The same could not be said for Hulk, or the cigar-selling kid.
I didn’t have to go over to the bodies to see that they were dead, and I didn’t. And to tell you the truth, the fact that I’d lost someone who’d been working with me pretty closely didn’t really register at that moment—the grief, I mean. I am a cold, heartless son of a bitch in combat. That’s the way it is.
It does suck, yes. It sucks shit.
I crawled through the debris of the display area, past the machine gun. The entire thing had been rigged to fire on remote control—there was a small receiver box with an antenna at the side—but I couldn’t find what they’d used to spot us. The shop sold clothes; it took me more than a minute to make sure all the mannequins were made out of plastic.
“Dick?” shouted Trace from the front of the store.
“I’m here,” I yelled back.
I told her what had happened. She relayed the information that the Delta team had made some progress upstairs and down, but there was no way to get to the security bunker from this direction; it was blocked off by a set of the steel crash doors.
“Cavalry’s on the way, Dick,” said Doc, checking in. Danny and the rest of our people were moving in on the loading platform with the help of some shooters in protective NBC gear. (NBC stands for “nuclear-biological-chemical.” The suits are bulky and hot as hell, but they do keep a lot of bad shit off you.)
Shunt groaned when I asked him for an update. “Computer on floor two at the back of the complex, beyond that area they call the ‘Star Cruiser.’ Like a restaurant or something? There’s offices across a hall, according to the map. Somebody’s issuing encrypted commands from there. I can’t get into them.”
The Star Cruiser was a two-story restaurant off the side of the mall where we were. It overlooked a garden that had been pimped up to look like something on another planet. There were two entrances from the mall, along with an elevator shaft that came onto the floor from a parking garage below. The elevator opened into a service area in the kitchen. We decided to take a shot at using the shaft, if possible, because both the other entries were close to the office where the computer was. The elevator was on the mall level and open, which made the move easy. It had a trapdoor at the top right-hand corner. I boosted Trace up and had her stand on my shoulders so she could reach the lock mechanism at the side. There was a large mechanical lever there to open the doors in an emergency. Pulling the lever released a lock on a set of gears; to open the doors themselves, you had to pry them apart. As she wrestled with that, I began climbing up one of the cables. I was just about to her level when the elevator started to move.
For a second or so, I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on. Then I realized that I was about to become a Marcinko pancake, squished into the small service area above the car. I suppose I might have been able to swing back and drop through the trapdoor into the car, but why go backward when you can go forward? I swung feet-first into the rear of the restaurant kitchen. Trace beat me by about a third of a second—long enough to heat up her submachine gun on the two assholes near the stove.
Which left me to take care of the jerk who’d punched the button on the elevator. He was on my right, or more accurately, on my neck, diving on top of me with his bare hands in a misguided show of courage.
One-two-three, stomp.
Then a double tap into the forehead.
Tango on ice for table two. I’d recommend a nice red wine to go with that, the color of his blood.
A double set of doors led from the kitchen to the dining area. One had been locked open, but there was no one in the dining area covering it—a ray of sunshine in an otherwise stormy day. We cleared through the dining area, ducking around serving stations that had been designed to look like space station consoles. The far end of the room opened onto the lower level and garden; the office with the computer sat on the far end of a long walkway almost directly across from the rail, but obstructed by the wall as it jutted out. There was no cover along the walkway; if we took it, we’d be exposed the whole way.
Much quicker to jump across.
“You’re jumping a hundred feet?” asked Trace.
The word skeptical would not begin to describe the tone she used.
“Actually, I was thinking you’d go first,” I said, pulling off my backpack. I had a nylon climbing rope coiled into the bottom. “Pretend you’re Tarzan.”
“This fucking rope isn’t long enough.”
And some women say size isn’t everything. I unfolded a small grappling hook and tossed the rope toward one of the pipes holding the laser lights above. It took three tosses to connect. I pulled hard on the pipe and nothing happened, which I figured meant this was as good an idea as any.
I got about two-thirds of the way when the rope started to slip; by then I had all the momentum I needed. I crashed against the rail a bit lower than I’d intended, though fortunately not low enough or hard enough to turn me into a soprano. Trace had shouldered her submachine gun and started firing at the doorway; if I’d’ve needed any more motivation, the sound of bullets crashing all around me would have done the job nicely. Motivation was not my problem, however; gravity was. And gravity doesn’t give a shit about desire. The railing started to give way, and I just barely managed to get my fingers locked on the ledge. I shifted my weight and threw my feet up, getting just enough leverage to roll up onto the walkway.
Trace stopped firing. I crawled around the wall, pulled up my weapon, and peaked around the corner. I couldn’t see anything inside. I crossed without drawing fire. While Trace came round the long way, I eased through the threshold, trying to get a better idea of the layout. Doc had described it as three interconnected rooms with the door in the middle, but rather than a wall on the far side, I saw glass and the exterior.
“They want us to wait for the Delta team,” hissed Trace behind me when she caught up. “They’re on their way.”
“We may be in little pieces by then,” I said, leaping up and in.
Whoever had built Starship Vegas had altered the plans, at least as far as this room went. Where the blueprint had called for three rooms there was now only one. A large conference table sat on the immediate right; there was a receptionist’s desk on the left. Another much larger desk sat off to the right on a raised platform.
There was no in the room, but the computer was on. A screen saver tossed words around the screen:
DOOM ON YOU, DICKIE.
“Bad news, Dude,” said Shunt. “There’s another connection somewhere. Unknown player. It’s looped in through one of the ports but I can’t lock it out. I keep erasing it but it’s still there.”
“What are you talking about, Shunt? Speak English.”
“You have to find another computer, Dude. It may be wireless, like a laptop or even a handheld. I think they’re using it to control the shields and environmental system, stuff like that.”
“Not the bomb?”
“I don’t think so. I have a window open watching it. I don’t think it’s connected.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
“Can you find that other computer?” I asked.
“I’m trying.”
“All right.”
Trace and I heard a steady beat of explosions downstairs and in the hotel area to the left as the Delta and SWAT teams continued to clear out the hotel. We took a breather on the walkway in front of the office and were looking over the rail as the first of the Delta boys came in. I gave them a big wave; they told me to hold my hands out and not try anything funny, motherfucker!
Once we cleared up that little miscommunication, Trace and I took one of the stairways down. The Delta boys estimated that there were three hundred people up in the rooms, along with everyone still trapped in the auditorium. One of the SWAT teams was working on an alternative way into the theater. The emergency exits had been chained and booby-trapped, and the walls were solid cement and rebar, so the job wasn’t quite a no-brainer. They
had taken some heavy-duty saws to the roof and were hoping to cut a passage.
“You think one of the people we got coming out of the elevator was Shadow?” asked Trace.
“No. Shadow’s a she.”
“Not necessarily. The voice was a woman’s, but that doesn’t mean it belonged to Shadow. There’s no proof of that at all. It might be another one of the bastard’s misdirection plays.”
She was right, but even so, I knew she was wrong. I’d spoken to Shadow. That was her. What I didn’t know was whether she was in the hotel. From what Shunt had said, it was possible that she was pulling the levers by remote control somewhere nearby—or not even all that nearby.
Doc reported that the Delta shooters were ready to launch the assault on the security bunker but decided to wait until the hotel had been evacuated before taking their shot.
“Probably do best just to let the assholes blow themselves up at that point,” I told him.
“That’s not much of a joke, Dick.”
“It’s not meant to be.”
“Any more ideas on where the bomb might be?” I asked.
“Thinking now is it’s in the security bunker with them.”
That didn’t make sense—not because I didn’t think the assholes would kill themselves but because the bunker’s walls would lessen the impact of the blast on everyone else. They wanted a serious boom.
Trace and I decided to split up. She’d go and check with the team taking on the auditorium, while I cut back around and hooked up with Danny, who was in the process of securing the loading dock area. So far, they hadn’t found any of the mustard gas, nor had any of the fancy chemical sniffers the Delta people had with them.
I passed down a wide staircase through a hall lined with crystal and metal sculptures. There were more laser lights and machines that were used to generate holograms all along the floor and side of the steps. The power failure had taken them off-line. The fact that they weren’t working made the place look even more futuristic and bizarre. I felt like I was walking through the back end of a saucer headed out to Alpha Centauri and beyond. The hall opened into another gambling area, this one reserved for higher-stakes games. The backup lights were starting to dim and flicker; I paused for a moment to let my eyes adjust. The MP5 was still in my hand, fully loaded; I had one more clip in my backpack.
I had just picked up the radio to double-check the layout with Doc when I heard something crashing at the far end of the room. I spun around and dropped to my knee as a set of double doors at the far end of the room burst open. Three or four dozen people burst through the doorway.
“Stop!” I yelled. “Down.”
A quick burst from my gun got the attention of the few people who hadn’t heard me or understood. They fell quickly, toppling against one another. I got Doc on the radio, telling him to get one of the Delta teams down quickly. While I waited, one of the people on the floor explained that they were all casino guests who’d been herded into the bar area by the security people right before the kickoff of the parade, supposedly because they wanted to sweep the gambling room after a bomb alert. Once they were inside, the doors had been locked. They’d watched quite a bit of the festivities on the televisions in the room—which had turned out to be a bar.
If you have to be a hostage, there are worse places to be kept.
The people who’d been inside the bar had no other useful information. When the Delta people arrived, I excused myself and went back down the hallway. I got about halfway through another gaming room when I heard pounding to the right. I turned and saw a set of glass doors with six or seven people behind them; it was another bar.
I’m not too good at lip-reading, but a reasonable guess at what they were saying would have been: “Let us out.” I waved at them, then pulled out my radio to call another team down. As I did, one of the larger hostages picked up a table and attempted to crash it through the glass. He rebounded back and crumpled to the floor, falling backward with the table right on top of him.
As I started to laugh, I felt the tip of a gun pressing hard against the back of my head.
Chapter
23
“The first thing you’re doing is dropping your machine gun,” said a male voice that sounded vaguely British. “Very slowly or you die right here.”
“What’s the difference where I die?”
“Your choice.”
I held out the MP5 and let it drop to the ground. “I hope I chose wisely.”
“And the pistol. The P7 and the Glock 26. I read the books, Dick; I know you carry a little Glock besides your everyday cannon.”
“Well, fuck you very much.” I dropped the H&K P7, then started to reach down for the Glock at my ankle. He jabbed hard with his pistol. I held my hands out, demonstrating that I intended to be compliant. Then I reached down and removed the gun.
Only the one. That’s why I don’t put everything in the books.
I smiled for the audience behind the doors, hoping that one of them had a cell phone and was smart enough to use it. As it turned out, the casino had installed devices to prevent people from using cell phones in the gaming areas. The idea was to kill any quick calls from Churchill Downs a millisecond before the tape delay, I guess. Tuned to specific frequencies, it only affected cell phones and was still operating with the backup power.
I think the alien holding the gun saw my reflection in the glass, and something about it pissed him off. Or maybe he just felt awful ornery at that moment. Whatever—he pulled the gun back and went to jab it harder in my neck.
He missed, though.
How could he miss when the distance was what? Three inches? My elbow in his rib had something to do with it. That and the pivot that brought me around into his back, helping me to use his own momentum to push him forward. I flew down after him, pounding him into the glass door as the gun went flying. It took a couple of hard thwacks before he stopped trying to get away, and another two before he stopped writhing completely. It must not have been pretty, because the people on the other side of the glass door were cringing when I looked.
Moral of the story: never stick a gun in Demo Dick’s neck. If you get the drop on him, stand a goodly distance away, or he’ll drop you.
A moral taken to heart by the runt I saw standing across the room with a dumb-ass smirk on his face when I turned after picking up the pistol the alien had so conveniently dropped.
“Everything you say about yourself is true,” said the man.
I didn’t know him, but I’d seen his ugly Asian face before. Wiry and athletically built, he could have been anywhere from thirty to forty-five years old. He was the French agent who’d had his head chopped off in Tell-Me-Dick’s territory to start this little misadventure.
They are doing wonders with reconstructive surgery these days.
Being that he was a French agent, I had a reasonable chance that he might be on my side. Of course, being that he was French, I had just as reasonable a chance that he wasn’t.
“You want to drop the gun, Dickie,” he said, erasing any doubt about whose side he was on. He raised his hand, revealing an Ingram MAC-10. Not a very big gun as guns go, but certainly capable of complicating my dinner plans.
Of course, I had a decent weapon myself. The alien had come to the party with a Beretta 92F, the basic Italian Stallion stopper adopted, with some slight mods, by the U.S. military as the M9.
“I’d say it’s more like a standoff,” I told Frenchie. “If anything, I have a height advantage.”
“If your gun were loaded, I might agree.”
Was the gun a little on the light side? Did it feel empty?
“Go ahead and take a shot,” said the Frenchman. “Go ahead.”
I’m standing across the room from a guy with a MAC-10 who’s daring me to shoot him. There was only one thing to do—dive to the ground while squeezing the trigger as many times as possible, landing next to one of my own weapons and scooping it up in case he wasn’t lying.
A grea
t plan. Unfortunately, the man with the MAC decided to demonstrate that his weapon was loaded. He sent my weapons sailing well out of reach, and I was lucky to stop short of his gunfire.
For the record, he hadn’t been lying; my gun was empty.
Doom on me.
“This way, stepping around the guns and the body, please. There were thirty rounds when I started, yes. I’d say I have more than half left, wouldn’t you?”
Probably more, but what’s a few hunks of lead between friends, right?
“What’d you do, Pierre?” I asked. “Kill somebody about your age and size so the Frenchies wouldn’t come looking for you?”
“You’re not as dumb as your books make you out to be,” he said.
Ouch.
“I saw your apartment back in Virginia,” I told him, walking out as he directed. I glanced at the folks behind the glass, back to hoping they had working cell phones. “And the pictures in the apartment in Paris. If I were you I’d start shopping for a new decorator.”
“That was my sister’s handiwork. If it were up to me I would have simply killed you and been done with it.”
“I hope I meet your sister.”
“You will. She’s particularly sadistic.”
“Sounds like my kind of girl.”
“Walk faster,” said Pierre. “Or I’ll simply kill you here.”
He had me go down the hallway to a stairwell where the door had been propped open. I thought as I approached it I might be able to kick the door free, but he closed the distance between us quickly, and it didn’t feel like I could break away cleanly enough to escape being shot. He barked at me to go up. I started climbing the metal steps; this was a utility area and the fancy laser shit and the gee-whiz chrome were noticeably absent. I didn’t have a good schematic of the hotel in my head, and so it seemed to me that I was going upstairs into the areas the Delta boys were sweeping. That wasn’t a bad thing, so on I trudged, until by the sixth or seventh flight I realized I’d miscalculated. We weren’t in the main part of the hotel; we were in the space needle—the opposite end of the complex from my SpecOp buddies.
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