She moved, crouched low and weaving past the sides of cars, and behind several police snipers, heavy-mag laser rifles plugged into portable recharge-good for snipers, lasers avoided the need for deflec tion shots. She just hoped they knew the difficulties with reflective glass and smoke penetration. She personally preferred slugs, nothing argued with velocity. Pulled up at the rear of the control van and straightened, stomach hurting, and shouldered her way between several suited men who could have been insurance salesmen for all she knew...
"Who's in charge?" And was nearly surprised at how people jumped, heads snapping about. Had it been that long since she'd used her best command voice? The van's side was open, graphical screen displays alight inside, more personnel in chairs or standing behind ...
"Who the hell are you?" one man shot back at her, incredulously, with the frayed air of someone who'd had to deal with wandering bureaucrats too many times now. Sandy pulled her badge and tossed it to him, jumped up to the van's sideboard as he caught it and another protested ... She caught sight of a policeman with Commander rank on his shoulders, consulting with several others further down, and shouldered toward him past men a head taller than her.
"Commander, you in charge?"
He glanced up, frowning, face lit up in the wash from multiple screens and the hushed, working atmosphere of tense voices and speaker-com.
"Who are you?" his second snapped, displeased at the interruption. Another man. Jesus, it was over eighty per cent men, she guessed, and at least half of them Indian ... she'd heard they dominated the more specialised segments of basic policing, anything involving guns and potential violence. Had heard grumblings about the Old Boy Raj at police HQ.
"I'm Ibrahim's secret weapon, I want a duty uplink, I can help."
"Says she's CSA," came a voice behind her, recent arrival from outside. "April Cassidy, Intelligence." Sarcastically. Sandy uplinked to police files, fast, and broke about twenty security procedures with a flurry of attack overrides through the security barriers ...
"We don't need Intel here, thank you," the colonel said dryly. "Please step outside, you're not wanted here." She found the files she wanted, cracked them open with no regard for subtlety, unleashed a flood of information that racketed past at speed ...
"Commander Azim, right?" Pressing the side wall as someone edged past in the enclosed space. "Nikil Azim, age fifty-three, fifteen years in special security, four commendations, one for active service. You're not in charge here, Commander, you're just supervising. Command rests with SWAT Four Commander Rice, I want to speak to her. I'm on temporary assignment to Intel, I'm technically SWAT Four, she's my CO." Frowns all round at that.
"Don't you know anything?" said the second, incredulously. A lieutenant, Sandy saw. "Go through CSA HQ. Don't bother us, follow procedure and stay the fuck out of our faces."
A hand grabbed her shoulder from behind. Civilian men always tried to solve command disputes with aggression. Especially civilian men in positions of power. They thought it made them more effective. Sandy wondered briefly how such twisted logic had ever crawled from under a rock and seen the light of day. It limited her options severely.
"Come on, blondie, let's go," said the man behind her, pulling at her shoulder. The lieutenant returned to his discussion slate, shaking his head and muttering something about bloody pathetic females ... She took the man's hand off her shoulder, and squeezed. He turned white. A twist, and his knees hit the floor. She grabbed a handful of belt and a handful of shirt collar, lifted, carried him back to the open van door, and threw him out. He crash-landed five metres away and tumbled.
"Don't call me blondie," she called after him. Hit the door close mechanism, and the side of the van came whining shut behind as she squeezed back up the narrow aisle to where the Commander and his lieutenant were standing stunned. The lieutenant panicked and tried to reach for his gun. Sandy grabbed his arm and yanked him forward, then dumped him back up against the reinforced side wall, and pinned him there with a straight arm to the upper chest.
"Commander," she said calmly, "if you'd bothered to read CSA priority reports to all police personnel of your rank and security clearance, you'd know exactly who April Cassidy is, particularly the April Cassidy connected to SWAT Four under Lieutenant Rice. That you haven't read such reports is alarming. It suggests to me there's something fundamentally unsound with the present relationship between the CSA and Tanushan police. Worse, it's put us at this unfortunate impasse. What do you think we can do to rectify this unseemly situation?"
The Commander stared, eyes wide beneath his blue baseball cap. Too collected to react further, when any reaction would be fear or shock. A man lunged at her from back along the aisle. She kicked him in the stomach. He hit the floor behind the row of seats and curled into a gasping, wheezing ball.
"Sir," the lieutenant managed, in a small voice past the pressure on his chest, "I think she's the GI." The Commander stared at him. The lieutenant nodded, knowingly.
"I am so pleased," said the Commander, "to be surrounded by such genius intellects." The lieutenant winced. The Commander turned to Sandy. "Agent Cassidy, perhaps you'd like to speak to Lieutenant Rice?"
"I'd be delighted." Released the lieutenant as the Commander reached around for a headset. The lieutenant stood where she'd pinned him, unwilling to move. A full head taller than her and much broader, frozen as if confronted by a poisonous snake ready to strike. She smiled and patted him on the cheek. He winced at that, too. The Commander gave her the headset and she fixed it on, fixed the mobile source to where her belt would be if she'd worn one, squeezed past an end chair and swung herself up to seat her backside on a vacant console panel by the command chair. It gave her a good view of the van interior. A row of faces, all staring at her in the dim, artificial working light.
"Get back to work," she admonished them, "we're just discussing duty protocols." Some nervous glances back and forth at that. "What's the matter, haven't you seen a pretty girl before?" That got a response, a few nervous titters from the largely male cps crew.
"Come on, people," announced the Commander, clapping his hands, "back at it. She's just our friendly neighbourhood GI, we mistook her for someone else, our fault. Come on, there's three of those bastards still alive in there. There's lives at stake, let's pay some attention!"
It got them going again, with a few remaining nervous sideways glances. Someone was helping the man she'd kicked back to his feet, helping him get his breath back.
"Leaping on a GI barehanded, Senior Constable," Sandy called, you itching for a promotion or just looking to get your name in the paper?" Dialling up her connection, waiting for the security net to confirm it.
"How 'bout a raise?" someone quipped.
"He okay?" Sandy pressed.
Ari acknowledging hand raised from the man himself, bent over and recovering, a hand to his middle.
"I'm okay."
"Next time try using a cannon," she advised. He spared her a wary sideways look. She returned a crooked smile. And was nearly surprised at the return smile, slight as it was. But not greatly surprised. She'd commanded forces most of her life. GIs were different from straights, but some things remained in common. Like compliments only carrying as much weight as the person who delivered them. From her to these guys ... she'd just made the Senior Constable a hero. All power, she recalled, came from the barrel of a gun-or something like thatsurely it applied to violence generally ... Now who'd said that? Someone she'd read, she couldn't remember. Violent species. But that wasn't her fault, she was what she was. The trick was applying it prop erly. Irrational macho impulses sure didn't help.
Her call connected. It would flash as an insignificant suggestion light somewhere on Vanessa's visor display, nothing distracting. Vanessa would get to it when she felt ready. Sandy was somewhat surprised when the link clicked active almost immediately.
"Hey, babe." Vanessa's voice, hard-edged but cool. "Was wondering how long you'd take. "
"Ricey, what's
happened?"
"Three point insertion, points four and five to cover the lower bridgeway. Got five of the original eight almost immediately but couldn't find the last three, they were inside somewhere ... " Pause for a hard breath, talking at a calm, steady volume, ". . . bloody architecture, there's no human way to cover all the routes. They're in a lower crossover between Ceta five-nine-A and nine-nineC ..." Flash of three-dimensional graphic on the OSA, a red-light spot near the base of the second central atrium. "... and they've got a kid for a hostage. "
"You're Joking."
"I wish. It happened in the morning, I think someone'd brought him to work first before school. Six years old. You want active?"
"Yes, please." An associated link opened up. She accessed and data rushed in, full realtime schematic, comp-sim of all available data from all active units inside the building and out, shot back to HQ then out again. You couldn't trust all of it, some was guesswork, but once you knew the software parameters, you could figure which guesses were more accurate than others.
Vanessa and all SWAT Four had them surrounded, spread on several levels in typical crossfire pattern. Unable to fire because of the kid. Stand-off. Someone was trying to bring in a negotiator but there didn't seem much to negotiate. Negotiations, from what she'd seen of case files, were fraught with difficulties ... fine for distraught, suicidal civvies and isolated lunatics whose lives had taken a turn for the worse-if they weren't susceptible to persuasion, they usually wouldn't have gone nuts in the first place. These guys didn't seem particularly persuadable. And having just seen five of their comrades killed, they weren't likely to buy any line about how "we don't want anyone to get hurt."
And they'd killed a hostage, she noted. Point-blank shot to the head, and dumped the body, when they figured they were being stalled. That'd been the trigger for Secretary Grey to order the assault. Even so, motivation remained an elusive variable ...
"Sandy, hold on a second, I've got to check on something ..." And the connection blanked out, temporary hold. Crouched in her armour somewhere in that building, Vanessa no doubt had many other things to think about. Sandy pulled the headset speaker from her mouth, and gestured to the lieutenant ... the Commander was busy again, talking on another connection, possibly about her, she didn't care. The lieutenant approached, a little gingerly. Probably he reckoned she was picking on him.
"What's Human Salvation Jihad and what have they asked for?" He took a deep, nervous breath ... not a bad-looking guy, she considered vaguely. European, square-jawed and hunky. Seated up on her console, she could just about look him in the eye.
"Um, well they're Islamic extremists ..."
"Yeah, I got that." Dryly.
He swallowed again. "The Muslim League's denounced them, of course. Says they're an affront to all Muslims and pretty much urged us to kill 'em all ..."
"That's pretty much how I'm thinking." She'd read reports suggesting that martyrdom needed a critical mass of popular support in order to flourish in Islamic society. It didn't get that in Tanusha, where the concept of religious war was very passe. What they had here was another nostalgic lunatic fringe cult harking back to days long gone. She reckoned most Tanushans, and Muslims in particular to judge from those she'd met, would want to keep it that way-in the past. The first step to doing so was to make this kind of murderous lunacy non-survivable. She got the impression most Tanushans were still somewhat ignorant of just how good their top law enforcement was (meaning SWAT) at the application of lethal force ... prior to recent times the SIB had gotten all the press, all legalistic and "civilised," doubtless some fools in the present mess thought they'd get a prison cell and a media platform from which to continue their "grand movement." The fact that crazy civvies with rifles were just target practice for Tanushan SWAT was not yet widely appreciated. The sooner they got the message, the better. Martyrdom as a possible outcome could be romantic. As a one hundred per cent guaranteed death sentence, it became less so. Tanushans enjoyed life too much to volunteer for an execution, whatever their political beliefs. And ninety-nine-point-nine per cent of Tanushans, and Tanushan Muslims in particular, would have precisely zero sympathy for people who murdered innocents and threatened small children in the name of their enlightened, merciful religion. "What do they want?"
"So far they've demanded that Callay stay within the Federation, that President Neiland renounce all possible moves toward liberalising the biotech regime, that you yourself be put on trial for crimes against humanity, the standard ultra-Federation stance."
Her uplink showed her a fast scrawl of personal detail ... several confirmed names, a couple of university degrees, some odd jobs, a few faces ... nothing remarkable, just ordinary Tanushans. Four men and four women, which she wouldn't have expected from extreme Islamic conservatives-maybe they hadn't read up on the full program in their history books. Running conversation on the audio ... Bird Two has no visual on Ceta five-nine ... Hector Three, can you get a laser track on Ceta- five-nine windows? ... Hector One has field of fire across Ceta, good visual, no obstructions ... SWAT Four, further confirm, frequency secure, access AZ three nineteen ... This is SWAT Four, confirm frequency clearance ...
That last was Hiraki, Vanessa's second. He listened to more of the chatter than Vanessa did, filtered for her ... click, and the headphones came back to life.
"Hey, Sandy, I just changed position here, I got a nice view across the atrium from level three ... Let's see, I can't gas 'cause they've got masks, can't neuralise 'cause the walls are resistant, can't charge 'cause of the kid ... I reckon a basic sneak-and-shoot would solve it, but I'm figuring a thirty per cent chance the kid will get hit in the process. He deserves better odds if we can get 'em for him. I'll take any advice you've got right now. "
"They said anything lately?"
"Uh ... `Death to fascist unbelievers,' I think was the last one."
"So you can't see any happy reconciliation happening here?"
"Sandy, if they were scared of dying, they'd be screaming for mercy about now, it got real graphic on the top floor. It's not like they don't realise the consequences. Wu from Intel tells me he thinks they're drugged up, judging from the voice patterns. " She remembered Wu, another bookish type, specialist in psycho-interface and mind-altering effects. She'd been impressed by him. "Why you asking, you think you wanner talk to them personally?"
"No. Can't let them know it's hopeless, they might just kill themselves and the kid too." Down the van's length, faces were turned her way. The Commander among them, watching intently. Listening on Vanessa's channel. "I've got a solution. I can't guarantee it. If you want to wait and look for something softer, that's fine, you're in charge, it's your call. But if they want to be martyrs and they've been tapepsyching themselves, they might not value that hostage very much at all. What's your call?"
The power was down in the building, but it didn't trouble her vision any. Up several flights of the near stairwell, then along the level three corridor, newly acquired boots squeaking on the shiny floor. The boots weren't all that she'd newly acquired. Light armour encased her torso, basic arm and leg guards, power-neutral, for protection only. A bare helmet, no faceguard. She needed neither the breather nor the visor, just the armscomp interface and the single external sight before her left eye. A gloved hand gripped a Sanda 40 light assault weapon-an electro-mag shooter, on full V it could put holes in armourplate. She'd used bigger. For now, against unarmoured civilians, it felt like overkill. The whole situation was overkill. All the commotion, the hovering aircraft and crowds of official onlookers. For a handful of brain-tranqued civvies with self-inflicted delusions of Godly virtue.
She wasn't sure at all about this whole God business. But she reckoned she knew enough to make a few basic judgments. God was no politician. God took no sides, and played no favourites. God stopped no bullets. If God worried over his flock, it was because his flock's behaviour gave him good reason to. She wondered how he'd explain it all to these three fools, when they met him i
n several minutes' time.
Bloody waste. She didn't feel good at all. Her stomach was tense, and hurt to the point of cramping. The tension gripped all over. But it was more than the injury. She was scared. And revolted. Imagining such lives, in happy Tanusha, and all the other things one could have chosen to do with them. Family, friends, arts, travel, adventure. Instead of religiously inspired murder and a violent death. And if Allah was up there, waiting for them ... man, was he going to be pissed. She remembered, with the fleeting dance of a stress-filled mind, a recent case in Tanushan courts where a major theological movement had sued a bunch of radical extremists for tarnishing God's reputation ... But God, for better or worse, was no lawyer either. She couldn't remember who'd won.
She followed the tac-grid layout of the building, accurate to the nearest millimetre, past open doors and planned office space. Cups of tea and personal gear left lying on desktops where they had been left when the chaos broke out and emergency evacuation had sent everyone racing for the exits. She met Vanessa at the corridor end that looked out over the atrium. She knew it was Vanessa because she recognised the armour suit, supple-flexed ceramic over corded myomer. Crouched by the corner with a rifle to her shoulder that looked big enough to bring down small aircraft. The smaller anti-personnel gun fixed to the back of her shoulder ... she'd thought ahead to the heavy stuff. Probably she'd seen this coming.
Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1) Page 30