Savage (Jack Sigler / Chess Team)

by Jeremy Robinson

  “There is nothing to fix,” she said . “Everything is proceeding according to my plan.”

  “Bullshit. You’re smarter than that. This little revolution of yours is circling the drain. When the truth about CE’s involvement gets out, and believe me it will, not only will you lose everything you thought you were going to gain, but CE will be finished. You will be finished.”

  “How fortunate for you.”

  “Are you kidding?” Marrs seemed to be on the verge of an epileptic fit. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Aside from a pompous, know-nothing who prostitutes his political influence and licks the boots of wealthy oil billionaires?”

  His lips curled in a disdainful sneer. “I’m the next goddamned President of the United States. That’s who I am. Now, let me talk to someone at CE… I’ve worked with Dorian Harrold, though I’m sure he’ll be surprised to hear—”

  Favreau hit him. Her open hand struck his jaw, hard enough to shut it and raise a blush on his sallow skin, but it was really just a slap to remind him that, no matter who he thought he was or was going to be, she was in charge. His mouth hung open for a moment in disbelief, then he wisely closed it. She leaned in close. “Nothing you think you know matters anymore. There’s just one thing I want from you. Silence.” She relaxed a little and smiled. “It would be better if you gave me that voluntarily, but one way or another, I will get it.”

  Marrs swallowed and fell back in his seat.

  She looked away from him and tried to recapture some of the emotional high she had felt earlier, but it was gone, replaced instead by the depressing realization that Marrs was right. She had been outplayed, and now everything was in ruins. Somehow, the American had discovered the connection to Consolidated Energy, a fact that threatened everything and connected her to Mulamba’s abduction. Consolidated Energy and Executive Solutions would survive this by finding a way to disavow everything that she had done, labeling her a rogue agent and making themselves out to be as much the victims as the Congolese. They would cut her loose, maybe even put a price on her head.

  Strangely, the idea excited her. She might be on her own now, but she wasn’t alone. She had General Velle and his army, and she had the bomb.

  This was, she realized, not a defeat at all. It was a perfect opportunity.

  32

  King set Asya down in a shadowy recess near the west exit from the Palais and scanned the perimeter. The army forces holding the seat of the Congolese government were mostly clustered near the front entrance, but there were still a lot of troops spread out around the grounds. About fifty yards from where King hid, there was a GAZ Tigr armored vehicle, similar in design to a Humvee, with a gunner manning a DShK heavy machine gun in the top turret and four more soldiers milling about nearby. More vehicles and soldiers were dispersed along the fence line, close enough that slipping between them unnoticed would be impossible. Not that walking out was really an option. Asya needed immediate medical attention.

  He checked her wound. The field dressing was soaked through, but Asya continued pressing it against the injury. He took out a fresh dressing and laid it over the top of the first, tying both around her waist to hold them in place. Only then did he look her in the eye. “How are you doing, kiddo?”

  “Kiddo? I may be kid sister, but don’t treat me like child.” Her attempt at playful mock-outrage was confounded by a tremor of pain that turned her smile into a grimace.

  “I’m going to get you out of here. Stay put.”

  “I can walk,” she protested.

  “Don’t,” he said, with all the forcefulness his whisper would allow. He turned away before she could argue, and scanned the area once more, tagging targets in the virtual environment.

  With grim determination, he settled the cross-hairs on the gunner in the Tigr’s turret and fired a single silenced round. The weapon made a soft huffing noise that went unnoticed by the soldiers at the perimeter. The man behind the machine gun slumped away without making a sound. King moved the Uzi to another target, one of two men on the right side of the vehicle, and took another shot. The soldier went down, and as the other man looked on in surprise, King shifted the muzzle of his weapon and fired again.

  As he switched his aim to the pair on the left side, he heard a cry of alarm and saw both men abruptly take a defensive stance. Another target suddenly popped up in King’s display. A previously unnoticed sixth man was climbing out of the Tigr, warning the others of the silent attack.

  King took out one of the soldiers, but the other two raised their Kalashnikov rifles and started firing. They clearly didn’t know where he was. They were shooting into the shadows and none of their rounds came anywhere close to him, but the damage was done. Now, everyone was alerted to his presence. The mechanical coughing sound of a suppressed burst startled King, and both of the soldiers he was trying to target went down.

  “Got them,” Asya announced through gritted teeth. She struggled to her feet. “Let’s go!”

  “Damn it, Asya. Stay down.” He knew she was not going to heed him, and also recognized that he wasn’t going to be able to carry her to the Tigr, especially not with the rest of the Congolese army now looking their way. “Just stay here. Cover me.”

  He bolted out into the open, making a bee-line for the vehicle. The movement caught the attention of soldiers on either side, and before he had crossed half the distance, bullets started sizzling though the air all around him. He kept going, and when he got within a few paces of the vehicle, he dove forward onto his belly as if sliding into home plate. Above him, rounds began pelting the armored exterior of the Tigr, but a hasty high crawl got him the rest of the way, affording some cover from the incoming fire on his right. He let loose a burst from the Uzi, pointing in the general direction of the troops to his left, then scrambled through the open door of the Tigr and pulled it shut.

  A bullet cracked loudly against the side window, the impact hard enough to gouge out a divot and start a spider web fracture pattern. The armor would stop all small arms fire, but unlike the composite plates that protected the Tigr’s flanks, the bullet resistant coating on the glass was a perishable product. It would lose its effectiveness after prolonged exposure to adverse weather conditions—or a crap ton of bullets. It might slow down a few more rounds, but King wasn’t going to trust it with his life. Keeping his head down, he located the starter switch—like most military vehicles, there was no keyed ignition—and brought the 205 horsepower diesel engine roaring to life.

  Without raising his head, King shifted the transmission into reverse. The Tigr started rolling backward. He goosed the throttle a little, holding the wheel steady until the vehicle jolted to a stop with a loud crash that reverberated through the metal frame and nearly shook him out of his seat. Head still down, he moved his foot onto the brake pedal and shifted into forward drive.

  The door behind him opened and Asya tumbled inside. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” she said, the pain once more robbing her voice of the intended humor. “You just hit national palace. That’s going to cause an international incident.”

  “Why don’t you stop being such a backseat driver?” King punched the accelerator, and the Tigr rocketed forward.

  There was another shuddering impact as they crashed through the fence, but the Tigr was made of tougher stuff than the barrier, and its momentum carried it through without slowing. As the hailstorm of bullets started to slacken, King finally risked sitting up.

  A stand of trees loomed into view. He cranked the steering wheel hard to the right and felt the heavy military vehicle skid closer to the wood line. Resisting the urge to brake, he instead pushed the accelerator harder. The tires threw up a shower of turf but the Tigr responded and veered onto a new course. He could see a paved road ahead, but between them and it was a gauntlet of troops and trucks, all of whom were now targeting the renegade Tigr.

  The interior of the vehicle was suddenly filled with the roar of a heavy machine gun. King glanced back and s
aw Asya, standing upright in the turret, firing the DShK into the mass of troops.

  He bit back a curse and focused on the near objective. “Blue, how’s that escape route coming?”

  “Sending it to you now.” There was palpable helplessness in the disembodied voice. Deep Blue sounded as frustrated and haggard as King felt. “My satellite imagery for Kinshasa is two hours old, but assuming that the army is redeploying to repel General Mabuki’s attack, the weakest place in their lines will be to the southwest—”

  Asya let loose another burst. The thunderous report drowned out the rest. King felt the tires grip pavement and the Tigr picked up speed. He risked a quick glance back and saw his sister’s feet moving back and forth as she swiveled the gun. A haphazard pattern of bloody footprints surrounded her.

  “Negative,” King said, turned his eyes back to the road. “I need to get to Mabuki by the most direct route possible.”

  He hooked a left turn, onto the broad avenue that paralleled the front of the Palais and the crowd of soldiers assembled there. Several vehicles were already starting to move, their guns flashing. Red tracer rounds were zipping across his path like laser bolts from a science fiction movie.

  “King, that will take you right into the lion’s den.”

  “Yeah, kinda figured that.”

  There was a whooshing sound in his head as Deep Blue gave a resigned sigh, then: “Hard right, now!”

  There wasn’t a road, but King saw a vast open plaza with an enormous brick courtyard and a central structure that looked like a UFO trying to break free from the grasp of several enormous concrete hands. King hauled the steering wheel to the right and angled onto the sidewalk between the courtyard and the weird monument. The Tigr jounced over low barriers and other pedestrian obstacles. King swerved to avoid a large bronze statue of a lion. Asya let loose a torrent of Russian profanity that was almost as lethal as the 12.7 mm rounds from the DShk, and sank down out of the turret. She finished with a sharp, “Who taught you how to drive?”

  “Watch your language. She’s your mother, too,” King said. She frequently forgot he was fluent in Russian since his passage through the ages. “Now, stay down.”

  He was relieved that she was back in the relative safety of the Tigr’s interior, but he knew the chaotic ride was almost certainly aggravating her injuries. If this kept up, he was likely to kill her before he could save her.

  “Keep going straight,” Deep Blue said. “There’s a road directly in front of you. Straight shot to Mabuki’s location.”

  “Do me a favor and let him know we’re coming in hot.”

  “Already done.”

  The vehicle suddenly rocked under the impact of a barrage of machine gun fire. A small convoy of Tigrs and tracked APCs tore across the plaza in pursuit. The high caliber rounds punched through the armor with a shriek of tortured metal and continued right through the windshield, scant inches from King’s head. He ducked, but knew that if the next burst hit a little lower, the seat back wouldn’t do much to slow the bullets down, and if the rounds hit something critical, like a fuel tank or the tires, they were equally screwed.

  “Straight shot is a no-go!” He lifted up just enough to scan the road ahead, spied a cross street and took the turn, slipping into an urban canyon between two modern looking buildings. The assault stopped, but King knew the reprieve would be short.

  “You’re still in the neighborhood,” Deep Blue advised. “There’s a right turn coming up in a hundred yards. Take it.”

  A network of glowing lines appeared in King’s glasses, guiding him to the next approaching cross street, which was at an angle slightly sharper than ninety degrees and already a lot closer than a hundred yards. King hauled the Tigr into the turn, clipped the corner and bounced over the curb.

  Asya howled another curse as the vehicle slammed down on the road surface, but quickly added, “I’m all right. Keep going.”

  King doubted that she was all right, but he also knew that moving forward was the only option. This road was also a straight shot, and before long he saw the headlights of the pursuit rounding the corner. King’s Tigr was probably a good two hundred yards ahead of the soldiers, which wasn’t nearly far enough. The effective range of a DShK was over a mile.

  “Right turn, coming up.”

  Tracers streaked past, and King decided they wouldn’t make it to the turn. He turned sharply to the right, blasting through a low concrete barrier. Beyond was a bare dirt field that might have been a parking lot for the nearby building. The Tigr’s wheels threw up enormous clots of mud as it fishtailed across the open area, but for the moment they were once more out of the line of fire.

  “There’s an exit at your two o’clock. A left will put you back on the straightaway.”

  King saw it, and a metal gate blocking it.

  What’s one more dent?

  The Tigr hit the gate, tearing it off its hinges. In the instant of impact, and too late to do anything about it, King saw something else looming out of the darkness. A seven-ton truck drove into view, blocking his path. He tried to brake and turn away from it, but he was already beyond the event horizon. The left front tire of the heavy truck crashed into the front end of the Tigr and annihilated it.

  King was thrown out of his seat and across the interior of the vehicle. He slammed hard against the passenger side door, which crumpled like an empty beer can beneath the truck’s big tires. Locked together in a death embrace, the two vehicles continued forward, shuddering and smoking as momentum fought friction. Friction ultimately won.

  Disoriented, King fumbled for his Uzi then remembered that he was not the Tigr’s only occupant. “Asya!”

  She lay pressed against the right side, unmoving. He squirmed around, crawled between the seats and into the rear compartment. There was blood everywhere, too much blood…

  A burst from a heavy gun startled him, and he twisted around, raising the Uzi. More reports followed—a chaotic orchestra of several automatic rifles and more than one machine gun. A few rounds struck the exterior, but nothing penetrated. He could see movement outside, soldiers swarming out of the transport, surrounding the wrecked Tigr, shooting…

  The shooting stopped. A silhouette appeared, framed in the viewport hole. The door handle rattled as someone worked the latch from the outside, and King took aim with the Uzi, ready to fire the moment the door opened.

  “Ceasefire!” Deep Blue shouted, and then he repeated the phrase again and again until King safed the weapon and lowered it.

  The door swung open and King saw the smiling face of General Mabuki. “That is twice I have arrived in the nick of time to save you. I think I must be your guardian angel.”

  King didn’t acknowledge the comment, but instead turned to Asya, pulling her toward him as gently as his urgency would permit. “Help me. She’s hurt.”

  The general snapped into action, calling to his men for a medic. “Help is on the way,” he said. “We will save her.”

  King checked Asya. Her dressing was still in place, but saturated. One trouser leg was soaked with blood that had run down from the wound. Her skin was unnaturally pale, but she was still taking shallow breaths.

  Two soldiers ran up with an old school litter—canvass stretched between two poles—and King gently laid her in the tattered olive drab fabric while another soldier with a red cross armband began assessing her injuries. King watched the medic work for several minutes to make sure he knew what he was doing. Once satisfied, he took a step back to let the man work.

  As his focus gradually pulled back, it occurred to him to ask Mabuki what had happened.

  “The rebellion has been quashed,” the general said. “When they realized that their leaders had fled aboard a helicopter, the soldiers lost the will to keep fighting.”

  King didn’t quite share Mabuki’s excitement. The rebellion in Kinshasa might have been put down, but General Velle still held the eastern part of the country, and Monique Favreau still had a tactical nuclear weapon, not to menti
on two hostages—one of whom was a US lawmaker. Still, a victory was a victory. He clapped Mabuki on the shoulder. “There’s still a lot of work to do, but at least we got President Mulamba his house back.”

  Then King heard Deep Blue’s voice again. “King, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”

  33

  Near Lake Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo

  Felice awoke to the sound of screaming.

  It was her second rude awakening in less than twenty-four hours. The nightmare reality that greeted her on this occasion was not the frantic chaos of an attack, but instead something far more terrifying: the ominous darkness of the primeval jungle, filled with an inhuman howl of pain.

  She sat bolt upright and looked around, trying to find the source of the cry, so she could run the other way. There was movement in the darkness, something moving toward the scream, and for a moment the beast in her belly began to stir again…but no, she was wrong.

  Wrong about the absolute darkness… There was a faint green glow, almost close enough to touch.

  Wrong about the lumbering shape crashing toward her… It wasn’t a shape at all, but her protector, the man who called himself Bishop.

  Wrong about the scream… It was not inhuman at all, but was erupting from the compact form of the man she knew as Knight.

  Knight sat hunched over a chemlight. He had removed his bandages and his exposed, raw, oozing flesh glistened in the green light. He had one hand held up to his injured eye, tugging at the metal protruding from it. His scream reached a climax as the shrapnel came free, releasing a gush of ocular fluid, thick with clotted blood. Then his howl changed to something that was almost like laughter.

  Bishop reached Knight a moment later, kneeling in front of him and gripping his shoulders. “Damn, Knight. What the hell did you do that for?”

  Knight bared his teeth in a fierce grin, but Felice saw that he was shivering. “Damn thing was trying to work its way into my brain. I had to get it out. Felt like my head was going to explode.”