“Is that going to be a problem?” the chief duty spook asked.
“Only if we run into them,” Trouble said as he tapped his commlink. “Mary, get a hold of Dumont and see me in the basement.”
He tapped again. “Honey, I think I’m looking at something you might want to see. I’m in the basement.”
Another tap, and he was talking to Lieutenant Vu. “Shag your ass down here. Someone is causing us a whole lot of trouble.”
The duty spook backed away and went to check with his people. He was back in a minute. “The tanks rolled in about three o’clock this morning and have been hunkered down by the river ever since.”
“Thanks. I must have napped through something I should have noticed.”
“You were here all yesterday and through the night, Captain. You may be a Marine, but you’re also human.”
“Not permitted in the Corps. It says so right there in the officer’s manual. Human. Not allowed.”
The spook shook his head and stepped away as Mary, Ruth, Dumont, and Vu hurried in. Trouble quickly briefed them on this new twist to their situation.
For a long minute, they just stood around the screen and took in what they saw.
“If they’re going to pass in review of the Presidential Palace, they’ll be going away from where we are,” Mary finally observed.
“But they’ll be cutting down the number of bridges we can use to get back to the embassy,” Ruth said. “We’ll only have three instead of five.”
“So our options to razzle-dazzle any pursuit will be cut down,” Lieutenant Vu said, laying the conclusion out for all to see.
“I was kind of hoping with the distraction you have planned,” Ruth said, “that all the attention would be going that way, not looking at what was coming our way.”
“But will Milassi want to distract his visitors from the heavy metal he has parading down in front of them?” Mary said. “Likely, the tanks will keep on rolling and the president-for-life will keep on taking the salutes.”
“That fire is going to cost him a nice chunk of change,” Trouble said. “I think he’ll be very interested in what is going on across town. Even if he doesn’t have tanks rolling that way, he’ll have a lot of police and fire-department personnel hotfooting it for there.”
“Fire department, yes,” Ruth said. “Police?”
“Whenever anything happens, Milassi sends in the police,” the chief duty spook put in. He’d been quietly listening. Now he offered his intel take.
“So, how long will it take them to notice that their favorite eggheads didn’t come back from lunch?” Ruth asked. “What with a fire going on?”
“Maybe fifteen minutes to an hour,” Trouble mused.
“So we get them back to the embassy in an hour, max,” Mary said.
“Assuming the bridges aren’t blocked by traffic or just on general principle,” the spook said. “Rational behavior has been in pretty short supply since I got here.”
“So what do we do if the bridges are blocked?” Ruth asked. “Lay up somewhere?”
“Not a good idea,” Mary said before Trouble had to say the same. “Once they know the cats are out of the bag, they’ll tear this place apart. Both to find the scientists and to collect the heads of the arsonists.”
Mary shook her head. “No, we’ve got to get them out of here. And, folks, I don’t mean to be a party pooper, but looking at all that rolling heavy metal, suddenly I’m not so sure that bringing them to the embassy is all that smart an idea. Do you really think a diplomatic mission will get any kind of respect if Milassi takes it in his head to run a dozen tanks through it?”
“Now that you mention it,” the spook said, “it’s not something I’d take bets on.”
“So,” Trouble said slowly, not at all happy to see his plan unravel, but unable to find fault in Mary’s logic. “We need to get them not only out of the Farm but off the planet.”
That idea hung in the air for a long moment. Then heads began to nod.
“Only how?” the spook asked.
“Good question,” Trouble said, a grin coming out to play on his lips. “Fortunately, I just happen to know one Navy captain who really hates drugs. They killed her sister’s kid, and she’s had a thing against them ever since. Mr. Spook, can you get me a secure line to the Patton overhead?”
“My pleasure,” he said, and waved at one of his crew.
She did something to her board and waved back. “You’re patched through to the Patton, boss.”
Only a moment later and they heard, “Captain Umboto here.”
“Skipper, we got a problem.”
“That you, Trouble? Of course you have a problem.”
That drew smiles around the room.
“This time it’s a rather big one, Skipper. We are about to hire away thirteen guys who are helping grow next year’s designer drugs.”
“Ooh, I like this problem,” came back at them.
“Our problem is that we need to get them well out of reach of the local president-for-life.”
“And the good ship Patton just happened to come to mind, right?” the skipper said.
“You are our first choice,” Trouble admitted.
“And your only hope,” she added.
“Kind of.”
“So, how do we make this happen?” the cruiser captain asked.
“There are several lakes in the foothills up above the city here.”
“And you think I can drop a shuttle in one?” she said before Trouble could ask.
“Kind of. It’s either that or we haul them over to the embassy. We’re thinking the embassy might not get all the respect it’s supposed to.”
“No doubt,” the skipper said. “Now, this may surprise you, but with me having you dirtside, I’ve had spare time on my hands, seeing how I didn’t have to clean up any of your messes. I have also been studying where I might put down a Navy landing party should the need arise. You see that nice Bear Lake?”
“The one fifteen miles out of town?” Ruth said.
“That very same. Nice deep lake. Several good boat landings where I might run a shuttle up on the beach. There’s a second option, Clear Lake, but it’s shallow, and I’m not so sure about the beaches.”
“We’ll go for Bear Lake,” Trouble said. “There are three roads into it. That might turn out nice.”
“Then Bear Lake it is,” the skipper said. “When do you want us? We need at least ninety minutes of warning. This station is in a low orbit, and we only pass over your neck of the woods every hour and a half.”
“We’ll let you know right after lunch,” Trouble said. “Trouble out.”
“Patton out,” Umboto signaled.
“Now,” Trouble said, “We may have moved the goal post, but that doesn’t mean we want them to know it. Ruth and Mary, you take out the rented cars and retrieve the packages. Dumont and Vu, you take out the embassy’s rigs and run interference for the packages and distractions. Vu, your personnel in particular will make as much noise as you can, attract as much police attention as you can, and point it all back toward the embassy.”
Vu grinned. “The old goal has become a diversion and we keep them chasing after us until they discover we don’t have anything they want. I like that.”
“But how will the cops take to finding no one but Marines in the rigs?” Ruth asked, worry clear on her face.
“We’ve been running them ragged with our daily meanderings,” Trouble said. “It will take them a while to realize the stakes in the game have gone from penny-ante stuff to the real thing. Hopefully by then, Vu’s Marines will be back home, and your packages will be on their way to the Patton. Even Milassi’s thugs can’t get them there.”
“But you’ll still be here,” the chief duty spook observed dryly.
“I can only hope those thugs do try coming over our walls,” Dumont said, his smile feral and hungry. “I’d like to see those shits try the kind of games they been playing with unarmed civilians on my line
beasts. Let them see who wins then.”
Trouble remembered that Mary’s troops were civilians drafted into the Corps, given minimal training, then sent out to kill or be killed. Her survivors were the ones that got the killing part down real good. Though himself sworn to the profession of the sword, the look on Du’s face still sent shivers down Trouble’s spine.
If those thugs knew what was good for them, they’d stay clear of that man.
Of course, being thugs, they wouldn’t.
Trouble glanced at Mary. She nodded almost imperceptibly. Message received, and she would act on it when she had time.
If she ever had time.
“All right, crew. We’ll start spitting cars out of here at ten hundred. Let’s have a formation at oh nine hundred here in the basement, so we can say what we mean and mean what we say. Any questions?”
As usual, there were none. The Marines departed to prepare their teams.
Ruth stayed behind. “Do those tanks worry you?” she asked.
“You know that little car you drive?” he said.
“Yes.”
“One of those tanks could drive right over it and not even notice the bump.”
She stroked the tense muscles of his back as she studied the screen. “Yes, I imagine they could. But my little car can turn down an alley that would bring one of those things to a halt.”
“Don’t bet on it, my dear. If Milassi is really screaming on net, those things will plow through your alley right behind you.”
“You may be right, Marine and husband, but it’s bound to slow them down, and those alleys won’t slow me down one bit.”
“No,” he agreed. “Not even a little bit.” Then he turned to her. “You will be careful. How many kids do you want?”
“I’m down to three,” Ruth said, with a bit of a blush. “Maybe we can fit in a fourth.”
“Then you take care of the mother of my kids that can’t be more than a gleam in my eye.”
“Keep your eyes gleaming,” she said, as she went up on tiptoes and gave him a kiss right in the middle of spook central.
Then, without a glance back, she turned and left. She had a job to do today, and for the rest of the day, she would be all job.
Trouble smiled at the woman as she left and gently rubbed his lip, tasting again the kiss she’d planted in defiance of God, the regs, and everything.
What a woman.
He turned back to the board. He too had a job to do today.
FORTY-ONE
RUTH WAS BACK in the basement at nine o’clock her time—0900 hours to her husband’s time tick. She was doing her best to adapt to Marine life.
Today, all the Marines were dressed in civvies like her. With their high-and-tight haircuts, hard muscles, and ramrod backs, only a blind man could mistake them for anything but Marines.
Well, a blind man or a civilian who never thought about those things.
Even in civilian clothes, they were forming up in ranks, filling the open space in the middle of the intel analysts’ basement. Their own officers stood in front of the trigger pullers. All were facing toward her husband.
“Today, a dark sun sets. And while the mission may sound simple,” Trouble said, “its execution may be anything but. It’s unlikely, but you may be sharing the road with tanks today.”
Ruth glanced over the ranks as her husband did, checking for the Marines’ reactions. She saw none. Apparently, their officers had warned them.
“Some of you will be briefed in how to extract our packages and deliver them to someplace safe. Others of you will be doing a bang-up job of distracting anyone out to stop the main objective. All of you will be contributing to bringing Milassi down. Down hard.”
That got a solid, if low “Ooo-Rah” from the troops.
“Those of you who will be involved with the packages will stay behind when dismissed. Those of you who will be otherwise deployed will take your orders from Lieutenant Vu. Many of you will get a nice drive around town. Some may even get out in the country. All will draw a box lunch from the cafeteria. Likely, there will be little time to stop for lunch.”
Trouble paused, then said the words that usually ended such a Marine briefing. “Any questions?”
“Yes, sir,” came like a shot from Mary, captain of her own detachment. Her lieutenant, Dumont was raising his hand, so, likely Mary chose to speak up so she could stay ahead of him. Ruth was none too sure how she felt about the young lieutenant, but with Mary talking, he dropped his hand to his side.
“Yes, Captain,” Trouble said.
“Are we weapons loose today, sir?”
Like so many conversations Ruth had heard among the Marines, those few words held a whole lot of meaning.
Her husband took a deep breath before he turned to Ruth. “Honey, would you please record this?”
“Yes, love. Recorder on,” Ruth said. She’d heard Trouble joke with his fellow Marine officers about career-ending decisions. They’d even seriously debated whether they would like to have their career-ending decision on tape, where there was no question about it at their courts-martial, or not taped so they might wiggle out.
Trouble had always said, “If I’m talking, you can damn well record it. If I say it I mean it, and I’ll stand by it.”
Ruth prepared to record his words so there could be no mistake what he said.
“All personnel going outside the wire today will be issued sidearms,” Trouble said smartly. The room fell so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
“Sergeants will issue M-6s to the best sharpshooter in each vehicle. They will also issue six light antitank rockets to each vehicle.”
Now the room really was quiet. Even the spooks at their intel stations along the walls were not breathing.
“Under normal conditions, I would tell you that if a police officer stops you, you should go with them, and we will get you out of the hoosegow later.” Captain Trouble’s face took on a scowl Ruth had never seen the likes of as he turned toward her.
“We have seen what these thugs with badges do to defenseless people.”
Ruth found that every eye among the troops had swung to look at her. Her knees went weak with all the attention, but she strove to stay at attention, as good as any of them, as she withstood their gazes.
“Come sundown tonight, I want no dead Marines. Do you hear me?”
“Sir. Yes, sir,” roared back at their captain.
“I would personally prefer that there are no dead bodies on the ground, come sundown. I would take that as a personal kindness, seeing how I will no doubt be buried in paperwork if there are.”
That drew nervous laughs from some in the ranks, hard smiles from the NCOs and officers.
“Whatever happens, however, always be guided by my first preference. No dead Marines.”
That drew a solid “Ooo-Rah” from the crew and, Ruth discovered, from herself as well.
“Now, folks, if there are no more questions, let’s go out and add another proud page to the Corps’ history.”
No one voiced a question. Lieutenant Vu departed with his detachment. Ruth drew close to the map screen and began making her own assignments.
“We have thirteen small rental cars for thirteen packages. That leaves room for a driver and two Marines riding shotgun in each cars.”
“What if the last two jokers show up?” Mary asked. “Do we take them or leave them?”
Ruth winced. She had not given any thought to that. “No. We leave no scientist behind.”
She considered the problem for a moment. “Mary, would you drive a sedan today that can carry two? I’ll drive one as well. It will be harder to drive up an alley. However, if we get the long rifles out, there will be more room, and we won’t be jostling sharpshooters’ elbows.”
Mary frowned. “I can do that.”
Mary and Ruth would go to the pickup restaurant and collect the scientists. They would take them out into the parking lot to be snatched up by their rides, then follow along behind the
rest in their own sedans.
“We don’t want to take the same road. A convoy this long would be bound to draw attention.”
Ruth and Mary stood by while the other drivers picked different side streets and distributed them among the eleven small rental cars. The drivers studied their routes. A spook brought enough hard-copy maps of Petrograd for each car to have one, but no marks were made on them. Each driver and their backup memorized their route and studied the other routes.
Each expected to have to deviate from their planned routes, but no one wanted to get so off their street that they ended up on someone else’s.
They were good teams, and most of them had plenty of experience driving this crazy city’s streets, thanks to the game of hide-and-seek they’d been playing for the last several weeks.
Done, there was another “Ooo-Rah,” and the teams went their way. Ruth paused for another kiss from her husband. “You be careful in here,” she told him.
“Right, I might get a very nasty paper cut,” he growled into her ear as she hugged him.
Gunny turned out to be riding shotgun with Ruth.
“Shouldn’t you be riding herd on some green kid?” she asked him as he took the passenger’s front seat. He’d just come from his own double, or maybe triple check with the motor pool that their sedan was bug-free.
“Ma’am, all the green kids are staying inside the wire with your husband. But he made it clear before I got out of his sight that if you aren’t tucked nicely into bed beside him tonight, I should apply for a job with the local sewer department.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” Ruth said.
Gunny didn’t look persuaded.
“My husband is not that kind of man,” she insisted.
“He’s a Marine officer, ma’am. Even Gunnies fear them when they get that look in their eyes.”
Ruth decided silence was the only way to win this conversation. The backseat had hardly any room taken up by the woman Marine who had done such a fine job of breaking bones when Ruth was last rescued.
“Good to see you again, Debbie. I hope this goes quieter than the last time we rode together.”
“No doubt it will. Gunny, I got a weapon bag with my M-6 in it and a dozen antitank rocket grenades. It’s got pretty flower stickers on it. Can I keep it in back or do you want it in the trunk?”
To Do or Die (A Jump Universe Novel) Page 22