SINthetic

by J. T. Nicholas

  She stared at me in incredulity. “Are you out of your fucking mind? You think I’m going to let you walk in blind, while I what...wait in the car?”

  “We don’t have a lot of choice, Hernandez,” I said with a sigh. “Look, you think it’s a trap. I think it’s a trap. But it’s the only lead we’ve got. If I don’t go, or if we go in loaded for bear with half the cops in New Lyons, we aren’t going to find anything. There’s a chance, however slim, that this is a legit meet, and I can’t ignore that. So we have to play along. Which means I go in alone.”

  “And get your dumb ass killed,” she snapped.

  “Maybe. But if it is a death trap and you go in with me, it’s just as likely that we both get killed. And the investigation dies with us. Look, you know I’m former military, right? I’ve been in ambush situations before. I know what to look for. Even if it’s a trap, I’ve got a good chance of spotting it and bugging the fuck out or hunkering down before things go completely sideways. And if they do go sideways, you can be damn sure that I’m going to be in need of some backup. That’s where you come in. The only ‘wait in the car’ you’ll do is if everything is hunky dory and the meet is legit. In which case,” I said with finality, “coming in with me would be pointless anyway.”

  She bit down angrily on a fry, chewing it with a savage intensity. “I still think you’re going to get your ass killed,” she mumbled around the food. “But fine. Whatever, pendejo. It’s your ass.”

  * * * *

  The stacked containers formed mountains with narrow passes stretching between them like alleyways. The smell of the ocean competed with the more acrid tangs of marine fuel, exhaust, and rusting steel, clinging to containers with the heaviness of a wet fog in the still night air. Far overhead, automated cranes moved silently on impressive track systems, a silence that shattered each time a cable and electromagnet plunged earthward from them, clamping onto one of the metal boxes with a sound like impending apocalypse. Since most of the loading and off-loading of the containers was handled by a variety of unmanned systems, lights were few and far between, leaving long pools of inky shadows throughout most of the container storage area.

  “Why meet here?” I muttered to myself, partly because the question was on my mind, and partly to hear a human voice among the darkness and machinery. “Remote enough to kill someone—not a lot of watchful eyes.” A crane dropped its magnet onto a nearby container, the noise sudden and loud enough that my hand went instinctively to my sidearm. “And loud enough to cover any screams or cries for help.” The metal box, filled with who knew what, lifted silently into the night sky. I followed its progress, fascinated by the smooth, rapid ascent.

  Watching it saved my life.

  Perched atop one of the mountains of crates, I caught the briefest glint of reflected light, winking at me like a watching eye. I reacted on instinct, and felt foolish even as I did, diving into a long, low roll that sent me crashing up against the edge of one of the containers. I felt less foolish as I saw the puff of pulverized concrete and heard the impact of something very small and moving fast strike the ground near where I had been standing.

  I’d seen no muzzle flash and heard no report, but someone had just tried to kill me. My roll had taken me behind a wall of containers, outside the line of sight of the gunman—at least, I hoped it was just one gunman. I kept my eyes up, scanning the uneven skyline of shipping containers, looking for any sign of a lurking sniper. The darkness made it nearly impossible. I was a sitting duck, a target, as long as I remained at ground level. “Shit.”

  My forty-five was in my hand, though I didn’t remember pulling it. I levered myself to my feet, using the container against which my back rested as support. Then I took off in a quick run, keeping the wall to my left, eyes searching the container tops, but also looking for a ladder or scaffolding or something that would facilitate gaining some high ground.

  I tried to keep my breathing steady, even as I ran. The container yard offered my assailant—or assailants, I still didn’t know which—lots of high perches from which to take potshots at me, but it was still a long way from the ideal setup for a sniper. The deep, narrow alleyways between the walls of crates afforded little in the way of sight lines, and gave me plenty of opportunities to cut around a corner and break from view. So, if this was a setup, which had seemed painfully obvious even before the bullets started flying, why here?

  Another electromagnet thrummed and crashed into a nearby tower, and I cursed under my breath. Yeah, that was a pretty good reason. I crouched low next to a sheltering wall, eyes still scanning, as I dug my screen from my pocket. I shrouded the display as much as possible, not wanting its backlit glass to light up my face and send a bright red flare to my would-be killers, but I had to know. Hernandez was out there, waiting for me, the cavalry ready to come crashing in to save my ass. “Son of a bitch,” I cursed as I stared at the screen. Two words that were, most of the time, only a minor annoyance greeted my quick glance: No Signal. Between the towers of rusting metal and the superpowered magnets dangling from a network of steel tracks and cables, I might as well have been in the world’s most elaborate Faraday cage. If Hernandez came in blind, she’d be walking into the same death trap that I currently found myself enjoying.

  OK. Maybe not trained snipers, not with the shitty sight lines. But not stupid, either. Smart enough to isolate me, cut me off from backup. What to do?

  I had to assume this was the work of Walton Biogenics. “Come on, Campbell,” I whispered to myself. If you were a megarich multinational corporation hell bent on keeping your dirty laundry from becoming public, I thought, and a too-curious cop kept sticking his nose in, how would you take him out?

  Item one on the assassination list would, of course, be isolation. I certainly wasn’t important enough to warrant making a political statement through a public execution, and it was a lot easier to make a getaway when no one else was around. Plus, cops had guns and training and the ability to call more people with guns and training, and if I was going to be assassinating someone, I’d want to be the one with all the firepower and backup. I glanced around the deserted docks and stuffed my useless screen back into my pocket. Isolation. Check. Which brought me to item two on the list: backup. Sure, the lone gunman had a certain sense of the romantic, but in the real world, numbers matter, and it’s much easier to take someone out if you outnumbered them. Which meant that it was possible, even likely, that there was more than one bad guy making their way through the containers, and I had more to worry about than just the sniper. But how would I use that backup?

  I almost laughed—a reaction driven more by fear and nerves than any sense of humor at my situation. I’d have my backup sitting in a car, waiting for a call from a place with no fucking service, apparently. But if I wasn’t an idiot, how would I do it?

  The deep and narrow alleys formed by the stacked containers made for a complicated shooting scenario for even a gifted sniper. On the other hand, they made perfect kill boxes for guys on the ground. Normally the beaters would drive the prey into the shooter’s sights, but I had the distinct impression that the sniper’s job wasn’t so much to kill me as it was to contain me, no pun intended, keeping me in place until the shooters on the ground could find me and finish the job. The place was a maze, but I knew that if I stepped out from shelter offered by the containers and into the open, I wouldn’t have to worry about Silas breaking into my place anymore.

  And that left me with some serious problems. If I went high, like I’d originally intended, I’d open myself up to fire from the guy or guys with rifles. If I stayed low, assuming I was right, I’d eventually run into the guys on the ground. I could dig in, find a defensible position and fort up, hoping the bad guys either didn’t find me, or that the twenty-five rounds of forty-five ACP ammunition I had on me would stand up to whatever firepower they were packing. No. Once the noisy shooting started, Hernandez would come crashing in, and she’d be an
easy target for the sniper. Assuming, I thought with a sinking feeling, that the sniper hadn’t taken the first shot at the cruiser parked a little ways away from the stacks. Shit. I needed to get out, and I needed to do it in a way that wouldn’t give the guys with the long guns a clear shot at me or point them toward Hernandez.

  “Guess I’m going to get wet,” I muttered.

  I stayed low and kept tight to the containers. I didn’t head for the car that Hernandez had parked just outside the maze. Instead, I pushed east, moving toward the sound of crashing waves and the smell of salt water. There was too much space on the landward side of the container yard, too many clear sight lines that would guarantee me a bullet even if I managed to avoid the guys I knew had to be in here with me. I didn’t know what the other side looked like—there had to be space between the containers and the actual docks, roads, and the like to facilitate transshipment, but it still seemed like a better chance than moving back toward the city.

  My breathing was coming low and fast now, despite efforts to force it into a regular rhythm and, more importantly, to quiet it. I moved quickly, padding along the concrete somewhere between a walk and a run, scanning and listening, weapon at the ready, always hugging the steel containers. Between the waves and the machinery, I couldn’t hear a damn thing. On the one hand, that meant the bad guys probably couldn’t hear me…but it also increased the odds of blundering into them before any of us knew it by a not-insignificant amount.

  I rounded a corner and, as if summoned by my musings, very nearly ran into a large man in black combat fatigues. I got only a general impression, a darker shape against the poorly lit night: over six feet tall, thick through the chest and shoulders, balaclava reducing his face to just a pair of cold blue eyes. Mostly, I registered the shotgun, a pistol-gripped combat variety dwarfed by his meaty hands, and the fact that he had two buddies right behind him.

  As a cop, I should have demanded he stop right there, drop his weapon, and surrender like a good little criminal. But in that moment, I wasn’t a cop. I wasn’t even a soldier. I was just a guy, outnumbered and alone, and afraid that I wasn’t going to make it home.

  I reacted an instant faster than my would-be killers, and in that instant, I could have pulled the trigger. I might even have been able to put down the first guy…before his two friends blasted me into my component atoms over his tumbling corpse. Instead I surged forward, moving in a low crouch, making sure the behemoth’s body stayed firmly in place between me and the other guns. I jammed my left arm under the gun, shearing the barrel of the shotgun up and away, pointing the weapon up toward the night sky. His finger must have been on the receiver, rather than the trigger, because the sudden motion didn’t result in the deafening boom that I had been half expecting. I jammed the tang of the forty-five into the back of his thigh, using it as a hook and pulling toward me as I jammed my shoulder into his gut and shoved off with my legs.

  He was big. Two twenty, maybe two thirty, and built like a linebacker, but the biggest guy in the world can be bowled over pretty easy when you combine surprise with the push-pull action of the takedown I executed. I could have used that move to drive him into the ground, but that would have left me open to less-than-friendly fire. Instead, I used the driving force of my legs and a shoving heave from my left arm to half push, half throw him at the two men moving in tight formation on his six.

  My right shoulder dug into his gut as I hurled the man into his associates. They went down like bowling pins, and I had a sudden, almost giddy desire to yell, “Strike!” Instead, I put rubber to pavement and sprinted past, barely breaking my stride. I remembered to keep close to the containers, taking the shelter that I could from them. A gunshot—not the silenced rasp of the sniper rifle, but the throaty bellow of a shotgun—sounded behind me, and I winced as I heard the buckshot slam into the metal of one of the crates and ricochet like lead rain.

  Had Hernandez heard that over the crash and clatter of the shipping containers and cranes? And if she had, what would she do? If she came tearing in, guns blazing... But, then again, if she didn’t... Shit.

  I ducked my head and ran faster, taking turns at random, but always moving steadily toward the siren song of the sea. At least three men on the ground, and one, somewhere, with a rifle. Four-to-one odds, at best, and that assumed no second team of hitters that I could barrel into at any moment. Angry shouts and cursing followed me, thinned, and then stopped altogether. I stopped with it, crouching once more in the shadows, panting as quietly as I could, ears straining.

  I had lost them in the maze of containers, and was now engaged in a deadly game of hide-and-seek. The same electromagnetic trap that had rendered my screen useless probably had the same effect on anything short of military-grade radios, so they probably could only communicate with each other within shouting distance—and they weren’t doing any more shouting. So, had they stayed together, or split up? If I were hunting me, I would have stayed together, keeping my firepower concentrated and making sure that if I found my prey, I could put it down for good. But then, I knew just how dangerous a hunt the bad guys had started. I wondered if they did. Sure, they knew I was a cop, but did they know about my military training? The action I’d seen in places that made Floattown look like the Ritz? My obsession with martial arts? They knew they had bigger guns and more men, and they knew that if I got away from them tonight, it was going to be a hell of a lot harder to lure me into a trap next time.

  No, with what they knew, they wouldn’t stay together. Splitting up would give them a much better chance of mission success. I felt a feral grin start to curl the corner of my lip as thoughts of escape were replaced by new and darker thoughts. If I could take these guys down, take even one of them in, then I would be able to get some answers. And if I could find a link from them back to Walton Biogenics…well, not even a company their size could simply shrug off the attempted murder of a police officer.

  I slipped my pistol back into its holster and instead reached to my left hip. There was a small leather case there, and inside was an eight-inch cylinder of dense steel. I pulled the telescoping baton from its sheath and hit the quick-release button, transforming the slug of metal from eight inches to a two-foot-long carbon-steel rod. I gave it an experimental twirl as I pushed myself back to my feet. I was done being hunted. It was time to go to work.

  I glided through the shadows, always conscious of the sight lines above me, always concerned about the potential for the shooter to have moved, sought a new position, found a better angle. But it was a worry at the back of my head, a risk I tried to mitigate by staying in cover, staying out of sight, but it was no longer my primary concern. One of my would-be killers stalked silently in front of me, shotgun held before him. It wasn’t the linebacker—this one was smaller, more slender, almost wiry. Same black fatigues, and same pistol-grip combat shotgun, though. And, most importantly, this one didn’t know that I was moving up behind him.

  I closed the last ten feet in a sprint. It was impossible to do so silently—the soles of my shoes made an inevitable slapping noise against the concrete. But I didn’t need to be silent, only fast. He heard me when I was five feet away and started to turn, bringing the shotgun to bear. But it was too late. I flicked the baton out in a quick, slashing strike. The rounded tip connected with the masked man’s jaw with a bone-crunching crack, loud enough that I winced at the sound and sharp enough that I almost felt sympathy for the man as he crumpled, boneless, to the pavement.

  I pulled my bracelets from the back of my belt and cuffed the man to the door of the closest container, then rifled through his pockets. No wallet, or ID, or anything useful, which wasn’t terribly surprising. I pulled his mask from his face. He was an average-looking guy, mid- to late twenties, nondescript brown hair and with handsome, symmetrical features. Well, they had been. His jaw was already purpling and swelling, clearly broken.

  I could snap a picture with my screen, but without the flash, it
wouldn’t be much good…and the flash would certainly alert the sniper, if not the ground crew, as to my location. “I’ll be back for you, buddy,” I whispered to the man as I did another quick search—this time for weapons. In addition to the shotgun, I found a 9mm automatic and a tactical folder. I stuck the knife in my pocket and grabbed the other weapons. They would only slow me down, so I stashed them in a narrow crack between two containers, a good fifteen feet from the downed killer.

  “One down, two to go,” I muttered to myself. Plus the shooter. If he was still out there. It occurred to me that he might not be. It hadn’t exactly been a long time since that first shot was fired. No more than five or ten minutes had passed, even though I felt like this ordeal had been going on for hours. But if I couldn’t reach the outside world from the trap they’d set, the shooter couldn’t communicate with his minions, either. Which meant he couldn’t spot, or direct, and could only rely on hearing gunshots to know the deed had been done. With the crash of the cranes, even those might be lost. How long would he wait before bugging out? Hell, for that matter, how long would Hernandez wait before coming in? We hadn’t been real precise on our timelines, but I figured she would give me at least another ten or fifteen minutes before getting too antsy. If she hadn’t heard that first shotgun blast.

  I hadn’t heard any other gunfire, though. Hernandez was almost as good with her hands and feet as I was, and more than capable of disabling someone without resorting to her sidearm. So she might be in among the crates already. The sniper had a silenced rifle, so there was a chance he had taken some shots that I wasn’t aware of. Shots that might have found a home in Hernandez. That thought brought a chill deep in the pit of my stomach.

  I moved as I pondered, low and slow, eyes and ears open. I caught the faint sound of footfalls approaching from behind and slid around the next corner I came to. I pressed my back against the steel and kept my hands before me, waiting, watching, listening. A few moments later, a second black-clothed killer padded into my field of view. He saw me at the same moment, turning toward me and bringing the shotgun up, the bore impossibly large as it swept in my direction. My baton was lighter, faster. I flicked it out, smashing a strike into the gunman’s elbow, hitting with a meaty thunk even as I slid around the barrel and moved forward, getting inside its reach, pressing close against the guy and using my shoulder to keep the barrel from turning toward me.