Backshot

by David Sherman

  “Th-That’s everything.”

  “No other communications? No buried wires?”

  Nijakin’s eyes wandered to the side for a moment, as though he was lost in thought. Then he shook his head. “No, n-nothing that I kn-know of.”

  “What are the dimensions of the tunnel? I mean how wide and how high?

  “It’s two meters high and a meter wide.” Nijakin decided to seem helpful and cooperative again and his stammering stopped again. “It’s made of fused lithocrete and has motion-sensitive lighting.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Nijakin. You’ve been very helpful.”

  Nijakin tensed, expecting to be shot or garroted. Tevedes did neither. Instead he asked, “Are you hungry? If you are, I can have your hands untied long enough for you to eat and drink something.”

  Nijakin’s stomach growled.

  “That sounds like you missed dinner.”

  Nijakin couldn’t help saying, “The condemned man’s last meal, is that it?”

  “Nothing like that, Mr. Nijakin. When we’re done here, you’ll be free to go.”

  Tevedes turned off his external speaker and toggled on his command circuit radio. “Gunny, have the Doc check the prisoner for anything obvious, then have somebody give him a meal. Keep his feet tied while he eats, and secure his hands again when he’s finished. Join me when you’ve done that.”

  Tevedes made sure his UV markers were on so Lytle could find him, and went off by himself to plan the raid.

  Gunny Lytle joined him a couple of minutes later and touched helmets. “What do we have, Lieutenant?”

  “Call up your map.” Tevedes linked Daly’s overlay of the compound into Lytle’s HUD and made a mark on the side of the power plant.

  “From what the prisoner says, it sounds like Lavager is making advanced weapons components in this supposed agricultural research facility. If anybody wants to believe it’s farm equipment, I have a solid gold asteroid I’d like to interest them in.

  “We’ll take the platoon in through the tunnel at two hours, everybody but the duty guards should be asleep then. This is where the tunnel lets into the compound.” He highlighted the mark on the side of the power plant. “The first thing we’ll have to do is destroy the communications tower.” He marked it. “I’ll go into lab three,” he marked it as well, “with one squad from first section to collect evidence—Daly and his people have done all the hard work, they should get the job of gathering the proof of what they found. Do you agree?”

  “I was going to suggest first squad if you didn’t,” Lytle agreed.

  “Once we have the evidence, you bring the rest of the platoon out of the tunnel. The rest of first section sets the charges while second section provides security. We should be in and out in less than half an hour. Any questions?”

  “It works for me.”

  “Good. How’s our prisoner doing?”

  “Doc says he’s okay, just more scared than he’s probably ever been before. Bos gave him a ration.”

  Lytle chuckled softly. “He’s eating like somebody’s forcing him to. I believe he thinks we’re going to kill him.”

  Tevedes snorted. “Yeah, I know. What he doesn’t know is we’re Confederation Marines, we only kill people who need to be killed. Mr. Nijakin doesn’t need to be killed.” He paused for a moment to consider what he wanted the prisoner to know. “He thinks we’re from one of the other nation-states on Atlas. Let’s not disabuse him of that notion.”

  “I like the way you think, Mr. Tevedes,” Lytle said.

  “Did Doc give him a sedative?”

  “No. He said Nijakin would probably think it was some kind of poison pill, and didn’t want to scare him any more than he already is.”

  “Good thinking on Doc’s part,” Tevedes said. He paused, looking west, toward the compound that was looking more and more like a weapons research facility. “One more thing I’m thinking about.”

  Lytle made an expectant noise.

  “I’m wondering if we have enough yet to justify sending the go code.”

  Lytle had been wondering the same thing. He had a few more years, about three or four, experience as a Marine than Tevedes, but the lieutenant had more training due to Officer Candidate College. While Lytle was certain some officers would decide the strong defenses of the facility, combined with what the machinist told them, was convincing enough to justify sending the go code, they didn’t have actual physical proof. Assassinating a sovereign head of state was too serious for anything less. “If the lieutenant’s asking my advice or opinion, I think we need to get our hands on hard proof before you make that serious a decision.”

  Tevedes nodded; it was all right that Lytle couldn’t see the nod, it was to himself more than to the other Marine. “I do believe you’re right. I like the way you think, Gunnery Sergeant.”

  Lytle chuckled. “I’ll get the platoon ready to move.”

  “You do that.”

  Lytle stood and went to check that the platoon was ready while Tevedes prepared a report to burst beam to the Admiral Nelson and a message for the starship to relay to the waiting AstroGhost. When the Admiral Nelson was overhead he climbed a tree, located her, and beamed his messages. He got the acknowledging click, then returned to the ground. All that was left now was to wait for the time to enter the tunnel.

  En Route to the Cabbage Patch

  Sergeant Kindy and Corporal Nomonon led the way to the tunnel, the ultraviolet markers on their shoulders allowed the others to see them to follow. Tevedes had ordered everyone to use their markers; he thought the risk of detection was less than the risk of somebody getting lost. On Tevedes’s order, Kindy fingered the bark of the tree with the ill-camouflaged security camera and found the control panel cover. It flipped open easily. Too little starlight shone through the foliage for him to see, but his fingers found the keypad easily enough. He looked at the pad in infrared and saw the faint outlines of the keys. Six of the keys glowed slightly, as though they retained heat from recent use. Kindy hesitated. He was positive Nijakin had only touched five keys to pivot the rock slab back into place, so why did six keys look like they’d been used? Did it use different combinations for opening and closing? He remembered the prisoner had said he had a friend who put a loop in the system when Nijakin used the tunnel. Maybe the sixth button sent a signal to his friend. But Nijakin was still secured to the tree behind the hollow, so he couldn’t ask. He keyed in the sequence he’d memorized. With a faint click, the slab rose a few centimeters and pivoted to the side. Corporal Nomonon immediately sat next to the opening and swiveled to lower his legs into it. His feet found the rungs of a ladder and he climbed down. The hole was about six meters deep. At its foot, using his light gatherer screen, Nomonon saw a control panel like the one imbedded in the tree above. He had to turn around to face into the tunnel. He raised a hand to feel for the ceiling; it was low enough that he had to duck to keep from banging his helmet on it. He took a step and froze when lights came on ahead of him.

  He peered, the lit area extended thirty meters ahead of him. He took a couple more steps and the lighting extended an equal distance ahead.

  “Any problem?” Sergeant Daly asked.

  “No, just checking.”

  “Let’s move, we want to be well away from here by sunrise.”

  Nomonon stepped out at a brisk walking pace. The tunnel was wide enough for a man to walk without brushing the walls.

  Kindy paused a couple of seconds to look at the control panel at the foot of the hole. In infrared it also showed sign of six buttons being used. It took only a five-key sequence to open and close the entrance, and he wondered again what the sixth key might be used for.

  Watch Office, the Cabbage Patch

  Private Second Class Handquok’s head jerked up at a chime and he shook his head. He blinked at the bank of displays. Most of them showed the same unchanging views that had been boring him to sleepiness for two hours. Then he saw an unexpected red light. He checked the monitor matched to the tel
ltale, but saw only the expected darkness under the trees of a moonless night. He leaned forward and tapped the light with a fingernail. It stayed red.

  “Hey, Sarge?” he called.

  “What’s up?”

  “Look at this. The telltale says the tunnel’s outer door is open.”

  Sergeant Oble, the sergeant of the guard, leaned over Handquok’s shoulder and looked at his displays. Sure enough, the indicator light for the outer tunnel door said the tunnel’s door was open. The monitor didn’t show anything because it was too dark.

  “Hit the infra,” he ordered.

  Handquok flipped the toggle that switched the exterior security camera from visual to infra. It was long enough since sundown that most of the built-up ambient heat from the ground and the rock slab door had radiated away; the differences in radiation were too slight for Oble to tell if the slab was in place.

  “Try the tunnel cameras.” Oble’s jaw dropped when the monitor showed the lights in the tunnel were on. The lights were motion activated, but nobody was there!

  “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but whatever it is, it’s wrong.” He rushed to his own desk and slapped the panic button.

  Alarms sounded in the barracks and the officers’ quarters.

  The Cabbage Patch

  It was just as Nijakin had said, the inner end of the tunnel was on the east side of the power plant and was unsecured. Unlike the outside end, which ended in a vertical, the inside end of the tunnel had a stairway leading up to a short corridor to the exit; eight Marines were able to stand back to belly in the corridor.

  Corporal Nomonon looked both ways, then signaled all-clear into the all-hands circuit. Second squad ran past him and turned sharp left to race to the communications tower. Nomonon stepped through the door on the side of the power plant. Sergeant Daly followed him.

  “Let’s go,” Daly said. He and Nomonon sprinted the short distance to lab three. Sergeant Kindy and Lance Corporal Wazzen followed right behind them, racing with Lieutenant Tevedes. Tevedes put on an extra burst of speed at the end and reached the door to the lab just ahead of Daly. Tevedes turned his head and grinned at the squad leader, unmindful that his grin couldn’t be seen inside his chameleoned helmet. He reached for the doorpad and pressed. The door silently swung open and he led the way inside.

  Once the door was securely closed behind them, the Marines projected a combination of infrared and low level visual light to see by.

  The part of lab three they were in looked like an assembly shop. Tubes of various sizes, up to seventy-five centimeters in diameter and seven meters long, were stacked against two walls—Daly didn’t see any of the two-hundred-centimeter diameter tubes Nijakin had mentioned; he wondered if the machinist had been wrong or lied to him. Or maybe the bigger tubes had been removed. Rows of bins ran the length of the room’s central area. Between them were matrixes, some of which held tubes and other parts from the bins in partial assemblage. Daly sucked in a breath. The partly assembled things looked like barrels for advanced artillery pieces or rocket launcher tubes.

  “That’s it,” Tevedes said through his speaker. “Set your charges.” He headed for the exit to tell Gunny Lytle to deploy second section for security and get the rest of first section ready to set their charges. He’d have to wait until the Admiral Nelson was back above the horizon before he could send the go code to the sniper team in New Granum. Daly directed his men in setting their explosives. Nomonon and Wazzen set theirs to do the most damage to the parts stored along the walls while Kindy set his to the building’s main structural supports. Daly set his own under the bins in the central area. Second squad ran to the communications tower while second section poured out to take their defensive positions; fifth and sixth squads went north to secure the area facing Lab One, the housing area, and the STOL field. Seventh and eighth squads went south to secure the approaches from the barracks. Lance Corporal Thalia of seventh squad was the first Marine to reach the southeast corner of the power plant. He collided with a soldier carrying an assault gun and both of them crashed to the ground. Floodlights sprang on in the guard towers and swiveled to probe into the compound. All they revealed was the compound’s own garrison; the flaming bolts from the Marines’ blasters didn’t need the floodlights to be seen.

  There was a loud explosion, followed by a drawn out crashing noise as second squad brought down the communications tower.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Office of the President, New Granum, Union of Margelan, Atlas

  “Dammit, they’re after you!” General Locksley Ollwelen exclaimed after he’d read the message flashing on Jorge Lavager’s screen.

  “Eh,” Lavager made a dismissive gesture, “since when hasn’t someone been after me, Locker?”

  “Dammit, Jorge, get security in here to see this thing.” Lavager only shrugged. “Jorge, either you get al-Rashid in here or I’m going to do it for you! You know who this Alfa Sierra is, don’t you? You know this is no hoax, don’t you? Get him in here. Now!”

  Lavager sighed in resignation. “Get al-Rashid in here right now,” he told his private secretary. Within moments Lavager’s security chief was standing in front of him. “Franklin, read this.” Lavager leaned away from his viewscreen so the security chief could read the brief message blinking there: YOU’RE NEXT. ALFA SIERRA.

  “FTL Union?” al-Rashid murmured and shook his head. “Is it a hoax, maybe?” He looked questioningly at both men. Lavager shrugged, but Ollwelen shook his head firmly. “A threat? This came via FTL Union using their commercial codes? They must know who sent it, sir, I’ll run a check.”

  “Don’t bother. I know who sent it. Did you notice where it came from?”

  “Yes, Fargo. Is this ‘Alfa Sierra’ a friend?”

  “Yes. Franklin, if it’s who I think it is, this message comes from someone at the Central Intelligence Organization, and it means my life is in danger.”

  Ollwelen snorted.

  Al-Rashid nodded. “We think Gustafferson was murdered. Paragussa too. Both probably by a hired assassin working alone. I sent you a memo—”

  “I was copied on it. Jorge, did you read the damned thing?” Ollwelen demanded. Lavager held up a hand. “I got the memo, gentlemen. I’m not worried about me. I can take care of myself. But what about the Cabbage Patch? If anything happens to that facility, I may as well be dead. I’ve been planning a visit out there all week. We agreed on today, now you seem to be trying to talk me out of it.”

  “The Cabbage Patch is well protected, sir. And under the circumstances,” he gestured at the message, “I strongly recommend you don’t take any rides in the country just now.”

  “Convince me.” Lavager leaned back in his chair and lit a Davidoff. He could always work his way through the most difficult problem if he had the help of an Anniversario. “Have one?” Al-Rashid declined the offer but Ollwelen, still frowning, took one. Lavager nodded at a chair and the security chief sat down.

  “The physical security at the Cabbage Patch is state-of-the-art, sir. We’ve taken into consideration the vegetation, reshaped the terrain for security, and established three-hundred-and-sixty-degree boundary barriers. The entire facility is surrounded by fencing consisting of a mix of razor wire in concertina rolls and dual-facing aprons. The concertina is five rolls high and six wide. The apron is three meters high and set at a forty-five-degree angle.”

  “What’s the strength of the security detachment?”

  “A light battalion of specially trained infantry, more than three hundred and fifty troops at any given time, depending on training, sick call—you know, the usual excuses.”

  Lavager nodded as he lighted his cigar. “What do you have as anti-intrusion measures?” He offered a light to Ollwelen.

  “A layered defense. First there’s a two-meter-deep moat all around the facility studded with tungsten-steel spikes. Then there are infrared sensors with a minimum illumination of five microwatts per square centimeter in bands up to 1.1 microns measu
ring three centimeters above the ground. We have fence-mounted sensors that can detect bending of light waves caused by climbing, cutting, or lifting of the fencing materials. There is also a buried sensor line that can detect changes in a generated electromagnetic field caused by attempts to walk, run, crawl, or leap through the sensor field. There are clear zones that extend ten meters on both sides of the fencing. At the entry control point—there’s only one—the same cleared zone both inside and outside the gate. No vegetation within a radius of a hundred and fifty meters outside the fence is allowed to grow any higher than twenty centimeters. Even the drains are protected, none of which offers an opening large enough for a human, and they are sealed with welded grills.”

  “We also have a strategically emplaced system of bunkers and towers, all with interlocking fields of fire,”

  Ollwelen interrupted. “Then there are minefields, surveillance cameras, and anti-intrusion devices spread out around the facility up to a kilometer in every direction. The devices are under constant monitoring and maintained on a regular schedule. They’re accessed by a secure system of tunnels that can be used only by technicians who know the cipher codes, which are changed daily at different intervals.”

  “What if somebody comes in from the air, using military hoppers or some sort of high-altitude, low-opening paraglide device?”

  “No problem, sir. The grounds are studded with pylons to impale aircraft, parachutists, and the like. And the facility is also protected by continuous foot patrols of heavily armed guards, and there is always a quick-reaction force on call in case of emergencies. That facility is virtually impenetrable by a raiding force, sir. What we need to worry about is someone on the inside. But all our people out there have passed the most rigorous security checks. Nossir, the Cabbage Patch is secure. I guarantee it.”

  Lavager drew on his cigar. “Franklin, nothing is secure from men who are daring or desperate enough to get through your screens. There is a flaw in your system somewhere,” he gestured with a finger, “and I want you to find it.”