‘What are you doing?’
‘Looking for a weapon. I figure you’re not going to share that Beretta with me, right? Contractual obligations and all that.’ He bounced back into the seat, teeth tight in frustration, glared around him and then threw open the door. He ran round to the back of the jeep. Road dust from the emergency stop caught on a soft breeze and blew forward over and around them in a cloud. It floated away, ghostly quiet and intermittently lit up red by the hazard lights. Sevgi looked back and saw Marsalis working to loosen something from the rear hatch. The jeep rocked on its suspension with every tug. The flashing lights lit him amidst the dust, turned his face demonic with tension and focused effort. She thought she heard him grunt. Something clanked loose.
He came back to the door, hefting a collapsible shovel.
‘All right, listen,’ he said, suddenly calm. ‘If we’re lucky, these are local thugs, used to flagging down easy-mark trucks and the odd tour bus. If they are, I’m guessing we’ve got a couple more minutes before they realise what we’ve done. Maybe another three or four minutes after that for them to mount up and come find us. Not long, however you look at it. So, textbook response, we need to get out of the vehicle and find some cover, fast.’
Sevgi nodded mutely, suddenly aware of how dry her mouth was. She snapped the slide on the Beretta, textbook style, tilting it to the horizontal so she could read the load display on the side. Thirty-three, and one in the pipe. The Marstech guns took state-of-the-art expansion slugs, pencil slim, accurate at long range and explosive on impact. She cleared her throat and lifted the Beretta.
‘You think we’ll be able to chase them off?’
He stared at her. The hazards painted him red, dark, red, dark, red, dark. He looked down at the folded shovel in his hands. Snapped the blade out into the functional position. Then he looked up at her again, hands tightening the locking mechanism in place, and his voice was almost gentle.
‘Sevgi, we’re going to have to kill these guys.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
There were seven of them.
From his limited vantage point, Carl made them for Peruvian regulars and relaxed a little. Familia hitmen would have been worse. He let the mesh come on, felt it seep into his muscles like rage. His vision sharpened on the vanguard. They were walking three abreast on the opposite carriageway, ten paces ahead of a slow-crawling open army jeep that carried the other four and a mounted machine gun. The vehicle moved with the main lights doused - that much, at least, they were doing right - and the vanguard party held their assault rifles ready for use. A gawky tension in the way they moved screamed conscript nerves. These guys could have been the same easy-grin, football-talking uniforms he’d blagged a ride from five months back, on his way to kill Gray. With luck, they’d be as young and unprepared.
They came to a halt twenty metres from the red hazard flash pooling and fading at each corner of the stranded COLIN jeep. Muttered Spanish, too far off to catch. The curve on the road was gentle, they’d have been able to see the lights for the last hundred metres at least, but they’d chosen now to stop and discuss tactics. Carl smiled to himself and gripped the shaft of the shovel. The eroded metal edge of the blade touched his face, cold and notched with use against his cheek.
The jeep backed up a little. The vanguard soldiers crossed the luminous central reservation, looking both ways like well-trained children. Carl thought he could hear the distant drone of an autohauler somewhere in the night, impossible to tell how far off or which direction it was headed. Otherwise, there was nothing but thin moonlight on porous rock and jagged mountain backdrop. Stars shingled across the sky, almost as clear as on Mars. It was quiet enough to hear the scuff of booted feet across the evercrete now they were close, the follow-up grumble of the jeep’s antique engine.
Fucking seven of them. Christ, I hope you’re up for this Ertekin.
He’d asked her if she knew how to kill someone with the matt-grey Beretta, if she’d ever shot anyone dead. Half hoping she’d crumble and give him the weapon. The look he got in return was enough. But she hadn’t answered his question and he still didn’t know.
The vanguard arrived at the COLIN vehicle. They crept up crabwise and peered inside the cabin. Tugged at the door handles and barked surprise when the doors pulled open on smooth hydraulic servos. Poked their weapons nervously inside. Now he could hear them talking. Forced bravado rinsing through the soft coastal Spanish accents like grit through a silk screen. Young-boy talk.
‘You check the back, Ernesto?’
‘Already done it, man. They’re fucking gone. Run off. Told the sarge we should have pulled them over old-style. Flashing lights, road block, it never fails.’
‘That’s all you fucking know.’ A third voice, from round the other side of the jeep. It sounded a little older. ‘This isn’t some Bolivian strike leader, this is a fucking thirteen. He would have driven right through us, fucked us in pieces.’
‘That gringa cunt, that’s what I’ll fuck in pieces when we catch up with them.’
Laughter.
‘She’s not a gringa, Ernesto. Didn’t you see the photo? I got a sister-in-law in Barranca got lighter skin than that.’
‘Hey, she’s from Nueva York. That’s good enough fucking for me.’
‘You know something, you guys disgust me. What if your mothers could hear you now?’
‘Ah, come on Ramon. Don’t be an altar boy your whole fucking life. You seen the photos of this bitch or not? Tits on her like Cami Chachapoyas. Don’t tell me you don’t want a piece of that.’
Ramon said nothing. The slightly older one filled in for him.
‘Tell you what, you do fuck her, either of you, you’d better spray on first. Those gringas got a dose of everything going. I got a cousin in Nueva York, says those bitches are out fucking everything that moves.’
‘Man, you got fucking family all over, don’t you? How come-’
An NCO bellow from the jeep: ‘Report, corporal!’
‘Nothing here, sir,’ the older voice called back. ‘They’re gone. Have to quarter the area.’
In the jeep, something indistinct was said about fucking infrareds. Probably, Carl guessed, that they didn’t have any.
‘Ground search. Oh, for fuck’s sake. I’m telling you, when we catch up with this twist and his bitch-’
And time.
He let the rage drive him, rolled and braced himself off the edge of the moulded roof storage pan, came down a metre clear, on the opposite side to the other jeep. The heat-resistant elasticated tarpaulin that had hidden him stretched taut as he rolled, let him free and then snapped back with a flat, slapping sound.
It was all the warning they ever had.
He hit the evercrete amidst uniformed bodies. Sent them staggering and sprawling - no time to count. The one in front had his back turned, did not quite go down-
‘Fuck, Ramon, what are you doing?’
He hadn’t understood what was happening. Was turning, unguarded, no worse than irritated, when Carl swung the shovel blade into his face. Blood splattered, warm and unseen in the dark, but he felt it on his cheek. The man dropped his assault rifle and clutched at his shattered cheekbone, made a wet sound, fell down screaming. Carl was already spinning away. A second uniform, struggling on his hands and knees. Ramon the altar boy? Carl hacked down with the shovel, into the soft top of the skull. The man made a noise like a panicked cow and collapsed prone. More blood spritzed, painted his face with its warmth.
The third soldier was still on the far side of the COLIN jeep. He came round the back of the vehicle at speed and Carl met him head on, grinning, black and splattered with the other men’s blood. The soldier panicked, yelled. Forgot to raise his rifle.
‘He’s here-’
Carl lunged. Jabbed hard with the shovel, blade end into the soldier’s throat. The warning shout died to a choked gurgle. Carl zipped up the gap between them, blocked off the late-rising barrel of the assault rifle with one splayed hand,
smashed the butt end of the shovel into the man’s nose. The fight died, the soldier went down choking. Carl reversed the shovel and hacked down with point of the blade, into the throat until the other man stopped making a noise.
The night flared apart with headlight beams from the other jeep. Shouts of alarm from the other side. Four more, he knew. No way to be sure how many were still sitting in their vehicle, how many deployed by now . . .
Come on, Ertekin. Pick it up.
Gunfire - the flat, high crack of the Marstech gun, six rapid shots in succession. The lights doused. Panicked yells from the jeep.
Fuck. Nice shooting, girl.
‘Open fire!’
Carl hit the asphalt. Kicked the screaming, rolling victim with the shattered face out of his way, snagged the man’s assault rifle. Dimly he registered it as a use-worn Brasilian Imbel, not exactly state of the art but-
From somewhere, the mounted machine gun on the army jeep cut loose. The noise ripped the night apart. Stammering thunder from the gun, and the shattering clangour as the .50 cal rounds smashed themselves apart on the COLIN vehicle’s armoured flank. Marstech, Marstech, we got the Marstech. The idiot rhyme marched through his head, flash image of the kids that used to chant it out back of the bubblefabs at Wells. Carl grinned a tight combat rictus, crabbed about in the cover the jeep gave him and poked the Imbel under the vehicle. He sprayed a liberal burst of return fire through the gap, then cut it off. Confused yelling, the machine gun coughed, suddenly silent. Carl pressed his face flat to the road surface and peered. Nothing - his vision was still blasted from the headlamps. He squeezed both eyes shut, tried again.
‘Motherfucking twist piece of-’
The injured soldier was on him, flailing with fists, face hanging off in flaps where the shovel had sliced it apart. His voice was a high weeping torrent of abuse, a boy’s fury. Carl smacked him under the chin with the butt of the Imbel, then again in the region of the wound. The soldier screamed and cringed back. Carl brought the barrel of the assault rifle to bear. Short, stuttering burst. The muzzle flash lit the boy’s ruined face, reached out and touched him on the chest like fizzling magic - kicked him away across the road like rags.
The machine gun cut loose again, died just as abruptly at yelled orders from the jeep. Still grinning, Carl got to his feet and crept to the wing of the COLIN vehicle. He crouched and squinted, squeezed detail from his flash-burnt vision. Saw the silhouette of the soldier manning the mounted gun. About forty metres, he reckoned. It hurt to hold onto the detail through aching pupils, but-
Better get this done.
As if she’d heard him, Ertekin’s Marstech pistol cracked again across the night, three times in rapid succession. The soldier on the mounted gun pivoted his weapon about, chasing the sound. Carl put the Imbel to his shoulder, popped up over the jeep hood, cuddled the weapon in and squeezed the trigger. Clattering roar at his ear and the muzzle flash stabbed out again in the cool air. Long burst, drop back into cover, don’t stop to see . . .
But he already knew.
The mounted machine gun stayed silent.
He gave it another minute, just to be safe - just to beat that bullshit thirteen arrogance, right, Sutherland ? - then poked the weapon up over the hood again, butt first. No returning fire. He moved to the rear of the COLIN jeep and eased his head out far enough to see the other vehicle.
Silent, tumbled figures in and alongside the open-top jeep. The mounted gun, stark and skeletal amidst the carnage, unmanned and tilting butt first at the sky. Carl stepped out of cover. Paused. Moved slowly forward, mesh-hammer ebbing along his nerves now the fight was done. He covered the distance to the other jeep in a cautious, curving arc. Peripherally, he was aware of Ertekin climbing up onto the road from the ravine side where she’d hidden. He got to the jeep well ahead of her, circled it once, warily, and then stood looking at his handiwork.
‘Well, that seemed to work,’ he said, to no one in particular.
It looked as if the sergeant had got clear of the jeep, was on the way to support his men when he ran into the hail of fire from the Imbel. Now he lay flung back against the forward wheel arch like a drunk who’d just tripped on a kerb. Above his slumped form, the jeep’s driver was still behind the wheel, hands folded neatly in his lap, face ripped away, brains dripping down his shirt-front like spilled gravy. The soldier manning the mounted gun hung twisted over the back of the jeep, one foot tangled in something that had prevented the impact of the Imbel’s rounds from knocking him bodily out of the vehicle. His head was almost touching the evercrete surface of the road, boy’s face slack with shock, staring from frozen, upside down eyes as Carl moved past him.
The remaining man lay huddled in the back of the jeep like a child playing hide and seek. In the low light, blood shone wet and dark on his battledress, but his chest still rose and fell. Carl reached in and gripped his shoulder. The soldier’s eyes flickered open drowsily. He blinked at Carl for a moment, bemused. Blood-irised spit bubbles moved at the corner of his mouth as his lips parted.
‘Uncle Gregorio,’ he muttered weakly. ‘What are you doing here?’
Carl just looked at him, and presently the soldier’s eyes slid closed again. His head tipped a little to one side, came to rest against the inside trim of the jeep. Carl reached in again and felt for a pulse. He sighed.
Ertekin reached his side.
‘You okay?’ he asked her absently.
‘Yeah. Marsalis, you’ve got blood-’
‘Not mine. Can I see that Marstech piece of yours for a second?’
‘Uh. Sure.’
She handed the weapon to him, took the Imbel as he offered it over in return. He weighed the Beretta for a moment, checked the safety and the load display. Then he raised it and shot the young soldier through the face. The boy’s head jerked back. Lolled. He knocked the safety back on, palmed the warmth of the barrel and handed the pistol back to Ertekin.
She didn’t take it. Her voice, when it came, was leashed tight with anger.
‘What the fuck did you do that for?’
He shrugged. ‘Because he wasn’t dead.’
‘So you had to make him that way?’ Now the anger started to bleed through. Suddenly she was shouting. ‘Look at him, Marsalis. He was no threat, he was injured-’
‘Yeah.’ Carl gestured around at the deserted road and the empty landscape beyond. ‘You see a hospital out there anywhere?’
‘In Arequipa-’
‘In Arequipa, he’d have been a fucking liability.’ Running a little anger of his own now. ‘Ertekin, we need to hit Greta Jurgens fast, before she finds out what went down here tonight. We don’t have time for hospital visits. This isn’t a ... what?’
Ertekin was frowning, anger shelved momentarily as she reached into her jacket pocket. She fished out her phone, which was vibrating quietly on and off, pulsing along its edges with pale crystalline light.
‘Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.’ Carl looked away down the perspectives of the road in exasperated disbelief. ‘At this time of night?’
‘Rang before,’ she said, putting the device to her ear. ‘Just before the fireworks kicked off. Didn’t have time to pick up. Ertekin.’
Then she listened quietly. Made monosyllabic agreement a couple of times. Hung up, and put the phone away again, face gone calm and thoughtful.
‘Norton,’ he guessed.
‘Yeah. Time to go home.’
He gaped at her. ‘What?’
‘That’s right.’ She met his eye, something harder edging the calm. ‘RimSec called. They’ve got a body. We’ve got to go back.’
Carl shook his head. Twinges of the firefight backed up in his nerves, fake-fired the mesh. ‘So they’ve got a body. Another body. Big fucking deal. You going to pull out now, just when we’re getting somewhere?’
Ertekin gazed around at the carnage. ‘You call this getting somewhere?’
‘They tried to stop us, Sevgi. They tried to kill us.’
‘They tried to kill us in New York as well. You want to go back there? Come to that, Névant tried to kill you in Istanbul. Violence follows you around, Marsalis. Just like Merrin, just like-’
She clamped her lips.
Carl looked at her and felt the old weariness seeping in. He cranked up the rind of a smile for cover.
‘Go ahead, Sevgi, say it. Just like Ethan.’ He gestured. ‘Go on, get it off that gorgeous chest of yours. It’s what you’re thinking anyway.’
‘You have no fucking right to assume-’
‘No?’ He paused for effect. ‘Oh, yeah, I forgot. You get some kind of perverse thrill out of fucking unlucks, and that makes you think you don’t see us the same way the rest of the whole fucking human race does. Well it takes more than a Cuban wank and a few sheet stains to-’
Abruptly, he was on the ground.
He lay there on his back in the road dust, staring up while she stood over him, clutching her right fist in her left hand.
‘Motherfucker,’ she said wonderingly.
She’d stepped in before she threw the punch, he realised. Right hook, or an uppercut, he couldn’t work out which. He never saw it coming.
‘You think I haven’t been where you are now, Marsalis?’
He propped himself up on an elbow. ‘What, flat on the your back in the road?’
‘Shut up.’ She was trembling visibly. Maybe with comedown from the firefight. Maybe not. ‘You think I don’t know what it’s like? Think again, fuckwit. Try growing up Muslim in the West, while the Middle East catches fire again. Trying growing up a woman in a western Muslim culture fighting off siege mentality fundamentalism again. Try being one of only three Turkish-American patrolwomen in a New York precinct dominated by male Greek-American detectives. Hey, try sleeping with a thirteen, you’ll get almost as much shit as being one, not least from members of your own fucking family. Yeah. People are stupid, Marsalis. You think I need lessons in that?’
‘I don’t know what you need, Ertekin.’
The Complete SF Collection Page 240