the packages here safe in the embassy.”

  “Chickens and hatching and counting and all that. Yes.”

  Trouble knew there wouldn’t be a lot of sleep tonight. He had one more hard decision to make.

  Tomorrow, if a cop stopped a Marine, no amount of bribery would work.

  So, what did he authorize his Marines to do?

  If they were cuffed and hauled off to jail, they’d likely be beaten to death, and all the Corps would get back was a corpse.

  Trouble put his feet up on his desk and watched the bright lights flash on several monitors. Would he let these people kill his unarmed Marines?

  Would he arm his Marines and authorize deadly force?

  These were the kind of hot potatoes that rightly should be dropped in some senior elephant’s lap. However, that had the disadvantage of their having to make a tough call.

  A tough call they’d have to admit to making if asked.

  There were times when it was wiser to let folks find out what had happened, then react any way they wanted to.

  After all, if they wanted to put their oar in Trouble’s water, they should have done it earlier.

  Right! They hadn’t told him not to, so they must mean for him to decide for himself.

  There were advantages to being known as Trouble. Certainly, his bosses knew to expect trouble from him.

  That matter settled, Trouble put his feet back down on the deck and concentrated on getting all his pieces ready to move in the morning.

  THIRTY-NINE

  SPIN TROTTED TOWARD the Farm in the dark. He led a dozen other boys from Brother Scott’s shelter. Spin was the biggest. Some of the kids headed for the employment line today were pretty scrawny.

  It was still very dark. The brothers and sisters had woken them, fed them breakfast, and rushed them off with a blessing.

  “You have to be there before three,” Brother Scott said as he waved them out the door. Spin was never sure what time it was, but three in the morning seemed awfully early to him.

  But this was one day when Spin very much wanted to work. No one would say how or why or what about it, but he had the feeling something special was about to happen. And Spin very much wanted something special to happen.

  He liked Alice. He’d waited for her and brought her home that night. It bothered him . . . that night. There were things he wanted to do with Alice. Things he didn’t really understand. The idea that those things had left Alice crying and shivering left him torn.

  Certainly, if he and Alice did something like he saw the older kids doing, it wouldn’t mean she’d cry. Spin wanted to believe that.

  And Spin was the one Brother Scott gave the tiny note to.

  Spin knew the guy in the white coat that the message needed to get to. What Spin didn’t know was what the note said.

  Spin didn’t read all that well.

  Before he met Alice, that didn’t bother Spin, but Alice thought everyone should read, and she’d even given Spin some lessons. Anything that let him spend more time with Alice was good, so Spin was doing his best to figure out what all the letters meant.

  Now he could real a lot of the street signs. He hadn’t figured out how that was better yet, but Alice said it would be, so he studied them and could even pronounce most of them.

  He and the other boys from Brother Scott’s got to the Farm. There weren’t a lot of other boys waiting to be hired. When the boss man came, he quickly counted them off and let them in through the tall metal gate. There, another guy with a computer took their thumbprints, asked their names if they weren’t in the computer, and sent them hustling over to where different hoes and shovels stood.

  The shorter boys grabbed hoes.

  The bigge
r boys, like Spin, chose from among the shovels. If a big kid picked a small shovel, the boss would hand him a larger one. One big kid who got his hands on the smallest-sized shovel got shown the door.

  It also went the other way around. A kid who chose a shovel too large for him was handed a smaller one with a sharp, “We want you working the whole day, not crapping out on us halfway through the morning.”

  Spin knew just how large a shovel he could handle. The boss looked him over and went right on to the next boy.

  Today, since it was so dark, they also got handed a headlamp.

  “I’m counting these. Don’t think you can walk off with it,” the boss man snarled. “This is our junk, and we look out for our junk.”

  Quickly, Spin put on his light. It turned on with a click. Suddenly, he could see what he was looking at.

  Now they were herded around to the trucks. This load of manure was pretty dry and didn’t smell too bad. Spin already knew how to steer a wheel loader, so he got one out of the barn and quickly rolled it up to the nearest truck. One of the boss men had it spew some of its load into Spin’s little carrier.

  Full, another boss man pointed Spin out into the Farm. There a boss was waving a chem light. Spin and another boy from the shelter guided their loads to where that boss was. Two little boys followed them with hoes.

  The boss pointed them at a row of vines growing up a line of trellises. “Get the manure down between the rows of vines. Work both sides of the row. Some other team will be tossing bullshit from the next aisle over. You kids with the hoes, make sure you got fertilizer all the way up to your half of the row and that it’s in among the plants. Capisce?”

  The hoe boys nodded agreement as they headed down the rows of vines.

  “And you shit-tossing guys, get it down the rows, you see, but don’t get it on the plants. This is for their roots. It don’t do no good on the plants. Got it?”

  Spin assured the boss man that he got it.

  He’d heard this story before. All of the big boys had heard all this before. They knew what they were supposed to do. Still, the boss men yelled it at them every time they came.

  Spin figured the big guys just like to yell at little kids.

  And today, Brother Scott had whispered to the bigger boys as they left that it was okay if they got some of the fertilizer on the plants. He didn’t say why, but he’d made a special effort to let the boys know cow shit on the plants was not a bad thing today.

  Spin wondered why, but he didn’t question Brother Scott.

  Now, he went to work, tossing the stuff low at first, because his hoe boy was in close. Only when the stuff close in was done and the boy was well back did Spin risk tossing the dry, stinking stuff higher in the air.

  There was no wind blowing this early in the morning, but still the dry stuff flew wide as well as far.

  If the boss men noticed it, they said nothing. Two had their bottles out, and even the one that was meaner than the rest seemed laid-back in the cool morning air.

  They worked on the vines through the dark morning hours. When they emptied the wagon, one of them would take it back for another load. That was the only time the other three got to rest on their shovels or hoes. It was hard work, but at least it was cool. Come the heat of the day, it would not only be stinky work, but thirsty, sweaty work.

  The sky was just beginning to show color: gold, reds, and silvers shining off a few thin clouds high in the sky. As they reached the end of the vines, dawn broke.

  The boss men collected the headbands with lights and went off to turn them in. No doubt there would be a careful check of the numbers handed out and the numbers coming back. The bosses shouted for the boys to keep working, to go on to a low-bushes section and start on them.

  The boys tossed out what was left in their wagons. At some carts, the bigger bullied the smaller to take the wagon back for a refill. Spin did a quick round of rock, paper, scissors with his buddy from the shelter, just as the brothers and sisters had taught them.

  Spin got to rest on his shovel while his friend joined a long line of wagons going back for a load. The smaller boys finished spreading what had been tossed their way, then rested, too.

  Spin didn’t let his hoe boys rest too long. They had to move to the bushes, and it was best to get there early so you could pick your own row. Some of the bushes were more bushy than others. It was easier on the hoe boys if they got one of the scrawny ones.

  Today, Spin picked a row that was more average. He wanted to have plenty of chances to toss shit on the bushes. He didn’t know what would come of it, but if Brother Scott said to do it, he’d do almost anything he asked.

  One hoe boy complained, but Spin reminded him who was the biggest and had the larger fists. Spin didn’t think everything could be settled with rock, paper, scissors.

  The wagon came back, and they started tossing the stinky stuff. With the sun up, it was already getting hot.

  A bit later, the scientist that Spin had the message for came out to look things over. He told some of the boys to lay it on heavier, others to be spread it around more.

  Apparently, all grown-ups liked to tell kids they were doing something wrong.

  He eyed Spin for a moment but didn’t tell him to do anything different.

  He had turned to go when Spin took a big load of cow shit and tossed it so that half the load ended up on the back of the guy’s pants and shoes.

  “What are you doing, kid?” the guy demanded, and slugged out at Spin.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Spin cried, but the message for the man was between his fingers and as his fist hit Spin’s hand, the bit of paper slipped from one to the other.

  “I ought to,” the man said, but he didn’t finish what he ought to do. Instead, he stomped away. “I got to change my clothes,” was the last Spin heard from him.

  One of the half-drunk bosses stumbled up to Spin. “You foul up again today, and you’re out of here with no pay.”

  “Please, sir, I won’t foul up, sir,” Spin swore. He wasn’t sure that he shouldn’t foul up. The message was delivered. Should he bolt for home to let Brother Scott know?

  But the point was to work today, and things were supposed to get interesting in a bit. Spin really wanted to see what was coming.

  Also, the smaller boys didn’t know that anything was up. Spin didn’t know what was coming down, but it might be dangerous, and the little guys might need help getting out of here.

  Spin kept slinging the fertilizer and doing it with care. A lot landed on the plants, but not enough to draw any reaction. The day got hotter.

  It was thirsty work, and some of the smaller kids shouted that they were dizzy.

  The boss men shouted for them to keep on working, but someone must have decided it was really hot work.

  Last summer, so the story went, a kid had died, and it caused some trouble.

  Today, apparently, the Farm didn’t want the trouble that came with a dead kid.

  A dozen girls came out well before noon, lugging water jugs between them. They put them on the ground, filled tin cups, and took them to the boys.

  Alice was one of the girls this morning.

  She offered Spin a tin cup to drink from.

  “What are you doing here?” Spin demanded as he slurped the offered water.

  “I want to see what happens. Be careful of that water. You don’t want to get any of it on the cow shit.”

  “Why not?”

  “You just don’t want to. Sister said to tell you. She didn’t say why. Just be careful.”

  Beside them, one of the hoe boys spilled a bit. It hit the ground and began to sizzle and smoke. Alice stomped on it and kept her booted foot on it until it quit whatever it was doing.

  “Drink it,” she snapped. “Don’t spill it. If you do, step on it.”

  She took her foot off the . . . whatever. It smoked gently, but didn’t do anything else.

  One of the bosses came up. “What’s that smell?” he demanded.
>
  “What smell?” Spin said. “I can’t smell nothing but shit.”

  “Get back to work. You had your drink. If you’re not working by the time I count three, all five of you will be out of here.”

  The crew turned to, and Alice slipped away.

  Which left Spin time to think.

  He didn’t usually do a lot of thinking, but what he’d seen was strange. He’d spilled plenty of water on cow manure. It never caught fire. Had it really caught fire?

  He found himself doubting what he’d seen.

  But Alice had seen it. She’d put her foot down on it. Was this the something that had been hinted at? As soon as they got all the fertilizer down, the boss men would turn on the water sprinklers.

  If all this cow shit acted like the stuff Alice stepped on . . . ?

  Spin smiled as he tossed another load of manure high through the bushes.

  FORTY

  TROUBLE INFORMED THE duty officer at spook central in the basement that he intended to use their spaces to brief his city detachments before today’s op. The boss intelligence man seemed to understand exactly what Trouble intended . . . and not a bit more.

  Thirty minutes later, the man dropped by Trouble’s borrowed station. “You can have the space for your folks, Captain. The station chief, Ms. Graven, and the colonel regret that they won’t be here to see your folks off. They’re at some sort of big show at the Presidential Palace. Something about visitors coming in before the senators arrive from Earth.”

  “I hadn’t heard about anything,” Trouble said, and set his workstation to show him the palace. “Yep, they got bleachers and a reviewing stand up in front of the place.”

  “Reviewing stand,” the spook said. “Wonder what they intend to review?”

  “Oh, shit,” Trouble said, and started following the wide boulevard back the way it came. There, strung out along River Road, was a mile or so of tanks. Also included were armored infantry fighting vehicles that had their tops removed so the men with guns riding in them could stand up and be intimidating.

  Tube, rocket, and antiaircraft artillery were also parked, ready to roll up the end.