by Jay Posey
“You know I can’t tell you that,” the instructor replied.
“Can’t hurt to ask.”
Cadre Sahil grunted his version of a chuckle. “Thought you woulda figured out by now that ain’t true.”
They continued down another corridor, this one a darker shade of beige. Lincoln might even dare to call it mocha.
“Couple folks gonna ask you a couple questions,” the instructor added without looking at him. “Then we’ll see what we see.”
A minute later, Cadre Sahil took a right turn down another plain-looking hall, with six plain-looking doors. Scratch that. Five plain-looking doors. One had what looked like the remnants of a piece of red tape stuck on it. Lincoln smiled to himself at that; it seemed somehow appropriate that the only bit of decoration he’d seen in the military hospital was red tape.
They ended up at the last door at the end of the hall. One of the plain ones.
“This is it,” Cadre Sahil said. He stopped and turned to face Lincoln. For a moment, the instructor stood there working his jaw, like he was about to say something. But he just shook his head to himself.
“Well,” Lincoln said. “Thanks for the escort, cadre. I appreciate you not making me do any pushups along the way.”
“Still got time,” Cadre Sahil said, and one corner of his mouth pulled down into his version of a smile. But then he stepped back from the door and gestured for Lincoln to pass through.
“You’re not coming in?” Lincoln asked. Cadre Sahil shook his head. And something in the man’s usually unreadable eyes betrayed the gravity of the moment. This really was it. The final stage of Selection. Lincoln’s heart rate kicked up a few beats per minute. “Well,” he said. “All right.” Cadre Sahil gave a quick nod; part good luck, part goodbye.
Lincoln returned the gesture, took a deep breath, and reached to open the door.
“Hey,” Cadre Sahil said. Lincoln glanced back at him. “You done good, OneSev. Whatever happens from here out, it don’t mean nothin’ about the kinda man you are. That’s settled business. Ain’t many alive could do what you done. Don’t let ’em take that from you.” He paused, and then a moment later, added, with some significance, “I’d serve under you in a heartbeat.”
Lincoln didn’t know what else to do in the face of such a rare and shocking show of emotion from the man, so he just nodded and offered his hand for a shake. Cadre Sahil flicked his eyes down at Lincoln’s outstretched hand, and then cracked a thin smile.
“Next time I see you, I’m gonna have to salute,” he said.
“We’ll both know it’s just for show, cadre,” Lincoln said.
“Nah,” Cadre Sahil said, taking crushing hold of Lincoln’s offered hand. “You’re one of the good ones, no doubt.”
“Be well,” Lincoln said.
“Yeah.”
The two men lingered one final moment, and in that wordless moment, some steel passed from instructor to student, a sensation Lincoln had experienced only once before when he’d earned his first special operations tab. Then Lincoln turned and walked through the door to face down whatever fresh, final hell awaited.
TWO
THE MAN CODENAMED Vector curled the pinkie of his left hand into his upper palm, applied gentle pressure to the implanted dermal pad hidden there to open a channel to his handler.
“Cisko, this is Vector,” he whispered, his words barely more than an exhale. Even after all these years and more than a few attempted explanations, he still didn’t know exactly how it worked; however, long experience had taught him that the nearly microscopic network tattooed on his larynx would transmit the words with crystal clarity, no matter how quietly he spoke.
He held still, keeping the two men across the courtyard in his peripheral, waited six seconds for the response. The bare hint of a click sounded in his ear, subtle confirmation that encryption had been established now on both ends of the conversation.
“Cisko copies, Vector,” a woman answered. Not the woman, but someone close to her. “I have you secure.”
The signal in his ear chirped once. “Vector confirms secure.”
“Go ahead.”
“Target is on site.”
“You have positive visual?”
“That’s affirmative. Looking at him right now.”
“Opportunity?” she asked.
Vector restrained the reflexive impulse to flick his eyes at the two men he’d identified as security officers.
“Security’s light. Cover’s good. Best chance we’ve had yet. I’d like to take it.”
“Your team is in place?”
“Of course.”
“Stand by.”
“Vector, standing by,” he said, and then relaxed his hand, releasing the pad. The two men across the courtyard moved to a table under the awning and sat down in low wicker chairs. One of them was heavyset, sweaty, sloppily dressed in cheap knock-off clothes patterned after the most expensive brands. Fairly typical low-rent thug pretending to be a respectable, important thug. The other man was almost the exact opposite: small-framed, quiet in his movements, easy to overlook. He was the dangerous one. And also Vector’s true target. For the moment, the Target was intent on whatever he was viewing on his holoscreen, temporarily oblivious to his surroundings. Surprisingly out of character, given what Vector knew about the man, but it was better for Vector that way. Better for the job, anyway.
Vector. He shook his head at the codename, sipped his room-temperature, weak coffee. Tomorrow he would be someone else. Warble, maybe, or something even more ridiculous. He was pretty sure the Woman picked names for him that she knew he would hate having to say over comms. Her way of reminding him who he worked for, or more likely of gently mocking who he used to work for. For all her intensity, she did have a playful side that she wasn’t afraid to let out once in a while. She had many names of her own, though he didn’t know if any of them were real. He and his team had just taken to calling her “the Woman” so they all knew who they were talking about.
He leaned back in his chair, scratched his belly, scoped out the immediate area for the thousandth time. Half a dry pastry sat on the chipped plate in front of him next to his cup of terrible coffee. Twenty-two days he’d been here in Elliston now. Martian days, anyway. Vector couldn’t remember the exact conversion to Earth time offhand. Not quite the same, but close enough that he didn’t mind the difference too much. Not after three weeks. Three weeks of integrating himself into the community; getting the lay of the land, establishing a routine, becoming part of the background. Three weeks of terrible coffee and dry pastries on chipped plates.
That wasn’t precisely true. He didn’t come here every day. But he’d started visiting the restaurant attached to the hotel every couple of days almost as soon as he arrived. Laying the groundwork. Not enough to become a regular, never at quite the same time each visit. But consistent enough to blend into the scenery. The packet had indicated this was one of the Target’s favored spots for meeting his various contacts. Vector just hoped he’d get the green light before anyone else showed up. This wasn’t the kind of thing he liked to do outnumbered. Not any more outnumbered than he already was, anyway.
The seconds ticked by as he waited for a response from the Woman. He surveyed the surroundings once more, trying not to let the delay get to him. If he didn’t look up, it didn’t take much effort to imagine himself in any number of cities back home on Earth. Or, back where he used to call home, at any rate. The architecture was familiar, if not exactly culturally distinct. Some mixture of Cuban and Mexican, maybe, translated across roughly two hundred and twenty-five million kilometers of open space. The hotel was squat; the outdoor seating for its restaurant was a square, walled courtyard with two exits to the busy streets that hemmed it in. Outdoor. The word didn’t mean quite the same thing here. It was a comfortable spot, sure, as long as you didn’t mind living in a bubble.
Down here, looking up, the vast membrane that kept the artificial atmosphere and temperature stable and the d
ust storms out was nearly transparent. Nearly. There was a silvery sheen to the sky that was obvious to Vector’s Terran eyes, like a thin skin of oil on the surface of a pond. From a couple of thousand meters up, it looked like a planetary blister. From orbit, the collection of settlements clustered together made it appear that Mars had developed some horrendously disfiguring skin disease. But the Martians seemed pretty pleased with it. All the estimates back home said it’d be another fifty years at least until they could take their chances with a completely unshielded settlement. Then again, back home they’d been underestimating the rate of Martian progress since Day One.
Vector could still remember sitting at the dinner table as a kid, listening to his parents talk about those colonists and wondering why they always sounded a little angry when they said it. It’d taken barely two generations to go from our brave brothers and sisters to those colonists. And these days, it was getting harder and harder to think of them as colonists at all. Mostly they were just Martians.
The general consensus had been that the great Martian Experiment would draw the nations of Earth together. And like most predictions by the people who should know best, that consensus had been dead wrong. While Earth was busy squabbling with itself, the colonies on Mars just kept plugging along, expanding, crystallizing. Making the world their home. And anyone who had studied history even casually shouldn’t have been surprised at the course things took. The colonists’ ties to Earth weakened, their Martian identity strengthened, and before anyone knew it, Earth had a whole new group of people to squabble with.
Not that the Martians had the peace and harmony thing all figured out either, though; a fact Vector was here to exploit. As far as he could tell, no matter how far out into space humanity got, it would never be far enough to escape its own nature.
“Vector, Cisko,” the voice finally spoke in his ear, as loud as if she’d been standing beside him instead of thirty thousand kilometers above. “You’re a go.”
“Copy that, Vector is go.” He set his coffee on the table and leaned back in his chair, stretching. Casually, slowly, he swept his eyes around the courtyard, careful not to let them rest on the Target’s security detail. They were locals, but he could tell by the way they held themselves, and from their level of focus, that they weren’t amateurs. The two of them were standing at opposite corners of the courtyard, each stationed by an entry point. Not bad for controlling the courtyard, but, in Vector’s opinion, that put them too far from the man they were supposed to be protecting. If he’d been running the detail, he would have had a third guard tasked solely with close protection. They probably had overwatch positioned somewhere in the surrounding buildings, keeping an eye on the general flow of the area, but that wasn’t going to help them. Vector and his team had already successfully infiltrated the target zone. Of course, it was easy for Vector to spot all the flaws in the protection plan, seeing it as he was through the eyes of the attacker. It was always easier for the party who got to choose the time, place, and method.
The Target was still busy reviewing his viz, looking over whatever information the cheap Thug had shared with him. Or maybe digesting the morning’s intelligence brief that his analysts had compiled for him while he slept. Vector couldn’t help but wonder how shocked those same analysts would be a few minutes from now.
He cracked a knuckle and in the same motion switched channels on his comms. He picked his coffee back up and mimed drinking it while he spoke again.
“Kev, we’re a go. You in place?”
“Roger that,” Kev answered. “Say when.”
“Hey, Kid,” Vector said. “You got me?”
“Yeah, I gotcha,” his long-time partner replied.
“What’s your angle?”
“Clear line to the big guy by the door,” she answered. “Heat signature’s good on the other fella, but I’d have to shoot through to get him.”
“Okay. Take the big guy. I’ll get the other.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
“Roger. On you.”
Vector replaced the coffee on the table in front of him, and rested his hands on his lap. This was the tricky part. As soon as he moved, he’d draw attention. Every space had its rhythm. It was his job to match it, to blend with it. Too fast, and security would perk up. Too slow, and they’d keep watching him until he’d left the zone. He allowed himself a few settling breaths.
“Doc,” Kid said a few moments later, “you got a spotter.”
“Yeah?” Vector answered.
“Just above you. Fourth floor, about the middle of the building.”
“Shooter?” Even with a couple of decades of practice, Vector had to restrain himself from glancing that direction.
“Can’t tell for sure. Better assume so.”
“Can you take him and the big guy?”
“Depends on the order. Whatcha think?”
“I think I’d like you to take whichever one’s most likely to kill me first.”
A pause, while Kid thought it over. One of the reasons Vector liked her. She never hurried with answers.
“Spotter then,” Kid said finally.
“Be sure.”
“I am.”
“All right. Let’s do it,” Vector said. He scratched his belly in an absentminded sort of way, let his fingertips brush the grip of the pistol he had tucked close against his ribs. It wasn’t a complicated plan. Walk over, kill the bad guys, leave. But for all his years of experience, no matter how simple, Vector had never once seen things go exactly according to plan.
Go time. He laid his napkin on the table, brushed the crumbs from his lap. Kept his eyes away from his Target and the security team. Slow breath. Vector stood.
And as he was rising to his feet, he felt a hitch in his gut. Some warning instinct firing off that he’d learned long ago to trust. But he was in motion now, he couldn’t stop or slow or change direction. He’d have to figure it out on the fly. He paused and drained the last of his terrible coffee, buying himself a few moments to scan the environment. In that cursory sweep, he saw the Thug was standing now, a few paces closer to the thin security officer. Bad timing; Vector and the man had just happened to start moving at nearly the same moment. Any security worth half its rate would take that as a potential concern. And if either of the two men were preparing to leave, that was problematic. Security was always a little tighter, a little more aware in transitions. He would have preferred to act while the guards were settled, when they’d gotten comfortable in the space and thus, hopefully, complacent.
There was still time to scrub the op. He could just walk out. Wait until another day. But no. The Woman’s timetable could absorb a few delays. She was too smart, too experienced to think anything would work out exactly according to her predictions. But she did have a timetable nonetheless. He needed to wrap this job, and get on to the next.
Vector changed the plan on the move.
“Kid, scratch that, scratch that. Take the shoot-through first.”
“You sure?”
“Roger, shoot-through, then spotter,” he said as he placed his empty cup on the table and started towards the exit guarded by the big guy. “On my action.”
“Shoot-through, then spotter, copy. On you.”
Vector kept his pace steady, casual. Just another morning. All part of the routine.
Twelve feet from the big security guy by the door, Vector made eye contact with the man, gave him a nod then looked away. A brief acknowledgment; I see you, you see me, nothing to be concerned about.
Six feet away, Vector glanced back over his shoulder as if he’d maybe forgotten something at his table, angled his body away from the security officer.
“Kev,” he whispered, “Come on around.”
“Copy, on the way.”
Three feet. When Vector turned back, the gun was in his hand, the grip pressed tight against his ribs as an index. Held that way, he didn’t have to look at the gun to know where it was aimed. At least not at this ra
nge. He angled the pistol low. The big security guard’s face changed, hands flared up in reaction. Too late. The suppressed pistol coughed twice, sending rounds through the man’s pelvic girdle, folding him into Vector.
“Help!” Vector cried, catching hold of the guard. The man struggled weakly, and Vector fired a third round point-blank into his solar plexus as he lowered him to the ground. “Help! This man needs help!”
Vector crouched over the man, his pistol still held close to his body, swiveled on his heel and did his best to look helpless. The crowd sat frozen, unsure of what had happened, or what was happening. One man was caught halfway between sitting and standing as if he knew he should do something, without having any idea what that would be.
“Gun! He’s got a gun!” another man shouted. Everyone looked, Vector included, and he saw the man pointing frantically at the thin security guard who was now moving towards the Thug. Vector fought back the urge to bring his own weapon up. Kid would handle it. After three steps, a puff of concrete burped off the exterior wall, and the security guard fell headlong into a table.
That’s when the screaming started. The panic. The remaining patrons scrambled and clambered over one another in every direction, some towards the exits, others just away. To them, everything was happening too fast for comprehension, some lightning strike of utterly random and unpredictable violence, taking the lives of anyone who happened to be in its path. Only someone familiar with Vector’s line of work would have noticed the precision, the fluidity, the careful unfolding of each step in its proper time and place. Vector left the big security guard and moved through the crowd towards the Target.
In the churning chaos, no one was looking four stories up, where Vector was certain the spotter was having just as bad a day as his two ground-level security companions. The Thug was by a table thirty feet away, in a partial crouch, with his hands splayed out to either side like he was trying to keep his balance. He was paralyzed by indecision, with his head turned such that he presented a perfect side profile to Vector. Only one person in the zone was paying any attention to Vector at all. That person was staring right at him.