Codename: Winterborn (The Last Survivors Book 1)

by Allan Yoskowitz

  Mary-Pat smiled. “Nothing...I spend plenty of time down here, you see, and I've read the reports. They've never hired you before, have they?”

  Mandy blinked. “Why?”

  “Oh...they aren't very popular clients. Many reputable Mercs refuse to work with them a second time, and those who work for them multiple times are never the firm's best. I'm surprised your father didn't tell you before you took the project.”

  The younger Merc sighed, and then shook her head. “No. M...my dad doesn't. He gives me advice on occasion … I have slightly more access to him than anyone else, but that's it. He tries so hard to be fair, I sometimes think that he overdoes it.”

  Mary-Pat chuckled. “Oh, trust me, Mandy, he's certainly not as hard on you as on others. If only because you're such a good operative. People at your skill level he's almost always closest to. They're the ones who have his respect. Have you talked with him about this?”

  “Of course. He wasn't very helpful. Then again the target is … really good.”

  Mary-Pat frowned, and thought a moment. She stared at the computer monitor and started typing. “In which case, what I will do is this. You'll have the files on all of the Senators, and their itineraries.” She typed a bit more, and then tapped the microphone at her throat. “Get me file box 1600-PA6. Make it snappy.”

  Mandy smiled as she saw a quick blur in the back of one of the long bookshelves running from one end to the other. Her eyes locked on Mary-Pat. “MP, what aren't you telling me?”

  The older Mercenary hesitated before turning back to her. “I think the senators hired you not only because you didn't know their reputation, but because they're running out of Mercs who'll work with them. Remember the attack on the San Francisco Assassin's Guild in 2090?”

  Mandy shrugged. “Vaguely. Dad doesn't talk about it much. We were moved out of San Francisco before the raid. He wasn't happy. Dad's too professional to openly declare revenge, but I didn't see him for the next month, and he was already home well before The War started.”

  Mary-Pat nodded. “Thank God for small favors.” The Assassin's Guild of San Francisco had been destroyed within twenty-four hours before the April Fool's War, which had promptly laid waste to most of the western half of the United States. Only those states with missile defense shields had been spared, so everything west of the Texas had been laid waste. Then again, so had China, Russia and Korea.

  “Anyway,” Mandy said, “why ask about the Assassin's Guild raid?”

  “You see, when our Guild was forced to attack theirs, it had been at gunpoint.”

  Mandy nodded. She had figured as much. Her father's best friend had been the head of the San Francisco branch, and the only way he would turn on him would be if the Mercenaries had no other choice—and she suspected her father wouldn't have turned on them even if there were no other option. “Let me guess, he made certain that if he had to waste men on the assault, then he would only waste the worst, the most brutish, or the incompetent.”

  Mary-Pat laughed. “Oh nuts, he told you.”

  “No. But it sounds like dad.” She sighed. “So, they hired me because I've never worked with the committee, and most of those who would were killed in that raid.” Mandy frowned thoughtfully as she saw the runner charging from the back of the room. The box was clearly marked “1600-PA6.” She blinked. “So, what's that? 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue...sixth box?”

  The older woman nodded. “Exactly. That's just the file on the committee members.”

  Mandy blinked at the size of the box. A banker's box that was both long and wide. “The folders are that thick?”

  “It's both client information and background.”

  Mandy winced. “What have they been having us do?”

  Mary-Pat looked her straight in the eye. “Exactly what they had you do.”

  She blinked. Then she looked at the box. Each sheet of paper had nanite ink, so that one sheet of paper could be scrolled through like a computer document. Each sheet could have about twenty variations per sheet—essentially, each sheet of paper held twenty pages. Which meant that the one box was the equivalent of twenty boxes of material in regular ink.

  “MP,” she said slowly, “how long has this been going on?”

  Mary-Pat thought a moment. “Since the 2040s.”

  Mandy blinked, any anger at Anderson quickly melting away. That box represented more than just a few scragged missions. And this was just from the current committee members.

  If Anderson's fury flickered for even an instant, this would set him off like a firestorm.

  Mary-Pat nodded at Mandy's stricken expression. “Are you going to opt out?”

  Mandy shook her head. “Wouldn't work. They'd hire someone else.”

  Mary-Pat looked from the box to Mandy. “You're still going to do it?”

  Mandy nodded, staring at the box. “But there's no hurry.” She took the box and lifted it from the beleaguered clerk. “I have to catch up on my reading.”

  Chapter 7: A Bridge Too Far

  February 27th, 2093

  Kevin Anderson crawled through the drainage pipe, wondering why he'd never had problems like this before.

  Because you always had Moira or Jenna to do it for you, idiot.

  Kevin's lip twisted into a snarl, and he reached ahead of him, pressing his palms flat and tight against the sides of the pipe walls to get a secure grip, and pulled himself along.

  I hate this job, he thought reflexively. Then again, it's not a job anymore, it's an adventure… I wonder, when all this is over, would they still pay me my salary, on the assumption that I've spent all this time just taking out the garbage?

  He repeated the process, this time pressing his feet against the pipe with the soles of his shoes. The rubber soles gripped and he moved faster, going about a foot a second. I really hate this. If any security guard catches me here and now, I am going to be so screwed.

  Kevin slid up to the exit end of the pipe, then hesitated. If he were doing security...well, if he were doing security, he would have grated the pipe, and electrified it.

  As it was, he could see the spout of the pipe pouring into an artificial stream that cut along the wide lawn, moving to the other side of the stone wall. The only real effect the stream had was to provide the gentle sound of running water.

  What, she couldn't have just afforded a damned artificial waterfall for her desktop?

  “She” in this case was Alberta Wynter, another New England senator. She was old and decrepit, but still had a tendency to drag race her car along her state's highways. She had bad habits—carelessly speeding along any highway she liked, tearing up any ticket she was given, not to mention one unfortunate incident with a bridge.

  And that would be the solution—her car.

  Assuming I can get my ass out of this freezing water before I die from hypothermia.

  Kevin hesitated a bit. He reached into his shirt and pulled out his dog tags. He took one and angled it to catch the light from outside—what little light there was. He squinted a bit, and then caught it—there was a camera, as he thought there would be. However, there were two things about the camera he didn't expect—it was fixed, and not moving, and it was fixed at an angle for a long-distance shot. Since the stream was close to the wall the camera was mounted on, he could literally pop out of the pipe camera and roll under it...

  Until he noticed that the camera was thermal-capable. Even if he could slip out underneath this camera, there had to be a similar camera on the other end of the compound. He would look like a freaking flare on one of those. He blinked a moment, trying to think a way around it—maybe he should just abort the mission … Yeah, like that's going to happen.

  Kevin shivered a moment, and then rubbed his hands together. Damnit, I am an idiot… One who's freezing… I won't even show up on those cameras if I move fast enough.

  With a quick shove, he pushed himself out of the pipe, rolling into the stream, and then kept moving along it. All of the cameras were indeed set for a
long-distance, wide-angle shot. But that meant he'd have maybe a few minutes before he would warm up and appear in IR.

  However, there were two large, tall trees between him and the house, and they would provide some cover.

  He glanced down, standing still in the stream. Within a yard of the stream was a long, thick root that protruded from the ground. He leapt, landing on it like a ballet dancer, and then went en pointe along the root until he got to the tree.

  Which is when he saw what he expected—motion sensors in the ground.

  Kevin flinched. However, for this one occasion, he had come prepared.

  He drew two knives off of his body. They weren't even K-bar knives, but full, almost medieval daggers. He reversed them so that they were point down in his hands, and he went to work. Kevin reached over his head and stabbed down into the tree with one dagger, and hauled himself up, stabbing in with another. He worked slowly and quietly. His arm and leg span managed to eat up the distance quick enough.

  So he was only thirty feet up the tree before the footsteps came along.

  “Merc 1 to base, I am stepping into the motion sensor grid,” came a voice from below.

  Kevin Anderson looked down. There was a large Mercenary standing below him. The killer wore a simple suit and tie, trying to pass for a Secret Service agent, but he held his small, personal submachine gun like a handgun, in the traditional Weaver stance.

  The Merc stopped at the base of the tree and swept from side to side, his gun never wavering from where he looked. He stopped a moment and tapped his glasses. They were dark tinted, Head's Up Display lenses. Which meant that he at least had thermal and night vision installed in the glasses. And if he had a full tactical suit underneath, he would undoubtedly have SONAR as well.

  Kevin Anderson waited a moment, his muscles nearly locking up from the strain. His shoes were good for climbing, and there were enough nooks in the tree to allow for him to do this without logging gear, but all that was holding him up were the power of his fingers and some good boots. And the only thing between Kevin and the Mercenary below him was thirty feet of air and Kevin's liquid body armor—which wouldn't protect him from a head shot, and probably wouldn't keep him alive if he fell improperly out of a tree.

  *

  Major Antonio Rohaz marched through the inside of Alberta Wynter's house as though he were inspecting a barracks. His posture was the same, ramrod straight, poised stance that he maintained throughout the office, looking like a fencer who missed his rapier. He wore his full officer's uniform—not his BDUs, but a gray uniform that looked so clean and crisp, people expected him to crackle as he walked. Under one arm was his tactical helmet.

  He looked from his post in the living room, noting the position of everyone else. There was one Merc moving from the sunroom into the living room and back, and every time his back was turned, another Merc came in from the den. The den was two-level, so the Merc walking along the second floor could look down—he could also do the same thing with the garage. On the outside were a dozen of his men patrolling the grounds. Supporting them were another dozen monitoring the sensors and the cameras.

  It all went like clockwork...

  Until someone broke from the synchronized waltz that was the sentry's path.

  Rohaz blinked. Kruti Luansanatip, one of the Southeast Asian Mercenaries, had been on the way to the front door, when Rohaz took two steps out of the living room, and clamped his hand on his arm. “Going somewhere, Kruti?”

  The Merc nodded. Unlike Rohaz and the Mercenaries outside, this one was wearing a simple, no-nonsense black commando outfit. “We caught some motion outside. Yingsin's going to check it out, and Morris wanted to have at least one of us out there with him, just in case.”

  Rohaz thought about it a moment. “In that case, I'll go look.” He lifted his HUD helmet and smiled. “After all, they don't let me into the field all that often.”

  Rohaz nodded, slapped him on the back, and moved out into the night air. And he stopped, put his helmet on, and flipped to night vision in a search for Yingsin. After a quick scan of nothing but darkness, he hesitated. A bit of motion on the scanners, and Yingsin missing...

  Antonio Rohaz drew his gun in the weaver stance—both hands holding the gun in front of him, moving forward with quick, confident steps. There was only one place for Yingsin to be out of sight, and that was behind one of the two massive trees on the lawn.

  Next time, I just tell the client that we cut down every obstruction on her property. I don't care how pretty it is!

  He stopped just before passing the tree and did another sweep back and forth...

  And then he looked up.

  There, hanging against the tree like a giant spider, was a man in all black who almost disappeared into the green-tinted darkness of his night vision.

  Rohaz stared directly at the intruder, and automatically raised his pistol and fired a burst of three rounds. The first bullet struck the giant black spider in the side. The impact sent him around the tree and out of sight. The next two bullets struck the tree. “Rohaz to all units! We have an intruder on the grounds. Up in the tree—”

  Yingsin, standing only feet away and on the other side of the tree, said, “Acknowledged,” and Rohaz heard the buzz of his submachine gun.

  Rohaz circled around the other way to cover the area that Yingsin couldn't. Instead of finding a broken body shattered along the ground, there was nothing. He looked up once more and found the shape moving along a limb—a limb that stretched out over the roof.

  “Get to the roof!” he snapped into his comm system. “All available personnel, get to the top floor. Those on the top floor already, secure the primary. Everyone else, close in!”

  Rohaz raised the gun again and fired his Stechkin pistol on full automatic, emptying the other seventeen bullets in an eye blink. The shadow didn't jump from the limb to the roof, it fell.

  The Major grinned. Certainly, that was a hit.

  The shadow hit the roof, and scrambled up the shingles, heading for the other side.

  Unfortunately, that side has skylights. And obviously, the alarms aren't going to concern him. “He's on the roof!”

  *

  Kevin Anderson forced his breathing to slow as he pressed himself flat against the shingles. Whoever had been shooting at him had actually been aiming, as well as using an automatic weapon. Usually, the two factors were exclusive. This was not in the plan.

  Oh, stop whining, you knew they had to get better sooner or later. Mandy knows you're after the committee, and therefore, so do the rest of the Mercs. They had to start getting ready for you eventually.

  Kevin looked around. There were two skylights he could go through, but there had to be someone already en route, and it was certain that the senator was already behind a shell of armed guards. He'd been seen heading towards the roof, so it was almost certain that they would be expecting him to hit the top floor, and proceed from there.

  He braced himself against the roof and paused, thinking over what he was going to do next. In three seconds, he had it. He rolled quickly across the roof, and slammed the butt of his knife into the glass... And it bounced.

  Kevin frowned, glaring at the non-shatter glass. He growled with frustration, jammed the knife in between the frame and the window, and pried it open. He lifted the window open wide enough for him to crawl through, then fixed it open.

  Instead of rolling forward, into the open window, he rolled back along the roof. He pushed himself flat against the portion of the roof where it became elevated. There was just enough of a height distance between the two portions of the roof that he could just hide himself.

  Kevin waited. There were only two options. Either someone would come through the window in front of him, or the one on the higher portion of the roof, behind him. Most likely, they would come from behind, if only to get the higher ground advantage, however slight.

  Kevin waited in the dark, hesitating. The cicadas were all out and chirping like insane crickets, and h
e could only hear the occasional passing car or the random indistinct barked order. He could smell freshly cut grass, and could smell the incoming rain. He kept his eye on the open window before him, waiting for someone's head to pop up, or for a fiber optic camera to look around. If that happened, he could hit whatever popped up and slide off the roof. Otherwise—

  Footsteps interrupted his internal monologue. Someone had climbed up on the roof without him even hearing. That was the sign of someone really rather good at this. The A-Team has been called out now, it seems.

  From memory of the blueprints and the layout he had personally eyeballed, he knew that it would only be a count of ten paces before someone 5'10” or taller could see him.

  He had heard two already. Someone was taking their time. Slow and steady won the race, and would count for the stealth kill...

  Third step. A Mercenary who had been taught patience. No “blam, blam, you're a dead man,” just a simple, single shot to the head.

  Fourth step. The sound of a weapon’s strap moving on fabric. An assault rifle being readjusted for a better position. The Merc had been ready when he stepped onto the roof. Now he was ready to aim properly. The skylight was almost in sight of this gunman.

  Fifth step. The open window had to be visible by now. The frame could be seen just over the lip of that portion of roof.

  And then Kevin heard the clack of the weapon.

  *

  Mandy perched on the wall outside of Senator Wynter's mansion, looking at the area through her thermal vision. The magnification was crystal clear. There were no problems with radiant heat sources screwing things up. Which meant she could see a perfect image of a red Kevin Anderson as he was stalked by Angie Vaughn.

  Mandy had read through the long and extensive history of the targeted Senators. Given her highly intensive, home-schooled Catholic education, she had been taught every kind of sin imaginable; she was certain the Senators had not missed a single one … until now. If she didn't know before that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee were the purest culmination of evil in politics, nothing could have proved it more than hiring Angie Vaughn.