Great North Road (117 page)

“Trying to get rid of me, boss?”

“Aye, man, no way. Not after all this.” Sid chuckled. “How about you, Abner, you want in?”

“I have to know what’s going down, boss. A brother was murdered because of this, whoever he was.”

“Okay then, we armor up and follow the primary team in. Our job is observation and support.”

Sid led his people out into the fresh spring evening, feeling perspiration prickling his armpits and neck under the tough armor jacket and regulation padded shirt. It was warm out in the base’s car park, with the tarmac still radiating away the day’s sunlight. Stars were emerging as bright pinpoints in the cloudless gloaming sky.

There had been a lot of decisions that delivered him to this point, and he could still just walk away and go home. Let Linsell and the interdiction team sort it out. After all, this was the reason they existed. Some stupid side of him was proud that he was here, doing what had to be done. But mainly he was scared shitless like any real, sane human being.

When he looked up at the constellations, he saw silhouettes of three black Mil US-22 VTOL fan aircraft on the rooftop pads of the main building. Squads of HDA’s interdiction troopers were embarking through the broad side doors while the fans swiveled about as part of their pre-flight checks. The US-22s were silent and stealthed, capable of approaching urban targets without warning; in another twenty minutes when the gold twilight horizon vanished they’d be invisible to the naked eye and most sensors. The first thing any hostile would know about their arrival was when dark armored figures came abseiling down out of the night sky.

Sid had been allocated a big Mercedes four-by-four Allclime, one of a dozen similar vehicles parked ready to transport the rest of Linsell’s teams. As he opened the front door she came over to him, her armor looking as if it was tailored by the same store that made her suits.

“I appreciate the help you’ve provided,” she said. “But you will lock into position and follow tactical protocol only. I don’t want any deviation. You are designated secondary support now.”

“Aye, pet, I’ll go with that,” Sid said in his thickest Geordie accent.

“Good,” she snapped and walked over to her command vehicle, a ten-seat Jeep Hassar.

“Wow,” Abner said. “That’s an attitude. Ian, did you hit on her?”

“No!” Ian protested. “I don’t do that, not anymore. Not now I’m with Tallulah.”

“How’s that going?” Eva asked with a lofty air.

“Good, man. We’re together every night, at her place, like, not mine. I want to keep her well clear of everything we’re doing. And we’ve talked about moving in together, like. You don’t think that’s too soon?”

Sid stifled a chuckle. This was not an Ian conversation as he knew it. “When you’re ready, you’re ready,” he said. “There’s no set time.”

“No, boss, I’m sure I heard there was a GE regulation,” Abner said as they sat themselves down in the Allclime.

“Fifteen weeks,” Eva said with a straight face.

“Ignore the cynics,” Sid said. “You’re doing the right thing. She’s a great girl.”

“You just make sure you treat her right,” Eva said. “She’s been through a lot. That bloody fiancé of hers, then being dragged into our case.”

“Aye, man, give me some credit,” Ian moaned.

Still grinning, Sid told his e-i to link the mission’s tactical coordinator net to the Allclime’s auto. His grid was displaying an aerial picture of the farmhouse. A six-wheel Ford Telay van was heading away from the cluster of buildings.

“Target A on the move,” the tactical coordinator announced. “They put a large crate into the rear of the Telay before they left. Umbreit’s also on board with four hostiles.”

“How bad would it be if they set off the D-bomb on the ground?” Ian asked suddenly. “Are they big bombs?”

“They have fusion initiators,” Abner said quietly.

“Well that’s good, right man?” Ian said. “Fusion is clean energy, isn’t it?”

“Ian,” Sid said wearily. “He means the trigger is a fusion bomb.”

Ian gave them all a nervous laugh. “Aye. Right. I knew that. So there’ll be no fallout, like?”

“Do you want to go back to the command room?” Sid asked. “It’s underground in an HDA base. Safe as you can be.”

“No. We’re in this together. But what about your kids?”

“Visiting the grandparents in Rutland.” As soon as he’d found out about Umbreit on Sunday he’d told Jacinta to get out of the city. He hadn’t broken security, hadn’t given an explanation. He simply told her that she had to do it, that something had developed in his case, that he didn’t want her and the kids exposed to risk. She’d been on the A1 heading south before lunchtime.

“Oh,” Ian said. He glanced at Eva.

“Mine are back in the old country,” she said. “It’s an important cultural time in Iceland. They shouldn’t miss out.”

Ian turned to Abner.

Abner shrugged. “It was a brother you fished out of the Tyne. I have to know.”

The Allclime started to roll forward, slotting into a line of vehicles heading out of the base. When he peered up through the windshield Sid could just make out the shape of the US-22s lifting into the darkening sky. His grid showed him Sherman and Boz both approaching Last Mile. Jede and Ruckby were also heading in the same direction, though they were farther out.

“Makes sense,” Abner said. “If you’re going to use a D-bomb anywhere, I suppose it should be in a gateway.”

“Why?” Eva asked as they passed through the base’s main entrance. “Aldred’s spent his life working for your family company. St. Libra is his life. All of you have worked so hard to make it successful.”

Sid watched the frown creep across Abner’s face as if he’d just realized something. “All but one,” he muttered, tasting the name as if it was something strange.

“Zebediah,” Sid said immediately. He remembered accessing the file Elston had given to the investigation. Zebediah was odd even by North standards. But then he’d been in Bartram’s mansion on
that
night. “Did any of your brothers sympathize with his cause?”

“No. None of us do. St. Libra is where our wealth comes from, it’s what’s made us the force we are.”

“The most evangelical followers of any cause are those who converted to it,” Eva said. “They’ve sacrificed the most.”

Abner shook his head. “No.”

Sid could see the North hadn’t convinced himself. He checked the grid. “Looks like we haven’t got far to go,” he said. Boz’s car had slowed, turning into Eleventh Avenue North, on the southeastern corner of Last Mile.

The interdiction force vehicles were separating, turning off down side roads as the coordinator network guided them along different routes into Last Mile.

A micro drone showed Boz’s car driving through a roll-up door on a big warehouse-style building. Two minutes later Sherman arrived at the same location.

“Looks like we have our site,” Sid said. Data on the warehouse was running down his grid: The listed ownership was Mountain High, which supplied clothes and bedding suitable for tropical climates. Sid’s e-i switched to building blueprints, showing the big discount store that took up a third of the ground floor, names of employees, company accounts, suppliers. Nothing crossed referenced to the case.

Their Allclime turned off the A167 and headed down the slope into Last Mile. It parked them on Marquis Way outside a store selling wind turbine kits and regen-cells. The street was almost deserted; hologram adverts shone gaudy turquoise and crimson across the four-by-four’s unwashed paintwork, store windows still shone, optimistically trumpeting goods that nobody was buying. The rest of the interdiction team vehicles were taking up position, parking in various streets in easy range of the Mountain High warehouse.

Jede and Ruckby arrived and went inside. The micro drones tracking the Ford Telay van showed it traveling along the A1, curving around Newcastle’s western suburbs. Ralph and the agents from his observation team were following a kilometer or two behind, hidden by the heavy stream of traffic.

“Here we go,” Eva said.

The subteam covering Aldred showed his dark Mercedes coupe sliding up out of the St. James singletown garage. A squadron of micro drones took off to pursue him through the torrent of cars flowing smoothly along the city center roads.

Sid realized he was still sweating despite the car’s aircon. Nobody was saying anything; they all just sat there on the new leather seats with their eyes closed, reviewing whatever image or data the coordinator sent to their iris smartcell grids. As the critical people closed on the warehouse Sid felt as if he were the one with a noose constricting around him. The air in the car was thin, difficult to breathe; it made his heart race. In all the years he’d been police, all the raids he’d been on, all the busts, the arrests, even the chases—nothing had ever been like this. He wasn’t ready for it, didn’t want it. Ego had brought him to this point, that stupid refusal to quit the case, to simply do the job according to procedure and pick up the monthly salary transfer. Now look where it had brought him, sitting right next to a crapping great fusion bomb. The only way he was going to live through the next half hour was if everybody else on the interdiction team followed procedure perfectly, no one forget their training, and the government-issue equipment all worked flawlessly.

When he looked around he saw Eva and Ian both toxed out on the same verge-of-panic moment as himself. He managed a weak smile, which they returned. It was a poignant, almost intimate connection.

Abner, however, was still concentrating on the information in his grid, oblivious to the tension and worry the rest of them suffered from. Sid shook his own head in disbelief, not understanding how anyone could be so absorbed by what was happening they weren’t emotionally affected. But that was the Norths for you, ridiculously focused.

“Target B approaching,” the tactical coordinator said. “Target A inbound, estimated time to arrival five minutes.”

Sid watched Aldred’s Mercedes drive into Last Mile and turn off into Eleventh Avenue North. Target A, the Ford Telay, was three minutes out, driving steadily along the A1.

“Target B has entered the building,” the tactical coordinator said in a level voice.

“Weapons check,” Sid announced calmly. He was carrying a nine-millimeter Walther pistol with a linked sensor sight. The target graphics materialized in his grid, blue and green, night-vision sensors functioning. He checked the chamber, confirmed that the safety was on. It went into his holster. Taser fully charged, clip with five spools loaded. He twisted it onto the armor vest’s Velcro strips.

The others in the four-by-four were going through the same methodical checks. Sid put in his earplugs, designed to cut out the immobilizer sonics. A helmet finished the protection.

“Everybody working?” he asked.

They were.

“Target A on approach,” the tactical coordinator said. “Go to condition red. Strike initiation in fifteen—one-five—seconds after Target A enters the building.”

Sid switched on the strikeproof communicator sitting on the dashboard, a small black plastic box with a simple LCD display on the front. He told his e-i to go to standby mode. His grid faded away just as the Mountain High’s roller door opened; he needed uncluttered sight. The Ford Telay was twenty meters away.

“Target A entering the building, on my mark. Mark.”

Sid started counting down, his lips mouthing the numbers silently.

“Ten seconds,” the tactical coordinator said, his voice coming from the strikeproof communicator’s speaker.

Linsell knew what she was doing, Sid told himself. He’d seen the assault plan she’d drawn up with Ralph and other officers from the interdiction division. He’d even been asked if he’d had any comments. After reviewing it twice and seeing the hardware they intended to deploy, he’d just shaken his head and said: “Looks good to me.”

“Five seconds.”

Sid slipped the gas mask on and took a deep breath. His world acquired a strong emerald tint as a tactical display scrawled across the mask’s vision slits and interfaced with his iris smartcells; icons popped up identifying team members.

That plan was the main reason he was here. He had confidence in the professionalism of others. An irony for him, given his usual attitude toward the mechanism of government. But Ralph and Elston and even Linsell didn’t operate like the apparatchiks he had to deal with at Market Street and city hall.

“Initiate strike.”

Three Lockheed F-7009s had scrambled from their base in Scotland as soon as Ralph confirmed that a crate had been placed on the Ford Telay. They’d flown high patrol over Newcastle ever since, stealth-shielded from civilian radar. Now they dived from two thousand meters, afterburners on full, powering them up to Mach 1.8 so they outran their own sound waves. Even if there were sensors watching for hostile aircraft, they wouldn’t notice them until they’d streaked overhead.

Burnpulse cannon in the noses locked on to the Mountain High building and fired superfrequency electromagnetic pulses. They were designed to scramble any active electronics and overload all communication links. If the hostiles in the building had warning they might conceivably suicide by detonating whatever Professor Umbreit had built. But fifteen seconds after the Telay’s arrival, Linsell had determined they wouldn’t even have the van doors open, let alone arm the device. The burnpulses should disable whatever systems operated the device.

Not that the electronic warfare was all she was going to bombard them with. As they leveled out at one hundred meters altitude, following knap-of-the-Earth trajectories, each F-7009 fired three missiles. They were pre-programmed and smart-guided. Velocity alone, at Mach 2.1, guaranteed they would penetrate the building’s walls. One of them, a smartbuster, simply took out the roll-up door, blowing it into lethal shrapnel blades. Two more smartbusters ripped gaping holes in the walls at ground-floor level. The remaining six missiles slammed into the building and dispersed their submunitions capsules in a pattern that had been calculated to cover every cubic centimeter. There could be no hiding place for anyone inside.

The capsules let loose stun blasts, skin-searing radiative waves, incandescent strobes at frequencies calculated to induce neurological overload. Thick green-white gas fountained out, stinging exposed flesh and sending anyone who breathed it down into uncontrollable paroxysms of coughing. Another round of burnpulses hammered electronics that had survived the first pulse.