*
Flames and acrid smoke were trailing through the sky. The Stamford TF magno-chopper had suffered direct hits from explosive spikes in the rotor mount and fuel distributors - fatally crippling blows.
Hopital remained calm and in charge, standing next to the pilot as she fought desperately with a violently shuddering joystick.
‘How are we doing?’ Hopital asked, leaning forward as though all those read out displays on the console actually meant something to her.
‘Why have we been hit?’ said the pilot. ‘This is not a war zone.’
‘Let’s worry about that once we have landed.’
‘We won’t be landing, we’ll be crashing. All power to the drive-thrusters is lost and the emergency chutes are not opening.’
‘What chance do we have?’
The pilot considered the question a moment, her eyes remaining fixed on the windscreen of super strengthened glass and the mountainous jungle beneath them. ‘You would want the ground beneath us to be very, very soft.’
Hopital put an encouraging hand on the pilot’s shoulder. ‘You’re trained for this. I have every confidence in you.’
He retreated from the cockpit back into the cabin to find his colleagues anxiously gazing out windows.
‘Are we going to make it?’ one of them asked nervously.
‘We have to get off this damned vessel right now,’ Hopital bluntly replied. ‘Where are the jetpacks?’
‘We were waiting to ask you,’ one of them replied. ‘There are only two in the designated storage space. Is there another unmarked space reserved for emergencies?’
His name was Eblane, and Hopital gazed intently at the two jetpacks in the man’s hands. ‘Only two you say?’
The vessel jerked abruptly, knocking the man to his knees. Hopital pulled his gun and shot him through the head. The others had a similar idea and gunfire erupted in a deafening roar and the unique bitter-sweet smell of laser-acid connecting with human flesh. Hopital did not duck or flinch despite being in an exposed position. He believed that bullets were similar to wasps in that they were attracted to fear. His time in the Albanian military head impressed on him that the bold were somehow less often hit than the weak, even if they were the first to put themselves in harm’s way. So, here he was, in a gun battle with three other shooters and bullets ricocheting off the walls and ceiling and he remained the only one not screaming. And with the screaming came less shooting. Three shooters became two, then one - the smell of the acid-lasered flesh was becoming truly abhorrent. Hopital did not even consider ceasing fire. It did not matter if there was now the equation of two people left standing for two jetpacks available, a gun battle was as hard to stop as a train without breaks, and trying was a shortcut to getting shot. And, besides, the Stamson company obviously did not consider safety a pressing expense: it wouldn’t be wise to take for granted that both jetpacks were fueled and in proper working order. He would keep shooting until one shooter became none.
His last opponent had taken up a stubborn position behind a support pylon. Although concealed, Hopital was sure it was Olienga. She had been a Chicago cop and no doubt had plenty of experience in staying alive. But Hopital suspected that Olienga was a little too conventional in her ways and that it just might prove a weakness in a gunfight in a crashing chopper. He maintained the centre of the floor, ignoring the instincts screaming at him. A gun emerged from behind the pylon, aimed his way; a lurch of the chopper to the side revealed more of the shooter than just the gun and Hopital fired. Another scream and a body fell. A splash of long black hair confirmed that it was Olienga. The limbs were just as limp and lifeless.
Hopital rushed to his prize, the two jetpacks. He ripped the newest looking one from the dead Eblane’s hand and inspected thoroughly its technicals screen: despite low battery cells, the pack was functionable.
‘What’s all this?’ cried the pilot from the cockpit entrance as she gawked at the battle scene. ‘I told you I would land us.’
She was starting to wilt. There was a thick patch of scarlet around her shoulder. A stray bullet must have breached the cockpit. Hopital turned his gun on her and fired, ending her without even skipping a breath. He didn’t need the magno-chopper to land now; in fact, he preferred it if it crashed big.
He strapped on the jetpack and leaned out the chopper. He needed the engine fully firing to get him away from the rotor blades. The ground beneath the magno-chopper was coming on quick, a deceptively smooth looking carpet of Guatemalan jungle. Hopital let the thrusters build to eighty percent maximum before trying to the voice activation function on the controls: when nothing happened, he reverted to the manual controls. The jetpack shot away from the chopper, narrowly avoiding the rotor blades as the magno-chopper pitched to one side. The jetpack responded well to Hopital’s direction, enabling him to move into clear sky where he could steady himself and watch over the impending crash.
The magno-chopper’s trajectory was not as sharp as it had seemed being aboard; still, it clearly did not have the height to reach the tall cliff face ahead. Hopital rued the fact, for having it explode in a fireball upon it would have solved many problems. He, however, knew well that people didn’t last long relying on wishes coming true and so he set himself to consider his predicament. The question he asked himself was if shooting five colleagues might be deemed legal. He knew international law well enough to be confident it was given the particular circumstances; he decided, therefore, to put his faith in the justice system.
‘SOS, emergency, emergency,’ he said over the emergency frequency. ‘Magno-chopper down at these coordinates.’
The despatcher’s voice came quickly into his earphone. ‘Are there casualties?’
‘Yes.’
‘Injured?’
Hopital thought back to the shootout and how cleanly the bullets had hit their targets. ‘Deceased,’ he said.
There was a pause. ‘How many?’
‘Five, but there may be more to come. I am claiming the crash site on behalf of Stamford Transaction Facilitators Inc. and reserve the right to use lethal force to protect it from looters. Which means your people had better attend the scene quickly if you would like to avoid a bloodbath.’
The despatcher was replaced by a harder edged voice. ‘This is Colonel Dandridier of the Guatemalan Air Force. We are scrambling two Interceptor Fighters at this very moment. They will be upon the scene in approximately four minutes. Is there a fire or smoke at the crash site?’
‘No, but the vessel hasn’t actually crashed yet.’
Another pause. ‘Not yet crashed but there are five deceased?’
‘I’ll explain when you get here.’ Hopital ended the call there. He was keen not to get into any lengthy descriptions about what had transpired inside the magno-chopper.
The vessel had reached the jungle canopy at last. Hopital hovered in a good position to view the impact though it proved disappointingly unspectacular. Trees flattened and deep skid marks gorged into the earth was all there was - whether it be from missile impact or crash, the magno-chopper simply refused to explode. Hopital supposed he couldn’t be too aggrieved. Having the magno-chopper intact was going to make it easier to report back to the Stamford TF board, which was what he needed to do next.
He hovered beside the thin line of smoke still emanating from the magno-chopper’s main engine. He took to hand the jetpack’s accompanying rapid-fire automatic pistol and cleared his throat, wanting for it sound at its most professional.
‘Priority call to HQ,’ he commanded of the jetpack’s communication system. Waiting to see if it worked, he noticed movement on the jungle floor below and almost opened fire on pure reflex. He almost opened fire again when he realized it was some kind of animal - perhaps, it was a wolf already on the scent of fresh meat. But it seemed too small. It was hobbling, following its tail in circles, dazed and disorientated.
A flash of recognition suddenly struck Hopital. The black fur, the sma
ll lean body, he descended for a closer look and the dog looked up: it was the signature dog, Blast. She had survived the crash. The emergency doors must have opened automatically upon coming to rest, allowing it to flee the magno-chopper. But it was plainly injured.
‘This is HQ,’ came a voice into his earpiece.
‘There is a situation with Team STF910,’ said Hopital. ‘Developments are still fluid. Stand by.’
He cut the call and drove the jetpack into a sharp descent; his pistol pointed more intently than before: Blast had to be protected at all cost, from humans and from beasts. She had the scent of that poacher in its memory. It meant Mas could be tracked down and made to pay for her attack. Stamford Transaction Facilitators would require redress. Its reputation depended on such acts of defiance being dealt with in a timely and ruthless manner. For attacks such as this, death was the only suitable recourse. Hopital could only hope he was given the mission himself: with Blast still alive, the poacher’s fate was already sealed.
5 Backroom deals in the centre of the world
One measure of a company’s strength was the number of executives it could afford to support. Executives were the company’s elite; removed from the day to day runnings, they lived lavish lifestyles and jet-setted the world as they moved within the narrow exclusive circle afforded to them alone. The Big Ten companies could have as many as five executives whereas for a much smaller company such as Stamford TF, having just one was all the prestige it could manage. And being the company it was, Stamford needed one who was a slick talker, morally ambivalent and supremely well connected. Lacy Tiber was all of those things. She had grown up in Hungary of Egyptian parents and had first made a name for herself as the curator of the largest commercial museum in Europe: Amsterdam’s the Tragedy Museum. She had been recruited by Xiuan Qang, the Stamford TF president, as an executive when she had just turned thirty, which made her one of the youngest in Europe. From the very first day she found the lifestyle very much to her liking. Playing polo with royalty, box seats at the raw-opera and late dinners at Michelin Six restaurants. And on this particular day, she had managed to fit them all in, or at least she had gotten as far as the Trifles Le Crème main course when the call came. Executives were rarely called on to perform specific tasks for their companies, and if they did it usually entailed lobbying for favours from one government or another, but with this task there was an air of urgency that she found appealing, the Stamford TF President taking the time herself to explain the situation on the high security wrist-piece she wore day and night. A detailed briefing, during which Tiber excused herself from the dinner party and rushed to a terrestrial transport capsule, directing it for United Nations Central. The transport capsule buzzed through New York on the priority level of the citizen road grid, which executives shared access to with emergency services and other dignitaries - including those with money enough to call themselves dignitaries. It afforded rapids speeds, intersection pass-throughs and access to restricted roads like the one that took her into the heart of the United Nations Central complex.
‘Emergency,’ she told the United Nations automated navigation system upon request.
The transport capsule promptly surged into the tunnel network that webbed out from the main junction. The capsule remained underground for a series of turns before rising out on glass tracks in a rapid sweep across a compound of shiny black glass and metal buildings set around an impressive oriental garden resplendent with a red footbridge traversing a small perfectly circularly turquoise lake.
Even for someone as well lived as Tiber, the journey was impressive. She gazed attentively out the window and felt a pang of disappointment when the capsule peeled off for one buildings - her passage across United Nations Central was coming to an end. She took a moment to slow her breathing, to run through her mind the situation Xiuan Qang had laid out for her and the exact purpose of her visit to what many considered the very heart of not only New York but the entire civilised world. She was keenly aware that the reputations of executives were forged in moments such as this: their endless days of fun and frivolity could only be justified in those rare occasions they were required to be serious.
The capsule entered the building halfway up, rolled into an elevator and rose another ten floors. To complete its journey, it moved down a wide brown and white striped passageway and its door opened to a warmly lit office with a man in uniform waiting to greet Tiber.
‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘My name is Sunil and I am the Incident Response Officer on duty. You have something you wish to report?’ He smiled calmly and pointed an ushering hand towards his desk in the centre of the office. ‘This way, please.’
Tiber almost hit her head on the top of the capsule doorframe as she climbed out, for she was intently looking Sunil over. He was tall and young and quite good looking, but it was his assuredness that sparked her interest. Indeed, he moved with all the calmness and freshness of an expert practitioner of transcendental meditation. Tiber, however, knew this was no monk she was dealing with. He would have been wearing a brain regulator cap in order to keep his brain alpha waves at their optimum level, so that his faculties would be fully honed for any world crises that might break out on his watch.
Tiber was wearing a light green cocktail dress nice and tight and she walked across the room making sure Sunil saw it. She was a society girl and she would get those alpha waves flowing again. After all, she had a crisis to sell.
‘Take a seat and we’ll talk,’ Sunil said.
Tiber did so without a word. She knew that all the cameras and sensors the room was no doubt riddled with would be busily turning her inside out, retrieving and crosschecking data from since her birth to this very moment - they would not find any real truth but what mattered was that they didn’t preclude her from being truthful. She waited for Sunil to take his position on the other side of the polished steel desk before beginning her pitch.
‘There is a situation in Guatemala. It requires urgent attention.’
Sunil was not excited by this. He was just another machine taking readings. He barely even blinked.
‘Stamford Transaction Facilitators, I’m afraid to say, has a checkered history as far as the United Nations is concerned. Shady dealings in many parts of the world. Trading in weapons, industrial secrets and unapproved medications.’
‘Unapproved but not illegal,’ said Tiber. ‘And we are not the sellers. We bear no responsibility for the products.’ Her voice perhaps came off sounding hard. Never mind, the machine was going to inform him of her dislike anyway.
‘I assure you we’ll not be taking responsibility for the situation that has brought you here this evening.’ Sunil was losing his cool already. Tiber almost felt like offering to go get his brain regulator cap for him. He was going to need it.
‘We are taking responsibility for our offer,’ she said pointedly.
Sunil smirked icily. ‘I see. You’ve come to the United Nations Crisis Office with an offer.’
‘Our client is name Dr Gustav Fall, and the transaction went bad. The purchaser fired a missile into our magno-chopper. There was a survivor and he is currently being held in a Guatemalan prison. He is facing charges.’
‘For being the only survivor of an aircraft shot down by missile? I do not know any country that has a law against that.’
‘He killed the rest of the crew. That’s why he’s the only survivor.’
Sunil double-blinked ‘Why would he do that?’
‘There weren’t enough jetpacks to evacuate the chopper. Our lawyers inform us it is a legitimate form of self-defense. The murder charges will not be sustained.’
‘I’m happy for you, but it does not explain why you are here.’
‘Although Dr Fall’s transaction was successfully processed, there are two things that must be done to ensure that Stamford’s good reputation is maintained.’
‘Being in a company in which employees are killing each other, I suppose reputation is a
sensitive concern.’
‘The first thing,’ said Tiber, ‘is to keep Hopital from trial. Although Stamford respects the law, we would prefer to have nothing to do with it.’
‘And the other thing?’
‘The purchaser must not be allowed to get away with blowing up our magno-chopper. Such defiance would reflect very badly on the Stamford brand.’
Sunil was still hardly enthused. ‘It is a matter for the local police. Or, if you ask nicely, perhaps the CIA would get involved - depending on whose missile was used. They are funny like that.’
Tiber did not appreciate that she wasn’t being offered any kind of refreshment. Even for the United Nations, denying an executive hospitality was disrespectful.
Sunil leaned forward accusingly. ‘Let me tell you why I think you’ve chosen to come here. The local police are easily paid off but it’s a classic case of getting what you pay for. The CIA, on the other hand, is far less controllable and much more likely to go deeper than you would find palatable. Dr Gustav Fall, for example, is a licensed scientist in a few remote corners of the world, but in the United States he is banned from working or even stepping foot on its territory - something to do with his willingness to sell deadly biological agents to whomever and wherever.’
Tiber frowned. ‘It is the purchaser who fired the missile. She is the one with the blood on her hands.’
‘Well, who is she?’
‘We are not sure. And she clearly does not want us to know. In fact, Hopital believes she destroyed the magno-chopper purely to keep her identity a secret. You see, he had her scent captured by a signature dog. Do you know what that means?’
Sunil shrugged vaguely.
‘You can try to change your identity in all sorts of ways, but you can never change your scent.’
‘Is that so?’ murmured Sunil indifferently.
‘Now of course since the attack, we have done our best to identify the purchaser. We have facial imaging and voice recognition tools to help and we have come up with a candidate: a poacher named Mas.
Sunil froze with the name. ‘You have captured her scent?’
‘Yes, which makes our dog quite valuable, doesn’t it? There are no legal obligations for us to hand him over and we would never consider doing it for the CIA or anyone else for that matter – except the United Nations. With your record of kind treatment of animals, we could be sure that Blast would be in good hands.’
Sunil was still staring blankly.
‘You better not waste time,’ said Tiber. ‘Blast was badly injured in the crash. She is currently in the hands of the local vets in Guatemalan City and is not expected to survive. With such rudimentary care, why would she be? You have a very narrow window of opportunity. Get a good vet to keep Blast alive and a good lawyer to keep Hopital out of jail. In return, you’ll have a play at one of the world’s most wanted criminals.’
Sunil shrugged. ‘We’ll see.’
‘I suggest you go wake up whoever needs to be woken up to make the decision. I’ll wait here.’
Sunil lifted himself out of his chair. ‘The people who will make the decision,’ he muttered on his way to the door, ‘are not the type to sleep.’
Hurt World One and the Zombie Rats Page 5