Roadworks

by Gerard Readett

  Michaux smiled. "Slide it over, would you?"

  Suddenly, all eyes in the room were on me. Frowning, I attempted to understand what he meant. That would not do, policemen showing up someone who uses computers daily. I did not want to appear ignorant, so I tried the only thing I could think of. I placed my hand on the screen, and ran it forward.

  It worked. Just like a sheet of paper, the map on my screen glided across the table. When I could reach no further I let go. The picture flickered slightly, but Michaux made no attempt to retrieve it. Instead, he tapped a few commands into his console.

  The map jumped. Where I had left it, it was the size of my screen. Now, much larger, it covered most of the centre of the table. Everyone could see it clearly. That explained the unusual height of the table. Just right for everyone to have a good view while still sitting.

  Michaux asked the first question, and then the other officers joined in. Martin and I spent the next twenty minutes explaining every nook and cranny in the backup TMC.

  By the time we finished, I had the feeling they knew the building the backup is situated in better than either of us. We only enter it for training exercises, and never bother with anything else than the corridors leading to the backup TMC, the toilets, the kitchen for coffee and quick meals, and the TMC itself.

  Apart from our discovering where the OPA had set up shop, not much was going our way. The world was conspiring against us, and it was not about to stop now. The helicopters, which should have been at Michaux's disposal, were indisposed. A burst fuel line had sprayed both of them with highly flammable aviation fuel. It would take two hours to wipe them clean. Two hours before they could be used safely.

  That left the attack squad with a dilemma. No question of waiting two hours for the choppers to be ready. Motor vehicles were out as well, due to the traffic jams. Someone came up with the idea of using the yellow pages to find the nearest motorcycle shop -- five blocks away-- too far. The best bet appeared to be the bicycle shop two streets away.

  Window-shopping at the bicycle shop, we waited for Michaux to make a decision. We had astonished many a motorist, waltzing down the street with what amounted to a medium-sized armoury. Strangely, after that, very few people ventured out of the safety of their cars. Whatever their grievances against being stuck in a massive traffic jam, no one had the courage to find out what had got us upset. I suppose twenty mean-looking, tight-lipped and heavily armed men can have that effect, even if they are wearing police uniforms.

  Before leaving, Michaux had quickly shown us their arsenal. They had two armour-piercing Garrett rifles, massive guns nearly two metres long and carried by two officers at a time. These special guns were used to take out an opponent, even one standing behind a brick wall. They also had semi-automatic machine guns, usual equipment for anti-terrorist squads. There were several types of grenade -- smoke and incapacitation.

  And that was just the weapons. They had rapid setting resin guns to immobilise a man in seconds without injuring him. To see through walls, they had Infrared thermography cameras and thermal imagers to see through smoke. They all sounded like interesting toys, but since Martin, Maria and I were going to stay outside until all terrorists had been neutralised, I paid little attention to the rest of the explanation.

  The entrance to the bicycle shop was a glass door. Stuck on the inside, a sign indicated that the shop was closed for the week. Michaux glanced at his watch, then smashed the front door with the heel of his boot.

  A short while later, we headed off. Each of us had selected a bicycle to suit our needs. Martin and I had large, lightweight ones to accommodate our long legs. Michaux and his squad had selected ones that had large luggage racks to carry all of their equipment. Even that had not been enough. Martin and I had been required to carry the cameras and imagers in saddle-bags.

  At first, I had trouble getting the bike to move. The last time I had ridden must have been at least two years ago, and the weight was not making things easy. The equipment had been suitably arranged to balance my bike, but even then it was a struggle to keep from falling sideways. After the initial push, things got slightly easier, the forward momentum of the bike compensating for the wobbling I was trying to eliminate as I pedalled.

  It took us half an hour to reach the backup TMC. The amount of cars on the road forced us to take a short cut through the Botanical Gardens, not very accessible by bike. There was no screech of tires --the best way to announce oneself to the terrorists-- but a silent dismount. After unloading all the equipment, we stashed the bikes against a wall.

  As planned, Michaux placed a call to Lyens at the TMC, to inform them his squads were ready, and get a final confirmation from the Bourgmestre. He might be a soldier, but he had been around long enough to know that politicians sometimes let people hang in the wind if circumstances change. He was just playing safe, but he need not have.

  The deadline was approaching rapidly. The OPA were getting impatient, they still had received no acknowledgement from the Bourgmestre, and had severed data communications between the network and the TMC to give her something to think about. That meant it was imperative we eliminate all resistance here without damaging the equipment, which we would now most certainly need.

  Maria handed out the badges, then the squad immediately advanced on the entrance. Each one knew precisely what was expected of him.

  Return to Contents

  * * *

  Chapter Fifteen

  12.16 a.m. 14 minutes to OPA deadline

  Michaux remained with us, outside, to co-ordinate the attack. The last and most important piece of equipment he retrieved from his bike, a small black display tablet, which he unfolded and placed on the ground. On it was a replica of the map I had procured for him of the backup TMC. The device intrigued me, and I knelt down to get a closer look. Maria was about to do the same, but Michaux looked up at her.

  "Maria, keep an eye on the front door, please."

  On the map, several small letters were moving around the screen, approaching the TMC. Inside the TMC itself fourteen red dots glowed brightly. My guess was that the former were Michaux's men, and the latter the positions of the OPA as reported by them. The time was not appropriate, I mused, to interrupt his concentration and confirm it. Martin joined us and, apparently sensing Michaux's tenseness, kept silent.

  When the letters stopped moving, Michaux hit a button. Little blue circles appeared around each letter. They could only be the pre-arranged positions for the attack. All the letters were perfectly centred in the circles, a tribute to the precision of the squads. Ten minutes for all of them to reach their positions outside the backup TMC undetected.

  Michaux muttered something into his throat mike. His head cocked to one side, he counted off something on his fingers. Apparently satisfied, he glanced at his watch. He placed a hand on his throat microphone, and spoke to us quietly.

  "We've got all of the terrorists covered. This is the tricky part. If we don't--"

  Suddenly, his head jerked back as if he had just been punched, and he snarled, "Who's firing?"

  Surprised, and sadly disappointed, I tried to understand. Someone must have let off a shot before he had given the word. Here was I, thinking that the squads disciplined and were trained to have immense self-control. Things were not quite going ahead as I had expected. Michaux was unnerved too, it seemed. He put a finger on his earpiece.

  "If not you, who then?" He covered the throat mike with his hand, and snapped at me, "I thought you said the backup would be empty apart from the terrorists."

  A slight pause, then he barked, "Take them all out."

  Later, I had time to reconstitute the train of events, but at the time, everything went so quickly, I failed to realise what had just been said. The siege of the backup TMC was over. The technological weapons and the superior training of Michaux's squads had flipped the balance of power on this dreadful day, instantly eradicating the greatest threat this city had ever known. Just like stepping on a cockroach. I
couldn't help the feeling that it was too easy. Something was wrong.

  All of a minute and a half passed, and Michaux froze, listening to whatever bizarre noises he could hear. He looked at Maria, and, almost whispering, said, "Six targets, front door, one minute."

  Maria wasted no time. Her gun slipped snugly into her hand. She knelt down on one knee, and aimed the gun at the door ahead.

  Michaux pointed to Martin and myself, then motioned us to lie down, behind the bikes. Not that they would give us much protection, but then, I suppose it's better than nothing.

  He joined Maria, pulled out his own gun, and settled down beside her. Without taking his eyes off the door, he muttered, "Two down. Four left."

  If I understood correctly, six terrorists had escaped and were heading towards us. The fact that their numbers were dropping could only mean that Michaux's men were chasing them, trying to ensure they never left the building.

  "Another one down."

  Maybe the need to keep the TMC systems intact had hampered their shooting, even though I would have thought that anti-terrorist squads trained for just that eventuality. There wouldn't be much call for people who couldn't shoot a terrorist without hitting hostages.

  "One down. Two left. Thirty seconds."

  It seemed much longer, but finally one man emerged from the backup TMC. He stopped when he saw Michaux and Maria. Without an instant of hesitation, he brought his gun to bear.

  The man jerked twice as they shot him, then slowly his dead body toppled over backwards.

  "One left," Michaux glanced over at Maria's gun, then whispered, "No. Alive."

  The gun in her hand had instantly been replaced. From here, the contraption looked like a cross between a set of weights and a space ray-gun. She held it by the centre of the crossbar between the canisters at either end. Now I recognised it. Back in their building on Rue Royale, Michaux had shown me one. A fast-setting resin gun, capable of freezing a man in his tracks.

  The door was flung open. The black man who flew headlong through it only had time to acknowledge what was pointed at him.

  Maria squeezed the crossbar.

  The speed of that weapon was incredible. I swear that before the contents of the first canister had hit him, the liquid of the second was already on its way. So much so, that both liquids were in flight at the same time. The first, I remembered Michaux telling me, was the resin in liquid form, the second was a kind of catalyst that made the resin set.

  The man, caught in a tightening body glove, grimaced as he lost control of his leg movements. He strained hard, one last time, then with resignation toppled forward. Maria dropped the resin gun, and dove towards him. At the time, I failed to understand why.

  Looking at him, lying face down in a small but rapidly growing pool of blood, I think I got it. With his arms imprisoned near his body, he had nothing to break his fall but his nose. If he had ever lost consciousness, he quickly recovered. He moaned and strained to keep his head up.

  Michaux rushed over, and glanced at a sheepish Maria. With a little wink he turned away.

  "At least we got one live one."

  Using his free arm, he levered the man over. Mug shots would obviously have to wait until his nose set and the blood got cleaned up, maybe even until the flowering black eye disappeared. The man reluctantly met Michaux's stare, then his eyes widened.

  Michaux's head instantly snapped round, and up.

  A shot rang out, and its echo bounced back from the opposite side of the street. I glanced up in time to see the muzzle of a rifle disappear from a window in the TMC building.

  I looked at the supine terrorist.

  "We HAD one live one." I mentally corrected Michaux.

  ***

  Akila Kama gritted his teeth in anger. From his position, on the third floor of a building facing the Backup Transport Management Centre, he had witnessed the demise of his men. They had known the dangers of the operation, but they had gladly accepted the risk for the chance to strike at the West. Although Akila had no compunction sending men to their deaths in the name of a cause that was greater than any of them, he seethed with rage. The anti-terrorist squads would have ultimately discovered where they were, and an attack was inevitable. However, it was much too early in the day for them to have been able to know where the OPA was. Unless someone had told them. That someone could only be Wellens. The sniper, who had just killed Akila's last man so Michaux wouldn't take him alive, proved that Wellens had double-crossed him. Akila swore to his dead comrades that their deaths would be avenged. Wellens would pay for his crime.

  He looked down again at the four people around the body of his man. Michaux, he had recognised from the biography he had made on him. He had spent many days reading old newspapers and magazines to understand the anti-terrorist squads' methods, with a special emphasis on Michaux's tactics.

  Akila couldn't remember the name of the woman, but he knew her face. In several newspapers her face had been close to Michaux's. She was the liaison between the police and the squads.

  The two men crouching behind the bikes he didn't know. Wellens had been miserly with the information he had given away, but Akila had not left matters there. He had prepared well for this strike against the West, what was to have been the greatest achievement of his career. He pulled out his PDA, which displayed two albums. He ignored the one marked 'W', which contained the personnel details of all of Wellens' employees. The other album had a 'T' written on the front. He rifled through the photographs of all the Transport Authority employees, and quickly found the names to match the faces of the two unknown men outside. They were Hugh Ryan and Martin Goossens, two harmless network controllers.

  ***

  "One target, top floor, and he's carrying a high-powered rifle." Michaux shouted, clutching his throat mike, more for the benefit of his men than us. After all, we saw the last remaining terrorist, partly.

  At his request, two of Michaux's men came outside to join us, weapons at the ready and hands on the triggers. They were not yet ready to relax. I was thankful for that. One of them made his report to Michaux.

  "Sir, there were fourteen terrorists. We had them in our sights. Then someone else appeared behind us. He didn't look like he belonged there. He shot Burlet before we even knew he was there."

  "How is he?"

  "He's dead, sir. Shot in the head. Whoever it was anticipated bullet-proof jackets. When that shot went off, we hit eight of the terrorists inside the TMC, but by then some of them had moved. Smets and I got some of them on the way out."

  Michaux nodded, then spoke into his throat mike again. "Get that sniper. I want him alive." He turned back to the man who had made the report.

  "This man who doesn't belong, the sniper what's he look like?"

  "Tall, broad shoulders, dark hair, close-cropped, wide nose, thin eyebrows."

  "We'll see about him later. Let's get going with more urgent matters."

  So far, the only ones to take the events as they came, the only people ready for anything, were these troops of Michaux's. They took nothing for granted, and always prepared for the worst. In normal circumstances they might be considered overcautious, but then again, they are only needed in dire emergencies, and I challenged anyone to call today less than a full-blown crisis.

  Flanked by his men, Michaux ahead of us and Maria behind, Martin and I entered the backup TMC building. Michaux wanted us safe. For the first time, we were no longer just mindless traffic controllers; we had become important people. Martin and I were the only two in this city who could clear up the mess. The only people able to get the city's transport system back on its feet, or on its wheels, to get it rolling again. Michaux was not taking any chances with us. His squads had eliminated all the terrorists, bar one. However, that one loose cannon could change things if he got near Martin or myself.

  We entered. The TMC was not as damaged as I expected. The outer walls were riddled with bullet holes, presumably where the terrorists had fired back. The equipment, screens
and computers were remarkably intact, though, except for two screens off to the right. A quick glance was enough to ascertain what they were. One was connected to an Internet PC, like the one the OPA used in the primary TMC to contact us. The other was the games computer. Since we only used the backup TMC for drills and disaster recovery exercises, we can sometimes have time on our hands. Time to play computer games. This was one of the little perks of working at the backup TMC.

  The bodies of the terrorists lay on the carpet in the middle, staining the dirty grey carpet with dark blood. I tried to avoid looking at them too much. Not that the sight of blood scares me, as long as it's someone else's, not mine. The problem was the wounds. Michaux's squads had used armour-piercing bullets to reach through walls and tables. The exit wounds on the bodies were as small as the entry wounds, but as most of the holes were in the head, the blood just spurted out. The carpet was soaking it up, and would probably be totally ruined.

  I chose the chair with the least blood on it, and sat down. The screen had three red blobs at the top, but I attempted to ignore them. Trying to compose myself and concentrate on the network, I looked at the display. The map of the network was on it, nodes, roads and all. It was mostly red, naturally. When we had left the primary TMC, the situation was exactly the same. We had not changed anything.

  Yet!

  Martin sat down next to me. Together, we decided on priorities, the first being to check all the systems, including the backup mainframe. If that were off-line, all our work would be in vain. Martin gave it the all clear after only a few minutes work.

  I began by checking the parking lots to see if the estimated time for repairs had been reduced. It had not; the repair crews were still trying to extricate the cars from the lift wreckage. It was delicate work if the lift mechanisms were to be undamaged, or at least not damaged any further.