Hammerjack (56 page)

Lea, meanwhile, monitored the approach from inside the armored personnel carrier. The vehicle was parked on the aft cargo ramp of the transport, which opened into the frigid air as they neared the landing area. She was seated up front with her driver, and watched the unwelcoming landscape roll by on a dashboard monitor that carried a feed from the cockpit. As the wind howled outside her window, what struck her most was the utter
lack
of human activity. In a world where urban metroplexes covered half a continent, around here not a single light burned to curse the darkness.

“Talon, this is Wanderer,” she heard Pallas say over her earpiece, his message peppered by light static. “We’re about one minute out. You guys ready?”

Lea glanced over at her driver, who nodded affirmatively.

“We’re all set, Wanderer,” she reported. “Sounds like your signal is dropping out. What’s the story?”

“We’re picking up some interference from stray radiation. I was afraid of this, Skipper. Our coded channels operate in the same bands, so it’s only going to get worse the closer we get to the source. That could mean we’ll have problems monitoring the mission from here.”

“What about the lower bands?”

“Hold on.” After a moment, Pallas came back on and said, “Those are marginal for data, but good enough for voice. Of course, in this dead spectrum any open transmissions will stick out like a sore dick.”

“Then we’ll maintain radio silence as long as we can,” Lea said. “Do your best with the passive feed, but no active bursts unless it’s an emergency.”

“Affirmative, boss. Thirty seconds. Prepare to disengage.”

“Acknowledged. Talon out.” Lea got out of her seat and poked her head into the rear of the APC, where all six members of the advance team were crammed. With all their weapons and gear, everyone was packed pretty tight. “Looks like we’re going in dark, people. Hyperband is spotty, so we’ll be on uncoded channels. That means we stay close—use the comm gear only when necessary. We don’t want to alert the
Inru
to our presence before we’re ready to take them down.”

The team made the necessary switch to their personal transmitters. A round of comm checks crackled in their earpieces as each of them strapped a helmet on, their features illuminated in a pale red glow beneath their visors. Tiny columns of information appeared in the heads-up display in front of their eyes, keyed to sensors placed throughout their body armor. Lea studied the readings carefully as she flipped her visor down, paying the closest attention to the radiation counter. Already it was ticking at 30 microroentgens per hour—and that was within the confines of the APC’s shielded plates. Even now, the transport was starting to kick up plumes of radioactive particles.

“Twenty meters,” Lea heard Pallas say.

She strapped herself back into the passenger seat, listening in silence with the others as Pallas counted the distance until landing. She rubbed her gloved hands together, unable to wipe the sweat of her palms or slow the urging of her heart, which made her body feel alive and restrained at the same time.

“Contact,” the hammerjack said.

There was a horrendous jolt when they touched down. Lea’s driver instantly threw the APC into gear, bouncing everyone around as the vehicle lurched down the landing ramp and into the open air. The hulking outline of the transport filled the thin slats of the forward windows, but only for a moment; as soon as the APC rolled away, the transport lifted off again and was gone. When the roar of the turbines faded, all that was left was a cloud of settling dust.

And a lonely highway that stretched into forever.

“Let’s move,” Lea said.

HAMMERJACK
A Bantam Spectra Book / June 2005

Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York

All rights reserved
Copyright © 2005 by Marc D. Giller

Bantam Books, the rooster colophon, Spectra, and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Giller, Marc D. (Marc Daniel), 1968–
Hammerjack/Marc D. Giller
p.  cm.
eISBN 0-553-90163-X
1. Business intelligence—Fiction. 2. Supercomputers—Fiction. 3. Conspiracies—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3607.I436 H36 2005    2004065590
813/.6 22

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