by Greg Rucka
The other was … well, Hayes didn’t know what it was, not for certain. At first, he thought it served as a jail of some sort, but that made no sense to him, and he couldn’t imagine why Core-Mantis OmniGlobal would put its jail in the secure section of the development and testing wing. It wasn’t like Vancouver, where the veneer of respectability had to be maintained. Out here, you could butcher someone on the roof and no one would say a word.
What he was seeing weren’t strictly cells, though, more like cages, heavy wire-mesh boxes just large enough to hold an adult if the adult didn’t try to stand upright.
That didn’t seem to pose a problem for their occupants, though, not because they weren’t adults—though several, Hayes noted, were children—but because most of them couldn’t stand. And the reason they couldn’t stand was because all of them were missing limbs, some of them missing multiple ones. Most simply had been left with stumps at their severed thighs and elbows, but a few had growths rising from the amputations, not prosthetics, but something else, something that Hayes would have expected to see on insects rather than people.
For a second, he was so stunned by the sight of the room, he forgot where he was, what he was there to do.
Then the things—the people—in the cages saw him, and almost as one, began screaming at him. They threw themselves at their walls, spitting and cursing. Those with working limbs attempted to throw the contents of the cages at him, bedpans filled with feces and urine, plates with the remains of fouled food.
At which point Hayes started laughing uncontrollably, thinking this was the funniest damn thing he’d ever seen in his life.
It took him the better part of a minute to get over his amusement and leave Rose’s House of Horrors behind him, putting his attention back on the task at hand.
Hayes began running back the way he came, stopping only long enough to rearm himself from one of the fallen Core-Mantis guards in hallway four. He was reassured to find that the body was still quite warm, and that drove him faster, the knowledge that whoever had grabbed Rose couldn’t be too far ahead of him.
Rose had been taken, that was obvious. Who had done it, Hayes didn’t know, but he had two immediate suspects. The first were Sexton’s troops, that they had mounted a separate operation under the cover of the main attack in an attempt to do as his father had requested. He doubted that, only because the destruction of the office seemed to indicate that no attempt had been made to recover Rose’s research.
The second suspect, of course, was Carrington. His father had underestimated the lengths the old bastard would go to. No doubt Carrington had inserted his own team much as Hayes himself had infiltrated Hovoro, and now was running away with the prize.
If he was quick, he could catch them.
He had to catch them.
He couldn’t let the redheaded bitch beat him a third time.
CHAPTER 29
DataFlow Corporate Headquarters—Communications & Support Center—#7 Rue de la Baume, Paris, France October 14th, 2020
The Communications & Support Center was primarily used as the tech support nexus for DataFlow’s European branch, and for that reason, when Velez had suggested that they audit the Hawk Team’s progress, Cassandra had recommended its use. Normally staffed twenty-four/seven by DataFlow specialists, Cassandra had cleared the office out the night before, ordering all calls rerouted to the Indian, Chinese, and American offices until she directed otherwise. If anyone wondered about the reason for the shift in policy, no one had bothered—or dared—to question her.
Once the office had been closed and the personnel cleared, Anita Velez had escorted the Hawk Team commanding officer, a former United States Marine Colonel named Leland Shaw, onto the premises. Shaw had brought with him a skeleton tech-support staff, four men, all with the same professional soldier’s bearing of their leader, and under his supervision, they had begun wiring together a command and control post on DataFlow’s third floor, from which they would monitor the military action taking place half a world away.
Cassandra greeted Colonel Shaw when he first arrived with her best smile and a firm handshake. “I’m grateful you were able to mobilize on such short notice.”
“We pride ourselves on being able to do just that.” Colonel Shaw spoke with a slight accent, a twang born from somewhere in the American south. “For the amount you’re paying us, we’d damn well better be able to deliver.”
“I’m certain you shall,” Cassandra said, holding his hand for a fraction of a second longer than needed before releasing it, and Colonel Shaw’s professional façade had shown a hairline crack, then the hint of a smile.
Good, Cassandra thought. I want him in my camp.
She was certain Velez had noticed it, as well, but it didn’t concern her. Whether the older woman approved of the subtle application of feminine wiles or not wasn’t the issue. Working with the Hawk Team was as much about the immediate goal as it was an investment in the future. Maintaining good relations with the mercenary company was in her best interests, and would be an all the more useful ace up their sleeves should Cassandra clinch the CEO position.
After brief discussion with Velez and Shaw, then, she’d left them to continue their work, heading home for the evening to get some sleep. When she’d returned six hours later, the Communications & Support Center had undergone a radical transformation, with layers of new cables taped to the floor, and three plasma screens now mounted on the wall. All of Shaw’s men were still present, now seated before military-grade decks, wearing headsets, murmuring communications to the squad in the field.
“Team Beta is deployed,” Colonel Shaw informed her. “Lieutenant Lawrence White commanding. He’s a good trooper, knows his stuff.”
“What’s the plan?” Cassandra had approached the plasma screens, her hands held behind her back, examining the maps. She wasn’t entirely certain she understood what she was looking at, how the maps and figures related to the pending operation, but she now had two immediate goals. The first was to appear, at all costs, as competent and knowledgeable as possible, and if acting was required, then an actress she would be.
The second was that she had come to the conclusion it was time to start playing the dataDyne game properly. Men like Sexton and Murray and Sato had made a point of understanding all of the tactics involved in a successful hostile takeover bid. Even Carrington, she knew, had devoted a large portion of his considerable assets and talents to the creation of a covert action staff for his Institute.
She hadn’t, and it had nearly cost her; in fact, it still might cost her. She was determined to address the lack.
Colonel Shaw had moved to her elbow, indicating the screens. “These will display real-time troop intelligence. We’ll track the CMO and Bowman forces as they engage. The intelligence will be sporadic from the battlefield—it always is, there’s nothing to be done about it—but it will give us some idea of how the fight is going, and, more importantly, let us spot our window of opportunity when it opens.”
“And when it opens?”
Shaw indicated the second monitor, currently showing a schematic display of a null-g combat craft. Along one side of the screen ran a column of apparently relevant data, including air speed, altitude, fuel level, and longitude and latitude position, determined by GPS.
“This is a modified Barracuda IV light assault transport,” Shaw had explained. “We have three of them in inventory, but only one is tasked for the op. Flight range of three thousand miles, top air speed of six-hundred and sixty-three miles per hour. Armed with a Hellfire Six autocannon and two Shriek missile racks, total load-out of eight missiles that can be used air-to-air or air-to-ground. Requires a pilot /navigator for operations, and is capable of carrying an additional sixteen soldiers, or half that number with heavy equipment and munitions. The Barracuda will serve as the insertion and suppression vehicle.”
“How many men?”
“It’s a hot zone, and we’ll be bringing out a package, so Lieutenant White is going in
with another seven men, full tactical loadout.” Shaw turned to one of his juniors. “Bring up the battle map.”
The third monitor lit, and Shaw directed Cassandra’s attention toward it. On the screen was a computer-generated overhead map, apparently composited from the NSA satellite images that Velez had shown her previously.
“When CMO and Bowman have fully engaged, we’ll hit the compound directly. The Shrieks will be used to clear the immediate area and secure the landing site, here.” He indicated an open area near the center of the compound. “If Ms. Velez’s intelligence is correct, the target is in Building Seven, the heart of the facility, and likely the most heavily guarded. However, analysis of the satellite data has revealed a tunnel connecting Building Five with Building Seven. Lieutenant White will take the squad immediately to Building Five, neutralize any opposition, and then proceed via the tunnel to Building Seven.”
“Whereupon they will locate and capture Doctor Rose,” Cassandra said.
“Yes, ma’am. They’ll exfil on the same route, having already secured it, back up through Building Five, then to the Barracuda. The Barracuda will then fly an escape and evasion path, apparently heading west, before dropping to wave level and making for Melbourne. We’ll keep the package on ice there until you want him moved. The whole operation should have them on the ground for less than twenty minutes.”
Cassandra nodded, taking it all in. “Sounds very good.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“What if Rose is injured? I want him alive.”
“We have two combat-trained medics in the Lieutenant’s squad, ma’am. If the package’s injuries are more than they can handle, we’ll divert to Papua New Guinea, set down in Arawa, and assess the situation from there.”
“Good,” she said, and then repeated, “Very good. Anita?”
“Doctor?”
“Anything we’re missing?”
“No, Doctor, I believe Colonel Shaw has the situation well in hand.”
Cassandra nodded again, then gave Colonel Shaw a repeat of her earlier smile.
“Well, then, all we need to do now is wait,” she said.
For eighteen minutes of the operation, everything went as Colonel Shaw had described, with barely a hiccup. The Barracuda inserted as planned, voices of the Hawk Team members crackling through the speakers around the darkened room, each sounding calm and assured. There’d been a couple of exchanges of gunfire upon landing, but Lieutenant White’s voice had come through, loud and clear, after each, reporting the number of CMO soldiers down, reporting no casualties on their part.
Reception had broken up when the Hawk Team had entered the tunnel leading from Building Five to Building Seven, becoming fainter and threaded with static. But it had still come through, and when Cassandra heard the words “Package secure,” and the protestations of a man who was certainly not a member of the Hawk Team in their wake, she’d felt a momentary elation unlike anything she’d ever experienced before.
Standing beside her chair, she saw Anita Velez smiling, as well.
“Barracuda, stand by for dustoff,” Lieutenant White’s voice came over the speakers.
“Roger that, recalling all troops.”
“Coming out, coming out.”
“Hawk Nine, Hawk Nine, recall order, over.”
There was a pause, the crackle of empty air from the speakers.
“Hawk Nine, Hawk Nine, recall order, over.”
Cassandra leaned forward in her seat, looking to Colonel Shaw. Shaw now wore a headset of his own, and she watched as he activated his boom mike, wondering at the sudden alarm on his face.
“What’s going on?”
“Negative response, Hawk Nine.”
“What’s happened?” Cassandra asked.
“One of their men isn’t responding,” Velez said quietly. “It may be nothing.”
“Hawk One, Hawk Master, confirm corns to Hawk Nine, over,” Shaw said.
There was a slight pause, then White’s voice again. “Hawk One, cannot confirm, Hawk Master. Over.”
“Get me biosigns on Hawk Nine,” Shaw ordered one of the men seated at the decks around the room. “Now!”
“Negative result.”
“Hawk One, we’re moving.”
“Negative!” barked Shaw. “Negative, secure the area—”
A rattle of gunfire crackled from the speakers, followed by a thump so loud it made Cassandra wince. Shaw jerked his headset from his ears, cursing, then just as hastily put it back into place. From the speakers, Cassandra heard swearing, someone crying out in pain, and then another exchange of gunfire, this one more sustained. There was a second explosion, then a third.
Then silence.
“Hawk One, Hawk Master, come in,” Shaw said. “Hawk One, Hawk Master, come in. Dammit, White, respond!”
There was another fraction of silence, of the sound of radios alive but with no one to use them. Then another crackle, the hiss of static, and, finally, a young woman’s voice came over the speakers, and Cassandra thought she sounded both breathless and elated at once. The impact of her voice, just the sound of it, so abruptly out of place and unexpected, electrified everyone in the room into silence.
“Nobody here but us chickens,” the young woman said.
Then the speakers went dead.
CHAPTER 30
Carrington Institute “Cooler” Facility—8 km N of St. Harmon—Wye Valley, Wales October 16th, 2020
There were only the four of them riding in the vehicle, a Carrington Institute null-g Rambler. Steinberg sat behind the wheel, Carrington beside him, and, in the backseat, Jo, with a Falcon in her hand pointed at Doctor Thaddeus Killington Rose.
The pistol had been Carrington’s order, and Jo had followed it, but reluctantly, because it was an unnecessary addition. Aside from the fact that Doctor Rose wore capture-shackles around his wrists and ankles, magnetically locked and impossible to remove without the control card—currently carried in Carrington’s pocket—the man was clearly going nowhere. Even if Doctor Rose hadn’t been restrained, she doubted he would’ve tried to run, and not because he was parked in his mid-fifties, with the kind of overweight body that announced that his last forty years had been spent only moving quickly when he had to. He was utterly alone. He had nowhere to go, and no one to run to.
Seated as she was beside him, the pistol in her hand, and Doctor Rose unwilling to even look up from his shackled wrists, Jo felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for the man. She knew what it was like to be alone, to feel surrounded by hostility on every side.
Then she remembered the cause of that hostility, the incomprehensible number of Canadian dead, and the feeling vanished. Whatever empathy Doctor Thaddeus Rose had earned in his life, it was long since exhausted.
He sensed her gaze on him, looked slowly up from his hands with his small and watery brown eyes. Maybe he’d felt her momentary weakness, the second of conflict, but he tried to smile at her. The look Jo gave him in return made him immediately turn his attention back to his shackles.
The Rambler banked through a gentle turn, then began climbing one of the hillsides that formed the valley, following a thin dirt track up toward the summit. A squat cluster of three concrete bunkers came into view at the top of the slope, two of them so much smaller than the other that Jo thought of them as sheds rather than as actual buildings. The rooftop of the largest building was crowded with rusted aerials, bent antennas, and broken satellite dishes. An old and rusting chain-link fence marked the perimeter, a sign dangling from it sideways warning people to keep out, that there was no trespassing. Steinberg glided the Rambler over the fence’s sagging top before bringing them to a gentle stop on the ground.
Carrington opened his door, swinging his legs out and then using his walking stick to aid him to his feet.
“Jon, take Doctor Mengele down to the basement and lock him into the boiler room, please,” Carrington said, handing the control card to the capture-shackles over to Steinberg. “If he tries anythi
ng, feel free to blow off his kneecaps.”
“There’s no need to be crude,” Rose said. “I shan’t try anything.”
“Pity,” Steinberg muttered, drawing his pistol, the same DY357 Magnum—almost identical to her father’s, Jo had noted, right down to the walnut grip—that he had carried in Hovoro. With his other hand, he used the control card to release the shackles at Rose’s ankles, and Jo kept her Falcon trained on the doctor as Steinberg helped him out of the vehicle. Only after Steinberg had him out of the Rambler did Jo herself move, hopping over the side door to land lightly beside Carrington.
They watched Steinberg escort Doctor Rose into the largest of the buildings, disappearing inside.
Carrington waited until they were out of sight, then sighed and glanced over to Jo.
“Evil is never what you expect,” he said.
Jo thought about the evils she had seen herself, then surprised herself by saying, abruptly, “I miss my dad.”
“I know you do.” Carrington’s voice was soft, the expression on his face touched by sympathy. Then he sighed again, turned, and, using his walking stick, began to head in the same direction Steinberg had taken Rose. “Come, Joanna. We’ve got to get ready to receive our guests.”
Jo tucked the Falcon into the holster at the small of her back, took another look around the abandoned listening post. The sky was gray, as if considering its options, whether to simply deny sunlight or actually commit to rain. There was no wind blowing, no other sounds aside from the steady crunch and crackle of Carrington’s walking stick as he made his way across the gravel lot.
She moved to follow him, thinking about how strange the whole business really was.
She’d never been part of an ambush before, at least, not on the initiating side, but Steinberg had, and Jo had been forced to admit, the man knew what he was doing.
It had taken less than three minutes for each of them to take up positions around the Hawk Team dropship, Steinberg with an angle of fire on the cockpit and front, Jo around back, with a clear line of sight to the lowered loading ramp. She’d had some cover and some shadow, and she remained motionless as Steinberg had told her to, the silenced Falcons in her hands.