Deathbites at-12

by Dick Stivers

  As Pol dashed to retrieve the M-203, he introduced himself and Gadgets.

  Politician snatched up the M-203 and shoved a frag into the launcher as he ran for the doorway. He peered out at the steel bench, slowly advancing the length of the hall. It was less than twenty feet from the broken door to the lab.

  Pol aimed carefully and shot the grenade over the top of the bench. It went too far and did only minor damage to the terrorists.

  “Get ready to crouch and run,” Pol told Gadgets.

  Politician plucked an HE with a contact detonator from his bandolier. He shot the charge straight into the side of the steel table. Pol, Gadgets and Lao ducked, opened their mouths and covered their ears against the shock wave that bounced back down the hall. As soon as the shock wave hit them, they were up and running down the hall toward the steel workbench.

  Gadgets, who was in the lead, suddenly yelled.

  “Hit dirt!”

  The three of them dropped as the recognizable booming of the Atchisson Assault 12 filled the air with noise and a hail of death. When the booming stopped, Gadgets and Pol shouted and then popped over the top of the steel barrier, ready to finish off any surviving terrorists. There were none.

  In the silence after the shooting, they could hear the sound of a siren outside.

  Lao, Gadgets and Politician joined Lyons in the cross corridor.

  Lyons dug an id wallet out of a pocket.

  “Let’s go see if this damn thing works,” Lyons said.

  *

  Officer Jim Gillies of the Atlanta Police Department was the first on the scene of a reported gun battle. He had just stopped his cruiser in front of Elwood Electronic Industries when four people emerged from the front door. Three wore combat fatigues; a small, Oriental female wore a white smock. The men carried the meanest collection of automatic weapons that the young officer had ever seen.

  He later tried to tell his fellow officers about the experience: “One was a fully-automatic 12-gauge, honest to God. I decided not to bother drawing the .32 the department gives us. Those weapons made me feel like I was carrying a peashooter. I sort of wanted to hide it. You know what I mean?”

  He paused, but none of his brother officers told him that they knew what he meant.

  “Well, before I could get out, they all got into my squad car. In the front seat, right beside me, was the meanest looking dude I’ve ever seen. With eyes like those, I don’t see why he figured he needed those guns he was carting around.

  “He flashed a Justice Department buzzer at me and said, ‘The airport.’”

  His fellow officers were hooked.

  “What the hell did you do?” one demanded.

  “I drove them to the bloody airport. What the hell do you think I did?” Gillies replied.

  “Those credentials could have been faked,” someone pointed out.

  Gillies sighed. “You didn’t see those men. You didn’t see those eyes beside me, and you didn’t see those weapons. That buzzer could have been from the Pretoria Department of Sanitation, I would have still driven them to the damn airport.

  “The airport security didn’t argue either. We picked up a pilot at the gate and went straight to a black jet marked Acme Pest Control, honest to God.”

  “It was nice working with you,” one of the other officers said.

  Gillies shrugged. He was not going to try to explain that someone from Washington had already straightened the mess out.

  4

  July 9, 1420 hours, Stony Man Farm, Virginia

  Lao Ti gave a roll of solder back to Gadgets.

  “Not acid core, resin core,” she instructed.

  Gadgets pulled a two-pound roll of the desired solder from a drawer in the workbench.

  Hal Brognola, the head Fed at Stony Man, sat on a high wooden bar stool, looking uncomfortable and a bit irritated.

  “Why do we have to hold a briefing in Gadgets’s workshop?” he asked.

  Ti had a Kaypro 10 scattered across one of the workbenches and was in the midst of adding two extra boards that she had made up herself. She answered without looking up.

  “So I can finish this computer. Please go ahead. I will listen most attentively.”

  Aaron Kurtzman, Stony Man’s erstwhile top computer man who was paralyzed from the waist down by a bullet taken in the bloody Stony Man smash, swung around in his wheelchair. “That was a good computer before you took it apart.”

  “A toy,” she replied. “The RAM was only 64K, and the reaction time abominable.”

  “Some people consider that toy the best portable computer on the market,” Kurtzman, “The Bear,” reminded the computer scientist. Kurtzman’s knowledge of computers was enormous. But now, because of injuries, his job status was that of computer-maintenance man.

  She nodded in agreement.

  “I’m remodeling it to suit our needs. I’ve kept the case, the hard disk drive, and the floppy drive. I yanked the microprocessor and the minute memory chips. Mr. Brognola found me some of the new, compact, geranium arsenide chips at NASA. I put those in with parallel microprocessors. Of course, that meant too much heat. So Gadgets helped me install this small, high-velocity fan at the back and improve the cooling ducts. Then I changed the addressing system on the hard disk. So now this little computer is faster, and stronger.

  “Now I’m building in a compact telephone modem. Clear?”

  Kurtzman’s eyes sparkled. He was impressed. “Very,” he said. “What will the computer do now?”

  Ti finished soldering a crowded connection before answering. “It has about half the response time it had before. Instead of 64K of random access memory, it has a megabyte. The disk now stores fifteen megabytes quite reliably.”

  Kurtzman whistled. “That’s a lot of computer.”

  “You asked what it will do. I’ll tell you, because this is your specialty. I’m putting together a program. I’ll need Stony Man’s help and all the computer space you can steal. We want this little computer to be able to talk to strangers.

  “It will not be easy, but it is possible. We hook this to a strange computer. First, it must analyze the microprocessor and the strange computer’s addressing system. Then it listens to the computer for a while and decides which programming language has been used. Once it tells us all that, we can talk to the strange computer, have it tell us what it knows, and even tell it what to do.”

  The Bear shook his head. “Anyone who could do that, could end up owning every dollar in America.”

  Lao grinned. “That’s a thought. We’d better not publish our program. But because these terrorists are using computers and data banks to go after us, I thought it might be helpful if we could use their own computers to go after them.”

  Ti turned her attention to Brognola. “You were going to brief us?”

  Brognola dug right in to the topic.

  “First,” he said, “the bodies at Elwood Electronics. No identification. The coverall uniform doesn’t help. They’re the largest-selling national brand. Several of the dead terrorists had records, several are known internationally. On two bodies we found membership cards that link them to WAR.”

  “Which war?” Ti asked.

  “That’s W-A-R, Worker’s Against Redundancy. It’s a union of the unemployed that lays all the blame for high unemployment on automation and computers,” Brognola replied.

  “That makes some sort of connection,” Politician mused.

  Brognola continued. “We’ve done some research on WAR. The organization is nationwide and has regional offices in Boston, Atlanta, Houston, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City and San Francisco. At each of those offices there seems to be a core group. They call the core groups Harassment Initiation Teams.”

  “You’re putting us on. No one would be that blatant,” Gadgets protested.

  “I’m not putting anyone one. Those initials are H-I-T, hit. We don’t seem to be able to get a handle on what HIT is supposed to do, but we’re beginning to have our suspicions.”

&nb
sp; “What’s the plan?” Lyons interrupted.

  Brognola fastened his eyes on Lyons. “We need more intelligence before we can go ahead,” he said. “We should try to get someone inside one of those Harassment Initiation Teams, and we should try to get a tap on their computer. We’ve traced back Small Chips on the computer net, and we’re reasonably sure that it comes from WAR’S main computer in California.”

  “That’s why I’m putting this thing together,” Ti added.

  “How long will it take to crack their computer?” Lyons asked.

  Lao thought before answering. “Hard to tell. I’ll finish this today. I could leave for California tonight. I want to find an office close to theirs. Then it all depends how long it will take to penetrate their security.”

  “Take Gadgets and Pol,” Lyons said. “They’ll get you inside overnight. That means I’m going to have to get inside a Harassment Initiation Team in a hell of a hurry.”

  “Hold on,” Brognola shouted.

  “Two of those terrorists got away. They can identify you.”

  Lyons shook his head. “They can identify Pol and Gadgets. None of the scum who saw me are able to tell anyone about it.

  “I think I’ll go back to Atlanta to join. Maybe I’ll get lucky and meet that witch woman and her Japanese sidekick. Besides, they’re short of troops there. They should be hiring.”

  Brognola opened his mouth and then closed it again. “You want this?”

  Lyons nodded.

  “Okay. We’ll play it that way. We still need a trap to bait. I was thinking that I would set up shop in Atlanta. We can probably get Elwood Electronic Industries running again. Then, when we’re ready to set bait for our terrorists, we’ll have a base.”

  Lyons nodded his approval of the idea.

  Brognola looked at his shoes for a moment.

  “What else is on your mind?” Politician prompted.

  Brognola looked up, some internal decision made.

  “I took what evidence I have to the President,” he said. “It’s an election year. He will do absolutely nothing that makes it look as if he is investigating or in any way harassing the unemployed. We’re on our own on this. No cooperation from other departments. No acknowledgment from the President that he even knows we exist. We can’t even check in with the local police forces.”

  Lyons got up and started for the door. Over his shoulder he snorted. “So what. Let’s get to work.”

  5

  July 10, 1950 hours, Atlanta, Georgia

  The night was still early by the standards of the Southern Hospitality Bar — most of the regulars not arriving until after eight, but already the stools along the bar were filled. Georgios Zosimas looked down at a bigmouth on the end. The Greek-born barkeep had a ten-percent interest in the Southern Hospitality, and a definite interest in keeping the place friendly.

  However, there had been a lot like the bigmouth in the bar lately. They had one thing in common: they mouthed off about the way society was screwing the working man. The big guy with the blond hair was no exception. At least now Georgios knew what to do about the yappy bastard.

  As Georgios approached that end of the bar, the guy on the stool next to the mouthpiece spoke up. “If you don’t like this country, you can always go back to where you came from.”

  “I’m there,” the big guy growled. “Now, why the hell don’t you go back to Shitsville where you come from? Your sister hasn’t been able to find anyone to lay her since you left.”

  Georgios hurried the last few steps, anxious to prevent mayhem.

  “We don’t allow talk like that in here,” he said to the blond.

  Georgios Zosimas transferred his attention to the guy who had been insulted. His mouth suddenly went dry. He did not know the man’s name, but knew him as one tough customer. He had once broken the arm of a customer who had accidentally slopped beer on him. If these two big guys started slugging it out, they could wreck the place.

  “Let’s step outside,” the insulted man said.

  “Piss off,” the blond spat. He caught the other’s flying fist in his right hand. He held it and began to squeeze. The owner of the fist slowly changed color from fury red to agony white. He brought his other hand into action and tried to pry the hand from his fist. The hand convulsed tighter. A bone cracked.

  “You’re leaving to have your broken hand set, aren’t you?” the mouthy man said.

  Sweat had broken out on the other man’s face, in spite of the air-conditioning.

  “Yeah,” he grated.

  “Yeah, what?”

  “Yeah, I’m leaving now to get my hand set,” the man said through the pain.

  “You still haven’t got it right, mister. Try again. Yeah, what?” the mouthy bastard with the icy eyes repeated.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s better.”

  Georgios did not wait to see any more; he hurried to the telephone.

  *

  Lyons watched the barkeep make his hurried call. He hoped that it would produce a small Japanese with deformed hands and a face like a road map.

  Lyons was not much for role playing, but he could do it if he had to. His way of playing the present role was simple — he just acted like a person the real Carl Lyons could not resist pounding.

  The problem was that he could not stand himself. The longer he had to live with the creep he had created, the more he wanted to throw up.

  This was only the second bar Lyons had tried. He was systematically choosing the drinking spots that were closest to the building where Workers Against Redundancy had their offices. Sooner or later, he expected to meet someone from HIT, someone who would recognize a kindred spirit. He hoped it was sooner rather than later, because Lyons felt he was in danger of punching himself out.

  A few minutes later, he knew he had hit pay dirt. A Japanese slipped onto the stool beside him. Only one Japanese in North America could have the hacked-up face and the knobby fists that Politician had described.

  “Did you stock some sake?” the newcomer asked the barman.

  “Yes, Mr. Nogi. This bottle’s on the house.”

  The barkeep produced a small bottle of clear fluid and worked the cork free.

  “Please heat it,” he was told.

  Lyons nursed his beer in sullen silence, listening to the interchange, but not looking at the man on the adjacent stool. He had mouthed off enough to attract the fish. Now he must play hard to get.

  *

  When the barkeep brought back the heated bottle and a shot glass, the Japanese nodded briefly at Lyons and raised an eyebrow. Georgios nodded to signify that the large blond was the man he had telephoned about. The Japanese, looking almost presentable in a gray suit, shook his head slightly to signify that this was not a man for whom he was responsible. Georgios’s face fell.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Nogi. He sure sounds like the others. He’s not at all happy about being out of work.”

  “Very few people are, Mr. Zosimas. Thank you for calling me, but this is not one of my trainees.”

  The Japanese paused and then continued. “However, if he’s making difficulties, I’ll be glad to persuade him to leave when I leave.”

  The bartender glanced doubtfully from the small Japanese to the large, mean-looking customer beside him.

  Nogi smiled. “I guarantee there will be no fuss and no damage.”

  There was something about that smile that made Georgios even more nervous than before. He struggled to keep his fears off his face.

  “Thank you, Mr. Nogi.”

  The Japanese nodded, his face was blank. His mind was full of contempt for stupid Westerners who could not conceal the most elementary of feelings. It was time to demonstrate how easy it all was. The friendship of the barkeep helped keep the trainees in line. So Nogi would make a duly impressive demonstration. Nogi sighed when he thought of all the trainees he had lost. Having to start over again with another batch of stinking long-noses was a repulsive future to contemplate. He would cert
ainly like to get his hands on the Americans who had ruined the raid on Elwood Electronic Industries.

  He sipped his sake. He wished the stupid American would mouth off again. It would make everything much easier.

  Lyons signaled for another beer. When Georgios brought it, he grabbed the barkeep’s hand.

  “Were you talking about me to that gook?” he demanded.

  Georgios looked at those icy blue eyes and then looked away. Nogi saw genuine fear there. He inserted himself into the conversation.

  “Mr. Zosimas made it a point to let me know that you are out of work. I work for an organization that helps the unemployed.”

  The blue eyes looked into his. They reflected suspicion.

  “My business is mybusiness,” the man said.

  “I may have a job for you.”

  “Fat chance.”

  Nogi was beginning to hope he could recruit this one. A good instructor always throws the largest member of the class around when doing demonstrations. Nogi would enjoy throwing this one around.

  Nogi took another drink of hot sake. “I could teach someone your size to be really effective in combat. You’d be paid for learning.”

  “You recruiting for the army?”

  “I’m recruiting people to fight the injustices that leave good men without jobs.” Nogi said it mechanically.

  Lyons drank half his beer nonstop, then slammed his glass down. “Sounds like bullshit,” he spat.

  Nogi’s face remained impassive. His eyes stayed fixed on the shot glass of sake.

  “You like being unemployed, I take it.”

  “I ought to flatten you for that.”

  “All right, you don’t like being unemployed. You’re just too yellow to fight back,” Nogi challenged.

  Lyons launched a loping, overhand right that a baby could intercept. Nogi’s left arm drifted upward and back as if he were doing the backstroke. When the arm finished its stroke, Lyons’s wrist was trapped under the karate expert’s armpit, and the crook of Nogi’s arm put pressure on the back of Lyons’s elbow. When the Japanese slid off the bar stool, Lyons was forced to follow or have his arm broken. The small man grabbed his own wrist and increased the pressure on the arm, hustling Lyons out of the bar.