To Do or Die (A Jump Universe Novel)

by Mike Shepherd

  “Gunner’s choice,” Gunny said.

  In the rearview, Ruth caught Debbie’s smile before she settled her bag in the footwell in front of her.

  Ruth distinctly remembered her husband authorizing a half dozen rockets. Not a dozen. But then, he’d often said Marines became hard of hearing when he tried to restrict their weapons load outs.

  The first car, an embassy rig, moved out of the gate at a sedate pace. A police car took off trailing it. A second black car got a tail as well. When a rental went out next, there was a tail. One after another, cars drove out of the embassy lot, and after each, a police car sped along behind.

  “I’m guessing with the big parade scheduled for today,” Gunny muttered, “they ain’t taking any chances with us spoiling things.”

  “Then this may get interesting, trying to lose a tail with a rig this wide,” Ruth said. Still, she might need the extra room. None of those overpaid farm engineers looked like they’d skipped any meals since taking on their jobs here.

  Mary headed out ahead of her. Then it was Ruth’s turn.

  As luck would have it, there was still a cop car left to tail Ruth as she left the empty embassy motor pool.

  She turned right the first chance she got, away from the Presidential Palace and its parade. She led her tail up that way as far as she could go and still catch the last bridge to cross the Anna River. Through it all, the black police car behind her kept her sedate pace.

  Once on the other side of the river, Ruth hopped an expressway and headed out of town. The cop stayed with her for the first couple of turnoffs, then took the fifth one and headed back into town.

  Ruth used the seventh exit to make her own turnaround. She half expected the cop to be waiting for her, but he was long gone.

  Keeping a careful eye on her rear for any regrown tail, she made her way, in a very roundabout way, to Momma’s Best Burgers.

  She was there ahead of Mary.

  “I’ll stay in the car with the bag,” Debbie said, sprawling out in the backseat and settling in for what some might take for a nap.

  Gunny took the parking lot in with a studied eye, found it carried acceptable risks, and joined Ruth heading for the front door.

  Inside, they took a table in the back and ordered the signature special. The burgers were greasy, and the fries were stale. The lettuce was wilted and what passed for tomatoes had to be seen to be believed.

  “There are some things I will not miss when we see this place in the rearview mirror,” Gunny muttered as he gingerly essayed a bite.

  Five minutes later, Mary arrived with her own sergeant. They took a table a couple down from Ruth and assiduously did not look at them more than once.

  It was getting on toward noon when the packages began wandering in in groups of three or four. They looked furtively around. Anyone not blind would know they were up to something and very likely all coconspirators.

  Ruth did her best not to look their way, and they, after being ignored ten or twenty times, learned to do the same.

  More burgers were ordered and delivered.

  Ruth glanced at her watch.

  The problem with this kind of operation was that it depended on someone else to start it. She watched, and waited, trying not to glance out the window too many times.

  As it turned out, she didn’t need to be looking out the window when it started. It was pretty spectacular. You couldn’t avoid noticing it.

  FORTY-TWO

  SPIN TOSSED THE last shovel of cow shit and returned his shovel to the rack.

  He’d brought the last load of manure off the truck, and they’d tossed it with more enthusiasm than the heat of the day deserved. They’d earned their pay: three dinars for the big boys, two for the small ones, and one for the water girls.

  Now, all of them crowded toward the gate to collect their coins.

  Alice hung back at the end, so Spin did too. The paymaster, as usual, took his time doling out the money they’d earned, as if it came from his own pocket. Or as if he enjoyed making them fidget all the more for what they’d earned with their own sweat.

  Spin had just gotten to the head of the line when one of the bosses shouted to the others to turn on the water.

  Spin’s pay dropped into his palm just as it all started to happen.

  “Look!” Alice shouted, apparently not at all interested in her money.

  Spin spun around and looked.

  As usual, the boss men were turning on all the water spigots at the same time. Brother Scott said that wasn’t too smart, since if they watered only one area at a time, they wouldn’t make such a big hit on the water tanks, but no, as usual, they were turning all the sprinklers on at once, so they could get it over with and get out of the sun.

  What with them having spread twice the manure, Spin figured the water problem would be even worse. But it wasn’t bad yet.

  All the sprinklers were on and flowing at full blast.

  As the water hit the ground, there were bright white flashes. Maybe the bosses were too hungover or just not paying any attention, but the water kept coming and the flashes just kept getting bigger.

  Then the manure began catching fire.

  Spin had once seen a manure pile burn. It had been delivered on a hot day and just left where it was dumped. It lay in the sun for a couple of days and it kind of started burning. It stank to high heaven as it burned, but it burned.

  Now, all the spread-out manure was sparkling with these white explosions and burning. Somehow, the water only made it worse.

  “What burns when water hits it?” Spin asked Alice.

  “I dunno,” she said. The pay man was looking, his mouth falling open slowly as he did. He slapped a copper dinar in Alice’s hand and stood there gawking. He took a couple of steps toward the burning plants but stopped. Then he backed up, as if to start running, but then he paused and stepped forward again. He did it several times.

  He couldn’t seem to decide what to do next.

  The boss guys were shouting at each other. The senior guy was insisting they turn up the water, but it was up as far as it would go.

  No, it was already starting to run down. The spray from the sprinklers was reaching less and less manure, and where it no longer reached, the fire was really catching on.

  The plant leaves were dry to start with, some even showing brown. Now they flared up and burned. Some floated on the hot wind for a bit and landed among the plants that hadn’t been fertilized.

  The fire spread.

  Someone somewhere else must have decided they needed help, because a siren began to wail. It was soon joined by more sirens, all coming closer.

  Spin pulled at Alice’s elbow. “We don’t want to be here when the people get here.”

  “I know, I know,” Alice said. But even with Spin pulling her through the Farm’s gate, she walked backward, eyes bright with what she saw.

  “Take that, Milassi. You take that,” she whispered.

  FORTY-THREE

  RUTH LOOKED OUT the window and smiled at what she saw.

  Dense brown smoke roiled up from the Farm. She could just make out the white sparkles as magnesium flared when water kissed it.

  The diversion was up and running.

  The scientists stood and stared out the window. All their mouths hung open or flapped, depending on their personal bent.

  Dr. Bernardo looked back at Mary and turned pale.

  Ruth tossed a couple of bills on the table and stood up. Gunny followed her out. Mary did the same.

  Walking through the gawking scientists, she whispered. “Pay your bills and join us in the parking lot. Move fast. Your rides won’t be here forever.”

  A few of the guys in white smocks quickly dropped money on the table for their meals and followed. Others were last seen arguing among themselves.

  Ruth had put out a call to her posse when she first spotted the fire. A blue sports car pulled into the parking lot. She opened the back door and shoved a scientist into the empty seat befor
e he could say a word.

  She did the same for the next two cars that drove through the lot like race cars making an unavoidable pit stop.

  Then Dr. Bernardo got to her elbow.

  “What have you done?” he demanded.

  “Set up a diversion,” Ruth said, and tried to shove him into the latest car to pause in front of her.

  He refused to be shoved.

  So Mary shoved the next guy in line and Ruth stepped aside to argue with an overeducated dolt.

  “Did you think this was going to be easy?” she snapped as a police car, siren blaring, raced by, a bright red fire engine close on its bumper. “We’ve got their attention where we want it. Now you can leave.”

  One of the nice things about this parking lot was its back entrance. Now that the street out front was full of wailing emergency-response vehicles, the Marines were pulling in through the back road and leaving the same way.

  “But what about my work?” Dr. Bernardo cried. “It’s ruined!”

  That brought Mary’s head around even as she shoved a guy in the next car. Ruth didn’t care for violence, but she had to throttle an urge to slug the scientist. Maybe she should leave him behind to look after his work and explain this little setback to his employer.

  “And this work would be better off distributed around human space and pumped into the veins of people too stupid to know better?”

  The good doctor’s self-absorption did have some limits. He frowned in thought for a few moments. “Yes. Yes. You may have a point there.”

  “My employer thinks so. Now, are you going?”

  Ruth got ready to shove him in the next car, but she missed her chance as a new fellow, lab coat flying, raced into the parking lot.

  “Dr. Bernardo. Doctor Bernardo. I thought I’d find you here,” the man shouted, then, out of breath, halted a few meters away to rest his hands on his knees as he gasped for air.

  A second man was not far behind. What he shouted had Mary reaching for her automatic. Reaching, but not quite pulling it out.

  “What have you done? What is going on? Why are our fields burning even as we water them?”

  “You’re the chemist,” Bernardo shouted back. “You tell me.”

  The man turned back to the Farm and frowned. Gunny started moving toward him with purpose.

  “The initial sparkles that ignited the fire were bright white. Magnesium. Did someone mix magnesium in with the fertilizer?”

  “Enough, mister, you’re coming with us,” Gunny told him.

  “I think we better go with them, wherever they’re going,” the first newcomer said, now having caught his breath. “Do you want to talk to the boss when all this gets out? Even if we can convince him we had nothing to do with this, he’ll still skin us alive.”

  All four of the scientists still in the parking lot shivered. Apparently, he was not speaking metaphorically.

  “Can we go?” the last man there asked.

  “Mary, you take those two idiots,” Ruth said, shoving two the Marine’s way.

  “I’ll take these two fools,” Ruth finished, pulling Bernardo and the last to arrive toward her car.

  “We’re already gone,” Mary said, and, grabbing an elbow of each, towed them toward her sedan.

  Ruth shoved them in the backseat with Debbie. They immediately began insisting that they each got a window seat. The Marine settled at least half of the argument by hauling out her M-6 and pulling back purposefully on the arming bolt.

  Dr. Bernardo insisted he should ride up front but grew quickly silent when Gunny drew his automatic.

  “What have we fallen in with?” the new fellow whined.

  “Marines,” Gunny growled.

  “If you want the double pay, shut up, sit still, and don’t cause us any trouble,” Ruth ordered.

  “Double pay!” Suddenly, the new fellow was all ears.

  “On Wardhaven,” Dr. Bernardo added.

  The backseat grew suddenly hushed.

  Two police cars drove in the front entrance just as Ruth pulled carefully into the side street’s sparse traffic.

  The cops parked and got out, apparently more intent on coffee than the fire.

  Or the people who set it.

  Ruth drove at the speed limit as she put distance between herself and the cops.

  FORTY-FOUR

  COLONEL RAY LONGKNIFE was bored. If he never saw another tank, infantry assault vehicle, or gun carriage in his life, it would be too soon.

  Around him, minor civilian officials looked at them with pride mixed with terror. As an old infantry officer, Ray looked at them as targets. From the looks of most of them, they’d be easy kills.

  Not all, but most.

  For a nickel, he’d leave.

  His commlink buzzed, as did Becky’s next to him. They both took the excuse to pull their commlinks out and purposefully withdraw from the crowd. That involved leaving the reviewing stand and ducking out the back.

  As far as Ray was concerned, it just got better and better.

  “Longknife here,” was matched with a simple “Graven.”

  “I’m glad I caught both of you,” came in Captain Tordon’s voice. “The packages have been collected. Everything is going smoothly, but I can’t say how long that will last.”

  Ray tried not to smile. The Marine was talking like an experienced combat officer.

  “Thank you for the call,” Graven said.

  “If you should choose to come back to the embassy, I can have some extra Marines meet your limo,” said a lot without saying anything at all.

  Ray eyed the diplomat. Her nod toward where the limos were parked was almost, but not quite, imperceptible.

  So was his nod of agreement. Away from the rumble of tanks, Ray could just pick up the noise of distant sirens. Apparently, the distraction was going very well.

  He did not look around to search for smoke. He’d learned long ago not to gawk.

  He and the Foreign Service Officer turned to leave.

  And found themselves facing Milassi himself.

  The big man wasn’t so big up close, but he was large enough, with his two ever-present bodyguards, to block their way.

  “Leaving so soon,” was not a question.

  “Once you’ve seen one tank, you’ve seen them all,” Ray said, lightly.

  “But we have so many for you to see,” was a growled threat.

  “And if I see that same tank again from the 4th Armored Brigade with its laser range finder hanging by a thread . . .” was intentionally left vague.

  When the president-for-life didn’t react, Ray went on. “What is it, the fourth time you’ve rolled the same tanks by the reviewing stand?”

  Milassi shrugged. “I should have known I couldn’t fool a real war hero. Even after I had the unit’s license plates painted over.”

  “That was my first tell you were playing games,” Ray said. “But the black horses were still on the side of each tank. The 4th Brigade’s black horses—2nd Brigade is the white horses. Rampant lions for the 12th Infantry, and death’s-heads for the 20th.”

  “It was a shame to obliterate all that lovely artwork,” Milassi said with a shrug.

  “Well, if you’ll excuse me, we really must be going,” Ms. Graven said, and made to step around the strongman.

  He stepped in front of her.

  “I am not your enemy,” he said with a softness that did not belie the threat.

  “I don’t see you as one,” the professional diplomat answered, diplomatically.

  Ray tried to go around his other side, but the man sidestepped in front of him. “I’m only trying to make a living. We can’t all marry into money, can we now?”

  Ray reminded himself that he was a diplomat today. There was no need to honestly discuss this man’s predilections and depredations. Indeed, there was no time to discuss anything.

  If Ruth and Mary had the scientists moving away from this man’s clutches and toward Wardhaven, the game was afoot, and there was a defini
te advantage to Ray’s side for him to stay free and not end up this man’s hostage.

  “I hope you may find as much happiness with your wife as I find with mine,” Ray said. “And as soon as I’ve had a quick meeting with the senators, I’ll be on my way back home.”

  “That will be nice,” Milassi said with a grin that had no joy in it. “To be home with your wife before the baby comes.”

  “Yes,” Ray said, letting himself smile with all the joy the thought brought him.

  Happy smile to vicious smile, they faced each other for a long moment. Then the big man stepped aside, and Ray and Becky began a casual stroll to their waiting limo.

  Off to the west, there was definitely something burning. Gray smoke rose in the hot, dry air before leveling out several thousand feet high and dissipating into a haze.

  “You know, we may have outthought ourselves, accepting this invitation,” Ray said, allowing himself to speed up his walk.

  “After seeing that man and his tanks, I think you may be right. Can we get around that long line of vehicles?”

  “It depends on how far they’re going before they loop around and come back to see us again. I’d say two, maybe three blocks. We can get around that.”

  The limo’s motor was already running as they approached it. Ray held the back door open for Becky. She got in, then scooted across the seat so he could get in right after her.

  “George, to the embassy, and make haste without looking like it.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and they were moving before either one of them could belt in.

  * * *

  Trouble didn’t breathe until the limo pulled out of the Presidential Palace and began to wind its way around the circular parade route.

  Of course, if he was able to follow the limo’s squawker, then anyone could.

  Not all of his Marines were on the other side of town close to Ruth.

  “Lieutenant Vu, your diplomat and my colonel are leaving the palace in a marked limo. Could you rendezvous with them about five blocks out?” Trouble said, and sent him the intercept coordinates.