by Paul Bishop
The figure climbed inside, clicked on a mini-flashlight designed to cast a tight beam, and confirmed that he was in the computer room. He knew the original flash drive containing the schematic of the anti-gravity engine was too well protected to make an attempt to retrieve it. That was held in a vault fronted by a titanium door with a three-foot-thick rolled steel floor. Nothing short of a laser or bunker-buster could get into the vault when it was sealed.
Instead of the main prize, what the burglar sought as he keyed instructions in at a terminal was the footprint of the particulars of the engine. While reportedly, the plans hadn’t been duplicated, there had been modifications made to the original Templesmith blueprint by other scientists and engineers. Of course, those files had been erased. But deep in the recesses of the hard drive, there were cyber trails and fragments that could be detected if you knew how—and he was an expert at that. His skills at hacking and being able to break into and siphon monies from secret accounts via computer was how he’d initially made his fortune.
Too bad that notion had also occurred to his host. The light came on and a man at the doorway said, “Hello, Hugo,” in German.
Sweat trickled from Hugo Dantine’s precisely cut white hair onto his angular face. He froze in place at the computer monitor as two armed guards took hold of him and removed him from the room. He neither protested nor resisted. The hooded Prospero followed.
“Attention, attention,” the PA system blared about forty minutes later. Koburn placed his burning cigar in a glass ashtray, rose from his seat, and went to the window. The other guests all peered out as well. Lights were on to illuminate the courtyard. Hugo Dantine stood on a cement area in a clearing of the trimmed shrubbery, bound with his hands behind his back. Prospero, looking incongruous in casual wear, sandals, and his hood—like a suburbanite with a dark secret—stood beside the prisoner. He held a semi-auto handgun at half-mast.
“One of your colleagues,” the hooded man began, “tried to put one over on us, friends.” There was a cordless mic attached to the lapel of the man’s sport coat and connected his voice into the PA. “He tried to steal from us. Is that a good thing?”
Silence was the only response.
“Is that a good thing?” he repeated, raised his voice, and shook the gun over his head like a strutting third-rate dictator.
“No,” several shouted.
“That’s right, it’s not,” he said and gestured with the gun. “He tried to cheat you out of your opportunity. He tried to take from your pocket. And what do you do to those who try to make you a chump—a sucker?”
“I kill ʼem,” a voice called.
Prospero paused for effect. “That’s right.”
Dantine pulled himself erect and stared directly ahead. His captor put the muzzle of the gun to his temple.
“Any last words?’ he taunted.
“Not one. Do it,” the hacker said, having accepted his fate.
Prospero shot him once through the head and the body fell face-forward onto the cement. The lights went out and the lesson was over.
A grim-faced Koburn rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. He turned from the window and noticed that his cigar had gone out but didn’t bother to re-light it.
On a hill overlooking the compound, Brenner and Navarro were camped among the greenery. They’d witnessed the execution through the lens of their night vision scope.
“Don’t feel too bad for him,” she said, referring to Dantine. “He’d murdered more than his share.”
“You’re a tough broad.”
She smiled crookedly. “Ain’t I?”
He grunted and returned to prepping the robot parrots. Navarro re-checked several aluminum canisters that, along with the parrots, would be part of their assault the next day on Prospero and his crew.
7
The flying tank floated several yards out over the placid waves, then turned toward the land. It came to hover behind Prospero who stood at a portable podium near the water’s edge. It wasn’t lost on anyone that the canon was aimed at those gathered there. Several of his guards—mostly male but with a smattering of females—also hefted assault rifles where they stood around the perimeter.
“We begin,” he said. “What do I hear on seven hundred and fifty million dollars?
Agent Z-9 stood beside Koburn. She and Soderberg exchanged a look but he didn’t announce an opening bid. Instead, a man in a gray suit with no tie and a checkered keffiyeh spoke.
“Nine hundred million.”
Soderberg made a counter bid. “Let’s not bullshit here, Prospero. One-point-two billion.”
That elicited murmurs. The bespectacled man named Paymer cleared his throat and said, “One-point-five billion however you want it, Prospero. Gold bullion, cash, or diamonds,” he declared triumphantly.
The hooded man clasped his hands and rubbed them together. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Before anyone could respond, the robot parrots swooped out of the jungle. They flew and flitted about while they squawked and screeched and at the guests, circled their heads, and made a nuisance of themselves.
Whether it was a glitch in the robot birds programming or the scientist’s streak of humor, they said in unison, over and over, “Here comes the sun, here comes the sun.”
“Goddamn flying pests,” one of the bidders groused and swatted at the android birds as they swooped and dove at the guests and the henchmen and circled the tank.
Two parrots in particular, larger than the rest and with their wings folded at their sides, angled in on the flying armored vehicle like Imperial Japan’s Zeros of old. These two were silent.
Realizing that parrots didn’t act like that naturally, Prospero yelled, “They’re not real.” His warning came too late. The two faux parrots exploded on the right rear panel of the tank. This wasn’t a random area of attack. Hiram Templesmith, in communication with Brenner and Navarro, had reasoned that this would be the location of the tank’s guidance system.
More birds detonated. The guards fired at them, but the robots were too small and too fast for any real accuracy. People scattered and several of them cursed their host. The podium erupted in a burst of sound and a flash of heat and light. Prospero was hurled back, his pant leg on fire from flaming shards of wood that had shrapneled into his body. He beat frantically at the fire with his left hand, blistering the skin.
From cover, Brenner sighted through a scope attached to a futuristic-looking rifle. He squeezed shots off and rapidly eliminated several of the guards. Still reluctant to casually take a life, he targeted the henchmen in specific areas of their bodies. He possessed a detailed knowledge of human anatomy as it related to acupuncture so was able to deliver bullets into their nerve points. This prevented them from being able to handle their weapons or, in some cases, being able to walk. A barely audible thock was the only sound the rifle made as it fired.
“Uh-oh,” Navarro said.
“I see it,” Brenner replied. The tank had turned toward them and now headed in their direction.
“It makes sense that Prospero installed heat-seeking apps on the tank,” Brenner commented as he and the woman scrambled off the rise they’d stationed themselves on overlooking the stretch of beach. Automatic fire erupted from the tank to shred the foliage, and rounds peppered into the red loam around them.
The two sprinted through the undergrowth and the vehicle pursued them overhead. Shouts were audible from the guards who now entered the area on foot.
“This way,” Brenner urged, pointed to his left, and thrust through thick greenery. They plowed through a thatch of thorny vines that clawed at their clothing and skin.
“Keep going.” He held his arms up to protect his face.
Doing the same, Navarro snarked, “You really know how to show a girl a swell time, Mr Brenner.”
A nearby explosion cut his retort off. Among its armaments, the tank was outfitted with an RPG launcher and now utilized it. Another detonated near them but the two were far enou
gh away that they were unaffected.
“Down here,” Brenner yelled and pointed.
The duo dropped on their butts to slide down a small embankment toward a creek they’d previously scouted. Another blast roared but this time, it was one of the grenades they’d set as a trap for those on foot. Various tripwires had been strung earlier and now proved effective.
The duo landed on a muddy patch and each slathered the slime on the other. This would diminish the ability of the tank’s heat signature equipment to pinpoint them.
“Ooops, missed a spot,” he said and patted mud on her left breast.
“How chivalrous you are.”
“Ain’t I?” He dropped prone and like a soldier sneaking into enemy territory, belly-crawled along. The two had studied a map of the area and felt confident they knew it better than Prospero’s hired guns who were used to being in or near the compound. Brenner held the rifle aloft as he went on. Navarro followed and mirrored him, but she also had a handgun in a shoulder rig. Soon, he held a hand up and she stopped several paces behind him. She readied her weapon.
Four guardsmen were visible ahead through an opening in the greenery. They inched along a path in a single file. He held up four fingers. Navarro took in a breath as she knew her partner had to expose himself to get the shots he needed to make.
“Shit,” the lead man said, and bullets spat from his assault weapon a second too late. A single shot punched into the center of his forehead and he keeled sideways. The second suddenly unprotected man had no chance to act before Brenner eliminated him with two shots aimed unerringly above where his Kevlar vest encircled his neck. The other two men scattered, and Brenner sank down with a haunted cast to his face.
“Sorry, I know that bothered you, Ned.” She’d felt an involuntary surge of psychic pain when he killed the guards.
He had already begun to crawl forward. “Let’s move. The tank is swooping down again.” Without waiting for a response, he made his way to the section that rose along a ridgeline.
She frowned and listened intently as she hadn’t heard anything. But sure enough, less than six seconds later, the sound of the armored vehicle could be heard from where it hovered above the canopy of leaves, vines, and palm fronds.
It drifted over them from side to side, but their coating of mud helped to block them from the crew’s heat-signature scanner. Given that those within hadn’t used the electro-canon, it confirmed a theory Templesmith had expressed to Brenner and Navarro—that the cannon was a substantial drain on the craft’s power. Prospero had the cannon fired the day before to impress potential buyers, but it took time after usage to recharge. The crew had to be sure to have them in their sights before they discharged the weapon.
Hunkered down, the duo watched the tank maintain a tight orbital arc over their area. It was probably equipped with sound-tracking capabilities as well, Brenner reasoned. He used sign language to communicate his plan to Navarro. She signed back that she didn’t know he could sign—but of course he could, she added.
Smirking, he also reminded her via sign language that a few days before, she’d signed that he was too full of himself to Koburn. Navarro hunched her shoulders and looked slightly sheepish. The exchange terminated abruptly when automatic rounds decimated the foliage close to them and two of Prospero’s guards barreled through the brush, firing their weapons. Brenner reacted and dropped both attackers instantly, even before she had fully drawn her handgun.
The tank’s crew opened fire on them from above. He shoved her down the ridge and launched himself after her as the crew on the vehicle maintained a steady barrage from its side-mounted .50 machine gun. They tumbled through shrubbery, thorns, and branches, scratched by the unfriendly growth and gouged by rock outcroppings. Their descent of the angled incline ended on a barren patch of gray and blackened earth. Navarro landed on her stomach, the air knocked out of her.
The two were in the open on the lava-scarred terrain and the tank swooped low. The electro-cannon crackled white and yellow about the muzzle and bursts of black spheres of concentrated energy accompanied them. It was ready to release its bolt at them and completely vaporize their bodies as if they’d never existed. To cease firing at them with conventional weapons must have been orders from Prospero. Once they were destroyed by the cannon, their deaths would clinch a big sale to calm the harried bidders.
Brenner knew he had a single chance, but he had to make the tank turn. He rolled away from Navarro. The body of the vehicle turned as he hoped it would and gave him a view of the side of the barrel, if only for fractions of a second. He wasn’t sure how, but time slowed for him and divided into milliseconds. The canon’s barrel flared, a warning that the energy beam was about to sizzle them. At the same moment, he braced the rifle against his shoulder, sighted through the scope, and fired.
A slot-like window on the front of the vehicle was bulletproof. Rather than target this, he’d aimed toward the end of the barrel of the electro-cannon. When he’d studied the video of the flying vehicle, he’d identified a series of thick cabling and a gap on one side of the swivel mechanism for the barrel. His shot severed some of that wiring. The barrel of the weapon exploded and hurled lightning bursts in every direction.
Navarro gaped and muttered, “Astounding.”
He remained stone-faced and helped her up. They scrambled into the overgrowth as the tank veered and jerked, lopsided but still airworthy. It turned and headed toward the compound.
Prospero did his best to reassure his panicked guests, who all clamored to leave.
“Everything is under control,” the masked man said. He stood in front of the marble foyer of the main entrance, flanked by three of his remaining guards. Part of his left hand was bloody and blackened with second-degree burns, which he ignored.
“How do we know this isn’t the signal for a raid by the CIA, Team Six, or whoever?” a heavyset woman with large earrings demanded. She kept her hand on the handle of her rollaway luggage.
“It’s something else,” a tall man said. “The goddamn SEALs don’t use exploding robot birds.”
“How do you know?” the woman countered.
Upstairs, Koburn searched for a weapon. As he closed the door of a supply closet, a fist struck him on the side of his face. He staggered but blocked another blow successfully. He and Soderberg now stood face to face in the hallway.
“What the hell?” he challenged when his assailant swung at him again.
The blow landed but this time, he’d been ready. The other man tried to crowd him and keep him on the defensive with repeated blows. While Koburn wasn’t the most proficient man with his fists, he did have some training. Years before, he’d accumulated many hours sparring with Sugar Ray Leonard, who he had to impersonate once when he’d received death threats. He still sparred as part of his regular workouts.
The master of disguise dipped his right shoulder, shifted on the balls of his feet, and drove an overhand left. He clipped the younger man in the jaw. A knee to his groin as a follow-up doubled him over, and with both hands clasped cudgel-like, he clubbed him on the back of his head. He went down soundlessly on the thick carpet.
“Impressive,” Z-9 said. She was a few yards away and held a handgun. Another was tucked into the waistband of her stylish slacks.
“Did this chump offer you the moon and the stars to sell out your old man?”
“Yeah, well,” she began, “a girl has to think about her future.” Footfalls were audible in the near distance.
“You’ll need me,” Koburn said and held a hand out for a gun.
She hesitated, then spun quickly into a slight crouch and shot the guard who’d come to investigate the noise. The gunshot was heard downstairs and the bidders moved toward the front door as one.
“Let us the hell out of here, Prospero,” a man with a pockmarked face said.
“Yeah,” another echoed.
“Back up,” one of the guards commanded and fired into the ceiling.
At that moment, the
flying tank lost its stabilization, the crew lost control, and it careened into the side of the house. Part of the wall collapsed, and the vehicle plowed into the great hall where it finally stopped, partly buried amid concrete, wood, and plaster. Urgency and panic renewed amongst those in the foyer. They crowded forward and the guards looked uncertain as to what to do. The gunners assumed they shouldn’t shoot the high-powered guests. But their employer wasn’t around to provide answers. Prospero had ducked out in the confusion.
The frogmen simply walked out of the sea carrying assault rifles. The weapons were coated in a translucent wax-like compound that waterproofed them.
These assaulters had grenades attached to their weight belts. Two of them towed a raft with a welder’s torch and tank and other items. The few guards left were either cut down by the newcomers or they ran for their lives.
“Who the hell are those guys?” Navarro muttered. She and Brenner were at the edge of the beach, hidden amid the jungle growth.
“An end play,” he said.
She started to rise. “We have to stop them.”
He put a hand on her arm. “How? There are twelve of them, heavily armed, and we’re out of parrots.”
The crew of the tank exited the vehicle after the crash. Two of them were felled when they tried to fight back against the invaders. The other two raised their hands and were also immediately shot.
“We wouldn’t have a chance,” he said pointedly.
“What about Efrem?” she said.
Brenner gave her a grim look.
Some of the guests had also run but they weren’t fired on. The ones who remained were clumped together in the front of the compound under guard. Upstairs, Koburn and Agent Z-9 had gone into the study. Downstairs, several of the frogmen disconnected the anti-gravity engine from its assembly in the tank, while three others began to sweep the mansion. The duo heard doors being kicked in and yelling. The armed men would be at the second-floor study soon.