Clicking the controls, turning it on, Paul aimed upward and heard the beep. The thing was fast. It already had radar lock-on. “You little bastard,” Paul said under his breath. He eased his index finger against the trigger. This one resisted until suddenly it moved. The launcher shuddered and the missile popped out. A second later, the solid fuel rocket engaged, and orange fire flamed out the back. The missile climbed fast, heading up into the sky.
Not waiting to see what happened, Paul lurched to the second launcher. He began readying it, but raised his torso and the launcher slowly in order to keep his balance throughout the procedure.
An explosion sounded from the sky.
“Hit!” Romo shouted. “You destroyed it.”
Paul grinned savagely.
Romo dropped the binoculars and picked up an oar. He began paddling, working them closer to the waiting submersible and the SEAL shouting at them.
Paul aimed the last GD Blowdart. He searched until he had a beep. Then he waited.
“Fire,” Romo said, breathing hard as he paddled. “Fire the thing.”
Then Paul saw the second UAV. He nodded to himself, checked where the back-blast would go and shifted his position. He heard another radar lock-on beep and pulled the trigger. The rocket climbed.
Paul saw metallic flutters up there, a second’s flash in the sunlight. The UAV must have launched an anti-radar packet. He couldn’t do anything about that. Either the missile had good tech or—
Paul pitched aside the empty tube. He heard it plop into the water. Then he grabbed a paddle and dug the blade into the lake. The two LRSU men forced the dinghy closer to the waiting submersible.
“Do you think—” Romo shouted.
Before his blood brother could finish the thought, Paul heard an explosion in the sky.
Romo laughed, and he grinned at Paul. “We’re going to make it. We outfoxed them one more time.”
“Here’s hoping,” Paul said, and he dug the blade into the water with everything he was worth.
GDN GALAHAD 3/C/1
“It’s our game now,” Lieutenant Smith from London said. He’d just witnessed the destruction of two UAVs. “It’s up to us to finish it.”
“They’re cagey bastards,” Holloway said grimly.
“Neptune’s beard,” Smith said into the microphone, “a two-prong approach.”
“Roger,” Smith heard in his headphones. The lieutenant of the GDN Galahad 3/C/2 roared into battle with him.
“Ready the cannon,” Smith told Holloway.
“You can bet I have a present for them, sir.”
“I doubt they were expecting us,” Smith said. “Now we’re going to show them who has the rights to this batch of water. Rule Britannia,” he added.
Holloway didn’t answer as he squinted at his control screen.
USS KIOWA
“They had planes waiting,” Sulu shouted in the cramped compartment. “Now the hovers are going to get us.”
“Our guests have teeth,” Captain Green said. “I’ve told you before that Allah watches his own. Those were my prayers being answered.”
“Yes, sir,” Sulu said.
Captain Green laughed in a low-throated manner that had chilled pedestrians in Chicago before. “Let’s show the invaders that we are from the windy city and exactly what that means.”
“I’m not from Chicago,” Sulu said. “I’m from Springfield.”
Darius Green wasn’t listening. His eyes were on the control screen. He’d been waiting for something like this. The invaders had come a long ways to get to Lake Ontario. The Navy had given him a flimsy sub and an escort job. Allah hadn’t raised him to chauffer warriors to battle. He was a warrior. This was hardly his first battle, either, but he’d never fought with modern weapons before. In Chicago, he’d fought with fist, club and blade. Now he battled with missiles and wits.
“Look!” Sulu shouted. “There are more hovers on their way here.”
Darius’s eyes narrowed. He saw the blips. He had a decision to make and he needed to make it now. How many missiles did he use on each hover? Ideally, he should use one missile for each machine. But the GD vehicles, the GD military, had better tech, particularly electronics than America possessed.
Sighing heavily, Darius Green made his decision. He would have to trust to Allah to see him through. One thing he knew: he wanted to kill the enemy, not just wound them. That helped him make the decision.
“I’m ready,” Captain Green said. “Are you?”
LAKE ONTARIO
Paul Kavanagh could have reached out and banged the submersible with his oar when the first modified Javelin launched.
“Jump!” the man with the bloody bandage shouted from the sub’s hatch. “We have to get out of here.”
“Just a little closer,” Paul told Romo. “None of this matters if we don’t get our prisoner and his equipment into the boat.”
“Jump!” the man shouted. “Jump! We have to leave.”
Together, Paul and Romo paddled, shoving the dinghy against the submersible’s side. Paul dropped his oar into the water, grabbed a rope and tossed it at the waiting sailor. The man grabbed and might have caught the rope. But at that moment, a second Javelin launched from the mount. The Navy man flinched at the hissing noise and the rope dropped out of his reach.
Romo paddled, and that twisted the dinghy, shoving it against the submersible and then pushing them away.
Paul coiled the rope madly.
With his hands behind his back, Hans Kruger twisted around to watch the hovers. He swore in German, and he seemed to be weighing odds. Maybe he was thinking about jumping overboard.
Paul threw the rope again. He expected another Javelin to launch. It did with a hiss. This time, the one-eyed man caught the rope and pulled the dinghy tight against the sub.
An explosion in the distance made Paul turn. A hovercraft burned. Another hiss told him of the fourth launch.
Romo pulled out a wicked-looking blade, with serrated edges, teeth like a saw. He grabbed one of the prisoner’s forearms. The man sobbed in German, shaking his head, pleading. With a short chop, Romo deftly sliced the prisoner’s plastic ties.
“Jump,” Romo told him. “Climb aboard the sub.”
Hans Kruger blinked at the distant hovers.
Paul saw something in the prisoner’s eyes. With the flat of his hand, he knocked the man against the back of his head. “Jump!” he said, in an ugly voice. “Or I’ll kill you right here and leave them your carcass.”
Fear washed over the prisoner’s face. He must have believed Kavanagh. Hans Kruger leaped for all he was worth and scrambled onto the slippery desk. The one-eyed man climbed out of the hatch and made way. Hans hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then he slid into the hole and disappeared into the submersible.
Another Javelin hit another enemy hover.
Paul didn’t have time to watch. Romo leaped and made it, and Paul began pitching him equipment.
“There are more hovers out there!” the sailor shouted at him.
“Yeah,” Paul said. “I figured as much. Now shut up so I can concentrate.”
Paul pitched the last few pieces of equipment. Romo dropped each one down the open hatch. Finally, Paul jumped and made it onto the slippery sub. It was a mere foot above the water. Once, a wave slapped up high enough to spill water into the hatch. Was this thing big enough to hold all three of them?
The sailor disappeared into the hatch.
Paul looked back. Two hovers burned on the waters. A third machine roared toward them, skimming across the waves. Its cannon belched flame. For a second, Paul could only watch. The projectile screamed near as Paul crouched on the submersible. His guts tightened. Then the shell fell fifteen feet short of him. A waterspout shot up and droplets struck him in the face.
The distant hover’s cannon belched flame once more.
Paul might have stayed to watch, but the sub lurched and began to sink. Lake water sloshed against Paul’s boots. That tore him free o
f his momentary paralysis. Thrusting his legs through the nearby hatch, Paul climbed down a short ladder.
“Close it!” a man shouted in an impossibly deep voice. “Close the hatch. We’re diving.”
Paul reached up and banged the hatch shut. He turned the valve until it clicked. Then he slid down the rest of the way.
A small corridor led to an incredibly cramped main compartment. Paul spied a massive black man in a Navy uniform. The man’s size was a shock.
“Are you the captain?” Paul asked.
The man nodded a large head. He concentrated on his screen and worked controls. A much smaller man worked other controls. Romo, the prisoner and the bloody-faced sailor crouched out of the way. The submersible aimed downward, and they headed underwater.
“Are you going to be okay with all of us in here?” Romo asked.
“If you shut up I might be,” the captain said. “There are more of them out there and I’m all out of missiles. We’re going to have to sneak away—if Allah will allow us.”
With a scowl, Romo glanced at Paul.
Paul shrugged, moving beside Romo and whispering, “Why don’t you see to the prisoner. I’ll start sorting out the equipment.”
Hans Kruger shrank back from Romo, but he didn’t offer any resistance.
Paul grabbed the first plastic-wrapped piece of stolen equipment. As he did, he heard gurgling water outside the craft and the hiss of the submersible diving. He didn’t like this one bit. Could they get away? This didn’t sound like a regular submarine. The diving was more immediate, and it felt as if the water would burst through any second and down them like rats.
Paul glanced back, staring at the huge captain. He sure hadn’t expected this. And what had the man said? “If Allah will grant them mercy.” Where had they gotten a Navy captain like him?
GDN GALAHAD 3/C/1
In an orange life preserver, Lieutenant Teddy Smith floated in Lake Ontario, with Sergeant Holloway nearby. Thirty feet away, their Galahad hover slid underwater.
They’d fooled the first Javelin missile. It had darted past and exploded harmless in the lake. They hadn’t fooled the second one coming on the first’s heel. The second missile had been enough to sink them. He might not have made it out of the compartment, but Holloway had shouted and dragged him through the emergency hatch.
“Bad luck,” Smith said.
Holloway wouldn’t look at him. The sergeant was furious. One could see it on his face. He kept looking into the distance, searching, but neither of them saw a submarine.
The other hovers neared their position.
Sighing, Smith took out a flare pistol and aimed it at the sky. He fired, and the cartridge popped into the air before bursting red.
Two of the hovers swished past at high speed, moving as furiously as wasps. The last one slowed, and Smith began to wave his arms. He would have told Holloway to wave his, too, but the sergeant was simply in too black a mood to have complied.
It looked as if the enemy had beaten them. Much worse, though, he’d had a hover shot out from under him. That was terribly bad luck. Would he get another machine? Or was his days as a hover jockey over?
“They’ll give us another, Sergeant,” Smith said, talking as much for his own benefit as for Holloway’s. “Captain Johnny will do right by us. You can be sure of him.”
Holloway never even acknowledged the words. That was poor sportsmanship. The man was from Scotland, though. It showed in times like this. Scots never did understand good sportsmanship.
I’ll get another hover. This was bad luck, is all. I’ll make it up, and then no one will ever shoot another hover out from under me again.
OTTAWA, ONTARIO
General Mansfeld heard the news an hour later in the main situational room. Orderlies and officers worked quietly around him. One man whispered into another officer’s ear. The listener faced him, straightened his tie and told him.
Mansfeld took the information in silence. Finally, he nodded, and he walked away to his study. The Americans had gained a coup. He felt it in his bones, and he’d known a day like this might come. In a campaign of this magnitude, it was inevitable. Now for the big question. Would the Americans know what to do with their coup?
It’s a matter of speed. Can I complete the campaign before they learn how to deal with our drones? That has always been the question.
He would win the campaign. Of that, he had no doubt. It was simply a matter of whether he would do so decisively or with just an operational level victory.
General Mansfeld’s eyes gleamed coldly. One thing he would make sure of. One way or another, this Len Zelazny would not live to see the outcome of his ploy.
-7-
Stall
PARIS, ILE DE FRANCE
John Red Cloud yawned, surprising a nearby squirrel. The furry creature dropped its acorn and scurried up a tree, turning to stare down at him.
Easing out of his sleeping bag, John stretched and scratched himself. He was in a small forest ten kilometers outside of Paris. To his left, a stream hissed past reeds.
After killing the CID agents, John had driven their BMW to a mall. The agents’ wallets had supplied him with credit cards and money. He’d purchased a sleeping bag, clothes, foodstuffs and other items he needed. He’d carried the bags to the car and driven outside the city, parking off the road. He’d left the corpses in the car and hiked many kilometers that night.
For the next several days and nights he camped here beside the stream, waiting. Few people had true patience. As a hormagaunt, he had more than most. As one walking the path of death, he savored his last few days of life.
Deciding that today was the right moment, he donned a new shirt and tie, suit and dress shoes. He left the pistols, knives, agent IDs, everything. He slipped on sunglasses and a hat, hiked to the nearest road and started walking to Paris.
After an hour he took off his jacket and draped it over an arm. After another half hour a Bristol stopped. It was a boxlike, electric-powered British-made car. A young woman drove. She wore a kerchief and sunglasses and had a long, graceful neck.
Leaning across to the passenger side window, she asked in French, “Would you like a ride?”
John said he would.
“You have an accent,” she said.
He touched the door handle. “I’m from Quebec. Is that acceptable?”
She laughed. She seemed a happy-go-lucky girl, twenty-five perhaps. John climbed in and off they buzzed down the road. She chattered merrily and asked him all kinds of questions. He gave simple answers.
“You’re Indian,” she finally said, “a North American Indian.”
“I’m an Algonquin warrior,” he said. Those on the path of death did well to speak the truth. It amplified their inner strength.
She laughed with delight.
“You are very brave,” he told her.
“Please,” she said. “I’m a wonderful judge of people. The way you act so solemn, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re a comedian.”
That almost made John smile. Instead, he simply shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “The day is nice and you needed a ride.”
This was death luck, John knew. Because his resolve remained steely, it generated power. The power acted differently on different people. It blinded the woman to the truth because she did not wish to see reality for what it was.
She dropped him off in a suburb of Paris, one much older than where he had slain the CID agents.
John thanked her and watched the Bristol scoot away. Then he put on his jacket and strolled down the street. This one had large maple trees so he walked in shade the entire time.
His information was two years old. It might well be stale. People changed with the times, with new ideas and with successes or failures. This was a gamble, he knew. John shrugged, and he turned onto a well-kept path. Rose bushes abounded, each bush cut to an exact height and with large flowers. Was that a good or bad omen?
John dec
ided it was good. He believed it showed a personality that didn’t like change. Did that mean the owner of the house was an ardent French nationalist? Possibly. It might also mean someone who hated Germans, which wasn’t quite the same thing. In any case, it was time to see if the secret service agent could help him or not.
While climbing the three steps, John almost decided to revert to smiling again. No. That would be a mistake. He was the hormagaunt. The more he hewed to his true self, the better and safer he would be. Boldness would give him an advantage. He had already wasted too much time.
He pressed the doorbell and heard chimes inside. Too much time passed. He leaned close to the door and listened. It had a metal safety screen, which indicated a cautious personality. He couldn’t hear anyone or anything inside. Finally, he knocked loudly.
After a few seconds, slow footsteps approached.
“Who is there?” a woman asked, an older lady, he would guess.
“I’m John Red Cloud from Quebec,” he said.
She paused before saying, “The name is not familiar to me.”
“It will be to your son,” he said.
“You are a friend of his?”
He had guessed right, that this was the mother. “I am,” John said, “a long lost friend, a hidden friend.”
She paused again. Then the lock turned and the inside door opened. Because of the sunlight, John couldn’t see through the security door. He smelled baking bread, though, a warm and friendly odor.
“I don’t recognize you,” she said, sounding closer and yet invisible to him.
“Your son is Peter Francis,” John said. “He works for the French secret service. I met him in Quebec two years ago.”
“Oh, my,” she said. “Well…he’s not home.”
“I realize that. I need to give you a package.” He needed to get past the security door.
“Oh.” The woman hesitated. “Very well, leave it on the porch.”
A ghost of a smile tugged at John’s mouth. It wasn’t out of happiness, but the sad realization that his death luck might be departing. It had been a risk waiting so many days. A hormagaunt’s luck only lasted so long and no longer. Yet he had needed to lie low. Every instinct he possessed had told him so.
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