“Shots fired! Shots fired! Vicinity of Security HQ!“
Panic had entered the dispatcher’s voice. Loren was surprised she’d heard the firing at all through the combined sonic interference of the roaring choppers and the steel walls of her building. Maybe one of his bullets had gone through the backstop of her wall. He accelerated, more war whoops passing his lips, and raced through the gate. Entering another cloud of uncertainty.
If this didn’t get Patience to surface, Loren figured he’d just have to blow something up.
He headed north out of the Fairgrounds. POLICE OFFICER GOES BERSERK, he thought, DEMOLISHES RESEARCH FACILITY. The imagined headlines were very satisfactory.
If caught, he’d plead temporary insanity. He figured a good case could be made.
He switched to four-wheel drive and left the blacktop, bounced across the terrain till he decided he was a safe distance from any populated part of the facility. He killed his headlights and idled his engine, then got out of the Blazer to take a look around.
He wanted to scream and caper in triumph as he looked down at the ATL facility. The air was heavy with smoke, and the lights glowed red in the murk. Two helicopters churned back and forth in the distance, their undersides reflecting fire.
Exhilaration sang through Loren’s mind. He took off the watch cap and let the wind cool the sweat that had plastered his hair to his head. He concluded that he’d won the first eleven rounds of the fight. The only way the challenger could win now was by a surprise knockout, and he doubted that was forthcoming. He had Patience on the ropes.
Righteousness ran through him like a river.
The woman dispatcher was replaced by a male voice who spoke with somewhat more authority, if not comprehension— presumably Mr. Patton, or someone like him, had at last arrived.
Loren heard the whooping of a siren on the wind and saw lights flashing, and he removed the caps from the eyepieces of his field glasses and scanned the horizon. Beneath the row of lights he saw one of the sheriff’s department Broncos racing toward the facility from the main gate.
Loren grinned, imagining the blow to Patience’s pride if he ever learned that outsiders had been called to help bail out his reeling security troopers, his own little carefully trained commando force that had been bushwhacked by a lone Apache.
Still, Loren would need to be more careful now that reinforcements had showed up. He looked at his watch.
At least nine hours till dawn. Plenty of time left before he’d have to withdraw. And of course he could always come back.
He wondered how long he could keep this up. Cochise, Geronimo, and Mangas Coloradas had lasted years.
Loren swept the field glasses over the facility. Another Bronco was rolling down the main road. This was going to be a long night for poor Shorty. A few employees’ cars, unhip to any alarms, were cruising toward the exit, just late workers heading for home.
There was a needle-shaped jet parked by the hangar on the runway. Loren contemplated the satisfaction of blowing it to smithereens.
One low, windowless building, off to the east of the main group, had a number of cars parked in its little blacktop lot. It was, Loren realized, the LINAC.
Then, outlined clearly in the 10x power of the glasses, Loren saw an ATL Blazer with a shattered windshield and single remaining headlight.
A surge of glorious power took Loren’s breath away. Acid joy burned at his heart. Patience had materialized, position known, a particle come within range of the detectors.
Round twelve, Loren thought. He jammed the watch cap back on his head, pulled the cowl down over his face, then ran to the back of the Blazer and started rummaging through the remaining explosives. He found one of the jellied gasoline bombs and held it in his hand.
That should do it, he figured.
Loren jumped in the Blazer and took off across country, a particle accelerating toward its target. He bounced into the LINAC parking lot and pulled up two slots away from Patience’s Blazer.
He paused for a moment and let the surroundings soak into him. The air reeked with smoke; the whole southern horizon glowed red. Helicopters prowled restlessly through the air.
There was no one around to see him. He hung an UZI around his neck by the strap and took the firebomb in his hand, then got out of the car and approached Patience’s Blazer. Silver-rimmed holes showed where his bullets had punched through the tailgate. He looked in through the shattered side windows and saw, to his joy and delight, that an UZI and a Tanfoglio had been laid carefully on the passenger seat. The two weapons that Patience had planned to commit murder with: the man probably didn’t want anyone to see him with them. He had disarmed himself.
Loren, pure delight coursing through him, reached again for his lighter, then used it to light the fuse on the firebomb. He backed into the parking lot and cocked his hand to throw.
One of the twin doors of the LINAC building slammed open and Patience walked out. He was with another man that, through some process of insight, Loren was willing to bet was Joseph Dielh. And from the earnest expression on Patience and the haunted, miserable look on Dielh, Loren could tell that Patience had spent the last hour or so explaining to Dielh how it wasn’t his fault, how he really hadn’t fucked up; and that Dielh was trying to figure out how to somehow extricate himself from this sorry affair without a desperate Patience putting a lot of bullets into him.
Loren screamed in rage and threw the firebomb at the both of them. It fell short and smashed open, covering the blacktop with a roaring sheet of fire. By then Patience and his companion were running.
Loren clawed for the UZI, snapped the safety off, and worked the bolt. His bullets chipped pieces from the LINAC’s concrete walls as Patience followed his friend through the metal doors.
The doors were dragged shut by someone safely out of sight. Loren held the UZI against his chest and charged, circling to avoid the lake of flame he’d made. Loren held the gun in his right hand and yanked at door handles with his left. Both were locked. He backed up a step and pulled the trigger. Impressive, solid clanging sounds rang through the air as the gun punched a series of neat, silver-rimmed holes through both doors.
The gun’s bolt locked back and Loren reached into his pocket for another clip. His breath was fire in his laboring lungs as he dragged air in through the woolen mask of the watch cap. He shook sweat from his eyes as his clumsy gloved fingers rummaged in his pocket amid spent brass.
The door boomed open and Patience came lunging out. Loren caught a glimpse of eye whites and bared teeth, heard a scream on the air, and then the shod heel of Patience’s foot slammed into his solar plexus.
The blow was probably intended to take several ribs out, but the steel flak jacket absorbed most of the impact and Loren was only knocked back. Surprise clanged in his head. Patience lunged forward for another kick and Loren knew somehow to leap to one side, just as he’d done in his last boxing match, and unload a right cross over the other man’s guard as Patience’s lunge carried him forward and off balance.
Patience was faster than the con had been, or Loren had grown slower, because Patience turned his head and Loren’s knuckles only grazed the side of his face. Patience whipped a back-knuckle punch into Loren’s face by way of reply, but Loren tucked his chin into his chest and the knuckles bounced off his forehead. Loren’s second right punch was better than the first, coming in low for Patience’s left kidney, and the man grunted and turned pale. He spun away, arms shooting out as he tried to connect with blind spin punches, but Loren, weird joy caroling in his head, ducked under, bunched his fists, and came in.
A blinding pain in his right knee brought Loren to a staggering halt. The joint gave way. Asphalt scraped flesh from his kneecap as he went down. Agony jolted him and tears of pain sprang to his eyes. Patience pulled back the knife-edge kick he’d used against Loren’s knee and aimed a second one at Loren’s face.
Immobilize the opponent before using high kicks. Patience had even told him.
&n
bsp; Loren brought up his right arm and managed to throw the kick over one shoulder. His left fist lunged out for Patience’s groin, trying to take advantage of the fact that the man’s legs were wide apart, but he grazed the thigh with his knuckles instead.
Patience tried another kick at Loren’s head. Loren blocked it with both forearms, then grabbed the leg and pulled. Patience clawed at Loren for support as he fell, and his nails streaked Loren’s cheeks with red. Loren smashed him in the face with a rising elbow as he came down.
Patience managed to twist away somehow, get behind Loren, and then Loren was brought up short as something cut across his windpipe. He clawed at it, found that it was the strap of the UZI. Patience had hold of the gun with both hands and was using the strap as a garrote.
Loren flailed, liquid terror bubbling through his brain as he tried to tear the gun out of Patience’s hands. Pain tore through his skull as the strap under his chin yanked him off the asphalt.
Patience had got to his feet somehow. He’d turned away from Loren, the UZI strap over one shoulder, his back bent beneath Loren’s back. Loren’s entire weight was borne by the strap. His legs thrashed in the air.
The garrote was not fully effective— the angle was a little wrong, and Loren’s raised collar made it less efficient— and Loren managed to gasp a little air into his lungs. He threw his weight left and right, trying to loosen Patience’s grip, and accomplished nothing than letting the garrote get a better bite on him. The urge to vomit queased through his belly. He tried to kick Patience’s legs out from under him but couldn’t bring any force to bear. His own right leg wasn’t working properly. Blackness pulsed on the edge of his vision.
He threw both hands over his head, hammering his doubled fists into the sides of Patience’s head. Patience swayed a bit, but recovered his balance. Patience dug his chin deeper into his chest and evaded Loren’s next smash. Loren tried again, hitting with palm-heels to the temples and then clawing for Patience’s eyes. His gloves made the clawing difficult, but he heard Patience give a grunt as the glove seams gouged flesh from lids and sockets. Loren reached back again and clawed once more. Somehow he got hold of both ears and twisted, pulling hard . . .
A hoarse scream grated on Loren’s ears. Patience dumped him on the asphalt. Agony jolted through his knee. He dragged in the smoky air, feeling it draw blossoming fire through his chest.
His vision was completely black, but somehow, with the strange exhilarating intuition he remembered from his boxing days, he knew precisely where Patience was and how he was standing. He got his good leg under him and lunged upward, one rising uppercut connecting solidly with Patience’s groin, a follow-up right hitting him in the side of the head. A third punch struck only empty air and swung him off balance, and Loren’s bad knee gave out again. Asphalt bit at his arm. He tried to rise and fell again. Hot cinders filled the air. The flak jacket weighed a ton.
Loren’s vision began to clear and he saw Patience getting to his feet only a few yards away. Loren planted his good left foot and rose, but Patience staggered away, his shoulders hunched to protect his groin. The side of his face was a spiderweb of blood. He was heading for the door.
Loren lurched after him. At one point he realized he was holding Patience’s left ear in his doubled right fist, and he opened the hand and let it fall.
Patience made it to the door ahead of him and tried to shut it in his face. Loren grabbed the door handle and the two men wrenched it back and forth for a frantic moment before Loren yanked it free and spilled backward, slamming breathless against the concrete wall but somehow managing to retain his grip on the door. Patience turned and ran, but he couldn’t manage any speed and kept hitting the cork-covered walls, knocking free some of the papers that had been pinned there. Scientific articles tumbled in a blizzard of print.
Heaving poisonous smoky air into his lungs, Loren reached for the UZI, which was hanging down his back. He pulled it around and reached for a magazine. His movements were slow and deliberate, matching the speed of his jangled thought. He fit the magazine in, and the bolt automatically slammed the first round into the chamber. Loren blinked sweat from his eyes and pointed the gun down the corridor.
Patience was nowhere to be seen. He’d got away. Loren took a few more breaths, trying to clear his spinning head, then lumbered after. Pain shot through his right knee at every step.
Loren followed the trail of papers that Patience had knocked to the floor till the papers ran out, then took a good grip on the UZI and lunged through the next door.
Electronics breathed around him. He was on the balcony of the Dr. Strangelove war room, the control room of the LINAC, and the holographic projector was frozen in the middle of some explosion, little red and blue and green particles hovering perfectly and silently in the air. The thirty-inch high-definition monitors glowed with computer-generated images, graphs, silver columns of raw data.
A half dozen people were staring up at him. Apparently they were in the midst of conducting some line of research. Loren recognized Kurita and Steffens and the man Loren suspected was Joseph Dielh.
“Bill Patience!” Loren bellowed. “You seen him?” His voice sounded strange to his ears, gravelly and weak.
He doubted he was recognizable. The flak jacket bulked him up to several sizes larger than he normally was, and the watch cap covered most of his face. Strangulation had altered the quality of his voice.
He still held a wild hope he could get away with this kind of behavior.
“Bill Patience!” he repeated. “He needs medical attention. I’ve got to get to him.”
The people on the lower level stared at each other, then back at Loren. Loren pointed the gun blindly and fired off a burst. Television monitors exploded. Glass rained. The people below scrabbled for cover. Legs and buttocks poked out from behind and beneath consoles.
“Don’t fuck with the Cybercops, assholes!” Loren said, his voice loud in the sudden silence. “Dielh, get up here!”
There was no answer from Dielh, if that was indeed who it was— Loren could see him plainly crouching under a console, his buttocks raised high in the air as he covered his head in his hands. “Dielh!“ Loren said. “I can see your sorry ass!” Loren fired another burst for the sheer joy of it. Glass showered onto the floor. Legs twitched and scrambled for cover.
“Virtual matter!” Loren said. “Kaluza-Klein! You got it all wrong, you fucking moron!”
He fired off the rest of the magazine. Sparks leaped, gushed fire. Electricity arced across violated consoles. “Think about it!” he yelled. Loren dropped the magazine and reached for another one. This unbalanced him and he went over, the bad knee giving way. Pain jolted through his spine as he landed on his tailbone. He slapped another magazine into the gun and hauled himself upright.
With a sudden burbling hiss, foam began to rain out of sprinkler heads set into the ceiling. An alarm began to clatter. Loren laughed and staggered out of the room. White foam drooled from his shoulders.
He stared down the corridor, then noticed that one of the bare concrete walls had a streak of blood. There was blood on the floor as well. Patience had been this way.
He followed floor tile marked by little droplets of blood, each a perfect sticky circle, until they ended at a heavy metal door that led to the room where the Cray, and allegedly Heisenberg, were kept. There was a bloody handprint on the door. Joy frolicked through Loren’s heart.
He hit the door with his shoulder and lurched inward. Two strangers, a man and a woman, stared at him from beneath computer consoles. Someone had clearly told them to stay under cover. “Where is Mr. Patience?” Loren asked. His eyes searched the beige carpet for blood trails. “I’ve got a message for him.”
No answer save the clanging bell. No blood trails, either. Loren moved farther into the room, his eyes flicking left and right.
The black Cray sat on his left beneath its transparent tetrahedron, humming merrily. The sign about Heisenberg was gone. Apparently he’d had the sens
e to disappear into his own uncertainty relationship before any of this trouble started. Banks of consoles and monitors gleamed on the far side. Several tall rows of disk-drive cabinets stood like high-tech bookshelves on the right.
“I don’t believe I heard your answer,” Loren prompted. “Where is Bill Patience?” He limped closer to the two strangers.
“Jesus,” the man said. “Jesus oh God.”
Loren fired at the Cray. Vaporized coolant jetted from the tetrahedron as if from a high-pressure steam hose, blasting against the ceiling. The air turned humid in an instant. Buzzing alarms filled the room. A rumbling noise layered itself onto the background as emergency pumps were triggered. Coolant began to cycle through the clear tubes that arched over the machine. Loren stared in delight at this display.
“Oh, God,” said the man. The voice recalled Loren to his duty.
Loren pointed the UZI at him. “Where’s Patience?” he said. “My message won’t wait.”
“Sir,” the man said. “Sir.”
“Tell me,” Loren said.
“Sir,” the man said, “the circuits in the Cray are gallium arsenide. When it melts, this whole room is going to fill up with poison gas.”
“Is it?” Loren wondered if this was true. If so, the apocalypse was better than he’d anticipated. Magnanimously he decided to spare the company’s aircraft from destruction.
He gestured toward the door with the gun. “Better clear out, then.”
The man looked at him dumbly for a moment, then got to his feet and ran. The woman, coughing on the coolant that filled the air, waited long enough to see whether Loren was going to gun the first refugee down, saw he wasn’t, then followed.
The jet of coolant lost energy. Fine precipitation was raining down through the room, and there was a ghastly smell. Loren could breathe well enough through the woolen screen of his mask. The emergency pumps seemed to be laboring.
Days of Atonement Page 48