“Got them. Be there in two minutes.”
“I’ll have two more rigs meet you there or close by.”
“What do you want? Do we escort them in?” Vu asked.
“I don’t think that would be such a good idea. Abandon the limo and switch them to your rigs.”
“Take the driver, too?”
“Would you want to be driving a traceable vehicle today?”
“Good point, Skipper. Secure all the people. Material is expendable.”
“You got that.”
“I have the limo in sight.”
“I’ll advise the colonel. Trouble out.”
Trouble switched his commlink’s connection. “Colonel, I have a new ride approaching you from your front. Black SUV. Full of Marines in civvies. Lieutenant Vu in command. I strongly recommend that you park the limo and return to the embassy with the Marines.”
* * *
Colonel Ray Longknife frowned at this latest communication.
“Either Trouble is becoming a worried old lady in long skirts, or things are getting more risky than we thought.”
“After your little talk with Milassi,” Becky said, “you still think this is not a risk?”
“I just don’t think he’s willing to start shooting people with our reputations and connections.”
“I do,” the diplomat said.
That settled it for Ray. When civilians with diplomatic immunity started to worry, it was time to expand the safety margins of the operation.
“Driver, pull over. We’ll be changing rides.”
“George, you come, too,” Becky said.
The driver didn’t argue but pulled over to the curb and locked the car as soon as they were all out.
The Marine rig was large. It needed to be to hold the four Marines and three others who piled in. They turned at the end of the block, but as Ray looked back, three police cars were racing up to the limo, lights flashing but silent.
The Marine rig picked up two more of its kind at the next corner. As they made another turn, Ray heard a loud explosion.
“What was that?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Lieutenant Vu said, “but there’s smoke behind us.”
Through the back window, Ray could see oily black smoke rising from where his last ride most likely was.
“Why blow up an empty limo?” George asked.
“Because it was empty, and that was the only way Milassi could send a message,” Ray said as he tapped his commlink.
“Captain Tordon, this is Colonel Ray Longknife. I am issuing this order as senior officer present. You have weapons release. I repeat, you have weapons release. Please advise all Society of Humanity armed forces on this planet that they are to defend themselves if they conclude that they are at risk.”
“Understood, sir. I will issue the order.”
Ray turned to face forward. “Milassi sent his message. Now I’ve sent mine.”
“Speaking for all the Marines dirtside, sir, may I say thank you,” Lieutenant Vu said.
“God help us all,” the Foreign Service Officer said.
* * *
“This is Captain Tordon, Society of Humanity Marine Corps, Colonel Ray Longknife has ordered weapons release,” Trouble said, then added the minor limit the colonel had made to the rules of engagement. If some poor young corporals found themselves in a hot spot, now they didn’t have to worry about covering their asses.
It was nice when the local elephant was an old line beast.
* * *
“Sergeant,” Cyn said, fingering her M-6, “that cop who’s been tailing us for the last mile is not hanging back.”
“I saw,” Sergeant Daly said. “Hold on, and you can take the safety off that toy of yours, gal.”
Cyn grinned, flipped the safety, and pulled back the arming bolt. She was loaded for bear.
And the Bear was coming for them, no question about that. The cop was closing fast, and now a hand with a pistol emerged from the passenger side. Cyn heard six shots, but nothing hit the car.
“The idiot is firing wide,” the sergeant said as he floored the sedan and headed for the bridge back to the embassy.
That really seemed to bug their pursuer. He sped up; someone in the backseat hung out the window. This one had a machine pistol in hand.
“Lots of fire coming our way,” Cyn announced.
The sergeant glanced into his rearview. “End this race before someone gets hurt.”
“Yes, sir,” Cyn said with a happy grin.
She did not sight her M-6 at the man, or even at the driver. No, the radiator was a much larger and steadier target than any of them.
Her first round punched a hole in the rear window. The three rounds that quickly followed punched holes in the trailing car just where she intended.
The radiator started spewing scorching water and coolant. The gunner, who had yet to get a round off, suddenly dropped his gun and grabbed for his eyes as boiling steam washed over him.
The situation back there must have gotten confusing. The car wavered right, then left, then took a hard right turn, slammed through the bridge rail, and sailed very nicely out over the river before vanishing from view.
“Very good, Corporal. Very good.”
“Why thank you, Sarge. That was pretty good, if I do say so myself.”
“Let me check in with the skipper,” the sergeant said.
A minute later he said. “Captain says well done. If we want to come in, we can. Or we can stay out. Your call, Corporal.”
“I don’t feel a need to go back to the embassy, Sarge. Do you need a change of underwear?”
“Not on your life, Marine.”
“Then let’s keep trawling for trolls.”
FORTY-FIVE
RUTH LISTENED TO voices on the net. They did not chatter. Marines were too professional to chatter.
What she heard sent chills up her spine.
Milassi was going to war with the embassy.
No doubt, he thought he had good cause. Alice reported through Brother Scott that not only had the half of the crop they’d targeted gone up in smoke, but the fire had spread to the rest of the fields. There were lots of fire trucks at the Farm now.
But none had much water, and most of the firemen were standing around watching the dope burn.
No wonder Milassi had torched the embassy limo in his rage.
Ruth heard sirens blaring off in the distance. Different sirens from different directions. Some to her right. Some to her left. Some behind her.
But it was the ones in front of her that worried her the most.
The sirens would light off, frequently followed by long bursts of automatic weapons fire. Gunny could identify them by the sound.
“Some cop’s machine pistol,” he’d growl.
“That’s an M-6,” he would say as single shots or short bursts responded.
That usually ended the conversation. A few shots, and the sirens would go quiet. If it was close, Ruth might hear the echoes of a crash.
Usually, she didn’t.
The cops were losing the high-speed chases.
So, of course, they changed the game.
“Ruth, there’s a roadblock about a mile ahead of you,” Trouble advised her.
She immediately took a left.
They were edging toward the suburbs now. The streets were wider. The buildings here were brick row houses. Some had flowerpots in the upper windows. Some had lawns.
Ruth had gone three blocks when a cop stepped out from behind a tree. He was in the middle of the road in the blink of an eye. One hand on his holster, the other pointing at her and waving her down.
Ruth considered slamming it into reverse, but Gunny said, “Go ahead and stop. Edge over to my side.”
As Ruth did, Gunny rolled his window down.
“Is there a problem, Officer?” he called, head half-out the window.
The man glanced at their license plates, then at his wrist unit, checking their plate against
a list. He did the check but didn’t tap his wrist to send in a report.
That might be promising.
Or not.
He drew his weapon as he approached Gunny’s open window.
“You are wanted for questioning. You will have to come with me,” the officer said.
Ruth withdrew several hundred dinar notes from her pocket and passed them over to Gunny. He laid them on the windowsill.
“I am afraid that today I cannot be bought off,” the cop said sadly.
“I figured as much,” Gunny said.
“Now, out of the car,” came with a wave of the pistol.
Gunny groaned as he made to get out, suddenly an old man with old bones.
But the door slammed open like the strike of a snake. The top of it took the cop on the chin, knocking him back. His gun flew one way as he went down hard on his ass.
“You earned your pay today, sir,” Gunny said, tucking the money in the cop’s boot. “Now let’s get out of here,” he said, closing the door.
Ruth was off before it clicked shut.
“Mind telling me what that was all about?” Debbie asked from the backseat. She had her M-6 out, but with no order from Gunny, she’d played it as cool as he.
From the smell of it, at least one of the scientists needed a change of underwear.
“Alice mentioned that some of the street cops weren’t too bad. Maybe not good by our standards, but not too bad for locals. How could anyone be in a corrupt system like this and not smell of it? Anyway, when he didn’t call us in, I figured there was a good chance his heart really wasn’t in what he had to do today. As it seems, it wasn’t.”
“I wish you’d told me that, Gunny,” Debbie said.
“I wish I’d had time to,” Gunny admitted.
Ruth had turned at several corners, putting distance between her and the down cop, when sirens lit up close by.
“Honey,” Trouble said on net, “that roadblock just cleared, but I’m afraid all the cops are moving in your direction.”
“So I hear,” Ruth allowed.
“I’ve got several Marine rigs headed your way. I see you meeting them in about six blocks.” He gave her the coordinates, and she drove for them.
“Is this going to be a shoot-out at the OK Corral?” Gunny asked.
“It kind of looks it,” Trouble said. “Milassi’s guys are starting to get desperate.”
“How’s our ride coming?” Ruth asked.
“It’s headed in. Izzy’s flying one of them.”
“Oh, Lord,” Ruth said. “We’re all in trouble.”
Captain Umboto flew shuttles the way she lived: fast and wild. Considering the smell from the backseat, Ruth chose to keep that thought to herself.
“Can we make the pickup?” Ruth asked. “Is it my imagination, or are there a whole lot of police ahead of us?”
“That’s what it’s looking like to me, too, dear.”
“Can you see some options ahead of us?”
“Wait one,” her husband said.
FORTY-SIX
TROUBLE SAW ON his board what Ruth had intuitively concluded from her place on the ground. Milassi was concentrating his forces on the northeast side of town.
There, the roads led to the foothills and Bear Lake.
But the police weren’t the only problem. A battalion of tanks had turned out of the line of elephants parading past Milassi.
A roadblock centered on a huge armored monster would have true authority.
It was time to change the game.
First, he advised Captain Umboto of what she faced and of the need to move the goal post.
“No problem, Trouble. I kind of expect trouble when I’m dealing with you.”
Next, he called up several Marine rigs he had in the area and ordered them to meet up with Ruth. Then he backed them up with more. Just about everyone not returning with the colonel to the embassy was headed for the north side of town.
No need to be coy now.
Then he ordered the rentals to head off to the northwest, careful-like.
Quickly, the pieces came together. The only question was how much of a mess there would be when it was all done?
* * *
“Oh, this is going to be fun,” Sergeant Daly said as he got their orders.
“What’s up, Sarge?” Cyn asked from the backseat.
“You’ll be so glad we didn’t head back to the barn when you hear this, lovely.”
“You ‘lovely’ me, and this better be good.”
“We’re riding interference for Ruth and Mary.”
“I got no problem with that. Unless . . .” Cyn thought about the big, shit-eating grin the sarge was sporting. “What do you mean by ‘interference’?”
“Head-to-head with these big black meanies.”
Now Cyn had a grin of her own. She checked her magazine; she’d only used a dozen rounds or so. Still, she popped out the old one and slapped in a new ninety-round mag.
Alongside, Sarge picked up another SUV, this one with four Marines. The two of them drove down the road, Sarge in the right lane, the other one facing oncoming traffic.
There wasn’t any traffic. Then they rounded a curve, and there was.
Lots of it.
The green sedan that Ruth had been standing by earlier in the day was leading a whole gang of black cars, their lights flashing.
Strange, their sirens were off.
The Marine rig next to them fell back, leaving plenty of room for the sedan to zoom by.
Then it pulled back into oncoming traffic and drove side by side with Sarge.
Suddenly, there were all kinds of sirens.
“How’s this gonna work?” Cyn asked, checking her seat belt. It was tight.
“Their choice,” Sarge said with a laugh. “I got all the road I need.”
The cops took in this game of chicken.
And chickened out.
Black cars hit the curbs going sixty miles an hour as they fled from the charging Marine rigs.
One flipped. Another smashed into a house. A third hit a small, struggling tree and kept right on going into a lamppost. A fire hydrant stopped another in a gush of spouting water.
One car tried to brake but ended up sideways. Sarge braked and went right. The other Marine rig went left as they bounced over the curbs.
There were advantages to going a sedate thirty miles an hour.
Now, police cars were slamming into the backs of the cars ahead of them.
“I think we should get out of here,” Sarge said, coming to a crossroad. He took a hard right. The other Marine went left.
Cyn turned in her seat to see what happened.
Two cars tried to make the turn but failed and slid into the houses on either side. The next two cars smashed into them. So did the third.
Only the fourth and fifth cars back managed to slow down, miss the mess, and tiptoe their way through the wreckage. Now, with lights and sirens blaring, they raced to catch up with Sarge or took off after the other rig.
“Cyn, take out their radiators.”
“You bet, Sarge.”
The way the day was going, Cyn didn’t feel that she had to be chased for too long before she feared for her life.
Those are the rules of engagement, aren’t they?
Three shots, and the first car fell out, spewing steam.
The second car had a good driver. He swerved from left to right, then back again.
Cyn didn’t want to waste ammo. She also didn’t want to have stray rounds wandering around this otherwise-nice neighborhood.
She waited.
The fellow had a bad habit of hanging out at the end of a swerve for a second before he turned back in. Cyn timed her shot carefully. As he reached the end of one swerve, she squeezed off three quick rounds.
His radiator gushed steam as he fell behind.
“When this mess is over, Sarge, we got to go into business for ourselves, importing radiators. I bet you there will be quite a market fo
r new coolers. What do you think?”
“You just might have a deal there, gal. A real good deal. Let me report in, and we’ll see what’s happening.
* * *
Trouble looked upon what he had done and saw it was good.
Damn good!
Milassi had to be running out of cop cars. Or at least cop cars on the north side of town. Both Ruth and Mary had shed their tails. Ruth’s following had self-destructed most spectacularly. That Cyn was quite a gunner as well as a looker.
Trouble had been worried about putting her out there today after what happened to her last week. Still, the Marine was aiming for the material, not the men, and she was doing a very good job of taking them all out.
The door to the spook den opened, and Trouble soon found he had both Colonel Ray Longknife and FSO Becky Graven at his elbow. Without taking his eyes from his developing board, he briefed them on what was happening. He borrowed a screen from the chief duty spook to rerun the take from the smashup of Ruth’s tail.
“Outstanding,” the colonel said.
“Not shabby at all,” the diplomat said.
“Hard-core,” Trouble said.
“I take it that all of you are quite happy, in your own way,” the spook watch officer said.
“I think we said that,” the colonel agreed.
“You haven’t actually shot anyone?” the diplomat asked.
“Not one, ma’am. They’re falling all over themselves like some kind of comedy routine. But so far, so good,” Trouble admitted.
“Don’t expect it to stay that way,” the colonel said, rubbing his knee.
“We’ve got tanks moving across the bridge,” the spook said, and Trouble’s screen lit up to show fifty big armored mammoths ponderously rolling across the main bridge between the Presidential Palace and the north side of town.
“What does Milassi think he can use them for?” the diplomat asked.
“I have no idea,” Trouble said, “but I suspect I’ll find out soon enough.”
FORTY-SEVEN
RUTH WEAVED HER way, block by block, through houses that sometimes had yards between them. Rear alleys still offered her a dodge if she needed one. Other roads were flanked by row houses packed in tight.
To Do or Die (A Jump Universe Novel) Page 24