Rogue clone (23 page)

“And where did I end up?” Callahan continued. “I ended up in Fort frigging Washington, the biggest shithole on New Columbia. I figure you did nothing for me. The way I figure it, you owe me.”

“Sounds like you have it all figured out,” I said. I hopped off of the table and started for the door.

“Where are you going?” Callahan asked.

“Didn’t you hear?” I asked. “Your buddies from the Confederate Arms are getting ready to bag this planet. Should be quite a reunion. Their fleet will bombard this base until it’s defenseless, then they’ll probably send down commandoes to nuke it. That’s what they did on Gateway. Of course, Billy the Butcher probably didn’t have an old pal like you that he wanted to bust out of Gateway Outpost.

“You did know that they evacuated New Columbia?” I asked.

“So I hear,” Callahan said.

“If I were you, Jimmy, I’d be thinking about how I might get off this planet. They planted hot bombs around the base on Gateway,” I said. “You know what that means? It means that most of the jarheads who were in that building are alive and melting at this very moment. Mop them with a sponge and you’ll pull off their skin. And those boys were wearing radiation-proof armor.

“The lucky ones got cooked on the spot. They weren’t wearing armor, just like you’re not wearing armor. Lucky you. You will probably die just like that.” I snapped my fingers. “One moment you’re praying, ‘God, please don’t let them nuke me.’ The next minute, you’re face to face with God and he says, ‘About that prayer . . . ’”

“What do you want?” Callahan asked, all humor drained from his voice.

“Where is the GC Fleet?”

“How the speck should I know?” Callahan said.

“You said you knew.”

“I asked what I would get if I led you to that fleet,” Callahan said. “I didn’t say I knew where it was. I just wanted to know what it would be worth to me.”

“You wanted to show off.”

“What?” Callahan thought about this. “Yeah . . . maybe.”

“What is the Hinode Fleet?” I asked.

“Never heard of it,” Callahan said.

“Right before the attack on New Gibraltar, the Intelligence Network intercepted signals referring to the Hinode Fleet. Is that what your Mogat buddies call the Galactic Central Fleet?”

“I don’t know,” Callahan said.

“How do the Japanese figure into this?” I asked, feeling more than a little frustrated. “Are they in with the Mogats?”

“Who the speck are the Japanese?” Callahan asked.

“Refugees from Ezer Kri,” I said. “Are they part of the Confederate Arms?”

“How should I know?” Callahan asked. He sounded frustrated and his face turned red.

“How about your pal Billy the Butcher?” I asked. By this time I was yelling. The mood in the room was thick with anger, and I wanted to hit Callahan. “Where is Patel?”

“I don’t know,” Callahan shouted. Then, lowering his voice, he said, “Someone else always arranged our meetings.”

Finally I was getting somewhere. “Who was that?”

Callahan sat slumped in his chair when Limping Eddie mumbled, “Tell him how to find the supply guy.”

Callahan looked at him and a smile stretched across his face. “I like that.” Then he turned back to me.

“You could visit Batt, he’s your best bet. If anyone can answer your questions, it’s Batt.”

“Who is Batt?” I asked, the calm returning to my voice.

“Batt is Bartholomew Wingate,” Callahan said. “He introduced me to Patel.”

“Mogat or Confederate?” I asked.

“Neither,” Callahan said, the swagger back in his smile. “He’s one of yours. I guess patriotism isn’t his bag. Know what I mean?”

“He’s a punk like you?” I asked.

Callahan’s smile brightened. “Oh, he’s much bigger than me. You might say he has his own army.”

“I thought you had one, too?” I said.

“I do,” Callahan said, “but it’s not as good as Batt’s. He’s got a lot more clout around here than me. He knows everything and everybody.”

“Great,” I said throwing my hands up in frustration. “Only we can’t find Batt. We just evacuated the planet.” Players like that vanish into the woodwork the moment you look the other way.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that.” Now Callahan sounded almost gleeful. “He’s still in Safe Harbor. He’s just up the road. He’s the commander at the Army base.”

“Let me get this straight,” Lieutenant Colonel Bernie Phillips said. “Your prisoner claims that Colonel Wingate is selling supplies to the Confederates?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Bullshit.”

We sat in an observation room in the brig. Behind Phillips, the video screens showed the room in which Callahan and his bodyguards sat idly waiting for me. I could only hope that the colonel did not glance at the screen. At the moment, Callahan was flexing his biceps and kissing them. Silent Tommy responded with a hand-gesture that meant “go speck yourself.” This only encouraged Callahan. He responded by flexing both arms at once.

“How well do you know Wingate?” I asked.

“I’ve known Batt three years now,” Phillips said. “Ever since I transferred in.”

“So you’re friends?” I asked, knowing that I could always play the Che Huang trump card if the need arose.

“I can’t stand the son of a bitch,” Phillips said, his expression dower. “He thinks he’s king of the goddamned planet just because he has a bigger base. Command airlifts our supplies in through his base. The prick makes me fill out so many forms to get my stuff you’d think he owned it. He’s always showing off. He must come from a rich family. He lives like a friggin’ king.”

“Let’s see here. Your supplies come through his base and he acts like he owns them. Is that right?” I asked. Phillips nodded. “And he lives like a king, but you don’t think he’s selling?”

Phillips’s expression brightened. “Bust Batt Wingate? Think we could shoot him for this?”

“Once this is over, I’ll hand you the gun,” I said. “For now I need him alive. If my hunch is right, Wingate might be able to lead me to the Confederate Fleet.”

“Just remember, I get to shoot him when you’re done with him,” Colonel Phillips said.

“Deal,” I said.

“What’s our first step?”

It was late at night and the sky over the city was still black. I crept through the alley behind a row of restaurants until I could see the roadblock. Arc lights filled the street around the barricade with senseless glare. The light shined on the soldiers, blinding them to any enemies lurking nearby while making them well-lit targets for any snipers who happened to pass.

These boys did not have anything to worry about from me. I didn’t want the pack. I wanted the stray. I hid in the alley, using garbage pails and food crates as cover. I hoped my fall guy would come soon. There was so much rot in the cans around me that the air smelled like vomit. My target came in the form of a sergeant who was touring roadblocks to keep the men alert. He drove a jeep. He drove alone. Approaching the roadblock, he stormed out of his vehicle and started screaming and cussing the moment his feet hit the ground. He was kind enough to line the men up at attention in just the right angle so that neither he nor they were facing in my direction. Then he paced back and forth in front of the line like a caged animal, screaming something about always being alert. I did not listen to what he said or how they responded.

“Phillips, I found our guy,” I called over a comLink stem in my glove. The colonel had volunteered to direct this operation himself. He and five of his men hid a few blocks away, waiting for me to locate and mark a target. They had two special jeeps that had been decked out for night operations. Unlike other jeeps, these units had absolutely silent engines that could only be detected with sound equipment. These stealth jeeps were black with special nonreflective glass. Their chassis were not painted. They were covered with a nonreflecting flat coat of black porcelain that resisted radar detections. Sophisticated radar equipment would spot them in a heartbeat, but the cheap radar used in ground vehicles such as tanks and all-terrain vehicles would turn a blind eye. Even trackers, those sniper robots so loved by the enemy, had trouble spotting these vehicles. Since these jeeps were also made for night operations, they had night-for-day scanning built into their windshields. They had discreet lights and searchlights, but with that night-for-day scanning, you could drive stealth jeeps black.

“What you got?” Phillips voice came over the discreet ear piece.

“A single passenger in a stealth bug.”

“Officer or enlisted man?” Phillips asked.

“Does it matter? You’re in either way, right?” I asked. We were going to kidnap the man and use his ID

and vehicle to break into Fort Clinton. If Callahan gave us good information, a medal of valor awaited Phillips for his part in this. If Callahan had lied . . . even a Secessionist attack would not save him from a court martial, assuming he survived.

“If we have to knock somebody up, I’d rather hit a synthetic,” Phillips said.

“He’s a sergeant.”

“Perfect. Can you mark him?”

Hiding in the darkness of the alley behind some trash cans and a stack of crates, I shined a laser pointer on one of the rear tires of the jeep. It had stopped raining in Safe Harbor, but the air was humid and heavy. Puddles dotted the ground and the alley was grimy with dirt and slop. My laser pointer cast a red beam that was as thin as a sewing needle. It illuminated a tiny red spot no bigger than a mouse’s eye on the side of the tire. I kept the light steady for twenty seconds as the sergeant berated his men.

“How the speck do you plan on catching criminals? Are you on guard duty or vacation?” Then, without a pause, “I asked you a question!”

“Guard duty!” the men yelled.

“Guard duty. That must be why you ladies are not wearing bathing suits,” the sergeant continued yelling. He made me nostalgic for my old drill sergeants back in basic, though those sergeants used far more creative profanity than this fellow. They also cuffed us alongside the head at every opportunity.

“You got him?” I asked.

“Yeah, he’s marked,” Phillips said.

“Now if he would just shut up and drive,” I said.

But the sergeant continued to pace back and forth and berate his men. “So you ladies think you can keep this block safe? I’m not sure who I would bet on if it comes down to you five speck-suckers against a gang of kindergarteners.

“You need to be alert. Do you hear me soldiers? Alert! A! L! E! R! T!”

I could not help myself. I painted the laser across the sergeant’s A-L-E-R-T ass. His soldiers were too busy looking him in the eye to see a filament-wide laser beam shining on his butt.

“You marking another jeep?” Phillips radioed me. “I’m getting another signal.”

“Sorry,” I said as I slipped the pointer back into my clothes.

The sergeant inspected each man’s weapon, wasting another five minutes, leaving me in that fetid alley smelling of rotten food. I saw a rat scurry among some distant crates. I would even the score with that sergeant for making me wait, I told myself, and I felt better.

A few minutes later, the sergeant climbed into his jeep. He slammed the door behind himself and sped away.

“I wish somebody would stomp that specker,” one of the soldiers said. Somebody was about to.

Moving in absolute silence, not kicking a can or brushing a box, I walked through the alley. I did not think those soldiers would notice a marching band parading by with that arc light shining in their eyes, but I did not take any chances. A stealth jeep filled with Marines met me at the end of the alleyway. I climbed in.

“I don’t know where you marked the target that second time, but it’s a good thing you did,” Phillips said.

“This guy drives like a frigging maniac. That second mark is a lot clearer.”

Our driver watched the road through a night-for-day lens in the windshield. I did not envy him that task. I had used similar technology in my old combat armor. Night-for-day lenses, with their monochrome displays, just about annihilated your depth perception.

A radar panel on the dashboard showed our position, the sergeant’s position, and the position of our second stealth jeep, along with any nearby Army vehicles. Sergeant Target was on his way to the next barricade, three miles away. His car swerved severely as he drove. Our jeeps, driving on parallel roads, flanked him on either side.

“What’s the matter with him?” Phillips asked.

“Probably drinking and driving,” I said.

“Was he drunk?” Phillips asked.

“He’s a sergeant,” I said. “You can’t tell without a blood test.”

This was a lucky break. A shitfaced sergeant might crash his car. He might stop for a drink, be found by looters, and be stripped from his car. It fit perfectly into our plans. He had given us an alibi, assuming we needed one.

Looking at the map, I saw that our sergeant was still one mile from the next barricade. “Last chance to back out,” I said to Colonel Phillips.

Phillips picked up the microphone and said, “Take him.”

Our driver accelerated. Looking at the map, I saw that the driver in the other jeep had also picked up some speed. We streaked ahead for two blocks and gained a good lead, then swerved around the next corner and planted ourselves in the middle of the road. Using a computer to aim our searchlights on the sergeant, we leapt from the car and drew our weapons.

Our second jeep pulled in behind the sergeant. Once our lights went on, the other driver flashed his, too. And now the brain-dead sergeant, Mr. A.L.E.R.T, did exactly what we hoped he would do. Instead of hunkering in his jeep and calling in his situation, he grabbed his weapon and stepped on to the street. The searchlights blinded him, and he stood with his arms over his eyes too dumb to move. I approached from the front. The searchlight shone over my shoulder.

“Who are you?” the sergeant muttered.

“Are you drunk, sergeant?” I asked as my right fist slammed into his jaw, dropping him to the street. He fell and did not stir. The drivers in the stealth jeeps cut their searchlights as I knelt beside the fallen Army man and stripped him down to his underwear. I took his uniform, wallet, ID and dog tags. These articles I placed on the hood of his car. Then I stripped my clothes off and handed them to Phillips.