Edge of Battle (30 page)

“I told you I’d make it good, Maria,” Purdy said as he climbed out of his overalls and retrieved his utility belt, badge, bulletproof vest, police jacket, and sidearm from the truck. “I found a job for you out in Twentynine Palms…”

“Twentynine Palms? You mean, working at a military base? No way, Purdy!”

“I found schools for your kids and a job for your husband…”

“I said no way.”

“Okay, Maria. Oh, did I mention…?”

“What now?”

“It comes with a green card.”

“¡Acepto!”
Maria said immediately.

“I thought you might. My boys are taking your kids to the church right now, and they’ll move you to a place up there and keep an eye on you until our operation is over. Trust me, will you? Have I ever steered you wrong, love?”

Maria smiled, shook her head, and waved her hand down the road. “Just go, will you? Unless you’re going to leave your blue-eyed assistant with me to help clean up?”

“Sorry, sweetie. He’s got work to do,” Purdy said. He turned to Richter. “Any hits on that gadget of yours, Major?”

“Stand by,” Jason Richter said, hopping into the milk truck. With Maria’s baby daughter looking on with interest, Jason pulled out a small tablet PC computer and awakened the screen, which was flipping through pictures of each of the migrant workers who had come up to the tables for their morning meal. The DDICE, or digital distant identification and collection equipment system, digitally scanned every person who walked within thirty feet of the fine line scan digital imager on top of the water urn, measuring and cataloging hundreds of different physical parameters in a matter of seconds. The system then compared the collected information with a database of known suspects, and would alert the user if there was a match.

“C’mon, Major, we don’t have all day,” Purdy said anxiously, scanning the fields where all the workers had scattered. “In about two minutes they’re all going to be gone.”

“Still processing.”

“Nuts to that,” Purdy said. He continued scanning the fields until he found what he was looking for—one worker who wasn’t running, hiding behind the front of the tractor, watching. “I got him, Major. Follow me.” He turned on his walkie-talkie and ran out into the lettuce field. The young migrant worker looked confused. “Hold it, Victor!
¡Parada!
It’s me, Purdy!
¡Espera!
Dammit!”

Jason looked over in amazement. “How did you know that was Flores? How did you know he wouldn’t run?”

“I told you, he knows me—they
all
know me,” Purdy said.
“They know I’m not out here to screw them.” Thankfully Victor Flores stopped a few yards later—Purdy had run less than fifty yards but was already feeling winded. But then Flores starting looking around—not like he was searching for a better direction to run, but searching for something else. “Hold on, Victor. It’s me, Purdy. I’m here to help you. Wait and I’ll…”

Suddenly Flores turned and bolted down a row of lettuce—just as an immense geyser of mud and shattered lettuce erupted in the spot near where he was standing.
“Shots fired, shots fired!”
Purdy shouted into his walkie-talkie. “Get some help out here, Richter!” He drew his service automatic and flattened out on his stomach, with nothing but a row of lettuce to shield him. To Flores, he shouted, “
¡Consiga abajo!
Victor, get down!” Victor ran a few more yards before half-jumping, half-tripping face-first into a plowed furrow.

Back at the delivery truck, Jason keyed another handheld communicator: “Talon Two, this is One. We’ve got a sniper out here somewhere on Highway 111. Bring in the Condor and see if you can draw some fire.”

“On the way, One,” Ariadna Vega responded. She had not returned to Washington with Kelsey, but instead had returned to the Condor airship’s control trailer parked at Montgomery Field to assist Richter and Purdy in the search for Flores.

Jason ran around to the back and opened the double doors. At the very bottom of a set of steel shelves along the right side of the truck, he pulled a rectangular container out of the back and let it fall to the ground. “CID One, deploy,” he said. As Maria watched in surprise, the container began to move, and within a minute it had unfolded itself into a nine-foot-tall two-legged robot. “CID One, pilot up,” Richter said, and the robot assumed a stance with one leg extended behind it, crouched down, and its two arms angled back to form a railing. Jason hopped up behind the robot and slid inside it. A few moments later, the robot with Richter inside got up out of its crouch and sped off with amazing speed into the lettuce field.

Jason reached Purdy in a flash, covering him as best he could from their unseen assailant. “Where’s Flores?” Purdy shouted.

“I don’t think we need him to find Zakharov anymore, Paul—looks like
he
found
us,
” Jason said. He activated the robot’s on-board radar sensor, which picked up every object within a two-mile radius. There were several trucks parked on another dirt road on the other side of the highway, plus a few dozen workers in the fields beyond and the fleeing workers behind him. There was one person running away closest to them—he assumed it was Flores. “I’ve got Flores. I need to find where that…”

At that instant the radar tracking computer issued a warning—it had picked up a high-speed projectile fired from the highway directly at Flores. The tracking radar pinpointed the origin of the bullet as well as its unfortunate terminus. “I’ve got the shooter,” Jason said. “Flores went down. Wait until I reach the truck, then help Flores.” He ran off again.

The target truck, a three-quarter-ton pickup with a large camper on the bed, was about a hundred yards away, parked on the side of the highway instead of on the dirt road like the other nearby trucks. The robot’s magnifying visual sensors picked up a man with a sniper rifle propped on the hood of the truck—a
Russian
sniper rifle. It could only be Yegor Zakharov.

“Richter!” Purdy shouted, gesturing at the man crossing the highway. “It’s Zakharov! Get that bastard!” Richter started to run at the vehicle—once he picked up full speed, he would reach it in seconds.

But at that moment, the back doors of the camper flew open, and two men with what looked like guided missile launchers leaped out, arrayed themselves on either side of the pickup, aimed, and fired almost simultaneously.

The first round hit squarely on the left side of the robot’s chest, and the force of the blast of the missile’s three-pound warhead spun Jason around and up into the air like a child throwing a rag doll out of a speeding car. The second missile missed by less than
a foot, but its proximity fuse detected the miss and detonated the warhead a few yards behind Jason, adding a second tremendous concussion to the first. The robot flew several yards in the air, spinning and cartwheeling madly within the cloud of fire and smoke of the double blasts, before coming to a smoldering stop on the side of the highway.

“Oh,
man!
” Purdy gasped. The robot was lying in a heap on the side of the highway, blackened and still smoking. He got up and started running toward Richter, but soon realized he had his own problems here: the two soldiers had run back to the camper and were retrieving two more antitank missiles; Zakharov started to walk across the highway toward the robot with a large sniper rifle in his hands. He crouched down on one knee, leveled his pistol, and took aim.

But in a flash Zakharov fired the rifle without even raising the sights to his eye, firing from his hip. Purdy felt the air gush out of his lungs in an explosive
“Whufff!”
His vision exploded in a cloud of stars, his head spun, the pain radiated through his chest and across his entire body, and he pitched over backward into a row of lettuce.

“You must be Border Patrol Agent Purdy, the clever and enterprising veteran I have heard so much about,” he heard Zakharov say a few moments later. “I am pleased to meet you.”

“Yeah?” Purdy grunted, barely able to speak. “Now you can do me a big favor and kiss my ass, Zakharov.”

“I have a much more productive use for your ass, Agent Purdy.” Zakharov pulled Purdy to his feet, helped by his two missileers, and together they dragged him about thirty feet in front of the stricken CID unit. Two more soldiers appeared from the camper, automatic rifles at the ready. Richter was slowly getting to his feet—he was obviously struggling through some internal damage, but he still appeared to be operational. “Is that you in there, Major Richter?” Zakharov shouted. He slung his Dragunov rifle over a shoulder, pulled out an automatic pistol, and pointed it at Purdy’s head. “I have a proposition for you, my friend. Come out of there.”

Richter was now on his hands and knees, trying unsuccessfully to put his armored feet under him, but he was able to look up. “Either shoot me or run, Zakharov,” he said, “because if you’re still standing there yakking in fifteen seconds, I’m going to tear you into tiny little pieces.”

Zakharov shouted an order in Russian, and immediately the two soldiers with the antitank missiles activated and pointed them at Richter. “I am going to ask you one question, Richter,” the Russian said. “My demand is simple: get out of the robot and collapse it for transport, and I promise you and Purdy will live. Refuse, and you die. The next word you utter will determine whether you live or die. You have five seconds to respond.”

“Don’t do it, Richter!”
Purdy shouted. “He’ll kill us anyway!”

“Okay, Zakharov, I agree,” Richter said immediately. “Put the guns and missiles on the ground and let Purdy go.”

“No conditions, Richter,” Zakharov said. “Do as I tell you, or die.”

“You want the CID unit in one piece, Zakharov? You put your weapons down. Otherwise go ahead and fire those missiles.”

Zakharov hesitated, then smiled, nodded, and barked an order to his men, who disbelievingly safed and lowered their weapons and laid them on the ground. Zakharov was the last to relinquish his.

The soldiers released Purdy, who painfully hobbled across the road.
“Now get up and nail him, Richter!”
Purdy screamed. “Get him, or we’re dead!” But moments later the CID unit assumed its load stance, the hatch on the robot’s back popped open, and Jason Richter climbed out. “Oh, shit…” Purdy retrieved his pistol from the field and aimed it at Zakharov; as he did so, the soldiers retrieved their rifles as well. “You’re under arrest, Zakharov!” Zakharov merely smiled, casually picked up his pistol and Dragunov rifle, holstered the pistol, and slung the rifle over his shoulder. “Don’t move!”

“Don’t, Paul,” Jason said. “He won’t go far with it, and he’s too stupid to figure out how to operate it.”

“Stop, Richter!” Purdy shouted. “I’m warning you, he’s not just after the robot!”

“We got no choice, Paul.”

“Richter,
don’t…!
”

But Jason jumped off the robot, then ordered, “CID One, stow.” The robot began to collapse, intricately folding itself down to the size of a large steamer trunk.

“Wise move, Major,” Zakharov said. He picked up the antitank missile canisters, ordered two of his men to pick up the stowed CID unit, then pulled his pistol from his holster and aimed it at Richter. “But I have decided that I need both of you to come with me now. Drop your weapons.”

“Screw you, Zakharov!”
Purdy screamed, and he started shooting and at the same time diving for cover into the shallow ditch at the side of the road.

Jason ducked, ran backward, and reached down to the remote CID control unit on his wrist to enter auto-defense commands to the robot, but Zakharov was too fast. A bullet caught Jason in the right thigh, and he went down. “Grab him and the robot and let’s get out of here!” Zakharov shouted in Russian.
“Move!”
He fired a shot in Purdy’s direction as his soldiers scooped up Richter and dragged the folded CID unit toward their camper.

A sudden unexpected movement caught Zakharov’s eye, and he looked up into the morning sky—at the sight of an immense bird zooming down at him! “What in hell is
that?
” Swooping down toward the melee, still several hundred feet in the sky but moving in with breathtaking speed, was a massive aircraft with long, gracefully sweeping wings and a bulbous fuselage. It was one of the Condor unmanned reconnaissance airships, barreling almost straight down at them like an eagle about to capture its prey.

“Don’t stop! Get them into the truck!” Zakharov shouted. “I will take care of this thing!” Zakharov began firing his rifle at the airship, but it kept on coming at them. He reloaded a fresh magazine of shells and took aim again. The airship started to wobble,
slightly at first and then more wildly as more and more helium escaped from chambers throughout its structure.

At that moment he felt a bullet whiz just centimeters past his head. He didn’t even have to look to know who fired that shot. “I have had enough of you, Agent Purdy,” Zakharov said. “Time to end your tired old existence.” He unslung his rifle from his shoulder, raised, aimed, and…

…at that moment another motion caught his eye, and he turned to see a wounded Victor Flores driving the farm tractor right at him! It looked like most of Flores’s right shoulder was gone and blood covered almost his entire torso, but he was still conscious and shouting epithets as he barreled toward the Russian. He dodged as fast as he could and swung the Dragunov around, but the large right tire clipped him, nearly running him over.

“A brave move, young man,” Zakharov said. He swung his rifle around and fired at the passing tractor. A cloud of red gore exploded out of Victor Flores’s chest, and he slumped forward, dead before he hit the steering wheel. The tractor continued on across the highway, overturning into a ditch on the other side.

Zakharov’s right hip was throbbing, and he was angry enough to chew nails.
“¡Pidar!”
he swore. He was seriously hurt, and he realized he had to get out of there before the police showed up. He started hobbling toward the camper, holding his side…

…when he saw something that surprised him—the farmworkers running out of the fields, carrying shovels, picking tools, rakes, and anything else they could use as a weapon.
“¡Consígalo! ¡Mátelo!”
they shouted, raising their tools and fists into the air. “You kill Victor Flores—now we kill
you!
” Farther down the road, Zakharov could see several other farmworkers rushing his pickup truck.