“How’re your guts going?” Michael said. “Not too good, I’d say. I think I’ll try for the liver next time. You’d better hope I don’t hit one of those big blood vessels, because you won’t have six hours left if I do. Hell, you might not even have one. Now, will you help me or not?”
Desperation joined fear in Hartspring’s eyes. “It’s not possible,” he said.
“That’s crap. Polk wants me real bad, remember?”
“Not anymore. Please believe me. The man’s paranoid about security. He won’t let you get anywhere near him, and even if he did, what would be the point?”
A tendril of doubt slipped into his mind. Let it go, it whispered. Polk’s not worth it. Michael stomped down hard on the slender thread. This was not the time for second thoughts, he told himself. A promise was a promise, and if he didn’t kill Polk, the man would get away. Besides, Polk would want to see him; he too was obsessed by thoughts of revenge, and that was the lever Hartspring would use.
“This is what we’re going to do,” Michael said. He tossed Hartspring’s personal comm over. “Call the man. Tell him that you’re bringing me in. Let’s start with that, and we’ll see how it goes. Come on, Colonel. Time’s running out, and don’t try anything stupid or the next shot will be through your throat.”
“Okay, okay,” Hartspring said. He fiddled with the comm, then put it to his ear. Primitive, Michael thought. There was a long pause. “Polk’s not answering. Nobody from his office is answering. He’s gone.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Michael shouted. “So where is the bastard?”
“No idea. Probably off-planet by now if he’s got any sense.”
“Get back on your comm and find out where he is or I’ll leave you here to rot. Do it! Now!”
“How am I going to do that? It’s chaos out there.”
What was left of Michael’s self-control vanished. Without a second’s consideration, he shot Hartspring in the gut a third time. “I don’t care. Just do it,” he said. He ignored the man’s whimpering protests.
“Polk was last seen in his office around midday,” Hartspring said ten minutes later. “After that, nobody’s seen or heard from him. I’m sorry; that’s the best I can do. Get me to a hospital, now! For Kraa’s sake.”
“You’re lying. He’s there, isn’t he?”
“Maybe, but I don’t think so,” Hartspring bleated. His face was twisted with pain. “The NRA attacked the Supreme Council complex this morning; the place is a ruin, and the Hammer of Kraa is finished. Why would he still be there?”
This is not good, Michael thought, angry and frustrated. What the hell do I do now?
• • •
The sudden appearance in the road of a Doctrinal Security colonel pointing a rifle at a disheveled man brought the mobibot to a screeching halt. A window opened. A man poked his head out. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded. “Get out of my … oh … ah, sorry,” the man stammered when he realized who he was looking at. “How can I help?”
“Get out!” Hartspring said. “I’m commandeering this vehicle.”
The man could not get out of the mobibot fast enough; he did so without a word of protest.
As they set off, Michael took his assault rifle back from Hartspring and replaced the empty magazine with a full one. “Now, Colonel,” he said, “you sit there and enjoy the ride. We’ll be at the complex soon.”
Hijacking the mobibot had been too much for Hartspring. His face was now a death mask of pasty, sweat-slicked white. “You promised,” he whispered. “You promised to take me to the hospital.”
“Yes, I did promise,” Michael replied, “and I will, though let me see now—” He frowned, a finger tapping his lips. “—I don’t think I ever promised to get you there alive. No, I’m pretty sure I didn’t.”
“You bastard,” Hartspring mumbled. His voice was so soft that Michael had to strain to hear him.
“Yeah, yeah.” Michael shook his head. “Anyway, after all you’ve put me and Anna through, did you really think I’d let you live? You’re a damn fool if you did. But let’s look at the upside,” he continued. “Chief Councillor Polk ordered you to bring me in, and that’s exactly what you’re doing, though it’s a pity the bastard won’t be there to say hello. When he finds out, I think he’ll give you a medal. Mind you, you’ll be dead when he pins it on, but then, you can’t have everything, can you?”
But Hartspring had stopped listening. His head fell back. With a soft choking rattle, his lungs emptied for the last time.
Hartspring was dead.
Still wide open, his eyes looked back at Michael in silent reproach. Michael leaned over, closed them, and sat back. His mind was filled with a confused jumble of emotions. Nothing made sense anymore. He had killed Hartspring, so why didn’t he feel … whatever he should have felt? Fulfillment? Satisfaction? Pleasure? He felt none of those things. He just felt flat and empty.
All he wanted was for it to be over, to go home, to be with Anna, to live a normal life.
But it was not over, not while Polk still lived. The nightmare would end only when the man was dead. Michael took a deep breath and forced himself to think straight.
In the chaos raining down on McNair—as if to make the point, the mobibot shook as a flight of NRA ground-attack landers swept overhead, the air torn apart by the howling screech of rockets as they pounded some unseen target—finding Polk had to be close to impossible. Unless Hartspring had been lying, of course. But if Polk was in the complex, how would he ever find a way past his security detail to kill the man?
And even if he managed to kill Polk, that still left the small problem of getting back out alive.
You’re making this up as you go along, Michael told himself. You have no fucking plan and no fucking idea. He would have to take things one step at a time, he decided. Much as he hated winging it, what choice did he have?
But I will find Polk, he promised himself, and then I will kill him, and if I can’t do that without getting myself killed, I should—I will walk away.
There was too much to live for not to.
The mobibot swept around a long, sweeping bend. Ahead the road climbed up to the Supreme Council complex. It braked hard and stopped.
“Shiiiit,” Michael hissed. He was looking at what once must have been an imposing collection of buildings: classical in style, massive, designed to overawe the people of the Hammer Worlds, each one a monument to the brutality of Hammer power. Most had been reduced to blast-shattered shells that were sending thin skeins of smoke drifting into the sky. He’d thought the NRA would leave the place alone, and for good reason. This place was the single most heavily defended site on all of the Hammer Worlds. That might well have been true, but it hadn’t stopped ENCOMM from sending in the landers to give the place one hell of a pasting.
Except for one wing, the Supreme Council building, the heart of the Hammer of Kraa, remained standing. I hope you’re in there, Polk, Michael thought, because I’ve come a long way to see you.
The mobibot could go no farther. The blockhouses flanking the entrance through the outermost ring of razor wire had been blown apart, scattering ceramcrete rubble across the roadway as it threaded its way through an elaborate chicane of dragon’s teeth, massive pyramids of ceramcrete big enough to stop an Aqaba main battle tank. And it was not just rubble, Michael saw. There were bodies everywhere in the black uniforms and gold brassards of DocSec’s elite 201st Assault Regiment, the unit responsible for protecting the Hammer’s senior apparatchiks. For a moment Michael considered trying to clear a way through, but that idea died when he spotted a double row of meter-high metal bollards spanning the road. He’d have to lower them before the mobibot could get past, and because the controls probably were buried in one of the wrecked blockhouses, he did not fancy his chances.
Time to walk, Michael, he said to himself.
He opened the door of the bot and eased himself out, rifle swinging from side to side. He looked around. The only Hammers he co
uld see were dead ones. Where was everybody? This checkpoint might have been trashed, but there had to be more DocSec troops around if Polk was still holed up inside the complex. He swore under his breath. Where was the 201st?
Hard as he searched, there was still no sign of anyone. Michael swore some more. Hartspring had been right. No 201st meant no Polk, and without Polk he was wasting his time.
What the hell, he said to himself after thinking things through. I don’t have anything better to do, so I might as well go have a look, and if Polk has already abandoned McNair, then I’ll call it a day.
Staying low, Michael scuttled over to the shattered remains of the nearest blockhouse and peered in. It was a charnel house. The sight and smell of what was left of the DocSec troopers caught inside made him retch. Forcing his body back under control, he dropped to his stomach and squirmed past the jagged remnants of the building until he could see up the roadway to the next checkpoint. It too had been trashed, and so had the one beyond it. With all the concentration he could muster, Michael scanned the area for any signs of life. But nothing moved amid the luxuriant flower-studded foliage, not even the leaves, the humid air still and thick with dust and smoke from the battle raging across the city.
The road up into the complex was horribly exposed. Michael hated the idea of using it, but he had no better option. He’d read the ENCOMM intelligence reports. Ten meters on either side of the road, where the greenery started, the ground was seeded with antipersonnel and antitank land mines backed up by laser autocannons positioned to provide interlocking fields of fire. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the entire area was patrolled by groundbots—the NRA called them pigs—with optical sensors linked to pulsed lasers. Without the right IFF patches, Michael’s chances of getting past them were nil. If the mines didn’t get him, the pigs would.
So the road it was.
Michael took a few deep breaths to settle a sudden attack of nerves. A soft sobbing broke his concentration. He swung around. He cursed himself for not checking that the DocSec troopers littering the area were all dead.
Michael slithered back to where the wounded man lay. The trooper stared up at him. “Please … drink,” he whispered through blood-encrusted lips. He looked young and afraid; for a moment, Michael was able to forget that the man was Doctrinal Security.
Michael found a canteen and held it to the man’s mouth. The trooper drank greedily, dragging at the water in great gulps. “Thanks,” he said, letting his head fall back.
Michael leaned over him. “What’s your name, son?” he asked.
“Rossi, Lance Corporal Rossi.” The man’s voice was as soft as falling dust.
“Where’s the rest of the 201st, Corporal?”
“All gone. After the NRA smashed us … couple of hours ago, not sure.”
“What happened?”
“Everyone ran … They ran like rats; they—” Rossi broke off. A choking cough wracked his body, and fresh blood bubbled from his mouth. The scarlet froth was shocking against bloodless lips. “We didn’t know what to do,” Rossi went on when he had recovered. “They were afraid of the NRA … I’m afraid of the NRA. We were just leaving when those heretic bastards came back again. Their damn landers … blew us all to hell.”
“So who’s left? What about the chief councillor? Did he leave?”
“Don’t know … I don’t feel so …” Rossi’s voice faded away. His eyes closed. He sighed, a long sigh that took him by the hand and led him quietly into death.
“You poor bastard,” Michael murmured, getting to his feet, “even if you were a piece of DocSec shit.” He stripped the body of its armor and microgrenades. He abandoned all caution and walked up the middle of the road. Fear turned his stomach over the whole way.
Michael arrived, unchallenged and, he hoped, unseen, at the innermost ring of razor-wire fencing that protected the most senior Hammers.
How, he asked himself as he scanned the debris-littered ground around the complex, did it ever come to this?
The men who had squatted like obscene toads at the blood-soaked peak of Hammer power had gone. There was not a living soul to be seen anywhere, just more bodies. He walked through the chicane, heading for the largest of the inner compound’s buildings. A scarred brass plaque proclaimed it to be the offices of the Supreme Council for the Preservation of the Faith. It had been badly damaged, one entire wing reduced to a smoking shell, the walls pocked with cannon fire and slashed by shrapnel, glassless windows gaping empty-eyed at the world.
Michael slipped past the security point and stopped in the main entrance. A pair of impressively large doors lay on the floor, ripped off their hinges. He stopped, stunned by the arrogance of the huge atrium. The floor was black granite with flecks of gold; it was littered with splinters of glass from the roof. The far wall, also of black granite, was dominated by a Hammer of Kraa sunburst that was a full 20 meters high. Recessed lights had been arranged to strike brilliant spears of light off the beaten gold surface. Two staircases led off to left and right. Amid shattered glass and granite was the evidence of panic-stricken flight: shoes, coats, personal comms, uniforms, papers, a security briefcase complete with chain, the chairs behind the elaborate reception desk pushed away and toppled onto their backs, the desk itself thrown back against a wall, bottles, broken cups and mugs, a pot that had toppled over, spilling a dusty lake of coffee across the floor.
The place was a shambles. The miasma of defeat hung thick in the air.
Michael stopped in the center of the atrium. He looked up and turned slowly on his heel. The hubris was breathtaking. He stood at the center of Chief Councillor Polk’s megalomaniac universe. It was hard to believe.
Except Polk wasn’t there anymore. Nobody was. The place was empty. Everyone had gone.
Anger erupted into incandescent fury. The assault rifle in Michael’s hands exploded into life; he emptied the entire magazine in a sustained burst at the sunburst. Hypersonic rounds chewed a jagged path of destruction across its golden frame. Shards of metal and fragments of granite blasted outward to tumble and spin through the air.
“You are such a dumbass,” Michael said, angry with himself for losing control. He dumped the empty magazine and slotted home a new one. If any of Polk’s people were around, they’d be—
“Welcome, Lieutenant,” a voice boomed. “I was just thinking about you.”
Polk, Michael thought, spinning around, searching for the man. It’s Polk. But there was nobody to be seen. “Is that you, Polk?” he shouted. “Where are you? Hartspring said you’d left.”
“That fool! I’m in my office. Where else would the chief councillor be at a time like this? Take the stairs. You’ll find me on the other side of the building.”
“I’m on my way,” Michael shouted, elated now. He had him. The blood roared in his ears. “And when I get to you, I’ll blow your goddamned head off.”
“Now, now,” Polk chided. “Let’s not be too hasty.”
“Just watch me,” Michael muttered, half convinced that he had slipped into a crazy parallel universe where enormously powerful men like Polk sat alone amid the ruins of empire even as retribution bore down on them.
It was insane. If the Hammer of Kraa was good at anything, it was producing fanatics, so where were they all? Surely Polk could have scraped up a few to protect him.
Michael started up the stairs, nerves jangling in anticipation. Reaching the top, he checked every door and every passageway with care to make certain he was not walking into an ambush. But still there was no sign of life.
There was no mistaking Polk’s offices when he came to them. The embossed gold sign was hard to miss. Michael moved past the security desk and into a sprawling reception area studded with chairs and low tables. He walked on and into a second reception room. This one was smaller, more intimate, the lighting soft. He followed a short corridor with rooms off to both sides, some elaborately furnished and some set out as simple meeting rooms. The corridor led to a sprawling open-plan office. It
was as stark and functional as the public rooms had been relaxed and comfortable. Michael headed for a door on the far side. He eased it open with the toe of his boot.
Instinct had Michael’s rifle up before his brain had worked out that the man waiting inside posed no threat. “You!” Michael hissed between gritted teeth.
It was Polk.
He held his arms out wide, hands empty, a disarming smile on his face. He was smaller than Michael remembered, his lean, wiry body dressed in a pale gray one-piece jumpsuit and sporting a small Hammer sunburst in gold on his lapel.
“Oh, for Kraa’s sake,” Polk said, “put that gun down. Come into my office. Come on, Michael. It’s over, so let’s at least try to be civilized.”
“On your face, Polk, with your arms out, and do it unless you want me to shoot you.”
Polk sighed. “You’ll find I’m clean,” he said, dropping to the floor.
“We’ll see.”
Polk lay there in silence while Michael searched every last square centimeter of the man’s body, ignoring Polk’s muffled protests. “Okay,” he said finally, “you can get up.”
“I told you I was clean,” Polk said, getting back to his feet and brushing himself down. “Come on; my office is through here. We can talk. I’d like that.”
“Go through. I’ll be right behind you, and if I think you’re about to pull anything, I’ll blow your brains out.”
“Michael!” Polk protested. “Please relax.”
An enormous plasglass window dominated the chief councillor’s office. It looked out across luxuriant gardens below a dust-filled afternoon sky thick with towering columns of smoke. It was sparsely furnished: a desk empty of anything but a comm box, two armchairs flanking a coffee table, a pair of Hammer flags, a wall-mounted holovid screen, a small coffeebot in a recess. Nothing personal, Michael noted: no memorabilia, no paintings, no pictures. It was strange. It looked as if Polk rented the place by the hour.
“What’s through there?” Michael said, pointing to a door in one of the walls.
The Final Battle Page 30