Who is this guy? she wondered as she backed slowly away. Petra’s mind raced as she fought to reconcile what she’d just seen with what she knew about the young man Ike had initially described. The man who’d nearly decapitated one of Mastai’s top enforcers couldn’t possibly have been the Marine Ike chased.
For starters, he was older and far more experienced. And the way he struck, swift and silent, was unlike anything Petra had ever seen before. Not that she minded the assist. Thanks to Mystery Guy, there was one less enforcer after them, now.
The guy wasn’t dressed like her team, nor like the enforcers. But he wasn’t dressed quite like a visitor, either. He had the shorts and deck shoes she’d seen people wearing throughout the park, but that was a synthsilk shirt he wore, she was certain of it. And neither the P-SCAR slung over his shoulder nor the garrote in his gloved hands qualified as ‘everyday carry’ for an afternoon of leisure.
Could this be a rival cartel? That made no sense, though. How could they possibly know about the weapons? The theft was too small to warrant the attention of a competing faction. Disciplinary action from Mastai, she could understand. But this made no sense.
Unless…
If the man Ike chased was an off-duty Marine like he’d described, then maybe these were his friends.
Ike needs to get his eyes checked if he thinks these people are Marines, came her next sardonic thought. The way that man moved wasn’t regular military—at least, not any regular military Petra had ever heard of.
Her feet continued to carry her away from the town square. Up ahead, the sidewalk split. To the left, the path would take her to the saltwater pool. The path to the right led into the lazy river. She angled right. As she neared the river walk area, Petra slowed.
Her steps slowed even further as she considered the unexpected development presented by the jammer. It had taken her by surprise—but it was a nice surprise. She’d have to be sure to thank Jay for that, after this shit-show was over.
It had to be Jay. It was exactly the kind of thing he would have thought up. If that Marine of Ike’s truly was just one in a contingent of off-duty military personnel, running around playing hero as she now suspected, this could throw a nice wrench into their playbook, make it impossible for them to coordinate an attack.
Her thoughts stumbled to a halt when the snap of a twig alerted her to the fact she was no longer alone. Her eyes darted about as the crunch of footsteps shuffling through undergrowth followed. They landed on a spinner filled with lanyards boasting the Searcy logo. It was flimsy cover at best, but the only immediate thing she had at hand. She tucked herself behind it, peering through the brightly colored cords, her hand wrapped tight around her pistol as the man emerged.
The enforcer was wounded, Petra could see that immediately. The man limped, arm held tight against his body, a burn mark at his shoulder indicating a through-and-through from the laser end of a P-SCAR. Though the wound had cauterized, she imagined it hurt like hell. A slash along his thigh showed where another hit had scored, grazing him enough to wound but not incapacitate.
Petra sent the mystery man who’d wounded him a mental salute. He’d just made her job a hell of a lot easier. Lifting her pistol, she centered on the man’s head—and then hesitated.
It wasn’t like she’d never killed before. She had, back when she was a kid, a platform rat just trying to survive. But that was different; it had been self-defense.
She bit down on her back teeth, willing herself to recall that this was kill or be killed. That this man would see months of carefully laid plans in utter ruin, success ripped from her hands. The wrath built once more, and she locked it in a cage of steely resolve.
Her finger tightened on the trigger. He moved slightly just as she took the shot, unknowingly correcting her aim. It burned through his brain stem, the man collapsing in an uncoordinated turn, one knee bending before the other as his body crumpled to the ground.
Petra left him lying there, straining to hear if anyone was near. Finally, she approached, slowly and cautiously, her grip on the weapon tight enough to make her knuckles whiten. She kicked at him, and when she got no response, decided to drill another shot into the back of his head for good measure.
Holstering her pistol, she pushed the body over, intending to search it for weapons. She heard something clatter to the sidewalk. Bending, she scooped the item up, examining it in the waning light.
It was a molar microphone, the kind the cartel kept around for when they knew a jammer would be used on a job. She clenched her fist around the thing, pushed to her feet and pocketed it. Sparing the enforcer one last considering look, she turned down the path that led toward the river ride. A few meters in, she stepped off the path, sinking down behind a row of bushes and allowed herself a few precious moments to think.
It hadn’t escaped her notice that this was the second enforcer she’d seen in as many minutes. At least two of the three men in her small band were now missing. First Ike, then Bobby. Right before the jammer kicked in, Kele had pinged to warn her he was being stalked.
She had to assume the worst. That meant there must either be more enforcers than Jay had counted, or…
She paused as a thought hit her.
Could Jay be in league with them?
She scooted deeper into the underbrush as footsteps sounded once more, this time from the paved path outside the ride.
* * *
Chris Reid worked his way against the flow of people, pushing past as they surged toward the tiki hut he’d left behind to search for the two teens. The longer he went without seeing them, the more worried he became. He checked the connection again; his wire still flashed ‘network unavailable.’ He knew all too well what that meant. Somewhere, someone had turned on a jammer.
During his thirty-year naval career, he’d never known the use of such a device to portend anything good. His pace increased, concern beating at him, not only for the missing girls but also for his own family—and by extension, everyone else on the platform.
He hung a left down the path that led to the lazy river, peering ahead into the shaded brush, but saw nothing. He stopped, deciding the girls likely wouldn’t have taken this route. Backtracking, he emerged onto the main sidewalk and continued down it, coming to an abrupt stop when he spied the corpse sprawled face-up, dead eyes staring sightlessly up at the sky.
At the sound of running footsteps, Chris ducked into the foliage that bordered the walk, hand scrabbling for anything he could find he might use for a weapon. He executed a fast one-eighty when the teens he’d been searching for rounded the corner on a zero/zero intercept with the dead man.
Holding out his hands to stop them from coming any closer, he called out, “We’ve been looking for you. Are you two okay?”
The frightened faces they turned toward him was answer enough. The taller of the two cast a frightened glance over her shoulder and pointed back the way they’d come.
“There was a fight. One of the guys who came with Tatiana’s aunt—” she stopped, on the verge of hyperventilating.
“Which one?” Chris asked sharply. “The dark-skinned one or the older one?”
“The first one,” the other girl said. “Lieutenant Severance.”
Chris moved in the direction they’d come, but the girls stopped him with their next words. “He shot a man and he told us to run.”
Chris turned back to them. “Shot a man?” he repeated.
The girls nodded. “A man pulled a gun on us and told us to shut up or he’d shut us up,” the first one whispered. “And then the lieutenant snuck up behind him with a knife and—”
She was interrupted by a shriek from her friend. Chris wheeled toward the new threat, only to realize the girl had seen the corpse.
“That’s him! The man who threatened us!”
Chris stepped to the side, blocking their view. “And Lieutenant Severance did this?”
The girls shook their heads. “No, he… he… someone else was there,” she tried
to explain, but her words came out in a frightened tangle. “He started shooting and they were fighting, and then that man got away.” She pointed toward the dead man.
“So there were three men there,” Chris clarified.
The second girl nodded. “The lieutenant was shot in the leg, but he told us he was a Marine, that he’d be fine, and to get inside.”
Chris drew in a deep breath, hating the decision he knew he’d have to make. Part of him desperately wanted to render aid to the wounded operator, but he had a responsibility to get these girls to safety.
He nodded. “The lieutenant was right, and operators like him are tough birds. Let’s get you two back to the tiki hut with all the others and let the lieutenant and his team round up the rest of these bad guys, what do you say?”
* * *
Petra listened to the exchange with avid interest, especially when the man dropped the word operator. She’d heard special forces soldiers called that before, knew they were the deadliest, most highly skilled warfighters the Geminate Navy had ever produced.
No wonder the shit hit the fan today, she thought with dawning understanding. We’ve had the deck stacked against us since the moment we set foot on this stars-cursed platform.
As the man ushered the teens past the enforcer Petra had killed, a new and different plan began to form. According to the man, one of the operators had a niece among those stashed inside the tiki hut that was their destination.
She slid out from under the bushes, brushed debris off, and looked down at her park employee clothing. An abandoned t-shirt store stood just beyond the lanyard spinner where she’d shot the enforcer. With a quick wardrobe change, she should be able to slip inside that hut, posing as a park visitor—and then grab herself a bit of insurance to negotiate her way off this platform safely…
35: UPPED ANTE
Sky Park Entrance
With the jammer online, Boone had lost his connection to the surveillance drone. He did have the woman’s last location, though, and it was here that he headed.
He skidded to a stop just before the walkway widened into the broad, plaza-like entrance, surprised to discover the very person he sought, standing in plain sight. Confused, he ducked behind an oversized ‘Welcome to Searcy Sky Park’ sign. The projected holomap had a blinking red icon that said, ‘you are here.’
He’d figured the woman would be hustling toward the dock, to load the remaining stolen munitions the team had yet to locate. But she hadn’t. Instead, she stared up at the sky above the park for a long moment, before bending to set the toolbox down by her feet. Opening it, she rummaged around inside.
Right out in the open. Heedless of anyone who might come upon her.
Boone shook his head, puzzled by her actions. The woman’s situational awareness and craftsmanship were surprisingly poor. Granted, the Mastai enforcers and the gun runners themselves weren’t exactly up to Navy standards. But this woman seemed to be lacking even their basic level of skills.
Something wasn’t adding up. Her behavior didn’t fit the other gun runners’ M.O., at least, not what he’d observed of them thus far. From all reports, it didn’t fit with the Mastai cartel, either.
But it sure as hell did fit a different group of people, he realized with sudden unease. An organization that had sprung into existence in the Sirius star system before Boone had been born.
When the woman stooped to pick up a toolbox, then turned to walk out into the center of the open plaza area, Boone’s suspicions ratcheted higher.
Stars, no. Please tell me she’s not with Secede Sirius…
What had begun as a group of misguided lunatics, a laughingstock political party that no one in the Alliance had ever bothered to take seriously, had in recent years turned into a clear threat. Word on the street was that a new leader had taken the reins. On the heels of that had come random attacks, all targeted against businesses whose parent companies were based outside the star system.
The attacks began as simple vandalism, property theft. And then they escalated. People were no longer safe; lives were lost. Secede Sirius took credit for them all.
If this mysterious sixth ‘thief’ was on a mission for that extremist group, Boone needed to get the word out—fast. He also needed to call in backup.
She closed the toolbox and rose, looking up with something approaching anticipation in her expression. Boone followed the woman’s eyeline, half expecting to see a ship on a strafing run for the platform. But the sky was clear, the only thing visible through the ES field was the park’s tether reaching up into the distance, to the counterweight that hung on its other end, in low planetary orbit.
He looked back down, his concern deepening to alarm when he caught the almost rapt look on the woman’s face. He straightened from his crouch, body tensed to launch toward her.
He checked himself when another explosion rocked the sky park. The detonation was followed by an odd, singing sound. For a moment, it seemed to echo all around him. He spun in a fast circle as he sought its point of origin. And then he looked up.
Beyond the ES field that enclosed the platform, one of the four support cables that secured Searcy to its weighted tether had come loose and was falling toward the ocean below. Where the cable struck the ES field before slithering past came a sound unlike any he’d ever heard before. It was the eternal rasp of a fine blade, a high-pitched zinnng that stretched out in one long, ominous note. The sound was otherworldly, ethereal—and one Boone was unlikely to ever forget.
* * *
Asha came trotting back down the pathway—alone, and with a discouraged look on her face.
“No luck?” Gabe asked.
She shook her head.
Thad wrapped a hand around her upper arm and gave it a slight squeeze. “Don’t worry. We’ll find them, cher.”
His hand dropped as the unmistakable rumble of another explosion rocked the platform.
“Thad.” Gabe’s voice was laced with urgency, causing Thad to send him a sharp look. Gabe pointed upward.
Thad followed the agent’s gaze—and blinked in disbelief as one of the platform’s support cables came snaking down toward them…
36: TRACKING A TANGO
Sky Park Entrance
Boone’s mind seized for one brief instant at the sight of the cable falling, and then the world snapped into crystal sharp focus. He had to stop her from detonating the other bombs he now suspected were connected to the remaining three cables.
Before he could act, she turned, racing for a door that wasn’t listed on any map Searcy provided to its park visitors. If he were a betting man, Boone would wager that this was the loading dock’s entrance.
With her back turned, he rose and slipped around the sign. There was no cover available anywhere. The open plaza was wide, built to accommodate the large number of visitors that poured in each day. If the woman decided to look over her shoulder, there’d be no hiding from her.
Twilight had fallen, which helped somewhat. The white dwarf star had dipped just below the platform’s disc, casting a wash of vibrant color upon the noctilucent clouds that floated to either side of the sky park. They drew the untrained eye away from the shadowed disc… or so he hoped.
Hope is not a plan, jackass. Unfortunately, it was all he had.
He began to creep slowly forward as she fiddled with the door. Again, the woman’s lack of training showed in her fixation with the lock, to the exclusion of all else. Boone heard her curse softly as her park ID failed to provide her entrance. He froze halfway there when she turned to cast a furtive glance over her shoulder. She bent and dipped her hand into the toolbox to retrieve a familiar cylinder.
A crowbar. Figures. Where was that when I needed it, back on that rooftop? he thought.
The crowbar worked its magic on the lock faster than Boone would have liked. He braced, readying himself to break into a sprint, so that he could catch the door before it sealed behind her—but she didn’t open it. Instead, the woman grabbed her toolbox and jog
ged over to the turnstiles at the main entrance.
Not once did she look around. It was the only thing that kept Boone from being spotted. This baffled the hell out of him, but it was a break, and he’d take it.
She set the box beneath one of the turnstiles, nudging it further out of sight with the toe of her boot before pivoting and jogging back toward the door.
She palmed the door open and was through in a flash, Boone racing to catch it before it slid shut behind her. It turned out he needn’t have bothered. The crowbar still clung to the lock, more evidence to support Boone’s theory that, whoever she was, this woman certainly wasn’t trained.
He detached the crowbar, thumbing it off and on to cycle and reset it, then ordered it to handshake with his ID token. After assuring himself that the unit would respond to his commands, and only his commands, he stepped back and let the door slide shut. He had a toolbox to investigate first before he followed her to the dock… but he had to make it fast.
Boone jogged over to the turnstile and knelt in front of it, carefully inspecting the toolbox for booby-traps before touching it. When he pressed the release that would trigger it open, nothing happened. The toolbox was locked.
Okay, then. We’ll do this the hard way.
He pulled out the crowbar and set it against the lock. With a small flash of green and an audible click, the toolbox opened. He lifted the lid slowly, fingers running along the edges in search of internal traps that might have been set, but he found none.
Resting the lid against the turnstile, he peered inside. The platform was now too dark for anyone without augmented vision to see into the toolbox’s interior. Fortunately, he had military-issued optics. His night vision outlined each item with a soft white phosphor, pulling every incident photon from the surrounding area so that he could see what lay within.
Sudden Death (A Military Sci Fi Thriller) (The Biogenesis War Files) Page 16